HERIOT'S CHOICE

CHAPTER I

'SAY YES, MILLY'

'Man's importunity is God's opportunity.'

'O fair, O fine, O lot to be desired!
Early and late my heart appeals to me,
And says, "O work, O will—Thou man, be fired,
To earn this lot—" she says—"I would not be
A worker for mine own bread, or one hired
For mine own profit. O, I would be free
To work for others; love so earned of them
Should be my wages and my diadem."'—Jean Ingelow.

'Say yes, Milly.'

Three short words, and yet they went straight to Milly's heart. It was only the postscript of a long, sorrowful letter—the finale brief but eloquent—of a quiet, dispassionate appeal; but it sounded to Mildred Lambert much as the Macedonian cry must have sounded of old: 'Come over and help us.'

Mildred's soft, womanly nature was capable of only one response to such a demand. Assent was more than probable, and bordered on certainty, even before the letter was laid aside, and while her cheek was yet paling at the thought of new responsibilities and the vast unknown, wherein duty must tread on the heel of inclination, and life must press out thought and the worn-out furrows of intro- and retrospection.

And so it was that the page of a negative existence was turned; and Mildred agreed to become the inmate of her brother's home.

'Aunt Milly!' How pleasant it would be to hear that again, and to be in the centre of warm young life and breathless activity, after the torpor of long waiting and watching, and the hush and the blank and the drawn-out pain, intense yet scarcely felt, of the last seven years.

To begin life in its fulness at eight-and-twenty; to taste of its real sweets and bitters, after it had offered to her nothing but the pale brackish flavour of regret for a passing youth and wasted powers, responsive rather than suggestive (if there be such monstrous anomaly on the whole face of God's creation), nothing being wasted, and all pronounced good, that comes direct from the Divine Hand. To follow fresh tracks when the record of the years had left nothing but the traces of the chariot-wheels of daily monotonous duties that dragged heavily, when summer and winter and seed-time and harvest found Mildred still through those seven revolving courses of seasons within the walls of that quiet sickroom.

It is given to some women to look back on these long level blanks of life; on mysteries of waiting, that intervene between youth and work, when the world's noise comes dimly to them, like the tumult of city's streets through closed shutters; when pain and hardship seem preferable to their death-in-life, and they long to prove the armour that has grown rusted with disuse.

How many a volume could be written, and with profit, on the watchers as well as the workers of life, on the bystanders as well as the sufferers. 'Patient hearts their pain to see.' Well has this thought been embodied in the words of a nineteenth-century Christian poet; while to many a pallid malcontent, wearied with inaction and panting for strife, might the Divine words still be applied: 'Could ye not have watched with Me one hour?'

Mildred Lambert's life for eight-and-twenty years might be summed up in a few sentences. A happy youth, scarcely clouded by the remembrance of a dead father and the graves of the sisters that came between her infancy and the maturer age of her only brother; and then the blurred brightness when Arnold, who had married before he had taken orders, became the hard-working vicar of a remote Westmorland parish—and he and his wife and children passed out of Milly's daily life.

Milly was barely nineteen when this happened; but even then her mother—who had always been ailing—was threatened with a chronic complaint involving no ordinary suffering; and now began the long seven years' watching which faded Milly's youth and roses together.

Milly had never known how galling had been the strain to the nerves—how intense her own tenacity of will and purpose, till she had folded her mother's pale hands together; and with a lassitude too great for tears, felt as she crept away that her work was finished none too soon, and that even her firm young strength was deserting her.

Trouble had not come singly to Mildred. News of her sister-in-law's unexpected death had reached her, just before her mother's last brief attack, and her brother had been too much stunned by his own loss to come to her in her loneliness.

Not that Milly wondered at this. She loved Arnold dearly; but he was so much older, and they had grown necessarily so apart. He and his wife had been all in all to each other; and the family in the vicarage had seemed so perfected and completed that the little petted Milly of old days might well plead that she was all but forgotten.

But Betha's death had altered this; and Arnold's letter, written as good men will write when their heart is well-nigh broken, came to Mildred as she sat alone in her black dress in her desolate home.

New work—unknown work—and that when youth's elasticity seemed gone, and spirits broken or at least dangerously quieted by the morbid atmosphere of sickness and hypochondria. They say the prisoner of twenty years will weep at leaving his cell. The tears that Mildred shed that night were more for the mother she had lost and the old safe life of the past, than pity for the widowed brother and motherless children.

Do we ever outlive our selfishness? Do we ever cease to be fearful for ourselves?

And yet Mildred was weary of solitude. Arnold was her own, her only brother; and Aunt Milly—well, perhaps it might be pleasant.

'Say yes, Milly—for Betha's sake—for my darling's sake (she was so fond of you), if not for mine. Think how her children miss her! Matters are going wrong already. It is not their fault, poor things; but I am so helpless to decide. I used to leave everything to her, and we are all so utterly lost.

'I could not have asked you if our mother had lingered; but your faithful charge, my poor Milly, is over—your martyrdom, as Betha called it. She was so bright, and loved to have things so bright round her, that your imprisonment in the sickroom quite oppressed her. It was "poor Milly," "our dear good Milly," to the last. I wish her girls were more like her; but she only laughed at their odd ways, and told me I should live to be proud of them.

'Olive is as left-handed as ever, and Chrissy little better. Richard is mannish, but impracticable, and a little difficult to understand. We should none of us get on at all but for Roy: he has his mother's heart-sunshine and loving smile; but even Roy has his failures.

'We want a woman among us, Milly—a woman with head and hands, and a tolerable stock of patience. Even Heriot is in difficulties, but that will keep till you come—for you will come, will you not, my dear?'

'Come! how could you doubt me, Arnold?' replied Mildred, as she laid down the letter; but 'God help me and them' followed close on the sigh.

'After all, it is a clear call to duty,' she soliloquised. 'It is not my business to decide on my fitness or unfitness, or to measure myself to my niche. We are not promised strength before the time, and no one can tell before he tries whether he be likely to fail. Richard's mannishness, and Olive's left-handed ways, and Chrissy's poorer imitation, shall not daunt me. Arnold wants me. I shall be of use to some one again, and I will go.'

But Mildred, for all her bravery, grew a little pale over her brother's second letter:—'You must come at once, and not wait to summer and winter it, or, as some of our old women say, "to bide the bitterment on't." Shall I send Richard to help you about your house business, and to settle your goods and chattels? Let the old furniture go, Milly; it has stood a fair amount of wear and tear, and you are young yet, my dear. Shall I send Dick? He was his mother's right hand. The lad's mannish for his nineteen years.' Mannish again! This Richard began to be formidable. He was a bright well-looking lad of thirteen when Mildred had seen him last. But she remembered his mother's fond descriptions of Cardie's cleverness and goodness. One sentence had particularly struck her at the time. Betha had been comparing her boys, and dwelling on their good points with a mother's partiality. 'As to Roy, he needs no praise of mine; he stands so well in every one's estimation—and in his own, too—that a little fault-finding would do him good. Cardie is different: his diffidence takes the form of pride; no one understands him but I—not even his father. The one speaks out too much, and the other too little; but one of these days he will find out his son's good heart.'

'I wonder if Arnold will recognise me,' thought Mildred, sorrowfully, that night, as she sat by her window, looking out on her little strip of garden, shimmering in the moonlight. 'I feel so old and changed, and have grown into such quiet ways. Are there some women who are never young, I wonder? Am I one of them? Is it not strange,' she continued, musingly, 'that such beautiful lives as Betha's are struck so suddenly out of the records of years, while I am left to take up the incompleted work she discharged so lovingly? Dear Betha! what a noble heart it was! Arnold reverenced as much as he loved her. How vain to think of replacing, even in the faintest degree; one of the sweetest women this earth ever saw: sweet, because her whole life was in exact harmony with her surroundings.' And there rose before Mildred's eyes a faint image that often haunted her—of a face with smiling eyes, and brown hair just touched with gold—and the small firm hand that, laid on unruly lips, could hush coming wrath, and smooth the angry knitting of baby brows.

It was strange, she thought, that neither Olive nor Chrissy were like their mother. Roy's fairness and steady blue eyes were her sole relics—Roy, who was such a pretty little fellow when Mildred had seen him last.

Mildred tried to trace out a puzzled thought in her head before she slept that night. A postscript in Arnold's letter, vaguely worded, but most decidedly mysterious, gave rise to a host of conjectures.

'I have just found out that Heriot's business must be settled long before the end of next month—when you come to us. You know him by name and repute, though not personally. I have given him your address. I think it will be better for you both to talk the matter over, and to give it your full consideration, before you start for the north. Make any arrangements you like about the child. Heriot's a good fellow, and deserves to be helped; he has been everything to us through our trouble.'

What could Arnold mean? Betha's chatty letters—thoroughly womanly in their gossip—had often spoken of Arnold's friend, Dr. Heriot, and of his kindness to their boys. She had described him as a man of great talents, and an undoubted acquisition to their small society. 'Arnold (who was her universal referee) wondered that a man like Dr. Heriot should bury himself in a Westmorland valley. Some one had told them that he had given up a large West End practice. There was some mystery about him; his wife made him miserable. No one knew the rights or the wrongs of it; but they would rather believe any thing than that he was to blame.'

And in another letter she wrote: 'A pleasant evening has just been sadly interrupted. The Bishop was here and one or two others, Dr. Heriot among them; but a telegram summoning him to his wife's deathbed had just reached him.

'Arnold, who stood by him, says he turned as pale as death as he read it; but he only put it into his hand without a word, and left the room. I could not help following him with a word of comfort, remembering how good he was to us when we had nearly lost Chrissy last year; but he looked at me so strangely that the words died on my lips. "When death only relieves us of a burden, Mrs. Lambert, we touch on a sorrow too great for any ordinary comfort. You are sorry for me, but pray for her." And wringing my hand, he turned away. She must have been a bad wife to him. He is a good man; I am sure of it.'

How strange that Dr. Heriot should be coming to see her, and on private business, too! It seemed so odd of Arnold to send him; and yet it was pleasant to feel that she was to be consulted and her opinion respected. 'Mildred, who loves to help everybody, must find some way of helping poor Heriot,' had been her brother's concluding words.

Mildred Lambert's house was one of those modest suburban residences lying far back on a broad sunny road bordering on Clapham Common; but on a May afternoon even Laurel Cottage, unpretentious as it was, was not devoid of attractions, with its trimly cut lawn and clump of sweet-scented lilac and yellow drooping laburnum, stretching out long fingers of gold in the sunshine.

Mildred was sitting alone in her little drawing-room, ostensibly sorting her papers, but in reality falling into an occasional reverie, lulled by the sunshine and the silence, when a brisk footstep on the gravel outside the window made her start. Visitors were rare in her secluded life, and, with the exception of the doctor and the clergyman, and perhaps a sympathising neighbour, few ever invaded the privacy of Laurel Cottage; the light, well-assured footstep sounded strange in Mildred's ears, and she listened with inward perturbation to Susan's brief colloquy with the stranger.

'Yes, her mistress was disengaged; would he send in his name and business, or would he walk in?' And the door was flung open a little testily by Susan, who objected to this innovation on their usual afternoon quiet.

'Forgive me, if I am intruding, Miss Lambert, but your brother told me I might call.'

'Dr. Heriot?'

'Yes; he has kept his promise then, and has written to inform you of my intended visit? We have heard so much of each other that I am sure we ought to need no special introduction.' But though Dr. Heriot, as he said this, held out his hand with a frank smile, a grave, penetrating look accompanied his words; he was a man rarely at fault, but for the moment he seemed a little perplexed.

'Yes, I expected you; will you sit down?' replied Mildred, simply. She was not a demonstrative woman, and of late had grown into quiet ways with strangers. Dr. Heriot's tone had slightly discomposed her; instinctively she felt that he failed to recognise in her some given description, and that a brief embarrassment was the result.

Mildred was right. Dr. Heriot was trying to puzzle out some connection between the worn, soft-eyed woman before him, and the fresh girlish face that had so often smiled down on him from the vicarage wall, with shy, demure eyes, and the roses in her belt not brighter than the pure colouring of her bloom. The laughing face had grown sad and quiet—painfully so, Dr. Heriot thought—and faint lines round mouth and brow bore witness to the strain of a wearing anxiety and habitual repression of feeling; the skin of the forehead was too tightly stretched, and the eyes shone too dimly for health; while the thin, colourless cheek, seen in juxtaposition to the black dress, told their own story of youthful vitality sacrificed to the inexorable demand of hypochondria.

But it was a refined, womanly face, and one that could not fail to interest; a kind patient soul looked through the quiet eyes; youth and its attractions had faded, but a noble unconsciousness had replaced it; in talking to her you felt instinctively that the last person of whom Mildred thought was herself. But if Dr. Heriot were disappointed in the estimate he had formed of his friend's sister, Mildred on her side was not the less surprised at his appearance.

She had imagined him a man of imposing aspect—a man of height and inches, with iron-gray hair. The real Dr. Heriot was dark and slight, rather undersized than otherwise, with a dark moustache, and black, closely-cropped hair, which made him look younger than he really was. It was not a handsome face; at first sight there was something stern and forbidding about it, but the lines round the mouth relaxed pleasantly when he smiled, and the eyes had a clear, straightforward look; while about the whole man there was a certain indefinable air of good-breeding, as of one long accustomed to hold his own amongst men who were socially his superiors.

Mildred had taken her measurement of Dr. Heriot in her own quiet way long before she had exhausted her feminine budget of conversation: the fineness of the weather, the long dusty journey, his need of refreshment, and inquiries after her brother's health and spirits.

'He is not a man to be embarrassed, but his business baffles him,' she thought to herself; 'he is ill at ease, and unhappy. I must try and meet him half-way.' And accordingly Mildred began in her straightforward manner.

'It is a long way to come up on business, Dr. Heriot. Arnold told me you had difficulties, though he did not explain their nature. Strange to say, he spoke as though I could be of some assistance to you!'

'I have no right to burden you,' he returned, somewhat incoherently; 'you look little fit now to cope with such responsibilities as must fall to your share. Would not rest and change be beneficial before entering on new work?'

'I am not talking of myself,' returned Mildred, with a faint smile, though her colour rose at the unmistakable tone of sympathy in Dr. Heriot's voice. 'My time for rest will come presently. Is it true, Dr. Heriot, that I can be of any service to you?'

'You shall judge,' was the answer. 'I will meet your kindness with perfect frankness. My business in London at the present moment concerns a little girl—a distant relative of my poor wife's—who has lost her only remaining parent. Her father and I were friends in our student days; and in a weak moment I accepted a presumptive guardianship over the child. I thought Philip Ellison was as likely as not to outlive me, and as he had some money left him there seemed very little risk about the whole business.'

Mildred gave him a glance full of intelligence. It was clear to her now wherein Dr. Heriot's difficulty lay. He was still too young a man to have the sole guardianship of a motherless orphan.

'Philip was but a few years older than myself, and, as he explained to me, it was only a purely business arrangement, and that in case of his death he wished to have a disinterested person to look after his daughter's interest. Things were different with me then, and I had no scruples in acceding to his wish. But Philip Ellison was a bad manager, and on an evil day was persuaded to invest his money in some rotten company—heaven knows what!—and as a natural consequence lost every penny. Since then I have heard little about him. He was an artist, but not a rising one; he travelled a great deal in France and Germany, and now and then he would send over pictures to be sold, but I am afraid he made out only a scanty subsistence for himself and his little daughter. A month ago I received news of his death, and as she has not a near relation living, except some cousins in Australia, I find I have the sole charge of a girl of fourteen; and I think you will confess, Miss Lambert, that the position has its difficulties. What in the world'—here Dr. Heriot's face grew a little comical—'am I to do with a raw school-girl of fourteen?'

'What does Arnold suggest?' asked Mildred, quietly. In her own mind she was perfectly aware what would be her brother's first generous thought.

'It was my intention to put the child at some good English school, and have her trained as a governess; but it is a dreary prospect for her, poor little soul, and somehow I feel as though I ought to do better for Philip Ellison's daughter. He was one of the proudest men that ever lived, and was so wrapped up in his child.'

'But my brother has negatived that, and proposed another plan,' interrupted Mildred, softly. She knew her brother well.

'He was generous enough to propose that she should go at once to the vicarage until some better arrangement could be made. He assured me that there was ample room for her, and that she could share Olive's and Chrissy's lessons; but he begged me to refer it to you, as he felt he had no right to make such an addition to the family circle without your full consent.'

'Arnold is very good, but he must have known that I could have no objection to offer to any plan of which he approves. He is so kind-hearted, that one could not bear to damp his enthusiasm.'

'Yes, but think a moment before you decide,' returned Dr Heriot, earnestly. 'It is quite true that I was bound to your brother and his wife by no ordinary ties of friendship, and that they would have done anything for me, but this ought not to be allowed to influence you. If I accept Mr. Lambert's offer, at least for the present, I shall be adding to your work, increasing your responsibilities. Olive and Chrissy will tax your forbearance sufficiently without my bringing this poor little waif of humanity upon your kindness; and you look so far from strong,' he continued, with a quick change of tone.

'I am quite ready for my work,' returned Mildred, firmly; 'looks do not always speak the truth, Dr. Heriot. Please let me have the charge of your little ward; she will not be a greater stranger to me than Olive and Chrissy are. Why, Chrissy was only nine when I saw her last. Ah,' continued Mildred, folding her hands, and speaking almost to herself, 'if you knew what it will be to me to see myself surrounded by young faces, to be allowed to love them, and to try to win their love in return—to feel I am doing real work in God's world, with a real trust and talent given to me—ah! you must let me help you in this, Dr. Heriot; you were so good to Betha, and it will make Arnold happy.' And Mildred stretched out her hand to him with a new impulse, so unlike the composed manner in which she had hitherto spoken, that Dr. Heriot, surprised and touched, could find no response but 'God bless you for this, Miss Lambert!'

Mildred's gentle primness was thawing visibly under Dr. Heriot's pleasant manners. By and by, as she presided at the sunny little tea-table, and pressed welcome refreshment on her weary guest, she heard more about this strange early friendship of his, and shared his surmises as to the probable education and character of his ward.

'She must be a regular Bohemian by this time,' he observed. 'From what I can hear they were never long in one place. It must be a strange training for a girl, living in artists' studios, and being the sole companion of a silent, taciturn man such as Philip was.'

'She will hardly have the characteristics of other girls,' observed Mildred.

'She cannot possibly be more out of the common than Olive. Olive has all sorts of absurd notions in her head. It is odd Mrs. Lambert's training should have failed so signally in her girls. I am afraid your preciseness will be sometimes offended,' he continued, looking round the room, which, with all its homeliness, had the little finishes that a woman's hand always gives. 'Olive might have arranged those flowers, but she would have forgotten to water them, or to exclude their presence when dead.'

'You are a nice observer,' returned Mildred, smiling. 'Do not make me afraid of my duties beforehand, as though I do not exactly know how all the rooms look! Betha's pretty drawing-room trampled by dirty boots, Arnold's study a hopeless litter of books, not a corner of the writing-table clear. Chrissy used them as bricks,' she continued, laughing. 'Roy and she had a mighty Tower of Babel one day. You should have seen Arnold's look when he found out that The Seven Lamps of Architecture laid the foundation; but Betha only laughed, and told him it served him right.'

'But she kept them in order, though. In her quiet way she was an excellent disciplinarian. Well, Miss Lambert, I am trespassing overmuch on your goodness. To-morrow I am to make my ward's acquaintance—one of the clique has brought her over from Dieppe—and I am to receive her from his hands. Would it be troubling you too much if I ask you to accompany me?—the poor child will feel so forlorn with only men round her.'

'I will go with you and bring her home. No, please, do not thank me, Dr. Heriot. If you knew how lonely I am here——' and for the first time Mildred's eyes filled with tears.

CHAPTER II

'IF YOU PLEASE, MAY I BRING RAG AND TATTERS?'

'O, my Father's hand,
Stroke heavily, heavily the poor hair down,
Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee—
I'm still too young, too young, to sit alone.'—Aurora Leigh.

So this was Polly.

It was only a shabby studio, where poverty and art fought a hand-to-hand struggle for the bare maintenance, but among the after scenes of her busy life Mildred never forgot the place where she first saw Dr. Heriot's ward; it lingered in her memory, a fair, haunting picture as of something indescribably sweet and sad.

Its few accessories were so suggestive of a truer taste made impossible by paucity of success; an unfinished painting all dim grays and pallid, watery blues; a Cain fleeing out of a blurred outline of clouds; fragmentary snatches of colour warming up pitiless details; rickety chairs and a broken-down table; a breadth of faded tapestry; a jar of jonquils, the form pure Tuscan, the material rough earthenware, a plaster Venus, mutilated but grand, shining out from the dull red background of a torn curtain. A great unfurnished room, full of yellow light and warm sunshine, and, standing motionless in a ladder of motes and beams, with brown eyes drinking in the twinkling glory like a young eagle, was a girl in a shabby black dress, with thin girlish arms clasped across her breast. For a moment Dr. Heriot paused, and he and Mildred exchanged glances; the young figure in its forlornness came to them like a mournful revelation; the immobility was superb, the youthful languor pitiful. As Dr. Heriot touched her, she turned on them eyes full of some lost dream, and a large tear that had been gathering unconsciously brimmed over and splashed down on his hand.

'My child, have we startled you? Mr. Fabian told us to come up.' For a moment she looked bewildered. Her thoughts had evidently travelled a long way, but with consciousness came a look of relief and pleasure.

'Oh, I knew you would come—papa told me so. Oh, why have you been so long?—it is three months almost since papa died. Oh, poor papa! poor papa!' and the flush of joy died out of her face as, clasping her small nervous hands round Dr. Heriot's arm, she laid her face down on them and burst into a passion of tears.

'I sent for you directly I heard; they kept me in ignorance—have they not told you so? Poor child, how unkind you must have thought me!' and a grieved look came over Dr. Heriot's face as he gently stroked the closely-cropped head, that felt like the dark, soft plumage of some bird.

'No, I never thought you that,' she sobbed. 'I was only so lonely and tired of waiting; and then I got ill, and Mr. Fabian was good to me, and so were the others. But papa had left me to you, and I wanted you to fetch me. You have come to take me home, have you not?'

She looked up in his face pleadingly as she said this; she spoke in a voice sweet, but slightly foreign, but with a certain high-bred accent, and there was something unique in her whole appearance that struck her guardian with surprise. The figure was slight and undeveloped, with the irregularity of fourteen; but the ordinary awkwardness of girlhood was replaced by dignity, almost grace, of movement. She was dark-complexioned, but her face was a perfect oval, and the slight down on the upper lip gave a characteristic but not unpleasing expression to the mouth, which was firm but flexible; the hair had evidently been cut off in recent illness, for it was tucked smoothly behind the ears, and was perfectly short behind, which would have given her a boyish look but for the extreme delicacy of the whole contour.

'You have come to take me home, have you not?' she repeated anxiously.

'This lady has,' he replied, with a look at Mildred, who had stood modestly in the background. 'I wish I had a home to offer you, my dear; but my wife is dead, and——'

'Then you will want me all the more,' she returned eagerly. 'Papa and I have so often talked about you; he told me how good you were, and how unhappy.'

'Hush, Mary,' laying his hand lightly over her lips; but Mildred could see his colour changed painfully. But she interrupted him a little petulantly—

'Nobody calls me Mary, and it sounds so cold and strange.'

'What then, my dear?'

'Why, Polly, of course!' opening her brown eyes widely; 'I have always been Polly—always.'

'It shall be as you will, my child.'

'How gently you speak! Are you ever irritable, like papa, I wonder?—he used to be so ill and silent, and then, when we tried to rouse him, he could not bear it. Who is this lady, and why do you say you have no home for me?'

'She means to be our good friend, Polly—there, will that do? But you are such a dignified young lady, I should never have ventured to call you that unasked.'

'Why not?' she repeated, darting at him a clear, straightforward glance. Evidently his reticence ruffled her; but Dr. Heriot skilfully evaded the brief awkwardness.

'This lady is Miss Lambert, and she is the sister of one of my best friends; she is going to take charge of his girls and boys, who have lost their mother, and she has kindly offered to take charge of you too.'

'She is very good,' returned Polly, coldly; 'very, very good, I mean,' as though she had repented of a slight hauteur. 'But I have never had anything to do with children. Papa and I were always alone, and I would much rather live with you; you have no idea what a housekeeper I shall make you. I can dress salad and cook omelettes, and Nanette taught me how to make potage. I used to take a large basket myself to the market when we lived at Dresden, when Nanette was so bad with rheumatism.'

'What an astonishing Polly!'

'Ah! you are laughing at me,' drawing herself up proudly, and turning away so that he should not see the tears in her eyes.

'My dear Polly, is that a "crime"?'

'It is when people are in earnest I have said nothing that deserves laughing at—have I, Miss Lambert?' with a sweet, candid glance that won Mildred's heart.

'No, indeed; I was wishing that my nieces were like you.'

'I did not mean that—I was not asking for praise,' stammered Polly, turning a vivid scarlet. 'I only wanted my guardian to know that I should not be useless to him. I can do much more than that I can mend and darn better than Annette, who was three years older. You are smiling still.'

'If I smile, it is only with pleasure to know my poor friend had such a good daughter. Listen to me, Polly—how old are you?'

'Fourteen last February.'

'What a youthful Polly!—too young, I fear, to comprehend the position. And then with such Bohemian surroundings—that half-crazed painter, Fabian,' he muttered, 'and a purblind fiddler and his wife. My poor child,' he continued, laying his hand on her head lightly, and speaking as though moved in spite of himself, 'as long as you want a friend, you will never find a truer one than John Heriot. I will be your guardian, adopted father, what you will; but,' with a firmness of voice that struck the girl in spite of herself, 'I cannot have you to live with me, Polly.'

'Why not?' she asked, pleadingly.

'Because it would be placing us both in a false position; because I could not incur such a responsibility; because no one is so fit to take charge of a young girl as a good motherly woman, such as you will find, in Miss Lambert.' And as the girl looked at him bewildered and disappointed, he continued kindly, 'You must forget this pleasant dream, Polly; perhaps some day, when your guardian is gray-haired, it may come to pass; but I shall often think how good my adopted daughter meant to be to me.'

'Shall I never see you then?' asked Polly mournfully.

If these were English ways, the girl thought, what a cold, heartless place it must be! Had not Mr. Fabian promised to adopt her if the English guardian should not be forthcoming? Even Herr Schreiber had offered to keep her out of his poor salary, when her father's death had left her dependent on the little community of struggling artists and musicians. Polly was having her first lesson in the troublesome convenances of life, and to the affectionate, ardent girl it was singularly unpalatable.

'I am afraid you will see me every day,' replied her guardian, with much gravity. 'I shall not be many yards off—just round the corner, and across the market-place. No, no, Miss Polly; you will not get rid of me so easily. I mean to direct your studies, haunt your play-time, and be the cross old Mentor, as Olive calls me.'

'Oh, I am so glad!' returned the girl earnestly, and with a sparkle of pleasure in her eyes. 'I like you so much already that I could not bear you to do wrong.'

It was Heriot's turn to look puzzled.

'Would it not be wrong,' she returned, answering the look, 'when papa trusted me to you, and told me on his deathbed that you would be my second father, if you were to send me right away from you, and take no notice of me at all!'

'I should hardly do that in any case,' returned her guardian, seriously. 'What a downright, unconventional little soul you are, Polly! You may set your mind at rest; your father's trust shall be redeemed, his child shall never be neglected by me. But come—you have not made Miss Lambert's acquaintance. I hope you mean to tell her next you like her.'

'She looks good, but sad—are you sad?' touching Mildred's sleeve timidly.

'A little. I have been in trouble, like you, and have lost my mother,' replied Milly, simply; but she was not prepared for the suddenness with which the girl threw her arms round her neck and kissed her.

'I might have thought—your black dress and pale face,' she murmured remorsefully. 'Every one is sad, every one is in trouble—myself, my guardian, and you.'

'But you are the youngest—it falls heaviest on you.'

'What am I to call you? I don't like Miss Lambert, it sounds stiff,' with a little shrug and movement of the hands, rather graceful than otherwise.

'I shall be Aunt Milly to the others, why not to you?' returned Mildred, smiling.

'Ah, that sounds nice. Papa had a sister, only she died; I used to call her Aunt Amy. Aunt Milly! ah, I can say that easily; it makes me feel at home, somehow. Am I to come home with you to-day, Aunt Milly?'

'Yes, my dear.' Milly absolutely blushed with pleasure at hearing herself so addressed. 'I am not going to my new home for three weeks, but I shall be glad of your company, if you will come and help me.'

'Poor Mr. Fabian will be sorry, but he is expecting to lose me. There is one thing more I must ask, Aunt Milly.'

'A dozen if you will, dear.'

'Oh, but this is a great thing. Oh, please, dear Aunt Milly, may I bring Rag and Tatters?' And as Mildred looked too astonished for reply, she continued, hurriedly: 'Tatters never left papa for an instant, he was licking his hand when he died; and Rag is such a dear old thing. I could not be happy anywhere without my pets.' And without waiting for an answer she left the room; and the next instant the light, springy tread was heard in company with a joyous scuffling and barking; then a large shaggy terrier burst into the room, and Polly followed with a great tortoise-shell cat in her arms.

'Isn't Rag handsome, except for this?' touching the animal where a scrap of fur had been rudely mauled off, and presented a bald appearance; 'he has lost the sight of one eye too. Veteran Rag, we used to call him. He is so fond of me, and follows me like a dog; he used to go out with me in Dresden, only the dogs hunted him.'

'You may bring your pets, Polly,' was Mildred's indulgent answer; 'I think I can answer for my brother's goodwill.'

Dr. Heriot shook his head at her laughingly.

'I am afraid you are no rigid disciplinarian, Miss Lambert; but it is "Love me, love my dog" with Polly, I expect. Now, my child, you must get ready for the flitting, while I go in search of Mr. Fabian. From the cloud of tobacco-smoke that met us on entering, I fancy he is on the next story.'

'He is with the Rogers, I expect. His model disappointed him, and he is not working to-day. If you will wait a moment, I will fetch him.'

'What an original character!' observed Dr. Heriot as the door closed.

'A loveable one,' was Mildred's rejoinder. She was interested and roused by the new phase of life presented to her to-day. She looked on amused, yet touched, when Polly returned, leading by the hand her pseudo-guardian—a tall old man, with fiery eyes and scanty gray hair falling down his neck, in a patched dressing-gown that had once been a gorgeous Turkey-red. It was the first time that the simple woman had gazed on genius down-at-heel, and faring on the dry crust of unrequited self-respect.

'There is my Cain, sir; a new conception—unfinished, if you will—but you may trace the idea I am feebly striving to carry out. Sometimes I fancy it will be my last bit of work. Look at that dimly-traced figure beside the murderer—that is his good angel, who is to accompany the branded one in his life-long exile. I always believed in Cain's repentance—see the remorse in his eyes. I caught that expression on a Spanish sailor's face when he had stabbed his mate in a drunken brawl. I saw my Cain then.'

Needy genius could be garrulous, as Mildred found. The old man warmed at Polly's open-eyed admiration and Mildred's softly-uttered praise; appreciation was to him what meat and drink would be to more material natures. He looked almost majestic as he stood before them, in his ragged dressing-gown, descanting on the merits of his Tobit, that had sold for an old song. 'A Neapolitan fisher-boy had sat for my angel; every one paints angels with yellow hair and womanish faces, but I am not one of those that must follow the beaten track—I formed my angel on the loftiest ideal of Italian beauty, and got sneered at for my pains. One ought to coin a new proverb nowadays, Dr. Heriot—Originality moves contempt. People said the subject was not a taking one; Tobit was too much like an old clothes man, or a veritable descendant of Moses and Sons. There was no end to the quips and jeers; even our set had a notion it would not do, and I sold it to a dealer at a sum that would hardly cover a month's rent,' finished the old man, with a mixture of pathos and dignity.

'After all, public taste is a sort of lottery,' observed Dr. Heriot; 'true genius is not always requited in this world, if it offends the tender prejudices of preconceived ideas.'

'The worship of the golden image fills up too large a space in the market-place,' replied Mr. Fabian, solemnly, 'while the blare of instruments covers the fetish-adoration of its votaries. The world is an eating and drinking and money-getting world, and art, cramped and stifled, goes to the wall.'

'Nay, nay; I have not so bad an opinion of my generation as all that,' interposed Dr. Heriot, smiling. 'I have great faith in the underlying goodness of mankind. One has to break through a very stiff outer-crust, I grant you; but there are soft places to be found in most natures.' And, as the other shook his head—'Want of success has made you a little down-hearted on the subject of our human charities, Mr. Fabian; but there is plenty of reverence and art-worship in the world still. I predict a turn of the wheel in your case yet. Cain may still glower down on us from the walls of the Royal Academy.'

'I hope so, before the hand has lost its cunning. But I am too egotistical. And so you are going to take Polly from me—from Dad Fabian, ay?'—looking at the young girl fondly.

'Indeed, Mr. Fabian, I must thank you for your goodness to my ward. Poor child! she would have fared badly without it. Polly, you must ask Miss Lambert to bring you to see this kind friend again.'

'Nay, nay; this is a poor place for ladies to visit,' replied the other, hastily, as he brushed away the fragment of a piece of snuff with a trembling hand; but he looked gratified, notwithstanding. 'Polly has been a good girl—a very good girl—and weathered gallantly through a very ticklish illness, though some of us thought she would never reach England alive.'

'Were you so ill, Polly?' inquired her guardian anxiously.

'Dad Fabian says so; and he ought to know, for he and Mrs. Rogers nursed me. Oh, he was so good to me,' continued Polly, clinging to him. 'He used to sit up with me part of the night and tell me stories when I got better, and go without his dinner sometimes to buy me fruit. Mrs. Rogers was good-natured, too; but she was noisy. I like Dad Fabian's nursing best.'

'You see she fretted for her father,' interposed the artist. 'Polly's one of the right sort—never gives way while there is work to be done; and so the strain broke her down. She has lost most of her pretty hair. Ellison used to be so proud of her curls; but it suits her, somehow. But you must not keep your new friends waiting, my child. There, God bless you! We shall be seeing you back again here one of these days, I dare say.'

Mildred felt as though her new life had begun from the moment the young stranger crossed her threshold. Polly bade her guardian good-bye the next day with unfeigned regret. 'I shall always feel I belong to him, though he cannot have me to live with him,' she said, as she followed Mildred into the house. 'Papa told me to love him, and I will. He is different, somehow, from what I expected,' she continued. 'I thought he would be gray-haired, like papa. He looks younger, and is not tall. Papa was such a grand-looking man, and so handsome; but he has kind eyes—has he not, Aunt Milly?—and speaks so gently.'

Mildred was quite ready to pronounce an eulogium on Dr. Heriot. She had already formed a high estimate of her brother's friend; his ready courtesy and highly-bred manners had given her a pleasing impression, while his gentleness to his ward, and a certain lofty tone of mind in his conversation, proved him a man of good heart and of undoubted ability. There was a latent humour at times discernible, and a certain caustic wit, which, tinged as it was with melancholy, was highly attractive. She felt that a man who had contrived to satisfy Betha's somewhat fastidious taste could not fail to be above the ordinary standard, and, though she did not quite echo Polly's enthusiasm, she was able to respond sympathetically to the girl's louder praise.

Before many days were over Polly had transferred a large portion of loving allegiance to Mildred herself. Women—that is, ladies—had not been very plentiful in her small circle. One or two of the artists' wives had been kind to her; but Polly, who was an aristocrat by nature, had rather rebelled against their want of refinement, and discovered flaws which showed that, young as she was, she had plenty of discernment.

'Mrs. Rogers was noisy, and showed all her teeth when she laughed, and tramped as she walked—in this way;' and Polly brought a very slender foot to prove the argument. And Mrs. Hornby? Oh, she did not care for Mrs. Hornby much—'she thought of nothing but smart dresses, and dining at the restaurant, and she used such funny words—that men use, you know. Papa never cared for me to be with her much; but he liked Mrs. Rogers, though she fidgeted him dreadfully.'

Mildred listened, amused and interested, to the girl's prattle. The young creature on the stool at her feet was conversant with a life of which she knew nothing, except from books. Polly would chatter for hours together of picture-galleries and museums, and little feasts set out in illuminated gardens, and of great lonely churches with swinging lamps, and little tawdry shrines. Monks and nuns came familiarly into her reminiscences. She had had gateau and cherries in a convent-garden once, and had swung among apple-blossoms in an orchard belonging to one.

'I used to think I should like to be a nun once,' prattled Polly, 'and wear a great white flapping cap, as they did in Belgium. Sœur Marie used to be so kind. I shall never forget that long, straight lime-walk, where the girls used to take their recreation, or sit under the cherry-trees with their lace-work, while Sœur Marie read the lives of the saints. Do you like reading the lives of the saints, Aunt Milly? I don't. They are glorious, of course; but it pains me to know how uncomfortable they made themselves.'

'I do not think I have ever read any, Polly.'

'Have you not?'—with a surprised arching of the brows. 'Sœur Marie thought them the finest books in the world. She used to tell me stories of many of them; and her face would flush and her eyes grow so bright, I used to think she was a saint herself.'

Mildred rarely interrupted the girl's narratives; but little bits haunted her now and then, and lingered in her memory with tender persistence. What sober prose her life seemed in contrast to that of this fourteen-years' old girl! How bare and empty seemed her niche compared to Polly's series of pictures! How clearly Mildred could see it all! The wandering artist-life, in search of the beautiful, poverty oppressing the mind less sadly when refreshed by novel scenes of interest; the grave, taciturn Philip Ellison, banishing himself and his pride in a self-chosen exile, and training his motherless child to the same exclusiveness.

The few humble friends, grouped under the same roof, and sharing the same obscurity; stretching out the right hand of fellowship, which was grasped, not cordially, but with a certain protest, the little room which Polly described so graphically being a less favourite resort than the one where Dad Fabian was painting his Tobit.

'It was only after papa got so ill that Mrs. Rogers would bring up her work and sit with us. Papa did not like it much; but he was so heavy that I could not lift him alone, and, noisy as she was, she knew how to cheer him up. Dad suited papa best: they used to talk so beautifully together. You have no idea how Dad can talk, and how clever he is. Papa used to say he was one of nature's gentlemen. His father was only a working man, you know;' and Polly drew herself up with a gesture Mildred had noticed before, and which was to draw upon her later the soubriquet of 'the princess.'

'I think none the less of him for that,' returned Mildred, with gentle reproof.

'You are not like papa then,' observed Polly, with one of her pretty gestures of dissent. 'It fretted him so being with people not nice in their ways. The others would call him milord, and laugh at his grand manners; but all the same they were afraid of him; every one feared him but I; and I only loved him,' finished Polly, with one of her girlish outbursts of emotion, which could only be soothed by extra petting on Mildred's part.

Mildred's soft heart was full of compassion for the lonely girl. Polly, who cried herself to sleep every night for the longing for her lost father, often woke to find Mildred sitting beside her bed watching her.

'You were sleeping so restlessly, I thought I would look in on you,' was all she said; but her motherly kiss spoke volumes.

'How good you are to me, Aunt Milly,' Polly would say to her sometimes. 'I am getting to love you more every day; and then your voice is so soft, and you have such nice ways. I think I shall be happy living with you, and seeing my guardian every day; but we don't want Olive and Chrissy, do we?'—for Mildred had described the vicarage and its inhabitants—'It will feel as though we were in a beehive after this quiet little nest,' as she observed once. Mildred smiled, as she always did over Polly's quaint speeches, which were ripe at times with an old-fashioned wisdom, gathered from the stored garner of age. She would ponder over them sometimes in her slow way, when the girl was sleeping her wet-eyed sleep.

Would it come to her to regret the quietness of life which she was laying by for ever as a garment that had galled and fretted her?—that life she had inwardly compared to a dead mill-stream, flecked only by the shadow and sunlight of perpetually recurring days? Would there come a time when the burden and heat of the day would oppress her?—when the load of existence would be too heavy to bear, and even this retrospect of faint gray distances would seem fair by contrast?

Women who lead contemplative and sedentary lives are overmuch given to this sort of morbid self-questioning. They are for ever examining the spiritual mechanism of their own natures, with the same result as though one took up a feeble and growing plant by the root to judge of its progress. They spend labour for that which is not bread. By and by, out of the vigour of her busy life, Mildred learnt the wholesome sweetness of a motto she ever afterwards cherished as her favourite: Laborare est orare. Polly's questions, direct or indirect, sometimes ruffled the elder woman's tranquillity, however gently she might put them by. 'Were you ever a girl, Aunt Milly?—a girl like me, I mean?' And as Mildred bit her lip and coloured slightly at a question that would have galled any woman of eight-and-twenty, she continued, caressingly, 'You are so nice; only just a trifle too solemn. I think, after all, I would rather be Polly than you. You seem to have had no pictures in your life.'

'My dear child, what do you mean?' returned Mildred; but she spoke with a little effort.

'I mean, you don't seem to have lived out pretty little bits, as I have. You have walked every day over that common and down those long white sunny roads, where there is nothing to imagine, unless one stares up at the clouds—just clouds and dust and wheel-ruts. You have never gone through a forest by moonlight, as I have, and stopped at a little rickety inn, with a dozen Jäger drinking lager-bier under the linden-trees, and the peasants dancing in their sabots on a strip of lawn. You have never——' continued Polly breathlessly; but Mildred interrupted her.

'Stop, Polly; I love your reminiscences; but I want to ask you a question. Is that all you saw in our walk to-day—clouds and dust and wheel-ruts?'

'I saw a hand-organ and a lazy monkey, and a brass band, driving me frantic. It made me feel—oh, I can't tell you how I felt,' returned Polly, with a grimace, and putting up her hands to her delicate little ears.

'The music was bad, certainly; but I found plenty to admire in our walk.'

Polly opened her eyes. 'You are not serious, Aunt Milly.'

'Let me see: we went across the common, and then on. My pictures are very humble ones, Polly; but I framed at least half-a-dozen for my evening's refreshment.'

Polly drew herself up a little scornfully. 'I don't admire monkeys, Aunt Milly.'

'What sort of eyes have you, child?' replied Mildred, who had recovered her cheerfulness. 'Do you mean that you did not see that old blind man with the white beard, and, evidently, his little grand-daughter, at his knees, just before we crossed the common?'

'Yes; I noticed she was a pretty child,' returned Polly, with reluctant candour.

'She and her blue hood and tippet, and the great yellow mongrel dog at her feet, made a pretty little sketch, all by themselves; and then, when we went on a little farther, there was the old gipsy-woman, with a handsome young ne'er-do-weel of a boy. Let me tell you, Polly, Mr. Fabian would have made something of his brown skin and rags. Oh, what rags!'

'She was a horrid old woman,' put in Polly, rather crossly.

'Granted; but, with a clump of fir-trees behind her, and a bit of sunset-clouds, she made up a striking picture. After that we came on a flock of sheep. One of them had got caught in a furze-bush, and was bleating terribly. We stood looking at it for full a minute before the navvy kindly rescued it.'

'I was sorry for the poor animal, of course. But, Aunt Milly, I don't call that much of a picture.'

'Nevertheless, it reminded me of the one that hangs in my room. To my thinking it was highly suggestive; all the more, that it was an old sheep, and had such a foolish, confiding face. We are never too old to go astray,' continued Mildred, dreamily.

'Three pictures, at least we have finished now,' asked Polly, impatiently.

'Finished! I could multiply that number threefold! Why, there was the hay-stack, with the young heifers round it; and that red-tiled cottage, with the pigeons tumbling and wheeling round the roof, and the flower-girl asleep on my own doorstep, with the laburnum shedding its yellow petals on her lap, to the great delight of the poor sickly baby. Come, Polly; who made the most of their eyes this evening? Only clouds, dust, and wheel-ruts, eh?'

'You are too wise for me, Aunt Milly. Who would have thought you could have seen all that? Dad Fabian ought to have heard you talk! We must go out to-morrow evening, and you shall show me some more pictures. But doesn't it strike you, Aunt Milly'—leaning her dimpled chin on her hand—'that you have made the most of very poor material? After all'—triumphantly—'there is not much in your pictures!'

CHAPTER III

VIÂ TEBAY

'All the land in flowing squares.
Beneath a broad and equal blowing wind,
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud
Drew downward; but all else of heaven was pure
Up to the sun, and May from verge to verge,
And May with me from head to heel.

To left and right
The cuckoo told his name to all the hills,
The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm,
The redcap whistled, and the nightingale
Sung loud, as though he were the bird of day.'—Tennyson.

'Aunt Milly, I can breathe now. Oh, how beautiful!' and Polly clapped her hands with girlish glee, as the train slowly steamed into Tebay Junction, the gray old station lying snugly among the green Westmorland hills.

'Oh, my dear, hush! who is that tall youth taking off his hat to us? not Roy, surely, it must be Richard. Think of not knowing my own nephews!' and Mildred looked distressed and puzzled.

'Now, Aunt Milly, don't put yourself out; if this stupid door would only open, I would get out and ask him myself. Oh, thank you,' as the youth in question hurried forward to perform that necessary service, looking at her, at the same time, rather curiously. 'If you please, Aunt Milly wants to know if you are Roy or Richard.'

'Roy,' was the prompt answer. 'What, are you Polly, and is that Aunt Milly behind you? For shame, Aunt Milly, not to know me when I took my hat off to you at least three minutes ago;' but Roy had the grace to blush a little over this audacious statement as he helped Mildred out, and returned her warm grasp of the hand.

'My dear boy, how could you have known us, and Polly, a perfect stranger, too?'

Roy burst into a ringing laugh.

'Why you see, Aunt Milly, one never loses by a little extra attention; it always pays in the long run. I just took off my hat at random as the train came in sight, and there, as it happened, was Polly's face glued against the window. So I was right, and you were gratified!'

'Now I am sure it is Roy.'

'Roy, Rex, or Sauce Royal, as they called me at Sedbergh. Well, Miss Polly,' with another curious look, 'we are bonâ fide adopted cousins, as Dr. John says, so we may as well shake hands.'

'Humph,' was Polly's sole answer, as she gave her hand with the air of a small duchess, over which Roy grimaced slightly; and then with a cordial inflection of voice, as he turned to Mildred—

'Welcome to Westmorland, Aunt Milly—both of you, I mean; and I hope you will like us, as much as we shall like you.'

'Thank you, my boy; and to think I mistook you for Richard! How tall you have grown, Royal.'

'Ah, I was a bit of a lad when you were down here last. I am afraid I should not have recognised you, Aunt Milly, but for Polly. Well, what is it? you look disturbed; there is a vision of lost boxes in your eyes; there, I knew I was right; don't be afraid, we are known here, and Barton will look after all your belongings.'

'But how long are we to remain? Polly is tired, poor child, and so am I.'

'You should have come by York, as Richard told you; always follow Richard's advice, and you will never do wrong, so he thinks; now you have two hours to wait, and yourself to thank, and only my pleasing conversation to while away the time.'

'You hard-hearted boy; can't you see Aunt Milly is ready to drop?' broke in Polly, indignantly; 'how were we to know you lived so near the North Pole? My guardian ought to have met us,' continued the little lady, with dignity; 'he would have known what to have done for Aunt Milly.'

Roy stared, and then burst into his ready, good-humoured laugh.

'Whew! what a little termagant! Of course you are tired—women always are; take my arm, Aunt Milly; lean on me; now we will go and have some tea; let us know when the train starts, Barton, and look us out a comfortable compartment;' and, so saying, Roy hurried his charges away; Mildred's tired eyes resting admiringly on the long range of low, gray buildings, picturesque, and strangely quiet, backed by the vivid green of the great circling hills, which, to the eyes of southerners, invested Tebay Junction with unusual interest.

The refreshment-room was empty; there was a pleasant jingling of cups and spoons behind the bar; in a twinkling the spotless white table-cloth was covered with home-made bread, butter, and ham, and even Polly's brow cleared like magic as she sipped her hot tea, and brought her healthy girlish appetite to bear on the tempting Westmorland cakes.

'There, Dr. John or Dick himself couldn't be a better squire of dames,' observed Roy, complacently. 'Aunt Milly, when you have left off admiring me, just close your eyes to your surroundings a little while—it will do you no end of good.'

Roy was rattling on almost boisterously, Mildred thought; but she was right in attributing much of it to nervousness. Roy's light-heartedness was assumed for the time; in reality, his sensitive nature was deeply touched by this meeting with his aunt; his four-months'-old trouble was still too recent to bear the least allusion. Betha's children were not likely to forget her, and Roy, warmly as he welcomed his father's sister, could not fail to remember whose place it was she would try so inadequately to fill. Jokes never came amiss to Roy, and he had the usual boyish dislike to show his feelings; but he was none the less sore at heart, and the quick impatient sigh that was now and then jerked out in the brief pauses of conversation spoke volumes to Mildred.

'You are so like your mother,' she said, softly; but the boy's lip quivered, and he turned so pale, that Mildred did not venture to say more; she only looked at him with the sort of yearning pride that women feel in those who are their own flesh and blood.

'He is not a bit like Arnold, he is Betha's boy,' she thought to herself; 'her "long laddie," as she used to call him. I dare say he is weak and impulsive. Those sort of faces generally tell their own story pretty correctly;' and the thought crossed her, that perhaps one of Dad Fabian's womanish angels might have had the fair hair, long pale face, and sleepy blue eyes, which were Roy's chief characteristics, and which were striking enough in their way.

Polly, who had soon got over her brief animosity, was now chattering to him freely enough.

'I think you will do, for a country boy,' she observed, patronisingly; 'people who live among the mountains are generally free and easy, and not as polished as those who live in cities,' continued Polly, uttering this sententious plagiarism as innocently as though it were the product of her own wisdom.

'Such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good authors, is accounted plagiary; see Milton,' said the boy, fresh from Sedbergh, with a portentous frown, assumed for the occasion. 'Name your reference. I repel such vile insinuations, Miss Polly, as I am a Westmorland boy.'

'I learnt that in my dictation,' returned Polly, vexed, but too candid for reticence; 'but Dad Fabian used to say the same thing; please don't stroke Veteran Rag the wrong way, he does not like it.'

'Poor old Veteran, he has won some scars, I see. I am afraid you are a character, Polly. Rag and Tatters, and copybook wisdom, well-thumbed and learnt, and then retailed as the original article. I wish Dr. John could hear you; he would put you through your paces.'

'Who is Dr. John?' asked Polly, coming down a little from her stilts, and evidently relenting in favour of Roy's handsome face.

'Oh, Dr. John is Dr. John, unless you choose to do as the world does, and call him Dr. Heriot; he is Dr. John to us; after all, what's in a name?'

'I like my guardian to be called Dr. Heriot best; the other sounds disrespectful and silly.'

'We did not know your opinion before, you see,' returned Roy, with a slight drawl, and almost closing his eyes; 'if you could have telegraphed your wish to us three or four years ago it might have been different; but with the strict conservative feeling prevalent at the vicarage, I am afraid Dr. John it will remain, unless,' meditating deeply; 'but no, he might not like it.'

'What?'

'Well, we might make it Dr. Jack, you know.'

'After all, boys are nothing but plagues,' returned Polly, scornfully.

'"Playa, plagua, plague, et cetera, et cetera, that which smites or wounds; any afflictive evil or calamity; a great trial or vexation; also an acute malignant febrile disease, that often prevails in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey, and that has at times prevailed in the large cities of Europe, with frightful mortality; hence any pestilence." Have you swallowed Webster's Dictionary, Polly?'

'My dears, I hope you do not mean to quarrel already?'

'We are only sounding the depths of each other's wisdom. Polly is awfully shallow, Aunt Milly; the sort of person, you know, who utilises all the scraps. Wait till she sits at the feet of Gamaliel—Dr. John, I mean; he is the one for finding out "all is not gold that glitters."'

Mildred smiled. 'Let them fight it out,' she thought; 'no one can resist long the charm of Polly's perfect honesty, and her pride is a little too thin-skinned for daily comfort; good-natured raillery will be a wholesome tonic. What a clever boy he is! only seventeen, too,' and she shook her head indulgently at Roy.

'Kirkby Stephen train starts, sir; all the luggage in; this way for the ladies.'

'Quick-march; down with you, Tatters; lie there, good dog. Don't let the grass grow under your feet, Aunt Milly; there's a providential escape for two tired and dusty Londoners. Next compartment, Andrews,' as the red-coated guard bore down on their carriage. 'There, Aunt Milly,' with an exquisite consideration that would have become Dr. John himself, 'I have deferred an introduction to the squire himself.'

'My dear Roy, how thoughtful of you. I am in no mood for introductions, certainly,' returned Mildred, gratefully.

'Women never are unless they have on their best bonnets; and, to tell you the truth,' continued the incorrigible Roy, 'Mr. Trelawny is the sort of man for whom one always furbishes up one's company manners. As Dr. John says, there is nothing slip-shod, or in deshabille, in him. Everything about him is so terribly perfect.'

'Roy, Roy, what a quiz you are!'

'Hush, there they come; the Lady of the Towers herself, Ethel the Magnificent; the weaver of yards of flimsy verse, patched with rags and shreds of wisdom, after Polly's fashion. Did you catch a glimpse of our notabilities, Aunt Milly?'

Mildred answered yes; she had caught a glimpse over Roy's shoulder of a tall, thin, aristocratic-looking man; but the long sweep of silk drapery and the outline of a pale face were all that she could see of the lady with him.

She began to wish that Roy would be a little less garrulous as the train moved out of Tebay station, and bore them swiftly to their destination; she was nerving herself for the meeting with her brother, and the sight of the vicarage without the presence of its dearly-loved mistress, while the view began to open so enchantingly before them on either side, that she would willingly have enjoyed it in silence. But Polly was less reticent, and her enthusiasm pleased Roy.

'You see we are in the valley of the Lune,' he explained, his grandiloquence giving place to boyish earnestness. 'Ours is one of the loveliest spots in the whole district. Now we are at the bottom of Ravenstone-dale, out of which it used to be said that the people would never allow a good cow to go, or a rich heiress to be taken; and then we shall come to Smardale Gill. Is it not pretty, with its clear little stream running at the bottom, and its sides covered with brushwood? Now we are in my father's parish,' exclaimed Roy, eagerly, as the train swept over the viaduct. 'And now look out for Smardale Hall on the right; once the residents were grand enough to have a portion of the church to themselves, and it is still called Smardale Chapel; the whole is now occupied by a farmhouse. Ah, now we are near the station. Do you see that castellated building? that is Kirkleatham House, the Trelawnys' place. Now look out for Dick, Aunt Milly. There he is! I thought so, he has spotted the Lady of the Towers.'

'My dear, is that Richard?' as a short and rather square-shouldered young man, but decidedly good-looking, doffed his straw hat in answer to some unseen greeting, and then peered inquiringly into their compartment.

'Ah, there you are, Rex. Have you brought them? How do you do, Aunt Milly? Is that young lady with you Miss Ellison?' and he shook hands rather formally, and without looking at Polly. 'I hope you did not find your long stay at Tebay very wearisome. Did you give them some tea, Rex? That's right. Please come with me, Aunt Milly; our waggonette is waiting at the top of the steps.'

'Oh, Richard, I wish you were not all such strangers to me!' Mildred could not have helped that involuntary exclamation which came out of the fulness of her heart. Her elder nephew was walking gravely by her side, with slow even strides; he looked up a little surprised.

'I suppose we must be that. After seven years' absence you will find us all greatly changed of course. I remember you perfectly, but then I was fourteen when you paid your last visit.'

'You remember me? I hardly expected to hear you say that,' and Mildred felt a glow of pleasure which all Roy's friendliness had not called forth.

'You are looking older—and as Dr. Heriot told us, somewhat ill; but it is the same face of course. My father will be glad to welcome you, Aunt Milly.'

'And you?'

His dark face flushed, and he looked a little discomfited. Mildred felt sorry she had asked the question, it would offend his reticence.

'It is early days for any of us to be glad about anything,' he returned with effort. 'I think for my father's and the girls' sake, your coming could not be too soon; you will not complain of our lack of welcome I hope, though some of us may be a little backward in acting up to it.'

'He is speaking of himself,' thought Mildred, and she answered the unspoken thought very tenderly. 'You need not fear my misunderstanding you, Richard; if you will let me be your friend as well as the others', I shall be glad: but no one can fill her place.'

He started, and drew his straw hat nervously over his brow. 'Thank you, Aunt Milly,' was all he said, as he placed her in the waggonette, and took the driver's seat on the box.

'There are changes even here, Aunt Milly,' observed Roy, who had seated himself opposite to her for the purpose of making pertinent observations on the various landmarks they passed, and he pointed to the long row of modern stuccoed and decidedly third-class villas springing tip near the station. 'The new line brings this. We are in the suburbs of Kirkby Stephen, and I dare say you hardly know where you are;' a fact which Mildred could not deny, though recognition dawned on her senses, as the low stone houses and whitewashed cottages came in sight; and then the wide street paved with small blue cobbles out of the river, and small old-fashioned shops, and a few gray bay-windowed houses bearing the stamp of age, and well-worn respectability. Ah, there was the market-place, with the children playing as usual round the old pump, and the group of loiterers sunning themselves outside the Red Lion. Through the grating and low archway of the empty butter-market Mildred could see the grass-grown paths and gleaming tombstones and the gray tower of the grand old church itself. The approach to the vicarage was singularly ill-adapted to any but pedestrians. It required a steady hand and eye to guide a pair of spirited horses round the sharp angles of the narrow winding alley, but the little country-bred browns knew their work. The vicarage gates were wide open, and two black figures were shading their eyes in the porch. But Richard, instead of driving in at the gate, reined in his horses so suddenly that he nearly brought them on their haunches, and leaning backward over the box, pointed with his whip across the road.

'There is my father taking his usual evening stroll—never mind the girls, Aunt Milly. I dare say you would rather meet him alone.'

Mildred stood up and steadied herself by laying a hand on Richard's shoulder. The sun was setting, and the gray old church stood out in fine relief in the warm evening light, blue breadths of sky behind it, and shifting golden lines of sunny clouds in the distance; while down the quiet paths, bareheaded and with hands folded behind his back, was a tall stooping figure, with scanty gray hair falling low on his neck, walking to and fro, with measured, uneven tread.

The hand on Richard's shoulder shook visibly; Mildred was trembling all over.

'Arnold! Oh, how old he looks! How thin and bowed! Oh, my poor brother.'

'You must make allowance for the shock he has had—that we have all had,' returned Richard in a soothing tone. 'He always walks like this, and at the same time. Go to him, Aunt Milly, it does him good to be roused.'

Mildred obeyed, though her limbs moved stiffly; the little gate swung behind her; a tame goat browsing among the tombs bleated and strained at its tether as she passed; but the figure she followed still continued its slow, monotonous walk.

Mildred shrunk back for a moment into the deep church porch to pause and recover herself. At the end of the path there were steps and an unused gate leading to the market; he must turn then.

How quiet and peaceful it all looked! The dark range of school buildings buried in shadow, the sombre line of houses closing in two sides of the churchyard. Behind the vicarage the purple-rimmed hills just fading into indistinctness. Up and down the stone alley some children were playing, one wee toddling mite was peeping through the railings at Mildred. The goat still bleated in the distance; a large blue-black terrier swept in hot pursuit of his master.

'Ah, Pupsie, have you found me? The evenings are chilly still; so, so, old dog, we will go in.'

Mildred waited for a moment and then glided out from the porch—he turned, saw her, and held out his arms without a word.

Mr. Lambert was the first to recover himself; for Mildred's tears, always long in coming, were now falling like rain.

'A sad welcome, my dear; but there, she would not have us grieving like this.'

'Oh, Arnold, how you have suffered! I never realised how much, till Richard stopped the horses, and then I saw you walking alone in the churchyard. The dews are falling, and you are bareheaded. You should take better care of yourself, for the children's sake.'

'Ay, ay; just what she said; but it has grown into a sort of habit with me. Cardie comes and fetches me in, night after night; the lad is a good lad; his mother was right after all.'

'Dear Betha; but you have not laid her here, Arnold?'

He shook his head.

'I could not, Mildred, though she wished it as much as I did. She often said she would like to lie within sight of the home where she had been so happy, and under the shadow of the church porch. She liked the thought of her children's feet passing so near her on their way to church, but I had no power to carry out her wish.'

'You mean the churchyard is closed?'

'Yes, owing to the increase of population, the influx of railway labourers, and the union workhouse, deaths in the parish became so numerous that there was danger of overcrowding. She lies in the cemetery.'

'Ah! I remember.'

'I do not think her funeral will ever be forgotten; people came for miles round to pay their last homage to my darling. One old woman over eighty came all the way from Castlesteads to see her last of "the gradely leddy," as she called her. You should have seen it, to know how she was loved.'

'She made you very happy while she lived, Arnold!'

'Too happy!—look at me now. I have the children, of course, poor things; but in losing her, I feel I have lost the best of everything, and must walk for ever in the shadow.'

He spoke in the vague musing tone that had grown on him of late, and which was new to Mildred—the worn, set features and gray hair contrasted strangely with the vivid brightness of his eyes, at once keen and youthful; he had been a man in the prime of life, vigorous and strong, when Mildred had seen him last; but a long illness and deadly sorrow had wasted his energy, and bowed his upright figure, as though the weight were physical as well as mental.

'But this is a poor welcome, Milly; and you must be tired and starved after your day's journey. You are not looking robust either, my dear—not a trace of the old blooming Milly' (touching her thin cheek sorrowfully). 'Well, well, the children must take care of you, and we'll get Dr. Heriot to prescribe. Has the child come with you after all?'

Mildred signified assent.

'I am glad of it. Thank you heartily for your ready help, Milly; we would do anything for Heriot; the boys treat him as a sort of elder brother, and the girls are fond of him, though they lead him a life sometimes. He is very grateful to you, and says you have lifted a mountain off him. Is the girl a nice girl, eh?'

'I must leave you to judge of that. She has interested me, at any rate; she is thoroughly loveable.'

'She will shake down among the others, and become one of us, I hope. Ah! well, that will be your department, Mildred.

I am not much to be depended on for anything but parish matters. When a man loses hope and energy it is all up with him.'

The little gate swung after them as he spoke; the flower-bordered courtyard before the vicarage seemed half full of moving figures as they crossed the road; and in another moment Mildred was greeting her nieces, and introducing Polly to her brother.

'I cannot be expected to remember you both,' she said, as Olive timidly, and Christine rather coldly, returned her kiss. 'You were such little girls when I last saw you.'

But with Mildred's tone of benevolence there mingled a little dismay. Betha's girls were decidedly odd.

Olive, who was a year older than Polly, and who was quite a head taller, had just gained the thin ungainly age, when to the eyes of anxious guardians the extremities appear in the light of afflictive dispensations; and premature old age is symbolised by the rounded and stooping shoulders, and sunken chest; the age of trodden-down heels and ragged finger-ends, when the glory of the woman, as St. Paul calls it, instead of being coiled into smooth knots, or swept round in faultless plaits, of coroneted beauty, presents a vista of frayed ends and multitudinous hair-pins. Olive's loosely-dropping hair and dark cloudy face gave Mildred a shock; the girl was plain too, though the irregular features beamed at times with a look of intelligence. Christine, who was two years younger, and much better-looking, in spite of a rough, yellowish mane, had an odd, original face, a pert nose, argumentative chin, and restless dark eyes, which already looked critically at persons and things. 'Contradiction Chriss,' as the boys called her, was certainly a character in her way.

'Are you tired, aunt? Will you come in?' asked Olive, in a low voice, turning a dull sort of red as she spoke. 'Cardie thinks you are, and supper is ready, and——'

'I am very tired, dear, and so is Polly,' answered Mildred, cheerfully, as she followed Olive across the dimly-lighted hall, with its old-fashioned fireplace and settles; its tables piled up with coats and hats, which had found their way to the harmonium too.

They went up the low, broad staircase Mildred remembered so well, with its carved balustrades and pretty red and white drugget, and the great blue China jars in the window recesses.

The study door stood open, and Mildred had a glimpse of the high-backed chair, and table littered over with papers, before she began ascending again, and came out into the low-ceiled passage, with deep-set lattice windows looking on the court and churchyard.

'Chrissy and I sleep here,' explained Olive, panting slightly from nervousness, as Mildred looked inquiringly at her. 'We thought—at least Cardie thought—this little room next to us would do for Miss Ellison.'

Heriot's Choice: A Tale

HERIOT'S CHOICE

A Tale

BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY

AUTHOR OF 'NELLIE'S MEMORIES,' 'NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS,' 'SIR GODFREY'S GRANDDAUGHTERS,' ETC.

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1902

All rights reserved

First Edition, 3 Vols. Crown 8vo, 31s. 6d., 1879
Second Edition, 1 Vol. Crown 8vo, 6s., 1890
Reprinted 1891, 1895,(3s. 6d.) 1898
Transferred to Macmillan & Co., Ltd., August 1898, 1902

TO
The Rev. Canon Simpson, LL.D.
THIS STORY
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR

CONTENTS

HERIOT'S CHOICE

CHAPTER I

'SAY YES, MILLY'

CHAPTER II

'IF YOU PLEASE, MAY I BRING RAG AND TATTERS?'

CHAPTER III

VIÂ TEBAY

Heriot's Choice: A Tale

HERIOT'S CHOICE

A Tale

BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY

AUTHOR OF 'NELLIE'S MEMORIES,' 'NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS,' 'SIR GODFREY'S GRANDDAUGHTERS,' ETC.

LondonMACMILLAN AND CO., LimitedNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY1902

All rights reserved

First Edition, 3 Vols. Crown 8vo, 31s. 6d., 1879Second Edition, 1 Vol. Crown 8vo, 6s., 1890Reprinted 1891, 1895,(3s. 6d.) 1898Transferred to Macmillan & Co., Ltd., August 1898, 1902

TOThe Rev. Canon Simpson, LL.D.THIS STORYIS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BYTHE AUTHOR

CONTENTS

HERIOT'S CHOICE

CHAPTER I

'SAY YES, MILLY'

CHAPTER II

'IF YOU PLEASE, MAY I BRING RAG AND TATTERS?'

CHAPTER III

VIÂ TEBAY

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1902

First Edition, 3 Vols. Crown 8vo, 31s. 6d., 1879
Second Edition, 1 Vol. Crown 8vo, 6s., 1890
Reprinted 1891, 1895,(3s. 6d.) 1898
Transferred to Macmillan & Co., Ltd., August 1898, 1902

TO
The Rev. Canon Simpson, LL.D.
THIS STORY
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR