CONCERNING
ISABEL CARNABY

"Well, I must confess that I feel rather like the man who lost his wife, and said it was 'verra dull but verra peaceful'; and I have come to the conclusion that peace is an acquired taste."

"Then do you hanker after the fighting in your dear old House of Commons?"

Lord Kesterton smiled. "I am afraid I still babble o' green benches when I get the chance. The House of Commons is like certain women of one's acquaintance: you quarrel with them, and they expect too much from you, and you vow you will enjoy yourself and have nothing more to do with them; but, all the same, they have spoilt your taste for anything else, and they make all other women seem insufferably dull."

"And now I have got to scold you for dismissing my poor, dear Harry," said Lady Eleanor.

"Uncork the vials of your wrath," replied her host, "and I will endeavour to suffer and be strong."

"I shall appeal to Mr. Madderley to second my vote of censure," continued the lady, turning to the Royal Academician who sat at her right hand. "I suppose I ought to talk to you about art, but I am going to talk to you about politics."

"Please do not talk to me about art, dear lady; I could not bear it from you," replied the artist.

"Why not?"

"Because I should thereby discover that you knew nothing at all about it; and the one rag of faith still wrapped round my jaded spirit is my belief in your omniscience. If you take that away from me I shall sink lower and lower, and shall probably end in doubting the wisdom of Woman, or the supremacy of the British rate-payer."

Lady Eleanor laughed. "Don't you feel like this when I talk about politics?"

"Far from it. I know absolutely nothing about them myself; and when I hear you speaking familiarly—nay, even flippantly—of Whips and Under Secretaries and similar ruling powers, I regard you with awe as a mighty sibyl juggling with the mysterious forces of the Unknown."

"I see; it must sound rather impressive."

"Impressive is not the word—it sounds simply tremendous. Calling Under Secretaries by their Christian names seems to me like patting a thunderstorm or playing with an earthquake; yet I have often heard you do it without an apparent qualm. It is marvellous!"

Lady Eleanor was very proud of what she considered her wire-pulling powers; therefore she enjoyed the Academician's persiflage. It was in cases like this that Madderley showed himself such a clever man; he always said disagreeable things; but he generally took care that they were the sort of disagreeable things that people wanted him to say. Women liked Mr. Madderley because, they said, he did not flatter them; they never found out that is was because he flattered them that they liked him so much.

"When I talk about art, however, you regard me as 'an unlessoned girl,' I suppose," suggested her ladyship.

"That certainly is my idea, but, had you given me time, I would have decked its crudeness with some flowers of speech."

"I am so glad that I did not give you time, then. It would be insufferable if you began to be pleasant! Your raison d'être would be gone if you left off telling disagreeable truths, and we should all leave off liking you."

The artist smiled. "It is very kind of you to say that, Lady Eleanor; but don't you think that the men who tell palatable fibs are really the popular men?"

"No, I don't," Lady Eleanor hastened to assure him; "now you are immensely popular—you must know that you are; and yet you always say straight out whatever you think, and never mind how disagreeable it is. It is this truthfulness that makes us all admire and trust you."

The artist smiled again.

"Do you remember," continued Lady Eleanor, "how you once told a whole group of us our faults at a party at the Farleys'? You said that I was ambitious, and that Lady Farley was cruel, and that Isabel was shallow, and that Violet was cold. I have never forgotten it; I thought it was so nice and plucky of you to tell us the truth straight out like that."

Mr. Madderley remembered that he had once said these things; he also remembered that he had never thought any of them, but this he did not consider it necessary to confess.

"But where are the politics you said you were going to talk to me about?"

"Oh! of course—I forgot. I want to ask your opinion as to the way in which the Government has treated me. You know Harry Mortimer was Lord Kesterton's understudy—no, I mean Under Secretary—at the War Office; and it was a very comfortable arrangement for both of them."

"Well?"

"Then Lord Kesterton took his own peerage without a single twinge of conscience. But now that poor, dear Harry has succeeded to his uncle, and become Lord Gravesend, he has got to be sent away like an inefficient footman, because they say they cannot both of them be in the House of Lords. So please tell your host that you think he has behaved abominably!"

"I do indeed. Such conduct seems to me unjustifiable. It is like drinking oneself, and insisting on one's servants being teetotalers."

Lord Kesterton laughed. Madderley always amused him, and he loved to be amused. "But you are keeping back part of the truth, Lady Eleanor," he said; "we have endeavoured to break the blow to Gravesend by giving him the Governorship of New North Wales."

Lady Eleanor sighed. "That is nothing. I wanted Harry to have a career."

"You forget that he is going to marry you," replied her host; "surely that is a career sufficient to satisfy even the most ambitious of men, and to occupy the time of the most industrious."

"Of course it is. What I ought to have said was that I wanted Harry to have a recreation."

"Recreation means variety of occupation," suggested Lord Kesterton, "and he would hardly find that—after marriage—at the War Office."

"Do you think he will find it in New North Wales?"

"Most certainly; because there, in his official life, his duty will be to rule."

"You are very rude," laughed Lady Eleanor; "I shall talk to Mr. Madderley instead, and ask him if he doesn't think that Gravesend is a very depressing title for a young man to come into."

"It suggests the quintessence of finality," replied the artist, "there is no doubt of that."

Lord Gravesend's fiancée nodded. "I mean to alter it, and to call him 'the Lord Harry' instead. That would be prettier, don't you think?"

"Far prettier; also more colloquial, and I love colloquialisms. They are the next best thing to stories in dialect. A story in dialect invariably does me good, because I do not understand it."

"Then do you think that it is the things we don't understand that do us good?" queried the lady.

"Of course; that is why our prescriptions are always written in Latin, and our menus in French."

"I see."

"When I read in the vulgar tongue," continued Mr. Madderley, "that a man is brave and a woman is beautiful, I am not impressed. I have met brave men in the flesh, and I have found that they generally talk about nothing but slain beasts, and go to sleep after dinner. I have also met beautiful women."

"Did you find them equally disappointing?" asked Lady Eleanor.

"A woman always seems to think that if she has a face she need not possess a head as well. Personally I prefer both."

"You are shockingly cynical!"

"Here the power of dialect comes in," continued the artist, "for when I read that a man is 'braw' and a woman is 'bonny,' I know no wells of experience from which to draw cold water to throw on these illusions; therefore my imagination runs riot, and clothes the parties thus described in impossibly perfect attributes. I never met a 'braw lad' or a 'bonny lassie' in my life, that I know of; so I still picture such beings as ideal and glorious creations."

After a little more conversation about airy nothings, Lady Eleanor turned to her host and asked in a low voice: "Who is going to take Harry's place at the War Office?"

The Secretary of State raised his eyebrows. "I really cannot tell you Cabinet secrets, my dear lady."

"Oh! yes, you can. I want dreadfully to know, and I will promise faithfully not to tell anybody, if only you will take me into your confidence. Please do, there's a dear man!"

Lord Kesterton hesitated. Lady Eleanor certainly was very attractive, and it is always pleasant to please a pretty woman. Seeing him hesitate, she increased her coaxing tenfold.

"Well, suppose that I tell you as a great secret," he said at last, "will you give me your word not to repeat it to anybody?"

"Of course I will. I should never think of doing such a thing."

Lord Kesterton lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. "The new Under Secretary for War is our honourable friend the member for Chayford."

Lady Eleanor's eyes sparkled with delight; it was her rôle to stand behind the scenes of Governments and to give little jerks to the ropes—at least, she thought it was; and now both her curiosity and her love of power were gratified.

"I am so glad!" she exclaimed, "he is such a pleasant man—and very clever too, don't you think?"

Like all women, Lady Eleanor Gregory considered the word clever was complimentary; like all men, Lord Kesterton considered it quite the reverse.

"Clever?" he replied, "my dear young lady, what a word to apply to a brilliant politician I Why, he is already one of the ablest men in the Liberal party, and he has only been in the House three years."

"I am so glad you told me. It will interest Harry most tremendously!"

Lord Kesterton started. "But you gave me your word that you would not tell anybody."

"So I did; I quite forgot. But Harry doesn't count, you know. I never keep anything from him—except, of course, the number of dances that I give to other men; but that is different."

"I cannot see why Gravesend doesn't count; he always appears to me to be a man of considerable weight."

"Oh! but you are not engaged to him; if you were you would know that his considerable weight could be tampered with by the display of a little tact and persuasion. But now tell me more about Harry's successor. Of course I know all about who he is to-day; but who was he yesterday? I want to read up the back numbers of his story."

The host shook his head. "Back numbers are always dull and generally fictitious, I find."

"I don't; they amuse me immensely—especially with portraits from early and hideous childhood up to 'present day'."

"Lady Eleanor," said the Secretary for War in a very low voice, "do you know why you have been successful in extracting this confidential communication from me?"

"No."

"Guess."

Lady Eleanor thought for a moment. "Because you knew you could trust me not to repeat it?"

Lord Kesterton smiled. "That was not exactly my reason. Try again."

Lady Eleanor knitted her pretty forehead. "Because you thought that Harry had the right to know who was to step into his shoes?"

Her host shook his head.

Lady Eleanor smiled. "Because I am a very charming young woman?"

"I do not deny that that had something to do with my breach of confidence; but there was still another and a better reason."

"Then I cannot guess it."

"Will you give it up?"

Lady Eleanor nodded,

"I ventured to tell you this State secret," whispered Lord Kesterton to his pretty guest, "because the fact is already announced in the evening papers."

CHAPTER I.
Childish Things.

As fays and elves and witches old
To children of a gentler mould,
Angels and devils came their way
And were adapted to their play.

A quaint old town which had long ago ceased to be anything but picturesque, but which never forgot that it had once been prosperous, as some women never forget that they have once been pretty—a town in which the square, red-brick houses pretended that they were frowning on the streets in front, while they were really smiling on the gardens at the back all the time—a town with an interesting past and a most uneventful present—such was Chayford in the county of Mershire.

A noticeable figure in the town of Chayford—a man of courtly manners, cultivated mind and consistent piety—a scholar, moreover, of no mean order, whose learning was profound and whose wisdom was not of this world—such was Mark Seaton, a minister "of the people called Methodists".

In the days of his youth the Reverend Mark Seaton had chosen as his wife Ruth, the only daughter of David Crayshaw of Camchester—well known among the Methodists of the past generation as a "leading friend"; and Mrs. Seaton had inherited a fortune from her father, in addition to many gifts of mind and person. As she had been a dutiful daughter, so she was a devoted wife. To her children she was ever sympathetic and tender, with intermittent attacks of discipline, which she disliked as much as they did; and while her heart was ever begging her to indulge, her conscience kept bidding her to punish them. She had been known to whip her darlings, urged by a painful sense of duty thereto; but on such sad occasions she wore a shawl for the rest of the day, just as she did when the minister was not well, or when any important member of the congregation died.

Mark and Ruth Seaton had only two children, Paul and Joanna by name. Joanna was the elder by a year; but Paul was so much the bigger and stronger and better-looking of the two, that he took the lead in everything.

Paul and Joanna Seaton were brought up in the good old Methodist style, and learned to take life seriously. To them every trivial choice was a decision between good and evil—every fortunate accident a special interposition of Providence on their behalf. They were early taught by their father that the only two things of importance in this life are salvation and education; likewise, that the verb To Be is of infinite moment—the verb To Do of great weight—and the verb To Have of no significance at all. Therefore, whatever faults and failings they might suffer from in after life, there was no possibility of the little Seatons becoming vulgar.

It was when the Seatons "travelled" in the Chayford circuit that Paul and Joanna formed their friendship with Alice Martin. Alice was three years younger than Joanna and two years younger than Paul. It was true that she was not as clever as Joanna—but then she was much prettier, which made it all right. And in childish days—as in later ones—Alice Martin was always ready to play inferior parts in a grateful spirit; a habit of mind which makes people to be beloved, if downtrodden, by their fellow-creatures.

Alice's parents were wealthy and worldly persons. Of being the former they were proud, and of being the latter they were ignorant; in fact they imagined that they were a very godly couple, because they attended chapel regularly, and had their library lined with calf-bound copies of the Methodist Magazine, dating from its Arminian days. Mr. and Mrs. Martin regarded religion very much as they regarded an "English manufacture" or an "Irish industry"; that is to say, they lost no opportunity of patronizing and advertizing it; but felt that in so doing they were conferring a favour and meriting a vote of thanks.

Mrs. Martin was an extremely amusing woman; but she herself had no idea of this—she imagined she was only dignified and edifying. She once said: "Although my husband is a rich man and a county magistrate, he has the fear of the Lord before his eyes". And she had no idea that there was anything humorous in this use of the conjunction although.

Another great friend of the minister's children was Edgar Ford—an earnest little boy who was always asking profound and unanswerable questions. His father was an opulent merchant; and his mother an elegant and well-bred woman, who hid great kindness of heart under a somewhat cold and stately exterior.

But perhaps the most important figure in the children's world—while they were yet children—was their old nurse Martha, a very superior and excellent person who had lived with Mrs. Seaton before her marriage. Martha had another servant under her; but she would share with no one the delightful duty of looking after Paul and Joanna. It was Martha who corrected their childish sins and comforted their childish sorrows; and it was Martha who placed them upon an intimate, yet withal comfortable, footing with the principalities and powers of the spiritual world. To Martha they owed their ineradicable belief that an inclination to idleness or disobedience or greediness was no mere instinct, but a suggestion of the Evil One himself, who—bat-winged and cloven-footed, as he appeared in the illustrations to the Pilgrim's Progress—lurked in the dark places of the china-pantry and the back-stairs, for the set purpose of betraying to destruction the souls of the minister's children. Likewise, they were taught that the subdual of this inclination was no mere outcome of a line of plain-living, high-thinking ancestors, but a triumph of the powers of light over the powers of darkness. These beliefs Paul and Joanna never outgrew; which, perhaps, accounted for the fact that, as man and woman, they did not underestimate the difference between good and evil.

At Chayford Paul and Joanna spent three of the interminable years of childhood; and Chayford Chapel was ever afterwards associated in their minds with all that is sacred and holy. It was there that they had first touched the fringe of the Unseen, and caught glimpses of life's deeper meanings; it was there that they had sung the old-fashioned hymns to the old-fashioned tunes, and had felt as if they themselves were somehow one with the white-robed multitude, which no man can number, singing the song that the angels cannot learn. Then the hearts of the children were filled with joy and their eyes with tears, and a strange thrill ran through the whole of their being. They did not understand why they felt so gloriously happy and yet wanted to cry; for they were then too young to know that earth, and probably heaven, has nothing better to offer us than that same thrill, which runs through us when we catch fleeting glimpses of the Beautiful and the True, and rise superior for the time being to all that is sordid and cowardly and mean. For the moment, we are "pure in heart"; and therefore, either through the interpretation of art or the revelation of nature, either in the loyalty of a great people or in the love on a familiar face, we "see God".

When Paul and Joanna were respectively eighteen and nineteen, their father's health gave way and he was obliged to "sit down"—a synonym among Methodist ministers for retiring upon half-pay—and he chose Chayford as the spot where he would finally settle. The Seatons had spent their three years at Chayford some time previously; and it had suited them so well that they selected it as their permanent abode.

There is no doubt that the Methodist system of having a sort of "general post" among the ministry every Conference keeps the Church together in a most successful way; but there is also no doubt that a triennial removal falls heavily on the women of the ministers' households. No Wesleyan minister can stay longer than three years in any circuit; and he need only stay one; so, like the Mohammedans and their Hegira, all his race reckons time by "Conference".

There was a nomadic strain in Joanna's blood, inherited from three generations of preaching ancestry; and she was incapable of feeling happy under any roof-tree for a longer period than three years. But her mother was of a less restless disposition; and had learnt that if one is continually moving one's Lares and Penates, these idols are apt to get very much the worse for wear, if not actually broken to pieces. It is only when a Wesleyan minister "sits down," that his family are able to thoroughly understand the meaning of the word home. Therefore Mrs. Seaton rejoiced in secret over her house at Chayford. Her husband's health was not such as to give her any real anxiety, but he was growing too old for full work, and needed rest; and the fortune that she had brought to him made him feel that he was justified in taking, with a clear conscience, the repose for which he craved.

Paul was doing very well at Kingswood School; and Joanna was doing equally well in the school of domestic life; and their parents' cup of joy was full when at last Paul won a scholarship at Oxford.

On the morning when Paul's triumph had been made known at home, Mrs. Seaton went into the kitchen after breakfast to break the glad news to Martha. But the latter met her with a most ominous expression of countenance.

"There's a sad thing happened this morning, ma'am, and no mistake," she began, with a profound sigh.

"Indeed, Martha, and what is that?" inquired her mistress.

"The best hot-water jug has gone to its long home."

"Oh! Martha, not the Ruth and Naomi one?"

"The very same, ma'am, more's the pity!"

Now it happened that this hot-water jug was one of Mrs. Seaton's most cherished household gods. It portrayed the first chapter of the Book of Ruth. Ruth and Naomi clave to each other under the shadow of the spout, while Orpah returned to her own people in the direction of the handle. The handle itself was one gigantic ear of barley; and on the opposite side of it to that where Orpah and her people evidently dwelt, Boaz reaped with his young men, neatly dressed as English farm-labourers.

"How ever did it happen?" asked Mrs. Seaton in a reproachful tone.

"I was just carrying it with the breakfast cups across the kitchen, and suddenly it smashed itself to bits on the floor."

"But, Martha, I have so often told you not to try to carry so many things at once. It was sure to end in an accident."

"So you have, ma'am; but it seemed as if it was to be."

"It would not have happened if you had done as I told you," said Mrs. Seaton quite sternly.

"That is true, ma'am; but it seemed as if it was to be."

Nothing that her mistress said could convince Martha that she was in any way to blame in the matter. She seemed to regard herself as merely the instrument in a foreordained scheme of destruction; and kept repeating in a tone of grim satisfaction, "it seemed as if it was to be!"

Mrs. Seaton had learned many things in life; and one of them was that feminine argument is always unattractive and generally useless. She was a woman of infinite tact, and took great pains never to hurt people, or even to make them uncomfortable. Her instinct told her what places were sore to the touch; and her religion prevented her from touching the same. She was too good a woman to rejoice secretly at other people's misfortunes, and too clever a one openly to pity them. But all this did not come by nature to Mrs. Seaton; it had taken half a lifetime's experience—and also considerable knowledge—to bring her tact to this state of perfection.

On the present occasion she changed the subject by saying: "We have had good news about Master Paul this morning, Martha."

"Indeed, ma'am, that is a good hearing! What has come to the dear lad?"

"He has won a scholarship at Oxford, and so is going to the University."

"Well, ma'am, that is good news and no mistake! Oxford is a fine place, I hear; and I am told that there's a chapel belonging to each of the colleges, so that the dear young gentleman will not be cut off from the means of grace."

Mrs. Seaton smiled. "The college chapels are not Methodist chapels, however."

"Are they not, ma'am? Well, that's a pity! I thought they were. Still any sort of a chapel is better than a church, to my thinking."

And Mrs. Seaton listened with much amusement while Martha further expounded her views on the subject.

So Paul Seaton went to Oxford, and drank deep into the spirit of a city whose very lawns have to be rolled for five hundred years before they are considered soft enough to walk upon. And there Paul saw visions and dreamed dreams; and because he had been vouchsafed two of the best gifts wherewith Providence can equip a man—namely a religious training and a sense of humour—his dreams were never ignoble and his visions never absurd. He made up his mind to serve God and his generation to the best of his ability, and to make for himself a great name into the bargain; for he was as yet young enough to concoct plans for the conflagration of the river Thames; not knowing that if a man can kindle a fire on his own hearthstone to keep him warm in his old age, he has done his share towards the heating-apparatus of this world, and can count himself among the more successful half of mankind.

Paul also grew lean and tall and vigorous; and was very pleasant to look upon, with his dark hair, grey eyes and well-cut face. He was not a handsome man, strictly speaking; but, as Martha said, "he would pass in a crowd," and he was quite good-looking enough for everyday use.

The years had not dealt quite as kindly with Joanna as with Paul. She was short and thin and colourless; one of those whitey-brown-threads of women who are constantly being overlooked by their friends and neighbours, and whose natural abode is supposed to be the outlying districts of other people's lives. And she took no pains to make herself attractive, as a vainer girl would have done; for she was as yet young enough to cherish that admirable and false belief that folks love us according to our excellencies. We all begin life well grounded in this groundless faith, and we rejoice in it as long as we are youthful enough to fancy that our excellencies will be many; but as we grow older and see how few of these there be, and those not of the finest water, we thank heaven for showing us that the aforesaid dogma was nothing but the rankest heresy.

Joanna was the raw material out of which nuns and sisters of mercy are made. Had she belonged to a different faith and a different age, she would have developed into a model lady-abbess. To her, love was a matter of no interest; it formed no part of the programme of life. Such romance as her nature possessed had been lavished upon Mrs. Crozier, the wife of one of the ministers in her father's penultimate circuit. No lover ever adored his mistress, and no devotee his saint, more absorbingly than Joanna adored Mrs. Crozier.

There is always something pathetic in the adoration of a young girl for an older woman; she gives so much, and can, of necessity, receive so little; yet, with the exception of motherhood, it is perhaps the most unselfish affection which a woman's life can hold. The girl worships with her whole heart, and pours out all the early romance of her nature on this particular shrine; and the woman either suffers this devotion patiently, or snubs it cruelly—according as she happens to be amiable or the reverse.

Mrs. Crozier was kind to Joanna on the whole; but she had not much time to waste on girls, for she was a busy woman.

There are some people who go through life putting all their eggs into one basket. There are others who avoid this mistake, but fall into the equally unlucky one of putting their eggs into baskets which are already full. These erring mortals pour out the treasures of their love at the feet of those whose coffers are overflowing, and spend their days in the thankless task of waiting upon such as are well served. Joanna Seaton was one of these. It was her fate in life to give love where she could only receive friendship, and friendship where she could only receive toleration. Had she given otherwise and otherwhere, her rewards might have been different. But what man or woman can bestow their affection as their wisdom prompts?

Therefore there was a tragic element in Joanna's lot. But when "gorgeous Tragedy" puts off her "sceptred pall" and dresses like a dowdy little spinster, men are too blind to recognize and too hard to pity her. So she bears her burden in silence.

"What do you mean to do when you leave Oxford?" asked Joanna of Paul one day.

"I shall take a First and go to the Bar, and then into Parliament," replied her brother promptly. Paul always knew his own mind—a branch of knowledge which is useful in this world.

"But suppose you fail?" suggested Joanna.

"I shall not fail."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I have made up my mind not to fail, but to work at a thing till I succeed. When a man is a failure it is always his own fault."

"Except when it is God's; and then failure is better than success," said Joanna quietly, who knew more about failure—and therefore more about success—than Paul did.

He had still to learn that the man who tries and succeeds is one degree less of a hero than the man who fails and yet goes on trying.

Mr. Martin did not at all approve of Paul Seaton's going to Oxford: nominally, because he upheld that learning was a dangerous thing for a young man who had his own living to get; and actually, because he could not bear any one else to enjoy such advantages of mind, body or estate as had not been vouchsafed, in still fuller measure, to himself. He therefore spoke a word of warning to the young man one day when Paul happened to be calling at The Cedars.

(The Martins' house was called The Cedars because there happened to be a yew-tree in the middle of the lawn.)

"My dear Paul," Mr. Martin began, "I trust that the purely intellectual life in which you are now indulging will in no way unfit you for earning your own living in a suitable and becoming way; nor, on the other hand, lead you into infidelity."

Paul likewise hoped not, and said so.

"To my mind," interpolated Mrs. Martin, "there are few more delusive snares than learning, falsely so called."

This excellent lady had no taste for art or literature, and consequently she considered them wrong. It is so easy—and pleasant—to discover sins lurking in the pursuits for which we are not inclined. Many of us possess wonderful powers of perception in this matter.

"My fear always is that classics and mathematics and rubbish of that kind will disable a man for the more serious business of life," continued Mr. Martin, "and render him incapable of making and earning money."

"But don't you think that they might rather enable a man to earn his own living?" suggested Paul.

Mr. Martin shook his head. "Such things might enable him to earn his own living, perhaps, but never to make a fortune."

"Is it absolutely necessary to human happiness to make a fortune, I wonder?" queried Paul.

Now Mr. Martin was a very good-tempered man, and the causes of his amiable attitude of mind were two-fold—he was very well-off and he was always sure he was in the right; so he had no grounds for a quarrel with anybody. But when people spoke slightingly of the good things of this world, he was much shocked: he called it "tempting Providence".

"Wealth is the hall-mark of success," he replied rather shortly, "and poverty is the outward and visible sign of failure."

"I can hardly agree with you there, Mr. Martin. Who ever thinks about how much money Shakespeare or Milton made?"

Mr. Martin regarded this remark as childish, so took no notice of it, but calmly continued: "I once knew a man who began life as an errand-boy; and yet when he died he left half a million of money behind him. Now that is what I call success."

"And I once knew of a man who began life as a free-born citizen of no mean city, and was executed as a prisoner at Rome; and who left no fortune behind him save a few letters. Yet the world hardly calls that man a failure."

"Don't you think it is a little irreverent to apply things out of the Bible to every-day life?" suggested Mrs. Martin in a reproachful tone. "It always grates upon my ear when I hear young people do it."

"It never struck me in that light."

"I fear," added the master of The Cedars, "that too much learning is already leading you into infidelity, and causing you to speak flippantly of sacred matters. As I said before, I cannot commend useless study. In my opinion, if a man has any time to spare from his business he should devote it to religion."

"As you have done, Caleb," remarked his appreciative spouse.

"I have always endeavoured to do so, my dear; and that, I take it, is the reason why my investments are almost invariably successful."

Mr. Martin was one of the men who act up to their convictions. Early in life he had undertaken the difficult task of combining the service of God and Mammon. For some ten hours a day he worked hard at making and amassing money; but his "off-time" he devoted conscientiously to heaven; and he considered that, on the whole, heaven had nothing to complain of in the arrangement.

It is but fair to add that Caleb Martin endeavoured, according to his lights, to do his duty to both the powers under whom he served; but, if the two interests did happen to clash, it was never Mammon that came short. Otherwise, perhaps, he would not have been such a rich man.

"My husband has never cared for pleasure," continued Mrs. Martin, "and many a time when I considered that a little relaxation would be good for him, he has said to me, 'My religion is my recreation, Sarah'. And he has always made it so."

"I have indeed," replied Mr. Martin modestly; "though I do not think, my dear, that you should thus proclaim my virtues upon the house-top. It may seem just a little boastful to one not of our own household."

Both Mr. and Mrs. Martin considered that the latter's description of her husband was unadulterated praise. It never occurred to either of them that any one in heaven or on earth would not consider it as such. It also never occurred to them that they were being at all humorous.

"You have certainly succeeded even beyond your deserts, Mr. Martin," remarked Paul with much sincerity.

The excellent Caleb waved his hand in a deprecatory manner. "I have received my penny a day," he replied; "neither more nor less."

As a matter of fact he was at that moment receiving about nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and eleven pence more than his penny a day; but it never does to press a metaphor too far.

Then Mrs. Martin chimed in with the remark: "You will do well to think upon Mr. Martin's words, my dear Paul. At Oxford you are doubtless exposed to other pernicious influences in addition to that of infidelity, as you are thrown much with young persons who have been nurtured in the pride of high rank and of noble blood—a most subtle and dangerous form of sin, to my thinking."

Paul much regretted that Joanna was not present. She always appreciated Mrs. Martin so warmly, and she had frequently called attention to the fact (now en evidence) that in the spiritual world the special dangers which beset our neighbours seem so much more terrible than those which beset ourselves. The latter are but pardonable weaknesses, we think; but the former are mortal sins. Thus we pray that we may be delivered from pitfalls which have no attraction for us, and we hope that Providence will be so much engaged in attending to the fulfilment of this prayer, that our slips and stumbles into the little hollows which we affect will pass unnoticed.

"Pride of birth is a dreadful besetment," continued Mrs. Martin, "and one which I pray may never be laid to my charge." Which certainly seemed an almost superfluous petition, considering the lineage of the suppliant.

The Martins were very anxious to be delivered from the temptations arising from such mundane blessings as had been denied them; but it never seemed to occur to them to pray for exemption from the love of money.

"I suppose all worldly gifts become besetments if we give them a primary instead of a secondary place," suggested Paul, "and if we confuse essentials with non-essentials."

"Quite so, quite so," agreed Mr. Martin; "and it is this thought which gives us parents so much anxiety when we look forward into our children's future—this fear that the young people may, in their ignorance, fling away the substance for the sake of the shadow; as a young friend of mine once did, who refused a partnership in an excellent business in order to become a missionary."

"What happened to him eventually?" asked Paul.

Mr. Martin heaved a sigh of sincere regret. "He died—a comparatively young man—somewhere in the South Seas. And if he had taken my advice and stayed at home, he might have been the mayor of his native town by this time. But young folks will not be controlled."

"Still I can't help thinking that on the whole it is as fine a thing to be a martyr as to be a mayor," Paul remarked.

But Mr. Martin considered this remark irreverent.

"Mr. Martin is right," sighed the mistress of The Cedars, "though for my part, I desire for my one ewe lamb neither riches nor honour; I only ask that she may be wise and happy."

And then the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Alice, who blushed very becomingly on perceiving Paul; while Mrs. Martin—having noted the blush—was straightway plunged into a very maelstrom of maternal unrest, lest the one ewe lamb, for whom she desired neither riches nor honour, should seek happiness with the impecunious son of a minister of religion.

CHAPTER II.
Alice.

I will own you as my prince
In the sight of heaven,
For I've loved you ever since
I was six or seven.

In consequence of her daughter's incriminating blush, Mrs. Martin set herself to the not uncommon task of locking a stable door after the steed has been stolen. But it was too late. Alice loved Paul Seaton, and felt that to be with him and to hear his voice was ideal happiness. As for Paul, he liked his old playmate because she thought him infallible and because she was pleasant to look upon; but his time for love was not yet.

Men and women approach the great subject of love by such different roads. The normal woman begins her life by raising an altar to an unknown god, and dedicates it to the first handsome stranger who comes her way, as the niche over the shrine is generally what shop-keepers call "stock size". Worship is the leading motive of her existence: the particular idol whom she happens to adore is a mere matter of circumstance.

But with a man it is different. In his case the goddess appears prior to the altar; and it is only after he has met and fallen down before the one, that he recognizes the necessity of erecting the other.

Alice Martin was an extremely pretty girl; and reminded one of a picture by Romney, with her soft brown hair and eyes to match. She was also sweet and good and restful; and possessed the power of making happy any man who happened to love her. She also possessed the power of loving almost any man—provided that he was kind and agreeable, and always on the spot: for—let poets and novelists say what they will in favour of manly beauty and manly prowess—it is not the man of war or the man of genius that carries the day with the majority of women, but the man who happens to be on the spot.

"I don't think Miss Alice is looking well; do you, Martha?" asked Joanna of her faithful handmaid one day.

"Far from it, miss, far from it. I passed the remark only the other day to Mrs. Martin's cook, that Miss Alice had just the same look that my niece Keren-happuch Tozer had; and in three weeks after that, Keren-happuch was a corpse," assented Martha cheerfully.

Joanna suppressed a smile. "Oh! I don't think she is as bad as that, Martha; but she looks to me as if she were fretting about something."

"May be she is, my dear. The heart knoweth its own bitterness, as Solomon said; and a wounded spirit is as a broken tooth, as it were."

"I sometimes wonder if she is in love with Paul," remarked Paul's sister thoughtfully.

"Well, to be sure, miss, what an idea! Yet Master Paul is a likely enough lad for any maid to fancy, bless his heart!"

"Falling in love seems a great bother, don't you think, Martha?"

"I should just think it is, my dear, and no mistake. I'm thankful to say I always kept clear of rubbish of that kind. I've had too much to do, what with preparing your dear papa's meals, and keeping the circuit's furniture in good order, to waste my time in thinking of men and love and fallals of that sort."

"I have made up my mind that I shall never marry," said Joanna.

"And I, for one, don't blame you; for what with throwing matches into the grates, and walking on the carpets with muddy boots, and sitting on the antimacassars and crumpling them up, there's nothing makes as much dirt in a house as a man. They are far worse than dogs or children, in my opinion."

"Besides," mused Joanna, "I am not pretty enough to get married."

"Bless you, my dear, that's neither here nor there! If Providence ordains that you'll be married, married you'll be, if you've got a face like a turnip and a figure like a bolster. As I once passed the remark to my sister Eliza Ann—'Eliza Ann,' says I, 'you're the plainest woman I ever set eyes on, and you've got the best husband: which is nothing short of a miracle'."

Joanna smiled. "Did not Eliza Ann feel hurt at your saying that?"

"Not she: Eliza Ann was far too godly a woman to care for such an earthly snare as beauty, or to spend her days in plaiting her hair and putting on of apparel, like the beasts that perish."

"Where is Eliza Ann now?" asked Joanna.

"She went with her husband to Australia some years ago."

"Do you often hear from her?"

"Now and again, miss, when she has the time; but what with one thing and another her days are pretty full. She and her husband wanted me to go out and join them at one time; but I said that unless they could promise that I should sleep every night on land in a four-post bed, I would not undertake the journey. It may be all very well to go travelling by day, when you can see where you are going to; but travelling by night is only for such as love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil."

Joanna Seaton had an admirable sense of humour; and therefore always encouraged Martha when the latter was inclined, like the moon, to take up her wondrous tale, and relate the story of her earlier experiences.

"Your sister, Eliza Ann, must have been a woman of strong character," said Joanna suggestively.

"Indeed she was, my dear, and no mistake. She was such a leading light in the Grampton circuit that it was considered due to her piety to ask her to do the cutting-out at the Dorcas-meeting. But piety and cutting-out don't always go together, more's the pity!"

"I suppose they don't."

"Far from it. There was once great distress in Grampton, owing to bad trade coupled with a deep snow; and Brother Phipson gave a roll of cloth to make clothes for ragged little boys; Brother Phipson being a cloth-merchant by nature and a circuit-steward by grace."

"It was very kind of him to give garments to the poor," said Joanna approvingly.

"He was but an unprofitable servant, like the rest of us," sighed Martha: "when we have done all we can, our righteousness is but filthy rags hanging on barren fig-trees."

"Did your sister cut out all the little boys' clothes?"

"Well, it was in this way, miss. Eliza Ann was such a saint that it would not have been seemly for any other member of the congregation to do the cutting-out while she was present. So she was appointed to the work. But her mind was so full of the last Sunday evening's sermon, that she cut out all the trousers for the same leg."

Joanna laughed outright. "I suppose she was in a great way when she found out what she had done."

"Not she, my dear," replied Martha, somewhat reprovingly, "Eliza Ann was far too religious a woman to own to anybody but her Maker that she had been in the wrong."

"Then what did she do?"

"She said what she had done she had done for the best, but it was always her fate to be misunderstood, so she supposed she must take it as her cross and not complain. She had endeavoured not to let her left hand know what her right hand was doing, and this was the consequence. Oh! she was terribly hurt, was Eliza Ann—and no wonder!—when the young minister told her that, according to his ideas, trousers (like opinions) should not be one-sided. It was so painful, she said, when men reviled her and condemned her, after she had acted as she thought for the best."

"What was the end of it all?" Joanna asked.

"The end was, miss, that Brother Phipson heard what had happened, and gave another roll of cloth to make the other legs; so that all things worked together for good, and there was double the number of pairs that there would have been if the cutting-out had not been done by Eliza Ann."

"She really must have been a gifted person!"

"Oh! Eliza Ann was a godly woman, and no mistake," confessed Martha, with pardonable pride, "and still is, I doubt not, a sea-voyage having no power to change the human heart. But she was none too easy to get on with, when things were going smooth. Though I say it as shouldn't—being her sister—there were times when Eliza Ann's religion was trying to the flesh of them she had to do with."

"Did her husband think it so?" queried Joanna.

"Oh, my dear, what a question to ask! As if it mattered what he thought! Eliza Ann was far too sensible to allow him to give his opinion about anything. 'If you let a husband begin to pass remarks,' she used to say, 'it is the thin end of the wedge which in time will turn again and rend you.' So Eliza Ann avoided the first appearance of evil."

"But she was really good, you say?"

"Good, my dear? Of course she was good! Who ever thought anything different?" exclaimed Martha, who had never read Milton's line, "He for God only; she for God in him," and would have called it "rubbish" if she had. "I assure you, miss, Eliza Ann was not one to keep the outside of the cup and platter clean, while the inside was filled with ravening wolves and dead men's bones. Though she might be aggravating, as it were, in times of prosperity, in the day of adversity she never failed nor fell short."

Joanna nodded.

"Now, in the case of Mr. Sweeting," continued Martha, "him that so far forgot himself as to say that trousers should be two-sided, you know. As long as he waxed fat and kicked, and was filled with pride and vainglory, Eliza Ann would have nothing to say to him. But when he fell sick of the small-pox, and there was no woman to look after him—his mother being dead, and his step-mother living at such a distance and caring more for the things of this life than for her husband's first family (which was all sons)—Eliza Ann went and nursed him herself, and if it had not been for her the poor young man would have died."

"Did she escape the infection?" asked Joanna anxiously.

"Not she. As soon as Mr. Sweeting was pretty well, Eliza Ann caught the complaint and had a terrible time. And when she got well again she found her face was disfigured, and her beautiful hair all cut off."

"Oh, how sad!" cried Joanna. "Was she pretty before her illness?"

"No, my dear; far from it. She was always a plain woman at the best of times, but the small-pox left her positively ugly. She really had had beautiful hair; but when it grew again it all came grey. Perhaps her hair, being her one beauty, might have proved a snare to her; so the Lord saw fit to remove it, lest she herself—having saved others—should become a castaway."

"Did she mind much when she found her face was so disfigured?" Joanna asked: "and did she regret what she had done?"

"Never once, miss. Eliza Ann is not one of the regretting sort. She does what she thinks right, and leaves Providence to take the consequences. The first time I saw her after her illness, 'My conscience alive, Eliza Ann,' says I, 'you are a figure of fun!' 'Martha,' says she, 'the Lord called me to nurse that poor, misguided young man; and was I going to let the thought of my vile body come between me and the Lord's work?' That was how Eliza Ann looked at the matter; and it was the sensible view to my thinking."

Joanna's eyes filled with tears; self-sacrifice—even in Eliza Anns—always touched her.

"I hope you said something comforting to your sister, Martha."

"Yes, miss, I did, and something edifying too, I trust. 'Eliza Ann,' says I, 'if you have been ugly here, you will be handsome enough in heaven, never fear. Much beauty you never had; but, such as it was, you gave it to the Lord, and He will pay it back in His own good time!'"

"Then do you think that what we give up here will be made up to us hereafter?"

"Certainly so," replied Martha cheerfully: "the Lord tells us in His Holy Word to owe no man anything; so it isn't likely that He will remain in debt Himself. Trust Him, if we give Him our health or wealth or beauty, it will be repaid, some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred-fold."

"I wonder if we shall all be beautiful in heaven?" said Joanna.

"Of course we shall, my dear, if we want to be," replied Martha, "if the Lord lets us wish for anything very much, He means to fulfil that wish, either in this world or the next, or else He would never let us go on wishing it."

"Then do you think that every one will be made good-looking in heaven?"

"I do, Miss Joanna. It will be a big job with some of us, I admit; but the Lord will manage it, never fear."

"Still it seems wrong and selfish, somehow, to wish very much for beauty," persisted Joanna, who, being younger and less wise than her mother, was addicted to argument. "Mrs. Martin was talking about this the other day, and she said she considered the mere desire to be beautiful was a form of sinful vanity."

"Perhaps she is of a contented disposition, and has brought her mind to her circumstances, as the saying is," suggested Martha, who always scented battle at the mere mention of Mrs. Martin. This excellent lady had a wonderful knack of teaching people their place—a form of education which does not add to the popularity of the instructor.

"She said that wealth was a higher gift than beauty," continued Joanna thoughtfully, "because it could be used for the benefit of others, while beauty was only a personal possession; and she told me that she had often felt it right to pray to the Lord for riches, because she needed them to carry on His work."

"She never took Him in with that, I'll be bound," murmured Martha, with an ominous shake of the head; "but it was just like her to try it on."

"I suppose we ought not to mind whether we are rich or poor, or handsome or plain," mused Joanna aloud; "for this life is, after all, only an anteroom to the next one. Our happiness or unhappiness here is really a question of no moment; what really matters is whether we are using our happiness or unhappiness as a fit preparation for the life to come."

"Quite true, my dear," commented Martha; "as long as sick folk get well, it doesn't signify to them whether they are cured by sweet syrups or by bitter drugs. It is the cure that matters, not the medicine."

Joanna nodded her head approvingly: Martha's uncompromising sense of justice always appealed to her.

"Them as think too much of this present life and all its vanities," continued Martha, "remind me of my poor father, the first time he travelled by rail. It was to see his sister who lived at Folwich. 'Now, Joshua,' says mother to him, 'whatever you do, don't sit down on them comfortable seats and fall asleep, but remember that you are a stranger and a sojourner.' 'All right, missis,' says father; and then—like a man—did exactly the opposite to what he'd been told. Oh! they are tiresome creatures, men are. If you look after their health, they say you are fussy; and if you don't, they are all dead corpses. Eh! but there is no peace for a married woman, save in the grave; and not even there, I doubt, unless he has been took first, and so she knows he is out of harm's way."

"Then don't you think that men are able to take care of themselves?" asked Joanna.

"My conscience alive, miss! You, who have got a father of your own, to ask such a question as that! Still there is some excuse for you, seeing that your father is a minister, and so not quite like other men. But even a call to the ministry don't make a man equal to a woman, to my thinking; though it is better than nothing, as you may say."

"What happened to your father on his first journey? That is what you were telling me."

"So I was, miss, so I was. Well, as I was saying, mother told father not to make himself too comfortable on his journey, or worse would come of it. She owned afterwards that she had been foolish not to see that forbidding a thing was just suggesting to him to do it, and putting fresh mischief into his head; for the moment she forgot she was speaking to a man, and treated him as a reasonable being—which she ought to have known better, being a married woman."

"Then did he disobey her?" inquired Joanna.

"Naturally, my dear, he did. No sooner did father start on his journey, out of reach of mother's eye, than he sat down on them seats and went fast asleep, and he didn't wake up again till he'd gone five stations past Folwich."

"Oh dear!"

"It was 'oh dear!' and no mistake; for he had to wait at Brayford four hours for the next train back, and then had to come straight home again without seeing his sister at all, besides having to pay the extra fare, which came to five and threepence. Mother said he was a type of them that have their portion in this life, and are so busy making the best of the wilderness that they pass by the promised land without even seeing the name of the station."

So Joanna and her old nurse—like the true Methodists that they were—talked familiarly together about holy things; and this familiarity arose not from any lightness or irreverence, but from the fact that to them such things were so near and so real that they became as household words.

The Methodists of the past generation lived always with their lamps lit and their loins girded, as those that wait for their Lord; and they sought so diligently for the True that they had no leisure to look for the Beautiful, for it had not yet been revealed to them that the True and the Beautiful are one. They were so fearful of confounding the substance with the shadow that they did not altogether realize that the shadow is after all but the reflection of the substance, and therefore a revelation of the same; and they gazed so steadfastly into heaven that they were in danger of forgetting how God made the earth as well as the heavens and saw that it was good. To their ears there was no message in the wind or the earthquake or the fire; but they heard clearly the still small Voice, and they did whatsoever it commanded them.

And we need not pity them overmuch that some of the beauty and poetry of life was hid from their eyes. They that seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness know no abiding lack; for all these things shall be added unto them.

Now it happened that Martha was not the only person who had noticed Alice's delicate appearance. Alice's mother had likewise perceived it, and it had struck a cold chill to the maternal heart; for human nature is stronger than worldly ambition or religious prejudice—is stronger in fact than most things—and human nature has much that is good in it, as well as much that is not quite so good. Therefore Mrs. Martin's comfortable view of life—with an equally comfortable view of heaven in the background—lost all its beauty and symmetry when her careful eye perceived a tiny hollow appearing in Alice's cheek. Nevertheless the hollow remained, as "Paul Seaton his mark," and Mrs. Martin was powerless to remove it.

As for Paul himself, he was too much occupied with books and boating and such important matters to notice whether a girl's cheek were thin or the reverse; and he would have been extremely surprised and annoyed to learn that he possessed the right to excavate in so delicate a field; for in his second year at Oxford he became captain of his college boat, having proved his prowess on the river; and he was happier then than he ever had been, or probably ever would be again.

To Paul Seaton rowing was no mere pastime; at that time it was to him a sign and type of all that was best in life and human nature; and though in after years the type changed, the thing which rowing then represented was ever the greatest thing in the world to Paul.

"I cannot understand how you can care so much about an amusement," said Joanna one day, as she and Paul and Alice were sitting in the garden at The Cedars.

Concerning Isabel Carnaby

CONCERNINGISABEL CARNABY

PROLOGUE.

CHAPTER I.Childish Things.

CHAPTER II.Alice.

CONCERNING
ISABEL CARNABY

CHAPTER I.
Childish Things.

CHAPTER II.
Alice.