THE LADIES LINDORES

BY MRS OLIPHANT

IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXXIII

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 'BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE'

"Two of the sweet'st companions in the world."

—Cymbeline.

THE LADIES LINDORES.

CHAPTER I.

The mansion-house of Dalrulzian stands on the lower slope of a hill, which is crowned with a plantation of Scotch firs. The rugged outline of this wood, and the close-tufted mass of the tree-tops, stand out against the pale East, and protect the house below and the "policy," as the surrounding grounds are called in Scotland; so that though all the winds are sharp in that northern county, the sharpest of all is tempered. The house itself is backed by lighter foliage—a feathery grove of birches, a great old ash or two, and some tolerably well-grown, but less poetical, elms. It is a house of distinctively local character, with the curious, peaked, and graduated gables peculiar to Scotch rural architecture, and thick walls of the roughest stone, washed with a weather-stained coat of yellow-white. Two wings, each presenting a gabled end to the avenue, and a sturdy block of building retired between them,—all strong, securely built, as if hewn out of the rock, formed the homely house. It had little of the beauty which a building of no greater pretensions would probably have had in England. Below the wings, and in front of the hall-door, with its two broad flat stone steps, there was nothing better than a gravelled square, somewhat mossy in the corners, and marked by the trace of wheels; but round the south wing there swept a sort of terrace, known by no more dignified name than that of "The Walk," from which the ground sloped downwards, broken at a lower level by the formal little parterres of an old-fashioned flower-garden. The view from the Walk was of no very striking beauty, but it had the charm of breadth and distance—a soft sweep of undulating country, with an occasional glimpse of a lively trout-stream gleaming here and there out of its covert of crags and trees, and a great, varied, and ever-changing world of sky,—not a prospect which captivated a stranger, but one which, growing familiar day by day and year by year, was henceforth missed like something out of their lives by the people who, being used to it, had learned to love that silent companionship of nature. It was the sort of view which a man pauses, not to look at but to see, even when he is pacing up and down his library thinking of John Thomson's demand for farm improvements, or, heavier thought, about his balance at his bankers: and which solaces the eyes of a tired woman, giving them rest and refreshment through all the vicissitudes of life. People sought it instinctively in moods of reflection, in moments of watching, at morning and at twilight, whenever any change was going on in that great exhaustless atmosphere, bounded by nothing but the pale distance of the round horizon,—and when was it that there was no change in that atmosphere?—clouds drifting, shadows flying, gleams of light like sudden revelations affording new knowledge of earth and heaven.

On the day on which the reader is asked first to visit this house of Dalrulzian, great things were happening in it. It was the end of one régime and the beginning of another. The master of the house, a young man who had been brought up at a distance, was coming home, and the family which had lived in it for years was taking its leave of the place.

The last spot which they visited and on which they lingered was the Walk. When the packing was over, the final remnants gathered up, the rooms left in that melancholy bareness into which rooms relapse when the prettinesses and familiarities of habitation have been swept away, the remaining members of the family came out with pensive faces, and stood together gazing somewhat wistfully upon the familiar scene. They had looked on many that were more fair. They were going to a landscape of greater beauty further south—brighter, richer, warmer in foliage and natural wealth; but all this did not keep a certain melancholy out of their eyes. The younger of the party, Nora Barrington, cried a little, her lip quivering, a big tear or two running over. "It is foolish to feel it so much," her mother said. "How is it one feels it so much? I did not admire Dalrulzian at all when we came."

"Out of perversity," said her husband; but he did not smile even at the cleverness of his own remark.

Nora regarded her father with a sort of tender rage. "It is all very well for you," she said; "one place is the same as another to you. But I was such a little thing when we came here. To you it is one place among many; to me it is home."

"If you take it so seriously, Nora, we shall have you making up to young Erskine for the love of his house."

"Edward," cried Mrs Barrington in a tone of reproof, "I feel disposed to cry too. We have had a great many happy days in it. But don't let old Rolls see you crying, Nora. Here he is coming to say good-bye. When do you expect Mr Erskine, Rolls? You must tell him we were sorry not to see him; but he will prefer to find his house free when he returns. I hope he will be as happy at Dalrulzian as we have been since we came here."

"Wherefore would he no' be happy, mem? He is young and weel off: and you'll no' forget it's his own house."

Rolls had stepped out from one of the windows to take farewell of the family, whom he was sorry to lose, yet anxious to get rid of. There was in him the satisfied air of the man who remains in possession, and whose habits are unaffected by the coming and going of ephemeral beings such as tenants. The Barringtons had been at Dalrulzian for more than a dozen years; but what was that to the old servant who had seen them arrive and saw them go away with the same imperturbable aspect? He stood relieved against the wall in his well-brushed black coat, concealing a little emotion under a watchful air of expectancy just touched with impatience. Rolls had condescended more or less to the English family all the time they had been there, and he was keeping up his rôle to the last, anxious that they should perceive how much he wanted to see them off the premises. Mrs Barrington, who liked everybody to like her, was vexed by this little demonstration of indifference; but the Colonel laughed. "I hope Mr Erskine will give you satisfaction," he said. "Come, Nora, you must not take root in the Walk. Don't you see that Rolls wishes us away?"

"Dear old Walk!" cried Nora; "dear Dalrulzian!" She rolled the r in the name, and turned the z into a y (which is the right way of pronouncing it), as if she had been to the manner born; and though an English young lady, had as pretty a fragrance of northern Scotland in her voice as could be desired. Rolls did not trust himself to look at this pretty figure lingering, drying wet eyes, until she turned round upon him suddenly, holding out her hands: "The moment we are off, before we are down the avenue, you will be wishing us back," she cried with vehemence; "you can't deceive me. You would like to cry too, if you were not ashamed," said the girl, with a smile and a sob, shaking the two half-unwilling hands she had seized.

"Me cry! I've never done that since I came to man's estate," cried Rolls indignantly, but after a suspicious pause. "As for wishing you back, Miss Nora, wishing you were never to go,—wishing you would grow to the Walk, as the Cornel says——" This was so much from such a speaker, that he turned, and added in a changed tone, "You'll have grand weather for your journey, Cornel. But you must mind the twa ferries, and no' be late starting,"—a sudden reminder which broke up the little group, and made an end of the scene of leave-taking. It was the farewell volley of friendly animosity with which Rolls put a stop to his own perverse inclination to be soft-hearted over the departure of the English tenants. "He could not let us go without that parting shot," the "Cornel" said, as he put his wife into the jingling "coach" from the station, which, every better vehicle having been sent off beforehand, was all that remained to carry them away.

The Barringtons during their residence at Dalrulzian had been received into the very heart of the rural society, in which at first there had sprung up a half-grudge against the almost unknown master of the place, whose coming was to deprive them of a family group so pleasant and so bright. The tenants themselves, though their turn was over, felt instinctively as if they were expelled for the benefit of our intruder, and entertained this grudge warmly. "Mr Erskine might just as well have stayed away," Nora said. "He can't care about it as we do." Her mother laughed and chid, and shared the sentiment. "But then it's 'his ain place,' as old Rolls says." "And I daresay he thinks there is twice as much shooting," said the Colonel, complacently: "I did, when we came. He'll be disappointed, you'll see." This gave him a faint sort of satisfaction. In Nora's mind there was a different consolation, which yet was not a consolation, but a mixture of expectancy and curiosity, and that attraction which surrounds an unconscious enemy. She was going to make acquaintance with this supplanter, this innocent foe, who was turning them out of their home because it was his home—the most legitimate reason. She was about to pay a series of visits in the country, to the various neighbours, who were all fond of her and reluctant to part with her. Perhaps her mother had some idea of the vague scheme of match-making which had sprung up in some minds, a plan to bring the young people together; for what could be more suitable than a match between John Erskine, the young master of Dalrulzian, who knew nothing about his native county, and Nora Barrington, who was its adopted child, and loved the old house as much as if she had been born in it? Mrs Barrington, perhaps, was not quite unconscious of this plan, though not a word had been said by any of these innocent plotters. For indeed what manner of man young Erskine was, and whether he was worthy of Nora, or in the least likely to please her, were things altogether unknown to the county, where he had not been seen for the last dozen years.

Anyhow he was coming as fast as the railway could carry him, while Nora took leave of her parents at the station. The young man then on his way was not even aware of her existence, though she knew all about him—or rather about his antecedents; for about John Erskine himself no one in the neighbourhood had much information. He had not set foot in the county since he was a boy of tender years and unformed character, whose life had been swallowed up in that of an alien family, of pursuits and ideas far separated from those of his native place. It almost seemed, indeed, as if it were far from a happy arrangement of Providence which made young John Erskine the master of this small estate in the North; or rather, perhaps, to mount a little higher, we might venture to say that it was a very embarrassing circumstance, and the cause of a great deal of confusion in this life that Henry Erskine, his father, should have died when he did. Whatever might be the consequences of that step to himself, to others it could scarcely be characterised but as a mistake. That young man had begun to live an honest, wholesome life, as a Scotch country gentleman should; and if he had continued to exist, his wife would have been like other country gentlemen's wives, and his child, brought up at home, would have grown like the heather in adaptation to the soil. But when he was so ill advised as to die, confusion of every kind ensued. The widow was young, and Dalrulzian was solitary. She lived there, devoutly and conscientiously doing her duty, for some years. Then she went abroad, as everybody does, for that change of air and scene which is so necessary to our lives. And in Switzerland she met a clergyman, to whom change had also been necessary, and who was "taking the duty" in a mountain caravansary of tourists. What opportunities there are in such a position! She was pensive and he was sympathetic. He had a sister, whom she invited to Dalrulzian, "if she did not mind winter in the North;" and Miss Kingsford did not mind winter anywhere, so long as it was for her brother's advantage. The end was that Mrs Erskine became Mrs Kingsford, to the great though silent astonishment of little John, now eleven years old, who could not make it out. They remained at Dalrulzian for a year or two, for Mr Kingsford rather liked the shooting, and the power of asking a friend or two to share it. But at the end of that time he got a living—a good living; for events, whether good or evil, never come singly; and, taking John's interests into full consideration, it was decided that the best thing to be done was to let the house. Everybody thought this advisable, even John's old grand-aunt in Dunearn, of whom his mother was more afraid than of all her trustees put together. It was with fear and trembling that she had ventured to unfold this hesitating intention to the old lady. "Mr Kingsford thinks"—and then it occurred to the timid little woman that Mr Kingsford's opinion as to the disposal of Henry Erskine's house might not commend itself to Aunt Barbara. "Mr Monypenny says," she added, faltering; then stopped and looked with alarm in Miss Erskine's face.

"What are you frightened for, my dear? Mr Kingsford has a right to his opinion, and Mr Monypenny is a very discreet person, and a capital man of business."

"They think—it would be a good thing for—John;—for, Aunt Barbara, he is growing a big boy,—we must be thinking of his education——"

"That's true," said the old lady, with the smile that was the grimmest thing about her. It was very uphill work continuing a laboured explanation under the light of this smile.

"And he cannot—be educated—here."

"Wherefore no? I cannot see that, my dear. His father was educated in Edinburgh, which is what I suppose you mean by here. Many a fine fellow's been bred up at Edinburgh College, I can tell you; more than you'll find in any other place I ever heard of. Eh! what ails you at Edinburgh? It's well known to be an excellent place for schools—schools of all kinds."

"Yes, Aunt Barbara. But then you know, John:—they say he will have such a fine position—a long minority and a good estate—they say he should have the best education that—England can give."

"You'll be for sending him to that idol of the English," said the old lady, "a public school, as they call it. As if all our Scotch schools from time immemorial hadn't been public schools! Well, and after that——"

"It is only an idea," said little Mrs Kingsford, humbly—"not settled, nor anything like settled; but they say if I were to let the house——"

Aunt Barbara's grey eyes flashed; perhaps they were slightly green, as ill-natured people said. But she fired her guns in the air, so to speak, and once more grimly smiled. "I saw something very like all this in your wedding-cards, Mary," she said. "No, no, no apologies. I will not like to see a stranger in my father's house; but that's nothing, that's nothing. I will not say but it's very judicious; only you'll mind the boy's an Erskine, and here he'll have to lead his life. Mind and not make too much of an Englishman out of a Scotch lad, for he'll have to live his life here."

"Too much of an Englishman!" Mr Kingsford cried, when this conversation was reported to him. "I am afraid your old lady is an old fool, Mary. How could he be too much of an Englishman? Am I out of place here? Does not the greater breeding include the less?" he said, with his grand air. His wife did not always quite follow his meaning, but she always believed in it as something that merited understanding; and she was quite as deeply convinced as if she had understood. And accordingly the house was let to Colonel Barrington, who had not a "place" of his own, though his elder brother had, and the Kingsfords "went South" to their rectory, with which John's mother in particular was mightily pleased. It was in a far richer country than that which surrounded Dalrulzian,—a land flowing with milk and cheese, if not honey,—full of foliage and flowers. Mrs Kingsford, having been accustomed only to Scotland, was very much elated with the luxuriant beauty of the place. She spoke of "England" as the travelled speak of Italy,—as if this climate of ours, which we abuse so much, was paradise. She thought "the English" so frank, so open, so demonstrative. To live in "the South" seemed the height of happiness to her. Innocent primitive Scotch gentlewomen are prone to talk in this way. Mr Kingsford, who knew better, and who himself liked to compare notes with people who winter in Italy, did what he could to check her exuberance, but she was too simple to understand why.

John, her son, did not share her feelings at first. John was generally confused and disturbed in his mind by all that had happened. He had not got over his wonder at the marriage, when he was carried off to this new and alien home. He did not say much. There was little opening by which he could communicate his feelings. He could not disapprove, being too young; and now that Mr Kingsford was always there, the boy had no longer the opportunity to influence his mother as, young as he was, he had hitherto done—"tyrannise over his mother," some people called it. All that was over. Much puzzled, the boy was dropped back into a properly subordinate position, which no doubt was much better for him; but it was a great change. To do him justice, he was never insubordinate; but he looked at his mother's husband with eyes out of which the perplexity never died. There was a permanent confusion ever after in his sense of domestic relationships, and the duty he owed to his seniors and superiors; for he never quite knew how it was that Mr Kingsford had become the master of his fate, though a certain innate pride, as well as his love of his mother, taught him to accept the yoke which he could not throw off. Mr Kingsford was determined to do his duty by John. He vowed when he gave the somewhat reluctant, proud little Scotsman—feeling himself at eleven too old to be kissed—a solemn embrace, that he would do the boy "every justice." He should have the best education, the most careful guardianship; and Mr Kingsford kept his word. He gave the boy an ideal education from his own point of view. He sent him to Eton, and, when the due time came, to Oxford, and considered his advantage in every way; and it is needless to say, that as John grew up, the sensation of incongruity, the wonder that was in his mind as to this sudden interference with all the natural arrangements of his life, died away. It came to be a natural thing to him that Mr Kingsford should have charge of his affairs. And he went home to the rectory for the holidays to find now and then a new baby, but all in the quiet natural way of use and wont, with no longer anything that struck him as strange in his relationships. And yet he was put out of the natural current of his life. Boy as he was, he thought sometimes, not only of special corners in the woods, and turns of the stream, where he nibbled as a boy at the big sports, which are the life of men in the country—but above all, of the house, the landscape, the great sweep of land and sky, of which, when he shut his eyes, he could always conjure up a vague vision. He thought of it with a sort of grudge that it was not within his reach—keen at first, but afterwards very faint and slight, as the boy's sentiments died away in those of the man.

Meanwhile it was an excellent arrangement, who could doubt, for John's interest—instead of keeping up the place, to have a rent for it; and he had the most excellent man of business, who nursed his estate like a favourite child; so that when his minority was over, and Colonel Barrington's lease out, John Erskine was in a more favourable position than any one of his name had been for some generations. The estate was small. When his father died, exclusive of Mrs Erskine's jointure, there was not much more than a thousand a-year to come out of it; and on fifteen hundred a-year his father had thought himself very well off, and a happy man. In the meantime, there had been accumulations which added considerably to this income, almost making up the sum which Mrs Kingsford enjoyed for her life. And John had always been treated at the rectory as a golden youth, happily exempted from all the uncertainty and the need of making his own way, which his stepfather announced, shaking his head, to be the fate of his own boys. Her eldest son, who was in "such a different position," was a great pride to Mrs Kingsford, even when it seemed to her half an injury that her other children should have no share in his happiness. But indeed she consoled herself by reflecting, an eldest son is always in a very different position; and no elder brother could have been kinder—voluntarily undertaking to send Reginald to Eton, "which was a thing we never could have thought of with no money," as soon as he came of age; and in every way comporting himself as a good son and brother.

There were, however, points in this early training which were bad for John. He acquired an exaggerated idea of the importance of this position of his. He was known both at school and college as a youth of property, the representative of a county family. These words mean more at Eton and Oxford than they require to do at Edinburgh or St Andrews. And in these less expensive precincts, Erskine of Dalrulzian would have been known for what he was. Whereas in "the South" nobody knew anything about the dimensions of his estate, or the limits of his income, and everybody supposed him a young north-country potentate, with perhaps a castle or two and unlimited "moors,"—who would be an excellent fellow to know as soon as he came into his own. This was John's own opinion in all these earlier days of youth. He did not know what his income was; and had he known, the figures would not have meant anything particular to him. A thousand a-year seems to imply a great deal of spending to a youth on an allowance of three hundred; and he accepted everybody's estimate of his importance with pleased satisfaction. After all the explanations which followed his coming of age, he had indeed a touch of disenchantment and momentary alarm, feeling the details to be less splendid than he had expected. But Mr Monypenny evidently considered them anything but insignificant—and a man of his experience, the youth felt, was bound to know. He had gone abroad in the interval between leaving Oxford and coming "home" to take possession of his kingdom. He was not dissipated or extravagant, though he had spent freely. He was a good specimen of a young man of his time—determined that everything about him should be in "good form," and very willing to do his duty and be bon prince to his dependants. And he anticipated with pleasure the life of a country gentleman, such as he had seen it in his mother's neighbourhood, and in several houses of his college friends to which he had been invited. Sometimes, indeed, it would occur to him that his recollections of Dalrulzian were on a less extensive scale; but a boy's memory is always flattering to a home which he has not seen since his earliest years. Thus it was with a good deal of pleasant excitement that he set out from Milton Magna, his stepfather's rectory, where he had gone to see his mother and the children for a week or two on his return from the Continent. The season was just beginning; but John, full of virtue and hope, decided that he would not attempt to indulge in the pleasures of the season. Far better to begin his real life, to make acquaintance with his home and his "people," than to snatch a few balls and edge his way through a few crowded receptions, and feel himself nobody. This was not a thing which John much liked. He had been somebody all his life. Easter had been early that year, and everything was early. He stayed in town a week or two, saw all that was going on at the theatres, got all the last information that was to be had at the club on parliamentary matters, waited a day more "to see the pictures," and then set off on his homeward way. He had everything a young man of fortune requires, except a servant, for his habits were independent. He had been "knocking about," and there was no room at the rectory for such an appendage. So he took his own ticket, and himself saw his multifarious portmanteaus placed in the van which was to go "through." There were a great many mingled elements in his pleasure,—the satisfaction of "coming to his kingdom;" the pleasure of renewing old associations, and taking his natural place; the excitement of novelty—for it would all be as new to him, this home which he had not seen for a dozen years, as if he had never been there before. From thirteen to five-and-twenty, what a difference! He began to look about him with a new sensation as the morning rose after that long night-journey, and he felt himself approaching home.

CHAPTER II.

Old Rolls had been butler at Dalrulzian since John Erskine was a child. He had "stayed on" after Mrs Erskine's second marriage with reluctance, objecting seriously to a step-master at all, and still more to one that was an "English minister;" but the house had many attractions for him. He liked the place; his sister was the cook, a very stationary sort of woman, who had the greatest disinclination to move. She was a sort of human cat, large and smooth and good-natured, almost always purring, satisfied with herself and all who were moderately good to her; and, as was natural, she made the butler very comfortable, and was extremely attentive to all his little ways. When Colonel Barrington took the house, Rolls once more expressed his determination to leave. "What for?" said the placid Bauby; "the gentleman was keen to have a' the servants—a' the servants that would bide." "A' the servants! there's so many of us," said Rolls, derisively. There was indeed only himself, the cook, and one housemaid; the other, who had charge of John in his earlier days, and still was attached to him more or less, had gone with the family—and so, of course, had Mrs Kingsford's maid. "We'll mak' a grand show in the servants' hall—we're just a garrison," Rolls said. "We're plenty for a' the work there is the now," said the mild woman, "and they'll bring some with them. What ails ye to bide? You're real well aff—and me that kens exactly how you like your meat. Where would you be studied as I study you? You may just be thankful it's in your power." "It was with the Erskines I took service," said Rolls. "I'm no sure that I could put up with strangers, and them just travelling English. Besides, I've never been clear that service is my vocation. A kent family is one thing, a foreign master another. Him and me would very likely no get on—or them and me would no get on. All went very well in the last reign. Hairy Erskine was a gentleman, like all his forebears before him; but how am I to tell who is this Cornel, or whatever they ca' him—a man I never heard tell of before? I'll give them over the keys, and maybe I'll wait till they're suited, but nobody can ask me to do more."

"Hoot, Tammas!" said his sister: which was the highest height of remonstrance she ever reached. Notwithstanding this, however, year after year Rolls had "stayed on." He was very distinct in pointing out to "the Cornel" the superiority of his native masters, and the disadvantage to Scotland of having so many of the travelling English taking up the houses of the gentry; but he was an excellent servant, and his qualities in this way made up for his defects in the other—if, indeed, those defects did not tell in his favour; for a Scotch servant who is a character is, like a ghost, a credit to any old and respectable house. The Barringtons were proud of old Rolls. They laid temptations in his way and made him talk whenever they had visitors; and his criticisms on the English, and the opinions which he freely enunciated on all subjects, had often kept the party in amusement. Rolls, however, had not been able to defend himself against a certain weakness for the children, specially for Nora, who was very small when the family came to Dalrulzian, and whom he had brought up, as he flattered himself, regretting much all the time that she was not an Erskine and natural-born daughter of the house. Rolls did not by any means see the departure of the Barringtons unmoved, notwithstanding that he hurried them away. He stood for a long time looking after the "coach," which was a sort of rude omnibus, as it jolted down the avenue. The old servant stood in the clear morning air, through which every creak of the jingling harness and every jolt of the wheels sounded so distinctly, and the voice of Jock Beaton apostrophising his worn-out horse, and watched the lingering departure with feelings of a very mingled description. "There's feenis put to that chapter," he said to himself aloud. "We're well rid of them." But he lingered as long as the yellow panels could be seen gleaming through the trees at the turn of the road, without any of the jubilation in his face which he expressed in his words. At that last turn, just when the "coach" reached the highroad, something white was waved from the window, which very nearly made an end of Rolls. He uttered something which at first sounded like a sob, but was turned into a laugh, so to speak, before it fell into that tell-tale air which preserved every gradation of sound. "It's that bit thing!" Rolls said, more sentimental than perhaps he had ever been in his life. His fine feeling was, however, checked abruptly. "You're greetin' yourself, Tammas," said a soft round voice, interrupted by sobs, over his shoulder. "Me greetin'!"—he turned round upon her with a violence that, if Bauby had been less substantial and less calm, would have driven her to the other end of the house; "I'm just laughin' to see the nonsense you women-folk indulge in: but it's paardonable in the case of a bit creature like Miss Nora. And I allow they have a right to feel it. Where will they find a bonnie place like Dalrulzian, and next to nothing in the way of rent or keeping up? But I'm thankful mysel' to see the nest cleared out, and the real man in it. What are you whimpering about? It's little you've seen of them, aye in your kitchen." "Me seen little of them!" cried Bauby, roused to a kind of soft indignation; "the best part of an hour with the mistress every day of my life, and as kind a sympathising woman! There'll be nae leddy now to order the dinners—and that's a great responsibility, let alone anything else." "Go away with your responsibility. I'll order your dinners," said Rolls. "Well," said Bauby, not without resignation, "to be a servant, and no born a gentleman, you've aye been awfu' particular about your meat." And she withdrew consoled, though drying her eyes, to wonder if Mr John would be "awfu' particular about his meat," or take whatever was offered to him, after the fashion of some young men. Meat, it must be explained, to Bauby Rolls meant food of all descriptions—not only that which she would herself have correctly and distinctly distinguished as "butcher's meat."

The house was very empty and desolate after all the din and bustle. The furniture had faded in the quarter of a century and more which had elapsed since Harry Erskine furnished his drawing-room for his bride. That had not been a good period for furniture, according to our present lights, and everything looked dingy and faded. The few cosy articles with which the late tenants had changed its character had been removed; the ornaments and prettinesses were all gone. The gay limp old chintzes, the faded carpet, the walls in sad want of renewal, obtruded themselves even upon the accustomed eye of Rolls. The nest might be cleared, but it looked a somewhat forlorn and empty nest. He stood upon the threshold of the drawing-room, contemplating it mournfully. A little of that "cheeney and nonsense" which he had been highly indignant with Mrs Barrington for bringing, would have been of the greatest consequence now to brighten the walls; and a shawl or a hat thrown on a chair, which had called forth from old Rolls many a grumble in the past, would have appeared to him now something like a sign of humanity in the desert. But all that was over, and the old servant, painfully sensible of the difference in the aspect of the place, began to grow afraid of its effect upon the young master. If, after all, John should not be "struck with" his home! if, terrible to think of, he might prefer some house "in the South" to Dalrulzian! "But it's no possible," said Rolls to himself. He made a survey of all the rooms in the new anxiety that dawned upon him. The library was better; there were a good many books on the shelves, and it had not to Rolls the air of desertion the other rooms had. He lighted a fire in it, though it was the first week in May, and took great pains to restore by it an air of comfort and habitation. Then he took a walk down the avenue in order to make a critical examination of the house from a little distance, to see how it would look to the new-comer. And Rolls could not but think it a most creditable-looking house. The fir-trees on the top of the hill threw up their sombre fan of foliage against the sky; the birches were breathing forth a spring sweetness—the thin young foliage softly washed in with that tenderest of greens against the darker background, seemed to appeal to the spectator, forbidding any hasty judgment, with the promise of something beautiful to come. The ash-trees were backward, no doubt, but they are always backward. In the wood the primroses were appearing in great clusters, and the parterres under the terrace were gay with the same. Rolls took comfort as he gazed. The avenue was all green, the leaves in some sunny corners quite shaken out of their husks, in all bursting hopefully. "It's a bonnie place," Rolls said to himself, with a sigh of excitement and anxiety. Bauby, who shared his feelings in a softened, fat, comfortable way of her own, was standing in the doorway, with her little shawl pinned over her broad chest, and a great white apron blazing in the light of the morning sun. She had a round face, like a full moon, and a quantity of yellow hair smoothed under the white cap, which was decorously tied under her chin. She did not take any of the dignity of a housekeeper-cook upon her, but she was a comfortable creature to behold, folding her round arms, with the sleeves rolled up a little, and looking out with a slight curve, like a shadow of the pucker on her brother's brows, in her freckled forehead. She was ready to cry for joy when Mr John appeared, just as she had cried for sorrow when the Barringtons went away. Neither of these effusions of sentiment would disturb her greatly, but they were quite genuine all the same. Rolls felt that the whiteness of her apron and the good-humour of her face lit up the seriousness of the house. He began to give her her instructions as he advanced across the open space at the top of the avenue. "Bauby," he said, "when ye hear the wheels ye'll come, and the lasses with you; and Andrew, he can stand behind; and me, naturally I'll be in the front: and we'll have no whingeing, if you please, but the best curtsey you can make, and 'We're glad to see you home, sir,' or something cheery like that. He's been long away, and he was but a boy when he went. We'll have to take care that he gets a good impression of his ain house."

"That's true," said Bauby. "Tammas, I've heard of them that after a long absence have just taken a kind o' scunner——"

"Hold your tongue with your nonsense. A scunner at Dalrulzian!" cried Rolls; but the word sank into the depths of his heart. A scunner—for we scorn a footnote—is a sudden sickening and disgust with an object not necessarily disagreeable—a sort of fantastic prejudice, which there is no struggling against. But Rolls repeated his directions, and would not allow himself to entertain such a fear.

It was not, however, with any sound of wheels, triumphal or otherwise, that young Erskine approached his father's house. It was all new and strange to him; the hills—the broad and wealthy carses through which he had passed—the noble Firth, half sea half river, which he had crossed over in his way,—all appeared to him like landscapes in a dream, places he had seen before, though he could not tell how or when. It was afternoon when he reached Dunearn, which was the nearest place of any importance. He had chosen to stop there instead of at the little country station a few miles farther on, which was proper for Dalrulzian. This caprice had moved him, much in the same way as a prince had sometimes been moved to wander about incognito, and glean the opinions of his public as to his own character and proceedings. Princes in fiction are fond of this diversion; why not a young Scotch laird just coming into his kingdom, whose person was quite unknown to his future vassals? It amused and gently excited him to think of thus arriving unknown, and finding out with what eyes he was looked upon: for he had very little doubt that he was important enough to be discussed and talked of, and that the opinions of the people would throw a great deal of light to him upon the circumstances and peculiarities of the place. He was curious about everything,—the little grey Scotch town, clinging to its hillside—the freshness of the spring colour—the width of the wistful blue sky, banked and flecked with white clouds, and never free, with all its brightness, from a suspicion of possible rain. He thought he recollected them all like things he had seen in a dream; and that sense of travelling incognito and arriving without any warning in the midst of a little world, all eagerly looking for his arrival, but which should be innocently deceived by his unpretending appearance, tickled his fancy greatly. He was five-and-twenty, and ought to have known better; but there was something in the circumstances which justified his excitement. He skimmed lightly along the quiet country road, saying to himself that he thought he remembered the few clusters of houses that were visible here and there, one of them only big enough to be called a village, where there was "a merchant's" shop, repository of every kind of ware, and a blacksmith's smithy. Two or three times he stopped to ask the way to Dalrulzian out of pure pleasure in the question! for he never lost sight of that line of fir-trees against the horizon, which indicated his native hill; but after he had put this question once or twice, it must be added that young Erskine's satisfaction in it failed a little. He ceased to feel the excitement of his incognito, the pleasure of entering his dominions like a young prince in disguise. The imagination of the women at the village doors, the chance passengers on the way, were not occupied with the return of John Erskine; they were much more disposed to think and talk of the others who had no right, it seemed to him, to occupy their thoughts.

"Dalrulzian! you'll find nobody there the day," said a countryman whom he overtook and accosted on the road. "The family's away this morning, and a great loss they will be to the country-side."

"The family!" said John, and he felt that his tone was querulous in spite of himself. "I did not understand that there was a family."

"Ay was there, and one that will be missed sore; both gentle and simple will miss them. Not the real family, but as good, or maybe better," the man said, with a little emphasis, as if he meant offence, and knew who his questioner was.

The young man reddened in spite of himself. This was not the kind of popular report which in his incognito he had hoped to hear.

"The laird is what they call in Ireland an absentee," said his companion. "We're no minding muckle in Scotland if they're absentees or no; they can please themsels. But there's nae family of the Erskines—nothing but a young lad; and the Cornel that's had the house was a fine, hearty, weel-spoken man, with a good word for everybody; and the ladies very kind, and pleasant, and neighbour-like. Young Erskine must be a young laird past the ordinar if he can fill their place."

"But, so far as I understand, the estate belongs to him, does it not?" Erskine asked, with an involuntary sharpness in his voice.

"Oh ay, it belongs to him; that makes but sma' difference. Ye're no bound to be a fine fellow," said the roadside philosopher, with great calmness, "because ye're the laird of a bit sma' country place——"

"Is it such a small place?" cried the poor young prince incognito, appalled by this revelation. He felt almost childishly annoyed and mortified. His companion eyed him with a cool half-satirical gaze.

"You're maybe a friend of the young man? Na, I'm saying nae ill of the place nor of him. Dalrulzian's a fine little property, and a' in good order, thanks to auld Monypenny in Dunearn. Maybe you're from Dunearn? It's a place that thinks muckle of itself; but nae doubt it would seem but a poor bit town to you coming from the South?"

"How do you know I come from the South?" said John.

"Oh, I ken the cut of ye fine," said the man. "I'm no easy deceived. And I daur to say you could tell us something about this new laird. There's different opinions about him. Some thinks him a lad with brains, that could be put up for the county and spite the Earl. I've no great objection mysel to the Earl or his opinions, but to tak' another man's nominee, if he was an angel out of heaven, is little credit to an enlightened constituency. So there's been twa-three words. You'll no know if he has ony turn for politics, or if he's a clever lad, or——"

"You don't seem to mind what his politics are," said the unwary young man.

His new friend gave him another keen glance. "The Erskines," he answered quietly, "are a' on the right side."

Now John Erskine was aware that he did not himself possess political opinions sufficiently strenuous to be acknowledged by either side. He agreed sometimes with one party, sometimes with another, which, politically speaking, is the most untenable of all positions. And so ignorant was he of the immediate traditions of his family, that he could not divine which was "the right side" on which the Erskines were sure to be. It was not a question upon which his mother could have informed him. As Mr Kingsford's wife, an orthodox Church of England clergywoman, she was, of course, soundly Conservative, and thought she hated everything that called itself Liberal—which word she devoutly believed to include all kinds of Radical, revolutionary, and atheistical sentiments. John himself had been a good Tory too when he was at Eton, but at Oxford had veered considerably, running at one time into extreme opinions on the other side, then veering back, and finally settling into a hopeless eclectic, who by turns sympathised with everybody, but agreed wholly with nobody. Still it was whimsical not even to know the side on which the Erskines were declared with so much certainty to be. It pleased him at least to find that they had character enough to have traditionary politics at all.

"You must excuse me as a stranger," he said, "if I don't quite know what side you regard as the—right side."

His friend looked at him with a sarcastic gaze—a look John felt which set him down not only as devoid of ordinary intelligence, but of common feeling. "It's clear to see you are not of that way of thinking," he said.

As he uttered this contemptuous verdict they came opposite to a gate, guarded by a pretty thatched cottage which did duty for a lodge. John felt his heart give a jump, notwithstanding the abashed yet amused sensation with which he felt himself put down. It was the gate of Dalrulzian: he remembered it as if he had left it yesterday. A woman came to the gate and looked out, shielding her eyes with her hand from the level afternoon sun that shone into them. "Have you seen anything of our young master, John Tamson?" she said. "I'm aye thinking it's him every sound I hear."

"There's the road," said the rural politician, briefly addressing John; then he turned to the woman at the gate. "If it's no him, I reckon it's a friend. Ye had better pit your questions here," he said.

"John Thomson," said John, with some vague gleam of recollection. "Are you one of the farmers?" The man looked at him with angry, the woman with astonished, eyes.

"My freend," said John Thomson, indignantly, "I wouldna wonder but you have plenty of book-learning; but you're an ignorant young fop for a' that, if you were twenty times the laird's freend."

John for his part was too much startled and amused to be angry. "Am I an ignorant young fop?" he said. "Well, it is possible—but why in this particular case——"

"Noo, noo," said the woman, who left the lodge, coming forward with her hands spread out, and a tone of anxious conciliation. "Dear bless me! what are you bickering about? He's no a farmer, but he's just as decent a man—nobody better thought of for miles about. And, John Tamson, I'm astonished at you! Can you no let the young gentleman have his joke without taking offence like this, that was never meent?"

"I like nae such jokes," said John Tamson, angrily; and he went off swinging down the road at a great pace. John stood looking after him for a moment greatly perplexed. The man did not touch his hat nor the woman curtsey as they certainly would have done at Milton Magna. He passed her mechanically without thinking of her, and went in at his own gate—not thinking of that either, though it was an event in his life. This little occurrence had given an impulse in another direction to his thoughts.

But the woman of the lodge called after him. She had made a slightly surprised objection to his entrance, which he did not notice in his preoccupation. "Sir, sir!" she cried—"you're welcome to walk up the avenue, which is a bonnie walk; but you'll find nobody in the house. The young laird, if it was him you was wanting to see, is expected every minute; but there's no signs of him as yet—and he canna come now till the four o'clock train."

"Thank you. I'll walk up the avenue," said John, and then he turned back. "Why did you think I was making a joke? and why was your friend offended when I asked if he was one of the farmers?—it was no insult, I hope."

"He's a very decent man, sir," said the woman; "but I wouldna just take it upon me to say that he was my freend."

"That's not the question!" cried John, exasperated—and he felt some gibe about Scotch caution trembling on the tip of his tongue; but he remembered in time that he was himself a Scot and among his own people, and he held that unruly member still.

"Weel, sir," said the woman, "if ye will ken—but, bless me! it's easy to see for yourself. The farmers about here are just as well put on and mounted and a' that as you are. John Tamson! he's a very decent man, as good as any of them—but he's just the joiner after a', and a cotter's son. He thought you were making a fool of him, and he's not a man to be made a fool o'. We're no so civil-like—nor may be so humble-minded, for anything I can tell—as the English, sir. Baith the Cornel and his lady used to tell me that."

It was with a mixture of irritation and amusement that John pursued his way after this little encounter. And an uncomfortable sensation, a chill, seemed to creep over his mind, and arrest his pleasurable expectations as he went on. The avenue was not so fine a thing as its name implied. It was not lined with noble trees, nor did it sweep across a green universe of parks and lawns like many he had known. It led instead up the slope of the hill, through shrubberies which were not more than copsewood in some places, and under lightly arching trees not grand enough or thick enough to afford continuous shade. And yet it was sweet in the brightness of the spring tints, the half-clothed branches relieved against that variable yet smiling sky, the birds in full-throated chorus, singing welcome with a hundred voices,—no nightingales there, but whole tribes of the "mavis and the merle," north-country birds and kindly. His heart and mind were touched alike with that half-pathetic pleasure, that mixture of vague recollections and forgetfulness, with which we meet the half-remembered faces, and put out our hands to meet the grasp of old friends still faithful though scarcely known. A shadow of the childish delight with which he had once explored these scanty yet fresh and friendly woods came breathing about him: "The winds came to me from the fields of sleep." He felt himself like two people: one, a happy boy at home, familiar with every corner; the other a man, a spectator, sympathetically excited, faltering upon the forgotten way, wondering what lay round the next curve of the road. It was the strangest blending of the known and the unknown.

But when John Erskine came suddenly, as he turned the corner of that great group of ash-trees, in sight of his house, these vague sensations, which were full of sweetness, came to an end with a sharp jar and shock of the real. Dalrulzian was a fact of the most solid dimensions, and dispersed in a moment all his dreams. He felt himself come down suddenly through the magical air, with a sensation of falling, with his feet upon the common soil. So that was his home! He felt in a moment that he remembered it perfectly,—that there had never been any illusions about it in his mind,—that he had known all along every line of it, every step of the gables, the number of the little windows, the slopes of the grey roof. But it is impossible to describe the keen sense of disenchantment which went through his mind as he said this to himself. It was not only that the solid reality dispersed his vision, but that it afforded a measure by which to judge himself and his fortunes, till now vaguely and pleasantly exaggerated in his eyes. It is seldom indeed that the dim image of what was great and splendid to us in our childhood does not seem ludicrously exaggerated when we compare it with the reality. He who had felt himself a young prince in disguise, approaching his domains incognito, in order to enjoy at his leisure the incense of universal interest, curiosity, and expectation! John Erskine blushed crimson though nobody saw him, as he stood alone at the corner of his own avenue and recognised the mistake he had made, and his own unimportance, and all the folly of his simple over-estimate. Fortunately, indeed, he had brought nobody with him to share in the glories of his entry upon his kingdom. He thanked heaven for that, with a gasp of horror at the thought of the crowning ridicule he had escaped. It was quite hard enough to get over the first startling sensation of reality alone.

And yet it was the same house upon which the Barringtons had looked back so affectionately a few hours before—which the county regarded with approval, and which was visited by the best families. It would be hard to say what its young master had expected,—a dream-castle, a habitation graceful and stately, a something built out of clouds, not out of old Scotch rubble-work and grey stone. It was not looking its best, it must be added. The corps du logis lay in gloom, thrown into shade by the projecting rustic gable, upon the other side of which the setting sun still played; the yellowish walls, discoloured here and there by damp, had no light upon them to throw a fictitious glow over their imperfections. The door stood open, showing the hall with its faded fittings, gloomy and unattractive, and, what was more, deserted, as if the house had been abandoned to dreariness and decay—not so much as a dog to give some sign of life. When the young man, rousing himself with an effort, shook off the stupor of his disappointment and vexation, and went on to the open door, his foot on the gravel seemed to wake a hundred unaccustomed echoes: and nobody appeared. He walked in unchallenged, unwelcomed, going from room to room, finding all equally desolate. Was there ever a more dismal coming home? When he reached the library, where a little fire was burning, this token of human life quite went to the young fellow's heart. He was standing on the hearth very gloomy, gazing wistfully at the portrait of a gentleman in a periwig over the mantelpiece, when the door was pushed open and old Rolls appeared with his coat off, carrying a basket of wood. Rolls was as much startled as his master was disappointed, and he was vexed to be seen by a stranger in so unworthy an occupation. He put down his basket and glanced at his shirt-sleeves with confusion. "I was expecting nobody," he said in his own defence. "And wha may ye be," he added, "that comes into the mansion-house of Dalrulzian without speering permission, or ringing a bell, or chapping at a door?" John smiled at the old man's perplexity, but said nothing. "You'll be a friend of our young master's?" he said, tentatively; then after an interval, in a voice with a quiver in it, "Your no meaning, sir, that you're the laird himself?"

"For want of a better," said John, amused in spite of himself. "And you're old Rolls. I should have known you anywhere. Shake hands, man, and say you're glad to see me. It's like a house of the dead."

"Na, sir, no such things; there's no death here. Lord bless us! wha was to think you would come in stealing like a thief in the night, as the Bible says?" said Rolls, aggrieved. He felt that it was he who was the injured person. "It was all settled how you were to be received as soon as the wheels were heard in the avenue,—me on the steps, and the women behind, and Andrew,—the haill household, to wit. If there's any want of respect, it's your ain fault. And if you'll just go back to the avenue now and give us warning, I'll cry up the women in a moment," the old servant said.

CHAPTER III.

That night dispersed illusions from the mind of John Erskine which it had taken all his life to set up. He discovered in some degree what his real position was, and that it was not a great one. He got rid of many of his high notions as he walked about the pleasant, comfortable, but somewhat dingy old house, which no effort of the imagination could make into a great house. He made acquaintance with the household. Mrs Rolls the cook, who curtseyed and cried for pleasure at the sight of him, and two smiling, fair-haired young women, and old Andrew the gardener—a quite sufficient household for the place, he felt, but very different from the army of servants, all so noiseless, punctilious, carefully drilled, whom he had seen at country-houses, with which he had fondly hoped his own might bear comparison. What a fool he had been! These good honest folk have little air of being servants at all. Their respect was far less than their interest in him; and their questions were more like those of poor relatives than hired attendants. "I hope your mammaw is well, Mr John," Bauby the cook had said. "Let the master alone with your Mr Johns," Rolls had interrupted; "he's come to man's estate, and you must learn to be more respectful. The women, sir, are all alike; you can never look for much sense from them." "Maybe you're right, Tammas," said Bauby; "but for all that I cannot help saying that its an awfu' pleasure to see Mr John, that was but that height when I saw him last, come home a braw gentleman like what I mind his father." John could do nothing but stand smiling between them, hearing himself thus discussed. They made it very clear that he had come home where he would be taken ample care of—but how different it was from his thoughts! He thought of the manor-house at Milton Magna, and laughed and blushed at the ridiculous comparisons he had once made. It was a keen sort of self-ridicule, sharp and painful. He did not like to think what a fool he had been. Now he came to think of it, he had quite well remembered Dalrulzian. It was not his youthful imagination that was to blame, but a hundred little self-deceits, and all the things that he had been in the habit of hearing about his own importance and his Scotch property. His mother had done more than any one else to deceive him, he thought; and then he said to himself, "Poor mother!" wondering if, perhaps, her little romance was all involved in Dalrulzian, and if it was a sacred place to her. To think that the Kingsford household was prose, but the early life in which she had been Harry Erskine's wife and little John's mother, the poetry of her existence, was pleasant to her son, who was fond of his mother, though she was not clever, nor even very sensible. John thought, with a blush, of the people whom he had invited to Dalrulzian under that extraordinary mistake—some of his friends at college, young fellows who were accustomed to houses full of company and stables full of horses. There was nothing in the stables at Dalrulzian but the hired horse which had been provided by Rolls in a hired dogcart to bring him up from the station; and as he looked round upon the room in which he sat after dinner, and which was quite comfortable and highly respectable, though neither dignified nor handsome, poor John burst into a laugh, in which there was more pain than amusement. He seemed to himself to be stranded on a desert shore. What should he do with himself, especially during the long summer, when there could be no hunting, no shooting,—the summer which he had determined to occupy, with a fine sense of duty, in making acquaintance with his house and his surroundings, and in learning all his duties as a country gentleman and person of importance? This thought was so poignant, that it actually touched his eyelids with a sense of moisture. He laughed—but he could have cried. There would turn out, he supposed, to be about three farms on this estate of his; and Scotch farmers were very different people from the small farmers of the South. To talk about his tenants would be absurd. Three pragmatical Scotchmen, much better informed in all practical matters at least than himself, and looking down upon him as an inexperienced young man. What a fool he had been! If he had come down in August for the shooting,—if there was any shooting,—and let his friends understand that it was a mere shooting-box—a "little place in Scotland," such as they hired when they came to the moors,—all would have been well. But he had used no disparaging adjectives in speaking of Dalrulzian. He had called it "my place" boldly, and had believed it to be a kind of old castle—something that probably had been capable of defence in its day. Good heavens! what a fool he had been!

He had thought he would be glad to get to bed, and felt pleased that he was somewhat tired with his journey; but he found that, on the contrary, the night flew by amidst these thoughts,—fathomless night, slow and dark and noiseless. Rolls had made repeated attempts to draw him into conversation in what that worthy called the fore-night; but by ten o'clock or so, the house was as still as death, not a sound anywhere, and the hours passed over him while he sat and thought. A little fire crackled and burned in the grate, with little pétillements and bursts of flame. There were a good many books on the shelves; that was always something: and Mrs Rolls had given him an excellent dinner, which he ought to have considered also as a very great alleviation of the situation. John scarcely knew what hour it was when, starting suddenly up in the multitude of his thoughts, he threw open the window which looked upon the Walk, and gazed out moodily upon the night. The night was soft and clear, and the great stretch of the landscape lay dimly defined under a half-veiled poetic sky, over which light floating vapours were moving with a kind of gentle solemnity. There was not light enough to distinguish the individual features of the scene, save here and there a pale gleam of water, a darkness of wood, and the horizon marked by that faint silvery edge which even by night denotes the limit of human vision. The width, the freshness, the stillness, the dewy purity of the air, soothed the young man as he stood and looked out. What was he, a human unit in the great round of space, to be so disconcerted by the little standing-ground he had? He felt abased as he gazed, and a strange sense of looking out upon his life came over him. His future was like that—all vague, breathing towards him a still world full of anticipations, full of things hidden and mysterious—his, and yet not his, as was the soil and the fields. He could mortgage it as he could his estate, but he could not sell it away from him, or get rid of what was in it, whether it carried out his foolish expectations or not. Certainly the sight of this wide scenery, in which he was to perform his part, did him good, though he could not see it. He closed the window, which was heavy, almost with violence, as he came back to the ascertained,—to the limited walls with their books, the old-fashioned original lamp, and crackling fire.

But this sound was very unusual in the house in the middle of the night. Bauby, whose room was next her brother's, knocked upon the wall to rouse him. "D'ye hear that, Tammas? There's somebody trying to get into the house." Her voice came to Rolls faintly muffled by the partition between. He had heard the noise as well as she, but he did not think fit to answer save by a grunt. Then Bauby knocked again more loudly. "Tammas! Man, will ye no put on your breeks and go down and see what it is?" Rolls, for his part, was already in the midst of a calculation. So much plate as there was in the house he had brought up with him to his room. "They cannot steal tables and chairs," he said to himself; "and as for the young laird, if he's not able to take care of himself, he'll be none the better of me for a defender." Audibly he answered, "Hold your tongue, woman. If the master likes to take the air in the sma' hours, what's that to you or me?" There was a pause of dismay on Bauby's part, and then a faint ejaculation of "Lord bless us! take the air!" But she was less easily satisfied than her brother. When John went up-stairs with his candle, he saw a light glimmering in the gallery above, and a figure in white, far too substantial to be a ghost, leaning over the banisters. "Eh, sir! is it you, Mr John?" Bauby said. "I was feared it was robbers;" and then she added in her round, soft, caressing voice, "but you mustna take the air in the middle of the night: you'll get your death of cold, and then, what will your mammaw say to me, Mr John?" John shut himself up in his room, half laughing, half affronted. It was many years since he had been under the sway of his "mamma" in respect to his hours and habits; and nothing could be more droll than to go back to the kind annoyance of domestic surveillance just at the moment when his manhood and independence were most evident. He laughed, but the encounter brought him back, after he had been partly freed from it, to a consciousness of all his limitations once more.

But things were better in the morning. Unless you have something bitter to reproach yourself with, or some calamity impending over you, things are generally better in the morning. John looked about him with more hopeful eyes. He had an excellent, a truly Scotch, breakfast, which, at five-and-twenty, puts a man in good-humour with himself; and there were one or two features about Dalrulzian which, in the morning sunshine, looked more encouraging. The stables were tolerably good, made habitable, and furnished with some of the latest improvements by Colonel Barrington; and "the policy" was in admirable order,—the turf faultless, the shrubberies flourishing, the trees—well, not like the trees at Milton Magna, but creditable performances for the North. John's countenance cleared as he inspected everything. Rolls led or followed him about with great importance, introducing and explaining. Had he been an English butler, John would have dismissed him very summarily to his pantry; but it was part of the natural mise en scène to have a Caleb Balderstone attached to an old Scotch house. He was half proud of this retainer of the family, though he threatened to be something of a bore; even Bauby, and her care for his health, and her sense of responsibility to his "mammaw," was tolerable in this light. When one is born a Scotch laird, one must accept the natural accompaniments of the position; and if they were sometimes annoying, they were at least picturesque. So John put up with Rolls, and "saw the fun" of him with a kind of feeling that Dalrulzian was a Waverley novel, and he himself the hero. He had been seeing things so much through the eyes of his problematical visitors, that he was glad to see this also through their eyes. To them, these servants of his would be altogether "characteristic," and full of "local colour." And then the subtle influence of property began to affect the young man and modify his disappointment. "A poor thing, sir, but mine own," he said to himself. These were "my plantations" that crested the hill; the fishing on the river was said to be excellent, and belonged to Dalrulzian; the moorland on the eastern side of the hill was "my moor." Things began to mend. When he went back again after his examination to the room from which he had started, John found a luncheon spread for him, which was not inferior to the breakfast, and Rolls, in his black coat, having resumed the butler, and thrown off the factotum, but not less disposed to be instructive than before.

"You may as well," young Erskine said, eating an admirable cutlet, "tell me something about my neighbours, Rolls."

"I'll do that, sir," said Rolls, with cordiality; and then he made a pause. "The first to be named is no to call a neighbour; but I hope, sir, you'll think far mair of her than of any neighbour. She's your ain best blood, and a leddy with a great regard for Dalrulzian, and not another friend so near to her as you. It came from Dalrulzian, and it'll come back to Dalrulzian with careful guiding," said Rolls, oracularly; "not to say that blood's thicker than water, as the auld Scots byword goes."

This address gave John some sense of perplexity; but after an interval he discovered what it meant. "It is my old Aunt Barbara of whom you are speaking," he said. "Certainly, I shall see her first of all."

"She is an excellent lady, sir; careful of her money. It will be real good for the estate when——But, bless me! I wadna have you to be looking forward to what may never come,—that is to say, that auld Miss Barbara, being real comfortable, sir, in this life, will not go out of it a moment sooner than she can help: and for a' that we ken o' heaven, I wouldna blame her; for, grand as it may be, it will aye be a strange place. There's nobody more thought upon in the county than Miss Barbara Erskine at Dunearn. Weel, sir, and the neighbours. There's the Earl of Lindores first of a'. We maun give him the paw, as the French say. Maybe you've met with some of the family in London? You'll see plenty and hear plenty of them here. The Earl he is a very pushing man. He would like to take the lead in a' the county business; but there's many of the gentry that are not exactly of that opinion. And my lady Countess, she's of the booky kind, with authors, and painters, and that kind of cattle aye about the place. I'm not that fond of thae instructed leddies. Weemen are best no to be ower clever, in my poor opinion. Young Rintoul, that's the son, is away with his regiment; I ken nothing of him: and there's two young leddies——"

"Now I remember," said John. "You are the most concise of chroniclers, Rolls. I like your style. I once knew some of the Lindores family—cousins, I suppose. There were young ladies in that family too. I knew them very well." Here he paused, a smile stealing about the corners of his mouth.

"I ken nothing about their relations," said Rolls. "It was an awfu' melancholy story; but it's an ill wind that blaws nobody good. The late Earl was liked by everybody. But I'm saying nothing against this family. One of the young daughters is married, poor thing! The other one at hame, my Lady Edith, is a bonnie bit creature. She was great friends with oor young lady. But if you were to ask my opinion, sir—which is neither here nor there," said Rolls, in insinuating tones—"I would say there was not one that was fit to hold the candle to Miss Nora. We had our bits of tiffs, the Cornel and me. There were some things he would never see in a proper light; but they were much thought o', and saw a' the best company. When you let a place, it's a grand thing to have tenants that never let down the character of the house."

"You mean the Barringtons," said John. He was not much interested in this subject. They had been unexceptionable tenants; but he could scarcely help regarding them with a little jealousy, almost dislike, as if they had been invaders of his rights.

"And they were awfu' fond of it," said Rolls, watching his young master's countenance. "Miss Nora above a'. You see she's grown up at Dalrulzian. It was all they could do to get her away from the Walk this last morning. I thought she would have grown till't. If you and Miss Nora was ever to meet," the old servant added, in his most engaging tones, "I cannot but believe you would be real good—freends——"

"I see you have provided for every contingency," said the young laird, with a laugh. His Caleb Balderstone, he said to himself, was almost better, if that was possible, than Scott's. But John's mind had been set afloat on a still more pleasant channel, and he let the old man maunder on.

"It's true she's English," said Rolls; "but that matters nothing in my opinion, on what they call the side of the distaff. I'll no say but it's offensive in a man: putting up so long with the Cornel and his ways of thinking, I'm no a bad authority on that. But weemen are a different kind of creatures. A bit discrepancy, if ye may so call it—a kind of a different awkcent, so to speak, baith in the soul and the tongue, is just a pleasant variety. It gives new life to a family sometimes, and mends the breed, if you'll no think me coarse. A little of everything is good in a race. And besides being so good and so bonnie, Miss Nora will have a little siller of her ain, which spoils nothing. Not one of your great fortunes, but just a little siller—enough for their preens and rubbitch—of her ain."

Here, however, the pleasant delusion with which Nora's humble champion was delighting himself was suddenly dispersed by a question which proved his young master to be thinking nothing about Nora. "I used to know some of the Lindores family," John repeated, "a brother of the Earl. I wonder if they ever come here?"

"I ken nothing about their relations, sir," said Rolls, promptly. "It's thought the Earl's awfu' ambitious. They're no that rich, and he has an eye to everything that will push the family on. There's one of them marriet, poor thing!"

"I am afraid you are a fierce old bachelor," said John, rising from the table; "this is the second time you have said 'poor thing.'"

"That's my Lady Caroline, sir," said Rolls, with a grave face, "that's married upon Torrance of Tinto, far the richest of all our neighbour gentlemen. You'll no remember him? He was a big mischievous callant when you were but a little thing, begging your pardon, sir, for the freedom," said the old servant, with a little bow of apology; but the gravity of his countenance did not relax. "It's not thought in the country-side that the leddy was very fain of the marriage—poor thing!"

"You are severe critics in the country-side. One must take care what one does, Rolls."

"Maybe, sir, that's true; they say public opinion's a grand thing: whiles it will keep a person from going wrong. But big folk think themselves above that," Rolls said. And then, having filled out a glass of wine, which his master did not want; he withdrew. Rolls was not quite satisfied with the young laird. He betook himself to the kitchen with his tray and a sigh, unburdening himself to Bauby as he set down the remains of the meal on the table. "I wouldna wonder," he said, shaking his head, "if he turned out mair English than the Cornel himsel'."

"Hoot, Tammas!" said Bauby, always willing to take the best view, "that's no possible. When ye refleck that he was born at Dalrulzian, and brought up till his thirteenth year——"

"Sic bringing up!" cried old Rolls; "and a step-faither that never could learn so much as to say the name right o' the house that took him in!"

Meanwhile John, left alone with his own thoughts, found a curious vein of new anticipations opened to him by the old man's talk. The smile that had lighted on the corners of his mouth came back and settled there, betraying something of the maze of pleased recollections, the amused yet tender sentiment, which these familiar yet half-forgotten names had roused again. Caroline and Edith Lindores! No doubt they were family names, and the great young ladies who were his neighbours were the cousins of those happy girls whom he remembered so well. The Lindores had been at a Swiss mountain inn where he and some of his friends had lived for six weeks under pretence of reading. They had made friends on the score of old family acquaintance "at home;" and he never remembered so pleasant a holiday. What had become of the girls by this time? Carry, the eldest, was sentimental and poetical, and all the young men were of opinion that Beaufort the young University Don, who was at the head of the party, had talked more poetry than was good for him with that gentle enthusiast. Beaufort had gone to the Bar since then, and was said to be getting on. Had they kept up their intercourse, or had it dropped, John wondered, as his own acquaintance with the family had dropped? They were poor people, living abroad for economy and education, notwithstanding that Mr Lindores was brother to an earl. Surely sometimes the Earl must invite his relations, or at least he would be sure to hear of them, to come within the circle of their existence again. Young Erskine had almost forgotten, to tell the truth, the existence of the Lindores; yet when they were thus recalled to him, and the possibility of a second meeting dawned on his mind, his heart gave a jump of pleasure in his bosom. On the instant there appeared before him the prettiest figure in short frocks, with an aureola of hair about the young head—a child, yet something more than a child. Edith had been only sixteen, he remembered; indeed he found that he remembered everything about her as soon as her image was thus lightly called back. What might she be now, in her grown-up condition? Perhaps not so sweet, perhaps married—a contingency which did not please him to think of. And what if he should be on the eve of seeing her again!

The smile of pleasure, of amusement, even of innocent vanity with which in this airy stage a young man contemplates such a possibility, threw a pleasant light over his face. He went out with that smile half hidden under his fair moustache, which gave it a kind of confidential character between him and himself so to speak. As he had nothing else to do, it occurred to him to take a walk on the road to Dunearn, where he had seen the French-Scotch tourelles of Lindores Castle through the trees the day before, and "take a look at" the place—why, he did not know—for no particular reason, merely to amuse himself. And as he went down the avenue, that old episode came back to him more and more fully. He remembered all the little expeditions, the little misadventures, the jokes, though perhaps they were not brilliant. Carry lingering behind with Beaufort, talking Shelley, with a flush of enthusiasm about her: Edith always foremost, chidden and petted, and made much of by everybody, with her long hair waving, and those fine little shoes which he had tied once—thick mountain shoes—but such wonderful Cinderella articles! All these recollections amused him like a story as he went down the avenue, taking away his attention from external things; and it was not till he was close upon the gate that he was aware of the presence of two ladies, who seemed to have paused on their walk to speak to Peggy Burnet, the gardener's wife, who inhabited the lodge. His ear was caught by his own name, always an infallible means of rousing the most careless attention. He could not help hearing what Peggy was saying, for her voice was somewhat high-pitched, and full of rural freedom. "Oh ay, my leddy; the young maister, that's Mr John, that's the laird, came hame yestreen," Peggy was saying, "before he was expectit. The carriage—that's the bit dogcart, if you can ca' it a carriage, for there's nothing better left, nor so much as a beast to draw it that we can ca' oor ain—was sent to the station to meet him. When, lo! he comes linking along the road on his ain twa legs, and no so much as a bag or a portmanty behind him, and asks at the gate, Is this Dalrulzian? kenning nothing of his ain house! And me, I hadna the sense to think, This is him; but just let him in as if he had been a stranger. And no a creature to take the least notice! Mr Rolls was just out o' himsel, with vexation, to let the young maister come hame as if he had been ony gangrel body; but it couldna be called my fault."

"Surely it could not be your fault; if he wanted a reception, he should have come when he was expected," said a softer voice, with a little sound of laughter. Surely, John thought, he had heard that voice before. He hurried forward wondering, taking off his hat instinctively. Who were they? Two ladies, one elder, one younger, mother and daughter. They looked up at him as he approached. The faces were familiar, and yet not familiar. Was it possible? He felt himself redden with excitement as he stood breathless, his hat off, the blood flushing to the very roots of his hair, not able to get out a word in his surprise and pleasure. They on their side looked at him smilingly, not at all surprised, and the elder lady held out her hand. "After so long a time you will scarcely know us, Mr Erskine," she said; "but we knew you were expected, and all about you, you see."

"Know you?" cried John, almost speechless with the wonder and delight. "Mrs Lindores! The thing is, can I venture to believe my eyes? There never was such luck in the world! I think I must be dreaming. Who would have expected to meet you here, and the very first day?"

Peggy Burnet was much disturbed by this greeting. She pushed forward, making an anxious face at him. "Sir! sir! you maun say my leddy," she breathed, in a shrill whisper, which he was too much excited to take any notice of, but which amused the ladies. They cast a laughing look at each other. "Didn't you know we were here?" the mother said. "Then we had the advantage of you. We have been speculating about you for weeks past—whether you would be much changed, whether you would come at once to Lindores to renew old acquaintance——"

"That you may be sure I should have done," said John, "as soon as I knew you were there. And are you really at Lindores? living there? for good? It seems too delightful to be true."

They were both changed. And he did not know why they should look at each other with such a laughing interchange of glances. It made him somewhat uncomfortable, though his mind was too full of the pleasure of seeing them to be fully conscious of it. It was Edith, as was natural, who was most altered in appearance. She had been a tall girl, looking more than her age; and now she was a small, very young woman. At that period of life such changes happen sometimes; but the difference was delightful, though embarrassing. Yes, smaller, she was actually smaller, he said to himself,—"as high as my heart," as Orlando says: yet no longer little Edith, but an imposing stately personage at whom he scarcely ventured to look boldly, but only snatched shy glances at, abashed by her soft regard. He went on stammering out his pleasure, his delight, his surprise, hardly knowing what he said. "I had just begun to hope that you might come sometimes, that I might have a chance of seeing you," he was saying; whereupon Edith smiled gravely, and her mother gave a little laugh aloud.

"I don't believe he knows anything about it, Edith," she said.

"I was sure of it, mamma," Edith replied; while between them John stood dumb, not knowing what to think.

CHAPTER IV.

The explanation which was given to John Erskine on the highroad between Dalrulzian and Lindores, as it is still more important to us than to him, must be here set forth at more length. There are some happy writers whose mission it is to expound the manners and customs of the great. To them it is given to know how duchesses and countesses demean themselves in their moments perdus, and they even catch as it flies that airy grace with which the chit-chat of society makes itself look like something of consequence. Gilded salons in Belgravia, dainty boudoirs in Mayfair, not to speak of everything that is gorgeous in the rural palaces, which are as so many centres of light throughout England—are the scenery in which they are accustomed to enshrine the subjects of their fancy. And yet, alas! to these writers when they have done all, yet must we add that they fail to satisfy their models. When the elegant foreigner, or what is perhaps more consonant with the tastes of the day, the refined American, ventures to form his opinion of the habits of society from its novels, he is always met with an amused or indignant protestation. As if these sort of people knew anything about society! Lady Adeliza says. It is perhaps as well, under these circumstances, to assume a humility, even if we have it not; and indeed the present writer has always been shy of venturing into exalted regions, or laying profane hands upon persons of quality. But when a family of rank comes in our way by necessity, it would be cowardice to recoil from the difficulties of the portraiture. Should we fail to represent in black and white the native grace, the air noble, the exalted sentiments which belong by right to members of the aristocracy, the reader will charitably impute the blame rather to the impression made upon our nerves by a superiority so dazzling than to any defect of goodwill. Besides, in the present case, which is a great aid to modesty, the family had been suddenly elevated, and were not born in the purple. Lady Lindores was a commoner by birth, and not of any very exalted lineage—a woman quite within the range of ordinary rules and instincts; and even Lady Edith had been Miss Edith till within a few years. Their honours were still new upon them: they were not themselves much used to these honours any more than their humble chronicler; with which preface we enter with diffidence upon the recent history of the noble house of Lindores.

The late earl had been a man unfortunate in his children. His sons by his first marriage had died one after another, inheriting their mother's delicate health. His second wife had brought him but one son, a likely and healthy boy; but an accident, one of those simplest risks which hundreds are subject to, and escape daily, carried this precious boy off in a moment. His father, who had been entirely devoted to him, died afterwards of a broken heart, people said. The next brother, who was in India with his regiment, died there almost at the same time, and never knew that he had succeeded to the family honours. And thus it was that the Honourable Robert Lindores, a poor gentleman, living on a very straitened income, in a cheap French town, with his wife and daughters, and as little expecting any such elevation as a poor curate expects to be made Archbishop of Canterbury, became Earl of Lindores and the head of the family, without warning or preparation. It does not perhaps require very much preparation to come to such advancement; and the new earl was to the manner born. But Mrs Lindores, who was a woman full of imagination, with nerves and ideas of her own, received a considerable shock. She had no objection to being a countess; the coronet, indeed, was pleasant to her as it is to most people. She liked to look at it on her handkerchiefs: there is no such pretty ornament. But it startled her mind and shook her nerves just at first. And it made a great, a very great, change in the family life. Instead of strolling about as they had done for years, with one maid for the mother and daughters, and a shabby cheap French servant, who was valet and factotum; going to all kinds of places; living as they liked; and though, with many a complaint, getting a great deal of pleasure out of their lives: there was an immediate shaking of themselves together—a calling in of stray habits and fancies,—a jump into their new place, as of an inexperienced and half-alarmed rider, not at all sure how he was to get on with his unaccustomed steed. This at least was the mood of Lady Lindores. The Earl knew all about it better than she did. Even to be merely the "honourable" had fluttered her senses a little; and it had never occurred to her that anything further was possible. The family was poor—still poor, even when thus elevated as it were to the throne; but the poverty of the Honourable Robert was very different from that of the right honourable Earl. In the one case it was actual poverty, in the other only comparative. To be sure it was, when one had time to think, distressing and troubling not to have money enough to refurnish the Castle (the taste of the late lord had been execrable) and make many improvements which were quite necessary. But that was very different from not having money enough to possess a settled home of your own anywhere, which had been their previous condition. The Earl took his measures without a moment's delay. He dismissed the servants who had followed them in their poverty, and engaged others in London, who were more proper to the service of a noble family. They travelled quite humbly, indeed, in their old half-Bohemian way, until they reached London, and then all at once cast their slough. The ladies put on their clothes, which they had stopped to procure in Paris, and suddenly blossomed out (though in deep mourning) into the likeness of their rank. It was a thing to make the steadiest heart beat. Young Robin was at Chatham, a lieutenant in a marching regiment—a young nobody, pleased to be noticed even by the townsfolk; and lo! in a moment, this insignificant lieutenant became Lord Rintoul. It was like a transformation scene; he came to meet his people when they passed through London, and they could scarcely speak to each other when they met in their mutual wonder. "Poor little Rintoul, all the same, poor little beggar!" Robin Lindores said. To think of the poor boy, cut off in a moment, whose death had purchased them all these honours, affected the young people with a strange awe, and almost remorseful pain. They felt as if somehow, without knowing it, they had been the cause of that terrible sudden removal of all the hopes that had rested on their little cousin's head. Lady Lindores herself declared that she dared not think of her predecessor, the mother of that poor boy, "the dowager," alas! poor lady. The dowager was younger than her successor in the family honours, having been a second wife. They were all silent with respectful awe when her name was mentioned; but the Earl said pshaw! and thought this superfluous. He was more used to it; he had been born in the purple, and now that he had come, though unexpectedly, to his kingdom, he knew how to fill that exalted place.

The Earl was a man of a character which never, up to this time, had been estimated as it deserved. He had been quite an easy-going sort of person in his former estate. In his youth he was said to have been extravagant. Since his marriage—which had been an imprudent marriage, in so far that he might perhaps have got a richer wife had he tried, but which was wise so far that the income upon which they lived chiefly came from that wife—he had let himself go quietly enough upon the current, there being no motive to struggle against it. The very best that they could make of it was simply to "get along;" and get along they did without putting any force upon their inclinations. He was always able to secure his comforts, such as were indispensable; and as he liked the easier routine of a wandering life, he did not object, as he said, to make a sacrifice for the education of his children and their amusement, by living in places where the pleasures were cheap and there was no dignity to keep up. He had in this sense been very complying, both as a husband and a father, and had allowed himself to be guided, as his family thought, by their wishes quite as much, at least, as by his own. He had not in these days been in the least a severe father, or shown marks of a worldly mind. What was the use? The girls were too young as yet to have become valuable instruments of ambition, and he had not learnt to think of them as anything but children. But when this extraordinary change came in their existence, the easy dilettante—whose wants were limited to a few graceful knick-knacks, an elegant little meal, good music, when procurable, and a life undisturbed by vulgar cares—altered his very nature, as his family thought. Hitherto his wife and his girls had done everything for him, aided by the ubiquitous, the handy, the all-accomplished Jean or François, who was half-a-dozen men in one—cook, valet, footman, pattern man-of-all-work. They arranged the rooms in every new place they went to, so that the fact that these rooms were those of a hotel or lodging-house should be masked by familiar prettinesses, carried about with them. They gave a careful supervision to his meals, and arranged everything, so that papa should get the best out of his limited existence, and none of its troubles. And as there was nothing against Mr Lindores—no bad repute, but with an honourable at his name—every English club, every cercle, was open to him. He always dressed carefully; now and then he helped a wealthier friend to a bargain in the way of art. He saw a great deal of society. On the whole, perhaps, for a man without ambition, and upon whom neither the fate of his children nor the use of his own life pressed very heavily, he got as much satisfaction out of his existence as most men; and so might have lived and died, no man knowing what was really in him, had not poor young Rintoul broken his neck over that fence, and drawn his father with him into the grave. From the moment when the letter, placed calmly by Mr Lindores's plate at breakfast, as though it meant nothing particular, had its black seals broken, he was another man. How distinctly they all recollected that scene!—a lofty French room, with bare white walls and long large windows, the green Persians closed to keep out the sunshine, one long line of light falling across the polished floor, where one of these shutters had got unfastened; the spacious coolness in the midst of heat, which is characteristic of such houses, like the atmosphere in M. Alma Tadema's pictures; the white-covered table with its flowers and pretty arrangements; the girls in their white cool dresses; and François lifting the small silver cover from his master's favourite dish. All the composure and quiet of this interior had been broken in a moment. There had been a sudden stifled cry, and Mr Lindores, pushing the table from him, disordering the dishes, over-setting his heavy chair as he sprang to his feet, had finished reading his letter standing upright, trembling with excitement, his face flushed and crimson. "What is it?" they had all cried. "Robin?" Naturally, the son who was away was the first thought of the women. For a minute the father had made no reply, and their anxiety was beyond words. Then he put down the letter solemnly, and went to his wife and took her hand. "There is nothing wrong with Robin," he said; "but it comes by trouble to others, if not to us. My dear, you are the Countess of Lindores." It was some minutes before the real meaning of this communication penetrated their astonished minds; and the first proof of understanding which the new Lady Lindores gave was to cover her face and cry out, "Oh, poor boy! oh, poor Jane, poor Jane!" with a pang at her heart. It was not all grief for the other—could any one expect that?—but the poignant state of emotion which this strange terrible good fortune caused her, had a sharpness of anguish in it for the moment. The girls went away hushed and silenced, unable to eat their breakfasts, to find some black ribbons instead of the bright ones they wore. They wept a few tears as they went to their rooms over poor young Rintoul; but they had known very little of the boy, and the strange excitement of the change soon crept into their veins. Lady Caroline and Lady Edith! instead of the humble Miss Lindores. No wonder that it went to their heads.

And from that moment the new Earl was a different man. He threw off all his languor, took everything into his own hands. Those little economies which it had been so necessary to insist upon yesterday were now absurd, notwithstanding that the Earls of Lindores were far from rich—comparatively. The family came home rapidly, as has been said; pausing in Paris to get their dresses, to dismiss the faithful servants of their poverty, who would be of no use, the Earl decided, in the change of circumstances. He behaved very well, everybody said, to poor Lady Lindores, his brother's young widow, who had thus been left at once widowed and childless. He showed "every consideration;" would not allow her to be hurried; waited her convenience and her pleasure in every way. But, naturally, that poor lady was glad to take refuge with her own family in her desolation; and within a few months, the wandering exile-family, familiar with all the cheap watering-places and centres of genteel emigration on the Continent, were settled in the greatness of their new position, as if they had never known any less elevated circumstances. There was a great deal of excitement in the change; and though it was sad at first, no doubt there was a pleasure in hearing Robin addressed by the name of Rintoul, and accustoming themselves to their ladyships. But yet, when all was over, it was not perhaps to the girls so great an improvement as it appeared on the old life. They were not dull—oh no—but still there was a great deal less to do and to see than there used to be; and though they felt, as their mother said, that girls with so many resources ought to be occupied and happy wherever they went, still the calm of the Castle was very different from the stir and movement to which they had been used.

Up to this time, however, nothing had happened to them except that which was determined by another will than theirs, the inevitable result of other events. But they had not been long settled in their new and elevated life when it became apparent that other changes had happened which were not evoked by any external fate, and which were yet more profoundly to affect their life. That Swiss holiday had been more important to Carry than any one out of the family knew. It had ended in a kind of vague engagement, only half sanctioned, yet only half opposed by her family, and which it was possible, had Mr Beaufort been rich enough to marry, would not have been opposed at all. Had he possessed income enough or courage enough to make the venture, the result in all likelihood would, years before, have been out of the reach of evil fate; but while it remained only an engagement, Mr Lindores had refused his official sanction to it. And it had seemed to Carry, in whose mind the first conscious thought after the news of this extraordinary change was to communicate it to Edward, that from that very day her father's aspect had changed towards her. He had met her running out to the post with her letter in the afternoon, and had given a suspicious glance at it, and stopped her, telling her it was not fit she should go out on a day so serious. Not a word had been said for weeks and even months after, but she knew very well that things were not as before. All reference to Beaufort was somehow stopped; even her mother managed to arrest upon her lips all mention of her lover. She was herself too timid to open the subject, and gradually a chill certainty that he was to be ignored and pushed aside out of her life, came upon the poor girl. How it was that further dangers dawned upon her, it would be hard to tell; but it is certain that she had divined a something—a tightening coil about her helpless feet, a design upon her freedom and happiness—before the family had been long at Lindores. One of the consequences of their great honour and increased stateliness of living was, that the two sisters were partially separated, as they felt, from each other. They no longer occupied the same room as they had done all their lives. They had now what with their foreign habits they called an appartement—a suite of rooms set apart for them; and as Edith was full of curiosity and excitement about the new life, and Carry was discouraged and depressed, and felt it odious to her, they fell a little apart without any mutual intention or consciousness. It was in the beginning of their first winter, when the dark days were closing in, that this semi-estrangement first became apparent to the younger sister. She awoke all at once to the consciousness that Carry was pale; that she shut herself up very much, and more than ever devoted herself to her writing; that she composed a great many little poems (for she was the genius of the family), and often had a suspicion of redness about her eyes. This discovery was instantaneous. Edith had never been awakened to any but the most simple troubles of life, and it had not occurred to her to imagine that there was anything beneath the headache which her sister so often took refuge in. But her mind, when it began to act, was rapid and keen. It became apparent to her that she had been losing sight of Carry, and that Carry was not happy. The progress from one step to another of her solicitude for her sister was rapid as lightning. She remembered everything in a moment, though these causes of sorrow had been altogether out of her thoughts before. She remembered that not a word had been said of Mr Beaufort for months; that Carry had ceased altogether to speculate as to anything that might happen in the future; that all this was as a closed book between them nowadays. As soon as she arrived at this conviction, Edith found herself ready to interfere for good or evil. She went into the room where Carry was writing her little poetries, with something of the effect of a fresh light wind, carrying refreshment, but also a little disturbance, with her. She stooped over her sister with a caressing arm round her neck, and plunged at once into the heart of the subject. It was a still, dull afternoon of early winter, and nobody was by. "Carry," she said, all at once—"Carry, it is so long since we have said anything to each other! I wanted to ask you about—Edward!" Upon this, for all answer, Carry fell a-crying, but after a while sobbed forth, "I will never give him up!"

"Give him up!" cried Edith, surprised. She had what her mother called a positive nature, much less romantic, much less sensitive, than her sister. The idea of giving up had never entered her mind. "Give him up!—no, of course not. I never thought of such a thing; but I am afraid it will be harder than ever with papa."

"Oh, Edith, it will be impossible," Caroline said. And then the two sisters looked at each other—the one astonished, indignant, full of resistance; the other pale, drooping, without vigour or hope.

"What does impossible mean?" said the younger, not with any affectation or grandiloquence; for probably she had never heard of any heroic utterance on the subject. "You mean very, very hard. So it will be. I have wanted to speak to you since ever we came here. I want to know what he says himself, and if papa has said anything, and what mamma thinks. We don't seem to live together now," she added, with a clouded countenance. "It's always, 'Oh, Lady Caroline has gone out,' or, 'Her ladyship is in the library with my lord,' It seemed very nice at first, but I begin to hate ladyships and lordships with all my heart."

"So do I," said Caroline, with a sigh.

"If you marry a man without a title, couldn't you give it up? Perhaps one wouldn't like that either, now," said the girl, candidly. "It was far, far nicer, far more natural, in the old days; but perhaps one wouldn't like to go back."

"I suppose not," said Carry, drearily. She was not a beautiful girl, as in her romantic position she ought to have been. Her nose was too large; her complexion deficient; her eyes were grey, sweet, and thoughtful, but not brilliant or shining. Her figure had the willowy grace of youth, but nothing more imposing. She had a very sweet radiant smile when she was happy; this was the chief attraction of her face: but at present she was not happy, and her pale gentle countenance was not one to catch the general eye.

"But I hope you are going to make a stand, Carry," said the energetic little Edith. "You won't, surely—you can't be so lâche as to give in? I would not!—not if it cost me my life!"

"Ah, if it was a question of one's life! but no one wants your life," said Carry, shaking her head. "No one will touch us, or lock us up, or any of these old-fashioned things. If they only would! The poets say 'I could die for you,' as if that was difficult! Oh no, it is far harder, far harder to live."

"Carry! you have been thinking a great deal about it, then?"

"What else could I think about? Since the first moment papa looked at me that day—you remember that day?—I knew in a moment what he meant. He gave me just one glance. You know he never said that he would consent."

Edith's youthful countenance gathered a sympathetic cloud. "Papa has been so changed ever since," she said.

"He never would allow that he had consented even before,—and while we were all poor, what did it matter? So long as he does not ask me to——"

"To what?" Edith asked, with a wondering perception of the shudder which ran over her sister's slight figure. "Are you cold, Car?"

"To—marry some one else," cried poor Caroline, with a heavy sigh,—so heavy that it was almost a groan.

Edith sprang to her feet with indignant vehemence. "That is not possible; nobody could be so cowardly, so cruel, as that," she said, clasping her hands together. "Carry, you speak as if papa was a bad man; you slander him; it is not true, it is not true!"

"He would not think it cruel," said Caroline, shaking her head sadly. "He would not mean any harm; he would say to himself that it was for my good."

Her despondency quenched the passion and energy of the younger girl. Carry's drooping head and heavy eyes were enough to damp even the liveliest courage. "Are you thinking of—any one in particular?" Edith said in hushed and tremulous tones.

Carry put out her hands as if to push some spectre away. "Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me; I don't know; I can't tell you," she cried.

What could Edith say? she was appalled. The fresh inexperienced heart received a first lesson in the mysterious evils of life. She who had fretted and chafed so at the partial separation that had arisen between them, she was glad of a pretext to leave her sister. She could scarcely believe this to be possible, and yet so it was. Nor did she wish to run to her mother with her discovery, to appeal to her against Carry's misconception, against the monstrous character of the suggestion altogether, as would have been her first impulse in any other case. No; she was convinced of the reality of it, little as she desired to be convinced. A gleam of painful light seemed to fall across the new tenor of their life. She thought for a moment that she saw the very earth, solid and unyielding, break into dangerous pits and chasms before her feet. The pain of this discovery was two-fold—both poignant, yet one worse than the other. To think that her father, whom she had hitherto loved and trusted, not with any excess of devotion, but yet with an honest confidence that he would ask nothing wrong, nothing unreasonable from his children, should thus threaten to become a domestic tyrant, an enemy of truth, was terrible; but still more terrible was the conviction which overwhelmed the girl that Carry, with all her imagination and feeling—Carry, the poet of the family, the first one to have a romance and a lover—would not have strength to resist any attempted coercion. Oh, if it had only been me! Edith said to herself, clenching her hands tight. But then she had no Edward, no romance—she was fancy free: even were it possible to force her into any connection she disliked (which Edith did not think it would be), at all events she could not be made false to another. But Carry—Carry, who was all heart—to force her to deny that heart would be doubly cruel. Little Edith woke out of her careless youth to see this wonderful and great danger at her very side, with all that bewilderment of feeling which attends the first disclosure of the evils in life. She could not believe it, and yet she knew it was true. She remembered tones in her father's voice, lights in his eyes, which she never seemed to have understood before. Was this what they meant? that when his time and opportunity came, he would be a tyrant, a remorseless and unfaltering ruler, suffering no rebellion? Edith trembled a little. Perhaps she, too, might fall under that despotism one day. But she did not feel afraid for herself. Oh, if it had only been me! she said, ungrammatical, as excitement generally is. It would be hard to say what ground she had for her self-confidence. Carry was the genius of the family, and little Edith only the youngest, the household pet, whom nobody regarded as in a position to make decisions or form opinions for herself. Why was it to her eyes that this sudden insight had been given? It is not usually a happy gift. Blessed are they, we may rather say, who can deceive themselves—whose eyes are made blind, and not more fatally clear, by love. Edith hastened out of doors, out of sight or speech of any one, to try if she could escape from this revelation which had opened upon her, so much against her will. It was a misty dull day, with a great deal of moisture in the air—moisture which seemed to communicate itself to Edith's eyes, and get into her throat. She hastened down the path which wound through the birches, the poetical "birks of Lindores," to the river lying far below, and already sending a soft sound of running water to soothe her. About half-way down was a great beech-tree, round which a seat had been placed. Here there was a view, not of the wide champaign, like that at Dalrulzian, but of a portion of the highroad, just where it began to mount the hill towards the Castle. On the other side lay the river, visible at the foot of the bank, and running somewhat strong and wild under the cliffs on the opposite side, which threw it into deep shadow. But it was not the river, though so much the more beautiful of the two, it was the highroad which attracted Edith's attention. As she stood looking out upon it, some one passed, riding slowly along, but turning his head to catch the first glimpse of the Castle. His appearance seemed to throw a sudden light upon her thoughts. He was a heavy, large man, upon a powerful black horse,—an apparition big enough to be identified, even at that distance. The ladies had all been very free in their remarks upon this representative of their county neighbours. They had not given him a very encouraging reception, yet he had repeated his visits, too stolid, they had thought, to perceive that he was not wanted. As Edith stood and gazed at him, with the blood curdling about her heart, it flashed upon her that her father had given no countenance to their criticisms. He had told them that Mr Torrance was one of the richest commoners in Scotland, and Tinto such a house as any one might be proud to possess. She had paid little attention to these words at the time, but they seemed to repeat themselves in the very air now. It was a day of revelation to Edith. She saw all that it meant, and foresaw all it was coming to, with a gleam of terrible insight. Oh no, no! she moaned to herself in a kind of helpless protest against fate.

CHAPTER V.

Mr Torrance of Tinto was the representative of an old county family, but he would not have been the richest commoner in Scotland if he had been no more than this. A variety of other circumstances, however, had combined to bring about this effect, and elevate a man who was no better, at the best that could be said for him, than a rude yeoman-sportsman at soul, into a person of the greatest local importance and almost national notability. The previous Torrance of Tinto, a man of some rough practical power, had allied himself to some degree in business, and to a much greater degree in life, with a great railway contractor—one of the men who, coming from nothing, have made colossal fortunes, and found admittance for their children, if not for themselves, into the foremost ranks of society. Mr Torrance married this man's daughter, and all the money which the original navvy had quarried out of the bowels of the earth, or gathered from its surface, went to increase the lands and the power of Tinto, where this daughter, his only child, a woman with the magnificent ideas of expenditure which enormous wealth so naturally brings along with it, disposed herself to reign like a princess, making her husband's old house the centre of a new palace, fit for a duke at least. The old man, her father, always thrifty and sparing in his own person, would have her stinted in nothing; and perhaps, had she lived long, her husband would have had little enough left him of the huge fortune which she had brought into the family. But fortunately (for the family), after she had alarmed him beyond measure by unbounded expenditure for a few years, and had completed the new house and filled it with costly furniture, in all of which her father encouraged her, the death of both within a year of each other relieved the owner of Tinto of his fears, and left him free to complete the training of his son as he pleased. He made him much such a man as he had himself been, but without the brains, which are not transmitted so easily as money. Patrick Torrance had indeed been sent to Oxford to have the regulation mark stamped upon him as an educated man: but those were days in which so much as this meant was easier than now; and it is not very hard even now, as may be seen. He came back more horsey, more doggy than he had been before, if possible,—a man without an intellectual taste or higher instinct, bored to death, as he himself avowed, with the grand house, full of pictures, and statues, and marble, and porcelain, which the taste of his mother had accumulated. Never was such a magnificent place in the quietude of such a homely country. The daughter of the railway man was as extreme in her taste for art as the daughter of one of her father's navvies might have been in dress. There was not a wall, not a passage or staircase, that was not laden with decoration. Great artists had designed the chimney-pieces and cornices. The velvet, the satin, the embroidery, were all the most costly, and, according to the lights of that period, the most correct that money could buy. The old man, whose money had bought all this, went about the gorgeous rooms rubbing his hands with a continual chuckle of satisfaction so long as he lived; and the poor woman who had created the luxurious house swept through in dresses to correspond, with satisfaction not less than if she had been a daughter of the Medici,—who, to be sure, made their money in business too. But when that fine Renaissance lady died, and all her friends were scattered, and the place fell back into the possession of the commonplace country laird and his boy, coming in ruddy from the fields or damp from the hill, afraid to tread in their shooting boots on the luxurious carpets or throw themselves down in the satin chairs, the incongruity of the establishment was manifest to every eye. Mr Torrance, the father, had been deeply impressed by the cost of everything his wife had bought and planned. He had been horrified and indignant in the first instance; but when it had been proved that he had no power to resist, and that the money must be expended for all these luxuries, he had taken what satisfaction he could from the price. "Do you know what she gave for that?" he would say; "it's all dash'd extravagance. I cannot away with it; but it was her doing, and as she had plenty, she had to please herself." It was in this way that he spoke of his wife. And when she died, the splendid house she had built was shut up,—not from sentiment, but because the set of rooms still remaining, which belonged to the old house of Tinto, was much more in harmony with the habits of the master of the house.

Now that he too was dead, his son followed his example in preferring the old den of the race. But he had more appreciation of the dignity of owning a house such as no one in the country could "hold a candle" to. The fine decorations had not all stood the neglect of twenty years, but still there was enough of magnificence to overawe the district; and Patrick Torrance had enough of his mother's blood in him to enjoy the consciousness of so much luxury and costliness. He lived in the old library, which was low and dingy, and looked out upon the dark bit of shrubbery behind the house and the road that led to the stables; but periodically he threw the grand empty rooms open, and had a great dinner-party or a ball, which excited all the gentry for miles round. It would be vain to say that there was not on these occasions more excitement than was natural solely in view of a great entertainment. While society is constituted as it is, it will not be possible that a great matrimonial prize, such as Mr Patrick Torrance unquestionably was, should thus be shown, as open to public competition, without a certain excitement. If a great post worth thousands a-year could be won by the most attractive and brilliant appearance in a ball-room, what a flutter there would be among the golden youth of society! and the master of Tinto was more valuable than most of the very finest appointments. He was as good as a Viceroyship of India without the necessity of expatriation. Consequently it is not to be supposed that the young ladies of the neighbourhood could prepare for their appearance in these gilded if somewhat tarnished halls of his without a good deal of agitation, or that the mothers, or even the fathers of possible competitors, could escape some share of the same excitement. Some of the girls, let us do them the justice to say, were as much alarmed lest Pat Torrance, as he was called, should cast his big projecting eyes upon them, as others were anxious for that notice. He was not in himself much adapted to please a maiden's eye. He was very dark, strongly bearded, with large eyes à fleur de tête and somewhat bloodshot. His friends maintained that he had "a good figure," and it certainly was tall and strong. His voice was as large as his person, and somewhat hoarse—a deep bass, which made a vibration in the air. He was an excellent shot, and hunted indefatigably, though it was beginning to be said, notwithstanding his youth, that Pat was too heavy for distinction in the hunting-field. With all these qualities he had an eye to his interest, rich though he was; and, though not clever, was said to be very fortunate in his investments, and to keep a careful hand over his money. Now and then he would be lavish, outdoing all that was known in these parts in the way of extravagance; but for the most part he lived as his father had done before him, in the old rooms of the old mansion-house of Tinto, where not a carpet or a curtain had been removed since the time of his grandfather. There was perhaps a touch of humour, somehow struck out by the contact of the two races, which made the contrast of these two manners of living pleasant to his fancy and to his rude and elementary pride; or perhaps it was mere instinct, and had no meaning in it at all—the habits of the limited and uncultured countryman, diversified by that delight in an occasional "blow out," which is the compensation of the navvy for his rude toils. There was no doubt that from the time of his father's death, which occurred when he was about twenty-eight, Pat Torrance had made up his mind to marry. And he had inspected all the marriageable girls in the country with a serious intention which disgusted some and amused others, and filled a few with breathless hope. In the latter class were ladies of very different pretensions indeed, from Miss Webster of Thrums, who was the greatest rider in the country, and never wanting when anything was going on, down to the bold, handsome, black-eyed daughter of the landlord of the Bear at Dunearn, which was the inn Mr Torrance used when he went into the county town. He was just as likely, people thought, to make such a match as any other; his style of courtship was more in harmony with a bar-room than a drawing-room. This conviction made the balls at Tinto less exciting to the feminine community generally as time went on; but still there is never any telling what caprice may sway a sultan's choice.

And alas! it is a fact that, whether by their own will or by that of their parents, Pat Torrance might have married almost any lady in the county. He was not himself to them, but such a cluster of worldly advantages as scarcely any mortal woman could resist. He was, as we have said, far beyond in value the best of the appointments for which they could not, and their brothers could try. He meant a fine position, a magnificent house, a great fortune. To be sure there was a drawback to this, which only a few acknowledged. When Mrs Sempill pointed out to her daughter Agnes, whom he had honoured with some passing notice, that in case she married him she would have "everything that heart could desire—at least everything that money could buy,"—Agnes, who was a clever girl, put forth a condition. "I should have just as much as Pat Torrance thought proper of the things that money can buy," the young woman said, with sudden insight. I am afraid, however, that Agnes Sempill would have married him all the same, her family being so poor, if he had put himself at her disposal. But he did not, and she was glad. Indeed he made himself of all the greater importance in the county that he came to no decision, but went on giving his balls three or four times a-year, and examining with a critical eye every girl who appeared on the horizon, every new débutante. And he was asked everywhere in those days. His importance was fully recognised.

This was the condition in which things were when the new family came to the Castle. Mr Torrance was one of the first callers, partly because his pride as at once the head of an old family and the richest man in the county made him eager to assert his position with the new Earl as a leader of the local society—a position which not even the chances their daughters might have of sharing it would have prevailed on the other county magnates to permit him,—and partly because of the new candidates for his favour who were to be found in the family of Lindores. Notwithstanding the prevalent idea that Bessie Runciman at the Black Bear in Dunearn had just as good a chance for the prize as any competitor, nothing could be further from the fact or the intentions of the hero. His determination all along had been to procure himself a wife who should be in harmony, not so much with himself as with the grandeur of his house and what he believed to be his position; and the hunting lady and the publican's daughter had been equally out of the question. For himself, he might have liked either of them well enough; but as a matter of fact, it was not too much refinement, but not refinement enough, which this rude squire found among his country neighbours. None of them was fine enough for Tinto. He wanted somebody who would be at home in the grand rooms overloaded with decoration—who would be, if possible, superior to the killing splendour which made himself feel so small. And no woman yet had impressed Pat as sufficiently magnificent for this purpose. He wanted some one more imposing,—a lady of Tinto who might, as he desired in his heart, receive the Prince of Wales on occasion, or even the Queen herself. When he paid his first visit to Lindores, the Earl alone received him, and he had no chance of inspecting the daughters of the house; but he had met them as he rode home again, coming back from their drive in the little pony-carriage, of which they had just become possessed. Edith, new to all these delights, was driving her sister; and her bright little face, full of life and smiles, turned curiously upon him as he stood aside on his big black horse to let them pass. But that was not what caught his eye. Beside her was a pale and gentle countenance, unlike anything which had hitherto been presented to his notice. Pat's heart, if he had a heart, or the big pulse that did service for it, gave a bound as he looked. It seemed to him at the first glance that this new face was more aristocratic, more distinguished, for not being pretty. The lilies and roses of the other were familiar to him. Bright eyes and fine complexions were by no means rare in the county. They were to be found everywhere, in the cottages as well as in the castles. He was not impressed by them. The smiles and animation were common things; but Lady Caroline with her gentle paleness, her slim form pliant and bending,—even her nose, which was a little too long, was the impersonation of refinement and rank, and fine superiority. His imagination, if he had an imagination, took fire. He thought he could see her moving about with languid grace through his fine salons, far more fine than they, lending them an air of delicacy and importance which they had never possessed before. He felt himself to be "struck" by Lady Caroline as he never had been "struck" till now. That was rank, he said to himself admiringly. To be sure, rank was what he had wanted; he had never realised it before, but now he perceived it as plain as daylight. He had been wiser than he was aware of in his fastidiousness; and now he saw suddenly presented before him the very object of which he had been in search. Lady Caroline Torrance!—that was what it was.

This chance meeting, and the instant conviction that followed, had taken place some time before the interview between the sisters which we have described. How it was that the suitor communicated his wishes to the Earl, or the Earl to poor Carry, it is impossible to tell—or if, indeed, up to this time, any communication had been made on the subject. Most likely there had been no communication; but the proposal, which turned the light into darkness for Carry, was in the air, overshadowing everything. Her father saw it in the dark face of Pat Torrance, and she surmised it in her father's eyes. Before a word had been said she knew her fate, struggling dumbly against it like a creature fascinated and magnetised in the grip of a monster, but without any possibility or hope of escape. There was something more terrible in this silent certainty than there would have been in any conflict. She felt herself sucked in as to a whirlpool, overpowered,—all her forces taken from her in the giddy rush with which the days and hours were carrying her on, irresistible, to that climax. It was this fatal consciousness which made her cry out, "I will never give him up;" which was the cry, not of resolution, but of despair. All that she could do in her sick and failing soul was to grasp at and cling to the weeds on the bank, while the current carried her wildly on, plucking them out of her hands. Edith, who was of so different a nature, stood by appalled, astonished, not knowing how to account for her sister's helplessness. She was positive, as her mother said, not visionary, incapable either of divining what was going to happen or of yielding to it. Why Carry could not simply make up her mind to refuse, to stand fast, to resist whatever powers might be brought to bear upon her, was a thing which Edith could not understand.

And stranger still, Lady Lindores had not even found it out. She disliked Mr Torrance, and made no secret of her dislike. "If that is your type of a Scotch laird, I cannot say I like the species," she said, eliciting a soft, "Oh, mamma!" from Edith, who remembered very well a statement of an entirely contrary character which her mother had once made. "If young Erskine is a type of a young Scotch laird, I am disposed to fall in love with the class," was what Lady Lindores had then said. Edith remembered it distinctly, but gave her tongue a little malicious bite, and would not recall it to her mother's mind; for was not young Erskine coming back? But Lady Lindores's feeling about Torrance was more than passive. She took care to let him see that he was not a favourite in the house. She wondered audibly, even after the eyes of Edith had been opened, what that odious man wanted here; and indeed did all but refuse to ask him to a dîner intime, at which her husband desired his presence. "Torrance of Tinto," she cried, with a cloud on her face; "why Torrance of Tinto? He has already dined here. Why should we have him again?"

"Why not?" said the Earl, with a still deeper shadow on his face. Lady Lindores saw very clearly when her attention was aroused; but she was a high-minded woman, slow to be awakened to suspicion, and scorning to think evil. It seemed to her an evidence of a poor nature to suppose any one else capable of an act you would not have done yourself.

"Why not? I think that jumps at the eyes," she said. It was Lady Lindores's weakness to employ idioms which, being translated idioms, sounded very strange to ordinary ears. This was so far comprehensible because she had lived abroad the greater part of her life, and she thought the polyglot chatter which is so common, especially among the English abroad, vulgar; so she translated her French, and thought it less objectionable. "That jumps at the eyes," she said; "he is not a friend of the house—only a recent acquaintance—and he has dined here already. Why have him again? He is not an attractive person. You cannot care for him, Robert; and he is no favourite with the girls."

"The girls must learn to receive the people I approve of," said the Earl, "or we shall quarrel. You must make them aware of that."

"Quarrel! for the sake of Mr Torrance! That is carrying clanship a great way."

"There is no clanship in it. You ought to know better, my dear. Your English fallacies are quite out of place here. If I had a clan (which I have not—we are purely Norman, not Celtic at all), Pat Torrance could have had as little to do with it as John Smith."

"My dear Robert," said Lady Lindores, for she had not learned to address her husband by his title, "you take it very seriously. I meant your kindness for your own people. But for a kind prejudice, which I admire and respect, for your old neighbours, you never would put up with a being like this Tinto, as they call him,—a rich fox-hunter, with the mind of a ploughman."

"You will oblige me, Mary," said her husband, coldly, "by restraining your opinion—at all events until you have a better right to express it. What do you know of Pat Torrance? I should very much prefer that you did not commit yourself on the subject. You might regret it after."

"Commit myself!—regret it!" Lady Lindores gazed at her husband with consternation. She had absolutely no guide to what he could mean; but as he stood to his point and would not yield, and as one must certainly yield when such a question arises, she found herself unwillingly obliged to give in. She was behind her children in comprehension, strange as it seems to say so. Lady Lindores had not been unfavourable to Beaufort's claims when first he made his suit to Carry; but she had been perhaps a little disappointed in him as the years passed on. He had not shown the energy, the determination, which a man in such circumstances ought to show. He had made no passionate effort to obtain his bride, such as Carry's mother felt her child was worth. And it was a long time now since Lady Lindores had taken any notice of the lingering engagement which her husband had never positively sanctioned, but which had lingered on for a year or two, coming to nothing. She had thought it best not to interfere. Perhaps Mr Beaufort might think it his duty to release Carry, now that her position was so much changed. The mother did not feel that she could ask him to do so; but if anything had happened to the tardy lover—had he been ill, or died, or proved fickle, she would have felt that Providence was interfering on their behalf. In the meantime, she thought it the best policy to say nothing about it. And it was this reticence which she intended for wisdom, which prevented any explanation between them, and kept her ignorant of what even Edith knew. It did not occur to her to connect her child, so delicate and refined, with the rough and coarse squire, whom she could not tolerate. How her husband could put up with him Lady Lindores could not conceive. He certainly meant something by it, she thought; but what did he mean? Was it some scheme of tactics in respect to the next election? which already, she knew, gave Lord Lindores great concern. Perhaps the Earl, who had a devouring ambition, now that he found an opening for it, thought it well to have the richest man in the county under his influence. This was all that she had yet divined. "Your father insists upon having that Mr Torrance," she said to the girls. "What he can see in him, I cannot imagine. But that does not look at us. We are not called upon to make martyrs of ourselves for papa's political friends."

Carry looked up eagerly as her mother spoke. "Political!" she said, with a quiver of hopeful eagerness in her voice. "Is that the reason?" This eager tone and broken question would have made Lady Lindores wonder had she not been full of the subject from her own point of view.

"What else?" she said. "You cannot suppose a man like your father can find anything else in Mr Torrance to attract him. Politics are very entrancing, but, like necessity, they bring you acquainted with strange bedfellows. Papa thinks, no doubt, that he ought to turn his influence to account."

"Oh, if that is the reason!" said Carry, clasping her hands together, with something like an ecstasy of prayer and thankfulness in her face. Lady Lindores, though she thought the emotion excessive—but then Carry was always visionary—understood that her daughter's delicate soul had been wounded by her father's regard for so unattractive a person. She patted her child upon the cheek tenderly.

"You must not consider yourself responsible for all the things we do in the prosecution of our several parts," she said. "I feel, for my own part, that I take a great deal too much notice of old Gardener. I am getting much too fond of him. This is more innocent, I allow, than your father's fancy for Mr Torrance; for I don't insist on asking old Gardener to dinner."

"That I never should object to!" cried Carry, kissing her mother with sudden enthusiasm. She was cheered beyond measure by the comparison, and by Lady Lindores's absolute ignorance of any other pretension on the part of Torrance. Perhaps she had been deceiving herself, and attributing to her father intentions that had never entered his mind. Carry was too thankful to think that this might be how it was. But Edith, the clear-sighted, avoided her sister's eye. She made no comment on what her mother said. Edith felt that, however others might be deceived, she knew.

CHAPTER VI.

Alas! it was not very long before everybody knew. The demeanour of Pat Torrance at the dinner, to which Lady Lindores had been so reluctant to ask him, gave much occasion for thought to the other guests who knew the man and his ways. These said to each other that Pat had put his foot in it at last—that he had made his choice, and thrown his handkerchief at almost the only woman in the county, who was not sure to respond to it. Nothing could have been colder or more repellent than Lady Caroline was to this great matrimonial prize—the idol whom they all bowed down to, though some with minds which rebelled against the rude and ungodlike divinity. Among these interested lookers-on were some who rejoiced to see that he was likely to be made "to see his place" and submit to the humiliation of refusal; and some who, conscious that in their own families there were worshippers who would not have refused to bow down, were angry with poor Carry for "setting up" to be so much better than her neighbours. The most sagacious of these, however, reserved their judgment. There was something in the demonstration with which the Earl brought Pat forward and patted him on the back—something, too, of pain in poor Lady Carry's mild eyes, which made these more profound observers pause. The Lindores were poor. There were two daughters to provide for; and it was not a matter to be settled so easily, or which the parents would allow to turn entirely on a young girl's fancy. And then she was not even pretty, and she had got into the twenties—not a mere girl, with all the world before her. The wise would not give any opinion on the subject. They shook their heads and refused to commit themselves. But this was exactly what Pat Torrance did. He was so satisfied that here at last he had got everything he wanted, that he displayed his decision in Carry's favour from the first day. He made a spectacle of himself to the whole county, looking on with the keenest attention; and oh, how pleased society would have been in the district had he been once for all made an example of, made a fool of, as they said,—held up to public scorn and ridicule as a rejected suitor! As the wooing went on, the desire for such a consummation—the anticipation of it—grew daily in intensity; and it was not very long doubtful. One of the usual great balls was given at Tinto, which was specially in honour of the new-comers, and took place as soon as they were out of their mourning. It was evidently a crisis in the life of the master of the house, and to the greater part of the guests all the interest of a highly exciting drama was mingled with the milder impulses of amusement. Lady Caroline, everybody said, had never looked less well. She was very pale;—it was even said that freckles, caused by her sinful exposure of her face to all the elements during the summer, diminished the sheen of her ordinarily white forehead—her nose was longer than ever. But all this only increased, to her admirer, the charm of her presence. She was independent of beauty. Though she was very simply dressed—too simply for a lady of rank—yet the air with which she moved about these fine rooms was (Pat thought) such as no one else who had ever been there had possessed. She was superior to them, as she was superior to the lilies and the roses, the wreathed smiles and shining eyes of the other girls. He followed her about with demonstrations of devotion which no one could mistake. He would have danced with nobody but her, in the most marked abandonment of all his duties as host, would she have permitted him. Even when he danced with others his eyes followed her, and the only talk he vouchsafed to his partners was about Lady Car, as he called her, with offensive familiarity and a sort of intoxication. As for poor Lady Caroline herself, it was apparent to every one that she retreated continually into out-of-the-way corners—hiding herself behind the old maids and dowagers, who were never left out of such gatherings, and liked to come and look on and criticise the girls, and tell how things had been done in their day. Several of these old ladies, distressed to see a girl not dancing, had betrayed poor Carry's hiding-place by their kind efforts to get her a partner; and the result had been two or three times that she was thus delivered over into the very clutches of the wolf.

"Mr Patrick," one of those kind ladies said, rising from her seat and taking hold of his arm as he prowled about, wondering where Carry could have disappeared to, "do you no think it's discreditable to the county that a young leddy newly come among us, and a person of rank—and, what is better, a sweet young creature—should be left sitting down the whole night and get no dancing?"

It was on this occasion that Miss Barbara Erskine won the heart of the persecuted girl. She said to her in a strong whisper which went through Carry's ear like a—skewer (the simile is undignified, but suits the fact)—"My dear, there's that eediot, Jean Sempill, drawing attention to you. If you want to get out of the way, slip away behind me; there's a door there that leads into the corridor, and so you can get back to your mother. Stay by your mother—that's your safest way." Thus Carry was delivered for the moment. But, alas! her mother could not protect her effectually. When Pat Torrance came boldly up with his dark face glowing, and his projecting eyes ready, as a spectator remarked, to jump out of his head, and said, "This is our dance," what could any one do for her? Lady Lindores had become alarmed, not knowing what to make of Carry's agitation; but even a mother in these circumstances can do so little. "I am afraid she is tired, Mr Torrance," Lady Lindores said; but Carry's arm was already in his. She had not presence of mind even to take the advantage of such an excuse.

When he brought her back, however, to her mother's side, nobody could have helped seeing that something had happened. Poor Carry was as white as her dress: she seemed scarcely able to hold herself upright, and sank down by her mother's side as if she neither saw nor heard anything that was going on round her. On the other hand, Pat Torrance was crimson, his eyes were rolling in his head. He said almost roughly—"You were right, Lady Lindores. Lady Car is tired; but I make no doubt she will be herself again to-morrow." It was a curious speech to make, and there was a tone of threatening and anger in his somewhat elevated voice which roused the liveliest displeasure in the mind of Lady Lindores; but he was gone before she could say anything. "What is the matter?" she said, taking her daughter's hand. "Rouse yourself, Carry; everybody is staring. What has happened?" "Oh, nothing, nothing! Oh, mamma, let us go home," the poor girl cried. Her lips, her very eyelids, trembled. She looked as if she were about to faint. Lady Lindores was glad to see her husband approaching; but he too had a threatening and stern look. She called him to her, and begged him to ask for the carriage. "Carry is quite ill," she said. "If you will stay with Edith, I can send it back for you;—but poor Car has looked like a ghost all night." "She has looked much more like a fool—as she is," said her father, between his set teeth; but at last he consented that she should be taken home, seeing the state of collapse in which she was. He took her down-stairs, supporting her on his arm, which was necessary, as she could scarcely walk; but when they skirted the dance, in which the master of the house was performing, talking loudly and laughing with forced merriment all the time the Earl, though he was a well-bred man, could not help giving his daughter's arm a sharp pressure, which hurt her. "I might have known you would behave like a fool," he said in a low undertone, which nobody but Carry could hear. She wavered for a moment, like a young tree in the wind, but clung to him and hurried past replying nothing. Lady Lindores following, formed her own conclusions, though she did not hear what her husband said. She took her child into her arms when they were safe in the carriage, rolling along the dark roads in the dimness of the summer night, and Carry cried and sobbed on her mother's breast. "I understand that you have refused him," Lady Lindores said. "But what then? Why should you be so wretched about it, Carry? It is a kind of vanity to be so sorry for the man. You may be sure Mr Torrance will get over it, my love."

Then Carry managed to stammer forth the real source of her terror. She was not thinking of Mr Torrance, but of papa. What would he say to her? would he ever forgive her? And then it was Lady Lindores's turn to be amazed. "My darling, you must compose yourself," she said; "this is greater nonsense than the other. Papa! What can it matter to your father? He will never force your inclinations; and how can this coarse bumpkin interest such a man as he is?" She became almost angry at the sight of Carry's tears. "Allow me to know your father a little better than you do," she cried. "Mr Torrance! who is Mr Torrance? I can't believe that he would favour such a suitor for a moment. But supposing that he did so,—supposing he thought, as people are apt to do, that money covers a multitude of sins—your father is not a worldly-minded man, Carry; he is ambitious, but not for money,—supposing just for the sake of argument——Anyhow, my dear, that could only be if the man happened to please you in his own person. We might like the match better because the pretender was rich, nothing more. Can you really think that papa would be a tyrant to you,—that he would compel you to marry any one? Carry, my love, you have got an attack of the nerves; it is your good sense that has given way."

Carry wept abundantly while her mother thus talked to her, and the agitation which she had so long shut up in her heart calmed down. Every word Lady Lindores said was perfectly reasonable, and to have represented her kind father to herself as a domestic tyrant was monstrous, she felt; but yet—she could not tell her mother all the trifling circumstances, the tones, the looks which had forced that conviction upon her. But she was willing, very willing, to allow herself to be persuaded that it was all a mistake, and to accept the gentle reproof and banter with which Lady Lindores soothed her excitement. "To refuse a man is always disagreeable," she said, philosophically, "especially as one must always feel one is to blame in letting him come the length of a proposal, and self-esteem whispers that he will find it hard to console himself. No, my Carry, no; don't distress yourself too much. I don't want to be cynical; but men of Mr Torrance's type soon console themselves. Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love."

"It is not that, it is not that," Carry protested among her tears.

But her mother would hear of nothing more alarming. "It is a wrong to your father to think he would take up the cause of such a man," she said, indignantly; "and I should have been horribly disappointed in you, Carry, if you had thought of him for a moment." Carry was so soothed, so comforted, so almost happy in her trouble, that the inmost doors of her heart opened to her mother. "Whatever he had been, oh, mother, do you think I could forget Edward?" she said. His name had not been mentioned between them for months before.

"Edward," said Lady Lindores, shaking her head; and then she kissed the pleading expectant face, which she could only feel, not see. "He should have showed more energy, Carry. Had he been worthy of you, he would not have left this question unsettled till now."

"What could he do?" cried Carry, roused out of her prostration; "he could not invent business for himself." Again Lady Lindores shook her head; but by this time they had reached their own door, and in the fervour of her defence and championship of her lover, Carry got out of the carriage a very different creature from the prostrate and fainting girl who had been put into it at Tinto. She went with her mother to her room, feverish and anxious to plead the cause of Edward. Lady Lindores was a romantic woman, who believed in love, and had taught her children to do the same. But she was disappointed that her daughter's lover had not been inspired by his love; that he had not found success, and secured his own cause beyond the power of evil fortune. Arguing against this adverse opinion, and defending Edward on every question, Carry recovered her courage and her composure. She felt able to fight for him to her last gasp when she left her mother, shaking her head still, but always well disposed to every generous plea; for the moment she had forgotten all the nearer dangers which had seemed so terrible to her an hour before.

Lady Lindores sat up in her dressing-gown till her husband and Edith came back. He was very gloomy, she excited and breathless, with a feverish sparkle in her eyes, which her mother noticed for the first time. She wondered if little Edith was in the secret too—that secret which she had herself scarcely thought of till to-night; and her husband's aspect filled her with strange anxieties. Was it possible that she, who had known them so long, her husband for all the most important time of his life, her child since her first breath, should have discoveries to make in them now? The thought was painful to her, and she tried to dismiss it from her mind. "Carry is better," she said, with an attempt to treat the subject lightly. "It was the glare of these rooms, I suppose. They are very handsome, but there was too much heat and too much light."

"I hope it is the last time we shall have any such scenes from Carry," said the Earl. "You ought to speak to her very seriously. She has been behaving like a fool."

"Dear Robert," said Lady Lindores, "it is trying to a girl of any feeling to have a proposal made to her in a ball-room, and I daresay Mr Torrance was rude and pressing. It is exactly what I should have expected of him."

"Since when," said the Earl, sternly, "have you studied Mr Torrance so closely as to divine what may be expected of him?"

"Robert! I have not studied him at all, nor do I attempt to divine. Carry's agitation, her fright, her panic, if I may call it so——"

"Were simply ridiculous, ridiculous!" cried Lord Lindores. "I always thought her sentimental, but I never suspected her to be a fool."

"Carry is no fool," cried her mother, indignantly; "you know very well she has both spirit and sense, and more than sense. She is not a common girl. She ought not to be treated as one. And this man, this fox-hunter, this vulgar laird——"

"As he will probably be your son-in-law, you will do well to avoid epithets," Lord Lindores said.

"My son-in-law!" said his wife, in a suppressed shriek. "But Carry has refused him," she added, with relief.

"To-night—being flurried, and not knowing her own mind; but she will know better to-morrow."

"Robert! for heaven's sake, when she has been so distressed by this most hateful proposal, you surely will not suffer it to be repeated!"

"Why should it be a hateful proposal?" he said.

"Why?" Lady Lindores did not know how to answer; if he did not see it, if it did not jump at his eyes, as she said to herself, what explanation would make it clearer? She tried to smile and approach him on another side. "Dear Robert," she said, tremulously—"to think of you taking the part of such a man! He must have some fine qualities, I am sure, or you never could have endured the outside of him, or his manners, or his talk. He is so unlike you, so unlike anything the girls have ever been taught to care for." If this was flattery, surely it may be forgiven to the anxious mother. She was anxious too, as a wife, that her husband should not come down from the pedestal on which it had been her pride to keep him for so many years.

"That is all very well," he said, impatiently; "but I never set myself up as a model of what my children were to like. Yes; he has fine qualities, golden qualities. Do you know that he is the richest commoner in Scotland, Lady Lindores?"

"I know," she said, with quick offence, the tears starting suddenly to her eyes, "that my name is Mary, and that I hate this wretched title, which I shall never get used to, and never tolerate if my husband calls me by it. We are all, all, put asunder, all changed, and finding each other out since we came here."

This little outburst was partly real and partly a half-conscious art to find an outlet for her excitement. Her husband was more touched by it than if it had been more serious. The complaint was fantastic, yet it was one which love might be excused for making. "My love," he said, "of course I meant nothing unkind. There have been times when I called you Mrs Lindores in jest, as I did just now. But, seriously, you must see what I am thinking of—you must give me your support. We are poor. If Rintoul is to take the position to which he is entitled after me——"

"You mean Robin? I tell you I hate those new names!" she cried.

"This is foolish, Mary. If he is to enter upon life when his time comes weighted with a heavy provision for his sisters—consider; there is poor Jane. She is quite young; she may outlive us all: and if I were to die, there would be two jointures besides Car and Edith."

"Let me be struck off the list," cried Lady Lindores. "I will never be a burden on my son. Robert, God forgive you; for a distant evil like this, would you bring that man into our family, and force an unwilling marriage on your child? But no, no; I am doing you wrong; your thoughts have never gone so far."

The Earl made no reply. His face was like a thunder-cloud, lowering and heavy—a darkness from which, at any moment, fire and flame might burst forth.

"No, no," said the mother. "I understand what you have thought. I did so once myself when—you remember—young Ashestiel came in our way. I thought if they would but take to each other; if they would only see what a natural harmony they would make! Yes, yes, I remember, I was provoked beyond measure that they would not see it; and when he went away, I did not know how to contain myself. I was angry with my innocent Carry for not caring. I understand you, Robert. If by any chance her fancy had been taken by this young millionaire; but dear, how could it? You would yourself have thought less of Carry had she liked such a man. Acknowledge: he is not much better than a boor—with, perhaps, a boor's virtues."

She looked up when she had got so far, and stopped in sheer amazement at the sight of her husband's face. She had never seen any indication before of what she now found in it. Rage with difficulty smothered; a determined intention to follow his own way; an uneasy shame turning to bitterness and passion. His voice was quite hoarse with the effort to contain himself. "I thought," he said, "that at least you were not one of the silly women who speak of things they don't understand. But I was mistaken. You will rather encourage a foolish girl in a piece of unworthy romance, than show her her duty—her duty! But neither you nor she, by —— shall hold me up to ridicule! She shall take this husband I choose for her, or by ——" Here he became aware how much he was committing himself. He stopped, gazed at her defiantly for a moment, then began to pace up and down the room in great confusion. "The short and the long of it is," he said, "that I can't suffer Carry, for a girlish prejudice, to throw away such a position. He might be the first man in the county," Lord Lindores said. "He has twice as much as we have, and no title to keep up; no encumbrance of any kind. She might be a sort of princess. I cannot allow all this to be thrown away for a mere fancy. If she does not like him, she must learn to like him. What would she have? He is not a petit maître, certainly; but he is a man, every inch of him—his family good, his health good, a magnificent house; what could any woman want more? She will have everything that heart can desire."

Lady Lindores made no immediate reply. All this was so new to her—a revelation of things unthought of. It took away her breath; it took away her courage. Is there any shock, any pang that life can give, equal to that of suddenly perceiving a touch of baseness, a failure of honour, a lower level of moral feeling, in those who are most dear to us? This is what shatters heaven and earth, and shakes the pillars of existence to the beholder. It filled this woman with a sudden despair impossible to describe. She tried to speak, and her very voice failed her. What was the use of saying anything? If he thought thus, could anything that was said affect him? Despair made her incapable of effort. She was like Hamlet, paralysed. At the end she managed to falter forth a word of protestation. "There are some," she said, faintly, "who are content with so much less, Robert—and yet how much more!—you and I among the rest."

"A woman always answers with a personal example," he said.

And Lady Lindores was dumb. She did not know what to say to the new man who stood beside her, in the familiar aspect of her husband, expressing sentiments which never before had come from the lips of Robert Lindores. He had been self-indulgent in the old days—perhaps a little selfish—accepting sacrifices which it was not right for him to accept. But there had been a hundred excuses for him; and she and the girls had always been so ready, so eager, to make those sacrifices. It had been the pleasure of their lives to make his as smooth, as graceful, as pleasant as possible. There was no question of anything of this kind now. He who had been dependent on their ministrations for half the comfort of his life, was now quite independent of them, the master of everybody's fate,—judging for them, deciding for them, crushing their private wishes. Lady Lindores was confused beyond measure by this discovery. She put her hand to her head unconsciously, as if it must be that which was wrong. A vague hope that things might not look so terrible in the morning came into her mind. It was very late, and they were all tired and worn with the agitation of the evening. "I think I am not in a condition to understand to-night," she said, drearily. "It will be better, perhaps, to put off till to-morrow."

"It is a pity you sat up," he said coldly; and thus the strange conference ended. It was already morning, the blue light stealing in through the closed shutters. Things, as well as faces, look ghastly in this unaccustomed light. Lady Lindores drew the curtains closer to shut it out, and lay down with her head aching, turning her face to the wall. There are circumstances in which the light of heaven is terrible; and darkness, darkness, oblivion of itself, the only things the soul cares for. But though you can shut out the light, you cannot shut out thought. There was not much rest that night in Lindores. The Earl himself had a consciousness of the strange discovery of him which his wife had made; and though he was defiant and determined to subdue all opposition, yet he was hurt and angry all the same that his Mary should think less well of him. He seemed to himself of late to have done a great deal for her and her children. No idea of the elevation she had now reached had been in her mind when they married. There were three brothers then between him and the title, besides the children of the elder. And now that things had so come about, as that Mary was actually Countess of Lindores, he could not but feel that he had done a great deal for her. Yet she was not grateful. She looked at him with those scrutinising, alarmed eyes. She turned away from him with painful wonder; with—there was no doubt of it—disapproval. And yet all he wanted was the advancement of the family—the real good of his daughter. Who could doubt what his motive was? or that it was for Carry's good to have a noble establishment, a fortune that a princess might envy? Could there be any comparison between that and the marriage with a poor barrister, upon which, in her first folly, she had set her heart? It was unreasonable beyond measure, ungrateful, that his quite legitimate determination, judging for the real advantage of his daughter, should be thus looked upon by Lady Lindores.

But it would be vain to attempt to describe the struggle that followed: that domestic tragedy would have to be told at length if told at all, and it included various tragedies; not only the subjugation of poor Carry, the profanation of her life, and cruel rending of her heart, but such a gradual enlightening and clearing away of all the lovely prejudices and prepossessions of affection from the eyes of Lady Lindores, as was almost as cruel. The end of it was, that one of these poor women, broken in heart and spirit, forced into a marriage she hated, and feeling herself outraged and degraded, began her life in bitterness and misery with a pretence of splendour and success and good fortune which made the real state of affairs still more deplorable; and the other, feeling all the beauty of her life gone from her, her eyes disenchanted, a pitiless cold daylight revealing every angle once hid by the glamour of love and tender fancy, began a sort of second existence alone. If Torrance had been determined before to have Lady Caroline for his wife, he was far more determined after she had put his pride to the humiliation of a refusal, and roused all the savage in him. From the night of the ball until the moment of the wedding, he never slackened in his pursuit of the shrinking unhappy girl, who, on her side, had betrayed her weakness to her sister on the first mention of the hateful suitor. Edith was disenchanted too, as well as her mother. She comprehended none of them. "I would not do it," she said simply, when the struggle was at its bitterest; "why do you do it?" Rintoul, for his part, when he appeared upon the scene, repeated Edith's positivism in a different way. "I think my father is quite right," he said. "What could Carry look for? She is not pretty; she is twenty-four. You ought to take these things into consideration, mother. She has lost her chance of any of the prizes; and when you have here the very thing, a man rolling in money—and not a tradesman either, which many girls have to put up with—it is such a chance as not one in a thousand ever gets. I think Car ought to be very grateful to papa." Lady Lindores listened with a gasp—Robin too! But she did not call him Robin for a long time after that day. He was Rintoul to her as to the rest of the world, his father's heir, very clearly alive to the advantage of having, when his time came, no provision for his sister hanging like a millstone round his neck. His sympathy and approval were delightful to his father. "Women are such queer cattle, you never know how to take them," the experienced young man said. A man is not in a crack regiment for nothing. He had more knowledge of the world than his father had. "I should have thought my mother would have been delighted to settle Carry so near home."

Thus it was a very strange divided house upon the eve of this marriage. To add to the confusion, there was great squabbling over the settlements, which Pat Torrance, eager though he was to secure the bride, whom his pride and self-will, as well as what he believed to be his love, had determined to have at all costs, was by no means so liberal about as the Earl thought necessary. He fought this out step by step, even venturing to hint, like the brute he was, that it was no beauty or belle whom he was marrying, and cutting down the requirements of her side in the most business-like way. Lady Lindores had been entirely silenced, and looked after the indispensable matters of her daughter's trousseau without a trace of the usual cheerful bustle attending wedding preparations; while Carry seemed to live in a dream, sometimes rousing up to make an appeal to her father's pity, but mostly in a sort of passive state, too heart-broken to be excited about anything. Edith, young and curious, moved about in the midst of it all in the activity of her independence, as yet touched by none of these things. She was a sort of rebellion impersonated, scarcely comprehending the submission of the others. While Carry wept she stood looking on, her face flushed, her eyes brilliant. "I would not do it," she said. These words were constantly on her lips.

"How could you help doing it?" poor Carry cried, turning upon her in the extremity of her despair. "Oh, have a little pity upon me, Edie! What can I do? I would sooner die. If there is anything you can think of—anything! But it is all past hope now. Papa will not even listen to me. Rintoul tells me I am a fool. He——" but here Carry's voice was broken with a shudder. She could not speak of her bridegroom but with a contraction of her heart.

"I don't know what I should do, but I should not do this," said Edith, surveying her sister from the height of untried resolution. "Nobody can force you to say Yes instead of No; nobody can make you do a thing you are determined not to do. Why do you do it? you can't want not to do it at the very bottom of your heart."

Carry gave her a look of anguish which brought the girl to her knees in compunction and remorse. "Oh, forgive me, Car! but why, why do you do it?" she cried. Lady Lindores had come softly in to give her child her good-night kiss. It was within a few days of the wedding. She stood and looked at the group with tears in her eyes—one girl lying back white, worn, and helpless in her chair; the other, at her feet, glowing with courage and life.

"Speak to her, mamma," cried Edith, "as long as there is any hope."

"What can I say?" said the mother; "everything has gone too far now. It would be a public scandal. I have said all that I could. Do not make my poor child more unhappy. Carry, my darling, you will do your duty whatever happens: and everything becomes easier when it is duty——"

"But how is it duty?" said rebellious Edith. "I would not do it!" she cried, stamping her foot on the floor.

"Edith, Edith! do not torture your sister. It is easy to say such things, but how are you to do them? God knows, I would not mind what I did if it was only me. I would fly away with her somewhere—escape from them all. But what would happen? Our family would be rent asunder. Your father and I"—Lady Lindores's voice quivered a little—"who have been always so united, would part for ever. Our family quarrels would be discussed in public. You, Edith—what would become of you? Your prospects would all be ruined. Carry herself would be torn to pieces by the gossips. They would say there must be some reason. God knows, I would not hesitate at any sacrifice."

"Mamma, do not say anything more; it is all over. I know there is nothing to be done," said Carry, faintly. As for Edith, she could not keep still; her whole frame was tingling. She clenched her small fists, and dashed them into the air.

"I would not do it! I would just refuse, refuse! I would not do it! Why should you do it?" she cried.

But between these two there was no talking. The younger sister flew to her own room, impelled by her sense of the intolerable, unable to keep still. She met her brother by the way, and clutched him by the arm, and drew him with her within her own door. "I would not do it, if I were Carry," she said, breathless. "You might drag me to church, if you liked, but even there I would not consent. Why, why does she do it?" Edith cried.

"Because," said Rintoul the experienced, "she is not such a fool as she looks. She knows that after the first is over, with plenty of money and all that, she will get on first-rate, you little goose. Girls like something to make a fuss about."

"Oh, it is a great deal you know about girls!" cried Edith, giving him a shake in the violence of her emotion. But he only laughed, disengaging himself.

"We'll see what you'll do when it comes to your turn," he said, and he went off along the passage whistling. It did not matter to him that his sister was breaking her heart. But why, why, oh why does she do it? Edith dozed and woke again half-a-dozen times in the night, crying this out into the silence. To refuse, surely one could do that. Papa might scold, there might be scenes and unhappiness, but nothing could be so unhappy as this. She was incapable of understanding how there could be any difficulty in the case.

The marriage took place, however, in spite of these convulsions, and several years had elapsed since that event. It was an old affair when John Erskine, newly arrived, and full of curiosity and interest, had that encounter with Lady Lindores and her daughter at his own gate, where something of the outline of this story was communicated to him—the facts of it at least. The ladies did not linger upon Carry's marriage in their narrative. He was told of it briefly as an event long over, and to which everybody had got accustomed. And so it was. The most miserable of events settle down into the routine of life when a few years have elapsed. Carry herself long ago had accepted her fate, trying to persuade herself that an unhappy marriage was nothing out of the common, and taking such comfort as was possible in poetry and intellectual musings. Her husband, who neither knew nor cared for anything above his own rude external world, yet felt her poetry to enhance the delicacy of her being, and to raise Lady Car more and more to that height of superiority which was what he had sought in her—was all the better satisfied with his bargain, though all the more separated from any possible point of junction with her. The neighbourhood was very well aware of all the circumstances; and though Lady Lindores entered into no explanations, yet there was a sigh, and a tone in her voice, as she spoke of her daughter, which suggested sorrow. But to tell the truth, young John Erskine, suddenly finding such friends at his very door, suddenly readmitted into the old intimacy, and finding the dull country life to which he had been looking forward flash into sunshine and pleasure, made few inquiries into this darker chapter of the family history; and in reality cared for nothing much but to convince himself that the Lindores family were really his next neighbours; that they were quite willing to receive him on the old footing; and that, demurely walking along the same road on the other side of her mother, saying little but touching the entire atmosphere with a sense of her presence, was Edith Lindores. Perhaps, had he actually been by her side, the sensation being more definite would have been less entrancing. But her mother was between them, animated and pleased by the meeting, ready to tell him all that had happened, and to hear his account of himself, with friendly interest; while beyond her ample figure and draperies, the line of a grey dress, the occasional flutter of a ribbon, the putting forth of a small foot, made the young man aware of the other creature wrapped in soft silence and maidenly reserve, whom he could image to himself all the more completely that he saw no more of her. He scarcely heard her voice as they walked along thus near yet separated; but a great many things that Lady Lindores said were confused by the sound upon the road of her daughter's step—by the appearance of that bit of ribbon, with which the sunny wind did not hesitate to play, floating out in advance of her, catching the young man's eye. Thus all at once, on the very first day after his return, another new existence began for John Erskine on the road between Dalrulzian and Lindores.

CHAPTER VII.

There are few things in human affairs more curious than the structure of what is called society, wherever it is met with, whether in the most primitive of its developments or on the higher levels. The perpetual recurrence of a circle within which the sayings and doings of certain individuals are more important than anything else in earth or heaven, and where the conversation persistently rolls back, whatever may be its starting-point, to what this or that little knot of people are doing, to the eccentricities of one and the banalities of another, to some favourite individual scene of tragedy or comedy which forms the centre of the moral landscape—is always apparent to the observer, whether his observations are made in Kamtchatka or in London, among washerwomen or princesses. But under no circumstances is this so evident as to a new-comer in a region where all the people know each other. The novelty and freshness of his impressions perhaps make him congratulate himself for a moment that now at last he has got into a society fresh and original, with features of its own; but half-a-dozen meetings are enough to prove to him that he has only got into another round, a circle as little extended, as much shut up in its own ring, as all the rest. This was what John Erskine found, with a little amusement and a little disgust, almost as soon as he got settled in his unknown home. Any addition to their society was interesting to the country folks, especially in May, when there is not much doing—when those who can indulge themselves in the pleasures of the season have gone to London, and those who cannot are bound to bring forth their philosophy and prove that they enjoy the country in the early summer, even though there is nothing to do. But a young man unencumbered and alone, with all his life before him, and all his connections to form, is perhaps of all others the most interesting human creature who can come into a new sphere. All the world is curious about him—both those whose lives he may influence, and those to whom he can contribute nothing but the interest, perhaps of a new drama, perhaps only of a new face. He who will enact his own story publicly before the eyes of his neighbours, falling in love, wooing, marrying, or, still better, carrying on these processes with interruptions of non-success and threatenings of postponement, what a godsend he is! and perhaps scarcely less he who brings in darker elements into the placid tenor of the general history, and ruins himself for our instruction, while we all look on with bated breath. To the country-side in general, John Erskine, while as yet unknown, was a new hero. He was the beginning of a romance with all the more fascination in it that the most interested spectator for a long time could form but little idea how it was to turn. As soon as he was known to be at home, his neighbours came down upon him from all quarters with friendly greetings, invitations, offers of kindness on all sides. The first to appear was Sir James Montgomery, a sunburnt and cheerful old soldier, whose small estate of Chiefswood "marched" on one side with Dalrulzian, and who was disposed to be very friendly. He came in beaming with smiles over all his brown jovial countenance, and holding out a large cordial hand.

"Well, young man, so this is you at last. You're heartily welcome home. I've been long away myself, and you've never been here, but we're old neighbours for all that, and I take it upon me to call myself an old friend."

"You are very kind," John said, suffering his hand to be engulfed in that kind, warm, capacious grasp. The old soldier held him at arm's length for a moment, looking at him with friendly eyes.

"I remember your grandfather well," he said; "not so much of your father, for he came to man's estate, and died, poor lad, when I was away; but I see some features of the old man in you, my young friend, and I'm glad to see them. You'll seldom meet with a better man than your grandfather. He was very kind to me as a young lad at the time I got my commission. They were ill able to afford my outfit at home, and I'm much mistaken if old Dalrulzian did not lend a helping hand; so mind you, my lad, if young Dalrulzian should ever want one—a day in harvest, as the proverb goes——"

"You are very kind, sir," said John Erskine again: he was touched, but half amused as well. It seemed so unlikely that he should require the old general's helping hand. And then they talked of the country, and of their previous lives and diverse experiences. Sir James was one of those primitive men, much more usual a generation ago than now, whose knowledge of life, which to his own thinking was profound and extensive, left out the greater part of what in our days is known as life at all. He knew Scotland and India, and nothing more. He was great in expedients for dealing with the natives on one hand, and full of a hundred stories of village humour, fun, and pawkiness on the other. To hear him laugh over one of these anecdotes till the tears stood in his clear, warm blue eyes, which were untouched by any dimness of time, was worth all the witticisms ever printed; and to see him bend his fine old brows over the characteristics of his old subjects in India, and the ameliorations of character produced by British rule, firmness, and justice, was better than philosophy. But with that which young John Erskine knew as life he had no acquaintance. Save his own country and the distant East, the globe was wrapped in dimness to him. He had passed through London often, and had even transacted business at the Horse Guards, though an Indian officer in those days had little to do with that centre of military authority; but he had a mingled awe and horror of "town," and thought of the Continent as of a region of temptation where the devil was far more apparent than in other places, and sought whom he might devour with much more openness and less hindrance than at home. And when our young man, who flattered himself a little on his knowledge of society and the world, as he understood the phrase, unfolded himself before the innocent patriarch, their amazement at each other was mutual. Old Sir James contemplated John in his knowledge with something of the same amused respect which John on his side felt for him in his ignorance. To each there was in the other a mixture of a boy and a sage, which made them each to each half absurd and half wonderful. An old fellow, who must have seen so much to have seen so little! and a mere bit of a lad, Sir James said to himself, who knew nothing about India or anything serious, yet had seen a vast deal, and had very just notions, and spoke like a man of the world when you came to talk to him! It was thus the senior who did most justice to the junior, as is usually the case.

"I am afraid," Sir James said, "that you'll find our country-side but dull after all you've seen. We're pleased with ourselves, as most ignorant people are; we think we're good enough company on the whole, but music, or the play, or art, or that kind of thing, you'll find us wanting in. I'm afraid they find us very wanting at Lindores; but as for a kind welcome, whenever you like and however you like, and a good Scotch dinner, and sometimes a dance, if that will content you in the way of company——"

"I should be hard to please if that would not content me," said John. "I hope you will give me the chance."

"That we will—that we will," said Sir James, heartily; and then he added, "we have no young people about us—Lady Montgomery and me. Our two children are as far from children now as their father and mother. They are both in India, and their families grown up and gone out to them. So we have nothing young of our own about the house; but don't go too fast, we're not without attraction. In a week, I think, we're expecting a visitor that will make the place bright—Miss Barrington—Nora Barrington; you'll have heard of her by this time. She's a great favourite in the country. We are all keen to have her and to keep her. I'm not afraid that a young man will find us dull when we've Nora in the house."

Here John, who had become suspicious of the name of this girl whom everybody insisted on recommending to him, eagerly protested that he should want no foreign attraction to the house in which the kind old general was.

"Foreign! No, she's not foreign," said Sir James; "far from that. A bonnie English girl, which, after a bonnie Scotch lassie, is by far the best thing going. We must stand up for our own first," said the old soldier, laughing; "but nothing foreign—nothing foreign: if you want that, you'll have to go to Lindores."

John felt—he could scarcely tell why—slightly irritated by these references to Lindores. He said, somewhat elaborately, "They are the only people I really know in the county. I met them long ago—on the Continent."

"Ah!—ay; that's just what I say—for anything foreign, you'll have to go to the Castle," said Sir James, a little doubtfully. "But," he added, after a moment's pause, "I hope you'll take to us and your own country, and need no 'foreign aid of ornament,' eh? You must forgive me. I'm an old fellow, and old-fashioned. In my time it used to be thought that your French and Italians were—well, no better than they should be. Germans, they tell me, are a more solid race; but I know little difference—I know little difference. You'll say that's my ignorance," said this man of prejudice, beaming upon his companion with a smile in which there was a little deprecation, but a great deal of simple confidence. It was impossible not to condone the errors of a censor so innocent.

"If you knew them, you would not only see a great deal of difference, but I think you would like them a great deal better than you suppose," John said.

"Very likely—very likely," cried Sir James. It occurred to him suddenly that if his young friend had indeed, poor lad, been brought up among those "foreign cattle," an unfavourable opinion of them might hurt his feelings; and this was the last thing the old man would have done—even to a foreigner in person, much less to a son of the soil temporarily seduced by the wiles of strangers. And then he repeated his formula about being an old fellow and old-fashioned. "And you'll mind to expect nothing but broad Scotch at Chiefswood," he cried, laughing and waving his hand as he rode away, after the hearty invitation with which every visitor ended. "You'll get the other at Lindores."

And the door had scarcely closed upon this new acquaintance when the Earl made his appearance, with the smile of an old friend, quite willing to acknowledge old relationships, but not too familiar or enthusiastic in his claim. He was no longer the languid gentleman he had been in the old wandering days, but had the fresh colour and active step of a man who lived much out of doors. "The scene is very different," he said, with kindness but dignity. "We are all changed more or less; but the sentiments are the same." He said this with something of the air of a prince graciously renewing acquaintance with a friend of his exile. "I hope we shall see you often at the Castle. We are your nearest neighbours; and when you have been as long here as we have, you will have learned to shudder at the words. But it is a relief to think it is you who will now fill that rôle." Could a benevolent nobleman say more? And it was only after a good deal of friendly talk that Lord Lindores began to speak of the county business, and the advantage it would be to him to have support in his attempts to put things on a better footing.

"Nothing can be more arrièré," he said. "We are behind in everything; and the prejudices I have to struggle with are inconceivable. I shall have you now, I hope, on my side: we are, I believe, of the same politics."

"I scarcely know what my politics are," said John. "Some one told me the other day that the Erskines are always on the right side; and, if you will not be disgusted, I am obliged to confess that I don't know what was meant. I know what it would be at Milton Magna. I imagine dimly just the opposite here."

The Earl smiled benignly on the young inquirer. "The Erskines have always been Liberal," he said. "I know there is no counting upon you young men. You generally go too far on one side or the other: if you are not Tories, you are Radicals. My Liberalism, bien entendu, does not go that length—no Radicalism, no revolutionary sentiments. In short, at present my politics mean county hospitals and drainage more than anything else." Then he paused, and added somewhat abruptly, "I don't know if you ever thought of Parliament—as a career for yourself?"

At this John's pulses gave a sudden jump, and the blood rushed to his cheeks. Had he thought of it? He could scarcely tell. As something he might come to, when he had learned the claims of life upon him, and the circumstances of the country, which as yet he barely knew—as an object to look forward to, something that might ennoble his future and afford him the finest occupation that a man can have, a share in the government of his country—yes; no doubt he had thought of it—at a time when he thought more highly of Dalrulzian and of his own pretensions. But the demand was very sudden, and he had all the modesty of youth. "Parliament!" he faltered forth. "I—don't know that I have thought of it. I fear I know too little of politics—I have too little experience——" And here he paused, expecting nothing less than that he should be kindly urged to think better of it, and persuaded that it was his duty to serve his generation so.

"Ah," said the Earl, "you give me just the assurance I wanted. I need not hesitate to tell you, in that case, that my great desire is to push Rintoul for the county. If you had thought of it yourself, it would have been a different matter; but otherwise everything points to him,—his position, our circumstances as the natural leaders, and the excellent chance he would have with all parties—better than any one else, I believe. You could be of the utmost use to us, Erskine, if it does not interfere with any plans of your own."

Now John had no plans; but this sudden check, after the sudden suggestion which roused all his ambition, was too much like a dash of cold water in his face to be pleasant to him. But he had time to collect himself while Lord Lindores was speaking, and to call up a sort of smile of assent, though it gave him a twinge of ludicrous pain. It was poetic justice. He had faltered and said No, in order to be encouraged and made to say Yes, and his vanity and false modesty, he thought, had got their reward. And all this for Rintoul! He remembered Rintoul well enough when he was not Rintoul at all, but Robin Lindores—a poor little lieutenant in a marching regiment. And now he was in the Guards, and the heir of an earldom. The change of position was so great, that it took away John's breath. In the days of their former acquaintance, there could not have been the smallest doubt which was the more important personage—young Lindores, who had nothing at all, or John Erskine, with a good estate which everybody accepted as much better than it was. But now he had gone down, and the other up. All this went through his mind ruefully, yet not without a sense of amusement in his own discomfiture. He had not much confidence in his own abilities or enlightenment, but it was not much to brag of that he had more of both than young Lindores. However, he had nothing to do in this sudden concatenation but to listen respectfully yet ruefully as the Earl went on, who seemed to have grasped him, present and future, in his hands.

"It is a wonderful comfort to be able to calculate upon you," he said. "My son-in-law—for of course you have heard of Carry's marriage—would have a great deal of influence if he chose to exert it; but he has his own notions—his own notions. You will understand, when you make his acquaintance, that though a sterling character, he has not had all the advantages that might have been wished, of acquaintance with men and knowledge of the world. But you, my dear Erskine, you know something of life. By the by," he said, as he rose to go away, "Lady Lindores charged me to engage you to come to us to-morrow. We are going away to town, but not for more than a month. The ladies insist that they must see you before they go. We all look forward to seeing a great deal of you," the Earl added, with that manner which was always so fascinating. "Between you and me, our dear neighbours are a set of prejudiced old rustics," he said, with a confidential smile, as he went out; "but it will be strange if you and I together cannot make them hear reason." Could anything be more flattering to a young man? And it was the father of Edith who grasped his hand thus warmly—who associated him with himself in a conjunction so flattering. John forgot the little wrench of theoretical disappointment—the ludicrous ease with which he had been made to give place to Rintoul. After all, something must be sacrificed, he allowed, to the heir of an important family—and the brother of Edith Lindores!

But this was not his last visitor on this eventful afternoon. The Earl had scarcely disappeared when Rolls once more threw open the door of the library, in which John usually sat, and announced with much solemnity Mr Torrance of Tinto. The man whom the Earl, though vouching for him as "a sterling character," had allowed to be wanting in knowledge of the world, came striding in with that air of taking up all the space in the room and finding it too small for him, which wealth and a vulgar mind are so apt to give. That John should dislike him instinctively from the moment he set eyes upon him, was nothing remarkable; for was not he the owner of the most obnoxious house in the neighbourhood? the man to whom Carry Lindores had been sacrificed? John Erskine felt, as he rose to meet the new-comer, a sense of the shabbiness and smallness of his own house, such as, even in the first evening of disenchantment, had scarcely affected him so strongly before. When his visitor cast round him that bold glance of his big, projecting, light-blue eyes, John saw through them the insignificance of the place altogether, and the humility of his own position, with a mortification which he could scarcely subdue. Torrance was tall and strong—an immense frame of a man, with very black hair and dark complexion, and something insufferably insolent, audacious, cynical, in those large, light eyes, à fleur de tête. His insolence of nature was sufficiently evident; but what John did not see was the underlying sense of inferiority which his new visitor could not shake off, and which made him doubly and angrily arrogant, as it were, in his own defence. It galled him to recognise better manners and breeding than his own—breeding and manners which perhaps he had found out, as John did the inferiority of his surroundings, through another's eyes. But Torrance's greeting was made with great show of civility. He had heard much of John as a friend of the family at Lindores, he said.

"Not but what I should have called, anyhow," he explained, "though Tinto really belongs to the other side of the county, and Dalrulzian is rather out of the way for me; but still civility is civility, and in the country we're a kind of neighbours. I hope you like it, now you are here?"

"Pretty well," was all that John said.

"It's a nice little place. Of course you knew what it was—not one of the great country places; but it stands well, and it looks fine at a distance. Few places of its size look better when you're a good bit away."

This tried the young man's patience, but he did his best to smile. "It is well enough," he said; "I expected no better. It is not imposing like Tinto. Wherever one goes, it seems to me impossible to get out of sight of your big house."

"Yes, it's an eyesore to half the county; I'm well aware of that," said Torrance, with complacency. "There's far more of it than is any good to me. Lady Car—I hear you knew Lady Car before we were married," he said, fixing John almost threateningly with those light eyes—"fills it now and then; and when I was a bachelor, I've seen it pretty full in September; but in a general way it's too big, and a great trouble to keep up."

"I hope Lady Caroline is quite well?" John said, with formal gravity.

"She is well enough. She is never what you call quite well. Women get into a way of ailing, I think, just as men get into a way of drinking. You were surprised to hear she was married, I suppose?" he asked abruptly, with again the same threatening, offensive look, which made John's blood boil.

"I was surprised—as one is surprised by changes that have taken place years before one hears of them; otherwise it is no surprise to hear that a young lady has married. Of course," John added, with serious malice, "I had not the advantage of knowing you."

Torrance stared at him for a moment, as if doubtful whether to take offence or not. Then he uttered, opening capacious jaws, a fierce laugh.

"I am very easy to get on with, for those that know me," he said, "if that's what you mean. We're a model couple, Lady Car and I: everybody will tell you that. And I don't object to old friends, as some men do. Let them come, I always say. If the difference is not in favour of the present, it's a pity—that's all I say."

To this John, not knowing what answer to make, replied only with a little bow of forced politeness, and nothing more.

"I suppose they were in a very different position when you used to know them?" said Torrance; "in a poor way enough—ready to make friends with whoever turned up?"

"It would be very bad policy on my part to say so," said John, "seeing that I was one of the nobodies to whom Lady Lindores, when she was Mrs Lindores, was extremely kind—as it seems to me she always is."

"Ah, kind! that's all very well: you weren't nobody—you were very eligible—in those days," said Torrance, with a laugh, for which John would have liked to knock him down; but there were various hindrances to this laudable wish. First, that it was John's own house, and civility forbade any aggression; and second, that Tinto was much bigger and stronger than the person whom, perhaps, he did not intend to insult—indeed there was no appearance that he meant to insult him at all. He was only a coarse and vulgar-minded man, speaking after his kind.

"The fact is, if you don't mind my saying so, I'm not very fond of my mamma-in-law," said Torrance. "Few men are, so far as I know: they put your wife up to all sorts of things. For my part, I think there's a sort of conspiracy among women, and mothers hand it down to their daughters. A man should always part his wife from her belongings when he can. She's a great deal better when she has nothing but him to look to. She sees then what's her interest—to please him and never mind the rest. Don't you think I'm complaining—Lady Car's an exception. You never catch her forgetting that she's Lady Caroline Torrance and has her place to fill. Doesn't she do it, too! She's the sort of woman, in one way, that's frightened at a fly—and on the other the queen wouldn't daunt her; that's the sort of woman I like. She's what you call a grand damm—and no mistake. Perhaps she was too young for that when you knew her; and had nothing then to stand on her dignity about."

Here John, able to endure no longer, rose hastily and threw open the window. "The weather gets warm," he said, "though it is so early, and vegetation is not so far behind in Scotland as we suppose."

"Behind! I should like to know in what we're behind!" cried his guest: and then his dark countenance reddened, and he burst into another laugh. "Perhaps you think I'm desperately Scotch," he said; "but that's a mistake. I'm as little prejudiced as anybody can be. I was at Oxford myself. I'm not one of your local men. The Earl would like me to take his way and follow his lead, as if I were a country bumpkin, you know. That's his opinion of every man that has stuck to his own country and not wandered abroad; and now he finds I have my own way of thinking, he doesn't half like it. We can think for ourselves down in the country just as well as the rest of you." After he had given vent to these sentiments, however, Torrance got up with a half-abashed laugh. "If you come over to Tinto, Lady Car and I will be glad to see you. We'll show you some things you can't see every day—though we are in an out-of-the-way corner, you're thinking," he said.

"I have already heard of the treasures of Tinto," said John, glad that there was something civil to say.

Pat Torrance nodded his head with much self-satisfaction. "Yes, we've got a thing or two," he said. "I'm not a connoisseur myself. I know they've cost a fortune—that's about all I'm qualified to judge of. But Lady Car knows all about them. You would think it was she and not I they belonged to by nature. But come and judge for yourself. I'm not a man to be suspicious of old friends."

And here he laughed once more, with obvious offensive meaning; but it took John some time to make out what that meaning could be. His visitor had been for some time gone, fortunately for all parties, before it burst upon him. He divined then, that it was he who was supposed to have been poor Carry's lover, and that her husband's object was the diabolical one of increasing her misery by the sight of the man whom she had loved and forsaken. Why had she forsaken Beaufort for this rude barnyard hero? Was it for the sake of his great house, which happily was not visible from Dalrulzian, but which dominated half the county with gingerbread battlements, and the flag that floated presumptuous as if the house were a prince's? Had Carry preferred mere wealth, weighed by such a master, to the congenial spirit of her former lover? It fretted the young man even to think of such a possibility. And the visitors had fretted him each in some special point. They neutralised the breadth of the external landscape with their narrow individuality and busy bustling little schemes. He went out to breathe an air more wholesome, to find refuge from that close pressure of things personal, and circumscribed local scenery, in the genial quietness and freshness of the air outside. How busy they all were in their own way, how intent upon their own plans, how full of suspicion and criticism of each other! Outside all was quiet—the evening wind breathing low, the birds in full chorus. John refreshed himself with a long walk, shaking off his discouragement and partial disgust. Peggy Burnet was at her door, eager to open the gate for him as he passed. She had just tied a blue handkerchief about the pot containing her "man's" tea, which her eldest child was about to carry. As he sauntered up the avenue, this child, a girl about ten, tied up so far as her shoulders were concerned in a small red-tartan shawl, but with uncovered head and bare legs and feet, overtook him, skimming along the road with her bundle. She admitted, holding down her head shyly, that she was little Peggy, and was carrying her father his tea. "He's up in the fir-wood on the top of the hill. He'll no' be back as long as it's light."

"But that is a long walk for you," said John.

"It's no' twa miles, and I'm fond, fond to get into the woods," said Peggy. She said "wudds," and there was a curious sing-song in the speech to John's unaccustomed ears. When she went on she did not curtsey to him as a well-conditioned English child would have done, but gave him a merry nod of her flaxen head, which was rough with curls, and sped away noiseless and swift, the red shawl over her shoulders, which was carefully knotted round her waist and made a bunch of her small person, showing far off through the early greenness of the brushwood. When she had gone on a little, she began to sing like a bird, her sweet young voice rising on the air as if it had wings. It was an endless song that Peggy sang, like that of Wordsworth's reaper—

"Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending."

It went winding along, a viewless voice, beyond the house, along the slopes, away into the paleness of the hill-top, where the tall pine-trunks stood up like columns against the light. It was like the fresh scent of those same pines—like the aromatic peat-smoke in the air—a something native to the place, which put the troubles and the passions he had stumbled against out of the mind of the young laird. He was reconciled somehow to Scotland and to nature by little Peggy's love for the "wudds," and the clear ringing melody of her endless song.

CHAPTER VIII.

In the midst of all the attentions paid him by his neighbours and the visitors who followed each other day by day, there was one duty which John Erskine had to fulfil, and which made a break in the tide of circumstances which seemed to be drifting him towards the family at Lindores, and engaging him more and more to follow their fortunes. When a life is as yet undecided and capable of turning in a new direction, it is common enough, in fact as well as in allegory, that a second path should be visible, branching off from the first, into which the unconscious feet of the wayfarer might still turn, were the dangers of the more attractive way divined. There is always one unobtrusive turning which leads to the safe track; but how is the traveller to know that, whose soul is all unconscious of special importance in the immediate step it takes? John Erskine contemplated his rapprochement to the Lindores with the greatest complacency and calm. That it could contain any dangers, he neither knew nor would have believed: he wanted nothing better than to be identified with them, to take up their cause and be known as their partisan. Nevertheless Providence silently, without giving him any warning, opened up the other path to him, and allowed him in ignorance to choose. If he had known, probably it would not have made the least difference. Young heroes have never in any known history obeyed the dictates of any monitor, either audible or inaudible, who warned them against one connection and in favour of another. Nevertheless he had his chance, as shall be seen. The morning after his first dinner at the Castle, which had been the reopening of a delightful world to him, he decided that he had put off too long his visit to his only relative, and set off through the soft May sunshine, for it was beautiful weather, to pay his respects to his old aunt at Dunearn.

The house of Miss Barbara Erskine at Dunearn opened direct from the street. It was one of the same class of homely Scotch houses to which Dalrulzian itself belonged; but whereas Dalrulzian, being a mansion-house, had two gables, Miss Barbara's Lodging, as she liked it to be called, had but one, stepping out into the broad pathway, not paved, but composed of sand and gravel, which ran along one side of the South Street. This gable was broad enough to give considerable size to the drawing-room which filled the upper story, and which had windows every way, commanding the street and all that went on in it, which was not much. The house was entered by an outside stair, which gave admission to the first floor, on which all the rooms of "the family" were, the floor below being devoted to the uses of the servants, with the single exception of the dining-parlour, which was situated near the kitchen for the convenience of the household. Behind there was a large fragrant old-fashioned garden full of sweet-smelling flowers, interspersed with fruit-trees, and going off into vegetables at the lower end. Notwithstanding that it was so far north, there were few things that would not grow in this garden, and it was a wilderness of roses in their season. Except one or two of the pale China kind—the monthly rose, as Miss Barbara called it, which is so faithful and blows almost all the year round—there were no roses in May; but there was a wealth of spring flowers filling all the borders, and the air was faintly sweet as the old lady walked about in the morning sunshine enjoying the freshness and stir of budding life. She was a portly old lady herself, fresh and fair, with a bright complexion, notwithstanding seventy years of wear and tear, and lively hazel eyes full of vivacity and inquisitiveness. She was one of the fortunate people who take an interest in everything, and to whom life continues full of excitement and variety to the end. She walked as briskly as though she had been twenty years younger, perhaps more so; for care does not press upon seventy as upon fifty, and the only burden upon her ample shoulders was that of years. She had a soft white Indian shawl wrapped round her, and a hood with very soft blue ribbons tied over her cap. She liked a pretty ribbon as well as ever, and was always well dressed. From the garden, which sloped downwards towards the river, there was an extensive view—a prospect of fields and scattered farmhouses spreading into blue distance, into the outline of the hills, towards the north; at the right hand the tower of Dunearn Church, which was not more handsome than church towers generally are in Scotland; and to the left, towards the setting sun, a glimpse of Tinto arrogantly seated on its plateau. Miss Barbara, as she said, "could not bide" the sight of Tinto House. She had planted it out as well as she could; but her trees were perverse, and would separate their branches or die away at the top, as if on purpose to reveal the upstart. On this particular morning of early May, Miss Barbara was not alone: she had a young lady by her side, of whose name and presence at this particular moment the country was full. There was not a house in the neighbourhood of any pretensions which she was not engaged to visit; and there was scarcely a family, if truth must be told, which was not involved more or less in an innocent conspiracy on her behalf, of which John Erskine, all unconscious, was the object. His old aunt, as was befitting, had the first chance.

"You need not ask me any more questions," Miss Barbara was saying, "for I think you know just as much about the family, and all the families in the country-side, as anybody. You have a fine curiosity, Nora; and take my word for it, that's a grand gift, though never properly appreciated in this world. It gives you a great deal of interest in your youth, and it keeps you from wearying in your old age—though that's a far prospect for you."

"My mother says I am a gossip born," said Nora, with her pretty smile.

"Never you trouble your head about that—take you always an interest in your fellow-creatures. Better that than the folk in a novelle. Not but what I like a good novelle myself as well as most things in this life. It's just extending your field. It's like going into a new neighbourhood. The box is come from the library this morning," said Miss Barbara in a parenthesis.

"Oh yes, I opened it to have a peep. There is 'Middlemarch' and one of Mr Trollope's, and several names I don't know."

"No 'Middlemarch' for me," said Miss Barbara, with a wave of her hand. "I am too old for that. That means I've read it, my dear,—the way an experienced reader like me can read a thing—in the air, in the newspapers, in the way everybody talks. No, that's not like going into a new neighbourhood—that is getting to the secrets of the machinery, and seeing how everything, come the time, will run down, some to ill and harm, but all to downfall, commonplace, and prosiness. I have but little pleasure in that. And it's pleasure I want at my time of life. I'm too old to be instructed. If I have not learned my lesson by this time, the more shame to me, my dear."

"But, Miss Barbara, you don't want only to be amused. Oh no: to have your heart touched, sometimes wrung even—to be so sorry, so anxious that you would like to interfere—to follow on and on to the last moment through all their troubles, still hoping that things will take a good turn."

"And what is that but amusement?" said the old lady. "I am not fond of shedding tears; but even that is a luxury in its way—when all the time you are sure that it will hurt nobody, and come all right at the end."

"Lydgate does not turn out all right at the end," said Nora, "nor Rosamond either; they go down and down till you would be glad of some dreadful place at last that they might fall into it and be made an end of. I suppose it is true to nature," said the girl, with a solemnity coming over her innocent face, "that if you don't get better you should go on getting worse and worse—but it is dreadful. It is like what one hears of the place—below."

"Ay, ay, we're not fond nowadays of the place—below; but I'm afraid there must be some truth in it. That woman has found out the secret, you see." Miss Barbara meant no disrespect to the great novelist when she called her "that woman." There was even a certain gratification in the use of the term, as who should say, "Your men, that brag so much of themselves, never found this out"—which was a favourite sentiment with the old lady. "That's just where she's grand," Miss Barbara continued. "There's that young lad in the Italian book—Teeto—what d'ye call him? To see him get meaner and meaner, and falser and falser, is an awful picture, Nora. It's just terrible. It's more than I can stand at my age. I want diversion. Do ye think I have not seen enough of that in my life?"

"People are not bad like that in life," said Nora; "they have such small sins,—they tell fibs—not big lies that mean anything, but small miserable little fibs; and they are ill-tempered, and sometimes cheat a little. That is all. Nothing that is terrible or tragical——"

Here the girl stopped short with a little gasp, as if realising something she had not thought of before.

"What is it, my dear?" said Miss Barbara.

"Oh—only Tinto showing through the trees: is that tragedy? No, no. Don't you see what I mean? don't you see the difference? He is only a rough, ill-tempered, tyrannical man. He does not really mean to hurt or be cruel: and poor Lady Car, dear Lady Car, is always so wretched; perhaps she aggravates him a little. She will not take pleasure in anything. It is all miserable, but it is all so little, Miss Barbara; not tragedy—not like Lear or Hamlet—rather a sort of scolding, peevish comedy. You might make fun of it all, though it is so dreadful; and that is how life seems to me—very different from poetry," said Nora, shaking her head.

"Wait," said Miss Barbara, patting her on the shoulder, "till the play is played out and you are farther off. The Lord preserve us! I hope I'm not a prophet of evil; but maybe if you had known poor Lear fighting about the number of his knights with that hard-faced woman Regan, for instance (who had a kind of reason, you'll mind, on her side: for I make no doubt they were very unruly—that daft old man would never keep them in order), you would have thought it but a poor kind of a squabble. Who is this coming in upon us, Nora? I see Janet at the glass door looking out.

"It is a gentleman, Miss Barbara. He is standing talking. I think he means to come out here."

"It will be the minister," said the old lady, calmly. "He had far better sit down in the warm room, and send us word, for he's a delicate creature—no constitution in him—aye cold and coughs, and——"

"Indeed it is not Mr Stirling. He is quite young and—and good-looking, I think. He won't listen to Janet. He is coming here. Miss Barbara, shall I run away?"

"Why should you run away? If it's business, we'll go in; if it's pleasure——Ah! I've seen your face before, sir, or one like it, but I cannot put a name to it. You have maybe brought me a letter? Preserve us all! will it be John Erskine come home to Dalrulzian?"

"Yes, aunt Barbara, it is John Erskine," said the young man. He had his hat in one hand, and the sun shone pleasantly on his chestnut locks and healthful countenance. He did not perhaps look like a hero of romance, but he looked like a clean and virtuous young Englishman. He took the hand which Miss Barbara held out to him, eagerly, and, with a little embarrassment, not knowing what else to do, bent over it and kissed it—a salutation which took the old lady by surprise, and, being so unusual, brought a delicate colour to her old cheek.

"Ah, my man! and so you're John Erskine? I would have known you anywhere, at the second glance if not at the first. You're like your father, poor fellow. He was always a great favourite with me. And so you've come back to your ain at last? Well, I'm very glad to see you, John. It's natural to have a young Erskine in the country-side. You'll not know yet how you like it after all this long absence. And how is your mother, poor body? She would think my pity out of place, I don't doubt; but I'm always sorry for a young woman, sore hadden down with a sma' family, as we say here in the North."

"I don't think she is at all sorry for herself," said John, with a laugh, "but it must be allowed there is a lot of them. There are always heaps of children, you know, in a parson's house."

"And that is true; it's a wonderful dispensation," said Miss Barbara, piously, "to keep us down and keep us humble-minded in our position in life. But I'm real glad to see you, and you must tell me where you've come from, and all you've been doing. We'll take a turn round the garden and see my flowers, and then we'll take you in and give you your luncheon. You'll be ready for your luncheon after your walk; or did you ride? This is Miss Nora Barrington, that knows Dalrulzian better than you do, John. Tell Janet, my dear, we'll be ready in an hour, and she must do her best for Mr John."

While this greeting went on, Nora had been standing very demurely with her hands crossed looking on. She was a girl full of romance and imagination, as a girl ought to be, and John Erskine had long been something of a hero to her. Nora was in that condition of spring-time and anticipation when every new encounter looks as if it might produce untold consequences in the future, still so vague, so sweet, so unknown. She stood with her eyes full of subdued light, full of soft excitement, and observation, and fun; for where all was so airy and uncertain, there was room for fun too, it being always possible that the event, which might be serious or even tragic, might at the same time be only a pleasantry in life. Nora seemed to herself to be a spectator of what was perhaps happening to herself. Might this be hereafter a scene in her existence, like "the first meeting between"—say Antony and Cleopatra, say Romeo and Juliet? Several pictures occurred to her of such scenes. At one time there were quite a number of them in all the picture-galleries. "First meeting of Edward IV. with Elizabeth Woodville:" where all unconscious, the fair widow kneels, the gallant monarch sees in his suppliant his future queen. All this was fun to Nora, but very romantic earnest all the same. The time might come when this stranger would say to her—"Do you remember that May morning in old aunt Barbara's garden?" and she might reply—"How little we imagined then!" Thus Nora, with a shy delight, forestalled in the secret recesses of her soul the happiness that might never come, and yet made fun of her own thoughts all in the same breath. John's bow to her was not half so graceful or captivating as his salutation to Miss Barbara, but that was nothing; and she went away with a pleasant sense of excitement to instruct Janet about the luncheon and the new-comer. Miss Barbara's household was much moved by the arrival. Janet, who was the housekeeper, lingered in the little hall into which the garden-door opened, looking out with a curiosity which she did not think it necessary to disguise; and Agnes, Miss Barbara's own woman, stood at the staircase-window, half-way up. When Nora came in, those two personages were conversing freely on the event.

"He's awfu' like the Erskines; just the cut of them about the shouthers, and that lang neck——"

"Do you ca' that a lang neck? nae langer than is very becoming. I like the head carried high. He has his father's walk," said Agnes, pensively; "many's the time I've watched him alang the street. He was the best-looking of all the Erskines; if he hadna marriet a bit handless creature——"

"Handless or no' handless," said Janet, "matters little in that condition o' life."

"Eh, but it mattered muckle to him. He might have been a living man this day if there had been a little mair sense in her head. She might have made him change his wet feet and all his dreeping things when he came in from the hillside. It was the planting of yon trees that cost bonnie Johnny Erskine his life. The mistress was aye of that opinion. Eh, to think when ye have a man, that ye shouldna be able to take care of him!" said Agnes, with a sort of admiring wonder. She had never attained that dignity herself. Janet, who was a widow, gave a glance upward at the pensive old maiden of mingled condescension and contempt.

"And if ye had a man, ye would be muckle made up wi' him," she said. "It's grand to be an auld maid, for that—that ye aye keep your faith in the men. This ane'll be for a wife, too, like a' the rest. I could gie him a word in his ear——"

"It will be something for our young misses to think about. A fine young lad, and a bonnie house. He'll have a' our siller, besides his ain,—and that will be a grand addition——"

"If he behaves himsel'!" said Janet, "The mistress is a real sensible woman. You'll no' see her throw away her siller upon a prodigal, if he were an Erskine ten times over."

"And wha said he was a prodigal?" cried Agnes, turning round from the landing upon her fellow-servant, who was at once her natural opponent and bosom friend. Nora was of opinion by this time that she had listened long enough.

"Miss Barbara says that her nephew will stay to luncheon, Janet. You are to do your best for him. It is Mr Erskine, from Dalrulzian," Nora said, with most unnecessary explanation. Janet turned round upon her quietly, yet with superior dignity.

"By this time of day, Miss Nora," said Janet, "I think I ken an Erskine when I see him; and also, when a visitor enters this door at twelve o'clock at noon, that he'll stay to his lunch, and that I maun do my best."