LOVER AND HUSBAND

LONDON in September. A dull, close, airless day. The streets would have been dusty enough too, no doubt, had there been a breath to stir the dust, which one felt instinctively, was lying there in masses, ready on the slightest provocation to rise in choking clouds. A day when one longed for the sea, or failing that, for a breeze of fresh air. A day when one could hardly believe in the reality of cool green fields, or babbling, trickling brooks. Not that it was so much hot, for there was little sun, as dry, and heavy, and intensely dull. Dull everywhere, but especially so in one of the somewhat old-fashioned, but unmistakably respectable squares of which there are not a few in London, so much resembling each other as to require no special description. The square at this season looked its very dullest and ugliest; under these circumstances, I should suppose, the more nearly fulfilling the aim, as regards outward appearance, of the melancholy architects who planned it. Half the houses were shut-up, and of the remainder, several were evidently shortly about to be so, for in some, hot and dusty housemaids were to be seen pulling down window curtains, and in one or two more an acute observer, by dint of a little peeping, might have discovered business-like trunks and carpet-bags ready packed and strapped for starting, or else gaping open while undergoing the mysterious process called “airing,” in some of the lower regions where such domestic rites are usually performed.

In one of the dullest of the dull houses, in a sort of library or morning room on the first floor, a young girl sat alone. The room was not a pretty one. At the best of times it might have been called comfortable, but nothing more for its furniture, though solid and good of its kind, was like the rest of the house, heavy, dark, and ungraceful. On this day the room looked especially uninviting, for there was about it that peculiar look of business-like disorder, which, even in the neatest of households, inevitably accompanies preparations for “leaving home.” Torn letters, bits of string, and address labels, a work-basket half emptied of its contents, all told their own tale.

The only pretty thing in the room was its occupant. She was certainly not beautiful, but like many people to whom that word, in its ordinary and superficial sense, could not be truthfully applied, she was most thoroughly pleasant to look upon. Possibly a thought too thin, and hardly rosy enough for what one likes to see in a girl of nineteen, but with no lack of health and vigour in her firm, well set frame, and pale, though not sallow complexion. And with no want of intelligence or quick perception in her grey eyes, as a glance from them would soon have told. A good, gentle, pretty girl, just such, I think, as one would like to see one’s own daughter, though with rather more thoughtfulness of expression than seems quite natural in so young a creature. This came, however, from her rather too quiet and solitary life, and from no original dearth of the bright hopefulness and gaiety of spirit hardly in theory to be separated from the idea of healthy youth.

The girl sat at her writing-table, but not writing. Rather wearied with all her little preparations, she felt glad to sit still doing nothing, and though looking very thoughtful, as was her habit, still, to tell the truth, she was thinking of little in particular. There was perfect silence through the house, and the occasional roll of wheels in the neighbouring streets sounded rumbling and heavy through the still, drowsy air. Marion, I think, was very nearly on the point of succumbing to these various influences by falling asleep outright, when her reveries were disturbed by a sharp, sudden ring at the hall-door. She started up, but sat down again lazily, saying to herself,” Oh, I forgot, it will be only Cissy.” “Cissy,” evidently not being a person to be treated with much ceremony. But a second start was in store for poor Marion’s nerves, had she been conscious of possessing any such undesirable things. A moment’s interval and then came the sound of hasty feet up the stairs; the door opened suddenly and an unexpected visitor entered. A boy of course. No one but a boy, and one too in a hurry, could have come up stairs in that three-steps-at-a-time sort of way, or opened the door with that indescribable sort of fling, neither bang nor jerk, though partaking of the nature of both. Though, after all, perhaps, it is hardly fair to this particular boy, to introduce him as so thoroughly one of his rather objectionable class; for when he was not in a hurry or very unusually out of temper, Harry Vere, my Marion’s brother, did not by any means forget the small proprieties of life. A good boy, in the main; certainly neither a sneak nor a bully. His looks would have belied him had he been either. He had a fair, open, honest face, with, however, much less strength than his sister’s, and also less promise of future development. He hurried in, looking flushed and travel-stained, and anxious too, as the girl’s quick observation was not slow to discover.

“Harry!” she exclaimed, “you here! How did you get off, and what is the matter? Is anything wrong?” asking, after the manner of people in a hurry to get an answer, three questions, where one would have served the purpose.

“No, no, nothing is wrong,” said the boy “at least, nothing much. I have not been expelled, or broken my legs, as you can see for yourself. Don’t get into a fuss. I only came up because I wanted so much to see you before you go. You shall hear all about it in a minute; but first tell me one thing. My father is still away? There no fear of his seeing me today?”

“Oh no, not the least,” replied the girl, evidently by no means surprised at the unfilial spirit of the question; “he has been away since Monday, and won’t return till the day after tomorrow. But I am leaving tomorrow, you know. When I heard your ring I thought it was Cissy Archer, for I am expecting her this afternoon, to settle definitely about our train. I see though,” she added, glancing at the time-piece, “she won’t be here for an hour yet, so we have plenty of time for a talk.”

“Not so very much,” said Harry, “for I must have some luncheon, as I can’t get back to school till late, and my train goes in an hour and a half. You can fancy how very much I wanted to see you, Marion, for even though I came second-class, my fare will all by clear me out; and I can’t now get leave to be away again before Christmas, so I shall miss the match at Barrow next week.”

Before answering Marion rang the bell and ordered some cold provisions in the way of luncheon for her brother. As the servant was leaving the room Harry said to him rather awkwardly and hesitatingly, “Brown, you needn’t say anything to your master about my having come up to see Miss Vere before she goes.”

Brown being fortunately of the order of discreet domestics, answered simply:

“Very well, Sir, I will take care that your wishes are attended to;” muttering however to himself as soon as he was outside the door, “Lucky for poor Master Harry that none of them other chattering idiots saw him come, and that I got the cold beef and bread unbeknownst to cook.”

When Harry was comfortably seated at his repast, Marion repeated her request.

“Now, Harry, tell me all about it.”

“Well, Marion, the long and the short of it is, I’ve got into a scrape. Not a bad one though,” added he hurriedly, seeing the increasing anxiety in his sister’s eyes, “nothing disgraceful or ungentlemanly. You would never fear that for me, May? It was a good while ago; but I did not tell you about it at Midsummer, because I thought then I should be able to set it right, but now it has got worse. I know I was a fool for my pains to hide it from you. Several months ago, one holiday at school, I hired a horse. Of course it is against the rules but lots of follows do it. I am really very fond of riding, though I don’t know about it, but I don’t think I should have been tempted to do it in this underhand sort of way if my father had sometimes let me have a little in the holidays. But then—you know as well as I how he thwarts me; but that’s an old story. Well, as ill-luck would have it I lamed the beast. I am no judge of horses, but still I think it was above the average of a livery stable. The man made an awful row, said he had that morning refused sixty pounds for it, and it was now worthless. He threatened to complain to the head-master. I don’t know what is the law in such matters, but I was in such a fright that he would really tell on me, that I made on the spot the best terms I could with him, which were to pay him twenty pounds down the next morning; though when I promised this I had not the least idea where to get the money. I went straight to Cuthbert, my great chum, you know, Marion, and told him all about it. He begged me not to make a fuss, and I should have the money in time. And sure enough by next morning he had it for me, and I paid the man, as I had promised.”

“But Cuthbert!” said Marion, in amazement, “how could he get it, Harry? His people are not at all rich, and I should think he has even less pocket-money than you.”

“Yes, indeed,” replied Harry,” there’s the pull. Cuthbert knew I would pay him as soon as I could, and he has been awfully good about it. But only last week he came to me in great distress and told me the whole affair. It seems he got the money in his own name from a wretched Jew at a hideous rate of interest, trusting to my being able to pay him, in part, any way, last mouth; as I quite hoped I should have got something from Aunt Tremlett on my birthday. Of course she was ill and sent me nothing. Now poor Cuthbert must pay it before the 15th of October, and this wretch has made it somehow or other come to thirty instead of twenty pounds. The exposure would utterly ruin Cuthbert. That’s the horrible part of it; to think what my folly has brought him into, good fellow that he is. Why he never spends a sixpence he can help on himself! Now Marion what can I do? How ever am I to get thirty pounds before the 15th of October?”

“If only I had it,” sighed poor Marion, “but you know I never have five pounds in my own hands, much less thirty.”

“I know that quite well. I never had the least idea of getting it from you, May. All thought of was, that as two heads are better than one you might help me to find out some way of getting it. Of course, if the worst comes to the worst, rather than let Cuthbert suffer I will go to my father. He would pay it. I have no doubt, but would probably never speak to me again. Any way all chance of my going into the army would be over, and just when I am so close upon it too: leaving school at Christmas for good. Oh, what a fool I was! But for both your sake and my own, May, I would rather do anything than speak to my father. It would be perfectly horrible to have to do it. I declare I would rather run away, if only I could beg, borrow, or steal the money in the first place.”

“Hush, Harry,” said his sister, “don’t talk nonsense, but think seriously what to do. If only Aunt Tremlett had not been so ill, she might have helped us.”

“Not she, indeed,” replied the boy impatiently, “or if she had even agreed to do so, she would have been pretty sure to discover that it was her duty to tell my father. Old idiot that she is.”

“You need not waste your time in abusing her, Harry, for as things are, she is out of the question. But Harry, dear,” she added anxiously, as the sound of the clock striking caught her ear, “I fear your time is almost up?”

“All but,” said the boy, with a rather poor attempt at a laugh, “so Marion you don’t see any way to helping me out of my trouble? And think what a time it will be before we see each other again! You are to be at Altes with Cissy Archer for six months, didn’t you say?”

“Six months, certainly, I believe,” said his sister, “I should like the thoughts of it exceedingly, but for the one drawback of not seeing you in the holidays. But that can’t be helped! And now about this trouble or yours, Harry. Do nothing just yet. Wait, any way, till the end of the month; that will be a fortnight from now, and I will see if by then I can hit upon any plan to prevent your having to tell Papa; for that would really be too dreadful. Not so much the disagreeable of it as the after consequences, for he would never forgive it, or trust you again.”

“Never,” said Harry, emphatically. “But Marion, I must go. Thank you, dear, for being so kind about it. Many a sister would have scolded or preached, but I am far more sorry than if you had done either. Well, then, you’ll write within a fortnight and send your address. I suppose you don’t know it yet? Good bye, and mind you don’t fuss about me more than you can help.” And with a more affectionate parting hug than he would perhaps have liked Brown major or Jones minor, to be witness to, Harry departed, his heart considerably lighter, as is the way with selfish mankind, for having shared its burden with another.

Marion, poor child, sat down again where he had found her, burying her face in her hands as she vainly tried to solve the problem so unexpectedly placed before her: “Where to find thirty pounds?” She had never before actually cared about the possession of any sum of money, for though by no means luxuriously brought up, still, as is the case with many young people, the comforts of life had, as it were, “grown for her.” Her father’s peculiar ideas as to the inexpediency of treating his children as reasonable or responsible beings, had left her, in many practical respects, singularly inexperienced. She had certainly often wished, like all young people in a passing way, for things beyond her reach; but still, whatever was really necessary to her comfort, or suitable for her position, Mr. Vere had provided and paid for. In proportion, therefore, to her previous exemption from anything in the shape of financial anxieties, were her alarm and consternation at the present difficulty. And terrible, indeed, appeared the alternative of laying the matter before her falter. Sad perversion of what should be the most tender and trustful of relations; that between parent and child, when, in his distress and perplexity, or even in his shame and remorse, the child’s first impulse, instead of being to fly for counsel or comfort to the one friend who should never refuse it, is, at all costs, to conceal his trouble from the parent who has indeed succeeded in inspiring him with fear and distrust,—but alas with nothing more! And this is done every day, not by hard or indifferent fathers only, but by many who, according to their light, honestly enough desire to do their best by the young creatures committed to their charge.

Mr. Vere, the father of this boy and girl, was perhaps less to be blamed than some parents, for the fact that his children did not regard him as their friend. An extreme natural reserve of character and manner had, in his case, been so augmented by the unhappy circumstances of his life, that to his children from their earliest years, he had never appeared otherwise than hard, forbidding, and utterly unsympathising. Yet in reality he was a man of deep feeling, and capable of strong and lasting attachments; but along with these healthy characteristics were to be found in him a large amount of morbid weakness on certain points, and a peculiarity which I can best describe as narrow-heartedness. The one passion of his life had been his love for his wife, a lovely, silly, mindless baby, whose early death was certainly not the bitterest disappointment she caused him. Their carried life was short, but it lasted long enough for the freezing, narrowing process to begin in the husband’s heart. He lost faith in affection, or at least in his own power of inspiring it. The want of breadth about him prevented his seeing that though he had been so unfortunate as to make the one “grand mistake,” an uncongenial marriage, it did not necessarily follow that every other relation in life was, for him, to be in like manner a failure. He made up his mind beforehand, that were he to allow himself to seek for consolation in the love of his children, in that, too, he would but be laying up fresh disappointment for himself. And therefore he was weak and cowardly enough to stifle, so far as he could, the natural outflowings of fatherly affection. He did not altogether succeed in this, for his heart was still, in spite of himself, sound at the core; but, alas, as time went on it proved no exception to that law of our nature, by which all unused members gradually contract and wither. From his children’s earliest years, as I said, Mr. Vere checked in himself all outward demonstration of affection, and this, of course, quickly reacted upon them. Little people are not slow to understand when they and their innocent caresses are unsought, if not unwelcome. Fortunately, however, for these poor little things, they had each other; and the affection of two as honest, loving little hearts as ever beat, refused vent in one direction, only flowed the more vehemently in the remaining one. And to give the father his due, he certainly was not unmindful or careless of their actual comforts and requirements. They had everything to be desired for their health and happiness, except their father’s love. As they grew older, time brought no improvement to the state of matters. Extreme strictness, not to say severity, was the basis of Mr. Vere’s theory of education. This, and the fact that he never in the slightest degrees confided in his children, or appeared to consider them as reasonable and intelligent companions, extended the already wide gulf between them. Yet he continued, solicitous about their health and comfort, and was even scrupulously careful in his choice of their teachers, books, and the few companions he thought it wise to allow them. Had any one taxed him with not fulfilling to the utmost his duties as a parent, he would have been utterly amazed and indignant; for so one-sided and warped had his whole being become through the one great mistake of his life, that it simply never entered his imagination that, by not loving his children, he was denying to them the first of their natural rights; or that his systematic coldness could possibly be to them an actual injury and injustice.

For himself, he came in time to be so absorbed in other interests, those of a political life, as not in the least to miss the affection he had so deliberately stifled in its birth. In a rather narrow way a clever, though never a brilliant man; accurate, painstaking and calm, he gradually became very useful to his party. And thus, contentedly enough, he lived his life, rather congratulating himself than otherwise, on what he had made of it, and on the strength of character which had so thoroughly thrown off and outgrown the bitter disappointment of his early manhood.

The childhood and youth of Marion and her brother had not, however, been on the whole desolate or unhappy. Indeed, it takes a great deal, thank God, to crush the happiness out of healthy children I And they don’t miss what they have never known.

The first great sorrow was Harry’s going to school; but at the Name period, a kindly disposed and very terrible governess appearing on the scene, Marion’s life was by no means solitary and loveless as she had anticipated. The happiest times they remembered, poor children, were the summer months, Harry’s holidays, which with this kind Miss Jervis, they every year spent in Brentshire, their father’s native county, and where he still owned, near the little village of Bradley, a pretty cottage and a few acres of land—the remains of a once considerable property. In Brentshire, too, at the dull little town of Mallingford, lived the old Aunt Tremlett, Harry’s godmother, from whom they learned the few particulars they ever knew of their pretty young mother and her early death.

Their father never accompanied them to Brentshire. He still shrank with a morbid horror from ever revisiting the place where he had first met his wife, and where, so few years after, she was buried.

The Veres had in past days been people of no small consideration in their own county, and though for two generations the head of the family had been settled in a different part of England, there were still plenty of people about Mallingford to whom the name in itself was a recommendation to show kindness to the two children who bore it. And as they were loveable and engaging, they soon gained hearts on their own account. There was old Mr. Temple, the clergyman, who had married their parents, and seen the sad end of that story, and his two young-lady daughters, in particular Miss Veronica, who played the organ on Sundays, and sometimes invited May or Harry as a great treat to sit up in the loft beside her, Then there was jolly old Mr. Baldwin, of the Bank, always so merry and hearty; and Geoffrey, his son, the great tall schoolboy, who used to carry both children at once, when they were very small, one perched on each shoulder. He came to see them one Christmas in London, and told them of his kind father’s death, looking so sad and lonely that both Marion and Harry cried when he went away. That was several years ago, but they had never seen Geoffrey Baldwin since; for as they grew older, their visits to Brentshire became fewer, and at last ceased altogether. Their father sold the cottage, and the Midsummer holidays were now spent in London, with the exception of a fortnight or so at the seaside, if it happened to strike Mr. Were that town was unhealthy in hot weather for young people.

I think there is very little more to tell of Marion’s early life. Simple and uneventful enough it had been, and with but few of what are usually considered young girls’ special privileges and pleasures. But, on the whole, by no means an unwholesome training for a rich and vigorous nature, though it might have crushed and stunted a poorer one. Such society as, since she grew to womanhood, she had seen at her father’s house, had been almost confined to that of the few friends whom he now and then invited to a somewhat ponderous dinner. Clever men, all of them, in their different ways; interested, if not absorbed, in topics, much of which Marion hardly understood, but from which, not being a common-place young lady, her quick intelligence led her to glean much material for quiet thought and speculation, which certainly did her no harm, and probably more good than the “finishing” touches she would at this period have been undergoing, had her education been more in accordance with prescribed rules.

That anything in the shape of a “coming-out,” so called, was necessary or even advisable for his daughter, had never occurred to the pre-occupied mind of Mr. Vere; but as some of his friends took a kindly interest in the girl, she had not been quite without an occasional glimpse into the doings of the gay world. And now a very unexpected treat was before her, in the prospect of spending several months at the far-famed wintering place of Altes, under the care of the pleasantest of chaperons, the aforesaid Cissy Archer.

Six or seven years before this, when Marion was a thin, shy little girl of twelve or thereabouts, this cousin, then Cecilia Lacy, had been to her a vision of beauty and loveliness such as she could hardly imagine excelled by any even of her favourite fairy princesses. And this childish admiration had not been misplaced. Cissy had been an exceedingly pretty girl, and now at eight-and-twenty was an exceedingly pretty woman. A good little soul, too, as ever lived. Possibly not exactly over-flowing with discretion, but so thoroughly and genuinely amiable, bright and winning, that it was utterly impossible to wish her in any respect other than she was. She had married happily. Her husband was considerably older than herself, and by his rather overwhelming superabundance of discretion, good judgement and all other model qualities of the kind, more than atoned for his pretty, impulsive wife’s deficiencies, if indeed they could be called such. There were people who called Colonel Archer a prig, but it was well for them that loyal little Cissy never heard the sacrilege; for, dissimilar as they were, yet the two were entirely of one mind in the most important respect, of each thinking the other little short of perfection. The greater part of their married life had been spent in India, where their only trouble had been Mrs. Archer’s extremely delicate health, which at last, about a year before this time, had obliged her to return home to try the effects of the long sea voyage and English air. The experiment had in a great measure proved successful, and Cissy, now hoped to be able, before very long, to rejoin her husband. The one winter, however, which since her return she had spent in England, had rather tried her strength, in consequence of which she had been advised to spend the coming six months of cold weather in a milder climate. She was now, therefore, on the point of starting for Altes, accompanied by her only child, a very small boy known as Charlie, and also, to her great delight, by her young cousin, Marion Vere. A pretty stout battle Cissy had fought with the awful Mr. Vere, before obtaining his consent to his daughter’s joining the little party, but Mrs. Archer had what the old nurses call “a way with her,” and the uncle had rather a weakness for his captivating niece. She was the child of his dead sister, whom not so very long ago he remembered just as bright and happy as her daughter was now. So the end of it was as might have been expected. Mr. Vere gave in, and Cissy came off triumphant.

Master Charlie, at the age of five and a half, was already one of that devoutly-to-be-avoided class—enfants terrible. Frightfully spoilt by his mother since he had had the misfortune to be under her exclusive care, and yet a loveable little monkey too, for the spoiling had principally resulted in making him preternaturally sharp, rather than selfish or exacting. He was a chivalrous mite in his way. He firmly believed himself to have been entrusted by his father with the exclusive care of his mother, and thought it simply a matter of course that his opinion should be asked before any important step could be decided upon. His extreme views on the subject of “Mounseers” had for some days caused the journey to Altes to remain in abeyance; but a bright suggestion of his nurse’s, that he might turn his experiences to profit by writing a book about these objects of his aversion and their queer ways, had carried the day triumphantly.

His deficiencies in literary respects, for he had not yet succeeded in mastering the alphabet, fortunately presented no insurmountable difficulties; as he had already engaged the services of Miss Vere as amanuensis, at a liberal rate of a penny a week, provided she was “very good, and wrote all the book in red ink with a gold pen.”

[CHAPTER] II.

ACROSS THE CHANNEL.

“Besides ‘tis known he could speak Greek,
As naturally as pigs can squeak.”

BUTLER’S HUDIBRAS.

AS Harry Vere turned the corner of the square, a carriage drove past him, in the direction of his father’s house. It passed quickly, but not before he had recognised the lady seated in it.

“What a blessing,” thought he to himself, “that Cissy was looking the other way, or as sure as fate she would have stopped, and cross-questioned me in that chatter-boxing way of hers. People all say she is so lively and charming. I dare say she is, but all the same I think Marion is worth a dozen of her.”

And so thinking, the boy hailed a passing hansom, and was quickly whirled off to the railway station.

Marion sitting alone, meditating sadly enough on Harry and his troubles, was soon interrupted. A soft rustle outside, the door gently opened, and her cousin entered.

“Oh, Marion, dear,” said she, as she kissed her, “I am in such a terrible fuss, and have been so busy all the morning that I have not got half my shopping done. So if you don’t mind, instead of my staying home, will you come out with me and help me to finish it, and we can settle all our plans on the way.”

“By all means,” replied Marion, “I shall be ready in two minutes,” and so she was, being in certain respects somewhat of an exception to young-ladyhood in general. There are, I think, by-the-way, some advantages to a girl in being brought up in a masculine household. With no sisters to back her small delinquencies, she is pretty sure, sooner or later, to discover that it is really much better and more comfortable to follow the example of the menkind about her, in such trifles as punctuality and other “minor morals” of the kind; adherence to which women in general seem to consider by no means an addition to their charms.

Hardly was Mrs. Archer again seated in the carriage when she commenced to pour into the sympathising ear of her cousin the recital of her many and all but overpowering afflictions.

“Only think, Marion,” said she, with the most self-pitying tone, “this whole day have I been rushing about in this carriage to one register-office after another, only varied by frantic dives into institutions for finding, or rather not finding unexceptionable governesses. Me, of all people on earth, to be entrusted with the selection of a model governess as if I hadn’t long ago forgotten every thing any of mine ever taught me. Though I must say, looking for nurses is almost as bad. And with the horrible feeling on me all the time, of how this carriage hire will be running up. It is really too bad of that tiresome old lady and that stupid girl. Just when I meant to be so economical too, and clear off all my bills before going away; for I really owe such a dreadful amount. I declare, Marion, I have a great mind to set off for India at once, instead of going to Altes.”

All this medley of grievances little Mrs. Archer ran through in such a hurry, that but for being pretty well accustomed to her rather bewildering way of talking, Marion would have been utterly at a loss to make sense or it. Knowing by previous experience that it was useless to attempt to put a word, till Cissy stopped from sheer want of breath, she patiently waited till this occurred; and then said quietly,

“Really, Cissy, you should have some pity on my dullness of apprehension. Why have you been running about to register-offices? I heard nothing of all this last night, when I saw you. I haven’t the slightest idea what tiresome old lady and stupid girl you are talking about. Nor can I see how going to India would pay your debts?”

“For goodness sake, Marion, don’t be so precise and methodical, or I’ll shake you,” replied Cissy, “how could I have told you last night what I didn’t myself know till this morning. And as to my bills, of course I am all right in India, as George looks after me there. He is so dreadfully particular never to owe anything, and not to spend too much and it is knowing this that makes me hate so not to manage with what he sends me, for I know it is the very utmost he can afford. I suppose I am one of those people Aunt Tremlett always speaks of as ‘very deficient in good management, my dear.’ But I really can’t help it. I’m too old to learn.”

“Well, we shall be very economical at Altes, Cissy,” said Marion, cheerfully; “I won’t let you buy anything. Not even velvet suits for Charlie! Though I’m sure you can’t want money more than I do,” she continued, with a sigh.

“You, child. What nonsense!” exclaimed her cousin, “if you don’t get money itself you get money’s worth, and no trouble of bills or any thing. You are talking rubbish, Marion. Wait till you are married, and the cares of life are upon you, before you talk wanting money.”

“It’s true, nevertheless,” maintained Marion; “but never mind about that now. You haven’t yet explained about the nurse and governess difficulty. Whom are you looking out for? Not for yourself? I thought you were so pleased with the maid you had engaged; and you don’t want a governess for Charlie?”

“Of course not; but that reminds me that I promised to buy him a bottle of red ink. Don’t let me forget. And also a wedding present for him to give to Foster, for she is a good soul really. She has put off her visit home till next week, so that she will see us safe off from Paris. It was only this morning I heard that the maid I had engaged can’t possibly come. She is ill or something. It is impossible to get one in her place at such short notice, so I have made up my mind, as Foster can go so far with us, to wait till we get to Altes, and get a French girl there to look after Charlie. It will be just as well, for she can teach him French. Provided he does not take it into his head to hate her for being what he calls a ‘Mounseer.’ ”

“Not a bit of him, if you tell him it would be rude and silly. I wish however that I could have helped you by taking my maid. But you see, I can’t do so, unless it had been arranged before, for mine, you know, is a rather venerable individual, and acts housekeeper to some extent. Tell me now about the governess mystery.”

“Oh!” said Cissy, “it was a letter I got this morning from old Lady Severn. They have just returned to Altes from some place or other where they have been during the summer, and she is in a great state to get a good English governess, for the very few daily governesses there have as much as they can do. So hearing accidentally of my going there, she write to ask me if I can hear of one, as it would be so much more satisfactory for me to see the unfortunate young lady in the first place. I daresay it would! But where the being in question is to be seen I haven’t yet discovered. I have got the names and addresses of two or three to tell her about, but I don’t think they seem particularly promising.”

“But what does an old lady want with a governess?” asked Marion; “didn’t you say Lady Severn was old?”

“Yes, of course,” answered Mrs. Archer, “sixty or seventy, or eighty for all I know. A regular old lady. But that does not prevent her having grandchildren, does it? Surely, though, Marion, you have heard of the Severns? Lady Severn is a step-sister of Lord Brackley’s in Brentshire. Did you never hear of them there?”

“No, not that I remember,” said Marion thoughtfully; “but you know I have not been there for several years. How is it the grand-children live with Lady Severn? Are their parents dead?”

“Yes, both,” replied Cissy, “and that’s how we know them. I mean,” she went on, “it was owing to George and these children’s father, the eldest brother, having been great friends at school and college. Old Lady Severn was devotedly attached to this son, Sir John, (the father died many years ago) and she has always kept up a correspondence with George for his sake. She and I have never met but she has written very cordially several times, and I was quite pleased to hear this morning of their being at Altes. I should have got her letter sooner, but not knowing my address, she sent it to George’s mother at Cheltenham to forward to me, which has, you see, caused all this hurry and fuss about a governess at the last minute.”

“How many children are there?” asked Marion.

“Two, both girls, ten and twelve, I think, their ages are. Their father died two years ago, so their uncle, Ralph Severn, is now the head of the family. Lady Severn has never got over Sir John’s death. It was very sudden, the result of an accident. He was her favourite too. I don’t fancy she cares very much for Sir Ralph, but, as far as I can judge, don’t think it is very much to be wondered at.”

“Why?” asked Marion, “is he not a good son?”

“Oh dear, yes,” said Cissy, “unexceptionably good in every respect. In fact, I fancy he is something of a prig and not half so attractive as his brother was. And besides, Sir Ralph has not been very much with his own family. John Severn was splendidly handsome, George has often told me. A grand, tall, fair man, and with the most winning manners. The sort of man who did everything well; riding and shooting and all those sorts of things you know. No wonder his mother was proud of him! Whereas Ralph is quite different, quite unlike his family, for they are all remarkably handsome people, and he is not at all so, I should say. Dark and sallow and gloomy looking. Horribly learned too, I believe. A great antiquary, and able to read all the languages of the Tower of Babel, I’ve been told. So he’s sure to be fusty and musty. He spent several years poking about for all manner of old books and manuscripts somewhere in the East.”

“How do you happen to know so much about him? Did you ever see him?” enquired Marion.”

“Yes, once, on our way to India, he met us at Cairo. He had been vice-consul somewhere, I think, but when I saw him he was in the middle of his poking for these dirty old books. I thought him a great bore, but George rather liked him. He had not the slightest idea then of getting the title, and I believe he hates having it. But I declare, Marion, we have been chattering so about the Severns that we haven’t said a word about our plans.”

Whereupon ensued a Bradshaw and Murray discussion, in which Cissy, having previously crammed for the occasion, came out very strong. Marion felt dull and depressed, but glad that her cousin’s pre-occupation prevented her observing that she was less lively than usual.

The shopping was at last satisfactorily executed. Just as they were about to separate at Mr. Vere’s door, Marion remembered a message which her father had charged her to deliver to Mrs. Archer.

“Oh, Cissy!” she exclaimed, “Papa said I was to tell you that instead of leaving money with me here for my expenses, he has sent some to Paris, so that you won’t have any trouble about the exchange. I was to ask you when we got there, to call at somebody or other’s bank, I have the name written down, and there you will find fifty pounds waiting for you to use for me. And then Papa wants you, after getting to Altes, to make a sort of calculation as to what my expenses will be, and he will send whatever sum you need.”

“Awful prospect!” exclaimed Cissy. “Imagine me drawing out a set of what do you call them?—statistics, isn’t that the word?—for Uncle Vere, as to the average prices and probable amount of bread, meat, fruit, &c, likely to be consumed by a young lady with a healthy appetite in the course of six months. I declare I can’t do it, Marion, but we’ll see when we get there. So good bye till tomorrow morning. I needn’t impress upon such a model as you the expediency of being ready in time, and not forgetting your keys.”

And so saying she drove away.

The next morning saw our little group of travellers fairly started on their journey. Mrs. Archer in a violent, but amiable state of fuss; Charlie, thoughtful and meditative, as became a would-be author, but perfectly ready, nevertheless, to take the whole party, luggage included, under his small wing, and inclined also to be severe and cutting to his nurse on the subject of her lachrymose condition, owing to the fast approaching separation from her darling.

“It’s what I’ve told you thousands of times, Foster,” he observed; “if you love me better than Mr. Robinson, then marry me, and we shall never be parted no more; but if you do marry him I won’t be angry, and come and have tea with you on Sundays if you’ll let me spread my own toast.”

Marion was standing by the book-stall, idly eyeing its contents, when the sound of a voice beside her, enquiring for a newspaper, struck her with a half-familiar sound, and involuntarily she glanced at the speaker. He was quite a young man, six or seven and twenty at most he appeared to be. The momentary glimpse of his face, before he turned away, gave her the same vague impression of having met him before, though where or when she had no idea. A very pleasant face, any way it was. Somehow Cissy’s words, when describing Sir John Severn to her the day before, came into her mind. “A grand, tall, fair man, with the most winning manners.” Of which last, in the present case, she had soon an opportunity of judging, for at that moment Charlie, running up to her eagerly, stumbled and fell, poor little fellow, full length on the hard platform. The blow to his dignity was worse than the bump on his head, and his mingled feelings would, in another moment, have been beyond his control, had not the stranger in the kindest and gentlest way lifted the child from the ground, holding him in his arms while he carefully wiped the dusty marks from his face and hands.

“There, that’s all right again. Nothing for a brave little man like you to cry for, I’m sure,” said he brightly, at which well-timed exhortation Charlie was speedily himself again.

“Thank you very much,” said Marion. “Now Charlie, we’ll go hack to your mamma.”

But at the sound of her voice the stranger started.

“Surely,” he began, but the sentence was never completed, for at that moment went the bell rang, and Mrs. Archer hurrying up, swept them all off in her train, leaving the young man standing with a puzzled expression on his face, as Marion, involuntarily smiling at their mutual perplexity, half bowed in farewell as she passed him.

“Who could that be, Cissy?” said she, when they were at length satisfactorily settled amidst railway rugs and shawls, and Charlie having related his misfortunes to his mother, had been further consoled by a biscuit.

“Who could it be?” she repeated, “that tall, fair man who picked Charlie up so kindly. I am sure I have seen him before.”

But Cissy had not observed him, and though Marion amused herself by trying to guess the riddle she not succeed in doing so. The incident, however, was not without its use, for during the long journey to Paris, it took her thoughts a little off what had been engrossing them to an undesirable extent—her brother’s troubles.

Thinking seemed to bring her no suggestion as to any way of obtaining the thirty pounds, so she at last made the manful resolution for a time to dismiss the subject from her mind, and when arrived at Altes, if no other idea should strike her, to consult with Cissy, who was certainly quick-witted enough, and also thoroughly to be trusted once she really understood the necessity for silence on any particular subject.

The journey to Paris, including that horror of mild voyagers, crossing the channel, was safely accomplished. A day or two in the Paradise of milliners, during which time Cissy underwent torments, compared to which those of Tantalus were as nothing, from the sight of palaces of delight, yclept “magasins de modes,” into which she dared not venture, and from which her only safety was in flight.

A heartrending parting scene between Foster and her beloved Master Charlie, whose heroic fortitude gave way at the last; and again the little party, now reduced to three, are off on their travels.

“Now my dear Marion,” said Cissy, with the air of a very small Jeanne d’Arc about to lead an army into battle, “now our adventures are about to begin. Behold in me your only pillar of defence, your only refuge in danger, and—all that sort of thing, you know. Do be quiet Charlie; what is the matter with you?”

“Foster promised to buy one a gun in case we meet wobbers and fiefs,” said Charlie dole-fully, “and she forgot.”

“Never mind, child, I’ll get you one at Altes. I only wish we were there!” said his mother.

“By-the-by, Cissy, have you heard any more about our lodgings at Altes?” enquired Marion.

“Oh dear yes, I got an answer to any letter just as we started this morning, but I’ve hardly read it yet,” and as she spoke, Mrs. Archer drew it from her pocket. “Yes, that’s all right. It is from Bailey, the English doctor at Altes, to whom mine at home gave me an introduction. It’s really very kind. He says he has engaged a charming apartement for me, and cheap too, and that the daughter of the somebody—who is it, Marion? Oh, I see, the propriétaire. Yes, the daughter of the propriétaire, Madame Poulin, will be very happy to act as maid and look after Charlie. That’s a blessing. And he, that’s Dr. Bailey, will send some one to meet us on our arrival, so after all, Marion, we need not be afraid of meeting with much in the way of adventures.”

“Is inventures fiefs, Mamma?” asked Charlie, “for if they are, you needn’t he afraid. I can pummel them even without a gun. And take care of you too, May, if you’re good.”

“Thank you, Charlie,” said Marion, laughing, “I’ll not forget your promise.” And then, turning to Cissy, she asked if she knew anyone else at Altes besides Lady Severn.

“I had one or two introductions,” Mrs. Archer replied, “but I know no one personally, except old Major and Mrs. Berwick, who are residents there. They used to live at Clifton, and one of the daughters was at school with me. She can’t be very young now, for she was some years older than I.”

And so, chatting from time to time they beguiled the weariness of a long day shut up in a railway carriage. Charlie fortunately was very good, and when he got tired of looking out of the window, had the good sense to compose himself for a little siesta, which lasted till they were close to the town where they were to stay for the night. This they spent in a queer, old-world sort of hotel, where the windows of the rooms all looked into each other, and the beds were panelled into the wall, something like those in old Scotch farmhouses. I write of some few years ago. No doubt imperial rule has by this time “changé tout cela,” and, travelling in France is probably fast becoming as commonplace as anywhere else. The rest of the journey, which occupied two long days, was performed en diligence, an irksome enough mode of procedure, as those who have had the misfortune to be shut up in a coupé for twenty or thirty hours it a stretch cam testify.

The country for some distance was fertile, and here and there, when one got rid of the poplars, even picturesque. But halfway to Altes on the last day, it altogether changed in character, becoming utterly waste and sterile. Now, as far as the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen on either side of the road, but long stretches of bleak, barren moorland. Hardly, indeed, correctly described by that word, for our northern moors have a decided, though peculiar, beauty of their own, wholly wanting in the great, dead-looking wastes of this part of France, known as “les landes.” To add to the gloomy effect of the scene, a close drizzling rain began to fall, and continued without the slightest break, the whole of that dreary afternoon.

Marion, though neither morbid nor weak-minded, was yet, like all sensitive and refined organisations, keenly alive to the impressions of the outer world. A ray of sudden sunshine; a tiny patch of the exquisitely bright green moss, one sometimes sees amidst a mass of dingy browns and olives; or the coming unexpectedly towards the close of a dusty summer ramble on one of those fairylike wells of coolest, purest water all shaded round by a bower or drooping ferns and bracken,—these, and such things as these caused her to thrill with utterly inexpressible delight. But on the other side she, of necessity, suffered actual pain from trifles which, in coarser natures, waken no sense of jar or discord.

I do not, however, believe that this latter class of feelings is ever roused by nature herself, except where she has been distorted, or in some way interfered with. Even in her gloomiest and wildest aspects, the impression she makes upon us is of awe, but never horror; of melancholy, but never revulsion of pain, in some mysterious way so far transcending pleasure, as to be, to my thinking, the most exquisite of all such sensations.

In a half-dreamy, half-pensive mood sat Marion, this dull September afternoon, in the ugly, dingy old French diligence, intently gazing as if it fascinated her, on the far stretch of grim, brown waste all round; the rain dripping and drizzling, and the poor tired horses patiently splashing on through the mud, now and then encouraged by the queer outlandish cries of the driver. At last, the girl glanced round at her companions. Both fast asleep. There was nothing else to do, so she again betook herself to the window, and yielded to the gloomy fascination of the moor and the rain. It began, at last, to seem that her whole life had been spent thus, that everything else was a dream, and the only realities were the great trackless desert, and the diligence rumbling on for ever, where to and where from she seemed neither to know nor care. Then, I suppose, she must have fallen into a doze, or perhaps asleep outright. However this was, she must have shut her eyes for some time, for when she next was conscious of using them, all was changed.

Still the wide-stretching moor all round; but no longer brown and grim, it now appeared a field of lovely shades of colour; for far away at the horizon, the beautiful sun was setting in many-hued radiance, and the rain had all cleared away, except a few laggard drops still falling softly, each a miniature rainbow as it came. Marion watched till the sun was gone. Then the golden light grew softer and paler, the clouds melted from crimson and rose, to the faintest blush, and at last all merged in a silvery greyness, which in its turn gradually deepened again to the dark, even blue of a cloudless night. And one by one the stars came out, each in its accustomed place; all the old friends whom Marion had first learnt to call by name from the windows of the little cottage at Brackley. Somehow the strangeness and the loneliness seemed to leave her as she saw them, and a feeling of tranquil happiness stole over her. But this solitary evening in the old diligence was never forgotten, for it became to her one of those milestones in life, little noticed in passing, but plainly seen on looking back.

Soon, a rattle on the stop y, and lights of another kind from those overhead, told the travellers that their wearisome journey was ended at last. Cissy woke up brisk as ever; for whatever weak points Mrs. Archer may have had, she was certainly strong that of being an agreeable travelling companion. It is a trite saying, that there is no trial of temper equal to that afforded by being shut up together for weeks in a ship, or for days in a railway. But both of these tests Cissy’s amiability had stood triumphantly. Now rubbing her eyes as she sat up and looked about her, she exclaimed brightly, “Here we are, I declare, and now we shall soon be able to put this poor little fellow to bed comfortably,” glancing at still sleeping Charlie. Then, in the sudden inconsequent manner peculiar to very impulsive people, added hastily:—

“Marion, do you know it has just this instant struck me that I quite forgot to answer Lady Severn’s letter. How very stupid and careless of me! I shall have to go to see her to-morrow to explain about it.”

As she spoke, they drove into a covered courtway. The diligence drew up at last with a squeak and a grunt, as if it sympathised with the tired, cramped travellers it had brought so far. A jabber outside, and the conducteur jerked open the door, enquiring if Madame Archère were the name of “une de ces dames.”

“Archère. Archer,” repeated Cissy “yes, certainly, by all means. Now Charlie, my boy, wake up;” and so alighting from their coupé, they found that the very obliging Dr. Bailey had sent a man-servant and carriage to convey them to their apartement at the other end of the queer, rambling, up-and-down-hill little town.

It was not so very late after all, though past poor Charlie’s bedtime, when they found themselves installed in the pretty little suite of rooms, which for several months to come they were to consider “home.”

The first thing to be done, of course, was to get the small gentleman of the party safely disposed of for the night. He pronounced himself too sleepy to want any supper; but brightened up in the most aggravating manner at the sight of pretty Thérèse Poulin, already prepared to commence her new duties as his personal attendant.

“Little Miss Mounseer,” said he deliberately, seating himself on a stool and staring lap in her face, “tell me what your name is.” To which, on Marion’s interpretation, the girl replied smilingly:

“Thérèse, mon cher petit monsieur. Thérèse Poulin.”

“Trays,” repeated he meditatively; “Trays, very well then, Trays. I’ll let you undress me if you’ll always let me spread my bread myself.”

Delighted at the promising aspect of the much-dreaded new nursery arrangements, Cissy and Marion made their escape to the little salle-à-manger, where Madame Poulin, a cheery active old body, had providently prepared tea à l’ Anglais, as she phrased it, for their refreshment.

Happening to ask, as she left the room, if the ladies had any messages they would like executed that evening; any letters to be posted for instance, a thought struck Cissy, and she enquired if the post-office were near at hand. To which Madame Poulin replied briskly, that it was in the very next street, just round the corner.

Then,” said Mrs. Archer, “pray send some one to ask if there are any letters lying there for me, for,” she added, turning to Marion, “it is quite possible there may be, as I gave no address, but, poste restante, and all yours will come under cover to me, as we agreed would be best.”

Five minutes later, Thérèse entered the room with two letters for Madame, which had been waiting her arrival since the day before. Tearing one open an enclosure fell out, addressed to Miss Vere, who seized it eagerly.

“From Harry, I see,” said Mrs. Archer, “what a model brother to write so quickly!”

But Marion did not respond with her usual brightness to her cousin’s remark, for before opening the envelope a misgiving came over her that its contents would not be of a cheerful nature. Nor, alas, were they! Poor Harry wrote in sore trouble. It appeared that the money lender, the “wretched little Jew,” of the boy’s story, had begun to have fears about obtaining from Cuthbert the sum he declared to be owing to him. The very day Harry had seen his sister in London, the man had stopped Cuthbert in the street, and had loudly threatened him with exposure unless the money were speedily forthcoming. The distress and anxiety all this was causing his friend, Harry very naturally felt must be put a stop to, and he wrote to say that he only waited for Marion’s reply, in the faint hope that some idea might have struck her, before making up his mind to risk all, and boldly apply to his father.

Marion shuddered at the bare thought. She was tired too, and over-excited by her several days’ travelling. Cissy was engrossed by her own letter, and did not for a moment or two notice poor Marion’s face of despondency and distress.

Suddenly looking up to tell some little piece of news, in which her young cousin might take interest, she was startled by the girl’s expression. “May, my dear child, whatever is the matter? Have you had news from home?” enquired she anxiously.

“Oh, no,” answered Marion, “at least, not exactly. Nothing but what I knew before.”

But the ice once broken, the impulse to confide her trouble to kind, sympathising Cissy, was too strong to be resisted, and in another minute Mrs. Archer was in possession of all the facts of the case.

She listened attentively, only interrupting Marion by little soft murmurs of pity for her anxiety. And when she had heard the whole she agreed with her cousin that it certainly would be very awful to have to apply to Mr. Vere, only she “really didn’t see what else was to be done.”

“If only, I could possibly spare the money,” she said, “but alas—”

“Cissy, you know I wasn’t thinking of that,” interrupted Marion; “I know you are rather short of money yourself, just now.”

“Indeed, I am,” said Cissy dolefully; “but now, May dear, you must go to bed and try to sleep. I promise you I’ll cudgel my brains well, and we’ll see by to-morrow if we cannot somehow or other help poor Harry out of his scrape.”

With which rather vague consolation, Marion, for the present had to be satisfied. And with an affectionate “good night,” the cousins separated.

[CHAPTER] III.

BLUE SKIES

“To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

WORDSWORTH.

“They order,” said I, “these things better in France.”

STERNE.

THE next morning was bright and sunny. Marion woke early, feeling, thanks to her eighteen years, perfectly rested and refreshed. Under these circumstances too, as might be expected, her spirits were considerably better than they had been the previous night, when she cried herself to sleep in her fatigue and distress.

She lay quietly for a few minutes, hazily glancing round at the quaint little room, exquisitely clean and fresh, certainly, for Madame Poulin was a model housewife, but looking somewhat bare to Marion’s thoroughly English eyes. Still, the very strangeness was pleasant, and the sunshine pouring in through the uncurtained window, was bright enough to fill even this plain little room with light and beauty.

Feeling buoyant and cheerful, Marion sprang up, and was nearly dressed, when a small tap at the door, and the request, “May I tum in?” announced the presence of Master Charlie. His tidings were not of the cheeriest.

“Poor Mamma was very tired and couldn’t get up, and May was not to wait breakfast.” It was really not to be wondered at, for Cissy was by no means a robust person, though fortunate in the possession of a most cheerful disposition and a wonderful amount of energy and spirit. Notwithstanding, however, all the good will in the world, she was now forced to confess herself on the point of being very thoroughly knocked up; so Marion breakfasted alone. But for the remembrance of Harry’s letter, she would have felt very bright and happy this first morning at Altes. The weather was exquisitely beautiful. From the little terrace on to which opened most of their rooms, there was a lovely view of the mountains, standing out sharp and clear against the intense, perfect blue of the sky. What a colour! How utterly indescribable to those who have never chanced to see it! How different from the bluest of our northern skies is this rich intensity of azure! In the reaction of the present clay against exaggeration of sentiment or language, it has, I know, become the fashion to disbelieve and decry many “travellers’ stories” that used to be undoubtingly accepted. Still, as all reactions do, this one has gone too far, and a spirit of cynical scepticism is fast undermining much of the pleasure simple-minded stay-at-home people (certainly a very small minority now-a-days) used to derive from the descriptions of their more fortunate sight-seeing neighbours.

People are told that it is all humbug and nonsense about southern skies having a richness and depth of colour unknown in those of the north. That the Mediterranean is just like any other sea, and the tints of its waters not one whit more varied or brilliant than may be seen at any English coast on a sunny day. Doubtless, the north has its own peculiar and precious beauties, and well and fitting it is that its children should appreciate and prize them. But why therefore set ourselves to ignore or make light of the more vivid and striking loveliness we must turn southwards to see? For my part I can only tell of things as they seemed to me; and I come too of an older generation; one in which people were not ashamed to wonder and admire, heartily and even enthusiastically. No poor words of mine could ever in the faintest degree picture the marvellous perfection of those blue skies of the south, at which I gazed with a very ecstasy of delight, or of the waves like melted emeralds and sapphires lapping softly the silvery sparkling sands. They come to me in my dreams even now, and I wake with a vain longing to hear their gentle murmur.

Think, in contrast, of the faint, sickly hues brought before us by our English words “sky-blue “and “sea-green!” Assuredly those who love chiefly beauty in colour, must not look for it hereabouts.

Marion stood on the terrace for some little time in perfect enjoyment. She was just at the age to take unalloyed pleasure in the loveliness of the outer world. It woke no painful remembrance, stirred up no bitter association or fruitless longing. Alas, alas, that there should be so few, so very few, to whom, in later years, the beauty of this beautiful world, if not altogether hidden by the thick veil of past sorrows, is truly what is always meant be, a delight, a refreshment, “a joy forever.”

Surely it is more or less in our or power keep or make it so? At least, one cheering thought might be drawn from it by even the most weary and heavy-laden spirit. It tells us that we and our sorrows are not forgotten, for there, before us in every leaf and blade of grass the Universal Beauty reveals to us the Universal Love. But a girl at eighteen does not stop to analyse the sensations of pleasure aroused by a beautiful landscape. Marion only thought that it was lovelier than anything she had ever imagined, and well worth corning so far to see. She was fortunate in being so fresh to such scenes. It seems to me most mistaken kindness to take young children sight-seeing, even of nature’s sights. They become familiar with beauty of these noblest kinds long before it is in the least possible that they can feel or appreciate it. And this familiarity ends generally in utter indifference; ignorance in short that there is anything to admire. Not that children should be brought up among dinginess and ugliness. The prettier and sweeter their surroundings the better. But oh parents and teachers, do leave the little creatures simple and fresh! To my mind a child of ten years old, who has been half over the continent, and chatters pertly of Switzerland and Mont Blanc, Naples and Mount Vesuvius, is in-finitely more to be pitied than we children of long ago, who talked to each other with bated breath of these wonders we should see “when we grow big,” and who believed implicitly in Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss family, if not in Liliputland and Hassan of Balsra!

Some time passed, and then Marion reluctantly withdrew from the terrace and re-entered the little salon. It looked quite dark from the contrast with the flood of light outside; and as the girl’s eye fell on her little writing-desk which she had set on the table intending to write to Harry, it seemed as if the darkness had entered her heart too.

“What can I say to him?” thought she, “and poor Cissy ill and tired. I can’t even talk to her!”

And then there came before her a picture of Harry compelled to confess all to his father. A terrible scene of parental reproaches and harshness. Harry cast of for ever, perhaps running away to sea, and his life utterly separated from hers, and from all happy and wholesome influences. It was too dreadful to think of! Very foolish and exaggerated no doubt. Still such things have been! Then too, there was great excuse for Marion’s anxiety, even if carried too far. Harry, though little more than two years her junior, had been almost like a son to her as well as a brother. She was naturally stronger in character than he, and also much more thoughtful and considerate. And then to a gentle unselfish girl it comes so naturally to act a mother’s part at almost any age. I think as I write of a tottering nursemaid of six or seven, all but overwhelmed by the baby in her arms, at first glance quite as big as herself. A cold day and the clothing of both babies of the scantiest. Of course the small nursemaid has a tiny shawl. Small nursemaids always have. Her charge at last succumbs to cold and sets up a dismal howl. Then see the poor little woman, poor baby that she is, untaught, unkempt, uncared for. With what sweetest tenderness she soothes the crying infant, seating herself with infinite pains on a door step, and wrapping round the other the poor little rag of a shawl which was the only protection of her own shivering shoulders. Dear, good little girl. True-hearted, unselfish child. How many such as these are in our streets! Ugly, dirty little creatures we shrink from them as we pass, who yet are already fulfilling nobly, in utter unconsciousness, their part of woman’s work.

As Marion’s dismal imaginations had reached their height, she was again interrupted by Charlie.

“Mamma is awake and wants to speak to you,” was his message, which Marion was very glad to hear.

“May,” said Cissy, after assuring her cousin that she was much less tired now and would be quite herself by the afternoon, “May dear! do you know I’ve been thinking ever so much in the night about this affair of Harry’s. Don’t think me hard or cruel for what I am going to say, for I’m sure I don’t mean to be; but I can’t help having a sort of feeling that perhaps after all it would be best for you to advise Harry to tell all to your father. Though he is stern I don’t think he is really hard-hearted. And then it is such a pity for a boy to begin any concealment from his father. Don’t you think so yourself, dear?”

“As a rule certainly I do,” said Marion, “but in this case it is so different. Cissy, you don’t know Papa. It is not the harshness at the time that I so dread for Harry, though that would be bad enough. It is the thought of the dreadfully galling way he would be treated afterwards. Papa would make him feel that he had utterly lost confidence in him. He would run away before long, I am sure. And think what might become of him! No, Cissy, I can’t advise him to go to my father if there is any possible way of avoiding it.”

“Well, dear, I suppose you know best,” replied Mrs. Archer, “only thinking it over last night it seemed to come before me that it would be right for Harry to confess his fault (for after all it was undoubtedly his own fault), to Uncle Vere, and take his reproaches manfully as a merited punishment. Not that I do not feel very sorry for him, poor fellow, for after all it was a mere piece of boyish folly.”

“And folly which he bitterly repents, I assure you,” said Marion; “but oh, Cissy, can’t you think of any plan to help him? I must write to-day.”

“I can help you so far,” said Cissy. “I can lend you the money for two or three months. You see we are sure to be here for six months, and I can let some of my bills, the rent, I dare-say, run on till Christmas any way. So there will be no fear of our running short. I only wish I could clear poor Harry of this horrible debt altogether. But if the worst comes to the worst I can write to George and he will only think I have been rather more extravagant than usual.”

“That you certainly shall not have to do, dear Cissy,” exclaimed her cousin; “rather than that, I would face Papa myself and risk the worst he could say or do to me, for he should never know it had been Harry’s debt, though I fear he would suspect it; but if you can really lend me the money, Cissy, I promise you I shall find some way of repaying it before we leave Altes. I shall not tell Harry how I have got it, as he would be dreadfully hurt at my having told you, and still more ashamed of my having borrowed it in this way, so remember it is my debt and not his, and if I don’t pay, it you may put me in prison,” he added, gaily, so great her relief at the thought of Harry’s safety.

“Very well, you may be quite sure that I shall do so,” replied Cissy, “and now run off and write your letter. I will give you three ten pound notes, so that you may send the first halves of them to-day.”

Gratefully kissing the kind little woman, Marion obeyed. Her high spirits lasted till her letter was written, and with its precious enclosure carefully posted with her own hands. Then as she walked slowly homewards a little of the weight returned to her mind. How was she now to repay Cissy? That her cousin should suffer more than the mere temporary inconvenience of having advanced the money she was determined should not be the case. Certainly there was no immediate hurry about the matter, but Marion was not one of those people who think it quite time enough to face a difficulty when it is close at hand, and her active imagination at once set to work on all manner of possible and impossible schemes.

She would take in fine needlework and get up at unearthly hours to do it without Mrs. Archer’s knowledge, She would paint same exquisite landscapes that would be sure to sell.

On reflection, however, she saw obstacles in the way of executing either of these projects. She was not, in the first place, remarkably proficient with her needle, nor was she conceited enough to think that her water colours were much above the average of most young-lady-like productions of the kind.

And in the second place, supposing she had anything to sell how could she, an utter stranger in a foreign town, find a purchaser?

And so one after another or half-a-dozen promising looking schemes was passed in review and rejected by her common sense as impracticable.

Still on the whole she was rather amused than distressed. Her mind at ease about Harry, all other considerations seemed trifling. There was even something, exciting and exhilarating about the novelty of the idea. And she was young and strong, and to such the grappling with a difficulty has a curious charm of its own. Even about such a sordid matter as the making or earning of thirty pounds! That in some way or other her voluntary promise to her cousin should be redeemed she was determined. And the girl was not one to undertake what she would not fulfil.

It was too hot to leave the house for some hours after noon. Cissy herself on a sofa in the coolest earner, declaring it felt something like India, and then suddenly remembered her housewifely responsibilities, rang for Madame Poulin, and entered, somewhat vaguely it must be confessed, on the subject of dinners. All, however, was charmingly satisfactory. Though not professing to do much cooking herself, the good lady assured Madame all could be agreeably arranged, for her brother was the head of the best hotel in Altes, but a two minutes’ walk beyond the post-office, and would supply regularly a dinner for any number from two to a dozen, at a really moderate price. Or if ces dames would prefer a little variety now and then, there was the table d’hôte at this same hotel every day at five, where the choice of viands would be greater and the company of the most select.

“That would be rather amusing now and then for a change” observed Mrs. Archer.

Marion preferred the idea of a private repast, but agreed that they might go and “see what it was like.”

For to-day, however, Madame Poulin was requested to order a comfortable little dinner in their own quarters, and after some further conversation on the subject of Charlie’s tastes, the pleasant old lady retired, leaving behind her a decidedly favourable impression, which longer acquaintance only confirmed.

A few minutes passed in silence till it occurred Marion that it would be as well for her to write her father announcing their safe arrival. This task accomplished, and Cissy declaring she was too tired to go out, Marion settled herself in a snug corner by the window with an interesting book, which she had read half of on the journey. But alas for her pleasurable intentions! Hardly had she opened the volume when an interruption appeared in the person of Charlie in a state of tremendous eagerness to write a letter to Foster. The poor little fellow had really been very good all day, doing his best to get on pleasantly with Thérèse, who was certainly good nature itself, and had been making, on her side, super-human efforts to amuse her small charge and to understand his observations. Still as she was us wholly innocent of English as the child of French, it was rather trying work for both. Marion felt that, Charlie deserved some reward, so she laid down her book and established him on her knee with a sheet of note-paper before him and a pencil in his hand.

The nature of their occupation being a very engrossing one Marion did not hear the sound of a carriage drawing up at the door below the little terrace, nor did she pay attention to the slight bustle of bell-ringing, enquiries made and answered, which ensued.

In another moment, however, the door of the room opened and Thérèse ushered in a visitor, whom Cissy started up to receive. Marion was reluctant to disturb Charlie, and being almost hidden by the curtains sat still, quietly observing the new corner who, cordially greeting Mrs. Archer, had evidently not noticed that there was anyone else present.

The visitor was an elderly lady, tall, and well dressed, with some remains of former beauty, of a pleasing, though not very striking, kind. Her expression was gentle, but somewhat anxious and uneasy, which was soon explained, by her announcing herself to be very deaf.

“Very deaf, indeed, my dear,” she repeated to Mrs. Archer in her fussy way. Whereupon poor Cissy, of course, set to work shouting in a shrill, high-pitched tone, of all others the most impossible for a deaf person to catch the sound of.

After one or two trials, however, she got on a little better, and succeeded in explaining to Lady Severn, as Marion had already guessed her to be, her regret at having failed in meeting with a desirable young lady as governess, owing to the delay in the letter’s reaching her which contained her friend’s request.

Lady Severn was evidently disappointed, but consoled herself by entering at great length into her troubles and anxieties with respect to her grand-daughters’ education. Mrs. Archer listened sympathisingly, as was her wont. But so absorbed was the elder lady by her own recital, that it was not till she rose to go, that she remembered to make enquiry for her hostess’s child, or children, and for the last news of Colonel Archer.

The satisfactory state of her husband’s health having been communicated, Cissy, suddenly remembering that, in the confusion of Lady Severn’s unexpected entrance, and the subsequent discovery of her deafness, she had not introduced her young cousin, turned to look for her. There the pair was still seated in perfect content. Charlie, perched on Marion’s knee, as quiet as a mouse, had found ample amusement in peeping from behind the curtains at the funny old lady whom Mamma was shouting to.

But now, at a sign from his mother, he slipped down and ran forward to be kissed and admired as a fine little fellow, and “so like his papa was when I first remember him,” said Lady Severn, adding in an undertone, as a tear glistened in her eye, “They were two such fine boys, my dear, your husband and my poor John. And he left no son to succeed him, you know. Only the two little girls. Not but what they are very dear creatures, but I can’t help wishing there had been a boy. And so does Ralph himself, for that matter! But it can’t be helped.”

Marion listened with some curiosity to these allusions to the family history she had already heard. Half unconsciously stepping forward into the room, Lady Seven’s glance at last fell upon her, and Cissy hastened to apologise and explain. Unfortunately, however, in her eagerness to introduce her pretty guest, Mrs. Archer pitched her voice badly, and the result was that the old lady caught no words of the sentence but the two last.

“Miss Vere,” Cissy had ended with.

“Miss Freer,” repeated Lady Severn with satisfaction at her own acuteness. “Miss Freer, I hope you will like Altes. And you, too, my dear little fellow”—to Charlie—“there are some lovely walks in the neighbourhood, which I do not think Miss Freer will consider too far for these sturdy little legs.”

“Vere,” ejaculated Cissy, “my cousin, Miss Vere.”

“Miss Vere,” again repeated Lady Severn with perfect satisfaction; “oh yes, I caught the name, thank you. I am generally rather clever at catching names correctly. Besides, it is familiar to me. It is the name of our much-respected surgeon at Medhurst. Perhaps he may be a relation of yours, Miss Freer? It is not a very common name.”

Marion replied, with malicious calmness, that she was not aware that she had any relations at Medhurst. But, by this time, Cissy was beyond attempting further explanations. She controlled herself sufficiently to accompany Lady Severn to the head of the stairs, where the good lady favoured her with some further remarks still more distressing to her gravity, on the subject of Miss Freer; and then she rushed back into the room, scarlet with suppressed laughter, though, at the same time considerably annoyed.

“Marion, how could you,” she exclaimed, “standing there in that demure way, and answering that you had no relations at Medhurst? Do you know that the old goose thought you were my companion or Charlie’s governess? I am not sure which. Imagine Uncle Vere’s face, if he had seen it! She told me, as she said goodbye, that she only wished she could meet with just such a young lady for her two dear creatures. I tried to explain, but it was hopeless. Really, you might have helped me.”

“Truly, I don’t see how,” said Marion: “would you have had me confuse the poor lady still more by shouting my name into her one ear while you were doing the same into the other? And she was so pleased at her own cleverness. It would really have been a shame to undeceive her. Besides,” she went on more seriously, “I truly don’t see what harm it does me for Lady Severn, or anybody else, to take me for a governess. Don’t vex yourself about it, Cissy. It really doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” said Mrs. Archer almost angrily, “and it was all my own stupidity, too, in not introducing you properly at first. But I was all but asleep when she came in, and then I couldn’t make her hear.”

“But how does it matter?” asked Marion gently, seeing that her cousin was really annoyed.

“In a hundred ways. I want you to enjoy your visit here, and have a little more variety than in your dull life at home. I want you to make some nice acquaintances, and to be admired, and all that sort of thing, you know. And what a stupid beginning, to be mistaken by our only acquaintance for a governess!”

“Governesses are not altogether debarred from all the pleasant things you name, are they?” said Marion, “I really can’t see anything dreadful either in the mistake or the reality, had it existed. But seriously, Cissy, leave off thinking about it, do.”

This incident, however, or something, gave Marion herself ample subject for reflection; for she was unusually thoughtful and silent all the afternoon. In the course of the evening, Mrs. Archer received a note from Dr. Bailey, apologising for not having already called to see her, and expressing hopes that, when she had got over the fatigue of her journey, Mrs. and Miss Bailey might have the pleasure of making her acquaintance.

“He must be a civil, kindly old man,” said she after reading it, “but I don’t exactly see the necessity of a friendship with Madame and Mademoiselle. I wonder how they know anything about me, unless they call in a semi-professional sort of way on all the papa’s lady-patients.”

“I should hardly think they could find time for that,” said Marion “but perhaps they have heard about you from some one.”

“Oh, yes, by-the-bye,” exclaimed Cissy, “I remember Lady Severn said she had got my address from the Baileys. Really, Marion, it was horribly rude of me not to answer her letter! I suspect it was her eagerness on the governess question that brought her to call so quickly. But I daresay she’s very good and kind. Indeed, I know she is, for George says she was almost like a mother to him, long ago, when his own mother was in India.”

“Lady Severn doesn’t look particularly delicate,” remarked Marion, “do they always spend the winter abroad?”

“Oh dear no. She’s not delicate, if by that you mean a consumption, or anything of that kind. I daresay she is not remarkably strong, and then she is no longer young. Sir John’s death aged her terribly, I believe. But it is principally on account of one of the little girls, that they have spent the last two or three years on the Continent. The younger one, I think—Sybil she is called—who was very ill soon after her father’s death, and her grandmother thought she was going to die, and came abroad in a fright. The child’s all right again now, but I suppose Lady Severn is over anxious and fussy. I fancy, too, she dislikes the idea of returning to Medhurst, for it was there her son died.”

“I can’t help thinking,” said Marion, after a minute or two’s silence, “that there is some-thing unnatural in Lady Severn’s devotion to the memory of the one son, and apparent indifference to the other. Even what she said to-day, about regretting that Sir John had left no boy, struck rue as a curious thing to say, considering that Sir Ralph is her own son. Unless, indeed, he is peculiarly unlovable, or has, in some way or other, forfeited his mother’s affection by his own fault?”

“Well, it does seem queer,” replied Cissy, “but still from what I have heard, I can understand it in a sort of way. You see from boyhood John Severn was looked upon as the heir, and Ralph was so different. Quiet and grave, and not the sort of character to be much noticed in any way. Whereas Sir John must have been a splendid fellow really. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to any one that Ralph could become the head of the house! But if you are interested in the family, May, I dare say you will have opportunity enough while here to study their various peculiarities.”

“What is the other child called?”

“I don’t know, or if I ever did I’ve forgotten. Girls of ten and twelve don’t interest me particularly; though I liked you, May, when you were a little girl,” said Mrs. Archer, affectionately; “you were such a dear, shy little thing, and you had such funny, quaint ways. I never can believe you are the same. You seemed to me to become grown-up all in a minute. With my never seeing you all these years after toy marriage, I kept fancying in that silly way that I should come home and find you just as I left you.”

“Then you don’t think me very childish now, do you?” asked Marion, rather anxiously, “do I look much younger than I am, do you think, Cissy?”

“What has put that in your head all of a sudden?” said Mrs. Archer, laughing. “I thought you were far too wise ever to think about outward looks at all. That’s the very thing about you that is so unlike most girls. You are such an indescribable mixture of extreme girlishness and preternatural wisdom. You look such a perfect child sometimes, at the very moment that I am shaking in my shoes before you, and your dreadfully good advice. You certainly would make a capital governess, Marion, if you kept your pupils in as good order as poor me! Only you are fa too pretty. All the big brothers and gentleman-visitors would fail in love with you to a certainty.”

“Don’t Cissy, please don’t joke in that sort of way. I want to ask you seriously; do you really think I should make a good governess?”

“Of course you would. I believe you might make a good anything you chose. You are certainly clever enough to manage me in a way that fills me with amazement and admiration. But do think of something more interesting than governesses. Thank goodness there’s no fear of your ever having to be one.”

“Isn’t there? Well, I don’t know. Stranger things happen every day. Why Papa might loose all his money, and I might have to earn my bread like a model young lady in a story book.”

“You might, undoubtedly, but also you might, not,” answered her cousin, carelessly, and then changing the subject, she continued: “What should you say to our dining at the table d’hôte to-morrow? Wouldn’t it be rather amusing?”

“If you like,” replied Marion, “though it would be pleasanter if we knew anyone likely to be there. Didn’t you, say you knew another family there?”

“Oh, yes, the Berwicks. I must, look them up, I suppose, for they are old friends, and they don’t know I’m here. But I’m getting sleepy, Marion. Are you ready to say good night? I hope you won’t mind breakfasting alone again, for I want to be quite rested by to-morrow afternoon, so that we may go a walk or a drive. I’m afraid it has been very stupid for you today.”

“But it would be much more stupid if you were to get ill, Cissy dear,” said Marion, “so rest by all means. I shall have breakfast early and perhaps go out a little walk on my own account, with Charlie and Thérèse, before you are up.”

As she spoke her eye fell on a calling-card lying on the table. It was that of Lady Severn, which, Thérèse being rather untaught in such matters, had followed instead of preceding her into the room. Marion took it up and looked at it closely. In the corner was written the temporary address: “Rue des Lauriers, No. 5.” A trifle, but it decided a good deal. “Now that I know the address,” thought the girl, “I can go there in the morning before Cissy is up.”

[CHAPTER] IV.

A FRIEND IN NEED

“Sweet fickle Love, you grow for some,
And grip them to their grief,
As sudden as the redwings come
At the full fall of the leaf.
“And sudden as the swallows go,
That muster for the sea,
You pass away before we know,
And wounded hearts are we.”

W. P. L.

“Rue des Lauriers, No. 5:” last thought in her head at night, first when she woke in the morning. In her dreams too the words had been constantly before her: “No fear of my forgetting the address,” said Marion to herself.

Breakfast over, she arranged with Thérèse and Charlie, to accompany them in their morning walk about twelve o’clock. And then she fidgeted about, unable to settle to anything; rather frightened, if the truth must be told, at the thought of what she was about to do.

It is a crisis in our lives, when, for the first time, we take what we believe to be an important step, entirely on our own responsibility. Well for us when this crisis does not occur too soon. Well too, when it is not deferred too late. Of the two extremes, doubtless the latter is the more to be dreaded. Better some sad tumbles and bruises; better indeed a broken limb, than the hopeless feebleness of members, stunted, if not paralysed for want of natural use. Experience is truly a hard schoolmaster, but we have not yet found a better one. Some day we must be self-reliant, or else be utterly wrecked and stranded. So, if for no higher motive than mere prudence and expediency, it is well not to delay too long the testing of our own powers, the trial of our individual strength.

Cissy had said truly that Marion was a curious mixture of simplicity and wisdom, child and woman. I wonder if in this lay her peculiar charm? But this, indeed, I cannot tell. The charm I have felt, deeply too, but like other sweet and beautiful things, I endeavoured in vain to analyse or define it.

The girl tried to read, or write or work; but all her attempts were useless. Like a naughty schoolboy, who has resolution enough to plan it truant expedition, but fails to conceal his excitement beforehand, so Marion was on the point a dozen times that morning, of betraying her strange intention. Had Cissy not been tired and sleepy when Marion peeped in to wish her good morning, she would infallibly have detected some unusual signs of excitement in her young cousin’s manner. A word from her and the whole would have been in her possession, and then — Marion’s life might have been more happily common-place, and this story of it would, in all probability, never have been written.

However it was not so to be. Twelve o’clock came at last, and with her little cavalier and Thérèse as escort, Marion sallied forth. The Rue des Lauriers she learnt from Thérèse, was about a quarter of a mile only from the street in which Mme. Poulin’s house was situated. Anxious that Charlie’s walk should not be curtailed on her account, and perhaps not sorry in her secret heart to delay, if only for half-an-hour, the task she had set herself, Marion proposed that they should in the first place take a stroll beyond the town. The day was much cooler than the preceding one. Indeed, it was cloudy enough to suggest the possibility of not far distant rain. Marion’s beautiful mountains were all but hidden in mist, and it was difficult to believe in the blue sky of yesterday. Still there were now and then breaks in the mist and clouds, showing that the loveliness was veiled only, not destroyed, Charlie’s remarks apropos of everything, from the fog-covered bills to the sisters of charity with their enormous flapping caps, were amusing enough. But Marion was too engrossed by her own thoughts to listen with her usual attention. As they reached the end of Rue des Laurier’s, a slight drizzle began to fall and Marion told Thérèse to hasten home with Charlie, as she herself had a call to make some little way up the street.

“Tell your mamma, Charlie,” she cried, as they separated, “if she wants me, that I shall be home in a very little while.”

No 5 was at the other extremity of the street, avenue almost it might have been called; for it was prettily planted with trees at each side, and the gardens of the houses, standing, many of them, detached or semi-detached in villa fashion, were bright and well kept. Those at the upper end were evidently of older date. No. 5 especially had a somewhat venerable air. It was built round three sides of a court laid out with turf and flower-beds, in the centre of which a little fountain was playing lazily, A damp, drizzling day, however, is hardly the occasion on which such a place is seen to advantage, and Marion decided mentally that she would have been sorry to exchange the little terrace on to which rooms opened, for the quaint old court-yard, however picturesque.

She rang bravely at what appeared to be the principal door, which to her surprise was opened by an old woman who informed her that the apartment of Miladi Severn was on the other side, au premier. The entrance opposite was open, so Marion ascended a flight of stairs and rang again at the first door that presented itself. This time she felt sure she was right, for a man-servant in English-looking attire appeared in answer to her summons. In reply to her enquiry as to whether she could see Lady Severn on a matter of business, he said that he would ask, and ushered her into a very pretty sitting room, opening, to her surprise, on to a pleasant garden. The mystery as to how she found herself again on the ground floor without having descended any steps, was explained, when she remembered that the Rue des Lauriers was built on a steep hill, at the upper extremity of which stood No. 5. How it came to be number five instead number one was a problem never satisfactorily solved.

Marion waited a few minutes and then the servant re-appeared, to say that Lady Severn would be ready to see the young lady almost immediately, if she would be so good as to give her name.

Here was a poser! Marion could not, yet bring herself to say “Miss Freer.” But a lucky compromise occurred to her.

“I have no card with me,” she said, “but Lady Severn will know who I am if you say I have come from Mrs. Archer’s.”

The name apparently was all required, for in another moment Lady Severn entered the room. She came in looking rather puzzled, but shook hands kindly enough with Marion, saying, as she did so, that she hoped. Mrs. Archer was not feeling ill or that anything was wrong with little Charlie.

“Oh dear no, thank you,” said Marion, “they are both very well. At least, my cou—Mrs. Archer is only a little tired still from the long journey. I should have remembered that you would be surprised at my calling so early, but I trust you excuse my having done so. The truth is I called on my own account, not on Mrs. Archer’s.”

“Indeed!” Lady Severn, looking still more puzzled, when a bright idea suddenly striking her, she exclaimed “oh, perhaps you have some friend, Miss Freer, who you think might suit me as governess for my little girls. A sister possibly,” she continued, for the expression of the girl’s face did not seem to contradict her assumption.

Profiting by Cissy’s dire experience of the day before, Marion took care to speak in a natural, regular tone, which she was pleased to find her companion heard perfectly. Probably her voice was rounder and fuller than Mrs. Archer’s, but however this may have been, the result was eminently satisfactory, and very possibly, still further prepossessed Lady Severn in her favour.

“Not exactly that,” she replied, “I have no sister. But what I have to propose is myself, as governess to your grand-daughters.”

“Yourself, my dear Miss Freer,” exclaimed lady Severn in amazement, “but how can that be? Are you not engaged already to Mrs. Archer? I supposed that you had accompanied her from England. And, excuse me, Miss Freer, but I should think on no account of interfering with any arrangements Mrs. Archer may be depending upon, even though you may not consider yourself exactly bound to her. You must not mind my speaking plainly, Miss Freer. Young people, and you look very young, are not always as considerate in these matters as they should be.”

In spite of herself, Marion felt a little indignant. This was the first slight taste of the disagreeables and annoyances (“insults,” a hotter-tempered and less calm-judging girl would have called them) to which, by the strange and almost unprecedented steps she had taken, she had exposed herself. What is commonly called “a dependent position,”—though whose are the independent positions I have not yet, in the course of is long life, been able to discover,—has, I suppose, peculiar trials of its own. Yet I am anxious in the present case not to be misunderstood as exaggerating or laying undue stress upon those attendant upon governess life. Much harm has been dome already in this way, and were I desirous of entering at all upon the subject, I would much prefer to draw attention to the bright side of the picture; side which, I am happy to say, my own personal experience call vouch for us existing. It is a false position which is to be dreaded, and which is, in the evil sense of the word, a dependent one.

Marion seldom, if ever, blushed. But now, when this speech of Lady Severn’s roused her indignation, she felt the strange tingling sensation through all her veins, which agitation of any kind produced upon her, calm and self-possessed as she appeared. She replied quietly:

“If I were capable of behaving in any dishonourable way to Mrs. Archer, I should not think myself fit to be entrusted with the care of your grand-daughters, Lady Severn. But I assure you there is no such objection to my proposal. I only came from England with Mrs. Archer as a friend. We are indeed very old friends. I should not think of leaving her for more than a part of the day. What I was going to propose was that I should be the little girls’ daily governess—morning governess, I should say, for I should require to spend all my afternoons with Mrs. Archer.”

“Oh, I see,” replied Lady Severn. “You must pardon my not having quite understood the state of the case at first. What I wished, however, was to meet with a residential governess for the young ladies, my grand-daughters.”

Marion winced again, but pulled herself up in a moment. “Certainly,” thought she, “it must sound rather free and easy my speaking these children, whom I have never seen, as the little girls.” So she answered demurely,

“I understood that a residential governess was what you wished for the young ladies, but my idea was that in the meantime, while you have not succeeded in meeting with one, I might at least be able to employ the morning hours profitably. I think any rate I could kelp them from forgetting what knowledge they have already acquired.”

“Certainly, certainly,” replied Lady Severn graciously. “I have no doubt you could do far more than that, and I really think your idea, a very good one. I should, however, like to consult with my niece, Miss Vyse, before deciding anything. She takes a great interest in her little cousins, and is herself most highly accomplished. And as to terms, Miss Freer. Have you thought what you would wish to have as compensation for your morning hours?”

Wince number three! “How silly I am!” thought Marion, and answered abruptly:

“Thirty pounds; I mean,” she added hastily “if I were staying at Altes six months, and I taught the lit—the young ladies all that time would fifteen pounds a quarter be too much?”

Something in the child-like wistfulness of the sweet face appealing to her, so timidly and yet so anxiously, touched a chord in the not unkindly, though somewhat self-absorbed nature of the eider lady, and she exclaimed impulsively,

“Fifteen pounds a quarter too much, my dear? No, certainly not. I should much prefer making it twenty. But, my dear, you are so very young. Are you sure this is a wise step for your own sake? Would not your friends prefer your making a real holiday of this little time abroad with Mrs. Archer?”

“My friends are not likely to interfere,” said the girl, adding sadly, “I have no mother.”

How much those few words left to be inferred! They came very close home to Lady Severn’s heart. “No mother!” A sad little picture, as far as possible removed from the truth, but none the less touching on that account, rose before her mind’s eye of this motherless girl’s probable home. But though somewhat curious to hear more, she made no enquiry, which for aught she knew, might have touched some tender spot. She only said very gently:

“Poor child,” and then went on more briskly, “Well then so far there appears no difficulty. The sum I named would quite satisfy you, Miss Freer? Twenty pounds each quarter.”

“Twenty,” repeated Marion; “that would be forty pounds in six months. Oh no, thank you. I would much rather have only fifteen. Truly I don’t want more,” she added earnestly.

“But my dear, do you know you will never get on in the world if you are so very—the reverse of grasping?” remonstrated the old lady, half laughing at this very eccentric young governess; “your friends, even if they do not interfere with you in general, would certainly disapprove of your not taking as high a salary as is offered you, and which indeed from what I see of you, I feel sure you would do your best to deserve. Besides I should look to you for a good deal. My grand-daughters” (they were no longer the young ladies) “have several masters, for music, drawing, German, and so on. But I should wish you to superintend their preparations for their masters, as much at least as you found time for, besides yourself directing their English studies. You would feel able to undertake all this I suppose?”

“Oh, yes,” said Marion. “I think I could do all that would be required by girls of their ages. I can play pretty well, I believe,” she said, with a pretty little air of half-deprecating any appearance of self-conceit—“at least I was well taught. I don’t draw much, but I could help them to prepare for their master, and I have studied German a good deal and Italian a little.”

“Do you sing too?” asked Lady Severn. “You should do so, and well, to judge by your voice in speaking which is peculiarly clear. Indeed, it is very seldom I can hear anyone as easily as you. I should like the children to sing a little now and then. Not much, of course. Not so as to strain their voices while they are so young, but I should like them to learn a little. Some of the simpler parts of glees, for instance. Their uncle, Sir Ralph Severn, is very fond of music, and has a remarkably fine voice. We often have little concerts among ourselves in the evenings, and it would be nice for Charlotte and Sybil to be able to join in them.”

“I do sing,” said Marion. “Not very much, though. But I could teach them in the simple way you wish, I am sure.”

“Then this terrible money appears the only obstacle?” said Lady Severn, smiling; “but, my dear, you must really think what your friends would say.”

“I assure you,” replied Marion, “l am quite free to judge for myself. Indeed, when I came to Altes I had no intention of making any money in this way. It was only hearing of your difficulty in meeting with a governess; it struck me I might do temporarily, for I was very anxious to make thirty pounds while here. Not more, truly. My friends could not object, for it was—” she went on hesitatingly, feeling she was getting on unsafe ground, “it was for one of them, the nearest of them, that I so much wanted the money at present.”

“Very well, then,” said Lady Severn, “very well. As you wish it, we will leave it so at present:” adding to herself, “though you shall be no loser by it in the end, poor child,” And then aloud, “If you will call here to-morrow at the same time, I will give you my decision, and introduce your pupils to you. As to references, there need be no delay,” (fortunate that Lady Severn was thus easily satisfied, for references hail never entered poor Marion’s head) “for your being a friend of Mrs. Archer’s, is quite enough. And at your age, you cannot have had much former experience of teaching.”

“No,” replied Marion, “I never taught anyone regularly before.”

“I thought so, but I do not regret it. The children will probably be all the happier with you, than if you had been older and more experienced. And, for so short a time, it will be no disadvantage.”

So, with a cordial good morning from Lady Severn, and a kindly message or remembrance to Mrs. Archer, Marion took her departure. With a curious mixture of feelings in her heart, she slowly descended the flight of stairs to the courtyard, so wholly absorbed in her own cogitations, that she all but ran against a gentleman just entering the doorway, whose attention on his side was engrossed by the endeavouring to shut a rather obstreperous umbrella. A hasty “Pardon,” and he passed her, quickly running up the stair. She noticed only that he was slight and dark, and that he had on a very wet “Macintosh;” in those days, when but recently invented, not the pleasantest of attire, unless one had a special predilection for the odour of tar and melted India-rubber combined. “How can anyone wear those horrible coats?” said Marion to herself. But very speedily she was forced to confess that she would not be sorry were she to find herself magically enveloped in such a garment; for it was pouring, literally pouring, with rain. No longer drizzle, but good, honest, most unmistakable rain; and, of course, with her head full of blue sky and brilliant sunshine, as the normal condition of weather at Altes, she had brought no umbrella. There she stood, rather despondently staring at the fountain, which seemed to her in a much brisker mood than when she had observed it on entering. As far as she herself was concerned, Marion really was by no means afraid of a wetting, but then she knew the sight of her with drenched garments would seriously annoy Cissy, whom at this present time she was most especially anxious to conciliate. She thought of turning back and borrowing au umbrella from Lady Severn, but she felt rather averse to doing so, and had just made up her mind to brave it when a voice behind her made her start.

“Pardon, Mademoiselle,” it said, “il parait que vous n’avez pas de parapluie, et il pleut à verse. Permettez moi de vous ofrir le mien.”

The French was perfectly correct, the accent irreproachable, but yet a certain something, an undefinable instinct, caused Marion to hesitate in her reply, as she turned towards the speaker. She stopped in the “je vous remercie” she had all but uttered, and for it substituted a hearty “thank you,” as her glance fell on the gentleman who had a few minutes before passed her on his way in.

“Thank you,” she repeated, “you are very kind indeed.”

“Ah,” he said, with, she fancied, a slight expression of amusement on his quiet, grave face, “my accent still betrays me, I see. But I am not sorry it is so in the present ease, as nothing is more ridiculous than forsaking one’s native tongue unnecessarily. I think,” he added, “my umbrella is a good-sized one, and will protect you pretty well, opening it he spoke. This was more easily managed than the shutting had been, and, with repeated thanks, Marion had turned to go, when suddenly recollecting that she was in ignorance of the name and address of the owner of the umbrella, she stopped and asked if she should return it to number five.

“Yes, if you please,” he replied, “I live here. You will see my name on the handle. But do not trouble about sending it back at once. Any time in the next few days will do. I believe I have another somewhere. And, indeed, I much prefer being without one. These charming coats are much better things,” he added, regarding his attire with supreme satisfaction.

“Charming they may be to the wearer, but assuredly not becoming, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is.” said Marion to herself, as she crossed the courtyard under the shelter of the friendly umbrella. “I do think it was very kind of him, though, to lend me this, so I should not laugh at his queer appearance in that hideous coat, By-the-bye, I wonder what his name is.” By this time she was in the street, and stopped for a moment to decipher the letters on the handle: “R. M. Severn.”

“How funny!” thought she, “really my introductions to this family are rather peculiar. How amused Cissy will be!”

But, with the thought of Cissy, came hack rather uneasy sensations. Marion’s satisfaction at the success of her visit to Lady Severn, had for the moment caused her to forget the still more awful business before her: the confessing all to Cissy, and extorting from her a promise of co-operation, without which her scheme must infallibly fail. The part of the whole which she least liked to think of, was the being known under a false name. And yet this very mistake of Lady Severn’s had been one of the strongest inducements to her to offer herself as governess to these children; for, as Miss Vere, she felt that she could not have ventured on so bold and unusual a proceeding. Now, however, that the Rubicon was passed, it appeared to her that the turning back would entail greater annoyances and mortification on both herself and her cousin, than they could possibly be exposed to by perseverance in her intention. This she hoped to be able to demonstrate to Cissy, and thus to induce her to refrain from opposition. But the more she thought of it, the more she dreaded the coming interview. No use, however, in delaying it. She had hardly made up her mind as to how she should enter upon the awful disclosure, when she found herself at their own door, which was standing open, Cissy anxiously looking out for her.

“Oh, Marion,” she exclaimed, “how very naughty you are to stay out it the rain! I have been in such a fuss about you.”

“Oh, Cissy,” replied the delinquent, “how very naughty you are, to stand at the door catching cold!”

“Don’t be impertinent, Miss, but come in and take off your wet things, and then tell me what you have been about. Oh, I see, you had an umbrella. What a great, big one! Is that your own one?”

“No I got the loan of it,” said Marion hastily closing the conspicuous umbrella before Cissy had time to observe it more particularly. “Go into the drawing-room, Cissy, and I’ll be with you in five minutes, and tell you all my adventures in the rain.”

The five minutes had hardy elapsed when Marion rejoined her cousin. The damp day had rendered a tiny fire acceptable. Cissy was seated near it, and Marion knelt down on the rug before her, looking up into her face with a curious, half-anxious expression on her own.

“What is the matter, May? Have you really any adventures to tell me?” asked Mrs. Archer.

“Yes,” replied the girl quietly, “at least I have a confession to make to you. What do you think I have done, Cissy?”

“What do I think you have done? How can I think till I know? Don’t frighten me, May: tell me quickly what you mean.”

“Well, then, I will tell you quickly, Cissy. What I have done is this: I have engaged myself as daily governess to Lady Severn’s grand-daughters, for three months certainly, and, if possible, for six.”

“Marion,” said Cissy excitedly, “you are joking. You don’t mean that you have really done such a mad, unheard-of thing. You, Marion Vere, a daily governess! You Uncle Vere’s daughter! No, nonsense, you can’t be in earnest.”

“Yes, Cissy, I am, thoroughly and entirely in earnest. It came into my mind yesterday, when Lady Severn mistook me for Charlie’s governess. I saw before me a simple, easy way of making the money I required to pay back poor Harry’s debt, and I determined to carry out my scheme without telling you of it till it was done.” And then she gave her cousin a full account of her interview with Lady Severn, and the arrangements proposed; and without giving Cissy time to make any remarks, or to urge any objections, she went on to show her how easily and naturally the thing might be managed without anyone’s ever being in their secret. How Lady Severn’s mistaking her name, and the fact of her being a perfect stranger in Altes, would effectually prevent her identity with the daughter of the well-known Mr. Vere ever being suspected.

“And after all,” she continued, “it is such a very thrilling thing. I shall only be away for a few hours in the morning, and often indeed shall be home almost before you are dressed. The work itself, such as it is, will be exceedingly good for me in every way. I am really looking forward to it with the greatest pleasure.”

“It is not that part of it I am thinking of so much,” said Cissy gravely, “it is the disadvantage it may be to you in a hundred indirect ways, which you are too childish to think of. Even supposing, as may be the case, that the truth is never suspected, there is something very anomalous and undesirable about the whole affair. Especially the being known under a name that is not yours. Fancy, in after life, if it came out in the queer way that things do, that you had spent six mouths abroad under an assumed name! You must own, Marion, that it is enough to startle me to think of what you may be exposing yourself to; and to think it is all for the sake of that wretched money! As if I would not twenty times rather have lent you six times as much, whether you ever repaid it or not.”

“But Cissy, you couldn’t, and that settles the matter. You couldn’t have lent it, and I certainly wouldn’t have borrowed it without repaying it properly. The choice lay between my doing what I have done, or applying to Papa; and rather than go to him for it, I really think I would be a governess all my life. Besides,” she added, “seeing that so much is done, can it be undone? It seems to me the attempting to undo it, would entail all manner of disagreeable things; explanations of private matters to Lady Severn, a perfect stranger to me, and personally hardly better known to you. One thing I am quite sure of, and that is, that she would not forgive the part I have acted in the matter. Indeed I myself should feel dreadfully small! As far as my chances of enjoying my visit to Altes are concerned, which you, dear Cissy, think so much of, I assure you I am more likely to do so, as Miss Freer, Lady Severn’s daily governess, than as Marion Vere. I couldn’t get over the mortification, at having appeared so cunning. If I really earn the money, I shall feel that I am working for Harry, and somehow that prevents my feeling as if I were deceitful or scheming.”

And the more they talked it over, the more awkward appeared the complication. Or at least, Marion talked Cissy into thinking there was nothing for it but to go on with the plan.

“For indeed,” said Marion, by way of triumphantly summing up her argument, “I am under promise to Lady Severn to undertake the post, if she thinks me suitable. And I couldn’t go back from a promise.”

So, tired of discussion and rather bewildered by Marion’s eloquence, poor Cissy gave in, sorely against her will.

“It really will be great fun, putting every thing else aside,” said Marion. “Remember, Cissy, you must never call me ‘my cousin,’ or ‘Miss Vere.’ Fortunately we have no English servants with us, and Charlie always calls me May. Then all my letters, which won’t be many, come under cover to you. It will all answer beautifully.”

”I am sorry I can’t join you in seeing anything beautiful about the whole affair from beginning to end,” said Cissy,” but having given in, I must not be cross about it. I know you did it from the best of motives, but all the same it was fearfully rash. I believe it’s leaving off raining,” she added, as a sudden gleam of sunshine entered the room, “that reminds me, May, where did you borrow that great umbrella? Did Lady Severn lend it you?”

“No,” replied Marion, and then, not sorry to distract her cousin’s thoughts, she related her little adventure.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Archer, “that must certainly have been Sir Ralph. But don’t feel flattered by his civility, Marion. At this moment I have no doubt he has not the slightest idea if the person he lent it to was an ugly old woman or a pretty young girl. Very probably he would have lent it all the more heartily had you been the former.”

“Very likely,” said Marion, laughing, “outward appearance evidently does not trouble him much.”

And then, as it had really cleared up wonderfully, they set of for a walk.

“Remember, Cissy,” said Marion, “that Dr. Bailey is coming this afternoon.

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Archer, “I had not forgotten it. But Marion, if I give in to this mad scheme of yours, you must instruct me what I am to do. Must I introduce you on all occasions in this new character of yours?”

“There will very seldom be any necessity for introducing me at all. You can speak of me and to me as you always do, which will seem quite natural. I told Lady Severn we were very old friends, and that I had just come abroad with you for the pleasure of the visit.”

“Very well,” said Cissy, “you shall hear me introduce you to Dr. Bailey, as a deserving young person whom I have a very good opinion of.”

But this introduction proved to be unnecessary. Dr. Bailey had hardly sat down before he remarked to Mrs. Archer, how pleased he was to hear that her young friend had undertaken, temporarily, the charge of the studies of the little Misses Severn. “An excellent arrangement,” he pronounced it, “your new pupils, Miss Freer,” (he had heard the name even!) “are charming children. The younger one especially is a great friend of mine. She has been far from strong, poor child, but is now much better. I should not, however, advise her being pressed forward in her lessons. Time enough for that, time enough.” And so he chattered on in a kindly, uninteresting way; told Mrs. Archer the names of the principal families, English, French, Russians, and Germans, who intended this year wintering at Altes; advised her by all means occasionally to dine at the table d’hôte of the “Lion d’Or,” as the variety would be good for her and the cooking excellent; and then took his leave with the promise of a speedy visit from the ladies of his household.

[CHAPTER] V.

AU LION D’OR

“A feast was also provided for our reception, at which we sat cheerfully down; and what the conversation wanted in wit was made up in laughter.”

VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

“YOU HAVE no objection to dining at the table note today, have you, Marion asked Cissy when Dr. Bailey had taken his departure.

“Oh dear no,” said Marion, “I am perfectly willing to go if you like.”

So when the dinner hour drew near, the two sallied forth to the “Lion d’Or.” They were ushered into a good-sized room, where a long table stood prepared for a considerable number of guests, of whom, however, only a few had as yet made their appearance. As strangers, Mrs. Archer and Marion found themselves placed at the lower end; the younger lady’s seat being at the corner, at the right of what in a private house would have been the host’s chair, commanded an excellent view of the whole table. The persons already assembled did not strike Marion as in any way interesting. There were several English, mostly elderly and common-place in the extreme. A rather stout German lady with a very stupid, though not unamiable-looking daughter, and a couple of awkward half-grown sons. Just as Cissy had, in a low voice, confided to her cousin, that in future she thought it would be nicer to dine at home, the door opened to admit several other guests. A little group of three persons, seating themselves on the vacant chairs beside Mrs. Archer, immediately attracted that observant lady’s attention. They were evidently father, mother, and child, the last a nice little girl of fourteen or thereabouts. The mother, still young and bright-looking, was decidedly prepossessing in appearance, and her devoted attention to her husband, evidently the invalid of the party, touched a wifely chord in Cissy’s affectionate little heart. Mrs. Fraser, for so her neighbours soon discovered that she was named, happened to sit next to Mrs. Archer, and but a few minutes elapsed before the two somewhat congenial spirits were in friendly conversation.

Marion, by her position at the table slightly separated from them, felt herself at liberty to sit silent and amuse herself by observing her companions. Of these the liveliest and most conspicuous were some six or seven gentlemen, who had entered the room immediately after the Fraser family. They came in together, talking and laughing, though not noisily, and evidently belonging to one party. Marion soon gathered from their conversation that some excursion was in question, preliminary to which, they had all met to dine at the “Lion d’Or.” She found them an amusing study, as from time to time she glanced at them demurely. In the little group of six or seven young men, several nations were represented.

First came John Bull, in the shape of a good natured, substantial, rather handsome man, apparently about thirty years of age. Then a lively, energetic little Frenchman, brisk and amusing, but with something unquestionably refined about him too. Next to him sat an exceedingly conceited young man, fair, and with good features, of which the most striking was exaggeratedly Roman nose. The nationality of this individual somewhat puzzled Miss Vere, as did also that of his immediate neighbour on the left, a very young man, a boy almost, whose handsome face and thoroughbred air rendered him the most attractive of the party. He and his Roman-nosed friend, soon proved themselves to be famous linguists, for in the course of less than half an hour, Marion heard them speak English, French, German, and a word or two incidentally, of Italian, each, so far as her ear could discover, with perfect ease and fluency. The rest of the party consisted of a frank-mannered young man, an English officer home from India; and a half clerical-looking individual, middle-aged and stiff, whom Marion decided and rightly, to be the tutor of the handsome cosmopolitan. Snatches only of their conversation reached her, but enough to amuse and interest her. The whole party was full of the anticipated enjoyment of the mountain expedition. As far as she could gather they intended starting that evening, driving a considerable distance and ascending to a certain point in time to see the sun rise.

“Not that I care much about seeing the sun rise,” said the heavy Englishman, shivering at the thought; “but I daresay it will give us good appetite for breakfast.”

“After which think you, my friend, to mount still higher?” asked the Frenchman, “or will you that while you repose we then ascend? In this case can we again find you as we recome.”

“You don’t mean to say, De L’Orme,” interrupted the young officer, “that you ever dreamt of Chepstow’s getting to the top! By all means, leave him half way. We should certainly have to carry him the best part of the way up, and he’s no light weight, remember.”

“Nonsense,” said the substantial Chepstow, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t get to the top.”

“Not the slightest, my dear sir, why you should not both get to the top and stay there if you find it agreeable,” observed the Roman-nosed gentleman, with what seemed to Marion a rather impertinent sneer in his tone.

Mr. Chepstow, however, being one of those happily self-satisfied, matter-of-fact people to whom the possibility that they are being made fun of, never occurs, commenced a ponderous speech to the effect that his friend had misunderstood him in supposing that he had any wish to settle for life on the summit of the “pic noir;” which speech unfortunately was destined never to be concluded, for the person to whom it was addressed, taking not the slightest notice of it, turned to his neighbour on the other side, “the handsome boy,” as Marion had mentally dubbed him, saying:

“How is it, my dear —” (she could not catch the name) “your hero has then disappointed you? We are not to be honoured with his company after all? Ah, what a loss! Think only how we might all have profited by twenty-four hours in the company of so learned an individual. You, especially, Chepstow,” he added, turning sharply to that gentleman, hardly yet recovered from the surprise of finding himself not listened to.

“Not so fast, Erbenfeld,” replied the younger man, “I still hope for my friend’s company. Mr. Price met him this afternoon, and at that time he spoke of joining us. Did he not, Mr. Price?” he enquired of the semi-clerical gentleman.

“Certainly, he did,” answered the person addressed. But just then the little Frenchman broke in with a vivacious description of something or other, and Marion lost the thread of the conversation.

All this time Cissy had been chattering busily to her new acquaintances; but though from the position or her seat, she had not so good a view as her cousin of the party of young men, it must not be thought that they had escaped her observation. Far from it. She had been making good use of her time, by extracting from her lively and communicative companion quite a fund of information respecting the little world of Altes society. Before the end of dinner she was perfectly informed respecting the names, rank, antecedents, and expectations, of the several gentlemen composing the group at the other end of the table; and now with a smile of satisfaction she whispered to Marion that she had lots to tell her when they got home.

Poor Cissy! I am afraid it must be admitted that she was something of a gossip; but after all, if no one ever said worse of their neighbours than she did, the world at large would be in a considerably more amicable state of mind than it is at present.

Half way through the meal there was a new arrival. A gentleman, who came in quietly and made his way to the head or the room where the party of young men was seated, and before taking his place said a few words in a low voice to Mr. Chepstow; of apology for his tardiness, Marion fancied, thereby confirming her guess that the substantial Englishman was in the present instance the entertainer of the others.

The appearance of the new-corner seemed to affect the members of the group variously. Mr. Chepstow shook hands with him in a hearty, hospitable way, that would have seemed more in place in an English dining-room than at a French table d’hôte. Erbenfeld greeted him with the slightest possible approach to a bow, which, however, he could not succeed in rendering haughty or dignified as he evidently intended; the Frenchman was airily cordial; and the young officer looked sulky and rather disgusted, as if he thought the jollity of the party had received its death-blow. But over the thin, careworn face of Mr. Price, there crept an expression of pleasure touching to see, and the handsome boy, his pupil, started up with a bright smile of welcome which made Marion think of her own Harry at home.

The stranger’s face had not yet been fully turned in her direction, but the sound of his voice was slightly familiar. That voice, had he known it, was his strong point. Not too deep, though round and mellow; in no wise weak, though it could be gentle as a woman’s; firm and penetrating, without a shade of hardness. And above all it was a voice that rang true. When at last he sat down and Marion saw him distinctly, the familiarity of the voice was explained. It was the hero of the umbrella! As he glanced round the table she half fancied that his eye for a second rested upon her, with the slightest possible expression of recognition. But very probably this was only a trick of her imagination. She was glad when he entered into an evidently interesting conversation with Mr. Price and his pupil; as he then turned slightly aside and she ventured now and again to glance at him. No, Cissy was right; he was most certainly not handsome. And yet not exactly plain-looking either. A certain quiet, self-contained gravity of expression attracted her. She knew him to be an unusually clever man, but had she not known this from hearsay, she fancied she would have discovered it for herself. The brow was good, the eyes too deeply set for beauty, the nose passable, the mouth well-shaped, but with lines about it that would have made it hard, had it not been for a gentler expression, half of humour, half of melancholy, which went and came, now brightening, now saddening, but always softening all the features of the dark, quiet face. Knowing, as she aid, nothing of his history and character, it seemed to Marion that it would not be difficult to understand this man; if not to like him, at least to respect and be interested by him. I think it was what she had heard of his somewhat isolated and solitary life, that inclined her to feel already a sort of regard, pity almost, for him. Her life had not been so bright and full, but that she had some knowledge of lonely hours and lonelier feelings. How easily she could picture him to herself as a boy, shy and backward beside his more brilliant brother. How well she could enter into the little understood suffering carelessly alluded to in those few words of his mother’s when expressing her wish that Sir John had left an heir, “and so does Ralph himself wish, for that matter.”

Marion sat dreaming thus to herself, and half started when a question from Cissy as to what in the world she was thinking of, drew her into conversation with her cousin and Mrs. Fraser. Dinner was about over and in a few minutes the whole party dispersed. Mrs. Archer greatly delighted by Mrs. Fraser’s request that she might call to see her the next day.

“She is really a very nice little woman, isn’t she, May?” said Mrs. Archer, as they were walking home. “Mrs. Fraser, I mean.”

“In the first place, my dear Cissy, she is at least half a head taller than you. As for her niceness I hadn’t much opportunity of judging; she was so busy talking to you. She is certainly very nice-looking, and I like her husband’s face too.”

“Yes, poor man, but how dreadfully ill he looks! There isn’t a chance of his living long,” said Cissy, briskly.

“Indeed! Was that part of his wife’s very entertaining communications?” enquired Marion, drily.

“May, for shame! Of course not. I could see it for myself in half a minute. You do take one up so for whatever one says,” exclaimed Mrs. Archer, indignantly. “But I was going to tell you all I heard about the people here. Mrs. Fraser knows the Berwicks, slightly that is to say. At least she knows the ladies of the family and the old major. By-the-by that sunburnt young man among those gentlemen at the head of the table was the son, young Berwick. Captain, I think he is now. He is home on leave for two years. I never saw him before, but George knows him a little I think. Mrs. Fraser says he’s rather nice by all accounts. Mrs. Berwick and the eldest daughter, Blanche, are rather stupid. Blanche always ill and the mother fussing about her. The younger daughter, Sophy, is good-natured and lively, but is allowed to run rather wild, I fancy. She had a great flirtation with that fair young man with the queer nose. Erbenfeld is his name; a Swede. But he found out in time that she had no money; all this happened last year and so it came to nothing.”

“Really, Cissy, your new friend must be a regular gossip.”

“Not at all, Marion, you don’t understand,” said Mrs. Archer, with a slight shade of annoyance in her tone. I am very glad to have got to know something of all these people in this sort of way. There was no harm whatever in Mrs. Fraser giving me a little information about them. She saw I was a perfect stranger in the place, and I told her I should like to know something about the society here. Perhaps it was a little rash of us both, but I know that she is a nice person. I felt it instinctively, and perhaps she felt the same towards me. Her husband was laughing at her a little for gossiping, but he said she made a point of collecting all the stories she could to amuse him with, for often he can’t leave his room for days together. But if you would rather not listen to my ‘gossip,’ Marion, I’m sure you needn’t hesitate to say so.”

“Nonsense, Cissy, I was only teasing you. Well, what more about Mr. Erbenfeld?”

“About Mr. Erbenfeld? Oh, there’s not much to tell about him. He’s a sort of adventurer, I should say. He has spent the two last winters here on pretence of his health, but really, they say, because he hopes to pick up a rich English wife. He is rather clever—accomplished, at least—and visits all the best people here, being fairly good-looking and gentlemanlike. But Mrs. Fraser says he is a good deal laughed at on account of the airs he gives himself about his old family and grand relations in Sweden.”

“I though he was very rude indeed to Mr. Chepstow,” remarked Marion.

“Oh, yes, that’s the stout, big man. How did you hear his name?”

“I heard that Mr. Erbenfeld mention it. ‘Shepstow’ he pronounced it. But what can a man like Mr. Chepstow be doing here? I am sure he does not look as though he were an invalid.”

“But, my dear child, do get it out of your head that everyone at Altes is an invalid. It is quite a mistake. At least half the people here simply come for amusement. Mr. Chepstow, as it happens, is here to recruit his spirits, for his wife died a few months ago, and he found his home so miserable without her that he couldn’t bear to spend the winter there. He’s an enormously rich man, Mrs. Fraser said.”

“Did you notice the gentleman who came in when dinner was half over?” asked Marion.

“Not particularly. I don’t think Mrs. Fraser knew him—at least she made no observations about him.”

“You should have him, though,” said Marion.

“I; why?” exclaimed Cissy. “But now I think of it, by-the-by, his face did strike me as familiar in a sort of misty way. I know,” she went on, eagerly; “Yes, I know now. It was Sir Ralph Severn.”

“So I supposed,” said Marion; “for it was certainly the gentleman who lent me the umbrella this morning.”

“How stupid of me not to recognize him,” said Cissy; “but I might just as well say how stupid of him not to recognize me! He is a good deal changed, naturally, for it is seven years since I saw him at Cairo, and then only for a few hours. He is more manly-looking, but even graver than he was then. But what a handsome young man that Russian was! Didn’t you think so, Marion?”

“Yes, I liked his face exceedingly,” she replied. “Ah! that explains his speaking so many languages—his being a Russian, I mean. What is his name?”

“Count Vladimir Nodouroff, or some name like that,” answered Mrs. Archer; “his family comes here every winter. He has a beautiful sister. That stupid-looking man was his tutor. The little Friendship’s name is Monsieur de l’Orme. Mrs. Fraser knows him a little, and says he is charming. They are all setting off on a mountain excursion tonight.”

“Yes, I heard them alluding to it,” said Marion; “so after all, Cissy, your Sir Ralph can’t be such a very unsociable person.”

“I never said he was,” answered Cissy; “I only said he was much less popular than his brother. Indeed, I know very little about him; but those learned people are always stuck-up and disagreeable. But oh, May, how I hate this governessing scheme of yours! Mrs. Fraser asked me if you were my sister, and when I said ‘no,’ I, as nearly as possible, added that you were my cousin.”

“Poor Cissy! What did you say? I saw you looking at me rather uncomfortably.”

“I said you were a great friend of mine, and that not being particularly wanted at home, I had persuaded your friends to let you come abroad with me. Thinking it was as well to get accustomed to my rôle in this farce, I went on to say that, rather against my wishes, you had determined on accepting a situation as daily governess while at Altes, rather than be idle. Mrs. Fraser said, ‘Poor girl; well, if she has to do it, the sooner she begins the better?’ I felt such a hypocrite, Marion. I managed to avoid naming you, though. I really couldn’t have called you Miss Freer.”

“But you will have to do so, sooner or later, Cissy; though, I confess, it’s the part I least like of the affair myself. Did you bear anything of the Bailey family from Mrs. Fraser?”

“Yes; she says they are plain, good sort of people. The mother is gentle and amiable, and the daughter takes after her. Mrs. Fraser was here all last winter too. She says there are excellent subscription balls. They are kept very select indeed. You can only get tickets by giving your name to one of the committee. Major Berwick is on it so there will be no difficulty for us if we feel inclined to go. Somehow I don’t think I shall like the Berwicks much. Mrs. Fraser was cautious in her way of speaking about them, but I gathered that old Mrs. Berwick is rather a mischief-maker, though she professes to live quite out or the world, on Blanche’s account. Poor Blanche! At school, I remember, she promised to be a very pretty girl. But she was always delicate.”

An hour or so later, as Marion and Cissy sat quietly reading and working, they heard the sound of several carriage wheels passing quickly. Strolling on to the terrace they caught sight of the party of gentlemen setting off on their expedition. It was a lovely evening after the rain, the moon just appearing as the daylight began to fade. The young men’s voices sounded cheerfully as they drove past, just below the terrace.

“How I envy them!” said Cissy “don’t you, Marion? Think how delightful it would be to drive ever so far in the moonlight!”

“Yes,” replied Marion, with a sigh, “yes, it would be very delightful.”

And as she spoke a sort of childish discontent with her quiet humdrum life came over her. She wished that she was very rich and very beautiful, and free to enjoy some of the many pleasant things that there are in the world. And then her mood gradually altered. A feeling stole over her that a change was impending, what or how she could not have put in words. A vague presentiment that she had reached the boundary of her simple, unruffled girl-life, and that womanhood, with its deeper, fuller joys—but also, alas! its profounder sorrows and gnawing anxieties—was before her. A voice seemed to warn her, to ask her not to be in haste to leave the careless, peaceful present for the unknown, untried future. But he answered in her heart defiantly, “I am not afraid to meet my fate, to take my place in the battle; the sooner the better. I am strong and ready to do my part, and bear my mead of suffering. Only give me my woman’s share of life. Let me feel what it is to live.”

Poor child! Poor little bird, eager to try its newly-fledged wings, little knowing how tossed and torn, how very weary, they would be before they were again folded in rest!

But, thank heaven, there are many bright days in young lives, and of some of these we must tell.

[CHAPTER] VI.

FLORENCE

“With every pleasing, every prudent part,
Say what can Chloe want?—she wants a heart.”

POPE.

FIVE minutes after Marion had left Lady Severn’s drawing-room that rainy morning, another young lady entered it. A tall, handsome girl. Beautiful almost; at least, to those who define beauty as material perfection of form and colour, not troubling themselves too much about the nature of the soul within. That in appearance she was what is called “striking” no one could have denied. Well-made, in a certain sense graceful, and thoroughly well-dressed, her figure would have stood the test of pretty sharp, even feminine criticism.

As to complexion, exquisitely fair; of which, however, she paid the penalty, if such it be, in the colour of her hair, which though fine, soft, and abundant, was undoubtedly red. A deep, warm red, however—in itself, a lovely shade, though, probably, few would admire it as that of hair. But now comes a surprise. The eyes were good, hazel, I think; but whatever their precise tint they always looked deep and lustrous, for they possessed the inestimable advantage—little to be looked for in conjunction with such hair—of dark, almost black, lashes, and clearly-defined, slightly arched, eyebrows to match.

Oh! what ill-natured things were said about those eyebrows and eyelashes! How the sandy freckled Misses Macdonald, husband-hunting at Altes, whispered, about, “What a pity, is it not? Still quite a young person, and really not bad-looking, if she would only leave herself alone.” Each sister, all the same, secretly experimenting in the privacy of her own chamber, with “bâton” and “bandoline;” nay, for aught I know, with camel’s hair-brushes and “lamp-black,” alias “noir velouté;” in the vain hope of rivalling the beautiful Florence. Vain hope truly, for as to eyebrows and eyelashes, the girl was indebted to nature only; and, indeed, had she been less gifted than she was in these respects, I question much if such expedients would have occurred to her, so perfectly satisfied was she with her outward appearance. Naturally so, it must be allowed. The youngest and fairest of the three daughters of a widowed and struggling mother, her surpassing beauty had, from earliest childhood, been impressed upon her as the great fact of her existence. A fact utterly impossible to question or dispute.

That this same beauty was to be turned to the best account in the matrimonial market, followed naturally enough, as the second article of belief in the poor girl’s creed.

Of the two plainer sisters, one, the elder, was married respectably, though by no means brilliantly, to a young curate, over-worked and under-paid; in these particulars, I fear, no exception to his class. The other was hopelessly engaged to a lieutenant in the navy, dependent on his pay, which had hitherto barely sufficed to keep his own head above water, and whose only prospects consisted in a vague talk of far distant “promotion.”

But the there was Florence! Florence the beautiful, whose brilliant marriage was to be the turning point in the fortunes of her family:—to obtain a comfortable living for her older brother-in-law; and in some mysterious way to bring the Admiralty to a sense of what was owing to the meritorious but unappreciated lieutenant.

Hardly was the girl out of short frocks and pinafores, before the anxious, scheming mother set to work to plan her future and obtain for her the desired opportunity. Nor must we judge her harshly. Poverty, and above all poverty of the striving, pinching, keeping-up-appearances kind, is not an influence likely to exalt or refine the character, and poor Mrs. Vyse, no lofty-minded woman to begin with, sank and deteriorated beneath it, as many better people have done before and since.

In one direction her efforts met with success.

It happened thus. Among the few friends, who in the long weary years of her widow-hood and adversity, still remembered Mrs. Vyse, none was kinder, or showed her more substantial proofs of good will than Lady Severn, her husband’s cousin by marriage. No very near connection certainly, but there was another reason for this kindness to the poor widow and her fatherless children. The history of Dame Eleanor Severn, like that of most people in this world, had begun with a first volume, or which the hero was not her lamented and much respected husband, the late Sir Ralph Severn, but a certain harum-scarum sailor cousin of his, a handsome auburn-haired boy, with beautiful black-fringed eyes: Gordon Vyse by name. Of course it was “utterly out of the question.” She was, an heiress, consequently it would never have done for her to have married a prospectless younger son. In time, suppose, she herself was brought to see the thing in this rational light. Any how she married Sir Ralph, her own cousin, and (she being an only child), heir to her father’s title, though not to his wealth, which was all settled on Eleanor Severn herself. So title and wealth were re-united by this marriage; a highly satisfactory arrangement in the eyes of the family and the world at large. Nobody troubled him or herself much about poor Gordon; who before long consoled himself by marrying, considerably beneath him, a rather pretty, inferior-minded, managing little woman, who made him as good a wife as she knew how, and after his death did her poor best by the three daughters left to her care. They got on somehow. Florence seemed the most fortunate, for Lady Severn saw her as a child, took a fancy to her, and paid for her education at a fashionable boarding school. Questionable good fortune; but the girl was capable of gratitude, and honestly loved her mother and sisters. So she made what she truly believed to be best use of her educational privileges, devoted herself to accomplishments, including the art of dressing, and arranging her magnificent hair to the best advantage; and so succeeded as become, before she left school, the show pupil of the establishment. The thought of furnishing the inside of her head with any knowledge really worth acquiring, never occurred to her. And indeed it is difficult to say if she could ever have succeeded in doing so, for the cleverness which she certainly possessed, was of that self-conceited, essentially superficial kind, to teachers far more hopeless to deal with than any extreme of good, honest, modest, stupidity.

Grown up at last, ready in every sense, of the word to “come out,” had there been any one to introduce her, for a tiresome year or two the beautiful Florence languished at home. For some time the distress in the Severn family put a stop to all hopes of a helping hand in that quarter. At last, however, Mrs. Vyse plucked courage. A gratefully expressed and judiciously timed letter to Lady Severn, resulted in an invitation to Florence to visit her abroad for a few weeks. So well had the girl profited by her mother’s instructions that the few weeks lengthened into months, and the latter had already numbered more than twelve, and still there was no talk of Miss Vyse returning home. She knew how to make herself useful her hostess, who, on her side, treated her with the greatest generosity; for she was proud of her handsome young relative, niece as she preferred to call her, though in point of fact the connection was much more remote. Every where Miss Vyse was admired and made much of, and on the whole she had spent a very agreeable year. Still, the great object of her ambition, a wealthy husband, had not been attained, and for some time past this consideration had caused her no little anxiety.

There were difficulties in the way. Lady Severn’s continued mourning and Sir Ralph’s indifference to society, caused their life to be a very quiet one, which to Florence was the more provoking, as she saw plainly that wherever they went, it only rested with themselves to have the entrée of the most select portion of the fashionable world. On coming to Altes this winter, Lady Severn had kindly volunteered to relax little from her usual seclusion on her young friend’s account. Pleasant news for Florence! She was, however, too far-seeing to hope for very much in the way of gaiety, considering the habits of her entertainers; and she was far too prudent to take advantage of Lady Severn’s promise in any but the most careful and moderate manner, fearing lest the slightest appearance of discontent with their somewhat monotonous life, should weaken the influence she had gained over the mother, and, equally important, the favour she hoped to acquire in the eyes of the son.

For it had come to this! Gradually, but steadily, for some months past, Florence’s thoughts had been concentrating to this point. True, Sir Ralph himself was far from rich, but then there was considerable wealth in the hands of his mother, of which, even during her life, were he to marry to please her, Florence had every reason to believe a fair potion would be his.

It was rather a bold idea; but she was not burdened with over-delicacy or scrupulosity, and on the other hand, was by no means deficient in tact, and possessed besides the inestimable of supreme, unruffled self-confidence. And, to do her justice, poor girl, she was strengthened by the thought of the happiness the news of such a marriage would diffuse over the dear, care-worn faces at home!

Two distinct objects lay before her to achieve. In the first place there was Lady Severn to be won over, unconsciously, to her side. Liking must be deepened to affection, esteem, and admiration judiciously heightened; till one day it should suddenly break upon the good lady, entirely as an idea of her own, that here, beside her, in the person of her young favourite, the daughter of her own, never-forgotten, first love, was the very wife for her son; the woman of all others, beautiful, sensible, and cheerful, whom she would choose as a helpmeet for the dreamy, studious, unpractical Sir Ralph. So thought Florence for Lady Severn, and so, ere long, the unconscious lady was made to think for herself. For, though no plain words had as yet passed between them on the subject, Florence believed, and rightly, that the first of her designs was in a fair way towards being accomplished.

But with the contemplation of the second came the “tug of war.” Florence with all her self-belief, with all her happy confidence in the irresistible nature of her charms, felt at a loss. “Tug of war” is not a happy quotation in this instance, for it was no case of Greek versus Greek, but the involuntary repulsion of an utterly alien nature, which so baffled this girl in all her efforts. Ralph puzzled her. There were so many things about him which he could not understand. No wonder! For, if only she had known it, it would have been nearer the truth to say that there was hardly one thing about him; which, with all the good-will in the world, all the capacity for lending herself to his peculiarities on which she prided herself, she could ever have come to understand.

Her opinion of human nature in general was by no means an exalted one. Disinterested goodness, in the highest sense, was to her incredible, or rather inconceivable. Strange, at first sight, this may appear. Strange in so young a girl, for Florence was little more than twenty, and her actual experience of the world had not been very extensive. Strange, and no less sad, for the disbelief, or slowness to believe, in the truth and goodness of our fellows, which is almost excusable in a soured and world-tried man or woman of middle age, revolts and repels us in a very young person. Meeting with it we cannot but suspect some terrible defect in the early up-bringing of such an one, if not some crooked tendency of peculiar strength innate in the character itself.

So, as I said, Ralph puzzled Florence. His devotion to study for its own sake, utterly indifferent to its bringing him name or fame; his distaste for society, in which, nevertheless, his rank and prospects would have insured him a cordial reception; his goodness itself; the union of strength, with gentleness which to her seemed almost weakness; nay, more, his very faults—his whole nature, in short—baffled her utterly.

And, above all, his indifference to her charms! For in this last there was a certain amount of inconsistency. Not in his being always kind and attentive to her; that went for nothing, she knew he would have been so to any woman. But, over and above this, she saw that he admired her. In a quiet, cold sort of way, as if she had been a picture or a statue. She was pleasing to him as a beautiful object, for his perceptions were refined and correct to a fault. And even she felt, and truly, that to be thus admired by him was worth all the coarser adulation of the many—the vulgar triumph of reigning as a ball-room belle.

But this was all! Beyond this point she could not succeed in impressing him. At last, after much cogitation, she decided in her own mind that he, a student, if not already a “savant,” must be of a different nature from other men, and she must content herself accordingly. One comfort certainly was hers. She need fear no rival, past, present, or future. His never having been specially attracted by any young lady had become, as it were, a proverb in the family. And as for anything else—. No; she felt instinctively there was nothing to fear. No awkward entanglement which might have precluded the idea of matrimony, or engendered a distaste thereto. And she was right. The life of this man, from earliest boy hood to the present time, would have stood the strictest scrutiny.

He must have always been, she decided, just the same peculiar being she found him now. It was simply not in him to fall in love, “to lose his head about anyone,” as she phrased it to herself. The best she could hope for was, that he should become, as it were, accustomed to her, regard her with quiet friendliness and respect, feel a certain amount of pleasure in her society; so that when his mother should one day make the proposition to him, for which Florence was thus carefully paving the way, the idea should not, at least, be repugnant to him. He would marry her, no doubt, if his mother wished it, provided it could be done without much trouble or interference with his usual habits. Still, it was mortifying to think of, that with this faint, colourless sentiment she must be content. For though herself too cold, or perhaps too thoroughly selfish, ever to experience the all-absorbing, self-devoting, uncalculating intensity of a genuine love, she was yet by no means insensible to the extreme gratification, the agreeable triumph of awakening such a feeling in all its depth towards her in the bosom of another. She had all the elements that go to the making of a thorough-paced coquette; but she was wise enough to see that, in her critical position, the exercise of any such arts might result in the direst misfortune to herself; and, through her, to the only three people in the world she really cared about.

The one consolation to her wounded vanity—Ralph’s evident admiration of her beauty for its own sake, she sedulously cultivated. She was perfectly aware that it was merely the gratification an artist experiences when brought into relation with harmony of any kind. An utterly different feeling from that, happily far more common-place one, by no means confined to artist natures, which makes the outward form precious for the sake of its owner. The feeling which made makes Rochester declare that “every atom or Jane’s flesh” would, must be, dear to him, in pain, in sickness—yes, even in the wild paroxysms or insanity. The feeling so exquisitely described in another sense, in that lovely picture or motherhood, when Heather tells how precious to her is every freckle on her little Lally’s snub nose.

Well aware that Ralph’s admiration for her sprung from no root of this, kind, Florence found it the more necessary to nurse and cherish, with the utmost care, the delicate plant.

Never, in all the months they had been members of the same household, had Ralph seen her in any but a perfectly well-chosen and tasteful “toilette.” Unless, indeed, on one or two occasions when he had “accidentally” caught sight of her in the most becoming of studied “negligés.” Her magnificent hair escaped from its trappings perhaps, or decorated with a wreath of flowers to please her little cousins in a game of play, which had flushed her usually pale cheeks with an exquisite bloom.

This sort of thing, she imagined, kept up with Sir Ralph her character of gentle artlessness, somewhat subdued by the trials of her past life. Whereas, in reality, she neither sat nor moved, looked nor spoke, when in his presence, save with the one purpose of strengthening and increasing his admiration.

This girl, then, as I have shown her, this Florence Vyse, was the young lady who entered the room that rainy morning, just as Marion had left it.

“Oh, Florence, my love,” said Lady Severn, as she came in, “I am so sorry you did not happen to come before. Such a nice young person has been here applying as daily governess. Really, quite a superior, lady-like girl. Evidently well brought up. I should fancy, from what she said, that her family must be in reduced circumstances. I wish you had seen her; I should have liked your opinion.”

“I am sorry I did not know you wanted me, dear Aunt,” replied the young lady, seating herself on a comfortable low chair, near enough to Lady Severn to be heard without the disagreeable exertion of raising her voice. “I am very glad to hear of a suitable governess for the dear pets,” which, indeed, she was from the bottom of her heart; having, of late, had sundry most uncomfortable misgivings, that unless such a person appeared she would before long, for the sake of her character of unselfish amiability, be obliged to offer her services temporarily at least, as instructress. Mentally resolving that this unexpected deliverance must be accepted, even though the candidate for the undesirable post should be a suspected tool of the Jesuits, or something equally objectionable, she proceeded to cross-question Lady Severn on the subject, and had got the length of hearing that Miss Freer was a friend and guest of Mrs. Archer’s, when the door opened and Sir Ralph entered.

“Oh, Ralph,” said his mother, “I was just telling Florence what a nice governess I have all but engaged for the children.

“Indeed,” replied he; “she must have dropped from the skies to oblige you, for at breakfast this morning Florence was bewailing your disappointment that somebody or other—Mrs. Archer, wasn’t it?—had not succeeded in finding some unfortunate lady willing to torture herself and the children for so many hours a day. Really, mother, I think you might leave them alone for a while. Sybil is too delicate and Lotty too flighty to do much good at lessons.”

“I must beg you, Ralph, not to speak in that foolish way. How can you possibly be able to judge about the education of young girls? Florence, who really may be allowed to have an opinion on the subject, agrees with me that they have been running wild far too long.”

“Oh dear Aunt, pray don’t speak as if I would dream of interfering,” interrupted Miss Vyse, “I only happened to say the other day that I wished I had my school-days over again, now that I saw to how much better profit I might put them. Though, perhaps, after all it would not be much use; for I am so stupid. And being with minds I can really look up to, has made me of late painfully conscious of my own deficiencies!” she added, with a gentle little sigh.

She wanted Sir Ralph to say that he hated learned women, but he took no notice of her self-depreciation. “He is really horribly boorish,” she thought to herself, as after waiting till she had finished her pretty little speech, he turned to his mother and enquired, “Where and how have you heard of a governess then, mother? Of course if she is a desirable person it will be a good thing for the children. I am quite aware such things as lessons are unavoidable, sooner or later.”

For the second time Lady Severn related the history of the lucky coincidence that had brought Miss Freer as an applicant for the post. She ended by saying that the young lady (she had called her “a young person” to Florence, but “Ralph had such queer notions”) had only just left her. “Ah then,” he said, “I must have seen her as I came in. I lent her my umbrella.”

“Lent her your umbrella, Ralph. What for?”

“To keep off the rain,” he answered, quietly.

“Pray, Ralph, do not answer my questions in that ridiculous way. You know what I mean, perfectly. You are not in the habit or lending your umbrella to the first person you happen to meet in the street.”

“Certainly not, mother. And as it happens I did not meet this protégée of yours in the street at all. I saw her as I came in, standing at the foot of the stairs, looking out at the rain rather disconsolately. It never occurred to me till I had run up stairs that perhaps she had no umbrella, and so I ran down again to see. I had no idea who she was. Young or old, ugly or pretty. I passed her quickly, thinking of other things; which was stupid enough, for I might have thought a lady would not be standing, staring at the rain for any pleasure in the prospect.”

“And when you ran down again did you see her, Cousin Ralph?” asked Florence, softly.

“Yes, Cousin Florence,” he replied jestingly; “but I am afraid I can’t tell you much about her. I only saw a young girl with pretty brown hair, for she was standing with her back to me, and hardly turned round to thank me, so eager was she to run off as soon as she had the umbrella.”

He did not add that as the girl had retraced a step or two to ask his address, her veil had flown back and revealed a pair or grey eyes, which the word “pretty” would not have adequately described. But “pretty brown hair!” What evil genius prompted Ralph to use the expressions? The first seed sown of many, that were in time, to yield a harvest of bitter fruit. The first small prejudice planted in the heart of a jealous and scheming woman. Pretty brown hair, indeed,” said Florence to herself, and she never forgot the words. Ralph so seldom seemed to notice anything, pretty or ugly, about a woman, that the slightest expression of admiration at once caught her attention. And in the present case another feeling was aroused. Notwithstanding all her self-satisfaction Florence was, to tell the truth, touchy about the colour of her hair. She thought it, really and truly, the loveliest that ever grew on a woman’s head, but yet she was aware that there was a diversity of opinion on the subject. Vulgar people, uneducated eyes might call it a defect. Spiteful people might say spiteful things about it, were they so inclined. She was sure that Ralph admired it, for under none of these heads could be classed. He, whose taste was refined and cultivated in the extreme, must, could not but think it beautiful; but yet — she could not endure him to speak of another woman’s “pretty brown hair.”

They went in to luncheon. As they were taking their seats at table they were joined by the two grand-daughters, “the children,” Florence’s “dear pets.” Charlotte, the elder, was a tall, well-grown child. Handsome already, and with promise of considerable beauty of the large, fair type. “Quite a Severn,” as her father had been before her, and already well aware of the fact.

Sybil was as unlike her, as in childhood, Ralph must have been unlike his handsome brother. A quiet, mouse-like little girl, with a pale face and straight, short-cut, rather dark hair. Sweet eyes though; and, indeed, far from plain-looking, when one examined the features more critically. Few, probably, were ever at the pains to do so, for she was precisely the sort of child that gets little notice; partly, perhaps, because she never seemed to expect it. She was rather an unsatisfactory child. Her grandmother loved her and cherished her, but yet somehow she did not, or could not, understand her. Her great delicacy and the constant care and indulgence it necessitated, would have utterly spoilt most children; but it had not done so with Sybil. Not, at least, in the ordinary way.

Lotty, one could see at the first glance, was tremendously spoilt. But she was by nature honest and hearty, though selfish, headstrong, and conceited. Conceited, however, in a childish, innocent sort of way. Laughable enough now and then. After all I hardly think the conceit was indigenous in her. I suspect Miss Vyse had had a hand in the sowing of it. Lotty was her avowed favourite, and on the whole had not improved in character since Florence had taken up her residence among them.

Lotty burst into the room and seated her-self opposite her cousin, without any of the gentle, half appealing air so pretty to see in a girl of her age.

“Soup” she said, coolly, in answer to her grandmother’s question as to what she would take; “that’s to say if it isn’t that horrid kind we had yesterday.”

But observing a look of gentle reminder on the face of Miss Vyse, who intended Sir Ralph to see it too, she added—

“I beg your pardon, Grandmamma, for calling it horrible, but Florence and I both think—”

“Never mind what we both think, Lotty,” interrupted Miss Vyse, smilingly. “Sybil, dear, will you have some or this?”

Little Sybil was sitting quietly by her uncle; her favourite place, for though frightened of him, she was always pleased to be near him. He stroked her smooth, soft hair, and she looked up in his face with a smile.

“Are you going up the mountain to-day, Uncle Ralph?” he asked.

“Not to-day exactly, but very early to-morrow,” he replied.

“What you going to do early to-morrow?” asked Lady Severn, who had not heard Sybil’s question.

“I am going to ascend the ‘Pic noir’,” he answered. “I think I mentioned it some days ago. There is a whole party going; rather more than I care about, but poor Price and Vladimir Nodouroff were very anxious for me to join them. We dine at the Lion d’Or today, and start this evening, if fine. I shall not be back till the day after to-morrow, but I suppose that will make no difference to you?”

“Oh, dear no,” his mother, “but by-the-by, do not stay away longer than that. I want you on Friday to take us all to Berlet. It is rather too far to go without a gentleman, but the view, I hear, is lovely.”

“I shall be very glad to take you,” said Ralph, quite pleased at Lady Severn’s wish for his company; “you must all come. The children, too, may they not?”

“We shall see,” was the reply. Oh, how provoking a one to childish ears.

“By-the-way,” said Ralph, “a Mr. Chepstow has arrived here lately, who is anxious to make your acquaintance, mother. He is a friend of the Bruces, at Brackley, they told him of our being here. He has lately lost his wife. He seems an honest, stupid sort of man. Shall I tell him you hope to see him? He is going with us tonight.”

“Any friend of the Bruces, of course, I shall be glad to see,” said Lady Severn, in a rather formal voice—(in her heart she disliked the Bruces; her eldest son’s wife had been one of them)—“but I must say, Ralph, you manage to describe people and things in a most peculiar way.”

“In a most characteristic way, I should say,” murmured Florence, as just at that moment her aunt rose from table and led the way from the room.

She could not tell if Ralph heard the little compliment. He gave no sign of having done so. Truly, his manners were very objectionable!

[CHAPTER] VII.

THE LITTLE GOVERNESS.

“ ’Twas frightful there, to see
A lady richly clad as she,
Beautiful exceedingly.”

CRISTABEL.

“Here’s metal more attractive.”

HAMLET.

AS she had promised, Marion called the next day to hear Lady Severn’s decision.

She had not much fear of its being unfavourable, and from the readiness with which the servant threw open the drawing-room door, announcing her, unprompted, as Miss Freer, she felt little doubt but that the fact of her new honours had already transpired to the retainers of the family.

Lady Severn was not in the room. Only Miss Vyse. She was lying on the sofa as Marion entered, but rose and came forward to meet her. For half a moment, one of those strange half-moments that seem so long, the two girls looked at each other. Florence was mentally measuring this little governess with the pretty brown hair. Measuring and weighing her; and she did it correctly enough so far as her weights and measures went.

“Not pretty, but pleasing. Not striking, but with a something that might develop into a certain kind of attractiveness. Well-bred looking, certainly, and as to character—well, not exactly a goose, but by no means a person much to be dreaded. Far too ingenuous and transparent.”

Florence felt relieved, and inclined to be amiable and patronising; which agreeable sensation increased when in Marion’s grey eyes she read evident admiration for herself. More than admiration. Marion’s first glance at Florence actually dazzled her. She had forgotten all about the existence of such a person as Miss Vyse, and had entered the room expecting to see only Lady Severn, when this radiant creature rose to greet her. In her gracious mood, Florence spoke courteously and kindly, yet with a certain inflection of condescension, some few words of apology for Lady Severn’s absence.

“My aunt was obliged to go out this morning,” she said; “she asked me to see you instead, and talk over a little the plans for my cousins’ lessons; the hours, and so on. So pray sit down, Miss Freer. Lady Severn may perhaps come in by the time I have given you a little idea of what she wishes.”

“Thank you,” said Marion. And as Miss Vyse seated herself gracefully, she thought again, “How very beautiful you are.” But, somehow, she did not think it quite in the same way since hearing Florence speak. Something in her voice repelled her. Not the tone of condescension, that was simply rather laughable; and irritating, perhaps, for the moment. It was no incidental inflection that she disliked. It was something in the voice itself: or, rather, it seemed to her something wanting in it. An absence, not of depth nor refinement, nor sweetness; of no one of these exactly, but of something including and yet surpassing them all. And, in a strange way, it seemed to her as if her immediate perception of a want in the voice revealed to her at the same moment an equally indefinable want in the whole being of the woman before her. And yet she was so beautiful! If only she had been a picture instead of a living being, Marion felt that she could have admired her with perfect satisfaction!

But she was brought back from these fancies by Miss Vyse’s proceeding to inform her that Lady Severn was anxious to know if she could commence her new duties as soon as the following Monday.

“Oh, yes,” said Marion; “I am sure Mrs. Archer will be able to spare me by then. She only asked me to be as much with her as possible this week, as I can help her in arranging things a little.”

“Certainly,” said Miss Vyse; “and then as to hours. Can you be here regularly by half-past nine?”

To which proposal also Marion agreed; and had next to listen to a dissertation from her companion on the subject of the studies to which Lady Severn especially desired her to direct her grand-daughters’ attention. Miss Vyse had rather got herself up for the occasion, and talked so fluently about books and methods, the system on which she herself had been educated, &c., &c., that she ended by frightening Marion far more than Lady Severn had done the previous day. She was just beginning to wonder if Miss Vyse would ever leave of talking, when, to her great relief, their tête-à-tête was interrupted by the entrance of Lady Severn and her two grand-daughters.

“Good morning, Miss Freer,” said the elder lady. “I was quite obliged to go out early this morning with my grand-daughters, but I have no doubt Miss Vyse will have said to you all I wished. I am glad you are still here, as I can now introduce these little girls to you. Charlotte, my dear, this is Miss Freer, who has kindly undertaken the charge of your studies.”

Charlotte came forward frankly enough, shook hands with Marion in an easy, careless sort of way, and then, turning to Miss Vyse, began eagerly to relate to her the event of the morning—a visit to the dressmaker; not seeming to think it necessary to bestow any more attention on her prospective governess.

Little Sybil put her hand in Marion’s, shyly, glanced up half wistfully in her face, and there, evidently reading encouragement, drew closer and held up her mouth to be kissed. Marion’s heart was, of course, won on the spot, and she began talking pleasantly to the child. Sybil answered timidly, but at last, gathering fresh courage from Marion’s gentle manner, became, in her childish way, quite communicative and confidential.

“We are going a beautiful drive on Friday,” she said, “all the way to Berlet, and we are to have tea in a cottage at the top of the hill. Will you come too?”

“No thank you, dear,” said Marion, “but you will tell we all about it on Monday.”

“Yes, but I would like you to come. Grandmamma, will you please let Miss Freer come to Berlet?”

Marion felt rather annoyed at the child’s pertinacity, but the suggestion appeared strike Lady Severn in a different way.

“I should really be very glad if you would come, Miss Freer,” she said, cordially, “it would be an excellent way of making acquaintance with the children. And Mrs. Archer too. Do you think she would care to be of the party? We shall have two carriages, so there will be plenty of room.”

Marion thought it very probable that Mrs. Archer would enjoy the little excursion, and promising to let Lady Severn know their decision by the following day, took her departure, after another kiss from Sybil, a graceful bow from Miss Vyse, and a rather cross shake of the hand from Lotty, when interrupted by her grandmother, in the midst of her conversation with her cousin.

“How I wish Sybil were to be my only pupil!” thought Marion, as she walked home, “though Lotty seems a frank sort of child. But I am sure she is dreadfully spoilt. I can’t make up my mind about Miss Vyse. How very handsome she is, and yet I don’t think I like her. I wonder if I should have liked her better had we met as equals, instead of my being a governess. I wonder how she and Sir Ralph get on.”

And so she wondered on till she got home, and then amused Cissy by her morning’s adventures. Mrs. Archer had never heard of Miss Vyse, and from Marion’s description of her felt curious to see her. She readily agreed to join Lady Severn’s party to Berlet, and evidently was beginning to think better of her cousin’s masquerade, as she called it; seeing that its results so far, had been by no means disastrous. That afternoon and the next brought quite an influx of visitors to Mrs. Archer’s pretty little drawing-room. Mrs. Fraser, who proved on further acquaintance to be really an intelligent and agreeable woman. Mrs. and Miss Bailey, the former a good motherly creature, and the latter a pretty childish girl, incapable of inspiring, very vehement feelings of any kind. Her chronic insipidity was increased at the present time by her imagining herself to be the victim of unrequited affection, in which melancholy condition she fancied it suitable and becoming to sit with her head on one side, staring before her in a vacant and slightly imbecilic manner. She took it into her head to form a sudden and vehement friendship for Miss Freer, who was rather puzzled by her at first, not being behind the scenes of the silly Dora’s heart. Marion’s want of responsiveness, however, did not appear to chill her in the least. She grew more and more communicative, and by the end of the half hour’s visit had all but confided to her patient listener the name of her cold-hearted hero. Fortunately Mrs. Bailey rose to go before this juncture; greatly to Marion’s relief, for her experience of the gushing order of young ladies had been extremely limited. Friday brought the Berwick family en masse with the exception, that is to say, of the invalid, Blanche. Major Berwick was an old Indian, which expresses a good deal. His wife was sharp and fussy, and evidently perfectly ready to gossip on the smallest provocation. Sophy, a rough and ready sort of girl, impressed Marion rather more favourably than the rest of the family. Her strong affection for her brother, “Frank,” the good-looking young officer of the table d’hôte party, inclined Marion’s sisterly heart towards her. Before the end of the visit, Captain Berwick himself appeared. He was full of the adventures and amusement they had met with in their mountain expedition, which, he declared, had turned out famously.

“Our party was capitally arranged,” he said, “just the right number, and all well up to the work. Excepting Chepstow,” he added, to his sister.

“Poor man,” said she, “what did you do with him?”

“Left him half way,” he replied, “but he really is an awfully good-natured fellow. It is too bad the way that conceited Erbenfeld makes fun of him.”

Sophy coloured:

“I don’t think Mr. Erbenfeld is half as conceited or disagreeable as Sir Ralph Severn,” said she.

“Indeed,” said Cissy, “I am sorry to hear Sir Ralph is so undesirable a companion; for we are going to drive to Berlet with the Severns tomorrow. “

“Sophy is very foolish, Mrs. Archer,” said her brother. “Sir Ralph is much nicer when one comes to know him. I, myself, did not at first take to him at all, but now that I have seen a little more of him I really like him.”

Sophy looked rather annoyed:

“Next time you intend to change your opinion of any one in such a hurry, I wish you would give me notice, Frank,” she said; and then turning to Mrs. Archer, she began a rattling conversation on every subject under the sun, making fun of all the people it Altes, one after another.

Marion felt disappointed. Something in the girl had attracted her, but this sort of talk wearied and repelled her. She much preferred hearing from Captain Berwick a more detailed account of his mountain expedition, which he, pleased at the interest this pretty girl took in his recital, was nothing loth to give her. He several times alluded to the young Russian, Nodouroff.

Marion asked who he was.

“Oh, they’re rather grand people, I believe,” said young Berwick; “the father is an official, of course, something about the court. The mother and daughter come here almost every winter. The daughter, Countess Olga, is the most beautiful girl here. At least, in my opinion. Some people admire Miss Vyse, Lady Severn’s niece, more. Have you seen her?”

“Yes,” said Marion “I think her very beautiful.”

“So she is undoubtedly; but the Countess Olga’s expression is much more to my taste. I am sure you would think so too. There is something melancholy about her face. I don’t know if she is really so, for I have never spoken to her.”

“But beautiful people always look more or less melancholy, don’t you think?” asked Marion.

“No, not all. Miss Vyse doesn’t look melancholy, though she tries it, now and then,” said Captain Berwick; “but her face is too hard for that sort of thing, I hate a hard expression. Even a goose like Dora Bailey is more to my taste than a beauty like Miss Vyse.”

“Who is the English gentleman with Count Vladimir?”

“Oh, his tutor, Mr. Price, you mean. He used to be Severn’s tutor. Poor wretch! I do think tutors are more to be pitied than any order of human beings, except governesses. Do you remember, Sophy, how fearfully you bullied yours?”

A frown from Sophy revealed to the unfortunate Frank that he had made a terrible blunder.

Marion pitied him, though not a little amused at his confusion. She said quietly:

“I don’t think all governesses are to be pitied. Not, at least, those like me who live at home and only give daily lessons. You don’t think I look very wretched, do you, though I am daily governess to Lady Severn’s little girls?”

“Pray forgive me, Miss Freer,” said the young man; “and pray believe I am the very last fellow on earth to—“

“To say anything to hurt any one else,” suggested Marion, good-humouredly. “Yes, I assure you you are quite forgiven, Captain Berwick.”

But the young soldier did not forget the little incident, nor did it tend to lessen the favourable impression left on his mind by Mrs. Archer’s pretty friend.

As Mrs. Berwick took leave she expressed a hope that they should “see a great deal of Mrs. Archer.”

“You must always come to us on Thursdays,” she said. “By-the-by, what day are you going to choose for receiving your friends?”

It had not occurred to Mrs. Archer that any such formal arrangement would be necessary. But Mrs. Berwick and Sophy hastened to explain that every one had an “at home “day at Altes. The English society being limited, people found it necessary to make the most, of it; and, as Sophy said, “It was very provoking to spend an afternoon in calling on one’s friends, and to find them all out. And then, on getting home, to find that half of them had been calling on us.”

So Cissy told her always to come to see her when she could find no one else at home.

“We shall not be such gad-abouts as other people, Miss Berwick, for we have not a great many acquaintances, and besides I am not very strong,” she said.

“Oh, within a fortnight you’re sure to know every one here,” said Sophy: “and I assure you you had better fix a day.”

“Well, then, you choose one for me.”

“Let in see,” considered Sophy; “ours is Thursday. Then on Wednesday the band plays, and I know several people have Mondays and Tuesdays. Suppose you take Fridays?”

“So be it,” replied Cissy; “then on Fridays, if you have nothing better to do, I shall hope to see you here, to join Marion and me in our afternoon tea, which, when it is fine enough, we can partake of on the terrace. I haven’t much of a garden, but what there is looks pretty enough from the end of the terrace. “

“That’s a capital idea, Mrs. Archer. Tea on the terrace. You may expect to see Sophy and me every Friday without fail,” said Captain Berwick. And then the visitors departed.

“Oh, how tired I am, May, “exclaimed Cissy, curling herself up in a corner of the sofa. “I am not in love with the Berwicks. I like the son the best. Ring for tea, Marion. I must have a cup, or I shall faint.”

So they consoled themselves for the fatigues of the afternoon. Before-dinner tea was as yet hardly a domestic institution; but Cissy, be it observed, had a mind in advance of the age.

“How I hate old Indians!” she exclaimed. “Marion, if ever you catch me talking Indian ‘shop,’ I give you leave to cut my acquaintance.”

Friday came, but in clouds and rain. So the Berlet excursion was given up, and Marion’s becoming better acquainted with her pupils had to be deferred till Monday, when her new duties began.

The first morning’s lessons passed off better than the inexperienced governess had ventured to hope. Charlotte was marvellously docile and attentive, though evidently totally unaccustomed to anything like regular study. The secret of her good behaviour transpired in the course of the morning, when the children informed Miss Freer that if they were very obedient and industrious at lessons up to Thursday week—which happened to be Sibyl’s birthday—on that day the Berlet expedition was to take place, on a much grander scale than had been originally contemplate.

“And you are to come, Miss Freer, and that lady where you live,” said little Sybil, launching out into such enthusiastic descriptions of all they should do and see, that Marion was obliged to remind her that by too much talking in school-hours they might be in danger of breaking their grandmother’s condition.

“Little girls can’t he industrious at lessons if they’re thinking of birthday treats all the time, you know, Sybil.”

So the child dutifully set to work again, labouring hard at words of two syllables, which was the stage she had reached in her spelling-book. She was very ignorant for ten years old; and, indeed, the little she did know, had been imperfectly and irregularly acquired. She was naturally slow, though by no means stupid. There were strange, fitful gleams of decided originality about her; a delicacy of perception, and an almost morbid sensitiveness, which would have suffered terribly in the hands of many teachers. But Marion, though herself so young and inexperienced, understood the child instinctively. Still, the spelling-book was hard work, and but for the extreme docility of the pupil, and the patient gentleness of the teacher, would have been the cause of no little irritation to both.

Lotty was decidedly clever when she chose to exert, or rather, I should say, to concentrate her powers. Strong and healthy, quick-witted and warm-hearted, under good management, she promised to turn out a sensible and intelligent woman. But, hot-tempered and self-willed, fond of admiration and amusement, the risk to such a nature from injudicious training was far greater than to that of her little sister. That Lotty would develop rapidly for good or evil was evident. Sybil, on the contrary, might be stunted or withered, but would never run wild.

But they were both interesting children; and Marion was very happy this morning in the receipt of a grateful letter from Harry. A letter which cheered her about him in every way. He had “had a good lesson,” he said, but, thanks to her, had incurred no disgrace; and he begged her to believe that never again would he cause her such sorrow and anxiety. “I won’t make grand promises,” he wrote, “but I think the future will show that I mean what I say. I shall always feel that but for you, dear May, my whole life might have been spoilt. As you ask me not to tease about where you got the money I won’t do so, but I do trust it has not greatly inconvenienced or harassed you.”

So the morning’s studies passed off prosperously, and Marion wrote on two slips of paper her report of her pupils for Lady Severn’s edification.

“Charlotte: obedient and attentive.”

“Sybil; very painstaking.”

For which she was rewarded by a hug from Lotty, and an affectionate kiss from Sybil.

That afternoon, as Cissy was resting on the sofa, after walking with Marion to return some of the visits paid them the previous week, they were surprised by the entrance of Sir Ralph Severn.

He seemed pleased to renew his acquaintance with Mrs. Archer, and apologised for not having recognized her at the table d’hôte.

“Your not knowing me was very excusable, I think,” said Mrs. Archer; “remember, it is seven years since we met at Cairo.”

“Seven years only,” said he; I could fancy it was fifteen.”

“Do I look such an old woman already?” asked Cissy, maliciously.

Sir Ralph looked confused.

“I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Archer,” he exclaimed. “I am sure I have said so. Indeed, I doubt if I was ever anything else. My remembrance of you at Cairo is that you then looked very, very young. A mere child, I was going to say, but I am not at all sure that such an expression would not be as bad as the other was.”

“Supposing we take the middle course, then,” said Cissy; “being neither an old woman nor a mere child, I may consider myself as somewhere between the two. But seriously, Sir Ralph, though you needn’t call me an old woman, I hope, for my husband’s sake, you will consider me as an old friend. George will be really pleased to hear of your coming to see me; and if you don’t find the company of two ladies unendurably stupid, I hope now and then you will look in when you have nothing better to do.”

Sir Ralph seemed pleased.

“You are very good, Mrs. Archer. I shall like to come and see you now and then. I should like to hear about George—Colonel Archer, I should say. You don’t know how kind he was to me long ago. Indeed, I have more to thank him for than any one knows. I may as well tell you what I mean, for I should like you to tell him about it some day. It was long ago, before you were married. An unlucky, stupid misunderstanding had arisen between my brother, his friend, and me. John was, naturally enough, provoked at me, and I, utterly mistaking him, was in a wretched state of wounded pride and mortification. My mother tried to set it right, but failed. I was on the eve of going abroad, with all this miserable cloud between us, when, luckily, George Archer came to Medhurst. It is a thankless task meddling between relations, but he braved it, and succeeded, as he deserved. John and I parted the best of friends; and you will understand how doubly grateful I felt to Archer, when I tell you that I never saw my brother again in life.”

Cissy’s warm little heart was won.

“Thank you, Sir Ralph,” she said, “for telling me. But have you never seen George since then?”

“Oh, yes, at Cairo, you remember? But that was very soon after all this happened. And at that time I little thought that my farewell to John (thanks to Archer, a friendly one) was indeed a farewell for ever in this world. Yes, I should much like to see Archer,” he added, dreamily. “I think he would enter into some of my feeling’s, for he was very fond of John. Those poor little girls! Have you seen them, Mrs. Archer?”

“No, not yet; but I have, of course, heard a great deal about them from Marion. Marion, dear,” she went on, but looking round no Marion was to be seen.

“Ah—Miss Freer,” said Sir Ralph. “How stupid I am! I have frightened her away by engrossing you in my selfish conversation. Pray, Mrs. Archer, ask her to return. I really want to thank her for her kindness in undertaking to teach those dreadfully ignorant children.”

Charlie, at that moment appearing most opportunely, was sent to recall the truant.

“May!” he shouted, “that gentleman wants you, this minute.” Which intimation or her presence being desired, did not by any means hasten the young lady’s movements.

When she re-appeared she was greeted with reproaches from Cissy and apologies from Sir Ralph.

“I thought you had a good deal to talk about,” she said.

“Nothing, I am sure, that Sir Ralph would have minded your hearing, May,” said Cissy; “he has only been making me more conceited than ever about my husband.”

“The surest way to winning Mrs. Archer’s favour, I can assure you,” observed Marion.

It had been on his lips to say something to her of his satisfaction that she had undertaken the charge of his nieces; to give her even, should he have an opportunity, a little advice about these children. But something in her manner made it impossible for him to carry out his intention. A certain unconscious taking-for-granted of perfect equality in their positions. An utter absence of anything like the feeling of dependence in her whole air and bearing. Nothing presuming, nothing affected. She was evidently quite at her ease, and accustomed to feel so. Anything more unlike the shrinking, modest young governess he had, from his mother’s description, expected to meet, it was utterly impossible to imagine. He could not make her out.

“Whoever she is she cannot have been brought up with the idea of occupying a dependent position,” he said to himself, and then thought no more about it; but gave himself up to the, to him, rare pleasure of spending an hour with two agreeable women, one of whom was lively and amusing, and the other something more than either. What he could, not exactly say. Not beautiful, not brilliant, not fascinating. What then? Something that suited and interested him, something original, unlike what he had seen in other women; and so unconscious, so artless, so thoroughly womanly. Over and over again he found himself asking, “Where lay the charm?” Grey eyes, brown hair, sweet voice, sweeter smile, which of you all has to answer for it? None, yet all. A something including and surpassing all these, a something so subtle and indefinable, that not in all the long roll of years since this old world began, has poet breathed or minstrel sung, words, which, to those who have never felt it for themselves, can in the least picture or describe this strange, sweet, sad mystery.

Poor Ralph! It was only the beginning of the old, old story, after all, little though he thought it, that pleasant afternoon, when he sat in Mrs. Archer’s pretty drawing room, talking lightly and merrily even, with these two. Of books and flowers and music; of all manner of things under the sun, it little mattered what. Marion somehow had a knack of understanding one’s words almost before they were uttered. She said the right things in the right way. At least, when she felt she was with those who, on their side, liked and understood her. How they all three talked and laughed, agreed and argued!

Ralph, walking home, thought what a pleasant, refreshing afternoon be had spent. After all he was glad to find he was not yet so old and stiff but that he could now and then unbend a little. Of course, when in company with younger and more brilliant men, he could not expect to be so made of and entertained as he had been today. But for once in a way it was a pleasant change. And then he fell to thinking how strange it was that he should be so different from other men.

“Why have I always lived so lonely and apart? Why have I never cared, when I was younger and in the way of such things, for any sweet, gentle woman, who might in time have learnt to care for me?”

Surely it was very strange! It never occurred to him that after all it was not yet too late for the tree of his life to bear the fruit of love; all the richer and fuller, perhaps, for having been somewhat late of maturing.

He imagined himself altogether beyond the pale of such things. Too hard and dry, too naturally unimpressionable. Might he not think so? He had escaped heart-whole from much fascination, for his life had not been altogether spent in a study or a cell. He had seen beauty in all its forms. He had even, most unanswerable of all, been unimpressed—nay, rather revolted than, attracted—by charms displayed expressly for his benefit. Those of the beautiful Florence Vyse.

[CHAPTER] VIII.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

MARGARET. “For this reason I should wish never to be
in love all the days of my life. The loss would
grieve me to death.”
MEPHISTO. “Joy must have sorrow, sorrow joy.”

HAYWARD’S FAUST.

THE lessons went on fairly enough. There were days on which Lotty’s conduct could not be truthfully described as “obedient and attentive;” days, too, on which poor Sybil was provokingly absent and dreamy. Still there was nothing of sufficient importance to risk the children’s forfeiture of the promised treat.

Sybil, indeed, was not deserving of blame for the sleepy, stupid moods that occasionally over-powered her. As Marion learnt to know her better, she found that these always preceded periods of sharp suffering for the poor child. Some hours of headache, almost maddening in its intensity, and invariably followed by prostration and weakness painful to witness. It seemed to Marion, anxious for the child’s peace and comfort, that there must be some cause for these attacks, for they evidently had to do greatly with her mental and nervous condition at the time. She tried gradually to gain the little girl’s confidence, for that there was something to tell she felt convinced; but whenever she thought that Sybil was on the verge of disclosing her secret distress, the child seemed to grow frightened again, and would say no more.

The days passed on smoothly and pleasantly.

The acquaintances Mrs. Archer had already made, were increased by a few more, so that every day brought its own little plan or amusement. Some one to call on, the band playing on the “Place,” and on Fridays their own miniature reception on the terrace. Captain Berwick was as good as his word, and unfailingly made his appearance. He asked and obtained Mrs. Archer’s permission to introduce to her his friend, Mr. Chepstow, who was certainly fully deserving of the epithet of “the most good-natured fellow living.” Notwithstanding his condition of inconsolable widowhood, he managed to get on very comfortably, every house in Altes was open to the reputed millionaire; whose endless variety of carriages and horses was always at the disposal of his friends. He entreated Mrs. Archer to consider as her own a charming pony-carriage, which she was one day rash enough to admire. The offer was made in all sincerity and kind-heartedness, but Cissy had too much good sense to avail herself of it to any great extent. Not so, Sophy Berwick. She, notwithstanding her brother’s remonstrations, drove Mr. Chepstow’s ponies, rode Mr. Chepstow’s horses, whenever the inclination seized her for either of these amusements. And this at the very time that she was making fun of him in all directions.

“Vulgar old cotton-spinner, that he is,” she said one day to Marion, when they happened to meet at Mrs. Fraser’s, “Frank is always going on at me as if one should be as particular with those sorts of people as with one’s equals. He is certainly very good-natured, otherwise I would not put myself under an obligations to him. But seriously, he may be very much obliged to me for exercising his horses. He is so fat, the pony-carriage would break down if he got into it, and he is far too frightened to attempt to ride. Don’t you agree with it Miss Freer?”

“I would, much rather you did not ask me, Miss Berwick,” replied Marion.

“As if I didn’t know what that means!” exclaimed Sophy; “I can see you don’t like me, Miss Freer. I am too noisy and rattling for you. But truly I am very good-tempered, and I would really like you to tell me what you think. I won’t be a bit offended, I assure you.”

“Well, then, if you will have, it, Miss Berwick,” said Marion, “I do think your brother is quite right. In the first place it would to me be very disagreeable to put myself tinder an obligation to any one, a gentleman especially, who was not much more to me than a mere acquaintance. And in the second place it would be to me not merely disagreeable, but actually impossible, to receive benefits from a person whom I looked upon with the contempt which you appear to feel for Mr. Chepstow. More than contempt. You ridicule and deride him constantly, make fun even of his personal peculiarities on all occasions. I don’t like it at all, Miss Berwick, though I should never have said this unless you had asked me.”

Marion spoke indignantly, for she really felt so.

“Vulgar,” Sophy had called Mr. Chepstow. Strange perversion, that she should be so sharp to perceive the outward deficiencies in speech or manner of the honest, good-hearted millionaire, and yet be so utterly blind to the far more repulsive vulgarity of her own speech and behaviour.

Sophy did not answer. Marion began to fear she had really offended her, when looking up she saw that the girl’s face, though grave, bore by no means an angry expression.

“Miss Freer,” she said at last, “I think I deserve what you say. I have got into reckless, careless sort of way of going on. To tell you the truth, I am not very happy at home, and so long as I can get something to amuse me; riding or driving, or making fun of people, it does not much matter which, I fear I think very little about how I get it. Frank is the only person who cares about me at all, and even he gives me credit for very little good. One thing I will promise you, and that is, to leave of making fun of poor old Chepstow, so long, at all events, as I continue to use his horses. There now, Miss Freer, isn’t it true that I am good-tempered?”

“Yes, indeed it is,” said Marion heartily.

“And even more amiable than you think,” Sophy went on; “I don’t believe any other girl with a favourite brother would have tried to make friends with a girl that same brother is always praising up to the skies, and holding up as an example sister to follow! You will let me make friends with you, Miss Freer, won’t you?”

“Don’t you think I have done so already?” asked Marion. “I assure you I wonder at myself for speaking so plainly as I did. I could not have done so to a person I had not a friendly feeling for.”

“Thank you,” said Sophy, “that is a very pretty way of taking out the sting of your very decided home-thrust.”

And then, girl-like, they rambled on to other subjects. The excursion to Berlet, in which the Berwicks were to join, the balls Sophy was anticipating, and some few allusions to the home-troubles she had hinted at. Her father’s irritability, her mother’s overweening partiality for Blanche, Blanche herself, with her everlasting ailments:

“And yet with all, I think I could be very fond of her if she would let me,” said Sophy “she is really sensible and satisfactory when she chooses; and long ago, Miss Freer, she was so pretty.”

“So I have heard,” said Marion, not however encouraging further revelations of Sophy’s home secrets.

The girl was really not without many good qualities. Wanting in delicacy no doubt, far too self-confident and pronouçée; but affectionate, and open to good impressions. And above all thoroughly honest and true. This was the reason of the liking Marion felt for her. This was why she so much preferred Sophy, rough, and even in a sense unrefined, to the graceful, faultlessly lady-like Florence.

Sir Ralph’s call was not repeated for some little time. Cissy and Marion met him one day, and when the former reproached him for not having come again to see her, he confessed that he had been on his way thither the Friday previous, but meeting Captain Berwick and hearing from him that this was “Mrs. Archer’s day,” had thought better (“or worse,” Cissy suggested) of it, and turned back.

“Well, then, I think you very silly and provoking,” was all the sympathy he got Cissy.

“Particularly provoking,” she added, “for we had quite a little concert, and I know you like music. Indeed a little bird once told me you sang yourself. Bye-the-by, we are short of a gentleman’s voice for that pretty glee, Marion,” turning to her; “I wonder if Sir Ralph would take that part.”

Sir Ralph looked any thing but inclined to do so:

“Truly, Mrs. Archer,” he said, “you give me credit for powers I do not possess. Little birds at Altes, I am sorry to say, as well as in England, tell a great many stories. My singing is a thing of the past, not that it ever was much of a thing at all.” And then, as if anxious to change the subject, he turned abruptly to Marion. “Do you sing then, Miss Freer?” he asked.

“A little,” replied she, and then smiling at herself, she added, “you must not laugh at my very young-lady-like answer. In my case it is simply the truth.”

“I should like to hear you, and then I can judge,” he said.

And without giving Cissy time to invite him to come to her house, for the purpose of criticising her guest’s singing, he exclaimed hurriedly, “I really must not keep you standing. Good morning, Mrs. Archer, I am sorry I have forfeited your good opinion.” And so left them.

“Well, Marion,” said Cissy, “though I thought him so nice the other day, I cannot say that I think so now. He is very rough and ill-tempered.”

“But Cissy, you teazed him on purpose. I think you deserved what you got.”

“You are an impertinent little cats Miss Freer,” replied her cousin. After which relief to her feelings, Mrs. Archer recovered her good humour, and they spent an amicable evening. This was the day before Sybil’s birthday. There had been some slight discussion, consultation rather, between Lady Severn and her niece, as to the advisability of inviting the daily governess to make one of the party to Berlet. But as Lady Severn wished to pay some attention to Mrs. Archer, and it would have been awkward to invite that lady without the young girl whom she evidently looked upon as a valued friend and guest, it was decided that the invitation should include Miss Freer. The children would have rebelled had their dear Miss Freer been left out; indeed they would naturally enough have looked upon such an omission as a gross breach of promise, as their governess had been asked to make one of the previous expedition, which the weather had put a stop to.

“Still, dear aunt,” suggested Florence the sensible, “I think for every sake, her own especially, it is well to show that she is invited as the children’s governess. Of course, had she been governess to any one else, the mere fact of her staying in Mrs. Archer’s house would not have made it necessary for you to notice her.”

“Of course not, my dear,” replied Lady Severn; “but how can I draw the distinction? I quite agree with you about it but I don’t see how it is to be done.”

“It is difficult, certainly,” said Florence, “that is the worst part of a somewhat anomalous position, like Miss Freer’s. I am glad she is coming to-morrow, for I am anxious for the children’s sake to get to know her a little better. I have gone into the schoolroom now and then, but I am so afraid of seeming to interfere in any way.”

“It is very kind of you, my dear, to take such an interest in the children. Miss Freer could not possibly think any such kindness on your part, interference,” replied Lady Severn.

“Well, I don’t know. It is better not to risk it. Besides, I really think Lofty and Sybil are getting on very well with her. But do you know, aunt, I can’t quite make her out. She is inconsistent altogether. Her manners, her general appearance, her dress even, are not the least like what one expects in a girl brought up to be a governess.”

“I have not observed any inconsistency of the kind,” said Lady Severn, “but I dare say my eyes are not so quick as yours. The only time I can really say I had any conversation with her was the first day she called, when she appeared a gentle, modest young person. I understood her to say that her family had met with misfortunes, which had led to her becoming a governess. These things happen every day you know, my dear, in the middle classes. Rich one day and poor the next! But to return to our plans for to-morrow. What arrangement do you think will be best about Miss Freer?”

“I was thinking,” said Miss Vyse, “that it might be as well if Miss Freer were to come as usual, at half-past nine, and start from here in the same carriage as the children. You, dear aunt, might propose to call for Mrs. Archer on your way past her house, which would save her the fatigue of the walk here in the first place.”

“Yes,” said Lady Severn, “that will do very well. Knowing that Charlotte and Sybil are with their governess, I shall feel comfortable about them. I must consult with Ralph about the carriages. There are our own two, and Mr. Chepstow has offered any of his we like.”

For Mr. Chepstow had called at the Rue des Lauriers, and been graciously received by the dowager and her fascinating niece.

It was part of Florence’s worldly wisdom always to be civil to people in the first place. Time enough to snub and chill them if they turned out useless, or not worth cultivating further. Easier, far, to do this than to undo the prejudicial effects of a haughty or freezing manner on first introduction. And in the present case, that of Mr. Chepstow, if he were only half, or even a quarter, as rich as report said, he would still be well deserving of some judicious attentions—according to Miss Vyse’s scale of judgement on such matters.

Another little téte-à-téte conversation on the subject of the Berlet expedition took place this same Thursday evening between Mrs. Archer and her cousin. A note from Lady Severn, explaining the proposed arrangements for the morrow, brought the subject to Cissy’s mind.

“By-the-by, May,” she said, “what are you going to wear to-morrow?”

“I was thinking about it,” replied Marion, thoughtfully. “I should like to wear that gauzy dress; white, you know, with rosebuds. It is deliciously cool, and then my white bonnet matches it so beautifully.”

“Well and why shouldn’t you wear it?” asked Cissy; “it is a perfectly suitable dress.”

“Suitable, certainly, for Marion Vere, but I am by no means sure that it is equally so for Miss Freer,” replied Marion.

“What on earth do you mean, child?” asked Cissy.

“Just what I say. As long as I have to act, what you call my farce, I think I should do so as consistently as possible. And from some little things Lofty Severn has told me, I am afraid I have been careless. Miss Vyse, it appears, has remarked, in the children’s hearing, that my dress is unbecoming to my station; and, of all people in the world, I should least like her to begin making remarks about me.”

“Why ‘her of all people?’ ” asked Cissy.

“I don’t know,” replied Marion. “I don’t like her, and I don’t trust her, and that’s about all I can say. No doubt if she were finding out about who I really am, she might do me great mischief.”

“Of course she might,” said Cissy. “But one thing I must say, Marion: were it found out that you are not really Miss Freer, I should feel myself bound, in your defence, to tell the whole story from beginning to end. I could not consent to screen Harry’s part in it any longer.”

“Harry has had no part in it,” said Marion, eagerly. “You know this governessing scheme was most entirely my own. No one could be blamed for it but myself.”

“H—m,” was Cissy’s reply. “I am by no means sure of that. I should most strongly object to meeting Uncle Vere after he had learnt my part in it! However, I should bear that, and more too, rather than not let your conduct be seen in a proper light. But there’s no good talking about it. I trust, most devoutly, you may continue Miss Freer, as long as we are at Altes. I have only warned you what I should think it right to do, in case of any fuss.”

“Very well,” said Marion.

But the conversation was not without its result. With a girlish sigh of regret, she put away the pretty rosebud dress, and laid out for the morning’s wear an unexceptionably quiet and inexpensive costume of simply braided brown-holland.

But I question much if so attired, my Marion was any less winningly lovely than in the glistening, delicately-painted gauze. The grey eyes looked out as soft and deep from under the shade of the brown straw hat, as from among the flowers and fripperies of the dainty Paris bonnet. Still, she was not so much above the rest of her sex and age but that this called for some self-denial.

Friday morning was cloudlessly fine. The sky was of that same even, intense blue, which had so impressed Marion on her first arrival in the south; and as she walked to the Rue des Lauriers, the girl felt joyous and light-hearted. She found Lotty and Sybil watching for her. In their different ways the two children were full of delight at the prospect of the day’s treat, and Marion felt glad that lessons had formed no part of the morning’s programme, as such a thing as sitting still would have been quite beyond the power of her excited little pupils.

By ten o’clock the various carriages assembled. Lady Severn and two middle-aged friends of hers, the English clergyman at Altes and his wife, seated themselves in the first, and drove off to pick up Mrs. Archer. Marion, looking out from the schoolroom window, did not envy Cissy her long drive in such company! Then came Mr. Chepstow’s dog-cart, driven, in the height of his exhilaration, by that adventurous individual himself. Miss Vyse was invited to occupy one of the two vacant seats, but, in some graceful manner, succeeded in evading the honour. After a little consultation, Sophy Berwick, nothing loth, took her place, followed, somewhat unwillingly—(but then, in pleasure parties the wrong people always get together!)—by her, so gossips said, former admirer, the cynical Erbenfeld. Next appeared a larger, and evidently hired, carriage, already occupied by Papa and Mamma Berwick, and a pale, worn-looking girl, whom Marion rightly concluded to be the invalid Blanche. No one appearing ambitious of making a fourth in this vehicle, it drove on.

Now dashed up, what penny-a-liners call, a “perfectly appointed equipage,” driven by the handsome young Russian Nodouroff. Seated beside him was his tutor, Mr. Price, who, however, descended, leaving, two places to spare. Some discussion ensued as to who should occupy them, which was ended by Captain Berwick hoisting up a laughing, romping girl, whom Lotty informed Marion, was Kate Bailey, the younger sister of the languishing Dora.

“She’s only two years older than I am, Miss Freer,” said Lotty, virtuously, “and yet she goes to all sorts of parties. I’m sure I don’t know how she ever learns any lessons.”

Vladimir’s horses growing impatient, young Berwick jumped in after Kate, and off they set. Next drew up a pretty waggonette, belonging to Mr. Chepstow. Into it, without hesitation, stepped Miss Vyse and Dora Bailey, followed by the little Frenchman, De l’Orme. But where was the fourth? In some unaccountable manner this being, whoever he was, had disappeared. No one but Mr. Price stood waiting to ascend. An angry toss of the head from Florence, an impatient order to the driver, and they drove off quickly. Rather lose the chance of the companion she had hoped for than, by longer delay, run the risk of Mr. Price’s uninteresting society!

Lotty and Sybil were beginning to think themselves forgotten, poor children, when a familiar voice sounded at the door.

“Now Lotty, now Sybil old woman, the carriage is coming round, for you. Ah! Miss Freer, too!” Ralph added, as he saw her. “I beg your pardon; I thought you were to have been picked up on the road with Mrs. Archer. But, never mind, we shall pack in.”

As they passed through the court-yard there stood Mr. Price, looking somewhat disconsolate, not quite sure that he had done right in quitting his seat by the side of his pupil, which, yet, his shrinking modesty would not have allowed him to retain, unless all the rest of the company had been already provided for.

“You, too, still here, Price!” exclaimed Sir Ralph. “I thought you had been whisked off in the waggonette. However, it’s all the better! If Miss Freer does not mind a little crowding, that’s to say?”

Miss Freer, in her sensible brown-holland, being happily careless of crushing or squeezing, the whole party was soon comfortably established in the roomy carriage.

Sybil’s little face wore an expression of perfect content. Lotty, having obtained her uncle’s consent to sit beside the driver, was no less well pleased. Her incipient airs of fine ladyism forgotten for the time, she became the hearty, happy child nature meant her still to be, chattering to the coachman in her broken French, and translating his replies for the benefit of the less accomplished Sybil. Both children really were their very nicest selves that day; and nice children are by no means a bad addition to a party of pleasure. For one thing, they are pretty sure to enjoy it, which is more than can be said or their elders.

What a merry drive they had! Marion hardly recognized the silent, melancholy Mr. Price in the agreeable, humourous man beside her. Sir Ralph and he amused her with reminiscences of their younger days, from time to time saddened by a passing allusion to the brother she had already heard of. The “John” so affectionately mentioned by Sir Ralph when speaking to Mrs. Archer.

Now and then the conversation became more general. Subjects of public interest were broached and commented upon by the two gentlemen, in a manner which caught Marion’s attention; for such discussions were not as strange or incomprehensible to her as to most girls of her age. Sir Ralph had the latest arrived English paper in his pocket. He glanced at it as he went along, from time to time reading out little bits for the edification of his companions. Once or twice Marion, half unconsciously, made some remark in response to his; remarks which showed that she knew what she was talking about, though, probably, of no great depth or originality.

The second or third time this happened, Sir Ralph glanced at her with a slight smile of surprise and amusement.

“Why, Miss Freer,” he said, “you must be a great newspaper reader! You are certainly better up on that last speech on the education question of the member for —. Bye-the-by, what place does Vere stand for?” he asked, turning to Mr. Price, who could not satisfy him on the point. “Never mind,” he went on “how is it you know so much about it, Miss Freer? As I said, you are decidedly more at home in it than Price here, and that is saying a good deal; as I haven’t, in fifteen years, succeeded in finding a subject he was not at home in.”

“Nonsense, my dear boy,” said Mr. Price. “You will really make me blush, and that would look very funny on an old man like me. Would it not, Miss Sybil?”

Oh! how grateful Marion was to the all-unconscious Mr. Price, for thus opportunely turning the conversation!

The title of some forth-coming new book next attracted Sir Ralph’s attention, and led to an animated discussion on the previous works of the same author, in interest of which, Marion forgot her embarrassment. She little knew how keenly her fresh, bright thoughts and enquiries, uttered with perfect simplicity and self-forgetfulness, were appreciated and enjoyed by her two companions. Cultivated, nay even learned men, that they were, yet not too “fusty and musty,” as Cissy had called it, to value the clear sparkling of an unprejudiced, but not uneducated youthful intellect; and better still, the softening, beautifying radiance of a true, gentle, woman’s heart.

Mr. Price, as he looked at her, wondered if the little infant daughter long ago laid to rest beside her young mother, in the far of church-yard on a Welsh hill-side would ever, had she lived, have grown to be such a one as the sweet, bright girl beside him.

Sir Ralph, as he looked at her, thought to himself a “what might have been,” had he met this Marion in years gone by, before, as he fancied, youth and its sweet privileges, were over for him.

And with these thoughts, mingled in the hearts of both her companions, a manly pity for this young creature, apparently so alone in the world, and already, at the age when most girls think of nothing but pleasure and amusement, working, if not for her daily bread, at least towards her own or her friends’ support. “For surely no girl would be a governess if she could help it,” thought Ralph, as ever and anon the curious, indefinable inconsistency struck him between this girl herself and her avowed position.

“Here we are,” exclaimed he, rather dolefully, as the carriage stopped at the little inn at Berlet, where all vehicles “arrested themselves,” a Monsieur De l’Orme called it. The ascent of the hill, from the top of which was the far-famed view, could only be managed on foot or donkey-back. Some of the elderly and more ponderous ladies had preferred the latter safe, though inglorious, mode of conveyance, and had already set off by a more circuitous path. The younger members of the party, intending to climb up the most direct way, were just about starting, when the last carriage, containing our happy little party arrived.

As Marion was stepping out, she heard herself addressed by name:

“Miss Freer,” said a voice beside her, “I cannot understand how it is that you and the girls came in this carriage. There must have been some strange mistake, which you should have rectified. Lady Severn is not a little annoyed at it, for she particularly wished you and your pupils to come alone,” with a strong accent on the last word.

Marion turned round, her cheeks pale with the paleness that tells of deeper indignation than quick mantling crimson.

“Miss Vyse,” she said quietly, “I do not understand you. If Lady Severn has anything to find fault with in me, I am perfectly ready to hear it. But—”

The words were taken out of her mouth by Mr. Price, who standing beside her had, unawares, heard the little conversation.

“I think, indeed,” he said, “there has been some mistake. Miss Freer took her seat in the carriage in which she was asked to place herself. On these occasions little contre-temps are apt to occur. I myself did a very stupid thing, for I was as nearly as possible left behind altogether.”

Instantly Florence turned round, her face radiant with smiles:

“Oh. Mr. Price,” she said, “I hope you don’t think me so silly as to be cross about a trifle; but you don’t know how particular Lady Severn is in all arrangements about the children, and I was so afraid of her thinking either Miss Freer or I had neglected her wishes.”

Mr. Price looked puzzled but said nothing.

However, he resolutely attached himself to Marion; as the party dispersed into twos or threes, to begin the ascent.

Sybil clung to Marion, who felt some misgivings as to how the little creature would get to the top, when a cheerful “halloo” behind them made her glance round.

There was Frank Berwick dragging along a reluctant donkey, which Sir Ralph was encouraging on the other side to hasten its movements. With a cry of pleasure little Sybil ran hack to her uncle, who lifted her on to her steed. Hardly had he done so, when Vladimir appeared with a pencilled note for Sir Ralph. He glanced at it, and with a clouded face, turned to the young officer.

“Berwick,” said he, “I must go to look after some or my mother’s other guests. Will you help with Sybil’s donkey? I any sorry to trouble you, but unless some one leads it, she could not make it go up this steep path.”

“Certainly,” said Frank, heartily, “you may trust me to get it safely to the top.”

So Ralph left them. On the whole, I don’t think Frank would have regretted if Mr. Price had done the same. But this did not appear to be that worthy gentleman’s intention. So Captain Berwick consoled himself by engaging Marion steadily in conversation, and thus obliging her to walk at the other side of the donkey’s head; for she could not have been cold or inattentive to one who was showing such good nature to her little pupil.

At last they got to the top. Most of the party were there before them, for the donkey’s tardiness had delayed them. There was a sort of terrace round the cottage, or châlet rather, from which the view was supposed to be seen in perfection. It was indeed beautiful! If only there had not been such a crowd of people talking about it! How the young ladies cluttered and admired, how the gentlemen thought it their duty to agree with their observations, however inane! All but Ralph. When Marion first caught sight of him he was standing perfectly silent beside Florence, who was speaking to him in a low voice, from time to time raising her beautiful, lustrous eyes to his face, with a look half of questioning, half of appeal. It was some mere trifle she was asking him about, but, as she watched them, Marion thought to herself that Sir Ralph must indeed be strangely almost unnaturally callous, to resist the fascination of such loveliness.

Somehow she felt glad when the chorus of enthusiastic admiration calmed down again and, the little groups dispersed. Before long whispers of “luncheon” began to run through the party, and they all adjourned to a smooth lawn on the other side of the châlet, where picnic parties were accustomed to dine.

Marion found herself seated near Cissy, who looked rather tired. She whispered to Marion: “How nice it would be if all these people were away!”

Still, it was very amusing, on the whole. There were dignified Lady Severn and fat Mrs. Berwick, seated on the grass, vainly endeavouring to preserve the equilibrium of their plates and glasses. Mr. Chepstow, in a peculiar attitude, looking more like a magnified frog than a portly, middle-aged Englishman; and insisting, in his exaggerated politeness, on constantly unsettling himself to fetch something or other which he imagined some lady beside him to be in want of.

“You have no salt, Mrs. Harper,” he exclaimed to the clergyman’s wife. “Allow me to fetch you some. I brought some of my own, knowing it is so often forgotten, I shall get it in a moment. It is in the pocket of my over-coat. And up he started.

“Stay one moment, my friend,” interrupted Mons. De l’Orme; “here is of the salt that one has not missed to bring.”

Upon which Mr. Chepstow was, with difficulty, induced to re-settle himself.

“How charming it is, this scene,” continued the little Frenchman, with effusion; “it must absolutely that I visit England. All that I of her see fills me with admiration. Above all these ‘peek-neeks.’ What can one desire of more agreeable than at the once to enjoy the delights of the nature, the charms of the society, and the sweet allures of the life of family.”

“Bravo! De l’Orme,” exclaimed Erbenfeld; “may I ask who assisted you in the composition of this little oration? I strongly suspect Chepstow had to do with it. It is in his style. Do you not think so, Miss Sophie?” he asked of his neighbour, with whom, failing better, he had, in a rather lukewarm manner, renewed his last year’s flirtation.

Sophy was on the point of replying in the same strain, but, happening to glance in Marion’s direction, had the self-control to remain silent.

In are opposite corner Marion espied Dora Bailey, looking so marvellously brisk and lively, that one would hardly have recognized her. The secret of the change was soon revealed, when looking again, Miss Freer perceived that young Berwick was her neighbour, for poor Dora had long before this disclosed his name as that of her chosen hero. Frank, however, did not appear to be in correspondingly good spirits.

But everybody talked and laughed, and eat cold chicken and drank champagne, as if they had been in England. So I suppose they all enjoyed themselves.

After luncheon they dispersed in little parties to ramble about the hill, one side of which was covered by a charming miniature pine-forest. Cissy was tired, and went into the châlet to rest. Miss Vyse and the other young ladies went off to choose pretty “bits” to sketch, followed by their attendant gentlemen.

Marion, finding them all scattered, proposed to Lotty and Sybil to go a little way into the forest, and there find a nice seat, where she would tell them a story.

Her proposal was accepted with delight, Sybil only stipulating that they should not go far enough into the forest to meet bears or wolves. The story extended into two or three before the children were satisfied. Then at last they agreed that “poor Miss Freer must be tired;” and they amused themselves by discussing the rival merits of her narrations. “Beauty and the Beast” was Sybil’s favourite, though she shuddered as she listened to the description of the dreadful, though amiable monster.

Suddenly a quick step approached them, and Sir Ralph appeared. He threw himself down beside them, exclaiming as he did so:

“I beg your pardon, Miss Freer, but I am so horribly tired. I have been on duty all this time, and if had stayed longer, I should infallibly have said something rude to somebody, so I ran away to avoid getting into a scrape.”

“You’re like the Beast, Uncle Ralph,” said Lotty, oracularly.

“Like a beast!” he exclaimed. “I hope not, Lotty. What on earth do you mean?”

“I said the Beast. We have been talking about Beauty and the Beast, and I thought when you came growling so, you were just like him.”

“Thank you, Lotty,” he said; “or, rather, I think I should thank Miss Freer for the compliment, should I not? That’s what Miss Freer teaches you, eh, Sybil? To call your poor old uncle a beast.”

Marion laughed, but Sybil looked distressed.

“Oh no, dear Uncle,” she said, “Miss Freer didn’t ever say you were a beast. Lotty only said it because you growled. But, besides, Uncle Ralph, didn’t you know that the Beast was very nice, really he was, a beautiful prince at the end.”

“Really, was he? And how did he come to be so improved?” asked Ralph, with an air of the profoundest interest.

“Oh, because Beauty—” began Sybil.

“But who was Beauty, in the first place?” interrupted heir uncle.

“Beauty was a pretty, sweet young lady,” replied Sybil.

“Oh, indeed. Like you or Lotty, perhaps?” he suggested.

“No, oh no. Not a little girl. A young lady, Uncle. A big young lady, like——like——oh, yes! Just like Miss Freer. A pretty, sweet young lady, just like Miss Freer.”

“And she turned the Beast into a beautiful prince, you say? I wonder how ever she could do that,” he said, thoughtfully.

“Can’t you guess? Well, I will tell you,” said Sybil, full of importance. “You see, the Beast was very good and kind, though he was ugly. And the fairy fixed that whenever any pretty young lady would love him for being good and kind, and not mind his being ugly, then that minute he was to turn into a beautiful prince. So the very minute Beauty said, ‘I do love you, my dear good Beast,’ he turned into the prince. Isn’t it a pretty story, Uncle, and don’t you think Beauty must have been just like Miss Freer?”

“A very pretty story, indeed, Sybil,” replied he, to the first question; but to the second he made no answer. As he lay on the ground, however, he managed to glance up slyly to see how the “big young lady” took all these rather personal remarks. But he did not get much satisfaction. Marion’s face was rather graver than usual, but for all other change in its expression, her thoughts might have been far away, too far away to have paid any heed to the child’s chattering.

What was she really thinking?

The old puzzle: “I wonder how Sir Ralph and Miss Vyse get on together!” And why from the first have I disliked the one and liked the other?”

Ralph seemed suddenly to grow restless. He sat up and looked at his watch, and then said it was time for them to return to their party. So they all left their pleasant nook, considerably to their regret.

Sir Ralph stayed beside them till they were close to the edge of the wood, helping them to climb up the steep, rough paths. Then he hastened on before them, saying they had better follow at their leisure. Soon after they had reached the châlet it became time to think of rejoining the carriages.

They all descended the hill together; an easier managed business than the ascent; and returned home as they came, except that, by Lady Severn’s request, Marion took Mr. Harper’s seat in her carriage, that gentleman occupying her former place, and was set down with Mrs. Archer at the door of their own house, which was passed on their way to the Rue des Lauriers.

So ended little Sybil’s birthday pic-nic.

[CHAPTER] IX.

“DE CAP A TU SOY MARION”

“And will thee, nill thee, I must love
Till the grass grows my head above.”

TRANS. OF DES POURINNS BÉARNAIS SONGS.

“Ihre Augen waren nicht die Schönsten die ich jemals sah, aber die tiefsten, hinter denen man am meisten erwartete.”

WAHRHETT UND DICHTUNG.

THE weeks passed on quietly, and to outward seeming, uneventfully enough.

Cissy and Marion grew so accustomed to their calm, pleasant, life at Altes, that save for occasional home letters, they could have fancied themselves permanently settled in the pretty little southern town.

Harry wrote frequently and very cheerfully, only bewailing, as the Christmas holidays drew nearer, that they must be spent away from Marion. At rarer intervals there came paternal epistles from Mr. Vere, to which Marion always dutifully replied. Cissy, as her share, had regular letters from her husband, who latterly had alluded to a prospect before him of obtaining ere long a staff appointment in a part of the country sufficiently healthy for his wife to rejoin him there without risk.

Mrs. Archer was in great spirits at this news, and chattered away about returning to India, as if it were the most easily managed little journey in the world. But Marion, as she looked at her, felt certain vague misgivings. She was not satisfied that her cousin was gaining strength from her sojourn at Altes, for at times she looked sadly fragile. The slightest extra exertion utterly prostrated her, and yet so buoyant and high-spirited was she, that Marion found it impossible to persuade her to take more care of herself. Poor little Cissy! What a baby she was after all! And yet a difficult baby to manage, with all her genuine sweet temper and pretty playfulness.

Marion’s governess duties were faithfully, performed, and on the whole with ease and satisfaction. Certainly it was not all smooth sailing in this direction, but still the storms were rarer, and less important, than might have been expected. Sybil caused her from time to time anxiety, but never displeasure. Lotty, on the other hand, was now and then extremely provoking; disobedient, inattentive and impertinent. But Marion had succeeded in gaining the child’s affection, and in the end these fits of haughtiness were sure to be followed by repentance, genuine, though somewhat short-lived.

Now and then Miss Vyse favoured the schoolroom party with her presence. These were the days the young governess dreaded. Not that then, was anything in Florence’s manner actually to be complained of. She refrained from the slightest appearance of interfering, and indeed went further than this; for she paraded her respect for the governess, in a way that to Marion was more offensive than positive insult or contemptuous neglect. She it was who always reproved the refractory Lotty for any sign of disrespect or inattention.

“Oh, Lotty,” she would say, in an inexpressibly mischief-making tone, “how can you be so forgetful of your duty to Miss Freer! Remember, dear, what your grandmamma was saying only yesterday. I am sure you were never so troublesome with me when I helped you with your lessons. And that was only a sort of play-learning you know. Now Miss Freer is here on purpose to teach you; you know dear, you must be obedient.”

All of which, of course, further excited the demon of opposition, and defiance of her gentle governess, in the naughty Lotty’s heart!

Florence managed too to show that she came, in a sense, as a spy on Miss Freer. Little remarks made, as it were, in all innocence; half questions, apologised for as soon as uttered: in these and a hundred other ways she succeeded in making Marion conscious that she was not fully trusted. And far worse, she instilled into Lotty, by nature so generous and unsuspicious, a most unsalutary feeling, half of contempt, half of distrust of the young governess; the being, who of all that had ever come into contact with Charlotte Severn, might have exercised the happiest influence on the child’s rich, but undisciplined, nature. Marion did not see much of Lady Severn, whose civilities to Mrs. Archer were generally of a kind that did not of necessity include Miss Freer. A proposal to “sit an hour” with her in the morning before lessons were over in the Rue des Lauriers, or an invitation to accompany the dowager in her very stupid afternoon drive: these, and such-like little attentions she showed her, some of which accepted as a duty, though by no means a pleasure; to the last day of her stay at Altes, Mrs. Archer could not succeed in making the deaf lady hear what she said without ludicrous, and well-nigh superhuman exertions.

One thing in her daily life, for long struck Marion as curious. She never, by any chance, saw Sir Ralph in his mother’s house. Had she not been informed to the contrary, she would have imagined he was not a member of the establishment. The children talked of him sometimes, indeed Sybil would never have tired of chattering about him, but Marion did not encourage it. Much chattering would effectually interfered with lessons, and besides this, the girl-governess had of late begun to suspect that her discretion in this could not be carried too far; as she had a sort of instinctive fear that all or a great part of the schoolroom conversation was extracted from Lotty by Miss Vyse. Not that she cared about the thing itself; though the feeling of a spy in the camp, is not a pleasant one, even to the most candid and innocent; and in her present position, Marion could not feel herself invulnerable. But it was very trying to her, trying and almost sickening, to see the sweet child-trustfulness gradually melting away out of Lotty’s nature.

She thought it better to say very little about the children to Sir Ralph, when she met him in Mrs. Archer’s house. And, indeed, he by no means encouraged her doing so. The mention of her morning’s employment always appeared so to annoy him that at last it came to be tacitly avoided, and really, for the time being, forgotten. For they were at no loss for things to talk about, those three, in the afternoons, generally one or two a week, that Sir Ralph spent in Cissy’s drawing-room.

Pleasant afternoons they were! To him indeed there could be no doubt of their being so, as otherwise he would not have thus sought them voluntarily. He took care, however, never to come on a Friday. Sophy Berwick’s chatter, Dora Bailey’s silliness, and Mr. Chepstow’s ponderous platitudes, all at one time, in one little room, would really, he declared irreverently, have been too much fox him.

“And so,” said Cissy, “just like a man, you leave us poor weak women to endure as best we may, what you confess would be beyond your powers.”

“Now, Mrs. Archer,” he replied, “that’s not fair at all. ‘What’s one man’s meat is another man’s poison.’ I can’t suppose your drawing-room-full of friends is disagreeable to you, as, to speak plainly, you have yourself to thank for it. If you don’t want to see all these people, what do you ask them for?”

“I never said I didn’t want to see them,” said illogical Cissy; “I only said you might come and help me to entertain them. Besides,” added she mischievously, “there’s Marion. She didn’t ask them, so she’s not to blame for the infliction, if such it be. You might come to help her to get through the afternoon.”

“Great use I should be!” he said, lightly, and then went on more seriously, “Besides, do you know, Mrs. Archer, I am really busy just now.”

“Busy; what about?” she asked coolly.

“Oh, things that you would think very stupid. Hunting up specimens of the old language and dialects once spoken about here. I’m doing it for a friend who is taking up the subject thoroughly.”

“I should think that very interesting work,” said Marion.

“Yes, indeed,” he replied warmly; “indeed, interesting is no word for it. It has quite reconciled me to spending the winter here. A prospect that was dreadful enough to few months ago, I can assure you.”

Just at that moment Charlie appeared with a whispered message to his mother, who, thereupon, left the room, saying as she did so, that she would return in a few minutes, and that in the meantime, Sir Ralph might amuse himself and Marion by giving her some specimens of the ancient language he was so interested in.

Charlie followed his mother, but stopped for a moment as he reached the door, to announce in a stage whisper, with a confidential nod:

“It’s only the dressmaker!” which piece of impertinence was audibly punished by a box on the ear from his indignant mamma.

“Is your name, Miss Freer—the name Marion, I mean—spelt with an A or an O?” asked Sir Ralph, somewhat irrelevantly, it appeared to the young lady.

“With an O,” she replied.

“Oh, I fancied so,” he said, with satisfaction. “Mrs. Archer told me to amuse you with specimens of the old dialects just now, but she would be surprised if I told her that there is an old song, old though not ancient, actually dedicated to a lady who must have borne your name.”

“Is there, really?” exclaimed Marion. “I had no idea my name was to be found anywhere out of England, or Great Britain, I should say, for there are plenty of Scotch Marions. Oh, tell me about the song, Sir Ralph; or can you show it to me? Is it pretty? And has it been set to music?”

“It has been set to music, and I think it very pretty,” he replied. “I could show it to you, for I have both copied it and translated it. But I can’t show it you just now. Indeed, I am not sure that it would not please you more if I gave it to some one else to show you.”

He looked at her closely as he spoke. But she only appeared puzzled.

“If you gave it to some one else to show me?” she repeated. “I don’t understand what you mean, Sir Ralph. Really I don’t.”

“Really, don’t you?” said he again; “truly and really?” He spoke, as it were, in jest, and yet something in his voice sounded as if he were in earnest.

“Think again, Miss Freer. Though you may never have seen this little song, you may easily enough fancy that, pretty and simple as it is, there was only one person who could have ventured to address it to the Marion of those days without fear of its being scornfully rejected. That Marion must have been young and fair; but now-a-days there are others as young and as fair. And there are knights, too, gallant enough, though not exactly cast in the mould of the old-world ones. You see, Miss Freer, I should not like my poor little song to be scorned. I would rather keep it till the true knight passes this way, and I am anxious to—”

He stopped, at a loss to finish his sentence. Half ashamed, indeed, of having said so much.

Marion had listened quietly. No sign of displeasure in her face, but an expression of slight bewilderment, and somewhat, too, of sadness, overspread it.

“Sir Ralph,” she said, “I won’t say again I don’t know what you are talking about; but, truly, I may say I don’t know whom you are referring to. You wouldn’t wish to vex me, I know. If even there is anything you wish to warn me about, I am sure you would do it most gently and kindly. I am not very old, and I daresay not very wise,” she added, with a smile; “but, truly, I don’t quite understand. No knight, as you call it, is likely to pass this way on my account.”

She spoke so earnestly and simply that Ralph all but moved out of his habitual self-control, looked up again with the sun-light look over his face.

“Miss Freer,” he began, eagerly, and still more eager words were on his lips; but— —the door opened, and in walked, with the air of one thoroughly at home, and sure of a welcome, Frank Berwick!

It was not the first time Ralph’s pleasant afternoons had been interrupted by this young gentleman. He rose, the bright look utterly gone from his face, shook hands with Frank, and, Mrs. Archer shortly after returning to the room, seized the first opportunity of taking leave of the little party. As he bade good-bye to Marion he said, in a low voice, heard by her only:

“Forgive me, Miss Freer, for what I said. I must have seemed very impertinent, but, truly, I did not mean to be so. Remember how many years older I am than you, and let that prevent your thinking me unpardonably officious.”

Marion said nothing, but for one half instant raised her eyes to his face, with a curious expression, part deprecating, part reproachful. The sort of look one sees in the face of a child who has been scolded for a fault which it does not feel conscious of or understand. Then she said, or whispered—or, indeed, was it only his fancy; the words were so faint and low?—

“How little you understand me!”

When Ralph left Mrs. Archer’s house he did not turn towards the Rue des Lauriers, but walked briskly in the opposite direction. Like many other men, he had a habit, when perplexed or annoyed, of “taking it out of himself,” as he would have called it, by sharp, physical exercise. Not till he was some way out of the town, in a quiet country lane, did he slacken his pace, and begin steadily to think—thus:

“What a weak fool I am, after all! Can it really be that after all these years, I, now that I am middle-aged (for thirty-three is more than middle-aged for men like me), have caught the strange infection, hitherto so incomprehensible to me? What is there about this girl, this grave-eyed Marion, that utterly changes me when in her presence? Oh! Madness and Folly are no words for what I was nearly doing just now, who of all men in the world am least fitted, have indeed least right to marry! Lucky it was that that boy, Berwick, came in when he did. Not, after all, that it would have mattered much. She could not care, or ever learn to care, for me. But the thing might have distressed her all the same, and increased the discomfort of her position. How odious it is to think of her trudging backwards and forwards every morning as a daily governess, and that hateful Florence sneering at and insulting her in her cat-like way!”

At this point he stopped short in his meditations, and laughed at himself.

“Really, I am too absurd! Now to be reasonable about it, what shall I do? So far, surely, I am not so very far gone. No necessity for my running away from Altes. And before long, I have very little doubt, the temptation will be beyond my reach, for of young Berwick’s intentions I have not the shadow of a doubt. He is not a bad fellow, by any means, and will make a fair enough husband, I dare say. Not good enough for her, of course, but then that’s the way in such things. Besides, going out to India with him is, suppose, a preferable lot to being a governess at home. But I hope his people will treat her properly. My poor little girl! But what right have I to even think of her so? Ah! After all, if things had been different!”

Thus he thought to himself as he slowly walked homewards. Turning the thing round and round in his mind, and looking at it from all sides. Finally deciding that all he could do was gradually to dismiss this wild dream from his mind (not realizing in his inexperience, that in such matters it is hearts, not minds, we have to deal with), and so far as possible forget that it had ever visited him.

As no one but himself was involved, no one’s happiness or suffering in question but his own, he decided he need not absent himself from Altes for a little, as had been his first impulse, on making this extraordinary discovery. Not, at least at present. But he would be careful. He would not lay up for himself unnecessary perplexity or suffering; for after all, his belief in his own self-control had received a great shock. So he resolved, and acted upon his resolution by not calling at Mrs. Archer’s till the next week; when, trusting to the safety, which we are told, lies in numbers, he purposely chose a Friday for his visit.

It was disagreeable, as he had anticipated, and indeed almost hoped it would be.

The day being chilly, none of Mrs. Archer’s friends ventured out on the terrace, and the small drawing-room was therefore rather crowded. There was the usual set; the Bailey girls, Mr. Chepstow, and Monsieur De l’Orme, the Frasers and Sophy Berwick, accompanied, of course, by her brother. Erbenfeld was there too, amusing himself by trying to get up a flirtation with Mrs. Archer; by no means an easy undertaking, as he found to his cost; for Cissy’s self-possession, quick wit and unaffected, utter indifference to his graceful compliments and sentimental allusions, baffled him far more effectively than any affectation of matronly dignity, or the most freezing airs of propriety. It was really rather amusing to watch, for Erbenfeld was clever enough in his shallow way, and evidently quite unaccustomed to have his flattering attentions thus smilingly rejected. Ralph had not been there two minutes before he began to wish himself away; but he had resolved to say half-an-hour or so, to avoid the appearance of any marked change; and so he sat on patiently, thinking to himself it was no bad discipline for his powers of self-control to sit there trying to talk nonsense to Sophy Berwick, all the time that he was intensely conscious or Marion’s near presence at the piano, where she was eagerly examining sonic new music which Frank had just brought her, the giver, of course, standing close by, replying to her remarks with a bright smile on his handsome face.

Suddenly some one proposed that they should have, a little music. The glee party collected round the piano, and went through their little performances successfully enough. This over, there was an exhibition of instrumental music from one or two of the young ladies. In the moving about the room that ensued, Ralph found himself, for the first time that afternoon, near Marion. In his nervous hurry to say something, he, of course, said about the stupidest thing he could have chosen:

“Do you sing, Miss Freer?”

She looked up at, him with surprise, but when she saw the perfect good faith in which he had asked the question, she began to laugh in spite of herself.

“Yes,” said she, “I think I have told you before that I sing a little, and if you had been listening you would have heard me singing just now.”

“Were you singing?” he said, “truly I did not know. Certainly I would have listened had I known it was you. I was thinking the other day how odd it was I had never heard you sing.”

“I was not singing alone, just now,” she said, more seriously, “I only took a part in those glees.”

“Ah!” he replied, “then it was not bad of me after all. But I should very much like to hear you sing alone. When Miss Bailey finishes this affair she is playing, will you sing, Miss Freer?”

“Oh, yes, if you like,” she answered lightly. But in a moment a thought struck her, and she added mischievously, “what would you like me to sing, Sir Ralph? Is there any song you think would suit me?”

“Several,” he replied, in the same tone. But as at this moment Miss Bailey’s twirlings and twitchings suddenly ceased, and as Marion rose, he said in a lower voice: “one in particular, but I can’t give it you.”

She seemed as if she hardly heard him, and at a sign from Cissy, took Dora’s place at the piano.

Her voice was certainly not a very powerful one, but neither could it be called weak. It was true and sweet, but its chief beauty was its exceeding freshness. Clear and bright, and yet with an under-tone of almost wild plaintiveness. The sort of voice one would be inclined to describe as more like a young boy’s than a woman’s. It made one think of a bunch of spring field flowers, freshly gathered and sparkling with dew. So, at least, Ralph fancied as he listened, and went on in his own mind to compare Florence Vyse’s rich contralto to a perfectly arranged group of brilliantly coloured and heavily scented exotics. The simile was not however a perfect one, for it did not sufficiently express the tenderness and cultivated refinement of Marion’s singing.

What her song was, Ralph did not know nor care. It was German, so much he discovered, and some words reached him, which sounded like these:

“So ist verronnen
Meine Jugendzeit.”

A sort of sorrowful refrain they seemed to him, and they set his thoughts off again in the direction of wishing they were less true as applied to himself. But he pulled himself up short, thanked Miss Freer quietly, said good bye to Mrs. Archer and her guests, and was just about to take his departure when the door opened, and “Lady Severn and Miss Vyse” were announced by Mrs. Fraser’s man-servant, whose mistress very goodnaturedly lent him to Mrs. Archer on Fridays.

It was rather annoying. Ralph so seldom called on any lady, that his presence here could not but surprise his mother. However, it was much better than if the worthy lady had taken it into her head to call on Mrs. Archer on one of the several afternoons he had spent in the company only of Cissy and her guest. He made the best of the situation, gratified Florence by asking if they had a seat to spare in the carriage, in which case he would wait and return home with them, and altogether made himself so sociable and agreeable, that Lady Severn began to think, with pleased astonishment, that after all her unsatisfactory Ralph had inherited something of the “Severn” affability. So all seemed smooth and smiling; but for all that Florence had her eyes open that afternoon; and bitter thoughts were in her heart as they bowled home to the Rue des Lauriers, though the words on her lips were honeyed and soft.

A few days after this, the second of the Altes balls took place. Mrs. Archer and her cousin had not gone to the first, as on the day it was held the former had not been well enough to risk the fatigue. But having been, or fancied herself, stronger of late, she was bent on attending the forthcoming one. Marion had no objection to accompanying her, save her former fear of appearing inconsistent. But this time Cissy was not to be moved. Marion was to go to the ball, attired in the prettiest of dresses, and for this one evening to enjoy herself thoroughly, and forget all about that “odious governessing.”

So the girl yielded, not unwillingly, I dare say. They arranged to go with the Berwicks, Frank and Sophy warmly applauding Mrs. Archer’s determination that Miss Freer should make one of the party.

“Of course you should come,” said Sophy. “I should think it bad enough to have to be shut up all the morning with those brats, without thinking it necessary on that account to forego a pleasant way or spending an evening.”

“Oh, well,” replied Marion, “for once in a way I daresay there can be no objection to it.”

“Once in a way,” repeated Sophy; “it is absurd to hear you, a girl ever so much younger than I, talking like that. You don’t mean to remain a governess all your life, do you, Miss Freer?”

Marion felt and looked rather annoyed at this not very delicately-expressed inquiry; but, before she had time to reply, Cissy, who was present at the time, came to the rescue.

“Of course not, Miss Berwick,” she exclaimed, rather indignantly, but, on catching a beseeching look from Marion, she changed her tone, and added, half laughingly, “Don’t you know, Miss Berwick, that Marion is going out with me next spring, to marry a nabob whom she has never seen? A real nabob, I assure you, as rich as—as I should like to be, and that’s saying a good deal, I assure you. By this time next year, imagine Miss Freer converted into Mrs. Nabob, with more fine dresses and diamonds than she knows what to do with. What a charming prospect! I hope you will remember, May, to give me some of your cast-off grandeur.”

“How can you be so silly, Cissy!” said Marion, half laughing and half annoyed.

Sophy looked curious and mystified. She could not make out how much was fun and how much earliest of Mrs. Archer’s announcement. Miss Freer’s “How silly,” very probably, only applied to her friend’s exaggerated way of telling it. It was quite possible, Sophy decided, that the young lady was in fact engaged to some rich Indian, and was only a daily governess for a short time, perhaps to make some money towards providing a trousseau, being of a more independent spirit than some brides elect in similar circumstances.

It seemed rather a plausible way of accounting, for the mystery, which even Sophy, whose perceptions were not of the acutest, felt there existed about this girl. She would have uncommonly liked to hear reason, but, was not bold enough to make further inquiries. Besides which, Marion evidently wished the subject to be dropped, and Sophy would have been really sorry to annoy her. So no more was said; but, as Sophy was leaving, Marion accompanied her to the door, and said to her, earnestly, but in a low voice:

“Miss Berwick, will you be so good as not to think anything of what Mrs. Archer said today? I mean, will you please not to talk about it. You don’t know how exceedingly it would annoy me if any reports were spread about me; if, indeed, I were spoken about at all, it would vex me, for it might cause much mischief.”

“Certainly, Miss Freer, I won’t be the one to spread reports about you,” replied Sophy; “I like you far too much to wish to annoy you. You may depend upon my discretion.”

“Thank you,” said Marion, looking more comfortable, for she saw that Sophy meant what she said.

Still it was not very wise of her to have made this appeal to Sophy. It only impressed upon the thoughtless girl’s memory what otherwise she would probably have soon forgotten.

Marion returned to the drawing-room, intending to scold Cissy, but the naughty bird was flown.

This was the day of the ball. Mrs. Archer’s head was full if her own and Marion’s toilettes. In justice to her it must be said her young cousin’s appearance interested her quite a much as, if not more than, her own. The result in both eases, was eminently satisfactory. Cissy, always pretty, showed to advantage in a ball-dress; and Marion was at the age when a girl must be plain indeed, not to look bright and sweet in a robe of floating, cloudy white, here and there dotted with rosebuds of as delicate a tint as the unaccustomed flush on the wearer’s cheeks. Marion was far from plain. “Bright and sweet” would but ill have expressed what Ralph Severn thought of her, as almost immediately on his arrival in the room he caught sight of her, not dancing, but sitting quietly beside old Mrs. Berwick, Cissy not far off. Ralph had come as a duty, because his mother had desired it. He had been present at the previous ball for the same reason, and had spent a most disagreeable evening. He hated dancing, or fancied he did (for he danced well, and judges in such matters say that no one who hates this “amusement” can ever be a proficient therein). However this may have been, he certainly did most devoutly hate dancing with Miss Vyse, which, to his dismay, he found himself expected to do, to a considerable extent. So, his previous experience having been the reverse of reassuring, he, with fear and trembling, for the second time prepared to obey the maternal commands. He entered the room hating himself and everybody else. In plain English, not in the sweetest of tempers.

But one glance in a certain direction, one glimpse of a white dress and blush rosebuds, one moment’s view of a graceful little head, round which the bright brown hair was wound in thick, smooth coils; and the whole scene was changed to him. And yet, but a few days before, he had calmly decided that this dream of his was but a dream, a passing fancy, that he could easily overcome, and, ere long, forget!

A strange reaction came over him this evening. From being unusually gloomy and morose, he suddenly became, in the opposite extreme, high-spirited, and, as he could be, in rare excitement, brilliantly lively and amusing. He delighted and amazed Florence by dancing with her twice in succession, waltzing, as she told him, “exquisitely.” This duty over, and having seen his fair charm! engaged to the end of her card, he found himself free to saunter up the room.

Yes, there she was, still sitting. She had not danced yet, then. How could that be?

A friendly greeting from Mrs. Archer, a few words of commonplace small talk, and he turned to Marion.

“Have you not been dancing, Miss Freer?”

“Not yet,” she answered, smiling; “l am engaged for two or three dances further on, but you know I have not a great many acquaintances here.”

As she spoke Mr. Erbenfeld came up eagerly to Mrs. Archer, whom he immediately began urging to break her resolution of not dancing. As his glance fell upon Marion he bowed to her in the very stiffest and slightest manner.

“Will you dance this with me, Miss Freer,” asked Sir Ralph, “whatever it is? I don’t know, but it really doesn’t matter.” And as she rose and took his arm, and they walked away, he added, “What have you done to offend that fellow—Erbenfeld?”

“Nothing,” said Marion, “only—I think you forget.”

“What?” he asked.

“That I am a governess,” she answered simply.

“Miss Freer,” he said, earnestly, “don’t vex me by that sort of thing. I won’t insult you by supposing for an instant that you mind any vulgar insolence of that kind, but it hurts me for you to seem conscious of it. Please, put all that nonsense aside. I am in a very good humour to-night, which, you must know, is a rare occurrence, and deserves to be commemorated. So I am going to enjoy myself, and you must do the same.”

“I assure you I intend to do so,” she said. Please remember it was you, not I, that took any notice of Mr. Erbenfeld’s manner.”

“Well, forgive me for having done so,” said he. “And now tell me what is your idea of enjoying yourself? Shall we dance this, or find a comfortable corner for ‘sitting it out in’?”

“I should like to dance this,” said she; “if you don’t mind?”

“Mind!” said he; but the one little word held a good deal

So they danced and enjoy it; Marion being young enough, and Ralph not so old after all as he fancied. He found his views on various subjects undergoing a curious change this evening. Dancing and its attendants no longer seemed to him so utterly insane and ridiculous as he had hitherto considered them. The music was really very good, the floor capital, and some of the ladies’ dresses exceedingly pretty. Marion was amused at his expressions of satisfaction.

“You really must be in a very good humour, Sir Ralph,” said she, “or else you have hitherto belied yourself. I always understood you detested balls.”

“So I do, in general,” he replied, “this one is an exception. Do you care about such things, Miss Freer?”

“Yes,” answered Marion, “I think I do. Not exceedingly perhaps, as some girls do. But then my life has been different. I have no mother or sister, and I have lived very much out of the world.”

“But you are not an orphan?” he asked hesitatingly; “your father is alive? He is a clergyman, I think, is he not?” And before his mind rose a picture of the struggling curate, and the unluxurious home in which this girl had probably been reared. Though, how, under such circumstances, she had come to be what she was, was a mystery beyond his powers to fathom.

They were sitting in a quiet corner, and as he spoke, Marion’s face was full in his view. She was looking down, but as he asked these questions he distinctly saw her colour change, as it rarely did. There was a change too in her voice as she replied:

“No, my father is not a clergyman. He—;” but then she stopped and hesitated.

“Ah,” thought Ralph, “there is something worse than poverty here. She is not a girl to be ashamed of anything but real disgrace.”

And there was a deepened tenderness in his tone as he quickly tried to set her at ease by instantly changing the subject. She felt it. How grateful she was! How gladly at that moment would she have agreed to be indeed Miss Freer, the poor little governess, able to answer his kindly questions with perfect frankness, with no secret from this man, whom already she was learning to trust more than any other on earth. A sudden impulse seized her to tell the truth. But the words died on her lips as she thought to herself what might be the results of her betraying her secret. In all probability she, and not only she, but Cissy too, would for ever forfeit his respect. What might he not think it right to do? Possibly to write to her father, in which case all she had striven for, would be lost, and Harry after all disgraced. Sir Ralph, at the best, would feel obliged to tell all to Lady Severn, and would naturally be indignant at the trick that had been played her. The story would get wind, and would spread beyond Altes, for Marion’s father was too much of a public character for his daughter to masquerade with impunity.

All this flashed through her mind in an instant, and arrested the words on her lips. Ralph saw that she was nervous and uneasy, and blamed himself for having turned her thoughts in an evidently painful direction. He tried to gain her attention, to amuse her, but in vain. At last he stopped and laid his hand gently on her arm. Marion started.

“Miss Freer,” said he, “I see I have spoilt your pleasure by my inconsiderate talk. Most unintentionally, poor child, I have brought back to your mind sorrows and anxieties which I would give more than I can express to banish far from you, not for one short evening, but for ever. I am so angry with myself that I can’t bear the reproach of your sad face. Won’t you forgive me and look happy again. Believe me I am the last man on earth to pry into another person’s private concerns. Unless, indeed, I could do anything to help you?”

“You are very, very good and kind,” replied Marion; and I truly did not mean to look reproachful. No, thank you, you can’t help me in any way. After a while things will come right.”

“So you are patient as well as brave?” said he, with a smile.

“How do you know I am either?” asked she.

“Because,” he began, eagerly, but slackened a little as he went on, evidently changing what he was going to have said, “because I have seen you in peculiar circumstances which have called for both, and you have not failed.”

“You think better of me than I deserve,” said Marion, in all sincerity, though the phrase she had used is seldom so uttered. “I fear if you knew all about me you would greatly change your thoughts of me. I fear you would,” she repeated, half questioningly, and as she spoke she laid her hand on his arm, and looked up in his face with a sort of wistful appeal. She did it in all simplicity, poor child. Somehow her secret weighed heavily on her that evening; and oh! how she wished she could tell him the whole!

Ralph did not speak for a moment. Then, as if in spite of himself, he said, hoarsely almost, “Child, do not try me too far.”

But before another word could be said by either, Cissy’s voice was heard behind them.

“Marion, how ever have you and Sir Ralph managed to hide, yourselves? I have had such a hunt for you. There’s poor Captain Berwick in such a state at having lost one of his dances. You know you promised him the first two when he came, and he couldn’t get here sooner. Do come. Sir Ralph, pray bring her hack to the dancing room. Thank you, Mr. Chepstow” (who was her cavalier), “my shawl’s always tumbling off.”

Ralph escorted Marion back to the dancers; at the entrance to the room to be relieved of his charge by Frank Berwick, radiant with eagerness and murmuring gentle reproaches to the truant partner as he led her away to redeem her promise.

It seemed to Ralph that they danced together all the rest of the evening, for he hardly let them out of his sight, though he spoke to neither again till the very close.

Then, as Frank, with a face that to so acute an observer as Ralph Severn, would, had he been less preoccupied, have told its own tale, was leading Marion to the cloak-room, she heard herself addressed. There were several people crowding round where they stood, but Ralph made his way near enough for her to hear him, though he spoke low.

“Miss Freer,” he said, “I am going to leave Altes to-morrow for some weeks, months perhaps. Will you say good-bye to me?”

“Going to leave Altes to-morrow,” repeated Marion, with a quiver in her voice, which he did not hear, or if he did, set it down to a different cause, “going away, to-morrow! Good-bye, Sir Ralph. Good-bye. And—thank you for being so kind to me.”

“The last words were very low. If only he had looked at her, had seen the tears welling up and all but running over! But no, he looked resolutely aside. Only wrung the soft little hand and repeated again, “Good-bye.”

It was all Marion could do to keep from crying right out in the dark carriage on the way home. She had had enough to excite and distress her that evening, and might well have been excused had her self-control failed her at last.

Only the knowledge that Cissy would discover her tears as soon as she reached home, enabled her to keep them back till alone in her little room.

[CHAPTER] X.

A SUDDEN RECALL.

“O that spectre! For three years it followed me up and down the dark staircase, or stood by my bed: only the blessed light had power to exorcise it.”

A REVELATION OF CHILDHOOD. MRS. JAMESON.

“That way madness lies.”

—KING LEAR.

IT was quite true. She had not misunderstood what he said. Sir Ralph, for reasons best known to himself, left Altes the next day for an indefinite time. It seemed to Marion that there had been something prophetic in his calling her “brave and patient.” She needed, at this time, to be both. And she succeeded, poor child, in her endeavour to act up to his opinion of her. Day after day the appointed hour saw her in the schoolroom, doing her very best with her pupils, bearing with Lotty’s tempers and poor little Sybil’s moods. And no one, not even Cissy, suspected that she had even these to bear, far less the deeper, though hardly even to herself acknowledged sorrow—disappointment—call it which you will, the magnitude of which unconsciously swallowed up the lesser daily irritations. It was not merely a sorrow, a loss, a something gone out of her life, which she had not known was there till she missed it. It was more than these. She was mortified, ashamed of having given her regard, she would call it by no more tender name even to herself, unasked. For Ralph’s strange words and manner she, in her morbid self-reproach, now explained as entirely traceable to his generous pity for her. Pity, in the first place, for her dependent position, and secondly (ah, how it wounded her to think so!) for her unmaidenly, because unsought and unreturned, revelation of her “regard” for him. How extraordinarily people misunderstand each other! Thus she was thinking and suffering, at the very time that Ralph was repeating to himself over and over again, “Under no possible circumstances, had there been no shadow of a rival in the field, could that bright, sweet being have learnt to care for a soured, dried-up, in every way unattractive man like me!”

At this period, I think, could Marion have been assured that such were Ralph’s feelings for her, she would have looked upon permanent separation from him as a comparatively small trial. For mortification, self-abasement of this kind are very hard upon a sensitive, pure-minded girl.

“If only I could think he did not despise me,” she said to herself.

It never occurred to her that so far, as least, as Ralph himself was concerned, her being a governess might have in any way have influenced him. She was too unpractical to realize the possibility of this; or was it, perhaps, the instinctive trust one genuine, noble nature feels in a kindred spirit? For Marion had been quick to perceive Mr. Erbenfeld’s contempt and Miss Vyse’s condescending insolence.

But time wore on, as it always does, through the weariest weeks, as through “the roughest day.” Christmas came and went. January far advanced, and Marion began to think indeed, she was never to see Ralph Severn again, for Cissy still spoke of the not for-distant “spring” as the probable date of her return to India. April had been originally mentioned as the limit of their stay at Altes, but before then, she heard from the children, the Severn household was to be removed to Switzerland for the summer.

Sybil sometimes spoke of her uncle. He had been in London for the last month, she said. And then two or three days after, with great delight, she showed Marion a letter he had sent her from Paris, dated from the Hôtel de ——, where he said he was going to stay a week or two.

“And after that, perhaps, he will come home here,” said Sybil.

“Nonsense, Sybil,” said Lotty, hastily; “that’s not at all certain. He may, perhaps, not return to Altes at all. What do you know about it, I’d like to know?”

She spoke roughly and rudely, and Sybil began to cry. Marion checked Lofty, and desired her to attend to her lessons, and not interfere with her sister. Then she tried to soothe Sybil, but it was difficult to do so. Of late the child had seemed far from well. Her timidity and nervousness had increased to a painful extent, and Marion felt strangely anxious and uneasy about her. More than ever she felt persuaded that some unhappy influence was injuriously affecting the child, though in what it consisted, or how it was exercised, she was utterly unable to conjecture. This morning Lotty happened to be sent for by her grandmother, a few moments after receiving her governess’s reproof for her roughness to Sybil. When left alone with the poor little girl, still sobbing piteously, Marion again tried to soothe her. She took her on her knee, and spoke kind, loving words, while she kissed and caressed the throbbing brow and tear-stained cheeks.

“Sybil my darling,” she said, “try and leave off crying. It will make your head ache so. Lotty did not mean to be unkind; she only spoke thoughtlessly, as she does, but you must not mind it so very much.”

Sybil clung to her more closely and tried to check her sobs as she answered.

“It isn’t Lofty I’m crying about, dear Miss Freer. I’m thinking Uncle Ralph isn’t coming back.”

“But he’s sure to come back before long, dear,” said Marion;” Lotty only said he wasn’t perhaps coming just yet.”

“Oh! but I want him so much,” said Sybil, “so very much. I was thinking I would tell him. I couldn’t tell any one else.”

“What about, dear?” asked Marion, gently. “If you will tell me, perhaps I can help you.”

“No, you couldn’t,” answered Sybil. “Besides I mustn’t tell you. I said I wouldn’t, and it might hurt you. I didn’t mean ever to tell anybody, because of what Emilie said. But since it has been so bad, I thought I would tell Uncle Ralph. He is big and strong, you know, and he wouldn’t laugh at me.”

“Laugh at you, dear,” said Marion, eagerly; “no, indeed, he would not. Nor would I, Sybil. You know I wouldn’t. Won’t you tell me this secret, darling, unless, of course, you are sure it would be wrong to do so?”

“It wouldn’t be wrong,” said Sybil, “only I promised. And then—— Oh!” she exclaimed, suddenly, while a sort of shiver ran through her—“oh, it is so dreadful. Can’t you make me forget it, dear Miss Freer? Last night I said my prayers a hundred times over without stopping, before Emilie came to bed, but it was no use. I couldn’t go to sleep, and it gets so hot under the clothes I can hardly breathe.”

“But how do you menu, before Emilie came to bed?” asked Marion; “doesn’t she sit in your room after you are in bed? I am sure I have heard that she was told to do so.”

“Yes,” answered Sybil in a whisper; “yes, Grandmamma did tell her so, after Lotty went to sleep in Florence’s room. I was always able to go to sleep before that. But Emilie won’t stay in my room till I go to sleep. That is what has made it so bad. Only she told me not to tell. If I did, she said I should get into a fit and die. All alone, Miss Freer, all alone except for them,” the child added in a whisper of the utmost horror, her eyes dilated as she looked up into Marion’s anxious face. Suddenly she threw herself back into her governess’s arms, clutching her tightly in her terror and distress, and burying her face on her shoulder.

“Oh!” she exclaimed; “don’t make me tell any more. Don’t, please don’t.”

“Very well, darling,” replied Marion, soothingly; “we will talk about some nice things. Only tell me, dear Sybil, does any one know? Any one besides Emilie?”

“Florence knows part,” said the child; “Emilie told her I was very naughty, and Florence wasn’t kind at all. She scolded me very much, and said if I told that Emilie didn’t stay with me, she would get me sent away to school. She said it was very unkind of me to want Emilie to sit all the evening in my room. But I think Emilie didn’t tell it her all, or she would not have scolded me so. Emilie does tell little stories, Miss Freer, and I don’t like her, but Florence likes her because she does a great deal of work for her, and then she says I give her so much trouble, she has no time to do the things that Grandmamma wants done. And it isn’t true, Miss Freer,” said Sybil, emphatically, clenching her little hands in indignation.

“Well, dear, it should make you not mind so much what Emilie says, if she is so careless in her way of speaking. If your secret is about something Emilie has told, I would try not to think any more about it.”

“Yes, but that is true,” repeated Sybil, relapsing into her awe-struck whisper; “I know that is true, because of what I saw, Miss Freer.”

She shuddered as she spoke, and Marion, fearful of uselessly exciting her—as it was evident she must not at present insist upon the child’s full confidence—hastened to change the subject. After some efforts, she succeeded in interesting and amusing her little charge, who by the end of the morning looked brighter and happier. Still the young governess felt very anxious and uneasy when the hour came to leave her pupils for the day. Sybil looked ready to burst into tears again, but Marion whispered to her that to-morrow she would arrange to stay an hour later, to finish a delightful story that had been broken in the middle; which promise brought back a smile to the woe-begone little face.

“What can I do?” thought Marion. “I can’t bear to leave things as they are, and yet any interference on my part would probably do no good, and only cause me to be set down as presumptuous and officious. It might even lead to my being dismissed, and then how miserable and forlorn Sybil would be! It is evident that wicked Emilie is terrifying the poor child to prevent her complaining of her. And Miss Vyse supporting such conduct! Though I agree with Sybil that Emilie must have told the story in her own way. Miss Vyse would not be so utterly heartless, if she knew what the child is actually suffering. Though it is shameful of her to have accepted Emilie’s statement as to Sybil’s naughtiness in that careless way.”

So Marion thought to herself. But she could see nothing likely to do such good in her power. All her cogitations ended in wishing Sir Ralph were back again. But she resolved in the meantime to watch Sybil closely, and if no improvement became manifest, to brave all, rather than conceal the hidden mischief she now had proof was at work. Emilie, the children’s maid, she had seen little of, but the girl’s manner and appearance she disliked. Lady Severn unfortunately had an exceedingly high opinion of her; and Miss Vyse, as Sybil had said, was sure to take her part, for the reasons the child had been quick enough to discover.

The next day Sybil seemed better again, and told Marion she had had “a very nice sleep all night.” But the day after the child was evidently very ill. There were black circles round her eyes, telling of sleepless hours and nervous suffering. The pain in her head was so bad, she said, she could not see the words in her lesson-book when she tried to read; and at last Marion gave up the attempt as useless. Sybil would not speak much, and was evidently in terror of Marion’s renewing the subject of her secret alarms. So, after trying to soothe her by reading aloud some of the little girl’s favourite fairy tales, in which however she seemed hardly able to take any interest, the young governess was obliged to leave her for the day. Lotty did not seem much impressed by her sister's suffering, saying carelessly:

“Oh! Sybil’s always sulky when she has the least bit of a headache.”

When lesson hours were over, Marion asked to see Lady Severn, intending to tell her of Sybil’s evident illness. Considerably to her annoyance, Lady Severn sent to ask her to see her in the drawing-room, in consequence of which Miss Vyse was of course present at the interview, which effectually dispelled Marion’s faint hopes of being able to do poor Sybil any real good by what she might say to her grand-mother.

“You wished to see me, Miss Freer, I believe?” began the dowager, in a rather icy tone.

“Merely to tell you that I think Sybil is far from well this morning,” replied Marion rather shortly, at which Miss Vyse smiled contemptuously as she bent over her writing-table. Miss Freer’s entrance into the room she had acknowledged by the slightest and most indifferent of bows, or rather nods.

“Of that I am quite aware,” said Lady Severn; “I make a point of seeing the children every morning, Miss Freer, and I am thoroughly acquainted with Sybil’s constitution. She is only suffering from one of her old attacks, and the usual remedies have already been applied. Your intention was good, Miss Freer, I have no doubt, but I assure you, it is quite unnecessary for you to add to your duties the care of my grand-daughters’ health. It is in older and naturally more experienced hands than yours. At the same time, I thank you for your well-meant attention to Sybil’s indisposition.”

Again Miss Vyse smiled quietly to herself.

Marion was paler than usual, as she made another effort for her poor little pupil:

“You must excuse me, Lady Severn,” she said “if I seem officious or presuming, but I am very anxious about Sybil. I think she has been falling off for some time. I am afraid she does not sleep well, and bad nights are sure to hurt a child. In the morning she often looks as if she had been awake all night.”

“She has never been a good sleeper,” replied Lady Severn, but not unkindly. “It arises merely from her general delicacy. It is not to be expected she will get over it till she is older. But in this respect she is already improved. Emilie says she sleeps soundly now, does she not, Florence, my dear?” she inquired of Miss Vyse.

“Perfectly so, dear Aunt,” replied the young lady, with the same sneer in her voice that Marion had detected in her smile. “Of course Miss Freer cannot understand her in the same way that we do. I myself think her wonderfully improved of late in her health, though I sometimes fear the improvement in her temper and disposition is not so great.”

“I quite agree with you my love,” said Lady Severn. “Do not think I am finding fault, Miss Freer, but you must allow me to say that I think your anxiety would be better directed were you to turn it to the points my niece has alluded to.”

“Sybil’s temper and whole behaviour are all I could wish when she is well, Lady Severn,” said Marion stoutly. “At present I am convinced there is much amiss with her, and believe it arises in great measure from her having bad nights. I believe she sometimes cannot go to sleep for hours after she is in bed. I am sure I would gladly come every evening to sit by her or read to her, till she goes to sleep, if that would do any good.”

Miss Vyse’s delicate black eyebrows rose in supercilious amazement at this proposal, and Lady Severn at first seemed too astonished to reply. At last she said:

“Really, Miss Freer I suppose I must again give you credit for kindly and well-meant intention; but your must allow me to remind you that I have an ample staff of servants in my household for waiting on the young ladies. You really need not fear they are in any way neglected.”

“Neglected indeed!” repeated Miss Vyse with a silvery laugh at the absurdity of the idea. “Why Emilie sits the whole evening besides Sybil, till her little ladyship goes to sleep. And not a little difficult to please, poor Emilie has found her of late, I can assure you, dear Aunt. Sybil is a child that requires very judicious management, young as she is.”

“She certainly does,” said Marion, quietly, looking at Florence as she spoke. And then, as it appeared that Miss Vyse had exhausted her stock of impertinent sneers and innuendos for the present, she thought it as well to take leave.

Her cheeks burned as she thought quietly over the interview. “Poor Sybil, I have done you more harm than good, I fear!” she said to herself. And then in her genuine anxiety for the suffering and mismanaged child, she unselfishly forgot her own personal annoyance and mortification.

That afternoon as she was sitting with Cissy, Charlie, attended by Thérèse, returned from his stroll in the park. He told her he had met “those two little young ladies you go to play with every morning, May. And the littlest one had red eyes, as if she had been crying,” he added sympathisingly.

“Poor baby!” said Cissy. “She looks horribly ill now and then, Marion. I fancy they are rather rough with her sometimes. She has cowed, cowering look I can’t bear to see in a child’s face.”

All of which added not a little Marion’s uneasiness. An hour or so later when she was alone in her room, Thérèse entered.

“If you please, Mademoiselle,” she said, “the little young lady asked me to give you this, but that no one should see it.”

“This” was a leaf of copy-book paper, on which was written in Sybil’s large, round text hand (the letters shaky and crooked, and the whole bearing marks of being a laborious and painfully accomplished production) the following words:

“DEAR MISS FREER,—I meet the little boy and his kind nurse often, and Lotty would tell, if I had told you this morneng. Pleese writ to Unkel at Paris, and say I will dye if he wont come. I coudent tell eny boddy but him. Sybil.”

Marion’s resolution was instantly shaken. She fortunately remembered the name of the hotel at which Sir Ralph was staying; and that evening’s post bore to him a letter from her, enclosing poor Sybil’s piteous appeal. She told Sir Ralph that she was unable to explain the cause of the child’s suffering; but that she suspected that some cruel trick had been played by Emilie, the maid, for the sake of terrifying her into silence. She apologised for her boldness in writing to trouble him about it; but added that she saw nothing else to do, as her own efforts had failed to awaken Lady Severn’s anxiety about the poor little girl; and she ended by begging him to return to Altes as soon as possible to judge for himself, without of course betraying her confidence, or that of the poor child.

Once her letter was fairly gone, Marion began to be rather frightened at what she had done. She was perfectly satisfied that the step she had taken was a right and indeed unavoidable one; but then there came the after thought.

“What will he think of me for having done it? Knowing what I do of his opinion of me, how could I have been the one, for any reason whatever, to summon him back here before I leave!”

And she felt half inclined to run away from Altes before he could possibly arrive! And yet with it all, there was a strange under current of inexpressible happiness in the thought that now she was almost sure to see him again, to hear him speak, to feel him looking kindly at her once more.

“Once more!” If only that, and nothing beyond, yet that once more was worth living for.

Two—three days passed. Then came the fourth, the day before the one on which Marion had calculated it might be possible to receive an answer from Paris. She had not been alone with Sybil for more than a moment since receiving her note. Lotty seemed inquisitive and suspicious, and Sybil was evidently afraid of her. Marion could only manage to whisper to the child that she had done what she asked, without any further explanation passing between them. Sybil brightened up wonderfully on hearing this, and for some few days looked so much better that Marion began to think Sir Ralph would consider her alarm about his little niece very exaggerated, if not altogether uncalled for. The reflection was not a pleasant one! There was no letter on the fifth morning, nor up to the eighth! which did not make her feel any the more comfortable, and on her way to the Rue des Lauriers, one week after her letter had gone, she really began most heartily to wish she had not written at all.

But the first sight of Sybil changed her feelings entirely. The child looked exceedingly ill, and was, as before, utterly unable to attend to her lessons. She lay on the sofa without speaking, and hardly took any notice even of her kind friend. Only as Marion was leaving, and bent down to kiss her, Sybil whispered, hurriedly:

“Is he coming?”

“Yes, dear, I hope so,” replied Marion, in the same voice.

There was no time for more, for just then Emilie entered the room with some medicine, which poor Sybil was obliged to take every two hours; and the child shrank back in fear.

This was the evening of the last Altes ball before Lent. Cissy was not inclined to go, not feeling particularly well, and Marion, too, was much better pleased to stay at home. They spent till evening as usual, quietly reading and working. From time to time the roll of carriages in the street below reminded them of the gaiety which the little world of Altes was about to enjoy. Marion did not envy the ball-goers, but she could not help thinking, half sadly, of her one ball at Altes, and all that passed there. Mrs. Archer was tired, and went to bed early, leaving her cousin alone. To get rid of her thoughts Marion got a book, and forced herself to attend to its contents, in which she so succeeded that an hour or two went by, and it was close to midnight before she moved.

Suddenly, she was startled by the sound of a carriage driving up rapidly and stopping at their door. Knowing that all the servants were disposed of for the night, and fearing, that a sudden ring of the bell might frighten Cissy, Marion went quickly to the front door, which she unlocked and opened softly, and stood with it slightly ajar, watching to see if indeed the carriage contained any visitor for them. She heard the driver’s voice, replying to some question, but it was a very dark night and she could distinguish nothing distinctly. In a moment more she felt, rather than saw, that some one was approaching the door, which, to prevent this person’s ringing the bell, she immediately opened more widely. Evidently the stranger took her for one of the servants; for, though apparently rather surprised at finding the door open and some one behind it the unseasonable visitor inquired in French if it would be possible for him to see “une de ces dames, Madame au Mademoiselle.” The voice told more tales this time than that its owner was an Englishman!

“Sir Ralph,” said the girl, whom in the dim light he had taken for a servant, “Sir Ralph, it is I—Marion.” (Even then she could not say Miss Freer.) “Come in and tell me what is the matter. Oh tell me! Tell me quickly,” she added, as she saw that he bore a burden in his arms. Something covered with a shawl, but which he held tenderly and closely, as if he would guard it from touch or approach. “What is that Sir Ralph?” she almost screamed, as he entered the passage, and she saw that what he carried was like a lifeless nerveless body, hanging limp and loose and heavy in his grasp, though she could see no face or features.

“Hush! Marion,” he said, unconsciously calling her what she had called herself; “hush! I know you will control yourself and help me. What a mercy you were still up!”

He spoke in a matter-of-course tone that marvellously quieted Marion’s first thrill of horror. But she could hardly control herself as he had told her, when he gently laid his burden on the sofa in the still lighted drawing-room, and softly removing the shawl from the face showed Marion that it was Sybil! Poor little Sybil, there she lay, her eyes closed, but her brow contracted as if with pain or terror, ghastly pale, with the paleness it seemed to Marion that could only come from one cause—death!

“Is she dead?” she whispered.

Ralph turned suddenly to her.

“My darling,” he said, “how could I be so cruelly thoughtless as to forget you in my anxiety about this poor child. Dead! no. Indeed, no. She is only fainting, and will revive again in a few moments. But dead indeed she might have been but for you. Your goodness, your promptness have saved her. It anything had been wanting to—but what am I saying?” he exclaimed, with a sudden change of tone. “Marion—Miss Freer, you must think me mad.”

But she said nothing. She leant over Sybil, and would not look up for fear of meeting his eyes, as she asked quietly,—

“What can we do to revive her?”

“Nothing,” he said; “she is already coming round. Only be sure to let her see you and this room, as soon as she opens her eyes. She has already fainted once or twice, and was sent into hysterics again as soon as she came round, by the sight of that room. And then she begged me to bring her to you, so I did so, on my own responsibility. My mother and Miss Vyse are out at a ball, the servants there told me. I sent for Bailey, but the old fool was not to be found. Gone to the ball too, I dare say. But it’s just as well to avoid the scandal, for a scandal it is, no doubt, as you will say when you hear it all. I got her this the chemist’s, on our way here. It can’t do her any harm.”

And as he spoke he produced a little bottle, from which he poured a few drops into a glass of water, which Marion fetched him.

“Now Sybil, my pet,” he said, as the little girl opened her eyes, and glanced round her with an expression of terror. “Now, dear, you are all right again. You see you are with Miss Freer in her pretty house; and she is going to let you sleep in her own room, and stay with you all night.” At which information the poor baby tried to smile, as she stroked Marion’s hand, laid on her caressingly.

“Forgive My audacity,” he whispered to Marion; “but you will be as good as my word this once, won’t you?”

“You know I will,” answered Marion, in the same tone.

And then she went to rouse the good-natured Thérèse, and as far as possible “insense” her as to the strange state of things. Between them, poor Sybil was divested of her cloaks and shawls, and comfortably ensconced for the night in a corner of Marion’s bed.

Exhausted by all she had gone through, the poor child soon fell asleep. Marion returned for a moment to set Sir Ralph’s mind at ease about his little niece, and to bid him good-night. He only detained her to request her not to come to the Rue des Lauriers in the morning, as he would explain her absence to Lady Severn. He also promised to call early, to see how Sybil had passed the night, and to explain to Miss Freer what had come to his knowledge as to the cause of the child’s terror and consequent illness.

“That Emilie shall leave my mother’s service at once,” he said “if I am to have any authority at all over my nieces. But by the morning I shall be able to explain the whole affair better. I am not quite clear how much was Emilie’s doing, and how much the result of pour Sybil’s own nervousness. The poor child tried to tell me all about it, but could hardly manage to do so clearly, in the state she was in.”

“You may be sure I shall take good care of her,” said Marion, as he was leaving.

“I know that well,” he replied. “But that reminds me,” he went on, “I have never thanked you for it all. What a boor I am! In the first place your goodness in writing to me, and now for your goodness in taking my poor child in, as you have done. I am so stupid, Miss Freer, at thanking people. But you know what I mean, I am sure you do. Something more I would ask of you. Miss Freer, can you forgive me for having forgotten myself as I did last night?”

The last words he spoke very low, as if he could hardly force himself to utter them. Marion did not speak for a moment, and he went on.

“You must think me mad—mad with presumption and folly, as indeed I think myself. I thought I had mastered myself, Miss Freer, knowing all I do, both to myself, and you. You, I trust, will be very happy in the life you have chosen—much happier than if—ah! I must take care or I shall have to ask you to forgive me again. Can you do so, Miss Freer—Marion?” he added softly, as if in spite of himself.

And Marion looked up in his face, and said the one little word, “Yes.”

He wrung her hand and left her.

And she laid herself down beside the innocent little child he had given into her care, and tried to sleep. But in vain! All night long she tossed about, imagining herself kept awake by her anxiety about Sybil, but in reality going over and over to herself his words, his looks, his tones. And wondering why he behaved so strangely, and how it would all end?

[CHAPTER] XI.

THE LAST AFTERNOON ON THE TERRACE

“O Erd, O Sonne!
O Glück, O Lust!
O Lieb. O Liebe!
So golden Schön
Wie Morganwolken
Auf jenen Höhn.”

GÖTHE.

RALPH called early the next morning, as he had promised. He was relieved to find, by Marion’s account, that Sybil was fairly well, and that there appeared no necessity for sending for Dr. Bailey. At Sybil’s earnest request her uncle went in to see her, and remained with her some time. When he returned to the drawing-room, he gave Marion and Mrs. Archer, who had just made her appearance two hours earlier than usual, thanks to her curiosity, a full account of the whole mysterious affair, which, with the additional light thrown upon it by Sybil’s communications this morning, he said he had now got to the bottom of.

This was what he had to tell.

Immediately on the receipt of Marion’s letter (this part of the story was not revealed to Mrs. Archer) he prepared to leave Paris. Some delays arose however, in consequence of which it was not till the evening the eighth day after receiving her summons that he found himself again at Altes. He drove straight to the Rue des Lauriers, where he had to wait some time at the door, without any one coming to open it.

Growing impatient, and rather uneasy, for his mind was full of what Marion had written to him about Sybil, he suddenly bethought himself that, as likely as not, the window-door in the drawing-room, which opened on to the garden, might be unlatched. He left the court-yard, and returned to the street, told the driver of the carriage which had brought himself and his luggage from the coach office, to wait a few minutes; and then made his way to the garden at the top of the hilly street, on which opened the drawing-room. The garden gate was fastened, but he easily climbed over the railings, and hastened to the glass door. The blinds were down, but the light inside was low. Evidently no one in the room to be started by his unceremonious entrance! More and more alarmed, he quickly tried the door, found it, as he expected, unlatched; and in another moment was in the room.

The lamp was burning feebly, the fire all but out. What could be the meaning of it all? Thinking of nothing but Sybil, it rushed into his mind that perhaps the child was very ill, dying it might be, and he too late to save her. Half expecting to find the whole house-hold assembled in mournful vigil round her bed, he made his way softly to her room.

As he passed the chamber occupied by Miss Vyse he noticed that the door was open and a light on the table. He peeped in but there was no one there. But on the pillow lay as mass of golden curls, all but hiding a round, rosy childish thee, which he soon identified as Dotty. Fast asleep, the picture of health and comfort! Somewhat relieved in his mind, but nevertheless surprised at the change in the domestic arrangements which had thus separated the two little sisters, he stepped softly to the other end of the long passage, up from which again a short staircase led to the little vestibule, on to which opened the nursery apartments. All was quiet. There was very little light, only what found its way up from the lamp in the long passage below. The door of the children’s bedroom was nearly closed. He entered the room. The first thing that struck him was that the doors of a large hang-press, close to the entrance of the room, stood wide open, disclosing a row of dresses, evidently the property of Mdlle. Emilie; which, in the faint light, bore a startling resemblance to the headless occupants of the far-famed Bluebeard chamber.

Half smiling at his own fancy, Sir Ralph approached the little bed which he knew to be Sybil’s. But the smile quickly faded from his face at what met him there. At first sight he thought there was no one in the bed. But, looking more closely, he distinguished the outlines of a little form, lying perfectly motionless under the coverings. Huddled up together in a sort of heap it seemed to be.

Ah! How thankful he felt that it lay thus, instead of straightened out into that awful length and stiffness under the white sheet which, once seen, is never, never again forgotten!

Still, though, not so bad as that, there was cause enough for alarm.

“Sybil,” he said, gently, “Sybil, dear, are you asleep? Put down the clothes and look at me. I have got your letter, and have come from Paris as fast as I could.”

But there was no answer, no movement. His eyes were growing accustomed to the dim light and he could have distinguished the least quiver in the little figure. He looked round. An unlighted candle and matches stood on the table. He struck a light, and again spoke to the child. But it was no use. So he tenderly removed the clothes and raised the face, which was turned round on to the pillow. It was indeed Sybil, but what a Sybil to greet him on his return! She was perfectly unconscious. In a dead swoon or faint, which for all he knew might already have lasted so long that recovery might be impossible. But he had known her faint before, poor little girl, and was at no loss what remedies to employ. He took her in his arms, chafed her cold hands and feet, bathed her forehead, and tried hard to revive her with strong smelling salts, which he found, after a search, in Miss Vyse’s sanctum. He would not, as yet, ring for assistance. He was so sure the child would best recover were she, on regaining her senses, to find herself alone with him.

In a few minutes she began to show signs of returning consciousness. At last she opened her eyes, raised herself in his arms, and looked about her with that dazed look peculiar to people when recovering from a state of insensibility. He was on the alert for this moment.

“Are you awake now, Sybil dear?” he said. “Are you pleased to see me come back?”

She turned to see his face. Oh! what a look of relief and happiness overspread her poor pale drawn features!

“Uncle Ralph,” she whispered; “dear Uncle Ralph, will you send them away?” she went on with, with a thrill of agony in her voice. “Oh, will you send them away?”

“Who, dear? What?” he asked, eagerly.

“Those dreadful people. Those ladies without any heads. They were cut off long ago, down there, in the courtyard, with that dreadful big cutting thing. And they walk about the house at night. And they come to the side of any little girl’s bed if she doesn’t go to sleep quick. And to-night they came again. And, oh! uncle, they’re coming now!” she screamed, as, happening to turn round, she caught sight of the row of headless dresses in the cupboard. And before Ralph could soothe or explain away her terror, the little creature was torn with terrible hysterics, screaming and shaking in a way pitiful to see, till she again subsided into the death-like faint from which he had but just restored her.

Now he was obliged to summon assistance. In five minutes the house was in a ferment. Such servants as had not taken advantage of their mistress’s rare absence to amuse themselves elsewhere (among which was not Mdlle. Emilie), were immediately rushing about, some suggesting one thing, some another, till Sir Ralph wished he had managed the child by himself. At last, among them, they succeeded in reviving her. This time her uncle took care to have the cupboard doors shut before she opened her eyes; and he was only too thankful to agree, notwithstanding the amazement of the scandalized servants, to her proposal that he should take her away to Miss Freer’s house, where “those dreadful people could not come.”

This was the history of the previous night’s adventures up to the time when Sir Ralph arrived at Mrs. Archer’s door with Sybil in his arms.

Cissy and Marion listened in silence to his recital, but when, having got so far, he stopped for a moment to take breath, the former had a host of questions ready for him.

“But what in the world did the child mean, Sir Ralph?” she inquired, eagerly. “ ‘Dreadful people without heads’—‘cut of in the court-yard.’ I can’t make it out in the least. And if, as May here suspects, Emilie, the maid, is at the bottom of it, what could be her motive? What good could it do her to frighten the child to death, as she nearly did? No, I can’t make it out.”

“Nor could I, Mrs. Archer,” replied Sir Ralph, “till I heard what Sybil had to say this morning. During the Revolution it is perfectly true people’s beads were cut off in our court-yard, for there stood the guillotine. This is a fact sure enough, and well known at Altes. And I now perfectly remember it’s being mentioned to us when we first came here. Sybil, it appears, heard it too, and from the first it made a strong impression on her sensitive imagination. She tells me she never could bear to look out on the courtyard after it grew dark at night; for then this wicked Emilie told her the decapitated victims might be seen promenading about. Some, Emilie told her, with a view to heightening the dramatic effect of her story, might be perceived grubbing about among the stones with which the yard is paved for the lost heads supposed there to be buried. Others, again, would be seen marching along triumphantly like St. Denis, with their heads reposing under their arms. It is really too absurd,” he said, laughing, “though hideous enough to the imagination of a nervous little creature of eight years old.”

“But what in the world did Emilie tell her all this for?” asked Marion, speaking for the first time.

“You may well ask,” he replied “but as far as I can make out she did it, in the first place, simply out of a spirit of low mischief; for the pure pleasure of teasing the child, whom she evidently does not like, and amusing herself with her terrors. Before long she must have discovered that she could turn Sybil’s fears to useful account. For some time past it appears Miss Vyse has taken it into her head to have Lotty domiciled in her own room. Before this Sybil was comparatively happy; Lotty’s substantial presence appearing to her a sufficient safeguard against ghostly visitants. But when she was left alone in the room at night, her terrors increased so that she could not go to sleep. She begged my mother to let her have a light in the room till Emilie came to bed, but this request was refused, my mother having a notion that it would be bad for the child’s eyes. To make up for this however, Emilie was ordered to sit by Sybil every evening till the child fell asleep. Not the pleasantest of duties apparently, for Emilie regularly shirked it. Two or three times, on being thus left to herself, Sybil jumped out of bed and ran down stairs to fetch Emilie; conduct which that young person much resented, as it interfered with her more entertaining way of spending the evening, and also very nearly, more than once, brought her into disgrace with the authorities below stairs. So she hit on the ingenious expedient of telling Sybil that the headless spectres were said to have a special predilection for the long passage leading to her room. ‘They come along there every night,’ Sybil informed me, ‘and if they find any little girl awake, they come to the side of her bed and stand in a row.’ Isn’t it really frightful to think of the lonely little creature’s agonies?”

“Horrible!” said Marion, “but what about the dresses hanging up?”

“Oh, that was another clever dodge of Emilie’s, evidently. I asked Sybil how ever she could be frightened at dresses hanging on pegs, but she assured me she did not know there were any dresses there; so I suppose Emilie keeps the cupboard locked in the day-time, and opens it at night to prevent Sybil’s venturing to rush past the dreadful row of spectres at the doorway.”

“But another thing, Sir Ralph,” said Marion, “why was Sybil afraid to tell me?”

“She was afraid to tell any one, I think,” answered he, “except me, because, as she expressed it, I was ‘big and strong’ and ‘they’ couldn’t hurt me. One day, it seems, when much provoked by her complaints, Emilie gave a garbled account of the affair to Miss. Vyse; who, Sybil says, for reasons of her own, was very unkind to her, and defended Emilie. Sybil would told you, Miss Freer, but one day when, she was on the point of doing so, Emilie, perceiving, I suppose, that the child’s powers or endurance were all but exhausted, terrified her into not confiding in you, by vague hints of injury that might result to you from her so doing. Sybil is rather misty as to what exactly Emilie said; but it seems to have been to the effect that if Sybil set you against her by complaints of her nightly neglect of her duty, she, Emilie, could easily be revenged on you by certain information about you in her possession, which Sybil says ‘if Grandmamma knew would have made her “chasser” Miss Freer away.’ I am not clear about it myself. I only tell it you to warn you to have nothing to say to the girl, out of pity, or any other kindly motive. She shall be ‘chasséed,’ and that very quickly. But first I shall make her explain her insolent words,” he added, with a dark frown on his face.

But just then the clock struck eleven. Sir Ralph jumped up.

“I must be going,” he said, “I want particularly to be home before my mother and Miss Vyse are visible. I forbade the servants to say anything to them last night, and this morning I counted on their not being very alert after last night’s dissipation.”

“I was just wondering what Lady Severn would think of it all!” remarked Mrs. Archer.

“I know what she shall think of it all,” replied Sir Ralph, “that is to say at least, if I have any spark of influence left,” he added in a lower tone. “In the meantime, Mrs. Archer, will you be so very kind as to keep Sybil her till I have set things straight again at home?”

“With the greatest pleasure,” she replied heartily. And then he left them. Just as he was outside the room, she exclaimed, “Bye-the-by, Sir Ralph, you must get some one to pack up and send her some clothes.”

But he did not hear her, and Marion ran, after him to repeat the message.

“Very well you thought of it!” he said laughing, and then he stood for a moment if expecting her to say something more.

“Sir Ralph,” she said, “will you do me a favour?”

“What would I not?” he exclaimed.

“Will you be so good as not mention my name at all to that girl, Emilie?” she asked, “never mind if says rude or impertinent things about me. Let them pass. Only don’t set her more against me. I don’t like having enemies.”

“Very well,” she replied, “as you wish it, I will endeavour to do as you ask.” But he looked rather surprised.

“I daresay you think me very silly,” she said, “but”——

“But nothing,” he interrupted, “make your mind quite easy. You are only too good, too gentle.”

“No, indeed, I am not,” she said with a little sigh. “My motive is a selfish one. I cannot afford to have enemies.”

He looked at her searchingly but very kindly, saying however nothing. The thought passed through his mind, “It must be some family disgrace. Something connected with that father. My poor darling, if only I were free! Can she think anything of that sort would influence me? But I am forgetting. She will have some one else soon to fight her battles. Just as well, perhaps, for her chances of happiness that she will be out in India! As well for her—better in every way. But—for me!”

As Marion returned to the drawing-room she said to Cissy anxiously—

“Do you think it possible that that Emilie has found out about me, Cissy?”

“Found out about you,” repeated Mrs. Archer. “How? What do you mean?”

“That Freer is not my real name, and all about it,” answered Marion.

“Nonsense, child. How could she know anything of the sort? Don’t be so silly. Besides, if she did! You speak as if it were a disgrace. I declare, Marion, you provoke me. I wish most sincerely that every one in Altes knew your real name, be the consequences what they might.”

“Oh, Cissy!” said Marion reproachfully; for Cissy had spoken crossly and pettishly. But Cissy was not repentant.

“It’s not good your saying, ‘Oh Cissy’ in that way, Marion. I repeat what I said before. I wish every one in Altes knew the true state of the case.”

Her tone was a trifle sharp and unkind, but her heart was full of anxious affection. Of late certain misgivings had begun to assail her, and she had spoken the truth as to her wish that the whole were known. “That would indeed be carrying it too far,” she said to herself, “risking her life-happiness for the sake or concealing that boy’s misdemeanours. No indeed! Rather than that I would brave anything or anybody.”

But she was too much in awe of Marion to utter any of these thoughts aloud.

When Sir Ralph returned to the Rue des Lauriers morning, a council of state—war, rather—was held in his mother’s drawing-room; at which for once in his life, Ralph Severn distinguished himself by proving beyond dispute that he had a will, and a very strong one too, of his own.

Lady Severn was amazed, indignant, but finally submissive; repentant even, for having, as her son phrased it, “allowed such goings-on without finding them out.”

“Rather an Irish way of putting it certainly,” he said with a laugh, for he could afford to now that he was victorious. He was a man who could fight, and bravely too, for any one in the world but himself!

Miss Vyse escaped scot-free of course; expressing the greatest surprise and disappointment at Emilie’s “shocking behaviour.”

“A girl we all thought so well of,” she said, with an air of most virtuous indignation, “to have deceived us so grossly! To think how, all this time, she has been making our poor darling Sybil suffer! Why if I had only known she grudged sitting beside the dear child in the evenings how gladly I would have done so myself!” (Florence quite thought she was speaking the truth.) “Oh, Sir Ralph,” she continued, “how fortunate it was you returned last night in that unexpected way! More than fortunate indeed; providential, I may call it.”

“Particularly so,” replied Ralph dryly; “also that you and my mother were out at a ball. By the way, how did you enjoy it?”

“Pretty well,” replied Florence, not quite sure if he had been laughing at her or not. “I missed your waltzing, Sir Ralph. Indeed, I don’t think I have enjoyed any of the balls so much as the second one—the one, you remember, before you went away so suddenly. Still I believe last night’s was considered a good one. It was well attended.”

“So I heard,” said Ralph carelessly.

“So you heard!” said Lady Severn; “news travels fast, it appears. It only took place last night, and you have seen no one this morning, except Mrs. Archer, and she wasn’t at it.”

“No,” he replied; “but I met young Nodouroff this morning on my way to inquire about Sybil. By the by, I wonder why Mrs. Archer wasn’t at it.”

“Oh,” said his mother, “she only went for the sake of that girl, Miss Freer.”

“And she, I suppose, didn’t care about going again,” observed Florence; “she only went to the one. Certainly most of the people they know best have left. The Frasers, and Captain Berwick; he has been away for two or three weeks, but his sister said last night that he is coming back in a week or two.”

“Oh indeed!” said Lady Severn, whereupon the conversation dropped.

Emilie was dismissed on the spot. She at first attempted some vindication of her conduct, which, however, Sir Ralph very quickly put a stop to; and further astonished her by some observations on her own behaviour more truthful than agreeable.

“Who would have thought so quiet a gentleman could fly out so like?” observed Taylor, the leading authority below stairs.

Of course, as soon as the culprit was “found out,” and punished, the whole of the servants were down upon her. One had “never liked her ways,” another had “always thought as much.” In short, not one of them, by their own account, but had possessed evidence enough against her to have led to her dismissal months before; and thus saved an innocent child many weeks of agony, ending in imminent risk to her reason, if not to her life.

“So young Berwick has been away! “thought Ralph “and for this reason Miss Freer was supposed not to care about going to the ball. All well, so be it!”

Sybil remained some days at Mrs. Archer’s, by no means to her grandmother’s delight. Indeed, but for Ralph’s unwonted, but none the less strenuous opposition, the child would have been sent for home that same afternoon. He took the whole responsibility, blame if there were any, on himself; religiously refraining from mentioning Miss Freer as having had any share whatever in the affair; though dwelling strongly on the ready kindness and hospitality of Mrs. Archer in the emergency. Yet, notwithstanding all his care, the fact of Sybil’s flight annoyed Lady Severn exceedingly, naturally so perhaps. From that time, also, her growing dislike to the young governess increased rapidly, which Miss Vyse was quick to perceive and to rejoice at.

Its seed was of her own sowing, and had been fostered with the greatest care. It was to be expected, therefore, that the sight of its strength and vigour should fill her with gratification.

The week that Sybil spent with her kind friends was the happiest she had ever known. Lessons at the Rue des Lauriers were suspended for the time; Lotty was allowed, by her uncle’s intercession, to spend some afternoons with her little sister. She was sorry for Sybil, and anxious to make up to her for her roughness and unkindness.

The two little sisters appeared to cling to each other more fondly and closely than had been the case for long; a state of things the good influences about them were not likely to discourage. With much care Marion and Sir Ralph endeavoured to efface from poor Sybil’s mind the recollection of her midnight terrors; and to some extent succeeded. Though so vainly nervous and impressionable, the child was also sensible, and by no means deficient in reasoning powers. By the end of the week she perfectly understood and believed that no real grounds for her alarm had existed; though at the same time, she begged that she might not again be asked to sleep in the room where he had passed so many hours or misery. This request was of course acceded to, and her future comfort further ensured by a kindly; and trustworthy young woman, an elder sister of the amiable Thérèse, being engaged in the place of the objectionable Emilie.

During this week Sir Ralph was naturally good deal at Mrs. Archer’s house, which, as might have been expected, did not tend to increase his peace of mind. The state of calm equability which, during his absence from Altes, he believed himself to have attained, lasted only till he was again in Marion’s presence. After much resistance, many struggles, he gave in; resigning himself to his fate and to the intense enjoyment of the present.

“After all,” thought he, “I suppose it’s not much worse for me than for other people. I am certainly not likely to go in for this sort or thing twice in my life, and I may as well take the wretched little taste of happiness that has come in my way, for the very short time it can last.”

“For happiness it was, though certainly of curious kind. He perfectly believed her to be engaged to marry another man, one too, whom he could quite imagine it possible that she cared for sincerely, though not perhaps to the full extent that a nature such as hers was capable of. He believed, too, that under any circumstances, it would have been impossible for her to care for him, the man Ralph Severn, to even this same small extent; besides which his circumstances were such that he considered marriage, at least for many years to come, as all but out of the question for him. He knew all this, he repeated it over to himself a dozen times a day—and yet—and yet—he could not stay away from her; it was happiness even to be in the same room with her. She was so sweet, so gentle; and yet so bright and intelligent! A merely sweet and gentle woman would not have contented Ralph Severn; would not, though her beauty might have ten times exceeded that of Marion Vere, have made him feel, as she did, that here indeed was one who suited him—yes, “to the innermost fibre of his being.”

So he went on, playing, alas, with edged tools; knowing full well that the day was not far distant when they would cut him, and deeply too. But thinking not, be it remembered in his defence, that there was the slightest danger of their wounding another as well as himself. Another, not perhaps capable of deeper suffering than he, but a gentle, tender creature. One to whom such suffering would be hard and strange; who would not, improbably, sink altogether beneath it. And one, too, whom he loved—this strong, brave man—loved, though as yet he hardly knew it, so entirely, so intensely, that to save her, he would gladly have agreed to bear through life the burden of her sorrow in addition to his own.

But for this little space, he went dreaming on. There was not just yet anything exactly to awaken him. Besides, he thought himself so particularly wide awake! The remembrance of Frank Berwick’s existence was never absent from him. He looked upon it as a sort of charm, a safeguard against any possible imprudence. Every now and then he used to give himself a little prick with it, as a sort of wholesome reminder, as it were. He noticed certainly that the young man was seldom, if ever, named by either Mrs. Archer or Marion; but that, under the circumstances, was not to be wondered at.

The engagement was not as yet a formally announced one, though he had heard it alluded to, two or three times in other quarters. Frank’s absence was probably connected with arrangements he might be making in preparation for his marriage. In short there were a hundred reasons why they should not care to talk about him. No doubt it was decidedly pleasanter for Ralph that they should not do so. He fancied himself quite prepared for it at any time; but, in point of fact, pricking oneself now and then, in a gingerly manner, by way of testing one’s powers of endurance, is a very different thing from the relentless cut of a doctor’s lancet or the deep, piercing stab of an enemy’s poniard!

Still now and then he felt puzzled. Marion herself puzzled him. In some way she was changed from what she had been when he first knew her. She had never seemed robust though perfectly healthy, but now she looked at times strangely fragile. Her spirits were less equable. Her colour went and came in a way he did like to see. She was always sweet and cheerful, never more so than now; but it sometimes seemed to him that it cost her an effort to appear so. Then, again, she would be so unaffectedly bright and merry, so almost childishly gay and light-hearted, that all his misgivings, so far as she was concerned, vanished as if by magic. And then he found himself back again in his old place, “middle-aged and dull and dried-up,” utterly unsuited to this happy young creature, whom yet, in all her moods, he found so inexpressibly winning and attractive. She liked him—he was sure of that—liked and trusted and respected him, he said to himself, with a mental wry face. “I’m not sure but what I would rather she hated me!” he thought more than once.

Lover and Husband: A Novel