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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Lady Hester or, Ursula's Narrative
+by Charlotte M. Yonge
+(#24 in our series by Charlotte M. Yonge)
+
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+Title: Lady Hester or, Ursula's Narrative
+
+Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
+
+Release Date: November, 2003  [Etext #4659]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on February 23, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Lady Hester or, Ursula's Narrative
+by Charlotte M. Yonge
+******This file should be named ldyhs10.txt or ldyhs10.zip******
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+This Etext was prepared by Sandra Laythorpe, laythorpe@tiscali.co.uk.
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+www.menorot.com/cmyonge.htm.
+
+
+
+
+
+LADY HESTER;
+
+OR,
+
+URSULA'S NARRATIVE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I.     SAULT ST. PIERRE
+
+CHAPTER II.    TREVORSHAM
+
+CHAPTER III.   THE PEERAGE CASE
+
+CHAPTER IV.    SKIMPING'S FARM
+
+CHAPTER V.     SPINNEY LAWN
+
+CHAPTER VI.    THE WHITE DOE'S WARNING
+
+CHAPTER VII.   HUNTING
+
+CHAPTER VIII.  DUCK SHOOTING
+
+CHAPTER IX.    TREVOR'S LEGACY
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.  SAULT ST. PIERRE.
+
+
+
+I write this by desire of my brothers and sisters, that if any
+reports of our strange family history should come down to after
+generations the thing may be properly understood.
+
+The old times at Trevorsham seem to me so remote, that I can hardly
+believe that we are the same who were so happy then.  Nay, Jaquetta
+laughs, and declares that it is not possible to be happier than we
+have been since, and Fulk would have me remember that all was not
+always smooth even in those days.
+
+Perhaps not--for him, at least, dear fellow, in those latter times;
+but when I think of the old home, the worst troubles that rise before
+me are those of the back-board and the stocks, French in the school-
+room, and Miss Simmonds' "Lady Ursula, think of your position!"
+
+And as to Jaquetta, she was born under a more benignant star.  Nobody
+could have put a back-board on her any more than on a kitten.
+
+Our mother had died (oh! how happily for herself!) when Jaquetta was
+a baby, and Miss Simmonds most carefully ruled not only over us, but
+over Adela Brainerd, my father's ward, who was brought up with us
+because she had no other relation in the world.
+
+Besides, my father wished her to marry one of my brothers.  It would
+have done very well for either Torwood or Bertram, but unluckily, as
+it seemed, neither of them could take to the notion.  She was a dear
+little thing, to be sure, and we were all very fond of her; but, as
+Bertram said, it would have been like marrying Jaquetta, and Torwood
+had other views, to which my father would not then listen.
+
+Then Bertram's regiment was ordered to Canada, and that was the real
+cause of it all, though we did not know it till long after.
+
+Bertram was starting out on a sporting expedition with a Canadian
+gentleman, when about ten miles from Montreal they halted at a farm
+with a good well-built house, named Sault St. Pierre, all looking
+prosperous and comfortable, and a young farmer, American in his ways-
+-free-spoken, familiar, and blunt--but very kindly and friendly, was
+at work there with some French-Canadian labourers.
+
+Bertram's friend knew him and often halted there on hunting
+expeditions, so they went into the house--very nicely furnished, a
+pretty parlour with muslin curtains, a piano, and everything
+pleasant; and Joel Lea called his wife, a handsome, fair young woman.
+Bertram says from the first she put him in mind of some one, and he
+was trying to make out who it could be.  Then came the wife's mother,
+a neat little delicate, bent woman, with dark eyes, that looked,
+Bertram said, as if they had had some great fright and never
+recovered it.  They called her Mrs. Dayman.
+
+She was silent at first, and only helped her daughter and the maid to
+get the dinner, and an excellent dinner it was; but she kept on
+looking at Bertram, and she quite started when she heard him called
+Mr. Trevor.  When they were just rising up, and going to take leave,
+she came up to him in a frightened agitated manner, as if she could
+not help it, and said--
+
+"Sir, you are so like a gentleman I once knew.  Was any relation of
+yours ever in Canada?"
+
+"My father was in Canada," answered Bertram.
+
+"Oh no," she said then, very much affected, "the Captain Trevor I
+knew was killed in the Lake Campaign in 1814.  It must be a mistake,
+yet you put me in mind of him so strangely."
+
+Then Bertram protested that she must mean my father, for that he had
+been a captain in the --th, and had been stationed at York (as
+Toronto was then called), but was badly wounded in repulsing the
+American attack on the Lakes in 1814.
+
+"Not dead?" she asked, with her cheeks getting pale, and a sort of
+excitement about her, that made Bertram wonder, at the moment, if
+there could have been any old attachment between them, and he
+explained how my father was shipped off from England between life and
+death; and how, when he recovered, he found his uncle dying, and the
+title and property coming to him.
+
+"And he married!" she said, with a bewildered look; and Bertram told
+her that he had married Lady Mary Lupton--as his uncle and father had
+wished--and how we four were their children.  I can fancy how kindly
+and tenderly Bertram would speak when he saw that she was anxious and
+pained; and she took hold of his hand and held him, and when he said
+something of mentioning that he had seen her, she cried out with a
+sort of terror, "Oh no, no, Mr. Trevor, I beg you will not.  Let him
+think me dead, as I thought him.  And then she drew down Bertram's
+tall head to her, and fairly kissed his forehead, adding, "I could
+not help it, sir; an old woman's kiss will do you no harm!"
+
+Then he went away.  He never did tell us of the meeting till long
+after.  He was not a great letter writer, and, besides, he thought my
+father might not wish to have the flirtations of his youth brought up
+against him.  So we little knew!
+
+But it seems that the daughter and son-in-law were just as much
+amazed as Bertram, and when he was gone, and the poor old lady sank
+into her chair and burst out crying, and as they came and asked who
+or what this was, she sobbed out, "Your brother Hester!  Oh! so like
+him--my husband!" or something to that effect, as unawares.  She
+wanted to take it back again, but of course Hester would not let her,
+and made her tell the whole.
+
+It seems that her name was Faith Le Blanc; she was half English, half
+French-Canadian, and lived in a village in a very unsettled part,
+where Captain Trevor used to come to hunt, and where he made love to
+her, and ended by marrying her--with the knowledge of her family and
+his brother officers, but not of his family--just before he was
+ordered to the Lake frontier.  The war had stirred up the Indians to
+acts of violence they had not committed for many years, and a tribe
+of them came down on the village, plundering, burning, killing, and
+torturing those whom they had known in friendly intercourse.
+
+Faith Le Blanc had once given some milk to a papoose upon its
+mother's back, and perhaps for this reason she was spared, but
+everyone belonging to her was, she believed, destroyed, and she was
+carried away by the tribe, who wanted to make her one of themselves;
+and she knew that if she offended them, such horrors as she had seen
+practised on others would come on her.
+
+However, they had gone to another resort of theirs, where there was a
+young hunter who often visited them, and was on friendly terms.  When
+he found that there was a white woman living as a captive among them,
+he spared no effort to rescue her.  Both he and she were often in
+exceeding danger; but he contrived her escape at last, and brought
+her through the woods to a place of safety, and there her child was
+born.
+
+It was over the American frontier, and it was long before she could
+write to her husband.  She never knew what became of her letter, but
+the hunter friend, Piers Dayman, showed her an American paper which
+mentioned Captain Trevor among the officers killed in their attack.
+Dayman was devoted to her, and insisted on marrying her, and bringing
+up her daughter as his own.  I fancy she was a woman of gentle
+passive temper, and had been crushed and terrified by all she had
+gone through, so as to have little instinct left but that of clinging
+to the protector who had taken her up when she had lost everything
+else; and she married him.  Nor did Hester guess till that very day
+that Piers Dayman was not her father!
+
+There were other children, sons who have given themselves to hunting
+and trapping in the Hudson's Bay Company's territory; but Hester
+remained the only daughter, and they educated her well, sending her
+to a convent at Montreal, where she learnt a good many
+accomplishments.  They were not Roman Catholics; but it was the only
+way of getting an education.
+
+Dayman must have been a warm-hearted, tenderly affectionate person.
+Hester loved him very much. But he had lived a wild sportsman's life,
+and never was happy at rest.  They changed home often; and at last he
+was snowed up and frozen to death, with one of his boys, on a bear
+hunting expedition.
+
+Not very long after, Hester married this sturdy American, Joel Lea,
+who had bought some land on the Canadian side of the border, and her
+mother came home to live with them.  They had been married four or
+five years, but none of their children had lived.
+
+So it was when the discovery came upon poor old Mrs. Dayman (I do not
+know what else to call her), that Fulk Torwood Trevor, the husband of
+her youth, was not dead, but was Earl of Trevorsham; married, and the
+father of four children in England.
+
+Poor old thing!  She would have buried her secret to the last, as
+much in pity and love to him as in shame and grief for herself; and
+consideration, too, for the sons, for whom the discovery was only
+less bad than for us, as they had less to lose.  Hester herself
+hardly fully understood what it all involved, and it only gradually
+grew on her.
+
+That winter her mother fell ill, and Mr. Lea felt it right that the
+small property she had had for her life should be properly secured to
+her sons, according to the division their father had intended.  So a
+lawyer was brought from Montreal and her will was made.  Thus another
+person knew about it, and he was much struck, and explained to Hester
+that she was really a lady of rank, and probably the only child of
+her father who had any legal claim to his estates.  Lea, with a good
+deal of the old American Republican temper, would not be stirred up.
+He despised lords and ladies, and would none of it; but the lawyer
+held that it would be doing wrong not to preserve the record.  Hester
+had grown excited, and seconded him; and one day, when Lea was out,
+the lawyer brought a magistrate to take Mrs. Dayman's affidavit as to
+all her past history--marriage witnesses and all.  She was a good
+deal overcome and agitated, and quite implored Hester never to use
+the knowledge against her father; but she must have been always a
+passive, docile being, and they made her tell all that was wanted,
+and sign her deposition, as she had signed her will, as Faith Trevor,
+commonly known as Faith Dayman.
+
+She did not live many days after.  It was on the 3rd of February,
+1836, that she died; and in the course of the summer Hester had a
+son, who throve as none of her babies had done.
+
+Then she lay and brooded over him and the rights she fancied he was
+deprived of, till she worked herself up to a strong and fixed
+purpose, and insisted upon making all known to her father.  Now that
+her mother was gone she persuaded herself that he had been a cruel,
+faithless tyrant, who had wilfully deserted his young wife.
+
+Joel Lea would not listen to her.  Why should she wish to make his
+son a good-for-nothing English lord?  That was his view.  Nothing but
+misery, distress, and temptation could come of not letting things
+alone.  He held to that, and there were no means forthcoming either
+of coming to England to present herself.  The family were well to do,
+but had no ready money to lay out on a passage across the Atlantic.
+Nor would Hester wait.  She had persuaded herself that a letter would
+be suppressed, even if she had known how to address it; but to claim
+her son's rights, and make an earl of him, had become her fixed idea,
+and she began laying aside every farthing in her power.
+
+In this she was encouraged, not by the lawyer who had made the will--
+and who, considering that poor Faith's witnesses had been destroyed,
+and her certificate and her wedding ring taken from her by the
+Indians, thought that the marriage could not be substantiated--but by
+a clever young clerk, who had managed to find out the state of
+things; a man named Perrault, who used to come to the farm, always
+when Lea was out, and talk her into a further state of excitement
+about her child's expectations, and the injuries she was suffering.
+It was her one idea.  She says she really believes she should have
+gone mad if the saving had not occupied her; and a very dreary life
+poor Joel must have had whilst she was scraping together the passage-
+money.  He still steadily and sternly disapproved the whole, and when
+at two years' end she had put together enough to bring her and her
+boy home, and maintain them there for a few weeks, he still refused
+to go with her.  The last thing he said was, "Remember, Hester, what
+was the price of all the kingdoms of the world!  Thou wilt have it,
+then!  Would that I could say, my blessing go with thee."  And he
+took his child, and held him long in his arms, and never spoke one
+word over him but, "My poor boy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.  TREVORSHAM
+
+
+
+I suppose I had better tell what we had been doing all this time.
+Adela and I had come out, and had a season or two in London, and my
+father had enjoyed our pleasure in it, and paid a good deal of court
+to our pretty Adela, because there was no driving Torwood into
+anything warmer than easy brotherly companionship.
+
+In fact, Torwood had never cared for anyone but little Emily
+Deerhurst.  Once he had come to her rescue, when she was only nine or
+ten years old, and her schoolboy cousins were teasing her, and at
+every Twelfth-day party since she and he had come together as by
+right.  There was something irresistible in her great soft plaintive
+brown eyes, though she was scarcely pretty otherwise, and we used to
+call her the White Doe of Rylstone.  Torwood was six or seven years
+older, and no one supposed that he seriously cared for her, till she
+was sixteen.  Then, when my father spoke point blank to him about
+Adela, he was driven into owning what he wished.
+
+My father thought it utter absurdity.  The connection was not
+pleasant to him; Mrs. Deerhurst was always looked on as a designing
+widow, who managed to marry off her daughters cleverly, and he could
+believe no good of Emily.
+
+Now Adela always had more power with papa than any of us.  She had a
+coaxing way, which his stately old-school courtesy never could
+resist.  She used when we were children to beg for holidays, and get
+treats for us; and even now, many a request which we should never
+have dared to utter, she could, with her droll arch way, make him
+think the most sensible thing in the world.
+
+What odd things people can do who have lived together like brothers
+and sisters!  I can hardly help laughing when I think of Torwood
+coming disconsolately up from the library, and replying, in answer to
+our vigorous demands, that his lordship had some besotted notion past
+all reason.
+
+Then we pressed him harder--Adela with indignation, and I with
+sympathy--till we forced out of him that he had been forbidden ever
+to think or speak again of Emily, and all his faith in her laughed to
+scorn, as delusions induced by Mrs. Deerhurst.
+
+"I'm sure I hope you'll take Ormerod, Adela," I remember he ended;
+"then at least you would be out of the way."
+
+For Sir John Ormerod's courtship was an evident fact to all the
+family, as, indeed, Adela was heiress enough to be a good deal
+troubled with suitors, though she had hitherto managed to make them
+all keep their distance.
+
+Adela laughed at him for his kind wishes, but I could see she meant
+to plead for him.  She had her chance, for Sir John Ormerod brought
+matters to a crisis at the next ball; and though she thought, as she
+said, "she had settled him," he followed it up with her guardian, and
+Adela was invited to a conference in the library.
+
+It happened that as she ran upstairs, all in a glow, she came on
+Torwood at the landing.  She couldn't help saying in her odd half-
+laughing, half-crying voice--
+
+"It will come right, Torwood; I've made terms, I'm out of your way."
+
+"Not Ormerod!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Oh! no, no!"  I can hear her dash of scorn now, for I was just
+behind my brother, but she went on out of breath--
+
+"You may go on seeing her, provided you don't say a word--till--till
+she's been out two years."
+
+"Adela! you queen of girls, how have you done it?" he began, but she
+thrust him aside and flew up into my arms; and when I had her in her
+own room it came out, I hardly know how, that she had so shown that
+she cared for no one she had ever seen except my father, that they
+found they _did_ love each other; and--and--in short they were going
+to be married."
+
+Really it seemed much less wonderful then than it does in thinking of
+it afterwards.  My father was much handsomer than any young man I
+ever saw, with a hawk nose, a clear rosy skin, pure pink and white
+like a boy's, curly little rings of white hair, blue eyes clear and
+bright as the sky, a tall upright soldierly figure, and a magnificent
+stately bearing, courteous and grand to all, but sweetly tender to a
+very few, and to her above all.  It always had been so ever since he
+had brought her home an orphan of six years old from her mother's
+death-bed at Nice.  And he was youthful, could ride or hunt all day
+without so much fatigue as either of his sons, and was as fresh and
+eager in all his ways as a lad.
+
+And she, our pretty darling!  I don't think Torwood and I in the
+least felt the incongruity of her becoming our step-mother, only that
+papa was making her more entirely his own.
+
+I am glad we did not mar the sunshine.  It did not last long.  She
+came home thoroughly unwell from their journey to Switzerland, and
+never got better.  By the time the spring had come round again, she
+was lying in the vault at Trevorsham, and we were trying to keep poor
+little Alured alive and help my poor father to bear it.
+
+He was stricken to the very heart, and never was the same man again.
+His age seemed to come upon him all at once; and whereas at sixty-
+five he had been like a man ten years younger, he suddenly became
+like one ten years older; and though he never was actually ill, he
+failed from month to month.
+
+He could not bear the sight or sound of the poor baby.  Poor Adela
+had scarcely lived to hear it was a boy, and all she had said about
+it was, "Ursula, you'll be his mother."  And, oh! I have tried.  If
+love would do it, I think he could not be more even to dear Adela!
+
+What a frail little life it was!  What nights and days we had with
+him; doctors saying that skill could not do it, but care might; and
+nurses knowing how to be more effective than I could be; yet while I
+durst not touch him I could not bear not to see him.  And I do think
+I was the first person he began to know.
+
+Meantime, there was a great difference in Torwood.  He had been very
+much of a big boy hitherto.  No one but myself could have guessed
+that he cared for much besides a lazy kind of enjoyment of all the
+best and nicest things in this world.  He did what he was told, but
+in an uninterested sort of way, just as if politics and county
+business, and work at the estate, were just as much tasks thrust on
+him as Virgil and Homer had been; and put his spirit into sporting,
+&c.
+
+But when he was allowed to think hopefully of Emily, it seemed to
+make a man of him, and he took up all that he had to do, as if it
+really concerned him, and was not only a burden laid on him by his
+father.
+
+And, as my father became less able to exert himself, Torwood came
+forward more, and was something substantial to lean upon.  Dear
+fellow!  I am sure he did well earn the consent he gained at last,
+though not with much satisfaction, from papa.
+
+Emily had grown into great sweetness and grace, and Mrs. Deerhurst
+had gone on very well.  Of course, people were unkind enough to say,
+it was only because she had such prey in view as Lord Torwood; but,
+whatever withheld her, it is certain that Emily only had the most
+suitable and reasonable pleasures for a young lady, and was
+altogether as nice, and gentle, and sensible, as could be desired.
+There never was a bit of acting in her, she was only allowed to grow
+in what seemed natural to her.  She was just one of the nice simple
+girls of that day, doing her quiet bit of solid reading, and her
+practice, and her neat little smooth pencil drawing from a print, as
+a kind of duty to her accomplishments every day; and filling books
+with neat up-and-down MS. copies of all the poetry that pleased her.
+Dainty in all her ways, timid, submissive, and as it seemed to me,
+colourless.
+
+But Fulk taught her Wordsworth, who was his great passion then, and
+found her a perfect listener to all his Tory hopes, fears, and
+usages.
+
+Papa could not help liking her when she came to stay with us, after
+they were engaged, at the end of two years.  He allowed that, away
+from her mother and all her belongings, she would do very well; and
+she was so pretty and sweet in her respectful fear of him--I might
+almost say awe--that his graceful, chivalrous courtesy woke up again;
+and he was beginning absolutely to enjoy her, as she became a little
+more confident and understood him better.
+
+How well I remember that last evening!  I was happier than I had been
+for weeks about little Alured: the convulsions had quite gone off,
+the teeth that had caused them were through, and he had been laughing
+and playing on my lap quite brightly--cooing to his mother's
+miniature in my locket.  He was such an intelligent little fellow for
+eighteen months!  I came down so glad, and it was so pleasant to see
+Emily, in her white dress, leaning over my father while he had gone
+so happily into his old delight of showing his prints and engravings;
+and Torwood, standing by the fire, watching them with the look of a
+conqueror, and Jaquetta--like the absurd child she loved to be--
+teasing them with ridiculous questions about their housekeeping.
+
+They were to have Spinney Lawn bought for them, just a mile away, and
+the business was in hand.  Jaquey was enquiring whether there was a
+parlour for The Cid, Torwood's hunter, whom she declared was as dear
+to him as Emily herself.  Indeed, Emily did go out every morning
+after breakfast to feed him with bread.  I can see her now on
+Torwood's arm, with big Rollo and little Malta rolling over one
+another after them.
+
+Then came an afternoon when we had all walked to Spinney Lawn, laid
+out the gardens together, and wandered about the empty rooms,
+planning for them.  The birds were singing in the March sunshine, and
+the tomtits were calling "peter" in the trees, and Jaquetta went
+racing about after the dogs, like a thing of seven years old, instead
+of seventeen.  And Torwood was cutting out a root of primroses,
+leaves and all, for Emily, when we saw a fly go along the lane, and
+wondered, with a sort of idle wonder.  We supposed it must be
+visitors for the parsonage, and so we strolled home, looking for
+violets by the way, and Jaquetta getting shiny studs of celandine.
+Ah! I remember those glistening stars were all closed before we came
+back.
+
+Well, it must come, so it is silly to linger!  There stood the fly at
+the hall-door, and the butler met us, saying--
+
+"There's a person with his lordship, my lord.  She would not wait
+till you came in, though I told her he saw no one on business without
+you--"
+
+Torwood hastened on before this, expecting to see some importunate
+person bothering my father with a petition.  What he did see was my
+father leaning back in his chair, with a white, confounded,
+bewildered look, and a woman, with a child on her lap, opposite.  Her
+back was to the door, and Torwood's first impression was that she was
+a well-dressed impostor threatening him; so he came quickly to my
+father's side, and said--
+
+"What is it father?  I'm here."
+
+My poor father put out his hand feebly to him, and said--
+
+"It is all true, Torwood.  God forgive me; I did not know it!"
+
+"Know what?" he asked anxiously.  "What is it that distresses you,
+father?  Let me speak to this person--"
+
+Then she broke out--not loud, not coarsely, but very determinately--
+"No, sir; you would be very glad to suppress me, and my child, and my
+evidence, no doubt; but the Earl of Trevorsham has acknowledged the
+truth of my claim, and I will not leave this spot till he has
+acknowledged my mother as his only lawful wife, and my child, Trevor
+Lea, as his only lawful heir!"
+
+Torwood thought her insane and only said quietly, as he offered my
+father his arm, "I will talk it over with you presently; Lord
+Trevorsham is not equal to discuss it now."
+
+"I see what you mean!" she said quickly.  "You would like to make me
+out crazy, but Lord Trevorsham knows better.  Do not you, my father?"
+she said, with a strong emphasis, the more marked, because it was
+concentrated, not loud.
+
+My poor father was shuddering all over with involuntary trembling;
+but he put Torwood's hand away from him, and looked up piteously, as
+if his heart was breaking (as it was); but he spoke steadily.  "It is
+true.  It is true, Torwood.  I was married to poor Faith, when I was
+a young man, in Canada.  They sent me proofs that all had perished
+when the Indians attacked the village; but--" and then he put his
+hands over his face.  It must have been dreadful to see; but Hester
+Lea was too much bent on her rights to feel a moment's pity; and she
+spoke on in a hard tone, with her eyes fixed on my brother's face.
+
+"But you failed to discover that she was rescued from the Indians;
+gave birth to me, your daughter, Hester; and only died two years
+ago."
+
+"You hear!  My boy, my poor boy, forgive me; don't leave me to her,"
+was what my poor father had said--he who had been so strong.
+
+My brother saw what it all meant now.  "Never fear that, sir," he
+said; "I am your son still, any way, you know."
+
+"You will do justice to me," she began, in her fierce tone; but my
+brother met it calmly with, "Certainly, we will do our best that
+justice should be done.  You have brought proof?"
+
+His quietness overawed her, and she pointed to the papers on the
+table.  They were her mother's attested narrative, and the
+certificate of her burial.
+
+My brother read aloud, "The 3rd of February, 1836," then he turned to
+my father and said, "You observe, father, the difference this may
+make, if true, is that of putting little Alured into the place I have
+held.  My father's last marriage was on the 15th of April, 1836," he
+added to her.  He says she quite glared at him with mortification, as
+if he had invented poor little Alured on purpose to baffle her; but
+my father breathed more freely.
+
+"And is nothing--nothing to be done for my child, your own grandson?"
+exclaimed she, "after these years."
+
+Torwood silenced her by one of his looks.  "We only wish to do
+justice," he said. "If it be as you say, you will have a right to a
+great deal, and it will not be disputed; but you must be aware that a
+claim made in this manner requires investigation, and you can see
+that my father is not in a state for an exciting discussion."
+
+"_Your_ father!" she said, with a bitter tone of scorn; but he took
+it firmly, though the blood seemed to come boiling to his temples.
+
+"Yes," he said, "my father! and if you are indeed his daughter, you
+should show some pity and filial duty, by not forcing the discussion
+on him while he can so little bear it."
+
+That staggered her a little, but she said, "I do not wish to do him
+any harm, but I have my child's interests to think of.  How do I know
+what advantage may be taken against him?"
+
+Torwood saw my father lying back in the chair, trembling, and he
+dreaded a fit every moment.
+
+"I give you my word," he said, "that no injustice shall be done you;"
+and as she looked keenly at him, as if she distrusted him, he said,
+"Yes, you may trust me.  I was bred an English gentleman, whatever I
+was born, and I promise you never to come between you and your
+rights, when your identity as Lord Trevorsham's daughter is fully
+established.  Meantime, do you not see that your presence is killing
+him?  Tell me where you may be heard of?"
+
+"I shall stay at the Shinglebay Hotel till I am secure of the justice
+I claim," she said.  "Come, my boy, since your own grandfather will
+not so much as look at you."
+
+Torwood walked her across the hall.  He was a little touched by those
+last words, and felt that she might have looked for a daughter's
+reception, so he said in the hall--
+
+"You must remember this is a very sudden shock to us all.  When my
+father has grown accustomed to the idea, no doubt he will wish to see
+you again; but in his present state of health, he must be our first
+consideration.  And unprepared as my sisters are, it would be
+impossible to ask you to stay in the house."
+
+She was always a little subdued by my brother's manner; I think its
+courtesy and polish almost frightened her, high-spirited, resolute
+woman as she was.
+
+"I understand," she said, with a stiff, cold tone.  Jaquetta heard
+the echo of it, and wondered.
+
+"But," he added, "when they understand all, and when my father is
+equal to it, you shall be sent for."
+
+When he went back to the library he found my poor father unconscious.
+It was really only fainting then, and he came round without anyone
+being called, and he shrank from seeing anyone but Torwood,
+explaining to him most earnestly how, though he was too ill himself
+to go to the place, his brother-officer, General Poyntz, had done so
+for him, and had been persuaded that the whole settlement and all the
+inhabitants had been swept off.  It was such a shock to him that it
+nearly killed him.  Poor father! it was grievous to hear him wish it
+had quite done so!
+
+We only knew that the woman had upset my father very much, and that
+Torwood could not leave him.  Word was sent us to sit down to dinner
+without them, and Torwood sent for some gravy soup and some wine for
+him.  He went on talking--sometimes about us, but more often about
+poor Faith, who seemed to have come back on him in all the beauty and
+charm of his first love.  He seemed to be talking himself feverish,
+and after a time Torwood thought that silence would be better for
+him; so he got him to go to bed, and sent good old Blake, the butler,
+who had been his servant in the army, to sit in the dressing-room.
+Blake, it turned out, had known all about the old story, so he was a
+safe person.  Not that safety mattered much.  "Lady Hester Lea"--she
+called herself so now, as, indeed, she had every right--was making it
+known at Shinglebay.
+
+So Torwood came out.  I was very anxious, of course, and had been
+hovering about on the nursery stairs, where I had gone to see whether
+baby was quietly asleep, and I overtook him as he was going down-
+stairs.
+
+"How is papa?" I asked.
+
+I shall never forget the white look of the face he raised up to mine
+as he said, "Poor father!  Ursula, I can only call the news terrible.
+Will you try to stand up against it bravely?"
+
+And then he held out his arms and gathered me into them, and I
+believe I said, "I can bear anything when you do that!"
+
+I thought it could only be something about Bertram, who had rather a
+way of getting into scrapes, and I said his name; but just as Fulk
+was setting me at ease on that score, Jaquetta, who was on the watch,
+too, opened the door of the green drawing-room, and we were obliged
+to go in.  Then, hardly answering her and Emily, as they asked after
+papa, he stood straight up in the middle of the rug and told us,
+beginning with-- "Ursula, did you know that our father had been
+married as a young man in Canada?"
+
+No. We had never guessed it.
+
+"He was," my brother went on, "This is his daughter."
+
+"Our sister!" Jaquetta asked.  "Where has she been all this time?"
+
+But I saw there must be more to trouble him, and then it came.  "I
+cannot tell.  My father had every reason to believe that--she--his
+first wife--had been killed in a massacre by the Red Indians; but if
+what this person says is true, she only died two years ago.  But it
+was in all good faith that he married our mother.  He had taken all
+means to discover--"
+
+Even then we did not perceive what this involved.  I felt stunned and
+numbed chiefly from seeing the great shock it had been to my father
+and to him; but poor little Jaquetta and Emily were altogether
+puzzled; and Jaquetta said, "But is this sister of ours such a very
+disagreeable person, Torwood?  Why didn't you bring her in and show
+her to us?"
+
+Then he exclaimed, almost angrily at her simplicity, "Good heavens!
+girls, don't you see what it all means?  If this is true, I am not
+Torwood.  We are nothing--nobody--nameless."
+
+He turned to the fire, put both elbows on the mantelshelf, and hid
+his face in his hands.  Emily sprang up, and tried to draw down his
+arm; and she did, but he only used it to put her from him, hold her
+off at arm's length, and look at her--oh! with such a tender face of
+firm sorrow!
+
+"Ah! Emily," he said; "you too!  It has been all on false pretences!
+That will have to be all over now."
+
+Then Emily's great brown eyes grew bigger with wonder and dismay.
+
+"False pretences!" she cried, "what false pretences?  Not that you
+cared for me, Torwood."
+
+"Not that I cared for you," he said, with a suppressed tone that made
+his voice _so_ deep!  "Not that _I_ cared, but that Lord Torwood did-
+-Torwood is the baby upstairs."
+
+"But it is you--you--you--Fulk!" said Emily, trying to creep and
+sidle up to him, white doe fashion.  I believe nobody had ever called
+him by his Christian name before, and it made it sweeter to him, but
+still he did not give in.
+
+"Ah! that's all very well," he said, and his voice was softer then,
+"but what would your mother say?"
+
+"The same as I do," said Emily, undauntedly.  "How should it change
+one's feelings one bit," and she almost cried at being held back.
+
+He did let her nestle up to him then, but with a sad sort of smile.
+"My child, my darling," he said, "I ought not to allow this!  It will
+only be the worse after!"
+
+But just then a servant's step made them start back, and a message
+came and brought word that Mr. Blake would be glad if Lord Torwood
+would step up.
+
+Yes, my poor father was wandering in his speech, and very feverish,
+mixing up Adela and Faith Le Blanc strangely together sometimes, and
+at others fancying he was lying ill with his wound, and sending
+messages to Faith.
+
+We sent for the doctor, but he could not do anything really.  It had
+been a death-blow, though the illness lasted a full week.  He knew us
+generally, and liked to see us, but he always had the sense that
+something dreadful had happened to us; and he would stroke my hand or
+Jaquetta's, and pity us.  He was haunted, too, by the sense that he
+ought to do something for us which he could not do.  We thought he
+meant to make a will, securing us something, but he was never in a
+condition in which my brother would have felt justified in getting
+him to sign it.  Indeed there was so little disease about him, and we
+thought he would get better, if only we could keep him free from
+distress and excitement; so we made his room as quiet as possible,
+and discouraged his talking or thinking.
+
+Lady Hester came every day.  My brother had sent for Mr. Eagles, our
+solicitor, to meet her the first time, and look at her papers.
+
+He said he could not deny that it looked very bad for us.  Of the
+original marriage there was no doubt; indeed, my father had told
+Torwood where to find the certificate of it, folded up in the secret
+drawer of his desk, with his commission in the army; and the register
+of Faith's burial was only too plain.  The only chance there was for
+us was, that her identity could not be established; but Mr. Eagles
+did not think it would go off on this.  The whole of her life seemed
+to be traceable; besides, there was something about Hester that
+forbade all suspicion of her being a conscious impostor.  Whether she
+would be able to prove herself my father's daughter was another more
+doubtful point.  That, however, made no difference, except as to her
+own rank and fortune.  If the first wife were proved to have been
+alive till 1836, then little Alured was the only true heir to the
+title and estate, and, next after him, stood Hester Lea and her son.
+
+People said she was like the family; I never could see it, and always
+thought the likeness due to their imagination.  She took one by
+surprise.  She was a tall, well-made woman, with a narrow waist, and
+a proud, peculiarly upright bearing, though quick, almost sharp in
+all her movements, and especially with her eyes.  Those eyes, I
+confess, always startled me.  They were clear, bright blue, well
+opened eyes--honest eyes one would have called them--only they
+appeared to be always searching about, and darting at one when one
+least expected it.  The red and white of the face too always had a
+clear hard look, like the eyes; the teeth projected a little, and
+were so very, very white, that they always seemed to me to flash like
+the eyes; and if ever she smiled, it was as much as to say, "I don't
+believe you."  Her nose had an amount of hook, too, that always gave
+me the feeling of having a wild hawk in the room with me.  Jaquetta
+used to call her a panther of the wilderness, but to my mind there
+was none of the purring cattish tenderness of the panther.  However,
+that might be only because she viewed us as her natural enemies, and
+was always on her guard against us, though I do not well know why; I
+am sure we only wanted to know the truth and do justice, and Fulk was
+so convinced that she would prove her case, and that there was no
+help for it, that at the end of hearing Mr. Eagles question her, he
+said, "Well, the matter must be tried in due time, but since we are
+brothers and sisters, let us be friendly," and he held out his hand
+to her.  Mr. Eagles, who told me, said he could have beaten him for
+the imprudent admission, only he did look so generous and sweet and
+sad; and Lady Hester drew herself up doubtfully and proudly, as if
+she could hardly bear to own such a brother, but she did take his
+hand, coldly though, and saying, "Let me see my father."
+
+He was obliged to tell her that this was impossible.  I doubt whether
+she ever believed him--at least she used to gaze at him with her
+determined eyes, as if she meant to abash him out of falsehood, and
+she sharply questioned every one about Lord Trevorsham's state.
+
+The determination to be friendly made my brother offer to take her to
+us.  She consented, but not very readily, and I am afraid we were
+needlessly cold and dry; but we were taken by surprise when my
+brother brought her into the sitting-room.  It was not very easy to
+welcome the woman who was going to turn us all out, and under such a
+stigma; and she--she could hardly be expected to look complacently at
+the interlopers who had her place, and the title she had a right to.
+
+She put us through her hard catechism about my dear father's state,
+and said at last that she should like to see Lord Torwood.
+
+Taken by surprise, we looked and signed towards him whom that name
+had always meant.  He smiled a little and said, "Little Alured!  But,
+remember, I am bound to concede nothing till judicial minds are
+convinced.  The parties concerned cannot judge.  Can you venture to
+have Baby down, Ursula?"
+
+No, I did not venture.  I thought it might have been averted; but I
+was only obliged to take her up to the nurseries.  On the way up she
+asked which way my father's room lay.  I answered, "Oh! across
+there;" I did not know if she might not make a dash at it.
+
+I think she must have heard at Shinglebay how delicate poor little
+Alured was, and thence gathered hopes of the succession for her boy,
+for she asked her sharp questions about his health all the way up,
+and knew that he had had fits.  I could not put her down as one
+generally can inquisitive people.  I suppose it was because she was
+more sensible of the difference in our real positions than I have as
+yet felt.
+
+Baby was asleep; and I think she was touched by the actual sight of
+him.  She said he was very like her boy; and though I supposed that a
+mere assertion at the time, it was quite true.  Alured and Trevor Lea
+have always been remarkably alike.  However, she cross-examined Nurse
+about his health even more minutely, and then took her leave; but she
+came again every day, walking after the first, as long as my dear
+father lived.
+
+And she must have talked, for there came a kind of feeling over
+everyone, as well as ourselves, that something was hanging over us,
+of which the issue would be known when my father's illness took some
+turn.
+
+Mr. Decies came every day to inquire, but I could not bear a strange
+eye, and Hester might have been looking on.  I was steeling myself
+against him.  Was I right?--oh! was I right?  I have wondered and
+grieved!  For I knew well enough what he had been thinking of for
+months before; only I did not want it to come to a point.  How was I
+to leave little Alured to Jaquetta? or disturb my father by breaking
+up his home?  I liked him on the whole, and had come the length of
+thinking that if I ever married at all, it would be-- But that's all
+nonsense; and mine could not have been what other people's love was,
+or I should not have shrunk from the sight and look of him.  If it
+had been only poverty that was coming, it would have been a different
+thing; but to be nameless impostors!
+
+Mrs. Deerhurst had gone out on a round of visits, when Emily came to
+us, taking her younger daughter.  They were not a very letter-writing
+family.  It is odd how some people's pen is a real outlet of
+expression; while others seem to lack the nerve that might convey
+their thoughts to it, even when they live in more sympathy than Emily
+could well have had with her mother.
+
+At least, so I understand, what afterwards we wondered at, that Emily
+never mentioned Hester; only saying, when, after some days she did
+write, that Lord Trevorsham was ill.
+
+So Fulk had the one comfort of being with her when he was out of the
+sick room.  I used to see them from the window walking up and down
+the terrace in the blue east wind haze of those March days, never
+that I could see speaking.  I don't think my brother would have felt
+it honourable to tie one additional link between himself and her.  He
+had not a doubt as to how her mother would act, but to be in her dear
+little affectionate presence was a better help than we could give
+him, even though nothing passed between them.
+
+Jaquetta used to wonder at them, and then try to go on the same as
+usual; and would wander about the garden and park with her dogs, and
+bring us in little anecdotes, and do all the laughing over them
+herself.  Poor child! she felt as if she were in a bad dream, and
+these were efforts to shake it off, and wake herself.
+
+After all, nothing was ever so bad as those ten days!  But, my
+brother always said he was thankful for the respite and time for
+thought which they gave him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.  THE PEERAGE CASE.
+
+
+
+The end came suddenly at last, when we were thinking my dear father
+more tranquil.  He passed away in sleep late one evening, just ten
+days after Hester's arrival.  She had gone back to her lodgings, and
+we did not send to tell her till the morning; but by nine o'clock she
+was in the house.
+
+We had crept down to breakfast, Jaquetta and I, feeling very dreary
+in the half-light, and as if desolation had suddenly come on us; and
+when we heard her fly drive up to the door, Jaquetta cried out almost
+angrily, "Torwood, how could you!" and we would have run away, but he
+said, "Stay, dear girls; it is better to have it over."
+
+As she came in he rang the bell as if for family prayers, and she had
+only asked one or two questions, which he answered shortly, when all
+the servants came in, some crying sadly.  Fulk read a very few
+prayers--as much as he had voice for, and then, as all stood up, he
+had to clear his voice, but he spoke firmly enough.
+
+"It is right that you all should know that a grave doubt has arisen
+as to my position here.  Lord Trevorsham had every reason to believe
+his first wife had perished by the hands of the Red Indians long
+before he married my mother.  What he did was done in entire
+ignorance--no breath of blame must light on him.  This lady alleges
+that she can produce proofs that she is his daughter, and that her
+mother only died in February, '36.  If these proofs be considered
+satisfactory by a committee of the House of Lords, then she and
+Alured Torwood Trevor will be shown to be his only legitimate
+children.  I shall place the matter in the right hands as soon as
+possible--that is" (for she was glaring at him), "as soon as the
+funeral is over.  Until that decision is made I request that no one
+will call me by the title of him who is gone; but I shall remain here
+to take care of my little brother, whose guardian my father wished me
+to be; and for the present, at least, I shall make no change in the
+establishment."
+
+I think everyone held their breath: there was a great stillness over
+all--a sort of hush of awe--and then some of the maids began sobbing,
+and the butler tried to say something, but he quite broke down; and
+just then a troubled voice cried out--
+
+"Torwood, Torwood, what is this?"
+
+And there we saw Bertram in the midst of us, with the haggard look of
+a man who had travelled all night, and a dismayed air that I can
+never forget.
+
+He had been quartered at Belfast, and we had written to him the day
+after my father's illness, to summon him home, but there were no
+telegraphs nor railways; and there had been some hindrance about his
+leave, so that it had taken all that length of time to bring him.
+Fulk had left all to be told on his arrival.  He had come by the
+mail-coach, and walked up from the Trevorsham Arms, where he had been
+told of our father's death; and so had let himself in noiselessly,
+and was standing in the dining-room door, hearing all that Fulk said!
+
+Poor fellow!  Jaquetta flung herself on him, hiding her face against
+him, while the servants went, and before any one else could speak,
+Hester stood forth, and said, to our amazement--
+
+"Captain Trevor!  You know me.  You can and must bear me witness, and
+do me justice--"
+
+"You!  I have seen you before--but--where?  I beg your pardon," he
+said, bewildered.
+
+"You remember Sault St. Pierre farm?" she said.
+
+"Sault St. Pierre!  What?  You are Mrs. Lea!  Good heavens!  Where is
+your mother?"
+
+"My mother is dead, sir.  You were the first person who made known to
+her that her husband, my father, was not dead, but had taken--or
+pretended to take--an English woman for his wife."
+
+"Wait!" thundered Fulk, "whatever my father did was ignorantly and
+honourably done!"
+
+Bertram was as pale as death, and looked from one of us to the other,
+and at last, he gasped out--
+
+"And that--was what she meant?"
+
+"There, sir," said Hester, turning to Torwood, "You see your brother
+cannot deny it!  You will not refuse justice to me, and my son."
+
+I fancy she expected that the house was to be given up to her, and
+that we were only to remain there on her sufferance, perhaps till
+after the funeral.
+
+My brother spoke, "Justice will no doubt be done; but the question
+does not lie between you and me, but between me and Alured.  It is,
+as I said, a peerage question--and will be decided by the peers.
+Incidentally, that enquiry will prove what is your position and rank,
+as well as what may or may not be ours.  Any further points depend
+upon my father's will, and that will be in the hands of Mr. Eagles.
+I think you can see that it would be impossible, as well as
+unfeeling, to take any steps until after the funeral."
+
+Whatever Hester Lea was, she was a high-spirited being, standing
+there, a solitary woman, a stranger, with all of us four, and one
+whole household, as it must have seemed, against her.  I was outraged
+and shocked at her defiance at the time, but when, some time after, I
+re-read King John, I saw that there was something of Constance in
+her.
+
+"That may be," she answered, "but when my child's interests are at
+stake, I cannot haggle over conventionalities and proprieties.  I am
+the Earl of Trevorsham's only legitimate daughter, and I claim my
+right to remain in his house, and to take charge of my infant
+brother."
+
+A sign from Fulk stopped me, as I was going to scream at this.
+
+"Remember," he said, "your identity has yet to be proved."
+
+"Your brother there must needs witness.  He has done so."
+
+"What do you witness to, Bertram?" asked Fulk.
+
+"I do not know; I cannot understand," said Bertram.  "I saw this
+person in a farm in Lower Canada, and there was an old lady who
+seemed to have known my father, and was very much amazed to find he
+was not killed in 1814.  I did not hear her name, nor know whose
+mother she was, nor anything about her, nor what this dreadful
+business means."
+
+"At any rate," said Fulk to her, "your claim to remain in the house
+must depend on the legal proof of the fact.  My father's first
+marriage is undoubted, but absolute legal certainty that you are the
+child of that marriage alone can entitle you to take rank as his
+daughter; and, therefore, I am not compelled to admit your claim to
+remain here, though if you will refrain from renewing this discussion
+till after the funeral, I will not ask you to leave the house."
+
+"I do not recognize your right to ask or not to ask," she said,
+undauntedly.
+
+"I am either Lord Trevorsham's rightful heir--and it is not yet shown
+that I am not--or else I am the guardian he appointed for his son.  I
+know this to be so, and Mr. Eagles, who will soon be here, will show
+it to you in the will if you wish it.  Therefore, until the decision
+is made, when, if it goes against me, the child will no doubt be made
+a ward in Chancery, I am the person responsible for him and his
+property."
+
+"I have no doubt you will take advantage of me and of every quibble
+against me;" and there at last she began to break down; "but if there
+is justice in heaven or earth my child shall have it, though you and
+all were leagued against him."
+
+And there she began to sob.  And those brothers of mine, they
+actually grew compassionate; they ran after wine; they called us to
+bring salts, and help her.  Emily shuddered, and put her hands behind
+her; but Jaquetta actually ran up to the woman, and coaxed her and
+comforted her, when I had rather have coaxed a tigress.
+
+But I had to go to the table and pour out tea and give it to her with
+all the rest.  I don't know how we got through that breakfast.  But
+we did, and then I made the housekeeper put her into the very best
+rooms.  Anything if she would only stay there out of the way.
+
+When I came back, I found Fulk explaining why he had spoken at once,
+and he said he felt that she would have no scruples about taking the
+initiative, and that everyone would be having surmises.
+
+Poor Bertram was even more cut up than we were.  It came more
+suddenly, and he felt as if it was all his doing.  He had no hope,
+and he took all ours away.  There had been something in the old woman
+that impressed him as genuine, and he had no doubt that she had known
+and loved our father.  Nay, no one could suspect Hester of not
+believing in her own story; the only question was whether the links
+of evidence could be substantiated.
+
+The next thing that happened--I can't tell which day it was--was Mrs.
+Deerhurst's coming, professing to be dreadfully shocked and overcome
+by my father's death, to take away Emily.  She must be so much in our
+way.  I, who saw her first, answered only by begging to keep her--our
+great comfort and the one thing that cheered and upheld my brother.
+
+Mrs. Deerhurst looked keenly at me; and I began to wonder what she
+knew, but just then came Fulk into the room, with his calm, set,
+determined face.  I knew he would rather speak without me, so I went
+away, and only knew what he could bear to tell me afterwards.
+
+Mrs. Deerhurst had been a great deal kinder than he expected.  No
+doubt she would not break the thing off while there was a shred of
+hope that he was an earl; but he could not drive her to allow, in so
+many words, that it must depend upon that.
+
+He had quite made up his mind that it was not right to enjoy Emily's
+presence and the comfort it gave him, unless he was secure of Mrs.
+Deerhurst's permitting the engagement under his possible
+circumstances.
+
+I believe he nattered himself she would, and let her deceive him with
+thinking so, instead of, as we all did, seeing that what she wanted
+was to secure the credit of being constant and disinterested in case
+he retained his position.  So, although she took Emily home, she left
+him cheered and hopeful, admiring her, and believing that she so
+regarded her daughter's happiness that, if he had enough to support
+her, she would overlook the loss of rank and title.  He went on half
+the evening talking about what a remarkable woman Mrs. Deerhurst was;
+and, at any rate, it cheered him up through those worst days.
+
+Our Lupton uncles came, and were frightfully shocked and incredulous;
+at least, Uncle George was.  Uncle Lupton himself remembered
+something of my father having told him of a former affair in America.
+
+They would not let Jaquetta and me go to the funeral; and they were
+wise, for Hester thrust herself in--but it is of no use to think
+about that.  Indeed, there is not much to tell about that time, and I
+need not go into the investigation.  It was all taken out of our
+hands, as my brother had said.  Perrault came over from Canada, and
+brought his witnesses, but not Joel Lea.  He had nothing to prove,
+had conscientious scruples about appearing in an English court of
+justice, and still hoped it would all come to nothing.
+
+We stayed on at the London house--the lawyers said we ought, and that
+possession was "nine-tenths," &c.  Besides, we wanted advice for
+Baby, who had been worse of late.
+
+The end of it was that it went against us.  Faith's marriage, her
+identity, and Hester's, were proved beyond all doubt, and little
+Alured was served Earl of Trevorsham.  Poor child, how ill he was
+just then!  It was declared water on the brain!  I could hardly think
+about anything else; but they all said it seemed like a mockery, and
+that he would not bear the title a week.  And then Lady Hester would
+have been, not Countess of Trevorsham, but Viscountess Torwood, and
+at any rate she halved the personal property: all that had been meant
+for us.
+
+For we already knew that there was nothing in the will that could do
+us any good.  All depended on my mother's marriage settlements, and
+as the marriage was invalid they were so much waste paper.
+
+My uncles, to whom my poor mother's fortune reverted, would not touch
+it, and gave every bit back to us; but it was only 10,000 pounds, and
+what was that among the four of us?
+
+I was in a sort of maze all the time, thinking of very little beyond
+dear little Alured's struggle for life, and living upon his little
+faint smiles when he was a shade better.
+
+Jaquetta has told me more of what passed than I heeded at the time.
+
+Our brothers decided not to retain the Trevor name, to which we had
+no right; but they had both been christened Torwood; after an old
+family custom, and they thought it best to use this still as a
+surname.
+
+Bertram felt the shame, as he would call it, the most; but Fulk held
+up his head more.  He said where there was no sin there was no shame;
+and that to treat ourselves as under a blot of disgrace was insulting
+our parents, who had been mistaken, but not guilty.
+
+Bertram was determined against returning to his regiment, and it
+would have been really too expensive.  His plan was to keep together,
+and lay out our capital upon a piece of ground in New Zealand, which
+was beginning to be settled.
+
+Jaquetta was always ready to be delighted.  Dear child, her head was
+full of log huts and Robinson Crusoe life, and cows to milk herself;
+and I really think she would have liked to go ashore in the Swiss
+family's eight tubs!
+
+The thorough change, after all the sorrow, seemed delicious to her!
+I heard her and Bertram laughing down below, and wondered if they got
+the length of settling what dogs they would take out!
+
+And Fulk!  He really had almost persuaded himself that Emily would go
+with us; or at the very worst, would wait till he had achieved
+prosperity and could come home and fetch her.
+
+Mrs. Deerhurst had declared that waiting for the decision was so bad
+for her nerves, that she must take her to Paris; and actually our
+dear old stupid fellow had not perceived what that meant, for the
+woman had let him part tenderly with Emily in London, with promises
+of writing, &c., the instant the case was decided.  It passed his
+powers to suppose she could expose her daughter's heart to such a
+wreck.  So he held up, cheerful and hopeful, thinking what a treasure
+of constancy he had!  And when they had built their castle in New
+Zealand, they sent up Jaquey to call me to share it with them.  Baby
+was asleep, and I went down; but when I heard the plan--it was cross
+to be so unsympathizing, but I did feel hurt and angry at their
+forgetting him; and I said, "I shall never leave Alured."
+
+"Ursula! you could not stay by yourself," said Jaquey.  And Bertram,
+who had hardly ever seen him, and could not care for him said it was
+nonsense, and even if there were a chance of the child living, I
+could not be left behind.
+
+I was wrought up, and broke out that he would and should live, and
+that I would come as a stranger, a nursery governess, and watch over
+him, and never abandon him to Hester.
+
+"Never fear, Ursula," said Fulk, "if he lives, he will be in safe
+hands."
+
+"Safe hands!  What are safe hands for a child like that!  Hester's,
+who only wishes him out of her way?"
+
+"For shame!" the others said, and I answered that, of course, I did
+not think Hester meant ill by him, but that, where the doctors had
+said only love and care could save him--no care was safe where he was
+not loved; and I cried very, very bitterly, more than I had done even
+for my father, or for anything else before; and I fell into a storm
+of passion, at the cruelty of leaving the poor little thing, whom his
+dying mother had trusted to me, and declared I would never, never do
+it.
+
+I was right in the main, it seems to me, but unjust and naughty in
+the way I did it; and when Fulk, with some hesitation, began to talk
+of my not being asked to go just yet--not while the child lived--I
+turned round in a really violent, naughty fit, with--"You too, Fulk,
+I thought you loved your little brother better than that?  You only
+want to be rid of him, and leave him to Hester, and he will die in
+her hands."
+
+Fulk began to say that the Court of Chancery never gave the custody
+to the next heir.  But I rushed away again to the nursery, and sat
+there, devising plans of disguising myself in a close cap and blue
+spectacles, and coming to offer myself as Lord Trevorsham's
+governess.
+
+The child had no relations whatever on his mother's side, and though,
+if he had been healthy, nurses and tutors might have taken care of
+this baby lordship, even that would have been sad enough; and for the
+feeble little creature, whose life hung on a thread, how was it to be
+thought of?  I fully made up my mind to stay, even if they all went.
+I told Jaquetta, so--in my vehemence dashed all her bright
+anticipation, and sent her again in tears to bed.  I wish unhappiness
+would not make one so naughty!
+
+The next day poor Fulk was struck down.  A letter came from Mrs.
+Deerhurst to break off the engagement, and a great parcel containing
+all the things he had given Emily.  She must have packed them up
+before leaving England, while she was still flattering him.  Not a
+word nor a line was there from Emily herself!--only a supplication
+from the mother that he would not rend her child's heart by
+persisting--just as if she had not encouraged him to go on all this
+time!
+
+Nothing would serve him but that he must dash over to Paris, to see
+her and Emily.
+
+Railroads were not, and it was a ten days' affair at the shortest;
+and, with all our prospects doubtful and Alured still so ill, it was
+very trying.  How Bertram did rave at the folly and futility of the
+expedition! but one comfort was, that Alured was a ward of Chancery,
+and, in the vast kindness and commiseration everyone bestowed upon
+us, no one tried to hurry us or turn us out.
+
+Hester used to come continually to inquire after her brother, and
+there was something in her way that always made me shudder when she
+asked after him.  I knew she could not wish for his life, and gloated
+over all the reports she could collect of his weakness.  I felt more
+and more horror of her; God forgive me for not having tried not to
+hate her.  I sometimes doubt whether my dread and distrust were not
+visible, and may not have put it into her head.
+
+And then came Mr. Decies, again and again.  He was faithful--I see it
+now.  He cared not if I had neither name nor fortune; he held fast to
+his proposals.  And I?  Oh, I was absorbed--I was universally
+defiant--I did not do him justice in the bitterness I did not
+realise.  I thought he was constant only out of honour and pity, and
+I did not choose to open my heart to understand his pleadings or
+accept them as earnest--I was harsh.  Oh, how little one knows what
+one is doing!  Too proud to be grateful--that was actually my case.
+I was enamoured of the blue-spectacle plan; I had romances of
+watching Alured day and night, and pouring away dangerous draughts.
+The very fancy, I see now, was playing with edged tools; I feel as if
+my imagination had put the possibility into the very air.
+
+Once indeed--when Jaquetta had been telling me she did not understand
+my unkindness; and observed that, even for Alured's sake, she could
+not see why I did not accept--I did begin to regard him as a possible
+protector for the boy.  But no; the blue spectacles would be the more
+assiduous guardian, said my foolish fancy.
+
+Before I had thought it over into sense or reason, Fulk came back
+from Paris.  He had not been really crushed till now.  He was white,
+and silent, and resolute, and very gentle; all excitement of manner
+gone.  He did not say one word, but we knew it was all over with him,
+and that he could not have had one scrap of comfort or hope.
+
+Nor had he, though even to me he told nothing, till we were together
+in the dark one evening, much later.  He did insist upon seeing
+Emily; but her mother would not leave her, or take her eyes off her,
+and the timid thing did nothing but sob and cry, in utter
+helplessness and shame, and never even gave him a look.
+
+It was not the being neglected and cast off that he felt as such a
+wrong, to both himself and Emily, but the being drawn on with false
+hopes and promises to expect that she was to belong to him, after
+all; and he was cruelly disappointed that Emily had not energy to
+cling to him--he had made so sure of her.
+
+Bertram and Jaquetta had expected all along that he would be the more
+eager to be off to the Antipodes when everything was swept away from
+him here, and he did sit after dinner talking it over in a business-
+like way, while Bertram gave him all the information he had been
+collecting in his absence.
+
+I would not listen.  I was determined against going away from my
+charge; I had rather have been his housemaid than have left him to
+Hester, and I must have looked like a stone as I got up, and left
+them to their talk while I went back to the boy.
+
+I heard Bertram say while I was lighting my candle, "Poor Ursula! she
+will not see it.  Hart told me to-day that the child is dying--would
+hardly get through the night."
+
+Now I had been thinking all the afternoon that he was better, and I
+had gone down to dinner cheered.  I turned into the doorway, and told
+Fulk to come and see.
+
+He did come.  There was Alured, lying, as he had lain all day, upon
+his nurse's knees, with her arm under his head.  He had not moaned
+for a long time, and I had left him in a more comfortable sleep.  He
+opened his eyes as we came in, held out his hands more strongly than
+we thought he could have done, quite smiled--such an intelligent
+smile--and said, "Tor--Tor--," which was what he had always called
+his brother, making his gesture to go to him.
+
+The tears came into Fulk's eyes, though he smiled back and spoke in
+his sweet, strong voice, and held out his arms, while we told him he
+had better sit down.  Poor nurse! she must have been glad enough--she
+had held him all that live-long day!  And he was quite eager to go to
+his brother, and smiled up and cooed out, "Tor--Tor," again, as he
+felt himself on the strong arm.
+
+Fulk bade nurse go and lie down, and he would hold him.  And so he
+did.  I fed the child, as I had done at intervals all day; and he
+sometimes slept, sometimes woke and murmured or cooed a little, and
+Fulk scarcely spoke or stirred, hour after hour.  He had been
+travelling day and night, but, strange to say, that enforced calm--
+that tender stillness and watching, was better for him than rest.  He
+would only have tossed about awake, if he had gone to bed after a
+discussion with Bertram.
+
+But in the morning Dr. Hart came, quite surprised to find the child
+alive; and when he looked at him and felt his pulse, he said, "You
+have saved him for this time, at least."
+
+(Everybody was lavish of pronouns, and chary of proper names.  Nobody
+knew what to call anybody.)
+
+His little lordship was able to be laid in his cot, and Fulk, almost
+blind now with sheer sleep, stumbled off to his room, threw himself
+on his bed, and slept for seven hours in his clothes without so much
+as moving.  He confessed that he had never had such unbroken,
+dreamless sleep since he had first seen Hester Lea's face.
+
+That little murmur of "Tor--Tor" had settled all our fates.  I don't
+think he had realised before how love was the one thing that the
+child's life hung upon, and that the boy himself must have that love
+and trust.  Then, too, when he had waked and dressed and come down,
+the first person he met was Hester, with her hard, glittering eyes,
+trying to condole, and not able to hide how the exulting look went
+out of her face on hearing that the Earl (as she chose to term him)
+was better.
+
+She supposed some arrangement would soon be made, and Fulk said he
+should see the lawyers at once about it, and arrange for the personal
+guardianship of Lord Trevorsham.
+
+"Of course I am the only proper person while he lives, poor child,"
+she said.
+
+I broke in with, "The next heir is never allowed the custody."
+
+I wish I had not.  She hastily and proudly said "What do you mean?"
+and Fulk quickly added that "the Lord Chancellor would decide."
+
+The next day he went out, and on returning came up to me in the
+nursery, and called me into the study.
+
+"Ursula," he said, "I find that, considering the circumstances, there
+will be no objection made to our retaining the personal charge of our
+little brother.  Everyone is very kind.  Ours is not a common case of
+illegitimacy, and my father's well-known express wishes will be
+allowed to prevail."
+
+"And your character," I could not help saying; and he owned that it
+did go for something, that he was known to everybody, and had some
+standing of his own, apart from the rank he had lost.
+
+Then he went on to say that this would of course put an end to the
+emigration plan, so far as he was concerned.  No doubt in the
+restless desire of change coming after such a fall and disappointment
+it was a great sacrifice; but as he said, "There did not seem
+anything left for him in life but just to try to do what seemed most
+like one's duty."  And then he said it did not seem a worthy thing to
+do nothing, but just exist on a confined income, and the only thing
+he did know anything about, and was not too old to learn, was
+farming, and managing an estate.
+
+Trevorsham would want an agent, for old Hall was so old, that my
+brother had really done all his work for a year or two past; and he
+had felt his way enough to know he could get appointed to the agency,
+if he chose.  The house was to be let, but there was a farm to be had
+about two miles off, with a good house, and he thought of taking it,
+and stocking it, and turning regular farmer on his own account; while
+looking after the property, and bringing Alured up among his own
+people and interests.
+
+Bertram did not like this at all.  "Among all our old friends and
+acquaintance?  Impossible! unbearable!" he said.
+
+But Fulk's answer, was-- "Better so!  If we went to a strange place,
+and tried to conceal it, it would always be oozing out, and be
+supposed disgraceful.  If my sisters can bear it, I had rather
+confront it straightforwardly--"
+
+"And be _pitied_"--said Bertram, with _such_ a contemptuous tone.
+
+Nobody, however, thought it would be advisable for him to give up the
+New Zealand plan, nor did he ever mean it for a moment; indeed, he
+declared that he should go and prepare for us; for that we should
+very soon get tired of Skimping's Farm, and come out to him; meaning,
+of course, that our dear charge would be over.
+
+He even wanted Jaquetta to come with him at once, and the log huts
+and fern trees danced before her eyes as the blue spectacles had done
+before mine; but she did not like to leave me, and Fulk would not
+encourage it, for we both thought her much too young and too tenderly
+brought up to be sent out to a wild settler's life alone with
+Bertram, and without a friend near.
+
+To be farmers' sisters where we had been the Earl's daughters--well,
+I had much rather then that it had been somewhere else; but I saw it
+was best for Baby and still more so for Fulk, and clear little Jaquey
+held fast to me and to him, and so it was settled!
+
+Our friends and relatives had much rather we had all emigrated.  They
+did not know what to do with us, and would have been glad to have had
+us all out of sight for ever, "damaged goods shipped off to the
+colonies."  We felt this and it heartened us up to stay out of the
+spirit of opposition.
+
+Old Aunt Amelia, who fussed and cried over us, and our two uncles,
+who gave us good advice by the yard!  Alas! I fear we were equally
+ungrateful to them, both cold and impatient.  No, we did not bear it
+really well, though they said we did.  We had plenty of pride and
+self-respect, and that carried us on; but there was no submission, no
+notion of taking it religiously.  I don't mean that we did not go to
+church, and in the main try to do right.  Any one more upright than
+my brother it would have been hard to find; but as to any notion that
+religious feeling could help us, and that our reverse might be
+blessed to us, that would have seemed a very strange language indeed!
+
+And so we were hard, we would bear no sympathy but from one another,
+and even among ourselves we never gave way.
+
+People admired us, I fancy, but were alienated and disappointed, and
+we were quite willing _then_ to have it so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.  SKIMPING'S FARM.
+
+
+
+Skimping's Farm was the unlucky name of the place, and Fulk would
+allow of no modification--his resolution was to accept it all
+entirely.  Now I love no spot on earth so well.  It was very
+different then.
+
+The farm-house lay on the slope of the hill, in the parish of
+Trevorsham, but with the park lying between it and the main village.
+The ground sloped sharply down to the little river, which, about two
+miles lower down, blends with the Avon, being, in fact, a creek out
+of Shinglebay.  Beneath the house the stream is clear and rocky, but
+then comes a flat of salt marsh, excellent for cattle; and then,
+again, the river becomes tidal, and reaches at high water to the
+steep banks, sometimes covered with wood, sometimes with pasture or
+corn.
+
+Then under the little promontory comes the hamlet of fisherfolk at
+Quay Trevor; and then the coast sweeps away to Shinglebay town, as
+anyone may see by the map.
+
+Ours is an old farm, and had an orchard of old apple-trees sloping
+down to the river--as also did the home field, only divided by a low
+stone wall from the little strip of flower-garden before the house,
+which in those days had nothing in it but two tamarisks, a tea-tree,
+and a rose with lovely buds and flowers that always had green hearts.
+
+There was a good-sized kitchen-garden behind, and the farm-yard was
+at the side by the back door.  The house is old and therefore was
+handsome outside, even then, but the chief of the lower story was
+comprised in one big room, a "keeping-room," as it was called, with
+an open chimney, screened by a settle, and with a long polished
+table, with a bench on either side.  Into this room the front porch--
+a deep one, with seats--opened.  At one end was a charming little
+sitting-room, parted off; at the other, the real kitchen for cooking,
+and the dairy and all the rest of the farm offices.
+
+Up-stairs--the stairs are dark oak, and come down at one end of the
+big kitchen--there is one beautiful large room, made the larger by a
+grand oriel window under the gable, one opening out of it, and four
+more over the offices; then a step-ladder and a great cheese-room,
+and a perfect wilderness of odd nooks up in the roof.
+
+As to furniture, Fulk had bought that with the stock and everything
+else belonging to the farm for a round sum; and the Chancery people
+told us that we might take anything for ourselves from home that had
+been bought by ourselves, had belonged to our mother, or been given
+to us individually.
+
+So the furniture of Fulk's rooms in London--most of which he had had
+at Oxford--my own piano, our books, and various little worktables,
+chairs, pictures, and knicknacks appertained to us; also, we brought
+what belonged to the little one's nursery, and put him in the large
+room.  His grand nurse--Earl though he was--could not stand the
+change; but old Blake, who was retiring into a public house, as he
+could do nothing else for us, suggested his youngest sister, who
+became the comfort of my life, for she was the widow of a small
+farmer, and could give me plenty of sound counsel as to how much pork
+to provide for the labourers, and how much small beer would keep them
+in good heart, and not make them too merry.  And she had too much
+good sense to get into rivalry with Susan Sisson, the hind's wife,
+who lived in a kind of lean-to cottage opening into the farm-yard,
+and was the chief (real) manager of the dairy and poultry--though
+such was not Jaquetta's view of the case by any manner of means.
+
+What a help it was to have one creature who did enjoy it all from the
+very first!
+
+The parting with Bertram was sore, and one's heart will ache after
+him still at times, though he is prosperous and happy with his wife
+and fine family at the new Trevorsham.  Fulk went through it all in a
+grave set way, as if he knew he never should be happy again, and
+accepted everything in silence, as a matter of course, not wanting to
+sadden us, but often grieving me more by his steady silence than if
+he had complained.
+
+One thing he was resolved on, that he would be a farmer out and out--
+not a gentleman farmer, as he said; but though he only wore
+broadcloth in the evening and on Sundays, I can't say he ever
+succeeded in not looking more of the gentleman.
+
+We fitted up the little parlour with our prettiest things, and it was
+our morning room, and we put a screen across the big keeping-room,
+which made it snug for a family gathering place.  But those were the
+days when everyone was abusing the farmers for not living with their
+labourers in the house, and Fulk was determined to try it, at least
+the first year, either for the sake of consistency, or because he was
+resolved to keep our expenses as low as possible.  "Failure would be
+ruin," he impressed on us, and he thought we ought to live on the
+profits of the farm, except what was directly spent on the boy, and
+to save the income of the agency.  (Taking one year with another, we
+did so.)
+
+So he gave up his own dear old Cid, and only used the same horses
+that had sufficed for our predecessor--a most real loss and
+deprivation--and he chose to take meals at the long table in the
+keeping-room with the farm servants.  He said we girls might dine in
+our little parlour apart, but there was no bearing that, and the
+whole household dined and supped together.  Breakfast was at such
+uncertain times that we left that for the back kitchen, and had our
+own little round table by the fire, or in the parlour, at half-past
+seven; and so we took care to have a good cup of coffee for Fulk when
+he came in about five or six; but the half-past twelve dinner and
+eight o'clock supper were at the long table, our three selves and
+Baby at the top--Baby between me and Mrs. Rowe ("Ally's Rowe," as he
+called her), then George and Susan Sisson opposite each other, the
+under nurse, the two maids, the hind, and the three lads.
+
+I believe it was a very awful penance to them at first.  We used to
+hear them splashing away at the pump and puffing like porpoises; and
+they came in with shining faces and lank hair in wet rats' tails, the
+foremost of which they pulled on all occasions of sitting down,
+getting up, or being offered food.
+
+But they always behaved very well, and the habit of the animal at
+feeding-time is so silent that I believe the restraint was
+compensated by the honour; and it did civilise them, thanks, perhaps,
+to Susan's lectures on manners, which we sometimes overheard.
+
+Fulk made spasmodic attempts to talk to Sisson; but the chief
+conversation was Jaquetta's.  She went on merrily all dinner-time,
+asking about ten thousand things, and hazarding opinions that
+elicited amusement in spite of ourselves: as when she asked, what
+sheep did with their other two legs, or suggested growing canary
+seed, as sure to be a profitable crop.  Indeed, I think she had a
+little speculation in it on her own account in the kitchen garden--
+only the sparrows were too many for her--and what they left would not
+ripen.
+
+But the child was always full of some new and rare device, rattling
+on anyhow, not for want of sense, but just to force a smile out of
+Fulk and keep us all alive, as she called it.  She knew every bird
+and beast on the farm, fed the chickens, collected the eggs, nursed
+tender chicks or orphan lambs and weaning calves, and was in and out
+with the dogs all day, really as happy as ten queens, with the
+freedom and homely usefulness of the life--tripping daintily about in
+the tall pattens of farm life in those days, and making fresh
+enjoyment and fun of everything.
+
+I used to be half vexed to see her grieve so little over all we had
+lost; but Fulk said, "I suppose it is very hard to break down a
+creature at that age."
+
+And even I was cheered by the wonderful start of health Alured took
+from the time Mrs. Rowe had him.  He grew fat and rosy, and learnt to
+walk; and Dr. Hart was quite astonished at his progress, and said he
+was nearly safe from any more attacks of that fearful water on the
+brain till he was six or seven years old, and that, till that time,
+we must let him be as much as possible in the open air, and with the
+animals, and not stimulate his brain--neither teach, nor excite, nor
+contradict him, nor let him cry.  The farm life was evidently the
+very thing he wanted.
+
+What a reprieve it was, even though it should be only a reprieve!
+
+He was already three years old, and was very clever and observant.
+
+We were glad that he was too young to take heed of the change, or to
+see what was implied by his change from "baby," to "my lord," and we
+always called him by his Christian name.  Mrs. Rowe felt far too much
+for us to gossip to him, and he was always with her or with me,
+though I do believe he liked Ben--the great, rough, hind--better than
+anyone else; would lead Mrs. Rowe long dances after him, to see him
+milk the cows, and would hold forth to him at dinner, in a way as
+diverting to us as it was embarrassing to poor Ben, who used to blurt
+out at intervals, "Yoi, my lord," and "Noa, my lord," while the two
+maids tried to swallow their tittering.  The farmers at market used
+to call Fulk, "my lord," by mistake, and then colour up to their eyes
+through their red faces.
+
+I believe, indeed, it was their name for him among themselves, and
+that they watched him with a certain contemptuous compassion, in the
+full belief that he would ruin himself.
+
+And he declares he should if he had lived a bit more luxuriously, or
+if he had not had the agency salary to help him through the years of
+buying experience and the bad season with which he began.
+
+Nor was it till he had for some years introduced that capital breed
+which thrives so well in the salt marshes, and twice following showed
+up the prize ox at the county show, that they began to believe in
+"Farmer Torwood," or think his "advanced opinions" in agriculture
+anything but a gentleman's whimsies.
+
+As to friends and acquaintance, I am afraid we showed a great deal of
+pride and stiffness.  They were kinder than we deserved, but we
+thought it prying and patronage, and would not accept what we could
+not return.
+
+It is not fair to say we.  It was only myself--Jaquetta never saw
+anything but kindness, and took it pleasantly, and Fulk was too busy
+and too unhappy to be concerned about our visiting matters.  If I saw
+anyone coming to call I hid myself in the orchard, or if I was taken
+by surprise I was stiffness itself; and then I wrote a set of cards
+(Miss Torwood and Miss Jaquetta Torwood), and drove round in the
+queer old-fashioned gig to leave them, and there was an end of it;
+for I would accept no invitations, though Jaquetta looked at me
+wistfully.  And thus I daunted all but old Miss Prior.  Poor old
+thing!  All her pleasures had oozed down from our house in old times
+to her; and her gratitude was indomitable, and stood all imaginable
+rebuffs that courtesy permitted me.  I believe she only pitied and
+loved me the more, and persevered in the dreadful kindness that has
+no tact.
+
+It did not strike me that pleasure might be good for Jaquetta, or
+that Fulk's stern silent sorrow might have been lightened by variety.
+Used as he had been to political life and London society, it was no
+small change to have merely the market for interest, the farm for
+occupation, and no society but ourselves; no newspaper but the County
+Chronicle once a week; no new books, for Mudie did not exist then,
+even if we could have afforded it.  We had dropped out of the guinea
+country book club, and Knight's "Penny Magazine" was our only fresh
+literature.  However, Jaquetta never was much of a reader, and was
+full of business--queen of the poultry, and running after the weakly
+ones half the day, supplementing George Sisson's very inadequate
+gardening--aye, and his wife's equally rough cooking.  She found a
+receipt book, and turned out excellent dishes.  She could not bear,
+she said, to see Fulk try to eat grease, and with an effort at
+concealment, assisted by the dogs, fall back upon bread and cheese.
+
+Luckily plain work in the school-room had not gone out in our day,
+and I could make and mend respectably, but I had to keep a volume of
+Shakespeare, Scott, or Wordsworth open before me, and learn it by
+heart, to keep away thoughts, which might have been good for me; but
+no--they were working on their own bitterness.
+
+Sunday was the hardest day of all to Fulk, for this was the only one
+on which he could not be busy enough to tire himself out.  We were a
+mile from church, and when we got to the worm-eaten farm pew there
+was a smell, as Jaquey said, as if generations of farmers had been
+eating cheese there, and generations of mice eating after them; and
+she always longed to shut up a cat there.
+
+The old curate was very old, and nothing seemed alive but the fiddles
+in the gallery--indeed, after the "Penny Magazine" had made us
+acquainted with the Nibelung, Jaquey took to calling Sisson, Folker
+the mighty fiddler, so determined were his strains.
+
+After the great house was shut up, one service was dropped, and so
+the latter part of the day was spent in a visit to all the livestock,
+Fulk laden with Alured, and Jaquetta with tit bits for each and all.
+
+She and Alured really enjoyed it, and we tried to think we did!  And
+then Fulk used to stride off on a long solitary walk, or else sit in
+the porch with his arms across, in a dumb heavy silence, till he saw
+us looking at him; and then he would shake himself, and go and find
+Sisson, and discuss every field and beast with him.
+
+At least we thought we should have been at peace here; but one
+afternoon, when Jaquetta had gone across to the village to see some
+purchase at the shop, she came back flushed and breathless, and said
+as she sat down by me, "Oh! Ursie, Ursie, I met Miss Prior; and _she_
+has bought Spinney Lawn."
+
+_She_ was Hester; it had never meant anyone else amongst us when it
+was said in that voice.  Fulk, when we told him, had, it appeared,
+known it for some days past.  All he said was, "Well! she has every
+right."
+
+And when I exclaimed, "Just like a harpy, come to watch our poor
+child!" he said, "Nonsense."
+
+But I knew I was right, and sat brooding--till presently he said,
+"Put that out of your head, Ursula, or you will not be able to behave
+properly to her."
+
+"I don't see any good in behaving properly to her," said Jaquetta.
+"What business has she to come here?"
+
+"I do not choose to regale the neighbourhood with our family jars"--
+said Fulk, quietly.
+
+And then--such a ridiculous child as Jaquetta was--she burst out
+laughing, and cried, "What a feast they would be!   Preserved crabs,
+I suppose;" and she brought a tiny curl into the corner of his mouth.
+
+My pride was up, and I remember I answered, "You are right, Fulk.  No
+one shall say we are jealous, or shrink from the sight of her!"
+
+"When Smith told me that he had no idea who was the bidder, or he
+would not have suffered it," said Fulk, "I told him I could have no
+possible objection!"
+
+And so we endured it in our pride and our dignity.
+
+Lady Hester Lea was the heroine of the neighbourhood.  The romance of
+the disowned daughter was charming; and I was far too disagreeable to
+excite any counterbalancing pity.  She was handsome, and everybody
+raved about her likeness to poor papa and the family portraits; and
+her Montreal convent had given her manners quite distinct from
+English vulgarity; or, maybe, her blood told on her bearing, for she
+was immensely admired for her demeanour, quite as much as for her
+beauty.
+
+Old Miss Prior--whom no coldness on my part could check in her
+assiduous kindness, and nothing would hinder from affectionately
+telling us whatever we did not want to hear--kept us constantly
+informed of the new comer's triumphs.  Especially she would dwell
+upon the sensation that Lady Hester produced, and all that the
+gentlemen said of her.  Her name stood as lady patroness to all the
+balls and fancy fairs, and archery, that Shinglebay produced; and
+there was no going to shop there without her barouche coming
+clattering down the street with the two prancing greys, and poor
+little Trevor inside, with a looped-up hat and ostrich feather
+exactly like Alured's; for by some intention she always dressed him
+in the exact likeness of his little uncle's.  I used to think Miss
+Prior told her, and sedulously prevented her ever seeing his lordship
+out of his brown holland pinafores, but the same rule still held
+good.
+
+What tender enquiries poor Miss Prior used to make after "the dear
+little lord," as she called him.  My asseverations of his health and
+intelligence generally eliciting that it was current among Lady
+Hester's friends that he could neither stand nor speak, and was so
+imbecile that it was a mercy that he could not live to be eight years
+old.
+
+Of course that was what Hester was waiting for.  And no small
+pleasure was it when Alured would come pattering in with a shout of
+"Ursa, Ursa," and as soon as he saw a lady, would stop, and pull off
+his hat from his chestnut curls like the little gentleman he always
+was.
+
+Spinney Lawn was bought before Joel Lea came to England.  If he had
+seen where it was I doubt whether he would have consented to the
+purchase; but Perrault managed it all, and then, with what he had
+made out of the case, bought himself a share in Meakin's office at
+Shinglebay, and constituted himself Lady Hester's legal adviser.
+
+Mr. Lea, after vainly trying to get his wife to return to Sault St.
+Pierre, thought it wrong to be apart from her and his son, and came
+to England.
+
+Fulk went at once to call on him, expecting to be disgusted with
+Yankeeisms; but came home, saying he had found a more unlucky man
+than himself!
+
+Fancy a great, big, plain, hard-working back-woodsman, bred only to
+the axe and rifle, with illimitable forests to range in, happy in
+toil and homely plenty, and a little king to himself, set down in an
+English villa, with a trim garden and paddock, and servants
+everywhere to deprive him of the very semblance to occupation!
+
+Poor man! he had not even the alleviation of being proud of it, and
+trying to live up to it.  Puritan to the bone of his broad back, he
+thought everything as wicked as it was wearisome and foolish; and
+lived like Faithful in "Vanity Fair," solely enduring it for the sake
+of his wife and son.  I suppose he could not have carried her off, or
+altered her course without the strong hand; for she was a determined
+woman, all the more resolute because she acted for her child.
+
+He was a staunch Dissenter, and would not go to church with Lady
+Hester, who did so as a needful part of the belonging of her station,
+or, perhaps, to watch over us, but trudged two miles every Sunday to
+the meeting-house at Shinglebay, where he was a great light, and
+spent all that she allowed him on the minister and the Sunday school.
+
+As to society, he abhorred it on principle, and kept out of the way
+when his wife gave her parties.  If she had an old affection for him
+in the depths of her heart, it was swallowed up in vexation and
+provocation; and no wonder, for the verdict of society, as Miss Prior
+reported it, was--"How sad that such a woman as Lady Hester should
+have been thrown away on a mere common man--not a bit better than a
+labourer."
+
+I detested him like all the rest; but Fulk declared he was sublime in
+passive endurance, and used to make opportunities of consulting him
+about cattle or farming, just to interest him.
+
+Fulk and the dissenting minister were the only friends the poor man
+had, and the latter Hester would not let into her house.  As to
+Perrault, he loathed and shrank from him as the real destroyer of all
+his peace, and still the most dangerous influence about his wife.  He
+never said so, but we felt it.
+
+I think the poor man's happiest hours were spent here; and, now and
+then in a press of work, or to show how a thing ought to be done, he
+put his own hand to axe, lever, or hay-fork, and toiled with that
+cruelly-wasted alert strength.
+
+Fulk always says there never was anyone who taught him so much as
+Joel Lea, and he means deeper things than farming.
+
+Sometimes Mr. Lea brought his little boy.  I was vexed at first; but
+Alured, who had hardly spoken to a child before, was in ecstasies, as
+if a new existence had come upon him; and Trevor Lea was really a
+very nice little boy.  He was only half a year the elder; and they
+were so much alike that strangers did not know them apart, dressed
+alike, as they were; or they were taken for twins, and it made people
+laugh to find they were uncle and nephew.
+
+And I must allow the nephew was the best behaved, though it made me
+savage to hear Fulk say so.  But our Ally's was not real naughtiness-
+-only the consequence of our not being able to keep up discipline,
+while we lived in dread  of that seventh year that might rob us of
+our darling--always sweet and loving.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.  SPINNEY LAWN.
+
+
+
+A change or two began to creep into our life.  One afternoon, as
+Jaquetta, in her pretty pink gingham and white apron, with her black
+hair in the Grecian coil we used to wear when our heads were allowed
+to be of their own proper size, was gathering crimson apples from the
+quarrendon tree close to the river, a voice came over the water--
+
+"Oh, my good girl, if you would but stand so a minute, and allow me
+to sketch you!"
+
+Jaquetta started round and laughed.  No doubt she was looking like an
+Arcadian; but I--as from under the trees I saw two gentlemen on the
+other side of the little stream, and jumped up to come to her
+defence--I must have looked more like a displeased if not draggle-
+tailed duchess, for there was an immediate disconcerted begging of
+our pardons, and a hasty departure.
+
+Jaquetta made a very funny account of my spring forward in awful
+dignity, so horribly affronted at her being called a good girl! and
+she made Fulk laugh heartily.  The gloom did seem to be lightening on
+him now.
+
+Walking tourists, we supposed, though one we thought was a clergyman;
+and on Sunday we saw him in the desk and the draughtsman in the
+parsonage pew; and we discovered that these were the proposed new
+curate, Mr. Cradock, and his younger brother.  Our rector was a canon
+who had bad health and never came near us, and the poor old curate
+was past work, and, indeed, died a week or two after he had given up.
+
+I saw that younger brother colour up to the roots of his bright hair
+as Jaquetta walked up the aisle, in her drawn black silk bonnet with
+the pink lining (made by herself); and I think she coloured too, for
+she was rosier than usual when we faced round in the corners of our
+pew.
+
+We saw no more of them for a month, and a dainty, bridal-looking
+little lady appeared in the parsonage seat, with white ribbons in her
+straw bonnet, and modest little orange flowers in the frill round her
+pleasant face.
+
+Mrs. Cradock she was, we heard; and not only Miss Prior, but Fulk,
+wanted us to call on her.
+
+"What's the use?" said I.  "Farmers' families are not on visiting
+terms with the ladies of the parsonage."
+
+Poor Jaquey uttered an "Oh dear!" but she and Fulk knew I was past
+moving in that mood.
+
+However, one morning in the next week, in walked Fulk into the
+keeping-room, and the clergyman with him, and found Jaquey and me
+standing at the long table under the window, peeling and cutting up
+apples for apple-cheese.
+
+"Mr. Cradock, my sister," he said, just in the old tone when he
+brought a friend into our St. James's-street drawing-room; and he
+hardly gave time for the shaking of hands before he had returned to
+the discussion about the change of ministry, just with the voice and
+animation I had not seen for two whole years.
+
+We went on with our apples.  For one thing, we were not wanted; for
+another, there was no fire in the little parlour, and the gentlemen
+both seemed to be enjoying the bright one that was burning on the
+hearth.
+
+The only difficulty was that dinner time began to approach.  The men
+could not be kept waiting; and I heard Alured awake from his sleep,
+pattering about and shouting; and as we began to gather up our apples
+one of the maids peeped in with a table-cloth over her arm.
+
+Mr. Cradock saw, though Fulk did not, and said his wife would expect
+him; and then he looked most pleasantly to  me, and said he was not
+at all wanted at home, while his wife was luxuriating in a settlement
+of furniture; but this was, he was assured, the last day of
+confusion, and to-morrow she would be quite ready for all who would
+be so good as to call on her.
+
+I could only say I would do myself the pleasure; and then he still
+waited a moment to say that his brother Arthur could not recover from
+his dismay at his greeting to Miss Torwood.
+
+"But," he said, "the boy's head was quite turned by the beauty of the
+country.  He had been raving all day about the new poet, Alfred
+Tennyson, and I believe he thought he had walked into lotus-land."
+
+"Nearer the dragon of the Hesperides, perhaps," said Fulk, laughing.
+"Is he with you now?"
+
+"No; he has gone back to Oxford.  He is in his second year; and
+whether he takes to medicine or to art is to be settled by common-
+sense or genius."
+
+"Oh, but if he has genius?" began Jaquetta eagerly.
+
+"That's the question," said Mr. Cradock, laughing.  "But I am
+hindering you shamefully," and with that he took his leave, having
+quite demolished our barriers.
+
+And his wife was of the same nature--simple, blithe, and bonny--ready
+to make friends in a moment; and though she must have known all about
+us, never seeming to remember anything but that we were her nearest
+lady neighbours.
+
+Jaquetta, whose young friendships had been broken short off, because
+the poor girls really did not know how to correspond with her under
+present circumstances, took to Mrs. Cradock with eager enthusiasm,
+and tripped across the park to her two or three times a week, and
+became delightedly interested in all her doings, parochial or
+otherwise.
+
+Dear Jaquey's happy nature had always been content; but when I saw
+how exceedingly she enjoyed the variety, liveliness, and occupations
+brought by the Cradocks, I felt that it had been scarcely kind to
+seclude her to gratify my own sole pride; but then there had been
+nobody like the Cradocks--to drop or be dropped.
+
+The refreshment to Fulk was even greater.  The having a man to
+converse with, and break his mind against, one who would argue, and
+who really cared for the true principles of politics, made an immense
+difference to him.  When after tea he said he would walk to the
+parsonage to see how the debate had gone, and we knew we should not
+see him till half-past ten, we could not but be glad; it must have
+been so much pleasanter than playing at chess, listening to our old
+music, or reading even the new books they lent us.
+
+He brightened greatly that winter, and I ceased to fear that he was
+getting a farmer's slouch.  He looked as stately and beautiful as
+ever Lord Torwood had done, and the dejection had gone out of his
+face and bearing, when suddenly it returned again; and as Miss Prior
+was away from home, I never found out the cause till one day, as I
+was shopping at Shinglebay, and was telling the linen draper that Mr.
+Torwood would call for the parcel, I saw the lady at the other
+counter start and turn round, as if at a sudden shock.
+
+Then I saw the white doe eyes, full of the old pleading expression,
+and the lips quivering wistfully, but I only said to myself, "The old
+arts!  That is what has overthrown Fulk again;" and away I went with
+a rigid bow, and said nothing.
+
+There was no exchange of calls.  That was not my fault, for we could
+not have begun; and we heard that Mrs. Deerhurst said, "The Torwoods
+had shown very good taste in retiring from all society, poor things.
+Only it was a great mistake to remain in the neighbourhood--so
+awkward for everybody!"
+
+Mrs. Cradock was much struck with Emily's sweet looks; but I believe
+that Jaquetta told her all about it, and we never met the Deerhursts
+there.
+
+In fact they were not intimate, for there must have been a repulsion
+between Mrs. Deerhurst and such a woman as Mary Cradock.
+
+The Deerhursts owned a villa on the outskirts of Shinglebay; indeed,
+I believe it was the difficulty in letting it that had unwillingly
+forced Mrs. Deerhurst home, after having married her second daughter,
+but not Emily.  She was only a mile and a half from Spinney Lawn, and
+speedily became familiar there, being as entirely Hester's counsellor
+in etiquette as was Perrault on business.  People saw a marked
+improvement in elegance from the time she became adviser.
+
+That next winter poor Joel Lea died.  I suppose it was merely the
+dulness and want of exercise that killed him, for he had lost flesh
+and grown languid in manner for months before a low fever set in, and
+he had no power to struggle with it.
+
+He had been ill a long time, when he sent a message to beg Mr.
+Torwood to come and see him.  Jaquetta and I persuaded ourselves that
+he had discovered that Perrault had suborned witnesses, or done
+something that would falsify the whole trial.
+
+Jaquetta said she should be very glad for Fulk, and if it happened
+now little Alured would never feel it; but for her own part, she
+should hate to go back to be my lady again.  She had never known
+before what happiness was.
+
+I could not help laughing.  Nobody had ever detected anything amiss
+with Lady Jaquetta Trevor's spirits, but that they were too high at
+times.
+
+"Of course I don't mean that I was miserable!" she said; "but there's
+something now that does make everything so delicious."
+
+"Could you not take that something to the park?" I asked, laughing.
+
+"I don't know!  It would not be so bad if I could run in and out at
+the parsonage as I do now."
+
+And as I smiled, it smote me as I recollected that Arthur Cradock was
+always at the parsonage in the vacations.  Jaquetta had been sketched
+many a time as nymph of the orchard, and many a nymph besides.  And
+if he was yielding to his brother's wisdom in making medicine his
+study and art his pleasure, was not our unconscious maiden the sugar
+that sweetened the cup of prudence?  Might not elevation be as sore a
+trial to her as depression had been to us?
+
+However, our troubling ourselves was all nonsense.  Good Joel Lea
+would never have connived at any evil doings.  All he had wanted of
+Fulk was to be certain of his forgiveness for the injury he had
+suffered through his wife, and to entreat him to keep a watch over
+her and the boy.
+
+"You are her brother, when all is come and gone," he said; "and I do
+not trust that Perrault.  If ever he fails her, or turns against her,
+you'll stand her friend, and look to the boy?"
+
+Fulk heartily promised, and Joel further begged him to write to her
+eldest brother, Francis Dayman (who was prospering immensely in the
+timber trade), and let him know the state of things--though he had
+been so angered at Hester's sacrifice of his mother's good name and
+his own birth, that he had broken with her entirely.
+
+"But if anyone can get her out of Perrault's hands, it is Francis,"
+poor Joel said; and he went on to talk of his poor boy, about whom he
+was very anxious, having no trust in any of Hester's intimates, and
+begging Fulk to throw a good word to him now and then.
+
+"He thinks much of you," he said.  "I heard him tell Miss Deerhurst
+that it was no use for anyone to try to be such an out-and-out
+gentleman as his uncle, for they couldn't do it, and he had rather be
+like you than anyone else.  I don't care for gentlemen, and all that
+foolery, as you know.  I wish I could leave him to my old mate, Eli
+Potter; but you are true and honest, Fulk Torwood, and I think not so
+far from the kingdom--"
+
+Then he asked Fulk to read a chapter to him.  No one else would do
+so, except little Trevor, when now and then left alone with him; but
+Hester would not believe him seriously ill, and thought the Bible
+wearied him and made him low spirited; and as to his friend the
+Dissenter, she would never admit him.
+
+Fulk was so indignant that he wanted to drive to Shinglebay and fetch
+Mr. Ball, but Lea thanked him and half smiled at his superstition of
+thinking that a minister was needed to speed his soul; but he was
+pleased that Fulk came to him on each of the four or five remaining
+days of his life, and read to him whatever he wished.
+
+He sank suddenly at last, while Hester was at church on Sunday
+morning, and died when alone with Fulk.
+
+Somehow the intense reality of that man and the true comfort his
+faith was to him made an immense impression on my brother, and
+seemed, as it were, to give the communication between his religious
+belief and his feelings, which had somehow not been in force before.
+He thought and borrowed books from Mr. Cradock, and there came a
+deepening and softening over him, which one saw in many ways, that
+made him dearer than ever.  He looked more at peace, even though one
+felt that each passing sight of Emily was a sting.
+
+Hester was dreadfully stricken down at first, and her anguish of
+lamentation and self-reproach was terrible to witness; but she would
+not hear of Fulk's fetching either of us--indeed, I fancy that was
+the fault of my dry, cold looks--nor would she allow him to do
+anything for her.
+
+Mrs. Deerhurst came to be with her, and Perrault managed everything.
+
+They had a magnificent funeral--much grander than my father's--and
+laid him in the family vault.
+
+Perrault took the opportunity of insulting Fulk by pairing him with
+old Hall, the ex-agent; but Hall found it out in time, and refused to
+go, and when the moment came everybody fell back, and Fulk found
+himself close to poor little Trevor, who tried to get his hand out of
+Perrault's and cling to him; but Perrault held him tight till, at the
+moment when they moved to the mouth of the vault and were to go down
+the steps, terror completely seized the poor child, and he began to
+shriek so fearfully that Fulk had to snatch him up and carry him out
+of the church, trembling from head to foot.
+
+It was very cruel to send a sensitive child of six years old in that
+way; but Hester was too much exhausted with her violent grief to go
+herself, and, devoted mother as she was in all else, she never
+perceived that poor child's instinctive shrinking from Perrault.
+
+We tried to be kind to her, and hoped she would soften towards us;
+but she did not.  I could see her eyes glitter with their keen,
+searching glance under her crape veil, as if she were measuring
+Alured all over when the child walked into church with me; and,
+indeed, when he went to the Zoological Gardens some time later, and
+saw the cobra di capello, he said--
+
+"Ursa, why does that snake look at me just like Lady Hester?"
+
+There must have been fascination in the eager mystery of the gaze,
+for, strangely enough, he was not afraid of her.  She always made
+much of him if he came in her way, and he was so fond of Trevor Lea
+that nothing made him so eager or happy as the thought of seeing him.
+
+The one idea that her boy was ousted by Alured, and the longing to
+see him the heir, seemed to drive out everything else from Hester--
+almost feeling for her husband.
+
+Fulk had written to Francis Dayman, and he intended to come and see
+after his sister as soon as he could leave his business; but this
+rather precipitated matters.  Hester was persuaded that Alured could
+not live through that eighth year of his life at the utmost, and
+Perrault somehow persuaded her, that only as her husband could he
+protect her interests and Trevor's, though what machinations she
+could have expected from us, I cannot guess; or how, in the case of a
+minor, we could have interfered with her rights.  But the man had
+gained such an ascendancy over her, that she did not even perceive
+that the connection was not good for that great object of hers, her
+son's position in society.  In fact, he persuaded her that he was of
+a noble old French family, and ought to be a count.  How we laughed
+when we heard of it!  She did preserve wisdom enough to insist upon
+having her fortune conveyed to trustees for her son, so that Perrault
+could only touch the income, and not the principal; and as she told
+everyone that he had been determined upon this being done, I suppose
+he saw that any demur would excite her suspicion.
+
+They went to London, and were married there, while we were still
+scouting poor Miss Prior's rumours.  We were very sorry when we
+thought of poor Joel's charge; and, besides, "the count" had an
+uncomfortable slippery look about him.  I can't describe it
+otherwise.  He was a slim, trim, well-dressed man, only given to
+elaborate jewellery and waistcoats, with polished black hair and
+boots, and keen French-looking eyes, well-mannered, and so versatile
+and polite, that he soon overcame people's prejudices; and he was
+thought to make a much better master of the house than poor Joel had
+ever done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.  THE WHITE DOE'S WARNING.
+
+
+
+Here was Alured's eighth birthday, and he had never been ill at all,
+but was as fine-looking healthy a boy as could be seen.
+
+We took him to London, and showed him to Dr. Hart, and he said that
+the old tendency was entirely outgrown, and that Lord Trevorsham was
+as likely to live and thrive as any child of his age in England.
+
+It really seemed the beginning of a new life, not to have that
+dreadful fear hanging over us any longer!  We felt settled, that was
+one thing; not as if we should do as Bertram expected, have to come
+off to New Zealand.
+
+The farm had just began to pay.  Fulk's sales of cattle had been, for
+the first time, more than enough to clear his rent.  He had a great
+ox in the Smithfield Cattle Show, and met our Lupton uncles there not
+as an unsuccessful man.
+
+And I?  I had a dim feeling that Alured would soon cease to need me,
+and Jaquetta would not be claimed for a long time; and if--
+
+But in the midst of that I saw a haggard face driving in the park by
+the side of a little, over-dressed, faded woman.
+
+And Aunt Amelia told me how (in the rebound from my harshness, no
+doubt) Mr. Decies had, as it were, dropped into the hands of a weak,
+extravagant girl, who had long been using all the intellect she had
+to attract him, and now led him a dreary life of perpetual
+dissipation.
+
+I don't know how much I had been to blame.  I am sure he was meant
+for better things.  Mine could never have been real love for him, and
+the refusal could not have been wrong.  It must have been the pride
+and harshness that stung him!
+
+I was very sorry for him, though I could not think about it, of
+course, still less speak; but that was the beginning of my hating
+myself, and I have hated myself more and more ever since I have taken
+to write all this down, and seen how hard and foolish I was, how very
+much the worst of the three.
+
+Even my care for Alured sprang out of exclusive passion, and so,
+though I do think that by Heaven's mercy I had a great share in
+cherishing him into strength and health, I had managed him badly,
+I had indulged him over much, and was improperly resentful of any
+attempt of Jaquetta, or even of Fulk, to interfere with him or
+restrain him.
+
+Thus, when the anxiety was over, and he was a strong boy, full of
+health and activity, his will was entirely unrestrained, he had no
+notion of minding any of us, still less of learning.  Trevor Lea
+could read, write, talk French, say a few Latin declensions, when
+Alured could not read a word of three letters, and would not try to
+learn.
+
+Oh! the antics he played when I tried to teach him!  Then Fulk tried,
+and he was tame for three days, but then came idleness, wilfulness,
+anger, punishment, but he laughed to scorn all that we could find in
+our hearts to do to him.
+
+As to getting other help we were ashamed till he should be a little
+less shamefully backward.  The Cradocks offered to teach him, but
+then, unless he was elaborately put on honour, he played truant.
+
+He had plenty of honour, plenty of affection, but not the smallest
+conscience as to obedience; and Fulk would not have the other two
+motives worked too hard, saying the one might break, the other give
+way.
+
+We had not taught obedience, so we had to take the consequences, and
+we were the less able to enforce it that he had come to a knowledge
+of our mutual relations much sooner than we intended, and in the
+worst manner possible.
+
+Of course he knew himself to be Lord Trevorsham, and owner of the
+property; but one day, when Fulk found him galloping his pony in the
+field laid up for hay, and ordered him out, he retorted that "You
+ain't my proper brother, and you haven't any rights over me!  It is
+my field; and I shall do as I like."
+
+Fulk got hold of the pony's bridle, and took Alured by the shoulder
+without one word, then took him into the little study, and had it out
+with him.
+
+It was Hester who had told him.  He had been at Spinney Lawn with
+Trevor all one afternoon, when we had thought him out with old
+Sisson.  He had told no falsehood indeed, but Hester and her husband
+had made him understand, so far as such a child could do, that there
+was some disgrace connected with us; that Fulk had once been in his
+place, and only wanted to get it back, and now had it all his own way
+with his young lordship's property, and that he owed us neither duty
+nor affection, only to his true relative, Lady Hester Perrault.
+
+The dear boy had maintained stoutly that he did love Ursula and
+Jacquey, and that Hester wasn't half so nice, and that he had rather
+they bullied him than that she coaxed him!  But there was the poison
+sown--to rankle and grow and burst out when he was opposed.  He had
+full faith and trust in Fulk, and accepted his history, owning,
+indeed, from a boy, that he had been a horrid little wretch for
+saying what he did, and asking whether it had not been a great bore;
+indeed, he behaved all the better instead of the worse for some
+little time, dear fellow.
+
+But he was too big and strong to tie to one's apron-string, and his
+greatest pleasure was in being with Trevor.  I think Trevor's own
+influence never did any harm.  Poor Joel Lea had trained him well,
+and he was a conscientious, good boy, who often hindered Alured from
+insubordination; but the attraction to Spinney Lawn was a mischievous
+thing--for there was no doubt that the heads of the family would set
+him against us if they could.
+
+So Fulk thought it wiser to send him to school, since he was learning
+nothing properly at home, and only getting more disobedient and
+unruly.
+
+Immediately Trevor Lea was sent to the same school, to the boys'
+great delight.  They cared little that Trevor was placed nearly at
+the top and Trevorsham at the bottom of the little preparatory
+school.  They held together just as much, and Alured came home
+wonderfully improved and delightfully good, but more than ever
+inseparable from Trevor.
+
+In the meantime Francis Dayman had come to pay his sister a visit.
+He had made some fortunate speculations, and had come on to be a
+merchant of considerable wealth and weight in the Hudson's Bay
+Company.
+
+A handsome man of a good deal of strength and force he seemed to be,
+and Perrault had certainly been wise in securing his prize before
+Hester had such a guardian.
+
+He was an open, straight-forward man, with a fresh breath of the
+forest about him; successful beyond all his hopes, and full of
+activity.  He took to Fulk, and seemed to have a strong fellow-
+feeling for us.
+
+But little had Fulk expected to be made the confidant of his vehement
+admiration for Emily Deerhurst.  The gentle lady-like girl impressed
+the backwoodsman in a wondrous manner.  It seemed to him, as if his
+wealth would have real value, if he could pour it all out on her.
+
+And her mother encouraged him.  Emily was six years older than when
+she had cast off Fulk, and there was a pale changed look about her;
+and the rich Canadian, who could buy a baronetcy, and do anything she
+asked, tempted Mrs. Deerhurst.
+
+Though, as Fulk said bitterly, if the stain on his birth was all the
+cause of the utter withdrawal, was it not the same with Francis
+Dayman?  Only in his case it was gilded!
+
+Dayman knew nothing of this former affair.  The world was forgetting
+it, and if Hester knew it, she kept it from his knowledge, so he used
+to consult Fulk as to what was to be done to please an English lady,
+and whether he was too rough for her; and Fulk stood it all.  He even
+knew when the young lady herself was brought forward--and refused,
+gently, sadly, courteously, but unmistakably; and then, when driven
+hard by the eager wooing, owned to an old attachment, that never
+would permit her to marry!
+
+What a light there was in Fulk's eyes when he whispered that into my
+ears!  And yet he had kept his counsel, even though Mr. Dayman told
+him that the mother declared it to be a foolish romantic affair of
+very early girlhood, that no doubt his perseverance would overthrow.
+
+"And her persecution!" muttered poor Fulk.  But he did enjoy the
+confidences in a bitter-sweet fashion.  It was justifiable to be a
+dog in the manger under the circumstances.
+
+Mr. Dayman went to London, and Hester was negotiating about a house
+where Mrs. Deerhurst and her daughters were to stay with her for a
+few weeks.  I fancy Mrs. Deerhurst thought that the chance of seeing
+Farmer Torwood ride by to market had a bad effect.  It was the Easter
+holidays, and both boys were at home; always trying to be together,
+and we not finding it easy to keep Alured from Spinney Lawn, without
+such flat refusals as would have given his sister legitimate cause of
+complaint and offence.
+
+One beautiful spring afternoon, when Alured, to my vexation and vague
+uneasiness, had gone over there, I was sowing annuals in the garden
+and watching for him at the same time, when, to my surprise, I saw,
+coming over the fields from the park, a lady with a quick, timid, yet
+wearied step.  Had she lost her way, I thought?  There was something
+of the tame fawn in her movement; and then I remembered the white
+doe.  Yes! it was Emily!
+
+The one haunting anxiety of my life broke out-- "You haven't come to
+say there's anything amiss with my boy?" I cried out.
+
+"No; oh no!  I think he is safe now; but I wanted to tell you, I
+think you ought to be warned."
+
+She was trembling so much that I wanted to bring her in and make her
+rest; but she would only sit down on the step of the stile, and there
+she whispered it, in this way.
+
+"You know there's a dreadful scarlet fever at old Brown's."
+
+"The old man that sells curiosities?  No, I did not know it; I'll
+keep Trevorsham away," I said, wondering she had come all this way;
+and then asking in a fright, "Surely he has not been there?"
+
+"No; I met him on the road with Lady Hester Perrault, and I told
+them.  I walked back to Spinney Lawn with them.  But," as I began to
+thank her, and her voice went lower still, "but--oh, Ursula, Lady
+Hester knew it!"
+
+"Knew it!"
+
+"Yes, knew it quite well."
+
+"She was doing it on purpose!"
+
+"Oh," Emily hid her face in her hands, "I pray God to forgive me if
+I am doing a very cruel wicked wrong; but I can't help thinking it.
+I had told her only yesterday how bad the fever was in that street.
+She said she had forgotten it, and thanked me; but she had not her
+own boy, Trevor, with her.
+
+I was too much frozen with the horror of the thing to speak at first,
+and perhaps Emily thought I did not quite believe her, for she said,
+under her breath, "And I've heard her talk--talk to mamma--about her
+being so certain that Lord Trevorsham could not live, even when he
+was past seven years old.  They always have said that the first
+illness would go to his head and carry him off.  And when people do
+wish things very much--" And then she grew frightened at herself, and
+began blaming herself for the horrible fancy, but saying it haunted
+her every time she saw Lord Trevorsham in Lady Hester's sight.  That
+old ballad, "The wee grovelling doo," would come into her head, and
+she had felt as if any harm happened to the child it would be her
+fault for not having spoken a word of warning, and this had
+determined her.
+
+By this time I had taken it in, and then the first thing I did was to
+spring up and ask how she could leave the boy still in the woman's
+power, to which she answered that she had walked them back to Spinney
+Lawn--a whole mile--and that Lady Hester could not set forth again,
+now that Alured had heard the conversation.
+
+He had been bent on going to buy a tame sea-gull there, as a birthday
+present for Trevor; and Emily had lured him off from that, by a
+promise of getting one from an old fisherman whom she knew.  So there
+was not much fear of his running back into the danger, though I
+should not have a happy moment till he was in my sight again.
+
+Then Emily sprang up, saying, she must go.  She had walked four
+miles, and she must get back as fast as she could.  Most likely mamma
+would think her at Spinney Lawn.
+
+But what must not it have cost that timid thing to venture here with
+her warning!
+
+It gave me a double sense of the reality of my boy's, peril, that she
+had been excited to it, and she would not hear of coming in to rest;
+and when I entreated her to wait till I could get the gig to drive
+her part of the way, she held me fast, and insisted, with all the
+terror of womanly shamefacedness, that, "he--that Tor--that Mr.
+Torwood--should not know."  And she sprang up to go home instantly,
+before he could guess.
+
+"Oh, Emily, that is too bad, when nothing would make him so glad."
+
+"Oh! no, no! he has been used too ill; he can't care for me now, and
+as if I should--"
+
+I don't think poor Emily uttered anything half so coherent as this,
+at any rate I understood that she disclaimed the least possibility of
+his affection continuing, and felt it an outrage on herself to be
+where she could even suppose herself to have voluntarily put herself
+in his way.
+
+I thought there was nothing for it but to let her start, hurry after
+her with some vehicle, and then call and bring home my boy; but in
+the midst of my perplexity and her struggle with her tears, who
+should appear on the scene but Fulk himself, driving home the spring
+cart wherein, everybody being busy, he had conveyed a pig to a new
+home.
+
+I don't know how it was all done or said.  My first notion was that
+he should be warned of our dear boy's danger, and rescue him before
+anything else.  I could not get into my head that there was no
+present reason for dread, and yet when I had gasped out "Oh, Fulk--
+Alured--Fetch him home!  Emily came to warn us!" the accusation began
+to seem so monstrous and horrible that I could not go on with it
+before Emily.  She too, perhaps, found it harder to utter to a man
+than to a woman, and between the strangeness of speaking to one
+another again, and her shyness and his wonder and delight, it seemed
+to me unreasonable that poor little Alured's danger was counting for
+nothing between them, and I turned from the former reticence to the
+bereaved tigress style, and burst out, "And are we to stand talking
+here while our boy is in these people's power?"
+
+Then Fulk did listen to what it was all about; but even then it
+seemed to me he would not think half so much of the peril as of what
+Emily had done.  In truth, I believe all they both wanted was to get
+out of my way; but they pacified me by Fulk's undertaking, if Emily
+did not object to the cart, to drive her across the park where no one
+would meet her, and she could get out only a mile from home, and to
+call at Spinney Lawn in returning by the road and take up Alured.
+
+What a drive that must have been!  Fulk had the advantage over Emily
+in knowing what poor Mr. Dayman had told him, whereas she, poor
+child, only knew that he had been so vilely served that she thought
+his affection and esteem had been entirely killed.
+
+They had it all out in that tax cart, a vehicle Fulk now regards as a
+heavenly chariot, and I heard it all afterwards.
+
+Poor Emily! she had grown a great deal older in those six years.  At
+eighteen she had implicitly believed in her mother.  Mrs. Deerhurst
+had been so good all those years of striving not to frighten my
+father, that she had been perfection in her daughter's eyes.  Emily
+had believed with all her heart in her apparent disinterestedness,
+and her hopes and sympathy for us were real; and so, when the crash
+really came, and she told the poor girl with floods of tears that it
+was impossible, and a thing not to be thought of, for a right-minded
+woman to unite herself to a man of such birth.  And poor Emily, with
+the conscious ignorance of eighteen, believed, and was the sort of
+gentle creature who could easily be daunted by the terror that her
+generous impulses to share the shame and namelessness were unfeminine
+and wrong.  The utter silence had been the consequence of her mother
+assuring her, with authority, that the true kindness was to betray no
+token of feeling that could cherish hope where all was hopeless, and
+that he would regret her less if she commanded herself and gave him
+no look.
+
+It had been terrible, calm self-command, and obedience to abused
+filial confidence in her mother's infallibility.
+
+And then Mrs. Deerhurst had been sinking ever since in her daughter's
+esteem, as Emily could not but rise higher from the conscientious
+struggle and self-denying submission, and besides grew older and had
+more experience; while Mrs. Deerhurst, no doubt, deteriorated in the
+foreign wandering life, and all her motives made themselves evident
+when she married the younger daughter.
+
+Emily had thought for herself, and seen that advantage had been taken
+of her innocence, and that her betrothed had rights, which, if she
+had been older, she would not have been persuaded to ignore.  But
+coming home, two years later, and meeting my cold eyes and Fulk's
+ceremonious bow, and hearing on all parts that he had accepted his
+position and had a hard struggle to maintain his two sisters; she,
+knowing herself to be portionless, could but suffer, and be still.
+
+Of course every attempt of her mother's to get her to marry
+advantageously, and, even more, Mrs. Deerhurst's devotion to Lady
+Hester, tore away more and more of the veil she had tried to keep
+over her eyes; and as her youngest sister grew up into bloom, and
+into the wish for society, Emily had been allowed more and more to go
+her own quiet way in the religious and charitable life of Shinglebay,
+where she had peace, if not joy.
+
+And then came the Dayman affair, when all the old persecution revived
+again, and Emily's foremost defence against him, her blushing
+objection to his birth, was set aside as a mere prudish fancy of a
+young girl.
+
+The gentle Emily had been irate then, and all the more when her
+mother tried to cover her inconsistency by alleging that everybody
+knew of Lord Torwood's fall, whereas no one knew or cared who Francis
+Dayman was, or where he came from.  Henceforth Emily's shame at the
+usage of Fulk had been double--or rather it turned into indignation.
+Reports that he was to marry a rich grazier's daughter had no effect
+in turning her in pique to Dayman.  She had firmly told her mother
+that if it were wrong for her to take the one, it must be equally so
+to take the other.
+
+This Mrs. Deerhurst had concealed from poor Mr. Dayman; nor would
+Emily's modesty allow her to utter the objection to the man's own
+face.  So Mrs. Deerhurst encouraged him, and trusted to London
+reports of the grazier's daughter, and persevering appeals to that
+filial sense of duty which had been strained so much too far.
+
+And now, how did it stand?
+
+When I, secure in knowing that Alured was safe at home, thinking it
+abominable nonsense in Miss Deerhurst to have bothered about scarlet
+fever, Hester herself had said so.  When I could hear Fulk's
+happiness, and try to analyse it, what did it amount to?
+
+Why, that they knew they loved one another still, and never meant to
+cease.  And with what hopes?  Alas! the hopes were all for some time
+or other.  Emily would do nothing in flat disobedience, and there was
+little or no hope of her mother's consent to her marrying Farmer
+Torwood.  She meant to tell her mother thus much, that she had seen
+him, and that they loved each other as much as ever; and as Mrs.
+Deerhurst had waived the objection to Dayman, it could not hold in
+the other case.  It would be, in fact, a tacit compact--scarcely an
+engagement--with what amount of meeting or correspondence must be
+left for duty and principle to decide, but the love that had existed
+without aliment for six years might trust now.  And "hap what hap,"
+there never was a happier man than my Fulk that evening.
+
+He was too joyous not to be universally charitable.  Nay, he called
+it a blessed fancy of Emily's that brought her here, as it was
+Emily's, and had brought him such bliss he could not quite scorn it,
+but he did not, _could_ not believe in it as we did.  It was culpable
+carelessness in Hester, but colonial people had been used to such
+health that they did not care about infection.  But it was a glorious
+act of Emily's!  In fact the manly mind could believe nothing so
+horrible of any woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.  HUNTING.
+
+
+
+Emily told Mr. Dayman the whole truth.  Poor fellow! he could not
+face Fulk again, and went back to Canada.
+
+No doubt Emily went through a great deal, but we never exactly knew
+what.
+
+Fulk wrote to Mrs. Deerhurst, stating that he hoped in four years'
+time to be able to purchase the farm, of which he had the lease, and
+without going into the past, asking her sanction to the engagement.
+
+She sent a cold letter in answer, to desire that the impertinence
+should not be repeated.
+
+And Emily wrote that her mother would not hear of the engagement, and
+she knew Fulk would not wish her to deceive or disobey, "And so we
+must trust one another still; but how sweet to do that!"
+
+And when any of us met her there were precious little words and
+looks, and Fulk meant to try again after the four years.  In the
+meantime he was much respected, and had made himself a place of his
+own.  It chafed Hester to perceive that though she had pulled us down
+she could not depress us after the first.  She had lowered her
+position, too, by her marriage.   At first Perrault was on his good
+behaviour, and made a favourable impression among the second-rate
+Shinglebay society Hester got round her; but as the hopes of the
+title coming to her diminished, he kept less within bounds, did not
+treat her well at home, and took to racing and gambling.
+
+I never could get Fulk to share my alarms about Alured, but he did
+not think Perrault's society fit for the boy, told Alured so, and
+forbade him to go to Spinney Lawn.  But though Alured was much
+improved as to obedience, it was almost impossible to enforce this
+command.  Hester had some strange fascination for him.  She would
+fiercely caress him at times, and he knew she was his sister, and
+could not see why, when she was often alone, he should not be with
+her.  The passion for Trevor was in full force, too, and the boys
+could not be content only to meet at the farm.  We tried sending
+Alured to make visits from home in the holidays, but he did not like
+it, and he was not happy; his heart was with his home, and with
+Trevor.  We tried having a tutor for the spring holidays before he
+went to Eton, but it did not answer.  He was not a sensible man, did
+not like dining in the keeping-room with the household, and though he
+did it, he showed that he thought it a condescension.
+
+Moreover, instead of attending to Alured, he was always trying to
+flirt with Jaquetta, infinitely disturbing Arthur Cradock's peace;
+and the end of it was, that Alured was a great deal more left to his
+own devices than ever he had been before, and exasperated besides.
+
+He was in that mood, when one day, as he was riding along the lanes,
+he met Perrault and Trevor coming in from hunting.
+
+Alured had a very pretty pony, but he was growing rather large for
+it, and Fulk had promised that, if he worked well at Eton, he should
+have a lovely little Arab, that was being trained by a dealer he
+knew; and that another year, Fulk himself would go out hunting with
+him.
+
+Perrault began to pity him for having missed the run.  Why did not
+his brother take him out?  Fulk's old mare was a sort of elephant,
+and it was not convenient to get another horse just then.  That
+Alured knew and explained, but he was pitied the more for being kept
+back, and Perrault ended by saying that if on the next hunting day he
+could meet them at the corner of the park, a capital mount should be
+there for him.
+
+The hour was attainable if Alured made haste with his studies, and he
+accepted gladly, and without compunction.  Fulk had never in so many
+words forbidden him, and besides, Fulk had delegated his authority to
+the hateful tutor.
+
+But the next morning, before Alured was up Trevor was in his bedroom.
+"You won't go, Trevorsham?"
+
+"Yes, I shall; I'm not such a muff as to stay for that fellow."
+
+But I need not try to tell what passed, as of course I did not hear
+it; I never so much as knew of it till long after, only Trevorsham
+was determined, and Trevor tried all round the due arguments of
+principle, honour, and duty; but Alured had worked up a schoolboy
+self-justification on all points, and besides had the stronghold of
+"I will," and "I don't care."
+
+Then Trevor told him, under his breath, he was sure it was not a safe
+horse.  But my high-spirited boy laughed this to scorn.  "And perhaps
+he'll play you some trick," added Trevor.  But Trevorsham was still
+undaunted in his self-will, till Trevor resolutely announced his
+determination, if nothing else would stop it, of going at once to
+Fulk, and informing him.
+
+The boy endured all the rage and scorn that a threat so contrary to
+all schoolboy codes of honour and friendship might deserve.  I
+believe Alured struck him, but at any rate Trevor Lea gained his
+point, though at the cost of a desperate quarrel.
+
+Alured held aloof and sulked at him for the remaining fortnight at
+home, and only vouchsafed the explanation to us that "Lea was a
+horrid little sneak, and he had done with him."
+
+They did not make it up till they met in the same house at Eton, and
+then, though Trevor was placed far above Alured, they became as
+friendly as ever.  In fact, I believe, Alured, having imprudently
+denominated himself by his full title, was having it kicked out of
+him, when the fortunate possessor of the monosyllabic name came and
+stood by him and made common cause, to the entire renewing of love.
+
+Poor Trevor! his was a dreary home.  His mother loved him
+passionately, but she was an anxious, worn, disappointed woman,
+always craving, restless and expectant of something, and Perrault was
+always tormenting her for money.  He was deeply in debt, and though
+he could not touch the bulk of her fortune--neither, indeed, could
+she, as it was conveyed to trustees--he was always demanding money of
+her, and bullying her; while matters grew worse and worse, and they
+were in danger of having to let Spinney Lawn and go to live abroad.
+
+As to keeping Trevor at Eton that was becoming impossible.  At
+Christmas the tutor consulted Fulk about how he should get Lea's
+bills paid, and intimated that he must not return unless this were
+done.
+
+And poor Trevor himself had little comfort except with us.  We
+encouraged him to come to us, for we had all come to have a very real
+love for the dear lad himself, and we saw he was unhappy at home;
+besides that, it was the only way of keeping Alured contented.
+
+Trevor had entirely left off inviting Alured to Spinney Lawn.
+Partly, he was too gentlemanly and good a boy not to be ashamed of
+the men who hung about the stables; and besides, we now perceive that
+the same awful impression that was on Emily Deerhurst was upon him,
+and that he had a sense that Trevorsham was regarded in a manner that
+made his presence there a peril.
+
+He was but a boy, and it was an undefined horror, and he never
+breathed a word of it; but oh, there was a weight on that young brow,
+an anxious look about the face, and though now and then he would be
+all joy and fun, still there was the older, more sorrowful look about
+him.
+
+We thought he was grieving at not going back to Eton, and Fulk was
+living in hopes of an answer to the letter he had written to Francis
+Dayman about it, but that was not all.  One day--Christmas Eve it
+was--Mr. Cradock, on coming into the church to look at the holly
+wreaths, found Trevor kneeling on his father's gravestone in the
+pavement, sobbing as if his heart was breaking, and heard between the
+sobs a broken prayer about "Forgive"--"don't let them do it"--"turn
+mother's heart."
+
+Then Mr. Cradock went out of hearing, but he waited for the boy
+outside, and asked if he could do anything for him.
+
+"No."  Trevor shook his head, thanked him, and grew reserved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.  DUCK SHOOTING.
+
+
+
+Alured's thirteenth birthday was on the 10th of January, and he had
+extracted a promise from Fulk, to take him duck-shooting to the mouth
+of our little river.
+
+Nothing can be prettier than our tide river by day, with the
+retreating banks overhung with trees, the long-legged herons standing
+in the firs, looking like toys in a German box; while the breadth of
+blue water reflects the trees that bend down to it.
+
+But, on a winter's night, to creep in perfect silence and lie still
+under an overhanging bank, not daring to make a sound, till you could
+get a shot at the ducks disporting themselves in the moonlight, on
+the frozen mud on the banks!  Such an occupation could only be
+endurable under the name of sport.
+
+However, Fulk and Bertram had had their time, and now Alured was
+having the infection in his turn; but Trevor was driven over to spend
+the day, much mortified that he had a bad broken chilblain, which
+made his boots unwearable, and it was the more disappointing, that it
+was a very hard frost, and there was a report that some wild swans
+had been seen on the river.
+
+But in the course of the day Jaquetta routed out a pair of India
+rubber boots which, with worsted stockings beneath, did not press the
+chilblains at all, and after having spent all the day in snow-balling
+and building forts, Trevor declared himself far from lame, and
+resolved not to lose the fun.  He had not come equipped, so Alured
+put him into an old grey coat and cap of his own, and merrily they
+started in the frosty moonlight, with dashes of snow lying under the
+hedges, and everything intensely light.  Fulk grumbling in fun at
+being dragged away from his warm fire, and pretending to be grown
+old, the boys shouting to one another full of glee, all the dogs in
+the yard clamouring because only the wise old retriever, Captain, was
+allowed to be of the party; Arthur Cradock making ridiculous mistakes
+on purpose between the uncle and nephew, Trevorsham and Sham Trevor,
+as he called them.
+
+Alas!  Nay, shall I say alas, or only be thankful?
+
+They had been gone some time when we heard a rapid tread coming
+towards the porch.  Something in the very sound thrilled Jaquetta and
+me at once with dismay.  We darted out, and saw Brand, the head
+gamekeeper in the park.
+
+"Never fear, my lady; thank God," he said, "my lord is quite safe.
+It is poor Master Lea who is hurt; and Mr. Torwood sent me up for
+some brandy, and a mattress, and a lantern, and some cloths."
+
+That assured us that he was alive, and we ran to fulfil the request
+in the utmost haste, without asking further questions, and sending
+off Sisson to ride for the poor mother, and to go on to Shinglebay
+for the doctor, though, to our comfort, we knew that Arthur had
+almost finished his surgical education, and was sure to know what was
+to be done.
+
+"A stray shot," we said again and again to each other; and we called
+Nurse Rowe, and made up a bed in Alured's old nursery, and lighted a
+fire, and were all ready, with hearts beating heavy with suspense
+before the steps came back--my poor Alured first, as we held the door
+open.  How pale his face looked! and his brows were drawn with
+horror, and his steps dragging, saying not a word, but trembling, as
+he came and held by me, with one hand on my waist, while Fulk and
+Sisson carried in the mattress, Arthur Cradock at the side, and
+Perrault, who had joined them, walking behind with the flask.
+
+Dear Trevor lay white with sobbing breath and closed eyes, the cloths
+and mattress soaked through and through with blood.  They put him
+down on the keeping-room table, and Arthur poured more brandy into
+his mouth.
+
+I said something of the room being ready but Arthur said very low "He
+is dying--internal bleeding;" and when Jaquetta asked "Can nothing be
+done?" he answered, "Nothing but to leave him still."
+
+"Trevorsham," murmured the feeble voice, and Alured was close to him;
+"Ally! you are all right!" and then again, as Alured assured him he
+would be better-- "No, I shan't; I'm so glad it wasn't you.  I always
+thought he'd do it some day, and now you're quite safe, I want to
+thank God."
+
+We did not understand those words then; we did soon.
+
+The weak voice rambled on, "to thank God; but oh, it hurts so--I
+can't--I will when I get there."  Then presently "Mother!"
+
+"She'll come very soon," said Alured.
+
+"Mother! oh, mother! Trevorsham, don't let them know.  O Trev,
+promise, promise!"
+
+"Promise what?  I promise, whatever it is!  Only tell me," entreated
+Alured.
+
+"Take care of her--of mother.  Don't let--" and then his eyes met
+Perrault's, and a shudder came all over him, which brought the end
+nearer; and all another spoonful of brandy could do was to enable him
+to say something in Alured's ear, and then a broken word or two--
+"forgive--glad--pray;" and when we all knelt and Fulk did say the
+Lord's Prayer, and a verse or two more, there was a peaceful loving
+look at Fulk and Jaquetta and me, and then the whisper of the Name
+that is above every name, as a glad brightness came over the face,
+and the eyes looked upwards, and so grew set in their gaze, and there
+was the sound one never can forget.
+
+Nurse Rowe laid her hand on Alured's neck, as he knelt with his head
+close to Trevor's.  Fulk and I looked at each other, and we knew that
+all was over.
+
+They had tried in vain to check the bleeding.  No one could have done
+more than Arthur had done, but a main artery had been injured, and
+nothing could have saved him.  He had said nothing after the first
+cry, except when he saw Alured's grief.  "Never mind; I'm glad it was
+not you."  And once or twice, as they carried him home, he had begged
+to be put down, though they durst not attend to the entreaty, and
+Arthur did not think he had suffered much pain.
+
+It jarred that just as we would have knelt for one silent prayer,
+Perrault's voice broke on us.  "Ah! poor boy, it is better than if it
+lasted longer!  I saw that half-witted  fellow, Billy Blake about.
+So I don't wonder at anything; but of course it was a mere accident,
+and I shall not press it."
+
+Scarcely hearing him, I had joined Mrs. Rowe in the endeavour to
+detach Alured from his dear companion, when there was poor Hester
+among us, with open horror-stricken eyes, and a wild, frightful
+shriek as she leapt forward; and no words can describe the misery of
+her voice as she called on her boy to look at her, and speak to her--
+gathering him into her bosom with a passionate, desperate clasp, that
+seemed almost an outrage on the calm awful stillness of the innocent
+child; and Alured involuntarily cried, "Oh, don't," while Fulk spoke
+to her kindly; but just then she saw her husband, and sprang on her
+feet, her eyes flashing, her hands stretched out, while she screamed
+out, "You here?  You dare to come here?  You, who killed him!"  Fulk
+caught her arm, saying, "Hush! Hester; come away.  It was a
+lamentable accident, but--"
+
+"Oh!" the laugh she gave was the most horrible thing I ever heard.
+"Accident! I tell you it has been his one thought to make accidents
+for Trevorsham!  And he hated my child--my dear, noble, beautiful,
+only one!  He made him miserable, and murdered him at last!"
+
+She gave another passionate kiss to the cheeks, and then just as I
+hoped she was going to let us lead her away, she darted from us,
+rushed past Mr. Cradock who was entering the porch, and in another
+moment, he hurrying after her, saw her rush down the steep grassy
+slope, and fling herself into the swollen rapid stream.
+
+His shout brought them all out, and Fulk found him too in the river,
+holding her, and struggling with the stream, which winter had made
+full and violent, and the black darkness of the shadows made it hard
+to find any landing place, and he was nearly swept away before it was
+possible to get them out of the river; and Fulk was as completely
+drenched as he was when they brought poor Hester, quite unconscious,
+up to the house, and brought her to the room that had been prepared
+for her son; and there Dr. Brown and Arthur gave us plenty to do in
+filling hot-water baths and warming flannels, or rubbing the icy
+hands and feet.  Only that constant need of exertion could have borne
+us through the horror of it all.  But it was not over yet.  There was
+a call of "Ursula," and as I ran down, I found Fulk standing at the
+bottom of the stairs with Alured in his arms looking like death!
+
+"I found him on the parlour sofa, the little window and the
+escritoire open!"  Fulk said breathlessly, "the villain!"
+
+"I'm not hurt," said dear Alured's voice, faintly, but reassuringly,
+"Oh! put me down, Fulk."
+
+We did put him down on the floor--there was no other place--with his
+head on my lap, and I found strange voices asking him what Perrault
+had done to him.  "Oh! nothing! 'twasn't that.  Yes, he's gone, out
+by the window."
+
+He swallowed some wine and then sat up, leaning against me as I sat
+at the bottom of the stairs, quite himself again, and assuring us
+that he was not hurt; Perrault never touched him--"Threatened you,
+then," said Fulk.
+
+"No," said Alured, as if he hadn't spirit to be indignant; "I meant
+him to get off."
+
+"Lord Trevorsham!" cried a voice in great displeasure, and I saw that
+Mr. Halsted, the nearest magistrate, was standing over us.
+
+"He told me--Trevor did"--said Alured.
+
+"Told you to assist the murderer to escape!" exclaimed Mr. Halsted.
+
+Alured let his head fall back, and would not answer, and Fulk said,
+"There is no need for him to speak at present, is there?  The
+constable and the rest are gone after Perrault, but I do not yet know
+what has directed the suspicion against him."
+
+And then at the stair foot, for there was no other place to go to, we
+came to an understanding, the two gentlemen and Brand the keeper
+standing, and I seated on the step with my boy lying against me.  I
+could not trust him out of my sight, nor, indeed, was he fit to be
+left.
+
+It seems that Brand had been uneasy about the number of shooters whom
+the report of the swans had attracted; and though the bank of the
+river was not Trevorsham ground, he had kept along on the border of
+the covers higher up the hill, to guard his hares and pheasants.
+
+Thus he had seen everything distinctly in the moonlight against the
+snowy bank below; and he had observed one figure in particular,
+moving stealthily along, in a parallel line with that which he knew
+our party would take, though they were in shadow, and he could not
+see them.
+
+Suddenly, a chance shot fired somewhere made all the ducks fly up.
+A head and shoulders that Brand took for his young lord's, appeared
+beyond the shadow, beside Fulk's; and, at the same moment, he saw the
+man whom he had been watching level his gun from behind, and fire.
+Then came the cry, and Brand running down in horror himself, was
+amazed to see this person doing the same, and when they came up with
+the group, he recognised Perrault; and found, at the same time, that
+Trevor was the sufferer, and that Lord Trevorsham was safe.  He then
+would have thought it an accident, but for Perrault's own needless
+wonder, whence the shot came, and that same remark, that Billy Blake,
+the half-witted son of a farmer, was about that night.
+
+Brand, a shrewd fellow, restrained his reply, that Mr. Perrault knew
+most about it himself.  He saw that the most pressing need was to
+obey Fulk in fetching necessaries from our house, and that Perrault
+meant to disarm suspicion by treating it as an accident, so he
+thought it best to go off to a magistrate with his story, before
+giving any alarm; feeling certain, as he said, that the shot had been
+meant for the Earl; as indeed, Perrault's first exclamation on coming
+up showed that he too had expected to find Trevorsham the wounded
+one.
+
+Mr. Halsted had sent for the constable and came at once, though even
+then inclined to doubt whether Brand had not imputed accident to
+malice.  But Perrault's flight had settled that question.  During the
+confusion, while Hester was being carried upstairs, the miscreant had
+the opportunity of speaking to the child.
+
+"Drowned!  No, she is not drowned; but she may be the other thing if
+you don't get me off!  What, don't you understand?  Let the law lay a
+finger on me, and what is to hinder me from telling how your sweet
+sister has been plotting to get you--yes, you, out of the way of her
+darling.  No, you needn't fear, there's nothing to get by it now.
+Lucky for you you brought the poor boy out, when I thought him safe
+by the fire nursing his chilblain.  But mind this, if I am arrested,
+all the story shall come out.  I'll not swing alone.  If I fired, she
+pointed the gun!  And you may judge if that was what poor Trevor
+meant by his mutterings to you about 'mother.'"
+
+"But what do you want?" Alured asked.  He had backed up against the
+wall; he was past being frightened, but he felt numb and sick with
+horror, and ready to do anything to get the wretch out of his sight.
+
+"I want a clear way out of the house and all the cash you can get
+together.  What! no more than that?  I'd not be a lord to be kept so
+short.  Find me some more."
+
+Alured knew I should forgive him, and he took my key from my basket,
+unlocked the escritoire, and gave him my purse of household money,
+undid the shutters, and helped Perrault to squeeze himself through
+the little parlour window; and then, as he said, something came over
+him, and he just reached the sofa, and knew no more.
+
+He did not tell all this about Hester before Mr. Halsted; only when
+Fulk, finding how shaken he was, had carried him upstairs, and we had
+taken him to his room, he asked anxiously whether anyone had heard
+Hester say that dreadful thing, and added, "Then if Mr. Perrault gets
+away no one will know--about her."
+
+"Was that why you helped him?" we asked.
+
+"Trevor told me to take care of her," he said; and then he told us of
+Perrault's arguments, but we ought not to have let him talk of them
+that night, for it brought back the shuddering and sobbing, and the
+horror seemed to come upon him, so that there was no soothing him or
+getting him calm till the doctor mixed an anodyne draught; and let it
+go as it would with Hester, I never left my boy till I had crooned
+him to sleep, as in the old times.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9.  TREVOR'S LEGACY.
+
+
+
+Jaquetta bore the brunt of that night, and showed the stuff she was
+made of, for poor Hester had only revived to fall into a most
+frightful state of delirium, raving and struggling so that the doctor
+and Arthur could hardly hold her.
+
+So it went on for hours, Alured the only creature asleep in the
+house, and we not daring to send for any help from without, poor
+Hester's exclamations were so dreadful.
+
+Poor Alured! his waking was sad enough!  He had loved Trevor with all
+his heart, and the wonder that anyone could be so wicked oppressed
+him almost as much as the grief.  The remnants of the opiate hung
+upon him, too, and he lay about all day, hardly rousing himself to
+speak or look, but giddily and drowsy.
+
+Not till the inquest was it perceived how cleverly Perrault had taken
+his measures, so that had he not made the mistake between the two
+boys, he would scarcely have been suspected: certainly not but for
+Brand's having watched him.
+
+The report of the wild swans was traced to him.  No doubt it was as
+an excuse for a heavier charge, for poor Trevor was wounded with shot
+that would not have been used merely for ducks, and besides, the
+other shooters it attracted would be likely to make detection less
+easy.  Indeed, Fulk had seen that there were enough men about to
+spoil their sport, and but for the boys' eagerness, would have turned
+back.
+
+Moreover it was proved that Perrault had in the course of the morning
+met Billy Blake, and asked him if he meant to bag the swan--if he
+followed the young lord's party and fired when they did, he would be
+sure to bring something down.  He did not know that the Blakes never
+let the poor fellow load his old gun with anything but powder.
+
+Then his joining the horrified group, as if he had been merely after
+the ducks, and had been attracted by the cry, had entirely deceived
+us; and but for Hester's accusation, Brand's evidence, and his own
+flight, together with all the past, might have continued to do so.
+
+He had gone to his own house, as it afterwards turned out, entered so
+quietly that the listening, watching servants never heard him,
+collected all the valuables he could easily carry away, changed his
+dress, and gone off before the search had followed him thither.
+
+A verdict of wilful murder was returned against him at the inquest,
+but it is very doubtful whether he could have been convicted of
+anything but manslaughter; for even if the intention could have been
+proved, without his wife, whose evidence was inadmissible, the malice
+was not directed against his victim, but against Trevorsham.  We
+could not but feel it a relief day by day, that nothing was heard of
+him; for who could tell what disclosures there might be about the
+poor thing who lay, delirious, needing perpetual watchfulness.
+Arthur devoted himself to the care of her, and never left us, or I do
+not see how we could have gone through it all.
+
+Alured was well again, but inert and crushed, and heartless about
+doing anything, except that he walked over to Spinney Lawn, and
+brought home Trevor's dog, to which he gave himself up all day, and
+insisted on having it in his room at night.
+
+The burial was in the vault--nobody attended but Fulk and Alured, not
+even Arthur, for though the poor mother was not aware of what was
+going on, it was such a dreadful day with her, that he durst not
+leave us alone to the watch.  It was enough to break one's heart to
+stand by the window and hear her wandering on about her Trevor coming
+to his place, and not being kept from his position; while we watched
+the little coffin carried across the field by the labouring men, with
+those two walking after it.  Our boy's first funeral was that of the
+friend who had died in his stead.
+
+We were glad to send him back to Eton, out of the sound of his poor
+sister's voice; though he went off very mournfully, declaring that he
+should be even more wretched there without Trevor than he was at
+home; and that he never should do any good without him.  But there he
+was wrong, I am thankful to say.  Dear Trevor was more a guide to him
+dead than living.  Trevor's chief Eton friend, young Maitland, a
+good, high-principled, clever boy, a little older, who had valued him
+for what he was, while passing Alured by as a foolish, idle little
+swell, took pity upon him in the grief and dejection of his loss--did
+for him all and more than Trevor could do, and has been the friend
+and blessing of his life, aiding the depth and earnestness that
+seemed to pass into our dear child as he hung over the dying lad.
+Yes, Trevor Lea and John Maitland did for our Trevorsham what all our
+love and care had never been able to do.
+
+Meantime Hester's illness took its course.  The chill of that icy
+water had done great harm, and there was much inflammation at first,
+leaving such oppression of breath that permanent injury to the lungs
+was expected, and therefore it was all the sadder to see the dumb
+despair with which she returned to understanding, I can hardly say to
+memory, for I believe she had never lost it for a moment.
+
+Hopeless, heedless, reckless, speechless, she was a passive weight,
+lying or sitting, eating or drinking as she was bidden, but not
+making any manifestation of preference or dislike, save that she
+turned rigidly and sullenly away from any attempt to read prayers to
+her.
+
+She asked no questions, attempted no employment, but seemed to care
+for nothing, and for weeks uttering nothing but a "yes," "no," or a
+mechanical "thank you."  Jaquetta tried to caress her, by force of
+nursing and pity.  Jaquetta really had come to a warm tender love for
+her, but she sullenly pushed away the sweet face, and turned aside.
+
+We never ventured to leave her alone, and this, after a time, began
+to vex her.  She bade us go down once or twice, and tried to send
+away Mrs. Rowe; and at last, when she found it was never permitted,
+she broke out angrily one day, "You are very absurd to take so much
+trouble to hinder what cannot make any difference."
+
+It made one's blood run cold, and yet it was a relief that the
+silence was broken.  I can't tell what I said, only I implored her
+not to think so, and told her that her having been rescued was a sign
+that Heaven would have her repent and come back, but she laughed that
+horrible laugh.  "Do you think I repent?" she said; "No, only that I
+left it to that fool!  I should have made no mistakes."
+
+I was too much horrified to do anything but hide my eyes and pray.  I
+thought I did not do so obviously, but Hester saw or guessed, stamped
+at me, and said, "Don't; I will not have it done.  It is mockery!"
+
+"Happily you cannot prevent our doing that, my poor Lady Hester," I
+said.
+
+"All I wish you to do is, what you would do if you had a spark of
+natural feeling."
+
+"What?" I asked, bewildered at this apparent accusation of
+unkindness.
+
+"Leave me to myself.  Send me from your door.  Not oppress me with
+this ridiculous burthensome care and attention, all out of the family
+pride you still keep up in the Trevors!" she sneered.
+
+"No, Hester.  Sister Hester, will you not believe it is love?"  I
+said, thinking that if she would believe that we loved her and
+forgave her, it might help her to believe that her Father above did.
+I had never called her by her name alone before; but I thought it
+might draw her nearer; but it made her only fiercer.
+
+"Nonsense," she said, "I know better."
+
+And then she fell into the same deadly gloom; but I think she had
+almost a wild animal's longing for solitude; for she made a solemn
+promise not to attempt her life if we would only leave her alone!
+
+And we did, though we took care someone was within hearing; for she
+was still very weak, and we had not a bell in the house, except a
+little hand one on the table.
+
+So the Easter holidays drew on, and she was still far too weak and
+unwell for any thought of moving her; so that we were in trouble
+about Alured's holidays, not liking him to come home to a house of
+illness that would renew his sorrow, and advising him to accept some
+invitations from his schoolfellows; but he wrote that he particularly
+wished to come home--he could not bear to be away, and Maitland
+wanted to see the place and know all about dear Lea, so might he
+bring him home?
+
+We were only too glad to consent, and I had gone to sleep with
+Jaquetta, so as to make room--feeling very happy over the best school
+report of our boy we had ever had, though not the best we were to
+have.
+
+He spent two or three days at Mr. Maitland's in London, and then he
+and his friend, John, came on here.
+
+The railway did not come within twenty miles then, and they had to
+post from it in flies.  How delightful it was to see the tall hat and
+wide white collar, as he stood up in the open fly, signalling to us,
+and pointing us out to his friend.  Only, what must it have been to
+the poor sufferer in the room above?
+
+Oh! did not one's heart go out in prayer for her!
+
+Out jumped Alured among all of us, and all the dogs at the garden
+gate; and the first thing, after his kiss to us all, was to turn to
+the fly and take out a flower-pot with a beautiful delicate forced
+rose in it.
+
+"Where's Hester?" he said.
+
+"My dear child, she has not left her room yet."
+
+"She is well enough for me to take this to her, I suppose?" he said.
+"He always did get some flower like this to bring home to her, you
+know, she liked them so much."
+
+It was just his one idea that Trevor had told him to take his place
+to her.  We looked doubtfully at each other, but Fulk quietly said,
+"Yes, you may go."  And added, as the boy went off, "It can do no
+harm to her in the end, poor thing!"
+
+"To her, no; that was not my fear."
+
+There was Alured, almost exactly what Trevor had been when last she
+saw him, with his bright sweet honest face over the rose, running up
+the stairs, knocking, and coming in with his boyish, "Good morning,
+Hester, I do hope you are better;" and bending down with his fresh
+brotherly kiss on her poor hot forehead, "I've got this rose for you,
+the bud will be out in a day or two."
+
+If ever there was a modern version of St. Dorothy's roses it was
+there.
+
+That boy's kiss and his gift touched the place in her heart.  She
+caught him passionately in her arms, and held him till he almost lost
+breath, and then she held him off from her as vehemently.
+
+"Boy--Trevorsham--what do you come to me for?"
+
+"He told me," said Alured, half dismayed.  "Besides, you are my
+sister."
+
+"Sister, indeed!  Don't you know we would have killed you ?"
+
+"Never mind that," said Alured, with an odd sort of readiness.  "You
+are my sister all the same, and oh--if you would let me try to be a
+little bit of Trevor to you, though I know I can't--"
+
+"You--who must hate me?"
+
+"No," said he, "I always did like you, Hester; and I've been thinking
+about you all the half--whenever I thought of him."
+
+And as the tears came into the boy's eyes, the blessed weeping came
+at last to Hester.
+
+He thought he had done her harm, for she cried till she was
+absolutely spent, sick, faint and weak as a child.
+
+But she was like a child, and when her head was on the pillow she
+begged for Trevorsham to wish her good-night.  I think she tried to
+fancy his kiss was Trevor's.
+
+Any way the bitter black despair was gone from that time.  She
+believed in and accepted his kindness like a sort of after glow from
+Trevor's love.  Perhaps it did her the more good that after all he
+was only a boy, sometimes forgot her, and sometimes hurried after his
+own concerns, so that there was more excitement in it than if it had
+been the steady certain tenderness of an older person on which she
+could reckon.
+
+She certainly cared for no one like Trevorsham.  She even came
+downstairs that she might see him more constantly, and while he was
+at home, she seemed to think of no one else.  But she had softened to
+us all, and accepted us as her belongings, in a matter-of-course kind
+of way.  Only when he was gone did she one day say in a heavy dreary
+tone, that she must soon be leaving us.
+
+But I told her, as we had agreed, that she was very far from well
+enough to go away alone; for indeed, it was true that disease of the
+lungs had set in, and to send her away to languish and die alone was
+not to be thought of.
+
+My answer made her look up to me, and say, "I don't see why you
+should all be so good to me!  Do you know how I have hated you?"
+
+I could not help smiling a little at that, it had so little to do
+with the matter; but I bent down and kissed her, the first time I had
+ever done so.
+
+"I don't understand it," she said, and then pushing me away suddenly.
+"No! you cannot know, that I--I--I was the first to devise mischief
+against that boy.  Perrault would never have thought of it, but for
+me!  Now, you see whom you are harbouring!  Perhaps, you thought it
+all Perrault's doing."
+
+"No, we did not," I said.
+
+"And you still cherish me!  I--who drove you from your home and rank,
+and came from wishing the death of your darling, to contriving it!"
+
+I told her we knew it.  And at last, after a long, long silence, she
+looked up from her joined hands, and said, "If I may only see my
+child again, even from the other side of the great gulf, I would be
+ready for any torment!  It would be no torment to me, so I saw him!
+Do you think I shall be allowed, Ursula?"
+
+How I longed for more power, more words to tell her how infinitely
+more mercy there was than she thought of!  I don't think she took it
+in then, but the beginning was made, and she turned away no more from
+what she looked on at first as a means of bringing her to her boy,
+but by-and-by became even more to her.
+
+Gradually she told how the whole history had come about.  She had
+thought nothing of the discovery of her birth till her boy was born,
+but from that time the one thought of seeing him in the rank she
+thought his due had eaten into her heart.  She had loved her husband
+before, but his resistance had chafed her, and gradually she felt it
+an injustice and cruelty, and her love and respect withered away,
+till she regarded him as an obstacle.  And when she had spent her
+labour on the voyage, and obtained recognition from her father--
+behold! Alured's existence deprived her of the prize almost within
+her grasp.
+
+A settled desire for the poor baby's death was the consequence, kept
+up by the continued reports of his danger.  Till that time she had
+prayed.  Then a sense that Heaven was unjust to her and her boy
+filled her with grim rebellion, and she prayed no more; and Perrault,
+by his constant return to the subject and speculations on it, kept
+her mind on it far more.
+
+But Alured lived, and every time she saw him she half hated him, half
+loved him; hated him as standing in her son's light, loved him
+because she could not help loving Trevor's shadow.
+
+That day, when Emily met them--it had been a sudden impulse--Alured
+had been talking to her about his plans for Trevor's birthday; and,
+as he spoke of that street, the wild thought came over her how easily
+a fever might yet sweep him away.  And yet she says, all down the
+street, she was trying to persuade herself to forget Emily's warning,
+and to disbelieve in the infection.  After all, she thought, even if
+she had not met Emily, she should have made some excuse for turning
+back, such a pitiful thought came of the fair, fresh face flushing
+and dying.
+
+But it was prevented, only it left fruits; for Perrault had heard
+what passed between her and Trevorsham.  "Did you take him to the
+shop?" he asked.  And when she mentioned Miss Deerhurst's reminder,
+he said, "Ah! that game wants skill and coolness to carry it out."
+
+She says that was almost all that passed in so many words; but from
+that time she never doubted that Perrault would take any opportunity
+of occasioning danger to Trevorsham; and, strange to say, she lived
+in a continued agony, half of hope, half of terror and grief and
+pity, her longing for Trevor's promotion, balanced by the thought of
+the grief he would suffer for his friend.  Any time those five years
+she told me she thought that had she seen Perrault hurting him, she
+should have rushed between to save him; and yet in other moods, when
+she planned for her son, she would herself have done anything to
+sweep Alured from his path.
+
+And the frequent discussion with Perrault of plans depending on the
+possession of the Trevorsham property, kept the consciousness of his
+purpose before her, and as debt and desperation grew, she was more
+and more sure of it.
+
+That last day, when Trevor had been driven away, lamenting his
+inability to go out duck shooting, Perrault had quietly said in the
+late evening, "I shall take a turn in the salt marshes to-night--
+opportunities may offer."
+
+The wretch!  Fulk thinks he said so to implicate her.
+
+At any rate it left her shuddering with dread and remorse, yet half
+triumphant at the notion of putting an end to Fulk's power over the
+estate, and of installing her son as heir of Trevorsham.
+
+She had no fears for him, she trusted to his lame foot to detain him,
+and said to herself that if it was to be, he would be spared the
+sight.  She was growing jealous of his love for Alured and of us, and
+had a fierce glad hope of getting him more to herself.
+
+And then! oh! poor Hester!
+
+No wonder her desire was to be
+
+
+     Anywhere, anywhere,
+     Out of the world.
+
+
+But out of all the anguish, the remorse, the despair, repentance grew
+at last.  Love seemed to open the heart to it.  The sense of infinite
+redeeming love penetrated at last, and trust in pardon, and with
+pardon came peace.  Peace grew on her, through increasing self-
+condemnation, and bearing her up as the bodily powers failed more and
+more.
+
+There is little more to say.  She was a dear and precious charge to
+us, and as she grew weaker, she also became more cheerful! and even
+that terrible, broken-hearted sense of bereavement calmed.
+
+She found out about Jaquetta and Arthur, and took great interest in
+his arrangements for getting a partnership at Shinglebay.
+
+"And Hester," said Jaquetta, "it is so lucky for me that I came down
+from being a fine lady.  I might never have known Arthur; and if I
+had, what an absurd creature I should have been as a poor man's
+wife!"
+
+As to the Deerhursts, the mother sent a servant once or twice to
+inquire, but never came herself to see her dear friend; and Miss
+Prior took care to tell us that there were horrid whispers about,
+that Hester had known, and if not, Mrs. Deerhurst could not have on
+her visiting list the wife of a man with a warrant out against him!
+She thought it very unfeeling in us to harbour her.
+
+But Emily came.  Hester had a great longing to thank her for checking
+her on that walk to the scarlet-fever place, and asked Jaquetta one
+day to write to her and beg her to come to see a dying woman.
+
+Emily showed the note to her mother, and did not ask leave.  The
+white doe had become a much more valiant animal.
+
+Hester had liked Emily even while Emily shrank from her, and she now
+realized what she had inflicted upon her and Fulk.
+
+She asked Emily's pardon for it, as she had asked Fulk's, and said
+that when she was gone she hoped all would come right.  Of course the
+old position could not be restored, but she knew now why Joel Lea had
+such an instinct against it.
+
+"I feel," she once said, "as if Satan had offered me all this for my
+soul, and I had taken the bargain.  Aye, and if God's providence had
+allowed our wicked purpose, he would have had it too.  My husband! he
+prayed for me! and my boy did too."
+
+She always called Joel Lea "my husband" now, and thought and talked
+much of their early love and his warnings.  I think the way she had
+saddened his later years grieved her as much as anything, and all her
+affection seemed revived.
+
+She lingered on, never leaving the house indeed, but not much worse,
+till the year had come round again, and we loved her more each day we
+nursed her.  And when the end came suddenly at last, we mourned as
+for a dear sister.
+
+Perrault wrote once--a threatening, swaggering letter from America,
+demanding hush-money.  It did not come till she was too ill to open
+it--only in the last week before her death, and it was left till we
+settled her affairs.
+
+Then Fulk wrote and told him of the verdict against him, and
+recommended him to let himself be heard of no more.  And he took the
+advice.
+
+We found that dear Hester had left all the fortune, 30,000 pounds,
+which had been settled on herself and Trevor, to be divided equally
+between us three.  Nor had we any scruple in profiting by it.
+
+Trevorsham had enough, and it was what my father would have given us
+if he could.
+
+It was enough to make Jaquetta and her young Dr. Cradock settle down
+happily and prosperously on the practice they bought.
+
+And enough too, together with Emily's strong quiet determination, to
+make Mrs. Deerhurst withdraw her opposition.  Daughters of twenty-
+nine years old may get their own way.
+
+Moreover a drawing-room and dining-room were built on to Skimping's
+Lawn, though Alured declares they have spoilt the place, and nothing
+ever was so jolly as the keeping-room.
+
+We had a beautiful double wedding in the summer, in our old church,
+and since that I have come to make the old Hall homelike to my boy in
+the holidays.
+
+We are very happy together when he comes home, and fills the house
+with his young friends; and if it feels too large and empty for me in
+his absence, I can always walk down for a happy afternoon with Emily,
+or go and make a longer visit to Jaquetta.
+
+And I don't think, as a leader of the fashion, she would have been
+half so happy as the motherly, active, ready-handed doctor's wife.
+
+But best of all to me, are those quiet moments when Alured's earnest
+spirit shows itself, and he talks out what is in his heart; that it
+is a great responsibility to stand in the place such a man as Fulk
+would have had--yes--and to have been saved at the cost of Trevor's
+life.
+
+I believe the pure, calm remembrance of Trevor Lea's life will be his
+guiding star, and that he will be worthy of it.
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Lady Hester or, Ursula's Narrative
+by Charlotte M. Yonge
+******This file should be named ldyhs10.txt or ldyhs10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, ldyhs11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ldyhs10a.txt
+
+This Etext was prepared by Sandra Laythorpe, laythorpe@tiscali.co.uk.
+
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+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Lady Hester or, Ursula's Narrative
+by Charlotte M. Yonge
+
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