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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Modern Broods, by Charlotte Mary Yonge
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Modern Broods
+       or Developments Unlooked For
+
+
+Author: Charlotte Mary Yonge
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 24, 2014  [eBook #7191]
+[This file was first posted on March 26, 2003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN BROODS***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1900 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+                              MODERN BROODS,
+                                    OR
+                       _DEVELOPMENTS UNLOOKED FOR_
+
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                    BY
+                          CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+    “_Youth and age are scholars yet but in the lower school_.”
+
+                                  —TENNYSON.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                  London
+                        MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
+                     NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+                                   1900
+
+                          _All rights reserved_
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                     RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
+                            LONDON AND BUNGAY.
+
+                    _First Edition_, _October_, 1900.
+                      _Reprinted_, _November_, 1900.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                        PAGE
+                 CHAPTER I
+TORTOISES AND HARES                        1
+                 CHAPTER II
+THE GOYLE                                 16
+                CHAPTER III
+THE FIRST SUNDAY                          23
+                 CHAPTER IV
+CYCLES                                    34
+                 CHAPTER V
+CLIPSTONE FRIENDS                         45
+                 CHAPTER VI
+THE FRESCOES OF ST. KENELM’S              57
+                CHAPTER VII
+SISTER AND SISTERS                        67
+                CHAPTER VIII
+SNOBBISHNESS                              75
+                 CHAPTER IX
+GONE OVER TO THE ENEMY                    80
+                 CHAPTER X
+FLOWN                                     93
+                 CHAPTER XI
+ADRIFT                                   103
+                CHAPTER XII
+“THE KITTIWAKE”                          108
+                CHAPTER XIII
+CHIMERAS DIRE                            119
+                CHAPTER XIV
+PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED                 128
+                 CHAPTER XV
+BROODS ASTRAY                            135
+                CHAPTER XVI
+THE REGIMENT OF WOMEN                    146
+                CHAPTER XVII
+FOXGLOVES AND FLIRTATIONS                158
+               CHAPTER XVIII
+PALACES OR CHURCHES                      165
+                CHAPTER XIX
+TWO WEDDINGS                             179
+                 CHAPTER XX
+FLEETING                                 194
+                CHAPTER XXI
+THE ELECTRICIANS                         204
+                CHAPTER XXII
+ANGEL AND BEAR                           213
+               CHAPTER XXIII
+WILLOW WIDOWS                            224
+                CHAPTER XXIV
+CRUEL LAWYERS                            237
+                CHAPTER XXV
+BEAR AS ADVISER                          245
+                CHAPTER XXVI
+NEW PATHS                                258
+               CHAPTER XXVII
+A SENTENCE                               266
+               CHAPTER XXVIII
+SUMMONED                                 274
+                CHAPTER XXIX
+SAFE                                     284
+                CHAPTER XXX
+THE MAIDEN ROCKS                         293
+                CHAPTER XXXI
+THE WRECK                                300
+               CHAPTER XXXII
+ANCHORED                                 306
+               CHAPTER XXXIII
+FAREWELL                                 310
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I—TORTOISES AND HARES
+
+
+    “Whate’er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven,
+    Though it be what thou canst not hope to see.”
+
+                                                       —HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
+
+THE scene was a drawing-room, with old-fashioned heavy sash windows
+opening on a narrow brick-walled town-garden sloping down to a river, and
+neatly kept.  The same might be said of the room, where heavy
+old-fashioned furniture, handsome but not new, was concealed by various
+flimsy modernisms, knicknacks, fans, brackets, china photographs and
+water-colours, a canary singing loud in the window in the winter
+sunshine.
+
+“Miss Prescott,” announced the maid; but, finding no auditor save the
+canary, she retreated, and Miss Prescott looked round her with a half
+sigh of recognition of the surroundings.  She was herself a
+quiet-looking, gentle lady, rather small, with a sweet mouth and eyes of
+hazel, in a rather worn face, dressed in a soft woollen and grey fur,
+with headgear to suit, and there was an air of glad expectation, a little
+flush, that did not look permanent, on her thin cheeks.
+
+“Is it you, my dear Miss Prescott?” was the greeting of the older hostess
+as she entered, her grey hair rough and uncovered, and her dress of
+well-used black silk, her complexion of the red that shows wear and care.
+“Then it is true?” she asked, as the kiss and double shake of the hand
+was exchanged.
+
+“May I ask?  Is it true?  May I congratulate you?”
+
+“Oh, yes, it is true!” said Miss Prescott, breathlessly.  “I suppose the
+girls are at the High School?”
+
+“Yes, they will be at home at one.  Or shall I send for them?”
+
+“No, thank you, Mrs. Best.  I shall like to have a little time with you
+first.  I can stay till a quarter-past three.”
+
+“Then come and take off your things.  I do not know when I have been so
+glad!”
+
+“Do the girls know?” asked Miss Prescott, following upstairs to a
+comfortable bedroom, evidently serving also the purposes of a private
+room, for writing table and account books stood near the fire.
+
+“They know something; Kate Bell heard a report from her cousins, and they
+have been watching anxiously for news from you.”
+
+“I would not write till I knew more.  I hope they have not raised their
+expectations too high; for though it is enough to be an immense relief,
+it is not exactly affluence.  I have been with Mr. Bell going into the
+matter and seeing the place,” said Miss Prescott, sitting comfortably
+down in the arm-chair Mrs. Best placed for her, while she herself sat
+down in another, disposing themselves for a talk over the fire.
+
+“Mr. Bell reckons it at about £600 a year.”
+
+“And an estate?”
+
+“A very pretty cottage in a Devonshire valley, with the furniture and
+three acres of land.”
+
+“Oh!  I believe the girls fancy that it is at least as large as Lord
+Coldhurst’s.”
+
+“Yes, I was in hopes that they would have heard nothing about it.”
+
+“It came through some of their schoolfellows; one cannot help things
+getting into the air.”
+
+“And there getting inflated like bubbles,” said Miss Prescott, smiling.
+“Well, their expectations will have a fall, poor dears!”
+
+“And it does not come from their side of the family,” said Mrs. Best.
+“Of course not!  And it was wholly unexpected, was it not?”
+
+“Yes, I had my name of Magdalen from my great aunt Tremlett; but she had
+never really forgiven my mother’s marriage, though she consented to be my
+godmother.  She offered to adopt me on my mother’s death, and once when
+my father married again, and when we lost him, she wrote to propose my
+coming to live with her; but there would have been no payment, and so—”
+
+“Yes, you dear good thing, you thought it your duty to go and work for
+your poor little stepmother and her children!”
+
+“What else was my education good for, which has been a costly thing to
+poor father?  And then the old lady was affronted for good, and never
+took any more notice of me, nor answered my letters.  I did not even know
+she was dead, till I heard from Mr. Bell, who had learnt it from his
+lawyers!”
+
+“It was quite right of her.  Dear Magdalen, I am so glad,” said Mrs.
+Best, crossing over to kiss her; for the first stiffness had worn off,
+and they were together again, as had been the solicitor’s daughter and
+the chemist’s daughter, who went to the same school till Magdalen had
+been sent away to be finished in Germany.
+
+“Dear Sophy, I wish you had the good fortune, too!”
+
+“Oh! my galleons are coming when George has prospered a little more in
+Queensland, and comes to fetch me.  Sophia and he say they shall fight
+for me,” said Mrs. Best, who had been bravely presiding over a
+high-school boarding-house ever since her husband, a railway engineer,
+had been killed by an accident, and left her with two children to bring
+up.  “Dear children, they are very good to me.”
+
+“I am sure you have been goodness itself to us,” said Magdalen, “in
+taking the care of these poor little ones when their mother died.  I
+don’t know how to be thankful enough to you and for all the blessings we
+have had!  And that this should have come just now, especially when my
+life with Lady Milsom is coming to an end.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“Yes, the little boys are old enough for school, and the Colonel is going
+to take a house at Shrewsbury, where his mother will live with them, and
+want me no longer.”
+
+“You have been there seven years.”
+
+“Yes, and very happy.  When Fanny married, Lady Milsom was left alone,
+and would not part with me, and then came the two little boys from India,
+so that she had an excuse for retaining me; but that is over now, or will
+be in a few weeks time.  I had been trying for an engagement, and finding
+that beside your high-school diploma young ladies I am considered quite
+passée—”
+
+“My dear!  With your art, and music, and all!”
+
+“Too true!  And while I was digesting a polite hint that my terms were
+too high, and therewith Agatha’s earnest appeal to be sent to Girton,
+there comes this inheritance!  Taking my burthen off my back, and making
+me ready to throw up my heels like a young colt.”
+
+“Ah! you will be taking another burthen, perhaps.”
+
+“No doubt, I suppose so, but let me find it out by degrees.  I can only
+think as yet of having my dear girls to myself, _moi_, as the French
+would say, after having seen so little of them.”
+
+“It has been very unfortunate.  Epidemics have been strangely
+inconvenient.”
+
+“Yes.  First there was whooping cough here to destroy the summer
+holidays; then came the Milsoms’ measles, and I could not go and carry
+infection.  Oh! and then Freddy broke his leg, and his grandmother was
+too nervous to be left with him.  And by and by some one told her the
+scarlatina was in the town.”
+
+“It really was, you know.”
+
+“Any way, it would have been sheer selfish inhumanity to leave her, and
+then she had a real illness, which frightened us all very much.  Next
+came influenza to every one.  And these last holidays!  What should the
+newly-come little one from India do, but catch a fever in the Red Sea,
+and I had to keep guard over the brothers at Weymouth till she was
+reported safe, and I don’t believe it was infectious after all!  Still, I
+am tired of ‘other people’s stairs.’”
+
+“It is nearly five years since you have been with them, except for that
+one peep you took at Weston.”
+
+“And that is a great deal at their age.  Agatha was a vehement reader;
+she would hardly look at me, so absorbed was she in ‘The York and
+Lancaster Rose’ which I had brought her.”
+
+“She is rather like that now.  I conclude that you will wish to take them
+away?”
+
+“Not this time, at any rate till the house is fit to put over their
+heads.  Besides, you have so mothered them, dear Sophy, that I could not
+bear to make a sudden parting.”
+
+“There will be pain, especially over little Thekla and Polly.  But if
+George comes home this spring, and I go out to Queensland with him,
+perhaps I should have asked you to take this house off my hands.  May be
+it would be prudent in you to do so even now, considering all things;
+only I believe that transplanting would be good for them all.”
+
+“I am glad you think so, for I have a perfect longing for that little
+house of my own.”
+
+“You will be able to give them a superior kind of society to what they
+have had access to here.  There is a good deal that I should like to talk
+over with you before they come in.”
+
+“Agatha seems to be in despair at her failure.”
+
+“So is all the house, for we were very proud of her, and, of course, we
+all thought it a fad of the examiners, but perhaps our headmistress might
+not say the same.  She is a good, hardworking girl though, and ambitious,
+and quite worth further training.”
+
+“I am glad of being able to secure it to her at least, and by the time
+her course is finished I shall be able to judge about the others.”
+
+“You thought of taking them in hand yourself?”
+
+“Certainly; how nice it will be to teach my own kin, and not endless
+strangers, lovable as they have been!”
+
+“It will be very good for them all to see something of life and manners
+superior to what I can give them here.  You will take them into a fresh
+sphere, and—as things were—besides that, I could not—I did not know
+whether their lives would not lie among our people here.”
+
+“Dear Sophy, don’t concern yourself.  I am quite certain you would never
+let them fall in with anything hurtful.”
+
+“Why, no!  I hope not; but if I had known what was coming, I don’t think
+I should have asked you to consent to Vera and Thekla’s spending their
+holidays at Mr. Waring’s country house.”
+
+“Very worthy people, you said.  I remember Tom Waring, a very nice boy;
+and Jessie Dale went to school with us—I liked her.  Fancy them having a
+country house.”
+
+“Waring Grange they call it.  He has got on wonderfully as upholsterer,
+decorator, and auctioneer.  It is a very handsome one, with a garden that
+gets the prizes at the horticultural shows.  They are thoroughly good
+people, but I was afraid afterwards that there had been a good deal of
+noisiness among the young folks at Christmas.  Hubert Delrio was there,
+and I fancy there was some nonsense going on.”
+
+“Ah, the Delrios!  Are they here?”
+
+“Yes, poor Fred did not make his art succeed when he had a family to
+provide for, and he is the head of the Art School here.  His son has a
+good deal of talent, and very prudently has got taken on by the firm of
+Eccles and Co., who do a great deal of architectural decoration.  The boy
+is doing very well, but there have been giggles and whispers that make me
+rejoice that Vera should be out of the neighbourhood.”
+
+“Is she not very pretty?”
+
+“You will be very much struck with her, I think; and Paulina is pretty
+too, and more thoughtful.  She would not go with Thekla, because Waring
+Grange is far from church, and she would not disturb her Christmas and
+Epiphany.  She is the most religious of them all, and puts me in mind of
+our old missionary castles in the air.”
+
+“Ah, what castles they were!  And they seem further off than ever!  Or
+perhaps you will fulfil them, and go and teach the Australian blacks!”
+
+“A very unpromising field,” said Mrs. Best, “though I hear there is a
+Sister Angela at the station who does wonders with them.  I hear the
+quarter striking—they will be back directly.”
+
+“Ah! before they come, we ought to talk over means!  Something is owing
+for these last holidays.  Oh! Sophy, I cannot find words to say how
+thankful I am to you for having helped me through this time, even to your
+own loss!  It has made our life possible.”
+
+“Indeed, I was most thankful to do all I could for poor Agnes’ children;
+and though I did not gain by them like my other boarders, I never _lost_,
+and they have been a great joy to me, yes, and a help, by giving my house
+a character.”
+
+“When I recollect how utterly crushed down I felt, seven years ago, when
+their mother died, and Aunt Magdalen refused help, and how despairingly I
+prayed, I feel all the more that there is an answer to even feeble almost
+worldly prayer.”
+
+“That it could not be when it was that you might be enabled to do the
+duty that was laid on you, my dear.”
+
+And with the exchange of a kiss, the two good women set themselves to
+practical pounds, shillings, and pence, which was just concluded when the
+patter of feet up the stone steps and voices in the hall announced the
+return of Mrs. Best’s boarders.
+
+Just as Magdalen was opening the door, there darted up, with the air of a
+privileged favourite, a little person of ten years old, with flying brown
+hair and round rosy cheeks, exclaiming breathlessly, “Is she come?”
+
+The answer was to take her up with a motherly hug, and “My dear little
+Thekla!”  There was not time for more than a hurried glance and embrace
+of the three on the steps of the stair, in their sailor hats and blue
+serge; but when in ten minutes more, the whole party, twenty in number,
+were seated round the dining table, observation was possible.  Agatha, as
+senior scholar, sat at the foot of the table, fully occupied in
+dispensing Irish stew.  She had a sensible face, to which projecting
+teeth gave a character, and a brow that would have shown itself finer but
+for the overhanging mass of hair.  Vera and Paulina were so much alike
+and so nearly of the same age that they were often taken for twins, but
+on closer inspection Vera proved to be the prettiest, with a more
+delicately cut nose, clearer complexion, and bluer eyes; but Paulina,
+with paler cheeks, had softer eyes, and more pencilled brows, as well as
+a prettier lip and chin, though she would not strike the eye so much as
+her sister.  Little Thekla was a round-faced, rosy little thing, childish
+for her nearly eleven years, smiling broadly and displaying enough white
+teeth to make Magdalen forebode that they would need much attention if
+they were not to be a desight like Agatha’s.
+
+She sat between Mrs. Best and Magdalen; and in the first pause, when the
+first course had just been distributed, she looked up with a great pair
+of grey eyes, and asked, in a shrill, clear little voice, “Sister, may I
+have a bicycle?”
+
+“We will see about it, my dear,” returned Magdalen, unwilling to pledge
+herself.
+
+“But haven’t you got a fortune?” undauntedly demanded Thekla.
+
+“Something like it, Thekla.  You shall hear about it after dinner.”  And
+Magdalen felt her colour flushing up under all those young eyes.
+
+“Kitty Best said—”
+
+But here Mrs. Best interposed.  “We don’t talk over such things at table,
+Thekla.  Take care with the gravy.  Did Mr. Jones give a lesson, this
+morning?”
+
+“Yes, a very long one,” said Vera.
+
+“It was about the exact force of the words in the Revised Version,” added
+Agatha, “compared with the Greek.”
+
+“That must have been very interesting!” said Magdalen.
+
+Vera and her neighbour looked at one another and shrugged their
+shoulders; while some one else broke in with the news that another girl
+had not come back because she was down with influenza; and Magdalen,
+suspecting that “shop” was not talked at table, and also that the
+Scripture passage could not well be discussed there, saw that it was wise
+to let the conversation drift off, by Mrs. Best’s leading, into anecdotes
+of the influenza.
+
+All were glad when grace was chanted, and the five sisters could retreat
+into the drawing-room, which Mrs. Best let them have to themselves for
+the half hour before Magdalen’s train, and the young ones’ return to the
+High School.  She was at once established with Thekla on her lap, and the
+others perched round on chairs and footstools.  Of course the first
+question was, “And is it really true?”
+
+“It is true, my dears, that my old great aunt has left me a house and
+some money; but you must not flatter yourselves that it is a great
+estate.”
+
+“Only mayn’t I have a bicycle?” began Thekla again.
+
+“Child, I believe you have bicycles on the brain,” said Agatha.  “But,
+sister, you do mean that we shall be better off, and I shall be able to
+go on with my education?”
+
+“Yes, my dear, I think I can promise you so much,” said Magdalen,
+caressing the serge shoulder.
+
+“O thanks!  Girton?” cried Agatha.
+
+“There is much that I must inquire about before I decide—”
+
+Again came, “Elsie Warner has a bicycle, and she is no older than me!
+Please, sister!”
+
+“Hush now, my little Thekla,” said the sister kindly; “I will talk to
+Mrs. Best, and see whether she thinks it will be good for you.”
+
+Thekla subsided with a pout, and Magdalen was able to explain her
+circumstances and plans a little more in detail; seeing however that the
+girls had no idea of the value of money, Paulina asked whether it meant
+being as well off as the Colonel and Lady Mary—
+
+“Who keep a carriage and pair, and a butler,” interposed Vera.
+
+“Oh no, my dear.  If I keep any kind of carriage it will be only a basket
+or governess cart, and a pony or donkey.”
+
+“That’s all right,” said Agatha.  “I would not be rich and stupid for the
+world.”
+
+“Small fear of that!” said Magdalen, laughing.  “Our home, the Goyle, is
+not more than a cottage, in a beautiful Devonshire valley—”
+
+“What’s the name of it?”
+
+“The Goyle.  I believe it is a diminutive of Gully, a narrow ravine.  It
+is lovely even now, and will be delightful when you come to me in April—”
+
+“Shall I leave school?” asked Vera.  “I shall be seventeen in May.”
+
+“You will all leave school.  Mrs. Best has made it easy to me by her
+wonderful goodness in keeping you on cheaper terms; but if Agatha goes to
+the University you must be content to work for a time with me.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Thekla.  “Shall I have always holidays?  My bicycle!”
+
+Everybody burst out laughing at this—not a very trained cachinnation, but
+more of the giggle, even in Agatha; and Magdalen answered:
+
+“You will have plenty of time for bicycling if the hills are not too
+steep, but I hope to make your lessons pleasant to you.”  She did not
+know whether to mention Mrs. Best’s intention of soon giving up her
+house, which would have much increased her difficulties but for her
+legacy; and Agatha said, “You know, I think, that Vera and Polly both
+ought to make a real study of music.  They both have talent, and
+cultivation would do a great deal for it.”
+
+Agatha spoke in a dogmatic way that amused Magdalen, and she said, “Well,
+I shall be able to judge when we are at the Goyle.  Vera, I think you
+sing—”
+
+Vera looked shy, and Agatha said, “She has a good voice, and Madame
+Lardner thinks it would answer to send her to some superior Conservatoire
+in process of time.”
+
+Vera did not commit herself as to her wishes, and Mrs. Best returned to
+say that if Miss Prescott wished to see the headmistress it was time to
+set out for the school; and accordingly the whole party walked up
+together to the school, Magdalen with Agatha, who was chiefly occupied in
+explaining how entirely it was owing to the one-sidedness of the
+examiners that she had not gained the scholarship.  Magdalen had heard of
+such examiners before from the mothers of her pupils.
+
+She had to wish her sisters good-bye for the next three months, not
+having gathered very much about them, except their personal appearance.
+She administered a sovereign to each of them as they parted.  Agatha
+thanked her in a tone as if afraid to betray what a boon it was; Vera,
+with an eager kiss, asking if she could spend it as she liked; Paulina,
+with a certain grave propriety; and Thekla, of course, wanted to know
+whether it would buy a bicycle, or, if not, how many rides could be
+purchased from it.
+
+When they were absorbed in the routine of the day, the interview with the
+head mistress disclosed, what Magdalen had expected, that Agatha, was an
+industrious, ambitious girl, with very good abilities quite worth
+cultivating, though not extraordinary; that Vera had a certain sort of
+cleverness, but no application and not much taste for anything but music;
+and that Paulina was a good, dutiful, plodding girl, who surpassed
+brighter powers by dint of diligence.  The little one was a mere child,
+who had not yet come much under notice from the higher authorities.
+
+On the whole, Magdalen went away with pleasant hopes, and the
+affectionate impulses of kindred blood rising within her, to complete her
+term with Lady Milsom, by whom she could not well be spared till towards
+Easter; while, in the meantime, her house was being repaired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II—THE GOYLE
+
+
+                  “A poor thing, but mine own.”—SHAKESPEARE.
+
+          “Thaay stwuns, thaay stwuns, thaay stwuns, thaay stwuns.”
+
+                                —T. HUGHES, _Scouring of the White Horse_.
+
+MAGDALEN PRESCOTT stood on her own little terrace.  Her house was, like
+many Devonian ones, built high on the slope of a steep hill, running down
+into a narrow valley, and her abode was almost at the narrowest part,
+where a little lively brawling stream descended from the moor amid rocks
+and brushwood.  If the history of the place were told, it had been built
+for a shooting box, then inherited by a lawyer who had embellished and
+spent his holidays there, and afterwards, his youngest daughter, a lonely
+and retiring woman, had spent her latter years there.
+
+The house was low, stone built, and roofed with rough slate, with a
+narrow verandah in front, and creepers in bud covering it.  Then came a
+terrace just wide enough for a carriage to drive up; and below,
+flower-beds bordered with stones found what vantage ground they could
+between the steep slopes of grass that led almost precipitously down to
+the stream, where the ground rose equally rapidly on the other side.
+Moss, ivy, rhododendrons, primroses, anemones, and the promise of ferns
+were there, and the adjacent beds had their full share of hepaticas and
+all the early daffodil kinds.  Behind and on the southern side, lay the
+kitchen garden, also a succession of steps, and beyond as the ravine
+widened were small meadows, each with a big stone in the midst.  The
+gulley, (or goyle) narrowed as it rose, and there was a disused limestone
+quarry, all wreathed over with creeping plants, a birch tree growing up
+all white and silvery in the middle, and above the house and garden was
+wood, not of fine trees, and interspersed with rocks, but giving shade
+and shelter.  The opposite side had likewise fields below, with one grey
+farm house peeping in sight, and red cattle feeding in one, and above the
+same rocky woodland, meeting the other at the quarry; and then after a
+little cascade had tumbled down from the steeper ground, giving place to
+the heathery peaty moor, which ended, more than two miles off in a torr
+like a small sphinx.  This could not be seen from Magdalen’s territory,
+but from the highest walk in her kitchen garden, she could see the square
+tower of Arnscombe, her parish church; and on a clear day, the glittering
+water of Rockstone bay.
+
+To Magdalen it was a delightful view, and delightful too had been the
+arranging of her house, and preparing for her sisters.  All the furniture
+and contents of the abode had been left to her.  It was solid and
+handsome of its kind, belonging to the days of the retired Q.C., and some
+of it would have been displaced for what was more fresh and tasteful if
+Magdalen had not consulted economy.  So she depended on basket-chairs,
+screens, brackets and drapery to enliven the ancient mahagony and
+rosewood, and she had accumulated a good many water colours, vases and
+knick-knacks.  The old grand piano was found to be past its work, so that
+she went the length of purchasing a cottage one for the drawing-room, and
+another for the sitting-room that was to be the girls’ own property, and
+on which she expended much care and contrivance.  It opened into the
+drawing-room, and like it, had glass doors into the verandah, as well as
+another door into the little hall.  The drawing-room had a bow window
+looking over the fields towards the South, and this way too looked the
+dining-room, in which Magdalen bestowed whatever was least interesting,
+such as the “Hume and Smollett” and “Gibbon” of her grandfather’s library
+and her own school books, from which she hoped to teach Thekla.
+
+Her upstairs arrangements had for the moment been rather disturbed by
+Mrs. Best’s wishing to come with her pupils; but she decided that Agatha
+should at once take possession of her own pretty room, and the two next
+sisters of theirs, while she herself would sleep in the dressing room
+which she destined to Thekla, giving up her own chamber to Mrs. Best for
+these few days, and sending Thekla’s little bed to Agatha’s room.
+
+And there she stood, on the little terrace, thinking how lovely the
+purple light on the moor was, and how all the newcomers would enjoy such
+a treat.
+
+She had abstained from meeting them at the station, having respect to the
+capacities of the horse, even upon his native hills, and she had hired a
+farmer’s cart to meet them and bring their luggage.  Already she had a
+glimpse of the carriage, toiling up one hill, then disappearing between
+the hedges, and it was long before her gate, already open, was reached,
+and at her own _own_ door, she received her little sister, followed by
+the others.  And the first word she heard even before she had time to pay
+the driver was, “My dear Magdalen, what a road!”
+
+Poor Mrs. Best! as the payment was put into the man’s hand, Magdalen
+looked round and saw she looked quite worn out.
+
+“Yes,” said Paulina, “bumped to pieces and tired to death.”
+
+“I was afraid they had been mending the roads,” said Magdalen.
+
+“Mending!  Strewing them with rocks, if you please,” said Agatha.
+
+“And such a distance!” added Paulina.
+
+“Not quite three miles,” replied Magdalen.  “Here is some tea to repair
+you.”
+
+“My dear Magdalen”—in a chorus—“that really is quite impossible.  It must
+be five, at least.”
+
+“Your nearest town ten miles off!” sighed Vera.
+
+“Your nearest church,” cried Paulina.
+
+“Up in the wilds,” said Agatha.
+
+Magdalen felt as if these speeches were so many drops of water in her
+face and that of her beautiful Goyle, but she rose in its defence.
+
+“It actually is less than three miles,” she said.  “I have walked it
+several times, and the cabs only charge three.”
+
+“That is testimony,” said Mrs. Best, smiling; “but hills, perhaps, reckon
+for miles in one’s feelings!”
+
+“Particularly before you are rested,” said Magdalen, setting her down in
+a comfortable wicker chair.  “You will think little of it on your own
+feet, Vera, and the church is much nearer, Paulina, only on the other
+side of the hill.”
+
+“May I have a bicycle of my own?” burst in Thekla, again; while every one
+began laughing, and Agatha told her that Sister would think her brains
+were cycling.
+
+    “With centric and concentric scribbled o’er
+    Cycle and epicycle orb in orb.”
+
+“Epicycle?” cried Vera.  “I saw it advertised in the _Queen_.  A splendid
+one.”
+
+“Ah!  Magdalen, you will think I have not taught them their Milton,” said
+Mrs. Best, as both elders burst out laughing; and Agatha said, in an
+undertone, “Don’t make yourself such a goose, Vera.”
+
+“I should think it rather rough sailing for bikes,” said Paulina.
+
+“I should have thought so, myself,” returned Magdalen; “but the Clipstone
+girls do not seem to think so.  I see them sailing merrily into
+Rockstone.”
+
+“You have neighbours, then?” said Vera.
+
+“Certainly.  Rockstone supplies a good deal.  Here are various cards of
+people whose visits are yet to be returned.  Clipstone is further off;
+but the daughters will be nice friends for you.  I met one of them
+before, when she was staying at Lord Rotherwood’s.  But I am afraid your
+boxes are hardly come yet.  Still, you will like to take off your things
+before dinner, even if you cannot unpack.”
+
+She led the way, and disposed of each girl in her new quarters,
+explaining to Agatha that her’s and her little lodger were only
+temporary; but it struck upon her rather painfully that the only word of
+approbation or comfort came from Mrs. Best, and there were no notes at
+all of admiration of the scenery.
+
+“Well,” she said to herself, “much is not to be expected from people who
+have been tired and shaken up in a station cab over newly-mended roads!
+Were they as bad when I came?  But then I could look out, and did not
+hear poor Sophy’s groans all the way.  I rather wish she had not come
+with them, though I am glad to see her again for this last time.”
+
+Meantime the four girls had congregated in the room appropriated to Vera
+and Paulina.  “Here are the necessaries of life,” said Agatha, handing
+out a brush and comb.  “That slow wain may roll its course in utter
+darkness before it comes here.”
+
+“To the other end of nowhere,” said Vera.
+
+“And I am so tired,” whined Thekla.  “These tight boots do hurt me so!  I
+want to go to bed.”
+
+Paulina was already on her knees, removing the boots and accommodating a
+pair of slippers to the little feet.
+
+“We might as well be in a desert island,” continued Vera, “shut up from
+everything with an old frump.”
+
+“Take care,” said Agatha, in warning, signing towards Thekla.
+
+“I am sure she looks jolly and good-natured,” said Paulina.
+
+“But did you hear what Elsie Lee always calls her, ‘our maiden aunt’?”
+
+All three laughed, and Vera added, “All the girls say she can’t be less
+than fifty.”
+
+“Topsy!  You know she is only sixteen years older than I am.”
+
+“Well, that’s half a hundred!”
+
+“Sixteen and nineteen, what do they make?”
+
+“Oh, never mind your sums.  She has got the face and look of half a
+hundred!”
+
+“Now, I thought her face and her dress like a girl’s,” said Paulina.
+
+“Yes,” said Vera, “that’s just the way with old maids.  They dress
+themselves up youthfully and affect girlish airs, and are all the more
+horrid.”
+
+“That’s your experience!” said Agatha.  “But there’s the waggon creeping
+up at a snail’s pace.  Let us run down and see after our things.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III—THE FIRST SUNDAY
+
+
+    “Speed on, speed on, the footpath way,
+       And merrily hunt the stile-a;
+    A merry heart goes all the way,
+       A sad tires in a mile-a.”
+
+                                                             —SHAKESPEARE.
+
+SUNDAY morning rose with new and bright hopes.  The girls looked out at
+their window, and saw that it was a beautiful morning, and that the
+spring sunshine glowed upon the purple summits of the hills.  Agatha
+supposed there would be a pleasant walk to church; Paulina said she had
+heard good accounts of the services in that part of the country; Vera
+hoped that they would see what their neighbours were like, and Thekla was
+delighted with the jolly garden and places to scramble in.
+
+On this first Sunday they were let alone to explore the garden before the
+walk to church, which Magdalen foresaw would be a long affair with Mrs.
+Best.  After their decorous stillness at breakfast, it was a contrast to
+hear the merry voices and laughter outside, but it subsided as soon as
+she approached, though she did not hear the murmured ripple, “Here comes
+maiden aunt!  Behold—Quite a spicy hat!”
+
+In truth, Magdalen’s hat was a pretty new one, not by any means
+unsuitable to her age and appearance, and altogether her air was more
+stylish than the country town breeding was accustomed to; her dress
+perfectly plain, but well made.
+
+Vera was perhaps the most sensible of the perfection of the turn-out;
+Agatha chiefly felt that her more decorated skirt and mantle had their
+inconveniences in walking through the red mud of the lanes, impeded by
+books and umbrella, which left no leisure to admire the primroses that
+studded the deep banks and which delighted Thekla in the freedom of short
+skirts.
+
+Magdalen herself had enough to do in steering along such a substantial
+craft as poor Mrs. Best, used to church-going along a street, and
+shrouded under a squirrel mantle of many pounds weight.
+
+Barely in time was the convoy when at last the exhausted lady was helped
+over the stone stile that led to the churchyard.  Highly picturesque was
+the grey structure outside, but within modernism had not done much; the
+chancel was feebly fitted after the ideas of the “fifties,” but the faded
+woodwork of the nave was intact, and Magdalen still had to sit in the
+grim pew of her predecessors.
+
+The girls’ looks at each other might have suited the entrance to a
+condemned cell, and the pulpit towered above them with a faded green
+cushion, that seemed in danger of tumbling down over their heads.
+
+The service was a plain one, but reverent and careful; the music had a
+considerable element of harmonium mixed with schoolchild voices, and the
+sermon from an elderly man was a good one; but when the move to go out
+was made, and the young ones were beyond ear-shot of their elders, the
+exclamations were, “Well, I never thought to have gone back to Georgian
+era.”
+
+“Exactly the element of our maiden aunt.”
+
+“And nobody to be seen.”
+
+“Naggie, why do they shut one up in boxes?”
+
+“Just to daunt Flapsy’s roving eye, Tickle, my dear.”
+
+“Don’t, Polly.  There was nobody to be seen if we hadn’t been in a box.
+Of course no one comes there but stately old farmers and their smart
+daughters.  I saw one with a Gainsborough hat, and a bunch of cock’s
+feathers, with a scarlet cactus cocking it up behind.”
+
+“Flapsy made use of her opportunities, you see.  Being ‘emparocked in a
+pew’ cannot daunt her spirit of research.”
+
+“Now, Nag, I only meant to show you what impossible people they are.”
+
+“Natives who will repay the study perhaps,” continued Agatha, reading as
+though from a book of travels.  “We were able to observe a group of the
+aborigines at their devotions.  Conspicuous was a not ungraceful young
+female, whose head, ornamented with a plume of feathers, towered above
+the enclosure in which she was secluded, while an aged fakir, hakem or
+medicine man pronounced from a loftier structure resembling a sentry
+box.”
+
+“Children, children, that’s the wrong way,” came Magdalen’s voice from
+behind.  “You must turn into that lane.  Wait a moment.”
+
+They waited till Mrs. Best’s lagging steps allowed Magdalen to come up
+with them, but dead silence fell on them when Mrs. Best observed, “You
+were very merry.”  They could not speak of the cause.  Perhaps Magdalen
+divined something, for she said, “We hope to make some improvements, and
+so indeed does Mr. Earl, but he is very poor.  Besides, newcomers must
+work slowly.”
+
+The doubt whether she had heard Agatha’s speech made the girls conscious
+enough to keep from responding, as she meant them to do, by cheerful
+criticisms, and indeed the task of cheering and dragging on Mrs. Best was
+quite enough to occupy her.  There was only three years difference in
+their ages, but this seemed to have made a great interval between one
+whose _métier_ had been to be youthful and active, and her who had to be
+staid and dignified.
+
+The early dinner passed in all demureness and formality, and the poor
+visitor was too much tired for any more services to be thought of for
+her.  Magdalen explained that when the days would be longer, she thought
+of walking to Rockstone for evensong, but now the best way was to go to
+the chapel at Clipstone, which was nearer than either of the others.
+
+“There is a lovely little chapel there, beautifully fitted up by Lord
+Rotherwood and Sir Jasper Merrifield, for the hamlet,” she said.
+
+“How far?” asked Mrs. Best.
+
+“About a mile and a half across the fields; further by the road.  You
+will find your bicycles available when you know the way.”
+
+“Don’t we go to Rockstone?” asked Paulina.  “I am sure there is a really
+satisfactory church there.”
+
+“St. Kenelm’s, do you mean?  That is not so near as St. Andrew’s Church,
+but that is very satisfactory, and I go to one or other of them on
+week-days.  It is too late to come back on these spring Sundays.”
+
+“I should not like to live among so many churches,” said Mrs. Best, “and
+so far from them all!”
+
+“You love your old parish church, like a faithful old churchwoman,” said
+Magdalen.  “Well, you see, I am faithful enough to go to my parish in the
+morning, but I think we may be discursive afterwards.  There is a Sunday
+school in which I was waiting to offer help till our party was made up.”
+
+Magdalen had looked twice for a responding smile, first from Agatha, and
+then from Paulina, but none was awakened.  The girls clustered together
+in the bedroom, and the word “Goody” passed between them.
+
+“Tempered by respect for my Lord and Sir Jasper,” added Agatha.
+
+“And avoiding St. Kenelm’s because it is the real correct church,” said
+Paulina.
+
+“Oh, yes!” cried Vera.  “Mr. Hubert Delrio went to see it in case Eccles
+and Beamster should have an order.  We must go there.”
+
+“Of course,” said Paulina, with a sympathetic nod.
+
+“But,” said Agatha, “there will be an embargo on all acquaintance except
+the grandees at Clipstone.”
+
+“I shall never drop old friends,” cried Vera.  “I am a rock of crystal as
+regards them, whatever swells may require, if they burst themselves like
+the frog and the ox.”
+
+“Well done, crystal rock; but suppose the old friends slide off and drop
+you?” laughed Agatha.
+
+Vera tossed her head; and Thekla ran in to say that Sister was ready.
+
+The walk was shorter and pleasanter than that in the morning, over
+moorland, but with a good road; but all Magdalen discovered on the walk
+was that though the girls had attended botanical classes, they did not
+recognise spear-wort when they saw it, and Agatha thought the old
+catalogue fashions of botany were quite exploded.  This was a sentiment,
+and it gave hopes of something like an argument and a conversation, but
+they were at that moment overtaken by the neighbouring farmer’s wife, who
+wanted to give Miss Prescott some information about a setting of eggs,
+which she did at some length, and with a rapid utterance of dialect that
+amused, while it puzzled, Magdalen, and her inquiries and comments were
+decided to be “thoroughly good-wife” by all save Thekla, who hailed the
+possible ownership of a hen and chicken as almost equal to that of a
+bicycle.
+
+Magdalen further discovered that Thekla’s name in common use was
+“Tickle,” or else “Tick-tick”; Paulina was, of course, Paula or Polly;
+Vera had her old baby title of Flapsy, which somehow suited her restless
+nervous motions, and Agatha had become Nag.  Well, it was the fashion of
+the day, though not a pretty one; but Magdalen recollected, with some
+pain, her father’s pleasure in the selection of saintly names for his
+little daughters, and she wondered how he would have liked to hear them
+thus transmuted.  There had been something bordering on sentiment in her
+father’s character, and something in Paulina’s expression made her hope
+to see it repeated by inheritance.  She saw the countenance brighten out
+of the morning’s antagonistic air when they entered the little chapel at
+Clipstone, and saw the altar adorned and carefully decked with white
+narcissus and golden daffodils.
+
+The little chapel was old and plain, very small, but reverently cared
+for.  There was no choir, but the chairs of those who could sing were
+placed near the harmonium, which was played by one of the young ladies
+from the large gabled house to which the chapel was attached, and the
+singing had the refined tones that belong to the music of cultivated
+people.  The congregation was evidently of poor folks from the hamlet,
+dependants of the great house, and the family itself, a grey-haired,
+fine-looking general, a tall dark-eyed lady, a tall youth, a schoolboy,
+and four girls—one of whom was musician, and the other presided over the
+school children.  The service was reverent, the catechising good and
+effective, the sermon brief, and summing up in a spiritual and devotional
+manner; Magdalen was happy, and trusted that Paulina was so likewise.
+
+She expected to hear some commendation as they walked home, but Vera
+alone kept with her, to examine her on the names and standing of the
+persons she had seen, on which there was as yet little to tell, for the
+first move towards acquaintance had not yet been made.  All that was
+known was that there were Sir Jasper and Lady Merrifield, connections of
+Lord Rotherwood, who owned most of the Rockstone property, and who with
+his family had once been staying in the country house where Magdalen had
+been governess; but it was a long time ago, and she only recollected that
+there were some nice little girls.  At least she said no more, but her
+friend thought the more.
+
+“I suppose they will call?” said Vera.
+
+“Most likely they will.”
+
+“Has nobody called?”
+
+“Mr. Earl, the Vicar of Arnscombe.  He has promised to tell me how we can
+be of use here.  I believe there is great want of a lady at the Sunday
+school.”
+
+This did not interest Vera—and she went on asking questions about the
+neighbourhood, and whether any of the Rockstone people had left cards,
+and whether there were any parties, garden or evening, at Rockstone—more
+than Magdalen could yet answer, though she was glad to promote any sort
+of conversation with either of the girls who did not stand aloof from
+her.
+
+“I say, the M.A. (maiden aunt) knows nobody but that old clergyman, who
+wants her to teach his Sunday school.”
+
+“I’m out of that, thank goodness,” said Agatha.
+
+“And Sunday schools are a delusion, only hindering the children from
+going to church with their parents,” said Paulina.
+
+“And if nobody calls, and they all think her no better than an old
+governess, how awfully slow it will be,” continued Vera.
+
+“I do not suppose that will last,” said Agatha.  “There is Rockstone,
+remember.”
+
+“Ten miles off,” said Vera disconsolately.  “Oh, Nag, Nag, isn’t it
+horrid!  We shall be just smart enough to be taken for swells, and know
+nobody; and the swells won’t have us because she is a governess.  We
+might as well be upon a desert island at once.”
+
+Agatha could not help laughing and repeating—
+
+    “I am out of humanity’s reach,
+       I must finish my journey alone—
+    Never hear the sweet music of speech,
+       I start at the sound of my own.”
+
+“But really, Nag,” broke in Paulina, “it is horrid.  Here we are
+equidistant from three or four churches, and condemned to the most behind
+the world of them all, and then to the one where there is this distant
+fragrance of swells, instead of the only Catholic one.”
+
+Agatha had a little more common sense than the other two, and she
+responded—
+
+“After all, you know, you are better off than if you were still at
+school; and the M.A. is a good old soul at the bottom, and you may manage
+her, depend on it.  Though I wish she had let me go to Girton.”
+
+Magdalen and Mrs. Best meantime were going over future prospects and old
+times.  Mrs. Best’s destination was Albertstown, in Queensland, where her
+son George had a good practice as a doctor, and where he assured her she
+would find church privileges—even a cathedral, so-called, and a
+bishop—though Bishop Fulmort was always out on some expedition among the
+colonists or the natives, but among his clergy there was always Sunday
+service.  In fact, Magdalen thought the good old lady expected to find a
+town more like Filsted than the Goyle.  There was a sisterhood located
+there too, which tried, mostly in vain, to train the wild native women—an
+attempt at which George Best laughed, though he allowed that the sisters
+were splendid nurses, especially Sister Angela, who had a wonderful way
+of bringing cases round.
+
+Magdalen could feel secure that her old friend would be near kind people;
+and presently Mrs. Best, returning to the actual neighbourhood, observed—
+
+“Merrifield!  It is not a common name.”
+
+“No; but I do not think this is the same family.  This is a retired
+general, living in a house of Lord Rotherwood’s.  I once met one of his
+little girls, who came to Castle Towers with the Rotherwood party, and
+though she had a brother of the name, he was evidently not the same
+person.”
+
+Mrs. Best asked no more, for tell-tale colour had arisen in Magdalen’s
+cheeks; and she had been the confidante of an engagement with a certain
+Henry Merrifield, who had been employed in the bank at Filsted when
+Magdalen was a very young girl.  His father had come down suddenly, had
+found debt and dissipation, had broken all off decidedly, and no more had
+been heard of the young man.  It was many years previously; but those
+cheeks and the tone of the reply made her suspect that there was still
+poignancy in the remembrance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV—CYCLES
+
+
+    “What flowers grow in my field wherewith to dress thee.”
+
+                                                     —E. BARRETT BROWNING.
+
+MRS. BEST departed early the next morning.  It was probably a parting for
+life between the two old friends; and Magdalen keenly felt the severance
+from the one person whom she had always known, and on whose sympathy she
+could rely.  Their conversations had been very precious to her, and she
+felt desolate without the entire companionship.  Yet, on the other hand,
+she felt as if she could have begun better with her sisters if Sophy Best
+had not come with them, to hand them over, as it were, when she wanted to
+start on the same level with them, and be more like their contemporary
+than their authority.
+
+They all stood on the terrace, watching the fly go down the hill, and she
+turned to them and said—
+
+“We will all settle ourselves this morning, and you will see how the land
+lies, so that to-morrow we can arrange our day and see what work to do.
+Thekla, when you have had a run round the garden, you might bring your
+books to the dining-room and let me see how far you have gone.”
+
+“Oh, sister, it is holidays!”
+
+“Well, my dear, you have had a week, and your holiday time cannot last
+for ever.  Looking at your books cannot spoil it.”
+
+“Yes, it will; they are so nasty.”
+
+“Perhaps you will not always think so; but now you had better put on your
+hat and your thick boots, for the grass is still very wet, and explore
+the country.  The same advice to you,” she added, turning to the others;
+“it is warm here, but the dew lies long on the slopes.”
+
+“We have got a great deal too much to do,” said Agatha, “for dawdling
+about just now.”
+
+Really, she was chiefly prompted by the satisfaction of not being ordered
+about; and the other two followed suit, while Magdalen turned away to her
+household business.
+
+They found the housemaid in possession of the bedrooms, so that the
+unpacking plans could not conveniently be begun; and while Agatha was
+struggling with the straps of a book box, Thekla burst in upon them.
+
+“Oh, Nag, Nag, there is the loveliest angel of a bicycle in the stable,
+and a dear little pony besides!  ‘New tyre wheels,’ he says.”
+
+“A bicycle!  Well, if she has got it for us, she is an angel indeed,”
+said Vera.
+
+“It is a big one,” said Thekla, “but the pony is a dear little thing;
+Pixy is his name, and I can ride him!  Do come, Flapsy, and see!
+Earwaker will show you.  It is he that does the oiling of Pixy and
+harnessing the bicycle.  I mean—”
+
+“Tick, Tick, which does he oil and which does he harness?” said Paula.
+
+“That little tongue wants both,” said Agatha.
+
+“But do, do come and see,” said Thekla, not at all disconcerted by being
+laughed at; and Vera came, only asserting her independence by not putting
+on either hat or boots.
+
+Thekla led the way to the stable, tucked under the hill at the back, and
+presiding over a linhay, as she had already learnt to call the tiny
+farm-court, containing accommodation for two cows, a pig, and sundry
+fowls.  There was a shed attached with a wicker pony carriage and the
+bicycle, a handsome modern one, with all the newest appendages, including
+the “Nevertires,” as Thekla had translated them.
+
+But disappointment was in store for Vera.  Magdalen came out during the
+inspection, and was received with—
+
+“Sister, you never told us of this beauty.”
+
+“It was a parting present from General Mansell,” she said, “and he took
+great pains to get me a very good one.”
+
+“And you bike!”
+
+“Oh, yes; I learnt to go out with the Colvins.  But I do not venture to
+use it much here, unless the road is good.  Those rocks, freshly laid
+towards Rockstone, would make regular havoc of the pneumatic tyres.”
+
+Vera saw that this was prohibitive, and felt too much vexed to mention
+Thekla’s version of the same; but Magdalen asked, “Have you learnt?”
+
+“They were always going to teach me at Warner Grange, but it always
+snowed, or rained, or skated, I mean we skated, or something, whenever
+Hubert had time; but I am perfectly dying to learn.”
+
+“Well, before you expire, we may teach you a little on these smoother
+paths; and hire one perhaps, by the time the stones are passable.  Just
+at present, I think our own legs and Pixy’s are safer for that descent.”
+
+Vera was pacified enough to look on with a certain degree of complacency,
+while Thekla was enraptured at being set to take out the eggs from the
+hens’ nests.
+
+But the conclave in the sitting-room on Vera’s report decided, “Selfish
+old thing, it is only an excuse!  Of course we should take care not to
+spoil it.  It shows what will be the way with everything.”
+
+No one knew of a still more secret conclave within Magdalen’s own breast,
+one of those held at times by many an elder, between the claims of
+loyalty to the keepsakes of affection and old association and the
+gratification of present desires.  Magdalen thought of the rules of
+convents forbidding the appropriation of personal trifles, and wondered
+if it were wise, if stern; but for the present she decided that it could
+not be her duty to risk what had been carefully and kindly selected for
+her in unpractised and careless hands; and she further compromised the
+matter by reckoning whether her funds, which were not excessive, would
+admit of the hire or purchase of machines that might allay the burning
+aspirations of her young people.
+
+The upshot of her reckoning was that when they all met at the early
+dinner, she announced, “I think we might go to Rock Quay this afternoon,
+between the pony carriage and Shanks’s mare.  I want to ask about some
+lessons, and we could see about the hire of a bicycle for you to learn
+upon.”
+
+It was only Agatha who answered, “Thank you, but it is not worth while
+for me, I shall be away so soon.”
+
+Thekla cried out, “Me too!”—and Paulina mumbled something.  In truth,
+besides the thought of the bicycle in the stable, the other two had lived
+enough in the country-town atmosphere to be foolishly disgusted at being
+obliged to dine early.  That they had always been used to it made them
+only think it beneath their age as well as their dignity, and, “What a
+horrid nuisance!” had been on their tongues when the bell was ringing.
+
+Moreover, they had enough of silly prejudice about them to feel aggrieved
+at the sight of hash, nice as it was with fresh vegetables, and they were
+not disposed to good temper when they sat down to their meal.  “They”
+perhaps properly means the middle pair, for Agatha had more notion of
+manners and of respect, and Thekla had an endless store of chatter about
+her discoveries.
+
+The pony-carriage was brought round in due time, but just then another
+vehicle of the same kind, only prettier and with two ponies, was seen at
+the gate, too late for the barbarian instinct of rushing away to hide
+from morning visitors to be carried out, before Lady Merrifield and a
+daughter, were up the slope and on the levelled road before the verandah.
+
+“I think this is an old acquaintance,” said Lady Merrifield as she shook
+hands, “though perhaps Mysie is grown out of remembrance.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” said an honest open-faced maiden, eagerly putting out her
+hand.  “Don’t you remember, Miss Prescott, our all staying at Castle
+Towers?  I came with Phyllis Devereux, and she and I took poor Betty
+Bernard out after blackberries, and she thought it was a mad bull when it
+was a railway whistle, and ran into a cow-pond, and Cousin Rotherwood
+came and Captain Grantley and got her out.”
+
+Magdalen was smiling and nodding recollection, and added, “It was really
+one of the boys.”
+
+“Oh, yes.”
+
+    “I thought it was a crazy bull
+       Firing a blunderbuss—”
+
+She paused for recollection, and Magdalen went on—
+
+    “I thought it was a crazy bull
+       Firing a blunderbuss;
+    I looked again, and, lo, it was
+       A water polypus.
+    ‘Oh, guard my life,’ I said, ‘for she
+       Will make an awful fuss.’”
+
+“Ah! do you remember that?” cried Mysie.  “I have so often tried to
+recollect what it really was when she looked again.  Captain Grantley
+made it, you know, when we were trying to comfort Betty.”
+
+“I remember you and Lady Phyllis said you would go and confess to Mrs.
+Bernard and take all the blame, and Lord Rotherwood said he would escort
+you!”
+
+“Yes, and Betty said it was no good, for if her mother forgave her ten
+times over, still that spiteful French maid would put her to bed and say
+she had no _robe convenable_,” went on Mysie.  “But then you took her to
+your own room, and washed her and mended her, so that she came out all
+right at luncheon, and nobody knew anything, but she thought that horrid
+woman guessed and tweaked her hair all the harder for it.”
+
+“Poor child, she looked as if she were under a tyranny.”
+
+“Have you seen her since?”
+
+“No; but Phyllis tells me she has burst forth into liberty, bicycles, and
+wild doings that would drive her parents to distraction if she dreamt of
+them.”
+
+“How is Lady Phyllis?  Did I not hear that the family had gone abroad for
+her health?”
+
+“Oh yes, and I went with them.  They all had influenza, and were
+frightened, but it ended in our meeting with Franceska Vanderkist, the
+very most charming looking being I ever did see; and Ivinghoe had fallen
+in love with her when she was Miranda, and he married her like a real old
+hero.  Do you remember Ivinghoe?”
+
+“No; I suppose he was one of an indistinguishable troop of schoolboys.”
+
+“I remember Lord Rotherwood’s good nature and fun when he met the
+bedraggled party,” said Magdalen, smiling.
+
+“That is what every one remembers about him,” said Lady Merrifield,
+smiling.  “You have imported a large party of youth, Miss Prescott.”
+
+“My young sisters,” responded Magdalen; “but I shall soon part with
+Agatha; she is going to Oxford.”
+
+“Indeed!  To which College?  I have a daughter at Oxford, and a niece
+just leaving Cambridge.  Such is our lot in these days.  No, not this
+one, but her elder sister Gillian is at Lady Catharine’s.”
+
+“I am going to St. Robert’s,” said Agatha, abruptly.
+
+“Close to Lady Catharine’s!  Gillian will be glad to tell her anything
+she would like to ask about it.  You had better come over to tea some
+afternoon.”
+
+The time was fixed, and then Magdalen showed some of the advertisements
+of tuition in art, music, languages, and everything imaginable, which had
+begun to pour in upon her, and was very glad of a little counsel on the
+reputation of each professor.  Lady Merrifield saying, however, that her
+experience was small, as her young people in general were not musical,
+with the single exception of her son Wilfred, who was at home, reading to
+go up for the Civil Service, and recreating himself with the Choral
+Society and lessons on the violin.  “My youngest is fifteen,” she said,
+“and we provide for her lessons amongst us, except for the School of Art,
+and calisthenics at the High School, which is under superior management
+now, and very much improved.”
+
+Mysie echoed, “Oh, calisthenics are such fun!” and took the reins to
+drive away.
+
+“Oh! she is very nice,” exclaimed Mysie, as they drove down the hill.
+
+“Yes, there is something very charming about her.  I wonder whether Sam
+made a great mistake.”
+
+“Mamma, what do you mean?”
+
+“Have I been meditating aloud?  You said when you met her at Castle
+Towers, she asked you whether you had a brother Harry.”
+
+“Yes, she did.  I only said yes, but he was going to be a clergyman, and
+when she heard his age, she said he was not the one she had known; I did
+not speak of cousin Henry because you said we were not to mention him.
+What was it, if I may know, mamma?”
+
+“There is no reason that you should not, except that it is a painful
+matter to mention to Bessie or any of the Stokesley cousins.  Harry was
+never like the rest, I believe, but I had never seen him since he was
+almost a baby.  He never would work, and was not fit for any
+examination.”
+
+“Our Harry used to say that Bessie and David had carried off all the
+brains of the family.”
+
+“The others have sense and principle, though.  Well, they put their Hal
+into a Bank at Filsted, and by and by they found he was in a great
+scrape, with gambling debts; and I believe that but for the forbearance
+of the partners, he might have been prosecuted for embezzling a sum—or at
+least he was very near it; besides which he had engaged himself to an
+attorney’s daughter, very young, and with a very disagreeable mother or
+stepmother.  The Admiral came down in great indignation, thought these
+Prescotts had inveigled poor Henry, broke everything hastily off, and
+shipped him off to Canada to his brothers, George and John.  They found
+some employment for him, but Susan and Bessie doubt whether they were
+very kind to him, and in a few years more he was in fresh scrapes, and
+with worse stains and questions of his integrity.  It ended in his
+running away to the States, and no trace has been found of him since.  I
+am afraid he took away money of his brothers.”
+
+“How long ago was it, mamma?”
+
+“At least twenty years.  It was while we were in Malta.”
+
+“Who would have thought of those dear Stokesley cousins having such a
+skeleton in their cupboard?”
+
+“Ah! my dear, no one knows the secrets of others’ hearts.”
+
+“And you really think that this Miss Prescott was his love?”
+
+“I know it was the same name, and Bessie told me that he used to talk to
+her of his Magdalen, or Maidie; and when I heard of your meeting her at
+Castle Towers I wondered if it were the same.  And now I see what she is,
+and what she is undertaking for these young sisters; I have wondered
+whether your uncle was wise to insist on the utter break, and whether she
+might not have been an anchor to hold him fast to his moorings.”
+
+“Only,” said Mysie, “if he had really cared, would he have let his father
+break it off so entirely?”
+
+“I think your uncle expected implicit obedience.”
+
+“But—,” said Mysie, and left the rest unsaid, while both she and her
+mother went off into meditations on different lines on the exigencies of
+parental discipline and of the requirements of full-grown hearts.
+
+And, on the whole, the younger one was the most for strict obedience, the
+experienced parent in favour of liberty.  But then Mysie was
+old-fashioned and dutiful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V—CLIPSTONE FRIENDS
+
+
+    “What idle progeny succeed
+    To chase the rolling circle’s speed,
+    Or urge the flying ball.”—GRAY.
+
+THE afternoon at Clipstone was a success.  Gillian was at home, and every
+one found congeners.  Lady Merrifield’s sister, Miss Mohun, pounced upon
+Miss Prescott as a coadjutor in the alphabet of good works needed in the
+neglected district of Arnscombe, where Mr. Earl was wifeless, and the
+farm ladies heedless; but they were interrupted by Mysie running up to
+claim Miss Prescott for a game at croquet.  “Uncle Redgie was so glad to
+see the hoops come into fashion again,” and Vera and Paula hardly knew
+the game, they had always played at lawn tennis; but they were delighted
+to learn, for Uncle Redgie proved to be a very fine-looking retired
+General, and there was a lad besides, grown to manly height; and one boy,
+at home for Easter, who, caring not for croquet, went with Primrose to
+exhibit to Thekla the tame menagerie, where a mungoose, called of course
+Raki raki, was the last acquisition.  She was also shown the kittens of
+the beloved Begum, and presented with Phœbus, a tabby with a wise face
+and a head marked like a Greek lyre, to be transplanted to the Goyle in
+due time.
+
+“If Sister will let me have it,” said Thekla.
+
+“Of course she will,” said Primrose.  “Mysie says she is so jolly.”
+
+“Dear me! all the girls at our school said she was a regular Old Maid.”
+
+“What shocking bad form!” exclaimed Primrose.  “Just like cads of girls,”
+muttered Fergus, unheard; for Thekla continued—“Why, they said she must
+be our maiden aunt, instead of our sister.”
+
+“The best thing going!” said Fergus.
+
+“Maiden aunts in books are always horrid,” said Thekla.
+
+“Then the books ought to be hung, drawn, and quartered, and spifflicated
+besides,” said Fergus.
+
+“Fergus doesn’t like anybody so well as Aunt Jane,” said Primrose,
+“because nobody else understands his machines.”
+
+Thekla made a grimace.
+
+“Ah!” said Primrose.  “I see it is just as mamma and Mysie said when they
+came home, that Miss Prescott was very nice indeed, and it was famous
+that she should make a home for you all, only they were afraid you seemed
+as if—you might be—tiresome,” ended Primrose, looking for a word.
+
+“Well, you know she wants to be our governess,” said Thekla.
+
+“Well?” repeated Primrose.
+
+“And of course no one ever likes their governess.”
+
+This aphorism, so uttered by Thekla, provoked a yell from Primrose,
+echoed by Fergus; and Primrose, getting her breath, declared that dear
+Miss Winter was a great darling, and since she had gone away, more’s the
+pity, mamma was real governess to herself, Valetta, and Mysie, and she
+always looked at their translations and heard their reading if Gillian
+was not at home.
+
+“And they are quite grown-up young ladies!”
+
+“Mysie is; but I don’t know about Val.  Only I don’t see why any one
+should be silly and do nothing if one is grown up ever so much,” said
+Primrose.
+
+“As the Eiffel Tower,” put in Fergus.
+
+“Nonsense!” said Primrose, bent on being improving.  “Don’t you know what
+that old book of mamma’s says, ‘When will Miss Rosamond’s education be
+finished?’  She answered ‘Never.’”
+
+Thekla gave a groan, whether of pity for Rosamond or for herself might be
+doubted; and a lop-eared rabbit was a favourable diversion.
+
+There was a triad who seemed to be of Rosamond’s opinion regarding
+education, for Agatha was eagerly availing herself of the counsel of
+Gillian, and the books shown to her; with the further assistance of the
+cousin, Dolores Mohun, now an accredited lecturer in technical classes,
+though making her home and headquarters at Clipstone.
+
+Thekla’s views of young ladyhood were a good deal more fulfilled by the
+lessons on cycling which were going on among the other young people after
+the game of croquet had ended.  Every size and variety seemed to exist
+among the Clipstone population, under certain regulations of not coasting
+down the hills, the girls not going out alone, and never into the town,
+but always “putting up” at Aunt Jane’s.
+
+Vera and Paulina were in ecstasy, and there was a continual mounting,
+attempting and nearly falling, or turning anywhere but the right, little
+screams, and much laughter, Jasper attending upon Vera, who, in spite of
+her failures, looked remarkably pretty and graceful upon Valetta’s
+machine; while Paula, whom Mysie and Valetta were both assisting, learnt
+more easily and steadily, but looked on with a few qualms as to the
+entire crystal rock constancy that Vera had professed, more especially
+when Jasper volunteered to come over to the Goyle and give another
+lesson.
+
+Magdalen, after her game at croquet, had spent a very pleasant time with
+Lady Merrifield and her brother and sister, till they were imperiously
+summoned by Primrose to come and give consent to the transfer of Phœbus,
+or to choose between him and the Mufti, to whom Thekla had begun to
+incline.
+
+The whole party adjourned to the back settlements, where Magdalen was
+edified by the antics of the mungoose, and admired the Begum and her
+progeny with a heartiness that would have won Thekla’s heart, save that
+she remembered hearing Vera say, over the domestic cat in the morning,
+that M.A.’s were always devoted to cats.  But, on the whole, the visit
+had done much to reconcile the young sisters to their new surroundings;
+books, bicycles, and kitten had reconciled them even to the intimacy with
+“swells.”
+
+The hired bicycle and tricycle had arrived in their absence, and the
+moment breakfast was over the next morning, the three younger ones all
+rushed off to the enjoyment, and, at ten minutes past the appointed hour
+for the early reading and study, Agatha felt obliged to go out and tell
+them that the M.A. was sitting like Patience on a monument, waiting for
+them; on which three tongues said “Bother,” and “She ought to let us off
+till the proper end of the holidays.”
+
+“Then you should have propitiated her by asking leave after the Scripture
+was done,” said Agatha; “you might have known she would not let you off
+that.”
+
+“Bother,” said Vera again; “just like an M.A.”
+
+“I did forget,” said Paula; “and you know it was only just going through
+a lesson for form’s sake, like the old superlative.”
+
+They had, in fact, read the day before; when Thekla had made such
+frightful work of every unaccustomed word, and the elders by one or two
+observations had betrayed so much ignorance alike of Samuel’s history and
+of the Gospel of St. Luke, that she had resolved to endeavour at a
+thorough teaching of the Old and New Testaments for the first hour on
+alternate days, giving one day in the week to Catechism and Prayer Book.
+
+She asked what they had done before.
+
+“Mrs. Best always read something at prayers.”
+
+“Something?”
+
+“Something out of the Bible.”
+
+“No, the Testament.”
+
+“I am sure it was the Bible, it was so fat.”
+
+“And Saul was in it, and we had him yesterday.”
+
+“That was St. Paul before he was converted,” said Paula.
+
+There their knowledge seemed to end, and it further appeared that Mrs.
+Best heard the Catechism and Collect on Sundays from the unconfirmed, and
+had tried to get the Gospel repeated by heart, but had not succeeded.
+
+“We did not think it fair,” said Vera.  “None of the other houses did.”
+
+“Yes,” said Agatha, “Miss Ferris’s did.”
+
+“Oh, she is a regular old Prot,” said Paula, “almost a Dissenter, and it
+is not the Gospel either, only texts out of her own head.”
+
+“Polly!” said Agatha.  “Texts out of her own head!”
+
+“It is Bible, of course, only what she fancies; and they have to work out
+the sermon, and if they can’t do the sermon, a text.  They might as well
+be Dissenters at once!” said Paula.
+
+“Janet M’Leod is,” said Vera.  “It was really Dissentish.”
+
+Magdalen could not help saying, “So you would not learn the Gospel
+because Dissenters learnt pieces of Scripture!  You seem to me like the
+Roman Catholic child, who said there were five sacraments, there ought to
+be seven, but the Protestants had got two of them.”
+
+She was sorry she had said it, for though Agatha laughed, the other two
+drew into themselves, as if their feelings were hurt.  “These are the
+boarding-house habits,” she said.  “What is done at the High School
+itself?”
+
+“The Vicar comes when he has time, and gives a lecture on an Epistle,”
+said Agatha, “or a curate, if he doesn’t; but I was working for the
+exam., and didn’t go this last term.  What was it, Polly?”
+
+“On the—on the Apollonians,” answered Paulina, hesitating.
+
+“My dear, where did he find it?”
+
+“I know it was something about Apollo,” said Vera.
+
+“It was Corinthians,” said Paula.  “I ought to have recollected, but the
+lectures are very dull and disjointed; you said so yourself, Nag, and the
+Rector is very low church.”
+
+“So you could not learn from him!”
+
+“Really, sister,” said Agatha, “the lectures are not well managed, they
+are in too many hands, and too uncertain, and it is not easy to learn
+much from them.”
+
+“Well, that being the case, I think we had better begin at the beginning.
+Suppose I ask you to say the first answer in the Catechism.”
+
+On which Vera said they had all been confirmed except Thekla, and passed
+it on to her.
+
+However, the endeavours of that half-hour need not be recounted, and the
+moment half-past ten chimed out the young ladies jumped up, and would
+have been off to the bicycles, if Magdalen had not felt that the time was
+come for asserting authority, and said, “Not yet, if you please.  We
+cannot waste whole days.  You know Herr Gnadiger is coming to-morrow, and
+it would be well to practise that sonata beforehand; you ought each to
+practise it; Paula, you had better begin, and Vera, you prepare this
+first scene of Marie Stuart to read with me when Thekla’s lessons are
+over.  Change over when Paula has done.”
+
+“It is of no use my doing anything while anyone is playing,” said Vera.
+
+“Nonsense,” Agatha muttered; but Magdalen said, “You can sit in the
+drawing-room or your own room.  Come, Tick-tick, where’s your slate?
+Come along.”
+
+“Don’t sulk, Flapsy,” said the elder sister, “it is of no use.  The M.A.
+means to be minded, and will be, and you know it is all for your good.”
+
+“I hate my good,” said naughty Vera.
+
+“So does every one when it is against the grain,” said Agatha; “but
+remember it is a preparation for a free life of our own.”
+
+“It is our cross,” said Paula, as she placed herself on the music stool
+with a look of resignation almost comical.
+
+Nor did her performance interfere with the equations which Agatha was
+diligently working out; but Vera, though refusing to take refuge from the
+piano, to which, in fact, she was perfectly inured, worried her elder as
+much as she durst, by inquiries after the meaning of words, or what
+horrid verb to look out in the dictionary; and it was a pleasing change
+when Paula proceeded to work the same scene out for herself without
+having recourse to explanations, so that Agatha was undisturbed except by
+the careless notes, which almost equally worried Magdalen in the more
+distant dining-room.
+
+This was really the crisis of the battle of study.  As the girls were
+accustomed to it, and knew that they were of an age to be ground down,
+they followed Agatha’s advice, and submitted without further open
+struggle, though there was a good deal of low murmur, and the foreman’s
+work was not essentially disagreeable, even while Vera maintained, what
+she believed to be an axiom, that governesses were detestable, and that
+the M.A. must incur the penalty of acting as such.
+
+Very soon after luncheon appeared three figures on bicycles.  Wilfred
+Merrifield, with Mysie and Valetta, come to give another lesson on the
+“flying circle’s speed.”
+
+Magdalen came out with her young people to enjoy their amusement, as well
+as to watch over her own precious machine, as Vera said.  It was admired,
+as became connoisseurs in the article; and she soon saw that Wilfred was
+to be trusted with the care of it, so she consented to its being ridden
+in the practice, provided it was not taken out into the lanes.
+
+Mysie turned off from the practising, where she was not wanted, and
+joined Miss Prescott in walking through the garden terraces, and planning
+what would best adorn them, talking over favourite books, and enjoying
+themselves very much; then going on to the quarry, where Mysie looked
+about with a critical eye to see if it displayed any fresh geological
+treasures to send Fergus in quest of.  She began eagerly to pour forth
+the sister’s never-ending tale of her brother’s cleverness, and thus they
+came down the outside lane to the lower gate, seeing beforehand the
+sparkle of bicycles in its immediate proximity.
+
+It was not open, but Vera might be seen standing with one hand on the
+latch, the other on Magdalen’s bicycle, her face lifted with imploring,
+enticing smiles to Wilfred, who had fallen a little back, while Paula had
+decidedly drawn away.
+
+None of them had seen Magdalen and Mysie till they were round the low
+stone wall and close upon them.  There was a general start, and Vera
+exclaimed, “We haven’t been outside!  No, we haven’t!  And it is not the
+Rockquay Road either, sister!  I only wanted a run down that lane up
+above.”
+
+Wilfred laughed a little oddly.  It was quite plain that he had been
+withstanding the temptress, only how long would the resistance have
+lasted?
+
+Downright Mysie exclaimed, “It would have been a great shame if you had,
+and I am glad Wilfred hindered you.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Magdalen, smiling to him.  “You know better than my
+sisters what Devon lanes and pneumatic tyres are!”
+
+Perhaps Wilfred was a little vexed, though he had resisted, for he was
+ready to agree with Mysie that they could not stay and drink tea.
+
+But he did not escape his sister’s displeasure, for Mysie began at once,
+“How lucky it was that we came in time.  I do believe that naughty little
+thing was just going to talk you over into doing what her sister had
+forbidden.”
+
+“A savage, old, selfish bear.  It was only the lane.”
+
+“Full of crystals as sharp as needles, enough to cut any tyre in two,”
+said Mysie.
+
+“Like your tongue, eh, Mysie?”
+
+“Well, you did not do it!  That is a comfort.  You would not let her
+transgress, and ruin her sister’s good bicycle.”
+
+“She is an uncommonly pretty little sprite, and the selfish hag of a
+sister only left orders that I was to take care of the bike!  I could see
+where there was a stone as well as anybody else.”
+
+“Hag!” angrily cried Mysie, “she is the only nice one of the whole lot.
+Vera is a nasty little thing, or she would never think of meddling with
+what does not belong to her, or trying to persuade you to allow it.”
+
+“I call it abominable selfishness, dog in the mangerish, to shut up such
+a machine as that, and condemn her sisters to one great lumbering one.”
+
+“That’s one account,” said Valetta.  “Paula said it was only till they
+had learnt to ride properly, and till the stones have a little worn in.”
+
+“Yes,” said Mysie, “I could see Vera is an exaggerating monkey, just
+talking over and deluding Will, just as men like when they get a silly
+fit.”
+
+By this time Wilfred had thought it expedient to put his bicycle to
+greater speed, and indulge in a long whistle to show how contemptible he
+thought his sisters as he went out of hearing.
+
+“Paulina is nice and good,” said Valetta, “she has heard all about St.
+Kenelm’s, and wants to go there.  Yes, and she means to be a Sister of
+Charity, only she is afraid her sister is narrow and low church.”
+
+“That is stuff and nonsense,” said Mysie.  “I have had a great deal of
+talk with Miss Prescott.  She loves all the same books that we do.  She
+is going to have G. F. S. and Mothers’ Union, and all at poor Arnscombe,
+and she told me to call her Magdalen.”
+
+With which proofs of congeniality Valetta could not choose but be
+impressed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI—THE FRESCOES OF ST. KENELM’S
+
+
+    Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed
+    Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay.—TENNYSON.
+
+THE deferred expedition to Rockquay also began, Magdalen driving Vera and
+Thekla.  She was pleased with her visitors, and hoped that the girls
+would feel the same, but Vera began by declaring that _that_ Miss
+Merrifield was not pretty.
+
+“Not exactly, but it is an honest, winning face.”
+
+“So broad, and such a wide mouth, and no style at all, as I should have
+expected after all that about lords and ladies!  An old blue serge and
+sailor hat!”
+
+“You don’t expect people to drive about the country in silk attire?”
+
+“Well, perhaps she is not out!  Sister, do you know I am seventeen?”
+
+“Yes, my dear, certainly.”
+
+“Oh, look, look, there’s a dear little calf!” broke in Thekla, “and, oh!
+what horns the cows have.  I shall be afraid to go near them!  Was it
+only a sham mad bull when the little girl ran into the pond?”
+
+“It was the railway whistle, and she had never heard it in the fields.
+She rushed away in a great fright and ran into the pond, full of horrible
+black mud.  The gentlemen heard the scream and dragged her out, and it
+would have all been fun and a good story if she had not been so much
+afraid of the French lady’s maid.  It is curious how the sight of those
+brown eyes brought the whole scene back to me.  We all grew so fond of
+Mysie Merrifield in the few days we spent together, and she is very
+little altered.”
+
+“Is she out?” asked Vera once more.
+
+“Oh, yes, she cannot be less than twenty.”
+
+“And I am seventeen,” said Vera, returning to the charge.  “I ought to be
+out.”
+
+“If there are nice invitations, I shall be quite ready to accept them for
+you.”
+
+“But I am too old for the schoolroom and lessons and masters.”
+
+“Too old or too wise?” said Magdalen laughing.
+
+“I have got into the highest form in everything.  Every one at Filston of
+my age is leaving off all the bother.”
+
+“Not Agatha.”
+
+“Oh, but Agatha is—!”
+
+“Is what?
+
+“Agatha is awfully clever, and wants to be something!”
+
+“Something?  But do you want to evaporate?  To be nothing at all, I
+mean,” said Magdalen, seeing her first word was bewildering, and Thekla
+put in—
+
+“Flapsy couldn’t go off in steam, could she?  Isn’t that evaporating?”
+
+“I think what she wants is to be a young lady at large!  Eh, Vera?  Only
+I don’t quite see how that is to be managed, even if it is quite a worthy
+ambition.  But we will talk that over another time.  Do you see how
+pretty those sails are crossing the bay?”
+
+Neither girl seemed to have eyes for the lovely blue of the sea in the
+spring sunshine, nor the striking forms of ruddy peaks of rock that
+enclosed it.  Uneducated eyes, she thought, as she slowly manœuvred the
+pony down the steep hill before coming to the Rockstone Cliff Road.  The
+other two girls were following her direction across field and road, and
+making their observations.
+
+“A dose of lords and ladies,” said Agatha.
+
+“I thought they were rather nice,” said Paula.
+
+“I see how it will be,” said Agatha.  “They will patronise the M.A. as
+Lady Somebody’s old governess, and she will fawn upon them and run after
+them, and we shall be on those terms.”
+
+“But I thought you meant to be a governess?”
+
+“I shall make my own line.  I know how swells look on a governess of the
+_ancien régime_, and how they will introduce her as the kindly old goody
+who mends my little lady’s frock!”
+
+“The girl had not any airs,” said Paula.  “She told me about the churches
+down there in the town—not the ones we went to on Sunday; but there’s one
+that is very low indeed, and St. Andrew’s, which is their parish church,
+was suiting the moderate high church folk; and there is St. Kenelm’s,
+very high indeed, Mr. Flight’s, I think I have heard of him, and it is
+just the right thing, I am sure.”
+
+“Don’t flatter yourself that the M.A. will let you have much pleasure in
+it.  It is just what people of her sort think dangerous.”
+
+“But do you know, Nag, I do believe that it is the church that Hubert
+Delrio was sent down to study and make a design for.”
+
+“Whew!  There will be a pretty kettle of fish if he comes down about it!
+That is, if he and Flapsy have not forgotten all about the ice and the
+forfeits at Warner’s Grange, as is devoutly to be hoped.”
+
+“Do you hope it really, Nag, for Flapsy really was very much—did care
+very much.”
+
+“I have no great faith in Flapsy’s affections surviving the contact with
+greater swells.”
+
+“Poor Hubert!”
+
+“Perhaps his will not survive common sense.  I am sure I hope not for
+both their sakes.”
+
+“But, Nag, it would be very horrid of them if they had no constancy,”
+declared the more romantic Paula.
+
+“It will be a regular mess if they do have it, and bring on horrid
+scrapes with the M.A.  Just think.  It is all very well to say she has
+known Hubert all his life; but she can’t treat him as a gentleman, or she
+won’t.  She has a position to keep up with all these swells, and he will
+be only the man who paints the church!  I only hope he will not come.
+There will be nothing but bother if he does, unless they both have more
+sense and less constancy than you expect.  Well, this really is a
+splendid view.  Old Mr. Delrio would be wild about it.”
+
+Here the steep and stony hill brought them into contact with the pony
+carriage, nor were there any more confidential conversations.  The pony
+was put up at the top of the hill leading from Rockstone to Rockquay, and
+thence the party walked down for Miss Prescott to make a few purchases,
+and, moreover, to begin by gratifying Thekla’s reiterated entreaty for a
+bicycle, though, as she was unpractised and growing so fast, it was
+decided to be better to hire a tricycle for practice, and one bicycle on
+which Vera and Paula might learn the art.
+
+The choice was a long one, and left only just time for a peep into the
+two churches and a study of the hours of their services.  St. Kenelm’s
+was decided to be a “perfect gem,” ornaments, beauty, and all, a little
+overdone, perhaps, in Magdalen’s opinion, but perfectly “the thing” in
+her sisters’.
+
+This St. Andrew’s fulfilled to her mind, being handsome, reverent, and
+decorous in all the arrangements, while to the younger folk it was “all
+very well,” but quite of the old times.  Little did they know of “old
+times” beyond the quarter century of their birth!  Poor old Arnscombe
+might feebly represent them, but even that had struggled out of the
+modern “dark ages.”  Magdalen had decided on talking to Agatha and seeing
+how far she understood the situation, and she came to her room to put her
+in possession now that Mrs. Best had left the guest chamber free.
+
+“This is your home when you are here.  You must put up any belongings
+that you do not want to take to St. Robert’s.”
+
+“Thank you; it is a nice pleasant room.”
+
+“And, my dear, may I stay a few minutes?  I think we had better have a
+talk, and quite understand one another.”
+
+“Very well.”
+
+It was not quite encouraging, but Agatha really wished to hear, and she
+advanced a wicker chair for her elder sister, and sat down on the window
+seat.
+
+“Thank you, my dear; I do not know how much Mrs. Best has told you.”
+
+“She told us that you had always been very good to us, and that you had
+been our guardian ever since we lost our mother.”
+
+“Did she tell you what we have of our own that our father could leave
+us?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What amounts to about £40 a year apiece.  Mrs. Best in her very great
+goodness has taken you four for that amount, though her proper charge is
+eighty.”
+
+“And she never let any one guess it,” said Agatha, more warmly, “for fear
+we might feel the difference.  How very good of her.”
+
+She seemed more impressed by Mrs. Best’s bounty than by Magdalen’s, but
+probably she took the latter as a matter of course and obligation;
+besides, the sense of it involved a sum in subtraction.  However, this
+was not observed by her sister, who did not want to feel obliged.
+
+“Now that this property has come in,” continued Magdalen, “we can live
+comfortably together upon it for the present, and your expenses at Oxford
+can be paid, as well as masters in what may be needful for the others,
+and an allowance for dress.  I suppose you will want the £40 while you
+are at St. Robert’s, besides the regular expenses?”
+
+“Thank you,” warmly said.
+
+“But I want you to understand, as I think you do, about the future, for
+you must be prepared to be independent.”
+
+“I should have wished for a career if I had been a millionaire,” said
+Agatha.
+
+“I believe you would, and it is well that you should have every
+advantage.  But the others.  If I left you all this property, it would
+not be a comfortable maintenance divided among four; and you would not
+like to be dependent, or to leave the last who might not marry to a
+pittance alone.”
+
+“Certainly not,” said Agatha, with flashing eyes.
+
+“Then you see that it is needful that you should be able to do something
+for yourselves.  I can give one of you at a time the power of going to
+the University.”
+
+“I don’t think Vera or Polly would wish for that,” said Agatha.
+
+“Well, what would they wish for?  I can do something towards preparing
+them, and I can teach Thekla, but I should like to know what you think
+would be best for them.”
+
+“Vera’s strong point is music,” said Agatha.  “She cares for that more
+than anything else, and Mr. Selby thought she had talent and might sing,
+only she must not strain her voice.  I don’t believe she will do much in
+any other line.  And Polly—she is very good, and always does her best
+because it is right, but I don’t think anything is any particular
+pleasure to her, except needlework.  She is always wanting to make things
+for the church.  She really has a better voice than Flapsy, and can play
+better, but that is because she is so much steadier.”
+
+“Seventeen and sixteen, are they not?”
+
+“Yes; but Polly seems ever so much older than Flapsy.”
+
+“Mrs. Best showed me that she had higher marks.  She must be a thoroughly
+good girl.”
+
+“That she is,” cried Agatha, warmly.  “She never had any task for getting
+into mischief.”
+
+“Well, they are both so young that a little study with me will be good
+for them, and there will be time to judge what they are fit for.  In art
+I think they are not much interested.”
+
+“Paula draws pretty well, but Vera hates it.  Old Mr. Delrio is always
+cross to her now; but—” Agatha stopped short, remembering that there
+might be a reason why the drawing master no longer made her a favourite
+pupil.
+
+“Do you think him a good judge?”
+
+“Yes; Mrs. Best thinks much of him.  He had an artist’s education, and
+sometimes has a picture in the Water Colour Exhibition; but I believe he
+did not find it answer, and so he took our school of art.”
+
+Agatha had talked sensibly throughout the conference, but not
+confidentially; much, in fact, as she would have discussed her sisters
+with Mrs. Best.  She was glad that at the moment the sound of the piano
+set them listening.  She did not feel bound to mention to “sister” any
+more than she would to the head mistress, that when staying at Mr.
+Waring’s country house a sort of semi-flirtation had begun with Hubert
+Delrio, a young man to whose education his father had sacrificed a great
+deal, and who was a well-informed and intelligent gentleman in all his
+ways.  He had engaged himself to the great firm of Eccles and Beamster,
+ecclesiastical decorators, and might be employed upon the intended
+frescoes of St. Kenelm’s Church.
+
+Ought “Sister” to be told?
+
+But Agatha thought it would be betraying confidence to “set on the
+dragon”; and besides nobody ever could tell how much Vera’s descriptions
+meant.  She knew already that the sweetest countenance in the world and
+the loveliest dark eyes belonged to a fairly good-looking young man, and
+she could also suspect that the “squeeze of my hand” might be an ordinary
+shake, and the kneeling before the one he loved best might have been only
+the customary forfeit.  On the whole, it would be better to let things
+take their course; it was not likely that either was seriously smitten,
+and it was more than probable that Hubert Delrio would be too busy to
+look after a young lady now in a different stratum, and that Vera would
+have found another sweetest countenance in the world.
+
+All this passed through her mind while Magdalen listened, and pronounced—
+
+“That is brilliant—a clever touch—only—”
+
+“Yes, that is Vera—I know what you are noticing, but this is only
+amusement; she is not taking pains.”
+
+“It is very clever—especially as probably she has no music.  But there—”
+
+“Polly’s?  Oh, yes; she is really steady-going.  That is just what you
+will find her.  This is a charming room, sister; thank you very much.”
+
+“Make it your home, my dear.”
+
+But in reality they were not much nearer together than before the
+conference.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII—SISTER AND SISTERS
+
+
+    “Have we not all, amid earth’s petty strife,
+    Some pure ideal of a nobler life?
+    We lost it in the daily jar and fact,
+    And now live idly in a vain regret.”
+
+                                                         ADELAIDE PROCTER.
+
+AGATHA was so much absorbed in her preparation for St. Robert’s that she
+did not pay very much heed to her younger sisters or their relations with
+Magdalen.  She had induced them to submit to the regulation of their
+studies with her pretty much as if she had been Mrs. Best, looking upon
+her, however, as something out of date, and hardly up to recent opinions,
+not realising that, of late, Magdalen’s world had been a wide one.
+
+Perhaps, in Agatha’s feelings, there was an undercurrent inherited from
+her mother, who had always felt the better connected, better educated
+step-daughter, a sort of alien element, exciting jealousy by her
+companionship to her father, and after his death, apt to be regarded as a
+scarcely willing, and perhaps censorious pay-master.
+
+“Your sister might call it too expensive.”  “I must ask your sister.”
+“No, your sister does not think she can afford it.  I am sure she might.
+Her expenses must be nothing.”  All this had been no preparation for full
+sisterly confidence with “Sister,” even when a sort of grudging gratitude
+was extracted, and Agatha had been quite old enough to imbibe an
+undefined antagonism, though, being a sensible girl, she repressed the
+manifestations, kept her sisters in order and taught them not to love but
+to submit, and herself remained in a state of civil coolness, without an
+approach beyond formal signs of affection, and such confidence.
+
+It was the more disappointing to Magdalen, because Agatha and Paulina
+both showed so much unconscious likeness to their father, not only in
+features, but in little touches of gesture and manner.  She longed to pet
+them, and say, “Oh, my dears, how like papa!” but the only time she
+attempted it, she was met by a severe, uncomprehending look and manner.
+
+And Agatha went away to Oxford without any thawing on her part.
+
+The only real ground that had been gained was with little Thekla, who was
+soon very fond of “Sister,” and depended on her more and more for
+sympathy and amusement.  Girls of seventeen and sixteen do not delight in
+the sports of nine-year-olds, except in the case of special pets and
+_protégées_, and Thekla was snubbed when a partner was required to assist
+in doll’s dramas, or in evening games.  Only “Sister” would play
+unreservedly with her, unaware or unheeding that this was looked on as
+keeping up the _métier_ of governess.  Indeed, Thekla’s reports of
+schoolroom murmurs and sneers about the M.A. had to be silenced.  Peace
+and good will could best be guarded by closed ears.  Yet, even then,
+Thekla missed child companionship, and, even more, competition, the lack
+of which rendered her dull and listless over her lessons, and when
+reproved, she would beg to be sent to school, or, at least, to attend the
+High School on her bicycle.  Not admiring the manners or the attainments
+of the specimens before her, Magdalen felt bound to refuse, and the
+sisters’ pity kept alive the grievance.
+
+She had, however, decided on granting the bicycles.  She had found plenty
+of use for her own, for it was possible with prudent use of it, avoiding
+the worst parts of the road, to be at early celebration at St. Andrew’s,
+and get to the Sunday school at Arnscombe afterwards; and Paulina, with a
+little demur, decided on giving her assistance there.
+
+At a Propagation of the Gospel meeting at the town hall, the Misses
+Prescott were introduced to the Reverend Augustine Flight, of St.
+Kenelm’s, and his mother, Lady Flight, who sat next to Magdalen, and
+began to talk eagerly of the designs for the ceiling of their church, and
+the very promising young artist who was coming down from Eccles and
+Beamster to undertake the work.
+
+The church had not yet been seen, and the conversation ended in the
+sisters coming back to tea, at which Paula was very happy, for the talk
+had something of the rather exclusive High Church tone that was her
+ideal.  She had seen it in books, but had never heard it before in real
+life, and Vera was in a restless state, longing to hear whether the
+promising young artist was really Hubert Delrio, and hoping, while she
+believed that she feared, that she should blush when she heard his name.
+However, she did not, though Mr. Flight unfolded his rough plans for the
+frescoes, which were to be of virgin and child martyrs, Magdalen
+hesitating a little over those that seemed too legendary; while old Lady
+Flight, portly and sentimental, declared them so sweet and touching.
+After tea, they went on to the church.  Just at the entrance of the
+porch, Vera clutched at Paula, with the whisper, “Wasn’t that Wilfred
+Merrifield?  There, crossing?”
+
+“Nonsense,” was Paula’s reply, as she lingered over the illuminated list
+of the hours of services displayed at the door, and feeling as if she had
+attained dreamland, as she saw two fully habited Sisters enter, and bend
+low as they did so.
+
+The church was very elaborately ornamented, small, but showing that no
+expense had been spared, though there was something that did not quite
+accord with Magdalen’s ideas of the best taste; so that when they went
+out she answered Paula’s raptures of admiration somewhat coldly, or what
+so appeared to the enthusiastic girl.
+
+The next day, meeting Miss Mohun over cutting out for a working party,
+Magdalen asked her about the Flights and St. Kenelm’s.
+
+“He is an excellent good man,” said Jane Mohun, “and has laid out immense
+sums on the church and parish.”
+
+“All his own?  Not subscription?”
+
+“No.  He is the only son of a very rich City man, a brewer, and came here
+with his mother as a curate, as a good place for health.  They found a
+miserable little corrugated-iron place, called the Kennel Chapel, and
+worked it up, raising the people, and doing no end of good till it came
+to be a district, as St. Kenelm’s.”
+
+“Very ornamental?”
+
+“Oh, very,” said Jane, warming out of caution, as she felt she might
+venture showing city gorgeousness all over.  “But it is infinitely to his
+credit.  He had a Fortunatus’ purse, and was a spoilt child—not in the
+bad sense—but with an utterly idolising mother, and he tried a good many
+experiments that made our hair stand on end; but he has sobered down, and
+is a much wiser man now—though I would not be bound to admire all he
+does.”
+
+“I see there are Sisters?  Do they belong to his arrangements?”
+
+“Yes.  They are what my brother calls Cousins of Mercy.  The elder one
+has tried two or three Sisterhoods, and being dissatisfied with all the
+rules, I fancy she has some notion of trying to set up one on her own
+account at Mr. Flight’s.  They are both relations of his mother, and are
+really one of his experiments—fancy names and fancy rules, of course.  I
+believe the young one wanted to call herself Sister Philomena, but that
+he could not stand.  So they act as parish women here, and they do it
+very well.  I liked Sister Beata when I have come in contact with her,
+and I am sure she is an excellent nurse.  They will do your nieces no
+harm, though I don’t like the irregular.”
+
+Of this assurance Magdalen felt very glad, when at the door of the parish
+room, where the ladies were to hold a working party for the missions,
+Carrigaboola Missions at Albertstown, she and her nieces were introduced
+to the two ladies in hoods and veils; and Paula’s eyes sparkled with
+delight as she settled into a chair next to Sister Mena.  She looked as
+happy as Vera looked bored!  Conversation was not possible while a
+missionary memoir was being read aloud, but the history of Mother
+Constance, once Lady Herbert Somerville, but then head at Dearport, and
+founder of the Daughter Sisterhood at Carrigaboola.  To the Merrifields
+it was intensely interesting, and also to Magdalen; but all the time she
+could see demonstrations passing between Paula and Sister Mena, a
+nice-looking girl, much embellished by the setting of the hood and veil,
+as if the lending of a pair of scissors or the turning of a hem were an
+act of tender admiration.  So sweet a look came out on Paula’s face that
+she longed to awaken the like.  Vera meantime looked as if her only
+consolation lay in the neighbourhood of a window, whence she could see up
+the street, as soon as she had found whispers to Mysie Merrifield treated
+as impossible.
+
+The party at the Goyle had begun to fall into regular habits, and
+struggles were infrequent.  There was study in the forenoon, walks or
+cycle expeditions in the afternoon, varied by the lessons in music and in
+art, which Vera and Paula attended on Wednesdays and Fridays, the one in
+the morning, the other after dinner.  It was possible to go to St.
+Andrew’s matins at ten o’clock before the drawing class, and to St.
+Kenelm’s at five, after the music was over.  Magdalen, whenever it was
+possible, went with her sisters on their bicycles to St. Andrew’s, and
+sometimes devised errands that she might join them at St. Kenelm’s, but
+neither could always be done by the head of the household.  And she could
+perceive that her company was not specially welcome.
+
+Valetta, the only one of the Clipstone family whose drawing was worth
+cultivating, used to ride into Rockstone, escorted by her brother
+Wilfred, who was in course of “cramming” with a curate on his way to his
+tutor, and Vera found in casual but well-cultivated meetings and
+partings, abundant excitement in “nods and becks and wreathed smiles,”
+and now and then in the gift of a flower.
+
+Paula on the other hand found equal interest and delight in meetings with
+Sister Mena, especially after a thunderstorm had driven the two to take
+refuge at what the Sisters called “the cell of St. Kenelm,” and tea had
+unfolded their young simple hearts to one another!  Magdalen had called
+on the Sisters and asked them to tea at the Goyle, and there had come to
+the conclusion that Sister Beata was an admirable, religious, hardworking
+woman, of strong opinions, and not much cultivated, with a certain
+provincial twang in her voice.  She had a vehement desire for
+self-devotion and consecration, but perhaps not the same for obedience.
+She sharply criticised all the regulations of the Sisterhoods with which
+she was acquainted, wore a dress of her own device, and with Sister Mena,
+a young cousin of her own, meant to make St. Kenelm’s a nucleus for a
+Sisterhood of her own invention.
+
+Sister Mena had been bred up in a Sisterhood’s school, from five years
+old and upwards, and had no near relatives.  Mr. Flight was Saint, Pope
+and hero to both, and Mena knew little beyond the horizon of St.
+Kenelm’s, but she and Paula were fascinated with one another; and
+Magdalen saw more danger in interfering than in acquiescing, though she
+gave no consent to Paulina’s aspirations after admission into the perfect
+Sisterhood that was to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII—SNOBBISHNESS
+
+
+    “Why then should vain repinings rise,
+    That to thy lover fate denies
+    A nobler name, a wide domain?”—SCOTT.
+
+THE friendship with the Sisters was about three weeks old when, one
+morning, scaffold poles were being erected in the new side aisle of St.
+Kenelm’s Church, and superintending them was a tall dark-haired young
+man.  There was a start of mutual recognition; and by and by he met Paula
+and Vera in the porch, and there were eager hand-clasps and greetings, as
+befitted old friends meeting in a strange place.
+
+“Mr. Hubert!  I heard you were coming!”
+
+“Miss Vera!  Miss Paula!  This is a pleasure.”
+
+Then followed an introduction of Sister Mena, whose elder companion was
+away, attending a sick person.
+
+“May I ask whether you are living here?”
+
+“Two miles off at the Goyle, at Arnscombe, with our sister.”
+
+“So I heard!  I shall see you again.”  And he turned aside to give an
+order, bowing as he did so.
+
+“Is he the artist of those sweet designs?” asked Sister Mena.
+
+“Did we not tell you?”
+
+“And now he is going to execute them?  How delicious!”
+
+“I trust so!  We must see him again.  We have not heard of Edie and
+Nellie, nor any one.”
+
+“He will call on you?” said Sister Mena.
+
+“I do not think so,” said Paula.  “At least his father is really an
+artist, but he is drawing-master at the High School, and Hubert works for
+this firm.  They are not what you call in society, and our sister is all
+for getting in with Lady Merrifield and General Mohun and all the swells,
+so it would never do for him to call.”
+
+“She would first be stiff and stuck up,” said Vera, “and I could not
+stand that.”
+
+“I thought she was so kind,” said Mena.
+
+“You don’t understand,” said Vera.  “She would be kind to a workman in a
+fever; but this sort—oh, no.”
+
+“To be on an equality with the man painting the church?” said Paula.
+“No, indeed! not if he were Fra Angelico and Ary Scheffer and
+Michelangelo rolled into one.”
+
+At that moment the subject referred to in that mighty conglomeration
+reappeared.  He was a handsome young man, his touch of Italian blood
+showing just enough to give him a romantic air; and Sister Philomena
+listened, much impressed by the interchange of question and answer about
+“Edie and Nellie,” and the dear Warings, and the happy Christmas at the
+Grange; and Vera blushed again, and Paula coloured in sympathy, as it
+appeared that Mr. Delrio had never had such a splendid time.
+
+The colloquy was ended by Mr. Flight being descried, approaching with his
+mother, whereupon the two girls fled away like guilty creatures.
+
+Presently Vera exclaimed, “Oh, Polly dear, what a complication!  Poor
+dear fellow! he cares for me as much as ever.”
+
+“And you will be staunch to him in spite of all the worldly allurements,”
+said Paula.
+
+“Well, I mean Mr. Wilfred Merrifield is not half so handsome,” returned
+Vera.
+
+“Nor is he engaged in sacred work; only bent on frivolity,” said Paula;
+“yet see how the M.A. encourages him with tennis and games and nonsense.”
+
+Poor M.A., when the encouragement had only been some general merriment,
+and a few games on the lawn Paulina, who had heard many confidences when
+Vera returned from Waring Grange, believed altogether in the true love of
+the damsel and Hubert Delrio, who had been wont to single out the
+prettiest of the girls at Filstead, and she was resolved to do all she
+could in their cause, being schoolgirl enough to have no scruple as to
+secrecy towards Magdalen, though on the next opportunity she poured out
+all to Sister Philomena’s by no means unwilling ears.
+
+Lovers had never fallen within the young Sister’s experience, either
+personally or through friends; and they had only been revealed to her in
+a few very carefully-selected tales, where they were more the necessary
+machinery than the main interest, for she had been bred up in an
+orphanage by Sister Beata, and had never seen beyond it.  So to her
+Paula’s story, little as there was of it, was a perfect romance, and it
+gained in colour when she related it to her senior.
+
+Sister Beata hesitated a little, having rather more knowledge of the
+world, remembering that Vera Prescott was not eighteen years old, and
+doubting whether an underhand intimacy ought to be encouraged; but then
+Mr. Flight had spoken of Mr. Delrio as a highly praiseworthy young man,
+of decided Catholic principles; he was regular at Church services, and
+had dined or supped at the Vicarage.  The intercourse, as the girls had
+explained, had been sanctioned by Mrs. Best in their native town, where
+all parties were well known, and thus there could be no harm in letting
+it continue.  While as to the elder Miss Prescott, she was understood to
+be unduly bent on county and titled society, and to be exclusive towards
+inferiors.  Moreover, she was an attendant at St. Andrew’s Church, and
+thus regarded as out of the pale of sympathy of the St. Kenelm’s flock.
+
+So no obstacle was put in the way of the gossips, for they were really
+nothing more, except that there was admiration of the designs for the
+side chapel, which were of the Scripture children on one side, and on the
+other of child martyrs.  Now and then there was a reference to the
+chilliness and hardship of living with an unsympathising sister, and
+being obliged to go to churches of which they did not approve.  Sometimes
+too there were airy castles of a distant future to be shared by the
+magnificent architect, together with Vera, while Paula nursed in the
+convent with Mother Beata and Sister Philomena.
+
+But all this did not prevent an excitement and eager laughter and chatter
+whenever Wilfred Merrifield came in the way, and he certainly was enough
+attracted by Vera’s pretty face and lively graces to make his sisters
+think him very absurd; but his mother had seen so many passing fancies
+among her elder sons as to hold that blindness was better than serious
+treatment.
+
+There was the further effect that Magdalen had no suspicion that the
+vehement attraction to St. Kenelm’s went beyond the harmless quarter of
+the two nursing Sisters and some hero worship of Mr. Flight.  Miss Mohun,
+who knew everything, had indeed hinted that something foolish might be
+going on there; but Magdalen had not decided on the mutual fairness of
+the two congregations, and deferred investigation till Agatha should come
+home, when she would have a reasonable, if cold, person to deal with.
+Nor did Thekla’s chatter excite any suspicion; for the only time when she
+had been present at a meeting with Mr. Delrio, she had been half bribed,
+half threatened into silence, and she was quite schoolgirl enough to feel
+that such was the natural treatment of authority, though she had become
+really fond of “sister.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX—GONE OVER TO THE ENEMY
+
+
+              “Can I teach thee, my beloved? can I teach thee?”
+
+                                                           E. B. BROWNING.
+
+AGATHA came home in due time, and Magdalen sent her sister to meet her at
+the station, where they found a merry Clipstone party in the waggonette
+waiting for Gillian, who was to come home at the same time.  There was so
+much discussion of the new golf ground, that Vera had hardly a hand or a
+glance to bestow on Mr. Delrio, who jumped out of the same train, shook
+hands with Agatha, and bestirred himself in finding her luggage and
+calling a cab.
+
+“How he is improved!  What a pleasing, gentlemanly fellow he looks!” she
+exclaimed, as she waved her thanks, while driving off in the cab.
+
+“Is he not?” said Paula, while Vera bridled and blushed.  “You will be
+delighted with his work.  I never saw anything more lovely than little
+St. Cyriac the martyr.”
+
+“He is taken from Mrs. Henderson’s little boy,” added Vera; “such a dear
+little darling.”
+
+“And his mother is to be done; indeed, he has sketched her for St.
+Juliet.”
+
+“Flapsy!  St. Romeo, too, I suppose?”
+
+“Nonsense, Nag!  There really was a St. Juliet or Julitta, and she was
+his mother, and they both were martyrs.  I will tell you all the
+history,” began Paula; but Agatha interposed.
+
+“You must like having him down here.  Sister must be much pleased with
+him.  She used to like old Mr. Delrio.”
+
+“Well, we have not said much about him,” owned Paula.  “He does not seem
+to wish it, or expect to be in with swells.”
+
+“We could not stand his being treated like a common house-painter and
+upholsterer,” added Vera.
+
+“Surely no one does so,” said Agatha.
+
+“Not exactly,” said Paula; “at least, he has had supper at St. Kenelm’s
+Vicarage with Lady Flight, and luncheon at Carrara with Captain and Mrs.
+Henderson.”
+
+“Because he was _doing_ the child,” interposed Vera; “and Thekla says
+that Primrose Merrifield says that her Aunt Jane—that is, old Miss
+Mohun—says that Lady Flight is not a gentlewoman.”
+
+“What has that to do with Magdalen?”
+
+“Why, she is so taken up with those swells of hers, especially now that
+there is a talk of Lord Somebody’s yacht coming in, that she would never
+treat him as on equal terms, but just keep him at a distance, like a mere
+decorator.”
+
+“That seemed to me just what you were doing,” said Agatha, “when he was
+so kind and helpful about my box.”
+
+“Oh, _they_ were all there, and we did not want to be talked of,” said
+Vera, blushing.  “He understands.”
+
+“He understands,” repeated Paula.  “We do see him at the church and at
+the Sisters’.  Those dear Sisters!  There is no nonsense about them.  You
+will love them, Nag.”
+
+“Well, it does not seem to me to be treating our own sister Magdalen
+fairly.”
+
+“The M.A.!” said Vera, in a tone of wonder.
+
+“No; not to be intimate with a person you do not introduce to her,
+because you do not think she would consider him as on equal terms.”
+
+“Sister Beata quite approves,” added Paula, sincerely, not guessing how
+little Sister Beata knew of the situation, of which she only heard
+through the medium of her own representations to Sister Mena.
+
+The two girls rushed into the charms of these two Sisters, and the plan
+for an entertainment for the maidens of the Guild of St. Milburgha, at
+which they were to assist.  It lasted up to the gate of the Goyle, where
+Magdalen and Thekla were ready to meet them; and they trooped merrily up
+the hill, Agatha keeping to Magdalen’s side in a way that struck her as
+friendly and affectionate.  It seemed to be more truly coming _home_ than
+the elder sister had dared to anticipate; nor, indeed, did she feel the
+veiled antagonism to herself that had previously disappointed her.
+
+The talk was about St. Robert’s, about Oxford in general, the new
+friends, the principal, the games, the debates, the lectures, the
+sermons, the celebrities, the undergraduates, the concerts, the chapels,
+the boats, the architecture; all were touched on for further discussion
+by and by as they sat at the evening meal, and then on the chairs and
+cushions in the verandah; and through all there was no exclusion of the
+elder sister, but rather she was the one who could appreciate the
+interest of what Agatha had seen and heard; and even she was allowed to
+enter into the amusement of an Oxford _bon mot_, sometimes, indeed, when
+it was far beyond Paula and Vera.
+
+There was no doubt that the term had much improved Agatha even in
+appearance and manner.  She held herself better, pronounced better,
+uttered no slangish expressions, and twice she repressed little
+discourtesies on the part of her sisters, and neglects such as were not
+the offspring of tender familiarity, but of an indifference akin to
+rudeness.  Magdalen had endured, knowing how bad it was for their
+manners, but unwilling to become more of an annoyance than could be
+helped.  The indescribable difference in Agatha’s whole manner sent
+Magdalen to bed happier than she had been since the arrival of her
+sisters, and feeling as if Agatha had come to her own side of a barrier.
+
+Perhaps it was quite true; for the last two months had been a time of
+growth with the maiden, changing her from a schoolgirl to a student, from
+the “brook to the river.”  She had, indeed, studied hard, but that she
+had always done, as being clever, intellectual and ambitious.  The
+difference had been from her intercourse with persons slightly her
+elders, but who did not look on authorities as natural enemies, to be
+tolerated for one’s own good.  There had been a development of the
+conscience and soul even in this first term that made her regard her
+elder sister not merely with a sense of compulsory gratitude and duty,
+but with sympathy and fellow feeling, which were the more excited when
+she saw her own chilliness of last spring carried further by the two
+young girls.
+
+So breakfast went off merrily; and after the round of the garden and the
+pets, Agatha promised to come, when summoned, to hear how well Thekla
+could read French.  In the meantime she waited in the morning-room,
+looking at her sisters’ books; Vera pushed aside the Venetian blind.
+
+“Don’t come in that way, Flapsy!” called Paula.  “You’ll be heard in the
+dining-room, and the M.A. will tremble at your dusty feet.”
+
+“They aren’t dusty,” said Vera, pulling up the blind with a clatter.
+
+“Aren’t they?” laughed Paula, pointing.
+
+“You had better go and wipe them,” said Agatha.
+
+“I don’t believe in M.A.’s fidgets,” returned Vera.
+
+“But I do, in proper deference to the head of the house,” said Agatha,
+gravely.
+
+“Murder in Irish!” cried Vera, bouncing away, while Paula argued,
+“Really, Nag, life is not long enough to attend to all the M.A.’s little
+worries.”
+
+“Polly, dear, I am afraid we have been on a wrong tack with our sister.
+I don’t like calling her by that name.”
+
+“You began it!” exclaimed Vera, dashing in by the door as she spoke.
+
+“I could not have meant it as a nickname to be always in use.”
+
+“Oh yes, you did, I remember”—and an argument was beginning, which Agatha
+cut short by saying, “Any way, it is bad taste.”
+
+“Nag has been so much among the real M.A. that she is tender about their
+title.”
+
+“She wants to be one herself,” said Vera; “and so she will if she goes on
+getting learned and faddy.”
+
+“In both senses?” said Paula.
+
+Agatha laughed a little, but added, “No, Polly, the thing is that it is
+hardly kind or right to put that sort of label upon a person like
+Magdalen—who has done so much for us—and—”
+
+The perverse young hearts could not bear a touch on the chord of
+gratitude; and Paula burst in, “Label or libel, do you mean?”
+
+“It becomes a libel as you use it.”
+
+“Do you want us to call her sister or Magdalen, the whole scriptural
+mouthful at once?”
+
+“I believe that to call her Magdalen or Maidie, as my father did, would
+make her feel nearer to us than the formal way of saying ‘Sister.’”
+
+“I don’t mind about changing,” said Paula.  “She can never be the same to
+us as dear Sister Mena.”
+
+“She is so tiresome,” added Vera.  “She bothers so over my music; calling
+out if I make ever so small a slip, and making me go over all again.”
+
+“Well she may,” said Paula.  “She is making little Tick play so nicely.
+Just listen!  But I can’t bear her dragging us off to that horrid old
+Arnscombe Church and the nasty stuffy Sunday school.”
+
+“That reminds me,” said Agatha; “Gillian Merrifield met a relation of Mr.
+Earl’s, who said that Miss Prescott had brought quite new life and spirit
+to the poor old man, who had been getting quite out of heart for want of
+any one to help and sympathise with him.”
+
+“Then he ought to make his services more Catholic,” said Paula.  “But
+nothing will wean her from the old parochial idea.  Why, she would not
+let me give my winter stockings to Sister Beata’s poor girls, but made me
+darn them and put them by.”
+
+“Yes, and mine, which were bad enough to give away, she made me darn
+first,” cried Vera.  “She is ever so much worse than the superlative
+about mending one’s clothes.”
+
+“There ought to be another degree of comparison,” said
+Paula,—“Botheratissima!”
+
+“For, only think!” said Vera.  “She won’t let us have new hats, but only
+did up the old ones, and not with feathers, though there is such a love
+at Tebbitts’s at Rockstone.”
+
+“She says it is cruel,” said Paula.
+
+“Cruel to me, I am sure; and what difference does it make when the birds
+are once killed?”
+
+“Well, she did give us those lovely wreaths of lilies,” said Paula.
+
+“Of course, but nothing to make them stylish!  What’s the good of being
+out if one is to have nothing _chic_?  And she won’t let me have a hockey
+outfit.  She says she must see more of it to be able to judge whether to
+let us play!”
+
+“That just means seeing whether her dear Merrifields do,” said Paula.
+
+“Gillian did at St. Catherine’s.  But you will know soon.  Did I not hear
+something about a garden party?”
+
+“Oh, yes; she is talking of one, but it will be all swells and croquet,
+and deadly dull.”
+
+“I thought you seemed to be getting on well with the swells, if you mean
+the Merrifields, especially Wilfred, if that is his name.”
+
+“Bil—Bil!  Oh, he is all very well,” said Vera, “if he would not be
+always so silly and come after me!  As if I cared!”
+
+“And only think,” said Paula, “that she was going to have it on the very
+day that St. Milburga’s Guild has their festival!  Just as if it was on
+purpose!”
+
+“Did you ask her to keep clear of your engagements?”
+
+“I told her, but I don’t think she listened.”  And as another grievance
+suggested itself to Vera, she declared, “And she won’t let us join the
+Girls’ Magazine Club, because she saw one she didn’t like on somebody’s
+table.  As if we were little babies!”
+
+“She won’t let us order books at the library, but gets such awfully slow
+ones,” chimed in Paula, “or only baby stories fit for Thekla.  She made
+me return that book dear Sister Mena lent me, because she said it was
+Roman Catholic.”
+
+“And hasn’t she got Thomas à Kempis on her table? and I’m sure he was
+Roman Catholic.  There’s consistency!”
+
+“You don’t understand,” began Agatha.  “He was a great Saint before the
+Catholics became so Roman.”
+
+“Oh, never mind!  It is anything to thwart us,” cried Vera.  “It is ever
+so much worse than school.”
+
+“But,” began Agatha, and the tone of consideration to that one
+conjunction caused an outburst.  “Oh, Nag, Nag, if you are gone over to
+the enemy, what will life be worth?”
+
+As that terrible question was propounded, in burst Thekla with, “Oh, Nag,
+Nag, they are cutting the hay in the high torr field, and sister says we
+may go and see them before I read my French.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Vera, with a prolongation into a groan, “is she going to be
+tiresome?”
+
+“She has come to be quite a don,” said Paula; “but never mind, we will
+soon make her all right again.”
+
+The two sisters had to go to their different classes in the afternoon,
+and wanted Agatha to go with them; but it was a very warm day, and she
+preferred resting in the garden, and, to Magdalen’s surprise and
+pleasure, conversation with her.  At first it was about Oxford matters,
+very interesting, but public and external to the home, and it did not
+draw the cords materially closer; but when Thekla had privately decided
+that even hanging upon the newly recovered Nag was not worth the
+endurance of anything so tedious, and had gone off to assist her beloved
+old gardener in gathering green gooseberries, Magdalen observed that she
+was a very pleasant little pupil, and was getting on very well,
+especially with arithmetic.
+
+“That was the strong point in the junior classes,” said Agatha; “better
+taught than it was in my time.”
+
+“I wish she could have more playfellows,” said Magdalen.  “She would like
+to go to the High School at Rockquay, but there are foundations I should
+wish to lay before having her out of my own hands.”
+
+“I should think you were her best playfellow.  She seems very fond of
+you, and very happy.”
+
+“Yes,” said Magdalen, rather wistfully.  “I think she generally is so.”
+
+“Maidie! may I call you by the old home name?”  And as Magdalen answered
+with a kiss and tearful smile, “Do tell me, please, if Polly and Flapsy
+are nice to you?”
+
+Magdalen was taken by surprise at the pressure of the hand and the eyes
+that gazed into her face full of expression.
+
+She could not keep the drops from rushing to her own eyes, though she
+smiled through them and said, “As nice as they know how.”
+
+“I am afraid I know what that means,” said Agatha.
+
+“If I only knew how to prevent their looking on me as their governess,”
+continued Magdalen; “but I must have got into the groove, and I suppose I
+do not always remember how much must be tolerated if love has to be won;
+and Paula is a thoroughly good girl.”
+
+“Yes, I am sure she wishes to be,” said Agatha.  “Are those Sisters nice
+that she talks of so eagerly?”
+
+“They are very excellent women, but somehow I should have had more
+confidence in them if they were not unattached, or belonged to some
+regular Sisterhood.  I wish she had taken instead to Mysie Merrifield,
+who is more of my sort; but no one can control those likings.”
+
+“I don’t think Gillian very attractive; she is so wrapped up in her
+work,” confessed Agatha.
+
+“You will see them all, I hope, for I am giving a garden party next week,
+perhaps.  Have not they told you?”
+
+“Oh, yes; but Polly seemed bent on its not clashing with some festival at
+St. Kenelm’s.”
+
+“Therefore I had not fixed the day till I had heard what is settled.  I
+have invited people for Thursday, which will hardly interfere.”
+
+“Did you know that the young man who is painting the ceiling at St.
+Kenelm’s Church is old Mr. Delrio’s son Hubert?”
+
+“Indeed!  Is he staying here?  We must ask him to come up to luncheon or
+to tea.  I am glad he is doing so well.  I heard Eccles and Beamster were
+to do the decorations; I suppose they employ him.  I should think it was
+a very good line to get into.”
+
+This was on a Friday; and the next day Magdalen proposed driving down in
+the cool of the evening to see the decorations at St. Kenelm’s and their
+artist; but it turned out that he was gone to spend Sunday at the
+Cathedral city, and all that could be done was to admire the designs, and
+listen to Paula’s enthusiastic explanation.
+
+Magdalen consulted Agatha whether to send young Delrio a card for the
+garden party; but they decided that it was too late for an invitation to
+be sent, though a spoken one might have been possible.  Besides, it was
+not likely to be pleasant to a stranger who knew no one but the Flights
+and Hendersons, and those professionally.  Agatha told her sisters, and
+with one voice they declared that they would not see him patronised;
+while Agatha’s acute senses doubted whether Vera’s objection was not
+secretly based on the embarrassment of a double flirtation with him and
+with Wilfred Merrifield.
+
+Indeed, Vera told her gaily: “Only think, Nag, I did have a jolly ride on
+the M.A.’s bike after all.”
+
+“Indeed!  Then she lent it to you.”
+
+“Not she!  But she and the little kid were safe gone to Avoncester, and
+Paula was with her dear Sisters, so Will and I took a jolly spin along
+the cliff road; and it was such screaming fun.  Only once we thought we
+saw old Sir Jasper coming, and we got behind a barn, but it turned out to
+be only a tripper, and we had such a laugh.”
+
+“Paula does not know?”
+
+“What would be the good of telling her, with her little nun’s schoolgirl
+mind?  She would only make no end of a fuss about a mere bit of fun and
+nonsense.”
+
+“I think if Wilfred Merrifield was afraid to meet his father, it showed a
+sense of wrong.”
+
+“Sir Jasper is a horrid old martineau, who never gives them any peace at
+home, but is always after them.”
+
+“A martinet, I suppose you mean.  I don’t think that makes it any better.
+I should not be happy till Magdalen knew.”
+
+“Why, no harm was done!  There’s her precious machine all safe!  It was
+just for the fun of the thing, and to try how it goes.  One can’t be kept
+in like a blessed baby!  She never has guessed it.  That’s the fun of
+it.”
+
+“I would not return her kindness in such an unladylike way when she is
+trusting you, Vera.”
+
+Did Magdalen know what had been done?  She did guess, for there was a
+mark on the wheel that she did not remember to have known before, and it
+cost her a bitter pang of mistrust; but she abstained from inquiries,
+thinking that they might only do harm.  But she bought a chain for her
+bicycle; and Agatha felt more shame than did Vera, who tried to believe
+herself amused by her tacit sense of emancipation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X—FLOWN
+
+
+    “Till now thy soul hath been all glad and gay,
+    Bid it arise and look on grief to-day.”
+
+                                                         ADELAIDE PROCTOR.
+
+THERE was a Guild at St. Kenelm’s which was considered by the promoters
+to be superior to the Girls’ Friendly Society, and which comprised about
+a dozen young women, who attended classes held by Sister Beata, and
+occasional modest entertainments given by Lady Flight.
+
+One of these was to take place the day before Miss Prescott’s garden
+party.  It was to be given at Carrara, the very pretty grounds on the top
+of the cliff, belonging to Captain Henderson, the managing partner in the
+extensive marble works of Mr. White, who lived at Rocca Marina, in the
+Riviera.  Mrs. Henderson had resided in Mr. Flight’s parish, and been a
+member of his congregation, and while he was absent for a day or two she
+had put her garden at the service of the Guild of St. Milburga’s for the
+day.
+
+Of course Vera and Paula were delighted to assist; but Thekla was too
+young for the amusements of grown-up maidens, and was much better pleased
+to help her two elder sisters in preparations for the next day, placing
+tennis nets, arranging croquet hoops, mustering chairs by the verandah,
+and adorning tables with flowers.  Agatha’s assistance was heartily
+given, as making it her own concern, and, for that reason above all
+others, it was a happy day, though a very tiring one, to Magdalen, in
+spite of the sultry atmosphere and the sight of lurid-looking clouds over
+the moors, which did not augur well for the next day’s weather, and
+caused all the arrangement of chairs and rugs to be prudently broken up
+and deposited under the verandah.
+
+This was done, and the evening meal had been taken, and Thekla had gone
+to bed before some flashes of lightning made the two sisters wish to see
+the other pair at home, especially as Vera was much afraid of lightning,
+and Paula apt to be made quite ill by it.
+
+The storm rolled on, bringing violent gusts of wind and hail, though not
+at the very nearest, and such a hurricane of wind and rain ensued that
+the two watchers concluded that the two girls must have been housed for
+the night by some of the friends at Rock Quay, and it was near midnight,
+when just as they had gone to their rooms, a carriage was heard ascending
+the hill, and they had reached the door before Paulina sprang out with
+the cry, “Is she come home?”  Then at sight of the blank faces of dismay,
+she seized hold of Agatha’s hands and began to sob.  Mr. Flight had
+stepped out of the car at the same moment, and answered the incoherent
+questions and exclamations.
+
+“Young Delrio offered to take photographs of the party, and that was the
+last time she was seen.”
+
+“Yes,” sobbed Paula, “Sister Mena saw her there.  We were trying to get
+up croquet, and then I missed her.  I tried to find her when the
+lightning began, but I could not find her anywhere, though I looked in
+all the summer-houses!”
+
+“At Mrs. Henderson’s? or Miss Mohun’s? or the Sisters’?” asked Magdalen,
+catching alarm from each denial.  “She might have gone home with one of
+the girls.”
+
+“She would be wild in such a storm,” said Agatha, “and not know what she
+was about.”
+
+“Sister Beata and I have gone to each house,” said Mr. Flight.
+
+“When did you say you saw her last?”
+
+“I saw her when we were grouped,” said Paula; “Sister Mena, when she was
+helping him to put up his photos.”
+
+“The strange thing is,” said Mr. Flight, “though no doubt it will be
+explained, that Delrio is missing too.”
+
+“Hubert Delrio!” exclaimed Agatha.  “Impossible!  He must have taken her
+into the church to be out of the storm.”
+
+“We have tried,” said the clergyman.  And as the round of suggestions
+began to be despairingly reiterated, he said, hesitating, “Miss Mohun
+told me that she thought she had seen a boat, Captain Henderson’s, she
+believed, in the cave with some one rocking in it; and certainly that
+little boat was there, when on the hope, if it can be called a hope, I
+ran down the steps to look.”
+
+“Would it not have been put into the boathouse out of the rain?” said
+Agatha.
+
+“The gardener was gone home, out of reach round the point, but we shall
+know to-morrow.”
+
+“He thinks they may have rowed out and been caught in the storm,” cried
+Paula, bursting into fresh weeping; and Magdalen saw the conjecture
+confirmed by Mr. Flight’s countenance.
+
+“I am afraid it is the least distressing—the least unsatisfactory idea,”
+said he, in much agitation.  “I thought Mr. Delrio an excellent young
+man; and she,” indicating his companion, “tells me you know him and his
+family well.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” said Agatha and Magdalen in one breath.  “We have known his
+father all our lives.  Nothing can be more respectable.”
+
+“And Hubert is as steady and good as possible,” continued Agatha.  “His
+mother used to come to Mrs. Best and praise him, till we were quite tired
+of his name; I am sure he is all right.”
+
+“Or I should be much deceived in him,” said the clergyman.
+
+Yet there was an idea in Paulina’s mind.  Could Vera have poured out such
+an exaggerated tale of oppression and unhappiness as to have induced her
+old playfellow to carry her off to his mother at Filsted?  She had given
+some such hint to Mr. Flight on the way; but he had not seemed to hear or
+attend, and he was now promising to let the sisters know as soon as
+possible in the morning whether anything had been discovered, and to
+telegraph to Filsted and to the office in London if he should see
+occasion.
+
+Then he drove off, in what would have been almost daylight but for the
+pelting of the storm; and after a vain attempt to make Paula swallow some
+nourishment, Magdalen thought it kinder to let Agatha carry her off to
+bed, and then she confessed, what really gave a certain hope, that the
+pair had been in the habit of murmuring against “sister” so much that,
+considering poor Vera’s propensity to strong language, it was quite
+possible that Hubert might think her cruelly oppressed, and for a freak
+carry her off to his mother to be consoled.
+
+Agatha tried to believe it, for the sake of hushing the exhausted Paula,
+who almost went into hysterics, as she laughed at the notion of
+to-morrow’s telegram that Vera was safe at Filsted; and then allowed
+herself to be calmed enough to sleep, while Agatha revolved the notion,
+but found herself unable seriously to believe, that sufficient grievance
+could be brought against sister to induce any man in his senses to take
+such a step.  But then Paula had inferred that he was a lover, and Agatha
+did not know of what lovers might be capable, and she could not but blame
+herself for not having given more importance to the semi-confidences of
+her sisters on the first day of her arrival.  It was all misery; and the
+two poor girls could find no solace in the morning, save in talking to
+Magdalen, though that involved the confession of all the murmurs against
+her, the distrust of her kindness, and the explanation of the interviews,
+which, as far as Paula had ever witnessed them, were absolutely harmless,
+the only pity being in their concealment.
+
+Magdalen was manifestly as wretched as they, or even more so, being
+convinced of her own shortcoming in not having won the affection or
+confidence that would have made all open between them.  She could not
+understand why Hubert Delrio should not have been made known to her.
+
+“We thought,” said Paula, “we thought you might not think him
+enough—enough—of a gentleman for your sort of society.”
+
+“I think you might have trusted me to know what was due to an old
+friend,” said Magdalen “but, oh, I ought to have made you feel that we
+could think together.”
+
+“Perhaps,” said Agatha, “there was a little consciousness on poor dear
+Vera’s part that she did not want you to know the terms she was on.”
+
+They had tried only to let Thekla know that they were much alarmed
+because Vera had gone out in a boat and not returned.  It was observable
+that, on the principle that where there is life there is hope, Paula
+clung to the notion that Vera’s having fled to Filsted; while the two
+elder sisters, perhaps because they better knew what such a flight might
+seem to others, would almost have preferred to suppose there had been a
+fatal accident in the midst of youthful, innocent sport.
+
+The two were lingering sadly over their uneaten breakfast, talking more
+freely when they had sent Thekla to feed her pets, when Mr. Flight came
+up on his bicycle; but it was plain at the first moment that he had no
+good news.
+
+Nothing had been heard.  It only appeared that one of the young gardeners
+at Carrara had taken Captain Henderson’s boat without leave, to fetch one
+of the girls, but on entering the cove had found the boathouse locked.
+He had moored the boat to a stake for want of the ring that secured it
+within.  When the storm threatened he ran down to recover it, but it was
+gone, and he had concluded that the gardeners had put it into the
+boathouse.  It now appeared that they had not seen it, and were very
+angry at its having been meddled with.  An oar had drifted up with the
+morning tide, and had been recognised as belonging to the boat; but such
+a gale was blowing that it was impossible to put out to sea or make any
+search round the coast.  Words could hardly describe the distress of Mr.
+Flight or of his ladies at not having better looked after the young girl;
+Sister Beata for never having thoroughly attended to the matter; and
+Sister Mena for having accepted confidences which, if she had only
+guessed it, told her more than there really was to be known.  Both these
+two were inclined to the elopement idea, partly because it was the least
+shocking, and partly because they had looked at Vera’s grievances through
+her own spectacles, and partly from their unlimited notions of young
+men’s wickedness.  Their vicar was not of the same opinion, knowing
+Hubert better, and besides having found his work, his orders to his
+subordinates, and the belongings at the lodgings in a state that showed
+that whatever he had done had been unpremeditated.  Sending off notes to
+stop the garden party was a sort of occupation, broken by many signs,
+much listening, and much sorrowful discussion, not quite vain, since it
+made Paulina more one with Magdalen than ever before.  Poor old Mr.
+Delrio arrived in the afternoon, a thin, grey-haired and bearded old man,
+who could only make it too certain that Paula’s theory of the innocent
+flight to Filsted was impossible.  Moreover, he was as certain as a
+father could be, intimate with, and therefore confident of, his eldest
+son, that though Hubert might indulge in a little lively flirtation, it
+could never be otherwise than perfectly harmless.  In the terrible
+suspense and restlessness, he went vibrating about in the torrents of
+moorland rain between Rock Quay and the Goyle, on the watch for telegrams
+from the office in London or his wife at home, or for the discovery of
+anything from the sea, or searching in his son’s lodgings, where nothing
+was found that did not show him to have been a pure-hearted young man,
+devoted to his art, and fond of poetry.  Sundry compositions were in the
+blotting-book, one, indeed, to Vera’s name, under the supposition (a
+wrong one) {100} that it meant “true,” but mostly rough copies of a poem
+about the Saints Julitta and her child Cyriac.  Hope sank as another
+stormy day rose; and still the poor old artist lingered in hopes of news
+by some returning craft which might have picked up the derelict.  His
+chief comfort was in walking about between the showers with Magdalen, as
+an old friend, and trying to think of the two as innocent creatures,
+engulfed like mayflies in the stream.
+
+Sister Mena came over, wanting to join Paula in bewailing entreaties; but
+Paula, in youthful hard-hearted wilfulness, declared that it was
+impossible to see her; and it fell to Magdalen to try to discuss the
+grief with her.
+
+It turned out that Mr. Flight had spoken severely to her and to the far
+less implicated Sister Beata, declaring his confidence in them destroyed,
+so that they had begun to consider of throwing up their work in his
+parish.  “And it was all my fault,” said Mena; “Sister Beata really knew
+nothing, or hardly anything of what Vera told me.”
+
+“Indeed, I can quite understand that you had hardly experience enough to
+know that it might be wiser not to encourage what was not quite open.”
+
+“But I thought,—I thought you—”
+
+“That I was unkind and unsympathising.”
+
+“Oh, you never could have been—”
+
+“Indeed I never meant to be, but I am afraid it seemed so to my young
+sisters.  I can quite see how you thought you were acting kindly.”
+
+“Oh, that is so good of you.”
+
+“And perhaps I, being only an elder sister, you would not feel that I was
+the only authority the poor girls have to look to; and that it would have
+been kinder to help them to be content with me.”
+
+“I did not know what you could be,” said Mena, greatly soothed and
+surprised by her caresses.
+
+“We often do go on in ignorance, and get on a wrong tack; but you know
+God pardons our mistakes, and I do believe that you will be wiser for all
+this sorrow, and better able to rise to your work.  I am sure, however it
+ends, that is the reason that such blows are sent to us.”
+
+Mena went back sorrowful and chastened, but tenderly hopeful.  If Miss
+Prescott could forgive, surely Mr. Flight could, and One still greater.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI—ADRIFT
+
+
+    “She splashed, and she dashed, and she turned herself round,
+    And heartily wished herself safe on the ground.”
+
+                                                              JANE TAYLOR.
+
+AND where were the missing pair?
+
+Vera had lingered about, fancying she was helping to pack the
+photographic apparatus, while the others dispersed.  Presently, seeing no
+one near, Hubert Delrio said, in a gentle diffident voice, “It would be a
+great pleasure to me if I might ask you to listen to the verses on St.
+Cyriac and his mother that the design brought with it.”
+
+“I should love it better than anything,” said Vera, highly flattered.
+
+“If you would come down this way, there is a charming secluded cove,
+where we should be free from interruption.”
+
+“How deliciously romantic!  Quite stunning!” cried Vera, as her cavalier
+conducted her down a steep path along the side of the cliff to the stony
+beach, where a few red rocks had been manipulated into a tiny harbour,
+with a boathouse for the little skiff in which Captain Henderson was wont
+to go round to the marble works on the other side of the headland.  The
+boat looked very inviting as it lay swinging gently in the sluggish waves
+in the advancing shade of the tall cliff; and Vera exclaimed with delight
+as she was assisted into it, and placed herself comfortably on the
+cushion, with one hand dabbling in the cool translucent wave.  Hubert
+Delrio opened his manuscript and began to read his ballad, if so it was
+to be called, being the history of the little boy of four years old, who,
+being taken with his mother before the tribunal at Tarsus, was lifted on
+the proprætor’s knee, but struggled, crying out, “I am a Christian!” till
+the proprætor, in a rage, hurled him down.  His skull was fractured on
+the marble pavement, and his mother gave thanks for his soul’s safety,
+when she too was sentenced to be beheaded.  Great pains had been taken
+with the noble-minded tale; and the verses had considerable merit, more,
+perhaps, than Vera could appreciate.  But to read such a production of
+his own, in such surroundings, to the auditor whom youthful fancy most
+preferred, was such luxury to both that it was no wonder that under the
+broad shady hat with the lily wreath she was nodding in the gentle
+breeze, the lapping of the waves, and the soft cadence of the poetry,
+till at an effective passage on the mother’s death, the poet looked up,
+expecting to receive a responsive glance from those blue eyes.
+
+Not only were they hidden, but the cliff was farther off.  The mooring
+rope and the stake were dragging behind in the water.  The tide had
+turned, and the boat was already out of reach of the rock where it had
+been drawn up.  His exclamation of dismay awoke Vera, who would have
+started up with a little shriek, but for his, “Don’t!  Don’t!  I’ll row
+back.”
+
+But he was a landsman, whose only knowledge of the water was in an
+occasional bathe, or in a river steamer; and his first attempt at placing
+the oars in the rowlocks resulted in one falling overboard, while he
+helplessly grasped the other; and Vera screamed again.
+
+“Don’t be frightened, my dear!  Dearest, don’t!  We must be seen.  Some
+one will come out and help us.”
+
+“Can’t you get on with one oar?  They do in pictures.”
+
+“Punting?  Yes, but there must be a bottom.  No, don’t move, whatever you
+do.  There can’t be any danger.  Fishermen must be about.  Or we shall be
+seen from the cliffs.”
+
+“They are getting farther off!  Can’t you shout?”
+
+Hubert shouted, and Vera added her shriller cries; but all in vain, and
+the outgoing tide was carrying them, not towards the quay and marble
+rocks, but farther to sea.  The waves grew rougher and had crests of
+foam, and discomfort began.  Once the feather of a steamer was seen on
+the horizon.  They waved handkerchiefs and redoubled their shouts, and
+Hubert had to hold his companion to prevent her from leaping up; but they
+never were within the vessel’s ken, and she went on her way, while the
+sea bore them farther and farther.
+
+The shore was growing dim and indistinct, the sun was sinking, and the
+cloud, that had at first shown only a golden border, was lifting tall
+perpendicular masses, while the tossing of the little boat became more
+and more distressing.  Anxiety and sense of responsibility kept Hubert
+from feeling physical discomfort; but Vera began to cry, and to declare
+that it would be the death of her if she were not landed immediately.
+
+“If it were only possible!” sighed Delrio.
+
+“There must be some way!  You are so stupid!  Oh!  There was a flash of
+lightning.”
+
+“Summer lightning.”
+
+“No such thing!  There will be a storm, and we shall be drowned.  Oh, I
+wish I had never listened to your nonsense, and got into this horrible
+boat.”  She was in a state for scolding, and scold she did, as the clouds
+rose higher, and sheets of lightning more decided.  “How could you?  You,
+who know nothing about boats, and going on, on, with those horrid
+tiresome verses—not minding anything—I wish I had never come near you!”
+
+Vainly the poor young fellow tried to get in a word of consolation; it
+only made her scold the more, till there was no question that the storm
+was raging overhead; the hail rattled and splashed, the waves raised them
+to a height, then subsided into endless depths; the thunder pealed, and
+she clung to Hubert, too frightened for screaming.  His fear was that the
+cockleshell of a boat should fill and founder; he tried to bale out the
+water with his hat, and to make her assist, but she seemed incapable, and
+he could only devise laying her down in the bottom of the boat with his
+coat over her, hiding her face in terror.  Her hat had long ago been
+blown away, and her hair was flapping about.  Ejaculations were in his
+heart, if not on his lips, and once or twice she cried out something
+like, “Save me!” but in general it was, “We are sinking!  Hold me!  We
+are going!  Paula!  Nag!” clutching at his legs, so as to hamper him in
+the baling out the water.
+
+The hail passed, but there was a solid sheet of rain descending on them,
+undistinguishable from the foam that rushed over them as they went down,
+down, down.  Vera was silenced; and Hubert, drenched and nearly beaten
+out of life, almost welcomed every downward plunge as the last, tried to
+commend his spirit, and was amazed to find his little boat lifted up
+again, and the black darkness not so absolute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII—“THE KITTIWAKE”
+
+
+    “Good luck to your fishing!  Whom watch ye to-night?
+    A man of mean, or a man of might?”—SCOTT.
+
+SOMETHING black was before the tossed boat!  Yes, and light, not
+lightning.  A human voice seemed to be on the blast.  Hubert Delrio
+essayed to shout, but his voice was gone, or was blown away.  He
+understood that a vessel must be above him.  Would it finish all by
+running him down?  He perceived that he was bidden to catch something.  A
+rope!  His benumbed hands and the heaving of the boat made him fail once,
+twice, and he was being swept away as at last he did grasp a rope, and
+was drawn, as it ground his hands, close to the dark wall that rose
+above, with lights visible.
+
+“Cheer up! cheer up!” he cried to Vera.  “Thank God, we are saved!”
+
+Response from her there was none; but he could hear the yell of inquiry
+from ahead, and answered, “Here!  Two!  A woman!”
+
+A second rope was lowered.  “Lash her to it.”  But as it was evident that
+Delrio could do nothing but hold on, and that his companion was helpless,
+a sailor descended from no great elevation, and, in another moment, the
+senseless girl was hoisted up and received on deck; and, with some
+assistance, Hubert was also on board, thinking of nothing but the
+breathless question, “Is she safe?”
+
+“Oh, yes!  She will soon come round!  Here!  They will see to her.”  As
+she was carried away, and Hubert had a perception that she was received
+by female hands, but he was utterly exhausted, and unable to see or
+speak, till some stimulant had been poured down his throat, and even then
+he could hardly ask, “Is she safe?
+
+“Yes, yes!  All right!  Reviving fast!  Here!  Take some more!  Bed is
+ready!  Get rid of those clothes!”  It was an elderly, grey-haired man
+who spoke, and Hubert was in no condition to resist, as the yacht was
+pitching considerably, though after the boat the motion was almost rest.
+He instinctively shook his head at the glass, but swallowed what was
+forced upon him, and managed to say, “Thanks—sitting in boat—drifted
+off—Rock Quay.”
+
+“All right!  Never mind.  Take him down.  My berth, Ivy—Jephson.  Tuck
+him in.  Don’t let him speak!  Never mind, my lad!  We will hear all
+about it to-morrow!”
+
+Meantime, Vera, though reviving, was conscious of very little, save a
+soft pillow, tender hands, and warm drink that choked her; and then she
+fell asleep, though still she was aware of a strange tossing going on all
+night, and by and by she found herself secured into a sort of narrow
+shelf, and murmuring female voices were at hand.  As she moved, she
+heard, “There, you are better now.  You can take this, then you will be
+more comfortable.”
+
+Her eyes had opened to a curious sort of twilight, and there was a fair
+girlish head over her, with a sweet smiling face.  An elderly
+weather-beaten face in a hood next appeared, and a brown hand holding a
+cup closed over the top, in invalid fashion, and a kind strong arm
+slightly raised her with, “There, there, poor dear!  The spirit, my lady
+dear, the spirit!  That’s right, now then.”
+
+“You _must_ be a baby;” and a merry reassuring smile broke out as the
+draught was administered.  Vera tasted, thanked, swallowed, felt giddy,
+and lay down, hearing a lively bit of self-gratulation.  “There, Mrs.
+Griggs, I’m getting my sea legs!” followed by an ignominious stumble as
+Mrs. Griggs caught the cup in good time as the vessel gave a lurch which
+completed Vera’s awakening in the fear of being shaken out on the floor.
+
+She looked round to find herself in a tiny room, cushioned throughout,
+with strange dancing confused light coming in, and the few articles of
+furniture carefully secured.  Two young figures were there, both dressed
+in stout blue serge, with white trimmings; one, the darker, beside her
+bed, had a face full of kindness and solicitude, yet of fun dimpling over
+continually; the other, even in that dim light, striking Vera as
+something out of the loveliest visions of romance, so fair and beautiful
+was the countenance.
+
+A man’s voice was at the door.  “Fly!  Francie!  How is she?”
+
+“Much better!  Nearly well!  Good morning, Papa dear.  Is he all right?”
+
+“As sound as a bell!  Ha!”  As the door escaped, the curtain over it
+shook, and he nearly fell against it, saving himself with his hands.
+“That was exercise!”  As the young girls came tumbling up and disappeared
+behind the curtain, where, however, the voices could be plainly heard,
+“Had any sleep to-night or this morning?”
+
+“Between whiles!  O yes!  All our bones are still whole, as I hope yours
+and Ivy’s are.”
+
+“Come and see.  Griggs is getting breakfast under difficulties
+insurmountable to any one but a sea-grasshopper!  I came to call you
+damsels, and present my inquiries to Miss Prescott.”
+
+“She will soon be all right!  Francie and I are so proud of having had a
+real downright adventure.”
+
+“I trust she will not be the worse, and will—excuse me, and regard me as
+incognito.”
+
+This was said as another lurch drove the grizzled head into the cabin;
+and recovering in another upheaval they all disappeared, leaving Vera in
+a dreaming state, whence she was only half roused when Mrs. Griggs
+returned to administer breakfast, so far as she could taste it, under
+exhortations, pettings, and scoldings; and she very soon fell asleep
+again, and was thus left, sensible all the time of tossings and
+buffetings, but so worn out by the five hours of the boat, and so liable
+to be made ill by the motion of the vessel, that it was thought best to
+leave her to sleep in her berth.
+
+She was only aware of voices above talking and laughing, or sailor calls
+being shouted out, or now and then of some one coming to look at her, and
+insisting on her taking food.
+
+It was not till late in the afternoon that she awoke from what seemed
+like a strange long uneasy dream, and found one of the girls sitting by
+her and telling her she was better now.
+
+“Yes,” said Vera, trying to raise herself, finding something over her
+head, and falling back on the pillow; “but what is it?  Where is this?”
+
+“_This_ is somewhere out in the Channel, near off Guernsey, Griggs says,
+but we cannot put in anywhere till the gale goes down.”
+
+“What is it?  Is it a ship, then?”
+
+“O yes,” said the girl, laughing; “a yacht, the _Kittiwake_.  Sir Robert
+Audley has lent it to my brother, and we are all going to see the
+Hebrides and Staffa and Iona.”
+
+“Not to take me all up there?” groaned poor Vera, in horror.  “Can’t you
+put me out somewhere, anywhere?”
+
+“Don’t be afraid,” was the much-amused reply.  “As soon as ever we can
+put in anywhere, we can telegraph to Rock Quay and put you ashore to go
+home; but we can only run before the wind while the sea is so high.  I
+wish you could come on deck, it is so jolly!”
+
+“Oh! it was too dreadful!”
+
+“Beating about in the boat!  It must have been, Mr. Delrio told us.”
+
+“It was so stupid in him never to see that we had got loose, and were
+drifting off,” said Vera, who had never thought of inquiring after him.
+
+“My father and Griggs think he behaved quite like a hero,” was the
+answer.  “He must have managed very well to keep you afloat, and saved
+you all this time.”
+
+“I suppose so,” said Vera.  “We always did know him, or I should not have
+let him get me into that boat, when he minded nothing but his verses.”
+
+“Those verses, they came all limp and wet out of his pocket, and Francie
+made him let her dry them and copy them out; and she is so delighted with
+them.  It really is well it is too late to call the baby Cyriac.”
+
+“The baby?”
+
+“Oh, yes.  We had to leave him behind, though Francie was ready to break
+her heart over it; but they said that nothing would do for Ivinghoe—after
+this second influenza—but a sea voyage, so she had to make up her mind to
+leave him to my mother.”
+
+Vera was in a state of bewilderment, caring a great deal more for herself
+and her own sensations than for any of her surroundings; and her next
+question was, “When do you think we shall be out of this?”
+
+“We shall put into harbour somewhere as soon as the wind lulls.  We
+cannot venture yet, though we do steam; and then we can telegraph.  I am
+longing to relieve Miss Prescott.  We can take you home all the way.  We
+were on our way into Rock Quay to take up Mysie Merrifield if she can go.
+It really was a wonderful and most merciful thing that we made you out
+just as it was getting light before running you down.  My father saw you
+first, and old Griggs would hardly believe it, but then we heard Mr.
+Delrio’s hail!  But it was a terrible business getting you up the ship’s
+side.”
+
+“I did not know anything about it.  It was so dreadful in the lightning.
+And my new hat was blown away.  And what is become of all my clothes?”
+
+“Mrs. Griggs has them, and is drying them.  We will lend you a hat to
+land in.”
+
+“Oh, when we do!  I wish I had never got into that boat, but Hubert
+Delrio did persuade me so.”
+
+“And he is an old friend?”
+
+“Yes, he is come to paint the roof of St. Kenelm’s Church, and we want to
+be attentive to him because my eldest sister would be sure to be cross
+and keep him at a distance, being only that sort of wall painter, you
+know, and his father a drawing master.”
+
+“My father is very much pleased with him, and thinks him a very superior
+young man.  They have been sitting on deck together, talking as much as
+they could about architecture and Italy, with their breath all blown away
+every moment.  There!  You are really getting better!  If you would eat
+something and come on deck you would be well!  I will call the sea gnat,
+and see what we have.”
+
+It was all very wonderful to Vera; and she began to be interested and to
+forget her troubles.  A slice of very salt ham was brought to her and a
+glass of something, she did not know what, and asked if she could have
+some tea.
+
+“You could have tea if you like, but there’s no milk.  You see, we ought
+to have been in at Rock Quay yesterday evening, and our stores were not
+adapted to hold out any longer!  We shall have another curious
+experience, though Mrs. Griggs says it won’t be so bad as once when they
+were off the coast of Ireland, and when they put into a bay with a queer
+name, all Kill and Bally, they could get nothing but potatoes and goat’s
+milk.”
+
+“Who is Mrs. Griggs?”
+
+“She is wife to the sailing master; and, like the Norsemen, her home is
+on the wave, at least in the yacht, for she always lives in it, and her
+cabin is quite a sight; she is great fun, she cooks when there is
+anything to cook, and is stewardess and everything.  Francie and I knew a
+maid would be a vain encumbrance, so we are taking care of ourselves,
+and, if you will let me, I will try and set your hair to rights.”
+
+It was in a fearful tangle, after five hours at sea, and many more in the
+berth in the cabin; but Vera was able to sit up in a dainty
+dressing-gown, and submit to treatment not quite that of a hairdresser,
+but made as lively as could be by little jokes and kindly apologies at
+any extra hard pull at the knots, which really seemed “as if a witch had
+twined them;” and the two began to feel well acquainted with each other
+over the operation, though Vera was somewhat impressed when she observed
+that the brush was ivory handled.
+
+Her bicycling skirt was in tolerable condition, but her once delicate
+blue blouse was past renovation, so she was invested with a borrowed
+white one, and led in triumph to the saloon, just as the beautiful
+“Francie” came to call “Phyllis,” and give a helping hand.  There were
+two gentlemen besides Hubert Delrio, and there was a general rejoicing
+welcome; but Vera did not think Hubert made half enough inquiries or
+apologies, before she was seated at the table, where everything was
+secured, and the fare was not very sumptuous or various, being chiefly
+some concoction of rice and scraps of salt beef, which Francie said was a
+shame, eating up the poor sailors’ fare; also there was potted meat, and
+cheese, but all the fresh bread was gone, and they praised Mrs. Griggs’
+construction of ham and rice with all the warmth and drollery each could
+contribute.  Vera began to be puzzled as to who every one was, for no
+names except Phyl, Fly, Francie and Ivy were heard, and the merry
+grey-haired head of the family was “Father” or “Papa” to every one,
+except of course Mr. Delrio, who, however, seemed at his ease, and took a
+fair share in the talk, and once or twice Vera thought he said, “my
+lord,” but she did not believe it.
+
+“I find you are a friend of a special pet of mine, Mysie Merrifield,”
+said the father.
+
+“I know her a little,” stammered Vera, “but Primrose best.”
+
+“Nearer your age, eh?  But Mysie is our gem!  It looks fit for going on
+deck.”
+
+After the apology for a dinner, the young married pair went their way, he
+to endeavour to add a fish to their provisions, she to look on; the
+father and Delrio went where the latter could best study the wonderful
+tints of sunset over the purple retreating clouds, and the still agitated
+foaming sea,—sights that seemed to be filling him with enchantment, and
+revealing effects in colour, while his delight was evidently a new
+pleasure to his companion.
+
+Vera was afraid to move, and sat on a deck chair, with her back to the
+sunset, while Phyllis, who perhaps would have liked to share in the
+admiration, sat by her, so that Vera began to accept her as a special
+friend, and to pour out the explanation of how she came to be tossing in
+an open boat with this one companion.
+
+“You see, poor fellow,” she said, simpering, “he has been always so
+devoted to me.  Everybody observed it, and I could not help just
+gratifying him a little.”
+
+“He does seem to be very full of promise,” said Phyllis.  “I suppose Miss
+Prescott is much pleased with him.”
+
+“My sister Magdalen, do you mean?  Well, we have not introduced him to
+her yet.  You see, he is _only_ painting the church, and she is so
+devoted to swells, and makes such a fuss about our manners.”
+
+“Indeed!  But surely you could not go out with him without her knowing
+it.”
+
+“She was not at this St. Milburgha’s Guild, you know, and Sisters Beata
+and Mena knew all about it.  Oh, yes, she lets us go to them at St.
+Kenelm’s, but they are not swells enough for her.”
+
+“Mr. Flight’s Sisterhood, are not they?”
+
+“And Primrose Merrifield says that Wilfred declares that they are not
+ladies; but that’s all jealousy, you know, because Will doesn’t like my
+friends, and Magdalen is altogether gone upon grandees.”
+
+“Fancy!” was all that Phyllis managed to say.
+
+“She doesn’t want us to be friends with anybody who don’t belong to some
+one with a handle to her name.  So foolish and stuck up!  So we knew she
+would not be kind to Hubert.”
+
+“I think you had better have tried.  I thought her one of the kindest
+people in the world.”
+
+“Ah! but, you know, unfortunately she has been a governess, and that
+teaches toadying.”
+
+At that moment “Phyl” was called to see the first star over the sea, and
+ran up to her father, so as to conceal how nearly she was laughing.
+Hubert Delrio came towards Vera.
+
+“Can you forgive me, Vera?” he said.  “I shall speak to your sister as
+soon as I am at home, and ask her forgiveness, and—”
+
+“Oh, yes! yes!  But do tell me who these people are.”
+
+“Did you not know?  That most kind of men, is Lord Rotherwood.  Those are
+Lord and Lady Ivinghoe, and—”
+
+“Lady Phyllis!  Oh!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII—CHIMERAS DIRE
+
+
+                   “Qu’allait-il faire dans cette galère?”
+
+                                                            FRENCH COMEDY.
+
+VERA’S first thorough awakening the next morning was to hear outside the
+door, “Are you up, Fly?”
+
+“I shall be in a minute or two.  Do you want me?”
+
+“You are a dab at _parlez-vous_.  I want you to come ashore with me and
+cater for the starving crew.”
+
+“What fun!  Anon, anon, Sir!”
+
+Vera then perceived that she had been bestowed in Lady Phyllis’ cabin,
+and that the proper owner was dressing herself in haste before the little
+shelf of a toilette table.  So great had been the confusion of last
+night’s discovery that the poor silly child had only thought of hurrying
+out of sight and tumbling into bed without speaking to any one, and she
+had not distinctly known, when Lady Phyllis came down a good deal later
+and disposed of herself on the sofa, that Mrs. Griggs had made ready for
+her.  And now the only thing she could think of was to say, “Oh!  Lady
+Phyllis, I didn’t know.”
+
+“Take care!  Don’t knock your head!  We ought to have remembered that
+Boreas, or whichever it was, was hardly a sufficient introduction.  Are
+you all right now?  You had better go to sleep again till I bring
+something to eat.  We are lying to off some little Breton fishing
+village, and I am going with my brother to get some provisions, and
+telegraph if we can.”
+
+It was long before they came back.  Vera had another nap, dressed
+herself, grew very hungry, and came out to find Lord Rotherwood fishing,
+and his daughter-in-law watching for the boat to put out from the white
+houses with grey roofs, which, clustered round their church-tower, seemed
+descending to the water’s edge.  They were equally famished, though Mrs.
+Griggs stewed up the poor remnants of last night’s banquet; but at last
+the little boat appeared, gaily dancing over the waves, and Phyllis
+making signals of success.
+
+“Oh, yes, you may be thankful, you poor starving beings!  Here, Mrs.
+Griggs!  Accept, and do all you can!  Here are eggs, and some milk and
+fresh water, four _poulets_, such as they are, and a huge monster of a
+crab; but all the bread is leavened, and you little guess what Ivy and I
+had to go through before we were allowed to buy anything.  We were had up
+to the Mayor, and had to _constater_ all manner of things about our ship,
+to prove that we were no smugglers.”
+
+“I thought the fat old rogue would have come out to visit the yacht
+before he would have allowed us a morsel,” said Lord Ivinghoe.
+
+“In which case you might have been found a skeleton, father, like Sir
+Hugh Willoughby!  And as to our telegrams, they won’t go till the
+diligence gets to St. Malo, and what they will make of them there is
+another question.  I did not dare to send more than one, for fear they
+should get mixed up.”
+
+Vera heard the joyous chaff as it fluttered round her, not half
+understanding it any more than if it had been a strange tongue, and not
+always guessing the cause of the fits of laughter, chiefly at Lord
+Ivinghoe’s misadventures, over which his little sister and his father
+were well pleased to tease his correctness, and his young wife looked a
+little hurt at his being tormented.  He could not remember that
+_braconnier_ was a poacher by land, not by sea, and very unnecessarily
+disclaimed to the Maire being such a thing.  His father, he said, “was
+_gentilhomme anglais en_—what’s a yacht?—_yac_.  (Nonsense! that’s a
+long-haired ox.  No!)  _Non point contrabandiste_, _mais galérien dans
+galère_.”  “And there I interposed,” said Phyllis, “for fear we should be
+boarded as escaped _galériens_.”
+
+“Why, galley was a pleasure-boat sometimes,” said Ivinghoe, and his wife
+supported him with “Cleopatra’s galley.”
+
+“Well done, Francie!  To your oars for Ivy’s defence,” said Lord
+Rotherwood.  “How did you defend us, Fly, from being towed into harbour
+at Brest as runaway convicts?”
+
+“She gabbled away most eloquently to the Maire, almost as fluently as a
+born French-woman,” said Ivinghoe, “and persuaded him at last that it was
+not necessary to come on board to inspect us, nor even to detain us till
+he had sent for instructions to St. Malo.”
+
+“As Ivy managed matters, I thought we might be kept as hostages,” said
+Phyllis.
+
+“But, thanks to her blandishments, the solemn official vouchsafed to send
+off a messenger for us with a telegram.”
+
+“I do not think he sent directions to pursue our suspicious _galère_,”
+added Phyllis; “but I own I shall be glad to be under the lee of old
+England again.”
+
+“What was your telegram?”
+
+“Brevity was safest, nor had we money enough for two; so all I attempted
+was, ‘Delrio to Flight, Rock Quay.  Both safe.  Picked up by
+_Kittiwake_.’  I thought that would be the quickest means of relieving
+anxiety, as we were not sure of other addresses; and as to ‘home,’ Mamma
+probably hardly was aware of the storm, or, if she were, she knew the
+capabilities of yachts and of Griggs.”
+
+“Right!” returned his father.  “Poor Miss Prescott! she must have given
+you up for lost.  Have you been improving your mind with French
+telegrams?” he added, turning to Delrio.
+
+“No, my lord, I found my way to the church, a wonderful piece of old
+Norman!—if it may so be called.”
+
+“I see you have been sketching.”
+
+Griggs here interposed with tidings that eggs and coffee were ready in
+the saloon, the worthy pair having had respect to the general famine, and
+prepared what could be made ready in haste.  Those who had eaten ashore
+sat by, making an amusing account of their reception, and difficulties
+with language and peasants, for, this not being an ordinary place of
+call, nothing was ready for sale.
+
+Vera, finding herself for the first time in distinguished company, which
+desired to set her at ease, began to be at ease, and to desire to shine,
+so she giggled whenever she perceived the slightest excuse, even when
+Lord Ivinghoe handed her the eggs, and, hoped she had not too British an
+appetite for French eggs; and Lady Ivinghoe asked if she had seen the
+fowls, and whether their feathers were ruffled up like a hen’s that had
+been given to Aunt Cherry.  Her little sister Joan, she added, had asked
+whether eating the eggs would make her hair curl.
+
+“Or stand on end,” said Phyllis.
+
+“As I am afraid Miss Prescott’s is doing till your telegram reaches her.
+Did you say it was to go from St. Malo?”
+
+“Yes.  I thought that the safest place to have a comprehensible message
+copied.”
+
+“To whom did you say?” asked Lady Ivinghoe.
+
+“‘Delrio to Flight.’  Oh, they will know his name and address fast enough
+when it gets to Rock Quay.”
+
+“He is the clergyman at St. Kenelm’s,” put in Vera, in explanation; “very
+very advanced Ritualist, you know.”
+
+“Indeed!” was the answer.
+
+“Oh, yes, that he is.  My sister Polly is perfectly devoted to him; but
+we don’t go to his church, except now and then, because my eldest sister
+is just one of those very old-fashioned people, you know, who want
+everything horrid and dull.”
+
+“That is hardly what our cousins think of Miss Prescott,” said Phyllis.
+“I am so sorry for her anxiety!  But I was not sure of the name of her
+place.”
+
+“The Goyle!  Isn’t it frightful?” said Vera.
+
+“You say she was unprepared for your adventure?”
+
+“Oh, yes, quite.  Her notions are so dreadfully proper and old fashioned.
+She hasn’t got any sympathy, has she, Hubert?”
+
+“I don’t know,” he said gravely.  “I have always had the greatest respect
+for her.”
+
+“Respect!  So you ought.  That’s just the thing one has for a slow dear
+old fogey,” she said, laughing, “Oh, Hubert!”  There was a silence, and
+Lord Rotherwood made an observation upon the wind.
+
+Vera perceived an awkwardness, and, by way of repairing it, afterwards
+thought it expedient to communicate to Lady Phyllis that it might be a
+pity she had said “Hubert.”  It was so awkward, only he was such an old
+acquaintance.
+
+“I should have thought the awkwardness was incurred long ago,” said Lady
+Phyllis.  “Come, you will have no more concealments from Miss Prescott,
+will you?  You will be ever so much more comfortable, and find out how
+kind she is.”
+
+“Oh, but!—” Vera wanted to talk over all her grievances for the pleasure
+of talking, saying very much what she had said before, and Phyllis tried
+to endure and put in as much sense as she could, without lecturing the
+girl, who struck her as the very silliest she had ever encountered; but
+she was continually called off to admire the receding French coast, or to
+look at the creatures brought up by dredging.  She always took care to
+call Vera, and not let her feel herself left out; but Vera, if in
+solitude for a moment, reflected on the neglect shown of little people by
+great ones; and when called up to see uncanny slimy creatures, or even
+transparent balls like watery umbrellas, only was disgusted and
+horrified.
+
+She began to guess, rather truly, that Lady Phyllis wanted to hinder a
+_tête-à-tête_ between her and Hubert Delrio.  In fact, Lord Rotherwood,
+who was much more of a sympathetic, confidence-inviting personage than
+his stiffer, much older seeming son, had said to his daughter, “Don’t let
+that poor lad and the girl get together alone, Fly; the boy thinks he is
+bound to make her an offer.”
+
+“Oh, father!  Surely not!”
+
+“No more than if they had been two babies in a walnut shell.  So I told
+him, but people don’t see what infants they are themselves, and I want to
+hinder him from putting his foot in it before he has seen her
+aunt—cousin—sister, or whoever it is that has the charge of her; and she
+has depicted to him a Gorgon, with Medusa’s hair, claws and all—a fancy
+sketch, isn’t it?”
+
+“Of course, sentimental schoolgirl colours!  Mysie thinks her
+delightful.”
+
+“At any rate, let him get a dose of common sense before committing
+himself.  He is a capital fellow, sure to rise; has the soul and head and
+hands for it, but he ought not to weight himself with a drag.”
+
+“Do you think he is really in love with her?”
+
+Lord Rotherwood waved his hands.  “He thinks so, but nobody knows with
+those boys!  I had to tell him at last that I would not have any
+philandering on board _my_ ship; and whatever he might think it his duty
+to say, must be put off for aunt—sister—Gorgon—Medusa or what not.  And I
+don’t think he’s very bad, Fly, for he modestly asked permission to
+sketch Francie’s head for St. Mildred, or Milburg, or somebody; and was
+ready to run crazy about the tints on that dogfish.  The young fellow is
+in the queerest state between the artist and the lover! delight and
+shame!  I should like to take him north with us; the colours of the
+cliffs in the Isles would soon drive out Miss Victoria—what’s her name?”
+
+“You don’t think him like Stephen in the _Mill on the Floss_, who ought
+to have married Maggie Tulliver.”
+
+“I believe that is his precedent—but it is sheer stuff—pure accident—as a
+respectable old householder like me is ready to testify to the Gorgons
+and Chimeras dire—Grundys and all.  We must encounter Rock Quay, Fly, if
+it is only to rescue this unlucky youth.”
+
+“What is he doing now?  Oh, I see; drawing Francie, who sits as stiff as
+a Saint of Burne-Jones!  Well, I’ll have an eye to them!  Vera!  Have you
+finished _Rudder Grange_?”
+
+“Not quite.  I can’t make out who Lord Edward was.”
+
+“Why, the big dog!  Did you think he was Pomona’s hero?”
+
+“I don’t know.  Wasn’t Pomona very silly?”
+
+“If life was to be taken from story-books,” said Phyllis, in a very
+didactic mood; “but you see she imbibed the best side, what they really
+taught her of good.”
+
+“I thought, when you gave me the book, it was to be an adventure like
+mine, not all standing still in an old river.  What do you think Hubert
+Delrio ought to do after persuading me into such an awful predicament?”
+
+“Tell your sister he is very sorry that you two foolish children got into
+such a scrape, and very thankful that you were saved.”
+
+“We are very thankful to Lord Rotherwood.”
+
+“I didn’t mean to him.  To some One else,” said Phyllis, reverently.
+
+“Oh, of course,” said Vera.  “But what _do_ you think, Lady Phyllis?”
+(Since her discovery of the title she made a liberal use of it.)  “What
+do you think people will say?”
+
+“That a little girl has had a dangerous adventure and a happy escape.”
+
+“I am seventeen, Lady Phyllis!”
+
+“One is nothing like grown up at seventeen!  I declare there’s a big
+steamer coming into sight.  I wonder if it belongs to the Channel Fleet!”
+
+Nothing more sentimental could be extracted for the rest of the voyage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV—PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED
+
+
+    “I marry without more ado,
+    My dear Dick Red Cap, what say you?”
+
+                                                                   COWPER.
+
+THE telegram had been received about mid-day; and Mr. Flight rushed up
+with it to the Goyle, just in time to prevent poor old Mr. Delrio from
+starting hopelessly home.  It had suffered a good deal in spelling and
+precision, in spite of Lady Phyllis’s precautions; but “both safe” was
+understood, as it was known in Rock Quay that “Lord Rotherwood and
+family,” as the papers had it, were yachting in the _Kittiwake_ and might
+be expected in the bay.
+
+Agatha and Paula threw their arms round one another and cried; Magdalen,
+with a choke in her voice, struggled to ask Mr. Flight to lead them in a
+few words of thanksgiving; and as soon as these were over, Thekla
+expressed her hopes that they had been cast on a desert island and would
+bring home Man Friday.
+
+The Goyle ladies walked over to Clipstone with the good news, and the
+whole party went down afterwards to Rockstone to look out for yachts, and
+inquire about possibilities.  The _Kittiwake_ being a steamer, light and
+swift, might be expected in harbour in the course of the night, and Mr.
+Delrio meant to wait for her at his son’s lodgings.  The ladies wished
+they could do the same; and Paula was allowed to accept Sister Beata’s
+humble entreaty to house her.  But they did not know how long before the
+telegraph from St. Malo the _Kittiwake_ from St. Cadoc had spread her
+wings and hoisted her feather, for, happily, her coals had held out
+better than her provisions.  So, as they were looking their last look
+from the cliffs of Beechcroft Miss Mohun exclaimed, “A steamer! a yacht!
+_Kittiwake_!”
+
+Glasses were rushed for, and unaccustomed eyes could trace the graceful
+course through the gentle evening waves towards the quay.
+
+Every one was on the quay in time to receive the boat, which, rowed by
+four smart sailors, was seen with the party of six, two sailor hats, and
+one red cap being at once spied out among the female figures.  Then two
+hats were waved and answered by cheers of welcome; and the figures were
+recognised, and unnecessarily numerous hands stretched out to assist the
+landing from the plank extended to the boat.
+
+Vera was put first by her kind rescuers, Lord Rotherwood’s hand guiding
+her to the rail, and, after an insecure step or so, she found herself in
+the arms of Paulina, sobbing for joy; and the little cluster of sisters
+seemed to know nothing else, except Thekla, who presently, in the
+confusion of the greetings, was found by Lord Rotherwood looking about
+vaguely, and saying, “But where’s their man Friday?”
+
+“You must accept me for him,” said he.  “’Tis Friday, unless we have lost
+our reckoning!  I hope you think me something promising in the way of
+savages!”
+
+Young Delrio’s first proceeding, even while his father was wringing his
+hand in speechless welcome and thankfulness, was to turn to Captain
+Henderson.  “Sir, your boat is safe, it will be brought in to-morrow.  I
+am much concerned, and beg your forgiveness, but I had no idea that it
+was yours till Griggs found your name.  Only one oar is lost, and a
+cushion, which I will replace.”
+
+“Say no more, pray,” said Captain Henderson.  “The fault was my
+servant’s, who took it without leave, and left it out.  He must repair
+the very slight damage.”
+
+Miss Mohun wanted the whole troop to come up to Beechcroft to drink tea,
+and her relations consented; but the hearts of the Prescotts were a great
+deal too full for them not to wish to be alone together; and after
+Magdalen had given her hand to Lord Rotherwood with a fervent, “You know
+what I would say, my lord—beyond all words,” they turned homewards; but
+Mr. Flight ran after them to say in a low voice, “Can we meet to-morrow
+at eight for a service of thanksgiving?”  And this was gladly accepted.
+
+Hubert was dragged off by his father.
+
+“Nonsense! they don’t want your apologies and explanations.  It would
+only be besetting them.  Come home with me, and don’t be a fool!  But
+write a few lines to your poor mother, after the intolerable fright you
+have given her; meddling and presuming where you had no business.  A
+Providence it is that you are not half across the Atlantic, if not at the
+bottom of it.”
+
+Of course this was the reaction of great anxiety; but however meekly
+Hubert submitted to the queer outpouring of affection, and however
+thankful they both were, and glad and content over the particulars of the
+youth’s work and progress, still he was not to be withheld from laying
+hand and heart at Vera Prescott’s feet, as he insisted was due to her and
+her family after the compromising situation in which he had placed her.
+His father said it was talking novels and folly; but he was a man of
+three and twenty, and could not well be stopped, as he was earning his
+own livelihood, and had always been irreproachable.  So Mr. Delrio had to
+leave the matter, only expressing discouragement, and insisting that it
+must be no more than an engagement.
+
+The thanksgiving took place as arranged, and Lord Rotherwood, his
+daughter, and Mysie were there.  For indeed there had been danger enough
+during the thunderstorm to make the safety of the _Kittiwake_ a matter of
+thankfulness, though the rescue of the boat had caused it to be almost
+forgotten in the history of the night.
+
+Lady Flight had begged that all would come to breakfast with her, and
+this was accepted by the Goyle party; but the Clipstone pony-carriage was
+waiting for the others, and they could not accede to Lady Flight’s
+impromptu, and rather nervous, invitation.  But before they started Lord
+Rotherwood managed to say a few words aside to Miss Prescott of the
+impression he had divined from his voyage with Hubert Delrio, whom he
+thought a young man of great ability and promise, and of excellent
+principles, but with a chivalry it was quite refreshing to see in youth,
+perhaps ready to strain honourable scruples almost too far for his own
+good or that of others.
+
+Magdalen thought she perceived what had been in the marquis’s mind when,
+immediately after her return home, Hubert and Vera came up, hand in hand,
+and he informed her of their mutual attachment.
+
+“I am afraid, Miss Prescott,” he said, “that we may not have acted
+rightly or squarely by you; and this last adventure was a most unhappy
+result of my careless awkwardness and preoccupation.”
+
+“It was the merest accident.  We all quite understand.  It is not to be
+thought of.”
+
+“You are very good to say so, but—”
+
+Both he and Magdalen wished that Vera had not been present, blushing and
+smiling, or rather simpering; and as Hubert hesitated over his “but,”
+Magdalen said:
+
+“Vera, my dear, Hubert and I can talk over this better without you.  You
+had better go and find Paula.”
+
+“Only, sister, please do understand that I care for Hubert with all my
+heart,” said Vera, much less childishly than Magdalen had expected.
+
+However, she went, while Magdalen succeeded in saying what she had
+intended—that Hubert must not consider himself in the smallest degree
+bound by what had been accident, entirely unintentional and innocent.
+
+“You are generous, Miss Prescott.  You understand!  But the world!  It
+was public.”
+
+“Never mind the world.  You see what sensible people think.”
+
+“But, indeed, Miss Prescott, I cannot leave you to suppose I am only
+actuated by the fact of that awkward situation.  Of course that would
+never have been if I did not deeply, entirely love your sister.  It has
+only precipitated matters.  I entreat of you to give her to me, as one
+who is—who is devoted to her!  If my station is inferior I will work—”
+
+“That is not the point.  Vera is too young for such things.  What does
+your father say?”
+
+“My father sees that I am right.”
+
+“I see what that means,” said Magdalen, smiling.  “But where is he?  I
+should like to talk to him.”
+
+Mr. Delrio, pretty well knowing what was going on, was found endeavouring
+to distract his mind by sketching the Goyle.  He and Magdalen walked up
+and down the drive together, perfectly agreeing that it would be
+senseless cruelty to permit an early marriage between these two young
+people, and that it was a pity there should be an engagement; but this
+could hardly be prevented, since Mr. Delrio could only give advice, and
+leave a self-supporting worthy son to judge for himself; but the elder
+sister and the trustee could stipulate for delay till Vera should be of
+age.
+
+So Hubert was called, and acquiesced, cheerfully observing that he
+trusted that four years would make him able to render Vera’s life an easy
+and pleasant one; and after heartily thanking both Miss Prescott and his
+father, he went off to rejoice the heart of the maiden, who was sitting
+under the pear-tree, watching with anxious eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV—BROODS ASTRAY
+
+
+    “But ill for him who, bettering not with time,
+    Corrupts the strength of Heaven-descended will,
+    And ever weaker grows through acted crime,
+    Or seeming genial venial fault.”
+
+                                                                —TENNYSON.
+
+“MAN Friday hope piccaniny live well—bring her buckra fish from sea!”
+Such was the greeting from Lord Rotherwood to Thekla when the whole party
+walked over in time for tea on the lawn, before church at Clipstone, as
+he presented her with a facsimile oyster which he had hunted up in a
+sweet shop, making an absurd bow and scrape.
+
+Poor Thekla coloured, and mumbled a shy, “Thank you, my—my—” having had a
+lecture from Vera on treating a marquis with over familiarity and it was
+left to Primrose to ask where Friday learnt nigger language.  “By nature,
+Missy buckra,” he responded; “all same nigger everywhere.”  And he
+repeated his bow so drolly that Primrose’s laugh carried Thekla’s along
+with it, as Lady Phyllis walked up with, “Come, father, you are wanted to
+congratulate.”
+
+“Eh!  Am I?  So they have perpetrated it, have they?  More’s the pity is
+what I should say in the Palace of Truth; but the maiden has landed a
+better fish than she knows—that is, if she have landed him.”
+
+“There! take care, don’t be tiresome, Papa!” admonished Lady Phyllis,
+drawing him on, when he met Vera with a courtly manner, and, “I hope I
+see you recovered, Miss Prescott, and able to rejoice in the pleasant
+consequences of your adventure.”
+
+Vera blushed, and looked very pretty and modest, making not much answer
+as she retreated among her contemporaries to show them her ring, a hoop
+of pearls, which Wilfred insisted were Roman pearls, fishes’ eyes, most
+appropriate; but Flapsy felt immeasurably older than Wilfred to-day, and
+able to despise his teasing, though Hubert Delrio was not present, and
+indeed Wilfred was not disposed to bestow much of his attention upon her,
+having much more inclination to beset his cousin, Lady Phyllis, who
+surely ought to perceive that he had attained at least the same height as
+his brother Jasper, and could, in his absence, pose as the young man of
+the household.
+
+Phyllis had not much to say to him, nor after the first to Vera, though
+she duly admired the ring so exultantly shown, and accepted the assurance
+that Hubert was the dearest fellow in the world.  But there was no
+getting any condolence out of her upon the misery of having to wait four
+whole years.  She said, “It was a very good thing!  There was her cousin
+Gillian, who had insisted on waiting three years to finish her
+education.”
+
+“Oh, but dear Hubert likes me as I am,” simpered Vera.
+
+“You might wish that he should find more in you to like.  Gillian,” said
+Phyllis, coming up to her and Agatha, “I want you to assure Vera that
+four years is not such a great trial in waiting.”
+
+“It is what I have been trying to persuade her,” said Agatha; “she is
+hardly seventeen.”
+
+“And I would not have been married at seventeen for anything,” said
+Gillian to the pouting Vera.  “I want to be more worth having.”
+
+Vera did not like it, she had heard the like at home, and she fell back
+upon Valetta, while the others walked on.  “Poor little Flapsy!” said
+Agatha, “I do hope this engagement may make more of a woman of her.”
+
+“My father was very much struck by Mr. Delrio,” said Phyllis, “both as
+artist and personally.”
+
+“You must be glad of the time for putting her up to his level,” said
+Gillian.
+
+“Do you think such things are to be done?” asked Agatha.
+
+“Yes,” said Phyllis stoutly.  “You may not make her able to be a Senior
+Wrangler—(Oh you are Oxford!)—or capable of it, like this Gillyflower;
+but you can get the stuff into her that makes a sound sensible wife.”
+
+Gillian caught a little hopeless sigh of “_can_,” and answered it with,
+“When all this effervescence is blown off, then will be the time for
+working at the substance, and she may be all the better wife—especially
+for the artist temperament, if she is of the homely sort.”
+
+“How angry she would be if she heard you say so!” returned Agatha.  “Yet
+certainly I do feel relieved that wifehood is to be my poor Flapsy’s
+portion, for she is not of the sort that can stand alone and make her own
+way.”
+
+“There will always be plenty of such women in the world,” said Gillian.
+
+“So much the better for the world,” retorted Phyllis, who had never shown
+any symptoms of exclusive devotion to any one of the other sex, except
+her father.
+
+One thing Agatha wanted to know, and dared not ask, namely, what
+impression Vera had made in the _Kittiwake_ and what Hubert had said
+about her; for she and Paula had begun to remark that, lover as he was,
+not a word about her heroism had escaped him.  And it was as well that
+she did not hear what the extra plain spoken Primrose did not spare the
+boasting Thekla.  “Cousin Rotherwood and Fly both say they can’t think
+how Mr. Delrio got on with such a silly little hysterical goose upon his
+hands; and that it is a foolish romantic unlucky notion that he ought to
+be engaged to her.  I think Mamma will tell Miss Prescott so.”
+
+The _Kittiwake_, having arrived three days later than had been expected,
+there had been an amount of revolution in the general arrangements.  The
+break up of the High School was to be on an early day of the next week.
+It had become a much more extensive and public matter than in the days of
+Valetta and Maura, though these were not so very long ago, and there was
+a great day of exhibitions and speeches to the parents and neighbourhood
+generally.  Two ladies had been secured for the purpose, Elizabeth
+Merrifield and Miss Arthuret, and the former arrived on the Saturday
+afternoon, but as the Rotherwood party almost overflowed Clipstone, she
+was transferred to Miss Mohun.
+
+After the death of their parents, about three years previously, Susan and
+Elizabeth had gone to live at Coalham, and to be useful to their brother
+David’s parish; Susan betaking herself to the poor, and Bessie finding
+herself specially available in the various forms of improvement
+undertaken by ladies in modern days.  To her own surprise, and her
+sister’s discomfiture, her talent as a public speaker had become
+developed.  With a little assistance from her sister-in-law Agnes’s
+unwilling stage experience, and entreaties, not easily to be withstood,
+came from various quarters that she would come and advocate the good
+cause.
+
+Of course she was ever welcome at Clipstone, and she walked up thither
+with General Mohun, arriving just after the others from the Goyle; and in
+the general confusion of greetings, and the Babel of cousinly tongues,
+there were no introductions nor naming of names.  Bessie declared herself
+delighted with the chance of seeing Lady Ivinghoe, whom she considered
+more to realise the beauty of women than any one she had hitherto beheld,
+and the fair face had not lost its simplicity, but rather gained in
+loveliness by the sweetness of early motherhood, as she and Phyllis sat
+by Mysie, regaling her with tales of what they regarded as the remarkable
+precocity of the infant Claude, reluctantly left to his grandmother.
+
+“But where’s Dolores?” asked Bessie.  “I miss her among the swarm of
+mice!”
+
+“Dolores is at Vale Leston,” answered Gillian.  “She has been a long time
+making up her mind to go there, to Gerald’s home; and now she is there,
+they will not let her go till some birthday is over.”
+
+“Uncle Felix’s!” whispered Franceska to Mysie.  “You know it was dear
+Gerald’s place.  She had never seen it.”
+
+Another voice was now raised, asking, “What had become of Miss Arthuret?”
+
+“She only comes down on Monday,” said Bessie.  “Just in time for the
+meeting.  She is too valuable to come for more than one meeting.”
+
+“But who is she?”
+
+“Arthurine Arthuret?  She is a girl, or rather woman, who has some
+property at Stokesley.  In fact, she is one of those magnets that seem to
+attract inheritance without effort—like the Hapsburgs, though happily she
+makes a most beneficent, though, sometimes, original use of them.”
+
+“Is not that very dangerous?” said Aunt Lily.
+
+“The first came to her early, and coming into it very young, and
+overflowing with new ideas, she began rather grotesquely; but she has
+tamed down a good deal since, and really has done an immense deal of good
+in finding employment for people, making improvements and the like,
+though she is Sam’s pet aversion, a tremendous Liberal, almost a
+Socialist.  They are so like cat and dog that Susan and I were really
+glad to be away from Stokesley, especially at election times; but
+altogether she is an admirable person.”
+
+Lady Merrifield thought she detected a start of Miss Prescott at the name
+Stokesley, and that her eyes looked anxiously at the speaker.  Bessie was
+not of the sandy part of the family.  Was the unattractive schoolboy,
+once seen, like his sisters?  All that was observable was startling
+similitudes to her own children, though in them the elements of the
+handsome dark Mohun generally predominated.
+
+But by and by, in a quiet moment, Bessie suddenly asked, “Did you say her
+name was Magdalen?”
+
+Lady Merrifield laughed.  “Four years _may_ do a good deal at that time
+of life,” she said.  “I suppose no time ever so changes—changes—what
+shall I say?—eyes—views—characters.  Only constancy in absence is the
+dangerous thing.  There are distinguished examples of—of the mischief of
+being constant without knowing what one is constant to.  Virulent
+constancy, as Mrs. Malaprop has it.”
+
+Magdalen thanked and smiled.  Perhaps there was a certain virulent
+constancy in a remote corner of her heart which had been revived by a
+certain indescribable look in the eyes and contour of Bessie Merrifield.
+
+And Bessie herself, while sitting under the verandah with Lady
+Merrifield, while all the others were walking down to embark Lord and
+Lady Ivinghoe in the yacht, suddenly repeated, “Did you say that her name
+was Magdalen?”
+
+“Yes; I saw it startled you, my dear.”
+
+“It revived an old, old story.  I do not know whether there was anything
+in it.  Who or what is she, Aunt Lily?  I only know her as the sister of
+the girl that the Ivinghoes picked up.”
+
+“She is the owner of a little property at Arnscombe, and has taken home
+her four young half-sisters to live with her, after having slaved for
+them as a governess till she came into this inheritance.  She is an
+excellent person.”
+
+“Ah!  Was her house at Filsted?”
+
+“I am not sure.  Yes, I think the young ones were at school there.  You
+think—”
+
+“I feel certain.  May I tell you, Aunt Lily?  Some of the others cannot
+bear to mention my poor Hal; but to me the worst of the sting is gone,
+since I know he repented.”
+
+“My dear, I should be very glad to hear.  Your father and mother never
+mention your brother, and we were away at the time.”
+
+“Poor Hal!  I am afraid there was a weakness in him.  He never had that
+determination that carried all the others on.  He never could get through
+an examination, and my father put him into a bank at Filsted.  By and by,
+after some years, came a letter telling my father he was gambling very
+seriously, getting into temptation, and engaging himself to an attorney’s
+daughter.  It was while I was living with grandmamma, and he used
+sometimes to look in on me, and talk to me about this Magdalen.  Once he
+showed me her photograph and I thought I knew her face again.  But my
+father went off, very angry.  I have always feared he found poor Hal on
+the verge of tampering with the bank money, but he never would say a
+word.  He broke everything up, put an end to the engagement if there was
+one, and sent Hal off to John and George, who had just got their farm in
+Manitoba, and were getting on by dint of hard work.”
+
+“They have done very well, have they not?”
+
+“Yes, by working and living harder than any day labourer at Stokesley.
+Hal could not stand it, and—and I’m afraid the boys were not very
+merciful to him, poor fellow, and he got something to do in Winnipeg.
+There he fell in with a speculator called Golding, they all did in fact;
+he was a plausible man, whom they all liked, and used to put up at his
+house when they took waggons in with their produce.  He had a daughter,
+and Johnnie got engaged to her, or thought he was.  They all were
+persuaded to put money into a horrid building speculation,—Henry, what he
+had brought out, the other two what they had realised.  Well, suddenly it
+all ended.  They were all gone, Golding, daughter, Hal and all—yes,
+all—the money the other boys had put in the thing, off to the States, as
+we suppose!  No trace ever found.”
+
+“Really no trace?”
+
+“None!  The poor boys lost all they had, and were obliged to begin over
+again.”
+
+“And has really nothing been heard of this unfortunate Hal?”
+
+“There is one thing that does give me a hope.  There did come to
+Stokesley a letter from a Brisbane bank, addressed to J. and G.
+Merrifield, to the care of Rear-Admiral Merrifield, and in it were bank
+bills up to the value of what the boys had been robbed of, about two
+hundred and fifty pounds.  Poor Henry must have repented, and wished to
+make restitution.”
+
+“Was there no name, no clue?”
+
+“None at all.  We know no more.”
+
+“But was there no inquiry made at Brisbane?”
+
+“It was when my father was very ill.  The parcel was not opened at first.
+I have been always sorry he never heard of it; but after all there was no
+asking of forgiveness, nor anything that could be answered.  The boys got
+it with the tidings of our dear father’s death.  John came home to see
+about things, George stayed to look after his Stokesley.  They were well
+over their troubles by that time, and they gave the restored money to
+David for his churches.”
+
+“And no more was done, not even by David?” said Lady Merrifield, thinking
+over what she had heard from Geraldine Grinstead, and how the Underwoods
+would have accepted such a token from their lost sheep.
+
+“David did write to Brisbane to the bank, but there never was any answer.
+There is no knowing how it might have been, if any one had gone out and
+done his best; but you see we were all much taken up with home duties and
+cares, and I am afraid we have not dwelt enough upon our poor boy, and he
+had much against him.  The discipline from my dear father, that all the
+elders responded to with a sort of loyal exultation, only frightened him
+and made him shifty.  They despised him, and I do not think any of us
+were as kind to him as we ought to have been; though on the whole he
+liked me the best, for he cared for books and quiet pursuits, such as all
+laughed at, except David.  I wish he could have seen more of David.”
+
+“Did your mother hear of this ray of hope?”
+
+“Susan thought it best not to tell her.  We used to hear her murmuring
+his name among all ours in her prayers, Susie, Sam, Hal, Bessie, and so
+on; but she never was herself enough to understand, and they thought it
+might only stir her up to expect to see him.  Oh, Aunt Lily, I don’t
+think you—any of you—would have gone on so; but you are all much more
+affectionate and demonstrative than our branch of the family.”
+
+“Ah, my dear, I am sure there was a pang in your mother’s heart that she
+never durst mention,” said Lady Merrifield, her imagination dwelling in
+terror on her Wilfred, the one child in whom she could not help detecting
+the weakness of character of his unhappy cousin.  “Depend upon it,
+Bessie, her prayers were hovering round him all the time, and bringing
+that act of restitution, though she was not allowed to hear of it.”
+
+“I had not thought of that,” said Bessie, in a low tone, “though I think
+David has.  I have heard his voice choke over an intercession for the
+absent.”
+
+“Think of it now, my dear, and do not let habitual reserve hinder you
+from speaking of it to Susan and David, though most likely they have the
+habit already.  Who knows what united prayer may do with Him who deviseth
+means to bring home His banished?”
+
+Steps returning, Bessie wiped away her tears in haste, actually the first
+she had shed for the lost Hal, though there was a heartache too deep for
+tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI—THE REGIMENT OF WOMEN
+
+
+    “And happier than the merriest games
+    Is the joy of our new and nobler aims.”
+
+                                                           F. R. HAVERGAL.
+
+MISS MOHUN and Miss Merrifield encountered Miss Prescott and Agatha among
+a perfect herd of cycles, making Bessie laugh over the recollections of
+the horror caused at Stokesley by the arrival of Arthurine Arthuret on a
+tricycle twelve years previously.
+
+The place was the Town Hall, the High School having proved too small for
+the number of the intended audience, and Lord Rotherwood having been
+captured, in spite of the _Kittiwake_ being pronounced ready to sail, and
+all the younger passengers being actually on board, entertaining a party
+from Clipstone.  There he sat enthroned on the platform, with portraits
+of himself, his Elizabethan ancestor, and the Prince of Wales overhead,
+and, in _propria persona_ on either side, the Mayor of Rockstone, Captain
+Henderson, and a sprinkling of the committee, Jane, of course, being one;
+while in the space beneath was a sea of hats, more or less beflowered and
+befeathered.
+
+Lord Rotherwood began by complaining of an act of piracy!  After being
+exposed to a tempest and forced to put in for supplies, here he was
+captured, and called upon to distribute prizes!  He perceived that it was
+a new act of aggression on the part of the ladies, proving to what
+lengths they were coming.  Tyrants they had always been, but to find them
+wreckers to boot was a novelty.  However, prizes were the natural
+sequence of a maritime exploit, and he was happy to distribute them to
+the maidens about to start on the voyage of life, hoping that these
+dainty logbooks would prove a stimulus and a compass to steer by even
+into unexplored seas, such as he believed the better-informed ladies were
+about to describe to them.
+
+Rockstone was used to its Marquis’s speeches, and always enjoyed them;
+and he handed the prize-books to the recipients with a shake of the hand,
+and a word or two of congratulation appropriate to each, especially when
+he knew their names; and then he declared that they were about to hear
+what education was good for, much better than from himself, from such
+noted examples as Miss Arthuret and Miss Merrifield, better known to them
+as Mesa.  Wherewith he waved forward Miss Arthuret, a slight,
+youthful-looking lady, fashionably attired, and made his escape with
+rapid foot and hasty nods, almost furtively, while the audience were
+clapping her.
+
+She spoke with voice and utterance notably superior to his well-known
+halting periods, scarcely saved by long training and use from being a
+stutter.  The female population eagerly listened, while she painted in
+vivid colours the aim of education, in raising the status of women, and
+extending their spheres not only of influence in the occult manner which
+had hitherto been their way of working through others, but in an open
+manner, which compelled attention; and she dwelt on certain brilliant
+achievements of women, and of others which stood before them, and towards
+which their education, passing out of the old grooves, was preparing them
+to take their place among men, and temper their harshness and
+indifference to suffering with the laws of mercy and humanity, speaking
+with an authority and equality such as should ensure attention, no longer
+in home and nursery whispering alone, but with open face asserting and
+claiming justice for the weakest.
+
+It was a powerful and effective speech; and Agatha’s eye lighted with
+enthusiasm, as did those of several others of the elder scholars and
+younger teachers, as these high aims were unfolded to them.
+
+Then followed Elizabeth Merrifield, not contradictory, but recognising
+what wide fields had been opened to womanhood, dwelling on such being the
+work of Christianity, which had always tended to repress the power of
+brute animal strength and jealousy, and to give preponderance to the
+force of character and the just influence of sweet homely affection.
+Exceptional flashes, even in heathen lands, and still more under the
+Divine guidance of the Israelites, showed what women were capable of; and
+ever since a woman had been the chosen instrument of the mystery of the
+Incarnation, the Church, the chosen emblem of the union of humanity with
+her Lord, had gradually purified and exalted the sex by training them
+through the duties of mercy, of wifehood and motherhood, to be capable of
+undertaking and fulfilling higher and more extensive tasks, always by the
+appointment and with the help of Him who had increased their outside
+powers, for the sake of the weaker ones of His flock.  What might, by His
+will, in the government and politics of the country, be put into their
+hands, no one could tell; but it was right to be prepared for it, by
+extending their intellectual ability and knowledge of the past, as well
+as of the laws of physical nature—all, in short, that modern education
+aimed at opening young minds to pursue with growing faculties.  This was
+what made her rejoice in the studies here followed with good success, as
+the prizes testified so pleasantly; and she trusted that the cultivation,
+which here went on so prosperously, was leading—if she might use old
+well-accustomed words—to the advancement of God’s glory, the good of His
+Church, aye! and to the safety, honour, and welfare of our Sovereign and
+her dominions.
+
+The words brought tears of feeling into the eyes of some; but Jane Mohun
+could not help observing, “Ah!  I was afraid you were going to hold up to
+us the example of the ants and bees, where the old maids do all the
+working and fighting and governing!  Don’t make Gillian regret that she
+is falling away from the spinsterhood.”
+
+“Come, Aunt Jane, Bessie never did make it the praise of spinsters.  I am
+sure married women can do as much as spinsters, and have more weight,”
+said Gillian, facing round gallantly, and winning the approval of her
+aunt and of Bessie.  There was no doubt but that since her engagement she
+had been much quieter and less opinionative.
+
+With what different sensations the same occasion may be attended!  To
+Bessie Merrifield, the primary object was, as ever, woman’s work,
+especially her own, for the Church; and the actual business absorbed her.
+In spite of her evenings’ talk to her Aunt Lilias, and the sad and
+painful recollections it had aroused, still her only look at Magdalen
+Prescott’s face was one half of curiosity half of sorrow, as of the
+object of the brief calf-love of one of many brothers, and who had been
+now lost sight of, with the passing wonder whether, if the affection had
+survived and been encouraged, it might have led him to better things.
+
+While Magdalen felt the poignant renewal of the one romance of a
+lifetime, as she caught tones, watched little gestures and recognised
+those indescribable hereditary similarities which more and more bore in
+upon her the fraternal connection of the bright earnest woman with the
+lively pleasant young man who had brought the attraction of a higher tone
+of manners and cultivation into the country town.  No more had been heard
+of him since his promise to write, a promise that had been only once
+remembered, so that she had tried to take refuge in the supposition,
+unlikely as it was, that her stepmother had confiscated his letters.  All
+was a blank since that last stolen kiss; and the wonder whether she could
+by any means discover anything further from Lady Merrifield or Gillian,
+so occupied her that she hardly heard the tenor of the two speeches, and
+did not observe Agatha’s glowing cheeks and burning eyes, which might
+have told her that this was one of the moments which direct the current
+of life.
+
+When Hubert Delrio came up in the evening he was curious to hear about
+the meeting.  His young landlady, who had been a High School girl for a
+short time, thought Miss Arthuret’s speech the most beautiful discourse
+that ever was spoken; while other reports said that Lady Flight and Miss
+Mohun were very much shocked, and thought it unwholesome, not to say
+dangerous; and he wanted to know the meaning of it.  Magdalen was quite
+dismayed to find how entirely her attention had been absent, and how
+little account she could give of what had passed by her like the wind;
+but she need not have been at a loss, for Agatha, with sparkling eyes and
+clasped hands, burst out into a very able and spirited abstract of the
+speech, and the future it portrayed, showing perhaps more enthusiasm than
+the practised public speaker thought it prudent to manifest.
+
+“I see,” said Hubert with something of a smile, “you ladies are charmed
+with the great future opened to you.”
+
+“I’m sure,” said Vera, perhaps a little nettled by attention paid so long
+to Agatha, “I can’t see the sense of it all; I think a woman is made just
+to love her husband, and be his pet, without all that fuss about
+societies, and speeches and learning and fuss!”  And she gave a little
+caress to Hubert’s hand, which was returned, as he said, “She may well be
+loved, but, without publicly coming forward, she may become the more
+valuable to her home.”
+
+“Of course she may, at home or abroad.  She ought—” began Agatha, but
+Vera snapped her off.  “Well, it only comes to being one of a lot of
+horrid old maids; and you don’t want me to be one of them, do you,
+darling?  Come and look at my doves!”
+
+“What do you think of it all, sister?” asked Paulina.
+
+“So far as I grasp the subject,” said Magdalen, to whom, of course, this
+was not new, “I think that if a larger scope is to be given to women, it
+is for the sake and under the direction of the Church that it can be
+rightly and safely used.”
+
+She knew she was speaking by rote, and was not surprised that Agatha
+said, “That is just what one has heard so often, and what Miss Merrifield
+harped upon!  I want to breathe in a fresh atmosphere beyond the old
+traditions, and know which are Divine and which are only the
+superstructure of those who have always had the dominion and justified it
+in their own way!”
+
+“Who gave them that dominion?” said Magdalen.
+
+“Brute strength,” began Agatha.
+
+“Nag, Nag!” cried Paula.  “Surely you believe—”
+
+“I did not say—I did not mean—I only meant to think it out, and
+understand what is Divine and what is in the eternal fitness of things.”
+
+Here came an interruption, leaving Magdalen conscious of the want of
+preparation for guiding the thought of these young things, and of
+self-reproach too, for having let herself be so absorbed in the thought
+of “her broken reed of earth beneath,” as not to have dwelt on what might
+be the deep impressions of the young sisters under her charge.
+
+A few days later, as Agatha sat reading in the garden, two figures
+appeared on the drive, wheeling up their bicycles.  One was Gillian, the
+other had a general air of the family, but much darker, and not one of
+the old acquaintances.  Advancing to meet them, she said, “I am the only
+one at home.  My sisters are all at lessons or in the village.”
+
+“I’ll leave a message,” said Gillian.  “My mother wants you all to come
+up to picnic tea to see the foxgloves in the dell, on Monday, and to
+bring Mr. Delrio—”
+
+“Oh! thank you.”
+
+“I forgot, you had not seen my cousin Dolores Mohun before.  Mysie calls
+her a cousin-twin, if you know what that is.”
+
+Agatha thought the newcomer’s great pensive dark eyes and overhanging
+brow under very black hair made her look older than Mysie, or indeed than
+Gillian herself; and when the message had been disposed of, the latter
+continued, “Dolores wanted to know about Miss Arthuret’s lecture, being
+rather in that line herself.  She could not get home in time for it, and
+I was seeing the _Kittiwake_ party on board, and only crept in at the
+other end of the hall in time for Bessie’s faint echoes.”
+
+“I was in the very antipodes,” said Dolores, “in a haunt of ancient
+peace, whence they would not let me come away soon enough.”
+
+“And, Agatha, Aunt Jane says she saw you devouring Miss Arthuret with
+your eyes,” said Gillian.
+
+“It gave one a sense of new life,” said Agatha; and she related again
+Miss Arthuret’s speech, broken only by appreciative questions and
+comments from Dolores’ auditor, to whom, in the true fashion of nineteen,
+Agatha straightway lost her heart.  Dolores, who had seen much more of
+the outer world than her cousins, and had had besides a deeply felt
+inward experience which might well render her far more responsive, and
+able to comprehend the questions working in the girl’s mind, and which
+found expression in, “I went to St. Robert’s only wanting to get my
+education carried on so that I might be a better governess; but I see now
+there are much farther on, much greater things to aim at, than I ever
+thought of.”
+
+“Alps on Alps arise!” said Dolores.  “Yes—till they lose themselves—and
+where?”
+
+“Miss Merrifield would say in Heaven, by way of the Church.”
+
+“The all things in earth or under the earth rising up in circles of
+praise to the Cherubim and the Great White Throne,” said Dolores, her
+dark eyes raised in a moment’s contemplation.
+
+“Ah!  One knows.  But is that thought the one to be brought home to every
+one, as if they could bear it always?  Are not we to do
+something—something—for the helping people here in this life, not always
+going on to the other life—”
+
+“Temporal or spiritual?” said Dolores; “or spiritual through temporal?”
+
+“And our part in helping,” said Agatha.
+
+“There is an immense deal to be thought out,” said Dolores.  “I feel only
+at the beginning of the questions, and there is study and experience to
+go to them.”
+
+“You mean what one gets at Oxford?”
+
+“Partly.  Thorough—at least, as thorough as one can—of the physical and
+material nature of things, then of the precedent which then results, also
+of reasoning.”
+
+“Metaphysical, do you mean, or logical?”
+
+“That comes in; but I was thinking of mathematical in the indirect
+training of the mind.  It all works into needful equipment, and so does
+actual life.”
+
+“It takes one’s breath away.”
+
+“Well, we have begun our training,” said Dolores, with a sweet sad smile.
+“At least, I hope so.”
+
+“At St. Robert’s, you mean?”
+
+“You have, I think.  But I believe my aunt will be expecting us.”
+
+“Oh!  And then they talk about modesty and womanliness and retiring!
+What do you think about all that?”
+
+“That we never shall do any good without it.”
+
+They were interrupted by the hasty rushing up of Paula, who had committed
+her bicycle to Vera, and came dashing up the steep slope, crying, “O Nag,
+Nag, they are going away!”
+
+The announcement was interrupted as she perceived the presence of the
+visitor, and they rose to meet her, but saw that there were tears in her
+eyes, and she had rushed up so fast that she was panting and could hardly
+speak, though she gave her hand, as Agatha, after naming the two cousins,
+asked, “Who are going?”
+
+“The Sisters—Sister Mena—” with another overflow of tears which made
+Dolores and Gillian think they had better retreat and leave her to her
+sister’s consolation; so they took leave hastily, Agatha however, coming
+as far as their machines, and confiding to them, “Poor Polly, it is a
+great blow to her, but I believe it is very good for her.”
+
+“There’s stuff in that girl,” said Dolores, as soon as they were out of
+reach.  “She has the faculty of hearkening as well as of hearing.”
+
+“You would say so if you saw her at a lecture; and she is also gaining
+power of expressing and reproducing,” said Gillian.
+
+“She will be a power by and by, unless some blight comes across her.”
+
+“Will me, will me, it seems as if we _had_ to do it.  Even Mamma, whose
+ideal was chivalry, Church and home, has to be drawn out to take a
+certain public part; Aunt Jane, who only wished to live to potter about
+among neighbours, poor and rich, must needs come out of her traditional
+conventions, and relate her experiences, and you—”
+
+“Oh, I am only trying to do the work Gerald aimed at!”
+
+“Any way we have our work before us, whether we call it for the Church or
+mankind.”
+
+“Charity or Altruism,” said Dolores.
+
+“May not altruism lead to charity?” said Gillian.
+
+“Sometimes, but sometimes disappointment leads only to intolerance of
+those whose methods differ.  Altruism will not stand without a
+foundation,” said Dolores.
+
+“Mysie has been impressing on me, with what she heard from Phyllis
+Devereux, of the work Sister Angela has been doing at Albertstown—the
+most utter self-abnegation, through bitter disappointment in her most
+promising pupils—only the charity that is rooted could endure.  It is
+just the old difference Tennyson points out between Wisdom and
+Knowledge.”
+
+“And with wisdom come those feminine attributes that Agatha began asking
+about.”
+
+“Yes, softening, gentleness, tact.  If people have not grown up to them,
+they must be taught as parts of wisdom.”
+
+Gillian sighed.  “I wonder what Ernley Armitage will say when he comes
+home?”
+
+“He won’t want you to throw up everything.”
+
+“I don’t think he will!  But if he did—No, I think he will be a staff to
+guide a silly, priggish heart to the deeper wisdom.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII—FOXGLOVES AND FLIRTATIONS
+
+
+      “With her venturous climbings, and tumbles, and childish escapes.”
+
+                                                                 TENNYSON.
+
+HUBERT DELRIO, pleased and gratified, but very shy, joined the ladies
+from the Goyle in their walk to Clipstone, expecting perhaps a good deal
+of stiffness and constraint, since every one at St. Kenelm’s told him
+what a severe and formidable person Sir Jasper Merrifield was, and that
+all Lady Merrifield’s surroundings were “so very clever.”  “They did want
+_such_ books ordered in the library.”
+
+Magdalen laughed, and said her only chance of seeing a book she wanted
+was that Lady Merrifield should have asked for it.  At Clipstone, they
+were directed to the dell where the foxgloves were unusually fine that
+year, covering one of the banks of the ravine with a perfect cloud of
+close-grown spikes, nodding with thick clustered bells, spotted
+withinside, and without, of that indescribable light crimson or purple,
+enchanting in reality but impossible to reproduce.  It was like a dream
+of fairy land to Hubert to wander thither with his Vera, count the tiers
+of bells, admire the rings of purple and the crooked stamens, measure the
+height of the tall ones, some almost equal to himself in stature, and
+recall the fairy lore and poetry connected with them, while Vera listened
+and thought she enjoyed, but kept herself entertained by surreptitiously
+popping the blossoms, and trying to wreath her hat with wild roses.
+
+Thekla meantime admired from the opposite bank, in a state of much
+elevation at acquiring a dear delicious brother-in-law, and insisted on
+Primrose sharing her sentiments till her boasting at last provoked the
+exclamation, “I wouldn’t be so cocky!  I don’t make such a fuss if my
+sisters do go and fall in love.  I have two brothers-in-law out in India,
+and Gillian has a captain, an Egyptian hero, with a medal, a post captain
+out at sea in the _Nivelle_.  You shall see his photograph coloured in
+his lovely uniform, with his sword and all!  Your Flapsy’s man isn’t even
+an officer!”
+
+“He is a poet, and that’s better!”
+
+“Better! why, if you _will_ have it, Wilfred and Fergus always call him
+that ‘painter cad,’” broke out Primrose, who had not outgrown her
+childish power of rudeness, especially out of hearing of her elders.
+
+“Then it is very wicked of them,” exclaimed Thekla, “when the Marquis of
+Rotherwood himself said that Hubert Delrio is a very superior young man”
+(each syllable triumphantly rounded off).
+
+Primrose was equal to the occasion.  “Oh, they all laugh at Cousin
+Rotherwood; and, besides, a superior young man does not mean a
+gentleman.”
+
+Thekla burst into angry tears and sobs, which brought Gillian, and a
+grave, dark young lady from the other side of a rock to inquire what was
+the matter—there was a confession on the two tongues of “she did,” and “I
+didn’t” of “painter cad, superior young man and no gentleman,” but at
+last it cleared itself into Primrose allowing that, to take down Thekla’s
+conceit, she had declared that a very superior young man did not mean a
+gentleman.
+
+“I could not have believed that you could have been so abominably
+ill-mannered,” said Gillian gravely; “you ought to apologise to Thekla.”
+
+“Oh, never mind,” began Thekla ashamed; and at that moment a frantic
+barking was heard in the depths, and Valetta, Wilfred, Fergus and a dog
+or two darted headlong past, calling out, “Hedgehogs, hedgehogs!  Run!
+come!”  And Primrose, giving a hand to Thekla, joined in the general rush
+down the glade.
+
+“A situation relieved!” said the newcomer.
+
+    “For all ran to see,
+    For they took him to be
+       An Egyptian porcupig,”
+
+quoted Gillian.  “They have wanted such a beast for some time for their
+menagerie; but really Primrose is getting much too old to indulge in such
+babyish incivility to a guest, true though the speech was, ‘a superior
+young man,’ not necessarily a gentleman.”
+
+“I am colonial enough to like him the better for the absence of a hall
+mark.”
+
+“Should you have missed it?  He is very good looking, and has a sensible
+refined countenance, poor man!”
+
+“He is a little too point device, too obviously got up for the occasion!”
+
+“Too like the best electroplate!  No; that is not fair, for it is not
+pretence, at least, I should think there was sound material below, and
+that never would brighten instead of dimming it.”
+
+“According to Mysie and Fly, there is plenty of good taste; and his
+principle is vouched for.  Mysie is quite furious at any lady-love having
+gone to sleep to the sound of original verses from a lover!”
+
+“Dear old Mysie!  No, she would not.  She has a practical vein in her!
+Would you?”
+
+“I’m not likely to be tried!” said Gillian merrily.  “Catch Ernley either
+practising or not minding his boat!  But come!  Mamma will want me, I
+feel only deputy daughter, with Mysie away.”
+
+The two girls rose from the mossy bank, and proceeded across the paddock
+to the opening of the glade.
+
+On the turf Lady Merrifield sat enthroned; making a nucleus to the
+festivities and delicacies of all sorts, from sandwiches and cakes down
+to strawberries, cherries and Devonshire cream, were displayed before
+her; and the others drifted up gradually, Miss Mohun first.  “I am later
+than I meant to be,” she said, “but I was delayed by a talk with Sister
+Beata.  I never saw a woman more knocked down than she is by that
+adventure of Vera’s.”
+
+“I know,” said Magdalen, rousing herself.  “It has made her look ten
+years older, and she could not talk it over or let a word be said to
+comfort her.  She says it was all her fault, and I should have thought it
+was that silly little Sister Mena’s, if that is her name.
+
+“She considers it her fault for objecting to strict discipline in things
+of which she did not see the use,” said Jane Mohun, “and so getting
+absorbed in her own work, and having no fixed rule by which to train
+Mena.”
+
+“I see,” said Lady Merrifield; “it reminds me of a story told in Madame
+de Chantal’s life, how, when, _par mortification_, a Sister quietly ate
+up a rotten apple without complaint and another made signs of amusement,
+a rule was made that no one should raise her eyes at meals.  It shows
+that some rules which seem unreasonable may have a foundation.”
+
+“It is an unnatural life altogether,” said Dolores.  “Why should the
+rotten apple have been swallowed? or, if it was, I should think a joke
+over it might have been wholesome.”
+
+“Hindering priggishness in the mortified Sister,” said Gillian.
+
+“The fact is,” said Lady Merrifield, “that if you vow yourself to an
+unnatural life, so to speak, you must submit to the rules that have been
+found best to work for it.”
+
+“And poor Sister Beata did neither the one nor the other, by her own
+account,” said Jane.  “She called herself a Sister, but disliked each
+rule, and chose to go her own way, like any other benevolent woman, doing
+very admirable work herself, but letting little Mena have the prestige of
+a Sister, while too busy to look after her, and without rules to restrain
+her.”
+
+“But surely there has been no harm!” exclaimed Lady Merrifield.
+
+“No harm, only a little incipient flirtation with the organist, nothing
+in any one else, but not quite like a convent maid.”
+
+“Ah!  I rather suspected,” said Agatha.
+
+“I should think the best thing for Sister Mena would be to go to a good
+school, leave off her veil, in which she looks so pretty, and be treated
+like an ordinary girl,” said Lady Merrifield.
+
+“That is just what Sister Beata intends,” said Miss Mohun.  “She is to
+sink down into Miss Marian Jenkins, to wear a straw hat and blue frock,
+and go to school with the other girls, the pupils, while Sister Beata
+begins life as a probationer at Dearport.”
+
+“Poor Sister Beata!”
+
+“She says she has experienced that it is best to learn to obey before one
+begins to rule.  It is most touching to see how humble she is.  Such a
+real good woman too!  I doubt whether she gets a night’s rest three days
+in a week, and she looks quite haggard with this distress,” said Jane.
+
+“She will be a great power by and by!  But what will Mr. Flight and St.
+Kenelm’s do without her?”
+
+“He is promised relays of Sisters from Dearport, which has stood so many
+years that they have a supply.  You see, he, like Sister Beata, tried a
+little too much to be original and stand aloof.”
+
+“Ah!” said Lady Merrifield, “that is the benefit of institutions.  They
+hinder works from dying away with the original clergyman or the wonderful
+woman.”
+
+“But, Aunt Lily,” put in Dolores, “institutions get slack?”
+
+“They have their _downs_, but they also have their ups.  There is
+something to fall back upon with public schools.”
+
+“Yes, like croquet,” laughed Aunt Jane.  “We saw it rise and saw it fall;
+and here come all the players, the revival.  Well, how went the game?”
+
+So the party collected, and the two Generals came in from some vanity of
+inspection to grumble a little merrily at the open air banquet, but to
+take their places in all good humour, and the lively meal began with all
+the home witticisms, yet not such as to exclude strangers.  Indeed,
+Hubert Delrio was treated with something like distinction, and was
+evidently very happy, with Vera by his side.  Perhaps Magdalen perceived
+that there was not the perfect ease of absolute equality and familiarity;
+but his poetical and chivalrous nature was gratified by the notice of a
+Crimean hero, and he infinitely admired the dignity and courtesy of Lady
+Merrifield, and the grace and ease of her daughters, finding himself in a
+new world of exquisite charm for him.
+
+And before they broke up, Magdalen had a quiet time with Lady Merrifield,
+in which she was able, not without a tell-tale blush even at her years,
+to ascertain that there were two Henry Merrifields, and that, alas! there
+was nothing good known of the son of Stokesley, except that anonymous
+attempt at restitution which gave hopes of repentance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII—PALACES OR CHURCHES
+
+
+    “And if I leave the thing that lieth next,
+    To go and do the thing that is afar,
+    I take the very strength out of my deed.”
+
+                                                               —MACDONALD.
+
+THOSE were happy days that succeeded Vera’s engagement.  It had made her
+more womanly, or at least less childish; and the intercourse with Hubert
+Delrio became an increasing delight to her sisters, who had never known
+anything so like a brother.
+
+He was at first shy and not at ease with Magdalen, who, on her side,
+perceived the lack of public school and university training; but in grain
+he was so completely a good man, a churchman, and a gentleman, and had so
+much right sense as well as talent, that she liked him thoroughly and
+began to rely on him, as a woman with unaccustomed property is glad to do
+with a male relation.
+
+And to him, the society of the Goyle was a new charm.  He had been
+brought up to the technicalities and the business relations of art, and
+had a cultivated taste; but to be with a thoughtful, highly educated
+lady, able to enter into its higher and deeper associations, was an
+unspeakable delight and improvement to him.  Vera was fairly satisfied as
+long as he sketched her in various attitudes, and held her hand while he
+talked; though she did grudge having so much time spent on “taste,
+Shakespeare and the musical glasses.”  Paula had various ecclesiastical
+interests in common with him, and began to expand and enter more into
+realities, while Thekla had in him a dear delightful delicious brother,
+who petted her, bantered her, mended her rabbit hutch, caught her
+hedgehog, taught her to guide her bicycle, drew picture games for her,
+and taught her to sketch.
+
+Agatha had endless discussions with him on his various aspirations, in
+some of which Magdalen took her share, sometimes thinking with a pang of
+regret and self-reproach that that brief time of intercourse with Hal
+Merrifield had been spent in youthful nonsense that could have left no
+permanent influence for good.
+
+In fact, whether through Hubert or through Agatha, a certain intellectual
+waft had breathed upon the Goyle.  Hubert was eager for assistance in
+learning German and Italian, and read and discussed books of interest;
+and even when he had left Rockstone, and his work at St. Kenelm’s being
+finished, the stimulus was kept up by his letters, comments and
+questions; and the younger girls had entirely ceased to form an opposite
+camp, or to view “sister” as a taskmistress, even when Agatha had
+returned to St. Robert’s.
+
+Mysie had come home, very brown, fuller of Scott than ever for her
+mother, and of Hugh Miller for Fergus, for whom she had brought so many
+specimens that Cousin Rotherwood declared that she would sink the
+_Kittiwake_.  Over the sketches and photographs of Iona, she and Paulina
+became great friends, and Paula was admitted to hear accounts of the
+modern missions that had come from the other Harry Merrifield among the
+Karens in Burmah, or again through Franciska Ivinghoe, of her Aunt Angela
+Underwood, who was considered to have a peculiar faculty for dealing with
+those very unpromising natives, the Australian gins.  Franciska
+remembered her tender nursing and bright manner in the days of fever at
+Vale Leston, and had a longing hope that she would take a holiday and
+come home; but at present she was bound to the couch of her slowly
+declining old friend, Sister Constance, the Mother of Dearport.  It was
+another bond of interest with Magdalen, to whom missions to the heathens
+had always been a dream.
+
+Thus had passed a year uneventful and peaceable, with visits from Hubert
+whenever he had a day or two to spare.  They were looked forward to with
+delight; but if there were a drawback it was in Vera’s viewing him partly
+as one who held her in a sort of chain, and partly as one whom it was
+pleasant to tease by allowing little casual civilities from Wilfred
+Merrifield.
+
+For Wilfred was an embarrassment to his family.  He had never been
+strong, his public school career had been shortened by failure in health,
+and headaches in the summer, and coughs in the winter made it needful to
+keep him at home, and trust to cramming at Rockstone, enforced by his
+father’s stern discipline and his mother’s authoritative influence.
+
+Thus he was always within reach of the mild social gaieties in which each
+family indulged, and Vera was not quite so ready as were his sisters to
+contrast unfavourably his hatred of all self-improvement with Hubert
+Delrio’s eagerness to pick up every crumb of information, thus deservedly
+getting on well in his profession.
+
+One morning, at breakfast, Hubert opened a letter and made a sudden
+exclamation; and in answer to Vera’s vehement inquiry said, “It seems
+that the great millionaire swell, Pettifer—is that his name?”
+
+“Oh, yes, he was at Rock Quay.”
+
+“Well, he went to see St. Kenelm’s, fell in love with the ceiling, and
+offered Pratt and Pavis any sum they like to decorate a huge new hall he
+is building in the same style.  So they write to propose to me to come
+and do it, with a promise of future work, at any terms I like to ask.”
+
+“Oh! but that’s jolly,” cried Vera.  “Can’t you?”
+
+“No,” he said; “this is immediate, and I have two churches, reredos and
+walls, on my hands, enough to last me all the year.  Nor could I throw
+over Eccles and Beamster.”
+
+“Is there an agreement with them?” asked Magdalen.
+
+“Not regularly; but Mr. Eccles has been very kind to me, and promised me
+employment for four years to come; in fact, he has made engagements on
+that understanding.”
+
+“I see,” said Magdalen.  “You could not break with them.”
+
+“Certainly not.  Nor do I entirely like the line of this other house.  It
+is a good deal more secular.”
+
+“And you have dedicated your talents to the Church!” cried Paulina.
+
+“Not that exactly, Paula,” he said, smiling; “but I had rather work for
+the Church, so I am glad the matter is definitely settled for me.”
+
+To that he kept, though he had a very kind letter from Mr. Eccles, who
+had evidently been applied to, wishing not to stand in his light,
+especially as he was engaged to be married, and telling him how it might
+be possible to fairly compensate for the loss to the firm.  Between the
+lines, however, it was plain that it would be a great blow, only possible
+because the agreement had been neglected; and Hubert was only the more
+determined, out of gratitude for the generosity, not to break what he
+felt to be an implied pledge; and all the sisters sympathised with his
+determination.
+
+He adhered to it even after his return to London, though his father
+thought it a pity to lose the chance, if it could be accepted without
+discourtesy to Mr. Eccles; and he had been interviewed by various parties
+concerned, and there had been an attempt to dazzle him by the prospects
+held out to him by an enthusiastic young member of the firm.  Perhaps he
+was too shrewd entirely to trust them, but at any rate he felt his good
+faith to Eccles and Beamster a bond to hold him fast from the temptation;
+and his heart was really set on the consecration of the higher uses of
+his art; so that regard to the simple rule of honour was an absolute
+relief to him.
+
+So he wrote to Vera, who, if there were a secret wish on her part, did
+not dare to give it shape; while all her sisters, to whom she showed the
+letters that she scarcely comprehended, were open-mouthed in their
+admiration.  Thekla, who had been seized with a fit of hagiology, went
+the length of comparing him to St. Barbara; even Paula pronounced it a
+far-fetched resemblance.
+
+It was some months later that Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood had decided
+on building a magnificent cathedral-like church for the population rising
+around him in the Rocky Mountains; and meeting Lord Rotherwood in London
+heard of the work at St. Kenelm’s, and resorted to Eccles and Beamster as
+the employers of young Delrio.  There would be plenty of varieties of
+beautiful material to be found near at hand in the mountains; but Hubert
+was sent first for a short journey in Italy to study the effect of the
+old mosaics as well as the frescoes, and then to go out to America to the
+work that would last a considerable time.
+
+Vera was much excited by the notion of the Italian journey, and thought
+she ought to have been married at once and have shared it, including as
+it did a short visit to Rocca Marina.  But she was scarcely eighteen, and
+neither her trustee nor her elder sister thought it advisable to dispense
+with the decision that her twenty-first birthday must be waited for, at
+which she pouted.  Hubert came for two nights on his return, and was
+exceedingly full of his tour, talking over Italian scenes and churches
+with Magdalen, who had never seen them, but had the descriptions and the
+history at her fingers’ ends, and listened with delight to all the
+impressions of a mind full of feeling and poetry.  The time was only too
+short to discuss or look out everything, and much was left to be copied
+and sent after him, with many promises on Vera’s part of writing
+everything for him, and translating the books that Magdalen would refer
+to.  He was allowed to take Vera and Paulina to Filsted for a hurried
+visit to his parents.  When they came home again, it soon became plain
+that it had not been a success.  “I am glad to be at home again,” said
+Paula, as the pony carriage turned up the steep drive, and the girls
+jumped out to walk.  “I am quite glad to feel the stones under my feet
+again!”
+
+Magdalen laughed.  “A new sentiment!” she said.
+
+“I don’t like the stones,” said Vera, “but I did not know Filsted was
+such a poky place.”
+
+“A dead flat!” added Paula.  “No sea, no torrs! one wanted something to
+look at! and _such_ a church!”
+
+“Did you see Minnie Maitland?” put in Thekla.
+
+“I saw all the Maitlands in a hurry,” said Vera.  “I don’t remember which
+was which.  They were all dressed alike in horrid colours.  Hubert said
+they set his teeth on edge!”
+
+“How was old Mrs. Delrio?”
+
+“Just the same as ever, lean and pinched.”
+
+“But so kind!” added Paula.  “She could not make enough of Flapsy.”
+
+“I should think not!” ejaculated Vera.  “Enough! aye, and too much! just
+fancy, no dinner napkins! and Edith went away and made the scones
+herself!”
+
+“Very praiseworthy,” said Magdalen.  “Don’t you know how Hubert always
+tells us what a dear devoted good girl she is?”
+
+“Well, I only hope Hubert does not expect me to live in that way,” said
+Vera.  “His mother looks like a half-starved hare, and Edith is giving
+lessons as a daily governess!
+
+“Edith is very nice,” said Paula; “and I never understood before how
+excellent old Mr. Delrio’s pictures are!  Do you remember his ‘Country
+Lane’?  What a pity it did not sell!”
+
+“Poor man!” said Magdalen.  “He married too soon, and that has kept him
+down.”
+
+“It is beautiful to see how proud they are of Hubert,” said Paula, “and
+his pretty gentle attention and deference to them both.  Mr. Delrio is
+really a gentleman, I am sure; but, Maidie,” she said, falling back with
+her, while Vera and Thekla mounted faster, “it was very odd to see how
+different things looked to us from what they seemed when we were at Mrs.
+Best’s.  Filsted High Street has grown so small, and one could hardly
+breathe in Mrs. Delrio’s stuffy drawing-room.  And as to Waring Grange,
+which we used to think just perfect, it was all so pretentious and in
+such bad taste.  Hubert saw it as much as we did, but I could see he was
+on thorns to hinder Flapsy from making observations.”
+
+Certainly the visit had not done much good, except in making the girls
+appreciate the refinement of their surroundings at the Goyle.
+
+And when letters arrived from Hubert at the American Vale Leston, asking
+questions requiring some research in books, either Magdalen’s or at the
+Rock Quay library, Vera dawdled and sighed over them; and when the more
+zealous Magdalen or Paula took all the trouble, and left nothing for her
+to do but to copy their notes, and write the letters, she grew cross.
+“It was for Hubert, and she did not want any one else to meddle!  So
+stupid!  If he had only taken Pratt and Pavis’s offer, there would not
+have been all this bother!”
+
+That, of course, she only ventured to utter before Paula and Thekla, and
+it made them both so furious that she declared she was only in joke, and
+did not mean it.
+
+She was indulging in reflections on the general dulness of her lot, and
+the lack of sympathy in her sisters, as she lingered by the
+confectioner’s window, with her eyes fixed on a gorgeous combination of
+coloured bonbons, when Wilfred Merrifield sauntered out.  “Fresh from
+Paris!” he said.  “Going to choose some?”
+
+“Oh no, I haven’t got any cash.  M. A. keeps us horribly short.”
+
+“As usual with governors!  But look here!  Pocket this.  Sweets to the
+sweet, from an old chum!”
+
+“Oh, Will, how jolly!  Such a love of a box.”
+
+“Make haste!  Some of the girls are lurking about, and if there is any
+mischief to be made, trust Gill for doing it.”
+
+“Mischief!—” but before the words were out of her mouth, Gillian and
+Mysie appeared from the next shop, a bootmaker’s, and Mysie stood aghast
+with, “What _are_ you doing?  Buying goodies!  How very ridiculous!”
+
+“The proper thing between chums, isn’t it, Vera?” said Wilfred, with an
+indifferent air.  “We aren’t unlucky Sunday scholars, Mysie, to be jumped
+upon!  Good-bye, Vera, _au revoir_!”
+
+He sauntered away with his hands in his pockets; while Gillian, from her
+eldership of two years, and her engagement, gravely said, “Vera, perhaps
+you do not fully know, but I should say this is not quite the thing.”
+
+“He told you we are just chums!” exclaimed Vera.  “As if there were any
+harm in it!  You’ve not got a sweet tooth yourself, so you need not
+grudge me just a few goodies.”
+
+Gillian saw that it was of no use to prolong the dispute either for the
+place or the time, and she hushed Mysie, who was about to expostulate
+farther, and made her go away with a brief parting, such as she hoped
+would impress on Vera that the sisters thought very badly of her
+discretion and loyalty.  They could not hear the reflection, “They need
+not be so particular and so cross.  Hubert never thought of giving me
+anything nice like this.  Why should not my chum?  Such a sweet little
+box too, with a dear girl’s head on it!  Would Polly fuss about it, and
+set on Sister?  I shall put it into my own drawer, and then if they
+notice it, they may think somebody at Filsted gave it!  No one has any
+business to worry me about Hubert, and Wilfred being civil to me.  He
+_is_ a gentleman.”
+
+The gentleman had been overtaken by his sisters.  He was walking his
+bicycle up the hill rather breathlessly and slowly.  Mysie indignantly
+began, “Of all the stupid things to do, to give goodies to that girl,
+like a baby!”
+
+“I have been wishing to speak to you,” said Gillian.  “You are going the
+way to get that foolish girl into a scrape.”
+
+“Oh, yes, of course.  Sisters uniformly object to a little civility to a
+pretty girl,” carelessly answered Wilfred.
+
+“Nonsense!” returned Mysie, hotly.  “We don’t care! only it is not fair
+on Mr. Delrio.”
+
+“The painter cad!  A very good thing too!  The sacrifice ought to be
+prevented.  Is not that the general sentiment?”
+
+“Wilfred!” cried the scandalised Mysie, “when it is all the other way,
+and he is ever so much too good for her.”
+
+“Consummate prig!  The cheek of him pretending to a lady!”
+
+“But, Wilfred,” went on downright Mysie, “is it only mischief, or do you
+want to marry her yourself?”
+
+“Draw your own conclusions,” responded Wilfred, mounting his machine, and
+spinning down the hill faster than they could follow on foot.
+
+“What is to be done, Gill?” sighed Mysie.  “Ought we to get mamma to
+speak to him?”
+
+“Better not,” said Gillian, with more experience.  “It would only make it
+worse to take it seriously.  Half of it is play—and half to tease you.”
+
+“And,” said Mysie, with due deference to the engaged sister, “how about
+Mr. Delrio?  Will it make him unhappy?”
+
+“If he finds out in time what a horrid little thing it is, I should say
+it would be very well for him; but I don’t want Will to be the means.”
+
+“Oh! when his examination is over, and he gets an appointment, he will go
+away, and it will be safe.”
+
+“I have not much hopes of his getting in!”
+
+“Oh, Gill, none of us ever failed before.”
+
+On the side of the Goyle not much was known or cared about Wilfred’s
+little attentions, which were generally out of sight of Magdalen, and did
+not amount to much; but Paula saw enough of them to consult Agatha on,
+and to observe that Flapsy was going on just as she used to at Filsted,
+and she thought Hubert would not like it.
+
+“I believe Flapsy can’t live without it,” sighed Agatha.
+
+“But would you speak to her?  I don’t think she ought to let him give her
+boxes of bonbons—to keep up in her room, and never give a hint to
+Maidie.”
+
+Agatha did speak but the effect was to set Vera into crying out at every
+one being so intolerably cross about such a trifle, Gillian Merrifield
+and all!
+
+“Did Gillian speak to you?”
+
+“Yes, as if she had any business to do so!”
+
+“I am sure it is not the way she would treat Captain Armitage.”
+
+“I don’t believe she cares for Captain Armitage one bit!  You said
+yourself that all the girls at Oxford thought she cared much more for her
+horrid examination!  I wouldn’t be a dry, cold-hearted, insensible stick
+like her for the world.”
+
+“Perhaps she is the more quietly in earnest,” said Agatha, repenting a
+little that she had told before Vera the college jokes over what had
+leaked out of Gillian’s reception of Ernley Armitage when he had hastened
+up to Oxford as soon as his ship was paid off, and she had been called
+down to him in the Lady Principal’s room.  Report said that she had only
+prayed him to keep out of the way, and not to upset her brain, and that
+he had meekly obeyed—as one who knew what it was to have promotion
+depending on it.
+
+It was a half truth, exaggerated, but it had not a happy effect on Vera.
+Nevertheless, the finishing push of preparation brought on such a
+succession of violent headaches as quite to disable the really delicate
+boy.  Moreover, the tutor declared that there had been little chance of
+his success, and Dr. Dagger said that he had much better not try again.
+The best hope for his health, and even for his life, was to keep him at
+home for a few years, and give him light work.
+
+He had never been the pleasantest element in the household; and if his
+parents were glad of the avoidance of the risk of a launch into the
+world, and his mother’s love rejoiced in the power of watching over him,
+there were others who felt his temper a continual trial, while his career
+was a perplexity.
+
+However, Captain Henderson offered a clerkship at the Marble Works,
+subject to Mr. White’s approval; and this was gratefully accepted.  Nor
+did Agatha come home again at the Long Vacation for more than two days,
+in which there was no time for consultation with her sisters on matters
+of uncertain import.
+
+Miss Arthuret and Elizabeth Merrifield had arranged together to take the
+old roomy farmhouse on Penbeacon for three or four months, and there
+receive parties of young women in need of rest, fresh air, and, in some
+cases, of classes, or time for study.  It was to be a sort of Holiday
+House, though not altogether of idleness; and Dolores undertook to be a
+kind of vice-president, with Agatha to pursue her reading under her
+superintendence, and to assist in helping others, governesses, students,
+schoolmistresses from Coalham, in whose behalf indeed the scheme had been
+first started, and it was extremely delightful to Agatha, among many
+others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX—TWO WEDDINGS
+
+
+    “How happy by my mother’s side
+    When some dear friend became a bride!
+    To shine beyond the rest I was
+       In gay embroidery drest.
+    Vain of my drapery’s rich brocade,
+    I held my flowing locks to braid.”
+
+                                               ANSTICE (_from the Greek_).
+
+“EPIDEMICS of marriage set in from time to time,” said Jane Mohun.
+“Gillian has set the fashion.”
+
+For the Rock Quay neighbourhood was in a state of excitement over a
+letter from Mrs. White, of Rocca Marina, announcing the approaching
+marriage of Mr. White’s niece, Maura, with Lord Roger Grey, a nephew of
+dear Emily’s husband, and heir to the Dukedom.  The White family were
+coming home for the wedding, and the interest entirely eclipsed that of
+Gillian Merrifield’s.  In fact, though that young lady somewhat justified
+the Oxford stories, she was in a state of much inward agitation between
+real love for Ernley, and pain in leaving home, so she put on an
+absolutely imperturbable demeanour.  Her reserve and dread of comments
+made her so undemonstrative and repressive to her Captain that there were
+those who doubted whether she cared for him at all, or only looked on her
+wedding as a mediæval maiden might have done, as coming naturally a few
+years after she had grown up.  Ernley Armytage knew better, and so did
+her parents.  The wedding was hurried on by Captain Armytage’s
+appointment to a frigate on the coast of Southern America, where he had
+to join at once, in lieu of a captain invalided home; and Gillian
+accepted the arrangements, which would take her to Rio, “as much a matter
+of course,” said her aunt, “as if she had been a wife for ten years.”
+Her uncle, Mr. Mohun, was anxious that the marriage of his sister Lily’s
+daughter should take place at the family home, Beechcroft.  If there had
+been scruples, chiefly founded on the largeness of the party, and the
+trouble to Mrs. Mohun, these were forgotten in the convenience of being
+out of the way of Rockstone gossip, as well as for other reasons.
+
+“I should certainly have escaped,” said General Mohun.  “I have no notion
+of meeting that unmitigated scamp.”
+
+“Mr. White ought to be warned,” said Jane.
+
+“You’ll do so, I suppose; and much good it will be.”
+
+“I do not imagine that it will.  It will be too charming to surpass
+Franciska and Ivinghoe; but if neither you nor Jasper will speak to old
+Tom, I shall deliver my conscience to Ada.”
+
+“And be advised to mind your own business.”
+
+Nevertheless, Jane Mohun did deliver her conscience, when, on the day
+after the arrival, there had been loud lamentations over the intended
+absence of the Merrifield family.  “It would have looked well to make it
+a double wedding, all in the family,” said Mr. White.
+
+To which Miss Mohun only answered by a silence which Mrs. White was
+unwilling to break, but Maura exclaimed—
+
+“But I thought Valetta would be sure to be my bridesmaid.  Such friends
+as we were at the High School!”
+
+It did not strike Miss Mohun that the friendship had been very close or
+very beneficial; but Adeline added, “We thought she would pair so well
+with Vera Prescott, and then uncle will give all the dresses—white silk
+with cerise trimmings.  We ordered them in Paris.”
+
+“Uncle Tom is so generous!” said Maura.  “There is no end to his
+kindness.  I’ll go and unpack some of the patterns, that Miss Mohun may
+see them.”
+
+She tripped out of the room, and Jane exclaimed, “Poor child!  Has Emily
+written to you, Ada?”
+
+“Yes, rather stiffly.  Mr. White thinks it aristocratic pride.”
+
+“Ada, you know it is not that.”
+
+“Well, I suppose the Greys are hardly gratified by the connection, though
+Mr. White will make it worth their while.  You see the Duke leaves
+everything in his power to his daughters, so poor Roger will be very
+badly off.”
+
+“But—”  There was so much expressed in that “but” that Adeline began to
+answer one of the sentiments she supposed it to convey.  “He can do it
+easily—for all the rest are provided for by the Marble Works—except the
+two eldest brothers.  Richard has gone away, and Alexis—oh, you know he
+has notions of his own that Mr. White does not like.”
+
+“Does Mr. White know all about Lord Roger, or why the Duke should cut him
+off as far as possible?”
+
+“My dear Jane, it is not charitable to bring things up against young
+men’s follies.”
+
+“It is a pretty considerable folly to have done what compelled him to
+retire.  Reginald was called in at the inquiry, and knows all about it.”
+
+“But that was ages ago, and he has been quite distinguished in the
+Turkish army.”
+
+“Yes; and I also know that English gentlemen have associated with him as
+little as possible.  I should call it a fatal thing to let Maura marry
+him.  What does Captain Henderson say?”
+
+“Mr. White thinks that it is all jealousy.  And really, Jenny, I do not
+in the least believe that he will make her unhappy.  He is old enough to
+have quite outgrown all his wild ways, and he has quite gentlemanly
+manners and ways.  Besides, Maura likes him, and is quite bent upon it.”
+
+Still there was a dissatisfied look on Jane’s face, and Adeline went on
+answering it, with tears in her eyes.  “My dear Jane, I know what you
+would say, and what Reginald and all the rest feel, that it is not what
+we should like!  But, my dear, don’t let the whole family rise up in
+arms!  It would be of no use, only make it painful for me.  Maura is
+quite bent upon it, and she has arrived at turning her uncle round her
+finger so much that I am sometimes hardly mistress of the house!  Oh, I
+don’t tell any one, not Lily nor any one, but it will really be a relief
+to me when she is gone, with her Greek coaxing ways.  Her uncle is
+wrapped up in her, and so proud of her being a Duchess that he would
+condone anything.  Indeed, I am always afraid of her putting it into his
+head to suppose that her disappointment about Ivinghoe was in any way
+owing to my family pride.”
+
+Jane was sorry for Adeline, and able to perceive how the wifely feelings,
+which she had taken on herself, by choosing a man of inferior breeding
+and nature clashed with her hereditary character and principles.
+
+“You are absolutely relieved that the Beechcroft wedding takes all of us
+out of the way naturally and without offence,” she said so kindly that
+Ada laid her head on her sisterly shoulder, and allowed herself to shed a
+few tears.
+
+“Yes, yes,” she said; “I am glad to have so good a reason to mention.
+Only I do hope Jasper will not object to Valetta’s coming back to be
+bridesmaid.  That would really be a blow and give offence, and it would
+make difficulties with others—even James Henderson, who swears by Jasper.
+I have often wished they would have done as I advised, and have had this
+wedding at Rocca Marina, out of the way of everybody!  I sometimes think
+it will be the death of me.  Do come home to help me through it.”
+
+She spoke so like the Ada of old that it went to Jane’s heart.
+
+She promised that she would return in time to give the very substantial
+assistance in which all believed, and the more sentimental support in
+which nobody believed, though her distaste arose tenfold after seeing the
+bridegroom, who looked like an old satyr, all the more because Maura was
+like a Greek nymph.  Mrs. Henderson was much grieved, and had tried
+remonstrance with her sister, but found her quite impervious.
+
+Glad were all the Merrifields to escape to the quiet atmosphere of
+Beechcroft, where the relations were able to congregate between the
+Court, the Vicarage, and the more-distant Rotherwood; and the wedding was
+an ideal one in ecclesiastical beauty, and the festivities of those who
+had known and loved Lady Merrifield as Miss Lily in early youth,
+grandmothers who had been her schoolchildren, and were pleased to hear
+that she was a grandmother herself, and hoped in a year or two to welcome
+her grandchildren.
+
+Alethea and her little Somervilles she had seen _en route_ to Canada, and
+Phyllis was to come in due time when Bernard Underwood could be spared
+from the bank in Colombo, and they would bring their little pair.
+
+In the matter of bridesmaids Gillian certainly had the advantage, for she
+was amply provided with sisters and cousins, Dolores coming for a few
+days for the wedding; whereas the six whom Maura had provided for
+beforehand in Paris were only, as Miss Jane said, “scraped up” with
+difficulty from former schoolfellows.  Lord Roger’s nieces would not hear
+of being present.  Paulina was unwillingly pressed into the service, as
+well as the more willing Vera; but Mysie Merrifield was not to be
+persuaded to give up her visit to Lady Phyllis, and Aunt Jane could only
+carry home Valetta, who held the whole as “capital fun,” and liked the
+acquisition of the white silk and lace and cerise ribbons.  Dolores had
+negotiated that No. 6 of the Vanderkist girls should spend a year with
+Miss Mohun for a final polish at the High School at Rock Quay, so as to
+be with her brother Adrian, who was completing his term at the
+preparatory school before his launch at Winchester.
+
+Wilfred also returned, father and uncle having decided that he did not
+merit a game licence, nor to attack the partridges of Beechcroft, and the
+prospect of the gaieties of Cliffe House consoled him.
+
+Adeline had to endure her husband’s mortification at other
+disappointments.  The Ducal family was wholly unrepresented.  Even Emily,
+the connecting link, would not venture on the journey; and the clerical
+nephew was not sufficiently gratified by Lord Roger’s intention to _se
+ranger_ to undertake to officiate; and a Bishop, who had enjoyed the
+hospitality of Rocca Marina, proved to have other engagements.  No
+clergyman could be imported except Maura’s brother Alexis, who had been
+two years at work at Coalham under Mr. Richard Burnet, and had just been
+appointed by the newly-chosen Bishop of Onomootka, and both were to go
+out with him as chaplains.  In the meantime, while the Bishop was
+preparing, by tours in England, Alexis undertook the duties of Mr.
+Flight’s curate, rejoicing in the opportunity of seeing his elder sister,
+and the old friends with whom he had never been since his unlucky
+troubles with Gillian Merrifield, now no more.
+
+The delight of receiving him compensated to Kalliope Henderson for much
+that was distressing to both in Maura’s choice.  The seven years that had
+passed had made him into a noble-looking man, with a handsome classical
+countenance, lighted up by earnestness and devotion, a fine voice and
+much musical skill, together with a bright attractive manner that, all
+unconsciously on his part, had turned the heads of half the young
+womanhood of Coalham, and soon had the same effect at Rock Quay.
+
+Vera and Paulina were in a state of much excitement over their white
+silks, in which the three other sisters took great pleasure in arraying
+them, and Thekla only wished that Hubert could see them.  She should send
+him out a photograph, buying it herself with her own money.
+
+She was, of course, to see the wedding, in her Sunday white and broad
+pink sash, of the appropriateness of which she was satisfied when, at
+Beechcroft, they met Miss Mohun’s young friend, Miss Vanderkist, in the
+same garb.  She and her brother had been put under Magdalen’s protection,
+as Miss Mohun was too much wanted at Cliffe House to look after them; but
+Sir Adrian, a big boy of twelve, wanted to go his own way, and only
+handed her over with “Hallo, Miss Prescott! you’ll look after this
+pussy-cat of ours while Aunt Jane is dosing Aunt Ada with salts and sal
+volatile.  She—I’ll introduce you!  Miss Prescott, Miss Felicia
+Vanderkist!  She wants to be looked after, she is a little kitten that
+has never seen anything!  I’m off to Martin’s.”
+
+The stranger did look very shy.  She was a slight creature, not yet
+seventeen, with an abundant mass of long golden silk hair tied loosely,
+and a very lovely face and complexion, so small that she was a miniature
+edition of Lady Ivinghoe.
+
+Her name was Wilmet Felicia, but the latter half had been always used in
+the family, and there was something in the kitten grace that suited the
+arbitrary contractions well.  In fact, Jane Mohun had been rather
+startled to find that she had the charge of such a little beauty, when
+she saw how people turned around at the station to look, certainly not at
+Valetta, who was a dark bright damsel of no special mark.
+
+At church, however, every one was in much too anxious a state to gaze at
+the coming procession to have any eyes to spare for a childish girl in a
+quiet white frock.  St. Andrew’s had never seen such a crowded
+congregation, for it was a wedding after Mr. White’s own heart, in which
+nobody dared to interfere, not even his wife, whatever her good taste
+might think.  So the church was filled, and more than filled, by all who
+considered a wedding as legitimate gape seed, and themselves as not bound
+to fit behaviour in church.  On such an occasion Magdalen, being a
+regular attendant, and connected with the bridesmaids, was marshalled by
+a churchwarden into a reserved seat; but there they were dismayed by the
+voices and the scrambling behind them, which, in the long waiting, the
+Vicar from the vestry vainly tried to subdue by severe looks; and
+Felicia, whose notions of wedding behaviour were moulded on Vale Lecton
+and Beechcroft, looked as if she thought she had got into the house of
+Duessa, amid all Pride’s procession, as in the prints in the
+large-volumed “Faërie Queene.”
+
+And when, on the sounds of an arrival, the bridegroom stood forth, the
+resemblance to Sans Foy was only too striking, while the party swept up
+the church, the bride in the glories of cobweb veil, white satin, &c.,
+becomingly drooping on her uncle’s arm, while he beamed forth, expansive
+in figure and countenance, with delight.  Little Jasper Henderson,
+anxious and patronising to his tiny brother Alexis, both in white pages’
+dresses picked out with cerise, did his best to support the endless
+glistening train.
+
+The bridesmaids’ costumes taxed the descriptive powers of the milliners
+in splendour and were scarcely eclipsed by the rich brocade and lace of
+Mrs. White, as she sailed in on Captain Henderson’s arm; but her
+elaborate veil and feathery bonnet hardly concealed the weary tedium of
+her face, though to the shame, well nigh horror, of her sister, she was
+rouged.  “I must, I must,” she said; “he would be vexed if I looked
+pale.”
+
+It was true that “he” loved her heartily, and that he put all the world
+at her service; but she had learnt where he must not be offended, and was
+on her guard.  Hers had been the last wedding that Jane had attended in
+St. Andrew’s.  “Did she repent?” was Jane’s thought.  No, probably not.
+She had the outward luxuries she had craved for, and her husband was
+essentially a good man, though not of the caste to which her instincts
+belonged—very superior in nature and conscience to him to whom his
+blinded vanity was now giving his beautiful niece, a willing sacrifice.
+
+It was over!  More indecorous whispering and thronging; and the
+procession came down the aisle, to be greeted outside by a hail of
+confetti and rice; the schoolboys, profiting by the dinner interval, and
+headed by Adrian, had jostled themselves into the foreground, and they
+ran headlong to the portico of Cliffe House to renew the shower.
+
+And there, unluckily, Mr. White recognised the boy, and, pleased to have
+anything with a title to show, turned him round to the bridegroom, with,
+“Here, Lord Roger, let me introduce a guest, Sir Adrian Vanderkist.”
+
+“Ha, I didn’t know poor Van had left a son.  I knew your father, my boy.
+Where was it I saw him last?  Poor old chap!”
+
+“You must come in to taste the cake, my boy,” began Mr. White.
+
+“Thank you, Mr. White, I must get back to Edgar’s.  Late already.  The
+others are off.”
+
+“Not a holiday!  For shame!  He’ll excuse you.  I’ll send a note down to
+say you must stay to drink the health of your father’s old friend.”
+
+Those words settled the matter with Adrian.  The holiday was enticing,
+and might have overpowered the chances of a scholarship, for which he was
+working; but he had begun to know that there were perplexities from which
+it was safer to retreat; and that he had never transgressed his Uncle
+Clement’s warning might be read in the clear open face that showed
+already the benefits, not only of discipline, but of self-control.  So
+obedience answered the question; though, as he again thanked and refused,
+he looked so dogged as he turned and walked off, that Ethel Varney
+whispered to Vera that at school he was called, “the Dutchman, if not the
+Boer.”
+
+Nor did he ever mention the temptation or his own resistance.  Only Mr.
+White asked Miss Mohun to bring him to the dance which was to be given in
+the evening, telling her of his refusal of the invitation to wedding cake
+and champagne and she—mindful of her duty to her charge as hinted by
+Clement Underwood—had not granted the honour of his presence on the score
+of his school obligations.
+
+The afternoon was spent in desultory wanderings about the gardens,
+Magdalen and her sisters being invited guests, and Vera in a continual
+state of agitated expectation.  Had not Wilfred Merrifield always been a
+cavalier of her own?  And here he was, paying no attention to her, with
+all the embellishment of her bridesmaid’s adornments, and squiring
+instead that little insignificant Felicia, in a simple hat, and hair
+still on her shoulders; whilst she had to put up with nothing better than
+a young Varney, who was very shy, and had never probably mastered
+croquet.
+
+She was an ill-used mortal; and why had she not Hubert to show how
+superior she was to them all, in having a piece of property of her own to
+show off?
+
+There was Paula, too, playing animated tennis with that clerical brother
+of the bride, who had been talking to Magdalen about the frescoes of St.
+Kenelm’s (as if she, Vera, had not the greatest right to know all about
+those frescoes!).  Even little Thekla was better off, for she was
+reigning over a merry party of the little ones, which had been got up for
+the benefit of the small Hendersons, and of which Theodore White had
+constituted himself the leader, being a young man passionately devoted to
+little children.
+
+So when the guests dispersed to eat their dinner at their homes and dress
+for the dance, Vera was extremely cross.  Each of the other three had
+some delightful experiences to talk over; but whether it was Mr.
+Theodore’s fun in acting ogre behind the great aloe, or Mr. Alexis’s
+achievements with the croquet ball, or his information about the Red
+Indians and Onomootka, she was equally ungracious to all; she scolded
+Thekla for crumpling her skirt, and was quite sure that Paula had on the
+wrong _fichu_ that was meant for her.  Each bridesmaid had been presented
+with a bracelet, like a snake with ruby eyes; but Vera, fingering hers
+with fidgeting petulance, seemed to have managed to loosen the clasp, and
+when arranging her dress for the evening thought that her snake had
+escaped.
+
+Upstairs and downstairs she rushed in hopes of finding it.  The cab in
+which they had returned was gone home to come again, and there was the
+chance that it might be there or in the Cliffe House gardens; and then
+the others tried to console her, but they were not able to hinder a
+violent burst of crying, which scandalised Thekla.
+
+“I am sure you couldn’t cry more if you had lost Hubert’s, and that would
+be something worth crying about.”
+
+Hubert’s was an ingeniously worked circle of scales of Californian gold,
+the first ornament that Vera had ever possessed, and that all the sisters
+had set great store by.  But with an outcry of joy Vera exclaimed,
+“Here’s the snake all safe!  I pushed the other up my arm because it
+looked so plain and dull, and it was that which came off.”
+
+“That is a great deal worse than losing the snake,” said Thekla.  “He has
+a nasty face, and I don’t like him, with his red eyes.”
+
+“Don’t be silly,” returned Vera; “this is a great deal more valuable.”
+
+“Surely the value is in the giver,” said Paula; to which Vera returned in
+the same vein, “Don’t be silly and sentimental, Polly.”
+
+She was so much cheered by the recovery of the snake that they brought
+her off to the evening dance without a fresh fit of ill-humour, and she
+sprang out under the portico of Cliffe House, with her spirits raised to
+expectation pitch.
+
+But disappointment was in store for her.  It was not disappointment in
+other eyes.  Paula had all the attention she expected or desired, she
+danced almost every time and did not reckon greatly on who might be her
+partner.  What pleased and honoured her most was being asked to dance by
+Captain Henderson himself.
+
+What was it to Vera, however, that partners came to her, young men of
+Rock Quay whom she knew already and did not care about?  And she never
+once had the pleasure of saying that she was keeping the next dance for
+Wilfred Merrifield!  To her perceptions, he was always figuring away with
+Felicia Vanderkist, her golden hair seemed always gleaming with him; and
+though this was not always the case, as the nephew of the house was one
+of those who had duties to guests and was not allowed by his aunts to be
+remiss, yet whenever he was not ordered about by them, he was sure to be
+found by Felicia’s side.
+
+Vera’s one consolation was that Alexis White took her to supper.  To be
+sure he was a clergyman, and had stood talking to Lady Flight half the
+time, and his conversation turned at once to Hubert Delrio’s frescoes;
+but then he was very handsome, and graceful in manner, and he sympathised
+with her on the loss of her bracelet, and promised to have a search for
+it by daylight in the gardens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX—FLEETING
+
+
+    “And variable as the shade
+    By the light quivering aspen made.”
+
+                                                                   —SCOTT.
+
+THE bracelet came to light in the gardens of Cliffe House the next
+morning, and Alexis White walked over to the Goyle to return it safely,
+little guessing, when he set forth to enjoy the sight of the purple
+moors, and to renew old recollections, what a flutter of gratified vanity
+would be excited in one silly little breast, though he only stayed ten
+minutes, and casually asked whether the sisters were coming to Lady
+Flight’s garden party.  Everybody was going there.  Miss Mohun even took
+Felicia, as it was on a Saturday’s holiday; and, unwittingly, she renewed
+all the agitation caused by Wilfred’s admiration, and that of others, to
+the all-unconscious girl.  Vera could no longer think herself the
+reigning belle of Rock Quay, though she talked of Felicia as a schoolgirl
+or a baby, or a horrid little forward chit!  Her excitement was, however,
+divided between Wilfred and Mr. Alexis White, who could not look in her
+direction without putting her in a state of eagerness.
+
+In this, however, she was not alone.  Half the ladies were interested
+about him; his manners were charming, his voice in church beautiful, and
+his destination as chaplain to a missionary bishop made him doubly
+interesting; while he himself, even though his mind was set on higher
+things, was really enjoying his brief holiday, and his sister, Mrs.
+Henderson, was delighted to promote his pleasure, and garden parties and
+the like flourished as long as weather permitted; and as Vera was a
+champion player, she was sure to be asked to the tournaments, and to have
+to practise for them.
+
+Inopportunely there arrived a letter from Hubert, requiring an answer
+about the form of ornament in the moulding of the fourteenth century!
+Paula dutifully went to the library, looked out and traced two or three
+examples, French and English.  Nothing remained but for Vera to write the
+letter after the early dinner.  However, she went to sleep in a hammock,
+and only roused herself to recollect that there was to be tea and lawn
+tennis at Carrara.
+
+“Won’t you just write to Hubert first?”
+
+“Oh, bother, how can I now?  Don’t worry so!”
+
+“But, Flapsy, he really needs it without loss of time.”
+
+“I’m sure he has no right to make me his clerk in that horrid peremptory
+way, as if one had nothing else to do but wait on his fads.”
+
+“Flapsy, how can you?” broke out even Thekla.
+
+“Surely it is the greatest honour,” said Paula.
+
+“Well, do it yourself then, I’m not going to be bothered for ever.”
+
+Thekla went off, in great indignation, to beg “sister” to speak to
+Flapsy, and beg her not to use dear Hubert so very very badly, which of
+course Magdalen refused to do, and Thekla had her first lesson on the
+futility of interfering with engaged folk; Paula meanwhile sent off the
+despatch, with one line to say that Vera was too busy to write that day.
+
+There had been two or three letters from Hubert, over which Vera had
+looked cross, but had said nothing; and at last she came down from her
+own room, and announced passionately, “There!  I have done with Mr.
+Hubert Delrio, and have written to tell him so!”
+
+“Vera, what have you done?”
+
+“Written to tell him I have no notion of a man being so tiresome and
+dictatorial!  I don’t want a schoolmaster to lecture me, and expect me to
+drudge over his work as if I was his clerk.”
+
+“My dear,” said Magdalen, “have you had a letter that vexed you?  Had you
+not better wait a little to think it over?”
+
+“No!  Nonsense, Maidie!  He has been provoking ever so long, and I won’t
+bear it any longer!” and she flounced into a chair.
+
+“Provoking!  Hubert!” was all Paulina could utter, in her amazement and
+horror.
+
+“Oh, I daresay you would like it well enough!  Always at me to slave for
+him with stupid architectural drawings and stuff, as if I was only a sort
+of clerk or fag!  And boring me to read great dull books, and preaching
+to me about them, expecting to know what I think!  Dear me!”
+
+“Those nice letters!” sighed Paula.
+
+“Nice!  As if any one that was one bit in love would write such as that!
+No, I don’t want to marry a schoolmaster or a tyrant!”
+
+“How can you, Flapsy?” went on Paula, so vehemently that Magdalen left
+the defence thus far to her; “when he only wishes for your sympathy and
+improvement.”
+
+The worst plea she could have used, thought the elder sister, as Vera
+broke out with, “Improvement, indeed!  If he cared for me, he would not
+think I wanted any _improving_!  But he never did!  Or he would have
+taken Pratt and Povis’ offer, and I should have been living in London and
+keeping my carriage!  Or he would have taken me to Italy!  But that
+horrid home of his, and his mother just like a half-starved hare!  I
+might have seen then it was not fit for me; but I was a child, and
+over-persuaded among you all!  But I know better now, and I know my own
+mind, as I didn’t then.  So you need not talk!  I have done with him.”
+
+“Oh, Flapsy, Flapsy, how can you grieve him so?  You don’t know what you
+are throwing away!” incoherently cried Paula, collapsing in a burst of
+tears.  “Maidie, Maidie, why don’t you speak to her, and tell her how
+wicked it is—and—and—and—”
+
+The rest was cut short by sobs.
+
+“No, Paula, authority or reasoning of mine would not touch such a mood as
+this.  We must leave it to Hubert himself.  If she really cares for him,
+she will have recovered from her fit of temper by the time his letter can
+come, and it may have an effect upon her, if our tongues have not
+increased her spirit of opposition.  I strongly advise you to say
+nothing.”
+
+Paula tried to take her sister’s advice, and would have adhered to it,
+but that Vera would talk and try to make her declare the rupture to have
+been justified; and this produced an amount of wrangling which did good
+to no one.  Magdalen really rejoiced when the frequent golf and tennis
+parties carried Vera on her bicycle out of reach of arguing, even if it
+took her into the alternative of flirtation.
+
+Thekla cried bitterly, and declared that she should never speak to Flapsy
+again; but in half an hour’s time was heard chattering about the
+hedgehog’s meal of cockroaches.  In another week the excitement was over.
+The Bishop of Onomootka had come and gone, after holding meetings and
+preaching sermons at Rock Quay and all the villages round, and had
+carried off Alexis White with him.
+
+Nothing had come of the intercourse of the latter with his rich uncle,
+nor of the varieties of encounters with the damsels of Rock Quay, except
+that society was declared by more than one to have become horridly flat
+and slow.
+
+Vera was one of these, and the letters received from Hubert Delrio did
+not stir up a fresh excitement.  There were no persuasions to revoke her
+decision, no urgent entreaties, no declaration of being heart-broken.  He
+acquiesced in her assurance that the engagement had been a mistake; and
+he wrote at more length to Magdalen, avowing that he had for some time
+past traced discontent in Vera’s letters, and fearing that he had been
+too didactic and peremptory in writing to her.  He relinquished the
+engagement with much regret, and should always regard it as having been a
+fair summer dream—but, though undeserving, he hoped still to retain Miss
+Prescott’s kindness and friendship, which had been of untold value to
+him.
+
+A little more zeal and distress would have been much more pleasing to
+Vera; and she began to be what Agatha and Thekla called cross, and Paula
+called drooping, and even excited alarm in her, lest Flapsy should be
+going into a decline.  But a note came to the Goyle which Magdalen read
+alone, and likewise she cycled alone to Rockstone.
+
+“Miss Mohun, can you give me a few minutes?” said she, as the trim little
+figure emerged from beneath the copper beeches, basket in hand.
+
+“By all means; I shall not be due at the cutting-out meeting till three
+o’clock.”
+
+“I wanted to consult you about an invitation that Mrs. White has been so
+very kind as to give my little sister, Vera.”
+
+“Oh!” quoth Jane Mohun, in a dry sort of tone.
+
+“I know that she had wished to take out one of her own nieces to Rocca
+Marina, but that Sir Jasper did not wish it, and I thought perhaps it
+would be easier for you than for Lady Merrifield to tell me whether there
+is any objection that would apply to Vera.”
+
+“I suppose Vera wishes to go?”
+
+“She is so wild with delight that it would be a serious thing to
+disappoint her.  Mrs. White is very kind and good, and has thought that
+she has flagged of late, and has supposed it might be due to poor Hubert
+Delrio, but, indeed, it was no fault of his.”
+
+“None at all, except for out-growing her.”
+
+“The offer was hinted at to go with Valetta even before we knew it was
+declined at Clipstone, and that made me anxious to know whether it would
+be well for me to send Vera.  I suppose she would pick up pronunciation
+of languages, which would be a great advantage, as she will have to earn
+her own living, and Mrs. White is so good as to promise lessons in arts
+and music.  I hear, too, it is quite an English colony, with a church and
+schools.”
+
+“Oh, yes, Mr. White is a very good and careful man about his workmen.  I
+have been there at the Henderson’s wedding, and it is a charming place, a
+castle fit for Mrs. Radclyffe, with English comforts, and an Italian
+garden and an English village on the mountain side.  My sister would do
+all that she promises, and would look after any young girl very well; you
+may quite trust her.”
+
+“Then is there any fear of Italian society?—not that poor Vera has any
+attraction _of that kind_,” hesitated Magdalen.
+
+“None at all.  All the society they have is of English travellers coming
+with introductions.  I fancy it is very dull at times, and that Adeline
+wants a young person about her.  You need have no fears.  Ah!  I see you
+still want to know why the Merrifields don’t consent.  It is not their
+way.  They would not let the Rotherwoods have Mysie to bring up with
+Phyllis, and—and Val is just the being that needs a mother’s eye over
+her.  But I really and honestly think that your Vera may quite safely be
+put under Adeline’s care, and that she is likely to be all the better for
+it.”
+
+“One thing more,” added Magdalen, with a little hesitation; “is your
+nephew, Wilfred, likely to be one of the party?”
+
+“None at all.  His father wants to keep him under his own eye, and his
+mother is anxious about his health; nor do I think Mr. White wants him,
+having his own two nephews, who are useful, so he will remain under
+Captain Henderson here.”
+
+“Thank you!  That settles it in my mind.  I am sure the change to a fresh
+home will be an excellent thing for my poor Vera, and that the training
+of imitation of one to whom she looks up is what she most needs.”
+
+“Very true,” said Miss Mohun.
+
+And as she afterwards said to Lady Merrifield, “It was in all sincerity
+and honesty that I gave the advice to Magdalen, who is very sensible in
+the matter.  In plain English, Ada can’t do without a lady in waiting,
+and Vera probably fancies that Lords, young or old, start from every wave
+like the spirits of our fathers, at Rocca Marina, in which she will
+probably be disappointed; but Ada will be a very dragon as to her manners
+and discretion, and not being his own niece, old Tom White will not be
+deluded by his ambition and any blandishments of hers.  As people go,
+they are very safe guardians, and Vera—Flapsy as they call her—is just of
+the composition to be improved, and not disimproved, by living with Ada.”
+
+“Probably, though I do not like the foolish little puss to be rewarded
+for throwing over young Delrio.”
+
+“He was so much too good for her that I am more inclined to reward her
+for doing so!”
+
+Agatha, however, came home somewhat annoyed by the whole arrangement.
+She supposed the rupture with Hubert might have been inevitable; but she
+was very sorry for it, thinking that Vera might have grown up to him, and
+regretting the losing him as a brother.  Nor did she like the atmosphere
+of the Whites and Rocca Marina for her feather-brained young sister.
+“Dolores had no great opinion of her Aunt Adeline,” she said.
+
+“My dear,” said Magdalen, as they sat over their early fire, “I have
+talked it over with Lady Merrifield and Miss Mohun, and they both tell me
+that Mrs. White is very sensible, and sure to be discreet for any girl in
+her charge—probably better for Flapsy than a more intellectual woman.”
+
+“But—!  Such a marriage as this one!” said Agatha.
+
+“It was Mr. White’s own niece, and taken out of Mrs. White’s hands,” said
+Magdalen.  “Besides,” as Agatha still looked unconvinced, “one thing that
+made me think the invitation desirable was that it would break off any
+foolishness with Wilfred Merrifield—I think it was in their minds too.”
+
+“Wilfred!  Oh, there was a little nonsense.”
+
+“Less on his side, since Felicia Vanderkist has been here; but I think
+Vera has been all the more disposed to—to—”
+
+“Run after him,” said Agatha.  “I could fancy it in Flapsy; but he is
+such a boy, and not half so nice-looking as the rest of them either.”
+
+“My dear Agatha, I must tell you he reminds me strangely of a young Mr.
+Merrifield whom I knew at Filsted when I was younger than you.”
+
+“A brother of Bessie?”
+
+“Even so.  He got into some kind of trouble at Filsted, his father came
+and broke it off, and sent him out to Canada, where I fear he did not do
+well, and nothing has been heard of him since, except—”
+
+She spoke with a catch in her voice which made Agatha look up at her, and
+detect a rising colour.
+
+“Nothing!” she repeated.
+
+“Except an anonymous parcel, returning to the brothers in Canada the sum
+he had taken with him.  Strangely, the clue was not followed up, and he
+is lost sight of!  But Wilfred’s air, and still more his manner, is
+always recalling his cousin to me, and, Nag, dear, I could not bear to
+see Vera go through the same trial by my exposing her to the intercourse.
+Not that I know any harm of Wilfred, but his parents could not like
+anything of the kind.”
+
+“Certainly not!  Yes, I suppose you are right, dear old Maidie.”  But
+Agatha pondered over those words that had slipped out, “the same trial.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI—THE ELECTRICIANS
+
+
+       “Thou shalt have the air
+    Of freedom.  Follow and do me service.”
+
+                                                           —“THE TEMPEST.”
+
+“IS Agatha in?” asked Dolores Mohun, jumping off her bicycle as she saw
+Magdalen, on a frosty day the next Christmas vacation, in her garden.
+
+“She is doing scientific arithmetic with Thekla; giving me a holiday, in
+fact!  You University maidens quite take the shine out of us poor old
+teachers.”
+
+“Ah! if we can give shine we can’t give substance.  But I want to borrow
+Nag, if you have no objection.”
+
+“Borrow her! I am sure it is something she will like.”
+
+“It is in the way of business, but she will like it all the same.  They
+want me to give a course of lectures on electricity at Bexley to the
+Institute and the two High Schools, and I particularly want a skilled
+assistant, whom I can depend upon; not masters, nor boys!  Now Nag is
+just what I should like.  We should stay at Lancelot Underwood’s, a very
+charming place to be at.”
+
+“Isn’t he some connection?”
+
+“Connection all round.  Phyllis Merrifield married his brother, banking
+in Ceylon, and may come home any day on a visit; and Ivinghoe’s pretty
+wife is Lancelot’s niece.  He edits what is really the crack newspaper of
+the county, in spite of its being true blue Conservative, Church and
+all.”
+
+“The _Pursuivant_?  It has such good literary articles.”
+
+“Oh, yes!  Mrs. Grinstead and Canon Harewood write them.  His wife is a
+daughter of old Dr. May—rather a peculiar person, but very jolly in her
+way.”
+
+“But would they like to have Agatha imposed upon them?”
+
+“Certainly; they are just the people to like nothing better, and it will
+only be for a fortnight.  I have settled it all with them.”
+
+At which Magdalen looked a little doubtful, but Dolores reiterated that
+there need be no scruple, she might ask Aunt Lily if she liked; but Lance
+Underwood was Mayor, and member of all the committees, and the most
+open-hearted man in the world besides, and it was all right.
+
+To the further demur as to safety, Dolores answered that to light a
+candle or sit by the fire might be dangerous, but as long as people were
+careful, it was all right, and Agatha had already assisted in some
+experiments at Rock Quay, which had shown her to be thoroughly
+understanding and trustworthy, and capable of keeping off the amateur—the
+great bugbear.
+
+So Magdalen consented, after rapturous desires on the part of Agatha, and
+assurances from General Mohun that Dolores had it in her by inheritance
+and by training to meddle with the lightning as safely as human being
+might; and Lady Merrifield owned with a sigh that she must accept as a
+fact that what even the heathens owned as a Divine mystery and awful
+attribute, had come to be treated as a commonplace business messenger and
+scientific toy, though (as Mrs. Gatty puts it) the mystery had only gone
+deeper.  So much for the peril; and for the other scruple, it was set at
+rest by a hospitable letter from Mrs. Underwood, heartily inviting Miss
+Agatha Prescott, as an Oxford friend of Gillian.
+
+So off the two electricians set, and after two days of business and
+sight-seeing in London, went down to Bexley.  In the third-class carriage
+in which they travelled they were struck by the sight of a tall lady in
+mourning—a sort of compromise between a conventual and a secular bonnet
+over short fair hair, and holding on her lap a tiny little girl of about
+six years old, with a small, pinched, delicate face and slightly red
+hair, to whom she pointed out by name each spot they passed, herself
+wearing an earnest absorbed look of recognition as she pointed out
+familiar landmark after landmark till the darkness came down.  Also there
+were two cages—one with a small pink cockatoo, and another with two
+budgerigars.
+
+As the train began slackening Dolores exclaimed:
+
+“There he is!  Lance—!”
+
+“Lance!  Oh, Lance!” was echoed; and setting the child down, her
+companion almost fell across Agatha, and was at the window as the train
+stopped.
+
+What happened in the next moment no one could quite tell; but as the door
+was torn open there was a mingled cry of “Angel!” and of “Lance!” and the
+traveller was in his arms, turning the next moment to lift out the
+frightened little girl, who clung tight round her neck; while Lance held
+out his hand with, “Dolores!  Yes.  This is Dolores, Angel, whom you have
+never seen.”
+
+Each knew who the other was in a moment, and clasped hands in greeting,
+as well as they could with the one, and the other receiving bird-cages,
+handbags, umbrellas, and rugs from Agatha, whom, however, Lance relieved
+of them with a courteous, “Miss Prescott!  You have come in for the
+arrival of my Australian sister!  What luggage have you?”  Wherewith all
+was absorbed in the recognition of boxes, and therewith a word or two to
+an old railway official, “My sister Angela.”
+
+“Miss Angela! this is an unexpected pleasure!”
+
+“Tom Lightfoot! is it you?  You are not much altered.  Mr. Dane, I should
+have known you anywhere!” with corresponding shakes of the hand.
+
+“Yes, that’s ours.  Oh, the birds!  There they are!  All right!  Oh! not
+the omnibus, Lance!  Let the traps go in that!  Then Lena will like to
+stretch her legs, and I must revel in the old street.”
+
+Dolores and Agatha felt it advisable to squeeze themselves with the
+bird-cages into the omnibus, and leave the brother and sister to walk
+down together, though the little girl still adhered closely to her
+protector’s hand.
+
+“Poor Field’s little one?  Yes, of course.”
+
+“But tell me! tell me of them all!”
+
+“All well! all right!  But how—”
+
+“The _Mozambique_ was out of coal and had to put in at Falmouth.  You
+know, I came by her because they said the long sea voyage would be best
+for this child, and it was so long since I had heard of any one that I
+durst not send anywhere till I knew—and I knew Froggatt’s would be in its
+own place.  Oh! there’s the new hotel! the gas looks just the same!
+There’s the tower of St. Oswald’s, all shadowy against the sky.  Look,
+Lena!  Oh! this is home!  I know the lamps.  I’ve dreamt of them!  Tired,
+Lena, dear? cold?  Shall I carry you?”
+
+“No, no; let me!” and he lifted her up, not unwillingly on her part,
+though she did not speak.  “You are a light weight,” he said.
+
+“I am afraid so,” answered Angel.  “Oh! there’s the bus stopping at Mr.
+Pratt’s door.”
+
+“Mine, now.  We have annexed it.”
+
+“But let me go in by the dear old shop.  The window is as of old, I see.
+Ernest Lamb! don’t you know me?” as a respectable tradesman came forward.
+“And Achille, is it?  You are as much changed as this old shop is
+transmogrified!  And they are all well?  Do you mean Bernard?”
+
+“Bernard and Phyllis may come home any day to deposit a child.  They lost
+their boy, and hope to save the elder one.  But come, Angel! if you have
+taken in enough we must go up to those electrical girls.  Dolores is come
+to give a lecture, with the other girl to assist, Miss Prescott.”
+
+“Dolores!  Yes, poor Gerald’s love!  They are almost myths to me.  Ah!”
+as Lancelot opened his office-door, “now I know where I am!  And there’s
+the old staircase!  This is the real thing, and no mistake.”
+
+“Angel, Angel, come to tea!”  And Gertrude, comfortable and substantial,
+in loving greeting threw arms round the new comers, Lance still carrying
+the child, who clung round his neck as he brought her into the room, full
+of his late fellow travellers, and also of a group of children.
+
+“It is as if we had gone back thirty years or more,” was Angela’s cry, as
+she looked forth on what had been as little altered as possible from the
+old family centre; and Lance, setting down the child, spoke as the pretty
+little blue-eyed girls advanced to exchange kisses with their new aunt.
+
+“Margaret, or Pearl, whom you knew as a baby; Etheldred, or Awdrey, and
+Dickie!  Fely is at Marlborough.  There, take little Lena—is that her
+name—to your table, and give her some tea.”
+
+“Her name is Magdalen,” said Angela, removing the little black hat and
+smoothing the hair; but Lena backed against her, and let her hand hang
+limp in Pearl’s patronising clasp.  Nor would she amalgamate with the
+children, nor even eat or drink except still beside “Sister,” as she
+called Angela.  In fact, she was so thoroughly worn out and tired, as
+well as shy and frightened, that Angela’s attention was wholly given to
+her and she could only be put to bed, but not in the nursery, which, as
+Angel said, seemed to her like a den of little wild beasts.  So she was
+deposited in the chamber and bed hastily prepared for the unexpected
+guest; and even there, being wakeful and feverish from over-fatigue,
+there was no leaving her alone, and Gertrude, after seeing her safely
+installed, could only go down with the hope that she would be able to
+spare her slave or nurse, which was it? by dinner-time.
+
+“Who is that child so like?” said Dolores, in their own room.
+
+“Very like somebody, but I can’t tell whom,” said Agatha.  “Who did you
+say she is?”
+
+“I cannot say I exactly know,” said Dolores.  “I believe she is the
+daughter of Fulbert Underwood’s mate, on a sheep-farm in Queensland, and
+that as her mother died when she was born, she has been always under the
+care of this Angela, living in the Sisterhood there.”
+
+“Not a Sister?”
+
+“Not under vows, certainly.  I never saw her before, but I believe she is
+rather a funny flighty person, and that Fulbert was afraid at one time
+that she would marry this child’s father.”
+
+“Is he alive?”
+
+“Which?  Fulbert died four or five years ago, and I think the little
+girl’s father must be dead, for she is in mourning.”
+
+“There’s something very charming about her—Miss Underwood.”
+
+“Yes there is.  They all seem to be very fond of her, and yet to laugh
+about her, and never to be quite sure what she will do next.”
+
+“Did I not hear of her being so useful among the Australian black women?”
+
+“No one has ever managed those very queer gins so well; and she is an
+admirable nurse too, they say.  I am very glad to have come in her way.”
+
+They did not, however, see much of her that evening.  The head master of
+the Grammar School and his wife, the head mistress of the High School,
+and a few others had been invited to meet them; and Angela could only
+just appear at dinner, trusting to a slumber of her charge, but, on
+coming out of the dining-room, a wail summoned her upstairs at once, and
+she was seen no more that night.
+
+However, with morning freshness, Lena showed herself much less
+_farouche_, and willing to accept the attentions of Mr. Underwood first,
+and, later, of his little daughter Pearl—a gentle, elder sisterly person,
+who knew how to avert the too rough advances of Dick—and made warm
+friends over the pink cockatoo; while Awdrey was entranced by the
+beauties of the budgerigars.
+
+Robina had been informed by telegram, and came up from Minsterham with
+her husband, looking just like his own father, and grown very broad.  He
+was greatly interested in the lecture, and went off to it, to consider
+whether it would be desirable for the Choristers’ School.  Lancelot had,
+of course, to go, and Angela declared that she must be brought up to
+date, and rejoiced that Lena was able to submit to be left with the other
+children under the protection of Mrs. Underwood, who averred that she
+abhorred electricity in all its forms, and that if Lance were induced to
+light the town, or even the shop by that means, he must begin by
+disposing of her by a shock.
+
+It was an excellent lecture, only the two sisters hardly heard it.  They
+could think of nothing but that they were once more sitting side by side
+in the old hall, where they had heard and shared in so many concerts, on
+the gala days of their home life.
+
+The two lecturers, as well as the rest of the party, were urgently
+entreated to stay to tea at the High School; but when the interest of the
+new arrival was explained, the sisters and brother were released to go
+home, Canon Harewood remaining to content their hostesses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII—ANGEL AND BEAR
+
+
+    “Enough of science and of art!
+       Close up those barren leaves,
+    Come forth, and bring with you a heart
+       That watches and receives.”
+
+                                                              —WORDSWORTH.
+
+A TELEGRAM had been handed to Mr. Mayor, which he kept to himself,
+smiling over it, and he—at least—was not taken utterly by surprise at the
+sight of a tall handsome man, who stepped forward with something like a
+shout.
+
+“Angel!  Lance!  Why, is it Robin, too?”
+
+“Bear, Bear, old Bear, how did you come?”
+
+“I couldn’t stop when I heard at Clipstone that Angel was here, so I left
+Phyllis and the kid with her mother.  Oh, Angel, Angel, to meet at Bexley
+after all!”
+
+They clung together almost as they had done when they were the riotous
+elements of the household, while Lance opened the front door, and Robina,
+mindful of appearances, impelled them into the hall, Bernard exclaiming,
+“Pratt’s room!  Whose teeth is it?”
+
+“Don’t you want Wilmet to hold your hands and make you open your mouth?”
+said Lance, laughing.
+
+Gertrude, who had already received the Indian arrival, met Angela, who
+was bounding up to see to her charge, with, “Not come in yet!  She is
+gone out with the children quite happily, with Awdrey’s doll in her arms.
+Come and enjoy each other in peace.”
+
+“In the office, please,” said Angela.  “That is home.  We shall be our
+four old selves.”
+
+Lance opened the office door, and gave a hint to Mr. Lamb, while they
+looked at each other by the fire.
+
+Bernard was by far the most altered.  The others were slightly changed,
+but still their “old selves,” while he was a grave responsible man,
+looking older than Lancelot, partly from the effects of climate; but
+Angela saw enough to make her exclaim, “Here we are!  Don’t you feel as
+if we were had down to Felix to be blown up?”
+
+“Not a bit altered,” said Bernard, looking at the desks and shelves of
+ledgers, with the photographs over the mantelpiece—Felix, Mr. Froggatt,
+the old foreman, and a print of Garofalo’s Vision of St. Augustine, hung
+up long ago by Felix, as Lance explained, as a token of the faith to
+which all human science and learning should be subordinated.
+
+“A declaration of the _Pursuivant_,” said Angela.  “How Fulbert did look
+out for _Pur_!  I believe it was his only literature.”
+
+“Phyllis declares,” said Bernard, “that nothing so upsets me as a failure
+in _Pur’s_ arrival.”
+
+“And this is _Pur’s_ heart and centre!” said Robina.
+
+“Only,” added Angela, “I miss the smell of burnt clay that used to
+pervade the place, and that Alda so hated.”
+
+“Happily the clay is used up,” said Lance.  “I could not have brought
+Gertrude and the children here if the ceramic art, as they call it, had
+not departed.  Cherry was so delighted at our coming to live here.  She
+loved the old struggling days.”
+
+“Fulbert said he never felt as if he had been at home till he came here.
+He never _took_ to Vale Leston.”
+
+“Clement and Cherry have settled in very happily,” said Robina, “with
+convalescent clergy in the Vicarage.”
+
+“I say, Angel, let us have a run over there,” cried Bernard, “you and I
+together, for a bit of mischief.”
+
+“Do, _do_ let us!  Though this is real home, our first waking to
+perception and naughtiness, it is more than Vale Leston.  We seem to have
+been up in a balloon all those five happy years.”
+
+“A balloon?” said Bernard.  “Nay, it seems to me that till they were
+over, I never thought at all except how to get the most rollicking and
+the finest rowing out of life.  It seems to me that I had about as much
+sense as a green monkey.”
+
+“Something sank in, though,” said Lance; “you did not drift off like poor
+Edgar.”
+
+“Some one must have done so,” said Angela.  “I wanted to ask you, Lancey,
+about advertising for my little Lena’s people; the Bishop said I ought.”
+
+“I say,” exclaimed Bernard, “was it her father that was Fulbert’s mate?
+I thought he was afraid of your taking up with him.  You didn’t?”
+
+“No, no.  Let me tell you, I want you to know.  Field and a little wife
+came over from Melbourne prospecting for a place to sit down in.  They
+had capital, but the poor wife was worn out and ill, and after taking
+them in for a night, Fulbert liked them.  Field was an educated man and a
+gentleman, and Ful offered them to stay there in partnership.  So they
+stayed, and by and by this child was born, and the poor mother died.  The
+two great bearded men came galloping over to Albertstown from
+Carrigaboola, with this new born baby, smaller than even Theodore was,
+and I had the care of her from the very first, and Field used to ride
+over and see the little thing.”
+
+“And—?” said Bernard, in a rather teasing voice, as his eyes actually
+looked at Angela’s left hand.
+
+“I’ll own it _did_ tempt me.  I had had some great disappointments with
+my native women, running wild again, and I could not bear my child having
+a horrid stepmother; and there was the glorious free bush life, and the
+horses and the sheep!  But then I thought of you all saying Angel had
+broken out again; and by and by Fulbert came and told me that he was sure
+there was some ugly mystery, and spoke to Mother Constance, and they made
+me promise not to take him unless it was cleared up.  Then, as you know,
+dear Ful’s horse fell with him; Field came and fetched me to their hut,
+and I was there to the last.  Ful told each of us again that all must be
+plain and explained before we thought of anything in the future.  He,
+Henry Field, said he had great hopes that he should be able to set it
+right.  Then, as you know, there was no saving dear Fulbert, and after
+that Mother Constance’s illness began.  Oh! Bear, do you recollect her
+coming in and mothering us in the little sitting-room?  I could not stir
+from her, of course, while she was with us.  And after that, Harry Field
+came and said he had written a letter to England, and when the answer
+came, he would tell me all, and I should judge!  But I don’t think the
+answer ever did come, and he went to Brisbane to see if it was at the
+bank; and there he caught a delirious fever, and there was an end of it!”
+
+At that moment something between a whine or a call of “sister” was heard.
+Up leapt Angela and hurried away, while Lance observed, “Well!  That’s
+averted, but I am sorry for her.”
+
+“It was not love,” said Robina.
+
+“Or only for the child,” said Bernard; “and that would have been a
+dangerous speculation.”
+
+“The child or something else has been very good for her,” said Lance; “I
+never saw her so gentle and quiet.”
+
+“And with the same charm about her as ever,” said Bernard.  “I don’t
+wonder that all the fellows fall in love with her.  I hope she won’t make
+havoc among Clement’s sick clergy.”
+
+“I suppose we ought to go up and fulfil the duties of society,” said
+Robina, rising.  “But first, Bear, tell me how is Phyllis?”
+
+“Pretty fair,” he answered.  “Resting with her mother, but she has never
+been quite the thing of late.  I almost hope Sir Ferdinand will see his
+way to keeping us at home, or we shall have to leave our little Lily.”
+
+Interruption occurred as a necessary summons to “Mr. Mayor,” and the
+paternal conclave was broken up, and had to adjourn to Gertrude’s tea in
+the old sitting-room.
+
+“I see!” exclaimed Agatha, as she looked at the party of children at
+their supplementary table.  “I see what the likeness is in that child.
+Don’t you, Dolores?  Is it not to Wilfred Merrifield?”
+
+“There is very apt to be a likeness between sandy people, begging your
+pardon, Angel,” said Gertrude.
+
+“Yes, the carroty strain is apt to crop up in families,” said Lance,
+“like golden tabbies, as you ladies call your stable cats.”
+
+“All the Mohuns are dark,” said Dolores, “and all Aunt Lily’s children,
+except Wilfred; and is not your Phyllis of that colour?”
+
+“Phyllis’s hair is not red, but dark auburn,” said Bernard, in a tone
+like offence.
+
+“I never saw Phyllis,” said dark-browed Dolores, “but I have heard the
+aunts talk over the source of the—the fair variety, and trace it to the
+Merrifields.  Uncle Jasper is brown, and so is Bessie; but Susan is, to
+put it politely, just a golden tabby, and David’s baby promises to be, to
+her great delight, as she says he will be a real Merrifield.  So much for
+family feeling!”
+
+“Sister, Sister!” came in a bright tone, “may I go with Pearl and get a
+stick for Ben?  He wants something to play with!  He is eating his
+perch.”
+
+Ben, it appeared, was the pink cockatoo, who was biting his perch with
+his hooked beak.  The children had finished their meal, and consent was
+given.  “Only, Lena, come here,” said Angela, fastening a silk
+handkerchief round her neck, and adding, “Don’t let Lena go on the dew,
+Pearl; she is not used to early English autumn, I must get her a pair of
+thicker boots.”
+
+“What is her name?” asked Agatha, catching the sound.
+
+“Magdalen Susanna.  Her father made a point of it, instead of his wife’s
+name, which, I think, was Caroline.”
+
+“I don’t think I ever knew a Magdalen except my own elder sister,” said
+Agatha, “and Susanna!  Did you say Miss Merrifield had a sister Susan?”
+
+“An excellent, sober-sided, dear old Susan!  Yes, Susanna was their
+mother’s name,” said Dolores “and now that you have put it into my head,
+little Lena, when she is animated, puts me more in mind of Bessie than
+even of Wilfred, though the colouring is different.  Why?”
+
+“Did you never hear,” said Agatha, “that there was one of the brothers
+who was a bad lot, and ran away.  My sister says Wilfred is like him.  I
+believe,” she added, “that he was her romance!”
+
+“Ha!” exclaimed Bernard, “that’s queer!  We had a clerk in the bank who
+gave his name as Meriton, and who cut and ran the very day he heard that
+Sir Jasper Merrifield was coming out as Commandant.  Yes, he was carroty.
+I rarely saw Wilfred at Clipstone, but this might very well have been the
+fellow, afraid to face his uncle.”
+
+Angela did not look delighted.  “She is not destitute, you know,” she
+said, “I am her guardian, and she will have about two hundred a year.”
+
+“Is there a will?” asked Lance.
+
+“Oh, yes, I have it upstairs!  It is all right.  It was at the bank at
+Brisbane, and they kept a copy.  I brought her because the Bishop said it
+was my duty to find out whether there were any relations.”
+
+“Certainly,” said Bernard.  “In our own case, remember what joy Travis’s
+letter was!”
+
+Angela was silent, and presently said, “You shall see the will when I
+have unpacked it, but there is no doubt about my being guardian.”
+
+“Probably not,” said Bernard, rather drily.
+
+“If it be a valid will, signed by his proper name,” said Lance.
+
+Whereupon the two brothers fell into a discussion on points of law, not
+unlike the editor of the _Pursuivant_, as he had become known to his
+family, but most unlike the Bernard they had known before his departure
+for the East.  At any rate it dissipated the emotional tone of the party;
+and by and by, when Bernard and Angela had agreed to make a bicycle rush
+to Minsterham the next day, “that is,” said Angela “if Lena is happy
+enough to spare me,” the Harewoods took leave.
+
+When the children had gone to bed, and Angela had stayed upstairs so long
+that Gertrude augured that she was waiting till her charge had gone to
+sleep, and that they should have no more of her henceforth but “Lena’s
+baulked stepmother,” she came down, bringing a document with her, which
+she displayed before her brothers.
+
+There was no question but that it was a will drawn up in due form, and
+very short, bequeathing his property at Carrigaboola, Queensland, to his
+daughter, Magdalen Susanna, and appointing Fulbert Underwood and Angela
+Margaret Underwood and “my brother Samuel” her guardian.  It was dated
+the year after his daughter’s birth, and was signed Henry Field, with a
+word interposed, which, as Lance said, might be anything, but was
+certainly the right length for the first syllables of Merrifield.
+Bernard looked at it, and declared it was, to the best of his belief, the
+same signature as his former clerk used to write.
+
+“And this,” he said, looking at the seal, “is the crest of the
+Merrifield’s—the demi lion.  I know it well on Sir Jasper’s seal ring.”
+
+“Have you nothing else, Angel?” asked Lance.
+
+“Here is the certificate of her baptism, but that will tell you nothing.”
+
+No more it did, it only called the child the daughter of Henry and
+Caroline Field, and the surname was omitted in the bequest.
+
+“Who was the mother?” asked Lance.
+
+“I never exactly knew.  Fulbert thought she had been a person whom Field
+had met in America or somewhere, and married in a hurry.  Fulbert said
+she was rather pretty, but she was a poor helpless, bewildered thing, and
+very poorly.  He wanted to bring her to Albertstown for fit help and
+nursing; but she cried so much at the idea of either horse or wagon over
+the-no-roads, that it was put off and off and she had only his shepherd’s
+housekeeper, so it was no wonder she did not live!  Field was dreadfully
+cut up, and blamed himself extremely for having given way to her; but it
+is as likely as not the journey would have been just as fatal.”
+
+“Poor thing!”
+
+“You never heard her surname?”
+
+“No, it did not signify.”
+
+“He did not name his child after her?”
+
+“No.  I remember Fulbert saying he supposed she should be called
+Caroline; and he exclaimed, ‘No, no, I always said it should be Magdalen
+and Susanna.’”
+
+“My sister’s name,” repeated Agatha.
+
+“And Susan Merrifield,” added Dolores.
+
+“But she is mine, mine!” cried Angela, with a tone like herself, of a
+sort of triumphant jealousy.  “They can’t take her away from me!”
+
+“Gently, Angela, my dear,” said Lance, in a tone so like Felix of old,
+that it almost startled her.  “Tell me what arrangement is this about the
+property.  Your share of Fulbert’s has never been taken out, I think?”
+
+“No, Macpherson, the purchaser, you know, of Fulbert’s share, pays me my
+amount out of it, and agreed to do the same by Lena.  I don’t think the
+value is quite what it used to be.  It rather went down under Field; but
+Macpherson is all there, and it has been a better season.  I could sell
+it all to him, hers and mine both; but I have thought how it would be, as
+it is her native country, and I have not parted with my own to go out
+again to Carrigaboola, and bring her up there.  I assure you I am up to
+it,” she added, meeting an amused look.  “I know a good deal more about
+sheep farming than either of you gentlemen.  I can ride anything but a
+buckjumper, and boss the shepherds, and I do love the life, no stifling
+in fields and copses!  I only wish you would come too, Bear; it would do
+you ever so much good to get a little red paint on those white banker’s
+hands of yours.”
+
+“Well done, sister Angel!”  And the brothers both burst out laughing.
+
+“But really,” proceeded Angela, “it is by far the best hope of keeping up
+Christianity among those hands.  Fulbert had a sort of little hut for a
+chapel, and once a month one of the clergy from Albertstown came over
+there; I used to ride with him when I could, and if I were there, I could
+keep a good deal going till the place is more peopled, and we can get a
+cleric.  It is a great opportunity, not to be thrown away.  I can catch
+those cockatoos better than a parson.  And there are the blacks.”
+
+The brothers had not the least doubt of it.  Angela was Angela still, for
+better or for worse.  Or was it for worse?  Yet she went up to bed
+chanting—
+
+    “His sister she went beyond the seas,
+    And died an old maid among black savagees.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII—WILLOW WIDOWS
+
+
+             “Set your heart at rest.
+    The fairyland buys not that child of me.”
+
+                                               —“MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.”
+
+AN expedition to Minsterham finished the visit of Dolores and her
+faithful “Nag,” whose abilities as an assistant were highly appreciated,
+and who came home brilliantly happy to keep her remaining holiday with
+Magdalen; while Dolores repaired to Clipstone.  Bernard had been obliged
+to go to London, to report himself to Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood, but
+his wife and little girl were the reigning joy at Clipstone.  Phyllis
+looked very white, much changed from the buxom girl who had gone out with
+her father two years ago.  She had never recovered the loss of the little
+boy, and suffered the more from her husband’s inability to bear
+expression, and it was an immense comfort to her to speak freely of her
+little one to her mother.
+
+The little Lilias looked frail, but was healthy, happy, and as advanced
+as a well-trained companion child of six could well be, and the darling
+of the young aunts, who expected Dolores to echo their raptures, and
+declare the infinite superiority of the Ceylonese to “that little
+cornstalk,” as Valetta said.
+
+“There’s no difficulty as to that,” said Dolores, laughing.  “The poor
+little cornstalk looks as if she had grown up under a blight.”
+
+“It is a grand romance though,” said Mysie; “only I wish that Cousin
+Harry had had any constancy in him.”
+
+“I wonder if Magdalen will adopt her!” was Valetta’s bold suggestion.
+
+“Poor Magdalen has had quite adopting enough to do,” said Mysie.
+
+“Besides,” said Dolores, “Sister Angela will never let her go.  And
+certainly I never saw any one more _taking_ than Sister Angela.  She is
+so full of life, and of a certain unexpectedness, and one knows she has
+done such noble work.  I want to see more of her.”
+
+“You will,” said Mysie.  “Mamma is going to ask her to come, for Phyllis
+says there is no one that Bernard cares for so much.  She was his own
+companion sister.”
+
+“Magdalen might have the little cornstalk,” said Valetta.
+
+“Well,” said Mysie, “it is rather funny to have two—what shall I
+say?—willow widows, and a child that is neither of theirs!  How will they
+settle it?”
+
+Magdalen had heard from Agatha on the first evening of the arrival of the
+sister, and the probability of the identification of little Lena’s father
+with the Henry Merrifield of her former years, and she was deeply touched
+by the bestowal of her name—so much that Nag avoided saying more, but
+only kissed her and went to bed.
+
+The Merrifields discussed the subject dispassionately.
+
+Sir Jasper recollected what his brother had written to him of his
+anxieties and disappointment in his son Henry, and of his absconding from
+Manitoba, since which time all trace of him had been lost, except in the
+restoration to the two brothers in Canada.  To the surprise and
+indignation of Sir Jasper, there had been no attempt to follow it up.
+
+“If my poor brother Edgar had done anything of the kind,” said Bernard,
+“none of us would have rested.”
+
+So far as they could put recollections together this act of restitution
+must have been made soon after the connection with Fulbert Underwood
+began, perhaps at the time of the wife’s death.  If there had been
+another letter, as Sister Angela thought, it was more recent, certainly
+within the last two years.
+
+Captain Samuel Merrifield, of Stokesley, had been on a voyage for four
+years, and had not long been at home.  His wife had been charged with the
+forwarding of the letters that she thought of immediate interest, and
+there was an accumulation of those that had been left for his return, as
+yet not looked over.
+
+Of course, Sir Jasper impelled him to plunge into these, and by and by
+one came to light, which Mrs. Merrifield had taken “for only some
+Australian gold mines,” and left to wait, especially as it was directed
+to his father instead of himself.
+
+It was a letter full of repentance, and entreaties for forgiveness,
+describing in part poor Henry’s past life, and adding that the best thing
+that had ever befallen him was his association with “such a fellow as
+Underwood.”
+
+It was to be gathered that Fulbert’s uprightness of mind had led him to
+the first impulse of restitution, and he went on to mention his first
+hasty marriage and the loss of his wife, with the kindness of the
+Carrigaboola Sisterhood; above all, of Sister Angela, and declaring his
+love and admiration for her, and his sense that she was the one person
+who could keep him straight now that her brother was gone.
+
+He had more than once offered to her, but he found that her brother had
+solemnly charged her not to accept him till he had made all his past
+clear before her, and could show her that he was acknowledged by his
+family, and had his father’s forgiveness, and for this he humbly craved,
+as one deeply sensible of his own demerits.
+
+It was piteous to think of the poor fellow waiting and hoping for an
+answer to such a letter as this, and dying without one, while all the
+time it was lying unread in the Captain’s desk, and no one even knew of
+the changed life and fresh hopes.  Sir Jasper was much moved by it; but
+Sam said, “Ay, ay! poor Harry always was a plausible fellow!” and his
+wife was chiefly concerned to show that the suppression was not by her
+fault.  Sir Jasper had brought the will with him, and the certificate of
+the child’s baptism.
+
+Both were met with a little hesitation.  So little had been said in the
+letter about the marriage that the Captain wanted to know more, and also
+whether the will had been properly proved in Australia, and whether it
+had force in England.  In that case he was surely the right person to
+have the custody of his brother’s child.  His wife, who had been bred up
+in a different school, was not by any means satisfied that she should be
+consigned to a member of a Sisterhood.
+
+David came to Stokesley, saw the letter, and agreed with his brother on
+the expediency of obtaining full proof of the validity of the will in
+both Queensland and England, and put in hand the writing of inquiries for
+the purpose, from the legal authorities at Brisbane, for which purpose
+Angela had to be consulted.
+
+She had been (having left the budgerigars to the delight of Pearl and
+Awdrey), in the meantime, at Vale Leston, enjoying the atmosphere of
+peace that prevailed wherever were Clement and Geraldine, and hailed with
+delight by all her old village friends, as well as Lady Vanderkist and
+her somewhat thinned flock.
+
+She won Adrian’s heart by skating or golfing with him, and even, on one
+or two hunting days, joining in his pursuit of the chase, being
+altogether, as he said, ever so much better a fellow than even his
+youngest sister Joan, and entrancing them all with tales of kangaroos.
+Lena had really a tame kangaroo at Carrigaboola.  Oh, why did they not
+bring it home as well as Ben, the polly?  She quite pined for it, and had
+tears in her eyes when it was spoken of.
+
+Indeed the joyous young Vanderkists were too much for the delicate little
+girl, and sorry as Angela was to leave Vale Leston, she was not
+ungrateful for an invitation to the Goyle, where there was more room for
+them than at Clipstone in the holidays, and with the Bernard Underwoods
+making it their headquarters.
+
+Lena and she were much better and happier with “Sister” always at her
+service, and Paula and Thekla were delighted to amuse her.  Paula was in
+a state of delight with Sister Angela, only a little puzzled by the
+irregularity of her course, though it was carefully explained that she
+had never been under any vows.  To hear of her doings among the
+Australian women was a romance, often as there had been disappointment.
+“Paula is a born Sister,” said Angela, “a much truer one than I have ever
+been, for there does not seem to be any demon of waywardness to drive her
+wild.”
+
+These talks with Magdalen, often prolonged hours after the young people
+had gone to bed, were a great solace to both the elders.  Girls like
+Mysie Merrifield and Phyllis Devereux thought sitting up to converse a
+propensity peculiar to themselves, and to their own age, of new
+experiences and speculations; but the two “old girls,” whose experiences
+were not new, and whose speculations had a certain material foundation,
+they were equally fascinating.
+
+There were no small jealousies in either of them—“willow widows”—though
+Mysie’s name stuck.  There was nothing but comfort to Magdalen in the
+certainty of the ultimate “coming home” of one who had finished a
+delusive dream of her younger days, and been yearned after with a
+heartache now quenched; and Angela, who had never been the least in love
+with Henry Merrifield, could quite afford her interest in the scanty
+records of his younger days, and fill up all she knew of the measure of
+the latter and better days.  There was another bond, for Mrs. Best’s
+daughter was, “as distances go,” a neighbour to Carrigaboola, and
+resorted thither on great occasions.
+
+Angela’s vision began to be, to take Magdalen and her sisters out to
+Carrigaboola, where a superior school for colonists’ daughters was much
+needed, and where Paula might enter the Sisterhood.  She longed all the
+more when she saw how much better Magdalen could deal with Lena as to
+teaching and restraint than she could.  The child was very backward, and
+could hardly read words of one syllable, though she knew any amount of
+Scripture history and legends of Saints, and was very fairly intelligent;
+but though she was devoted to “Sister,” always hanging on her, and never
+quite happy when out of sight of her, she had hardly any notion of prompt
+obedience or of giving up her own way.
+
+Angela’s visit to Vale Leston had been partly spoilt by the little girl’s
+fretful worry at the elder children, and by the somewhat uncalled for
+fears that all the Vanderkists were hard on the poor little colonial
+damsel; but whether it was the air of Rock Quay, or the quiet influence
+of Miss Prescott, Lena certainly improved in health at the Goyle, and was
+much more amenable, and less rudely shy.  But her guardian trembled at
+hearing that, pending Captain Merrifield’s correspondence with Brisbane,
+the sisters, Susan and Elizabeth, were coming to Miss Mohun’s to see
+their niece, there being no room for them at Clipstone.
+
+They came—Susan, plump, comfortable and good-natured looking, as like an
+apricot as ever, with an air many years more than three above her sister
+Bessie, who as ever was brisk and bright, scarcely middle aged in face,
+dress or demeanour.  They arrived too late for visiting, and only dined
+at Clipstone to be introduced to Bernard Underwood, and see their cousin
+Phyllis, whom they had once met when all were small children.  Dolores
+was much amused, as she told her Aunt Jane, to see how gratified they
+were at the “sanguine” colouring of Phyllis and Wilfred, quite
+Merrifields, they said, though Phyllis with auburn eyes and hair was far
+handsomer than any other of the clan had ever been; and Wilfred had
+simply commonplace carrots and freckles.
+
+“The fun is,” said Jane, “to remember how some of us Mohuns have sighed
+at Lily’s having any yellow children, and, till we saw Stokesley
+specimens, wondering where the strain came from!  As if it signified!”
+
+“It does in some degree,” said Dolores; “something hereditary goes with
+the complexion.”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Jane.  “I believe too much is made in these days of
+heredity, and by those who believe least in the Bible indications on the
+effect, forgetting the counteracting grace.”
+
+“Well,” said Dolores, “Wilfred was always a _bête noire_ to me—no, not
+_noire_—in my younger days, and I can’t help being glad he is not of our
+strain!  Though you know the likeness was the first step to identifying
+that poor little girl.”
+
+“Poor child!  I am afraid she will be a bone of contention.”
+
+The two aunts were at Clipstone early; and might be satisfied with the
+true Merrifield tints of Magdalen Susanna, but perhaps she had been over
+much warned to be gracious, for the very contrary was the effect.  She
+had been very civil to her great-aunt Lilias, and had allowed both her
+uncles to take her up in their arms; but she retreated upon Angela,
+planted an elbow on the well-known lap, turned her back, and put a skinny
+little finger in her mouth by way of answer to Susan’s advances, advances
+which had hardly ever before been repelled even by the most untamable of
+infants.
+
+Angela tried to coax, lift her up and turn her round; but this only led
+to the shoulder being the hiding-place, and it might be suspected that
+there was a lurking perception that these strangers asserted a closer
+claim than the beloved “Sister.”  She would not even respond to Susan’s
+doll or Bessie’s picture book; and Bessie advised leaving her alone, and
+turned to the window with Agatha, who was nothing loth to tell of her
+Bexley and Minsterham experiences.
+
+Angela tried to talk about the voyage, or any thing that might save the
+child from being discussed or courted; but Susan’s heart was in the
+subject, and she had not enough tact or knowledge of the world to turn
+away from it.  Regret for the past was strong within her, and she could
+not keep from asking how much “little Magdalen” (at full length)
+remembered of her father, how much she had been with him, whether he had
+much altered, whether there were a photograph of him, and a great deal
+more, with tears in her eyes and a trembling in her voice which made
+Angela feel much for her, even while vexed at her pertinacity, for the
+child was by no means the baby she looked like, but perfectly well able
+to listen and understand, and this consciousness made her own
+communications much briefer and more reserved than otherwise they would
+have been.
+
+Bessie, with more perception, saw the embarrassment, turned round from
+Agatha, went up to the cockatoo in his cage, and asked in a pleasant
+voice if Magdalen would show him to her, and tell her his name.  Angela
+was glad enough to break off poor Susan’s questioning, and come forward,
+with the child still clinging, to incite the bird to display the rose
+colour under his crest, put up a grey claw to shake hands, and show off
+his vocabulary, laughing herself and acting merriment as she did so, in
+hopes to inspire Lena.
+
+“Come, Ben, tell how you were picked up under a gum tree, quite a baby, a
+little grey ball, and brought over in the shepherd’s pocket for a present
+to the little Boss, and how we fed you and nursed you till you turned all
+rose-colour and lovely!  There! put up your crest and make red
+revelations.  Can’t you speak?  Fetch him a banana, Lena.  That will open
+his mouth.”
+
+At sight of the banana, the bird put his head on one side and croaked in
+a hoarse whisper, “Yo ho!”
+
+“No, you need not be afraid of any more sailors’ language,” said Angela.
+“They were as careful as possible on board.  I overheard once, ‘Hold
+hard, Tom, Polly Pink is up there, and she’s a regular lady born!”
+
+Whereupon Polly indulged in a ridiculous chuckle, holding the banana
+cleverly in one foot, while Angela laughed and chattered more and more
+nervously, but only succeeded in disgusting the visitors by what Susan at
+least took for unbecoming flippancy.
+
+“_That_ Sister,” said Susan, as they drove away, “does not seem to me at
+all the person to have the charge of Henry’s poor little girl!”
+
+“I wish she had not thrust herself in,” said Bessie, “to prevent me from
+getting on with the child over the cockatoo.”
+
+“She calls herself a Sister!  I don’t understand it, for she seems to
+have been bent on marrying poor Henry.”
+
+“She never took any vows.”
+
+“Then why does she wear a ridiculous cap over all that hair?”
+
+By and by they were met by Bernard Underwood striding along.  “Holloa!
+have you seen Angel and her darling?  She is a perfect slave to the
+little thing, and one only gets fragments of her.”
+
+“She seems very fond of her,” said Bessie.
+
+“Just kept her alive, you see.  Poor old Angel!  She is all for one thing
+at a time!  Are you going up to Clipstone?”
+
+“I think we shall find Phyllis at Beechcroft.”
+
+“Yes, she is driving there to lunch, and Angel is to bring the little
+cornstalk over to make friends with our Lily!  I trust the creature goes
+to sleep now, and I may get a word out of Angel!”  Wherewith he dashed
+on, and the two ladies agreed that “those Underwoods seemed to be
+curiously impulsive.”
+
+They were, however, much better satisfied with the Ceylonese Lily, who
+was a very well trained civilised specimen, conversing very prettily over
+one of Aunt Jane’s picture books, which Bessie looked at with her, and
+showing herself fully able to read the titles beneath, a feat of which
+Lena was quite incapable, though she was less on the defensive than she
+had shown herself at the Goyle, and Angela was far more at her ease than
+when she was conscious that “Field’s” original love was watching the
+introduction to his sisters.  Besides, Bernard’s presence was sunshine to
+her, and the two expanded into bright reminiscences and merry comparisons
+of their two lives, absolutely delightful to themselves, and to Phyllis
+and her Aunt Jane, and which would have been the same to Elizabeth, if
+she had not been worried at Susan’s evident misunderstanding of—and
+displeasure at—the quips and cranks of the happy brother and sister; also
+she was bent on promoting an intercourse between Lily and Lena, over the
+doll she had brought for the former.  She was a little hurt that Lena had
+not been accompanied by the blue-eyed article with preposterously long
+eyelashes that had been bestowed on her at the Goyle; but the little
+Australian had no opinion of dolls, and had let the one bought for her at
+Sydney be thrown overboard by the ship’s monkey.
+
+“That was cruel!” said Lily, fondling her black-eyed specimen.
+
+“She could not feel,” reasoned Lena, with contempt.
+
+“I don’t know,” said Lily, knitting her brows.  “It’s not _all_ make
+believe!  I do love my Rosamunda Rowena, and she loves me, and I shall
+tell her not to be jealous of this dear Betsinda.  For, do you know, when
+Rosamunda was ill in the Red Sea, father carried her up and down on deck,
+and made her a dear little deck chair.”
+
+“But she is not alive.  She _couldn’t_ be,” sighed Lena.  “I like my Ben
+and my kangaroo!  Oh, I do want to go back to my kangaroo!”
+
+“And does Lily want to go back to her riki-tiki?” asked Lily’s father,
+lifting a little girl on each knee, so that they might be _vis-à-vis_,
+when certainly his own had the advantage in beauty, as she answered,
+leaning against him, “Granny’s better than riki-tiki!”
+
+For which pretty speech some of the ladies gave her much credit; but her
+father, with a tender arm round her, said, “Ah! you are a sentimental
+little pussy-cat!  Is anything here as good as Carrigaboola?  Eh, Lena?”
+
+But Lena resolutely shook her carrots; but kept silence, while Bernard
+turned over the leaves of a great book of natural history, till as a page
+was displayed with a large kangaroo under a blue-gum tree, with a yellow
+wattle tree beside him, her lips quivered, her face puckered, and she
+burst into an uncontrollable fit of crying; “Oh!  I want to go home,
+home!  Sister, Sister, take me home!”
+
+Angela was in a minute beside her, took her within loving arms, and
+carried her off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV—CRUEL LAWYERS
+
+
+    “Tender companions of our serious days,
+       Who colour with your kisses, smiles and tears,
+    Life’s worn web woven over wasted ways.”
+
+                                                                  —LOWELL.
+
+THERE was a good deal of worry and anxiety for some little time, while
+correspondence was going on about Henry Merrifield’s will, and in the
+meantime Angela decided to board with Miss Prescott, since her charge was
+certainly much better in health there; and besides, as Mrs. Bernard
+Merrifield was naturally at Clipstone, it became the head quarters of her
+husband, though he made many excursions to his own people, and on
+business affairs to Sir Ferdinand Travis Underwood in London.
+
+And Clipstone suited him well for his holiday.  Sir Jasper had, of
+course, a certain amount of intercourse with the garrison at Avoncester,
+and the officers stationed there at present had already some acquaintance
+with Bernard Underwood, who was known to be a champion in Ceylon in all
+athletic sports, especially polo and cricket.  Tall and well made, he had
+been devoted to all such games in his youth, and they had kept up his
+health in his sedentary occupation.  Now, in his leisure time, his
+prowess did much to efface the fame of the much younger and slighter
+Alexis White, and, so far as might be, Angela enjoyed the games with him,
+keeping well within bounds, but always feeling activity a wholesome
+outlet for her superfluous strength, and, above all, delighting in an
+interval of being a child again with her Bear of old times; and her
+superabundant life, energy, and fun amazed all, especially by the
+contrast with her poor little languid charge, who seemed, as Jane Mohun
+said, centuries older.
+
+The Merrifield lads were also devoted to him.  Even Fergus was somewhat
+distracted from his allegiance to Dolores and her experiments, and in the
+very few days that Christmas afforded for skating, could think of nothing
+else.
+
+And as to Wilfred, his whole mind seemed to be set on sports, and marble
+works to be only an incident thrown in.  Bernard, whom he followed
+assiduously, and who took him to Avoncester, and introduced him to young
+officers, began to have doubts whether he had done wisely.  Bernard had,
+in his time, vexed Felix’s soul by idleness and amusement, but he had
+been one betted upon, not himself given to betting.  He loved football
+and cricket for their bodily excitement, not the fictitious one of a
+looker on, or reader of papers, and it struck him that Wilfred knew a
+good deal too much about this more dangerous side of races and athletics.
+
+He said so to Angela, and she answered, “Oh, nonsense!  Young men are out
+of it if they don’t know the winning horse.  Even _Pur_ had to be up to
+the Derby.”
+
+And Angela had her own bitter trial in the decision of the lawyers.  Not
+only was the signature of the will unsatisfactory, from the confusion
+between Field and Merrifield, but the two witnesses failed to be traced,
+John Shepherd and George Jones were not to be identified, and though
+Brisbane might accept wills easily, an English court of law required more
+certainty.  The little daughter being the only child and natural heiress,
+this was not felt to be doing her any injury; but the decision deprived
+her of the guardian her father had chosen, and Angela was in despair.
+She was ready to write to the _Pursuivant_, to the Bishop of Albertstown,
+to the Lord Chancellor, with an exposition of the wicked injustice and
+hardness of heart of lawyers, and the inexpedience of taking the poor
+child from her earliest motherly friend, expressly chosen by her father.
+All Bernard’s common sense and Magdalen’s soothing were needed to make
+her hold her peace, when correspondence made it plain that the
+guardianship being assumed by the uncles, Captain Merrifield would not
+hear for a moment of the scheme of taking the child out to Carrigaboola.
+In his opinion, and his sister Susan’s, the only fit thing to be done
+with her was to place her with the two aunts at Coalham to be educated.
+He came down to Rock Quay to inspect her.  It was a cold, raw day, with
+the moors wrapped in mist, and the poor little maid looked small, peaky
+and pinched.  He was sure that the dry winds of the north were what she
+needed, wanted to carry her off immediately, and looked regardless of
+Angela’s opinion, though backed by Miss Prescott, that it would be highly
+dangerous to take the delicate child of a semi-tropical climate off in
+the depth of winter to a northerly town.  Angela walked off to ask Dr.
+Dagger to inspect the child and give his opinion, while Captain Sam
+repaired to Clipstone to visit his relations and lunch with them.
+
+He did not meet with all the sympathy he expected.  Lady Merrifield said
+that Coalham had not agreed with her own son Harry, and that little Lena
+ought not to be taken there till after the cold winds of spring were
+over; and her daughters all chimed in with a declaration that Angela
+Underwood was perfectly devoted to the little one, and that no one else
+could make her happy.
+
+“Petting her! spoiling her!” scoffed the Captain.  “Why, Susan and Bessie
+were full of the contrast with your little girl.”
+
+“Health,” began Phyllis.
+
+“An Indian child too!” he went on.  “Just showing what a little good
+sense in the training can do!  No, indeed!  Since I am to be her
+guardian, I have no notion of swerving from my duty, and letting poor
+Hal’s child be bred up to Sisterhoods and all that flummery.”
+
+“It will just break Angela’s heart,” cried Valetta, with tears in her
+eyes, at which the Captain looked contemptuous.
+
+“I must say,” added Bernard, “that I should think it little short of
+murderous to take that unlucky child from the one woman who understands
+her up into the bleak north at this time of year.”
+
+“Decidedly!” added Sir Jasper.  “Miss Underwood deserves every
+consideration in dealing with the child who has been always her sole
+charge.”
+
+Wherewith he changed the conversation by a question about Stokesley; but
+he held to his dictum when alone with his nephew, and as he was the only
+person for whose opinion Captain Sam had any respect, it had its effect,
+though there was a sense that he might be biassed by his son-in-law and
+his herd of womanfolk, and that he did not partake Mrs. Samuel
+Merrifield’s dislike to the very name of Sister or of anything not
+commonplace.
+
+Angela obtained Dr. Dagger’s opinion to reinforce her own and Lady
+Merrifield’s, and the Captain was obliged to give way so far as to
+consent to Magdalen, as he insisted on calling her, being allowed to
+remain at Arnscombe till after Easter, when her aunts were to fetch her
+to Coalham, there to send her to the kindergarten.
+
+After Angela’s period of raging against law and lawyers and all the
+Stokesley family, and being on the verge of impertinence to Captain
+Merrifield, she submitted to the prospect more quietly than her friends
+had dared to hope.  Lance had almost expected her to deport her charge,
+parrot and all, suddenly and secretly by an Australian liner, and had
+advised Bernard, on a fleeting meeting at Bexley, to be on his guard if
+she hinted at anything so preposterous; but Bernard shook his head, and
+said Angel was more to be trusted than her elders thought.  “Waves and
+storms don’t go over us for nothing, I hope,” he said.
+
+And he found himself right on his return.  Angela had bowed her head to
+the inevitable, and was quietly trying to prepare her little charge for
+the change, accustoming her to more discipline and less petting.  When
+Angela proposed to walk over to Clipstone with her brother on his return,
+and the whine was set up, “Let me go, Sister,” it was answered, “No, my
+dear, it is too far for you.  You must stay and walk with Paula.”
+
+“I want to go with Sister.”
+
+“You must be a good child, and do as Sister tells you.  No, I can’t have
+any fretting.  Paula will show you how to drive your hoop.  Keep her
+moving fast, Paula, don’t let her fret and get cold.”
+
+And Angela actually detached the clinging hand, and put it into
+Paulina’s, and, holding up her finger, silenced the burst of weeping,
+though tears sprang to her own eyes as she resolutely turned away, and,
+after running out and shutting the back gate after her, put her arm with
+a clinging gesture into Bernard’s.
+
+“That’s right!” he said, pressing her hand.
+
+“Cruel,” she said, “but better by and by for her.  Oh, Bear, if one could
+but learn to lie still and say, ‘Thou didst it,’ when it is human agency
+that takes away the desire of one’s eyes with a stroke.”
+
+“The desire of thine eyes!” repeated Bernard.  “How often I thought of
+that last February.”
+
+It was the only time he had referred to the loss of his little boy.  His
+wife had told her mother that he could not bear to mention it, and had
+poured out all her own feelings of sorrow and her struggle for
+cheerfulness and resignation alone with her or with Mysie; but he had
+shrunk from the least allusion to the little two year old Felix, who
+slept beneath a palm tree at Colombo.
+
+Now, however, still holding his sister’s hand, he drifted into all the
+particulars of the little ways, the baby language, the dawning
+understanding, and the very sudden sharp illness carrying the beautiful
+boy away almost before they were aware of danger; and he took out the
+photograph from his breast, and showed her the little face, so recalling
+old fond remembrances.  “Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead,”
+he repeated.  “Yes, the boy is saved the wear and tear and heat and
+burthen of the day, but it is very hard to be thankful.”
+
+“Ah, and it is all the harder if you have to leave your Lily.”
+
+“If—yes; but Travis _may_ so arrange that we can stay, or I make only one
+voyage out to settle matters and then come home for good.  If you are
+still bent on Carrigaboola you might come as far as Frisco with me.  I
+may have to go there about the Californian affairs.”
+
+“That would be jolly.  Yes, I think it will clench the matter, for I
+believe I am of more good at Carriga than anywhere else, though the heart
+of it is taken out of it for me; but one lives on and gets on somehow
+without a heart, or a heart set where I suppose it ought not to be
+entirely at least!  And, indeed, I think that little one taught me better
+than ever before how to love.”
+
+“That’s what the creatures are sent us for,” said Bernard, in a low
+voice.  “And here are, looming in the distance, all the posse of girls to
+meet us.”
+
+“Ah-h!” breathed Angela, withdrawing her arm.  “Well, Bear, you have
+given me something to look forward to, whether it comes to anything or
+not.  It will help me to be thankful.  I know they are good people, and
+the child will do well when once the pining and bracing are over.  They
+are her own people, and it is right.”
+
+“Right you are, Angel!” said Bernard, with a fresh squeeze of the hand,
+as he resumed his own cheerful, resolute voice ere joining his
+sisters-in-law.
+
+“What!  Angela without her satellite!” cried Primrose.
+
+“Too far,” murmured Angela; but Mysie tried to hush her sister,
+perceiving the weaning process, and respecting Angela for it.
+
+And the next moment Angela was challenging Bernard to a game at golf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV—BEAR AS ADVISER
+
+
+    “Weary soul and burthened sore
+    Labouring with thy secret load.”
+
+                                                                   —KEBLE.
+
+THE early spring brought a new development.  Thekla, who attended classes
+at the High School, came home with unmistakable tokens of measles, and
+Primrose did the same, in common with most of their contemporaries at
+Rockstone.  Nor was there any chance that either Lily Underwood at
+Clipstone or Lena Merrifield at the Goyle would escape; indeed, they both
+showed an amount of discomfort that made it safer to keep them where they
+were, than to try to escape in the sharp east wind and frost.
+
+No one was much dismayed at what all regarded as a trifling ailment, even
+if dignified as German.  Angela owned that she regarded it as a relief,
+since infection might last till the summer, and the only person who
+was—as he owned—trying to laugh at himself with Angela, was Bernard, who
+could not keep out of his mind’s eye a little grave at Colombo.  As he
+walked home, at the turning he saw a figure wearily toiling upwards,
+which proved to be Wilfred.  “Holloa! you are at home early!”
+
+“I had an intolerable headache!”
+
+“Measles, eh?”
+
+“No such thing!  Once when I was a kid in Malta.  But I say, Bear,” he
+added, coming up with quickened pace, “you could do me no end of a favour
+if you would advance me twenty pounds.”
+
+“Whew!” Bernard whistled.
+
+“There is Lady Day coming, and I can pay you then—most assuredly.”  And
+an asseveration or two was beginning.
+
+“Twenty pounds don’t fly promiscuously about the country,” muttered
+Bernard, chiefly for the sake of giving himself time.
+
+“But I tell you I shall have a quarter from the works, and a quarter from
+my father (with his hand to his head).  That’s—that’s—.  Awful skinflints
+both of them!  How is a man to do, so cramped up as that?”
+
+“Oh! and how is a man to do if he spends it all beforehand?”
+
+“I tell you, Bernard, I must have it, or—or it will break my mother’s
+heart!  And as to my father, I’d—I’d cut my throat—I’d go to sea before
+he knew!  Advance it to me, Bear!  You know what it is to be in an awful
+scrape.  Get me through this once and I’ll never—”
+
+Bernard did not observe that the scrape of his boyhood over the drowned
+Stingo had hardly been of the magnitude that besought for twenty pounds.
+He waived the personal appeal, and asked, “What is the scrape?”
+
+“Why, that intolerable swindler and ruffian, Hart, deceived me about
+Racket, and—”
+
+“A horse at Avoncester?” said Bernard, light beginning to dawn on him.
+
+“I made sure it was the only way out of it all, and they said Racket was
+as sure as death, and now the brute has come in third.  Hart swears there
+was foul play, but what’s that to me?  I’m done for unless you will help
+me over.”
+
+“If it is a betting debt, the only safe way is to have it out with your
+father, and have done with it.”
+
+“You don’t know what my father is!  Just made of iron.  You might as well
+put your hand under a Nasmyth’s hammer.”  And as he saw that his hearer
+was unconvinced, “Besides, it is ever so much more than what I put upon
+Racket!  That was only the way out of it!  It is all up with me if he
+hears of it.  You might as well pitch me over the cliff at once!”
+
+“Well, what is it then?”
+
+Incoherently, Wilfred stammered out what Bernard understood at last to
+mean that he had got into the habit of betting at the billiard table,
+surreptitiously kept up in Ivinghoe Terrace in a house of Richard
+White’s, not for any excessive sums, and with luck at first on his side
+than otherwise; but at last he had become involved for a sum not in
+itself very terrible to elder years, and his creditor was in great dread
+of pressure from his employers, and insisted on payment.  Wilfred, who
+seemed to have a mortal terror of his father, beyond what Bernard could
+understand, had been unable to believe that the offence for so slight a
+sum might be forgiven if voluntarily confessed, had done the worst thing
+he could, he had paid the debt with a cheque which had, unfortunately,
+passed through his hands at the office, trusting in a few days to recover
+the amount by a bet upon the horse, in full security of success!  And
+now!
+
+Before the predicament was made clear, Wilfred reeled, and would have
+fallen if Bernard had not supported him, and he mumbled something about
+giddiness and dazzling, insisting at the same time that it was nothing
+but the miserable pickle, and that if Bernard would not see him out of
+it, he might as well let him lie there and have done with it.
+
+Happily they were in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, and it was
+possible to get him into the hall before he entirely collapsed upon a
+chair; but seeming to recover fresh vigour from alarm at the sound of
+voices, he rushed at the stairs and dashed up rapidly the two flights to
+his own room, only throwing back the words, “Dead secret, mind!”
+
+Bernard was glad to have made no promise, and, indeed, Wilfred’s physical
+condition chiefly occupied him at the moment, for one or two of the girls
+were hurrying in, asking what was the matter, and at the answer, “He is
+gone up to his room with a bad headache,” Valetta declared with
+satisfaction, “Then he has got it!  We told him so!  But he would go to
+the office! and, Bernard, so has Lily.”
+
+“Pleasing information!” said Bernard, nettled and amused at the tone of
+triumph, while Mysie, throwing behind her the words, “It may be nothing,”
+went off to call Mrs. Halfpenny, who was in a state of importance and
+something very like pleasure.  Bernard strode up to his wife’s room,
+leaving Valetta half-way in her exposition that when all the family had
+been laid low by measles at Malta, Wilfred had been a very young infant,
+and it had always been doubtful whether he had been franked or not; and
+how he had been reproached with looking ill in the morning, but had
+fiercely insisted on going down to the office, which he was usually glad
+to avoid on any excuse.
+
+By the time the household met at dinner, it was plain that they had to
+resign themselves to being an infected family, though there were not many
+probable victims, and they were likely only to have the disorder
+favourably, with the exception of Wilfred, who had evidently got a severe
+chill, and could only be reported as very ill, though still he vehemently
+resented any suspicion of being subject to such a babyish complaint.  But
+when the break up for the night was just over, Lady Merrifield came in
+search of Bernard, entreating him to come to speak to Wilfred, who was
+more and more feverish, almost light-headed, and insisting that he must
+speak to Bear, “Bear had not promised,” reiterating the summons, so that
+there was no choice but to comply with it.
+
+He found Wilfred flushed with fever, and violently restless, starting up
+in bed as he entered, and crying out, “Bear, Bear, will you? will you?
+You did not promise!”
+
+“I will see about it!  Lie down now!  There’s nothing to be done
+to-night.”
+
+“But promise! promise!  And not a word!”
+
+All this was reiterated till Wilfred at last was exhausted for the time,
+and to a certain degree pacified by the reassuring voice in which Bernard
+soothed him and undertook to take the matter in hand, hardly knowing what
+he undertook, and only feeling the necessity of quieting the perilous
+excitement, and of helping the mother to bring a certain amount of
+tranquillity.
+
+His own little girl was going on well, and quite capable of being amused
+in the morning by being compared to a lobster or a tiger lily; and
+Primrose was reported in an equally satisfactory state, ready either for
+sleep or continuous reading by her sisters.  Only Wilfred was in the
+same, or a more anxious, state of fever; and as soon as Bernard had
+satisfied himself that there was no special use in his remaining in the
+house, he set out for the marble works office, having made up his mind as
+to one part of what he had expressed as “seeing about it.”
+
+He had hardly turned into the Cliffe road before he met Captain Henderson
+walking up, and they exchanged distant inquiries and answers as to
+whether each might be thought dangerous to the other’s home; after which
+they forgathered, and compared notes as to invalids.  The Captain had
+heard of Wilfred’s going home ill, and was coming, he said, to inquire.
+
+“He seems very seriously ill,” was the answer.  “I imagine there has been
+a chill, and a check.  I was coming to speak to you about him.”
+
+“He has spoken to you?”
+
+Both could now consult freely.  “It is a very anxious matter—not so much
+for the actual amount as for the habits that it shows.”
+
+“The amount?  Oh, I have made up that as regards the firm.  I could not
+let it come before Sir Jasper, especially in the present state of things!
+I meant to give the young chap a desperate fright and rowing, but that
+will have to be deferred.”
+
+“You must let me take it!”
+
+“No, no.  Remember, Sir Jasper was my commanding officer, and I and my
+wife owe everything to him.  I could supply the amount, so that no one
+would guess from the accounts that anything had been amiss.”
+
+Bernard could hardly allow himself to be thus relieved, but there was the
+comfort of knowing that Wilfred’s name was safe, and that the unstained
+family honour would not have to suffer shame.  Still the other debts
+remained, of which Captain Henderson had been only vaguely suspicious,
+till the two took counsel on them.  Wilfred had not given up the name of
+the person for whom he had meant to borrow from the office; but Captain
+Henderson had very little doubt who it was, and it was agreed that he
+should receive the amount through a cheque of Bernard on Brown and Travis
+Underwood, from Captain Henderson’s hands, with a scathing rebuke and
+peremptory assurance of exposure to Mr. White, and consequent dismissal,
+if anything more of the same kind among the younger men were detected.
+The man was a clever artist in his first youth, and had always been
+something of a favourite with the authorities, and had a highly
+respectable father; so Captain Henderson meant to spare him as much as
+possible, and endeavour to ascertain how far the mischief had gone among
+the young men connected with the marble works, also to consult Mr. White
+on the amount of stringency in the measures used to put a stop to it.
+All this, of course, passed out of Bernard Underwood’s hands and
+knowledge, but a sad and anxious day was before him.  All the young girls
+were going on well, but Wilfred was increasingly ill all day, and
+continually calling for Bernard.  Being told, “I have settled the matter”
+did not satisfy him.  He looked eagerly about the room to find whether
+his mother were present, and fancying she was absent demanded, “Does he
+know?  Do they know?” reiterating again and again.  It was necessary to
+tell Lady Merrifield that there was an entanglement about money matters
+on his mind, which had been settled; but towards evening he grew worse
+and more light-headed, apparently under the impression that only Bernard
+could guard him from something unknown, or conceal, whenever he was
+conscious of the presence of his mother; and on his father’s entrance he
+hid his face in the pillows and trembled, of course to their exceeding
+distress and perplexity; and when he believed no one present but Bernard
+and Mrs. Halfpenny, he became more and more rambling, sometimes insisting
+that his father must not know, sometimes abusing all connected with the
+racing bet, and more often fancying that he was going to be arrested for
+robbing the firm, the enormity of the sum and of the danger increasing
+with the fever, and therewith his horror of his father’s knowing.  It was
+of no use for his mother to hang over him, hold his hands, and assure him
+that she knew (as, in fact, she did, for Bernard had been obliged to make
+a cursory explanation), and that nothing could hinder her loving him
+still; he forgot it in the next interruption, and turned from her with
+terror and dismay, and once he nearly flung himself out of bed, fancying
+that the policeman was coming.
+
+Bernard held him on this occasion, and told him, “Nothing will do you
+good, Willie, but to tell your father, and he will keep all from you.
+Let him know, and it will be all right.”
+
+It only seemed to add to his misery and terror.  Something that passed in
+his hearing, gave him the impression that he was in great danger, if not
+actually dying; but his cry was still for Bernard, who had not ventured
+to go to bed; but it was still, “Oh, Bear, save me!  Don’t let me die
+with this upon my name!  I can’t go to God!”
+
+“There’s nothing for it, Wilfred, but to tell your father.  He will
+pardon you.  Your mother has, you see.  Tell him, and when he forgives,
+you will know that God does.  It will come right.  Let me call him!”
+
+“Let me bring him, my boy, my dear boy!” entreated his mother.  “You know
+he will.”
+
+Wilfred seemed as if he did not know, but still held fast by Bernard’s
+strong hands, as though there were support in them; and when in a few
+moments Sir Jasper entered the room, there was the same clinging gesture
+and endeavour to hide, in spite of the gentle sweetness of the tone of,
+“Well, my poor boy.”
+
+It was Bernard who was obliged to say, turning the poor flushed face
+towards him, “Wilfred wishes to say—”
+
+“Father,” it came with a gasp at last, “I’ve done it.  I’ve disgraced us
+all.  Forgive!”
+
+He was repeating his own exaggerated ideas of what his crime had been,
+and what Sir Jasper would have said to him if all had been discovered in
+any other way.
+
+“Do not think of it now, my boy.  I forgive you, whatever it is.”
+
+Thereupon Dr. Dagger entered.  He turned every one out except Mrs.
+Halfpenny, and gave a draught, which silenced the patient and put him to
+sleep in a few minutes.  While Bernard hastily satisfied the parents that
+a good deal was exaggerated feeling, and that an old soldier must have
+known of a good many worse things in his time, though not so near home.
+
+There was a general sense of relief in the morning, for Wilfred’s attack
+had become an ordinary, though severe one, and the other cases were going
+on well.  But Sir Jasper, who had not been able to grasp the extent of
+Wilfred’s delinquency, and had been persuaded by his despair that it was
+much more serious than it really was, called his son-in-law into council,
+and demanded whether the whole could have been told.
+
+Bernard was certain that it was so, and related his transactions with
+Captain Henderson, much of course to the father’s relief, so far as the
+outer world was concerned; but what principally grieved him, besides the
+habits thus discovered, was his son’s abject terror of him, not only in
+the exaggeration of illness, but in his mode of speaking of him.
+
+It had never been thus with any of his sons before.
+
+Claude, the soldier, had always been satisfactory, so had Harry the
+clergyman, though often widely separated from the parents in their
+wandering life; but the bond of confidence had never been broken.  Jasper
+had never teased any one but his sisters.  Fergus, too, the youngest of
+all the sons, and of an individual, rather peculiar nature, was growing
+up in straight grooves of his own; but Wilfred, who from delicate health,
+had been the most at home, had never seemed to open to his father.  The
+family discipline of the General seemed only to oppress and terrify him,
+and the irregularities and subterfuges that had from time to time been
+detected had been met with just anger, never received in such a manner as
+to call forth the tenderness of forgiveness.  Each discovery of a
+misdemeanour had only been the prelude to fresh and worse concealments
+and hardening.
+
+And experience of mankind did not give any decided hope that even the
+last day’s agony of repentance would be the turning over of a new leaf,
+when convalescence should bring the same surroundings and temptations,
+and perhaps the like disproportionate indignation and impatience in
+dealing with errors and constitutional weakness.  “And the example of my
+brother’s poor son is not encouraging,” he added.  “He who seems to have
+owed everything to your brother and sister.”
+
+“Yet poor Fulbert and I were to our homes, perhaps not the black sheep,
+but at any rate the vagrant ones.”
+
+“And what made a difference to you, may I ask?”
+
+“Strong infusion by character and example of principle,” said Bernard
+thoughtfully; “then, real life, and having to be one’s own safeguard,
+with nothing to fall back on.  As my brother told me at his last, I
+should swim when my plank was gone.”
+
+“Yes, but, plainly, you were never weak,” and as Bernard did not answer
+at once, “Old-fashioned severity used to be the rule with lads, but it
+seems only to alienate them now and make them think themselves unjustly
+treated.  What is one to do with these boys?”
+
+A question which Bernard could not answer, though it carried him back
+with a strange yearning, yet resignation, to the little figure that had
+curled round on his knee, and the hopes connected with the hands that had
+caressed his cheek.
+
+He thought over it the more the next week, when he was called to sit by
+Wilfred, who was getting better and anxious to talk.
+
+“My father is very kind,” he said.  “Oh, yes, very kind now; but it will
+be all the same when I get well.  You see, Bear, how can a man be always
+dawdling about with a lot of girls?  There’s Dolores bothering with her
+science, and Fergus every bit as bad; and Mysie after her disgusting
+schoolchildren; and Val and Prim horrid little empty chatterboxes; and if
+one does turn to a jolly girl for a bit of fun, their tongues all go to
+work, so that you would think the skies were going to fall; and if one
+goes in for a bit of a spree, down comes the General like a
+sledge-hammer!  I wish you would take me out with you, Bear.”
+
+The same idea had already been undeveloped in Bernard’s mind, and ever on
+his tongue when alone with his wife; but he kept it to himself, and only
+committed himself to, “You would not find an office in Colombo much more
+enlivening.”
+
+“There would be something to see—something to do.  It would not be all as
+dull as ditch-water—just driving one to do something to get away from the
+girls and their fads.”
+
+This was nearly a fortnight from the night of crisis, when Wilfred, very
+weak, was still in bed; when Primrose and Lily were up and about, but
+threatened with whooping cough.  Thekla much in the same case, and very
+cross; and little Lena weak, caressing and dependant, but angelically
+good and patient, so much so that Magdalen and Angela were quite anxious
+about her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI—NEW PATHS
+
+
+    “I’ll put a girdle round the earth
+    In forty minutes.”
+
+                                                             —SHAKESPEARE.
+
+THE visitation had not been confined to the High School.  The little
+cheaply-built rows for workmen and fishermen had suffered much more
+severely, owing chiefly to the parents’ callous indifference to
+infection.  “Kismet,” as they think it, said Jane Mohun, and still more
+to their want of care.  Chills were caught, fevers and diphtheria ensued,
+and there was an actual mortality among the children at the works and at
+Arnscombe.  Mr. Flight begged for help from the Nursing Sisterhood at
+Dearport, and, to her great joy, Sister Beata was sent down to him, with
+another who was of the same standing as Angela, and delighted to have a
+glimpse of her; though Angela thought it due to her delicate charge, and
+the Merrifields, not to plunge into actual nursing while Lena needed her
+hourly attention, and was not yet in a state for the training to do
+without it to continue.  Paulina, however, being regarded as infection
+proof, was permitted to be an attendant and messenger of her dear Sister
+Beata, to her own great joy.  She was now nineteen, and her desire to
+devote herself to a Sisterhood had never wavered, and intercourse with
+Sister Angela had only strengthened it.
+
+“Oh, Maidie!” she said, “I do not think there can be any life so good or
+so happy as being really given up to our Lord and His work among the sick
+and poor.”
+
+“My dear, He can be served if you are in the world, provided you are not
+_of_ the world, and if you keep yourself from the evil.”
+
+“Yes; but why should I run into the world?  It is not evil, I know, so
+far as you and all your friends can manage; but it stirs up the evil in
+one’s self.”
+
+“And so would a Sisterhood.  That is a world, too.”
+
+“I suppose it is, and that there would be temptation; but there is a
+great deal to help one to keep right.  And, oh! to have one’s work in
+real good to Christ’s poor, or in missions, instead of in all these
+outside silly nonsensical diversions that one doubts about all the time.
+If you would only let me go back with dear Sister Beata and Sister
+Elfleda as a probationer!”
+
+“You could not be any more yet,” said Magdalen; “but I will think about
+it, and talk it over with Sister Angela.  You know your friend Sister
+Mena, as she called herself, does not mean to be a Sister, but a
+governess.”
+
+“Yes; she wrote to me.  She has never seen or known anything outside the
+Convent, and it is all new and turns her head,” said Paulina, wisely.  “I
+know she helped me to be all the more silly about Vera and poor Hubert
+Delrio.”
+
+Magdalen promised to talk the matter over with Sister Angela.
+
+“I should call it a vocation,” said Angela.  “I have watched her ever
+since I have been here, and I am sure her soul is set on these best
+things, in a steady, earnest way.”
+
+“She has always been an exceedingly good girl ever since I have had to do
+with her,” said Magdalen.  “I have hardly had a fault to find with her,
+except a little exaggeration in the direction of St. Kenelm’s.”
+
+“A steady, not a fitful flame,” said Angela.
+
+“But she is so young.”
+
+“If you will believe me, Magdalen, such a home as that Dearport
+Sisterhood is a precious thing—I have not been worthy of it.  I have been
+a wild colt, carried about by all manner of passing excitements.  Oh,
+dear! love of sheer fun and daring enterprise, and amusement, in shocking
+every one, even my very dearest, whom I loved best.  I have done things
+too dreadful to think of, and been utterly unreasonable and unmanageable,
+and proud of it; but always that Sisterhood has been like a cord drawing
+me!  I never quite got free of it, even when I sent back my medal, and
+fancied it had been playing at superstition.  I was there for a month as
+almost a baby, and the atmosphere has brought peace ever since.  That,
+and my brother, and Sister Constance, and Bishop Fulmort, have been the
+saving of me, if anything has.  I mean, if they will have me, to spend a
+little time at Dearport after all this perplexity is over, and I know how
+it is with Lena, and I could see how it is with Paula if you liked.”
+
+Magdalen accepted the suggestion, perhaps the more readily because of a
+fleeting visit from Hubert Delrio, who had finished his frescoes at the
+American Vale Leston, and came for a day or two to Mr. Flight’s.  She had
+sometimes doubted whether the supposed love of Vera had not been a good
+deal diffused among the young ladies, and might not so far awaken in
+Paulina as to render her vocation doubtful; but there were no such
+symptoms.  Paula was quiet and cheerful, with a friendly welcome, but no
+excitement; but it was Thekla, now fifteen, who was all blushes whenever
+Hubert looked or spoke to her, all her forwardness gone; and shyness, or
+decidedly awkwardness, set in, resulting chiefly in giggle.
+
+Hubert looked more manly and substantial, and he had just had an order
+for an important London church, which pleased him much, and involved
+another journey to Italy to study some of the designs in the Lombardic
+churches.
+
+Not that there was any chance of meeting Vera.  Mr. and Mrs. White had
+spent the last summer at Baden; and Vera, who had many pretty little
+drawing-room talents, and was always obliging, had been very acceptable
+there.  This winter an attack of rheumatism had made them decide on
+trying Algiers, with a view to the Atlas marbles, and then German baths
+again might claim them for the summer.
+
+In fact, the fear of infection had rendered Rock Quay a deserted place
+during the Easter vacation.  Fergus Merrifield might not come near
+Primrose and Lily, and was charmed to accept an invitation from his
+friend and admirer, Adrian Vanderkist, to Vale Leston, where he would be
+able to explore the geology of Penbeacon, to say nothing of the coast;
+while his sister Felicia, who had been one of the victims, remained to be
+disinfected with Miss Mohun.  Dolores was at Vale Leston Priory, and
+Agatha Prescott with her, so as to have a clean bill of health for her
+return to Oxford for her last term.
+
+The Holy Week was calm and grave; and the two girls, with Anna Vanderkist
+and her little sisters, were very happy over their primroses and anemones
+on Easter Eve, with the beautiful Altar Cross that no one could manage
+like Aunt Cherry, whose work was confined to that, and to the two crosses
+on the graves.
+
+Another notion soon occupied them.  There was a vague idea that a sort of
+convalescent or children’s hospital might be established for the training
+of women intending to study medicine or nursing, chiefly at Miss
+Arthuret’s expense, and Dolores was anxious to consider the possibility
+of placing it in the sweet mountain air, tempered by the sea breezes of
+Penbeacon.
+
+It was an idea to make Mrs. Grinstead shudder; but neither she nor her
+niece, Anna Vanderkist, could forget Gerald’s view that Penbeacon was not
+only to be the playground of Vale Leston, and they always felt as if
+Dolores had a certain widow’s right to influence any decision.  So she
+cheerfully acquiesced in what, in her secret heart, seemed only a feeble
+echo of the past, though, to the young generations it was a very happy
+hopeful present when all the youthful party, under the steerage of Mary
+and Anna, and the escort of Sir Adrian and Fergus, started off with
+ponies, donkeys, cycles and sturdy feet to picnic on Penbeacon, if
+possible in the March winds—well out of the way of the clay works.
+
+How Fergus divided his cares between the strata and Dolores’ kodak, how
+even his photography could not spoil Aunt Alda; how charming a group of
+sisters Dolores contrived to produce; how Adrian was the proud pioneer
+into a coach adorned with stalactites and antediluvian bones; how Anna
+collected milkwort and violets for Aunt Cherry; how a sly push sent
+little Joan in a headlong career down a slope that might have resulted in
+a terrible fall, but did only cause a tumble and great fright, and a
+severe reprimand from the elder sisters; how Agatha was entranced by the
+glorious view in the clearness of spring, how they ate their sandwiches
+and tried to think it was not cold; how grey east wind mist came over the
+distance and warned them it was time to trot down,—all this must belong
+to the annals of later Vale Leston; and of those years of youth which in
+each generation leave impressions as of sunbeams for life.  And on their
+return, Dolores found a letter which filled her with a fresh idea.  It
+was from her father in New Zealand, telling her that there was an opening
+for her to come and give a course of lectures on electricity at
+Canterbury, Auckland and the other towns, and proposing to her to come
+out with her lady assistant, when she might very probably extend her tour
+to Australia.
+
+“Would you come, Naggie?” asked Dolores.
+
+“Oh!  I should like nothing half so well.  If you could only wait till my
+turn is over, and the exam!”
+
+“Of course!  Why, we shall not have finished the correspondence till
+after the examination!  How capital it will be!  My father will like your
+bright face, and you will think him like Fergus grown older.  Will your
+sister consent?”
+
+“Oh!  Magdalen will be glad enough to have me off on a career.  We will
+write and prepare her mind.  I believe I am not to go home, so as to
+bring a clean bill of health to St. Robert’s.”
+
+“I really think,” added Dolores, “that Magdalen would make an admirable
+head matron, or whatever you call it!”
+
+“Dear old thing!  She is very fond of her Goyle.”
+
+“True, but Sophy’s engineer husband tells us that a new line is projected
+to Rock Quay, through the very heart of the Goyle, Act of Parliament,
+compulsory sale and all.”
+
+“Well! work might console her for being uprooted, and she is quite
+youthful enough to take to it with spirit.”
+
+“Besides that she would greatly console Clement and Cherry for the
+profanation of their Penbeacon.  I declare I will suggest it to
+Arthurine!”
+
+So the two young people resolved, not without a consciousness that what
+was to them a fresh and inspiring gale, to the elder generation was
+“winds have rent thy sheltering bowers.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII—A SENTENCE
+
+
+                    “What should we give for our beloved?”
+
+                                                          —E. B. BROWNING.
+
+NO sooner had the visitors departed than the others now out of quarantine
+appeared at Vale Leston.  Angela was anxious to spend a little time
+there, and likewise to have Lena overhauled by Tom May.  The child had
+never really recovered, and was always weakly; and whereas on the
+journey, Lily, now in high health, was delighted with all she saw, though
+she could not compare Penbeacon to Adam’s Peak, Lena lay back in Sister
+Angela’s arms, almost a dead weight, hardly enduring the bustle of the
+train, though she tried not to whine, as long as she saw her pink Ben
+looking happy in his cage.
+
+Angela was an experienced nurse, and was alarmed at some of the symptoms
+that others made light of.  Mrs. Grinstead had thought things might be
+made easier to her if the Miss Merrifields came to meet her and hear the
+doctor’s opinion; and Elizabeth accepted her invitation, arriving to see
+the lovely peaceful world in the sweet blossoming of an early May, the
+hedges spangled with primroses, and the hawthorns showing sheets of snow;
+while the pear trees lifted their snowy pyramids, and Lily in her white
+frock darted about the lawn in joyous play with her father under the
+tree, and the grey cloister was gay with wisteria.
+
+Angela was sitting in the boat, safely moored, with a book in her hand,
+the pink cockatoo on the gunwale, nibbling at a stick, and the girl lying
+on a rug, partly on her lap.  Phyllis and Anna, who had come out on the
+lawn, made Elizabeth pause.
+
+“That’s the way they go on!” said Phyllis.  “All day long Angela is
+reading to the child either the ‘Water Babies’ or the history of Joseph.”
+
+“Or crooning to her the story of the Cross,” said Anna; “and as soon as
+one is ended she begins it again, and Lena will not let her miss or alter
+a single word.”
+
+“They go on more than half the night,” added Phyllis.  “Bear sat up long
+over his letters and accounts, and as he went up he heard the crooning,
+and looked in; and the very moment Angela paused, there came the little
+plaintive voice, ‘Go on, please.’  ‘Women are following’—”
+
+“But is not that spoiling her?” asked Bessie.
+
+A look of sad meaning passed between her two companions.  Phyllis shook
+her head slightly, and, instead of answering, conducted Bessie on to the
+bank, when Angela looked up and made a sign that she could not move or
+speak, for the child was asleep.  The yellow head was shaded by Angela’s
+parasol, the thin hair lying ruffled on the black dress, and the small
+face looked more pinched than when the aunt had last seen it, nearly a
+year previously.  She had watched the decay of aged folks, but she was
+unused to the illnesses of children; and she recoiled with a little
+shock, as she looked down at the little wasted face, with a slight flush
+of sleep.  “Recovery from measles,” she said.
+
+Phyllis smiled a little pitifully as her own little girl, all radiant
+with health and joy, came skipping up, performing antics over her
+father’s hand.  “Take care, Lily, don’t wake poor little Lena,” was
+murmured quietly.
+
+“Northern breezes—” began Bessie, but the voices had broken the light
+slumber; and as Angela began, “See, Lena, here is Aunt Bessie,” the
+effect was to make her throw herself over Angela’s shoulder and hide her
+face; and when her protector tried to turn her round and reason her into
+courtesy, she began to cry in a feeble manner.
+
+“She has had a bad night,” said motherly Phyllis; “let her alone.”
+
+“May not I get down into the boat?” asked Lily.  “I’ll be very good.”
+
+There would have been a little hesitation, but at the voice Lena looked
+up and called “Lily, Lily!”  Bernard lifted his small daughter down,
+Elizabeth was not sorry to be led away for the present, and when, after a
+turn in the rose garden, she came back, the two children were sitting
+with arms round one another, holding a conversation with Ben, the
+cockatoo, and making him dance on one of the benches of the boat, under
+Angela’s supervision, lest he should end by dancing overboard.  The rich
+fair hair, shining dark blue eyes, and plump glowing cheeks of Lily were
+a contrast to the wan wasted colouring of her little cousin; but Lena was
+more herself now than when just awake, and let Lily lead her up and
+introduce her, as it might be called, to Cousin Bessie as Lily called
+her, a less formidable sound than “Aunt Elizabeth.”  They were both
+kissed, and she endured it.  Angela was, as her brothers and sisters
+said, “very good,” and scrupulously abstained from absorbing the child
+all the evening, letting Elizabeth show her pictures and tell her
+stories, to which, by Lily’s example, she listened quietly enough and
+with interest.
+
+When the two children went off, hand in hand, to their beds, Elizabeth
+said, “Really, Magdalen is improved.  If you leave Lily with her,
+Phyllis, I think we should get on beautifully.  The bracing air will do
+wonders for them both.”
+
+“Thank you,” said poor Phyllis forbearingly; “we have not made our plans
+about Lily yet.”
+
+But Elizabeth thought out a beautiful scheme of discipline and study in
+the long light hours of the morning, and began to feel herself drawn
+towards her delicate little niece, feeling sure that the little thing
+would soon be Susan’s darling, if Susan could be brought to endure the
+cockatoo walking loose about the house.
+
+Early in the day Professor May appeared, and was hailed as an old friend
+by all the Underwoods.  He rejoiced to see Clement looking well and
+active; and “as to this fellow,” he said, looking at Bernard, “it shows
+what development will do.”
+
+“Not quite the young Bear of Stoneborough,” said Clement, leaning
+affectionately on his broad shoulder; “our skittish pair are grown very
+sober-minded.  But you have not told us of your father.”
+
+“My father is very well.  He walks down every day to sit with my wife,
+and visits a selection of his old patients, who are getting few enough
+now.  This is not my patient, I suppose?”
+
+“Unless you are ready to prescribe only laughing and good Jersey cows’
+milk,” said Bernard, pulling the long silky brown hair.  “Where’s mother,
+little one?”
+
+“Mother sent me to say Aunt Angel is ready, if Dr. May will come up to
+Aunt Cherry’s room.  Lena is frightened, and they did not like to leave
+her.”
+
+It was a long visit, after Phyllis had come down; and, walking up and
+down the cloister with Bessie Merrifield, listened to her schemes of
+education for the little maidens.  Lily she liked and admired, and she
+was convinced that Magdalen’s weak health and spirits were the result of
+the spoiling system.  Phyllis trembled a little as she heard of the
+knocking about, out-of-doors ways that had certainly produced fine strong
+healthy frames and upright characters, but she forbore to say that if her
+little girl had to be left, it would be to her mother and Mysie.
+
+By and by Tom came down, and finding Geraldine alone in the drawing-room,
+he answered her inquiry with a very grave look.  “Poor little thing!  You
+do not think well of her!  Is it as Angel feared?”
+
+“Confirmed disease, from original want of development of heart.  Measles
+accelerated it.  I doubt her lasting six months, though it may be longer
+or less.”
+
+“Have you told Angel?”
+
+“She knew it, more or less.  She is ready to bear it, though one can see
+how her soul is wrapped up in the child, and the child in her.”
+
+“One thing, Tom, will you tell Miss Merrifield yourself, and alone, and
+make her feel that it is an independent opinion?  It may save both the
+poor child and Angel a great deal.”
+
+“Are you prepared to keep her here?”
+
+“Of course we are.  It is Angel’s natural home.  Clement and I could
+think of nothing else.”
+
+“I knew you would say so.  If I understand rightly there is something
+like a jealousy of her case in the Merrifields, prompted greatly by their
+wish to expiate any neglect of her father.”
+
+“That is what I gather from what Phyllis tells me.”
+
+“What a lovely countenance hers is in expression!  No wonder Bernard has
+softened down.  There is strength and solidity as well as sweetness in
+her face.  Ah, there they are!”
+
+“I will call Phyllis in.  Bessie Merrifield has almost walked her to
+death by this time.”
+
+So Phyllis was called and told.  What she said was, “I only hope he will
+make her understand that it could not be helped, and it was not Angela’s
+fault.”
+
+Tom May had wisdom enough to make this clear in what was a greater shock
+to Elizabeth than it was to Angela, who had suspected enough to be
+prepared for the sentence, and had besides a good deal of hospital
+experience, which enabled her thoroughly to understand the Professor’s
+explanations.  So, indeed, did it seem to Elizabeth at the time he was
+speaking; but she had lived a good deal in London, and had a great idea
+that a London physician must be superior to a man who had lived in the
+country, and, moreover, whom all the household called Tom, and she asked
+Mrs. Grinstead if he were really so clever.
+
+“Indeed, I think he is; and I have seen a great deal of his treatment.
+You may quite trust him.  He lives down here at Stoneborough for his
+father’s sake, or he would be quite at the head of his profession.”
+
+“Superior to the two Doctors Brownlow?”
+
+“I should not say superior, but quite equal.”
+
+“The Brownlows,” said Clement, looking up from his paper, “helped me
+through an ordinary malarial fever.  John Lucas is a brilliant specialist
+in such cases, but certifying an affection of the heart.  Tom May
+latterly has treated me better.  As far as I understand the case of your
+little niece, I should say both that it was more in the line of Tom May,
+and likewise that it would be very hurtful to her to take her about and
+subject her to more examinations.”
+
+“Poor little thing! no doubt it would be a terrible distress,” acquiesced
+Bessie; “but still, if it is bracing that she needs—northern air might
+make all the difference.”
+
+Clement sighed a little hopelessly over making a woman understand or give
+way, and returned to his newspaper; while Geraldine tried to argue that
+air could not make much difference, speaking in the interest of the child
+herself and of her sister.  Elizabeth listened and agreed; but there was
+in the Merrifield family a fervour of almost jealous expiation of their
+neglect of Henry, inattention to his daughter, and desire to appropriate
+her, and to restore her to health, strength, and wisdom, in spite of her
+would-be stepmother.
+
+“They hate me as much as if I were her stepmother!” cried Angela.  “I
+wish I was, to have a right to protect her!  No, Clem; I’ll not break
+out, if I can help it, as long as they don’t worry her; and I think
+Bessie does see the rights of it.”
+
+Yes; the peaceful, thoughtful atmosphere of Vale Leston, unlike the
+active bustle of Coalham, had an insensible influence on Elizabeth’s
+mind; and she saw that Angela’s treatment of the child, always cheerful
+though tender, was right, and that it would be sheer cruelty to separate
+them.  She promised to use all her power to prevent any such step, and
+finally left Vale Leston, perfectly satisfied that it was impossible to
+take Lena with her.
+
+But her family did not see it thus, especially Mrs. Samuel Merrifield,
+the child’s guardian.  She insisted that it was her husband’s duty to
+bring the little one to London for advice, and to remove her from all the
+weakening, morbid influences of Vale Leston.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII—SUMMONED
+
+
+    “What would we give to our beloved?”
+
+                                                          —E. B. BROWNING.
+
+“I WISH they all would not go so very fast,” said little Lena, hiding her
+face against him from the whirl of cabs and omnibuses.
+
+“They bewilder us savages,” said Angela, smiling.  “Remember we are from
+the wilds.”
+
+“She shall have her tea, and a good rest,” said Marilda; “and then I have
+asked her uncle and aunts to meet you at dinner, and Fernan hopes to
+bring home another old friend.  Whom do you think, Angel?”
+
+“Oh!  Not our Bishop?”
+
+“Yes, the Bishop of Albertstown!  He is actually in town; Fernan saw him
+yesterday at the Church House.”
+
+“Oh! that is joy!” cried Angela; and Lena raised her head, with, “Is it
+mine—mine own Bishop?”
+
+“Mine own, mine own Bishop and godfather, my sweet!” said Angela; “more
+to us in our own way than any one else.  Oh! it is joy!  How happy
+Clement will be!”
+
+It was with much feeling, almost akin to shame, that Bessie wrote to
+Angela this decision of her brother, that a London authority must be
+consulted—not Dr. Brownlow, but one whom Mrs. Sam had heard highly spoken
+of.
+
+“That man!” cried Angela.  “I have heard of him!  He is a regular
+mealy-mouthed old woman of a doctor!  And she is so well just now!  How
+horrid to shake her up again!  Oh, Bear! if I could only sail away with
+her to Queensland!”
+
+“You would if it was ten years ago,” said Bernard.
+
+“Yes!  Is it the way of the world, or learning resignation, that makes
+one know one must submit?  Giving up an idol is a worse thing when the
+idol is made of flesh and blood.”
+
+Bernard wanted to see Sir Ferdinand, so made it an excuse for helping his
+sister on the way; and he did so effectively, for his knee and broad
+breast were Lena’s great resting-place; and his stories of monkeys and
+elephants were almost as good as kangaroos.  Was there not a kangaroo to
+be seen in London, which she apparently thought would be a place of about
+the size of Albertstown?
+
+Lady Underwood had insisted on receiving the travellers from Vale Leston
+in her house in Kensington; and there was her broad, kindly face looking
+out for them at the station, and her likewise broad and kindly carriage
+ready to carry them from it.  How natural all looked to Angela, with all
+her associations of being a naughty, wild, mischievous schoolgirl, the
+general plague and problem!
+
+“But always a dear,” said Marilda, with her habit of forgetting
+everybody’s faults.  “Why didn’t you bring your wife, Bernard, and your
+little girl for this darling’s playfellow?”
+
+“She is her best playfellow,” said Angela; “Adela’s Joan is too rough,
+and fitter for Adrian’s companion.”
+
+“She is my playfellow,” said Bernard, holding her up.  “Look out, Lena.
+Here’s Father Thames to go over.”
+
+“And Fernan is so glad,” added Marilda.
+
+For Bishop Robert Fulmort had, when Vicar of St. Wulstan’s, been the
+guide and helper of Ferdinand Travis’s time of trial and disappointment,
+as well as the spiritual father of Clement Underwood; he had known and
+dealt with Angela in her wayward girlhood, and aided her bitter
+repentance; and in these later days in Australia had been her true
+fatherly friend, counsellor and comforter in the trials and perplexities
+that had befallen her.  Bernard read, in her lifted head and brightened
+eye, that she felt the meeting him almost a compensation for the distress
+and perplexity of this journey to London.
+
+Bernard carried the little girl up to the room and laid her down to sleep
+off her fatigue, while Marilda waited on her and Angela with her wonted
+bustling affection, extremely happy to have two of her best beloved
+cousins under her roof.
+
+Bernard went off to find Sir Ferdinand at his office, and quiet prevailed
+till nearly dinner time, when Lena awoke and would not be denied one
+sight of her godfather.  So Angela dressed her in her white frock, and
+smoothed her thin yellow hair, and took her down to the great stiff
+handsome room that all Emilia’s efforts had never made to look liveable.
+Emilia Brown was there, very fashionably attired, but eager for news of
+Vale Leston, and the Merrifields soon arrived with, “Oh! here she is!”
+from the Captain, “Well! she looks better than I expected!”
+
+“Poor little dear!” observed his wife, dressed in a low dress and thin
+fringe on her forehead in honour of what, to the country mind, was a
+grand dinner party, at which Angela’s plain black dress and tight white
+cap were an unbecoming sight.  Elizabeth was there, kissing Angela with
+real sympathy; and Lena, who had grown a good deal more accustomed to
+strange relations, endured the various embraces without discourtesy.
+
+But when the door opened and the grey-headed Bishop came in there was a
+low half scream of “Oh! oh!” and with one leap she was in his arms, as he
+knelt on one knee, and clasped her, holding out a hand to Angela, whose
+eyes were full of tears of relief and trust.  Marilda gave a glad
+welcome, but they were startled by perceiving that the joy of meeting had
+brought on a spasm of choking on Lena, who was gasping in a strange sort
+of agony.  Angela took her in her arms and carried her out of the room.
+Marilda presently following, came back reporting that the little girl had
+been relieved by a shower of tears, but was still faint and agitated, and
+that Angela could not leave her, but begged that they would not wait
+dinner.
+
+“Such sensitiveness needs anxious care,” said Elizabeth.
+
+“If it be not the effect of spoiling.  Just affectation!” replied the
+sister-in-law in a decided voice, which made Bessie glad that the poor
+child’s home was not to be among the rough boys at Stokesley, who were
+not credited with any particular feelings.
+
+Angela’s absence gave the Bishop the opportunity of telling what she had
+been during her years at Albertstown, what a wonderful power among the
+natives, though not without disappointment, and she had been still more
+effective among the settlers and their daughters.  Carrigaboola,
+Fulbert’s farm, had been an oasis of hope and rest to the few clergy of
+his scanty staff, and Fulbert himself had been a tower of strength for
+influence over the settlers who had fallen in his way, by his unswerving
+uprightness and honour, with the deeper principles of religion, little
+talked of but never belied.  Even after his death, the power he had been
+told over all with whom he had come in contact.
+
+Bernard heard it with immense pleasure, as did the faithful Ferdinand and
+Marilda; while Elizabeth felt more and more that Sister Angela was not to
+be treated, as she feared Sam and his wife were inclined to do, as a mere
+interloper in their family affairs, but as one to be not merely
+considered with gratitude, but even reverenced.
+
+Indeed, Sam began to feel it, as he saw how the other men, both practical
+business men, listened, and were impressed; but it was not quite the case
+with his wife, who did not particularly esteem colonial Bishops, and
+still less Sisterhoods or devotion to missionary efforts, especially
+among the Australian blacks, whom her old geography book had told her
+were the most degraded and hopeless of natives, scarcely removed from
+mere animals.
+
+When Angela appeared half through dinner time and said that Lena was
+safely asleep, and Marilda sat her down to be happy in exchange of
+Carrigaboola tidings with her Bishop, Fernando greeted her with a
+reverence not undeserved, though perhaps all the more from the contrast
+to the mischievous little sprite who used to disturb the days of his
+philandering with Alda.
+
+How much shocked Mrs. Samuel was, when the magnificent Sir Ferdinand,
+whom she regarded with awe as a millionaire, was flippantly answered by
+this extraordinary Sister, “Thank you, Fernan, I should like to have a
+sight of the old office.  I hope you have a descendant of the old cat,
+Betty.  Didn’t she come from your grandmother, Marilda?  Do you remember
+her being found playing tricks with the nugget, just come from Victoria?”
+
+“That was in her kitten days,” said Ferdinand.
+
+“Is that personal, Fernan?”
+
+“A compliment, Angel,” said the Bishop.  “Kittens alter a good deal.”
+
+“Not much for the better,” said Angela.  “If you only could see Mrs.
+Lamb, who used to be the very moral of a kitten, scratchiness and all!”
+
+“I thought her very much improved,” said Lady Underwood gravely.
+
+“Oh, yes; grown into a sleek and personable tabby, able to wave her tail
+at the tip and tuck her paws—her velvet paws—well under her; and lick her
+lips over the—oh, dear!—what do you call it?—your _menu_ is quite too
+much for us poor savages, Marilda.  A bit of damper is quite enough for
+us, isn’t it, Bishop?”
+
+“Varied with opossum and fern root,” he said smiling; “but that’s only
+when we have lost our way.”
+
+The talk drifted off to the history of a shepherd’s child, who had
+strayed into the bush, and after much searching, in which the Bishop and
+Fulbert had been half starved, had finally been found and carried home by
+Angela’s “crack gin,” as she told it to Bernard; and as Marilda thought
+the poor child was in a trap, it had to be translated into “favourite
+pupil,” though Bernard carried on the joke by asking Marilda if she
+thought the natives cannibals given to the snaring of mankind.
+
+Altogether it was a thoroughly merry evening, such as comes to pass in
+the meeting of old friends and comrades in too large numbers for grave
+discourse, but with habits of close intercourse and associations of all
+kinds.  Emilia and her husband tried in all courtesy not to let the
+Merrifields feel themselves neglected; and indeed Bessie was only too
+glad to listen and join at times in the talk; but it all went outside
+Mrs. Sam, who was on the whole scandalised at the laughter of a Bishop,
+and a Sister.  Indeed, it was true that Bishop Fulmort, naturally a grave
+man, very much so in his early days, comported himself on this occasion
+as if he realised Southey’s wish—
+
+    “That in mine age as cheerful I might be,
+    Like the green winter of the holly tree.”
+
+At any rate, that evening was long a bright remembrance.  Lena slept all
+night, and was so fresh and well in the morning that Angela foreboded
+that the examination might not detect her delicacy.  They met Mrs.
+Merrifield, and took her with them to the doctor’s, Lady Underwood Travis
+having placed her carriages at their disposal.
+
+It was very much as Angela had expected, knowing by hospital reputation
+what the doctor was supposed to be to old ladies and fanciful mothers,
+while perhaps he had also heard of her _fracas_ long ago at the hospital.
+For he was not more courteous to her than could be helped, treating her
+much as if she were only the nursery maid, and hardly looking at the
+opinion which she had made Professor May write out for him.
+
+To her mind, it was a very cursory examination that he made; and the
+upshot of his opinion, triumphantly accepted by Mrs. Merrifield, was that
+there was nothing seriously amiss with the child, that she only needed
+care, regularity and bracing, and that the stifling, gasping spasms were
+simply the effect of hysteria.
+
+Hysteria!  Angela felt as if she should run wild as she heard Mrs.
+Merrifield’s complacent remarks on having always thought so, and being
+sure that a few weeks of good air and good management would make an
+immense difference.  The need of not alarming or prejudicing the poor
+little victim was all that kept Angela in any restraint; and Mrs.
+Merrifield went on to say that she had promised her youngest boy, who was
+with her in London, to take him to the Zoological Gardens, and it would
+be a good opportunity for Magdalen to see them.
+
+“Is that where there is a kangaroo?” asked Lena, so eagerly that Angela,
+though thinking that morning’s work enough for the feeble strength, could
+not withstand her.  Besides, if the Merrifields were to have her wholly
+in another day, what was the use of standing out for one afternoon?  One
+comfort was that Elizabeth, who would really have the charge of the
+child, had much more good sense and knowledge of the world than her
+sister-in-law.
+
+Still Angela felt the only way of bearing it was that after setting Mrs.
+Merrifield down, she stopped the carriage at a church she knew to have a
+noon-tide Litany, knelt there, with the little girl beside her, and tried
+to say, “Thy will be done!  To Thy keeping I commit her.”  Her “hours”
+came to help her.
+
+    “Quench Thou the fires of hate and strife,
+       The wasting fever of the heart,
+    From perils guard her feeble life,
+       And to our souls Thy help impart.”
+
+She was able to be calm, and to utter none of her rage when they came
+back to luncheon; and Marilda, declaring she liked nothing so well as
+seeing children at the Zoo, wished to go with the party.  All, save Mrs.
+Merrifield and her boy, had gone different ways in London, so there was
+plenty of room in the barouche.
+
+The boy’s mind was set on riding on the elephant, and they walked on that
+way, turning aside, however, to the yard where towered the kangaroo,
+tall, gentle, graceful and gracious.  Lena sprang forward with a cry of
+joy, and clasped her hands; but in one moment the same spasm, at first of
+ecstasy then of overpowering feeling, becoming agony, came over her, and
+gasping and choking, Angela held her in her arms and carried her to a
+seat, holding her up, loosening her clothes; but still she did not come
+round.  Her aunt tried to say, “hysteric.”  Some one brought water, but
+it was of no use—there were still the labouring gasps, and the convulsive
+motion.  “Let us take her home,” Marilda said.
+
+“Nothing but hysterics!” repeated the aunt.  “I will stay with Jackie.”
+
+Marilda found her servant and the carriage, and in the long drive, a few
+drops of strong stimulant at a chemist’s brought a little relief though
+scarcely consciousness; and when Angela had carried her up to her room,
+there was a blueness about the lips, a coldness about the fingers, that
+told much.  Marilda had at once sent for Dr. Brownlow as the nearest, and
+he was at home; but he could only look and do nothing, but attempt to
+revive circulation, all in vain; and with Marilda standing by, with one
+convulsive clutch of Angela’s hand, the true mother of her orphaned life,
+little Lena sank to a peaceful rest from the tribulations that awaited
+her here.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX—SAFE
+
+
+    “Rest beyond all grief and pain,
+    Death to thee is truest gain.”
+
+                                                                    KEBLE.
+
+ANGELA’S nearest and best friends had anticipated that the peaceful
+climax of all her cares would be a relief to her; and so indeed in the
+long run it would be to her higher sense, and she would be thankful.  But
+even those who knew her most thoroughly had not estimated the pangs of
+personal affection and deprivation of the child she had fostered with a
+mother’s tenderness for seven years, and the absolute suffering of the
+sudden parting, even though it was to security of bliss, instead of doubt
+and uneasiness.
+
+She was quite broken and really ill with neuralgia and exhaustion, unable
+to attend the funeral, which the Merrifields wished to have at Stokesley,
+and unfit for anything but lying still with the pink parrot on the rail
+below, kindly watched over by good Marilda.  The strain of many disturbed
+nights, the perplexities, the struggle for resignation, all coming after
+a succession of trying events in Australia, had told heavily upon her.
+Indeed, no one guessed how much she had undergone, physically as well as
+spiritually, till Marilda would not be denied the consulting Dr.
+Brownlow, who questioned her closely, and extorted confessions of the
+long continued strain of exertion.  Rest was all she needed; and Marilda
+took care that she had it, bringing Robina up from Minsterham to make it
+more effectual, and letting her have visits from her Bishop and from
+Bernard as they could afford the time, both being very and variously
+busy.
+
+Angela had made up her mind to go out to Australia again, and to make
+Carrigaboola an endowment for the Sisterhood; but the means of doing this
+could best be arranged there, and she intended to go out when her Bishop
+should return in the autumn, feeling that her vocation was there, though
+there was a blank in all she had most cared for on earth in that home.
+
+As soon as she had recovered, she wished to spend a fortnight at
+Dearport, beginning with a retreat that was held there.  Remembering her
+old career there, and the abrupt close of her novitiate, she felt and
+spoke as if she was to be received as in penitence, but to the Sisters
+who surrounded her it was more as if they were receiving a saint.
+
+When she came back to Vale Leston, she had recovered cheerfulness, more
+equable than it had ever been, and Cherry and Alda found her a charming
+companion.  There was much going on at Vale Leston just then.  Miss
+Arthuret and Dolores were at Penbeacon, seriously considering of the
+scheme of converting the old farm house into a kind of place of study for
+girls who wanted to work at various technicalities, and to fit themselves
+for usefulness or for self-maintenance.  There was to be more or less of
+the Convalescent Home or House of Rest in combination, and it had
+occurred to Dolores that there could hardly be a better head of such an
+establishment than Magdalen Prescott.
+
+Magdalen had been asked to the Priory to meet Angela, to whom it was now
+a comfort and pleasure to talk of her treasure, so much less lost to her
+than in the uncongenial surroundings threatened at Coalham.  And the
+invitation, followed by the proposal, came at a not unpropitious moment.
+A railway company, after much surveying, much disputing, and many
+heartburnings, were actually obtaining an Act of Parliament, empowering
+it to lay its cruel hands upon the Goyle, running its viaducts down the
+ravine of Arnscombe, and destroy all the peace and privacy!  It did much,
+as Agatha had said, to make the new scheme of Penbeacon acceptable
+though.
+
+“That comes of making one’s nest,” she sighed, “and thinking one’s self
+secure in it for life!  Oh! it is worse and more changeable in this
+latter century than in any other!  Does the world go round faster?”
+
+“Of course it does,” said Geraldine.  “Think how many fashions, how many
+styles, how many ways of thinking, have passed away, even in our own
+time.”
+
+“And what have they left behind them?”
+
+“Something good, I trust.  Coral cells, stones for the next generation of
+zoophytes to stand upon to reach up higher.”
+
+“Is it higher?”
+
+“In one sense, I hope.  The same foundation, remember, and each cell
+forms a rock for the future—a white and beautiful cell, remember, as it
+grows unconsciously, beneath this creature.”
+
+Magdalen smiled, delighted with the illustration.
+
+“It forms into the rocks, the strong foundations of the earth,” she said.
+
+“When it has undergone its baptism beneath the sea,” added Geraldine.
+“But practically and unpoetically, perhaps—how the young folk mount upon
+all our little achievements in Church matters, and think them nearly as
+old-fashioned and despicable as we did pews and black gowns!  Or how
+attempts like the schools that brought up Robina and Angela have shot out
+into High Schools, colleges, professions, and I know not what besides.”
+
+“Ah! we come to my old notions for my sisters.  I thought they would have
+been governesses like myself, but they married; and now tell me, what do
+you think of this scheme of Miss Mohun and Agatha?”
+
+“You know Dolores is going to her father first.  I never saw him, but
+Lady Merrifield and Jane tell me he is a very wise, highly-principled
+person, perfectly to be trusted; and they like all that they have heard
+of his young wife.  I should think if Agatha is to become a scientific
+lecturer, she could not begin her career under better training.”
+
+“Career, exactly!  People used not to talk of careers.”
+
+“Life and career!  Tortoise and hare, eh?  But the hare may and ought
+still to reach the goal, and have her cell built, even if she does have
+her _wander yahr_, like the young barnacles, before becoming attached!
+No! she need not become the barnacle goose.  That is fabulous,” said Mrs.
+Grinstead, laughing off a little of her seriousness, and adding, “Tell me
+of the other girls.  I think Vera did not come home last year.”
+
+“No; nor the year before.  She has a good many pretty little talents, and
+is very obliging.  Mrs. White seems to be very fond of her, and did not
+want to spare her when they went to Gastein for the summer.  And this
+year, when there was so much infection about, I could not press it.”
+
+“Is it true that there is anything between her and Petros White?”
+
+“I know Miss Mohun—Jane—infers it, but I don’t like to build upon it.”
+
+“I should build on most inferences that Jane Mohun ventured to make
+known,” said Geraldine, smiling; “and Paulina’s fate is pretty well
+fixed, I suppose!”
+
+“Dear child, she has never had any other purpose since I first knew her
+thoroughly, and I do not think her present stay at Dearport will
+disenchant her.  I think she is really devoted, not to the theoretical
+romance of a Sisterhood, but to the deeper full purpose of
+self-devotion.”
+
+“I can fully believe it of her.  Hers have not been the ups and downs of
+my Angela, though indeed, after all she has gone through, there is
+something in her face that brings to my mind, ‘After that ye have
+suffered awhile, stablish, strengthen, settle you.’”
+
+“It is a lovely countenance—so patient, and yet so bright.”
+
+“I do not think anything in all her life has tried her so much as the
+distress about little Lena; and after knowing her wildness—to use a weak
+word for it—under other troubles, I see what grace and self-control have
+done for her.  You still keep your Thekla!” she added, as the girl
+flashed by, in company with a coeval Vanderkist.
+
+“For a few years to come, though I am beginning to feel like the old hens
+who do but bring their children up to launch them on the waters.”
+
+“Well, it is happy if the launch can be made with hope present as well as
+faith; and to see what Angel has become after many vicissitudes, not
+confined to her first years of youth, is an immense encouragement.”
+
+To Angela’s great delight, the affairs of Brown and Underwood were found
+to require inspection at San Francisco, as well as at Colombo, where
+Bernard was to put the firm into the hands of one of the Browns, who was
+to meet him there, and he would then be able to come home to the central
+office in England.
+
+It was not expedient for Phyllis to make the voyage for so brief a stay,
+so it was decided that she should remain with her mother, and she
+declared that she should be happy about Bernard being taken care of if
+Angela, before settling in at Carrigaboola, would go and stay with him at
+Ceylon.  “No one can tell the pleasure it is,” she said to Magdalen, “to
+borrow one’s own especial brother from his wife for a little while.  Oh,
+yes, I know it goes against the grain with him, and it is right it
+should; but the poor old sister enjoys her treat nevertheless and
+notwithstanding.”
+
+There was a great family gathering at Vale Leston, including both the
+Harewoods; and the Bishop of Albertstown came to spend that last
+fortnight in England with Clement, the boy who had been committed to him
+as a chorister, then trained as a young deacon, and almost driven out in
+his inexperience to the critical charge of the neglected parish and the
+old squire, only to be recalled after seven years to the more important
+charge in London on the Bishop’s appointment, there to serve till
+strength gave way, and he must perforce return to his former home.  There
+was a farewell picnic of the elders at Penbeacon, merry and yet wistful
+in its hopeful auguries that the loved play place would be a glad and
+beneficial home.
+
+It was a strange retrospect, talked over by the two old friends in deep
+thankfulness, yet humility over their own shortcomings and failures, and
+no less strange were the recollections of the wild noisy insubordinate
+schoolgirl whom the Bishop’s sister had failed to tame, and who had to
+both seemed to live only on sensation, whether religious or secular, and
+who had been one continual care and perplexity to each.  By turns they
+had thought that the full Church system acted as a hotbed on her peculiar
+temperament, and at others they had thought it only an alternative to the
+amusements of vanity and flirtation.  Each had felt himself a failure
+with regard to her, and had hoped for a fresh start from each crisis of
+repentance, notably, from the death of Felix, only to be disappointed by
+some fresh aberration.
+
+However, in Queensland, her work had been noble, and thoroughly effective
+in many cases; it had involved much self-denial and even danger, and
+though these might agree with her native spirit of adventure, there had
+likewise been not fitful, but steadily earnest devotion in her convent
+life, as well as the tenderest reverent care of Mother Constance in a
+long and painful decline, and therewith a steady cheerful influence which
+had immensely assisted the growth of Fulbert’s character.  For some years
+past, Sister Angela had been not a care, but a trusty helper to the
+Bishop; and the later trials and difficulties, especially the sore
+rending of the tie with the being she had come to love with all the force
+of her strong nature, had been borne in a manner that bore witness to the
+subduing of that over-rebellious and vehement spirit.
+
+And, as she said to Geraldine on the last evening as they bade
+good-night, “This has been the very happiest time I ever spent here—yes,
+happier than in those exultant days of new possession and liberty.  Oh,
+yes, all experiments, as it were, bold ventures, self-reproach and
+failure, defiance and fun, and then—oh, the ache I would not confess, the
+glory of being provoking, and, oh, the final anguish I brought on myself
+and on you all; and I went on, when it began to wear away, still stifling
+the sting which revived whenever I came home, and all was renewed!
+Really, whenever I shammed it was only remorse.  I don’t think that real
+repentance, and the peace after it, began till those quiet days with dear
+Mother Constance.”
+
+“And is it peace now?”
+
+“Yes, I think so.  Even the parting with my child has not torn me up.  I
+can say it is well—far better than leaving her, far better, indeed!  And
+Felix is what he meant to be, my treasure, not my accuser.  Oh, I am glad
+to have been at home, and made it all up, to bear away—and leave with you
+the sense of Peace.”
+
+All who had loved and feared for her were very happy over her when all
+joined in that farewell service on her own birthday, St. Michael and All
+Angels’ Day.
+
+The party were joined by Dolores and Wilfred at Liverpool; Bernard having
+undertaken to establish the latter at Colombo in hands as safe as might
+be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX—THE MAIDEN ROCKS
+
+
+    “What need we more if hearts be true,
+    Our voyage safe, our port in view.”
+
+                                                                   —KEBLE.
+
+A TELEGRAM that a steamer had been wrecked on the Maiden Rocks filled
+three homes with dismay.  The rocks were sought out in maps, and found to
+be specks lying between County Antrim and Scotland—no doubt terrible in
+their reality.
+
+Another day brought something more definite.  It _was_ the
+_Afra_,—“wrecked in the fog of October 11th.  Boats got off.”
+
+That was all; but a day’s post brought letters, of which the fullest was
+from Dolores:
+
+                                  “CORNCASTLE, LARNE, CO. ANTRIM, IRELAND,
+                                                             _October_ 12.
+
+    “DEAREST AUNT LILY,—
+
+    “I trust Phyllis has by this time heard from Bernard, as I heard him
+    called on, as a good oarsman, to go in the first boat, and we saw
+    Angela’s bonnet.  We—that is Wilfred, Nag, and the Bishop—are all
+    safe here, with eight or nine others.  Will will do well, I trust.
+    He quite owes his life to Nag.  This is how it was: We had not long
+    been out of the Mersey before an impenetrable fog came down upon us,
+    and we could not see across the deck; but on we went, on what proved
+    to be our blind way, till, after a night and day, just as we were
+    getting up from dinner, there came a hideous shock and concussion,
+    throwing us all about the room; and in less than a minute it was
+    repeated, with horrible crackings, tearings, yells and shouts.  No
+    one needed to tell us what it meant, and down came the call, ‘Don’t
+    wait to save your things, only wraps, ladies!  Up on deck!
+    Life-belts if you can!’  I remember Bernard standing at the top of
+    the ladder, helping us up, and somehow, I understand from him, that
+    we were on a reef, and might either remain there, and sink, or be
+    washed off.  The fog was clearing, and there was a dim light up high,
+    somewhere, one of the lighthouses, I believe.  I don’t quite know how
+    it all went; I think we kept in the background, round the Bishop, and
+    that a boat full of emigrant women was put off.  I know there were
+    only about half a dozen women left, who had been crying and refusing
+    to leave their husbands; and about thirty altogether, men and women,
+    were somehow got into our boat with the chief mate; the Bishop all
+    consolation and prayer; poor Wilfred limp, cold and trembling, for he
+    had been very seasick till the last moment, when Bernard pulled him
+    out of his berth, and put him into a lifebelt.  The sea was not very
+    rough, with an east wind; but the mate said the current was so strong
+    he could make no way against it.  It would bring us on to the Irish
+    cliffs, and then, God help us!  Knowing what that coast is, I thought
+    there was no hope; and as it was beginning to grow light there rose
+    an awful wall, all black and white, ready to close upon us; but just
+    as I set my teeth and tried to recollect prayers, or follow the
+    Bishop’s, but I could only squeeze Agatha harder and harder, there
+    was a fresh shouting among the men, and the boat was heaved up in a
+    fearful way, then down.  It was tide, and we were near upon breakers;
+    but there were answering shouts, or so they said—I believe a line was
+    thrown, and a light shown.  But as the boat rose again, Nag and I
+    expected to be hurled on the rocks the next moment, and clung
+    together.  But instead—though the waves had almost torn us asunder—we
+    were lying on a stony beach, and human hands were dragging at
+    us—voices calling and shouting about our not being dead.  God had
+    helped us!  We had been carried into a clift where there is a
+    coastguard station; and the good men had come down and were helping
+    us on shore.  But before I well knew anything, Agatha was on her
+    feet; I heard her cry ‘Wilfred, Wilfred!’ and then I saw her dragging
+    him, quite like a dead thing, out of the surf, just in time before
+    another great wave rushed in which would have washed them both back,
+    if a man had not grappled her at the very moment, calling out, ‘Let
+    go, let go, he’s a dead man!’  She did not let go; when the wave
+    broke, happily, just short of them, and another came to help, and
+    saved them from being sucked back.  Then the Bishop came and assured
+    us that he was alive, and got the men to carry him up to the
+    coastguard cottages; indeed, it was an awful escape; for of our
+    boatload most were lost altogether, three lie dead, dashed against
+    the rock, and two more, the mate one of them, have broken limbs.
+    Wilfred was unconscious for a long time, at least an hour; but by the
+    help of spoonfuls of whiskey he came round to a dreamy kind of state,
+    and he does not seem to suffer much; and the Bishop, the Preventive
+    man and Nag all are sure no limbs are broken, but he seems incapable
+    of movement except his hands.  It may be only jar upon the spine, and
+    go off in another day or two; but we do not dare to send for a
+    doctor, or anything else, indeed, till we have some money; for we all
+    of us have lost everything except five shillings in my pocket and two
+    in Nag’s.  Even our wraps were washed off—I believe Agatha gave hers
+    to a shivering woman in the boat.  The Bishop, too, gave away his
+    coat, forgetting to secure his purse.  But the people are very kind
+    to us—North, or Scotch Irish Presbyterians, I think—for they don’t
+    seem to know what to make of his being a Bishop when they found he
+    was not R.C., though they call him His Reverence.  Please send us an
+    order to get cashed, at Larne, six miles off, where this is posted.
+    Wilfred lies on the good Preventive woman’s bed, clean and fairly
+    comfortable, and they have made a shake-down in their parlour for Nag
+    and me.  The Bishop _says_ he is well off, but I believe he is always
+    looking after the mate and the other man in the other house, and
+    sleeps, if at all, in a chair.  Nag is _the_ nurse.  She had
+    ambulance lessons, you know, when at the High School, and profited by
+    them more than I ever did, and Wilfred likes to have her about him,
+    and when he is dazed, as he always is at first waking, he calls her
+    Vera.  But don’t be uneasy about him, dear Aunt Lily.  Deadly
+    sea-sickness, a night of tossing and cold, and then this terrible
+    landing may well upset him, and probably he will be on his legs by
+    the time you get this letter.
+
+    “I find our disaster was on the Maiden Rocks, a horrible group, I
+    only wonder that any one gets past them.  There are five of them, the
+    wicked Sirens, and three have lighthouses, but not very efficient
+    ones, and apt to disappear in the fog, and there are reefs beneath on
+    one of which we came to grief.  The folk here think a wreck on these
+    Maidens absolutely fatal, so we cannot be but most thankful for being
+    alive, though it is a worse experience than the Rotuma earthquake.
+
+    “Fergus would think the place worth all we have undergone.  The crags
+    are wonderful, chalk at the bottom, basalt above, and of course all
+    round to the Giant’s Causeway it is finer still.  Well may we, as the
+    Bishop is always doing, give thanks that we were taken, by the Divine
+    Hand guiding tide and current, to this milder and less inhospitable
+    opening.
+
+    “We can afford to dispense with less majesty, for one of those finer
+    cliffs would have been our destruction.
+
+    “This is going to Larne, where there is a railway station and
+    something of a town, and the Bishop has written to the doctor of the
+    place.  I will write again when he has been here.  I hope to send you
+    another and more cheery account to-morrow, or whenever post goes.
+
+    “Nag is writing to her sister.  I trust you will have heard of
+    Bernard and Angela.  Their boat was a better one than ours, and
+    certainly got off safely.  Let us know as soon you can.
+
+                                                  “Your most loving niece,
+                                                            “D. M. MOHUN.”
+
+Agatha had also written to Magdalen, very briefly, to assure her of her
+safety and thankfulness, and to say she could not leave Wilfred till more
+efficient care arrived, or till she had means to come back with.  She was
+evidently too busy over her patient to have much possibility of writing,
+even if she had paper, which seemed to be scarce at Corncastle.
+
+The Bishop also wrote to Clement, and to Sir Jasper and others; but he
+also could say little, only that he trusted that Angela and Bernard were
+safe elsewhere, having heard them called, and, as he believed, seen them
+off in the first boat, so that probably they had been already heard of
+before these letters arrived.  Their own party had been spared from being
+dashed against the rocks almost by a miracle; and Agatha Prescott’s
+courage and readiness, as now her nursing faculties, were beyond all
+praise, as indeed was the brave patience of Miss Mohun.  He could only
+look on and be thankful, and hope for tidings of those who were as his
+own children.  The next day’s letters spoke of the doctor as so much
+perplexed about Wilfred, and nothing had been heard at Larne of the other
+boats.
+
+But no tidings came; there was too much cause to fear that the first boat
+had been borne away by the currents and swamped.  Lady Merrifield could
+not leave Phyllis in such a crisis of suspense, and Sir Jasper was hardly
+fit for such a journey, so that his wife was much relieved when her
+brother, General Mohun, came to Clipstone, and undertook to hasten out to
+Corncastle, with money and appliances, including a nurse.
+
+“Oh, Reggie, always good at need!  I hardly dare to send my good old
+Halfpenny—!”
+
+“No, Mamma, send me.  You know I had the ambulance lessons with Nag,”
+said Mysie, “and we could get a real nurse from Belfast or Dublin, if it
+was wanted.”
+
+So it was arranged, and uncle and niece started, but hope faded more and
+more!  Were those two precious young lives so early quenched?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI—THE WRECK
+
+
+    “How purer were earth, if all its martyrdoms,
+    If all its struggling sighs of sacrifice
+    Were swept away!”
+
+                                                         E. HAMILTON KING.
+
+NO tidings of Bernard and Angela.  The suspense began to diminish into
+“wanhope” or despair; and the brothers and sisters continued to say that
+they were sorry above all for Phyllis, whose gentle sweetness had made
+her one with them.
+
+But at last, one forenoon, a telegram was put into Clement’s hand, dated
+from Ewmouth:
+
+    _Muriel Ellen_, Ewmouth Harbour, October 14th.  Blaine to Rev.
+    Underwood.  Brother here.  Come to infirmary.
+
+Clement and Geraldine lost no time in driving to the infirmary, too
+anxious to speak to one another.  Blaine’s name was known to them as a
+Gwenworth lad, who had gone to sea, and risen to be sailing master of the
+_Muriel Ellen_, a trader plying between Londonderry and Bristol.  He,
+with another, who proved to be the American captain of the _Afra_, were
+at the gate of the hospital, where an ambulance had just entered.
+
+“Oh!  Sir,” as Clement held out his hand, “I could not save her.  I’d
+have given my life!”
+
+“My brother?” as Clement returned his grasp fervently.
+
+“We’ve just got him in here, Sir.  I hope!  I hope!  And here’s the
+doctor.”
+
+The house surgeon, who, of course, knew the Rector of Vale Leston, met
+him with, “Best see him before we touch him, it will set his mind at
+rest—You must be prepared, Sir—No, better not you, Mrs. Grinstead.”
+
+Clement followed in silence, leaving Geraldine to the care of the matron.
+All he was allowed to see was a ghastly, death-like face and form,
+covered with rugs, lying prostrate on a mattress; but as he came in, at
+the sound of his step, there was a quiver of recognition, the eyes opened
+and looked up, the lips moved, and as Clement bent down with a kiss,
+there was a faint sound gasped out, “Telegraph to Clipstone.”
+
+“I will, I will at once.”
+
+“It was noble!”  Then was added, “She gave herself for the Bishop, for
+me.”  Then the eyes closed, and unconsciousness seemed to prevail.  Some
+one came and put Clement aside, saying—
+
+“Go now, Sir; you shall hear!”
+
+Clement, who thought it might be death, would have stayed at hand; but he
+was turned away, and could only murmur an inarticulate blessing and
+prayer, as he meant to fulfil the earnest desire that was thought to have
+been conned over and over again by Bernard, as these half sentences
+recurred again and again in semi-consciousness.  His telegram despatched,
+Clement returned to his sister, to hear from the two masters all they had
+to tell.  Captain Miller, of the _Afra_, had slight hurts, which had been
+looked to before he should take the train for London; and Blaine had
+waited to tell his story before pursuing his voyage to Bristol, both,
+indeed, to hear the report of the patient, and likewise to collect the
+news of the few who had been landed at Corncastle, to the great relief of
+Captain Miller; but of the first boat there were no tidings, and Blaine
+thought there was little probability that it had not sunk or been dashed
+against the crags of the savage coast.
+
+Captain Miller’s account was, that not long after leaving the Mersey,
+there had set in an impenetrable fog, lasting for a night and a day.
+There was perhaps some confusion as to charts, and the scarcely visible
+lights upon the Maidens.  At any rate, the _Afra_ had suddenly struck on
+a reef, and, shifting at once, had been hopelessly rent, so as to leave
+no hope save in the boats.  Every one seemed to have behaved with the
+resolute fortitude and unselfishness generally shown by English and
+Americans in the like circumstances.  The sea was not in a dangerous
+state, and there was a steady east wind, so that the boats were lowered
+without much difficulty, and most of the women disposed of in the first.
+
+Before the second could be put off however, the water had reached the
+fires; there was a violent lurch, the ship had heeled completely over,
+washing many overboard, and of course causing a great confusion among
+those who had been steady before, and making the deck almost
+perpendicular.  The captain, however, succeeded in lowering another boat,
+and putting into it, as he trusted, the few remaining women, the Bishop,
+and most of the men.  This was, of course, that which had safely reached
+Corncastle, and of which he only now heard.  The last boat was so
+overcrowded that he, with three of his crew, had thought it best to
+remain for the almost desperate chance of being picked up before they
+sank.
+
+He had supposed Mr. Underwood had been washed overboard in the heeling
+over of the ship, and that his sister had been put into the first boat;
+but presently he heard a call.
+
+“Oh, help me, please!”  And he became aware that Sister Angela was
+hanging over her brother, who lay crushed by a heavy chest which had
+fallen on him, and thrown him against the gunwale, though a moan or two
+showed him to be still alive.  The remaining sailors removed the weight,
+lifted him, and laid him in the best place and position they could, while
+his sister hung over him and supported his head.  To Miller’s dismayed
+exclamation at finding a woman still on board, she replied—
+
+“It was no fault of yours.  I hid below.  Other lives—the Bishop’s—were
+what mattered!  I am glad to be here!”
+
+He believed that Mr. Underwood had revived enough to know his sister, for
+he had heard her voice talking to him.  Yes, and singing; but it was not
+for very long.  The wreck was in motion, being carried by current and
+tide along the Channel, and if it did not sink, might be perceived now
+that daylight had come, and a signal of distress might be seen by some
+passing vessel.
+
+Seen it was, in fact, and that there were persons to be rescued; and
+Blaine, who was on his way from Londonderry to Bristol, in the _Muriel
+Ellen_, a cattle-boat, possessed a boat in which to attempt a rescue.
+
+All that experienced sailors could do in transferring the helpless and
+unconscious form to the boat first, and then to the sloop had been done;
+but it was no wonder that in the transit Angela, more heedful of her
+brother’s safety than her own, had fallen between, and been lost in the
+waves, to the extreme grief of Tom Blaine, who had been one of her
+scholars, and devoted to her, as all the boys of Vale Leston were.
+
+The cattle-boat had few facilities for comfort, and all he could do was
+to let Mr. Bernard Underwood lie, as softly as could be contrived, on
+deck, and make sail for Ewmouth, so as to land him as near home as
+possible.  How far he had been conscious it was impossible to say, though
+once he had asked for Angela, but had seemed to understand from an
+evasion, that she was missing, and had said no more, but muttered parts
+of these requests, as if afraid of not being capable of them.
+
+All this had been told or implied, while messages came down that the
+surgeons did not think the injuries need be mortal, provided the
+exhaustion and exposure had not fatal consequences.  The left arm, two
+ribs, and the leg had been broken, and were reduced before the doctors
+ventured on a hopeful report with which to send home the brother and
+sister.  One sight, Clement was allowed of a more unconscious, but much
+less distressed face, and one murmur, “Noble!  Phyllis!” and he was
+promised a telegram later in the day.  The two hardly knew which to feel
+most; grief or thankfulness, the loss or the mercy, and yet—and yet—after
+the fitful, wayward, yet always devout life, with all its strains, there
+was a sense of wistful acceptance of such a close.
+
+They felt it all the more deeply when, a day or two later, Bernard was
+able to say, at intervals, for the injury rendered speech difficult and
+almost dangerous, as Clement leant over him—
+
+“Yes!  I woke to see her face over me, all bright in wavy hair just as
+when we were children, and she said, ‘Bear!  Bear! we are going
+together!’  Then somehow she tried to help me to trust for Phyllis and
+Lily.”
+
+Then his voice sank, but presently he added, “There was more, but it is
+like a dream.  She was singing in her own, own voice.  There was ‘Lead,
+kindly Light!’ and when it came to ‘Angel faces smile’ there was a
+cry—quite glad—‘There! there on the water!  Felix!  Coming for us!  Oh!
+and another One!  Lord, into Thy hands.’  That is all I know—a kiss here,
+and ‘Yes! thanks!  For me!’  But the lifting hurt so much that I lost all
+sense, when she must have fallen between the wreck and the boat.  You are
+glad for her!  Mine own! mine Angel!”
+
+“Safe home!” said Clement.  “Oh, thankworthy!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII—ANCHORED
+
+
+    “Safe home, safe home in port,
+       Rent cordage, shattered deck;
+    Torn sails, provision short,
+       And only not a wreck;
+    But all the joy upon the shore,
+    To tell our voyage the perils o’er!”
+
+SAFE home!  It might be said in another sense for Bernard, for he was
+naturally so strong and healthy that the effects of exposure and
+exhaustion were not long in passing off, the injury to the chest proved
+to be only temporary; and having cased him like a statue in plaster of
+Paris, the surgeons decided, to the joy of his family, that the more
+serious injuries would be better recovered from in the fresh air of Vale
+Leston, than in the fishy, muddy atmosphere of Ewmouth.
+
+So he was transported thither, and installed in Felix’s study, among the
+familiar sights and sounds, and where another joy awaited him, and where
+he lay in happy stillness.
+
+Phyllis had borne up bravely through the suspense, never relinquishing a
+strong assurance of hope; but when that hope was actually crowned by the
+first telegram, the reaction set in, and she had broken down so entirely
+that her mother durst not let her move at first, and indeed accompanied
+her and her little girl as far as the junction, being herself on the way
+to Larne.
+
+And Geraldine’s heart was at peace when she saw Phyllis sitting by the
+bed, her hand in his, content to see and not to speak.  Another visitor
+appeared the following day, namely, the Bishop of Albertstown, who had
+remained at Larne till he could see his fellow passengers in safe hands.
+Then he had crossed to Bristol, and before his hurried visit to his
+sisters he could not but come to see his beloved old pupil, Clement, and
+share with him those reminiscences of her, who, as he had only now
+learnt, had given her young superabundant life for him, a man growing
+into age, whose work might be nearly done.
+
+He only saw Bernard in silence, but heard from Clement the account of
+those last moments, which showed how entirely Angela had been conscious
+of what she was doing, and how willingly she had devoted herself to save
+those whom she loved and valued.
+
+While yet they talked, there was a fresh arrival.  Sir Ferdinand Travis
+Underwood, who could not forbear the running down to hear perfectly all
+that was to be heard, and to make arrangements that might relieve
+Bernard’s mind, if he were indeed on the way of recovery.
+
+In fact, almost the first thought after that of the wife and child had
+been the security of the drenched, stained, and soiled pocket-book; nor
+would the patient be satisfied till he had been allowed himself to hand
+it over to the head of his firm, with, “There, Fernan, safe, though
+smashed with me.  Tell Brown.”
+
+“Never mind Brown or anything else but getting well, Bernard.  I have
+taken our passage for next week.  I shall get things arranged so that you
+need not think of being wanted again out there.  We will find a berth for
+you in the office in town, as soon as you are about again.”
+
+Bernard’s eye lightened.  “I hope—”
+
+But Ferdinand would not let him either thank or hope, scarcely even allow
+any words from Phyllis, who could not be grateful enough for the relief.
+To Alda, who had received her old companion, since Marilda seemed unable
+to let her husband out of her sight; it was explained that she was going
+too, happen what would.  Oh, yes, it was true she was a shocking bad
+sailor, but she was not going to have Fernan’s ships running upon rocks
+or getting on fire, or anything of that sort, without her.  She wanted to
+see about Ludmilla Schmetterling, who was reported to have found a lover
+while studying at a class in the States, and she also meant to settle her
+own especial niece Emilia, whose husband was to take Bernard’s place in
+Ceylon and who had become heartily tired of London’s second-rate
+gaieties.
+
+Those thus concerned met at the memorial service in the morning before
+the Bishop quitted them, where many parishioners gathered who had been
+spellbound in Angela’s freakish days of early girlhood, and who were
+greatly touched when the committal to the deep was inserted from the
+Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea.
+
+It brought a deep sense of awe and thankfulness to those who had feared
+and wondered through the stormy uncertain life, and now could exult in
+what was almost a martyrdom, and had brought their beloved one to the
+great pure grave, as her Baptism for eternity.
+
+Some months later, while Bernard still lay on his couch, but could speak
+and be glad, he rejoiced indeed, for a sore in his heart was healed, when
+two fair babes were brought to him,—a boy who would be as another
+firstborn son, and a little maiden who would bear that name which had
+become dear and saintly in the peculiar calendar of Vale Leston.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII—FAREWELL
+
+
+    “Nay, your pardon!  Cry you, ‘Forward.’  Yours are youth, we hope—but
+    I?”
+
+                                                                —BROWNING.
+
+THE visit of the Bishop of Albertstown had, in fact, been deferred till
+he could quit his fellow-sufferers, especially Wilfred, who could not
+well be left to the charge of the two girls, with the Larne doctor
+evidently in difficulty about his case.
+
+It was with great joy that a telegram was received with tidings that
+General Mohun and Mysie were on the way, and also Magdalen Prescott, who
+met them at Liverpool, being unable to stay away from Agatha under such
+circumstances.  At Belfast they obtained a trained nurse, and a doctor
+was to follow them.
+
+The joy of the meeting between Magdalen and Agatha was almost that of
+mother and daughter, and nothing could be more entirely convincing that
+they were one.
+
+Indeed, Agatha was thoroughly worn out; for the main strain of attendance
+had fallen upon her, since the Bishop was fully occupied with some of the
+seriously hurt in other cottages; and though Dolores tried to be helpful,
+it was chiefly in outside work, and attempts at sick cookery, in which
+she was rather too scientific, and found the lack of appliances very
+inconvenient.  Besides, cousin though she was, or perhaps for that very
+reason, Wilfred was far less amenable to her voice than Agatha’s; and if
+she attempted authority it was sure to rouse all the resistance left in
+him.  Agatha had been constantly on the alert, liable to be called on
+every half-hour, to soothe fretful distress over impossible impatience at
+delay, anger at want of comforts, and dolefulness over the chances of
+improvements, and abuse, whether just or not, of the only accessible
+doctor.
+
+In fact, Magdalen, on seeing how utterly worn out she was, and how little
+space the cottages afforded, thought it best, now that the patient was in
+the hands of sister, uncle, and nurse, to carry her off at once by the
+return car to Larne; and Dolores thought it best to accompany them, after
+Mysie had hung on her as one restored from death.  But Mysie was absorbed
+in her brother, and Dolores had a strong yearning to be with her father,
+so strong that she decided not to return to England, but to procure a
+second outfit at Belfast, and to set forth again from thence, nothing
+daunted, for, as she said (not carelessly), such things did not happen
+immediately after, in a second voyage.  In fact, though thankful and
+impressed by the loss of the others, she had gone through the crisis of
+the life of her heart and affections, and she had likewise been once in
+imminent peril through a convulsion of nature.  Thus she was inclined to
+look on the wreck and the Irish cliffs as an experience in the way of
+business, so she was resolved to see the Giant’s Causeway, and to make
+notes upon it for her lectures.
+
+But it was a different thing with Agatha.  She had been brought face to
+face with death; and though the actual time had been spent in hurry and
+bustle, and even the subsequent tossing in the boat had been not so much
+waiting and thinking as attending to others more terrified and injured
+than herself, and there followed the incessant waiting on Wilfred; still
+the experiences had worked in.  She rested very silently, dwelling little
+to Magdalen on her thoughts; but each word she said, and her very
+countenance, showed that she had made a great step in life and realised
+the spiritual world, which hitherto had been outside her life—not
+disbelieved, but almost matter of speculation and study.
+
+She was not at all desirous of falling back from Dolores, whose grave
+steadiness and fortitude, the result of a truly brave and deep trust, had
+given her a sense of confidence and protection.  So they wrote, and
+arranged for their passage, and, with Magdalen, spent the intermediate
+time in needful preparations at Belfast, and in an expedition to the
+Causeway, where they laid in a stock of notes and observations, all in a
+spirit that made Magdalen feel that she knew both in a manner she had
+never done before, and loved them with a deep value and confidence.
+
+Wilfred meanwhile made very slow, if any, progress.
+
+They took him to Belfast as soon as it was possible, and his mother came
+to him.  He was gentle and quiet, with little power of movement, and
+scarcely any of thought; and in a consultation of doctors, the verdict
+was given that he must be carefully tended for months, if not for years
+to come; and though there might finally be full recovery, yet it would
+depend on the most tender and careful treatment of body and mind.  London
+doctors, when he could be moved thither, confirmed the decision, and he
+began a helpless invalid life, in which a certain indifference and
+dulness made him a much less peevish and trying patient than would have
+been anticipated.  Mysie was his willing, but intelligent slave; and his
+mother was not only thankful to have him brought back to her at any
+price, but really—though she would not have confessed it even to
+herself—was less troubled and anxious about him than she had been since
+he had begun to “roam in youth’s uncertain wilds.”  Indeed, there were
+hopes that slow recovery might find him a much changed person in
+character.
+
+He had become so uninterested in his former predilections that he heard
+with little emotion that Vera was to marry Petros White.
+
+“I thought she would take up with some cad,” he said.  But his family
+were really glad that this wedding was to take place at Rocca Marina,
+whither the two sisters and Magdalen were invited.
+
+Paulina would not go.  She still resented the treatment of Hubert Delrio,
+and she was devoted to her study of nursing at the Dearport Sisterhood;
+but Magdalen thought it right to take Thekla, and give her the advantages
+of improvement in languages, and the sight of fine scenery.
+
+And certainly Rocca Marina was a wonderful place for marriages.  Vera,
+handsome and happy and likely to turn into a fairly good commonplace
+wife, had no sooner been sent off on a honeymoon tour to Greece and
+Egypt, and Mrs. White had begged the other two to prolong their visit,
+considering, perhaps, if one or the other aunt or niece could not be
+promoted to the vacant post of lady-in-waiting, than Hubert Delrio came
+to secure specimens of marble for some mosaic work on which he was
+engaged.  He was fast becoming a man of mark, whom the Whites were
+delighted to receive and entertain, and who was delighted to be with the
+old friends who had had so great an influence on his life.  And was it
+Magdalen alone to whom he chiefly looked up as his helper and guide?  So
+he thought; but before the time of separation had come, he had found out
+that Thekla was far prettier than ever Vera had been, and with a mind and
+principle—no Flapsy, but a real sympathetic and poetic nature, which had
+grown up in these years.  Young as she was, their destinies were fixed.
+
+And Magdalen?  The railroad had obtained authority to pass through the
+Goyle, and thus break up her home and shelter.  Still she was not tempted
+by Adeline White’s desire to make her a companion; but rather she
+accepted the plan on which Dolores had first started, and on which
+Elizabeth Merrifield and Miss Arthuret were set, of making her the head
+of their home at Penbeacon, partly a convalescent home, and partly a
+training college for young women in need of technical instruction in
+nursing or other possible feminine avocations.  Tom May was delighted
+with all it might set on foot, and Clement saw in her leading the hopes
+that a high and pure spirit might inspire it.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+{100}  It is Russian, and means Faith.
+
+
+
+
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