Hazelhurst

Cover art

GERALD CARVED THE MUTTON, TEDDIE SERVED THE VEGETABLES (p. [248])

HAZELHURST

BY

ENID LEIGH HUNT

(MRS. DEREK EDWARD THORNTON)

AUTHOR OF
"THE ADVENT OF ARTHUR"

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON AND CO., LTD.
1908

MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
PURNELL AND SONS, PAULTON (SOMERSET) AND LONDON

HAZELHURST

PROLOGUE

The present generation of the Le Mesuriers were possessed of powerful lungs, the same being a heritage.

It is true that many of the great vaulted rooms and galleries of Hazelhurst, which had rung to the clear tones of the Le Mesurier voice for some three or four hundred years, were now so empty of furniture, so devoid of thick hangings and tapestries—the very floors being stripped bare of the covering natural to well-appointed floors—so denuded, in short, of everything wherein, and behind which, the rich quality of the Le Mesurier voice might lurk and muffle itself, to ring on thinned while suffering no loss of compass, that this might, in some measure, make explanation of the seemingly exceptional strength of their vocal capacity; nay, further, might exonerate them from all charge of exceptionality, but for the fact that as children the Le Mesuriers had shouted with precisely the same lusty vigour and resonance from the lap of luxury. For it was but seven years since that the feet of the five Le Mesurier boys, with the pair belonging to the one Le Mesurier girl, had stridden or trotted, according to their respective length of limb, over deep-piled carpets, from one magnificently furnished apartment to another. They had been seated in the great oak-panelled dining-room, at a table groaning under its weight of massive silver, to feast upon the daintiest fat of the land, tended by noiseless human machines in the Le Mesurier livery. So that if, when sitting deep and well covered in the lap of luxury, the Le Mesurier voice was acknowledgedly sonorous, it is unreasonable to suppose now that it was only seemingly so, under the condition of over-much empty space wherein to resound. Besides, if further proof be needed: five-and-twenty years ago, when the first of the five Le Mesurier boys was born, Doctor Dash, a most eminent authority from London, had remarked upon the voice, and the nurses had declared they had never heard anything like it. It was further agreed to be a very beautiful voice when not raised in grief; even then its beauty remained for the mother; and each new Le Mesurier baby commanded a most interested and attentive audience, the more flattering in their attendance that they came in the full cognisance that no gracious words were to be expected, but solely in the keenness of their desire to learn whether or not the newcomer was possessed of the widely appreciated and justly valued constituent of the Le Mesurier personality.

The sixth and last baby, a girl, in no wise shamed her family nor disappointed those who attended her first summons by any deterioration in lungs. The voice, in its infancy certainly, like the rest of her, was undeniably present, clear, authoritative, cultured, albeit softer-toned than her brothers', as was seemly in a girl.

This last-born Le Mesurier, last-born at least in the direct descent, if not of the generation, while being neither a disappointment nor a disgrace, was an immense surprise. No guard left the side of the white satin-hung cradle whilst she slept, nor the little silver tub wherein she splashed, nor the soft white carpet spread over a portion of the nursery floor whereon she took her exercise, on her back, kicking, ever and anon deeming it advisable to expand the famous lungs in cooings and trills and, on occasion, exerting more lustiness in other sounds, pertaining to babyhood. I repeat, no guard left her until relieved by one equally vigilant. But for the voice, she would, despite this fact, have created serious doubts in the minds of the respective members of her family, and all connected with it, as to whether some changeling was not usurping the cradle, the tub, and the exercise ground of the rightful Le Mesurier girl.

For the child had brown hair and eyes; and the skin, though exquisitely clear and delicate, was, of necessity, darker than that which went to constitute a well-ordered, self-respecting Le Mesurier.

In the first days of her life, therefore, in spite of the love that encompassed her, the child was held to be something of an alien. The pride in the lovely little creature that overflowed the mother's heart came rather timidly, rather deprecatingly, from her lips. None of her boys had presumed to be anything but fair, the most daring among them attaining to only light brown hair, and all looked upon the world with the traditional blue eyes. The case, however, was not unprecedented; and when this fact was ascertained, the family was free to recover its natural calm and to pursue the even tenor of its way, holding its head even higher than heretofore.

One day, as Helen Le Mesurier was exhibiting the little beauty to a host of admiring friends, with a wistful and slightly apologetic manner, in which attitude she vainly sought to veil her pride, Hubert, her husband, was struck with a sudden thought. Hastily quitting the room, unnoticed, he sped in some excitement to the picture-gallery, situate in the west wing of the great house. Too impatient to brook the delay of unbarring the heavy shutters, he seized and lighted a lamp, which he held at arm's length above his head, as he eagerly and swiftly scanned row upon row of dead and gone Le Mesuriers portrayed upon the walls. Everywhere fair hair, from light brown to gold, gleamed in the lamplight, straight-featured, broad-browed, the women dazzlingly fair of skin, the men square-chinned, and, for the most part, curly-headed—one and all blue-eyed.

But Hubert passed these by, for some vague memory had awakened within him. Surely his father had once shown him, as a child, the portrait of a dark-eyed girl, half in pride, half in apology. If his memory were not tricking him, such a portrait must be in existence. He made his way directly to the more secluded parts of the room. His diligence was soon rewarded, for there, within a corner niche, almost at his feet, he discovered the object of his search: a small portrait of a lovely little girl, scarcely above miniature size, surrounded by an oak frame. Her hair, of a nut-brown, waved and rippled to her waist, and a pair of wide brown eyes looked out, mischievously, upon the beholder; the wonderfully clear and delicate skin was warm of tone.

Setting down the lamp, Hubert, his fingers trembling with eagerness, unfastened the picture, and, turning it, read upon the back: "Hazel Le Mesurier, aged five years, 1671."

Thus it was that the Le Mesurier girl came to be named Hazel.

At five years of age a painting was made of her head and shoulders, in like pose, on the same sized canvas as that of her namesake, and, behold, the two faces, allowing for the dissimilarities of style arising from the difference of the schools of painting of so remote a period from those of the present time, were as like, one to the other, as two—hazelnuts!

When his daughter had attained to her ninth year, Hubert Le Mesurier fell ill and died, being then in the forty-fifth year of his age.

The twenty-and-odd years of his majority had been one hard struggle to redeem the heavily mortgaged estate inherited from a spendthrift father and grandfather. His endeavours ended in failure; he had speculated deeply for many years, keeping his fortunes, with few fluctuations, at the same dreary level. On his demise came the inevitable crash: the foreclosure of the mortgage. Other debts there were; so that, when Helen and her eldest boy, Guy, of some nineteen or twenty years, who, having the ordering of these things, had quieted and pacified even the loudest crying among their creditors, and were once more enabled to breathe freely, now that so heavy a burden as debt was removed from the delicate shoulders of the mother and the youthful ones of the son—so inapposite a load for either to bear—they found the great house a very barrack in its echoing bareness, being, indeed, divested of many things.

Heavy oak furniture, some dating from Queen Anne's time, covered in decent palls, was moved away in vans down the gloomy avenue of great trees, with funeral gait. Also much valuable plate and almost priceless china.

But the mourners who had sustained this loss were left rejoicing in that the portrait gallery, sacred to the Le Mesuriers, doubly sacred to Helen as her husband's dying trust, was left inviolate; and as the poor thing stood, surrounded by her five sons, in the huge marble-paved entrance hall, she exclaimed, tears of very thankfulness coursing down her cheeks:

"Why should we grieve while we have each other? While together we can protect what my Hubert, what your father held so dear."

Each Le Mesurier boy, in varied pose of heroic resolve, protested his loyalty and devotion to his father's memory, and to the honoured name of ancient lineage which he bore; and each Le Mesurier boy's heart beat strong and fast according to the stage of development in which his inherent pride of race had found expression and proportionally to the valorous and chivalric feeling that stirred in the depth of each affectionate Le Mesurier boy's nature toward his lady mother.

Hazel, with outspread skirts, gravely danced, twirled and pirouetted with light, quick feet in the background; but on hearing the tears in her mother's voice, with a little caressing cry she flew to Helen's side, flung her arms about her and, looking up into her face, cried:

"Mother, mother, don't forget that you have me"; and Helen, as she stroked the curly head, and looked into the upturned brown eyes, felt warm comfort glow at her heart, in that nought but death could wrest from her these six priceless treasures, her children.

The stables and carriage-house were emptied. Then came the disbandment of the company of servants. Many wept, and, refusing the wage due to them, took sorrowful leave of their mistress and the young masters whose infancy they had tended.

Two, however, there were who did not weep and who, on the almost indignantly named plea of having left their former beloved master and mistress, Helen's parents, for the express purpose of following the fortunes of Helen herself, on her marriage with Hubert Le Mesurier, stood their ground in the most literal sense, by obstinately declining to go. These two were Miles the butler and Martha Doidge, who, kitchenmaid in her early youth, at thirty—the age of her exodus with Helen—had been raised step by step till now, at fifty, the good woman had attained to the dignity of housekeeper at Hazelhurst.

"But my dear, faithful Martha," Mrs. Le Mesurier expostulated, "you forget: there will be no field for such services as yours. Most of the rooms will be closed and your cupboards will be empty. And you, Miles, your duties have been wrested from your hands."

Such arguments were vain. Martha Doidge established herself as cook and general factotum, managing, with the help of two young girls from the neighbouring hamlet, with great dexterity and order, the domestic affairs pertaining to the habitable part of Hazelhurst.

As for Miles, who was nigh upon sixty years, he did all that a faithful, hardworking servant might, indoors and out. Five o'clock in the morning would often find him gardening assiduously, polishing windows, or engaged in some such work, attired in a dilapidated old suit, which he called his "undress"; but nine o'clock would see him serving the simple breakfast with all the old dignity and with even added respect, arrayed, as became the butler of "high family," in all the glory of the fast-growing-shabby-and-shiny full dress of his vocation.

Almost speechless was Miles with indignation, and something more, when Helen—deeply concerned for her old servant, that he should put aside all his own interests in his devotion to herself and her children—made to him the proposition that he should seek the position of butler at Earnscleugh. She had heard that the young master was about to return from his sojourning abroad, to take up his abode permanently in the home of his fathers; that great preparations were in making, and that the usual staff of servants was needed in the completion of these preparations. As for her own household, Helen urged, the two young maids could serve the simple meals that Doidge so daintily prepared; but in their adverse fortunes they could not expect to command the services of the best servant, she verily believed, in the land, nor could she wish to be instrumental in helping to deter him from his self-advancement.

Thus, by flattering and cajoling, did Helen endeavour to dissuade the old retainer from continuing in what she deemed so great a sacrifice; but she had not calculated on the very real affection that, deep-rooted, had sprung up in the old man's heart during all the years of his servitude, and when, his anger cooled, Miles pleaded, visibly affected, that to go, to turn his back on the family, would to him be leaving all honour and grateful love behind; that his only wish was to end his days in her service, she at length desisted from her efforts to render the faithful fellow more worldly wise; and pressing his hand, assured him of the affection and esteem with which she and her family regarded him; of how rejoiced they would all be to learn that, despite their recent losses, they were not to part with their old retainer; that he, who had been with them so long, was to be with them yet.

So it was that Helen soothed the poor fellow's wounded sensibilities, and Miles continued butler at Hazelhurst.

Various were his ingenuities in that capacity, and gradually Helen and her children learned to respect the innocent devices out of regard for the feelings of their perpetrator. The sideboard was ever furnished with decanters of wine, which—seeing that the cellars had been emptied of all, save the old port deemed necessary by the physician and friend of the family for Helen, in the rather delicate state of her health—might well be looked upon somewhat dubiously and hastily declined in favour of the clear, crystal water, a gourd of which Miles was careful to offer with the wine. Nor was such refusal made difficult, for Miles did not press the doubtful beverage on his young masters, seeming rather to be relieved that it should be held in disfavour among them, though he religiously continued, during luncheon and dinner, to carry it round the table, sometimes under one name, sometimes by another.

Whether the wine was procured at the village grocery or whether it was tinted water, as Hazel ingeniously suggested, remained a mystery to all but Miles himself; but certain it was that the decanters seldom needed replenishing, so that no fears were entertained of a drain upon the household disbursements or the private pocket of the Le Mesuriers' butler.

Dire was the wrath of Miles should any of the womenfolk presume to encroach upon his right. Since the day of his coming to Hazelhurst—twenty years ago, to be exact—the young footmen under his supervision were most deferential to an old retainer upon whom the family conferred so many honours, and in whom they reposed so much trust and confidence. Miles had enjoyed his power and made the most of it, ordering, regulating, and drilling his satellites with perfection of manipulation. Now, however, that Fortune had frowned, things would indeed have come to a pretty pass, to Miles's thinking, had he permitted women to fulfil the functions pertaining to the table that had hitherto been performed by men only. No; the fiat had gone forth that Miles himself undertook to wait upon the family at meals; but woe to the maid who failed to be at hand at the right moment, to bear the required dish, or to receive the whispered communication. Woe also to her, who, lacking nicety of perception in such matters, or, more blameworthy still, in mere feminine curiosity, ventured a step into the room, or stood without in such position as should discover to those at table the agency by which the butler carried out his duties with such order and precision.

Whether Helen and her family were supposed to be in ignorance of the number and sex of their attendants, or whether matters were ordered thus by the redoubted Miles, upon the prompting of his own delicate feeling on the point, remained as zealously guarded a mystery as the wine.

On one occasion the maid from the hamlet engaged by Martha Doidge, being new to her duties, after knocking to attract the butler's attention did most unwisely and erroneously open the door and advance three steps into the sacred precincts of the dining-room, bringing some course for which Miles was not yet ready: a fact which his stern disregard of her summons should have made plain to her.

So frightened was the girl when, on turning her fascinated eyes from the table, they encountered those of the butler, who seemed to be bearing down upon her, swift and noiseless, awful in the majesty of his wrath, that, setting the dish upon the floor, she turned and fled. Miles, pausing beside the dish in momentary hesitation as to which of these barbaric proceedings he should first give attention, followed in hot pursuit, closing the door behind him.

Hazel and the boys were convulsed with stifled laughter, and Helen, herself somewhat discomposed, could only beg of them to control themselves before the faithful servant returned to the room.

The girl had evidently not retreated far, judging by the space of time that Miles was absent, judging also by the ominous sniffs that fell upon the ears of the dinner party when the door was reopened.

Miles entered, red of face and somewhat short of breath; but nothing could surpass his dignity. He lifted the dish from the ground, and renewing the plates with miraculous speed, handed it round with the utmost composure, to all outward seeming.

The meal over, Miles sought an interview with his mistress, apologising for any laxity of order that she might have noticed, assuring her that the like should not occur again; and that Mrs. Doidge had discharged the girl for her remissness. Helen had much ado to get the sentence of dismissal commuted to a month's trial.

CHAPTER I

On a bright day in late June, Hazel, now a tall slip of a girl of sixteen, was wandering through the bit of woodland that stretched from the immediate vicinage of Hazelhurst on its right flank to the boundary of the land that had been left to the Le Mesuriers when, seven years since, the greater part of the estate had been sold. Tempting offers had been tendered, both for the ground as it stood, and for the timber grown upon it; but Mrs. Le Mesurier had remained firm, and her sons had resolved that no poverty should induce them to part with this last remaining portion of their heritage.

As to Hazel, the woodland was her kingdom, her empire. She loved every inch of its leafy, winding tracks; she was acquainted with every squirrel and bird housed within its hospitable shelter; she gloried in each veteran oak and cherished each tender sapling.

To-day, as she sauntered on, her small brown hands clasped before her, pensive, her head bent, the soft brown hair falling like a mantle around her, she seemed a very wood-nymph in her simple gown—the exact shade of the gnarled trunks, in which russet tint it was her mother's fancy to clothe the girl.

Presently, wearied of pursuing the beaten pathways she turned aside to stroll over a thick, springy carpet of last year's crumpled leaves, strewn with fir cones, pine needles, acorns, and acorn cups. A squirrel ran by her, paused and looked back, with what seemed to the girl a roguish twinkling of his bright eyes; then, with a salute of his bushy tail, was gone. Birds of sorts, ceaselessly trilling their sweet notes, hopped to the lower branches as she passed; presently one or two, leaving the piping chorus for a space, fluttered to the ground near her feet and, as she paused, seemed to be considering her in a conclusive, bright-eyed way, with heads first on this side, then on that, as if questioning the cause of her muteness.

And, indeed, Hazel was unlike herself this summer morning. It was her wont to greet her subjects graciously with chirps and chirrups and all manner of sweet wood-notes. At her soft cooing a ringdove would belike perch upon her shoulder, when she was minded to have one confidante! But her "twee-twee" would create a whirr among the tree branches, and a very medley of her feathery vassals would appear on the lowest boughs, hopping, chirruping in bright-eyed questioning. In bright-eyed greed also; for they little doubted that when their liege lady had done with her clear piping to that great, greedy, black thrush, who responded with bows which would have been deferential and dignified had they only been less choppy, and if he would only have desisted from shuffling his feet and sidling restlessly up and down his perch the while performing them; when she was pleased to stop chirping caressingly to the robins and sending forth clear wood-note calls to summon the few pet woodlarks to her presence, the manchet of bread which usually bulged her pocket would surely be drawn out and dispensed in crumbs around her.

But to-day the pocket of the brown gown was suspiciously and ominously flat, and Hazel held her peace, as if she feared to render unhappy the pretty winged creatures by the sad-toned chirps and chirrups which would surely be all she could contrive this morning if she endeavoured to be sociable.

Presently the girl came upon a rugged oak-tree. She paused and looked wistfully up into its branches, watching the sunlight glinting in and out among the leaves, marking each delicate shape in relief against its background of yellow light or blue shadow, each articulation of the brown branches outlined clean and distinct, affording delicious peeps of blue sky between.

Hazel, with impulsive motion, threw her arms about the trunk, and, kissing the rough, sweet-smelling bark, turned her head and pressed her soft pink cheek against the rugged surface of this lifelong friend.

"Ah," she said aloud, yearningly, "ah!" and the brown eyes filled with tears, "I wish I could earn some money."

However strangely this admission may have sounded to any winged or bushy-tailed audience that chanced to be within hearing, they were too polite to allow their surprise to show itself, either by excited increase of trills and cooings, or by sudden cessation of all sound. The sunlight gleamed in quivering, shimmering shafts, as before; the topmost tree branches waved slightly overhead; and the mischievous squirrel, who must have been within earshot, now discovered himself and, taking his seat not far from the girl, looked upon her more in sympathy than in condemnation.

That the remark did sound out of place and somewhat mercenary is hardly to be denied, coming as it did from this brown-haired Dryad amid such pacific surroundings. For Dryads are not supposed to know the worth of money, nor to be harassed with such need: the woods wherein they dwell and have their being affording them everything of the freshest and fairest that they can possibly require. Still the wish expressed was not so unfitting in its nature as might at first appear; for this particular wood-nymph had a mother—quite a peculiarity among Dryads, it is generally understood. And this mother was less well than usual, causing much anxiety and distress to her little daughter, who, however odd it may seem, possessed a very human heart beating within her breast, an immense capacity for joy and sorrow, and a great sympathy withal; though, for her, personal acquaintance with grief was, happily, slight.

Mrs. Le Mesurier had never recovered from the shocking grief that her husband's death had caused her. For her children's sake she had mastered herself to some extent, to all outward seeming becoming once more the cheerful little mother whom they had always known and adored: ready in her sympathy with the young life around her, wise in her counsel and, in her protection, loving. But she, and she only, though the family physician could testify to the results, knew of the bitter suffering in the hours of dark and quiet, that sapped her strength and told on her vitality. Hers was a nature that could better bear a selfish indulgence of that suffering, even if it should cast an abnormal melancholy over her naturally joyous temperament, than the pent-up emotion which, when the strain became too great, burst with terrible force over the poor thing, leaving her so inert and listless that the armour of bravery, which in sheer habit she would buckle on with each new day, was sometimes very thin and worn, affording her but a poor guard against the assailing sorrow.

Of late her health had fluctuated strangely. No sufficient reason accounting for such ebb and flow, the doctor was fain to lay the charge to the strength-stealing propensities of an early, warm spring and hot summer.

Hazel had gone daily to the village in person to select a couple of choice peaches or other dainty luxury—alas! all too seldom seen now at Hazelhurst, where once upon a time great baskets of such delicacies were pressed upon the poor of the neighbourhood. But to-day the poor child had made the last disbursement from her slender store of pocket-money, and was searching her mind for some suitable means by which to make replenishment. Each of her brothers gave his mite toward the support of the household: why not she?

Guy, the eldest, through great good fortune and the exertion of influential friends, had become a private secretary in a Government office, for which post he was taken from college, and was now earning a modest income. Cecil, the second, was abroad, doing well in the Indian Civil Service. Gerald, the third, articled to a chartered accountant, was hoping to pass his examination in a couple of years. Hugh, the fourth, and Teddie, the fifth Le Mesurier boy, both at the present time "something in the City," accompanied their brother Gerald to town each Monday morning, returning to the family roof-tree for the week-end, so hungering for the simple delights of their quiet home, and for the sweet, fresh air of their beloved woods, that from the train window, as they approached their destination, each curly head would be thrust forth to catch the first sight of Hazel, who never failed to be awaiting their arrival upon the platform, her eager face and glad eyes an earnest of her welcome; and each famous pair of lungs would greedily drink in each faintest breeze wafted to them from the direction of Hazelhurst.

Gerald, of a steady, plodding temperament, gave no slightest cause for uneasiness, either to his mother or to the kind patron who had helped the boy to this opening in life. But, alas, of Hugh and Teddie otherwise! Cyril Westmacott, a younger brother of Helen's, had kept the two boys at school till the age of eighteen, but, having sons of his own, could not afford a college education to follow. Hugh, therefore, for the last two years, had lived a somewhat desultory life since leaving school till the present time, when he held a rather vague position in a London office—a life which greatly unfitted the boy, never of a studious or persevering nature, for such steady application as nondescript appointments in the City render desirable for the attainment of a more lucrative post.

Teddie, only a few months from school, was equally restless under restraint and impatient of all monotony. Unfortunately, monotony constituted, in great part, the high-stooled City life of the two youngest Le Mesurier boys.

To-day was Monday, a depressing fact to Hazel, who accompanied three long-legged and long-faced brothers to the station, some two miles distant from Hazelhurst, with mournful regularity in the early morning of that day, come wet, come shine, after a hearty breakfast at half-past six, served to the party by Miles, who, respectful and deeply sympathetic, urged one and all to keep up their strength for the trying ordeal they were about to undergo. Nor were his efforts vain, for no excitation of mind, not even that of sorrow, to the best of his knowledge, had ever affected the wonderful appetites of his young masters.

And now the girl, returned to the quiet house to find her mother not yet risen, had found its solitude unbearable, the very echoes that the famous Le Mesurier voice had awakened within its walls having died now into quite disproportionate silence, it seemed to Hazel, who, fleeing to the woods, had given herself up to sad meditation, in which the wistful desire to earn money herself held prominent place.

Lying on a bed of soft mosses, she lost herself in thought, and more than an hour must have passed when the sound of footsteps fell upon her startled ears. Raising herself to a distrustful sitting posture, the girl awaited what should chance, presently descrying the figure of Miles the butler, evidently in quest of herself, though at the moment of her discovery she could perceive him passing among the trees along many and divergent tracks.

"Miles," she cried, "Miles"; and, springing to her feet, the girl ran to meet the old servant. "Is mother asking for me?" she inquired.

To her surprise, for all answer, Miles, rummaging in the breast pocket of his coat, produced an orange-coloured envelope: a telegram addressed to Hazel; and, placing the missive upon a tiny salver he was carrying, presented it to his young mistress; then retiring a few paces, awaited her pleasure.

Truly the two figures presented an odd contrast one to the other; the girl slim, graceful, upright as the feathery larch near which she stood, pink-cheeked, bright-eyed, the embodiment of delicate, supple youth; the old man, clothed in shabby black, the fresh green around rendering his poor habiliments more rusty-looking and threadbare than ever, the baggy knees lending to his attitude the effect of a curtsey from which he had never recovered. Yet the face, though seamed with many a line, was fresh-coloured and well favoured, possessing a cheery, bland expression, born of peace and contentment—heritage of advancing age into which, alas, all too few come.

Hazel, recovering from her astonishment at finding herself the recipient of a message of sufficient importance to necessitate a telegram, with trembling fingers opened the envelope and read the following words:

"Been sacked: break news gently to mother: meet afternoon train, TEDDIE."

"Miles," the girl said tremulously—and as the servant approached she regarded him in awed solemnity—"to be sacked is to be discharged, isn't it?"

"Yes, miss," Miles replied, his eyes almost as dilated as those of his young mistress, "is—is the message from one of the young gentlemen, miss? Has one of them been—er—discharged, miss, if I may make so free?"

Hazel, flushing red, then pale, read aloud the contents of the telegram, Miles listening with bated breath; after which the two regarded one another in silence, both guiltily conscious that their emotions were not altogether of such a nature as the occasion seemed to demand.

True, Hazel did feel consternation in that this darling of her heart, this same Teddie, who for three long months had been self-supporting, was now to be returned to them: for the girl was aware that her idol, to put into words her own half-sad, half-humorous thoughts on the subject, was an expensive luxury; that the slender resources of Hazelhurst were sorely tried during the redoubted Teddie's visitations. Her mind was further exercised as to the cause of his dismissal, though she guessed it to be, and rightly, largely owing to the, it must be confessed, somewhat peppery temper of Teddie. She was distressed, on these several accounts, for the sake of her mother, from whom it was essentially necessary to keep all matters of a character likely to prove agitating or disturbing. So that it was with feelings very mixed, though a delicious exultation predominated, that Hazel made her way to the house to acquaint her mother, using what gentle tact she might, with the exciting intelligence. Miles followed. In his way he was equally rejoiced with his little lady, for the quietude of Hazelhurst from Monday at 7 a.m. till Saturday at 4 p.m. was hardly more to his taste than to hers.

On the threshold Hazel paused and, turning, asked Miles to bring her a glass of port and biscuits, it being close upon the customary hour at which her mother partook of that refreshment.

On entering her mother's room, Hazel found herself in the moment of time for the performance of the duties of tirewoman; for Helen, seated before the mirror, brush in hand, was engaged in smoothing her hair, somewhat surprised at her little daughter's tardiness to be at this, her dearly loved, self-imposed task. Setting the wine upon a side-table, Hazel crossed the spacious room, and, kneeling beside her mother's chair, placed her arms about her and kissed her.

"Good morning to you, sweet my mother," she said, gaily, looking lovingly upon the delicate face that was so dear to her. "I hope I see you well and that you have only just begun to brush your hair. You were not up when I came home this morning, and I have got late somehow. I was in the wood, where I do believe," the girl added, half laughing, "that time is not."

With that she rose to her feet and, taking the brush from the table, where her mother had laid it—the better to return her daughter's caress—with gentle hand proceeded to smooth the masses of fair hair that rippled and waved so like her own; presently, with deft fingers, skilfully twisting and coiling it into a great knot behind the shapely head. Then assisting her mother to exchange her dressing-gown for a simple morning-gown of some soft, black material—Helen always wore black—the girl placed the tray containing biscuits and wine before her, bidding her eat and drink whilst she told her some news.

"Really important news," Hazel said, "and not altogether good," she added, rather at a loss to know how to follow Teddie's wise dictate, of which her own heart so wholly approved.

"It cannot be altogether bad," her mother returned, "though half afraid: you also look very glad about something, Hazel."

"Well," Hazel responded, "I must not keep you on tenterhooks, mother; so, if you promise to keep before you the delicious, really delicious, view of the case, and try not to mind the—er—rather awkward side, I will tell you. Teddie has been sack—has been dismissed, you know," Hazel amended, then paused and regarded her mother apprehensively.

To her immense relief, Helen, albeit a little startled at this really alarming intelligence, was smiling at her daughter's ingenuous way of breaking the same.

"One can't help being glad, can one?" Hazel said simply, her countenance radiant, quite mistaking the tenor of her mother's thoughts. And the girl, fully reassured, dropped all hesitancy of speech and, becoming less guarded in the expression of her exultant joy, proceeded without further dalliance to lay before her mother a hundred-and-one good reasons for rejoicing in the return of this redoubtable youngest son, only lamenting the lack of a fatted calf for killing.

"We must hope that he will find something to do before leaving his present position," Helen remarked, Stroking the soft pink cheek, as Hazel, having exhausted her repertory to hand, paused to collect further store wherewith to swell the arguments in favour of her generous premises.

Her raptures thus unwittingly checked, she could only gaze upon her mother in mute dismay, truly concerned to find that so important a detail of the momentous announcement had yet to be imparted.

"Dearest," she said at length, "that is not likely. He has so little time—the—the fact is, he is coming home to-day"; and she drew from her bosom, where it had lain, carefully concealed, the fateful pink paper.

"Hazel," her mother exclaimed, more alarmed than the girl had yet seen her, "what can he have done to be dismissed at a moment's notice? Something must be seriously wrong!"

"He has probably shied an inkpot at Carrots' head," Hazel returned laconically. "But, motherling, he may get some job or another quite quickly. You know what taking manners Teddie has, how every one likes him the first moment of seeing him."

"Hazel, my dear child, what extraordinary expressions! You really must not use such words," Helen remonstrated, her breath fairly taken away by the girl's remarkable suggestion as the solution of the proposition, and her glib and peculiar phraseology in wording it. "And why," Helen proceeded, "why should you imagine that Teddie, a gentleman—a Le Mesurier—should so demean himself as to throw inkpots at—er—at Carrots, did you say, dear? at Carrots' head? Who is Carrots, pray?"

"I don't know who he is, motherling. They call him Carrots at the office because his hair is so red—Carrots or the Lout. Teddie generally speaks of him as the Lout," Hazel rejoined meekly, in pretty penitence.

Mrs. Le Mesurier glanced uneasily at her daughter. "Probably of French extraction," she murmured, the suspicion, that this again might be a word not commonly used among ladies, ousted from her mind on encountering Hazel's innocently candid brown eyes. "But, dear, you have not yet explained. Why should you imagine for a moment that Teddie——"

"Well, you see, mother dear," the girl interposed, eager to justify herself, "Teddie did it once before—I thought he would have told you—and so I supposed it not unlikely, considering how he enjoyed doing it that time—having tasted blood, as it were—he should, if roused, be unable to resist doing it again. He says there was a fearful row that time," she went on enthusiastically, "Carrots gave a sort of bellow when the inkpot struck him, and at that moment, who should come into the room but—the boss. I am not exactly using slang now, mother," the girl hastened to explain, breaking off the narrative at this most critical juncture, "I am only quoting Teddie, who tells the story so graphically—somehow, more classical language would not suit it. Now would it?" she asked, quaintly deprecative.

"I fear you are too much with the boys, Hazel," her mother remarked, gravely, "or rather, were too much with them," she amended, a little sigh escaping her for those absent ones, "and your mind was always impressionable, your memory retentive. Even as a tiny child you would always clothe a story in the exact words in which it had been told you, whether by servant, schoolboy, or your mother and father."

"Yes, I do that rather," Hazel admitted contritely. "I must always let people know I am quoting. That would make it better, at all events less bad, wouldn't it, mother?" and she nestled fondly against her mother's knee.

"Well, go on, dearie." And Helen smiled to herself as she stroked the curly head. "What happened when Mr. Hamilton came in?"

Thus encouraged, Hazel resumed the thread of her narrative. "Teddie says that Carrots blubbed pretty badly—mind, dear, I am quoting Teddie," the girl again interrupted herself, somewhat abashed to find that the tale seemed to fairly bristle with words of doubtful repute, "and, being a sneak, he instantly went and blabbed."

"What is that?" Helen asked. "It is fortunate you don't quote Teddie very often, Hazel."

"He told the—Mr. Hamilton all about it," Hazel explained, "and Mr. Hamilton said: 'Le Mesurier,'"—here Hazel assumed a dramatic pose, suggestive of righteous wrath denouncing an evildoer—"'Le Mesurier, if such scandalous behaviour occurs again, I shall discharge you on the spot. Had you been any young man other than you are,'" Hazel continued, speaking in a voice that would make righteous wrath itself tremble, "'I should have requested you to leave my office instantly. As it is, I shall expect you to apologise to Mr.'—I don't know his name, mother—'and to make what amends you can for your most unwarrantable behaviour.'"

"And did Teddie apologise?" Mrs. Le Mesurier asked, much diverted.

"Not he," Hazel cried exultantly. "The sequel to the story bespeaks the character of both. Teddie offered Carrots five shillings instead—you know what a very little pocket-money he has, mother; and if you will believe it, the Lout accepted it. The next day," Hazel continued, after a pause devoted to pacing the room in some excitement, "Mr. Hamilton called Teddie into his private office, and inquired whether a reconciliation had been effected. Teddie answered that Carrots was satisfied. 'You did apologise, then, Le Mesurier?' Mr. Hamilton asked, Teddie thought in some surprise, though he tried to hide it. 'No, sir,' says Teddie. 'No?' says Mr. Hamilton, puzzled. 'You said just now that the young man was satisfied. Explain yourself, if you please.' 'I did not apologise, I would rather leave you, sir, than do so; I offered five shillings instead, and the'—I think Teddie said the cad," Hazel broke off apologetically, "'and the cad accepted it.'"

"Yes?" Mrs. Le Mesurier said interrogatively, too much interested to expostulate.

"That was all," Hazel returned. "Teddie says that just then Mr. Hamilton had a fit of coughing, and, as he held his handkerchief to his face, Teddie could not see the expression. So he took Mr. Hamilton's wave of the hand as a sign to leave him, and went."

"My boy must have entertained an extraordinarily poor opinion of the young man, to have proposed giving him money instead of asking his pardon," Mrs. Le Mesurier commented.

"Yes indeed," agreed Hazel. "It was a far worse insult than having an inkpot thrown at your head. But Teddie was justified in his opinion, mother, for Carrots was quite pleased."

"And you don't know what it was that so angered Teddie in the first instance?" Mrs. Le Mesurier asked.

"No, he would never tell me," Hazel answered.

CHAPTER II

On this fateful Monday the five o'clock train was miraculously punctual. At precisely two minutes to the hour its serpentine, many-jointed body rounded the bend of the line, gracefully and with dignity, being neither flurried nor dilatory in its smooth, gliding motion, emitting neither shrill whistle nor vulgar puffings, as some quite well-appointed trains do, thinking to force recognition of the length of their run and their hard-pressed punctuality by triumphant noise or most distressful breathing. It is true that the great engine gave vent to a soft, long-drawn sigh, and that its huge body seemed to pulsate slightly as the train ranged itself obligingly along the platform; but so unostentatiously, so obviously desiring not to attract attention, that it was to be supposed the monster's heart really was a little delicate, occasioning palpitation and more or less exhaustion.

A fair, curly head, unmistakably a Le Mesurier's, had emerged from the window of a third-class compartment some ten minutes before the train was stationed, drinking in, with the usual rapacity, the sweet sun-warmed air; and presently, the bend rounded, a smile lighted the boyish face, as his eyes fell on a little figure in brown cotton gown and shady straw hat standing upon the platform.

"Confound it all," muttered the youngest son of Hubert Le Mesurier—to whose memory, peace—"here I have been practising how to make a long face, for decency's sake, and was really beginning to feel a bit low; and now the first glimpse of Hazel upsets it all, and away goes melancholy."

Resisting a desire to fling himself from the train while it was still in motion, as was his custom, Teddie, awaiting his time, descended to the platform as one whose soul is heavy within him; and Hazel, her sunny smile checked at sight of her brother's demeanour, came toward him sedately, in deference to his feelings.

"How did she take it?" were Teddie's first words, spoken in somewhat hollow accents.

"Much better than you would think," Hazel responded, seeking to reassure him. "Of course, she hopes you will get some other employment quickly; and—and, of course, Teddie dear, she is rather troubled as to what it was, you know. She is naturally afraid that something rather serious may have occurred."

Hazel linked her arm comfortingly within her brother's, the while she apprised him of these circumstances. She did not attempt to persuade or coax his confidence, knowing that in his own good time he would tell her all.

Teddie groaned.

"You see," the girl continued, pressing the angular elbow to her side, and looking up into the moody countenance, "she can't help thinking it rather—rather sudden: the dismissal, I mean. That is only natural, isn't it, Teddie?" Hazel asked apologetically.

"Your bag, sir," said Mitchell, the younger of the two porters that the station boasted. "Carry it up for you, sir?" the man inquired respectfully. The Le Mesuriers were held in great esteem by Mitchell and his colleagues.

"Thanks, Bob, no," the boy returned, "it is not heavy"; and taking the lean, attenuated, and excessively shabby portmanteau containing Teddie's night apparel and toilet requisites from the man's hand, the brother and sister walked from the station and out upon the sunlit road.

"You must not take it too much to heart, old fellow," Hazel said presently. "How do you feel?"

"Rather cut up and a bit blue, you know," Teddie responded with hesitancy. "You see, it was rather sudden, and—and came upon a fellow with rather a shock."

"Yes," Hazel agreed sympathetically; "it was sudden."

"So, of course, I feel it rather," Teddie continued pathetically, though seemingly soothed. "And, anyway, I gave the brute a fine black eye," he broke out gleefully, in startling exultation.

"Not—not Carrots?" gasped Hazel.

"The worst of it is," Teddie continued, gloom descending once more, "the worst of it is that I am not at all sure that Hugh may not turn up one day this week—in this same way, you know. He was given a month's notice more than three weeks ago, but has said nothing about it, hoping to get something else all this time."

"Does—does he wish to keep what he has done private?" Hazel asked with delicate hesitancy, "or may you tell me?"

"He has not done anything," her brother replied; "that is just it: he won't work, you know. I don't blame the old boy, I have always known it to be simply impossible for Hugh to work; if he gets a pen or pencil in his fingers, he is bound to draw. Have you not noticed it in him? His blotting-paper at the office is a sight," Teddie continued, "and, which may have hastened matters, his boss found a likeness of himself—not a flattering one—among Hugh's papers."

"How dreadful!" said Hazel in consternation.

"Pretty bad, isn't it?" Teddie agreed.

"And oh, Teddie," the girl went on, "my pocket-money gave out to-day. You know how I like to give mother some little delicacy. I don't know whether you could lend me any. Sixpence would do for to-day."

Teddie felt in all his pockets and produced three halfpence. "I am awfully sorry," he said ruefully; "and to think I spent one and fourpence on a steak to-day."

"You must have been hungry," his sister exclaimed, amazed.

"Oh, not to eat," laughed Teddie. "It was for Carrots' eye."

Hazel looked her astonishment.

"You see," her brother explained, "it was after the row. Hamilton had gone out to lunch, and I was going to mine, when I noticed that Carrots, who was sitting at his desk, was holding his face in his hands and groaning."

"Yes," said Hazel pitifully, "and then?"

"Well," Teddie continued, "the eye certainly looked pretty bad—seemed to be a worse one than I really intended to give him, you know, and it put me in mind of beef steak somehow. So I went to the nearest butcher and bought one."

"But, Teddie," said Hazel, much interested, "surely a much smaller piece would have done?"

"It never struck me," Teddie declared. "I was never in a butcher's shop before. I suppose I thought they would not halve it. The master of the shop said: 'What can I do for you, sir?' I said: 'I want a steak.' 'The best?' he said. 'Yes,' I said; 'the juiciest you have got: it is for—' I was just going to tell him it was for a black eye, but there was a wretched little errand boy in the shop, grinning, so I said: 'It is for one person.' He slapped a piece on to the scales and wrapped it up in newspaper, and said it would be one and four—which was lucky, as I had got only one and fivepence halfpenny. I ran back to the office and put it down on the desk, in front of Carrots, and went out again."

"Did it do him any good?" Hazel asked.

"I don't know," her brother answered. "I left for good after that, you know."

"But, Teddie," she protested, "then you have had no lunch."

"Oh, that does not matter," the boy rejoined tragically, as on this reminder healthy pangs of hunger reasserted themselves. "That is quite the least part of the whole bad business—I don't suppose I could eat, you know, if I tried. It is just possible," he continued, with increased gloom and some irritation, "that the Lout had a rattling lunch with what was over: he could easily fry it on the shovel over the office gas."

"It would make the office smell rather, to cook there, wouldn't it?" suggested Hazel. "Mr. Hamilton might be angry."

"An awfully nice smell," groaned Teddie, "enough to make Hamilton want to sit in the outer office all the rest of the afternoon."

Hazel, making a shrewd guess at her brother's innermost feelings and private sufferings, endeavoured to divert his mind from beefsteak or any other subject likely to aggravate them. And again affectionately stroking the shabby coat sleeve, she proceeded to discourse on divers topics, thus whiling away the time, that must otherwise have dragged terribly for poor hungry Teddy, as the two trudged along the somewhat monotonous track of dusty road, under a sun that was only now beginning to be aware that the hot summer day was waning; that it would therefore become him to restrain his ardour, and to relax his fierce and fiery countenance to more gentle demonstrations of his warm and impulsive temperament.

On reaching the house, after safely bestowing the delinquent upon his mother's care, Hazel sped across the marble-flagged hall, down one of the numerous passages and through a baize-covered swing-door, which shut off that portion of the house devoted to servants' offices. She made her way to the kitchen, an old-fashioned stone kitchen, where sundry odours made apparent the circumstance that dinner was in preparation. The two village maids dropped curtsies, and Mrs. Doidge turned from the fire to welcome her young lady.

"Will you kindly be seated, miss?" asked the ex-housekeeper. "Mattie, leave that bit of ironing and place the easy chair nearer the window for Miss Hazel."

"No, Mrs. Doidge, thank you," Hazel interposed. "I cannot stay a moment. I only wanted some slices of bread and butter, rather thick, please, and a cup of tea, if you have boiling water. Mr. Teddie has come home, as I daresay Miles told you; but what do you think?—he has had no lunch."

The three women were quickly in a bustle, many ejaculations of concern escaping Mrs. Doidge's lips, in that Teddie, her pet and darling—next to Hazel, be it understood—should thus be famishing within these very walls. Hazel had no need to urge haste, and was presently bearing away a tray, followed by many remonstrances from Mrs. Doidge, who protested she could easily spare one of the maids on so short an errand. Teddie, whose quick ear caught the tap of Hazel's little foot against the panels, rose to give her admittance, and hungrily eyed the food that he yet deemed it only decent to turn from in seeming disgust.

"Just leave it near me," he said, in response to his sister's pleading. "I may perhaps find I can nibble a piece of bread presently."

Hazel had fully expected to find her mother and brother deep in conversation concerning the circumstance of his sudden, not to say precipitate, restoration to the bosom of his family; but the truth was that Teddie possessed very little information of which to deliver himself. It appeared that his bête noire, Carrots, had grievously insulted the young gentleman, nor him alone, but the ancient name of Le Mesurier, in grossest manner, such as no gentleman, let alone a Le Mesurier, could allow to pass and yet hope to retain his honour. Therefore had Teddie risen up in his wrath, and, with vengeful force, had smitten this enemy of his house, inflicting a black eye. The young man's employer had at that moment made his appearance. We have the sequel of the story in the reappearance of poor Teddie at Hazelhurst on the day of his departure thence.

Hazel, bent on humouring the hungry lad, after placing the food within easy reach, discreetly turned away and occupied eye and hand in the rearrangement of flowers in their several vases, adroitly holding her mother in conversation the while; but when, five minutes later, having completed her task with all possible deliberation, and having duly considered the result of her labour, with head on this side and that, the girl came forward to take her favourite seat beside her mother's chair: lo, the cup was empty, the plate bare, and Teddie was ingenuously reviewing his boots in taciturn and blue-eyed melancholy.

Despite himself, however, the boy could not long pretend to a condition so at variance with his joyful, hopeful young nature. In truth, by dinner-time, in response to the second sounding of the gong, fresh washed and dressed, his hunger appeased—for it is to be supposed that Teddie was responsible for the disappearance of the bread and butter and tea—he presented himself, to Hazel's delight, in the likeness of the more familiar Teddie, having set aside all pseudo-dejection, and, if truth be told, looking wonderfully handsome in his evening garb, which, though shabby and curiously appointed with high lights in all prominent places, was well brushed, and displayed a goodly show of spotless and snow-white cuff. So fresh and handsome did the boy look, indeed, that Hazel, quite impressed, regarded him in admiration.

"Why, Teddie," she cried, "how nice you look! And you were complaining, only last night, that your dinner jacket was not fit to wear. It is a little shiny, certainly, but——"

"You don't suppose," said Teddie seriously, amazed at her simplicity, "you don't suppose that I should be such a noodle as to wear my own evening clothes? No, no, I save my own, whenever I get the chance!"

"Oh, what a shame," Hazel expostulated. "Then whose are these?"

"Why, Hugh's," her brother informed her, with an irrepressible chuckle. "And it is all very well to cry shame, Hazel; but why do you suppose this suit looks so decent? Because, forsooth, Hugh puts it carefully away and wears mine whenever he can. And again, why has mine become so extremely shabby? Because, when he has it on—and he manages to wear it pretty often, let me tell you—he is utterly reckless as to how he treats it: he will lie upon the grass in it; and he wore it a great deal while he was making those bookshelves for you, and messing about generally in the carpenter's room of an evening."

"Mrs. Doidge has fine-drawn the hole in the knee where the chisel went through, sir," murmured Miles, as he offered his young master the vegetables, with deferential bend, "and I brushed and laid everything out upon your bed, sir, as usual."

"Thank you, Miles; yes, I saw that," Teddie rejoined. "Well, they will be all the readier. I am afraid I shall be wearing them very soon: something tells me that it won't be long before Hugh comes," he added, turning to Hazel.

Good, faithful Miles! With how much perseverance did he endeavour, in things great and small, to keep up his loved "family" to the level of their former status, deeming such condition essential to their well-being! With what toil and labour did he strive that each of his young masters should at all times appear well groomed, that they might not miss, nor show they lacked, the attentions of the two valets whose services had been entirely devoted to his five sons, by Hubert's order!

And indeed, as Miles himself was wont to confess, if it were not for the saving help of their faithful servant, long ere this would the young gentlemen have presented themselves at dinner in morning dress, to be tended by a couple of maids—Miles always lost his equanimity at the mere thought of women at table. He shuddered to contemplate the probable condition of the plate and glass, that constituted his greatest pride, under feminine control.

He would look into the drawing-room or search the hall—either of which places were gathering grounds of the family—a few minutes before the sounding of the dinner-gong, and if one luckless Le Mesurier boy chanced to be lurking in some corner, in morning garb, hoping to escape the watchful eye of the redoubted butler, Miles would immediately spy him out, and with bland severity inform the delinquent that he would ask Mrs. Doidge to "put the dinner back" a quarter of an hour, if his young master could find that sufficient time in which to make his toilet. His patient persistence at length shamed the boys into meek acquiescence, so that Miles had relaxed his stern vigilance somewhat of late, showing in its stead a pathetic trust in their own sense of right, such as they could not disregard.

The flower-garden too, in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, would be overrun with weeds—as he had once found it after a month's confinement to the house with an obstinate attack of rheumatism—entailing the extra expense of outside help for their suppression. It is true that Miss Hazel had wrestled with the noxious growths—as her little brown hands testified, for she either could not or would not keep on the queerly fashioned and enormous gloves that Mrs. Doidge assured the girl were the correct thing for gardening, and with which the good woman was careful to supply her; but what was his little mistress's feeble strength, pitted against the alarming odds of the pertinacious herbage? Miles asked pitifully, when even he, tough, work-hardened old man that he was, found the fight a fierce and oft-to-be-repeated one: for the foe, fresh and smiling in their green uniform, seemed to bear charmed lives, and to rise in formidable ranks like so many phoenixes from the weed carnage. Extermination seemed an impossibility, notwithstanding the feverish energy with which Miles went forth to combat, and the wondrous strategy that he brought to bear upon the imposing and ever-smiling green army.

CHAPTER III

Two days later, Teddie and Hazel, she seated on far-stretching, hopelessly tangled tree-roots, he prone upon his back on the dry moss, disported themselves in the leafy shade of the beloved greenwood, deep in consultation on the same momentous question that Hazel had endeavoured to solve alone: how might she earn money?

Typewriting had been discussed, but the idea was soon abandoned, Teddie informing his sister that, to be successful in that branch of industry, a peculiar kind of appearance was desirable—indeed, was essentially needful—an appearance that Hazel entirely lacked, as she herself would admit, could she see "the sort" that frequented the office adjoining Mr. Hamilton's.

"Why," the boy declared, "they would simply stare if you suddenly turned up there and asked for a job, and the boss would inquire delicately where your mother was, and would instruct his head clerk to take you back to her."

"I should not go like this," Hazel returned, deprecatingly, fingering a piece of her white spotted muslin, and eyeing her brother wistfully. "I should probably have a tailor-made tweed dress, and a man's straw hat, and thick boots, and a stand-up collar and tie. You have no idea how—how strong-minded I could look, if I had the proper dress for bringing it out. Most women owe it to their dress: I am quite sure they don't feel and stride about like that, in their dressing-gowns."

She regarded him pleadingly; the mere thought of becoming one of the City band—the doing away for ever with the dolorous Monday morning partings—above all, the obtaining of means to supply her mother with endless little luxuries, made the proposition a very tempting one to the girl.

But Teddie shook his head. "It is a peculiar stamp," he said musingly, "and, take my word for it, Hazel, it is not all in the clothes. Why, some of them dress quite æsthetically; but it is no go, they are typewriters. Not that I disapprove of them as a class," he hastened to add. "If it comes to that, some of them are quite pretty, but—well, you would not do, and that is all about it."

There was a short silence. The sun glinted in and out among the tree-branches in shimmering shafts of yellow light, the leaves quivered slightly in the still air, the birds chirped, and Hazel sighed.

"Besides," Teddie continued, feeling perhaps that he had been somewhat unsympathetically sweeping in his assertions, "there would be the expense of learning. You don't become a full-blown typewriter all at once, you know. You don't just sit down and manage it, so to speak, as you happen to be able to play the piano—without lessons."

Hazel brightened visibly so soon as this very real obstacle—means—was put before her: she was willing to give up any attempt at scaling an obstruction that would obviously harm her in the ascent. It was not that she was cowardly, or easily discouraged—far from it: never was girl pluckier or keener spirited; but she was wise in her generation, and saw that the loss entailed in the attempt to gain was greater than the gain itself; that the other side of the block, in short, was not worth the reaching.

"That is true," she admitted, relieved. "There is the tailor-made dress, too! Let us talk of other ways." She hesitated. "Now, don't laugh, Teddie," she went on, "just think seriously over what I am going to propose, and then say yes or no, after due consideration, you know. Teddie—could I be a governess?" And the girl unconsciously straightened her back, while an expression of mild severity overspread her countenance.

Teddie's surprise at this, to him astounding, idea silenced his tongue. After a few moments the slender figure drooped—Hazel never stooped, she drooped: as different a state, mental and physical, as ugliness from beauty—the pretty features relaxed.

"Of course I know," she resumed modestly, "that they would have to be very, very young children—or very backward older ones. I should prefer the backward ones: the very young are so fascinating. I don't know whether I should have the strength of mind, if they were hot and tired, and wanting to play, to insist on their finishing the spelling-lesson or sum; and I know that, while you cannot be too kind and too patient, you also cannot be too firm in having the little task completed. But," she added reflectively, chin in hand, "I should be wise and see to it that the task was a very short and easy one, especially if the child was particularly longing to go out, or was not quite well."

The girl had almost forgotten her brother's presence, and had entered into a little world of her own. She pictured to herself a pleasant, airy schoolroom with three or four happy, rosy children seated at the table, of which she herself was the head, strewn with the usual schoolroom paraphernalia: rulers, slates, dingy spelling-books of dog's-eared, awe-inspiring columns of words, slate pencils whose points and bluntness alike set your teeth on edge when you looked at them; copy-books with pot-hooks and hangers to copy in pencil—for Hazel would permit no inkpots nor ink-bespattering pens to enter her domain, to sully the purity of clean pinafores and childish fingers. Yes, she would be careful that the room should be airy, for she knew that much of rosy-cheeked happiness must depend upon that; the lessons short and interesting: for how should a child, mewed up in a close atmosphere, set to learn a tedious task, which no older mind had first rendered pleasant and understandable by a little intelligent smoothing and explaining, be aught but fidgety, cross, and unhappy? A child's mind should be lightly taxed, Hazel decided. She also decided that, however unorthodox it might be, she would always have freshly cut flowers upon her schoolroom table. Lessons were to be connected with pretty things, as well as with smeary slate and dingy spelling-book. Besides, how useful they would be in furnishing themes on which to discourse to her eager-eared young charges!

These ideas floated through the girl's vivid imagination within the space of a few moments only. Presently she roused herself, and shook herself free of the reverie into which she had fallen.

"I suppose it ought to be the backward ones," she said with a sigh.

"To think of Miss Le Mesurier becoming a governess," Teddie observed ruminatingly. "It is ridiculous, Hazel. Why, you would be romping with them round the table? And why are they to be so very young or, if older, dolts? Do you mean you cannot teach?"

"I don't quite know," Hazel returned, hesitating and pausing. "My—my education has been—er—has been rather choppy, hasn't it?" she asked a little timidly, fearful of wounding her brother's feelings, for the five boys had had practically the charge of their little sister's education. Cecil, until he had obtained his present post in the Indian Civil Service, had given her a daily lesson in some or other branch of knowledge, at irregular times, certainly—an occasional hour before breakfast, or half an hour before bedtime. But the girl was an apt pupil. She marked, learned, and inwardly digested—her clever little brain seemed to be well nourished: for the food on which it was fed, albeit scanty, was of goodly quality, and the very ample time allowed her for the assimilation of each respective lesson was perhaps the secret, in part, of her strongly marked digestive power.

Then Guy had taken her in hand, but soon confessed himself no teacher—that Hazel's odd questions puzzled him. Soon afterwards he left home to play his modest part in the government of his country. The girl was then passed over to Gerald—good, steady, faithful, plodding Gerald. In him she found her master: he an intelligent, interesting pupil. Together they would while away the long morning hours in profound study, in summer taking their books to the woods; in winter the bearskin before the hall hearth would often be the scene of their labour.

Necessity, however, caused long months of enforced holiday, when the girl would have been impatient of days, and of late Saturday evening had become the only time possible for Gerald to devote to two or three hours of tutorage; while on Sunday, between church hours, the young man would read aloud and make instructive comments to a little auditor, all ears and eyes, upon books, the like of which caused the hair of Hugh and Teddie to rise upon their heads in amaze, in that their brother and sister should find pleasure in such "deadly dry stuff," to couch the expression in their own tongue. And Monday morning would see the persevering tutor, at a very early hour, correcting writings of his pupil's authorship, and further arranging a programme for the ensuing days of his absence.

"I don't fancy I am well grounded," the girl went on, "and I should suppose that to be very important to teachers." She paused.

"I must say," Teddie remarked remonstrantly, "that you are not very complimentary to Gerald—or to me, if it comes to that. I have given you a turn at arithmetic, myself, and I have found you smart enough."

"Yes, oh yes, thank you, old fellow," Hazel returned hastily, apologetically. "He and—and you"—it appeared a little difficult to the girl to make the addition—"have the talent of teaching. Now, even supposing my learning to be sufficient, have I?"

"I don't see that it is the question," returned her brother, much mollified, "for none of us would let you become a governess: it would be too absurd—you are only a child yourself."

At this Hazel waxed indignant. "I am young," she admitted with naïve frankness, "but I am tall and fond of children. Mother was saying lately that my next new dress must be made quite long. See," she cried, springing up and walking swiftly to and fro in straight-limbed, supple grace, "they are all but long already. And of course," the girl continued, resuming her seat, "I should do up my hair and wear 'ladies',' instead of 'girls'' hats. As I said before, you have no idea how much is owed to clothes."

There was a short silence. Teddie, upon his back, groaned slightly.

"Now listen, Teddie," Hazel presently continued, "I have one more plan to lay before you and, really, out of three, it is only reasonable to expect you to think seriously of one, and finally to agree to try it and help me to persuade mother. In this last plan, indeed, we need not consult her—she need know nothing about it, but just live happily and enjoy the results of it."

The girl paused and looked about her, half startled, on encountering the inquisitive glance of the bright eyes of her favourite squirrel who, afraid to approach nearer—his mistress, the wood-nymph, seemingly entertaining company—appeared to be listening with all his might for the proposition about to be unfolded by her.

"Teddie," Hazel said, bending over him and speaking low, "what do you say to us—to you and me—keeping a lodger at Hazelhurst?"

In the pause that ensued Teddie rolled over upon his face, but never a word spoke he. Hazel regarded him a little anxiously, uncertain as to his state of mind. At length he broke the silence.

"We should have to feed it," he remarked, in hollow accents.

"I thought of that," Hazel returned eagerly, delighted that the proposal met with no more definite negative, "but suppose we were lucky—suppose we found a very delicate one, who wanted heaps of fresh air—we could give it the whole of the west wing, for instance—but one that could eat hardly anything? But no, that would not do," she continued, after pausing to reflect, "it would be more expense in the end, than less, to have a delicate lodger, I mean. You see, one would have to provide chicken and jelly, even if it would not eat, just to try to tempt it. No, we hid better look out for a moderately healthy one, but one who was used to plain food, you know: the sort that likes bread and cheese for lunch, better than anything else, and is a firm teetotaller. Who is that coming, I wonder?" she broke off suddenly.

The two raised themselves to listen, in breathless silence.

"Perhaps it is some one looking for lodgings," Teddie whispered mischievously. "Now remember, Hazel, twenty guineas a week for the west wing, garrets five shillings each, and the basement seven-and-six."

"It is Hugh," the girl exclaimed, springing to her feet and running to meet the fourth Le Mesurier boy, who, hot, dusty, and tired, yet returned his sister's greeting affectionately, if somewhat shame-facedly, as he became aware of the presence of his brother.

Teddie, at Hazel's exclamation, had sunk back into his former position and now lay, cool and comfortable, complacently regarding the new-comer with twinkling eyes.

"Hallo!" he said brightly. "So you have turned up, have you? I hope you will be comfortable. I have spent a very pleasant couple of days here myself. I ran down, without lunch, on Monday, and Mrs. Doidge has been feeding me up ever since." And Teddie gave vent to a sigh of satisfaction.

"Slack beast," murmured Hugh disgustedly. Yielding to the silent entreaty of Hazel's little hand and seating himself upon some moss, he threw off his hat and proceeded to mop his damp face.

"What is that?" Teddie asked innocently. "But, I say, you do look hot, old fellow. Walked up, I suppose?"

"Ugh," grunted Hugh.

"Doubtless in some perturbation of mind," Teddie continued sympathetically. "Very heating, this weather. And your bag, too—had books in it, perhaps?"

A slightly sardonic smile overspread Hugh's countenance.

"Talking of books, there was one of yours that I packed with mine," he announced in a friendly way, "and I left the bag at the station, thinking you might like to fetch it."

Teddie's blue eyes of a sudden blazed with wrath. "Do you mean to say," he asked, an ominous quietude marking his manner, "do you mean to say that you left a heavy bag of books at the station for me to fetch, your only excuse being that the bag contains a wretched thirty-page paper-covered pamphlet on Dentistry that chanced to be left in my name at our lodgings?"

"Partly that," returned Hugh, with the same air of engaging frankness. "I thought you would be pleased to see it again, and I knew it would grieve you to have me toiling up with anything belonging to you. Also partly because I thought the exercise would do you good: you have been out at grass long enough. I am glad I was so fully justified in my ideas," he added, "for on your own admitting you are eating your head off, and doing nothing all day."

"I hope you have a second supply of hair-brushes and—er—other things pertaining to the toilet," Teddie observed politely, his anger evaporated, a similar smile lighting his boyish features, "because I don't suppose you will feel inclined to make a second trip to the station to-day, and I don't happen to be going that way this afternoon. By the way, I shall have to wear my own dress clothes to-night," he added, with the air of one who is struck with an idea that necessitates reflection.

It was now Hugh's turn to wax indignant, but the sight of Hazel returning at this auspicious moment, bearing in her hand a large glass of lemon-squash, which she tendered to the hot and dusty lad, extinguished instantly the dire wrath that was kindling within his breast, making him feel very amiable toward his thoughtful little sister in particular, and to a world that included Teddie, in general.

"Ah," he exclaimed, pausing in the draught in order to take a deep breath, "there is nothing like lemon-squash in hot weather," and he turned a softened pair of blue eyes upon his brother, with a look of gathering trust that seemed only to ask sympathy.

Teddie vainly tried to look indifferent as he regarded the favoured Hugh a trifle wistfully; but nature is weak.

"It is a curious thing, Hazel," he remarked insinuatingly, "how awfully thirsty one gets this weather, even doing nothing."

"Oh, Teddie, I am so sorry," the girl made answer, "but Mrs. Doidge has no more spare lemons. Perhaps Hugh——" she broke off: it was too late. The glass was drained to the last drop, and Hugh, with a sigh of contentment, arranged his long limbs upon the mossy carpet for half an hour's repose before luncheon.

A couple of hours later Teddie, tired of inaction, being besides of an extremely good-hearted disposition, having melted sufficiently toward his brother, took his way to the station for the purpose of carrying home that brother's personal effects; but, only human, he could not resist the desire to open the bag and subtract therefrom the luckless pamphlet, which he proceeded to tear into shreds and scatter along the hedgerow.

CHAPTER IV

About a week after the circumstances of mixed joy and embarrassment recorded in the last chapter, there came strolling through the Le Mesuriers' wood one Paul Charteris, tall, lithe, and handsome being in the thirty-first year of his age. The master of Earnscleugh was on his way to Hazelhurst with the intention of paying his respects to its mistress, whom he had not seen for some six or seven years, having for that t space of time been an attach in the British Embassy at St. Petersburg. Eight years since, on the death of his father, Vivian, his elder brother, had inherited Earnscleugh and all pertaining to it, including the great town house. Vivian was devoted to his brother, and begged that they two should continue to share the old home as heretofore. But Paul's was a restless spirit: his college career ended, he must be up and doing. The interest of influential friends soon obtained for the young man the coveted post in Russia, and Vivian, with regret, was perforce obliged to yield where he had no authority to interfere. Therefore, for six long years was Paul Charteris no more seen among his people. Yet, while the elder brother yearned for the companionship he had always known, he could not but admit that it was better so, that action was necessary to Paul. For himself it was different He was essentially a student by nature, and wished only for a retired life. A slight limp in his gait fostered and favoured this recluse propensity, and the solitary years before his death were lived almost exclusively in the library at Earnscleugh, devoted to study, at such times as his multifarious duties with steward or lawyer—faithfully and patiently performed by the young master—left him free to follow his own devices.

Then came the death of Vivian at the early age of three-and-thirty, and Paul was called to take upon his own shoulders the responsibility of the vast estates of Earnscleugh.

He did not respond at once. Indeed, it would have been difficult for him to throw up his position at short notice. Neither had the young man any great inclination to take possession of his own, for the inheritance was rendered hateful to him, that had come to him only with the loss of his brother. He dreaded the sight of the empty place, the lonely library, the disused smoking-room, with its many familiar objects: skins of animals, boyish attempts at photography that the two brothers had always kept upon the walls and mantelshelf, as relics of their happy childhood. He shuddered as he thought upon such desolation.

So that a year had elapsed since the death of Vivian, and Paul had arrived only a few days since, his trouble somewhat softened by the healing of time. Nevertheless, it was a sorrowful ordeal. He yearned inexpressibly for the sight of his brother's form, seated in the old place at the study table, as he had so often pictured to himself; for the gladness that was wont to light Vivian's features at the appearance of himself, after even a temporary separation; for the tones of his voice. However, the first dreaded days were rendered considerably less painful by the almost continuous presence of Mr. Lewis, the family solicitor, or Crawford, the steward.

Yet, the first press of affairs over, Paul found more leisure in which to indulge his sorrow, and very sorely it beset him: its tyranny at length forcing him to rouse himself and endeavour to throw off the oppression. He presently bethought him of the friends and acquaintances of years gone by, and determined upon a course of visits, that should at once renew kindly recollections and while away the tedium of hours not enlightened by work. The Le Mesuriers were naturally uppermost in his mind, for the Hazelhurst estates joined those of Earnscleugh. They were nice enough boys, he was glad to remind himself—they would be strapping young fellows by now—and for their mother he entertained affectionate memories, for she had been a good friend and counsellor to the two motherless sons of Philip Charteris. Vivian, indeed, could remember her first coming to Hazelhurst, a bright, beautiful young creature, and the boy of six had formed quite a romantic attachment. Then there was that little brown witch of a girl, Hazel. Hazel must be sixteen or seventeen, Paul reflected, and he smiled at the recollection of their last interview, seven years since.

He had taken leave of Mrs. Le Mesurier and of such Le Mesurier boys as were present, and was departing through the wood, without accomplishing a farewell to his little friend Hazel, who was nowhere to be found. Passing beneath an oak, he heard above him a suppressed exclamation, then the rending of "gathers," and the child stood beside him, holding her torn frock together with one hand and courteously tending him the other.

"You are going away, aren't you?" she had asked him gravely. "You have been to say good-bye to mother and the boys?" and she turned to accompany him to the boundary fence.

"Yes," Paul replied, "and I was afraid I should have to go without seeing you."

"It would not have mattered," she answered, "you saw me on Tuesday, only three days ago. What will it matter, when you are going away for years, whether you saw me on Tuesday or Friday?"

"But I did not say good-bye on Tuesday," Paul returned, much amused. "That matters; don't you think so?"

"No," Hazel said quaintly. "Going away means good-bye. There is no need to say it, except in your heart."

"Still I like to say it to you and in my heart as well," Paul persisted. "To-morrow, when I shall be already in Paris, I shall be saying, 'Good-bye, little Hazel, good-bye; don't forget me.' And then I shall like to recall how you looked and what you said in answer."

At this juncture they had reached the fence dividing the two estates, and Paul turned to face his little companion.

"I am going away for years," he said, a trifle wistfully. "Will you give a fellow a kiss, Hazel?"

"No," Hazel returned decisively. "I am sorry, but I am too old. You may take both my hands, if you like," she added graciously.

Paul gratefully possessed himself of the proffered hands, and looked long into the upturned childish eyes.

"I wonder whether you will be as pretty when I come back as you are now," was his boyish comment.

"I don't know," Hazel returned indifferently. "I hope I shan't be any browner," she added; "the boys do tease me so."

"And shall you be saying 'good-bye, Paul,' in your heart to-morrow?" he asked eagerly.

"Of course," she said earnestly, somewhat surprised at the question. "All the time till you are home again."

"Let me hear you say it now," he entreated.

"Good-bye, Paul," she said obediently, and made to withdraw her hands.

"And you are quite sure about the—about the kiss?" he asked diffidently.

Hazel regarded him in mild reproach.

"I am sorry," he said hastily. "I did not mean to ask again. Good-bye, Hazel; don't forget me."

He vaulted over the fence and was gone.

Following the same twisting path that he had passed over then, with his child companion, the young man was presently aware that his dog, which had trotted on ahead, was leaping backwards and forwards before a certain tree, breaking into short, excited barks. Thinking it likely that Towzer was scaring some pet or other of Hazel's, Paul called sharply to his four-footed friend, but was not heeded by that usually most obedient of dogs. Becoming angry, he quickened his pace, and, raising his stick, was about to punish Towzer, when, to his astonishment, its point was seized from above and held firmly—after one or two ineffectual efforts to wrest it from his hand—while a girlish voice said, in laughing tones:

"No, you don't."

Paul peered up, in among the clustering foliage, and presently descried the recumbent form of a girl, lying at full length along one of the great boughs—her dress, of the exact shade of the bark, rendering her discovery difficult. The girl released her hold of the stick and sat up, one slender foot and ankle becoming visible beneath the canopy of leaves above the young man's head, and with both hands she parted the green screen before her face and peeped down at him. It was a lovely face that Paul beheld—bewitching, indescribable in its charm, framed in soft brown hair.

"Hazel—Miss Le Mesurier," he cried, "have you lived in that tree ever since I went away?" For he now recognised the giant oak. "I always said you were a little Dryad. Won't you deign to come down and be mortal for a while?"

"Certainly," returned Miss Le Mesurier, and hesitated. "If you will be so good as to walk on," she added, rather severely, "I will join you in a few moments."

Paul did as he was bidden. A rustling among the branches ensued, then a light jump to the ground; and as he turned eagerly to greet her, Paul was almost expectant of seeing one little hand occupied in the holding together of a rent skirt, so vivid were old associations with him just then. She came swiftly to his side, the soft cloud of hair floating around her. In the brown eyes shone a glad friendliness—the same grave, direct regard he remembered so well: a child-like, inquiring, essentially intelligent gravity, often to be remarked in clever, highly sensitive faces—and Hazel's was a very clever and acutely sensitive little face, in the truest sense for women, womanly. But, though childlike and open as ever, the expressive countenance was more grand, more noble—an earnest that the beautiful little nature of the child Hazel had grown up in the way of its starting, without deviation.

She held out a hand to Paul, very slightly larger than the one that had bidden him farewell; and if it was not browner, it was quite as brown, but such a pretty, soft, warm tinge in the clear, transparent skin as made all whiter skin appear harsh in contrast, to Paul's thinking. It courteously shook his, and withdrew.

"How long have you been home?" she asked, when the wise, childlike eyes were satisfied; and, truly, Paul was a goodly sight.

"Six days," Paul returned. "I arrived here on Monday. But there was work to see to; and, besides, I did not feel like visiting any one, just at first."

"Of course," the girl responded sympathetically. "The boys will be home to-day," she added. "Three of them. So to-morrow—to-night even—you will have something cheering."

"I feel cheered already," Paul returned, cheerfully enough, as they turned to walk on together in the direction of the house. "How are they? How is your mother?" he inquired.

"Mother is fairly well," Hazel replied. "The boys are always well."

"And doing well?" Paul asked. "Affairs are prospering, I hope?"—the fortunes of the Le Mesuriers were ever an open secret.

"No," Hazel admitted, frankly and without reserve, "things are rather bad, and we are dreadfully poor just now—especially myself. You would hardly believe it," she went on confidentially, "but if it had not been for one and sixpence that Hugh gave me last Wednesday—already it has come down to eightpence—I should not possess a halfpenny. See," and the girl held out a limp little silken purse.

Paul took it from her. "What a quaint little thing! May I look inside?" he asked.

"Of course," Hazel said. "But I have told you exactly what is in it: eightpence."

And sure enough, two threepenny pieces and four halfpennies rolled out upon Paul's open palm.

"It is partly owing to the fact of Hugh and Teddie being out of work," Hazel went on, when the purse had been restored to her, and safely bestowed in her pocket. "They are in town to-day looking for something. But I am very much afraid they won't find anything. You know," she added, unconsciously moving a little nearer to him as they walked, "the main difficulty is, I believe, that they don't look 'clerky,' and their name is not a 'clerky' one, is it? These trifles make a difference, don't you think?" And she looked up at him with considering, brown eyes.

"I am sure they must," Paul assented.

"It only struck me lately," Hazel, following her own train of thought, presently resumed, "quite lately, how exactly like the portrait of Hugo Le Mesurier Teddie is. Of course Hugo has long hair and a lace collar—he was a Cavalier in the days of Cromwell, you know—but if he changed his clothes and cut his hair, the face alone would be enough to make people say they did not require a clerk"—and she sighed.

"I can well believe it," Paul agreed, sympathetically.

"I have been consulting the boys as to how I might earn a little money, if it were only five shillings a week," the girl continued. "They say I don't look like a typewriter. What do you think?"

"Great Heavens, no!" Paul ejaculated vehemently, horrified at the bare suggestion.

"That is how they feel," Hazel returned resignedly. "Only, they are a little calmer about it: they have seen so many, you know, poor things," she added, ingenuously. "Next," she began again, after a slight pause, "we considered letting lodgings, without mother's knowledge. But Teddie says a 'cute lodger would take me in horribly. He says I am no more cut out for a landlady than for a typewriter. Do you agree with that?"

"Most emphatically," Paul replied, unable to restrain a smile, which, however, escaped the girl's notice.

"You do?" she said, a trifle wistfully, as though half disappointed. "I hoped that you might, on thinking it over, consider it not such a bad plan as it at first appeared to you. I had thought of an invalid lady-lodger, who would require plenty of fresh air, but very little food. Though on second thoughts it occurred to me that we should have to persuade her with all sorts of dainties. So that would not do. But a gentleman, now, a gentleman, however unscrupulous in most matters, would not take a lady in, would he?" And the girl looked for his assurance.

"He would be an infernal cad if he did," Paul returned fiercely, tugging at his moustache.

"Yes," Hazel agreed. "I should hardly think that quite such cads existed, should you? Such very infernal ones, I mean. For even the greatest gentleman cad must have the sleeping instincts of a gentleman."

Paul's face was inscrutable.

"Now a bounder is different," was Hazel's startling announcement. "A bounder has never been a gentleman. He was born bounding, as you might say. I would rather deal with a cad myself: a bounder is so hopeless."

There was a short silence, devoted by both to reviewing the situation.

"But, Haz—Miss Le Mesurier," Paul amended, "you—you surely are not seriously thinking of—of this? Especially a gentleman. It—it—well, it would not be very usual, you know, especially if your mother is to be kept in ignorance."

"You mean, it is not the thing?" Hazel asked, simply, coming to his aid. "Oh, but we Le Mesuriers never trouble much about conventionalities," she explained airily. "Teddie says that ladies or gentlemen are always safe in following their inclinations—provided, of course, that those inclinations are not bad. Now, I don't think you could call my inclinations bad," she went on, meditatively, giving to the weighty question its due consideration. "They do rather lead me to take in a gentleman lodger, but he need not necessarily be a cad, you must remember. He might be very nice, and we might get quite fond of him."

"Certainly," poor Paul agreed, rather helplessly. It was evident that Hazel had interpreted his words to mean, he was under the impression that she, and the Le Mesuriers generally, delighted in cads and the like doubtful company.

At this juncture they reached the flower-garden, which, thanks be to Miles, looked pleasant enough. The girl led her companion swiftly through its winding paths and up the broad flight of steps. The marble-paved hall, with its shaded open windows, was deliciously cool and refreshing after the heat and glare without. In one of the wide recesses Miles was busied about the tea-table, collecting chairs from different quarters of the sparsely furnished hall. He turned as the two approached.

"You remember Miles?" Hazel asked of Paul. "Miles, Mr. Charteris has come home."

The old man bowed deferentially and made to withdraw, but Paul went forward and took the hand of the faithful old servant.

"Remember Miles? I should think I did, and the many things he has forgiven me when I was a boy," he said warmly.

A gleam of pleasure lighted the butler's furrowed countenance.

"I have had a deal of experience of boys," he said, somewhat sententiously, "having five young masters of my own, and I know what is natural to them, and only right, and what is wrong."

"And I was only natural, was I?" Paul laughingly asked.

"Yes, sir," Miles answered stolidly.

Hazel, who had gone in quest of her mother, soon returned with Helen.

"I am very glad to see you, Paul," Mrs. Le Mesurier said simply, regarding him with something of her daughter's direct gaze. "You are 'Paul' still, I hope?"

"If you will—if you please," he returned earnestly, and it suddenly occurred to the young man that Hazel had not named him at all.

He remarked little change in Mrs. Le Mesurier, save that she appeared to him more frail, perhaps, and the blue eyes seemed almost grey, as though the tears of her great grief had faded them.

"We have much to tell you of Vivian," she observed, as they seated themselves and Hazel made tea. "You know what a student he was, but he always found time to come to us, and always welcomed my children to his house. Indeed, they had the run of it at all times," she added. "I often feared it must inconvenience him."

"It was his greatest happiness," Paul said simply. "He frequently mentioned the boys and—and your daughter in his letters to me, and how their presence enlivened the old home."

"Poor Vivian!" Helen murmured. "He missed you sadly, Paul; but he always confessed that things were best as they were; that he would not have you home to pine in idleness."

She related many anecdotes of his brother that she knew would cheer Paul, and they fell to talking over old reminiscences, presently coming back to the topics of to-day, and the existing state of affairs; and Paul was soon laying before Helen a plan of his own sudden devising.

"Why should not Hugh come to me for a while as my secretary?" he asked. "If he does not care for the work, after giving it a trial, he can continue his search in the City."

"I don't want to seem conceited," Hazel broke in upon the conversation. She was seated near her mother on a low stool, chin in hand, deeply interested in all that passed. "I don't want to seem conceited," she said modestly, "but I can't help thinking that you had better have me. One often hears of lady secretaries," she went on, in expostulation at the smile upon her mother's face, a smile that Paul's countenance reflected; "it would be delightful, and you would not mind how I dressed, would you?" she added, turning eagerly to Paul. "You would let me have my hair down, and let me wear what I liked, provided I came punctually at the hours you named, and did the work properly."

Paul looked upon the ground. It was difficult to keep the muscles about his mouth under control. Helen was about to speak when Hazel resumed: for it appeared to her that Paul was considering the matter.

"I dare say you would be rather cross with me sometimes, at first," she admitted, "and think my writing queer and untidy; but I should soon fall into your ways, and my writing is at least legible. I have more of a business head than Hugh," she added, after a pause. "You see, I am not hampered by a love of drawing."

Mrs. Le Mesurier had acquainted her guest with Hugh's difficulties of temperament.

The girl awaited a decision breathlessly, but it was Helen who first spoke, the while Paul contemplated the little brown business head, with its wonderful, drooping hair, in silent and varied emotions.

"It would not do, Hazel," she said quietly. "Neither Paul nor myself would like it, nor think it wise."

Hazel glanced quickly at Paul, only to see him confirm her mother's words by a smiling shake of the head.

"Very well, motherling," she said resignedly, "and, after all, it would be selfish in me not to let Hugh have the trial," she added, more brightly.

Nevertheless, the girl looked down at the two small hands in her lap, and sighed.

CHAPTER V

The next day, Sunday, Hugh, Gerald, and Teddie, the two latter in high and unrelenting collars, well smoothed as to hair, attired in well-brushed clothes and boots of an almost supernatural polish—for Miles, the faithful, had personally attended their toilet—soberly and with elaborate care helped each the other over the boundary fence, intent upon returning, with prompt courtesy, the call their mother had received from Paul Charteris. The three wished to create a favourable impression upon their whilom friend, and a "decent get-up," to use Hugh's own words, was of the utmost importance for producing this desired result. Hugh, who had affected a low collar and loose tie, would have been well satisfied with himself were it not for the annoying circumstance that his new shoes pinched horribly, and that they squeaked, being somewhat low down in the scale of gentlemen's shoes, and bent on blatantly announcing the fact.

"Confound the things," he said angrily, trying various modes of locomotion, and finally adopting a mincing step of airy lightness, which seemed somewhat to pacify his fretful footgear, albeit he was pinched no whit less severely.

"Confoundedly hot in these high collars," Teddie grumbled, as he unfolded a snowy handkerchief and dabbed his moist brow. Immediately there was wafted upon the air the scent of lavender.

Hugh and Gerald regarded their brother in some severity, not unmixed with envy, in that they had neglected to make this elegant addition to their own toilets. "By Jove, Teddie," Gerald expostulated, "you must have literally soused that handkerchief."

"It is a bit damp," Teddie acknowledged composedly, "Comes in very refreshing."

Pursuing the winding paths in as direct a line as the topographical possibilities of the wood admitted, they at length came upon a large lawn that skirted the trees and lay smooth and green before the shady verandah of the south side of the house. Several long, low cane chairs stood invitingly about the verandah, and upon one of these, stretched at full length, in utter and complete comfort, was Paul Charteris, in loose white flannel garb, a cigar between his lips, a novel in his hand.

He sprang to his feet with an exclamation of welcome as Gerald, Hugh, and Teddie made their appearance across the lawn.

"Now, you fellows, just make yourselves comfortable and cool off," Paul said in amused compassion, as he marked the heated condition of the trio, and his quick glance took stock of the unsuitability of their habiliments. "I will look up Jackson, and ask for something to drink."

Hugh, glad to avail himself of the invitation, mincingly mounted the steps, and sank gratefully into the easiest chair, the other two likewise seating themselves.

Paul, disappearing for a few moments, quickly returned, followed by a servant bearing a tray, containing various sparkling liquids in multifarious bottles. Over this good and cooling cheer conversation soon became easy and natural, Teddie becoming so much himself as to refer energetically to stand-up collars as a "rotten invention."

"Look here, Charteris," he said, "perhaps, as you are alone, you won't mind my taking it off for a bit," and he proceeded to unfasten the offending piece of starched linen, in accordance with his host's warmly expressed advice, while Hugh surreptitiously slipped his poor tortured toes from their natural quarters into the main body of the shoe.

"You don't object to a pipe, Charteris?" Gerald inquired, producing from his pocket a well-worn briar-root, and, on Paul's assurance that he often enjoyed one himself, Hugh and Teddie quickly produced two others for his edification.

"Hazel received an invitation last night to spend a week with the Travers," Gerald announced conversationally, when all four were luxuriously smoking. "She is rather bothered about it; she does not care to leave the mater for so long."

"She could cut the visit short," Paul said, not unwilling to suggest so pleasing a solution of the difficulty. "How—er—how would your sister go?" he added, prefiguring himself and Hazel taking the long drive together in his dogcart, through the beautiful countryside.

But Gerald's reply quickly extinguished any such day-dream. "Oh, young Travers would fetch her in the trap; that is easy enough," he said carelessly.

"Is that Digby?" Paul asked quickly.

"Yes," Gerald replied, "he is desperately gone on Hazel—makes an awful idiot of himself."

"How old is he?" Paul asked curtly.

"About two- or three-and-twenty," Teddie broke in. "He is a decent fellow enough if only he would not sing."

Paul's innate delicacy would not permit him to ask that which he longed to know: whether or not that brown-eyed child, Hazel, reciprocated the feeling of the importunate Travers. However, Hugh soon relieved him on that score.

"Of course, Hazel does not guess what he is up to," he said, somewhat scornfully, in no wise trying to hide his contempt of the laboriously arranged and clumsily carried out tactics of young Travers. "How should she? None of us are likely to open her eyes. He only succeeds in boring her fearfully; she keeps out of his way whenever she can."

Paul was conscious of a sudden interest, almost amounting to a liking, for the luckless young man. "What sort of a fellow is he to look at?" he asked, readjusting his tie with some complacency.

"Oh, well enough," Hugh returned, to which somewhat vague description Paul's other guests grunted agreement.

"Greeky," Hugh went on, for his host's better understanding, and the subject was dropped, this graphic portraiture being deemed so eminently exhaustive that Charteris must be criticising a vivid mental picture of young Travers, the while he reclined with half-closed eyes, puffing lazily at his cigar.

"By the way," Paul began presently, turning to Hugh, "has Mrs. Le Mesurier spoken to you of the idea we formed?—just a suggestion, you know; you must, of course, feel at perfect liberty to—er——"

"Yes, thanks, awfully," Hugh replied suavely. "I'll turn up to-morrow. Nine o'clock suit—nine to four?"

For a moment Paul was staggered by such prompt acceptance of the post and subsequent arrangement of detail. "I think ten would suit me better," he said, a trifle apologetic. "I like to go in for various modes of exercise for a couple of hours before beginning work."

"All the same to me," Hugh returned airily. "Ten to five, then?"

"What do you say to having no fixed hour for leaving?" Paul suggested. "Just turn up at ten every day, and we can see what work there is to do, and do it. You will as often as not get through in an hour or two."

"That will just suit me," Hugh declared frankly. "And the salary?"

"Well," Paul said, with hesitancy, "a hundred a year would—er——"

"Phew," whistled Teddie, resorting to his bescented handkerchief; "and to think how I have to slave for a miserable forty!"

"But then, look how distasteful any kind of clerical work is to me," Hugh said ingenuously, gently expostulating with the unreasonable Teddie. "Even one hour is very real hard work to me; whereas Gerald, here, positively likes such business. If you look at things in their right proportions, you will find that I could hardly be overpaid, whatever you gave me."

Teddie did not look convinced by his brother's argument, and Paul, half amused, half dismayed at the outspoken candour of his secretary-elect, could not but determine that, whatever it was that filled the fair, curly head, diplomacy did not number among the gifts of Hugh Le Mesurier.

When, after some further talk, the young men rose to take their leave, Paul insisted upon accompanying his guests on at least part of their homeward way. Friendly relations were now so far established between the houses of Earnscleugh and Hazelhurst, that Teddie strolled with easy grace across the lawn, carrying the obnoxious collar in his hand, ever and anon waving it airily in gesticulation in the course of his conversation with Paul and Gerald; whilst Hugh modestly brought up the rear, stepping gingerly in bright red socks, bearing around his neck the plaintive shoes, slung together by their laces.

Hazel, meanwhile, who had walked with her brothers to the verge of the estate, had settled herself cosily upon the carpet of moss with a book, to await their return. Curiously enough, a desire to accompany them never entered the girl's mind, though it had ever been her habit to join her brothers in their excursions. Vivian Charteris had been well accustomed to the sight of Hazel's little figure among the tall and lanky forms of the Le Mesurier boys. Indeed, he would have sorely missed the bright and gentle girl, whom he had known intimately from babyhood, and for whom he entertained a brother's regard. He had gloried in the Le Mesurier lungs—more especially when voiced by the silvery tones of his little, brown-eyed favourite—echoing through his domain or about his house. But Vivian was Vivian, the grave and serious student, sixteen or seventeen years older than herself. Now, a quite unconscious reticence seemed to withhold the girl, to forbid the old childish freedom. Paul was almost a stranger to her: for, during the earliest years of her childhood, he had only spent at Earnscleugh the brief holidays of the long school-terms. At the age of eighteen he had entered upon his college career, visiting either his home or travelling abroad in the vacations; finally quitting England when Hazel had attained to her tenth year. So that, while familiar with his name, of the actual Paul the girl knew little.

Hazel sprang to her feet as her quick ear caught the sounds of footsteps approaching from the direction of Earnscleugh. Perching herself upon the fence, she peered eagerly down the little, twisting, shady pathway that she well knew led most directly to the house, presently perceiving Teddie's loose and angular form, looking somewhat négligé about the neck, while his collar encircled the crown of his straw hat. Gerald next made his appearance round the bend, the narrow ways being of necessity traversed in Indian-file order.

"Was Charteris at home?" Hazel called, with all the vaunted strength of the Le Mesurier lungs, poised upon the topmost rung, balancing her lithe body, hands on hip.

"He is here," Teddie called back, and, too late, Hazel discovered the figure of Paul, following close upon Gerald, whilst Hugh still brought up the rear in besocked feet.

Hazel precipitately dismounted from her lofty stand, her sensitive little face growing pale with dismay at what she deemed her unmannerly way of dispensing with the formality of the usual prefix of "Mr.," which, however, Paul thoroughly understood: not as a rude peculiarity in the girl herself—little aristocrat that she was to her finger-tips—but as natural in the circumstance of that girl possessing five brothers.

There was the bare possibility in Hazel's mind that her words had not caught Paul's ear, or, being audible to him, that the omission had not been remarked. With this faint hope to buoy her, she held out her hand to meet Paul's over the fence, the while with flushed countenance she lifted her eyes, half shy, half anxious, and endeavoured to read the handsome face the merry eyes, that seemed laughingly to defy her scrutiny, whether consciously or unconsciously she could not determine.

As a matter of fact Paul was perfectly aware of her embarrassment and its cause, and was much amused. He was bent upon keeping her in a state of uncertainty, however, and merely commented upon the beauty of the day, which mischievous spirit was hardly in accordance with the young man's usual attitude towards her.

With a demure response Hazel moved a little away, soon becoming interested in a cluster of flowers at her feet, Shepherd's Eye, that seemed to gaze up at her in blue wonder and sympathy. She proceeded to pluck the small, starlike blossoms, her brothers and Paul meanwhile sitting upon or leaning against the mossgrown boundary fence, in several and varied poses of ease and comfort, engaging languidly in such broken and disjointed conversation as befitted the heat of the noonday.

"What is the name of that little flower?" Paul's voice broke in upon Hazel's musing. He had followed her unawares, and made as if to take one tiny blue star from her bunch.

But Hazel pressed upon him the whole miniature posy, in frank generosity.

"Take them all," she said. "Are they not sweet? They are called Shepherd's Eye—they grow mostly over there, in the meadow."

"Shepherd's Eye!" Paul said, gratefully accepting the gift. "But here are red ones, exactly like the blue."

"I call them Sad Shepherd's Eye," she returned. "They are eyes that must have been weeping bitterly for hours. I only care for the happy, blue ones."

"They are prettiest, certainly," Paul rejoined; "but I should like one or two of the red ones, to remind me of your pretty fancy. Let me gather them; you will make yourself hot and tired."

But Hazel disclaimed all fatigue, and was presently tying together some of the tiny red blossoms with a wisp of tough grass.

"When are you two coming?" Gerald called. "I say, Charteris, come along home to lunch. The mater will be glad to see you."

Paul looked at Hazel. "May I?" he asked diffidently. "Mrs. Le Mesurier may——."

"Mother says that the house is always open to you," the girl replied in her gracious little way.

Having completed her task, she gave the flowers into Paul's eager keeping, and proceeded to lead the way through the shady tracks of Hazelhurst wood, her brothers affecting to breathe again as they safely went by the great oak-tree with Hazel still in their midst; albeit she had cast a lingering look up into its leafy shade, in passing.

As the significance of the long-drawn sighs caught Hazel's understanding, she faced them swiftly, and still keeping step with the four, danced along backwards, the better to explain away their groundless fears.

Paul thought he had never seen anything so pretty.

"I never climb trees when I am wearing my white dress," she said remonstrantly. "It is the one thing that makes Mrs. Doidge really cross. She says it takes Mattie two hours, every time, to get it up." And Hazel looked down at her simple muslin frock with some pride, in that it should prove to be so important a factor in the weekly routine of domestic labour. Having duly impressed her hearers, the girl faced about and continued the unbroken march in silence, with pretty, swinging motion, all her own.

Presently the booming of a gong came to them on the still air.

"By the way," Gerald said, of a sudden oppressed with his quick transition from guest to host, "you will forgive any shortcomings in the meal, won't you, Charteris? It is of no use attempting to disguise the fact that we are living—well, extremely simply, just now."

"You will be all right, Charteris," Teddie chimed in comfortably. "You are fed by old Miles on roast mutton and rice pudding with such a tremendous amount of ceremony that you are quite deceived into thinking you are in for a royal feast. And, after all, you can always eat up your own dainties when you get back to your place."

"Talking of Miles's impressive ways," Hugh said presently, "the mater had to speak to him once—he was actually serving cabbage round as a separate course, as if it were asparagus or artichokes. Oh, and by the way," he added, "I should advise you not to accept the coloured fluid he offers. No one knows what it is."

Thus warned at all points, the guest was ushered into the presence of Mrs. Le Mesurier. The party soon adjourned to the dining-room, where the fare, if simple, was most excellently cooked and daintily served, and Paul found the refined simplicity very much to his taste, vowing within himself that, with all his wealth, he would for the future practise such simplicity himself: in truth, he was inclined to think the thing could not be overdone. The trouble would be to make his housekeeper and butler view the case in like light—people of their class thought so much of pomp and show. Oh, well, let them be, but he would have his own way when entertaining company.

He did not recall Hugh's caution with regard to the wine—whether to the butler's dismay or gratification would be hard to conjecture. Certain it was that the guest was the observed of Miles, with no small amount of interest furtively bestowed, and some palpable apprehension, as he first sipped the beverage.

Something in the flavour of the vintage rendered Paul reflective, or mayhap brought to mind Hugh's words. For a few moments his countenance was somewhat blank of expression, then, with a slight gasp, he heroically raised the glass to his lips and drained its contents. The next minute the old serving-man was beside him, eager, tremulous, with the fateful decanter poised for discharging.

Paul's fortitude gave way. "No more, thank you, Miles," he murmured hurriedly. "I must not take more than one glass," he added confidentially, eyeing the decanter with solemn conviction; "that is a full-bodied wine."

"Yes, sir," returned the delighted Miles, "and between you and me, sir, it is not what you would call an expensive wine, either. My mistress has better in the cellar, but I had not time to get it up," he murmured in pseudo-apology, for he deemed the vintage good enough as a luncheon beverage for any gentleman, old or young.

Paul nodded response, and asked for water.

The meal proceeded merrily enough when the boys had ceased to choke over the incident of the wine. Happily they were eating fish, so that Miles was in blissful ignorance as to the real cause of their unwonted distress, sternly rebuking his fellow-servants for the careless way in which the food had been prepared as he sat, half an hour later, at his own dinner in the servants' hall.

CHAPTER VI

After luncheon the party adjourned to the woods, Helen promising the young people that she would join them later, and suggesting that tea should be served in the open air at four o'clock.

The Le Mesurier boys composed themselves to rest during the heat of the early afternoon, and ranged themselves each according to his idea of comfort. They chose the spot where Hazel was wont to hold her court of feathery and furry subjects; for, while the trees were sufficiently thick to afford a bountiful shade, there was a commodity of space in which to stretch long limbs, besides the pleasing circumstance that the carpet of last year's leaves was soft and springy, whilst the spicy odour of fir-cones and pine-needles proved grateful to the nostril and conducive to slumber.

Paul Charteris felt no desire to follow their example; probably Hazel would settle herself at too great a distance, and become lost in her book. Neither did he wish to close his eyes, for the real was even more charming than the imaginary Hazel. So, marking that she, too, seemed in no wise disposed for idleness—for she was flitting hither and thither among the trees in restless but evident enjoyment, plucking a flower, cooing to a wood-pigeon, extricating with deft tenderness two creeping plants one from the other, giving to each a fresh start in its race upon the tree-trunk to which they clung—he begged to be taken to the old oak-tree, the wood-nymph's home, to have its many beauties expounded to him. Accordingly the two, unnoticed by the napping Le Mesurier boys, set forth at so goodly a pace that at length Paul cried out in remonstrance, fearful lest such business-like locomotion should see them back to the starting-point within the space of a few minutes.

"Are you so hot?" Hazel asked pitifully. "How thoughtless of me! But I am quite cool—feel," and, craning her slender neck towards him, she tilted her head, that he might the more readily touch her soft cheek and thereby prove the truth of her assertion.

And Paul, nothing loth, delicately stroked the pink cheek once down to the pretty chin; nor durst he linger in the delicious contact, for the girl's spontaneity, bespeaking as it did liking for and trust in himself, however unconsciously bestowed, was as sweet as it was precious to the young man, and woe be to him if word or action of his should startle her voluntary friendship, should cause her to shrink within herself, away from him. Unspeakable happiness might one day be his, if he possessed his soul in patience, and fostered the pretty trust that might daily, all unknowingly, draw nearer, cling closer, till time should ripen friendship into a sweet consciousness, and he might pluck the beauteous flower and wear it for all eternity within his breast. In the meantime he would gratefully, thankfully, sun himself in her esteem.

"Beautifully cool," he murmured slowly. "But do not blame yourself," he went on. "I am not uncomfortably warm—only—it is rather a nice little walk—that is to say, I do not often have you to myself; I don't want to get back too soon."

"You find it companionable, just we two by ourselves," Hazel said ingenuously, by way of making explanation to the young man of his own hardly comprehended reasons for enjoyment.

"Yes," Paul said demurely, "I find it companionable."

"Thank you," Hazel returned politely. "I like it, too; though I am never happier than when I have all the five boys roaming about with me," she added, with blunt but perfect truth. "I suppose you don't remember much of Cecil and Guy?"

"I remember them perfectly," Paul averred. "Is it long since you saw them?"

"We have not seen Cecil for years—India is so far," she answered with a little sigh; "but Guy comes to Hazelhurst now and again for a day or two, once in two months or so. He is due now," she continued, "overdue—not having been here for nine weeks. It would be very convenient if he came just now—for money, you know. He always gives me money—generally two or three pounds—once as many as five. You see," she added, "I shall be obliged to spend that eightpence to-morrow."

"At what hour do you intend to—er—to go shopping?" Paul inquired eagerly. "I was wondering whether I might escort you, and help you to carry the—the parcels, you know."

Hazel laughed merrily. "Eightpence will only just buy a couple of peaches," she explained. "Perhaps only one, if they have gone back to sixpence each; and the fruiterer never lets me carry even that. He sends a man and a cart all this way, with it or them in a basket."

"But if I were with you," he protested, with much earnestness, "he would let me take it."

"I doubt it," Hazel said, still dimpling, "unless you disguised yourself beforehand. This is the tree," she broke off. "Come here—stand just so—now look up: that great fork, as you see, forms a broad, comfortable seat, the main trunk being its back. It is my house-place; the only really commodious apartment; and either of the great branches constitutes a couch, though the one on the left is the more comfortable. Higher up—stand a little more so—there are some snug little retreats, though I rarely sit there, as they are only the attics. I go up occasionally to see that no horrible spider is lurking about, but not to stay; for they are rather cramped and, as you see, in places the roof leaks and the shade is rather glaring. So I just get through my household duties as quickly as possible with that twig brush that you can see hanging against the trunk in the house-place, and come down again to my comfortable chair or couch to think or read. On Sundays I hold church to myself there."

"It is delightful, delicious," Paul averred, twisting and craning his neck in all the directions she indicated. "It is—it is heavenly. And the leaves are so thick as to give good shelter, even in hard rain," he added. "Do you ever receive visitors—other, I mean, than your pet birds and squirrels?"

"Hugh and Teddie come sometimes," she replied. "They sprawl along the two couches, while I take the chair. That is very nice, and perfectly comfortable, but once or twice they have all five wanted to come—so that three of them had to sit in the attics. Now, you see, even if they can manage to settle themselves fairly comfortably, it spoils the ease of those below to have them sitting up there, as their legs get rather in the way, swinging right down into the house-place, you know; for there are no couches in the attics, only broken-down chairs, so to say."

"The chair in the house-place looks wide enough for two," Paul observed consideringly.

"Ye—es," Hazel rejoined dubiously, "but it is not: the fork cramps you."

As the two sauntered back to the spot where the Le Mesurier boys had seemingly encamped for the remainder of the day, Mrs. Le Mesurier was entertaining a guest at Hazelhurst in the person of Mr. Hamilton, Teddie's late employer.

"I hope, madam, that in giving myself the pleasure of calling upon you, I have not taken too great a liberty," the courtly, elderly gentleman was saying. "My excuse must be my great liking for that young—that boy of yours, whom I am very eager to see re-established in my office, in pursuance of his former duties there."

"But, my dear sir," Helen interposed, cautioningly, "do you think it wise? That young man, who is, as I understand from my son, nicknamed Carrots——"

"Carrots is gone, madam," her guest interposed with a somewhat grim smile. "For months past I only awaited a good and fair excuse for discharging him, which that young—which your son's behaviour, madam, scarcely afforded me." Here Mr. Hamilton coughed, to hide another and far more genial smile. "Unfortunately for all concerned," he continued, "Samuel Smith was a most exemplary clerk, business-like"—Helen winced—"discreet, punctual to his work, good head for figures."

"My boy was punctual, I trust," Helen murmured, as Mr. Hamilton paused, feeling that of all this list of qualifications punctuality was the safest item to mention.

"Once in a blue moon, perhaps," returned Teddie's superior, "but let that pass. I like the boy, though he requires a sharp eye kept upon him, I can assure you, madam," he continued severely, resolutely checking a strong tendency on the part of his risible muscles to twitch. "He will have to make many promises of amendment for the future—reasonable ones enough, as I think you will admit."

"Mr. Hamilton," Helen interrupted gently, though somewhat proudly, "my son is not asking to be taken back. If you wish again to employ him," she added, after a pause, "I fear you must not hope to wring too many promises from him. He is so proud: it is in the Le Mesurier blood."

Mr. Hamilton shrewdly guessed that the maternal side also had bestowed the characteristic in question, but, being a wise man and a just, he saw and admitted the reasonableness of the gentle rebuff.

"Leave the boy in peace or, taking him, don't nag, you would say, madam," he replied, good-humouredly enough. "Well, I shall have him back if he will come. I have your permission?"

"I shall be very glad to know him once again safe with you," Helen replied graciously. "He is attached to you, and really felt leaving you. He bears you no grudge," she added, "owning that you could not have acted otherwise than you did, under the circumstances."

"Owned himself to be in the wrong, did he—the young scamp? I am glad to hear it. Attached to me, is he? I am fond of the boy myself. Had a son once, about his age—something of his spirit," and Mr. Hamilton turned away toward the window and blew his nose.

"Your only son?" Helen asked pitifully.

"My only child, ma'am," the old gentleman returned, somewhat brusquely.

But she was not hurt by his manner, understanding him.

After further talk of Teddie and other subjects, Helen asked her guest to accompany her to the woods, where her daughter and three of her sons would presently congregate for tea. So together they set forth, Mr. Hamilton in open admiration of all they passed on the way.

In the meanwhile of Gerald, Hugh, and Teddie there is little to tell, unless it is of their dreams, which, to judge by the profound peace depicted upon their countenances, were of a beatific nature. For nigh upon two hours had they three lain thus wrapped in innocent, childlike slumber, the while their sister and Paul Charteris held low-toned converse together, somewhat apart; Paul, in his kindly consideration, deeming it a pity to disturb such blissful tranquillity.

"They had a hot walk this morning, poor fellows!" he said compassionately. "Let them rest."

But Miles had no such compunction, when, a while later, he made preparation for tea, with so much demonstration and clatter—quite at variance indeed with his usual noiseless motion and deft skill in the handling of such rattle- and jingle-begetting articles as cups, saucers, and spoons—that one by one, or rather pair by pair, the blue eyes of the Le Mesurier boys opened and blinked in the light of day, dazed at first somewhat, and blank as to expression, till by slow degrees dire wrath blazed up in their depths—direst in the pair owned by the peppery Teddie—as they fell upon the callous disturber of their peace, and the enormity of the offence began to dawn upon their reviving intellects.

"Hang it all, Miles," Teddie remonstrated, "can't a fellow close his eyes for five minutes without you must come and make such an outrageous row; and for what?" he asked, with a comically injured voice and mien. "That we may feast our eyes on that wretched crockery for two hours and more."

"Yes, Miles," put in Gerald, somewhat more dignified in his sense of grievance, "whatever possesses you to bring out all those paraphernalia ten minutes after luncheon?"

"If it were not for your grey hairs, Miles," added Hugh severely, "you would just have to cart it all back again."

Miles chuckled. He also had indulged in a nap in this, his one free hour in the week, and knowing of its pleasures and of the pain of awakening; being, besides, greatly refreshed, he felt lenient towards his young masters for what he deemed the mere puerile irritation that sometimes besets the young on first being roused from sleep.

"I am arranging the china, Mr. Ted," he explained, with marked emphasis on the word china, in reproof of the reflection cast upon that valuable earthenware, "in compliance with my mistress's wish that tea should be served at four o'clock."

Hazel, who with Paul had been enjoying the foregoing dialogue, at this juncture interposed.

"You silly boys," she exclaimed, laughing merrily, "you have all been fast asleep. And you have had the narrowest possible escape of being surprised by a stranger," she added, looking down one of the pathways leading from the house. "See, who is it, coming with mother?"

The whole party followed the direction of her gaze, to behold their mother accompanied by an elderly gentleman, inclined to portliness, wearing a short, iron-grey beard and moustache. Teddie, rubbing his eyes to observe the more surely, presently gave vent to a long, low whistle.

"Great Scott!" he remarked briefly, and rose uncertainly to his feet.

Slowly the two approached, conversing as they came. By the time they reached the little party, that had risen to receive them, Teddie had completely recovered himself, and, by right of acquaintanceship, advanced to greet his mother's guest.

"Hallo, Mr. Hamilton, this is a surprise," he said cordially, holding out a friendly hand. "I am glad to see you."

Mr. Hamilton took the proffered hand, and stood regarding the lanky youth's honest countenance for some moments before he spoke.

"Thank you, Le Mesurier," he said, with twinkling eyes; "I hope you won't be less glad when I tell you what occasions my visit. The truth is I am shorthanded, young Smith having left me——" He paused and hesitated.

"Is that 'the Lout?'" asked Hazel, who was listening wide-eyed. "Oh, Teddie, then you could go back."

"My sister," said Teddie, shortly, formally. "Hazel, you should not interrupt."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said, turning a pair of penitent brown eyes on Mr. Hamilton. "I—I was so pleased, you know."

"Not at all, my dear young lady," he returned, somewhat drily, half incensed, half amused, to note that this lovely girl also, like the mother, seemed to consider all coaxing and persuading in the matter due and necessary to the independent Teddie. "Not at all; but may I inquire what it was you asked?"

"If 'young Smith' was 'the Lout,'" Hazel replied, blushing.

"I did not know him by that name," Mr. Hamilton replied, smiling in spite of himself; "but I dare say it is the same person—the epithet is not inapposite. Well, Le Mesurier," he continued, "what do you say? Like another trial, eh? But, mind, you must keep your ink-pot in your desk; and there must be no further need of raw steaks in my office—it is not a butcher's shop, you know. Is that a bargain?"

"That's all right," Teddie responded laconically. "Well, Mr. Hamilton, I'll come back; but there is one little thing I'd like to mention—a little hint to help to keep the peace. If you would not mind being a trifle more particular in the future as to the society one works with in your office."

Mr. Hamilton gasped.

"Then that is all right," Teddie said comfortably, "and I, for my part, will try to keep my temper, which, to be sure, is a bit hot when roused; though nothing can be sweeter," he added earnestly, "when people do their best, in a reasonable sort of way—I don't ask too much—to please me."

Mr. Hamilton mechanically received a cup of tea from Hugh's hand, and looked from him to Helen somewhat helplessly.

"Ted," Helen interposed, a little reproachfully, "you must expect to take your chance as to companions. And pray, of what credit is it to you to keep your temper if it is never tried—if you are never tempted to lose it?"

"I don't ask any credit, mother," her son answered, smiling affectionately upon her. "It merely struck me as a pity, being naturally, as I have said, particularly sweet, to rouse it unnecessarily."

It was now Helen's turn to look helpless.

"But you will thank Mr. Hamilton for his kind offer?" she asked, taking the hand as well as the cup that he brought to the little table, for more tea.

"As to that," Teddie replied genially, "he and I are good enough friends, and fully understand each other; don't we?" he added, turning to Mr. Hamilton, who, his sense of irritation completely subsided, was looking immensely entertained.

"Yes, yes," he responded warmly, "we are good friends, my dear boy."

Teddie looked gratified, and, asking to be allowed to present his two brothers and his friend, Paul Charteris, who were congregated somewhat in the background, the conversation became more general.

Hazel, seated near to Mr. Hamilton, took occasion to study him as closely as politeness would permit. So this was the redoubted Mr. Hamilton, Teddie's dreaded "boss," whom Hazel had held to be the most imposing of men. She had once entertained the thought of addressing a letter to him, in Teddie's behalf, but had abandoned the idea as too fearful. So this was he, this kindly looking elderly man, who from time to time threw her glances of much benignity and interest, and who called Teddie his dear boy. What could Teddie have been thinking of, to have made of him such a bête noire? There was, to be sure, at times, a certain severity about the mouth, but the eyes were always kind, the girl thought. If she could but summon the spirit to engage him in talk concerning her own private affairs! Of a surety he would be a most likely person to help her; for was he not an eminent "City man," living in the very thick of that City life of which she, Hazel, knew so little, yet thought so much? Perhaps, even, he was born and bred there, and was as much at his ease, as much at home in its murky atmosphere, among its imperial buildings, as she was here, in her beloved woods. How wonderful to walk the City, the dear, grand City, as he did; to wend one's way through a very labyrinth of courts, alleys, and byways, never to lose oneself, to know one's whereabouts always, as she knew the woods, blindfolded!

Hazel's chin was in her hand, her elbow supported on her knee, and her eyes grew round and deeply reverential as she lost herself in the contemplation of this being from another sphere. The magnetic influence of her gaze presently drew Mr. Hamilton's eyes to meet hers, but so gently did he turn, so quietly did they fall upon her, that the girl was not startled from her reverie, but continued to gaze in reverence, whilst an eager questioning grew up in her speaking eyes.

"You were wishing to say something, my dear?" he asked kindly, and with a sudden impulsive tenderness, new to him, he laid a broad hand upon the girl's brown head.

Hazel hesitated, then glanced about her. Her brothers were engaged for the moment in some discussion together, her mother in interested listening. Paul Charteris, certainly, was observing herself, and, being nearest, would catch her words; but she did not mind Paul: he would not interfere. She even gave him a little smile—an invitation to attend, should he care to do so.

"I know that you do not keep lady clerks," she began, with gentle, confidential eagerness, "but have you ever thought of changing your mind?"

Mr. Hamilton looked his amazement.

"I should like to be one very much," she continued, "most of all yours; and I was wondering whether, supposing you could get two good, serviceable clerks from the same house—people that you knew something of and could rely upon—it would not be worth your while to alter your rule and have a lady."

Mr. Hamilton's eyes encountered those of Paul Charteris for one moment—a moment charged with sympathy, pregnant with feeling—and both men endeavoured to conceal their amusement by pulling at their moustaches.

"Do I understand that by 'two serviceable clerks' you refer to yourself and your brother Edward?" asked Mr. Hamilton, when he had sufficiently recovered himself.

"Yes," Hazel replied cheerfully. "I am much more business-like than I appear—Teddie you already know. I am not saying that the advantage would be all on your side," she went on, "only, naturally I like to think of you first. The advantage to me would be very great; indeed, if you don't take me, I am afraid I shall have to give up the idea altogether, because mother is very particular in her wish that I should not travel or walk alone. Now this arrangement"—and the girl made an airy gesture with her hand in her brother's direction—"would give me Teddie's company from door to door; and if on occasion, say a press of work, he could not take me to lunch, you would see that another clerk went with me, wouldn't you?" and she looked to Paul for sympathy in so congenial a plan.

"I certainly should be very much tempted to make an exception to my rule, if by doing so you would honour me by coming daily to my office," Mr. Hamilton responded gallantly; "but, my dear young lady, with all these brothers, there cannot be the slightest necessity for——"

"Oh, no necessity," Hazel interposed. "Just for pocket-money, you know, and—and to feel that I am doing my part."

"But," suggested Paul quietly, "is it not the part of an only and much-beloved daughter to stay at home, to be a companion to her mother, and to make home a bright and happy place for the workers to come to?"

"I should not be much with mother, certainly," Hazel said reflectively; "but, as to the boys, why, I should be home when they were."

"Apart from the—er—inadvisability on several scores," Mr. Hamilton resumed, smiling kindly at the girl, "your mother could never spare you, my child; an only daughter must be an unspeakable treasure—one that she must always wish to keep near her. And—pardon me if I seem amused at what I see you take so seriously—but, it is not conceivable; one cannot imagine you in the City."

In which sentiment Paul appeared to participate.

"That is what they all say," Hazel rejoined, somewhat mournfully. "Well," she added, more cheerfully, "to stay with her, I suppose, is doing something for mother."

CHAPTER VII

Upon a day—a Tuesday, to be specific—there passed into the gates of Hazelhurst a smart trap, drawn at a smart pace by a smart horse, the smart equipage being impelled by the smart mental qualifications of Digby Travers, dubbed "Greeky." The turn-out was really remarkably smart; the trap itself, with its polished woodwork and brass appointments, glistened and shone in the sunlight, whilst the gleam of the plated harness was reflected in the glossy coat of the well-groomed quadruped.

Paul Charteris had for the space of a whole hour waited and watched in the marble hall of Hazelhurst, his restless pacing only relieved by occasional halts at the foot of the stairway that led—well, to the rooms above, and to Hazel's chamber, that numbered, naturally enough, among the rest. His vigil began at precisely one minute to ten, and the ancient grandfather's clock was even now tremulously clearing its throat with wheezy, whirring sound, suggestive of asthma, preparatory to striking eleven. Truth to tell, it was only with considerable effort that the clock could strike at all, its general feebleness being the more marked since undergoing a very severe operation, not too skilfully performed, by Teddie Le Mesurier, wherein the whole of the worn internal mechanism was taken to pieces and subjected to the hardy treatment—better suited to the constitution of younger clocks—of oil and emery-paper, the massage being administered with no light hand. Furthermore, there was a strong misgiving in the minds of all but Teddie himself as to whether there was not some flaw in the reconstruction of the clock. But the boy was sensitive upon the point, and easily hurt, so that it was only by furtive glances in its direction that the family ever dared to manifest anxiety when sounds, more dubious than ordinary, seemed to suggest that each struggle to give expression to the time of day must surely be the last.

The eleven laboured strokes were just completed when the sound of wheels fell upon Paul's ear. He withdrew his patient gaze from the direction of the remote sanctum above and turned to look uneasily through the arched doorway, to see Travers's trap pull up before it. At the same moment Hazel appeared at the head of the staircase, flushed and important, dragging at an enormous trunk. Paul sprang to her aid, and, bracing every muscle for a mighty effort, nearly overbalanced himself, as the trunk responded to his exertions with the most unexpected and discomposing readiness, being in truth of that light consistency known as wickerwork, and covered with black leather; nor was it one quarter part full.

"Why, it's nearly empty," he exclaimed in triumphant tone, for the fact argued well for the shortness of the proposed visit.

"Nearly empty!" Hazel cried, indignant, "and I have been nearly an hour packing! There are two or three changes of ribbons, and two pairs of shoes, besides what I am wearing, and my best muslin that has just been 'got up,' and must not be crushed, Mrs. Doidge says. I wonder if you would mind going to the horse's head. Digby is waiting to come in," she broke off, as a prolonged whistle was heard from without.

Digby Travers, shading his eyes from the glare, could just discern a man's form, which he supposed by its occupation of trunk-bearer to be that of a servant. Paul, eager to fulfil the little lady's slightest behest, safely deposited his burden near the entrance, and presented himself before the surprised and somewhat disconcerted Travers.

"I—would you be so very good as to mind the horse while I look for a servant?" Digby stammered. "I have come to take Miss Le Mesurier back with me," he added, a suggestion of defiance marking look and tone as he encountered the nascent hostility of the other's glance.

Paul felt resentment in that young Travers should make use of so formal an appellation in naming the girl, knowing well that for years—from earliest childhood—the two had been Hazel and Digby to one another. The formality was for him, then—for his benefit: that he might the more readily comprehend, once and for all, his exact position toward the Le Mesurier family in general, and toward Hazel in particular. He was to understand that he was not accounted friend of the family in the astute eyes of this old and staunch, if somewhat proprietary, ally of the house of Le Mesurier. Yet, with complete though not unnatural inconsistency, Paul in his heart of hearts knew, and, knowing, owned, that the mention of the girl's Christian name would have been quite as distasteful to him.

"Why did you not bring a man with you?" he asked, striving to speak with polite indifference. "But perhaps you are not aware how shorthanded Mrs. Le Mesurier is. There is only one servant here, old Miles, and—well, it stands to reason, he is always busy."

Digby stared politely.

"My name is Travers," he said at length, ingenuously; as who shall say, "Now that I have put aside any doubt as to my identity, you will be spared the trouble of making further communication concerning the Le Mesuriers." "You are Charteris—Paul Charteris," he continued. "I remember your face quite well, though it is ages since we met. Thanks, awfully, for looking to the horse, but I must find Miles to help me up with that trunk," and he eyed with complacent regard the black, dome-topped object just discernible in the shadow of the hall.

"It is very light," Paul returned, not ill pleased to volunteer the information, "Do you know where Miles is?" he asked of Hazel, who appeared at that moment, framed in the great arched doorway—and a very pretty picture she made.

Digby sprang to her, and Paul groaned inwardly as he marked the fervour of the young man's greeting, albeit he found comfort in noting the girl's cool reception of, and most inadequate response to, the same; for she withdrew her hand from the devout clasp that held it, so soon as the orthodox number of moments to be devoted to that ceremony was ended. Nor did her eyes rest upon his face longer than the one direct look—of Hazel's peculiar directness—that kindly interest and innate courtesy alike dictated.

"Why didn't you bring some one with you?" she asked, somewhat severely. "It is not very polite to oblige Mr. Charteris to stand in the sun."

"There was the luggage," faltered Digby. "There was not much room, you know."

He glanced sheepishly at Paul, but there was understanding without sympathy to be read in Paul's countenance; and young Travers inwardly dubbed this old acquaintance and near neighbour of the Le Mesuriers, hard and callous of disposition.

"Well, I'll hold the horse," Hazel said, descending the steps and taking the bridle from Paul's hand, "and perhaps you two would not mind lifting up the trunk. It is not so heavy as it looks."

This matter dexterously accomplished, Digby Travers got to his seat again, expecting Paul to help Hazel to her allotted place, frankly eager to be gone. He was somewhat taken aback when the girl, who had disappeared for the space of a few moments, returned with an enormous umbrella of sombre green hue, which she opened with some difficulty, and proffered to him with both hands, gravely matter-of-fact.

"I shall not be long," she announced, "but I want to see mother again before we start, and—and I did not know Mr. Charteris had called. You don't mind, do you?" she added, "It is rather heavy, but the stick is so tall that you can rest the handle on the seat beside you if you take your hat off, and, though ugly, it casts a cool and restful light."

So saying she re-entered the house, followed by Paul, leaving poor Digby disconsolate beneath an extensive shade; so extensive, indeed, that though noonday was approaching and the sun was high in the heavens, the quadruped also enjoyed the benefit of it, over its hind quarters, well to its middle.

"Have you been here long?" Hazel asked of her companion, as the two paused in the hall, at the foot of the stairway.

The girl's usually bright spirit was clouded for the moment. A while since all had been bustle and excitement—she had made her small plans and arrangements with much of interest and ardour—had packed her small wardrobe with a keen sense of anticipatory pleasure. There had been something of the stirring nature of the heroic in yesterday's farewells to the elongated Monday faces of her brothers; and her tender solicitude was not unmixed with youthful elation at the thought that her mother would miss her right sorely. Now, of a sudden, all this seemed changed. Without doubt or question, she did not want to go, and the vague consciousness that Paul did not wish it either, that he too would miss her, did not tend to lift the girl's despondency; for she was tender, true, and pure womanly, and, being so, knew nothing of the malicious joy of that perversity wherein so many of Eve's daughters delight.

She sank down upon the first stair, rather listlessly, and looked to Paul for his answer.

"An hour," he said, "when you appeared. But Hazel," he added commiseratingly, "you have tired yourself over all that packing. Could not one of the maids have done it?"

"I am not tired, thank you," she answered absently, "at least, I do not think I am."

Paul did not look satisfied. The girl was pale, and the small hands, usually nervous-looking and energetic, lay limp before her.

"I am sorry," she continued, "I did not know. Miles could not have known, or he would have sent us a message. You must have been very dull."

"I wanted you, of course," Paul admitted truthfully, "but I would not have had you disturbed. I ought not to have expected more of your company than the few minutes you could give me on leave-taking."

So saying, Paul Charteris seated himself beside her upon the broad, shallow step, and possessed himself of one of the passive hands.

"What have you been doing?" he asked gently.

Hazel regarded the captive hand, or rather its prison, but her thoughts were not of it.

"Mr. Charteris," she said, timidly lifting her eyes to his, as with an effort she decided to speak her mind, "do you think—would it be very odd, if I sat behind in the phaeton, with—with the trunk, you know? Do you suppose Digby would mind, or think me very rude?"

"He would have no right to object," Paul answered warmly, pleased that she had appealed to him. "If he annoys you, he cannot expect better treatment."

"But that is my trouble," she explained, disengaging her hand to take up and fondle a fluffy ball of a kitten. "He only annoys me by being too nice. So it seems unkind to feel annoyed. If only one could sit with one's back to the horse for fear of draughts and smuts," she went on, "as one would, with one's back to an engine! I want to sit so that he cannot look into my face every time that he says anything."

Paul hastily removed his eyes from her countenance. "Just so," he said, "very naturally." But, though indignant on the girl's behalf, he felt he could not justly blame Digby Travers for this.

"And everything he says has two or more meanings," Hazel continued impatiently. "Now, when you say, 'Is it not a glorious day?' you mean: is it not a glorious day?" She paused.

"And what does Digby mean?" Paul asked quietly, the while feeling he should like to demand the answer from Travers himself.

"I don't quite know," Hazel answered, troubled. "He seems to think that he and I have reasons for thinking it much more glorious than other people. But I must go up to mother," she added, rising, "I cannot keep him waiting long, and—and I feel better, now that I have told you."

Left to himself, Paul paced up and down in deep thought. Did not Hazel's confidence in him authorise him to speak to young Travers? Yet no; Digby would not admit the authority—would ask a much greater right than that of a friend—nay, of a mere acquaintance, as he would probably pronounce Paul, who in the jealousy of his heart sought to keep others from the girl's side, to take away from him, Digby Travers, and from all men other than himself, Paul Charteris, the natural right of trying for, and the gladsome chance of obtaining, the affections of Hazel Le Mesurier. No, he must let matters take their course. He could but advise the girl to cut short her visit, should she suffer any discomfort more marked than heretofore. He would remind her that it was not incumbent upon her to put up with any discomfort whatsoever—that she need not consider herself selfish, or fear that she was wanting in strength to endure, for wishing to return home, and in acting upon that wish; for in such wise, he knew, would Hazel take herself to task: she would resist such weakness, as she would deem it, with all the power of her strong little nature—suffering much, that others should not suffer little, as was her wont. He would counsel her to tell her mother of Digby's importunities, should they become difficult to her own management, or trouble her unduly.

Soon! ah, soon, he might win the right to shield her himself—Paul's pulses stirred at the thought, his heart warmed within him—the right of lover and true knight. Soon, soon. As yet she was a trustful, affectionate child, at an age when a few months only of patient waiting, of wholesome self-restraint, might see her blossom into a loving woman, forced thereto by the very strength and warmth of his unspoken love, even as a bud expands to a flower in the eloquent ardour of perpetual and encompassing sunshine, however mute and unvoiced that sunshine perforce must be.

As he thus mused, Hazel came down again in greatly recovered spirits; for Helen had guessed more of that which disturbed her child's peace of mind than the girl herself could have told her, or had acknowledged even to herself; and with loving tact had soothed her as only a mother can.

"Don't stay away longer than you like, dearie," she had concluded, "and Hazel, you would not wish that your motherling should not miss you, or that the boys and Paul should be pleased to have you gone? They will all be glad to have you back, and will appreciate you more than ever," she added playfully, her heart telling her that there was no need of further appreciation on the part of Mr. Paul Charteris, Paul had not heard Hazel's light step upon the stair, so that she reached the hall and stood confronting him before he knew of her presence.

"I am going now," she said. "Good-bye."

He took the outstretched hand and looked into the upturned eyes.

"You have not been troubling for me," she added anxiously, "about Digby? He is very nice to me, and I don't really mind him—I thought I did, but it was mostly because I did not want to go. I—I don't like leaving mother, you know." So saying, the small hand wrung his, and withdrew itself.

The two then proceeded together across the threshold and down the steps; and, if hard upon the little victim, it was even harder upon him who led her to the sacrifice.

CHAPTER VIII

Comfort, solid comfort, best describes The Beeches, its inmates, and all appertaining to it and them. Solid comfort without luxury, ease without laziness, happiness without a positively cloying sweetness.

John Travers was not handsome, but comfortable-looking; his figure, perhaps, was becoming a thought too comfortable; but then John Travers was fifty-five, and plenty had been his lot for nigh upon eightfold of the proverbial seven years that go to make plenty a really established fact. Then, too, he gave way, perhaps somewhat injudiciously, to a liking for white waistcoats and rather large and conspicuous watch-chains.

Of Elizabeth Travers, his wife, little need be told in description, for much is learned of her ways and days in twenty-four hours. That she, too, was comfortable need hardly be said; else John, who was a devoted husband, would not have been so. But she was not in the least too comfortable to be a fitting wife for John Travers, or the truly motherly mother of his children. For surely a broad breast is the natural haven for young heads, when wearied of the very fulness of the joys of childhood, or stricken with its tragic, if fleeting griefs.

John and Elizabeth Travers had two sons and two daughters. What could be more comfortable than that? Is not "two of each" in all good things the very acme of satisfaction and contentment? The children themselves were comfortable, considering their years; for if ever there is a period more devoted than another to strange misgivings, fervent hopes, and acute sensibilities, that period is youth; and none of these characteristics can be said to be "comfortable" ones.

Digby, their first-born, now twenty-three years of age, and a student at Oxford, was enjoying the long vacation under the comfortable parental roof-tree. Of Francis, the second son, aged nineteen, was to be made what is known as a gentleman farmer—an ever-increasing interest in the somewhat laborious pursuits of tilling, ploughing, sowing, and harvesting, not to mention a love of animals, making apparent at a very early age the bent of the boy's mind. That he had not Digby's intellect was obvious to those who knew both brothers; but that Francis was going to do very well in his own line was everybody's opinion. His enthusiasm for all bucolic pursuits, together with a keen—no, not a keen; there was nothing keen about Francis—together with a good, sound judgment of all things connected with them, was marked. If his eye lacked quick observation or keen appreciation, as it lighted on some matter of interest or beauty, it was steady, honest, trustworthy, and not without a certain shrewdness. And it were hard upon him to criticise the tendency of lip to part with lip; for there was nothing of weakness or indecision about the large, well-cut mouth, which could close firmly enough at such times when depth of thought or concentration of mind were required of him. Rather should the characteristic be looked upon as the natural consequence of open-air labour, of a nature that demands more oxygen than can in reason be expected to find its way to the lungs by the nasal channel alone; if the fact that to one who frequently studies the sky for signs of changes of weather with the long, earnest scrutiny bestowed by Francis Travers, was not in itself explanation enough for an ofttimes open mouth.

The daughters, Doris and Phyllis, aged sixteen and twelve years, were slim, fair-haired maidens. Doris, the elder, looked upon life with grave eyes, seeing only its serious side, and determinedly facing that aspect with resolute lips and somewhat pale cheeks, quaint and demure. Phyllis, on the other hand, while in no way boisterous—sharing, indeed, in some part her sister's quietude of mind and demeanour—was rosily cheerful and a thorough child. It was quaint Doris's aim to keep her thus; and odd it was to note the enforcement of the staid authority which the slender four years of seniority gave to the girl in the absence of their mother, or of their governess, Miss Manifold.

Miss Manifold—nicknamed "Sins and Wickedness" by Hugh and Teddie Le Mesurier—the daughter of a Lincolnshire squire, long since deceased, was a good woman, well liked by her two pupils, whose well-being she had sincerely at heart. At the present moment she was absent from The Beeches, being once more returned into the bosom of her family for the Midsummer holidays. This fact, meaning as it did freedom of will and action, combined with the pleasing circumstance that Hazel Le Mesurier's impending visit was about to be realised, brought much rejoicing to the girls; for even sober Doris was not impervious to the delights of a few weeks' unrestricted leisure, nor unmindful of the advantages of living for that short interval without the eye of supervision upon her every movement.

She and Phyllis were, for the fourth time this morning, taking a survey of the bedroom that had been allotted to their girl-guest—moving, changing, and rearranging articles of furniture or ornament to suit Hazel's queer taste and odd fancy. The bed they had dragged before one of the windows, for Hazel had once confided to these two friends that she liked nothing better than to sleep with her head pillowed on the sill; only that it was not often that bed and sill chanced to stand in the necessary relative position one to the other. Also the bed must needs be wide enough to permit the full stretch of her limbs, when she had twisted herself to this crosswise position. She assured Doris and Phyllis that to gaze up at the stars until you fell asleep was conducive to the dreaming of the most lovely dreams, whilst the soft fanning of the summer night-air proved most pleasant and refreshing.

"And what if it rains?" her breathless auditors had asked.

"That is nice, too, in its way," Hazel had made answer. "But once," she added ruefully, "when I was sleeping so, I was so sound asleep that it did not wake me until my hair was drenched, and I had to get up and rub it with a towel for nearly two hours."

"How your arms must have ached," Doris said, eyeing the heavy brown mane, half in admiration, half in pity.

"And I was so sleepy," Hazel continued, "that every time I stopped to rest my arms a moment I found myself nodding, with the towel in my lap."

"Didn't you have a bad cold the next day?" Phyllis asked.

"No, I never catch cold," Hazel answered. "It is being so much in the open air, I suppose."

The dressing-table, too, was never to block a window and obscure the view in Hazel's room; and there must always be flowers upon it. Having ascertained that all was to her liking, Phyllis and Doris fared forth to the garden gate, rightly judging that, had their brother found Hazel ready to accompany him, the two must long ere this have made their appearance.

It was a pretty view that stretched away before The Beeches. As they stood at the entrance gate, which faced the road, the girls looked upon a wide, sunny tract of undulating common ground, ablaze with yellow gorse. Trending toward the west in long dark line was a ridge of fir-trees sharply defined and almost black against the even blue of the sky, but merging into soft and softer gradations of consistency and colour on the wood's southern extremity, its outline finally well-nigh lost in a mist of feathery larches. To the east was a low range of hills with brown, thatched, and red-tiled cottages and farmhouses dotted at intervals at its base, whilst a rivulet that flowed past the Travers's estate, forming indeed the boundary on its right flank, wended its way in and out, twisting and twining, a white ribbon shot with sunlight, till lost to sight in the valley.

And there, round the bend came the trap. Hazel, perched high, her hands encased in Digby Travers's thick gloves, was driving, to her own evident delight and self-importance, having successfully eluded her companion's practically demonstrated teaching by declaring that she did not care what was the orthodox way of manipulating the reins; that she and the horse understood one another well enough.

Hazel was delighted with her room, and had no suggestions to offer respecting any change in the position of its furniture. Everything was perfect, she frankly told her gratified friends. Her quick eye had lighted upon a tiny escritoire standing in one corner, and a thought flashed into her mind, an idea as novel to her as it was pleasing. She grasped the delightful idea, seized upon it, and stowed it carefully away in a corner of her brain, until such time as she should have leisure to look into the alluring possibilities it suggested—to cogitate without fear of interruption.

Just now, with very active assistance from Doris and Phyllis, Hazel was removing the dust of travel from her person.

When the three girls descended to the dining-room for luncheon, they found the rest of the family already there assembled; and Hazel received a warm kiss from the motherly Mrs. Travers, whilst Mr. Travers took her right hand, and Francis possessed himself of her left; Doris and Phyllis hovered about her; Digby looked on approvingly. Having been thus duly welcomed and received into the bosom of the family, Hazel, as the party seated themselves around the table, addressed herself to Francis.

"Well, farmer," she said, with bonne camaraderie, "and how are the crops?"

"They are coming on all right," he replied, somewhat sheepishly. He liked Hazel; but considered her a terrible little tease. She had always laughed at his manner of walking, declaring that he swayed backwards and forwards, as a sailor will roll from side to side.

"It comes of always imagining that you are stepping over ploughed furrows," she told him, "just as a horse is trained to step high by having obstacles put in his way."

"And the live stock?" she went on.

"Flourishing, thank you," he returned.

"Hens sitting?" she asked. "And oh, Francis, did that baby pig learn to grunt properly, the one that loved wallowing in the mire?"

But here her hostess claimed the girl's attention, and Francis settled himself to the business in hand—luncheon—inwardly resolving to be even with Hazel yet.

The day passed pleasantly enough, resting with books and work in the shade during the afternoon, walking through the sunlit meadows when the heat of the day was subsiding. In the evening the young folk entertained each other with music, Hazel singing some quaint songs in her own way—an adorable little way in the opinion of Paul Charteris, an opinion shared to-night most fervently by Digby Travers.

Soon after ten o'clock Hazel found herself alone at last, with hours before her, supposing she could manage to keep awake, for meditation upon the scheme that had come to her at sight of the little writing-table. Her own room at home did not boast such a convenience, and it is to be presumed that the publicity of the position of the few desks and escritoires about the house had prevented the idea from occurring to Hazel's mind before.

She would write a story—a thrilling, exciting story—and make all the money she could possibly want! Here, all alone in the undisturbed quiet of her own room, she would write diligently, and her week's visit might result in half-a-dozen stories for Teddie to take to some editor!

Hazel was perturbed by no fear that she might lack talent and ability, but it was not long before she perceived that she was mistaken in the amount of work that she could accomplish in so short a time. She wisely refrained from installing herself at the desk that night, thinking that she could not do better in these first hours, while all was exciting and new in this plan of work, than get to bed as quickly as possible, and devote an hour or two to the evolving of a plot, and to the construction of her first story, before sleep should come upon her.

So far from thinking it hard to conjure up matter upon which to base her tale, the difficulty seemed to lie in the fact that she must perforce write only one at a time, if she wished to be conscientious and systematic. All through the washing of her face and hands, and the brushing of her hair, mechanically performed, her head was teeming with all manner of stirring incidents, which rose up in her imagination, refusing to be placed in any nice order of sequence; inconsistent with one another; contending together—obviously "copy" for many stories of widely different natures.

"And then there is my style," the would-be authoress reflected, as she sank down at length among the pillows. "I wonder what my style will be: whether I have to find one—to settle upon one of many—or whether a particular one will come to me of itself."

And this was as far as Hazel got that first night.

CHAPTER IX

Hazel was awakened next morning by an unaccustomed sound that seemed for some time to have penetrated her sleep-wrapped senses, without rousing them to full consciousness. She lay still, and listened with all her ears; but there was no renewal of the disturbance, and she was about to compose herself to sleep—the clock upon the mantel-shelf telling her she might do so for another half-hour—when the unwonted strains began again. They were not those of a donkey braying, nor of a horse whinnying, nor of a cock crowing, but of a young man singing.

It was not a very tuneful performance, but it was most fervently and expressively rendered; and Hazel, as it dawned upon her that she was the subject of the morning serenade, hearkened with very mixed emotions.

"I suppose he considers it serenading," she said to herself; and she experienced a feeling of importance, intermingled with awe. "I thought they had gone out of fashion," she meditated. "Certainly they have in England: I suppose Digby's continental trips have given him foreign notions."

I stand at your window sighing

As the weary hours go by,

And the time is slowly dying

"Horribly," Hazel's reflections broke in. "Why don't you hurry up, or get some one to mark it for you?"

That once too quick did fly.

"What a good thing that he has not a guitar! It would make a dreadful jumble. You need not wail so, if the pain I have caused you is so exquisite," she apostrophised the anguished lover; and scorn took possession of her. "If you were a cat, one would pour water on you. I am not sure if one would not be justified in thinking you were a cat," and her eyes sparkled with fun and mischief.

Despite the foreign notions laid to his charge, the young man's sense of the fitness of things kept him from standing long under one window in particular, even while the beauty of the flowering shrub beneath the guest-chamber gave excuse for a somewhat lingering gait in passing; so that it was only now and again that Hazel caught a connected line or two of the impassioned refrain; while his sisters, not to mention his father and mother, were regaled with a goodly, if not quite with an even share, till Francis thrust a betousled head from his window and asked his brother to "stow it," a request which caused the disconsolate Digby to wander farther from the house, and to break into fresh melody among the trees that skirted the lawn.

Hazel had unexpected good fortune, in that the morning was passed in almost uninterrupted silence; for, breakfast over, Mr. Travers and his sons furnished themselves with fishing-tackle and, begging the girls to join the expedition and witness sport, the party made their way down to the river side and were soon ranged along its near bank. Hazel was not long in seizing the opportunity thus offered, and was soon lost in her own reflections.

Her mind was quieter now than last night, when, in the first hours of possessing the exciting idea of a scheme of action so congenial to her, all had been pleasurable turmoil. Now she could think more connectedly, could shape her thoughts to some end. She wisely resolved to leave style alone—at all events at first—until she had ascertained for a fact that the style which came naturally to her was poor. She would be careful concerning grammar, but she had always detested the sight of the outside cover of books upon the subject, and so far as she could remember, had never opened one.

She set up an imaginary stage in her mind, bringing her characters one by one to bow before her, and to ask modestly whether they would please her; what relations they were to bear one to another; what influence life upon life. Then the grouping must be pleasingly harmonious or disturbingly discordant: there must be nothing tame nor indifferent about her work.

"We need not be so absolutely dumb," Digby Travers murmured, and Hazel awoke with a start. "I'd rather lose all the fish, if catching it can only be accomplished by not talking to you, or not hearing you talk."

"Hush," Hazel rejoined. "The others don't feel like that, and besides," she added truthfully, "I want to think."

"Oh, well," the young man returned, in a somewhat injured tone, "that is another thing, of course"; and he continued his occupation in gloomy silence, the while Hazel resumed her thread of cogitation. Presently she began to realise that she must be simpler and more methodical in her ideas—less profound. After all, she was not undertaking the writing of a book. Let her conjure up some pretty little story, and write it carefully and faithfully—perhaps the pathos and the humour would take care of themselves.

That night, in the seclusion of her own room, she set to work, in a fever of energy and fervent purpose. She had gone upstairs at ten, but it was nigh upon one o'clock when the girl at length extinguished her light and laid her down to rest. Even then sleep did not come to her quickly, for her brain was thoroughly roused and excited.

Three evenings devoted to this work sufficed to complete her story, and on the fourth, after carefully revising her work, she proceeded to write it out neatly, and the result of her labour was to her own entire satisfaction.

Anticipating the certainty of having all in readiness before she slept, she had, during the day, addressed a letter to Teddie asking him to meet her in town next morning, which epistle she directed to his lodging; for she felt the urgency of completing all such arrangements from her friends' house, wishing as she did to keep all secret until such time as she could ask for sympathy in her disappointment, or for congratulations in her success.

She had little difficulty in gaining the consent of Mrs. Travers to this expedition. She did not deem it necessary to take her kind hostess wholly into her confidence: Mrs. Travers was satisfied with the girl's assurance that her mother would not object to what she was about to do, provided Teddie was with her, and good-naturedly acquiesced in her entreaty that she might be allowed to keep her little secret from every one but the brother, whose aid was essential in the completion of her business.

The following day, immediately after the morning meal, hugging her precious manuscript, she was driven to the station in the company of the four young Traverses, all of whom warmly insisted upon seeing her off. The frame of mind into which these four friends had been thrown, owing to her unwonted demeanour and most mysterious silence concerning this expedition, may be easily imagined. Doris and Phyllis were openly and frankly curious, with that feminine curiosity that knows no concealment; nor did they cease in their endeavours to worm Hazel's secret from her, resorting at length to stratagem, in the hope that the girl, if caught for a moment off her guard, might yet be led into revealing the cause of her mission.

"Teddie will meet this train," was all she would say, "and perhaps you will be kind enough to meet the one arriving here at 3.50," and she turned to the taciturn Digby.

Digby Travers was much more to be pitied than either his sisters or Francis: the latter being genuinely amused, and inclined to chaff Hazel, nor was he troubled one whit with the restless curiosity that beset the girls, or the sense of grievance that lurked in the bosom of his brother. For Digby felt himself to be deeply injured. It is true that he had not, like the others, deliberately asked Hazel to tell him her reason for running up to town: he would not urge her to confide in him, but he was hurt that she did not volunteer the explanation of her movements, at all events to him, even if she wished the matter to remain secret from the others. Hazel was partially aware of the state of his feelings, and looked to see him brighten at her proposal, but the gloom did not lift from Digby's countenance.

"As you like," he made answer, with would-be nonchalance. "Either I or Francis—or the man, if we are prevented."

And then Hazel's eyes were opened, figuratively and actually, and she gazed upon him for some moments in mute wonder and some little distress. While he spoke and acted like the Digby she had known so long, her suspicions were not aroused, her mind being fully occupied with managing him—smoothing the little difficulties that his importunities caused her, keeping him at arm's length instinctively, all unconscious that she was doing so, or that there was any need to do so. But now the situation began to dawn upon her. While he remained attentive to all her little needs and wishes, displaying an odd admixture of slavish devotion and proprietary authority, such as had characterised his attitude towards her so long as she could remember—for even the rough schoolboy had lorded it over the very small maiden—she had taken it all as a matter of course—as Digby's "way." For tenderness, shame-faced at first, had crept in so imperceptibly, so gradually supplanting the old rough-and-ready affection; and the old boyish, somewhat overbearing and dictatorial manner had by such gentle degrees given place to another sort of proprietariness, that these things seemed to have grown with his growth; and the girl, beyond an occasional sense of annoyance at such times, when Digby appeared rather trying and more difficult to manage than of yore, had never given the matter a second thought. But now, with this abrupt change of front, this veering round, so to say, from eager and solicitous attention to a poorly assumed indifference, manifestly born of a certain recklessness and of deeply felt resentment against herself, a horrible suggestion presented itself to the girl's mind, and she looked at Digby Travers in wide-eyed dismay.

"I believe he is beginning to be a sort of lover," she said to herself, and her heart beat a little faster.

She reflected upon this new problem at her ease, after she had been safely bestowed in a first-class compartment with ladies, of whom Digby had inquired their destination, committing Hazel to their charge.

Many little incidents recurred to her mind, that had puzzled her at the time, but now seemed to explain themselves with unmistakable conviction.

"He must not be allowed to propose," for, strange and bewildering as it seemed to the girl, yet, assuming him to be a lover, that was the young man's end and aim—"to propose: it would be too terrible." Besides, he had no right to do so; Hazel must save him from himself—he was deceiving himself: he was not a proper lover, a real lover. It was too absurd. She almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of it. Intuitively her thoughts turned to Paul for help. The next moment the girl had shrunk within herself—her face aflame. The only place in the whole world that presented itself to her imagination was her mother's shoulder; but she was all unconscious that it was from Paul she desired to hide her face.

Presently she grew more collected, and took herself to task. She told herself that all her good sense and wisest judgment must be brought to bear upon the subject. She did not think she should trouble her mother: she might conceivably confide in Teddie, if she found it expedient to do so, but certainly, oh certainly, in no one else. And perhaps, after all, she could manage unaided; perhaps some coldly proffered hints would bring Digby to his senses. Even now she believed she must be mistaken—it was so preposterous, this new idea.

In the meantime she must set herself resolutely to put the thing out of her mind. Only so could she attend properly to the business in hand. She unfolded the manuscript, re-read it, and found that she was still satisfied with it, although the details of the story began to pall a little, as was natural.

As she finished reviewing the precious document the train drew up in Paddington Station, and there upon the platform, trying hard not to look interested, stood Teddie.

Hazel's eyes lighted on him instantly. Eagerly, almost tremulously, she once more unfolded the manuscript, and, springing from the carriage, ran to his side.

"It is called 'The Victoria Cross, and How it was Won,'" she announced breathlessly to her astonished brother, and forthwith began to read.

"What is?" Teddie asked, bluntly interrupting her.

"Why, the story," she answered, for the moment confounded by her auditor's lack of sympathy and appreciation. "Didn't you know? I have written a story," and she was about to proceed with the narrative, when he again interposed.

"I know nothing," he said with an injured air, "but that you wanted me to meet this train, and did not give me time to say I could not; it was dashed inconvenient, I can tell you."

For a moment the girl's ardour was damped.

"Oh, Teddie, I am so sorry," she exclaimed, "but I wanted to take it at once to an editor. I had to be quick, while I was at the Traverses, as I could not take it from home without confiding in mother, and it is a surprise for her."

Her bright face clouded, and she regarded her brother wistfully. "Is it very inconvenient?" she asked.

Teddie's generous young heart was touched. "Oh, it is all right," he answered gruffly. "Let us hear it."

Hazel, nothing loth, began once more as the two strolled down the platform, hardly pausing, in her absorbed interest, as she handed her ticket to the amused collector.

Teddie, though gradually becoming fired with something of her enthusiasm, was hardly yet so engrossed but that he had sufficient sense left of his surroundings to be aware of the unsuitability of the place for either reading aloud or listening. He therefore guided the unconscious girl, without again interrupting her, to a waiting-room, which he noted with satisfaction was empty. Here the two ensconced themselves, and Hazel read on to the finish, Teddie hearkening with all his ears; nor did he once remove his eyes from her face, where a bright spot of colour, born of excitement, was glowing on either cheek.

"That is the end," she announced triumphantly. "What do you think of it?"

"Jolly good," Teddie declared with gratifying warmth. "Come on," he added, springing to his feet; "let us get a cab."

"A cab? Oh, Teddie, ought we to?" she asked timorously. "What made you think of it?"

For all answer Teddie led the way from the station, hailed a passing hansom, and helped her into it.

"Don't you see?" he explained presently, after directing the man through the trap. "Don't you see that the story will pay you again and again for a cab?"

And as they bowled along in silent enjoyment, Hazel could not but marvel upon the rapidity of the change that prosperity, through authorship, had wrought upon her life.

"Who are we taking it to?" she asked presently.

"A fellow I know of," Teddie replied. "Or rather, two fellows, Langham and Fielding. A friend of mine got a story taken by them not half so good as this."

"I am glad I asked you to help me," Hazel returned gratefully. "I only hope it won't matter very much taking you from your work, you know."

"Say no more about that," Teddie responded complacently. "It was a bit awkward, but how was I to know that it was all for such a good purpose? Here we are," he added, as the cab drew up before a building, and Hazel, timidly lifting her eyes, read in gold letters upon the window-pane, "Messrs. Langham & Fielding, Publishers."

They entered the building, and found themselves in a large, bare place that looked to their inexperienced eyes to be a combination of book-warehouse, office, and shop, for new books were stacked upon shelves all round the apartment; parcels of all sizes were piled upon the floor, among which, in an adjacent corner, a man in a leather apron was busy sorting. Some clerkly looking young men sat or stood at high desks, whilst a long counter ran down the room, rather to one side, which an office-lad seemed to be engaged in polishing.

A fellow-feeling for the clerks, a wish not to disturb them in their arduous tasks, made Teddie Le Mesurier turn to the boy.

"This lady," he said, intimating Hazel, who trembled slightly, "wishes to see one of your principals—the editor of the —— Magazine, if possible."

"Who is it from?" inquired the office-boy mechanically, as, without a vestige of expression, his gaze seemed to fix itself on Teddie's left ear.

Hazel looked blank. "Who is it from?" she reiterated, at a loss.

"Now look here," said Teddie angrily, "none of your office gibberish. Just take up my card and say——"

At this juncture a pleasant-faced clerk stepped forward. "Get back to your work, Tommie," he said briskly, and he turned to the pair. "What can I do for you?" he asked, looking from one to the other.

Teddie repeated his formula and handed the young man his card. "We are on the lady's errand," he explained, "but she has no card," and Hazel felt mortified, she scarcely knew why; but it seemed so terribly young not to possess cards, although she had never before felt the lack.

"Is it an appointment?" asked the clerk. "Will your business be known?"

"No," Teddie returned stoutly, "but there must be a beginning, you know. We wish to submit a manuscript."

The young man left them, to reappear in a few moments.

"The editor will see you at once," he informed them. "Please step this way."

He led them up a flight of stairs, and, showing them into a room, closed the door behind them. It was large and comfortably furnished, with more of the private library than office about it. The only occupant, a tall, good-looking man, of some fifty years of age, rose to receive them, tendering Hazel a chair near his own desk, the while Teddie seated himself somewhat in the background.

"I wish to submit a manuscript which I think you will find very suitable for the —— Magazine," Hazel began, with an easy confidence and graciousness of manner that generally proved very pleasing from the little lady. "Are you Mr. Langham or Mr. Fielding?"

"My name is Charles Langham," he answered, bowing, a slight smile relaxing his somewhat grave features. "It is a short story, I presume?"

"Yes," Hazel returned. "My brother Edward," intimating Teddie, who looked very much at home, sitting well forward in his chair, his stick between his knees, his chin resting upon its knob, "has known you to take a story, not nearly so good, he says."

"Not half, by Jove!" put in Teddie.

"You would not like to read it now?" suggested Hazel. "It would not take you long."

"I think not," Mr. Langham replied. "You see, that is not our usual way; but if you will leave it with me, I will place it in the hands of our reader, who will give me his report."

"Yes, I see," Hazel said, a trifle disappointed.

"You don't think you could make a concession for once?" asked Teddie.

"I think not," Mr. Langham repeated, pulling at his moustache. "It would be very irregular."

"Of course," responded Teddie politely. "You see, Hazel, that is what readers are for: to save the editors the trouble and loss of time incurred in reading a lot of unacceptable rubbish."

"And Mr. Langham cannot know that mine is not rubbish," Hazel rejoined, wishing to be reasonable. "It is called 'The Victoria Cross, and How it was Won,'" she continued, turning to the editor. "The hero goes to the front, and there is a tremendous battle, which I think I have succeeded in making very realistic."

"Stunning," put in Teddie.

"And then," she resumed, waxing eloquent in her theme, "afterwards, upon the battlefield, when he is lying wounded in the moonlight, a fearful vision rises before his eyes."

"Blood-curdling," remarked Teddie, sotto voce.

"But it is only his delirium that distorts things and makes them fearful. In reality it is his mother."

Mr. Langham did his utmost to appear properly interested, and endeavoured to keep his countenance, wherein he was only partially successful. It was a delightful pair, he thought: this handsome young fellow and lovely, dainty girl. And, busy as he was, he made no move to hurry Hazel. The girl's spontaneity was refreshing, her ardour and evident good faith in her attempt at authorship were touching to a man of his sympathetic and benevolent nature. He was quite anxious not to precipitate their departure by word or sign.

"I know I must not keep you," Hazel concluded, rising from her seat; "but you will be glad to hear that it all ends peacefully and happily, and his great bravery is fully recognised."

"That is very satisfactory," Mr. Langham returned, rising also. "Stories should always end happily, I think."

"I think so, too," Hazel returned. "Good-bye," she added, giving him her hand. "I hope we have not kept you too long."

Mr. Langham released the hand with something of reluctance, and preceded his visitors to the door. He shook hands with Teddie, and was somewhat astonished at the warmth of the young man's grasp.

"Yes," Teddie agreed, "I hope we have not kept you too long." And the pair passed out.

"Do you know"—and Hazel's head reappeared as Mr. Langham was about to close the door—"do you know, before I saw you," she said laughing, "I had quite made up my mind not to speak at all—except, of course, to answer any questions you might put to me. I thought it would be the business-like, correct way; and, besides, I had a sort of notion that editors were rather terrible—as a class," she added hastily, fearful of wounding the sensibility of the editor in question. "Even now I cannot help thinking you are an exception. Good-bye." And she was gone.

Charles Langham, this exception to his kind, stood listening to the sound of their dying footsteps, then turned to his interrupted work with a smile and a sigh.

"And now," said Teddie, looking at his watch, "I must take you back to the station and get on to the office."

Hazel had intended to spend the whole morning with her brother, and probably lunch with him, before she returned to the Traverses: hence her injunctions to Digby to meet her, or cause her to be met, by the 3.50 train. She was, therefore, disappointed; but of this she would let nothing appear. Teddie had already given enough, and too much, of his time at so short a notice.

"Very well," she said cheerfully. "And Teddie—I know it is all right—I shall get the money for my story in time—but, as we have not got it yet, had not it perhaps better be an omnibus?"

To this economical arrangement Teddie—himself less glowingly optimistic than he had been a short while since—agreed. At the station they found, somewhat to their dismay, that there was no train for a couple of hours or so—it was now but little past eleven.

Teddie considered the situation. "Well," he said, "you won't get home till past two o'clock. I had better get you some buns and leave you in the waiting-room. I am awfully sorry, but it cannot be helped. Do you think you will be all right?"

"Perfectly," Hazel returned brightly.

Teddie left her, to return a few minutes later armed with a magazine, and a paper bag containing twelve halfpenny buns.

Left to herself, Hazel began to read; but her mind being preoccupied, she found the stories and jokes uninteresting, and presently fell a-thinking. Was it not near here that her mother's uncle, Percival Desborough, lived? Why should she not utilise the time that must perforce elapse before she could embark upon her return journey by visiting him? Something within her urged her to go, though the prospect was somewhat terrifying. She had heard so much of this uncle's hardness of heart and violence of temper. Poor, lonely old man! how many a time had she wished to see him and judge for herself if he were so hopelessly unamiable and unapproachable as all who knew him averred—all but her mother, who had never lost the belief that there was a soft spot somewhere in the poor, selfish old man's heart.

She had plenty of time, for it would be just as well to take the train by which the Traverses would expect her to arrive—the one after that which Teddie had supposed she would take.

Setting indecision aside, Hazel seized the bag of buns and left the station. Following the direction of a policeman, and later of a friendly inclined milkman, she found the house easily, and, though her hand trembled a little, she beat a brave tattoo upon the door. Her knock was answered by an imposing footman, who appeared to do his utmost not to show surprise at sight of Hazel.

"Is my uncle, Mr. Percival Desborough, at home?" she inquired, in as steady a voice as she could command.

The servant answered in the affirmative, and Hazel walked in. A few moments later she heard herself announced, slowly, distinctly, and most unmistakably: "Miss Le Mesurier!"

CHAPTER X

Hazel entered her great-uncle's library with beating heart indeed, but with no outward show of fear or trepidation. It was a large room, furnished in good, if somewhat ponderous taste. Books lined the oak-panelled walls from ceiling to floor; the window curtains and other hangings were for the most part of a heavy, sombrous, red colour, harmonising well with the rich, though subdued tints of the deep-piled carpet and oak furniture, nearly black with age. The many windows, in all sorts of unexpected recesses, though they admitted light none too freely, being either of stained glass or otherwise darkened with drapery, saved the room from positive gloom, more especially when the eye had become accustomed to the dusky conditions, as doubtless was the eye of Percival Desborough. He turned in his chair with a groan and scrutinised the girlish form that stood motionless by the door, waiting till her sight should serve her; for, after the glare of the white pavement without, she was at first well-nigh blinded.

"What do you want?" he asked, ungraciously enough. It was the same question he had asked of the girl's mother some years since, and practically the last words he had spoken to her or her family.

Hazel turned her head in the direction whence the voice proceeded. "I want to see you," she answered, "only it is so very dark."

"And why do you want to see me?" he returned brusquely. "Have you come to ask for money?"

"Oh no," Hazel replied, advancing swiftly now, and holding out her hand. "And please don't begin by being disagreeable," she added pleadingly—"at all events, not before we have even shaken hands; I don't want to feel I cannot shake hands with you—as you have made many of us feel, particularly as I had made up my mind to start fair."

The old man took the proffered hand almost before he knew what he was about. He was slightly taken aback.

"To start fair!" he repeated, somewhat vacantly.

"You see," Hazel continued, drawing up a low chair, and seating herself in friendly proximity to her august relative, "I have heard of you all my life as being so unapproachable and—and even rude, sometimes, if you don't mind my telling you so. But mother says you were not always like that. She says that when she was a girl you were fond of her and very kind to her. So for years I have felt convinced that your—your manners were chiefly owing to—to loneliness and gout." For the first time Hazel allowed her glance to rest pitifully upon the poor, bandaged foot, that she was careful not to touch. "Which must be a very terrible combination," she added sympathetically.

"If you have come here to pity me, the sooner you leave the better," he answered irascibly, a very paroxysm of twinges rendering civil speech for the moment an impossibility.

Hazel saw him wince, and understood.

"Oh, I have not," she returned gently. "At least, I can keep it to myself. I know how annoying pity can be in certain moods. But I hoped I might amuse and interest you," she added wistfully, "almost before you knew that such a thing was possible, by calling upon you and giving you all the family news."

Mr. Desborough moved uneasily in his chair. "I don't want to hear anything about them—not a word, do you hear?"

"Don't you?" said Hazel, and she sighed. "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure," he answered savagely. "I have done with my niece, with the whole family, and their begging letters——"

He stopped short, for Hazel, flushing scarlet, then turning very pale, rose proudly from her seat and stood confronting him.

"Uncle Percival," she said, her voice vibrating with anger, "say anything you like of me, and if I cannot stand it I can go away; but you shall not say a word against my mother or the boys—you had better not even mention them in my hearing. My mother is—well, never mind, I would rather not discuss her with you; and my brothers are dear, good fellows, every one of them, and—and courteous gentlemen, who would never speak of an absent lady as you have done. I want to be tolerant," she added, "but unless you take it back, unless you retract what you said, I shall feel obliged to leave you at once."

"Sit down," her uncle rejoined surlily. "Don't make such a fuss."

"You take it back; that about—about the letters?" she demanded eagerly.

"Yes—yes," he answered testily. "Sit down."

Hazel sat down. Percival Desborough was surprised and interested in the novel sensations awakened within him by the presence of his visitor, this young relative. He had experienced a feeling of alarm, positive alarm, at her threat to leave him, though he did not acknowledge this to himself, or for a moment give it credence.

"So you wish to be tolerant, do you?" he asked, after a pause. His voice was gruff, but Hazel could detect some kindlier note beneath the gruffness.

"Yes," she made answer. "I think you might grant that I am," she added, smiling up at him from her low seat. "Now, Teddie would not have stood you for two minutes—you have not a very nice way of greeting people, you know. Your first words, if you had spoken them to Teddie, would have driven him out of the room without his answering. Now, don't you want to hear why I am up in town? You would never guess."

"Well?" grunted Uncle Percival, as she paused.

"I have taken a story I have written to a publisher—an editor, I should say. I very much want to earn some money, and I find I can write," she added modestly. "Teddie met me in town and went with me—I am glad he did. He always impresses people so favourably. And when we got back to the station we found that I had two hours to wait for a train."

"So he brought you here?" Mr. Desborough inquired.

"Oh no," Hazel replied, in a tone that might imply that Teddie would not have done so under any consideration. "Oh no, he left me in a first-class ladies' waiting-room—he had to go back to his office, you know—and while I was sitting there I remembered how near you were, and how often I had thought that some day, unknown to any one, I would come to see you and try to make friends. Don't you think we might be friends, you and I?" she added ingenuously.

"What do you want money for?" her uncle inquired, evasively.

"Just pocket-money," Hazel said. "I am always running out of it. You would not believe how inconvenient it is. I am always seeing new ways of earning some. I see one to-day—only mother would not let me."

"What do you think of doing?" her uncle asked. He was becoming interested, and almost amiable—he, who had been interested in nothing and in no one but self for years. He admired this bright, gentle girl in spite of himself; he was beginning to dread the moment when she would get up and say she must go.

"You will laugh," Hazel returned, "but my latest idea is to be a companion—to you—for so much a week, you know: that would mean that you could dismiss me, or that I could leave you, at a week's notice. If I went without any notice, quite suddenly, I should have to forgo a week's salary. But it would never do," she continued reflectively, "mother would never let me. She says she must always have me with her. But it is a pity. There is no doubt you need a companion, and I certainly want money."

"I much prefer living by myself," her uncle replied brusquely. "I don't want any companion."

"I think you do," Hazel returned, standing to her opinion bravely. "To begin with, look at this room!"

"What of it?" her uncle asked harshly. "It is a very good room, well furnished, capacious, comfortable."

But Hazel observed that he was roused, and did not seem displeased to have some matter to discuss.

"It is dark," she persisted, "and stuffy. No one could spend many hours a day in it, as I dare say you do, without their health and spirits being affected. Human beings are like plants: they want light and air," she added oracularly. "I know I could not live here and feel well and happy and—and good tempered"—with delicate hesitancy.

"What should you propose to do?" Mr. Desborough asked.

"To throw open the windows and drag back some of the curtains. May I? You will find it such an improvement."

"Mrs. Hodges would be horrified," her uncle returned, "and rightly. The sun would fade all pattern from the valuable carpet."

"But you are more valuable than the carpet," Hazel pleaded, "and you must not forget that the dark fades you."

At this juncture the footman entered the room to announce that luncheon was served, in the exact tone of voice and with the selfsame manner in which he had announced Hazel. Then, relaxing the rigid muscles of his body, the while his face took an even added look of stoic resolve, he advanced to his master's side and deferentially offered his arm. Percival Desborough regarded the arm with an expression of dislike, almost of disgust, depicted upon his hard-featured countenance. There was nothing personal in this show of feeling, as Thomas had probably long ago discovered.

"Must you go through the pain of walking?" asked Hazel pitifully, quick to note and interpret. "Won't you have a tray brought here?"

"I prefer to eat in the dining-room," her uncle answered shortly, as he got to his feet with a groan and a half audible word of an exclamatory nature.

But, with all his bad temper, and his sensibilities rendered ultra-critical, as they were, through pain and discontent, the poor gentleman could find no real fault with the way in which Thomas, like some machine of wonderful mechanism, manoeuvred the movements of both himself and his master, with an accuracy of eye-measurement controlling hand and limb, truly amazing, acquired only by years of practice. During those years, however, devoted by the servant to learning how to satisfy his master, Mr. Desborough had acquired the habit of expressing his opinions somewhat freely concerning the stupidity of Thomas in particular and of his kind in general. So that even now, albeit Thomas's manipulation was perfect, and his master, aware of the fact, would not under any consideration trust the removal of himself from room to room to any other than this well-tested servant, he could not refrain from relieving himself of some of the well-worn and hackneyed phrases, to the use of which he had accustomed himself during the years of Thomas's noviciate. But these recriminations had always to be voiced well in advance of the moment to which they were supposed to allude; else their unreasonableness struck disagreeably upon even Mr. Desborough himself.

"Should you like my shoulder, or do you prefer your stick?" Hazel asked, springing to her feet.

"Thank you," her uncle returned drily, "I am more accustomed to the stick—I had better keep to it." But there was a gleam of amusement in his eye, as he surveyed the shoulder in question, squared for action. "You will lunch with me?"

"Thank you," the girl answered. "I had not thought of it, but there is certainly plenty of time."

"Where did you intend to lunch?" her uncle answered when, the laborious journey accomplished, they were seated at the table.

"Where?" Hazel repeated. "Oh, in the waiting room. Teddie bought me twelve halfpenny buns, thinking that I was going to take an earlier train, and that I should not be very late for lunch. I should be glad if I might leave them here," she went on, "It is such a bagful and, however hungry I am, I can never eat more than two halfpenny buns. Can you?"

"I don't know," returned her uncle with a grim smile. "I have forgotten. Eh, Thomas?"

Thomas was so startled at this most unusually amicable address, that he nearly dropped the dish that he was in the act of handing.

"Teddie knows this—this peculiarity of mine," Hazel continued; "but he is always so generous, and always likes to do things on a large scale. He said he knew I should not eat them, but nevertheless he liked to think I had them."

"I suppose you engaged an outside porter?" her uncle inquired.

The amazed Thomas had not seen him in so jocular a vein for years.

Hazel laughed. "You would like Teddie. Everyone does, without being able to help themselves."

"Humph," her uncle ejaculated.

"I could give you another instance of his large-heartedness," the girl went on. "It is a good story, and not long." She proceeded to relate the incident of the quarrel with Carrots, its cause, the black eye, the beefsteak, and of her brother's subsequent dismissal. Her uncle endeavoured to hide an interest that was manifest.

"What is the boy doing now?" he asked gruffly.

"He is back there," she answered. "Mr. Hamilton soon afterwards discharged Carrots and came to see us and took Teddie back."

"What does he get?" her uncle inquired.

"Fifty pounds a year," Hazel replied cheerily, with some pride. "He has had a rise lately—it used to be forty."

Her uncle muttered something in response, then coughed to cover his words.

"I beg your pardon?" Hazel apologised.

Her uncle evaded the note of interrogation. "What do the others earn?" he asked.

"I don't know exactly what Cecil's salary is," she returned. "He sends every penny home that he can afford; he is in India, you know, and it is a good lot—a couple of hundred, I should imagine. Guy and Gerald have each a hundred a year; Gerald gives up fifty of his, but Guy, who is obliged to dress better, has to keep seventy-five for himself." She paused.

"There is another one, isn't there?" Mr. Desborough asked.

"Yes, Hugh," the devoted sister continued. "Till lately he had forty, like Teddie, but now he is getting a hundred too."

"And what does he contribute?"

"I think seventy or eighty. You see, he lives at home."

"How is that?" Mr. Desborough inquired sharply.

"He is a private secretary to Paul Charteris. You have heard of him, I suppose? His ground adjoins ours."

"Paul?" repeated her uncle. "Paul? That was not the name, surely?"

"You are thinking of the father, Philip Charteris," explained Hazel. "He died, years ago; then Vivian died, his eldest son, and now it is Paul."

"So it is Paul now. What is he like?" And Percival Desborough eyed the girl keenly.

"You would like him," she returned with enthusiasm. "You feel you can confide in him. To me he is almost like one of my brothers, only, of course, he is much older. But he appears quite young—somehow you forget his age."

"What is his age?"

"Oh, he must be thirty," Hazel answered, as one who speaks, with both pity and reverence, of a life well-nigh spent.

Her uncle chuckled amusedly. "Is he bald?" he asked.

"He has got most beautiful thick hair," Hazel returned indignantly.

There was a pause.

"By the way," her uncle remarked, "where did you get your dark looks?"

"It is a sort of freak," Hazel rejoined, half apologetically. "It occurs in the family every now and again. Years and years ago there was a Hazel Le Mesurier like me, only very much prettier; there is a portrait of her in the gallery at home, dated 1661, taken of her when she was five years old."

"It is a relief to hear she was prettier," Mr. Desborough said drily. "But about Hugh: what does young Charteris want with a private secretary?"

Hazel opened her eyes. "Oh," she explained, "he has heaps of things to see to and look after. He was saying only the other day that he thinks, if Hugh does not mind, he will get an older man, and let Hugh be assistant secretary."

Mr. Desborough stared at her aghast. "That would be nothing more nor less than an act of charity bestowed upon the lad," he said at length. "Nothing will make me believe that Charteris requires two secretaries. He wants an excuse to help the family, so he keeps on a worthless young man."

"How can you say such a thing!" Hazel cried hotly. "Mr. Charteris begged to have him, and told mother it would be a great convenience, because, Hazelhurst being so near, he need not live at Earnscleugh, as most secretaries would have to do."

"A good argument, truly," her uncle remarked curtly.

"I shall inquire into the matter directly I get home," the girl continued, more quietly, "and if I see or suspect the faintest reason to believe there is anything in what you say, Hugh shall at once come away, and look for something else. Worthless, indeed!"—her wrath rising again—"Why, he would be a very clever artist if only he could learn."

"There, there," said her uncle pettishly, "I may be wrong." But he was fairly well convinced of the way in which matters stood, and felt a twinge of discomfort as he made a shrewd guess at the feelings entertained towards himself by young Charteris, should that young man learn of the suspicion he had sown in the mind of his niece.

Luncheon over, they returned as they came—under the safe escort of Thomas—and were once more established in the library.

Hazel consulted the clock. "I ought to leave here in half an hour," she observed, making an effort to regain her composure, and resolutely setting aside this new matter for troubled thought till she should have quiet and leisure.

"By the way," Mr. Desborough began, "you said just now you were short of pocket-money." He took from his pocket a book, and produced therefrom a crisp piece of paper, which he handed to Hazel. He was experiencing a new and strange sense of remorse, in that he had caused this bright girl, if but for a moment, a disquieting thought, and he took himself to task for a meddlesome old fool, interfering in matters that were better left alone. He was anxious to conciliate his great-niece, but a trifle doubtful as to how his overtures might be met. He, Percival Desborough, was growing distrustful of himself, and oddly solicitous for the good opinion of a slip of a girl, of whose very existence, a couple of hours earlier, he was scarcely aware.

Hazel took the bit of paper. "What is it?" she asked, unfolding it distrustfully.

"A banknote," her uncle returned. "Put it in your purse, and let me know when it is gone."

Hazel flushed, refolded the note and handed it back. "You must not think me ungenerous," she said gently, "or imagine that I am brooding over anything that you have said; especially as you retracted the most—the most unpleasant of your ideas about us; but you must own I could not accept this."

"Tut-tut," her uncle retorted, surprised and somewhat disconcerted, "stuff and nonsense! As if a young girl like you could not take a tip from an old fellow like me! and her uncle to boot."

"I am sorry," Hazel replied determinedly, "but I really could not"; and she again tendered him the note.

"Afraid of losing your dignity, are you?" he said. "Well, I have my pride too, and I refuse to take it back."

Hazel pondered the situation. She was not unsympathetic with her uncle, in the rather trying predicament in which he had placed himself, and could enter into his feelings very nearly. But, strive as she might, she could not put away his unkind, nay, his cruel, words, at the beginning of their interview, spoken in pain as they were, and, mayhap, in all thoughtlessness. But they were too fresh in her memory.

"I see your difficulty," she said at length. "What shall I do?"

"Do what you will," her uncle returned testily. He was not to be worsted in the struggle.

There was a long pause, and the two combatants eyed the small, innocent-looking cause of contention, that now lay upon a little table beside them.

At length Hazel took it up, and was about to tear it to shreds and transfer it to the waste-paper basket, deeming such a course the best way to right the embarrassment, when suddenly light flooded her mind.

"I may do anything I like with it?" she demanded, her spirit rising, her eyes flashing. "Anything, and in your name, seeing that the money is not mine?"

"I don't care what you do with it," her uncle returned with asperity.

Hazel rose and rang the bell, then reseated herself and steadfastly returned her uncle's gaze of mute hostility. The door opened and the same servant appeared, silently closed the door behind him, and stood awaiting orders.

"Thomas," said Hazel.

"Yes, Miss."

The man advanced a few steps.

"Your master wishes to make you this little present in recognition of your long and faithful services," and she handed the astonished man the obnoxious ten-pound note. "Doubtless he will do much more for you some day," she added.

"Thank you, Miss," said the dazed Thomas.

Mr. Desborough threw back his head and broke into a hearty laugh, to the added confusion of the poor man, who had not heard his master laugh for years. But Uncle Percival offered no explanation. Recovering his serenity, he turned to the servant.

"Order the carriage for 2.30 to take Miss Le Mesurier to Paddington Station," he said briefly. "That is the least you can do for the young lady; eh, Thomas?"

The footman left the room, and Mr. Desborough turned to his niece. "Well," he said, "I acknowledge that you have worsted me in the fray; and now, I suppose, I am committed to leave the fellow a legacy," and he laughed again.

"You would wish to do so whether I had committed you to it or not, would not you?" Hazel asked. She had fastened on her hat, and was now proceeding to draw on her gloves.

Percival Desborough regarded her critically. "Have you any lovers, child?" he asked abruptly.

Hazel was about to deny stoutly the existence of any such factor in her life, when a vision of Digby Travers rose before her startled imagination, to her discomfort and dismay.

"Well?" queried Uncle Percival. "You seem to be in uncertainty. Don't tell me that a girl does not know when a young fellow is making himself a fool over her."

Hazel raised a somewhat perplexed and flushed countenance, but she looked her august relative squarely in the eyes. "If you had asked me that yesterday," she said, "I should have answered no, without hesitation—no one could have been more sure; but it was only this morning that I began to be half afraid——" she paused.

"Don't like him, eh?" her uncle interposed. "What is his name?"

"I think I won't tell you, please," she answered. "You see, I simply must be mistaken: it would be too ridiculous."

"Quite so," returned Uncle Percival. "You probably are mistaken. It would be too ridiculous, quite too inconceivable," and he regarded her quizzically.

"There is the carriage," Hazel said. "Good-bye, Uncle Percival."

She gave him her hand, and was surprised to find it retained—awkwardly and without sentimentality, but, nevertheless, Uncle Percival held on to the small member with a goodly grip.

"You would not care to give a cross old man a kiss, I suppose?" he asked, in an odd voice.

Hazel bent lower, and with gracious dignity saluted her uncle's cheek.

At the same moment Thomas opened the door. "The carriage is waiting," he announced, with a slight catch in his voice. Hazel walked out of the room. Her uncle's eyes followed the little figure until the closing of the door hid it from his sight. Then he looked, slowly and discontentedly, around the room.

"It is quite true," he murmured aloud, "it is dark—much too dark."

CHAPTER XI

Doris and Phyllis Travers clung close to their friend and guest, Hazel Le Mesurier, for the eve of her departure had come. This was the last long day to be spent together, and they were determined to make the most of it. With arms twined about one another's waists, the three slim maidens sauntered through the sunny meadow toward the river, with the intention of spending a couple of hours upon its banks in the quiet enjoyment of one another's society.

"If you could only stay a day or two longer," sighed Doris, while Phyllis edged yet closer, and in silence pressed the hand she held in hers.

"I must go," Hazel said resolutely. "You see," she reiterated for the third time, "you must be home for your birthday, rather particularly for a seventeenth birthday."

With the first part of this assertion her friends agreed cordially, but upon the soundness of the added clause they were dubious. Twelve-year-old Phyllis nodded, meekly puzzled; sixteen-year-old Doris looked for more, as one who, while wishing to be perfectly reasonable, yet felt an explanation of so bold a statement to be her due.

Hazel was conscious of the lack of absolute sympathy, and set about removing any doubts upon the point that it was but natural the two young girls should entertain.

"Seventeen," she resumed, "is rather a special age. You might almost say it marks an epoch in one's life. It is a great step from sixteen. At sixteen you may think childhood is completely over and for ever gone, but it isn't. Only you have to be seventeen to be aware how young sixteen was"; and she regarded Doris meditatively. "It is an age," she went on, "when, if your parents can afford it, you are presented at Court and 'brought out.' You generally begin with a dance at home. You put on your first long dress, you do up your hair, though, to be sure, some young women wait for all this till they are eighteen." She paused.

"I think that is wiser," Doris said boldly, though with an inward misgiving that Hazel might hold that her ideas upon the subject were not valid, as issuing from the mouth of sixteen. "Seventeen seems too young for all that sort of thing; and it is always sad to cut short one's youth. I always tell Phyllis to keep young as long as ever she can."

"I don't see that it is sad! I don't know that youth is such a particularly happy period of one's existence," Hazel began, but Doris pursed her lips warningly, glancing significantly toward her young sister, giving her worldly-wise friend to understand that they must suit their conversation to the most youthful among them.

Hazel, while appreciating the wisdom that dictated the caution, could not bring herself to own, in this instance, that such prudence was necessary. She was about to make reply, when excited voices of children, raised in distress, attracted the attention of the three girls, and next moment they were running at full speed toward the spot whence the cries proceeded.

"I am afraid one of them has fallen into the water," Doris panted.

"Leave it to me," Hazel gasped back, "I can swim. They may be only quarrelling."

But a strange fear at her heart gave denial to her words, and urged her on, ever faster. As they neared the bank, a small child emerged from behind the line of willows that edged the water, and sped toward them in wildest distress.

"Bobbie," she sobbed, "oh, he's drownded dead, he's drownded dead."

"Come and show me," Hazel called to the child as she passed, but the little thing only stood wringing her hands.

There were other children upon the bank, however, and Hazel soon learned that Bobbie had risen twice since his immersion, each time lower down the stream. There was no time to lose if she would save the boy's life. Tearing off her hat, she ran several yards lower, so far as she could judge, than the spot where he had been last seen, and, springing into the river, struck out and reached its centre, where the current was strongest, at the same moment that the child's unconscious form rose for the third time and drifted against her. With a little cry of thankfulness, Hazel seized the helpless body, and, careful to keep the head above water, began to return. It was difficult: the current was strong, and she had only the use of one arm; her clothes hampered her terribly; but at length she succeeded in bringing her burden to shore, where many willing hands were held out to rescue. Hazel was panting distressfully, but she did not lose a moment in setting about the task of bringing breath back to the seemingly lifeless body. Phyllis she sent post-haste to the house for brandy, and, bidding the little group of children to stand back, she gave the child into Doris's arms.

"Hold him so," she gasped, "head down, so," and pulling the little tongue well forward, she proceeded to give several smart punches upon the pit of the stomach, thus ridding it of much of the water that the child had swallowed in such large quantities. Then laying him gently upon his back, she continued the work of resuscitation, lifting the arms above the head, round and down to the sides, with slow, rhythmic motion, expanding and contracting the lungs. So engrossed were the two girls, that they were wholly unaware of the fact that a small party was hastening toward them from the house, headed by two young men, who were running some distance in advance. Doris was the first to perceive them, and she gave an exclamation of relief. Hazel never looked up; her eyes were riveted upon the small face, noting its death-like pallor; the purple eyelids; watching, so far in vain, for the first tinge of colour, for the first flicker of the eye-lashes that should tell of returning life.

"Is the brandy coming?" she asked. Her back was well-nigh broken, but she never paused in her labour of love and mercy, did not even wait to wipe her hot brow, or to put back some teasing locks of hair that were dripping into her eyes and down her cheeks. Indeed, she was hardly conscious of aught else, in her growing anxiety, but the fact that life was strangely long in returning to the little frame.

"I can see Phyllis coming," Doris replied, "but there are others much nearer: Digby and—yes, Mr. Charteris, are nearly here. Perhaps they are bringing the brandy."

Hazel worked on. In another minute the two young men were beside her, eagerly proffering aid; and, to her immense relief, a large firm hand was tendering her a flask. She seized upon it, and grew sick with alternate hope and fear. She felt that the fiery liquid was the poor little child's last chance—a very little while would decide now. Trembling with anxiety, she set Doris to chafe the wrists and hands with the potent fluid, whilst she moistened the blue, pinched lips, dabbed the temples, and endeavoured to pour a few drops down the throat.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, for Christ's sake," the girl prayed, but her dry lips refused to voice the prayer.

Did the little face look less ghastly, or was it her imagination? And surely—yes, surely the eyelids quivered. With redoubled energy she worked on.

"Can we help? Do tell us what to do," Paul's voice said. He was kneeling at the child's feet, arranging a blanket round the limbs; Digby paced up and down, never taking his eyes from the little group. Hazel did not turn or start. It seemed natural that Paul should be there, in case she wanted him. She made an effort to speak, but her throat was too contracted. She could only answer him with a shake of her head.

Of a sudden the boy's eyes opened, and a faint colour stole into cheeks and lips. Hazel gave a little sob of thankfulness—Doris began to cry; it was saved, saved, this little life! The tension was broken; Hazel staggered to her feet, dizzy with excitement and fatigue. Digby and Paul lifted the child from the ground, and Digby made for the house with his burden, well covered in the blanket, with all speed.

Hazel stood staring blankly after her charge; then, of a sudden, self-consciousness stung her, acting as a momentary stimulus. What a guy she must look—what a guy she had looked all this time, kneeling in her clinging, dripping clothes and hair! How could she meet the little party of people now close upon them, how manage to walk to the house! She turned blindly, tremblingly, flushing red, to Doris and Paul. Then the question answered itself; for the next moment Paul was wrapping a second blanket around herself and, relieved of this and all other need for thought or care, she quietly fainted away, and was borne to the house in Paul's strong arms, all shame and distress gone from her.

Paul Charteris had come to pay a morning call at The Beeches, with leisure to stay to lunch if asked to do so. He was yearning for a glimpse of Hazel and desirous of learning the day that should terminate her visit. Mrs. Travers was about to propose to her guest a stroll down to the riverside in quest of her girls, at the moment of Phyllis's breathless entrance and alarming demand for brandy. Paul's heart ceased to beat for a space, for in the first confused account rendered by the panting girl he only understood that Hazel had been in the water!

Quickly ascertaining the true state of affairs, the whole household fared forth hurriedly, bearing blankets, and the invaluable liquor that had saved the child's life—Paul and Digby running at top speed ahead.

Rescued and rescuer were soon warm and comfortable, for, once at the house, nothing was lacking that could aid in their quick recovery. Mrs. Travers and Doris soon had Hazel in dry clothes, and after the administration of a hot drink of Mrs. Travers's own concocting, the spent girl was easily persuaded to rest upon her bed. Every comfort, too, was lavished upon little Bobbie; so that, when the child's mother, Mrs. Boutcher, arrived, nothing remained but for her to sit beside his couch and watch, with thankful heart, his peaceful slumber.

Hazel also slept; which circumstance Phyllis crept halfway down the stairs to report, Paul halfway up, to learn; and he was able to leave after lunch, satisfied that all was well with the patients. He stoutly refused to have his coat dried, assuring good, kind Mrs. Travers that it was not damp, or in the least way the worse for its close contact with his dripping burden; in face of the fact that in the middle of the shoulder of the grey tweed was a round dark patch of wet, where Hazel's head had lain, and long streaks down his sleeve, where her dripping hair had clung—a circumstance to be observed by all blessed with eyes to see, and which Digby Travers noted with a pang of jealous misery. He fully appreciated the feeling that prompted Paul's stout resistance, for it would indeed be desecration to subject the garment to the rough handling of a servant and to the drying influence of the kitchen fire! For a while he left Paul to fight it out by himself as best he might. Presently more generous feelings came to him, and he quickly put a stop to his mother's importunate suggestions for the supposed comfort of her guest by a half sullen, but affectionate: "Don't bother Charteris, mother, he is all right"; and Paul darted a grateful look at his rival, which, however, the other refused to meet.

Thus Mr. Charteris set out upon his homeward way, well pleased with his visit. He had obtained his glimpse of Hazel—nay, more, had for the space of nine or ten blessed minutes held her within his arms—here Paul reverently touched the damp patch upon his shoulder; he had learnt that she was to return home on the morrow; and, incidentally, so far as he was concerned, he had called upon the Traverses and paid his somewhat long-neglected respects. Further, he had learnt from the despondent gloom upon Digby Travers's countenance, that this young man's love affair was not prospering. Altogether it was very satisfactory.

A somewhat shaky Hazel descended to the drawing-room for tea, and right gladly was she welcomed. No one could do enough for the little heroine. She was soon installed in the easiest of easy chairs, and the dainties of the tea-table were lavished upon her by Doris, Phyllis, the morose Digby, and the sturdily admiring Francis.

"I say, where did you learn it all?" the potential farmer asked, sinking down, with her cup in his hand, upon a hassock at her feet, and gazing up at her from his point of vantage.

Hazel did not at once reply. She had lifted shy eyes, so soon as she was settled to her friends' liking, and took a survey of the room. Mrs. Travers was smiling upon her from the tea-table, where her duties as mistress of the house held her prisoner; Mr. Travers, seated near his wife, was nodding kindly approval; but Paul—Paul was not there, and the girl at one and the same time experienced both disappointment and relief.

"You might tell a fellow," pursued Francis. "If the little chap had been left to me, well—he would not be alive to know it: that is one good thing."

"I don't quite know—I must have read it somewhere," she answered a trifle absently. Then rousing herself, she turned to Digby. "But Bobbie owes his life to you and Mr. Charteris, as much as to me. You were so prompt with the brandy and blankets; Phyllis was quick too, and Doris helped so much. Please don't put it on to me, for we all worked together."

But Bobbie's mother, who presently begged for, and obtained, an interview with Bobbie's rescuer, was not to be put off in this wise. She admitted that all thanks and praise were due to God; "but you were His chief instrument, Miss," she averred again and again, "and as such you might have done the work badly."

Hazel did not quite see the logic of this, but she held her peace, believing it to be the kinder part to accept the thanks that the grateful woman was so anxious to render her.

CHAPTER XII

Time—five o'clock in the afternoon. Scene—the homestead of Paul Charteris, or rather that portion of the house, the windows of which opened upon the verandah overlooking the green lawn that merged into the Le Mesuriers' ground. The sky was dark and lurid. Thick, straight lines of silver rain were striking slantwise upon the lawn, like giant harp-strings, the wind playing discordant notes upon them, until the prelude ended in a crash of thunder, and the whole power of the invisible orchestra began.

For the last few days the weather had been immoderately hot, and it seemed that, their last atom of patience chafed away by the discomfort of the extreme heat, even the most worm-like among the spirits of the air had turned at last, and in an access of irritable sensibility were giving vent to their opinions, and flinging inertia and exhausted forces to the winds. Some rode upon darkling clouds that scudded across the angry heavens, colliding with one another in their haste: or, who shall say, perhaps deliberately charging one another in their tempestuous rage, making a veritable tilting-ground of that usually peaceful realm, the clash of their invisible lances striking fire in vivid zig-zag streaks, whilst the thunder of their contact seemed to shake the very earth. Others again put their whole energy into the rain, as if seeking to deluge the countryside; and mercilessly did they beat a little bowed and huddled figure that emerged from the comparative shelter of the trees, after a moment of fearful hesitation, and sped across the open, making directly for the verandah.

Paul Charteris sat within his library, deeply brooding. He appeared to be occupied at the writing-table, but for long his pen had remained idle. He found difficulty in concentrating his thoughts upon the work in hand; all sorts of pleasant and congenial fancies had hold of him. But presently a tapping upon the window-pane began to attract his attention intermittently, unconsciously teasing, till, shaking off his reverie, he fell to blaming the gardener.

"That jasmine down again," ran his thoughts. "But perhaps it is hardly Tompkins's fault, though I did tell him to see to it himself last time—such rain and wind as this! But no, it cannot be the jasmine."

For the taps had become insistent, to an accompaniment of what sounded like the kicking of a foot against the lower wood part of the door-window—little, sharp, imperative kicks—and Paul, fully roused at last, sprang to his feet, faced about, and saw in the dim light, to his no small amazement, a muffled figure, the head shrouded in a long dark cloak. He opened the window, and was about to resent this intrusion at so private a part of the house, beginning with directions as to where the doors were to be found, when the figure darted past him into the room, with gesture and movement familiar to him; and letting the cloak drop in a damp heap upon the floor, Hazel Le Mesurier stood laughing at him.

"How astonished you look," she cried, "and it certainly is a queer afternoon to choose for calling; but I did not have to put on my best things to run over here, and I particularly want to see you; I have not slept much for two nights thinking about it," she added, suddenly grave, and seating herself in a lounge-chair with something of the gesture of a tired child.

Paul stood still, his hand upon the open window, collecting his senses. What a delicious, unexpected, utterly unlooked-for treat. He could hardly believe in his good fortune.

"You had better shut the window," Hazel resumed, the least hint of petulance in her tone. "See, the rain is driving in. Even the verandah roof is not broad enough to keep out such rain. Oh dear, it was a business to get here—but I had to come."

A slight uneasiness was beginning to mingle with Paul's delight. Did the girl's mother know of her daughter's visit to him in this somewhat unconventional, impulsive way? Probably not. Yet he durst not risk offending the little lady by such a question, which, to say the least, would hardly sound polite. Any way here she was, here, and the storm-darkened room. seemed flooded with sunshine! Then a thought struck him: Hugh had not left the house. He felt he ought to propose fetching Hugh, but he was much afraid that Hazel would eagerly jump at the chance of seeing her brother, in her sociable little way, and in her utter indifference as to whether she was alone with Paul or not.

"You have not had tea?" Paul asked, closing the window and advancing into the room. "Shall I ring for some, and—and ask Hugh to join us?"

"You can ring for tea," Hazel rejoined decisively, "but I don't want Hugh here—at all events not just yet. He would be the very worst person to overhear what I have to say. I must say it to you quite alone."

Paul felt immensely relieved. He had done his duty; he had left the settlement of a slightly embarrassing situation to the lady, and if that lady forbade him to call a third person to the interview about to take place, it was not for him to insist. Yet, on looking at her again his conscience smote him. The lady was so young, so unsophisticated—his bonnie Hazel—perhaps he ought to act for her, give her brotherly advice and hints as to what was customary.

But no, he could not do it. If he succeeded in making her see at all what he meant, it would be at the cost of embarrassing her, and nothing would be more cruel than so to wound the girl.

He seated himself at some distance from her and divined, to his amused chagrin, from her look of surprise, as she involuntarily glanced at a chair near her own and thence to the one he had taken, that she had momentarily deemed him unfriendly inclined, but was the next instant content and satisfied with the reason of his action: the chair he had taken was the more comfortable!

"You have forgotten to ring," she began; "but it is just as well, because I shall only keep you a few minutes and then you can have tea, and Hugh." Paul felt a third misinterpretation of his movements would be a last straw. "I daresay you are pining for company this dull afternoon," she continued; "and oh, Mr. Charteris," she broke off, "it is very serious what I have to say."

"You shall tell me in a moment," he replied; "but are you not very wet? Had I not better put a match to that firing? We could dry your cloak, and you could put your feet to it. It seems I am always to see you dripping, like a mermaid."

Hazel flushed at this allusion to the incident of two days since; but now that he had brought it to her recollection, she took furtive glances at the grey coat he was wearing, an uneasy sense that it was familiar to her pervading her mind; and surely, yes, surely—or was it her imagination?—a patch upon the right shoulder showed slightly darker than the rest, as the flames he was kindling played upon his figure, us if it was still somewhat damp.

She was in ignorance of the exact mode of her conveyance to the house, but had shrewd suspicions—suspicions that made her too shy to ask questions. She was sure of one thing: she had not walked.

"You are none the worse for your immersion, I hope?" Paul asked, still busy with the fire. He knew that he was embarrassing her, but his pleasure in her company made him mischievously inclined.

"No, thank you," Hazel answered demurely. "I am quite well."

Silence fell between them. "This is going to be a big blaze," Paul remarked presently. "I hope you won't find it too hot."

"Oh no," Hazel replied rather vaguely. She was trying to screw up her courage to ask that which she had come to ask. Why not out with, it now, whilst his eyes were turned from her? Indeed, if she slipped into that other chair, she would be quite out of his range of vision.

"Mr. Charteris," came a very small voice from somewhere behind him—she had contrived the exchange of seats so quietly that he, intent upon his work, had not noticed the movement—"Mr. Charteris, are you giving—that is, are you in a sort of way—I mean, do you——" Her voice quavered, and she stopped.

Paul wheeled round and stood before her, regarding her in amazement. She looked up at him piteously, and then away again. Paul, half amused, half concerned at the obvious perturbation and perplexity of mind under which she was labouring, waited in silence, a silence fraught with sympathy, for her to continue.

"Oh, could not you turn your back again?" she cried in desperation, "and—and I'll try to tell you."

Paul, with one stride, was beside her and, kneeling upon one knee to bring himself to her level, took both tremulous hands in his.

"What is it, little one?" he asked. "What is this dreadful, 'serious' something you have on your mind?"

"Won't you please to go away or walk about?" she besought him.

But Paul knew that this would be just as difficult for her. "No," he said firmly. "Just tell me, Hazel, and get it over."

"But perhaps it is horrid and—and unladylike of me," she wailed. "Perhaps you will be hurt or offended."

"Tell me," he repeated gently.

Hazel moved restively in her chair. "I wish I had not come here," she said rebelliously.

Paul waited, and then, with a little gasp, it all came out.

"It is about Hugh. Are you having him in—in charity?" Her voice sank to a whisper upon the last, fateful word, and she lay back in her chair, and tightly closed her eyes. What would he say? How would he take it? She had not the courage to look at him.

But Paul never seemed to fail her—he did not fail her now. "Hazel," he said quietly, after a long pause, "what put such an idea into your head?"

"Uncle Percival," Hazel answered laconically, with startling promptitude. Slowly she opened her eyes, but she turned her look away from him.

Paul rose to his feet and quietly began to pace the floor. "Uncle Percival ought to be—boiled," he said at length, indignantly. "How came he to mention the topic at all to you?"

"I called upon him," Hazel rejoined; and she proceeded to relate what had passed between herself and her relative.

"You are a plucky child to have 'bearded' him," Paul observed, when she had finished. He had heard much of "Uncle Percival," but little to his credit.

"Oh, he was not so bad," Hazel said, modestly disclaiming the compliment. "I was frightened of him at first, but he got nicer and nicer. In the end," she added naïvely, "he asked me to kiss him. That was quite friendly of him, was not it?"

"Very friendly indeed," Paul answered, his views concerning "Uncle Percival" undergoing a quick change. "I had no idea he was so—so human. And—and—did you?"

"Oh yes," Hazel said blandly. "Just a quick one on the cheek, you know—not at all as you would kiss mother, or as you would hug the boys."

"Just so," Paul returned meekly. "The old ruffian did not deserve such luck," was his inward comment.

There was a somewhat lengthy pause, devoted by Paul to pondering the subject. But of a sudden he looked up to find the girl regarding him beseechingly.

"You—you have not answered yet," she said, timidly reminding him.

"Need I say anything?" he asked, amused at her insistence. "Do you not know me better than to suspect me of doing such a thing? Why, it would not only be an insult to Hugh, but Mrs. Le Mesurier would be quick to see through, and resent, such interference."

Hazel gave vent to a sigh of relief; and Paul went on. "How could you credit such a suspicion for a moment? Don't you see how pleasant it is for me to have some one about that I know and like? Why, that in itself is worth the—the mere salary, let alone the fact that he is really useful. Are you satisfied? Do you believe me?" And he regarded his visitor quizzically.

"Of course," Hazel said generously, and with a little flush. "Between you and me," she continued, "I could not help feeling, from what I know of Hugh, that there might be a certain amount of truth about the char—, in what Uncle Percival said," she amended. "There is no denying that Hugh has not much of a business head, and—and that, therefore, it follows that he cannot be quite as useful to you as you would wish. I—I could not help feeling that the new man you think of engaging could easily do it all, you know. But I quite believe you," she added sincerely, feeling apologetic for harping upon the subject, or, indeed, for adding a single word after having acknowledged herself satisfied; having clinched, so to say, with Paul in faith and trust. "But he would make a splendid artist, would not he?" she said enthusiastically.

"Yes," Paul replied, "he is very clever. It is a thousand pities that he cannot take it up; for, I will admit, he would make a better artist than secretary."

Hazel glowed with gratified pride. "Well," she said, "I must go. Hugh had better not see me. He would, of course, want to know why I had come."

Paul smothered a sigh. "But your feet," he objected. "Are your shoes properly dry?"

"Oh, I think dry enough," she returned. "They will be wet again by the time I am home."

"You will change then, of course?" Paul asked anxiously, and Hazel promised she would.

"By the way," Hazel remarked, "it was my birthday yesterday." They had both risen, and the girl turned her back upon him as she spoke, and stood looking pensively from the window.

"Yes," Paul returned.

"You knew?" Hazel asked.

"Of course," he answered. There was a pause.

"Why didn't you come then? We—they quite missed you."

"I was not asked," Paul explained earnestly. "I thought you might have special plans for the day, and that I might be in the way."

Hazel waited, dissatisfied, for more; but no more, it seemed, was forthcoming.

"You did not even wish me many happy returns of the day," she commented, still turning from him.

"No," Paul admitted, with unwonted and seemingly unnecessary sternness.

"Well," she remarked, not knowing whether to be more hurt or surprised, "I—I think you might."

"You know I wish you everything the world has to give—all good and all blessings," Paul broke out, a marked fervour in his tone, and paused.

"Yes?" Hazel asked, a little breathless, with a sense of being somewhat overpowered.

"As to gifts," Paul went on desperately, "I would come with my arms full—I would lay all I had at——" He broke off, and with an effort seemed to pull himself together.

"You need not make such a lot of it," Hazel expostulated, in innocent surprise. "It is not a twenty-first, or anything so important as that. And even if it were, I should only expect, supposing you wished to give me anything at all, that is, I should only expect one present; just a small remembrance, you know, the—the usual thing."

"There is no usual——" He stopped short and endeavoured to recover himself. "Hazel," he said quietly, "you have not thought the omission due to carelessness, or doubted my—my friendship?"

"Oh no," Hazel declared, "and I did not think of presents: they never entered my head. And as to the wishes—well, you have wished them now, and thank you very much," she added, somewhat hurriedly, half fearful of a repetition of the very full measure, so fervently expressed. "The rain has stopped. I will start at once."

She left her cloak, at Paul's urgent request, to be dried and returned to her later. She stepped out of the French window and, turning, gave her hand to Paul.

"I am so glad I came and cleared it all up—about Hugh," she said warmly. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye," he rejoined, "and many, many happy returns of yesterday," he added, dropping the hand.

Something in his tone puzzled Hazel, and she looked at him wonderingly.

"How odd Paul, that is, Mr. Charteris, is to-day," she mused as she sped across the lawn.

CHAPTER XIII

"My dear child," exclaimed Helen Le Mesurier, "what an afternoon to choose for walking!"

Mrs. Le Mesurier was seated in the recess of the sparsely furnished hall, where tea was usually served. She had already partaken of that refreshment, but set about making more at sight of her daughter. Hazel gratefully accepted a cup and seated herself for a chat.

"I have not been for a walk," she said; "at least, I have walked, but not for walking's sake. I have been calling upon Mr. Charteris."

Helen looked surprised, as naturally she might.

"Hazel!" she expostulated. "What purpose could you have had? He comes here so often. Could you not have asked my advice as to going? It looks a little odd—a young girl calling by herself," she added gently. "Paul will think it odd."

She knew her child, and that slight reproof was enough—the least hint that intimated forwardness, in a way, too much; yet both must be given: such was a mother's duty.

The girl's face flushed red, and hastily setting down her cup, she looked at her mother in mute distress.

"Oh, surely not," she pleaded; "surely he thought it perfectly natural—just as I did, mother. I—I wanted to see him very particularly. I could not wait for him to come. If I had waited I might not have had the opportunity of saying what I wanted to say—it was about Hugh."

"You found Hugh there, of course?" Helen interposed comfortingly. "That makes things better. May mothie come into the mystery about Hugh?"

She had made the useful and necessary suggestion of incorrectness in her young daughter's action, and knew that she need say no more upon the subject—that she might with safety pour oil upon the little wound she had perforce inflicted, and bind it up to her child's comfort: for the sensitive girl would not so err again. But the kind words, spoken to bring consolation, brought instead new apprehension to Hazel.

"He was in the house," she admitted: "but he was not——" She broke off, of a sudden recollecting how Paul had proposed Hugh's presence, and how she had forbidden it. "Mr. Charteris wanted to call him and I would not let him. Oh, do you believe he will think me a horrid, bold sort of person?" and she looked beseechingly for her mother's reply.

Helen had difficulty in restraining a smile, as her eyes rested upon her daughter's face: the idea of the possessor of that face being considered a "horrid, bold sort of person" proving almost too ludicrous for the maintenance of gravity: delicate, sensitive, refined, beautiful as a flower; just now tremulous, beseeching.

"No," she admitted, after what was to Hazel an agonised pause, "I don't think he will." And the smile had its way. "But tell me, dearie, why you went at all."

So Hazel told all, beginning at Uncle Percival's uncomfortable and startling suggestion, that Paul Charteris was giving in charity to the Le Mesuriers, through the medium of the "worthless young man"—Hugh. She had before told her mother of the visit to her uncle; and Helen, half amused, half concerned, had not wholly disapproved of her girl's spiritedness; but this portion of the conversation during that visit Hazel had before omitted to report, not wishing to anger her mother against Mr. Desborough, or indeed to disturb her peace of mind until she, Hazel, had first ascertained the truth.

"So you see how I did it all for the best, mother. You see how important it was to learn the truth, and at once, without troubling you, dearest, if I could possibly help it."

"Yes, dearie, I do see. So, I know, does Paul. Do not be troubled about it any more. Only remember that we must, none of us, defy certain conventionalities—we must observe rules by which to regulate our behaviour. They mostly have their good sense and usefulness, though at times we may find them irksome, and tiresome to follow, and feel impatient at their restrictions."

"Yes, mother," rejoined the pretty penitent, meekly.

And then followed one of those close embraces in which mother and daughter were wont to indulge at the termination of every discourse between them, that held in it anything in the nature of reprimand and submission; expressing full, free, and loving forgiveness on the mother's part, and sincere contrition and penitence on the part of the loving daughter.

But the discomforting impression that Hazel had received, that Paul might be thinking her forward, proved disastrous to that young man's peace; for Hazel did her utmost to avoid him, and managed, with most unlooked-for success, to elude meetings—generally slipping away to her own room if he came to the house, and seldom risking discovery by spending much time in her tree; though, had he but known it, one Sunday morning she was holding church there, as was her wont; but she kept so absolutely still, as he passed beneath the branches, the full midsummer leafage of which afforded so complete a screen as to hide entirely any living thing that took refuge there among, be it bird, beast, or—girl, that she was not discovered.

One morning poor Hazel's story was returned, with the editor's compliments and regrets. The girl retired within herself, concerning this great disappointment, until such time as she could confide in Teddie, and receive advice as to her further movements.

Saturday came at last, and a very sober Hazel met the afternoon train, bringing Teddie alone. Gerald, he said, was following by the next.

"And it is just as well, Hazel," the boy added, wearily. "I am nearly off my head with worry. And though, of course, you cannot help a fellow, still you can sympathise with a chap and ease him a bit."

At once Hazel's own troubles became insignificant, and she was all attention; but, as was her custom, she did not press her sympathy upon him in words, but walked on beside him, earnest-faced and ready-witted, waiting for what he should choose to tell her.

"I want five pounds," her brother broke out at length, "and five pounds I must have."

Hazel's heart sank. What a nuisance money was!

"Now the question is how I am to get it," Teddie went on. "Your story will bring in quite that—and you would, I know, lend me the cash. But goodness knows when you will hear of it again. Editors are the dickens for keeping people waiting."

"He did not keep me long," said Hazel, mournfully, and she drew from her pocket the ill-fated manuscript, and Teddie, with incredulous horror in his eyes, read slowly: "The Victoria Cross and How it was Won," twice through before he could believe the evidence of his senses.

"The fellow will never get on," he told Hazel dispassionately. "He will come to no good end. He has not the first essentials for getting on in his particular business. He does not know a good thing when he sees it; he does not know what suits the public taste, and probably cares less. Well, I pity him."

"But his magazine is a very good one, I mean of high standing"—Hazel ventured timidly, thinking Teddie's calm not altogether natural or healthy—"and it is very well known."

"Mere luck," announced Teddie. "It won't last It can't. But I shall go and ask for an explanation," he continued, his anger rising, somewhat to his sister's relief. "He will have to satisfy me."

"He seemed rather nice, if you remember," Hazel observed, in just defence of the roundly abused editor. "That is the worst of it. If he had been, well, a disagreeable sort of man, whom you strongly suspected of being ultra-critical and ill-natured, why, then, one would try again with a light heart. But, Teddie, I cannot help thinking he would have taken it if he could."

"You either forget what I told you of the stories he has accepted, or else you have no faith in my judgment, Hazel," Teddie returned censoriously. "I can assure you he has taken all sorts of trash. I have seen it—in print."

"And you do not think mine trash?" Hazel asked doubtfully.

"No," declared the loyal Teddie, half defiantly, "I don't. And that moonlight scene after the battle, and the battle itself, if it comes to that, are just ripping."

They halted upon the roadway, Teddie to light a cigarette, Hazel to open and unfold the manuscript, to refresh her memory on the parts so highly commended. Together they stood awhile, he reading over her shoulder; but the reconsideration of her work brought the girl no comfort. Even to her youth and inexperience the story appeared crude, obviously the writing of a beginner—and a very young one, of no especial talent. Even her brother began to experience a disquieting sense of imperfection as he read on. Somehow the tale lacked the brilliancy of dramatic force that he had, on first reading, attributed to it; and for the first time he was uneasily conscious of a desire to laugh in quite the wrong places. But he was not going to discourage his sister altogether for all that, though perhaps it would be true kindness to discontinue such unqualified commendation.

"I expect your bad writing put him off," he said at length, with brotherly bluntness. "You ought to have got me or Digby or some one to write it out neatly for you."

"Yes?" questioned Hazel, only half reassured. "Do you think that would have made all the difference, Teddie?"

"It might," Teddie affirmed with, however, less assurance than heretofore. It was, after all, false kindness to give nothing but praise. "But if it is not that, it may be the—the 'vision' they don't like; and you know, Hazel, I am beginning to doubt myself whether it has not got a ludicrous side. Do you think yourself that it is natural? Would the mother be knocking about a battlefield, thousands of miles from home?"

"Perhaps she would not," admitted poor Hazel. "But you see, Teddie, she was supposed to be a widow with no other children, and very, very fond of this only son, whom she follows to the front unbeknown to him, having no home ties to keep her in England."

The girl looked wistfully for her brother's next comment.

"I think," he said decidedly, as they walked on again, "that you have too much killing in your style. I admit that you are good at it, but it may not be liked, especially in a woman writer. It is—it is hard, you might say blood-thirsty. Just look how you kill them off," he continued ruthlessly, waxing eloquent in his theme, "wholesale!"

Hazel looked somewhat shocked as this appalling idea was presented to her.

"Teddie," she gasped, "where—where have I killed them off so? Of course you have to have deaths in battle. It is one of the horrors of war."

"It is not only the battle," Teddie insisted. "It is not only generally, so to speak, but you delight in bringing deaths into private life. Look at your hero's family, for example: how you have to make that wretched woman widowed and childless; excepting, of course, the hero himself, but even him you bring to the point of death. It is not good art," he concluded, shaking his head.

"Yes," she admitted sadly; "perhaps it is a rather unwomanly trait in my writing."

"I am glad you see it," her brother returned, softening somewhat. "Why, you have only got to have a murder in it to make 'Battle, Murder, and Sudden Death' an excellent title."

"Well," Hazel declared, after a pause, "I shall give up trying to make money in that way. My only real gift is music. There is no doubt about it, that I should never make an author. If only people would hire me to sing at little concerts. You know what a success I am at the school concert at Christmas-time, and how old Jonathan Higgins would walk ten miles to hear 'My mother bids me bind my hair,' as I sing it. I am thinking of that five pounds, old fellow," she added dismally.

"Yes, by Jove!" Teddie rejoined, and relapsed into silence. "Since my rise," he began presently, "I have been in constant difficulties. It is always the way. When you have not a halfpenny, you do nothing and go nowhere."

Hazel nodded. She longed to ask her brother to what extent he had broken through this wise régime, but held her peace.

"I date my difficulties from the day when I gave a champagne lunch to five fellows I know."

"The day of the rise?" his sister asked shrewdly, awed by this peep into dissipated life.

"You have got it," Teddie admitted. "It may have been foolish, but the fellows have stood me treat often enough—or offered to—and my usual answer, that I did not go in for society because I could not afford to do my part, did not always work, you know. I got talked over. Since then," he continued, "I have stood a theatre or two, and—well, the long and short of it is, that Mrs. Walters, our landlady, wants her rent, and is beginning to make a nuisance of herself."

Hazel thought of the ten pounds that she had bestowed on her uncle's servant; but, troubled as she was for her brother, she could not repent her of the deed.

"You can't borrow of Hugh or Gerald?" she ventured gently.

"No," Teddie told her. "We have once for all agreed not to borrow from each other, and it is not a bad plan: for though it is dashed hard luck that I am bound down not to borrow of them, I am thankful to think they cannot borrow of me," he added ruefully.

"Yes," Hazel returned, struck with the sense of this, "that certainly is a good thing. Well," she added, "you must let me think it well over. I will do my best, Teddie, to help you."

Already a half-formed plan had arisen in her mind, but she greatly wondered whether she could bring herself to go through with it. Certainly she could not for herself; yet for Teddie it was different—for Teddie she could do much.

Presently they left the roadway, clambered up a high bank, and plunging through a tangle of brambles, entered the cool, leafy walks of their own grounds—a delicious relief after the dust and glare. The foliage was just now at its full, and for the most part of a dark green, each leaf heavy, thick, and strong, with as yet no hint of autumn in its perfection of maturity. Elm, lime, beech, horse-chestnut, oak, copper beech, silver birch, feathery larch, ash, fir, and pine; what an enthralling medley of delight! The great tree branches, heavy to repletion, waved stately in the gentle summer wind, dignified, majestic, all the sportiveness of youth and spring-time gone; rugged-barked, smooth-barked, light grey; green trunks, whitey-grey trunks, almost black trunks; gnarled, veined, moss-grown, creeper-covered; the unspeakable grace of the smaller boughs growing from out the larger limbs: each shapely twig, after a series of knots and delicate articulations, terminating in a leaf of perfect outline, each indentation clearly defined, the edges of some almost fluted in the vigour of their full, crisp growth.

What was there in her beloved woodland that the girl did not know and love; from the swelling, bursting buds of spring—nay, before that, when the bare, brown twigs had nothing to show, save a certain swollen look, and yet seemed instinct with life—to the falling of the leaf? Some leaves there were of such tenacity that only the insistent pushing and shooting of the spring buds could at last succeed in ousting the poor crumpled yellow or brown thing from its place. And oh, the flooring of the woods in autumn; the rustling of one's tread through the fallen leaves of many hues; the crunch of the little triangular beech-nuts, still in their rough, brown, lily-shaped, gaping pods, or fallen out of them, the more ready to hand for the squirrels; the acorns, smiling up green and smooth, half in half out of their dainty brown cup, looking as if a squeeze at the cup's base would cause the slippery nut to shoot out like a benignant green bullet; fir-cones like miniature pineapples cut in cork; spiky pine needles, that only bent in mockery if you tried to prick anything with them; softly bristling chestnut burrs, all agape, discovering the shining red-brown treasure within; and patches of bracken, never far to seek.

In another month's time, Hazel knew, such autumn delights would begin. Just now, nothing could be lovelier than the dense, heavy foliage of full summer; for the shades of green were rich in their many gradations, whilst the grey mosses and woodland grasses gave change in plenty to the eye.

On reaching home, they found a visitor with Helen, in the person of Mr. Charteris. Hardly a visitor, so Hazel thought, in momentary dismay—he seemed to live at Hazelhurst. There was no escaping this time, as hostess and guest were awaiting the two to begin tea, at which her mother liked the girl to preside. Down she sat in their midst, pink-cheeked, and very busily did she occupy herself—tea-making seemed to have become the most soul-absorbing work, calling for her undivided attention.

All this was terribly apparent to poor Paul. It must be himself she was shunning—she was not usually so engrossed, surely, as not to be able to join in the chat, or notice any one, but just steadily fill and refill cups, with stern precision, taxing her memory upon the momentous question of little milk, much milk, one lump, two lumps, no sugar, tea rather weak, tea strong, tea average. "Dear me," thought Paul, "what a lot there is in tea-making if one notices, and I have always thought it so simple."

Presently he asked her if he could help—do something besides handing dishes. She only grew yet pinker-cheeked, refused to look at him—Paul was sure she was aware that he was trying to make her look—and said there was really nothing to do. And she effected her escape as soon as possible, partly, Paul suspected wretchedly, to avoid giving him her hand. And yet, in contrariness, no sooner did she hear him go than she felt inclined to cry, and longed, with a strange inconsistency that puzzled herself, to run after him—to let her hand rest in that strong, dear grasp of his for a few moments, whilst she assured him there was nothing, nothing the matter.

CHAPTER XIV

"OSBORNE HOUSE, LANCASTER GATE,

"July 12, 19—.

"MY DEAR HELEN,

"It may not be news to tell you that I am a lonely old man; but how lonely and, for the matter of that, how old, I am but now beginning to realise. The realisation came upon me with the visit of that girl of yours—Hazel, she said her name was; rather an absurdly fanciful name, by the way: but there, I won't carp, and it suits the child. I confess to you that she has taken me by storm; I have tried to fight against such feelings, called myself a sentimental old fool, in my second childhood, which is probably the right explanation; but however that may be, the feeling remains. She came into this dreary house like a breath of country, this Hazel of yours, and set me thinking of woods, nuts, berries, and flowers. Spirited, too: gave as good as she got from the old man. The long and short of it is: will you allow the child to stay with me for a short while? I know I have no claim upon you, no right to ask favours—I never for a moment imagined it possible that I should ever ask a favour. That I have, and no small one, I grant, is in itself an apology for the past—a holding out of the olive-branch and all the rest of it. Don't keep me waiting long for your answer. As I said before, I am a sentimental old fool, in my dotage, and I am lonely, or I should never have brought myself to the pitch of courage necessary for writing to you—of risking the probable humiliation of being denied what I ask—which, I admit, is all I deserve at your hands.

"However you may decide concerning my request, let there be peace between us for the girl's sake, and for the sake of old times. Let me once again have the privilege of signing myself

"Your affectionate uncle,

"PERCIVAL DESBOROUGH."

"HAZELHURST, BERKS,

"July 13, 19—.

"MY DEAR UNCLE,

"It was with mingled pleasure and pain that I read your letter. I know full well you are lonely. In my girlhood I can remember you as a kindly, sociable man—sociable in a domestic sense: I cannot remember that you ever cared for society. And it is unlikely that one should so change in one's later years as to be happy and content, with doors barred against one's nearest kin; living on alone, entertaining hard thoughts and, dear uncle, let me say unjust thoughts, of those of whom one was once fond. I gladly take the extended olive-branch.

"Do not think me ungenerous, if I say that I cannot make up my mind to allow Hazel to stay with you. She is my only daughter, and your house, devoid as it is of women-folk, is not the place I should choose for a young girl. May I suggest that she should come to spend a day with you, and, need I say, dear uncle, how pleased I should be if you would visit us here, if you could bring yourself to put up with our plain faring and simple ways?

"Your affectionate niece,

"HELEN LE MESURIER.

"P.S.—We can easily accommodate your servant."

"OSBORNE HOUSE, LANCASTER GATE,

"July 14, 19—.

"MY DEAR HELEN,

"I must not grumble at your decision. I will think over the proposal you make, that I should come down to Hazelhurst to stay a while. In the meantime send the girl on Friday next, if convenient to you. The carriage shall meet the train.

"Your affectionate uncle

"PERCIVAL DESBOROUGH.'

When Hazel heard she was asked to go and see her uncle again, she was half pleased, half dismayed. The plan she was evolving for helping Teddie was at once made simpler: for it was to Uncle Percival that she was about to turn for aid, if she could sufficiently crush down her pride. The very difficulty of getting to him, had made her plan seem easy and feasible. But now that this difficulty was removed, she found her little scheme of a sudden assume terrible proportions. However, there was no harm in going: there was nothing infra dig. or humiliating in that; and once there, she could feel her way as to what she should confide and what leave unsaid.

When Paul Charteris heard of the prospective visit, he begged to be allowed to drive Hazel to the station; and Helen agreed that it was a long, hot, dusty walk with which to begin a day's outing.

"I think," she added, "that you may take it for granted that Hazel will like to drive—she is not here to ask—yet she was a moment ago. Where has she gone?"

No, of course, Hazel was not there. She had heard Paul coming, and, with a murmured excuse to her mother, had fled precipitately.

"By the way, dear, Paul proposes driving you to the station," her mother told her, when the eventful day arrived.

The girl flushed, and then grew pale. "Oh, mother," she exclaimed. "I should rather have walked. Miles could have taken me."

Helen looked her surprise. "But it is so hot and dusty, Hazel. You will be quite tired by the time you reach London. I am sorry, dear, but I felt so sure you would like to drive. You so love driving," she added, puzzled, somewhat at a loss.

Then a thought struck her.

"Has Paul offended you in any way?" she asked gently, of a sudden. "Is it my fancy, or are you avoiding him?"

"Oh no; he has not offended me," the girl made answer hastily, evasively. "But I love the walk, and—oh well, it does not matter, motherling." And the disturbed young face kissed the anxious one reassuringly, and Hazel went off to make herself ready.

It was a very demure young lady, whom Paul handed into the trap, half an hour later; but, though she had regained her outward composure, her spirit had risen in revolt against her charioteer. She felt like a little snared hare, and was angry and shy all at once. She sat beside him mute, looking straight before her, and Paul from time to time endeavoured to get a peep at the face beneath the hat-brim.

"We will drive slowly," he remarked at length. "If I give Ben Dyson his head, we should be at the station in ten minutes, and we have a good half-hour. Isn't it glorious weather?"

Hazel admitted that it was, and again relapsed into silence.

"You are very quiet," Paul observed presently. "Won't you talk to me, Hazel? I do hope you are not thinking it presumptuous in me, that I asked to drive you," he added anxiously.

Hazel's soft little heart began to melt. After all, it was very kind of him, and thoughtful. How was he to know she wanted to keep out of his way? She did not wish him to know; she hoped that, if by chance he noticed that he saw less of her than usual just now, he would put it down to mere coincidence. Probably he had not noticed; she hoped not—she did not wish to hurt or annoy him.

"No," she answered quickly. Then, with shyness, gratitude, and dignity all fighting together, she added: "It was very kind of you—very. But I am fond of walking. I—I thought you might have asked me, and not mother," she concluded, with some severity.

Then Paul determined to have it out with her. "Hazel," he asked, with grave directness, "answer me truly. Have I offended or hurt you in any way?"

He tried to catch a glimpse of her face; but it was turned from him, her eyes in busy contemplation of the hedgerow.

"No; oh no," she said hurriedly. "You have never seen Uncle Percival, have you?" she asked, bent upon turning the conversation. Paul was rather alarming, when earnest and grave and unchatty.

"Hazel," he persisted, "tell me: Do you or do you not like driving?"

"Oh, very much!" she exclaimed enthusiastically; "and it is a long, dreary walk," she added, off her guard.

Then came a terrible silence. Paul was too generous to take advantage of the slip, and Hazel, feeling an irrepressible desire to know the worst that his face might be expressing, glanced up hastily as she turned to view, with absorbing interest, the farther hedge.

He was smiling quietly to himself and looking very satisfied over something. So much her brief look told her, and she felt her resentment again rising.

"One can like driving, and yet have reasons for wishing to walk," she said severely, again taking up her weapon, but this time in some trepidation.

"Of course," he answered lightly. "One might object to the companionship of one's driver."

No response from Hazel.

"Is that it, Hazel?" he asked presently.

Still no reply.

"I have feared for some little time," he resumed, "that you have been avoiding my society. I cannot tell you how the suspicion has grieved me. I have spent much time in wondering wherein I have erred. Won't you tell me, Hazel, and set me right?"

Sympathetic Hazel was much distressed. "You have done nothing," she said earnestly, "nothing. Please do not think so again."

"But something has happened," he persisted, "and I think I have a right to know what, as it concerns myself so deeply. Don't you admit my right?"