THE LADIES LINDORES

BY MRS OLIPHANT

IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.

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 XV.

Lord Millefleurs had given his family a great deal of trouble—not in the old-fashioned way of youthful folly or dissipation, which is too well known in every age, the beaten road upon which young men tread down the hearts of their progenitors, and their own best hopes, in all the wantonness of short-sighted self-indulgence. The heir of the house of Lavender had gone wrong in an entirely new-fashioned and nineteenth-century way. He was devoured by curiosity, not of the modes of pleasure, but about those other ways of living which the sons of dukes in general have no knowledge of. He got tired of being a duke's son, and it seemed to him that life lay outside the range of those happy valleys in which he was born. He had gone to America, that home of all kinds of freedom, and there had disappeared from the ken of ducal circles. He had not even written home, which was the inexcusable part of it, but had sunk out of sight, coming to the surface, as it were, only once or twice in a couple of years, when a sudden draft upon his banker revealed him to his anxious family, whose efforts to trace him during this time were manifold, but always unsuccessful. It was Beaufort who had been the means at last of restoring the virtuous prodigal, who in the meantime had been occupied, not by any vicious tastes or dangerous liaisons, but by the most entirely innocent, if eccentric, experiments in living. Beaufort found him, but not before the young man was willing to be found—a fact which, however, the anxious relations did not take into account, as detracting from the merit of the man whom they described as Millefleurs's deliverer, his better genius, and by many other flattering descriptions. In reality, Millefleurs had set out on his way home, moved thereto by the energetic representations of a strong-minded, middle-aged maiden in Connecticut or California (how can a historian without data particularise?), who told him that a man was no gentleman who kept the women of his family in ignorance of his movements, and exposed them to all the tortures of anxiety. This puzzled the scientific adventurer. He had found out that daily work (which amused him very much) was not at all incompatible with the character of a gentleman; but he felt himself pulled up in his career when this new view of the subject was presented to him. After a little thought, he decided that Miss Sallie F—— was right. And he took off his working clothes, and put on the livery of civilisation, and found Beaufort, who had attacked the continent bravely but vaguely in search of him, on his way. Millefleurs was not proud. He let himself be brought home as if it was all Beaufort's doing, and made his peace with everybody. The consequence was, that the illustrious house of Lavender was ready to do anything in the world for that excellent Mr Beaufort, who had fished their heir out of troubles unknown; and, in respect to that heir himself, were bending all their faculties to the task of getting him married, and so put out of harm's way. It was a new sphere for the mental vivacity and curiosity of Millefleurs. He devoted himself to a study of the young ladies of the highest civilisation, just as he had devoted himself to the life of the dockyards and the backwoods. (Probably I should say to the mines and the cattle-ranches; but the reader who knows the fashion will here supply the appropriate phrase.) He found the study curious, and not at all unpleasant, and so went about scattering wild hopes about him wherever he moved. Was anything else possible? If the young ladies in our northern county had been (inevitably) fluttered and excited when Pat Torrance fixed his big light eyes upon them, knowing the value of him as, so to speak, an appointment, a post for life which would remove all anxiety about their future comfort from their own minds and those of their parents, how much more when the Marquis of Millefleurs went hopping about the drawing-rooms, carrying on his researches in a far more genial and agreeable manner than Pat Torrance was capable of doing? And it was quite certain that nobody would ever be unhappy with Millefleurs. He was always cheerful, always considerate, ready to do anything for anybody. He was more like a daughter than a son, the Duchess declared, with tears in her eyes—foreseeing what she wanted, watching over her as nobody had ever done before: although it was no doubt very wrong—oh, very wrong!—to almost break her heart, leaving her two years without a letter; but he would not do so to his wife. Thus the—we will not say candidates, rather nominees—possible occupants of the delightful and every way desirable post of Marchioness of Millefleurs had every sort of inducement to "go in" for it, and scarcely any drawback at all.

The drawback was not worth speaking of—it was the most superficial of objections. This enterprising, amusing, good-tempered, quick-witted, accomplished, and lovable hero, was, as the girls said, the funniest little man that had ever been seen. He was shorter than most of the young ladies to whom he made himself so agreeable. He was plump and round, a succession of curves and gently billowing outlines; his eyes were like little black beads, though they were sparkling with life and animation; he had a round face like a boy of ten, with nice little puffy rosy cheeks, and a lisp which completed the infantile effect of his appearance generally. A little air of the most agreeable self-satisfaction hung about him—what the vulgar and detractors generally call vanity and self-conceit, but which indeed was nothing of the kind, being only that confidence of pleasing which his natural temper gave him in the first place, and his position confirmed. For how could he be ignorant that to be Marquis of Millefleurs was enough to make any man charming? It was to escape this that he had fled from society and been called Tommy by the American labourers, with whom he was just as popular as in Mayfair. It had been intended to keep this little gentleman in the background of this narrative as really a very secondary person in it; but, with his usual determination to be in the front of everything, he has pushed himself forward against the historian's will.

Having thus yielded to his natural tendency to show himself, we may proceed to say what we had intended without this preamble, that the peculiarity of Millefleurs's appearance took all seriousness from the fact of his rapidly increasing intimacy with them, in the foolish and inexperienced eyes not only of Edith but of her mother. Lady Lindores, though she had been alarmed and startled by the importance attached to his first visit, and the penalty paid for it, could not bring herself to regard him seriously. He seemed to her a boy, notwithstanding that the peerage was produced to her and dates set before her eyes,—and she shut her eyes altogether to any danger that might be involved in the frequency of his visits. She was very glad to see him whenever he came. Never was there a more delightful household retainer; his friendliness and affectionateness and half-feminine interest in all their concerns great and small, made him delightful to the women, who wanted no more of him. He was like a boy at home from school in this friendly house, where no incense was burned before him, and ran on their commissions, and took an interest in their work, and gave his opinion about their dress, with all the freedom of long acquaintance; and it naturally added in no small degree to the brilliancy of their appearance out of doors, and to the effect they produced, that such an attendant should be constantly in their train. Lady Lindores was not insensible to this gratification; and had Millefleurs looked more grown up and less like a friend's son confided to her for the holidays, it is very likely that the chance of seeing her child elevated to the highest level of the social ladder would have been too much for her also, and turned her head a little. But whenever the idea glanced across her mind, as it was bound to do sometimes, if from nothing more than the discourses of Rintoul, she had but to look at the rounded outlines of her little hero, and all these visions dispersed in a laugh. To imagine him a bridegroom, not to say Edith's bridegroom, affected her with a sense of the ludicrous which it was beyond her power to restrain.

But this was extremely foolish, as everybody will perceive; and it was with a very different eye that Lord Lindores contemplated the frequent presence of this above-all-competitors-desirable young man. It was not only that he was a duke's son, though that in itself was much, but he was the son of a duke who was a Cabinet Minister, and eminently qualified to help on the scheme of ambition which inspired the Scotch Earl. His Grace knew the gain it would be to replace the Tory who had sat for Dee-and-Donshire for years with an out-and-out partisan of the existing Government; and there could be little doubt that he would appreciate the expediency of increasing the importance of any family to which his own should become allied. And then the prospects which would open before Edith were such as to dazzle any beholder. If her father had ever felt that he was to blame in respect to his elder daughter, here was something which surely would make amends for all. Millefleurs was no rustic bully, no compound of a navvy and a squire, but the quintessence of English gentlemanhood, good-hearted, clever in his way, universally popular, the sort of man whom, irrespective of all worldly advantages, a father would be glad to trust his child's happiness to. The idea that any reasonable objection could be grounded upon his appearance would have irritated Lord Lindores beyond all self-control. His appearance! he was not a hunchback, nor deaf, nor dumb, nor blind. Short of that, what on earth did it matter how a man looked? And no doubt Lord Lindores was in the right. But in reality, that which put all idea of him as a lover out of the mind of Lady Lindores and Edith was not any objection to his appearance, but the mere fact of his appearance, his boyish looks, his contour, his aspect of almost childhood. As has been said, when the suggestion was presented to her mind that Millefleurs might have "intentions" in respect to Edith, Lady Lindores the next time she saw him laughed. "What is the joke?" he had said to her half-a-dozen times; and she had answered, "There is no joke, only a ludicrous suggestion." "About me, perhaps," he said once, reducing her to great embarrassment. But she managed to elude his observation; and to Edith, fortunately, the idea never occurred at all. She declared herself to be very fond of him; she said there was no one so nice; she brightened when he came in, and listened to his chatter with unfailing pleasure. She said there was nobody she would miss so much when she went home. When he complained that he had never been in Scotland, she said, "You must come to Lindores." It was she, indeed, who gave the invitation. The Earl, who had not quite ventured upon this strong step, was present and heard her say it, and opened his eyes wide in admiration. What did it mean? Was it that these two had engaged themselves secretly without saying anything to father or mother? or did it mean nothing at all—the mere foolishness of a girl who did not care for, nay, did not even think for a moment, what people would say?

For the brief little weeks of the season flitted quickly away, and the date fixed for their departure drew near rapidly. By this time Millefleurs had got to be exceedingly intimate with the family. He went and came almost as he pleased, sometimes offering himself, sometimes coming in to luncheon without that ceremony,—always with something to do for them, or something to say to them, which linked one day to another. This was much, but it was not all that was wanted. Rintoul, looking on with eyes enlightened by that knowledge he had acquired of what "the fellows would say," did not feel half satisfied. He was the anxious member of the party. Even Lord Lindores, whose friends at the clubs discussed such matters less perhaps than the young men, and whose interests were more political, was not so alive to all the risks and all the changes of opinion as was Rintoul. He was nervous above measure about this business of Edith's. He even took his mother to task about it during the last week of their stay in town. "Isn't that fellow coming to the point?" he said.

"What fellow, and what point?" said Lady Lindores. It must be acknowledged that if ever a young man anxious for the true interests of his family was tried by the ignorance and stupidity—not to say callousness—of his relations, Rintoul was that man.

"Look here, mother," he said, exasperated; "just think for a moment what people will say, and ask yourself how you will like it. They will say Millefleurs has been amusing himself all this time, and never meant anything. I make no doubt that they say it already. He has been amusing himself—exposing her to all sorts of remarks; and then the end will come, and he will leave her planté là."

"Rintoul," said his mother, reddening with anger, "this one idea of yours makes you absurd. Who is it that has it in his power to leave Edith planté là? To think that I should be forced to use such words! If you mean to make me uncomfortable about that boy——"

"He is no more a boy than I am, mother. I warned you of that. He knows very well what he is about. He has had the pleasure of your society, and he has enjoyed it all and amused himself very much. But he doesn't mean to commit himself. Do you think I don't know what people say? I don't mean that it is Edith's fault, or even your fault, mother; only, some women know how to manage. It is a thing that never could happen with some people. You will see, unless you exert yourself, that the last day will come, and you will be just where you were. I don't know whether staying a week or two longer would do any good," he added, ruefully. "If there is the chance that it might bring him to the point, there is also the chance that people would divine your motive, and say that was why you were staying on. Don't you think you could put a little steam on, when the result is so important, and bring him to the point?"

"Steam on! Do you mean to insult me, Rintoul?" his mother cried.

But this was too much for the young man, who felt himself to be the only one of the family to whom the true position of affairs was apparent. "If you cannot understand me, mother, I can't say anything more," he said, feeling as if he could almost have cried over her callousness. Why was it that nobody but he would see how serious the situation was?

All this time, however, while Millefleurs was frequenting the house almost daily, Lady Lindores's perception had been partly confused by the effort it cost her to avoid being drawn into what she felt must be an unnecessary confidential disclosure to Beaufort of the history of the family since they last met. Beaufort did not insist upon accompanying his charge—for such, more or less, Millefleurs was, his family being too much alarmed lest he should disappear again, to leave him without this species of surveillance, which the good-natured young fellow allowed to be perfectly natural, and neither resisted nor resented; but he came sometimes, and he never relinquished his appeal to Lady Lindores. He was not posing in any attitude of a heart-broken lover. Even to her he expressed no despair. He took his life gravely, but not without cheerfulness, and had, she felt almost with a little pique, got over it, and been able to put Carry out of his life. But he wanted to know: that seemed all that was left of the old romance. He wanted to be told how it had happened—how his love had been lost to him. It did not seem to be resentment or indignation that moved him, but a serious kind of interest. And strangely enough, it seemed to Lady Lindores that he did not want to avoid her, or keep out of hearing of the name of the girl who had forsaken him. He seemed to like herself, Carry's mother, as well as ever, and to regard Edith with the same elder-brotherly air which had pleased her so much in the old days. Between the inquiring countenance which seemed without ceasing to ask an explanation from her, and the prattle of Millefleurs, which ran on in a pleasant stream, and to which it seemed so ridiculous to attach any serious meaning, Lady Lindores was kept in a perplexity and harassment of mind which took away altogether her pleasure in society at the end of their stay in London. After her impatient rejection of Rintoul's counsels, she began to consider them, as was natural; and much as all the particulars of the chasse-aux-maris disgusted her, she came at length, against her will, to recognise that there was something in what he said. "I have been imprudent, as usual," she said to herself. Alas that all the natural proceedings of life should be hampered by these rules of prudence!—these perpetual previsions of what might happen, to which she felt it was impossible she could ever bow her spirit. But the idea that it would be said that a boy like Millefleurs had "amused himself" with her daughter—that he had loved and ridden away—that Edith, her high-spirited, pure-minded girl, had been left planté là—broke over Lady Lindores like a wave of passionate feeling: the suggestion was intolerable and odious. This happened when Millefleurs was in the room with her, in full tide of talk, and entirely at his ease. The sudden sensation disclosed itself in a flush of colour mounting in a moment to her very hair. Intolerable! The thought was so odious that she started to her feet and walked to the open window, as if the change of position would throw it off—and also, suffocated as she felt by that sudden fiery breath, to get fresh air, lest she should, as she said, make an exhibition of herself.

"You are ill, Lady Lindores," cried Millefleurs. Those little beady eyes of his saw everything. He ran forward to support her (he was just up to her shoulder), putting forward a reclining-chair with one hand, picking up a bottle of eau-de-Cologne with the other. He had all his wits about him. "I am used to it. Sometimes my mother se trouve mal in the same way. It will pass over," he said encouragingly to Edith, who, unused to anything of the kind, started up in alarm. "Dear Lady Lindores, put yourself here."

"I am not ill," she said, almost angrily. "Pray do not make any—fuss. How rude I am! but there is nothing the matter with me, I assure you. The room is warm, that is all."

Millefleurs looked at her curiously. He put down the eau-de-Cologne, and took his hand from the chair. For a moment he seemed about to speak, but then stood aside more serious than his wont. In terror lest he should have divined her thoughts, Lady Lindores returned to her seat, calming herself down with an effort, and made the best attempt she could to resume their easy conversation of the moment before. She was vexed beyond measure when Edith, a short time after, left the room to go and look for something which Millefleurs was anxious to see. He took instant advantage of the opportunity thus afforded him. "Lady Lindores," he said, with that serious air as of a candid child, going up to her, "you are not ill, but you are vexed and angry, and it is something about me."

"About you, Lord Millefleurs! how could that be?—you have never given me the least occasion to be angry."

"That is why," he said, gravely. "I see it all. You have nothing to find fault with. I am quite innocent and harmless, yet I am in the way, and you do not know how to tell me so. For my part, I have been so happy here that I have forgotten all sorts of precautions. One does not think of precautions when one is happy. Dear Lady Lindores, you shall tell me exactly what I ought to do, and I will do it. I have all my life been guided by women. I have such faith in a lady's instinct. I might be confused, perhaps, in my own case, but you will hit upon the right thing. Speak to me freely, I shall understand you at a word," the droll little hero said. Now Lady Lindores was in a strait as serious as she had ever experienced in her life; but when she glanced up at him, and saw the gravity upon his baby face, his attitude of chubby attention, such a desire to laugh seized her, that it was all she could do by main force to keep her gravity. This insensibly relaxed the tension, and restored her to her usual self-command. Still there was no denying that the situation was a very peculiar one, and his request for guidance the strangest possible. She answered hurriedly, in the confusion of her mingled feelings—

"I don't know what there is to do, Lord Millefleurs, or how I can advise you. A sudden want of breath—a consciousness all at once that it is a very warm morning,—what can that have to do with you?"

"You will not tell me, then?" he said, with an air half disappointed, half imploring.

"There is nothing to tell. Here is Edith. For heaven's sake, not another word!" said Lady Lindores, in alarm. She did not perceive that she betrayed herself in this very anxiety that her daughter should suspect nothing. He looked at her very curiously once more, studying her face, her expression, even the nervousness of the hand with which she swept her dress out of her way. He was a young man full of experiences, knowing all the ways of women. How far she was sincere—how far this might be a little scheme, a device for his instruction, so that he might see what was expected of him without any self-betrayal on the lady's part—was what he wanted to know. Had it been so, he would at once have understood his rôle. It is usual to say that simplicity and sincerity are to the worldly-bred much more difficult to understand than art; but there is something still more difficult than these. "Pure no-meaning puzzles more than wit." Though Lady Lindores had far more meaning in her than nine-tenths of her contemporaries, she was in this one case absolutely incomprehensible from want of meaning. She had no more notion than a child what to do, or even what she wished to be done. If this little chubby fellow asked Edith to marry him, her mother believed that the girl would laugh in his face. There could be no question of Edith marrying him. But what then? Was Edith to be held up before the whole world (according to Rintoul's version) as the plaything of this little Marquis, as having failed to catch him, as being planté là. She was in the most painful dilemma, not knowing any more than a child how to get out of it. She gave him a look which was almost pathetic in its incompetency. Lady Lindores was full of intellect—she was what is called a very superior woman; but nobody would have been more stupid, more absolutely without any power of invention in this crisis, which had never come within the range of her calculations, which she had not been able to foresee.

And that same afternoon Beaufort came by himself and was admitted, no one else being in the drawing-room—no one to shield the poor lady, who could not help remembering that this stranger was the man to whom she had once given a mother's kiss, receiving him as a son. He did not forget it either. He held her hand when she gave it him, and sat down by her with an expression of satisfaction which she was very far from sharing. "At last I find you alone," he said, with a sigh of content. Poor Lady Lindores had already been so greatly tried this morning, that she felt unable to keep up the strain. Why should she be forced to put on so many semblances?

"Mr Beaufort," she cried, "I cannot pretend to be glad to see you alone. Cannot you understand? You have been wronged,—we have treated you badly,—they say it is the injured person who is always most ready to forgive; but do not ask me to go into a matter which I have tried all these years to forget."

"And yet," he said, gently, "I do not mean to reproach you, Lady Lindores."

"That may be; I do not know that you have much occasion to reproach me. You were not yourself, perhaps, so much in earnest. No—I mean no reproach either; but you are a man of your century too, according to the usual slang. You don't force events, or do what is impossible. Men used to do so in the old days."

He listened to her in silence, bowing his head two or three times. "I accept your reproof," he said, a faint colour coming over his face. "I am glad you have made it,—it helps me to understand. Lady Lindores, there is something else I want to speak to you about. Lord Lindores has invited me, with Millefleurs, in August——"

"With Millefleurs, in August? Has he asked Lord Millefleurs in August?" Lady Lindores cried.

This was a great blow to Beaufort's self-opinion. He had thought, naturally, that the embarrassment of his appearance as a visitor would have overweighed everything else. He grew more red this time, with the irritated shame which follows a slight.

"Certainly he has asked him. It is ridiculous that a young man so entirely able to take care of himself should have any one in charge of him; but as the Duke has implored me to keep his son company——Here is my situation, Lady Lindores. God knows I would not thrust myself where I might—where I should be—I mean, to cause the faintest embarrassment to—any one."

"Mr Beaufort," cried Lady Lindores, "do not come, either of you!—oh, never mind what I mean. What is the use of going over that old ground? It would cause embarrassment—to me if to no one else. And Lord Millefleurs—what does he want at Lindores? Let him stay away; persuade him to stay away."

"But that is settled without any power of interference on my part. Of course he thought you were aware. For myself, I am ready to give up my own prospects, to sacrifice anything—rather than give you a moment's anxiety."

Lady Lindores gazed at him for a moment with wide-open eyes, like a creature at bay. Then she let her hands fall on her lap. "It is I that need to be guided what to do," she said, with a sigh; "they are too many for me. Oh, Edward! had we but remained poor and obscure, as we were when you knew us——" She put out her hand instinctively, with a kind of involuntary appeal. He took it, going upon his knees with that movement, equally involuntary, which deep emotion suggests, and put it to his lips. They were both overcome by a sudden flood of old sympathy, old communion. "Has Carry forgotten me altogether—altogether? Is she happy? God bless her!" he said.

It was in this attitude that Edith, coming in suddenly, surprised these two imprudent people. She gave a cry of amazement, and, Lady Lindores thought, reproach. "Mother! Edward!" The old name came to her lips, too, in the shock.

"Edith," Lady Lindores cried, "your father has invited him with Lord Millefleurs to Lindores."

"But I will do nothing save as you advise," said Beaufort, rising to his feet.

Then the mother and the daughter consulted each other with their eyes. "Of course he will—not——" Edith stopped and faltered. She had begun almost with passion; but she was made to break off by the warning in her mother's eyes. Lady Lindores, too, had gone through a shock and panic; but now all the secondary elements came in—all those complications which take truth out of life.

CHAPTER XVI.

The party at Tinto was increased by Dr Stirling and his wife, which made six, instead of four as the master of the house had intended. His meaning, so far as it was a meaning at all and not a mere impulse, was to get John Erskine by himself, and with skilful art to worm himself into the confidence of that open-hearted young man. Torrance had a great opinion of his own skill in this way. He thought he could find out from any man the inmost thoughts of his mind; and John seemed an easy victim, a young fellow without suspicion, who might without difficulty be led into betraying himself. Torrance had been overawed by the presence of Edith, and forced into conviction when his wife appealed to her sister on the subject of John; but he was without any confidence in the truth of others, and after a time he began to persuade himself that Lady Car's denial was not final, and that probably he should find out from John himself something that would modify her tale. When he heard that his wife had added to the party, he was furious. "I never said I wanted more people asked," he said. "If I had wanted people asked, I should have let you know. What do I want with a country parson, or minister, or whatever you call him? When I'm ill you can send for the minister. I've got nothing to say to him at present. It is for yourself, of course, you want him. When there's nobody better, he does to try your arts on, Lady Car."

"Yes," said Lady Car, with a faint smile, "I allow that I like to talk to him—for lack of a better, as you say." Sometimes she had spirit enough to be what he called aggravating, and Torrance grew red with a sense of scorn implied. He was not stupid enough, seeing that he was so little clever. He knew so much as to be constantly conscious that he was below the mark.

"Confound it!" he said, "if you were to talk to your husband, it would show more sense; but of course that would not answer your purpose." Why it would not answer her purpose he had not any idea; but it is not always necessary, especially in controversy, to know what you yourself mean, and Carry did not inquire. Sometimes she was aggravating, but sometimes she showed the better part of valour, and held her peace. That was always the wise way. And accordingly there were six people who sat down to the banquet at Tinto. It was truly a banquet though the party was so small. The table was covered with plate, huge silver epergnes, and loads of old-fashioned metal,—not old-fashioned, it must be recollected, in the right way, but in the wrong way—monstrosities of the age of William IV. or of the last George. Lady Caroline's taste had been quite inoperative so far as these ornaments were concerned. Her husband knew that she made light of them, and this usually influenced him in the long-run. But he knew also what they had cost, and would not yield a hair's-breadth. The table groaned under them as on the greatest feast-days; and Mrs Stirling, if nobody else, was always deeply impressed. "I tell the Doctor it's as good as reading a book upon the East to see that grand camel and the silver palm-trees," this excellent lady said. She thought it became a minster's wife to show a special interest in the East.

"Well, it's not often they're seen in the east—of Scotland, Mrs Stirling," said Tinto, with his large laugh. He had made the joke before.

"Oh fie, Mr Torrance! ye must not be profane," Mrs Stirling said: and they both laughed with a certain zest. Very few of Lady Car's guests admired the palm-trees; but Mrs Stirling, by a blessed dispensation of Providence, was always capable of this effort. "I hear they are not much in the way of art," Torrance said—"people are ill to please nowadays; but they're pure metal, and if they were only valued at so much an ounce——"

"You may well say they're ill to please. Bless me, Mr Torrance! one of them would be a fortune—just a fortune at that rate. When my little Jeanie is of an age to be married you must lock up these fine things, or there's no saying what I might be tempted to; but you never would miss one when there's so many," Mrs Stirling said. It was a dispensation of Providence. The Doctor himself devoutly wished he had his wife's faculty of admiration, when, after keeping her host in good humour all the evening, she withdrew with Lady Car, giving him a warning glance. All three of the ladies addressed warning glances to the gentlemen left behind. Even Nora, who had not spoken three words to John, and had, as she said almost spitefully to herself, nothing whatever to do with him, could not help warning him with her eyes to keep the peace.

Now this was the time which Torrance had looked forward to, when he should cross-examine the new-comer, and get to the rights of the story respecting John's previous acquaintance with his wife. He was balked and he was angry, and all at once it became apparent to him that this was Lady Car's design, and that she had done it to screen herself. "Doctor, you like a good glass of wine," he said; "all parsons do, whatever be the cut of the cloth. Here's some stuff that will soon lay you under the table—unless you're seasoned like Erskine here, and me."

"I must take care, then, to give that stuff a wide berth," the Doctor said gravely, yet with a smile.

"Ay, ay, but you must drink fair. We'll be having you take shelter with the ladies. I don't mean to let Erskine off so easy. This is his first dinner in my house. It ought to have been a state dinner, you know—all the big-wigs in the county; but Erskine and Lady Car are old friends. I think you knew the family intimately at—where was the place?"

"I met Miss Lindores, as she was then, in Switzerland," said John, curtly. "It was to you that I was to apply, Dr Stirling, for particulars about the asylum Lord Lindores is so much interested in."

"And a most important work," said Dr Stirling. "It is a strange thing to think of in a country so well gifted as this by Providence, and with so much intelligence, what a balance we have on the other side! You'll have noticed almost every village has a 'natural' as the people call them,—a half-witted innocent creature like Davie Gellatley in 'Waverley.'"

"What did you say was the name of the place?" said Torrance. "I'm bent on making notes of all the places Lady Car's been in. She's a poet, you know. Some time or other they will be wanted for her biography, don't you see?"

"I have observed," said John, answering Torrance only with a little bow—"I have noticed already one or two. Could nothing be done for them?"

"But you don't answer me," said Torrance, "and when I tell you my motive! That's my father-in-law's last fad. What is he so anxious about the daft folk for, Dr Stirling? Is it a fellow-feeling?" He stopped to laugh, making the table ring. "He was at me for my support, and to write to the convener. Not I! I told him they had done well enough up to my time, and they would do well enough after my time. What are we to put ourselves about for? can you tell me that?"

"It is a disgrace to the county," said Dr Stirling. "No wonder the Earl was horrified, that has seen things managed so differently. Mr Erskine, if you will come and see me, I will tell you all about it. Sir John stands out, just because the idea is new to him, not from any real objection—for he's a good man and a charitable man at heart."

"You don't wonder at me, Doctor," said Torrance. "Do you think I'm not a good man or a charitable? I'm standing out too. I'm saying, what should we put ourselves about for? It's not us that makes them daft. And what's done for the county up to our time may do now. Little Tam, he can see to that: let him have the paying of it; it is not an amusement I'm fond of——"

"And yet, Mr Torrance," said the Doctor,—"and yet—you'll excuse me—here's what would almost build the place——"

This was an exaggeration. It was founded upon his wife's naïve admiration of the Tinto plate; but it did not displease the proud owner of all those pounds of silver. He laughed.

"You may take your word, it will never build the place, nor any such place," he said. "No, Doctor, that's not my line—nor the Earl's either, trust me. If you think he would strip his table or empty his purse for all the idiots in Scotland, you're mistaken. You think it's all benevolence and public spirit. Not a bit! He means to run Rintoul for the county, and it's popularity he's wanting. There's always wheels within wheels. My father-in-law thinks he's a very clever man,—and so he is, I suppose. They're a clever family; but I can see through them, though they don't think much of me."

Torrance had already consumed a good deal of wine. He had been crossed in his purpose, and his temper roused. His dark face was flushed, and his light eyes staring. Both his companions were men entirely out of sympathy with him, who were there because they could not help it, and who listened rather with angry shame that they should be parties to such discourse, than with any amiable desire to cover his shortcomings. They did not look at each other, but a slight uneasy movement on the part of both was as good as a mutual confidence, and both began to speak at once, with an anxious attempt to put an end to these unseemly revelations.

"What fine weather we've been having for the crops!" said Dr Stirling. And, "I wish you'd tell me what flies you use about here. I have had no luck at all on the river," cried John.

But their host was on his mettle, and felt himself a match for them both. "As for the weather, I've no land in my own hands—not such a fool! and I don't care a——that for the crops! Flies! you may have the finest in the world, but without sense you'll make nothing of them. Come with me, and I'll let you see how to make them bite. But as I was saying," Torrance went on, elevating his voice, "if you think his lordship is bent on the good of the county, you're mistaken, I can tell you. He means to get the seat for Rintoul. And who's Rintoul, to represent a county like this? A boy, in the first place—not fledged yet; what I call fledgling. And knows nothing about what we want. How should he? He never was in the county in his life till four or five years ago. You would have thought a man like old Lindores, that has been about the world, would have had more sense. That's just it; a man knocks about these little foreign places, and he thinks he knows the world. Now there's me. I would not take the trouble of Parliament, not for any inducement. It's no object to me. I prefer quiet and my own way. There's nothing that any Ministry could give me, neither office nor rise in life. I'm content to be Torrance of Tinto, as my father was before me: but at all events, I am one that knows the county and its ways. I could tell them what's wanted for Scotland. But no! a boy like Rintoul that knows nothing—without sense or experience,—he's the man. My father-in-law, for so clever as he is, has awful little sense."

"There is no seat vacant as yet," said Dr Stirling; "we might leave that question, Tinto, till the time comes."

"That's your old-fashioned way," said Torrance; "but his lordship is a man of his century, as they call it. He'll not wait till the last moment. He'll get himself known as the friend of Liberal measures, and all that. All his tools are in the fire now; and when the time comes to use them, they'll be hot and handy." Then he laughed, turning his eyes from one to another. "You're his tools," he said.

It was not possible for either of the listeners to conceal the irritation with which they received this sudden shot. They looked at each other this time with a sudden angry consultation. Dr Stirling touched his empty glass significantly with the forefinger of one hand, and held up the other as a warning. "It seems to me," he said, "that it would be an excellent thing about this time of the night to join the ladies. It will very soon be time for my wife and me to go."

"He is afraid of his wife, you see, Erskine," said Torrance, with his laugh. "We're all that. Keep out of the noose as long as you can, my lad. You may be very thankful for what you've missed, as well as what you've got."

"I suppose you mean something by what you are saying, Mr Torrance," said John, "but I do not understand what it is."

Upon this Torrance laughed louder than before. "He's confounded sly—confounded sly. He'll not let on he knows—that's because you're here, Doctor. Join the ladies, as you say—that is far the best thing you can do—and Erskine and I will have a glass more."

"A great deal better not, Tinto," said the Doctor; "you know it's not the fashion now: and Lady Caroline will wonder what's become of us. It's a little dark down the avenue, and my wife is nervous. You must come and shake hands with her before she goes."

Both the guests rose, but the master of the house kept his seat. "Come, Erskine, stay a bit, and tell me about—about—what was the name of the place? Let the Doctor go. He has his sermon to write, no doubt, and his wife to please. Go away, Doctor, we'll join you presently," Torrance said, giving him a jocular push towards the door. "Come, Erskine, here's a new bottle I want your opinion of. If you ever drank a glass of claret like it, it will be a wonder to me."

John stood hesitating for a moment. Then he took his seat again. If he was to quarrel with this fellow, better, he thought, to have it out.

"You want to question me," he said; "then do so simply, and you shall have my answer. I am unaware what the point is; but whatever it is, speak out—I do not understand hints. I am quite at your service if I can furnish you with any information.

"Go away, Doctor," said Torrance, with another push. "Tell them we're coming. I'll be in time to shake hands with Mrs Stirling: join the ladies—that's the right thing to do."

The minister was in a great strait. He stood looking from one to another. Then he went out slowly, closing the door softly behind him, but lingering in the anteroom, that if any conflict of voices arose, he might be at hand to interfere. Torrance himself was sobered by the gravity of the proceeding. He did not speak immediately, but sat and stared at the companion with whom he was thus left tête-à-tête. He had not expected that John would have courage to meet this interrogation; and notwithstanding his pertinacity, he was disconcerted. Erskine met his gaze calmly, and said, "You wanted to ask me some questions. I am quite at your disposal now."

"Question?—no, not so much a question," faltered the other, coming to himself. "I'm sure—I beg your pardon—no offence was meant. I asked—for information."

"And I shall be glad to give you any I possess."

Torrance made a pause again; then he burst out suddenly—"Hang it, man, I didn't mean to give you any offence! I asked you—there couldn't be a simpler question—what was the name of the place where—you met my—you met the Lindores——"

"The place was a mountain inn on the way to Zermatt—a very secluded place. We were there only about six weeks. Mr Lindores (then) and his family were very friendly to us because of my name, which he knew. I suppose you have some ulterior meaning in these questions. What is it? I will answer you in all respects, but I ought to know what it means first."

Torrance was entirely cowed. "It means nothing at all," he said. "I daresay I am an idiot. I wanted to know——"

"We were there six weeks," repeated John—"an idle set of young men, far better pleased with mountain expeditions than with our books. We did little or nothing; but we were always delighted to meet a family-party so pleasant and friendly. There we parted, not knowing if we should meet again. I did not even know that Mr Lindores had come to the title. When I found them here it was the greatest surprise to me. I had never even heard——"

"Erskine," cried Torrance—by this time he had drank several more glasses of wine, and was inclined to emotion—"Erskine, you're an honest fellow! Whoever likes may take my word for it. You're an honest fellow! Now my mind's at rest. I might have gone on suspecting and doubting, and—well, you know a man never can be sure: but when another fellow stands up to him honest and straightforward—" he said, getting up to his feet with a slight lurch towards John, as if he would have thrown himself upon his shoulder; and then he laughed with a gurgle in his breath, and thrust his arm through that of his reluctant guest. "We're friends for life," said Torrance; "you're an honest fellow! I always had a fancy for you, John Erskine. Letsh join the ladies, as that old fogy of a Doctor said."

The old fogy of a Doctor, who had been hanging about in alarm lest he might be called upon to stop a quarrel, had no more than time to hurry on before them and get inside the drawing-room door, before the master of the house pushed in, still holding John by the arm. "Here," Torrance cried, depositing his unwilling companion suddenly with some force in a chair by Lady Caroline's side—"here, talk to her! You can talk to her as much as you please. An honest fellow—an honest fellow, Lady Car!"

Then he made a somewhat doubtful step to Mrs Stirling, and stood over her diffusing an atmosphere of wine around him. Poor ladies! in the drawing-room, even in this temperate age, how often will a man approach them, and sicken the air in their clean presence with fumes of wine! The minister's wife was tolerant of the sins of the squires; but she coughed, poor soul, as she was enveloped in these powerful odours.

"Well, Mrs Stirling," Torrance said, with cumbrous liveliness, "your husband here, we could not get him away from his wine. We've been doing nothing but talk of coming up-stairs this quarter of an hour; but get the Doctor to budge from his wine—no! that was more than we could do," and he ended with a loud guffaw. The Doctor's wife coughed, and smiled a sickly smile upon the great man, and shook her head with a "Fie, William!" at her husband. "Dear me, dear me!" Mrs Stirling said after, as she walked down the avenue with her Shetland shawl over her head, holding close by her husband's arm, "when I think of poor Lady Caroline, my heart's sore. That muckle man! and oh, the smell of him, William! You're not so particular as you should be in that respect, the best of ye—but I thought I would have fainted with him hanging over me. And that fragile, delicate bit woman!" "She should not have married him," the Doctor said, curtly. But his wife was a merciful woman; and she did not feel sure how far a girl would have been justified in refusing such a marriage. She shook her head, and said, "Poor thing!" from the bottom of her heart.

"I am glad I have met with Mr Torrance's approval," John said; but Carry gave him so wistful a deprecating look, that he was silent. And he had not yet escaped from his uncomfortable host. When Mrs Stirling went away with her husband, Torrance, whose sole idea of making himself agreeable to a woman was by rough banter, transferred himself with another lurch to Nora. "And how's the old soldier?" he said. "I suppose he's going over all the men within fifty miles to see who will make the best husband, eh? It was all I could do to keep out of their hands when I was a bachelor. If they had had their will, Lady Car would never have had the chance of me: no great harm in that perhaps, you will say. But you must not be saucy, Miss Nora. Men are not so easy to get when all's said."

"No, indeed," said Nora—"men like you, Mr Torrance. I could not hope, you know, to be so lucky as Lady Car."

Upon this, though his head was not very clear, the uneasy Laird grew red, fearing satire. It was perfectly true, to his own thinking; but he was enlightened enough to know that Nora had another meaning. He would have liked to punish the little saucy chit, who held up (he thought) her little face to his so disdainfully in his own house. As lucky as Lady Car, indeed! She should have no luck at all, with that impudence of hers. It would serve her right if she never got the offer of any man. But he dared not say exactly what he thought. Conventional restraints, in such a case, were too much for the free-born wit even of Pat Torrance of Tinto.

"That's a great compliment to me, no doubt," he said; "but never be down-hearted. There is as good fish in the sea as ever came out of the net. There's our neighbour here, for instance," he said, stooping to speak confidentially, and jerking his thumb over his shoulder at John, with one of his usual bursts of laughter. "Now, what do you think of him, Miss Nora? A real honest fellow, I can testify, and a nice little property. What do you think of him?"

The tone was meant to be confidential, but it was loud enough to have reached any ear in the room; and it was Nora's turn to redden with anger intolerable. She jumped up, while he stood and laughed, shaking his sides. "I've given her a poser there," he said. "I've given her her answer there." He could not help returning to it, as, much against Nora's will, he accompanied her to the door and put her into the little pony-carriage which had come for her. "You must think of what I say, Miss Nora. You would be very comfortable. You'll see that's what the old soldier is driving at. And I don't think you could do better, if you'll take my advice."

John, who had followed down-stairs, not wishing to have any more than he could avoid of his host's society, saw the indignant countenance of Nora looking out wrathfully upon himself as the carriage turned from the door. What had he done to deserve the angry look? But the other, standing somewhat unsteadily on the steps, greeted the departure with a laugh that was loud and long.

"One good turn deserves another," he said. "I've put her against you, Erskine, and that's the best thing I could do. Mind what you're about, my fine fellow, or you'll fall into some snare or other. I would not marry, if I were you. You have enough for one, but it wouldn't be enough for two. If you manage Dalrulzian well, you may be very comfortable as an unmarried man. Take my advice. Of course they will all be setting their caps at you. There's Aggie Sempill—she thought she had got me: but no, I knew better. Truly in vain is the snare set in the sight of any bird. There! you've Scripture for it. And now here's Nora Barrington——"

John grasped his arm violently. "Be silent!" he cried in his ear. The butler stood on the steps behind laughing decorously under his breath, as in duty bound, at his master's joke. John's new groom at his horse's head grinned respondent. What he would have given to take the big clown by the collar and fling him into the midst of the bushes! But this was not to be thought of. Such violent impulses have to be repressed nowadays.

"Well, well, we'll name no names," said Tinto. "They'll all be after you; no need to name names. And I'll tell them all you're an honest fellow. Don't you be led away by his lordship, no more than the women. Keep your vote to yourself, and your heart to yourself, that's my advice. Good night to you, John—you're a very decent fellow," cried the big voice in the darkness. Torrance had found out that this epithet annoyed young Erskine, and he liked it all the better in consequence. He shouted it after him into the night, as with another great laugh he went back into his house to Lady Car. Alas, poor Carry! The others went away, shook off the disagreeable presence, got out of the atmosphere of his wine and the roar of his laugh; but Carry, than whom there was no more fastidious, delicately nurtured woman—Carry sat helpless, scared, awaiting him. Whatever happened, she could not run away.

As for John, he flew down the avenue in the dark, taking that turn on the top of the scaur, which was allowed by everybody to be so dangerous, without knowing anything about it, guided by instinct and rage; for he had never been there before. When they had passed the danger, Peter, the groom, drew a long breath. "That's past, the Lord be thankit!" he said. It was natural that Peter should suspect his master of sitting long after dinner, and sharing the excitement of his host.

"What's past?" said John, angrily: he had nearly taken an inner gate, dogcart and all, as if it had been a fence. His horse was fresh, and his mind ablaze with irritation and impatience. "What's past?" he repeated, angrily, when the man clambered up again to his side.

"That corner, sir, they call the Scaur. There used to be a paling, but it fell to pieces, and this Laird—I beg your pardon, sir—young Tinto, that is a perfect deevil when he's on a horse, would never let it be mended. It's a' cleared away, and there's a grand view when there's daylicht to see it, and doun-bye the sound o' the river roaring. If it werena for the horse's feet and the rate we're going, you would hear it now."

"You think we're going too fast——"

"Na—no me," said the groom, cautiously, "now that I see, sir, you ken what's what. But it's a fickle corner in the dark. Not to know is maybe the best way. When you ken, you're apt to be ower cautious or ower bold—one's as bad as the ither. A wrang step, a bit swing out on the open, and there would be no help for ye. Neither you nor me, sir, would have seen a freend belonging to us again."

"It is unpardonable," said John, "if this is so, to leave it without protection or notice."

"Well, sir, you see it's no just the richt road. It's a short cut. You take the left hand at thae lily-oaks. I thought you bid to ken, as you took it so bold, without a moment's thought. I wouldna advise you to do it again. Tinto, he's a perfect deevil on horseback, as I was saying. He's aye riding that way. They say he'll break his neck sometime or other, he's so wild and reckless—ower that scaur——"

"And no such great loss either," cried John, in his indignation. He hoped the words were not audible, in the rush of his horse's hoofs and jingle of the harness, the moment they had left his lips; and he was annoyed by the confidential tone of Peter's reply.

"Maybe no, sir. There's plenty is of that opinion. There was mair tint at Shirramuir."

John felt as if he had condescended to gossip with his servant about his neighbour, and was ashamed of himself. But as he reviewed the events of the evening his pulses beat higher and higher. That he should have pleased this big bully, and received the offer of his friendship, was something half humiliating, half ridiculous. But what could he do? The bonds of neighbourhood are stringent: that you must not, if possible, quarrel with, or markedly avoid, or put any slight upon, the man whose lands march with your own, is a self-evident proposition. And the husband of Carry Lindores! When John thought of this part of it, there escaped from him an almost groan of horror and pity. The rest of the party had dispersed, and were free of the big laugh, the rude jests, the fierce staring eyes; but Carry remained behind.

Peter the groom did not feel so sure that his new master had partaken too freely of the wine at Tinto, which everybody knew to be better and stronger than wine anywhere else, by the time they got to Dalrulzian. But he announced that he was "just one of Tinto's kind, a deevil when he's behind a horse," as he took his supper. This, however, was a suggestion which brought down upon his head the indignant displeasure of Bauby, who regretted audibly that she had kept the potatoes hot for such an ill-speaking loon—and of Rolls, who, accepting the praise implied, put down the superficial judgment of this new-comer as it deserved. "There will no man beat an Erskine for clear head and steady hands," he said, "if that's what you ca' being of Tinto's kind; but you'll observe, my lad, that we're a' of a reasonable age, and I'll have nane o' your rash opinions here."

CHAPTER XVII.

"Oh yes, that's true—I'm an old Tory. I'm proud of the name," said Sir James, with his genial countenance. "If you'll believe me, my young friend, most changes are for the worse. When I remember, before I went to India, what a cheery world it was—none of those new-fangled notions were so much as thought of—we were all kindly one with another, as country neighbours should be. The parish school—that was good enough for me. I got the most of my schooling there. We had a grand dominie—there was not a more learned man out of St Andrews or Aberdeen. Old Robert Beatoun the blacksmith was at the school with me. We've been great friends ever since, but I cannot say that he ever took anything upon him in consequence. That's one of your new-fangled notions too—to part all the world into classes, and then, when their habits are formed and their ways of living settled, to proclaim they're all equal. No, no—they're not all equal; you may take my word for it, though I'm no Solomon."

"I don't think so, either, Sir James; but pardon me, if you found no evil in going to the same school as the old blacksmith——"

"Not a pin, sir—not a pin!" cried the old general. "We respected each other. We were great friends, but not associates. I had my own cronies, and he had his: but we always respected each other. And do you think to sit on the same bench with a wholesome country lad in corduroy breeks was worse for me than being packed up with a set of little dandies, taking care of their books and keeping their hands clean, and sent out of their own country till they're made strangers to it, as comes to pass with your Eton, and the rest of them——I ask your pardon, Erskine. I forgot you were there yourself——"

"There is no offence," said John. "I think I agree with you so far; but, Sir James, your theory is far more democratic, far more levelling——"

"Me democratic and levelling!" said Sir James. "That will be news. No, no; that was all in the course of nature. When a lad was to be pushed in the world, his friends pushed him. You cannot do that now. When you saw your friend with a houseful of children, you would say to him, 'What are you going to do with those fine lads of yours?' and if you knew a director, or had influence to hear of a writer-ship, or a set of colours.—Now, ye cannot help on your friend's boys, and ye cease to think of them. What little ye might do, ye forget to do it. Robert Beatoun's grandson, you'll tell me, got in high on the list for those competition-wallahs, as they call them. Well, I say nothing against it. The lad is a good lad, though he was never brought up in the way of having men under him, and he'll feel the want of that when he gets to India. The like of me—we were poor enough, but we had always been used to be of the officer kind. That makes a great difference; and if you think we did our work worse for having no bother about examinations——"

"That has proved itself, Sir James. Nobody pretends to say it did not work well."

"Then why change it?" said the old man. "And about your hospitals and things. When there was a poor natural, as they call it, in a village, everybody was good to the creature; and do you think the honest folk that had known it all its life would not put up with it, and feel for it, more than servants in an hospital? When we had a burden to bear, we bore it in those days, and did the best we could for our own. We didn't shuffle them off on the first person's shoulders that would take them up."

All this John had brought upon himself by his reference to Lord Lindores's scheme. Whatever might be well with respect to the election, he had felt that there could be but one voice in respect to a hospital; but John had soon been convinced that in that respect also there certainly was more than one voice.

"But I suppose," he said, feeling somewhat confused by this style of reasoning, for it was not a subject upon which the young man had thought for himself,—"I suppose, for the suffering and miserable—for those out of the common line of humanity, more badly off, less capable than their neighbours—hospitals are necessary."

"Let those that belong to them care for them, sir," cried Sir James. "I'm saying it in no hard-hearted way. Do you not think that when a trouble is sent upon a family, it's far better for the family to make a sacrifice—to draw close together, to bear it, and take care of their own? That's always been my opinion—that was the practice long syne. If ye had a thorn in the flesh, ye supported it. When one was ill, the rest took care of him. There were no hired sick-nurses in those days. When ye had a fever, your mother nursed you. If you were blind or lame, every one would give you a little, and nobody grudged your meat or your drink. And that was how Scotland was kept so independent, and the poor folk hated debt and beggary. Once you give your own duty over to other folks, you sacrifice that," the old soldier said, with conviction. Sir James was of the class of men who are never more entirely at home than when they are exercising the duties of beneficence—the sort of men who manage hospitals and establish charities by nature. Had the county hospital been existing, he it was, and not Lord Lindores, who would have given time and trouble to it; but Sir James was as full of prejudices as a hearty, healthy old gentleman has a right to be. He would not give in to the new thing; and his arguments were shrewd, although he himself would have been the last to be bound by them. He would have taken the burden off a poor man's shoulders and carried it himself without a compunction. Saying is one thing and doing another, all the world over; only it is usual that people profess not less, but more, benevolent sentiments than are natural to them. Sir James took the other way.

"You must excuse me saying," the old general went on, "that you must not trust too much to Lord Lindores. Part of it is political, there is no doubt about that. He's wanting to get a character for being public-spirited and a useful member of his party. They tell me he's thinking of bringing in his son in the case of an election, but that would never do—that is to say, from my point of view," said Sir James, laughing; "you're on the other side?—ah, to be sure, I had forgotten that. Well, I suppose we're all meaning the same thing,—the good of the country; but depend upon it, that's not to be procured in this way. The Lindores family are very excellent people—very worthy people; but they're new-fangled—they have lived abroad, and they have got foreign notions into their heads."

"Benevolent institutions are, above all others, English notions—or so, at least, I have always heard," John said.

This brought a slight flush on the old man's cheek. "Well, I believe you are right—I think you are right. I will not go against that. Still it is a great pity to bring foreign notions into a quiet country place."

They were walking up and down the lawn at Chiefswood, where a party of country neighbours were about to assemble. It was a kind of gathering which had scarcely been acclimatised in the North; and the pleasure of sitting out, though the seats were comfortably arranged in the most sheltered spot, was at the best an equivocal one; but fortunately the drawing-room, with its large bright windows overlooking the scene of the gentle gaieties provided for, was behind, and there already some groups had collected. John Erskine, without being aware of it, was the hero of the feast. He was the new-comer, and everybody was willing to do him honour. It was expected that he was to be the chief performer in those outdoor games which were not yet very well known to the young people. And it was somewhat disconcerting that he should have chosen this moment to discourse with old Sir James upon the county hospital, and the poor lunatics and imbeciles of the district, for whose benefit Lord Lindores was so anxious to legislate. Had it been any other subject, the old general would have dismissed the young man to his peers, for Sir James had a great notion that the young people should be left to entertain each other. But as it happened, the theme was one which had disturbed his genial mind. He was vexed at once in his prejudices, and in his honest conviction that the county, to which he was so glad to get back after his long exile, was the best managed and most happy of districts. He had found nothing amiss in it when he came home. It had been welcome to him in every detail of the old life which he remembered so well. There were too many changes, he thought, already. He would have liked to preserve everything. And to have it suggested by a new gingerbread, half-English, half-foreign intruder, with all the light-minded ways that belonged to the unknown races on the Continent, that the beloved county wanted reorganisation, almost betrayed the old man into ill-humour. The guests kept arriving while he talked, but he talked on, giving forth his views loosely upon general questions. "We're going the wrong road," he said, "aye seeking after something that's new. The old way was the best. Communistic plans are bad things, whatever ye may say for them; and shuffling off your sick and your poor on other folk's hands, and leaving them to the public to provide for, what's that but communism? You'll never get me to consent to it," Sir James said.

"Where is the general?" Lady Montgomery was saying in the drawing-room. "Bless me! has nobody seen Sir James? He cannot expect me to go out without my bonnet, and get my death of cold setting all the young people agoing. No, no, I told him that. I said to him, you may put out the chairs, but if you think Barbara Erskine and me, and other sensible women, are going to sit there in a May day and get back all our winter rheumatism, you are mistaken, Sir James. But now, where is the general? Nora, you must just go and look for him, and say I'm surprised that he should neglect his duty. When I yielded to this kind of party, which is not my notion of pleasure, I told him plainly he must take the lawn part of it upon his own hands."

"And where's my nephew John?" said Miss Barbara Erskine, who sat in one of the seats of honour, within pleasant reach of a bright fire. "Nora, when you look for Sir James, you'll look for him too. I'm affronted, tell him, that he was not the first to find me out."

"I hear Mr Erskine is a great friend of the Lindores," said Mrs Sempill. "Having no son at home, I have not had it in my power, Miss Barbara, to show him any attention, but I hoped to make his acquaintance to-day. They tell me he knew the Lindores well in their former circumstances. That is, no doubt, a fine introduction for him to the county."

"If an Erskine of Dalrulzian wanted any introduction," said Miss Barbara, "it would be a very ill one, in my opinion. For there are as many that think ill of them as there are that think well of them, and they're not our kind of people. But John Erskine wants nobody to introduce him, I hope. His father's son, and my father's great-grandson, should have well-wishers enough."

"And a well-looking, well-spoken young man. He minds me of your uncle Walter, the one that went abroad," said old Mrs Methven of the Broomlees. She was older than Miss Barbara, older than the imagination could conceive. Her memory slipped all the recent generation, and went back to heights of antiquity unknown. Miss Barbara Erskine was still a young person to this old lady, and Sir James a frisky young soldier. "Walter Erskine was the first person I ever saw that wore his own hair without so much as a ribbon. It had a terrible naked look, but you soon got used to it. This one is like him. But you'll scarcely mind him. He was young when he left the county. I cannot remember if you were born."

"He's like his father, which is not so far back," Miss Barbara said.

"Bless me, bless me! where is the general?" cried Lady Montgomery. She was standing in front of the great bow-window which looked upon the lawn, with her beautiful Indian shawl on her shoulders. Grouped upon the grass were several parties of the younger people, not quite knowing what to do with themselves. Some of the ladies, wrapped in warm cloaks and shawls, were seated round, waiting for some novelty of amusement with which they were unacquainted, and wondering when it was going to begin. It seemed to Lady Montgomery the most dreadful neglect of duty that there was no one to set the young people agoing. "Will anything have happened to Sir James?" she said, in anxious Scotch, and cast a glance back at the pleasant fire, and wrapped her shawl more closely round, with a sense that Providence might require of her the heroic effort of stepping outside. But just then she perceived in the distance that her general had been captured, and was being led back in triumph to the lawn by Nora and Agnes Sempill, two of his chief favourites. John followed after them, looking by no means triumphant. When Lady Montgomery saw this, she gave a nod of satisfaction, and returned to the fire. "Whatever they're going to do, it'll begin now," she said. "If it's worth looking at, we can see it from the window; but for my part, I'm very anxious about putting folk to sit on the grass at this time of the year. I would not wonder to hear of bronchitis or inflammation after it—but it's none of my doing. Sir James is just daft about all the new-fashioned ways of amusing young people. For my part, I say there's nothing like the old way. Just to clear out the rooms, and get the fiddlers, and let them dance. But that would be a daftish thing too, in daylight," the old lady said; for she was not at all up to the current of events.

It was, I believe, the venerable game of croquet which was the "new-fashioned thing" in question, and which all the people outside crowded round to see, while a few highly-instructed young persons, who had brought the knowledge from "the South," proceeded, with much modest importance, to exhibit for the benefit of their neighbours. "It's quite easy," they said, each feeling a sort of benevolent missionary. John Erskine was one of these illuminati, and he was the partner of Agnes Sempill, the girl who had trembled for a moment lest Mr Torrance of Tinto might be going to select her from the many that smiled upon him. She would have married him had this been; but it must be said for her that she was unfeignedly glad to have escaped. This having been the case, it will be apparent that poor Agnes was no longer in her first youth. She was five or six and twenty—young enough, yet not altogether a girl; and she knew, poor young woman, that she must marry the next man who offered himself,—they were so poor! and her mother did not fail to impress upon her that she was losing all her chances. She looked upon John Erskine, accordingly, with more critical interest than is ordinarily felt. He was about her own age, but she decided that he was too young; and she hoped, whatever he was going to do in the matrimonial way, that he would show his intentions at once, and not force her mother into unnecessary efforts. "Too young—but he might do very well for Mary," she said to herself; and then she turned to him to talk about croquet, as if there was no such important subject.

"It is such a thing to have something that can be played out of doors!" she said. "Well, not so much in Scotland, that is true, but still we want a little variety. Do you play golf, Mr Erskine? The ladies' golf is very nice; it is only Putting—but you won't understand what that means. At St Andrews there is the Ladies' Links——"

"Which sound romantic and picturesque, at least."

"Oh, it is not at all romantic—picturesque after a sort. Seaside slopes—what you call downs in England; but I can't describe it. Is it my turn? You should be able to get me nicely through that hoop next stroke you make. Sir James is always the first to get us any novelty that is going. He is always on the outlook for something. This is the very first in the county. They have not got croquet yet even at Lindores."

"Does Lindores generally set the fashion?" said John indiscreetly, not knowing what to say.

"The fashion! oh no, certainly not," cried Miss Sempill. "Of course they are the highest rank, and walk in and out before us all; but for anything else——You used to know them, I hear, Mr Erskine. Tell me something about them. Oh, we are neighbours, but not great friends. We do not move about very much; we are humble people, without carriages and horses. I suppose they lived very quietly before——"

"I only knew them," said John, learning to employ the universal formula, "abroad; and as the way of living is so different——"

"Ah! is it really so?" said Agnes, with quick interest; "do people really live so much cheaper abroad? I suppose you are not expected to keep up appearances in the same way; and then you get all your amusements so cheaply, and you can do a great deal, and go about a great deal, on very little. I have always heard that. But when you've a large family, the mere travelling must be a large item. I should think it would swallow up all the savings for the first year."

The question was one which interested her so much that she scarcely left time for a reply.

"I have often thought of it," she said. "The girls, poor things, get so little to amuse them here. Abroad, so far as one hears, there is nothing but amusement. Concerts and operas for next to nothing, and always a band playing somewhere—isn't it so? And you get houses quite cheap, and servants that will turn their hand to anything. I suppose the Lindores lived in quite a humble way out there?"

"They moved about a great deal, I believe," said John. "In summer, in the mountains, whether you are rich or poor, it does not make much difference."

This was all the young man knew. Miss Sempill interrupted him with an eager light in her eyes, "Doesn't it, really? Then that is the ideal place I have been looking for all my life—a place where, to be rich or poor, makes no difference——Oh, is it my turn again? what a nuisance! Mr Erskine is telling me of a place I have dreamt of all my life."

"But you must bestir yourself—you must bestir yourself," cried the old general. "Reflect, my dear; you're one of many—you must not mind your own enjoyment for the moment. Ay, my young friend, so you've been telling a lady of a place she's dreamed of all her life?—that's better than bothering your head about hospitals or my lord's schemes. Come, come, John Erskine, put your heart into it: here are some of the bonniest faces in the North waiting to see you play."

John was not dull to this inducement. It was a pretty group which gathered round as spectators, watching every stroke. All the Sempill girls, an eager group of pretty portionless creatures, eager for every kind of pleasure, and getting very little, envious in a sisterly way of Agnes, who knew the new game, and who had secured the new gallant. They were envious yet proud of her. "Our Agnes knows all about it," they said; "she has tried to teach us; but one person can never teach a game: when you see it played, you learn in a moment." They looked over each other's shoulders to see John play, which he did very badly, as was natural; and then they dropped him and followed the next player, Willie Montgomery, Sir James's grand-nephew, who, they all agreed, did a great deal better. Our young man, in spite of himself, felt a little discomfited. He came back to his partner to be consoled,—though, as he had failed to do her the service with her ball which she expected, she was a little dissatisfied too. She was disposed to be cross because her play in the new game had failed of its triumphant effect through her partner's fault. "You have not played much, Mr Erskine, I suppose? Oh, it does not matter—when nobody knows, one style of play is just as good as another; but I thought no one could have missed that ball. Never mind, it is not of the least importance. Tell me more about—abroad."

"If you will tell me," said John, much mortified by these remarks, "what you understand by abroad."

"Oh, it is all a little the same thing, isn't it? The first place you can think of—where the Lindores lived. I daresay it was just as important to them then as it is to us now to be economical, and spend as little as they could."

"The interest that people take in the place where I met the Lindores is astonishing," said John. "I had to go through a catechism at Tinto the other night."

"Ah! then you have been at Tinto. Do you think, Mr Erskine, they are so very unhappy as people say?"

"I do not know what people say," was all the answer John could make.

"There is nothing they don't say," cried Miss Sempill; "that he beats her—I have heard as much as that. I wonder if it can be at all her fault? I never cared for Pat Torrance myself, but nobody thought that of him before he was married. Do you think, perhaps, if she had taken a little more interest at first——One can never tell; he was always rough, but not such a savage as that."

"I have no opinion on the subject. I am only a stranger, you know," John said.

"Ah! but I can see your opinion in your face. You think it is he that is to blame. Well, so he is, no doubt; but there are generally faults, don't you think, on both sides? And then, you see, she was brought up abroad—one always feels that is a little risky for a girl. To be sure, you may turn upon me and say, why ask so many questions about it if you hold such an opinion of it? But there is a difference: we are all grown up but Lucy; and if mamma and five of us cannot take care of Lucy——Both of the Lindores have that disadvantage. Don't you think Lady Edith is a little high and mighty? She thinks none of us are good enough for her. They are not very friendly, neither the one nor the other. They don't feel at home among us, I suppose. No doubt it is our fault as much as theirs," this candid critic said.

Thus John heard nothing but the same sentiment over and over again repeated. His friends were not popular, and he himself stood in some danger of being reckoned as of their faction. There was no one so bold as to undertake the defence of Torrance; and yet there was a certain toleration accorded to him, as if his case had extenuating circumstances. John did not distinguish himself that afternoon as his friends expected him to do. His play was feeble, and did no credit to his training in "the South;" and as he continued to be interrogated by every new-comer about his own antecedents and his former acquaintance with the Lindores, it was difficult for him to repress all signs of impatience. There was not very much variety in the talk of the county, to judge by these specimens. They all asked how he liked the North, what he thought of the society, and something or other about the absent family. The monotony was broken when he was taken into the drawing-room to be surveyed by the old ladies. Old Mrs Methven, in her old yellow lace and shabby feathers, who looked to him like a superannuated cockatoo, pronounced once more that he was the image of Walter Erskine, who was killed in the French war, and who was the first man she ever saw in his own hair, without even a ribbon. "It looked very naked like," the old lady repeated; "no just decent, but you soon got used to it." When these greetings and introductions were over, Miss Barbara took his arm, and declared her intention of taking a turn on the green and inspecting the new game. But it was not the game which interested the old lady. She had a word of warning to say.

"John, my man! at your age you think little of good advice—above all, from an old woman; but just one word. You must not bind yourself hand and foot to the Lindores. You have your own place to uphold, and the credit of your family. We've all formed our opinion of them; and if you're to be considered as one of them, a kind of retainer of theirs——"

"Retainer!" cried John, deeply piqued. Then he made an effort to recover his temper. "You must see how unreasonable this is," he said, with a forced smile. "They are the only people I know. I have the greatest respect for them all, but I have done nothing to—identify myself with the family."

He spoke with some heat, and reddened, much to his annoyance. What way but one was there of identifying himself with them? and what hope was there that he would ever be permitted to do that? The mere suggestion in his own bosom made him red, and then pale.

"You take up their opinions—you support their plans; you're a partisan, or so they tell me. All that is bad for you, John, my man! You'll excuse me speaking; but who should take an interest in you if it's not me?"

"All this is absurd," he cried. "Take up their opinions! I think the Earl is right about a county hospital. I will support him in that with all my heart. Your favourite minister, Aunt Barbara——"

"I have no favourite minister," said Miss Barbara, somewhat sharply. "I never let myself be influenced by one of them. You mean the Doctor, I suppose?—he's far too advanced for me. Ay, that's just the man I'm meaning. He tells me you're taking up all the Lindores's plans—a great satisfaction to him, for he's a partisan too. Mind, I say nothing against the hospital. What other places have, we ought to have too. We have the same needs as our neighbours. If Perth has one, I would have one—that's my principle. But I would not take it up because it's a plan of Lord Lindores's. And I hear you and that muckle lout Pat Torrance were nearly coming to blows——"

"Is that the minister too?" John cried, angrily.

"No, it's not the minister; the minister had nothing to say to it. Don't you take up a prejudice against the minister. That's just as silly as the other way. It was another person. Pat Torrance is just a brute; but you'll make little by taking up the defence of the weaker side there. A woman should hold her tongue, whatever happens. You must not set up, at your age, as the champion of ill-used wives."

"So far from that," said John, with fierce scorn, "the tipsy brute swore eternal friendship. It was all I could do to shake him off."

But Miss Barbara still shook her head. "Let them redd their quarrels their own way," she said. "Stand you on your own feet, John. You should lay hands suddenly on no man, the Apostle says. Mr Monypenny, is that you? I am reading our young man a lecture. I am telling him the old vulgar proverb, that every herring should hang by its ain head."

"And there's no' a truer proverb out of the Scriptures, Miss Barbara," said Mr Monypenny, a man of middle age, and grizzled, reddish aspect. It irritated John beyond description to perceive that the new-comer understood perfectly what was meant. It had evidently been a subject of discussion among all, from Sir James to the agent, who stood before him now, swaying from one leg to another, and meditating his own contribution to the arguments already set forth.

"Miss Erskine is very right, as she always is. Whatever her advice may be, it will carry the sympathy of all your well-wishers, Mr John, and they are just the whole county, man and woman. I cannot say more than that, and less would be an untruth."

"I am much obliged to my well-wishers, I am sure. I could dispense with so much solicitude on their part," cried John, with subdued fury. Old aunts and old friends may have privileges; but to be schooled by your man of business—that was more than flesh and blood could bear.

CHAPTER XVIII.

It happened after this that John Erskine, by no will of his own, was drawn repeatedly into the society of the somewhat lonely pair at Tinto. Torrance had never been popular, though the county extended to him that toleration which a rich man, especially when young, is apt to receive. There were always benevolent hopes that he might mend as long as he remained unmarried; and after his marriage, his wife bore the blame of more than half his misdeeds. To tell the truth, poor Carry, being so unhappy, did not take pains to conciliate her neighbours. Some she took up with almost feverish eagerness, and she had two or three impassioned friends; but she had none of that sustaining force of personal happiness which makes it possible to bear the weariness of dull country company, and she had not taken any particular pains to please the county: so that, except on the periodical occasions when the great rooms were thrown open to a large party, she and her husband, so little adapted as they were to indemnify each other for the loss of society, lived much alone in their great house, with none of that coming and going which enlivens life. And since what he called the satisfaction which John had given him, Torrance had experienced a sort of rough enthusiasm for his new neighbour. He was never weary of proclaiming him to be an honest fellow. "That's the way to meet a man," he would say—"straightforward; if there's any mistake, say it out." And Erskine was overwhelmed with invitations to "look in as often as he pleased," to "take pot-luck,"—to come over to Tinto as often as he wearied. Sometimes he yielded to those solicitations out of pity for poor Carry, who seemed, he thought, pleased to see him; and sometimes because, in face of this oppressive cordiality, it was difficult to say no. He did not enjoy these evenings; but the soft look of pleasure in poor Carry's eyes, the evident relief with which she saw him come in, went to John's heart. Not a word had passed between them on the subject which all their neighbours discussed so fully. No hint of domestic unhappiness crossed Carry's lips: and yet it seemed to John that she had a kind of sisterly confidence in him. Her face brightened when he appeared. She did not engage him in long intellectual conversations as she did Dr Stirling. She said, indeed, little at all to him, but she was grateful to him for coming, and relieved from that which she would not complain of or object to—the sole society of her husband. This consciousness touched John more than if he had been entirely in her confidence. A kind of unspoken alliance seemed to exist between them.

One evening when June was nearly over in the long never-ending Northern daylight, this tacit understanding was at once disturbed and intensified. John had been captured by his too cordial neighbour in the languid afternoon when he had nothing to do, and had been feeling somewhat drearily the absence of occupation and society. Torrance could not supply him with either, but his vacant condition left him without excuse or power to avoid the urgent hospitality. He had walked to Tinto in all the familiarity of county neighbourhood, without evening dress or ceremony of any kind. They had dined without the epergnes and mountains of silver which Torrance loved, in the low dining-room of the old house of Tinto, which still existed at one end of the great modern mansion. This room opened on the terrace which surrounded the house, with an ease not possible in the lofty Grecian erection, well elevated from the ground, which formed the newer part. Lady Caroline, who had left the gentlemen some time before, became visible to them as they sat at their wine, walking up and down the terrace with her baby in her arms. The child had been suffering from some baby ailment, and had been dozing a great part of the day, which made it unwilling to yield to sleep when evening came. The mother had brought it out wrapped in a shawl, and was singing softly to lull it to rest. The scene was very tranquil and sweet. Sunset reflections were hanging still about the sky, and a pearly brightness was diffused over the horizon—light that looked as if it never meant to fade. The trees of the park lay in clustered masses at their feet, the landscape spread out like a map beyond, the hills rose blue against the ethereal paleness of the distance. Close at hand, Lady Caroline's tall, pliant figure, so light and full of languid grace, yet with a suggestion of weakness which was always pathetic, went and came—the child's head upon her shoulder, her own bent over it—moving softly, singing under her breath. The two men, sitting together with little conversation or mutual interest between them, were roused by the sight of this passing figure. Even Tinto's rude gaze was softened by it. He looked out at his wife and child with something more like human tenderness than was usual to him. Himself for a moment gave place in the foreground to this embodiment of the nearest and closest ties of life. He stopped in the talk which he was giving forth at large in his usual loud monologue, unaffected by any reply, and something softened the big balls of his light projecting eyes. "Let's step outside and finish our cigars," he said, abruptly. Lady Caroline herself looked different from her wont. The child against her heart soothed the pain in it: there is no such healing application. It was not a delightful child, but it was her own. One of its arms was thrown round her neck; its head, heavy with sleep, to which it would not yield, now nestled into her shoulder, now rose from it with a sleepy half-peevish cry. She was wholly occupied with the little perverse creature, patting it with one thin soft hand, murmuring to it. The little song she was crooning was contemptible so far as music went, but it was soft as a dove's cooing. She had forgotten herself, and her woes, and her shipwrecked life. Even when that harsher step came out on the gravel, she did not recognise it with her usual nervous start. All was soothed and softened in the magical evening calm, in the warm softness of the baby, lying against the ache in its mother's heart.

And Torrance, for a wonder, did not disturb this calm. He stopped to touch the child's cheek with his finger as his wife passed him, but as this broke once more the partial slumber, he subsided into quiet with a sense of guiltiness, puffing his cigar at intervals, but stepping as lightly as he could with his heavy feet, and saying nothing. A touch of milder emotion had come to his rude bosom. Not only was that great park, those woods, and a large share of the surrounding country, his own, but this woman with her baby was his, his property, though so much more delicate, and finer than he. This moved him with a kind of wondering sense of the want of something which amid so much it might yet be possible to attain—happiness, perhaps, in addition to possession. His breast swelled with pride in the thought that even while thus engrossed in the humblest feminine occupation, like any cottager, nobody could mistake Lady Car Torrance for anything less than she was. They might think her a princess, perhaps. He did not know any princess that had that carriage, he said to himself; but less or meaner, nobody could suppose her to be. And he was touched to see her with his child, her whole soul—that soul which had always eluded him, and retained its chill superiority to him—wrapped up in the baby, who was his as much as hers. There was in the air a kind of flutter of far-off wings, as if peace might be coming, as if happiness might be possible even between this ill-matched pair.

John Erskine was the spectator in this curious domestic scene. He looked on with wondering, half-pleased, half-indignant observation. He was almost angry that Carry should be lowered to the level of this husband of hers, even if it gave her for a time a semblance of happiness; and yet his heart was touched by this possibility of better things. When the child went to sleep, she looked up at the two men with a smile. She was grateful to her husband for his silence, for bringing no disturbance of the quiet with him; and grateful to John for having, as she thought, subdued Torrance by his influence. She made to them both that little offering of a grateful smile as she sat down on the garden-seat, letting the child rest upon her knee. The baby's head had slid down to her arm, and it lay there in the complete and perfect repose which a mother's arms, protecting, sustaining, warm, seem to give more than any bed. The air was so sweet, the quiet so profound, that Carry was pleased to linger out of doors. Not often had she shown any desire to linger in her husband's society when not bound by duty to do so. This evening she did it willingly. For the moment, a faux air of well-being, of happiness and domestic peace, seemed to pervade the earth and the air. "It is so sweet, it cannot do her any harm to stay out a little," she said, smiling at them over the baby's sleeping face, which was half hidden in the soft, fleecy white shawl that enveloped it. John Erskine sat down at a little distance, and Torrance stood with a half humility about him, half ashamed, willing to do or say something which would be tender and conciliatory, but not knowing how. They began to talk in low tones, Erskine and Carry bearing the frais of the conversation. Sometimes Torrance put in a word, but generally the large puffs of his cigar were his chief contribution. He was willing to let them talk. Nay, he was not without a certain pleasure, in this softened mood of his, in hearing them talk. He would have allowed freely that conversation was not in his way.

"They are coming now in about ten days," Carry said. "Of course they have stayed longer than they meant to stay. People never leave town on the appointed day."

"There are so many people to see."

"And so many things are put off till the last. I remember how hurried we were,—how rapidly the days flew at the end."

"You do not go to town now?"

"No," she said, hurriedly; "it is no deprivation. We—neither of us—care for London."

Torrance felt a certain gratitude to his wife for thus identifying her inclinations with his. "If truth were told, maybe that might be modified," he said. "I daresay you would like it, Car. You would get people to talk to. That's what amuses her," he added, with an explanatory glance at John. It was a novel sort of pleasure to him to give this amiable explanation of Lady Caroline's peculiarities, without any of the rough satire in it with which he was accustomed to treat the things he did not understand; and his constant pride in her found a new outlet. "It's not gaieties she wants, it's conversation," he said, with a softened laugh. "Next year we must see if we can't manage it, Car."

She turned to him with a startled glance, not knowing whether to deprecate all change so far as herself was concerned, or to thank him for this unusual thoughtfulness. Fortunately, her instinct chose the latter course. "It is kind of you to think of me," she said, in her soft voice. In all their wretched married life, they had never been so near before. He replied by his usual laugh, in which there was always a consciousness of that power of wealth which he could never forget he possessed. Oh yes, he would do it—he could do it whenever he pleased—buy pleasures for her, just as he might buy dresses or jewels for her, if she would take a little pains to make herself agreeable. But even the laugh was much softer than usual. She gave him a little nod over the sleeping child, in which there was kindness as well as an astonished gratitude. Perhaps she had never been so much at her ease with him before.

"They are going to fill the house in the autumn," she said, returning to the previous subject. "I hear of several people coming. A certain Lord Millefleurs——"

"That reminds me," said John, "that I had a letter the other day—from one of our old Swiss party. You will remember him, Lady Caroline——"

Here he paused, with a sudden recollection and putting together of various things which, in the curious inadvertence of an indifferent mind, he had not thought of before. This made him break off somewhat suddenly, and raise his eyes to Carry, at whom he had not been looking, with an alarmed glance.

He saw her take a large grasp, in the hand which had been laid softly upon it, at ease, with extended fingers, of the baby's shawl. Her face, which had been so smiling and soft, grew haggard and wild in a moment. Her eyes seemed to look out from caverns. There was a momentary pause, which seemed to arouse heaven and earth to listen. Then her voice came into this suddenly altered, vigilant, suspicious atmosphere. "Who was it, Mr Erskine?" Poor Carry tried to smile, and to keep her voice in its usual tone. But the arrow flying so suddenly at a venture had gone straight into her heart. She had no need to ask—had she not divined it all along?

"Probably you have forgotten—his very name. It was—one of those fellows," stammered John. "I forget how little a party like ours was likely to interest you. Beaufort—you may remember the name."

He felt that every word he uttered—his artificial levity, his forced attempt to make that unimportant which only his consciousness that it was deeply important could have suggested such a treatment of, was a new folly. He was doing it for the best—most futile of all excuses. When he looked at her again at the end of this speech, not daring to meet her eyes while he gave it forth, he saw, to his astonishment, a rising colour, a flutter of indignation, in Carry's pale face.

"Surely," she said, with a strange thrill in her voice, "you do your friend injustice, Mr Erskine. So far as I remember, he was very distinguished—far the most remarkable of the party. I do not think I can be mistaken."

"No, no, you are quite right," John cried; "I only meant that—these things were much to us; but I did not know whether you would recollect—whether to a lady——"

"You are all so contemptuous of women," Lady Caroline said, with a faint smile, "even the kindest of you. You think a lady would only notice frivolous excellences, and would not care for real distinction. That is a great mistake. It is all the other way. It is we who think of these things most."

"I beg a thousand pardons—I had no such meaning," John said; and she made him a little tremulous bow. She was so deadly pale, that he expected every moment to see her faint. But she did not. She continued, naturally calling him back to what he had been about to tell her.

"You had a letter from Mr Beaufort? about——you were going to tell me——"

"About coming here," said John, feeling that to say it out bluntly was now the best. "It appears he has a sort of charge of this Lord Millefleurs."

"Charge of Lord?——That is not a dignified position—for—your friend, Mr Erskine."

"No. I don't know what it means; he has not made the progress he ought to have made; but there is something special about this," said John, hesitating, not knowing how far to go.

Again Lady Caroline made him a little bow. She rose, with some stiffness and slowness, as if in pain. "It grows late, though it is so light. Baby will be better indoors," she said. She went quickly away, but wavering a little in her gait, as if she were unconscious of obstacles in the way, and disappeared through the window of the old library, which was on the same level as the dining-room. John stood looking after her, with a bewildering sense of guilt, and alarm for he knew not what. All this time Torrance had not said a word; but he had taken in every word that was said, and his jealous eyes had noted the changes in his wife's face. He watched her go away, as John did. When she had disappeared, both of them listened for a moment in silence. Neither would have been surprised to hear a fall and cry; but there was nothing. Torrance threw himself down heavily in the seat from which she had risen.

"That was a pity, Erskine," he said; "you saw that well enough. You can tell me the rest about this Beaumont—Beaufort—what do you call him?—that you thought it best not to tell Lady Car."

"There is nothing to tell about Beaufort," said John, "which Lady Caroline, or any lady, might not hear."

"Now just look you here, John Erskine," said Tinto, projecting his big eyes, "I thought you were he—that is the truth. She told me there was somebody. I thought it was you, and I was determined to be at the bottom of it. Now here's the man, beyond a doubt, and you know it as well as I do."

"I don't know it at all," cried John, "which probably is as much as you do. Can you suppose I should have spoken to Lady Caroline as I did if I had supposed—believed—known anything at all?"

"I will say," said Torrance, "that you're an honest fellow. That stands to reason: you wouldn't have opened your mouth if you had thought—but then you never thought till after you had spoken. Then you saw it as well as me."

"Torrance!" cried John, "for heaven's sake, don't imagine things that were never thought of! I know nothing about it—absolutely nothing. Even had there been anything in it, it is six years ago—it is all over; it never can have had anything to say to you——"

"Oh, as for that," said Torrance, "if you think I've any fear of Lady Car going wrong, set your mind at rest on that point. No fear of Lady Car. If you suppose I'm jealous, or that sort of thing"—and here he laughed, insolent and dauntless. "I thought it was you," he said—"I don't see why I should conceal that—I thought it was you. And if you think I would have shut her ladyship up, or challenged you!—not a bit of it, my fine fellow! I meant to have asked you here—to have seen you meet—to have taken my fun out of it. I'm no more afraid of Lady Car than I am of myself. Afraid!—not one bit. She shall see just as much of him as possible, if he comes here. I mean to ask him to the house. I mean to have him to dinner daily. You can tell him so, with my compliments. You needn't say any more to Lady Car; but as for me, there's nothing I'd enjoy more. Tutoring, is he?" Torrance said, with a sort of chuckle of wrathful enjoyment: and he cast an eye over his demesne, with a glow of proud satisfaction upon his face.

The sentiment of the evening calm had altogether disappeared. The peace of nature was broken up; a sense of human torture, human cruelty, was in the air. It was as if a curtain had been lifted in some presence-chamber, and the rack disclosed beneath. Torrance lounged back—with his hands in his pockets, his cheeks inflamed, his great eyes rolling—in the seat from which poor Carry with her baby had risen. His mind, which had been softened, touched to better things, and which had even begun to think of means and ways of making her happier, turned in a moment to more familiar preoccupations. To have him here—he who was merely "tutoring," a genteel attendant upon a foolish young lord,—to exhibit him, probably penniless, probably snubbed by everybody around, a dependant, a man without position or wealth,—was an idea altogether delightful to him. It was indeed a fierce delight, a cruel pleasure; but it was more congenial to his mind than the unnatural softness of the hour before.

And was it all John Erskine's doing?—his foolishness, his want of thought? When he left Torrance in disgust, and hurried away along the now familiar avenue, where he no longer took any wrong turns, his foolishness and thoughtlessness overwhelmed him. To be sure!—a thousand recollections rushed upon his mind. He had known it all along, and how was it that he had not known it? The moment he had committed himself and begun to speak of Beaufort's letter, that moment he had foreseen everything that followed—just as poor Carry had read what was coming in his first sentence. It was he who had disturbed the evening calm—the rapprochement of the two who, doomed as they were to live their lives together, ought by all about them to be helped to draw near each other. Full of these disquieting thoughts, he was skirting a clump of thick shrubbery at some distance from the house, when something glided out from among the bushes and laid a sudden light touch upon his arm. He was already in so much excitement that he could not suppress a cry of alarm, almost terror. There was no light to distinguish anything, and the dark figure was confused with the dark foliage. Almost before the cry had left his lips, John entreated pardon. "You are—breathing the evening air," he said, confused, "now that the little one is asleep."

But she had no leisure for any vain pretences. "Mr Erskine," she said, breathless, "do not let him come—ask him not to come! I have come out to tell you. I could not say it—there."

"I will do whatever you tell me, Lady Caroline."

"I know you will be kind. This makes me very miserable. Oh, it is not that I could not meet him! It is because I know my husband has an idea,—not that he is jealous—and he does not mean to be cruel,—but he has an idea——He would like to look on, to watch. That is what I could not bear. Tell him, Mr Erskine—beg him—of all places in the world, not to come here."

"He will not come, I am sure, to give you a moment's uneasiness."

"Mr Erskine, I must say more to you," she said, drawing closer, putting once more her hand on his arm. "It must not be on that ground—nothing must be said of me. Cannot you understand? He must not come; but not because of me—nothing must be said of me. If it was your sister, oh would you not understand?"

He took her hand into his in the profound feeling of the moment. "I will try to do—what I should do if it were my own sister," he said, resting it in his. "It was my fault; I ought to have known."

"There was no fault," she said, faintly; "an accident. I knew it must happen some time. I was—prepared. But, Mr Erskine, it is not because I could not meet—any one. Do not think that for me only——It is because—because——But if you understand, that is all."

"Let me walk back with you to the house," John said.

"No, no; it is almost wrong to speak to you in this clandestine way. But what can I do? And you who know—all parties——If I said anything to my brother, it might make a breach. There is no one I could speak to but you. I should have had to suffer helplessly, to hold my peace."

"Believe me—believe me," cried John, "all that a brother can do, I will do."

In the midst of this misery, which he felt to the bottom of his heart, there ran through him a secret stir of pleasure. Her brother!—the suggestion went through all his veins. Strange encounter of the dream with the fact! The cold trembling hand he held in his gave him a thrill of warmth and happiness, and yet his sympathy was as strong, his pity as profound, as one human creature ever felt for another. He stood still and watched her as she flitted back to the house, like a shadow in the gathering darkness. His heart ached, yet beat high. If it should ever be so, how different would be the fate of the other daughter of Lindores's!—how he would guard her from every vexation, smooth every step of her way, strew it with flowers and sweetnesses! He resumed his way more quickly than ever, hastening along in the soft darkness which yet was not dark, by the Scaur—the short cut which had alarmed his groom. To the pedestrian the way by the Scaur was the best way. He paused a moment when he reached it, to look out through the opening in the trees over the broad country, lying like a dream in that mystical paleness which was neither night nor day. Underneath, the river rushed joyously, noisily, through the night—not still, like a Southern stream, but dashing over the stones, and whirling its white eddies in foam against the bank. The sound of the water accompanied the quick current of his thoughts. He had a long walk before him, having come without preparation and left in haste and displeasure. But seven or eight miles of country road in a night of June is no such punishment. And the thoughts that had been roused in him, made the way short. How different—how different would be the fate of that other daughter of Lindores's! It was only when he reached his own gate that he woke up with a start to remember indeed how different it would be. The bare little white house, with its little plantation, its clump of firs on the hill-top, its scanty avenue—the little estate, which could almost be said, with scornful exaggeration, to lie within the park of Tinto—the position of a small squire's wife,—was it likely that Lord Lindores would smile upon that for his daughter? John's heart, which had been so buoyant, sank down into the depths. He began to see that his dream was ridiculous, his elation absurd. He to be the brother, in that sweetest way, of Carry Lindores! But nevertheless he vowed, as he went home somewhat crestfallen, that he would be a brother to her. She had given him her confidence, and he had given her his promise, and with this bond no worldly prudence nor rule of probabilities should be allowed to interfere.

CHAPTER XIX.

John Erskine woke with the singing of the birds on the morning of Midsummer-day. It was early—far before any civilised hour of waking. When he suddenly opened his eyes in the sweet strangeness of that unearthly moment, the sensation came back to his mind of childish wakings in summer mornings long departed; of getting up in the unutterable stillness with the sense of being the first adventurer into an unknown world; of stealing down-stairs through the silent visionary house all full of unseen sleepers, like ghosts behind the closed doors; of finding, with heart beating and little hands trembling, half with alarm, half with delight, the bolt low down on some easily opened door; and of stepping out into the sweet dews, into the ineffable glory of sunshine in which there was no shadow but that little one which was his own. Nobody alive, nobody awake, except that riot of the birds in every tree which wounded the ideal sense of unearthly calm, yet gave a consolatory consciousness of life and motion in the strange quiet, though a life incomprehensible, a language unknown. Strange that this was the first recollection brought to him in his waking—for the next was very different. The next was a confused sweet tumult in the air, a sound in his ears, an echo in his heart: "They are coming, they are coming!" He could not feel sure that somewhere or other in the words there were not joy-bells ringing—a tinkle of chimes, now rising, now falling, "as if a door were shut between us and the sound." "They are coming," everything seemed to say. The air of the morning blowing in by the open window puffed it at him with playful sweetness. The birds sang it, the trees shaped their rustlings to the words, "They are coming."

Well, it was perfectly true. The Earl and Countess of Lindores, and their daughter, Lady Edith Lindores, and perhaps their son Lord Rintoul, and it might be other noble persons in their train, were certainly expected to arrive that day; but what was that to John Erskine of Dalrulzian, a country gentleman of the most moderate pretensions, with nothing about him above mediocrity, and no claim to any part or share in the life led by these great people? For the moment John did not ask himself that question. He only felt after this long interval of solitude and abandonment that they were coming back. He had been as it were shipwrecked in this country with which he was so little acquainted, though it was his own country: and the time of their absence had appeared very long to him. He said to himself their absence—but it will be understood that the absence of Lord Lindores, for example, had very little importance to the young man. He would not have been deeply concerned if that nobleman had been induced to serve his country and his party in any other sphere. But it was safer, easier to say their, and to make to himself a little picture of the reopening of the house, the feeling of population and warmth that would breathe about it, the chance even of meeting any day or hour smiles and pleasant looks on the very road, and a sense of society in the atmosphere. He tried to persuade himself that this was what he was thinking of, or rather he refused to enter into any analysis of his feelings at all, and allowed his mind to float upon a vague and delightful current of anticipations, which he preferred not to examine too closely, or put into any certain and definite form.

John had not seen either Lady Caroline or her husband since that unlucky evening. When he returned home and took out once more Beaufort's letter, it seemed to him that he could now read between the lines enough to have enlightened him as to the real state of affairs. Why should Beaufort hesitate to accept Lord Lindores's invitation, and ask to be received into a much humbler house, if there had been no stringent reason for such a preference? Beaufort had been very cautious in the wording of his letter. He said that it was entirely uncertain whether he could make up his mind to come at all; whether, indeed, in the circumstances he ought to come. He explained the position in which he stood to Lord Millefleurs,—not his tutor, which would have been ridiculous, but his friend, to whom, to please his father, the young man paid a certain deference. The control which he thus exercised was merely nominal, Beaufort added, and quite unnecessary, since nobody could be more capable of taking care of himself than Millefleurs; but it was a satisfaction to the Duke—and as his future prospects depended upon the Duke's favour, Beaufort did not need to point out to his friend the expediency on his part of doing what that potentate required. He was unwilling to relinquish all these prospects, and the permanent appointment which he could confidently expect from the Duke's favour: but still, at the same time, there were reasons which might make him do so, and he was not at all sure that it would not be better to make this sacrifice than to intrude himself where he was not wanted in the capacity of attendant on Lord Millefleurs. Thus, he explained elaborately twice over, his coming at all was quite uncertain; but if he did decide to come, it would be an advantage and ease to him in every way, to be sure of a pied-à-terre in his friend's house, instead of being forced to thrust himself into a party where his presence was only invited as an appendage to his charge. It had occurred to John to wonder why there was so much hesitation in Beaufort's mind as to an ordinary visit; but he had accepted it, as a susceptibility natural enough to such a mind—with perhaps a little inconvenient recollection of those far-past days in which he had been admitted so entirely into the intimacy of the family, which it was possible enough he might dislike to visit on another standing. But now he saw what was the true meaning of the anxious, cautious letter. Beaufort's object had been to ascertain from him how the circumstances stood; whether he ought or ought not to show himself among people who once held to him such very different relations. The light of poor Carry's haggard face threw illumination upon the whole matter. And what was he to reply?

It might give the reader but a poor idea of John's intellect if I were to tell how long it took him to concoct his reply. Never had a task so difficult fallen into his hands. It was not his part to betray Carry's alarm and distress, or her husband's fierce and vindictive gratification in this new way of humbling her. He assured Beaufort diplomatically that Dalrulzian was at his entire command then and always, but owned that he saw all the difficulties of the position, and felt that his friend had a delicate part to play. To appear as bear-leader to Millefleurs among people who had known him in different circumstances would of itself be disagreeable, and all the more that the position was nominal, and he had in reality nothing to do. John had known Millefleurs at Eton, where he was always the drollest little beggar, but quite able to take care of himself. It was too funny to find him cropping up again. "But to waste such talents as yours," he cried, with the greatest sincerity, "looking after Millefleurs!" The Duke ought indeed to show his gratitude for such self-abnegation. Thus John went on for a page or two, allowing it to be seen that he thought the position undesirable, and that he did not encourage Beaufort's appearance in it. "Of course you know beforehand that my house is yours in all circumstances," he repeated—"that goes without saying;" but even this was so put that it seemed to say, not "come," but "stay away." It was not a pleasant office to John. To be inhospitable, to shut his doors upon a friend, was unspeakably painful to him. It was something of which he had thought that he never could be guilty. He longed to modify this coldness by some explanation of what he meant, but he dared not. He had promised to be a brother to Carry, and was it possible that he should betray her? It seemed to him that he was betraying Beaufort instead, who was more to him than Carry had ever been—pretending to open his doors to him with one hand while he closed them with another. In such circumstances a letter is very hard to write. Two or three copies of it were written before one was produced good enough to be sent. At last he put together the best version of his plea which he could accomplish, and sent it off, very doubtfully. He might be losing his friend. Beaufort could not fail to see the want of welcome in it, and he could not be sure that it would save Carry after all.

All this had passed some time before the day of the return, and John was convinced at heart that the purpose of his letter had been accomplished; that Beaufort had understood him, and intended rather to sacrifice his prospects than to make his appearance in a false position. John was satisfied, and yet he was wounded to think that he had been the means of wounding his friend. This, however, and all connected with it—all the painful part of his life and of theirs, so far as he was acquainted with it—passed out of his mind in the excitement and elation of the consciousness that this day he should see "them" again. John spent the morning in a kind of suppressed ecstasy, altogether out of reason. He did not even ask himself what their return was to him. What it was to him! a change of heaven and earth, a filling up of the veins of life and quickening of every faculty. He did all he had to do in the morning, with the consciousness of this coming event running through everything, filling up every moment with that altogether foolish elation and rapture. For this it was: a kind of subtle penetration of every thought by something which was nothing—by an air, a breath, as from the celestial fields. They were to arrive about three o'clock, and John's foolish ecstasy lasted till about the moment when, if he were going to meet them, it was time to set off for the station. He had taken his hat in his hand, with a vague smile about the corners of his mouth, a light in his eyes, and was just about to step forth for this happy purpose, when there suddenly struck him, like a blow, this question,—"What right have you to go to meet them?" He was so entirely taken aback by it, that he retreated a step as if some one in actual bodily presence had put the question to him, and opposed his exit. He gazed round him once, appalled, to see where it came from; but, alas! it came from nowhere,—from a monitor more intimate than any intruder could be—from his own judgment, which seemed to have been lying dormant while his imagination and heart were at work. What right had he to go to meet them? Was he a relative, a retainer, a member of the family in any way? What was he to the Lindores, or they to him? Everything, but nothing: a neighbour in the county, a friend that they were so good as to be very kind to; but this gave him nothing as a right,—only the position of gratitude—no more.

He stood in a confusion of doubt and pain for ten minutes in his own hall. There seemed an invisible barrier before his feet, something which prevented him from moving. His smile turned to a sort of deprecating, appealing gaze—to whom? to nobody—to himself; for was it not indeed he, and only he, that stopped his own steps? At last he stepped out boldly, flinging scruples to the winds. Why should he say to any one, even himself, that he was going to meet them? Nobody could prevent him walking along the highroad where everybody walked; and if they came that way, and he by chance encountered them?—The smile returned to John's mouth, lurking behind his soft, young, silky moustache. In that case it would be ludicrous to think that there could be anything wrong. Saying which to himself he hurried down the avenue, feeling that the ten minutes' delay was enough to have made him late. He walked on quickly, like a man with a serious object, his heart beating, his pulse going at full speed. For a long way off he watched a white plume of steam floating across the landscape. He could see it creeping along for miles, stopping now and then, taking little runs as if to amuse itself. No, that was not the train, but only one of those stray locomotives which torment expectant spectators by wandering wildly up and down like spirits of mischief. Before he reached the station, Lady Caroline's carriage drove past, and she bent forward to smile and wave her hand to John. But this encouraging gesture brought back all his personal doubts: she was going by right of nature. And even Torrance had a right to come, though he had no affection for any of them, nor they for him. Once more John lingered and delayed. He knew very well they would be pleased to see him, and if an extreme desire to see them and welcome them justified his going, then surely he had that right. But the Earl would look politely surprised; and Rintoul, if Rintoul was there, would look broadly at him with that stony British stare which petrifies an intruder. John did not at all like the idea of Rintoul. If there is a natural sense of opposition (as people say) between women who may be considered rival beauties, the sentiment is so natural a one that it is shared by that sex which is so much the nobler; and as a woman sees through a woman's wiles, so does a man see through the instincts of another man. John felt that Rintoul would see through him—that he would set up an instant opposition and hostility—that he would let him perceive that where Edith was, a small country squire, a little Scotch laird, had no business to push himself in. Rintoul, when John knew him, had been an innocent little lieutenant—as innocent as a lieutenant could be expected to be; yet he knew very well by instinct that this was what was to be expected from him. And what if he were there to change the character of the group?

John's pace slackened at the thought. From the moment when Lady Caroline's carriage passed him he went slower and slower—still, indeed, turning his face towards the station, but almost hoping that the train would arrive before he did. However, country trains are not of that expeditious character. They do not anticipate the hour, nor the appearance of those who are coming to meet them. When he reached the entrance of the station it was not yet in sight, and he had no further excuse for dallying. But he did not go in. He walked up behind to a spot where he could see without being seen, and there waited, with a sense of humiliation, yet eagerness. It was a very undignified position. If he meant to meet them, he should have done it openly: if he did not intend to do so, he ought to have gone away. But John did neither: he watched them coming with his heart in his mouth; but he did not go forward to greet them when they came. He saw them get out of the carriage one by one. He saw the hurried embrace and greeting of Lady Car to her mother and sister. Then there could not be any doubt about it. Edith gave a searching glance all about, sweeping the highway with her glance both up and down. She was looking for some one. Who was it? Something of the elation of the morning came back into his mind. For whom was she looking? She even stood for a moment shading her eyes with her hand before she followed her mother to the carriage, to cast another glance round her. Could it be that she was looking for—oh, never mind who she was looking for, John cried to himself, springing over a wall or two, and speeding along by all the turns he could think of, till he reached a point of the road where he turned and came quickly back. He had resolution enough to forego the greeting at that first moment of arrival; but the chance of still seeing them, and thus saving both his pride and his pleasure, seduced him from all higher thoughts of self-abnegation. He walked on slowly, but with his heart beating, and at length heard the roll of the wheels coming towards him, the sound of voices in the air. The family were all together in one carriage, all joyful and beaming in the reunion. Even Lady Car's pale face was lighted with smiles; and Lord Lindores, if he did not take much part in the family talk, did not frown upon it. The coachman drew up of himself as John appeared, and Lady Lindores called to him almost before the carriage stopped. "Late, Mr Erskine, late!" she cried. "Carry told us you were coming to meet us." John was half wounded, half consoled by the accusation; he could not hear himself blamed without an impulse of self-defence. "Indeed I was not late; I saw you arrive; but I thought—you might think—it seemed presumptuous to thrust myself in." "Why, here is chivalry!" said Lady Lindores with a smile, giving him her hand. And then the flutter of conversation was resumed, one voice interrupting another, putting questions to which there was no answer, and making statements to which nobody paid any attention. John stood and nodded and smiled by the side of the carriage for a minute or two. And then that moving little world of expressive faces, of hasty words, understood à demi-mot, of hearts so closely united, yet so different, swept past him again with ringing of the horses' hoofs and jingle of the harness, and lively murmur of the voices. It swept past, and John was left,—why, just as he had been before—just as he knew he would be left,—out of it—altogether out of it! as he knew very well he should be. He walked along the way he had been going, away from his own house, away from anywhere that he could possibly want to go, plodding very silently and solemnly along, as if he had some serious purpose, but meaning nothing—thinking of nothing. What a fool he was! Had he even for a moment expected to be taken away with them, to follow them up to Lindores, to be admitted into all their first talk and confidence? Not he: he had known well enough that his place was outside,—that a roadside greeting, a genial smile, a kindly hand held out, was all the share he could have in the pleasure of the homecoming. Nothing more—what could there be more? He knew all that as well as he knew anything. Why then was he such an idiot as to walk on mile after mile he did not know where, with his head down, and the most deadly seriousness depicted on his countenance? At length he burst into a sudden short laugh, and turning back went home slowly. Never had his house looked so dreary, so secluded, so shut in before. He went in and ate his dinner humbly, without a word (so people say) to throw at a dog. He had been quite aware that he was to dine alone; he knew exactly the dimensions of the room, the shabby air of the old furniture, the lowness of the roof,—why then should he have been so depressed by all these familiar objects? There was nothing at all to account for it, except that event which had filled him with such delightful anticipations, and brightened earth and heaven to him this morning. They were coming home. They had come home. This, which was enough to change the very temperature, and turn earth into heaven, was now the cause of a depth of moral depression which seemed to cloud the very skies; and this without any unkindness, any offence, anything that he had not fully expected, and been certain would happen. But human nature is very fantastic, and so it was.

"You would hear, sir," said old Rolls, "that my lord and her ladyship, they've come home."

"Oh yes; I have just met them; all very well and very bright," said John, trying to assume an air of satisfaction. What he did succeed in putting on was a look of jaunty and defiant discontent.

"They would naturally be bright coming out of that weary London to their own place," said Rolls, with grave approbation. And then he added, after a pause, "You'll be thinking now, sir, of making some return of a' the ceevilities that's been shown you."

"Making a return!" this was a new idea to John. He looked up at the Mentor who condescended to wait upon him, with alarm and almost awe. "To be sure—you are quite right, Rolls," he said, with humility; "I wonder I did not think of it before. But can we?" John looked round ruefully at his old walls.

"Can we?" cried Rolls in high disdain. "You neither ken me, nor Bauby, nor yet yourself, to ask such a question. If we can! That can we! If you'll take my advice, ye'll include a' classes, sir. Ye'll have the elders to their denner; and the youngsters, ye'll give a ball to them."

"A ball!" cried John, opening his eyes. The boldness of the suggestion, the determined air with which Rolls faced his master, setting down his foot as one who was ready to face all dangers for the carrying out of a great design, touched the humorous sense in the young man's mind. He laughed, forgetting the previous burden of his desolation. "But how to give a ball, Rolls," he said, "in this small house?"

"I ask your pardon, sir," said Rolls, gravely. "In the light o' Tinto, maybe it's a small house; but Tinto never was a popular place. Oh ay, there were balls there, when he was a Seeker himsel'—I'm meaning when he was looking out for a wife, before he married her ladyship, poor thing! But this is not a small house if ye consider the other houses, where everything that's lightsome goes on. And it's you that's the Seeker now. You're wanting a leddy yoursel',—that stands to reason."

Here John felt that he ought to be angry, and shut the mouth of so inappropriate a counsellor. But Rolls had no sense of his own inappropriateness. He went on calmly, notwithstanding the laugh and exclamation with which his master interrupted him.

"That's aye an attraction," said the old servant. "I'm not saying, sir, though I think far more of you in a moral point of view—that ye're the equal of Tinto as a worldly question. Na, we must keep a hold of reason. Ye're no' a grand catch like the like o' him. But ye're far better; ye're a son-in-law any gentleman in the country-side might be proud o'; and any lady, which is far mair important——"

"Come, Rolls, no more of this," cried John. "A joke is a joke; but you know you are going too far."

"Me joking! I'm most serious in earnest, sir, if you'll believe me. I served the house before you were born. I was here when your father brought his wife home. Na, I'm not joking. I'm thinking what's best for my maister and the credit of the house. The haill county will come; and if ye think we're not enough to wait upon them, there's Andrew will put on his blacks; and that sma' groom of yours—I would have likit him bigger—is a smart lad, though he's little. The three of us will do fine. I would recommend a denner, say the Wednesday. I'm fond of the middle of the week, no' too near the Sabbath-day, neither one side nor the other. The denner on Wednesday; and syne on Thursday night the ball. There would be cauld things left that would eke out the supper, and it would all be like one expense. The fiddlers you could have from Dundee, or even Edinburgh. And the eatables—there would be no difficulty about that. We mostly have them within ourselves. Chickens is aye the staple at a supper. And I make bold to say, sir, though she is my sister, that there's no person can tell what Bauby Rolls is capable of till they've seen her try."

"Rolls," cried John, "you're ideas are too magnificent; you take away my breath."

"No' a bit, sir; no' a bit," said Rolls, encouragingly; "if ye'll leave it to me, I'll take all the trouble. We have always said—Bauby and me—that if we were just left to ourselves—You will make out the list, sir, and settle the day, and send the invitations; and if I might advise, I would say to consult with Miss Barbara, who naturally would come over for the occasion, as being your next friend, and take the place of the mistress; and to send for some of your friends (I would recommend officers for choice) would not be a bad thing; for young men are aye scarce in the country, mair especially at this time of the year. We could put up half-a-dozen," Rolls proceeded, "and trouble nobody; and that would be a great help if they were good dancers, and fine lads—which I make no doubt, sir," he added, with a little inclination of his head, "friends o' yours would be."

This unexpected new idea was of great service to John in the dreariness of the long summer evening. He laughed loud and long, and was infinitely tickled by the gravity of the project in which Rolls saw no laughing matter; but when he strolled listlessly along the Walk in the long, long, endless light, with no better companion than a cigar, with wistful eyes which sought the clear wistful horizon far away, and thoughts that seemed to fill the whole wide atmosphere with an unreal yet unconquerable sadness, the idea of making this silence gay, and seeing her here who had come home, who had changed the world, but not for him; but who yet for him—who could tell?—might still turn earth into heaven,—seized upon him with a curious charm. A ball at Dalrulzian would not be a very magnificent entertainment, nor was there anything very elevated or poetical in the idea. But there are certain conditions of mind and moments of life in which that vague terrestrial paradise which belongs to youth is always very close at hand, and ready to descend by the humblest means, by almost any machinery, out of the skies, making of the commonest territory enchanted ground.

CHAPTER XX.

They were very glad to see him,—very kind to him—impossible to be kinder; ready to enter into all their experiences of town, and to find out who were the people he knew among their friends, and to discuss all their amusements and occupations. Perhaps the fact that there were few people with whom they could discuss these proceedings had something to do with it; for the county in general went little to town, and was jealous and easily offended by the superior privileges of others. But this was a cynical view to take of the friendly effusion of the ladies when John paid them the visit which he thought he had timed religiously, so as neither to be too early, as presuming on the intimacy they had accorded him, nor too late, as showing any indifference to it. No such calculation was in the cordial greeting he received from Lady Lindores. "You are a great deal too timid, Mr Erskine," she said. "No, it is not a fault for a young man,—but you know what I mean. You would not come to meet us though you were there, and you have let two days pass without coming to see us. Fie! As your aunt Barbara says, you should have more confidence in your friends."

Was it possible to be more encouraging, more delightful than this? and then they plunged into the inevitable personalities which are so offensive to outsiders, but which people with any mutual knowledge of a certain restricted society are scarcely able to refrain from. "You know the Setons. There have been great changes among them. Two of the girls are married. To whom? Well, I scarcely remember. Yes, to be sure. Sir Percy Faraway married the eldest, and they went off to California on their wedding-trip. And Charley is with his regiment at Cabul. Old Lady Seton, the grandmother—you know that delightful old lady—is——" and so on, and so on. The county people thought, with strong disapproval, that for intelligent people like the Lindores, who gave themselves airs on this score, it was both frivolous and derogatory to talk so much about individuals; but John, who knew the individuals, was not so critical.

"Rintoul has come with us," said Lady Lindores. "He has paused on the way to pay a little visit; but we expect him this evening. He will stay only a very short time; but he is coming back again in August, when the house will be full."

John made a little bow, and no reply. He did not care for the intelligence. Rintoul, he felt instinctively, would be no friend to him. And in the little contrariety produced by this, he, too, brought forth his piece of news. "I heard of one of your visitors—Lord Millefleurs. He was my fag at Eton, and the drollest little fellow. How has he grown up? I have not seen him since the Eton days."

"He is droll still—like a little fat robin-redbreast," said Edith, with a laugh.

Lady Lindores checked her daughter with a look. "He is—odd," she said, "but very original and—entertaining." She had begun in her heart to feel that something was worth sacrificing to the chance of seeing Edith a duchess. "They say he has been a kind of prodigal—but a very virtuous one,—wandering over the world to see life, as he calls it—a very different thing from what many of you young men call life, Mr Erskine."

John felt nettled, he did not quite know why. "I am glad to know Millefleurs has become so interesting," he said. "The only thing that now gives him interest to me is that I hear Beaufort—you will perhaps recollect Beaufort, Lady Lindores——"

The two ladies started a little, then gave each other a mutually warning look. "Indeed I remember Mr Beaufort very well," said Lady Lindores, shaking her head,—"very well. We have seen him—seen a good deal of him lately. He is perhaps coming here."

"But we hope not," said Edith, under her breath.

"Edith, you must not say anything so unkind."

"Oh, mamma, what is the use of pretending to Mr Erskine? either he knows already, or he will be sure to find it out."

"There is nothing to find out," said Lady Lindores, hastily; and then her countenance melted, and she turned to John, holding out her hand. "You are an old friend—and I am sure you are a true friend, Mr Erskine."

"I am sure I am true," he said.

"Yes, I know it—I know it! Mr Erskine, there was—something between Carry and Mr Beaufort. You guessed it even if you did not know? But afterwards it became impossible. Her father objected—as he had a good right to object. And now you know everything is changed. We women, who take all these things so much to heart—we don't want Mr Beaufort to come here. We think it might be painful. Lord Lindores, who probably has never given the subject another thought, has invited him to come with Lord Millefleurs. You know he is acting as a sort of—best friend to Lord Millefleurs."

"I must tell you now on my side that I have heard from Beaufort," said John. "He wrote to me asking to come to Dalrulzian, if it was decided that he should come North at all. I answered him that I did not think he had better come. Pardon me, there was no betrayal. He did not explain—nor did I explain. I could not; it was a mere—intuition with me. I can scarcely tell even what induced me to do it. I thought he would find everything so different, and get no pleasure out of it. I told him he might come to Dalrulzian whenever he liked; but I think I showed him that it would be better not to do so. So that is all I know of it, Lady Lindores."

She looked somewhat anxiously in his face. Was that all he knew? Edith, who had been a keen spectator of the latter part of this conversation, shook her head slightly, with a faint incredulous smile; but Lady Lindores saw no reason to doubt him. She answered with a little excitement and agitation. "You were quite right, Mr Erskine—no pleasure, especially to him. He could not but feel the difference, indeed. Thanks for your kind and sensible advice to him. I hope he will take it. Naturally we had a delicacy——" And here she looked again at her daughter, who made no reply. Edith had in some points more insight than her mother, and she had been reading John's meaning in his looks, while his other listener considered his words only. Edith thought enough had been made of Beaufort. She changed the immediate subject with a laugh, which provoked Lady Lindores.

"Will Lord Millefleurs," she said, "be permitted, do you think, mother, to come by himself? Is it safe to allow him to run about by himself? He is a dangerous little person, and one never knows what is the next wild thing he may do."

"You are speaking very disrespectfully of Lord Millefleurs," said Lady Lindores, provoked.

"I never intended to be respectful." Edith said. But her mother was really annoyed, and put a summary conclusion to the talk. She was angry because her daughter's opinions had not changed, as her own, all imperceptibly and within herself, had done. Lady Lindores had gone through a great deal on account of the little Marquis, whom she had persisted so long in thinking a nice boy. Rintoul's sermons had become almost beyond endurance before they left London, and even her husband had intimated to her that she was treating a very important suitor far too lightly. It is hard for a sympathetic woman to remain uninfluenced, even when she disapproves of them, by the sentiments expressed around her. Millefleurs had become of additional importance in her eyes unconsciously, unwillingly almost, with every word that was said. And when she had no longer his plump little figure before her eyes—when he was left behind, and his amusing personal peculiarities were veiled over by distance—she ceased to have the relief of that laugh which had always hitherto delivered her from too grave a consideration of this subject. The idea of paying court to any man (much less a fat boy!), in order to secure him as a husband for Edith, was revolting to her mind; but worried and troubled as she was on the subject, Lady Lindores fell, first, into the snare of feeling, with relief, that to escape from further persecution of the same kind was an advantage worth a sacrifice; and second, that Millefleurs, if he was fat, was good and true, and that to be a duchess was something when all that could be said was said against it. For, to be sure, the season in town had its influences, and she was more susceptible to the attractions of greatness, wealth, and high title before it than after. Indeed he was not the husband she would have desired for her child; and she wanted—imprudent woman!—no husband at all for her child, who was the chief consolation left to her in the world. Still, if Edith must marry, as Rintoul said—if she must marry to increase the family importance and influence, which was what Lord Lindores had insisted upon in respect to that pitiful sacrifice at Tinto—why then, influence, wealth, greatness, everything, were united in the little person of Millefleurs, who was, besides, a very nice boy, and amused Edith, and would never harm any woman. This was the conclusion to which a thousand harassing lectures and remonstrances had brought her. She had not said a word of the change, which had worked imperceptibly, and chiefly in the long sleepless night of the railway journey, to Edith; and yet, with natural inconsistency, she was vexed and annoyed that Edith should still laugh, as they had so often laughed together, at little Millefleurs. And both Edith and John, though his suspicions were not yet aroused on this subject, felt the keenness of irritation and vexed dissatisfaction in her tone. He withdrew soon after—for even the merest insinuation of a family jar is painful to an outsider—but not before Lord Lindores had come in, with much friendliness, to beg him to come back to dinner, and engage his immediate aid in the scheme which had already brought our young man some trouble. "I want you to meet Rintoul," said the Earl. "I want you both to make your appearance at Dunearn next week at the county meeting. I am going to produce those plans I spoke to you about, and I hope to move them to some definite step. We shall have a strong opposition, and the more support I can calculate on the better. Rintoul has no gift of speech; he'll say his say in his solid, straightforward, positive sort of manner. But the Scotch are proud of good speaking. I don't know what your gifts may be in that way."

"Oh, nil," said John.

"If you were a Frenchman, I should take you at your word; but in England there's no telling. A young man has but one formula. If he is a natural orator, he gives just the same answer as if he can't put two words together. That is what we call our national modesty. I wish for the moment you were as vain as a Frenchman, Erskine—then I should know the facts of the case. I daresay you speak very well—you have the looks of it; and it will be a great thing for me if you will second and stand by Rintoul. If he muddles his statement—which is quite likely, for the boy is as ignorant as a pig—you must set him right, and laugh a little at the defects of English education: that pleases a Scotch audience."

"I think," said Lady Lindores, "that you are putting a great deal upon Mr Erskine."

"Am I?" said her husband; "but it is in a good cause."

Perhaps this was too lightly said. John took his leave with a half-mortified, half-humorous consciousness that he was to have about the person of this young nobleman something like the same post enjoyed by Beaufort in respect to Millefleurs, but with neither present emolument nor prospect of promotion. And he felt sure that he should not like the fellow, John said to himself. Nevertheless seven o'clock (they kept early hours in the country) saw him walking lightly, as no man ever walked to a disagreeable appointment, towards the Castle. Impossible to thread those shrubberies, to cross those lawns, without a rising of the heart. "Doors where my heart was wont to beat." Nowhere else in the world did he hasten with the same step, did he feel the very neighbourhood of the place affect his pulses in the same way. It was the home to which his thoughts went before him, imagining many happinesses which perhaps did not come, but which always might come—which lived there, to be tasted one time or another. This occupation with the affairs of Lindores, with the new-comer, and the Earl's schemes, and so many secondary subjects, prevented him from entering into the questions which had so deeply discouraged him on the night of their return. He did not ask himself what he had to expect, what he had to do with them. He had a great deal to do with them in the meantime, and that by their own desire.

But John's instinct had not been at fault in respect to Rintoul. They met as a gamekeeper and poacher might meet, if persons of these classes had an indifferent meeting-ground in polite society, like their masters. A mutual scrutiny and suspicion were in their eyes. John, the more generous of the two, made up his mind to nothing save an instinctive hostility to the heir of the house, and a conviction that Rintoul would stand in his way, though he scarcely knew how. But Rintoul, on his side, being what his mother called positive and practical in the highest degree, had no hesitation whatever in deciding upon John's meaning and motives. They were each so much preoccupied in this hostile sense with each other, that Lord Lindores's exhortations after dinner, as to the part he expected both to play, were received with small appreciation. Rintoul yawned visibly, and asked his father whether it was in reason to expect a fellow to plunge into business the moment he got home. John's natural desire to say something conciliatory to the father thus contradicted by his son, which is the instinct of every spectator, was strengthened by his opposition to the special son in question; but even he could not cast off his personality enough to embrace an abstract subject at such a moment: and the two young men escaped, by the only mutual impulse they seemed likely to feel, to the ladies, leaving Lord Lindores to take his share of the vexation and disappointment which visit most mortals impartially in their time. The ladies were out upon the lawn, which lay under the windows of the drawing-room, and from which, as from most places in the neighbourhood, a wide expanse of landscape, culminating in the house of Tinto with its red flag, was visible. The house of Tinto was to the Lindores family that culminating-point of human care, the one evil that heightens all others, which is almost invariable in family experiences. Here their one prevailing pain, the one trouble that would not allow itself to be forgotten; and sometimes they felt the very sight of the scene to be intolerable. But quiet was in the air of the lingering endless night, so sweet, so unearthly, so long continued, making the hours like days.

"Ah, to be sure, that's Tinto," said Rintoul; "what a fine place it is, to be sure! Carry ought to be proud of such a place. And how do all the squires and squireens—or the lairds, I suppose I should say, for local colour,—how do they like his red flag? There ought to be plenty of hatred and malice on that score."

"Nobody hates or bears malice to our Carry, that I can hear of," said his mother, with a reproving glance. Her eye caught that of John, and she blushed almost violently—for was not he the representative of the squires and squireens?

"But Torrance and Carry are one flesh," said Rintoul.

"I ought to speak on the subject, as I am the only representative of the accused," said John, with an attempt at a lighter tone; but it was not very successful, and there was a sense of possible commotion in the air, like the approach of a thunderstorm, which the women were far too sensitive not to feel—and they threw themselves into the breach, as was natural. When John took his leave, as the lingering daylight still lasted, they strolled with him through the shrubberies, accompanying him towards the gate. It was Lady Lindores herself who took the initiative in this, as her son thought, extraordinary condescension. Rintoul followed, keeping his sister walking by his side, with indignant surprise painted all over him. "Do you mean to say you do this every time that fellow is here?" he asked, wrathfully. "We have never been out of doors before when Mr Erskine has gone away," cried Edith, equally angry, in self-defence. Meanwhile the voices of the others, who were in advance, went on peacefully: they talked, unconscious of criticism, while the brother and sister listened. John had begun to tell Lady Lindores of the entertainments he meant to give. He avowed that they had been planned by Rolls, though his first intention had been to keep this fact to himself; but the humour of it overcame him. He could not refrain from communicating so amusing a circumstance to the kind woman, who never misunderstood, and who received all his confidences with maternal pleasure. He was pleased to hear her laugh, and not displeased to lay open the condition of his household to her, and the humours of the old servants, in whose hands he was still a boy. "It is, don't you think, a judicious despotism on the whole?" he said. The sound of her laugh was delightful in his ears, even though a more sensitive narrator might have thought the laugh to be directed against himself.

"It is a delightful despotism," said Lady Lindores; "and as we shall benefit by it in the present case, I entirely approve of Rolls. But I think, perhaps, if I were you, I would not unfold the whole matter to Miss Barbara. Your aunt is born a great lady, Mr Erskine. She might take it as quite right and within the duty of an old retainer; but again, she might take a different view. For my part, I entirely approve. It is exactly the right thing to do."

"You are always so kind," said John, gratefully; "and perhaps you will advise me in matters that are beyond my prime minister's sphere."

"Rolls and I!" she said, laughing; "it is not often a young man has such a pair of counsellors." Her laugh was so fresh and genuine that it sounded like the laugh of youth. Her children behind her had their curiosity greatly excited: Edith with a little wonder, to think what John could be saying to amuse her mother so much; Rintoul with high indignation, to see in what favour this country neighbour was held.

"What does my mother mean?" he said, grumbling in Edith's ear. "She will turn that fellow's head. I never knew anything so out of place. One would think, to see you with him, that he was—why, your dearest friend, your,—I don't know what to say."

"Perhaps you had better not say anything, in case it should be something disagreeable," said Edith, with a sudden flush of colour. "Mr Erskine is our nearest neighbour—and I hope my mother, at least, does not want any guidance from you."

"Oh, doesn't she, though!" murmured Rintoul in his moustache. To his own consciousness his mother was the member of his family who stood the most in need of his guidance. He thought her the most imprudent woman he had ever come across, paying no attention to her children's prospects. They went on thus till they came to the gate, where the Countess of Lindores was actually to be seen by the woman at the lodge, or by any passing wayfarer, in her dinner-dress, with nothing but a lace cap on her head—and Edith, in her white robes and shining hair—saying good-bye to this rustic neighbour, this insidious squire! Rintoul could not for some time relieve his soul as he wished. He was compelled to shake hands too, in a surly way; and it was not till Edith had left them that he permitted himself to make, as he said, a few remarks to his mother. She was lingering outside, for it was still daylight though it was night.

"Mother," said Rintoul, solemnly, "I see it's all exactly as I feared. You have let that fellow Erskine get to be a sort of tame cat about the house."

"After?" said his mother, with a smile.

"After! well, that's as you choose. But of this you may be sure, mother, my father won't stand it. It will only make trouble in the house. He won't let Edith throw herself away. You had better put a stop to it while you are able. I suspected it from the first moment I knew that Erskine was here."

"You are very wise, Rintoul," said his mother, with grieved displeasure, all the pain and disenchantment which she had managed to put aside and forget coming back into her troubled eyes.

"I don't know if I'm very wise; but I know something of the world," said the son, who was so much better instructed than she was; "and I know, when one has charge of a girl, one oughtn't to allow her to throw herself away."

"Carry is supposed not to have thrown herself away," said the indignant mother, with a glance towards that centre of her saddest thoughts, the arrogant front and false battlements of Tinto, faintly gleaming like royal Windsor itself in the mists of distance. This was all in contradiction to the changed state of her mind towards Millefleurs and the gradual leaning towards a great marriage for Edith which had come over her. But we are never more hot in defence of our own side than when we have begun to veer towards the other; and Rintoul's lectures had been for a long time more than his mother could endure.

"No, Carry cannot be said to have thrown herself away," he said thoughtfully, stroking that moustache which looked so young, while its owner was so wise and politic. "Carry should remember," he said, after a pause, "that she's an individual, but the family comprises many people—heaps of her descendants will be grateful to her, you know. And if the fellow is unbearable, why, a woman has always got it in her own hands to make his life a burden to him. Why is she so absurdly domestic? They have quantities of money, and there are plenty of brutes in society to keep him in countenance. She ought to come to town and see people, and enjoy herself. What is the good of living like a cabbage here?"

"If you will persuade Carry to emancipate herself a little—to think of herself a little—I will forgive you all your worldly-mindedness," said his mother, with a smile.

"I will try," he said; "and as for my worldly-mindedness, as you call it, how is a fellow to get on in the world, I should like to know? It isn't by money I'll ever push my way. I must look out for other ways and means."

"Does that mean an heiress, Rintoul?"

His mother was half laughing, half serious. But there was no laughter in Rintoul's countenance. The corners of his mouth were drawn down. His eyes were as solemn as if the matter in question had been life or death.

"You may be sure I'll do my duty to the family, whether I like it or not," he said, with heroic gravity. "I don't mean to recommend other people to do what I'll not do myself."

But Rintoul sighed. He was heroic, indeed, but he was human. A breath of soft recollections came over him. He, too, had entertained other thoughts—he had allowed himself to be beguiled to gentler visions. But when the voice of duty bade, he felt that he had it in him to be superior to all weaknesses. Come an heiress of sufficient pretensions to be worthy of the son of Lindores, and he would buckle his manhood to him, and marry her without wincing. His duty he was at all times ready to do; but yet to the softer part of life, to the dreams of a youth unawakened to such stern purposes of heroism, he might yet be permitted to give a sigh.

John Erskine was the very opposite of this predestined martyr. He felt no weight of family responsibility upon him. All that he wished was—a good wish enough, if it had not been altogether beyond possibility of fulfilment—that the last lord of Lindores had lived to be a patriarch, and had been succeeded by his son in the course of nature. What a difference that would have made to everybody concerned! But our young man did all he could to keep definite plans and hopes out of his mind. He preferred to get the good of each day as it came. If he thought too much of them, he felt a dismal certainty that disappointments would follow. He preferred that his present existence should flow au jour le jour.

CHAPTER XXI.

When the news of the approaching festivities at Dalrulzian were known in Dunearn, Miss Barbara Erskine and her household were flung into a whirlpool of excitement such as had not disturbed their calm for more years than could be reckoned. There was, of course, no question as to the immediate acceptance by the old lady of her nephew's invitation to her to do the honours of his house. She was very much touched and pleased—with that satisfaction, above all, which is so sweet to a woman—of feeling that John was doing absolutely "the right thing" in placing her, his old aunt, at the head of affairs. It was a compliment to the family, to the old neighbours, as well as to herself. But it is not too much to say that from the scullery to the drawing-room her house was turned upside-down by this great event. Miss Barbara's first thought was, as was natural, that a great many things would be wanted. She went instantly to her "napery" closet,—Agnes, her old maid, attending her with the key,—and brought out stores of shining damask, milk-white and fragrant, every tablecloth with its pile of napkins, like a hen with chickens. "I never inquired into the napery at Dalrulzian," the old lady said; "but it would be a great temptation to a woman with a sma' family to take the use of it; and for anything I know, he may be in want of table-linen. Ye'll pack a boxful, Agnes, whether or no. There's the great table-cloths with the crown pattern, they are the biggest I have. Ye'll take them, and table-napkins. You may take ten or twelve dozen. They are always useful."

"And you'll take the best silver, mem," said Janet, for this was in her department. If it had been suggested to them that their best Paisley shawls, on which both Janet and Agnes set great store, would have been useful to cover the faded places on the carpet, these devoted women would have sacrificed their most cherished possessions. Miss Barbara's old epergnes and table ornaments, which, happily, were older and less solid than the camel and palm-trees at Tinto, were packed into a huge box, with all her available forks and spoons, and sent off in a cart before her to the scene of the entertainment. Then a still more important question arose as to the help that would be required to produce a dinner and a ball-supper worthy of the Erskine name. Miss Barbara put her trust in Janet, who had managed all her own household affairs for a great number of years. "I'll take ye both with me," she said to the two women, who made her comfort and credit the occupation of their lives, "and when ye consider what's at stake, you'll just put your hand to anything; and ye like a ploy, both of ye, and plenty of young faces about the house."

"Eh, but I do that," said Agnes; "and I would not wonder but Mr John's meaning to take a survey of all the misses, and him a wanter and a bonnie lad into the bargain. We'll maybe hear who it is to be."