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LOVER OR FRIEND

BY

ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY

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

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1915

THE NOVELS OF

ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY

Popular Edition

Crown 8vo. Cloth extra. 3s. 6d. each.

• NELLIE'S MEMORIES.
• WEE WIFIE.
• BARBARA HEATHCOTE'S TRIAL.
• ROBERT ORD'S ATONEMENT.
• WOOED AND MARRIED.
• HERIOT'S CHOICE.
• QUEENIE'S WHIM.
• MARY ST. JOHN.
• NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS.
• FOR LILIAS.
• UNCLE MAX.
• ONLY THE GOVERNESS.
• LOVER OR FRIEND?
• BASIL LYNDHURST.
• SIR GODFREY'S GRAND-DAUGHTERS.
• THE OLD, OLD STORY.
• THE MISTRESS OF BRAE FARM.
• MRS. ROMNEY and "BUT MEN MUST WORK."
• OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES.
• HERB OF GRACE.
• THE HIGHWAY OF FATE.
• RUE WITH A DIFFERENCE.
• A PASSAGE PERILOUS.
• AT THE MOORINGS.
• THE HOUSEHOLD OF PETER.
• NO FRIEND LIKE A SISTER.
• THE ANGEL OF FORGIVENESS.
• THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE HILL.
• THE KEY OF THE UNKNOWN.

MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.

LOVER OR FRIEND

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

COPYRIGHT

First Edition 1890
Reprinted 1893, 1894, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1902, 1904, 1906, 1910, 1915

CONTENTS

LOVER OR FRIEND?

CHAPTER I

THE BLAKE FAMILY ARE DISCUSSED

'There is nothing, sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.'—Dr. Johnson.

Everyone in Rutherford knew that Mrs. Ross was ruled by her eldest daughter; it was an acknowledged fact, obvious not only to a keen-witted person like Mrs. Charrington, the head-master's wife, but even to the minor intelligence of Johnnie Deans, the youngest boy at Woodcote. It was not that Mrs. Ross was a feeble-minded woman; in her own way she was sensible, clear-sighted, with plenty of common-sense; but she was a little disposed to lean on a stronger nature, and even when Geraldine was in the schoolroom, her energy and youthful vigour began to assert themselves, her opinions insensibly influenced her mother's, until at last they swayed her entirely.

If this were the case when Geraldine was a mere girl, it was certainly not altered when the crowning glories of matronhood were added to her other perfections. Six months ago Geraldine Ross had left her father's house to become the wife of Mr. Harcourt, of Hillside; and in becoming the mistress of one of the coveted Hill houses, Geraldine had not yet consented to lay down the sceptre of her home rule.

Mrs. Ross had acquiesced cheerfully in this arrangement. She had lost her right hand in losing Geraldine; and during the brief honeymoon both she and her younger daughter Audrey felt as though the home machinery were somewhat out of gear. No arrangement could be effected without a good deal of wondering on Mrs. Ross's part as to what Geraldine might think of it, and without a lengthy letter being written on the subject.

It was a relief, at least to her mother's mind, when young Mrs. Harcourt returned, and without a word took up the reins again. No one disputed her claims. Now and then there would be a lazy protest from Audrey—a concealed sarcasm that fell blunted beneath the calm amiability of the elder sister. Geraldine was always perfectly good-tempered; the sense of propriety that guided all her actions never permitted her to grow hot in argument; and when a person is always in the right, as young Mrs. Harcourt believed herself to be, the small irritations of daily life fall very harmlessly. It is possible for a man to be so cased in armour that even a pin-prick of annoyance will not find ingress. It is true the armour may be a little stifling and somewhat inconvenient for work-a-day use, but it is a grand thing to be saved from pricks.

Mrs. Harcourt was presiding at the little tea-table in the Woodcote drawing-room; there were only two other persons in the room. It was quite an understood thing that the young mistress of Hillside should walk over to Woodcote two or three afternoons in the week, to give her mother the benefit of her society, and also to discuss any little matter that might have arisen during her brief absence.

Mrs. Harcourt was an exceedingly handsome young woman; in fact, many people thought her lovely. She had well-cut features, a good complexion—with the soft, delicate colouring that only perfect health ever gives—and a figure that was at once graceful and dignified. To add to all these attractions, she understood the art of dressing herself; her gowns always fitted her to perfection. She was always attired suitably, and though vanity and self-consciousness were not her natural foibles, she had a feminine love of pretty things, and considered it a wifely duty to please the eyes of her lord and master.

Mrs. Harcourt had the old-fashioned sugar-tongs in her hand, and was balancing them lightly for a moment. 'It is quite true, mother,' she said decisively, as she dropped the sugar into the shallow teacup.

Mrs. Ross looked up from her knitting.

'My dear Geraldine, I do hope you are mistaken,' she returned anxiously.

Mrs. Ross had also been a very pretty woman, and even now she retained a good deal of pleasant middle-aged comeliness. She was somewhat stout, and had grown a little inactive in consequence; but her expression was soft and motherly, and she had the unmistakable air of a gentlewoman. In her husband's eyes she was still handsomer than her daughters; and Dr. Ross flattered himself that he had made the all-important choice of his life more wisely than other men.

'My dear mother, how is it possible to be mistaken?' returned her daughter, with a shade of reproof in her voice. 'I told you that I had a long talk with Edith. Michael, I have made your tea; I think it is just as you like it—with no infusion of tannin, as you call it'; and she turned her head slowly, so as to bring into view the person she was addressing, and who, seated at a little distance, had taken no part in the conversation.

He was a thin, pale man, of about five or six and thirty, with a reddish moustache. As he crossed the room in response to this invitation, he moved with an air of languor that amounted to lassitude, and a slight limp was discernible. His features were plain; only a pair of clear blue eyes, with a peculiarly searching expression, distinguished him from a hundred men of the same type.

These eyes were not always pleasant to meet. Certain people felt disagreeably in their inner consciousness that Captain Burnett could read them too accurately—'No fellow has a right to look you through and through,' as one young staff officer observed; 'it is taking a liberty with a man. Burnett always seems as though he is trying to turn a fellow inside out, to get at the other side of him'—not a very eloquent description of a would-be philosopher who loved to dabble a little in human foibles.

'I have been listening to the Blake discussion,' he said coolly, as he took the offered cup. 'What a wonderful woman you are, Gage! you have a splendid talent for organisation; and even a thorough-paced scandal has to be organised.'

'Scandal!—what are you talking about, Michael?'

'Your talent for organisation, even in trifles,' he returned promptly. 'I am using the word advisedly. I have just been reading De Quincey's definition of talent and genius. He says—now pray listen, Gage—that "talent is intellectual power of every kind which acts and manifests itself by and through the will and the active forces. Genius, as the verbal origin implies, is that much rarer species of intellectual power which is derived from the genial nature, from the spirit of suffering and enjoying, from the spirit of pleasure and pain, as organised more or less perfectly; and this is independent of the will. It is a function of the passive nature. Talent is conversant with the adaptation of means to ends; but genius is conversant only with ends."'

'My dear Michael, I have no doubt that all this is exceedingly clever, and that your memory is excellent, but why are we to be crushed beneath all this analysis?'

'I was only drawing a comparison between you and Audrey,' he replied tranquilly. 'I have been much struck by the idea involved in the word "genial"; I had no conception we could evolve "genius" out of it. Audrey is a very genial person; she also, in De Quincey's words, "moves in headlong sympathy and concurrence with spontaneous power." This is his definition, mark you; I lay no claim to it: "Genius works under a rapture of necessity and spontaneity." I do love that expression, "headlong sympathy"; it so well expresses the way Audrey works.'

Mrs. Harcourt gave a little assenting shrug. She was not quite pleased with the turn the conversation had taken; abstract ideas were not to her taste; the play of words in which Captain Burnett delighted bored her excessively. She detected, too, a spice of irony. The comparison between her and Audrey was not a flattering one: she was far cleverer than Audrey; her masters and governesses would have acknowledged that fact. And yet her cousin Michael was giving the divine gift of genius to her more scantily endowed sister; genius! but, of course, it was only Michael's nonsense: he would say anything when he was in the humour for disputation. Even her own Percival had these contentious moods. The masculine mind liked to play with moral ninepins, to send all kinds of exploded theories rolling with their little ball of wit; it sharpened their argumentative faculties, and kept them bright and ready for use.

'Mother and I were talking about these tiresome Blakes—not of Audrey,' she said in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. 'If you were listening, Michael, you must have heard the whole account of my conversation with Mrs. Bryce.'

'Oh, you mean Harcourt's sister, with whom you have been staying. Did I not tell you that I had heard every word, and was admiring your admirable tactics? The way in which you marshalled your forces of half-truths and implied verities and small mounted theories was grand—absolutely grand!'

Mrs. Harcourt was silent for a moment. Michael was very trying; he often exercised her patience most severely. But there was a threefold reason for her forbearance; first, he was her father's cousin, and beloved by him as his own son would have been if he had ever had one; secondly, his ill-health entitled him to a good deal of consideration from any kind-hearted woman; and thirdly, and perhaps principally, he had the reputation for saying and doing odd, out-of-the-way things; and a man who moves in an eccentric circle of his own is never on other people's plane, and therefore some allowance must be made for him.

Mrs. Harcourt could, however, have heartily endorsed Mrs. Carlyle's opinion of her gifted son, and applied it to her cousin—'He was ill to live with.' Somehow one loves this honest, shrewd criticism of the old North-Country woman, the homely body who smoked short black pipes in the chimney-corner, but whom Carlyle loved and venerated from the bottom of his big heart. 'Ill to live with'—perhaps Michael Burnett, with his injured health and Victoria Cross, and the purpose of his life all marred and frustrated, was not the easiest person in the world.

Mrs. Harcourt was silent for an instant; but she never permitted herself to be ruffled, so she went on in her smooth voice:

'I felt it was my duty to repeat to mother all that Edith—I mean Mrs. Bryce—told me about the Blakes.'

'Please do not be so formal. I infinitely prefer that fine, princess-like name of Edith,' remarked Michael, with a lazy twinkle in his eyes; but Mrs. Harcourt would not condescend even to notice the interruption.

'Mrs. Bryce,' with a pointed emphasis on the name, 'was much concerned when she heard that my father had engaged Mr. Blake for his classical master.'

'And why so?' demanded Captain Burnett a little sharply. 'He has taken a good degree; Dr. Ross seems perfectly satisfied with him.'

'Oh, there is nothing against the young man; he is clever and pleasant, and very good-looking. It is only the mother who is so objectionable. Perhaps I am putting it too strongly—only Mrs. Bryce and her husband did not like her. They say she is a very unsatisfactory person, and so difficult to understand.'

'Poor Mrs. Blake,' ejaculated her cousin, 'to be judged before the Bryce tribunal and found wanting!'

'Don't be ridiculous, Michael!' replied Mrs. Harcourt, in her good-tempered way; 'of course you take her part simply because she is accused: you are like Audrey in that.'

'You see we are both genial persons; but, seriously, Mrs. Blake's list of misdemeanours seems absurdly trifling. She is very handsome; that is misdemeanour number one, I believe.'

'My dear,' observed Mrs. Ross placidly at this point, for she had been too busy counting her stitches to concern herself with the strife of words, 'Geraldine only mentioned that as a fact: she remarked that Mrs. Blake was a very prepossessing person, that she had rather an uncommon type of beauty.'

'That makes her all the more interesting,' murmured Captain Burnett, with his eyes half closed. 'I begin to feel quite excited about this Mrs. Blake. I do delight in anything out of the common.'

'Oh, Edith never denied that she was fascinating. She is a clever woman, too; only there were certain little solecisms committed that made her think Mrs. Blake was not a thorough gentlewoman. They are undoubtedly very poor; and though, of course, that is no objection, it is so absurd for people in such a position to try and ignore their little shifts and contrivances. Honest poverty is to be respected, but not when it is allied to pretension.'

'My dear Gage, was it you or Mrs. Bryce who made that exceedingly clever speech! It was really worthy of Dr. Johnson; it only wanted a "Sir" to point the Doctor's style. "Sir, honest poverty is to be respected, but not when it is allied to pretension"—a good, thorough Johnsonian speech! And so the poor woman is poor?'

'Yes, but no one minds that,' returned Mrs. Harcourt, somewhat hastily. 'I hope you do not think that anything in her outward circumstances has prejudiced my sister-in-law against her. As far as that goes, Mrs. Blake deserves credit; she has denied herself comforts even to give her son a good education. No, it is something contradictory in the woman herself that made the Bryces say they would never get on with her. She is impulsive, absurdly impulsive; and yet at the same time she is reserved. She has a bad temper—at least, Edith declares she has heard her scolding her servant in no measured terms; and then she is so injudicious with her children. She absolutely adores her eldest son, Cyril; but Edith will have it that she neglects her daughter. And there is an invalid boy, too—a very interesting little fellow; at least, I don't know how old he is—and she is not too attentive to him. Housekeeping worries her, and she is fond of society; and I know the Bryces think that she would marry again if she got the chance.'

'Let the younger widows marry. I hope you do not mean to contradict St. Paul. Have we quite finished the indictment, Gage? Be it known unto the inhabitants of Rutherford that a certain seditious and dangerous person of the name of Blake is about to take up her residence in the town—the list of her misdemeanours being as follows, to wit, as they say in old chronicles: an uncommon style of beauty, an inclination to replace the deceased Mr. Blake, imperfect temper, impulsiveness tempered with reserve, unconventionality of habit, poverty combined with pretentiousness, and a disposition to slight her maternal duties—really a most interesting person!'

'Michael, of course you say that to provoke me; please don't listen to him, mother. You understand me if no one else does; you know it is Audrey of whom I am thinking. Yes,' turning to her cousin, 'you may amuse yourself with turning all my speeches into ridicule, but in your heart you agree with me. I have often heard you lecturing Audrey on her impulsiveness and want of common-sense. It will be just like her to strike up a violent friendship with Mrs. Blake—you know how she takes these sudden fancies; and father is quite as bad. I daresay they will both discover she is charming before twenty-four hours are over; that is why I am begging mother to be very prudent, and keep the Blakes at a distance.'

'You agree, of course, Cousin Emmeline?'

'Well, my dear, I don't quite like the account Geraldine gives me. Mrs. Bryce is a very shrewd person; she is not likely to make mistakes. I think I shall give Audrey a hint, unless you prefer to do so, Geraldine.'

'I think it will come better from me, mother; you see, I shall just retail Edith's words. Audrey is a little difficult to manage sometimes; she likes to form her own notions of people. There is no time to be lost if they are coming in to-morrow.'

'I thought your father said it was to-day that they were expected?'

'No; I am positive Percival said to-morrow. I know the old servant and some of the furniture arrived at the Gray Cottage two days ago.'

Captain Burnett looked up quickly, as though he were about to speak, and then changed his mind, and went on with his occupation, which was teaching a small brown Dachs-hund the Gladstone trick.

'Now, Booty, when I say "Lord Salisbury," you are to eat the sugar, but not before. Ah, here comes the bone of contention!' he went on in a purposely loud tone, as a shadow darkened the window; and the next minute a tall young lady stepped over the low sill into the room.

'Were you talking about me?' she asked in a clear voice, as she looked round at them. 'How do you do, Gage? Have you been here all the afternoon? How is Percival? No more tea, thank you; I have just had some—at the Blakes'.'

'At the Blakes'?' exclaimed her sister, in a horror-stricken tone, unable to believe her ears.

'Yes. I heard they had come in last night, so I thought it would be only neighbourly to call and see if one could do anything for them. I met father on the Hill, and he quite approved. Mrs. Blake sends her compliments to you, mother;' and as only an awful silence answered her, she continued innocently: 'I am sure you and Gage will like her. She is charming—perfectly charming! the nicest person I have seen for a long time!' finished Audrey, with delightful unconsciousness of the sensation she was creating.

CHAPTER II

AUDREY INTRODUCES HERSELF

'Indeed, all faults, had they been ten times more and greater, would have been neutralised by that supreme expression of her features, to the unity of which every lineament in the fixed parts, and every undulation in the moving parts of her countenance, concurred, viz., a sunny benignity, a radiant graciousness, such as in this world I never saw surpassed.'

De Quincey.

In this innocent fashion had Audrey Ross solved the Gordian knot of family difficulty, leaving her mother and sister eyeing each other with the aghast looks of defeated conspirators; and it must be owned that many a tangled skein, that would have been patiently and laboriously unravelled by the skilled fingers of Geraldine, was spoilt in this manner by the quick impulsiveness of Audrey.

No two sisters could be greater contrasts to each other. While young Mrs. Harcourt laid an undue stress on what may be termed the minor morals, the small proprieties, and lesser virtues that lie on the surface of things and give life its polish, Audrey was for ever riding full-tilt against prejudices or raising a crusade against what she chose to term 'the bugbear of feminine existence—conventionality.'

Not that Audrey was a strong-minded person or a stickler for woman's rights. She had no advanced notions, no crude theories, on the subject of emancipation; it was only, to borrow Captain Burnett's words, that her headlong sympathies carried her away; a passionate instinct of pity always made her range herself on the losing side. Her virtues were unequally balanced, and her generosity threatened to degenerate into weakness. Most women love to feel the support of a stronger nature; Audrey loved to support others; any form of suffering, mental or physical, appealed to her irresistibly. Her sympathy was often misplaced and excessive, and her power of self-effacement, under some circumstances, was even more remarkable, the word 'self-effacement' being rightly used here, as 'self-sacrifice' presupposes some consciousness of action. It was this last trait that caused genuine anxiety to those who knew and loved Audrey best; for who can tell to what lengths a generous nature may go, to whom any form of pain is intolerable, and every beggar, worthy or unworthy, a human brother or sister, with claims to consideration?

If Audrey were not as clever as her elder sister, she had more originality; she was also far more independent in her modes of action and thought, and went on her own way without reference to others.

'It is not that I think myself wiser than other people,' she said once to her cousin, who had just been delivering her a lecture on this subject. 'Of course I am always making mistakes—everyone does; but you see, Michael, I have lived so long with myself—exactly two-and-twenty years—and so I must know most about myself, and what is best for this young person,' tapping herself playfully.

Audrey was certainly not so handsome as her sister. She had neither Geraldine's perfection of feature nor her exquisite colouring; but she had her good points, like other people.

Her hair was soft and brown, and there was a golden tinge in it that was greatly admired. There was also a depth and expression in her gray eyes that Geraldine lacked. But the charm of Audrey's face was her smile. It was no facial contortion, no mere lip service; it was a heart illumination—a sudden radiance that seemed to light up every feature, and which brought a certain lovely dimple into play.

And there was one other thing noticeable in Audrey, and which brought the sisters into still sharper contrast. She was lamentably deficient in taste, and, though personally neat, was rather careless on the subject of dress. She liked an old gown better than a new one, was never quite sure which colour suited her best, and felt just as happy paying a round of calls in an old cambric as in the best tailor-made gown. It was on this subject that she and Geraldine differed most. No amount of spoken wisdom could make Audrey see that she was neglecting her opportunities to a culpable degree; that while other forms of eccentricity might be forgiven, the one unpardonable sin in Geraldine's code was Audrey's refusal to make the best of herself.

'And you do look so nice when you are well dressed,' she observed with mournful affection on one occasion when Audrey had specially disappointed her. 'You have a beautiful figure—Madame Latouche said so herself—and yet you would wear that hideous gown Miss Sewell has made, and at Mrs. Charrington's "at home," too.'

'How many people were affected by this sad occurrence?' asked Audrey scornfully. 'My dear Gage, your tone is truly tragical. Was it my clothes or me—poor little me!—that Mrs. Charrington invited and wanted to see? Do you know, Michael,' for that young man was present, 'I have such a grand idea for the future; a fashion to come in with Wagner's music, and æsthetics, and female lawyers—in fact, an advanced theory worthy of the nineteenth century. You know how people hate "at homes," and how bored they are, and how they grumble at the crush and the crowd.'

'Well, I do believe they are hideous products of civilisation,' he returned with an air of candour.

'Just so; well, now for my idea. Oh, I must send it to Punch, I really must. My proposition is that people should send their card by their lady's-maid, and also the toilette intended for that afternoon, to be inspected by the hostess. Can you not imagine the scene? First comes the announcement by the butler: "Lady Fitzmaurice's clothes." Enter smiling lady's-maid, bearing a wondrously braided skirt with plush mantle and bonnet with pheasant's wing. Hostess bows, smiles, and inspects garments through her eyeglasses. "Charming! everything Lady Fitzmaurice wears is in such perfect taste. My dear Cecilia, that bonnet would just suit me—make a note of it, please. My compliments to her ladyship." Now then for Mrs. Grenville, and so on. Crowds still, you see, but no hand-shaking, no confusion of voices; and then, the wonderful economy: no tea and coffee, no ices, no professional artistes, only a little refreshment perhaps in the servants' hall.'

'Audrey, how can you talk such nonsense?' returned her sister severely.

But Captain Burnett gave his low laugh of amusement. He revelled in the girl's odd speeches; he thought Audrey's nonsense worth more than all Geraldine's sense, he even enjoyed with a man's insouciance her daring disregard of conventionality.

How difficult it is for a person thoroughly to know him or her self, unless he or she be morbidly addicted to incessant self-examination! Audrey thought that it was mere neighbourliness that induced her to call on the Blakes that afternoon; she had no idea that a strong curiosity made her wish to interview the new-comers.

Rutherford was far too confined an area for a liberal mind like Audrey's. Her large and intense nature demanded fuller scope for its energies. With the exception of boys—who certainly preponderated in Rutherford—there were far too few human beings to satisfy Audrey. Every fresh face was therefore hailed by her with joy, and though perhaps she hardly went to Dr. Johnson's length when he complained that he considered that day lost on which he had not made a new acquaintance, still, her social instincts were not sufficiently nourished. The few people were busy people; they had a tiresome habit, too, of forming cliques, and in many ways they disappointed her. With her richer neighbours, especially among the Hill houses, Geraldine was the reigning favourite; Mrs. Charrington was devoted to her. Only little Mrs. Stanfield, of Rosendale, thought there was no one in the world like dear Audrey Ross.

Audrey would not have mentioned her little scheme to her mother for worlds. Her mother was not a safe agent. She had long ago made Geraldine her conscience-keeper, but she had no objection to tell her father when she met him walking down the hill with his hands behind him, and evidently revolving his next Sunday's sermon.

Dr. Ross was rather a fine-looking man. He had grown gray early, and his near-sight obliged him to wear spectacles; but his keen, clever face, and the benevolent and kindly air that distinguished him, always attracted people to him. At times he was a little absent and whimsical; and those who knew them both well declared that Audrey had got all her original ideas and unconventional ways from the Doctor.

'Father, I am going to call on the Blakes,' she observed, as he was about to pass her as he would a stranger.

'Dear me, Audrey, how you startled me! I was deep in original sin, I believe. The Blakes? Oh, I told young Blake to come up to dinner to-night; I want Michael to see him. Very well. Give my respects to Mrs. Blake; and if there be any service we can render her, be sure you offer it;' and Dr. Ross walked on, quite unconscious that his daughter had retraced her steps, and was following him towards the town. 'For I won't disturb him with my chatter,' she thought, 'and I may as well go to Gage to-morrow; she is sure to keep me, and then it would be rather awkward if she should take it into her head to talk about the Blakes. She might want to go with me, or perhaps, which is more likely, she would make a fuss about my going so soon. If you want to do a thing, do it quickly, and without telling anyone, is my motto. Father is no one. If I were going to run away from home, or do anything equally ridiculous, I should be sure to tell father first; he would only recommend me to go first class, and be sure to take a cab at the other end, bless him!'

Dr. Ross walked on in a leisurely, thoughtful fashion, not too abstracted, however, to wave his hand slightly as knots of boys saluted him in passing. Audrey had a nod and smile for them all. At the Hill houses and at the school-house Geraldine might be the acknowledged favourite; but every boy in the upper and the lower school was Audrey's sworn adherent. She was their liege lady, for whom they were proud to do service; and more than one of the prefects cherished a tremulous passion for the Doctor's daughter together with his budding moustache, and, strange to say, was none the worse for the mild disease.

A pleasant lane led from the Hill to the town, with sloping meadows on one side. It was a lovely afternoon in June, and groups of boys were racing down the field path on their way to the cricket ground. Audrey looked after them with a vivid interest. 'How happy they all look!' she said to herself. 'I do believe a boy—a real honest, healthy English boy—is one of the finest things in the creation. They are far happier than girls; they have more freedom, more zest, in their lives. If they work hard, they play well; every faculty of mind and body is trained to perfection. Look at Willie Darner running down that path! he is just crazy with the summer wind and the frolic of an afternoon's holiday. There is nothing to match with his enjoyment, unless it be a kitten sporting with the flying leaves, or a butterfly floating in the sunshine. He has not a care, that boy, except how he is to get over the ground fast enough.'

Audrey had only a little bit of the town to traverse, but her progress was almost as slow and stately as a queen's. She had so many friends to greet, so many smiles and nods and how-d'ye-do's to execute; but at last she arrived at her destination. The Gray Cottage was a small stone house, placed between Dr. Ross's house and the school-house, with two windows overlooking the street. The living-rooms were at the back, and the view from them was far pleasanter, as Audrey well knew. From the drawing-room one looked down on the rugged court of the school-house, and on the gray old arches, through which one passed to the chapel and library. The quaint old buildings, with the stone façade, hoary with age, was the one feature of interest that always made Audrey think the Gray Cottage one of the pleasantest houses in Rutherford. Audrey knew every room. She had looked out on the old school-house often and often; she knew exactly how it looked in the moonlight, or on a winter's day when the snow lay on the ground, and the ruddy light of a December sunset tinged the windows and threw a halo over the old buildings. But she liked to see it best in the dim starlight, when all sorts of shadows seemed to lurk between the arches, and a strange, solemn light invested it with a legendary and imaginative interest.

A heavy green gate shut off the Gray Cottage from the road. Audrey opened it, and walked up to the door, which had always stood open in the old days when her friends, the Powers, had lived there. It was open now; a profusion of packing-cases blocked up the spacious courtyard, and a black retriever was lying on some loose straw—evidently keeping watch and ward over them. He shook himself lazily as Audrey spoke to him, and then wagged his tail in a friendly fashion, and finally uttered a short bark of welcome.

Audrey stooped down and stroked his glossy head. She always made friends with every animal—she had a large four-footed acquaintance with whom she was on excellent terms—from Jenny, the cobbler's donkey, down to Tim, the little white terrier that belonged to the sweep. She had just lost her own companion and follower, a splendid St. Bernard puppy, and had not yet replaced him. As she fondled the dog, she heard a slight sound near her, and, looking up, met the inquiring gaze of a pair of wide-open brown eyes. They belonged to a girl of fourteen, a slight, thin slip of a girl in a shabby dress that she had outgrown, and thick dark hair tied loosely with a ribbon, and falling in a wavy mass over her shoulders, and a small sallow face, looking at the present moment very shy and uncomfortable.

'If you please,' she began timidly, and twisting her hands awkwardly as she spoke, 'mamma is very tired and has gone to lie down. We only moved in yesterday, and the place is in such a muddle.'

'Of course it is in a muddle,' replied Audrey in her pleasant, easy fashion. 'That is exactly why I called—to see if I could be of any assistance. I am Miss Ross, from the lower school—will you let me come in and speak to you? You are Miss Blake, are you not?'

'Yes; I am Mollie,' returned the girl, reddening and looking still more uncomfortable. 'I am very sorry, Miss Ross—and it is very good of you to call so soon—but there is no place fit to ask you to sit down. Biddy is such a bad manager. She ought to have got things far more comfortable for us, but she is old—and——'

'Miss Mollie, where am I to find the teapot?' called out a voice belonging to some invisible body—a voice with the unmistakable brogue. 'There's the mistress just dying for a cup of tea, and how will I be giving it to her without the teapot? and it may be in any of those dozen hampers—bad luck to it!'

'I am coming, Biddy,' sighed the girl wearily, and the flush of annoyance deepened in her cheek.

Somehow, that tired young face, burdened with some secret care, appealed to Audrey's quick sympathies. She put out her hand and gave her a light push as she stood blocking up the entry.

'My dear, I will help you look for the teapot,' she said in the kindest voice possible. 'You are just tired to death, and of course it is natural that your mother should want her tea. If we cannot find it, I will run round and borrow one from the Wrights. Everyone knows what moving is—one has to undergo all sorts of discomforts. Let me put down my sunshade and lace scarf, and then you will see how useful I can be'; and Audrey walked into the house, leaving Mollie tongue-tied with astonishment, and marched into the dining-room, which certainly looked a chaos—with dusty chairs, tables, half-emptied hampers, books, pictures, all jumbled up together with no sort of arrangement, just as the men had deposited them from the vans. Here, however, she paused, slightly taken aback by the sight of another dark head, which raised itself over the sofa-cushions, while another pair of brown eyes regarded her with equal astonishment.

'It is only Kester,' whispered Mollie. 'I think he was asleep. Kester, Miss Ross kindly wishes to help us a little—but—did you ever see such a place?' speaking in a tone of disgust and shrugging her shoulders.

'Mollie can't be everywhere,' rejoined the boy, trying to drag himself off the sofa as he spoke, and then Audrey saw he was a cripple.

He looked about fifteen, but his long, melancholy face had nothing boyish about it. The poor lad was evidently a chronic sufferer; there was a permanent look of ill-health stamped on his features, and the beautiful dark eyes had a plaintive look in them.

'Mollie does her best,' he went on almost irritably; 'but she and Cyril have been busy upstairs getting up the beds and that sort of thing, so they could not turn their hand to all this lumber,' kicking over some books as he spoke.

'Mollie is very young,' returned Audrey, feeling she must take them under her protection at once, and, as usual, acting on her impulse. 'Is your name Kester? What an uncommon name! but I like it somehow. I am so sorry to see you are an invalid, but you can get about a little on crutches?'

'Sometimes, not always, when my hip is bad,' was the brief response.

'Has it always been so?' in a pitying voice.

'Well, ever since I was a little chap, and Cyril dropped me. I don't know how it happened; he was not very big, either. It is so long ago that I never remember feeling like other fellows'; and Kester sighed impatiently and kicked over some more books. 'There I go, upsetting everything; but there is no room to move. We had our dinner, such as it was, in the kitchen—not that I could eat it, eh, Mollie?'

Mollie shook her head sadly.

'You have not eaten a bit to-day. Cyril promised to bring in some buns for tea; but I daresay he will forget all about it.'

A sudden thought struck Audrey: these two poor children did look so disconsolate. Mollie's tired face was quite dust-begrimed; she had been crying, too, probably with worry and over-fatigue, for the reddened eyelids betrayed her.

'I have a bright idea,' she said in her pleasant, friendly way, 'why should you not have tea in the garden? You have a nice little lawn, and it will not be too sunny near the house. If Biddy will only be good enough to boil the kettle I will run and fetch a teapot. It is no use hunting in those hampers, you are far too tired, Mollie. We will just lift out this little table. I see it has flaps, so it will be large enough; and if you can find a few teacups and plates, I will be back in a quarter of an hour with the other things.'

Audrey did not specify what other things she meant; she left that a pleasing mystery, to be unravelled by and by; she only waited to lift out the table, and then started off on her quest.

The Wrights could not give her half she wanted; but Audrey in her own erratic fashion was a woman of resources: she made her way quickly to Woodcote, and entering it through the back premises, just as her sister was walking leisurely up to the front door, she went straight to the kitchen to make her raid.

Cooper was evidently accustomed to her young mistress's eccentric demands. She fetched one article after another, as Audrey named them: a teapot, a clean cloth, a quarter of a pound of the best tea, a little tin of cream from the dairy, half a dozen new-laid eggs, a freshly-baked loaf hot from the oven, and some crisp, delicious-looking cakes, finally a pat of firm yellow butter; and with this last article Audrey pronounced herself satisfied.

'You had better let Joe carry some of the things, Miss Audrey,' suggested Cooper, as she packed a large basket; 'he is round about somewhere.' And Audrey assented to this.

Geraldine was just beginning her Blake story, and Mrs. Ross was listening to her with a troubled face, as Audrey, armed with the teapot, and followed by Joe with the basket, turned in again at the green gate of the Gray Cottage.

CHAPTER III

THE BLAKE FAMILY AT HOME

'Her manner was warm, and even ardent; her sensibility seemed constitutionally deep; and some subtle fire of impassioned intellect apparently burnt within her.'—De Quincey.

There was certainly a tinge of Bohemianism in Audrey's nature. She delighted in any short-cut that took her out of the beaten track. A sudden and unexpected pleasure was far more welcome to her than any festivity to which she was bidden beforehand.

'I am very unlike Gage,' she said once to her usual confidant, Captain Burnett. 'No one would take us for sisters; even in our cradles we were dissimilar. Gage was a pattern baby, never cried for anything, and delighted everyone with her pretty ways; and I was always grabbing at father's spectacles with my podgy little fingers, and screaming for the carving-knife or any such incongruous thing. Do you know my first babyish name for father?'

'I believe it was Daddy Glass-Eyes, was it not?' was the ready response, for somehow this young man had a strangely retentive memory, and seldom forgot anything that interested him.

Audrey laughed.

'I had no idea you would have remembered that. How I loved to snatch off those spectacles! "You can't see me now, Daddy Glass-Eyes," I can hear myself saying that; "daddy can't see with only two eyes."'

'You were a queer little being even then,' he returned, somewhat dryly. 'But I believe, as usual, we are wandering from our subject. You are a most erratic talker, Audrey. What made you burst out just now into this sisterly tirade?'

'Ah, to be sure! I was contrasting myself with Gage; it always amuses me to do that. It only proceeded from a speech the Countess made this afternoon'; for in certain naughty moods Audrey would term her elder sister the Countess. 'She declared half the pleasure of a thing consisted in preparation and anticipation; but I disagree with her entirely. I like all my pleasures served up to me hot and spiced—without any flavour reaching me beforehand. That is why I am so charmed with the idea of surprise parties and impromptu picnics, and all that kind of thing.'

Audrey felt as though she were assisting at some such surprise party as she turned in at the green gate, and relieved Joe of the basket. Mollie came running round the side of the house to meet her. She had washed her face, and brushed out her tangled hair and tied it afresh.

'Oh, what have you there?' she asked in some little excitement. 'Miss Ross, have you really carried all these things? The kettle is boiling, and I have some clean cups and saucers. Kester has been helping me. I think mamma is awake, for I heard her open her window just now.'

'What a nice, intelligent face she has!' thought Audrey, as she unpacked her basket and displayed the hidden dainties before the girl's delighted eyes. 'I am sure I shall like Mollie. She is not a bit pretty—I daresay Gage and Michael would call her plain; but she has an honest look in her brown eyes.' 'Mollie,' speaking aloud, 'if your mother has awakened from her nap, she will be quite ready for her tea. May I go into the kitchen a moment? I want Biddy to boil these eggs—they are new-laid; and perhaps you could find me a plate for the butter'; and as Mollie ran off Audrey turned coolly into the kitchen—a pleasant apartment, overlooking the street—where she found a little old woman, with a wrinkled face and dark, hawk-like eyes, standing by the hearth watching the boiling kettle.

The kitchen was in the same state of chaos as the dining-room—the table covered with unwashed dishes, and crates half unpacked littering the floor. It was evident Biddy was no manager. As she stood there in her dirty cotton gown, with her thin gray hair twisted into a rough knot, and a black handkerchief tied loosely over her head, she was the image of Fairy Disorder; her bent little figure and the blackened poker in her hand carried out the resemblance, as she looked up with her bright, peering eyes at the tall young lady who confronted her.

'Do you think I could find a saucepan, Biddy?'

'I suppose there is one about somewhere,' was the encouraging answer. 'Perhaps Miss Mollie will be knowing; she boiled some potatoes for dinner.'

'Do you mean this?' regarding the article with some disfavour. 'Would it trouble you very much to wash it while I make the tea? I have some nice fresh eggs, which I think they will all enjoy.'

But Biddy only returned a snapping answer that was somewhat unintelligible, and carried out the saucepan with rather a sour face.

'Disagreeable old thing!' thought Audrey, as she made the tea, but she afterwards retracted this hasty judgment.

Biddy was a bad manager, certainly, but she was not without her virtues. She was faithful, and would slave herself to death for those she loved; but she was old for work, and the 'ache,' as she called it, had got into her bones. She had slept on the floor for two nights, and her poor old back was tired, and her head muddled with the confusion and her mistress's fretful fussiness. Biddy could have worked well if any one had told her exactly what to do, but between one order and another—between Mr. Cyril's impatience and Miss Mollie's incapable, youthful zeal—she was just 'moithered,' as she would have said herself.

She brought back the saucepan after a minute, and Audrey boiled the eggs. As she looked down at the hissing, bubbling water, an amused smile stole over her features.

'If only Gage could see me now!' she thought; and then Mollie came in and rummaged in a big basket for teaspoons.

Audrey carried out her teapot in triumph. Mollie had done her work well and tastefully: the snowy cloth was on the table; there were cups and saucers and plates; the butter was ornamented with green leaves, the cakes were in a china basket. Kester was dusting some chairs.

'Doesn't it look nice!' exclaimed Mollie, quite forgetting her shyness. 'How I wish Cyril would come in! He does so love things to be nice—he and Kester are so particular. Mamma!' glancing up at a window above them, 'won't you please to hurry down? May I sit there, Miss Ross? I always pour out the tea, because mamma does not like the trouble, and Kester always sits next to me.'

'Is your mother an invalid, my dear?' asked Audrey, feeling that this must be the case.

'Mamma? Oh no! She has a headache sometimes, but so do I—and Cyril often says the same. I think mamma is strong, really. She can take long walks, and she often sits up late reading or talking to Cyril; but it tries her to do things in the house, she has never been accustomed to it, and putting things to rights in Cyril's room has quite knocked her up.'

'What are you talking about, you little chatterbox?' interrupted a gay, good-humoured voice; and Audrey, turning round, saw a lady in black coming quickly towards them: the next moment two hands were held out in very friendly fashion. 'I need not ask who our kind visitor is,' went on Mrs. Blake. 'I know it must be Miss Ross—no one else could have heard of our arrival. Have you ever experienced the delights of a move? I think I have never passed a more miserable four-and-twenty hours. I am utterly done up, as I daresay my little girl has told you; but the sight of that delicious tea-table is a restorative in itself. I had no idea Rutherford held such kind neighbours. Mollie, I hope you have thanked Miss Ross for her goodness. Dear me, what a figure the child looks!'

'Yes, mamma,' replied Mollie, with a return of her shyness; and she slunk behind the tea-tray.

Audrey had apparently no answer ready. The oddest idea had come into her mind: Supposing Michael were to fall in love with Mrs. Blake? He was a great admirer of beauty, though he was a little fastidious on the subject, and certainly, with the exception of Geraldine, Audrey thought she had never seen a handsomer woman.

Mrs. Blake's beauty was certainly of no ordinary type: her features were small and delicate, and her face had the fine oval that one sees in the portraits of Mary Queen of Scots; her complexion was pale and somewhat creamy in tint, and set off the dark hazel eyes and dark smooth coils of hair to perfection.

The long black dress and widow-like collar and cuffs suited the tall, graceful figure; and as Audrey noticed the quick changes of expression, the bright smile, and listened to the smooth, harmonious voice, she thought that never before had she seen so fascinating a woman.

'Gage will rave about her,' was her mental critique. 'She will say at once that she has never seen a more lady-like person—"lady-like," that is Gage's favourite expression. And as to Michael—well, it is never Michael's way to rave; but he will certainly take a great deal of pleasure in looking at Mrs. Blake.'

'Will you sit by me, Miss Ross?' asked her hostess in a winning voice; and Audrey woke up from her abstraction, colouring and smiling.

'I have taken a great liberty with your house,' she said, feeling for the first time as though some apology were due; for the queenly beneficence of Mrs. Blake's manner seemed to imply some condescension on her part in accepting such favours. 'I called to see if you needed any assistance from a neighbour, and I found poor Mollie looking so tired and perplexed that I stayed to help her.'

'Mollie does her best,' replied Mrs. Blake gently; 'but she is a sad manager, and so is Biddy. They nearly worry me to death between them. If they put a thing straight, it is sure to be crooked again the next moment.'

'I am sure Mollie works hard enough,' grumbled Kester; but his mother did not appear to hear him.

'I am a wretched manager myself,' she went on. 'If it were not for Cyril, I do not know what would become of us. Poor Kester is no use to anyone. Would you believe it, Miss Ross, that, when we arrived last night, not a bedstead was up? That was Biddy's fault; she forgot to remind the men. We all slept on the floor except Kester. Cyril would put up his bed for him, though I told him that just for once, and on a summer's night, it would not hurt him.'

Mollie and Kester glanced at each other; and then Kester bit his lip, and looked down at his plate.

'Oh, mamma,' began Mollie eagerly; but Mrs. Blake gave her a quick, reproving look.

'Please don't interrupt, Mollie. I want Miss Ross to understand; she must be quite shocked to see such confusion. Cyril said this morning we should be all ill if we passed another night in that way; so he and Biddy have been putting up the beds, and getting the upstairs rooms in order, and Mollie was sent down to make the dining-room a little tidy.'

'But, mamma——' pleaded Molly, turning very red.

'My dear little girl,' observed her mother sweetly, 'Miss Ross can see for herself the room has not been touched.'

'Because Kester was asleep, and Cyril told me I must not wake him,' persisted Molly, looking ready to cry again; 'and whenever I began, either you or Cyril called me;' and here, though Mollie dashed away a tear bravely, another followed, and would splash down on her frock, for the poor little soul was tired and dispirited, and Miss Ross would think she had been idle, instead of having worked like a slave since early morning.

'Don't be a goose, Mollie!' retorted Mrs. Blake, with the ready good-humour that seemed natural to her; 'you are too old to cry at a word. Miss Ross, may I have one of those delicious cakes? I shall feel a different woman after my tea. Children, what can have become of your brother? I thought he was only going out for half an hour.'

'He is to dine at Woodcote to-night, I believe, Mrs. Blake.'

'Yes; Dr. Ross kindly asked him this morning. I must not begin to talk about Cyril; that must be a tabooed subject. Of course, a mother has a right to be proud of her son—and such a son, too!—but it is not necessary for her to bore other people. If you were to ask me'—with a low laugh of amusement at her own expense—'if I thought any other mother's son could be as handsome and clever and affectionate as my Cyril, I should probably say no; but I will be prudent for once: I will not try to prejudice you in his favour. Cyril shall stand on his own merits to-night; he will not need his mother's recommendation.'

Mrs. Blake made this speech with such a pretty air of assurance, such a conviction that there was something pardonable in her egotism, with such winning frankness, that Audrey forgave the thoughtless insinuation against poor overtasked Mollie. It was evident that Mrs. Blake idolised her eldest son; her eyes softened as she mentioned his name.

'Ah, there is his step!' she added hastily. 'No one walks in the same way as Cyril does; isn't it a light, springy tread? But,' checking herself with another laugh, 'I must really hold my tongue, or you will think me a very silly woman.'

'No; I like you all the better for it,' replied Audrey bluntly. She had no time to say more, for a gay whistle heralded the new-comer; and the next moment a young man vaulted lightly over the low window-sill.

He seemed a little taken aback at the sight of a stranger, shook hands rather gravely with Audrey, and then sat down silently beside his mother.

Audrey's first thought was that Mrs. Blake had not said a word too much. Cyril Blake was certainly a very striking-looking young man. 'He is like his mother,' she said to herself; 'he is as handsome in his way as she is in hers. There is something foreign in his complexion, and in those very dark eyes; it looks as though there were Spanish or Italian blood in their veins. She hardly looks old enough to be his mother. Father said he was two-and-twenty. What an interesting family they seem! I am sure I shall see a great deal of them.'

Cyril was a little silent at first. He was afflicted with the Englishman's mauvaise honte with strangers, and was a little young for his age, in spite of his cleverness. But Mrs. Blake was not disposed to leave him in quiet. She knew that he could talk fluently enough when his tongue was once loosened; so she proceeded to tell him of Audrey's neighbourly kindness, treating it with an airy grace; and, of course, Cyril responded with a brief compliment or two. She then drew him out by skilful questions on Rutherford and its inhabitants, to which Audrey duly replied.

'And you like the place, Miss Ross?'

'Oh, of course one likes the place where one lives,' she returned brightly. 'I was only a little girl when father came to Woodcote, so all my happiest associations are with Rutherford. I grumble sometimes because the town is so small and there are not enough human beings.'

'There are over three hundred boys, are there not?' asked Cyril, looking up quickly.

'Oh, boys! I was not thinking of them. Yes, there are more than three hundred. I delight in boys, but one wants men and women as well. We have too few types. There are the masters and the masters' wives, and the doctors and the vicar, and a curate or two, but that is all. A public school is nice, but its society is limited.'

'Limited, but choice.'

'Decidedly choice. Now, in my opinion, people ought not to be too exclusive. I am sociable by nature. "The world forgetting, by the world forgot" is not to my mind. I like variety even in character.'

'I think we are kindred spirits, my dear Miss Ross. How often have you heard me say the same thing, Cyril! That is why I took such a dislike to Headingly—the people there were so terribly exclusive and purse-proud.'

'Not purse-proud, mother. You are wrong there.'

'Well, they were very stiff and inhospitable; there was no getting on with them at all. I think the Bryces were the worst. Mrs. Bryce is the proudest woman I know.'

'Mother,' observed Cyril warningly, 'it is never safe to mention names. I think—that is, I am sure I have heard that Mrs. Bryce is a connection of Miss Ross.'

'Oh, I hope not!' in an alarmed voice. 'Do—do forgive me my very plain speaking.'

'There is no harm done,' returned Audrey lightly. 'Mrs. Bryce is only a connection of my sister's by marriage. She is Mr. Harcourt's sister. I am afraid I sympathise with you there. I have no special liking for Mrs. Bryce myself; she is clever, an excellent manager, but she is a little too proper—too fond of laying down the law for my taste.'

'Oh, I am so glad!' clapping her hands. 'Cyril is always keeping me in order; he is so afraid what I may say next.'

'You certainly are a most incautious person, mother.'

'See how my children keep me in order,' with an air of much humility. 'Mrs. Harcourt is your sister, and lives at Rutherford. I do hope she is like you, Miss Ross.'

'No, indeed,' shaking her head and laughing. 'We are very different persons. Geraldine is far better than I am. She is exceedingly clever, most accomplished, and so handsome that everyone falls in love with her at first sight. She is quite a little queen here, and no one disputes her sway.'

Mrs. Blake gave an eloquent shrug, but she did not venture on a more direct answer; and Audrey sat and smiled to herself as she thought that Geraldine and Edith Bryce were certainly pattern women.

How pleasant it all was! Audrey had never enjoyed herself more; she was making herself quite at home with these Blakes. But surely there was no need to hurry home; Gage was with her mother. She might indulge herself a little longer. She longed to talk more to Kester and Mollie, but she found it impossible to draw them into the conversation. They sat quite silent, only every now and then Audrey's quick eyes saw an intelligent look flash between them—a sort of telegraphic communication.

'I hope those two poor children are not left out in the cold,' she thought uneasily. 'Their brother does not seem to notice them; he and his mother are wrapped up in each other. It is hardly fair.'

Again Audrey was forming a hasty judgment.

'The country is not very pretty, is it?' asked Cyril at this moment, and she woke up from her reverie.

'It is a little flat, but it has its good points; it is a splendid hunting country, as you know. Oh yes, I think it pretty. There are nice walks. I am very partial to the grass lanes we have about here. In fine weather they are delicious.'

'And you are a good walker?'

'Oh yes. I am strong, and there is nothing I enjoy so much. One is such splendid company for one's self. Leo and I used to have such expeditions! Leo was a St. Bernard puppy, only he died three weeks ago of distemper. I cannot bear to speak of him yet. He was my playfellow, and so handsome and intelligent! My cousin, Captain Burnett, has promised to find me another dog. He has a Dachs-hund himself—such a loving, faithful little creature. He is obliged to take Booty wherever he goes, or the poor thing would fret himself to skin and bone. Is that retriever your special property?' and Audrey looked at Cyril as she spoke.

'No; he belongs to Kester,' he returned carelessly. Then, with a quick change of tone: 'Are you tired, old fellow? Would you like me to help you indoors?' and, as Kester languidly assented, he picked up his crutches, and taking possession of one, substituted his arm, while Mollie ran before them with a couple of cushions.

Mrs. Blake looked after them, and a cloud came over her face.

'Is it not sad?' she said, in a melancholy tone. 'That poor boy—he will be a drag on Cyril all his life. He will never be able to gain his own living. He is fifteen now.'

'It was the result of an accident, was it not?'

But Audrey regretted her abrupt question, as a troubled expression came into the mother's eyes.

'Who told you that?' she asked impatiently. 'Of course it was Mollie. She is a sad chatterbox. And I suppose she mentioned, too, that it was Cyril's fault?'

'Indeed it was not Mollie,' returned Audrey eagerly. 'Kester spoke of it himself. He did not enter into particulars. He just said his brother had let him fall when he was a child.'

'Yes, it was a sad business,' with a sigh. 'I wonder if anyone has ever had so many troubles as I have. Life has been one long struggle to me, Miss Ross. But for Cyril I should have succumbed again and again. No widowed mother has ever been more blessed in a son;' then, dropping her voice: 'Please do not mention the subject before Cyril; he is dreadfully sore about it. It was a pure accident: they were all lads together, and he and his schoolfellows were racing each other. I think they were steeplechasing, and he had Kester on his back. There was a fence and a stony ditch, and the foolish child tried to clear it; they might both have been killed, it was such a nasty place, but Kester was the only one hurt. He was always a delicate little fellow, and hip-disease came on. He does not suffer so much now, but he will always be a cripple, and he has bad times now and then. Cyril is so good to him; he has never forgiven himself for the accident.'

'I can understand that,' returned Audrey in a moved voice; and then Cyril came back and she rose to go. 'I shall see you again,' she said smiling, as he accompanied her to the gate. 'I hear my father has asked you up to Woodcote this evening to meet the Harcourts.'

'Yes,' he returned briefly, looking as though the prospect were a formidable one. 'I could not very well refuse Dr. Ross under the circumstances.'

'Did you wish to refuse?' rather mischievously.

'No, of course not,' but smiling too; 'I feel as though it were a neglect of duty. Look at the muddle in there! and those poor children. I have been working like a horse to-day, but there was too much to do upstairs; I left the living-rooms for this evening.'

'You can work all the harder to-morrow.'

He shook his head.

'To-morrow I have to begin lessons. I suppose the muddle must just go on, and we must live as we can. Biddy is old and worn out, and Mollie is too young to direct her.'

'I will come round and help her,' was Audrey's impulsive answer. 'This is just the sort of thing I love. I do so enjoy putting a place to rights.'

'But, Miss Ross, we have no right to trespass on your kindness,' replied Cyril, flushing slightly as he spoke.

But Audrey only smiled and showed her dimple.

'Tell Mollie I shall come,' was her only answer. 'Au revoir, Mr. Blake.'

And Audrey walked on rapidly to Woodcote, feeling that she had spent a very amusing afternoon, and quite unaware of the commotion she would raise in her mother's and sister's breasts by those few innocently spoken words, 'I have been having tea at the Blakes'.'

CHAPTER IV

MICHAEL

It is better to draw a veil over the scene that followed Audrey's abrupt announcement. As Captain Burnett said afterwards, 'Geraldine's attitude was superb; she was grand, absolutely grand.'

Mrs. Ross was, as usual, a little plaintive.

'If you had only mentioned where you were going, Audrey,' she said quietly; 'but you are so impulsive, my dear. Geraldine would have accompanied you with pleasure a little later, and you could have left my card, and a civil message for Mrs. Blake; that would have been far nicer, would it not, my love?' with an appealing look at her young adviser.

'You can send the message by Mr. Blake this evening,' replied Audrey.

She never argued with her mother if she could possibly help it. In the first place, it was not filial, and in the second, it was perfectly useless, as there was always a mental reservation in Mrs. Ross's mind, and she could seldom be induced to decide any question without reference to Geraldine.

'I think father might have consulted Percival before he asked another guest,' observed Mrs. Harcourt in rather a dubious tone, for she was exceedingly jealous of her husband's dignity. 'Percival was told that we were to be quite alone. I was not going home to change my dress. But if this young man be invited——'

'My darling,' interrupted her mother, 'you must not think of walking back all that way—that gown is lovely, is it not, Audrey?—and one more person does not signify. No doubt your father was anxious that Percival should see Mr. Blake and give him his opinion; he thinks so much of Percival's judgment, does he not, Audrey?'

Now here was the opportunity for a douceur, for a nicely-adjusted compliment, to smooth her sister's ruffled brow; but Audrey was far too blunt and truthful for such finesse.

'Father told me that he wanted Michael to see Mr. Blake—I don't believe he was thinking of Percival—because of course the lower school has nothing to do with Hillside. There is not the least need of changing your gown, Gage, for of course we are only a family party. Will you come up with me to my room now, or will you go with mother presently?'

'I will come with you,' returned Mrs. Harcourt.

Audrey was inclined to be contumacious, but she would not yield the matter so meekly. Audrey was always more contradictory when Michael was in the background; they seemed to play into each other's hand somehow, and more than once Geraldine was positive she had heard a softly-uttered 'Bravo!' at some of Audrey's ridiculous speeches.

'Come along, then,' returned Audrey good-humouredly; and as they left the room together, Captain Burnett laid down his book.

'I am afraid she is going to catch it, Cousin Emmeline; it will be a case of survival of the fittest—Geraldine is strong, but Audrey can hold her own. I back Audrey.'

'My dear,' remonstrated Mrs. Ross, as she put away her knitting, 'you talk as though my girls were likely to quarrel. Geraldine is far too sweet-tempered to quarrel with anyone; she will only give Audrey a little advice—dear Audrey is dreadfully careless, she takes after her father in that; John is always doing imprudent things. Geraldine has made me most uncomfortable this afternoon; I am quite sure that Mrs. Blake will be an undesirable friend for Audrey.'

'Do you always see through other people's spectacles?' he asked quietly. 'I have a habit of judging things for myself—I never take anything second-hand; it is such an unpleasant idea, airing other people's opinions. Fancy a sensible human being turning himself into a sort of peg or receptacle for other folks' theories! No, thank you, my dear cousin; my opinions are all stamped with "Michael Burnett, his mark."'

'Men are different,' she replied tranquilly; and then she left him to go in search of her husband.

'What a world we live in, Booty!' observed Captain Burnett, as he walked to the window and his four-footed favourite followed him. 'Oh, you want a run, do you?' as the little animal looked at him wistfully. 'You think your master uncommonly lazy this afternoon—you don't happen to have a pain in your leg, do you, old fellow—a nasty gnawing, grumbling sort of pain?—there is nothing like neuralgia for making a man lazy. Well, I'll make an effort to oblige you, my friend—so off you go'; and Captain Burnett threw a stone, and there was a delighted bark and an excited patter of the short legs, and Booty vanished round a corner, while his master followed him more slowly.

The garden of Woodcote was the best in Rutherford; even the Hill houses could not compete with it: an extensive lawn lay before the house, with a shrubbery on one side, and the trees and shrubs were exceedingly rare; a little below the house the ground sloped rather steeply, and a succession of terraces and flower-beds led down to a miniature lake with a tiny island; here there were some swans and a punt, and the tall trees that bordered the water were the favourite haunt of blackbirds and thrushes.

Captain Burnett sat down on a bench facing the water, and Booty stood and barked at the swans. How sweet and peaceful everything looked this evening! The water was golden in the evening sunshine; a blue tit was flashing from one tree to another; some thrushes were singing a melodious duet; the swans arched their snowy necks and looked proudly at him; some children's voices were audible in the distance. There was a thoughtful expression in Captain Burnett's eyes, a concentrated melancholy that was often there when he found himself utterly alone.

Captain Burnett had one confidant—his cousin John. Not that he often called him by that name, their ages were too dissimilar to permit such easy familiarity; but he had once owned to Dr. Ross, to the man who loved him as a father, that his life had been a failure.

'Only a failure in the sense that you are no longer fit for active duty,' had been the reply. 'You must not forget the Victoria Cross, Michael.'

'Oh, that was nothing; any other man would have done the same in my place,' Michael had retorted with some heat, for he hated to be reminded of his good deeds.

Perhaps he was right: hundreds of brave young Englishmen would have acted in the same way had they been placed in the same circumstances. The English army is full of heroes, thank God! Nevertheless, Michael Burnett had earned his Victoria Cross dearly.

It was in one of the Zulu skirmishes. A detachment of the enemy had surprised them at night; but the little handful of men had repulsed them bravely. Captain Burnett knew help was at hand; they had only to hold out until a larger contingent should join them. He hoped things were going well. They had just driven the Zulus backwards, when, in the dim light of the flickering watch-fires, he saw dusky figures moving in the direction of a hut where a few sick and wounded men had been placed. There was not a second to lose; in another moment the poor fellows would have been butchered. Calling out to some of his men to follow him, and not perceiving that he was alone, he tore through the scrub, and entered the hut by a hole that served as a window. Michael once owned that he fought like a demon that night; but the thought of the few helpless wretches writhing in terror on their pallet beds behind him seemed to give him the force of ten men. 'They shall pass only over my body! God save my poor fellows!' was his inward cry, as he blocked up the narrow doorway and struck at his dusky foes like a madman.

More than one poor lad lived to look back on that day, and to bless their gallant deliverer. 'No one else could have done it, sir,' observed one of them; 'but the Captain never knew how to give in. I was watching them, and I thought the devils would have finished him. He staggered back once, and Bob Jaggers gave a groan, for we thought it was all up with us; and though I would have made shift to fight before I would be killed like a rat in a hole, one could not do much with a broken arm. When our men rushed in, he was pretty nearly finished; one of the savages had him by the knees. Of course they gave him the Cross. For the matter of that, he ought to have had it before.

'Did you ever hear how he saved little Tom Blatchley's life? Well, I will tell you'; and hereupon followed one of those touching incidents which are so frequent, and which gild with glory even the bloody annals of war.

Yes, they gave him the Victoria Cross; but as he lay on his bed of suffering, disabled by cruel wounds, Michael knew that he had won it at the expense of all that men count dear. 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' There were times when, in his anguish, Michael could have prayed that his life—his useless, broken life—might have been taken too. How gladly, how thankfully would he have yielded it! how willingly would he have turned his face to the wall, and ended the conflict, sooner than endure the far bitterer ordeal that lay before him! for he was young, and he knew his career was ended, and that, brave soldier as he was, he could no longer follow the profession that he loved. It was doubtful for a long time how far he would recover from the effects of that terrible night; his wounds were long in healing. The principal injuries were in the head and thigh. One or two of his physicians feared that he would never walk again; the limb seemed to contract, and neuralgic pains made his life a misery. To add to his troubles, his nerves were seriously affected, and though he was no coward, depression held him at times in its fell grip, and mocked him with delusive pictures of other men's happiness. Like Bunyan's poor tempted Christian, he, too, at times espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him, and had to wage a deadly combat with many a doubt and hard, despairing thought. 'You are a wreck, Michael Burnett!' the grim tempter seemed to say to him. 'Better be quit of it all! Before you are thirty your work is over; what will you do with the remainder of your life? You are poor—perhaps crippled; no woman will look at you. You have your Cross—a little bit of rusty iron—but does such empty glory avail? You have aches and pains in plenty; your future looks promising, my fine fellow! A hero! In truth those ten minutes have cost you dearly! no wonder you repent of your rash gallantry!'

'I repent of nothing,' Michael would rejoin, in that dumb inward argument so often renewed. 'If it were to come over again, I would do just the same. "Greater love hath no man than this";' for in his semi-delirious hours those Divine words seemed to set themselves to solemn music, and to echo in his brain with ceaseless repetition. 'A life given, a life laid down, a life spent in suffering—is it not all the same—a soldier's duty? Shall I shirk my fate? Would it not be better to bear it like a man?' and Michael would set his teeth hard, and with an inward prayer for patience—for in the struggle the man was learning to pray—girded himself up again to the daily fight.

Once, when there had been a fresh outbreak of mischief, and they had brought him down to Woodcote, that he might be more carefully nursed than in the town lodgings which was all Michael Burnett called home, Audrey, who, after her usual pitiful fashion, wore herself out in her efforts to soothe and comfort the invalid, once read to him some beautiful lines out of a poem entitled 'The Disciples.'

Michael, who was in one of his dark moods, made no comment on the passage which she had read in a trembling voice of deep feeling; but when she left the room on some errand, he stretched out his hand, and read it over again:

When Audrey returned the book was in its place, and Michael was lying with his eyes closed, and the frown of pain still knitting his temples. He was not asleep, but she dare not disturb him by offering to go on with the poem. She sat down at a little distance and looked out of the window, rather sorrowfully. How strong she was! how full of health and enjoyment! and this poor Michael, who had acted so nobly——Audrey's eyes were full of tears. And all the time Michael was saying to himself, 'After all, I am a coward. What if I must suffer? Life will not last for ever.'

By and by Michael owned that even his hard lot had compensations. He became used to his semi-invalid existence. Active work of any sort was impossible—that is, continuous work. He had tried it when his friends had found an easy post for him, and had been obliged to give it up. He still suffered severely from neuralgic headaches that left him worn and exhausted. His maimed leg often troubled him; he could not walk far, and riding was impossible.

'You must make up your mind to be an idle man—at least, for the present, Captain Burnett,' one of his doctors had said to him, and Michael had languidly acquiesced. To be a soldier had been his one ambition, and he cared for little else. He had enough to keep him in moderate comfort as a bachelor, and he had faint expectations from an uncle who lived in Calcutta; but when questioned on this point, Michael owned he was not sanguine.

'My Uncle Selkirk is by no means an old man,' he would say. 'Any insurance office would consider his the better life of the two. Besides, he might marry—he is not sixty yet; even old men make fools of themselves by taking young wives. It is ill waiting for dead men's shoes at the best of times. In this case it would be rank stupidity.'

'Then you will never be able to marry, Michael;' for it was to Mrs. Ross that this last speech was addressed.

'My dear cousin, do you think any girl would look at a sickly, ill-tempered fellow like me?' was the somewhat bitter reply; and Mrs. Ross's kind heart was troubled at the tone.

'You should not call yourself names, my dear. You are not ill-tempered. No one minds a little crossness now and then. Even John can say a sharp word when he is put out. I think you are wrong, Michael. You are rather morbid on this point. They say pity is akin to love.'

'But I object to be pitied,' he returned somewhat haughtily; 'and what is more, I will commend myself to no woman's toleration. I will not be dominated by any weaker vessel. If I should ever have the happiness of having a wife—but there will be no Mrs. Michael Burnett, Cousin Emmeline—I should love her as well as other men love their wives, but I should distinctly insist on her keeping her proper place. Just imagine'—working himself up to nervous irritation—'being at the mercy of some healthy, high-spirited young creature, who will insult me every day with her overplus of pure animal enjoyment. The effect on me would be crushing—absolutely crushing.'

'Audrey is very high-spirited, Michael, but I am sure she sympathises with you as nicely as possible.'

'We were not speaking of Audrey, were we?' he replied, with a slight change of expression. 'I think it is the Ross idiosyncrasy to wander hopelessly from any given subject; I imagined that we were suggesting an impossible wife for your humble servant. Far be it from me to deny myself comfort in the shape of feminine cousins or friends.'

'Yes, of course; and Geraldine and Audrey are just like your sisters, Michael.'

'Are they?' a little dryly. 'Well, as I never had a sister, I cannot be a good judge; but from what other fellows tell me, I imagine Audrey bullies me enough to be one. Anyhow, I take the brotherly prerogative of bullying her in return.'

And with this remarkable statement the conversation dropped.

Captain Burnett spent half his time with his cousins, oscillating between Woodcote and his lodgings in town. Dr. Ross wished him to live with them entirely; he had a great respect and affection for his young kinsman, and, as he often told his wife, Michael helped him in a hundred ways.

'He has the clearest head and the best common-sense I ever knew in any man. I would trust Mike's judgment before my own. Poor fellow! he has gone through so much himself, that I think he sees deeper into things than most people. It is wonderful what knowledge of character he has. The boys always say there is no cheating the Captain.'

Michael owned himself grateful for his cousin's kindness, but he declined to call Woodcote his home.

'I must have my own diggings,' was his answer—'a burrow where I can run to earth when my pet fiend tries to have a fling at me. Seriously, there are times when I am best alone—and, then, in town one sees one's friends. For a sick man, or whatever you like to call me, my taste is decidedly gregarious. "I would not shut me from my kind." Oh dear no! There is no study so interesting as human nature, and I am avowedly a student of anthropology; London is the place for a man with a hobby like mine.'

Nevertheless, the chief part of Captain Burnett's time had been spent latterly at Woodcote.

CHAPTER V

THE NEW MASTER

'We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits—yet so as "with a difference." We are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings, as it should be among near relatives.'—Essays of 'Elia.'

Booty grew tired of barking at the swans long before his master had roused from his abstraction; it was doubtful how much longer Captain Burnett would have sat with his eyes fixed dreamily on the water, if a tall figure in white had not suddenly appeared under the arching trees, and Audrey stood before him.

'I knew where I should find you,' she said, as he rose rather slowly from his seat. 'I have christened this bench Michael's Seat. How sweet the lake looks this evening! I wish I could stay to enjoy it, but I must go back to the drawing-room. Percival has come, and, do you know, the dressing-gong sounded ten minutes ago, and you have taken no notice of it.'

'I will go at once,' was the answer, but to his surprise she stopped him.

'Wait one moment, Michael; I have to ask you a favour. I want you to be kind, and to take a great deal of notice of Mr. Blake. He is very young and shy, and though his mother says he is so clever—and, indeed, father says so, too—one would not find it out, because he is so quiet, and you know how formidable Percival must be to a shy person.'

'And you want me to take your new protégé under my wing?' he returned, dissembling his surprise.

She had put her hands on his arm, and was speaking with unusual earnestness, and he knew, by a certain look in her eyes, that something had vexed her.

'He is not my protégé,' she answered quickly. 'You talk as though he were a boy, a mere child, instead of being what he is—an exceedingly clever and gentlemanly young man. Michael, you generally understand me—you are always my ally when Percival is on his high horse—and I want you to stand Mr. Blake's friend to-night.'

'And I am not even to form my own opinion? Supposing the moment I shake hands with your pro—I mean your visitor—I become conscious of an inward antagonism? You see, Audrey, I am subject to likes and dislikes, in common with other people.'

'Oh, you must try to like him,' she returned impatiently. 'I am very much interested in the whole family. We always like the same people, Michael—do we not?' in a coaxing voice. 'I know the Marquis will wear his most judicial aspect to-night; he will perfectly annihilate poor Mr. Blake;' for this was another sobriquet which Audrey applied to her brother-in-law.

They were walking towards the house, but at this point Captain Burnett thought fit to stand still and shake his head, with a grieved expression of face.

'My dear Audrey, I should like to see you on more sisterly terms with Gage's husband.'

'Don't be silly,' was the only response; 'one cannot choose one's brother-in-law. The Marquis makes Gage a splendid husband—no one else could have mastered her—but I never could get on with a man who always thinks he is right about everything. Percival is too immaculate in his own and his wife's eyes to be in harmony with a sinner like myself; and I don't mind confessing to you, Michael, that he never opens his mouth without my longing to contradict him.'

Audrey said this with such perfect naïveté and candour that Captain Burnett could only smile, though sheer honesty made him say a moment afterwards:

'I think, indeed I have always thought, that you undervalue Harcourt. He is a fine fellow in his way. I like a man to be strong, and Harcourt is strong—he has no pettiness in his nature. He is rather a severe critic, perhaps—and demands a little too much from other people—but you will find that he always practises what he preaches.'

'I wish he understood me better,' was the rueful response. 'Unhappily, he and Gage think their mission is to reform me. Now, Michael, do be quick, or the dinner-bell will ring;' and Audrey waved her hand gaily, and turned into the house, while Michael and his faithful Booty followed her more slowly.

When Audrey entered the drawing-room she found her brother-in-law standing in his favourite attitude before the fireplace—he was evidently holding forth on some interesting topic, for Dr. Ross was listening to him with an amused expression of face, and Geraldine was watching him with admiring wifely eyes. He broke off, however, to greet Audrey, and there was brotherly warmth in his manner as he shook hands with her and asked after her health—a mere civility on his part, as Audrey was never ill.

Mr. Harcourt was a good-looking man of about forty—perhaps he was a year or two more, but he was young-looking for his age, and the absence of beard and moustache gave him a still more youthful aspect; the slight tinge of gray in his hair seemed to harmonise with the well-cut features. The mouth was especially handsome, though a sarcastic expression at times distinguished it. His figure was good, and without being tall, he carried himself with so much dignity as to give the impression of height. He was a man who would always be noticed among other men on account of his strong individuality and sheer force of character.

Audrey was right when she owned that he made a splendid husband for Geraldine. Mr. Harcourt was exceedingly proud of his beautiful wife; but from the first hour of her married life he had made her understand that though she managed other people, including her own mother, her husband was to be the one exception—that, in other words, he fully intended to be Geraldine's master.

Geraldine had to learn this lesson even on her wedding-day. There was some little confusion at the last—a small hitch in the domestic arrangements—and someone, Dr. Ross probably, proposed that the happy couple should wait for a later train; they could telegraph, and dinner could be put back for an hour. Geraldine endorsed her father's opinion; perhaps, at the last minute, the young bride would fain have lingered lovingly in the home that had sheltered her so happily.

'It is a good idea. We should have to drive so dreadfully fast,' she said with some eagerness. 'Yes, we will stay, Percival.'

'My darling, there is someone else to consult,' he returned, taking her hand; 'and someone else votes differently. Dr. Ross, will you ask them to send round the carriage. Geraldine has had excitement enough; it will be far better for us to go.' Geraldine did not like her husband any the worse for showing her that he meant to manage for both for the future. She was clever enough to take the hint, and to refer to him on all occasions. Before many weeks were over, young Mrs. Harcourt had so fully identified herself with her husband's interests, was so strangely impregnated with his opinions, that she insensibly reproduced them—'and Percival thinks so and so' now replaced the old decided 'that is my opinion,' which had hitherto leavened her conversation.

'Who would have thought that Geraldine, who snubbed all her lovers so unmercifully, and who never would listen to one until Percival "came, saw, and conquered"—who would have imagined that this very exacting young woman would have turned out a submissive and pattern wife?' was Audrey's remark when she returned from her first visit to Hillside.

But in her heart she respected her brother-in-law for the change he had effected.

'Well, Audrey,' observed Mr. Harcourt, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, 'so I hear you have been enacting the part of Good Samaritan to the widow Blake and her children. What do you think of the bewitching widow and her Mary Queen of Scots beauty? Did she make an impression, eh?'

'She is very handsome,' returned Audrey curtly; for she was not pleased with her brother-in-law's quizzical tone.

How long had she stopped out with Michael? Barely ten minutes; and yet Percival was in possession of the whole story.

'I shall be writing to Edith to-night, and I must tell her all about it,' he went on, for if there was one thing in which he delighted, it was teasing Audrey, and getting a rise out of her. In reality he was very fond of her; he admired her simplicity and the grand earnestness of her character; but he took the brotherly liberty of disagreeing with her upon some things. He told his wife privately that his one desire was to see Audrey married to the right man.

'She is a fine creature, but she wants training and keeping in order; and I know the man who would just do for her,' he said once.

But though Geraldine implored him to say whom he meant, and mentioned a dozen names in her womanly curiosity, Mr. Harcourt could not be induced to say more. He was no matchmaker, he thanked Heaven; he would be ashamed to meddle with such sacred mysteries. If there were one thing on which no human opinion ought to rashly intrude, it was when two people elected to enter the holy state of matrimony. It was enough that he knew the man, though he never intended to take a step to bring them together.

'I think we had better drop the subject, as Mr. Blake will be here directly,' retorted Audrey, in her most repressive tones. 'Father, do you know you have forgotten to wind up the drawing-room clock? I think it must be nearly seven.'

'It is past seven,' answered her brother-in-law, producing his watch. 'Mr. Blake is keeping the dinner waiting. No one but a very young man would venture to commit such a solecism. Under the circumstances, it is really a breach of good manners. Don't you agree with me, Dr. Ross?'

But Dr. Ross hesitated; he rarely agreed with such sweeping assertions. Geraldine murmured 'Very true,' which her mother echoed.

'That is too bad!' exclaimed Audrey, who never could hold her tongue. 'If you had only seen the state of muddle they are in at the Gray Cottage! I daresay Mr. Blake has been unable to find anything; his mother does not seem a good manager. Hush! I hear a bell!'—interrupting herself. 'Now you will not be kept any longer from your dinner, Percival.'

'I was not thinking of myself,' he returned, with rather an annoyed air; for he was a quick-tempered man, and he was really very hungry. Thanks to his wife's splendid management, the meals were always punctual at Hillside. A deviation of five minutes would have boded woe to the best cook. Mr. Harcourt was no domestic tyrant; the boys, the servants, always looked upon him as a kind friend; but he was an exact disciplinarian, and the wheels of the domestic machinery at Hillside went smoothly. If Geraldine complained that one of the servants did not do her duty, his answer was always prompt: 'Send her away and get another. A servant without a conscience will never do for me.' But, as a matter of fact, no master was better served.

To Audrey's relief, Michael appeared with Mr. Blake. He came in looking a little pale from the exertion of dressing so hurriedly, and Audrey's conscience pricked her for want of consideration as she saw that he limped more than usual, always a sign with him of over-fatigue. Mr. Blake looked handsomer than ever in evening dress, and Audrey noticed that Geraldine looked at him more than once, as though his appearance struck her. He certainly seemed very shy, and made his excuses to his hostess in a low voice.

'I ought not to have accepted Dr. Ross's kind invitation,' he said, starting a little as the dinner-bell immediately followed his entrance; 'everything is in such confusion at home.'

'I suppose it was like hunting for a needle in a truss of hay,' observed Michael, in a genial voice. 'I can imagine the difficulties of making a toilet under such moving circumstances. No pun intended, I assure you. Don't look as though you want to hit me, Harcourt. I would not be guilty of a real pun for the world.'

Mr. Harcourt was unable to reply at that moment, as he had to offer Audrey his arm and follow Dr. Ross into the dining-room; but as soon as they were seated and grace had been said, he addressed Michael.

'I need not ask an omnivorous reader as you are, Burnett, if you remember "Elia's" remarks about puns.'

'I suppose you mean that "a pun is a pistol let off at the ear, not a feather to tickle the intellect." Poor old "Elia"! what a man he was! With all his frailties he was adorable.'

'Humph! I should be sorry to go as far as that; but I own I like his quaint, racy style. Dr. Ross is a fervent admirer of "St. Charles," as Thackeray once called him.'

'Indeed, I am. I agree with Ainger in regarding him as the last of the Elizabethans. I love his fine humour and homely fantastic grandeur of style,' returned Dr. Ross warmly. 'The man's whole life, too, is so wonderfully pathetic. Few scenes in fiction are so touching as that sad scene where the unhappy Mary Lamb feels the dreaded attack of insanity coming on, and brother and sister, hand-in-hand, and weeping as they go, perform that sorrowful journey across the fields to the house where Mary is to be sheltered. I used to cry over that story as a boy.'

Audrey drew a long breath of relief. Her father had started on one of his hobbies. All would be well now.

For one moment she had been anxious, very anxious. Like other men, Michael had his weaknesses. Nothing would annoy him more than to be supposed guilty of a premeditated pun. He always expressed a great deal of scorn for what he called a low form of wit—'and which is as far removed from wit,' he would add, 'as the slums of the Seven Dials are from Buckingham Palace.'

Mr. Harcourt was quite aware of this fastidious dislike on Michael's part. It was, therefore, in pure malice that he had asked that question about 'Elia'; but Michael's matter-of-fact answer had baffled him, and the sole result had been to start a delightful discussion on the writings of Charles Lamb and his contemporaries—a subject on which all three men talked exceedingly well.

Audrey listened to them with delight. She was aware that Mr. Blake, who sat next her, was silent too. When a pause in the conversation occurred, she turned round to address him, and found him regarding her with an air of intelligent curiosity.

'You seem to take a great deal of interest in all this,' he said, with a smile. 'Most ladies would consider it dry. I suppose you read a great deal.'

'I am afraid not. I love reading, but one finds so much else to do. But it is always a pleasure to me to hear my father talk. My brother-in-law, too, is a very clever man.'

'So I should imagine. And Captain Burnett—is he also a relative?'

'Only a sort of cousin. But he has no nearer ties, and he spends half his time at Woodcote. My sister and I look upon him as a brother—in fact, he has supplied a great want in my life. From a child I have so longed to have a brother of my own.'

Mr. Blake looked down at his plate.

'A brother is not always an undivided blessing,' he said in a low voice, 'especially when he is a daily and hourly reproach to one. Oh, you know what I mean,' throwing back his head with a quick, nervous gesture. 'My mother says she has told you. I saw you looking at Kester this afternoon, but you are aware it was all my fault.'

'But it was only an accident,' she returned gently. 'I hope that you are not morbid on the subject, Mr. Blake. Boys are terribly venturesome. I wonder more of them are not hurt. I am quite sure Kester does not blame you.'

'No, you are right there; but somehow it is difficult for me to forget that my unlucky slip has spoiled the poor fellow's life. He is very good and patient, and we do all we can for him; but one dare not glance at the future. Excuse my bothering you with such a personal matter, but I cannot forget the way you looked at Kester; and then my mother said she had told you the whole story.'

'I was very much interested,' she began, but just then Mr. Harcourt interrupted them by a remark pointedly addressed to Mr. Blake, so that he was obliged to break off his conversation with Audrey. This time the ladies were decidedly bored—none of them could follow the discussion; the conversation at Woodcote was rarely pedantic, but this evening Mr. Harcourt chose to argue a purely scholastic question—some translation from the Greek, which he declared to be full of gross errors.

Audrey felt convinced that the subject had been chosen with the express purpose of crushing the new master; on this topic Michael would be unable to afford him the slightest help. True, he had been studying Greek for his own pleasure the last two years at her father's suggestion, and had made very fair progress, but only a finished scholar could have pronounced with any degree of certainty on such a knotty point.

She was, therefore, all the more surprised and pleased when she found that Mr. Blake proved himself equal to the occasion. He had kept modestly in the background while the elder men were speaking, but when Mr. Harcourt appealed to him he took his part in the conversation quite readily, and expressed himself with the greatest ease and fluency; indeed, he not only ventured to contradict Mr. Harcourt, but he brought quite a respectable array of authorities to back his opinions.

Audrey felt so interested in watching the changes of expression on her brother-in-law's face that she was quite reconciled to the insuperable difficulties that such a topic offered to her understanding. The sarcastic curve round Mr. Harcourt's mouth relaxed; he grew less dry and didactic in speech; each moment his manner showed more earnestness and interest. The silent young master was by no means annihilated; on the contrary, he proved himself a worthy antagonist. Audrey was quite sorry when Geraldine, stifling a yawn, gave her mother an imploring glance. Mrs. Ross willingly took the hint, and as Michael opened the door for them he whispered in Audrey's ear: 'He is quite capable of taking care of himself.' And Audrey nodded assent.

She lingered in the hall a moment to look out on the moonlight, and on opening the drawing-room door she heard a few words in Geraldine's voice:

'Splendidly handsome—dangerously so, in my opinion; what do you think, mother?'

'Well, my dear, I have seldom seen a finer-looking young man; and then his manners are so nice. Some clever young people are always pushing themselves into the conversation; they think nothing of silencing older men. Mr. Blake seems very modest and retiring.'

'Yes, but he is too handsome,' was the regretful reply; and then Audrey joined them.

'I knew you would say so,' she observed, with quite a pleased expression. 'Handsome is hardly the word; Mr. Blake has a beautiful face—he is like a Greek god.'

Geraldine drew herself up a little stiffly.

'My dear Audrey, how absurd! do Greek gods have olive complexions? How Percival will laugh when I tell him that!'

'To be sure,' returned Audrey calmly; 'thank you for reminding me that you are married, Gage; I am always forgetting it. That is the worst of having one's sister married; one is never sure that one's little jokes and speeches are not repeated. Now, as my confidences are not intended for Percival, I will learn slowly and painfully to hold my tongue for the future.'

This very natural speech went home, as Audrey intended it should. With all her dictatorial ways and clever management, Geraldine had a very warm heart.

'Oh, Audrey dear,' she said, quite grieved at this, 'I hope you are not speaking seriously. Of course I will not repeat it to Percival if you do not wish it; but when you are married yourself you will know how difficult it is to keep back any little thing that interests one.'

'When I am married—I mean, if I be ever married,' substituted Audrey, blushing a little, as girls will—'I hope I shall be quite as capable of self-control and discrimination as in my single days. I have never considered the point very closely; but now I come to think of it, I would certainly have an understanding with my husband on the wedding-day. "My dear Clive," I would say to him—Clive is a favourite name of mine; I hope I shall marry a Clive—"you must understand once for all that, though I intend to treat you with wifely confidence, I shall only tell my own secrets—not other people's." And he will reply, "Audrey, you are the most honourable of women. I respected you before; I venerate you now."'

'Audrey, how you talk!' But Mrs. Harcourt could not help laughing. Audrey was looking very nice this evening; white always suited her. To be sure, her hair might have been smoother. 'There is some sort of charm about her that is better than beauty,' she thought, with sisterly admiration; and then she asked her mother if she did not think Percival looked a little pale.

'He works too hard,' she continued; 'and he will not break himself of his old bachelor habit of sitting up late.'

'Men like their own way; you must not be too anxious,' retorted Mrs. Ross tranquilly. 'When I first married, I worried myself dreadfully about your father; but I soon found it was no use. And look at him now; late hours have not hurt him in the least. No one has better health than your father.'

But the young wife was only half comforted.

'My father's constitution is different,' she returned. 'Percival is strong; but his nerves are irritable; his organisation is more sensitive. It is burning both ends of the candle. I tell him he uses himself up too lavishly.'

'I used to say much the same things to your father, but he soon cured me. He asked me once why I was so bent on bringing him round to my opinions. "I do not try to alter yours," I remember he said once, in his half-joking way. "I do not ask you to sit up with me; though, no doubt, that is part of your wifely duty. I allow you to go to bed when you are sleepy, in the most unselfish way. So, my dear, you must allow me the same liberty of action." And, would you believe it, I never dared say another word to him on the subject.'

'You are a model wife, are you not, mother?' observed Audrey caressingly.

'No, dear; I never deserved your father,' returned Mrs. Ross, with much feeling, and the tears started to her eyes. 'If only my girls could have as happy a life! I am sure dear Geraldine has done well for herself—Percival makes her an excellent husband; and if I could only see you happily settled, Audrey, I should be perfectly satisfied.'

'Are you so anxious to lose me?' asked the younger girl reproachfully. 'You must find me a man as good as father, then. I am not so sure that I want to be married; I fancy an old maid's mission will suit me best. I have too many plans in my head; no respectable man would tolerate me.'

'May I ask what you ladies are talking about?' asked Captain Burnett, as he sauntered lazily round the screen that, even in summer-time, shut in the fireplace, and made a cosy corner. Mr. Blake followed him.

Audrey looked at them both calmly.

'I was only suggesting my possible mission as a single woman. Don't you think I should make a charming old maid, Michael?' and Audrey folded her beautifully-shaped arms, and drew herself up; but her dimple destroyed the effect. Cyril Blake darted a quick look at her; then he crossed the room and sat down by Mrs. Ross, and talked to her and Geraldine until it was time for him to take his leave.

CHAPTER VI

THE GRAY COTTAGE

'I think I love most people best when they are in adversity; for pity is one of my prevailing passions.'—Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin's Letter.

The next morning, as Captain Burnett was strolling across the tennis-lawn in search of a shady corner where he could read his paper, he encountered Audrey. She was walking in the direction of the gate, and had a basket of flowers in her hand.

She was hurrying past him with a nod and a smile, but he coolly stopped her.

'May I ask where you are going, my Lady Bountiful?' for this was a name he often called her, perhaps in allusion to her sweet, bountiful nature; but Audrey, in her simplicity, had never understood the compliment.

She hesitated a moment; and this was so unusual on her part, that Captain Burnett metaphorically pricked up his ears. To use his own language, he immediately scented the whole business.

'I am going into the town; but I have a great deal to do,' she returned quickly. 'Please do not detain me, Michael. I am not like you: I cannot afford the luxury of idleness.'

'Well, no; it is rather a dear commodity, certainly,' he replied pleasantly, though that hasty speech made him inwardly wince, as though someone had touched an unhealed wound. 'Luxury of idleness!' how he loathed it!

'If you are too long, I shall come and look after you,' he continued significantly; but to this she made no reply. She took herself to task as she walked on. She had not been perfectly open with Michael, but then he had no right to question her movements. She had spoken the truth; she certainly had business in the town—several orders to give—before she went to the Gray Cottage. Michael was her ally—her faithful, trusty ally. No knight sworn to serve his liege lady had ever been more zealous in his fealty. But even to Michael she did not wish to confess that the greater part of the morning would be spent at the Gray Cottage.

Audrey had no idea that her cousin had guessed her little secret—that he was smiling over it as he unfolded his paper. Her conscience was perfectly easy with regard to her motives. Pure compassion for those two poor children was her only inducement. There was no danger of encountering the elder brother.

The windows of the great schoolroom opened on the terrace, and as Audrey had passed to gather her flowers she had had a glimpse of a dark, closely-cropped head, and the perfect profile that she had admired last night, and she knew the new master would be fully occupied all the morning. Audrey felt a little needle-prick of unavailing compunction as she remembered her allusion to the Greek god yesterday.

'I wish I were not so foolishly outspoken!' she thought. 'I always say just what comes into my head. With some people it would not matter—with Michael, for example. He never misunderstands one's meaning. But poor dear Gage is so literal. Clever as she is, she has no sense of humour.'

Here she paused at the grocer's to give her orders, but directly she left the shop she took up the same thread again:

'I am always making resolutions to be more careful, but it never seems any use. The thoughts will come tumbling out like ill-behaved children just let out of school. There is no keeping them in order. I fancy Mr. Blake is outspoken, too, when he gets rid of his shyness. I was so surprised when he blurted out that little bit about his brother. He looked so sad over it, too. I think I must have made a mistake in supposing that he only cared for his mother. It was odd to make me his confidante; but, then, people always do tell me things. He is Irish, of course. Irishmen are always impulsive.'

But here another list of orders to be given at the ironmonger's checked these vague musings.

Audrey was fully expected at the Cottage. She had hardly lifted the latch of the gate before Mollie appeared in the doorway.

'I knew you would come,' she said shyly, as Audrey kissed her and put the flowers in her hands. 'Oh what lovely flowers! Are they for mamma, Miss Ross? Thank you ever so much! Mamma is so passionately fond of flowers, and so is Cyril.'

'And not Kester?'

'Oh yes; he loves them too,' burying her face in the delicious blossoms—'roses especially; they are his favourite flowers. But, of course, no one thinks of sending them to Kester; he is only a boy.'

'And I daresay you like them, too?'

Mollie vehemently nodded assent.

'Well, then, I shall bring you and Kester some next time. You are right in thinking those are for your mother. May I go in and speak to her?—for we have to be very busy, you know.'

'Mamma is not up yet,' returned Mollie; and as Audrey looked surprised, she added quickly: 'She and Cyril sat up so late last night. She was wanting to hear all about his evening, and it was such a lovely night that they were in the garden until nearly twelve o'clock, and so, of course, she is tired this morning.'

Audrey made no reply to this. Mrs. Blake was charming, but she was certainly a little erratic in her habits. No wonder there was so little comfort in the house when the mistress disliked early rising.

Mollie seemed to take it as a matter of course; besides, she was too much absorbed in the flowers to notice Miss Ross's reproving silence. She rushed off to find a jug of water, and Audrey turned into the dining-room, which presented the same aspect of confusion that it had worn yesterday. Kester was on his knees trying to unpack a hamper of books. It cost him a painful effort to rise, and he looked so pale and exhausted that Audrey at once took him in hand.

'My dear boy,' she said kindly, as she helped him to the sofa, 'how very imprudent! You have no right to try your strength in that way. How could Mollie let you touch those books!'

'She has everything to do, and I wished to help her,' he returned, panting with the exertion. 'Cyril wants his books so badly, and he has put up the bookcase, you see. He did that this morning—he had scarcely time to eat his breakfast—and then he asked Mollie if she would unpack the books.'

'I will help Mollie,' returned Audrey, laying aside her hat. 'Now, Kester, I want to ask you a favour. You will only be in our way here. Will you please take possession of that nice hammock-chair that someone has put outside the window? and we will just fly round, as the Yankee domestics say.'

Audrey spoke with such good-natured decision, with such assurance of being obeyed, that Kester did not even venture on a grumbling remonstrance—the poor fellow was too much accustomed to be set on one side, and to be told that he was no use. But Audrey had no intention of leaving him in idleness.

'By and by, when the room is a little clearer, you can be of the greatest help to us; for you can sit at the table and dust the books in readiness for us to arrange.' And Kester's face brightened up at that.

Audrey was quite in her element. As she often told her mother, she was robust enough for a housemaid. The well-ordered establishment at Woodcote, with its staff of trained domestics and its excellent matron, afforded little scope for her youthful activities. Mrs. Ross was her own housekeeper, and though she had contentedly relinquished her duties to Geraldine for the last few years, she had not yet offered to transfer them to Audrey.

Audrey pretended to be a little hurt at this arrangement, but in reality she was secretly relieved. Her tastes were not sufficiently domestic. She liked better to supplement her mother's duties than to take the entire lead. In her way she was extremely useful. She wrote a great many of the business letters, undertook all the London shopping, and assisted Mrs. Ross in entertaining her numerous visitors, many of whom were the boys' mothers; and though Mrs. Ross still regretted the loss of her elder daughter, and complained that no one could replace Geraldine, she was fully sensible of Audrey's efficiency and good-humoured and ready help.

'Audrey is as good as gold, and does all I want her to do,' she said to Geraldine, when the latter had questioned her very closely on the subject.

It was no trouble to Audrey to dash off half a dozen letters before post-time, or to drive into Sittingbourne to meet a batch of boys' relatives. She was naturally active, and hated an idle moment; but no work suited her so well as this Herculean task of evoking order out of the Blake chaos. Molly was so charmed with her energy, so fired by her example, that she worked like a dozen Mollies. The books were soon unpacked and on the table; then Biddy was called in to clear away the straw and hampers, and to have a grand sweep. Nothing more could be done until this had been carried out, so they left Biddy to revel in dust and tea-leaves, while they turned out another hamper or two in the kitchen; for in the course of their labours Mollie had confided to Audrey that certain indispensable articles were still missing.

'The best thing would be to get rid of as many of the hampers as possible,' replied Audrey; 'they are only in the way; let us pack them up in the yard, and then one can have room to move.'

When Biddy had finished her labours and all the dirt had been removed, Kester hobbled in willingly to dust the books, and Audrey and Mollie arranged them on the shelves. There were not so very many, but they were all well and carefully chosen—Greek and Latin authors, all Carlyle's and Emerson's works, a few books of history and philosophy, the principal poets, and some standard works of fiction: Dickens, Thackeray, and Sir Walter Scott—the latter bound very handsomely. Audrey felt sure, as she placed the books on the shelves, that this little library was collected by a great deal of self-denial and effort. The young student had probably little money to spare. With the exception of Sir Walter Scott and Thackeray, none of the books were handsomely bound; that they were well read was obvious, for a volume of Browning's poems happening to fall from her hand, Audrey could see profuse pencil-marks, and one philosophical book had copious notes on the margin.

'They are all Cyril's books,' observed Mollie, unconsciously answering Audrey's thought. 'Poor Cyril! it is such a trouble to him that he cannot afford to buy more books. When he was at Oxford he used to go without things to get them; he said he would sooner starve than be without books. Is it not sad to be so dreadfully poor, Miss Ross? But I suppose you don't know how it feels. Mamma bought him that lovely edition of Thackeray—oh, and Sir Walter Scott's novels too. Don't you like that binding? it is very expensive. Cyril was so vexed at mamma's spending all that money on him when Kester wanted things, I am afraid he hardly thanked her, and mamma cried about it.'

Mollie was chattering on without thinking until a bell made her start and hurry away. She did not come back for some time, and Audrey finished her task alone.

'I have been making mamma some coffee,' she said gravely; 'she had one of her headaches. She has sent you a message, Miss Ross; she is so delighted with the flowers. She wanted to get up at once and thank you, and then she thought she had better lie still until her headache was better; but she will be down presently.'

'Then we must make haste and finish the room before she comes. Mollie, I can do nothing with those pictures; we will put them up against the wall until your brother can hang them. Let me see; that corner behind the writing-table—no one can see them there. Quick! hand me another. Is this a portrait of your father?' stopping to regard a half-length figure of a fine-looking man in naval uniform.

'No, that is only an uncle of mamma's; I forget his name. Do you remember it, Kester? Papa was a merchant—at least, I think so.'

'Has he been long dead?'

'Oh yes; he died abroad when Kester and I were quite little; that is why we are so poor. Mamma has often told us that it is her money we are living on. I don't know how she managed to send Cyril to Oxford; but we had no house all that time, only poky little lodgings. Are we going to arrange the furniture now, Miss Ross? Oh, how comfortable the room begins to look, and how delighted Cyril will be when he comes home this afternoon! He says that Dr. Ross wants him after school, so he will not run home before dinner. How glad I am that Cyril will always have a nice dinner now! He does so hate Biddy's cooking; he declares everything tastes alike. You say so, too, don't you, Kester?'

Kester's answer was a shrug of the shoulders; he seemed more reserved than Mollie, who was chattering to her new friend with all the frankness and thoughtlessness of a very young girl.

'Mamma never minds what sort of dinner Biddy sends up, if only Cyril does not find fault. I think she would live on tea and dry bread all the year round if only Cyril could have nice things.'

Cyril—always Cyril! Audrey turned the subject by asking Mollie if she would like the couch in the window. Mollie clapped her hands delightedly at the effect.

'It looks beautiful; don't you think so, Kester? And how funny! Miss Ross has put your own particular little table beside it, just as though she guessed that it was to hold your desk and your books. There is Kester's little box of books, but he will unpack them himself by and by.'

'Mollie, have you ordered the dinner?' interrupted Kester a little anxiously—and poor Mollie's face fell.

'Oh dear, I am so sorry, but I have forgotten all about it; the butcher has not called, and there are only those potatoes and bread and cheese. Mamma is right when she says my head is like a sieve.'

'Why don't you send Biddy for some chops, my dear?' remarked Audrey very sensibly.

Kester had spoken in a loud whisper, but she had overheard every word. Mollie started off with a look of relief to hunt up the old woman, and when Audrey found herself alone with Kester she could not help saying to him:

'Mollie is a very young housekeeper—girls of fourteen are liable to forget sometimes;' but to her surprise he fired up at once:

'They all expect too much of her; I hate to see her slave as she does: it is not right, it is not fair—I tell Cyril so. She has no time to herself; all her lessons are neglected. If only mother would send Biddy away and get another servant!'

'Who teaches Mollie, then?' she asked, a little curiously.

'Oh, mother gives her lessons sometimes, but they are not very regular, and I help her with arithmetic and Latin. Cyril always gives me an hour or two in the evening, when his work is done, but of course Mollie does not care to learn Greek.'

'Do you mean that your brother gives you lessons when he has been teaching all day?'

'Yes, and he is awfully tired sometimes; but he never likes me to be disappointed. Mother often tries to make him take a walk instead; but Cyril is such a brick: he never will listen to her.'

Audrey felt a little glow of satisfaction as she heard this. What a kind brother Mr. Blake seemed to be—how truly estimable! she would never judge hastily of anyone again. Just then the clock struck one, and she told Kester that she must hurry away. She was disappointed that Mrs. Blake had not yet appeared—she wanted to see the face that had haunted her so persistently; but the bewitching widow had not shown herself.

'I am afraid I must go, or I shall be late for luncheon,' she said hurriedly.

'I will tell Mollie,' returned the boy; and then he said a little awkwardly: 'You have been awfully good to us, Miss Ross; I don't know how Mollie and I are to thank you. You must be quite tired out.'

Audrey laughed.

'I am not so easily tired, Kester, and I am rather fond of this sort of work. Do you think your mother would mind if I were to look in to-morrow afternoon and help a little with the drawing-room? Mollie said something about it just now, and I half promised—she is to help Biddy put up the plates and dishes this afternoon; that will be as much as she can do.'

'I am sure mother will be only too delighted,' replied Kester gratefully; and then Audrey went in search of Mollie, and found her occupied with the chops, while Biddy cleaned the knives. Mollie turned a scorched cheek to her.

'Dear Miss Ross, thank you ever so much,' she said fervently as Audrey repeated her promise of looking in the next afternoon.

'Poor little soul! how interested Michael will be when I tell him all about her!' she thought as she walked briskly towards Woodcote.

Audrey had scarcely closed the green gate behind her before Mrs. Blake's foot sounded on the stairs. She looked pale and heavy-eyed, and walked into the room a little languidly; but if Audrey had seen her she would only have thought that her paleness invested her with fresh interest.

'Miss Ross has gone, mamma,' observed Mollie regretfully, as she followed her into the room.

'Yes, I know; I felt too jaded to face visitors this morning—Miss Ross looks at one so, and my nerves would not stand it. How are you, Kester?' kissing his forehead lightly; 'you look better than usual. I don't believe I closed my eyes until four o'clock. Dear me!' interrupting herself; 'there are Cyril's books nicely arranged—did you do them, Mollie? Why, the room looks quite comfortable and homelike. Miss Ross must have helped you a great deal.'

'Oh yes, mamma,' exclaimed Mollie and Kester eagerly; and they were about to expatiate on Audrey's wonderful goodness, when their mother checked them:

'Please don't speak so loud, children, or you will make my head bad again. I will tell you what we will do, Mollie. We will make those curtains, and then this room will be quite finished. There are only the hems and just the tops to do. We can have no difficulty in finishing them before Cyril comes home. The red tablecloth is at the top of the black box—if you will fetch it, Mollie—and I have arranged the flowers in that pretty green vase.'

'But, mamma,' pleaded Mollie, in a vexed voice, 'the room will do quite well without curtains for one day, and I promised Miss Ross to help Biddy with the plates and dishes. All the hampers are unpacked, and there is not a corner in the kitchen to put anything—and it does make Biddy so cross.'

'Nonsense, Mollie! Who minds about Biddy's crossness! I suppose I may do as I like in my own house. Let us have dinner, and then we will set to work at once—you and I—and Kester can read to us;' and, seeing that her mother's mind was fully made up, Mollie very wisely held her tongue, probably admonished thereto by a mild kick from Kester.

So, as soon as the chops had been eaten, Mollie produced her mother's work-basket and a shabby little cotton-box that was appropriated to her own use, and sewed industriously, only pausing at intervals to watch the white, slender fingers that seemed to make the needle fly through the stuff.

Mrs. Blake was evidently an accomplished seamstress, and long before four o'clock the curtains were put up, and duly admired by the whole family and Biddy.

CHAPTER VII

KESTER'S HERO

Audrey was bent on keeping her promise to Mollie, but she found a great deal of finesse and skilful management were necessary to secure her afternoon from interruption.

First, there was a note from Hillside. Mrs. Harcourt had to pay a round of visits, and would be glad of her sister's company: and as Mrs. Ross evidently thought that a refusal was impossible under such circumstances, Audrey felt that she was in a dilemma.

'Gage will have the carriage,' she said, with a trace of annoyance in her tone. 'She cannot possibly require me, especially as she knows an afternoon spent in paying formal calls is my pet abomination.'

'But, my dear Audrey, you would surely not allow your sister to go alone,' began her mother in a voice of mild remonstrance. She very seldom interfered with Audrey—indeed, that young person was in most respects her own mistress—but when Geraldine's interests were involved Mrs. Ross could be firm. 'You are very good-natured,' she went on, 'and I am sure it is very good of you to take all that trouble for those poor neglected children'—for Mrs. Ross's motherly sympathies were already enlisted on behalf of Mollie and Kester—'but, of course, your first duty is to your sister.'

'But, my dear mother, a promise is a promise, and poor little Mollie is expecting me.' And then a bright idea came to Audrey. 'Why should you not go with Gage yourself? It is a lovely afternoon, and the drive will do you good. Gage would much prefer your company to mine, and you know how much she admires your new bonnet;' and though Mrs. Ross faintly demurred to this, she was in the end overruled by Audrey.

'Dear mother! she and Gage will enjoy themselves thoroughly,' thought Audrey, as she watched Mrs. Ross drive from the door, looking the picture of a well-dressed English gentlewoman.

Audrey had to inflict another disappointment before she could get her own way. Michael wanted her to go with him to the cricket-field. There was a match being played, and on these occasions Audrey was always his companion. She understood the game as well as he did, and always took an intelligent interest in it. Audrey was sorry to refuse him and to see him go off alone.

'Never mind; I daresay I shall only stay for an hour,' he said, as he took down his hat and walked with her to the gate of the Gray Cottage.

Mollie was on the watch for her, and darted out to meet her.

'Oh, Miss Ross,' she said excitedly, 'I have so much to tell you! Mamma has had to go up to London this morning on business, and she is so sorry because she did not see you yesterday; and I was to give you all sorts of messages and thanks. And now please do come into the kitchen a moment, and you will see how hard we have worked.'

Audrey followed her at once.

'Oh, Mollie, how could you have done so much!' she exclaimed in genuine surprise, as she looked round her.

The plates and dishes were neatly arranged on the dresser, the dish-covers and tins hanging in their places, the crate of glass and china emptied of its contents and in the yard. The floor had been scrubbed as well as the table, and Biddy stood by the side of her freshly-blackleaded stove, with the first smile Audrey had yet seen on her wrinkled face.

'It is not all Miss Mollie's doing,' she said, with a chuckle, as she carried off the kettle.

'Did your mother help you?' asked Audrey, for Mollie only looked mysterious.

'Mamma! Oh dear no! She was busy all the evening with the curtains. Oh, what fun! I do wish Kester were here, but he is studying his Greek. Dear Miss Ross, you do look so puzzled. It was not mamma, and it was not Biddy, though she cleaned the kitchen this morning; and of course it could not be Kester.'

'I will give it up,' returned Audrey, laughing. 'Some magician must have been at work—and a very clever magician, too.'

'Oh, I will tell Cyril that!' replied Mollie, clapping her hands. 'Why did you not guess Cyril, Miss Ross? He is clever enough for anything.'

'Do you mean Mr. Blake put up all these plates and dishes?' observed Audrey, feeling as much surprised as an Athenian damsel would have been if she had heard of Apollo turning scullion.

'Yes, indeed! I must tell you all about it,' returned Mollie garrulously, for she was an inveterate chatterbox. 'You know, I had promised to help Biddy because she was in such a muddle, and then mamma came down and said we must get the dining-room curtains ready, to surprise Cyril when he came home.

'Well, he was very pleased; but I am afraid mamma thought that he took more notice of the way his books were arranged than of the curtains; but he said it all looked very nice, and that we were getting to rights now; and then mamma said that, as she was in the mood for work, we might as well do the drawing-room curtains too.'

'But, my dear Mollie, the furniture is not yet arranged.'

'No, of course not; but you don't understand mamma. She never does things quite like other people. She likes either to work all day long, and not give herself time for meals even, or else to do nothing; she likes beginning things, but she hates being compelled to finish them. That is why I am obliged to wear this shabby old frock,' looking down at it ruefully. 'Mamma has two such pretty ones half done, and I don't know when she will finish them.'

'Does your mother make all your frocks, dear?'

'Yes; and she does work so beautifully—everyone says so. But she is not always in the mood, and then it troubles her; she was in the curtain mood last night. Cyril saw I was vexed about something, and when mamma went out of the room he asked me if I were tired; and I could hardly help crying as I told him about my promise to you; and then he called me a little goose, and pulled my hair, as he does sometimes, and told me to leave it to him.'

'Yes——' as Mollie paused from sheer want of breath.

'Of course Cyril can always manage mamma. He sent me into the kitchen, and in ten minutes he came after me, and asked what was to be done. Kester dusted all the glass, and Cyril and I did the rest. We were hard at work till ten o'clock; and Biddy was so pleased.'

'And now we must go upstairs,' returned Audrey, when Mollie's story was told. 'Perhaps Biddy will be good enough to help us.' And in a little while the three were hard at work.

Audrey and Mollie arranged the shabby furniture to the best advantage. One or two Oriental rugs were spread on the dark-polished floor; then the curtains were hung and draped in the most effective manner, and some old china, that Mollie said was her mother's special treasure, was carefully washed and placed on the shelves of an old cabinet.

'It really looks very nice,' observed Audrey contentedly, when Biddy had gone down to see after the tea. She had enjoyed her afternoon far more than if she had been paying those calls with Geraldine. 'I always liked this room so much;' and she gave a touch to the big Japanese screen and flecked some dust from the writing-table. 'I daresay your mother will alter the position of the furniture—people always have their own ideas. But I hope she will not move the couch; it stands so well in that recess. Do you think she will like this little table in the window, Mollie? I am sure this would be my favourite seat;' and Audrey took it for a moment as she spoke, and looked down at the old arches and the quiet courtyard, with its well-worn flagstones. The martins were twittering about the eaves; some brown, dusty sparrows were chirping loudly. The ivy-covered buildings round the corner were just visible; and a large gray cat moved stealthily between the arches, intent on some subtle mischief. Mr. Charrington's boys were all on the cricket-field, watching an exciting match between Rutherford and Haileybury, and the school-house was deserted.

'That must be your seat when you come to see us,' observed Mollie affectionately. 'Mamma was only saying this morning that she had taken a fancy to you, and hoped you would come very often; and Kester said he hoped so, too, because you were so very kind.'

'Did you have many friends at Headingly?' asked Audrey absently.

She was wondering to whom Kester was talking. She could hear his voice through the open window; it sounded bright and animated. It could not possibly be his brother; Mr. Blake would be with the boys on the cricket-field. Perhaps Mrs. Blake had returned from town.

'We had no friends at all,' returned Mollie disconsolately; 'at least, no real friends. People just called on us and left their cards. Mrs. Bryce was very kind to Kester, but mamma never got on with her. We none of us liked Headingly much, except Cyril. Everyone was nice to him, but when mamma fretted and said she was miserable, and that no one in the place cared for her, he seemed to lose interest, too; and when this vacancy occurred, he just said he had had enough of it, and that mamma would be happier in a fresh place, and so we came here, and now we have found you;' and Mollie's brown eyes were very soft as she spoke.

'Oh, you will find plenty of people to like at Rutherford,' replied Audrey. 'You have not seen my mother yet, Mollie; she is so good to everyone, and so is father. And then there is my cousin, Captain Burnett, who half lives with us; he is one of the nicest men possible.'

But as Audrey spoke, she had no idea that Michael was that minute talking to Kester. It fell out in this way: Michael found it slow on the cricket-field without Audrey; so many people came up and talked to him that he got quite bored. Captain Burnett was a general favourite with men as well as women; he had the reputation of being a hero: women pitied him for his ill-health and misfortunes, and men admired him for the cheerful pluck with which he endured them.

'Burnett is a pleasant fellow and a gentleman,' was one observation. 'Perhaps he is a bit solemn at times, but I fancy that confounded wound of his gives him trouble. Anyhow, he never plagues other people with his ailments. "Grin and bear it"—I fancy that is Burnett's motto.'

Michael found the cricket-field dull without Audrey's liveliness to give zest to the afternoon; she always took people away when he was tired. He had had enough of it long before the match was over. Just as he was sauntering homewards he encountered Mr. Blake, and in the course of brief conversation he learnt that Mrs. Blake was in town.

Michael thought he would call and see if Audrey were ready to come home—it would do no harm to inquire at the door; but Biddy, who was scouring the doorsteps, told him abruptly to step in and he would find the lady; and, half amused at his own coolness, he, nothing loath, accepted the invitation.

He found Kester alone in the dining-room busy over his lessons. He looked up in some astonishment at the sight of a strange gentleman, and Zack, the retriever, growled rather inhospitably at Booty. Perhaps the Dachs-hund's short legs affronted him.

'Am I disturbing you?' asked Michael in his most genial manner. And he looked at the boy's pale intelligent face with much interest. 'I have come to see after my cousin, Miss Ross. Is she anywhere about? My name is Captain Burnett.'

'Oh, I know,' returned Kester, flushing a little nervously under the scrutiny of those keen blue eyes; 'Cyril told us about you. Miss Ross is upstairs with Mollie; they are putting the drawing-room to rights, but they will be down to tea presently. Will you sit down,' still more nervously, 'or shall I call Mollie?'

'No, no; there is no hurry, unless I am interrupting you,' with a glance at Kester's books. 'You are doing Greek, eh?'

'Yes, I am getting ready for Cyril this evening; but I am too tired to do more.'

And Kester pushed away his papers with a movement that betrayed latent irritability. Michael knew that sign of weakness well.

'That is right; shut up your books,' he said with ready kindness. 'Never work when you are tired: it is bad economy; it is using up one's stock of fuel too recklessly—lighting a furnace to cook a potato. The results are not worth it. Tired work is bad work—I have proved it.'

'I am generally tired,' returned Kester with a sigh. And it was sad to see the gravity that crept over the young face. 'It does not do to think too much of one's feelings; one has just to bear it, you know. I am ignorant enough as it is, and I must learn; I will learn!' setting his teeth hard.

Michael shot a quick glance at the lad; then he turned over the leaves of the book next him for a moment in silence.

'I must know more of this fellow,' he thought; 'Audrey is right; she is generally right about people.' Then in his ordinary quiet tone:

'I wonder your brother finds time for private tuition. I live at the lower school, you know, and so I understand all about the junior master's work. Mr. Blake has his evenings free generally, but there is dormitory work and——'

'Cyril says he will always give me an hour and a half,' interrupted Kester eagerly. 'Of course, it is not good for him to have any more teaching; but he says he would hate to see me grow up a dunce—and—and'—swallowing down some secret emotion—' I think it would break my heart not to know things.'

'And you want to be a classical scholar?' in the same grave tones.

'I want to learn everything;' and here there was a sudden kindling in the boy's eyes. 'I must do something, and my lameness hinders everything but that—perhaps, if I learn plenty of Latin and Greek, I may be able to help Cyril one day. We often talk about it, and even mother thinks it is a good plan. One day Cyril hopes to have a school of his own—when he is older, you know—and then I could take the younger boys off his hands and save him the cost of an usher; don't you think that would be possible?' looking anxiously at Michael, for somehow those steady clear eyes seemed so thoroughly to comprehend him.

'I think it an excellent plan,' retained Michael slowly; "knowledge is power"—we all know that. Do you know,' drawling out his words a little, 'that I have been working at Greek, too, for the last two years? I took it up as a sort of amusement when I was seedy; it would not be bad fun to work together sometimes. I daresay you are ahead of me in Greek, but I don't believe you could beat me in mathematics. We could help each other, and it would be good practice. I suppose your brother gives you lessons in mathematics.'

Kester shook his head.

'There is not time for everything, and Cyril always says mathematics are not in his line—he is a classical master, you see.'

'Oh yes, that is easily understood; but you can have more than one master. Come, shall we make a bargain? Will you read Greek with me? and I will give you an hour three times a week for mathematics, or anything else you like. I am an idle man, and any fixed occupation would be a boon to me.'

'Do you mean it?' was the breathless answer; and then he added, a little shyly: 'I am awfully obliged; I should like it of all things; but you are not strong, are you?—Miss Ross told us so.'

'Not particularly; I was rather knocked about by the Zulus, you know, and my leg gives me a good deal of trouble. I am pretty heavily handicapped—we are both in the same boat, are we not?—but we may as well make a fight for it.'

'Someone told me,' returned Kester, in a tone of great awe, 'that you have the Victoria Cross, Captain Burnett.'

Michael nodded; he never cared to be questioned on the subject.

'Will you let Mollie and me see it one day?' half whispered the boy. 'I hope you don't mind my asking you, but I have always so wanted to see it. I am afraid you won't tell us all about it, but I should dearly love to hear.'

No one had ever induced Michael to tell that story; the merest allusion to his gallantry always froze him up in a moment—even Dr. Ross, who was his nearest confidant, had never heard the recital from his own lips. But for once Michael let himself be persuaded; Kester's boyish eagerness prevailed, and, to his own surprise, Michael found himself giving the terrible details in a cool, business-like manner.

No wonder Kester forgot the time as he listened; the lad's sensitive frame thrilled with passionate envy at the narrative. At last he had met a hero face to face. What were those old Greek fellows—Ajax, or Hector or any of those gaudy warriors—compared with this quiet English soldier?

'Oh, if I could only be you!' he sighed, as Michael ended his recital; 'if I could look back on a deed like that! How many lives did you save, Captain Burnett?—you told me, but I have forgotten. I think you are the happiest man I know.'

Kester in his boyish reticence could not speak out his inmost thought, or he would have added: 'And the greatest and the grandest man I have ever seen.'

A dim, inscrutable smile flitted over Captain Burnett's features.

'My dear fellow, happiness is a purely relative term. I am not a great believer in happiness. A soldier without his work is hardly to be envied.'

Kester was young, but his life had already taught him many things. He was acute enough to detect a note of bitterness in his new friend's voice. It said, more than his words, that Captain Burnett was a disappointed man. He looked at him wistfully for a moment.

'Yes, I know what you mean. You would like to be back with your regiment. It is very hard—very hard, of course; but you are not suffering for nothing, like me. Don't you see the difference?'—dropping his voice. 'I have got this pain to bear, and no good comes of it; it is just bearing, and nothing else. But you have suffered in saving other men's lives. It is a kind of ransom. Oh, I don't know how to express myself, but it must be happiness to have a memory like that!'

Kester had spoken with a sort of involuntary outburst. For a moment Captain Burnett turned his head aside. He felt rebuked by this crude, boyish enthusiasm, which had gone so straight to the heart of things. Why was he, the grown man, so selfish, so impatient, when this poor lad acquiesced so meekly in his fate? Had Kester deserved his lot?

'You are right,' observed Michael, in a low tone. 'One ought only to be thankful, and not complain.'

And just at this moment Audrey came in, and stood on the threshold transfixed with amazement, until Michael rose and offered her a chair.

'You here!' she gasped. 'I thought I heard voices. Mollie, this is my cousin, Captain Burnett. I suppose we must let him stay to tea.'

Mollie gave her invitation very shyly. The poor child was thinking of her shabby frock, with the great rent in the skirt, so hastily cobbled up. The pale man with the reddish moustache was very formidable in Mollie's eyes. Mollie was sure her hand would tremble when she lifted the heavy teapot. She had been so looking forward to having a cosy tea with their dear Miss Ross, and now everything was spoilt.

When Mollie was shy she always looked a little sulky; but Michael, who noticed her embarrassment, set himself to charm it away.

Biddy had set the little tea-table under the acacia-tree; but as Mollie, blushing and awkward, commenced her arduous duties, she found herself assisted by the formidable Captain Burnett.

Before half an hour was over Mollie thought him quite the nicest man that she had ever seen. He was so kind, so helpful; he told such interesting stories. Mollie forgot her Cinderella rags as she listened. Her eyes sparkled; a pretty colour came to her face; her rough brown hair had gleams of gold in it. Mollie did not look plain or awkward then.

'Her eyes are nice, and she has a sweet voice and a ringing laugh,' thought Michael as he glanced at her.

How merry they all were! What nonsense they talked, as they sat there watching some pigeons circling among the arches! The little garden was still and pleasant. Zack was stretched out beside them, with Booty curled up near him. Audrey was the first to call attention to the lateness of the hour.

'We must go home now, Michael,' she said, in a tone of regret, which was loudly echoed by Mollie and Kester.

Mollie closed the green gate after them; then she rushed back to Kester.

'Do you like him—Captain Burnett, I mean?' she asked eagerly. 'I was so afraid of him at first; his eyes seem to look one through and through, even when he says nothing. But he is kind—very kind.'

'Is that all you have found out about him?' returned her brother contemptuously. 'That is so like a girl! Who cares about his eyes? Do you know what he is? He is a hero—he has the Victoria Cross. He has saved a lot of lives. Come here, and I will tell you all about it; it will make your hair stand on end more than it does now.'

But the story made Mollie cry, and from that hour she and Kester elected Captain Burnett to the position of their favourite hero.

'We must tell Cyril all about him when he comes home,' observed Mollie, drying her eyes. 'You are right, Kester. Captain Burnett is quite the best, and the nicest, and the bravest man I have ever seen.'

'Hear, hear!' interposed Cyril mischievously, thrusting his dark face out of the dining-room window. He had heard the whole story with a great deal of interest. And then, as Mollie darted towards him with a little shriek of assumed anger, he laughed, and sauntered out into the garden.

'Let us do our Greek out here, old fellow,' he said, throwing himself down on the grass, while Zack jumped on him. 'Have you got some tea for me, Mollie, or have you forgotten the teapot in your hero-worship? How late mother is!' He hesitated and looked at Kester. 'She would like me to meet her; it is such a long, lonely walk. But no'—as a cloud stole over Kester's face—'perhaps she will take the omnibus. Open your books and let me see your day's work;' and Cyril quietly repressed a yawn as he took a cup of cold tea from Mollie's hand.

He was tired. A walk through the dewy lanes would refresh him. He was in a restless mood; he wanted to be alone, to stretch himself and to think—perhaps to indulge in some youthful dream. But he was used to combating these moods; he would rather bear anything than disappoint Kester. And then he drank off his tea without a murmur, and the next moment the two brothers were hard at work.

CHAPTER VIII

'I HOPE BETTER THINGS OF AUDREY'

'Your manners are always under examination, and by committees little suspected—a police in citizen's clothes—who are awarding or denying you very high prizes when you least think of it.'—Emerson.

Mrs. Harcourt had had a successful afternoon. All the nicest people had been at home, and a great many pleasant things had been said to her; her mother had been a charming companion. Nevertheless, there was a slight cloud on Mrs. Harcourt's face as she walked through the shrubbery that led to her house, and the fold of care was still on her brow as she entered her husband's study—a pleasant room on the ground-floor, overlooking the garden. Mr. Harcourt was reading, but he put down his magazine and greeted his wife with a smile. He was just rising from his seat, but she prevented him by laying her hand on his shoulder.

'Don't move, Percival; you look so comfortable. I will sit by you a minute. I hope I am not interrupting you.'

'Such an interruption is only pleasant, my dear,' was the polite answer. 'Well, have you and Audrey had a nice afternoon?'

'Mother came with me. Audrey had some ridiculous engagement with the Blakes. Percival, I am growing seriously uneasy at this new vagary on Audrey's part. Would you believe it?—she has been the whole afternoon at the Gray Cottage helping those children! and Michael has been there, too; we met them just now.'

Mr. Harcourt raised his eyebrows; he was evidently surprised at this bit of news, though he took it with his usual philosophy.

'Never mind, Jerry,' he said kindly, after a glance at his wife's vexed face, 'we cannot always inoculate people with our own common-sense. Audrey was always inclined to go her own gait.'

Geraldine blushed; she always did when her husband called her Jerry. Not that she minded it from him, but if anyone else—one of the boys, for example—were to hear it, the dignified mistress of the house felt she would never have got over it. In her unmarried days no one had presumed to call her anything but Geraldine or Gage, and yet before three months were over her husband had invented this nickname for her.

'It is no use fretting over it,' he went on in the same equable voice; 'you and Audrey are very different people, my love.'

'Yes; but, Percy dear, it is so trying of Audrey to take up the very people that mother and I were so anxious to avoid. I declare I am quite sorry for mother; she said, very truly, how is she to keep an intrusive person like Mrs. Blake at a distance now Audrey has struck up this violent friendship with her? She has even taken Michael there, for of course he would never go of his own accord. I am so vexed about it all; it has quite spoilt my afternoon.'

'Burnett was on the cricket-field a great part of the afternoon,' returned Mr. Harcourt. 'I saw him talking to Charrington and Sayers.'

'Then she must have asked him to fetch her,' replied Geraldine, with an air of decision that evidently amused her husband; 'for Michael told us of his own accord that he had been having tea at the Cottage. It is really very foolish and incautious of Audrey, after Edith's hint, too! I wish you would tell her so, Percival, for she only laughs at my advice.'

'And you think she would listen to me?'—still with the same amused curl of the lip.

'I think she ought to listen to you, dear—a man of your experience and knowledge of the world—if you would give her a little of your mind. It is so absurd for a grown-up person to behave like an impulsive child. Michael is particular in some things, but he spoils Audrey dreadfully. He and father encourage her. It is your duty, Percival, to act a brother's part by her, and guide her for her own good.'

Geraldine was evidently in earnest, and Mr. Harcourt forbore to smile as he answered her:

'But if she refused to be guided by me, my dear?'

'Oh, I hope better things of Audrey,' replied Geraldine, in such a solemn voice that her husband laughed outright, though he drew down her face to his the next minute and kissed it.

'You are a good girl to believe in your husband. I don't envy Audrey's future spouse; he will have much to bear. Audrey is too philanthropic, too unpractical altogether, for a smooth domestic life. We are different people, as I said before. Come, cheer up, darling. If I find it possible to say a word in season, you may trust me to do so. Ah! there is the dressing-bell.'

And Mr. Harcourt rose and stretched himself, and began gathering up his papers as a hint to his wife that the subject was concluded.

Audrey was not so unreasonable as her sister supposed; she had no intention of placing herself in direct opposition to her family—on the contrary, she was somewhat troubled by Geraldine's chilling reception that afternoon. Michael had stopped the carriage and informed the two ladies of the manner in which he and Audrey had spent their afternoon.

'We have both been having tea at the Gray Cottage,' he said cheerfully. 'I hope you have spent as pleasant an afternoon, Gage. That youngster—Kester they call him—is a bright, intelligent lad, and Mollie is a nice child.'

'Oh, indeed!' was Geraldine's reply; 'I am afraid we are late, Michael, and must drive on;' and then she nodded to Audrey: but there was no pleasant smile on her face.

'Gage is put out with us both,' observed Audrey, as they turned in at Woodcote. 'I shall be in for another lecture, Michael.'

Audrey had no wish to be a bugbear to her family. For several reasons she thought it politic to avoid the Gray Cottage for a day or two: Mollie must not depend on her too much. When her mother and Geraldine had called, and Mrs. Blake was on visiting terms with them, things would be on a pleasanter footing. She was somewhat surprised, when Sunday came, to find Mr. Blake was the sole representative of his family in the school chapel. She had looked for the widow and her children in the morning, and again in the afternoon, and as she exchanged greetings with Cyril in the courtyard after service she could not refrain from questioning him on the subject.

'I hope Mrs. Blake has not another headache?' she asked rather abruptly as he came up to her, looking very handsome and distinguished in his cap and gown—and again Audrey remembered her unlucky speech about the Greek god.

Cyril seemed a little embarrassed.

'Oh no, she is quite well, only a little tired; she has rather knocked herself up. Kester had a touch of his old pain, so I told him not to come.'

'And Mollie?' But Cyril did not appear to hear the question.

'Will you excuse me?' he observed the next moment, rather hurriedly; 'I think Mrs. Charrington is waiting for me—she asked me to go to the school-house to tea.'

And as he left her, Audrey found herself obliged to join her sister and Mrs. Harcourt.

'Have you many people coming to you to-morrow afternoon?' asked Geraldine, as they walked on together.

'Only the Luptons and Fortescues and Mr. Owen and Herr Schaffmann—oh, and—I forgot, father asked Mr. Blake.'

Audrey spoke a little absently. They were passing the Gray Cottage—a blind was just then raised in one of the lower rooms, and a small pale face peeped eagerly out at the passers-by. Audrey smiled and waved her hand in a friendly manner, and a bright answering smile lighted up the girlish face.

'What an untidy-looking child!' remarked Geraldine carelessly; 'is that your protégée?' and then she continued, in a reproving tone: 'It is really disgraceful that none of the family were in chapel. Edith was right when she spoke of Mrs. Blake's mismanagement of her children; that poor girl had a most neglected look.'

Audrey did not answer; she thought it wiser to allow her sister's remark to pass unchallenged; she had a shrewd suspicion why Mollie was not in chapel—the shabby, outgrown frock had probably kept her at home.

'Poor little thing!' she thought, with a fresh access of pity, for Mollie had certainly looked very forlorn. And then she turned her attention with some difficulty to what Geraldine was saying.

Dr. Ross was famed for his hospitality, and both he and his wife loved to gather the young people of Rutherford about them.

On Monday afternoons during the summer there was always tennis on the Woodcote lawn; one or two of the families from the Hill houses, and perhaps a bachelor master or two, made up a couple of sets. The elder ladies liked to watch the game or to stroll about the beautiful grounds. Mrs. Ross was an excellent hostess; she loved to prepare little surprises for her guests—iced drinks or strawberries and cream. Geraldine generally presided at her mother's tea-table; Audrey would be among the players. Tennis-parties and garden-parties of all kinds were common enough in Rutherford, but those at Woodcote certainly carried off the palm.

Mr. Harcourt had always been considered one of the best players, but on the Monday in question he found himself ranged against no mean antagonist, and he was obliged to own that young Blake played superbly.

'You would have won every game this afternoon if you had had a better partner,' observed Audrey, as she and Cyril walked across the lawn. She had been playing with him the greater part of the afternoon, and had been much struck with his quiet and finished style. 'My brother-in-law has always been considered our champion player, but you certainly excel him.'

'I have had a great deal of practice,' returned Cyril modestly. 'I think you are wrong about our respective powers. Mr. Harcourt plays exceedingly well; being so much younger, I am a little more agile—that is all.'

'Yes; and you would have beaten him this last game, but for me. I have played worse than usual this afternoon.'

'You must not expect me to endorse that opinion, Miss Ross. I have never seen any lady play half so well. You took that last ball splendidly. Now we have exchanged these mutual compliments, may I ask you to show me the lake? Kester gave a tremendous description of it when he came home to-day. Captain Burnett put him in the punt, and he seems to have had a grand time altogether.'

'Oh, I heard all about it at luncheon.'

'It is good of your cousin to take all this trouble,' went on Cyril in a lower voice, as they walked down one of the terraces. 'I was quite taken aback when he spoke to me yesterday. I thought he could not be in earnest. You know he asked me to go up to his private room after luncheon, and we had a long talk until it was time to go to chapel.'

'Will it be possible for your brother to come here two or three times a week, Mr. Blake?'

'Oh yes; he can manage that short distance—at least, when he is pretty well; and the change will be so good for him. It is quite a load off my mind to know he will learn mathematics as well as Greek and Latin. You have no idea, Miss Ross, how clever that boy is. If he had only my opportunities, he would beat me hollow in no time. I tell my mother so, but she will not believe it; but she thinks with me that it is awfully good of your cousin to interest himself in Kester.'

'It will be a godsend to Michael,' returned Audrey. 'You see, my cousin's health is so bad that he cannot employ himself, and he is debarred from so much enjoyment. He helps my father a good deal with the boys when he is here, but sometimes the noise is too much for him. It will suit him far better to study quietly with your brother. Of course, he meant to be kind—he is always doing good to someone or other—but this time the kindness will benefit himself. He quite enjoyed his morning. He told me so in a tone as though he meant it.'

'And Kester looked ever so much brighter. What comfortable quarters Captain Burnett has! I had no idea he had a private sitting-room, and he tells me he has rooms in town as well.'

'Yes; but we do not let him use them oftener than we can help. It is so dull for him to be alone. My father is anxious for him to live altogether at Woodcote—he thinks the Rutherford air suits him so much better than that of town; but Michael cannot be persuaded to give up his rooms. I tell him it is all his pride, and that he wishes to be independent of us.'

'He is your father's cousin, you say?'

'Yes; and he is just like his son,' returned Audrey, wondering why Mr. Blake looked at her so intently. 'You know, I told you that we looked upon Michael as our own brother. Here we are at the pond—or lake, as we prefer to call it—and there are the swans, Snowflake and Eiderdown, as I have christened them.'

'It is a charming spot,' observed Cyril, leaning over the fence to look at the beautiful creatures. He was quite unaware, as he lounged there, that he added another picturesque effect to the landscape, his bright blue coat and peaked cap making a spot of colour against Audrey's white gown. 'So that is the island where Kester found the forget-me-nots for Mollie? It looks as though one could carry it off bodily in one's arms,' he continued, after a reflective pause.

'Mr. Blake, I will not permit such remarks,' returned Audrey, laughing. 'I have often paddled myself about the lake. At least, it is deep enough to drown one. Now tell me how Mollie is.'

'Mollie is inconsolable because she has not seen you for two whole days. She spent most of the morning at the window in the hope of seeing you pass.'

'Nonsense!'

'Oh, it is a fact, I assure you. My mother told me so herself. Will there be any chance of your looking in to-morrow, Miss Ross? I am going back now, and I am sure such a message would make Mollie happy for the remainder of the evening.'

Audrey smiled.

'I do not think I will send the message, Mr. Blake. I half thought of calling on some friends of mine who live a little way out of Rutherford, but if I have time——'

She paused, not quite knowing how to finish her sentence.

'Well, I will say nothing about it,' he returned quickly. 'You have been far too good to us already. Mollie must not presume on your kindness;' and then he took up his racket.

'Why are you leaving us so early, Mr. Blake? There is surely time for another game?'

'Thanks; I must not stop any longer now. My mother asked me to take her for a walk, and, as Kester can do without me this evening, I promised that I would.'

'And you will take Mollie? There is such a pretty walk across the fields to Everdeen Wood, if Mrs. Blake does not mind a few stiles. Mollie will not, I am sure.'

'I think Mollie will prefer to stay with Kester,' he replied quickly. 'I am sorry to leave so early, Miss Ross, but one does not like to disappoint other people.'

'I begin to think you are one of the unselfish ones,' thought Audrey, as she gave him her hand. Then aloud: 'You must come to us next Monday, Mr. Blake, for I am sure my brother-in-law will want his revenge. Oh, there is Booty, so of course his master is not far off. I will go and meet him.'

Then she nodded to Cyril, and turned off into a side-path just as Captain Burnett came in sight.

'Are they still playing, Michael?'

'No. Harcourt wants to be off; he and Gage are to dine at the Fortescues', so they have agreed to break up earlier. Why is Blake leaving us so soon? Your father proposed that he should be asked to dinner.'

'I don't think he would be persuaded,' she replied, wishing that she had not taken him so easily at his word. 'He has promised to take his mother for a walk. He is really a very good son. Most young men care only about their own pleasure.'

'I think I like him,' returned Michael, in his slow, considering tone. 'We had a smoke together yesterday up in my room, and I confess he interested me. He seems to feel his responsibility so with respect to that poor boy. He was very grateful to me for my proposed help, and said so in a frank, manly fashion that somehow pleased me.'

'I am so glad you like him, Michael!' and Audrey's tone expressed decided pleasure.

'Oh, we shall hit it off very well, I expect; but I daresay we shall not see very much of each other. He goes in for cricket, and makes tremendous scores, I hear, and the Hill houses will soon monopolise him. He is too good-looking a fellow not to be a favourite with the ladies—eh, Audrey?'

'I am sure I don't know,' returned Audrey, who could be a trifle dense when she chose. 'I do not think Mr. Blake is a lady's man, if that is what you mean. Don't you detest the genus, Michael?'

'Do I not!' was the expressive answer; and then he went on: 'I am quite of your opinion that Blake is a nice, gentlemanly fellow; but I think that brother of his is still more interesting. Poor little chap! he has plenty of brains; he is as sharp as some fellows of nineteen or twenty. Blake is clever enough, but one of these days Kester will make his mark. He has a perfect thirst for knowledge. I drew him out this morning, for we only made a pretence at work. You should have heard him talk.'

'That is exactly his brother's opinion,' returned Audrey; and she repeated Cyril's words.

Michael was evidently struck by them.

'He seems very fond of him, and, for the matter of that, the poor boy is devoted to his brother. I suppose that accident has made a link between them. I do not know that I ever took so much interest in your protégés before. By the bye, what has become of the O'Briens, Audrey?'

'I am going to see them to-morrow. I know what that inquiry means, Michael. You think that I am always so much taken up with new people that I forget my old friends; but you are wrong.' And then she added, a little reproachfully: 'That you of all people should accuse me of fickleness!'

Captain Burnett smiled a little gravely.

'You are investing my words with too large a meaning. I do not think you in the least fickle; it is only your headlong sympathies that carry you away.' But as Audrey looked a little mystified over this speech, he continued: 'I would not have you neglect Mr. O'Brien for the world. I only wish Vineyard Cottage were a mile or two nearer, and I would often smoke a pipe in that earwiggy bower of his. I have a profound respect for Thomas O'Brien. I love a man who lives up to his profession, and is not above his business. A retired tradesman who tries to forget he was ever behind the counter, and who goes through life aping the manners of gentlefolk, is a poor sort of body in my eyes; he is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Now Mr. O'Brien is as proud of being a corn-chandler as'—he paused for a simile—'as our drummer-boy was of belonging to the British army.'

'Poor old man! he has seen a peck of trouble, as he calls it.'

'There, you see,' interrupting her delightedly, 'his very language borrows its most powerful imagery from his past belongings! Do you or I, Audrey, in our wildest and most despairing moments, ever talk of a peck of trouble? Depend upon it, my dear, when Thomas made that speech, he was among his bins again; in his mind's eye he was measuring out his oats and beans. I think I hear him repeating again what he once said to me: "It is such a clean, wholesome business, Captain. I often dream I am back in the shop again, with my wife laying the tea in the back-parlour. I can feel the grain slithering between my fingers, and even the dropping of the peas on the counter out of the overfilled bags is as plain as possible. Mat always did his work so awkwardly."'

'I don't think he has ever got over the loss of his wife, Michael.'

'Of course not. Is he likely to do so, with Mrs. Baxter's lugubrious countenance opposite him morning, noon, and night? I don't wonder her husband ran away from her; it would take a deal of principle to put up with such a trying woman.'

'Michael, I will not have you so severe on my friends! Mrs. Baxter is a very good woman, and she takes great care of her father. We cannot all be gifted with good spirits. Poor Priscilla Baxter is a disappointed woman.'

Michael shrugged his shoulders, but he was spared making any reply, as just then they encountered Geraldine and her husband. They were evidently looking for Audrey.

'Are you going, Gage?' observed Audrey serenely. 'I was just coming up to the house to wish you good-bye, only Michael detained me.'

'I thought you were with Mr. Blake,' returned her sister, in a puzzled tone. 'I wish you would come up to luncheon to-morrow—I have scarcely spoken two words to you this afternoon. Edith is coming.'

'It will be a pity to interrupt your tête-à-tête,' returned Audrey pleasantly; 'Mrs. Bryce has always so much to say, and she comes so seldom.' And, as her sister's face clouded, she continued: 'I will run up for an hour on Wednesday, but I really cannot neglect Mr. O'Brien any longer—he will have been looking for me day after day.'

'Oh, if you are going to Vineyard Cottage,' in a mollified tone that Audrey perfectly understood, 'you will have tea there, of course.'

'Do you think Mrs. Baxter would let me come away without my tea?' returned Audrey quickly.

She was inwardly somewhat annoyed at this questioning. She had meant to go to the Gray Cottage on her way; but now she must give that up: Mollie must watch for her a little longer. Perhaps she could go to Hillside in the morning and keep her afternoon free. And as she came to this conclusion, she bade her sister an affectionate good-bye. But as Geraldine took her husband's arm in the steep shrubbery walk, she said, in a dissatisfied tone:

'I am glad we found her with Michael; but, all the same, she and Mr. Blake were partners all the afternoon.'

'My dear Geraldine,' returned Mr. Harcourt with assumed solemnity, 'I think Audrey may be trusted to manage her own little affairs—she is two-and-twenty, is she not? When you have daughters of your own, my love, I am quite sure you will manage them excellently, and no young man will have a chance of speaking to them; but with Audrey it is another matter.' And then, in a tragic undertone: 'Have you forgotten, wife mine, a certain afternoon when you did me the honour of playing with me three whole sets, and then we cooled ourselves down by the lake, until your father hunted us out?'

Geraldine pressed her husband's arm gently; she remembered that afternoon well, and all Percival had said to her—they had just come to an understanding when her father interrupted them. For one moment her face softened at the sweet remembrance, and then she roused herself to remonstrate.

'But, Percy dear, this is utterly different. Audrey would never dream of falling in love with Mr. Blake. Fancy a girl in her position encouraging the attentions of a junior master. No, indeed; I was only afraid of a little flirtation. Of course Audrey declares she never flirts, but she has such a way with her—she is too kind in her manner sometimes.'

'It is to be hoped that she will not break as many hearts as a certain young person I know—eh, Jerry?' and Geraldine blushed and held her peace.

She never liked to be reminded of the unlucky wooers who had shaken off the dust of Woodcote so sorrowfully. As for Mr. Harcourt, he delighted in these proofs of conquests. Geraldine had not been easy to win—she had given her lover plenty of trouble; but she was his now, and, as he often told himself, no man had ever been more fortunate in his choice. For Mr. Harcourt, in spite of his delight in teasing, was very deeply in love with his beautiful wife.

CHAPTER IX

MAT

'Sympathy or no sympathy, a man's love should no more fail towards his fellows than that love which spent itself on disciples who altogether misunderstood it, like the rain which falls on just and unjust alike.'—Mark Rutherford.

Vineyard Cottage, where the retired corn-chandler had elected to spend the remnant of his days, was no pretentious stucco villa; it was a real old-fashioned cottage, with a big roomy porch well covered with honeysuckle and sweet yellow jasmine, and a sitting-room on either side of the door, with one small-paned window, which was certainly not filled with plate-glass. It was a snug, bowery little place, and the fresh dimity curtains at the upper windows, and the stand of blossoming plants in the little passage, gave it a cheerful and inviting aspect. The tiny lawn was smooth as velvet, and a row of tall white lilies, flanked with fragrant lavender, filled up the one narrow bed that ran by the side of the privet hedge.

As Audrey unlatched the little gate she had a glimpse of Mr. O'Brien in his shirt-sleeves. He was smoking in the porch, and so busily engaged in reading his paper that Audrey's light tread failed to arouse him, until a plaintive and fretful voice from within made him turn his head.

'Father, aren't you ashamed to be sitting there in your shirt-sleeves when Miss Ross has come to call? And it is 'most four o'clock, too—pretty near about tea-time.'

'Miss Ross—you don't say so, Prissy!' returned Mr. O'Brien, thrusting an arm hastily into the coat that his daughter was holding out in an aggressively reproachful manner. 'How do you do, Miss Ross? Wait a moment—wait a moment, until I can shake hands with you. Now, then, the other arm, Prissy. You are as welcome as flowers in May—and as blooming too, isn't she, Prissy?' and Mr. O'Brien enforced his compliment with a grasp of the hand that made Audrey wince.

'I expected a scolding—I did indeed,' laughed Audrey, 'instead of this very kind welcome. It is so long since my last visit; is it not, Mr. O'Brien?'

'Well, ma'am, tell the truth and shame the devil; that's my motto. I'll not deny that Prissy and I were wondering at your absence. "What's become of Miss Ross?" she said to me only to-day at dinner, "for she has not been near us for an age."'

'And I was right, father, and it is an age since Miss Ross honoured us with a visit,' replied his daughter in the plaintive tone that seemed natural to her. 'It was just five weeks ago, for Susan Larkins had come up about the bit of washing her mother wished to have, so I remember the day well.'

'Five weeks!' responded Audrey with a shake of her head; 'what a memory you have, Mrs. Baxter, and, dear me, how ill you are looking; is there anything the matter?' looking from one to the other with kindly scrutiny.

Mr. O'Brien and his daughter were complete contrasts to each other. He was a stout, gray-haired man with a pleasant, genial countenance, though it was not without its lines of care. Mrs. Baxter, on the contrary, had a long melancholy face and anxious blue eyes. Her black gown clung to her thin figure in limp folds; her features were not bad, and a little liveliness and expression would have made her a good-looking woman; but her dejected air and want of colouring detracted from her comeliness, and of late years her voice had grown peevish as well as plaintive, as though her troubles had been too heavy for her. Audrey had a sincere respect for her; but she certainly wished that Mrs. Baxter took a less lugubrious view of life. At times she would try to infuse a little of her own cheerfulness; but she soon found that Mrs. Baxter was too closely wrapped in her melancholy. In her own language, she preferred the house of mourning to the house of feasting.

'Oh, I hope there is nothing fresh the matter!' repeated Audrey, whose clear-sighted sympathy was never at fault.

She thought that Mr. O'Brien's genial face looked a shade graver than usual.

'Come and sit down, Miss Ross, and I will be hurrying the girl with the tea,' observed Mrs. Baxter mournfully, for she was never too lachrymose to be hospitable, and though she shed tears on slight occasions, she was always disposed to press her hot buttered cakes on her guests, and any refusal to taste her good cheer would have grievously wounded her bruised sensibilities. 'Father, take Miss Ross into the best parlour while I help Hannah a bit.'

And as Mr. O'Brien laid aside his pipe and led the way into the house, Audrey followed him, nothing loath.

'Joe's been troubling Priscilla again,' he observed, as Audrey seated herself on the little horsehair sofa beside the open window, and Buff, a great tortoise-shell cat, jumped uninvited on her lap and began purring loudly.

'Joe!' repeated Audrey in a shocked voice; she knew very well who was meant. Joe was the ne'er-do-well of a son-in-law whose iniquities had transformed the young and comely Priscilla into the meagre and colourless Mrs. Baxter. 'He has no right to trouble her!' she went on indignantly.

'He has been worrying for money again,' returned Mr. O'Brien, ruffling up his gray hair in a discontented fashion; 'he says he is hard up. But that is only one of Joe's lies; he tells lies by the peck. He had a good coat on, and looked as thriving as possible, and I know from Atkinson, who has been in Leeds, that he is a traveller to some house in the wine trade. And yet he comes here, the bullying rascal! fretting the poor lass to skin and bone with pretending he can take the law of her for not living with him, and that after all his ill-usage.'

'I am so sorry,' returned Audrey, and her tone said more than her words. 'He is a bad man, a thoroughly heartless and bad man—everyone knows that; and she must never go back to him. I hope you told him so.'

'Ay, I did,' with a touch of gruffness; 'I found him bullying, and poor Prissy crying her eyes out, and looking ready to drop—for she is afraid of him—and I just took down my big stick. "Joe," I said, as he began blustering about her being his true and lawful wife, "you just drop that and listen to me: if she is your wife, she is my daughter, our only one—for never chick nor child had we beside Priscilla—and she is going to stop along with me, law or no law."

'"I'll claim my own. There's two to that bargain, father-in-law," he says, with a sneer; for, you see, he was turning a bit nasty.

'"And you'll claim something else as well, son-in-law!" I replied, getting a good grip of the stick; for my blood was up, and I would have felled him to the ground with all the pleasure in life, only the girl got between us.

'"No, father—no violence!" she screeches out. "Don't make things worse for poor, unhappy me. Joe is not worth your getting into trouble on his account. Go along with you, Joe, and Heaven forgive you; but horses wouldn't drag me under your roof again after the way you have treated me."

'Well, I suppose we made it too hot for him, ma'am, for he soon beat a retreat. Joe was always a coward. I would have hurried him out with a kick, but I thought it better to be prudent; and Priscilla went and had a fit of hysterics in her own room, and she has been looking mortal bad, poor lass! ever since.'

'I wish we could save her these trying scenes, Mr. O'Brien; they get on her nerves.'

'Ah, that is what her mother said! "Prissy will never have a day's health if we can't hinder Joe from coming to plague her"—I remember my Susan saying that. Why, it was half for Prissy's sake we gave up the shop. "What is the good of filling our purse, Tom, when we have plenty for ourselves and Priscilla!" she was always saying to me. But there, I was fond of the shop—it is no use denying it—and it takes a special sort of education to fit one for idleness. Even now—would you believe it, ma'am?—I have a sort of longing to finger the oats and peas again.'

'But you are very fond of your cottage and your garden, Mr. O'Brien. Captain Burnett says it is the prettiest little place about here.'

'Ah, I have been forgetting my manners, and I have never asked after the Captain, though he is a prime favourite of mine. Oh yes, he always has his little joke. "What will you sell it for, O'Brien, just as it stands? Name your own price." Well, it is a snug little place; and if only my little woman were here and I had news of Mat——' And here Mr. O'Brien pushed his hand through his gray hair again, and sighed as he looked out on his row of lilies.

Audrey sat still in sympathising silence. She knew how her old friend loved to unburden himself. He talked to no one else as he did to this girl—not even to the Captain. He liked to enlarge in his simple way on his old happy life, when Prissy was young and he and his wife thought handsome Joe Baxter a grand lover for their girl, with his fine figure and soft, wheedling tongue.

'But we were old enough to know better—we were a couple of fools, of course; I know that now,' he would say. 'But he just talked us over—Joe is a rare hand at talking even now. He can use fine words; he has learnt it in his business. I think our worst time was when Prissy's baby died and she began to droop, and in her weakness she let it all out to her mother. I remember my little woman coming into the shop that day, with the tears running down her face. "Tom," she says, "what have we ever done to be so punished? Joe is treating Prissy like a brute, and my poor girl's heart is broken." Dear, dear! how I wanted Mat then!'

Audrey knew all about this Mat—at least, the little there was to know. One day, soon after Mr. O'Brien had lost his wife, and she had found him sitting alone in the porch, he had begun talking to her of his own accord of a young brother whom he called Mat, but to no one else had he ever mentioned his name. Audrey had been much touched and surprised by this confidence, and from time to time Mr. O'Brien had continued to speak of him, until she was in possession of the main facts.

Thomas O'Brien had lost his parents early, and his brothers and sisters had died in infancy, with the exception of the youngest, Matthew, or Mat, as he was generally called. There was so much difference between their ages that Mat was quite a plaything and pet to his elder brother. From all accounts, he was a bright, engaging little fellow, and developed unusual capacity.

'He was a cut above us, and people took notice of him, and that spoiled him,' observed Mr. O'Brien one day.

Audrey, piecing the fragments of conversation together, could picture the clever, handsome lad learning his lessons in the little back parlour, while honest Tom served in the shop. But Mat was not always so studious: he would be sliding with the Rector's boys, or helping them to make a snow man; sometimes he would be having tea at the Rectory, or with his master, or even with the curates. One of the curates was musical, and Mat had an angelic voice. One could imagine the danger to the precocious, clever boy, and how perhaps, on his return, he would gibe a little in his impertinent boyish fashion at thickheaded, clumsy Tom among his cornbins and sacks of split peas.

Mat did not wish to be a corn-chandler. When Tom married the daughter of a neighbouring baker, Mat was heard to mutter to one of his intimates that Tom might have looked higher for a wife. He grew a little discontented after that, and gave the young couple plenty of trouble until he got his way—a bad way, too—and went off to seek his fortunes in London.

Tom missed the lad sadly; even his Susan's rosy cheeks and good-humour failed to console him for a while. Not until Prissy made her appearance—and in clamorous baby fashion wheedled her way into her father's affections—did his sore heart cease to regret the young brother.

Susan used to talk to her husband in her sensible way.

'It is no use your fretting, Tom,' she would say; 'boys will be boys, and anything is better for Mat than hanging about here with his hands in his pockets and doing nothing but gossip with the customers. He was growing into idle ways. It was a shame for a big fellow like Mat to be living upon his brother; it is far better for him to be thrown on himself to work for his bread,' finished Susan, rocking her baby, for she was a shrewd little person in her way.

'I don't like to think of Mat alone in London,' returned Tom slowly; but as he looked into his wife's innocent eyes he forbore to utter all his thoughts aloud. Tom was old enough to know something of the world; he could guess at the pitfalls that stretched before the lad's unwary feet. Mat was young, barely eighteen, his very gifts of beauty and cleverness might lead him into trouble.

'I wish I had him here,' muttered Tom, as he went off to serve a customer. 'Peterborough is a better place for him than London;' for they were living at Peterborough then.

Tom cheered up presently, when Mat wrote one of his flourishing letters; he was a fine letter-writer. He was in luck's way, he told Tom, and had fallen on his feet; at his first application he had obtained a clerkship in some business house, and his employer had taken a fancy to him.

'I feel like Dick Whittington,' wrote Mat, in his happy, boastful way; 'all night long the bells were saying to me, "Turn again, turn again, Mat O'Brien, for fortune is before you." I could hear them in my dreams—and then the next morning came a letter from Mr. Turner. Dear old chap, you won't bother about me any more, for I mean to stick to my work like a galley slave. Give my love to Susan, and kiss the little one—couldn't you have found a better name than that Puritan Priscilla, you foolish Tom?'—and so on. Audrey once read that letter, and a dozen more of the same type; she thought them very affectionate and clever. Every now and then there were graphic descriptions of a day's amusement or sight-seeing. What was it they lacked? Audrey could never answer that question, but she laid them down with a dim feeling of dissatisfaction.

Mat used to run down for a day or two when business permitted, and take possession of his shabby little room under the roof. How happy honest Tom would be on these occasions! how he would chuckle to himself as he saw his customers—female customers especially—cast sidelong glances at the handsome dark-haired youth who lounged by the door!

'Old Mrs. Stevenson took him for a gentleman,' Tom remarked to Susan once, rubbing his hands over the joke. 'Mat is so well set up, and wears such a good coat; just look at his boots!—and his shirts are ever so much finer than mine; he looks like a young lord in his Sunday best,' went on Tom, who admired his young brother with every fibre of his heart.

Mat was quite aware of the sensation he made among his old friends and neighbours; he liked to feel his own importance. He came pretty frequently at first; he was tolerant of Susan's homeliness and sisterly advice, he took kindly to Prissy, and brought her a fine coral necklace to wear on her fat dimpled neck; but after a year or two he came less often.

'Leave him alone,' Susan would say when Tom grumbled to her over his pipe of an evening; 'Mat has grown too fine for the shop; nothing pleased him last time. He wanted napkins with his food because of his moustache, and he complained that his bed was so hard he could not sleep on it. It is easy to see that our homely ways do not suit him. I wish your heart were not set on him so much, Tom; it is thankless work to cling to a person who wants to get rid of his belongings.'

'Nay, Susan, you are too hard on the lad,' her husband remonstrated; 'Mat will never cut us—he has an affectionate heart. He is only having his fling, as lads, even the best of them, will at times. By and by he will settle down, and then we shall see more of him.'

But in spite of Tom's faith, that time never came. By and by Mat wrote with a greater flourish than ever.

'Wish me joy, my dear Susan and Tom,' he wrote, 'for I am going to be married, and to the prettiest and the dearest girl in the world. Just fancy, Tom, her uncle is a Dean! what do you think of your brother Mat now? "Turn again, turn again, Mat O'Brien"—that is what the bells said to me, and, by Jove! they were right. Haven't I had a rise this Christmas?—and now my dear little Olive has promised to take me for better or worse. Oh, Tom, you should just see her—she is such a darling! and I am the luckiest fellow in the world to get her! I can see Susan shaking her head and saying in her wise way that I am young to take the cares of life on my shoulders; but when a fellow is head over heels in love, he cannot stop to balance arguments. And after all, we are not so imprudent, for when the Dean dies, and he is an old man, Olive will have a pretty penny of her own. So wish me joy, dear Tom, and send me your blessing.'

Tom fairly wept over this letter; he carried it about with him and read it at intervals during the day.

'If only she makes the lad happy!' he said to Susan. 'To think of our Mat marrying a gentlewoman, for of course a Dean's niece is that;' and Susan, whose knowledge of the world was small, supposed so too.

Tom was hoping that Mat would bring his young wife down to receive his brotherly congratulations in person; but there was always some excuse for the delay. Olive was delicate; she could not travel; Mat could not leave her to come himself, and so on. Tom never doubted these excuses; he even made his little joke about the lad becoming a family man; but Susan, who was sharper than her husband, read between the lines. Mat was ashamed of bringing the Dean's niece down to see the shop; it was possible, but here Susan almost shuddered at the awfulness of the thought, that he might not have told his wife that he had a brother.

'Mat is as weak as water, with all his cleverness,' she said to herself; 'if he has not told her yet, he will put it off from day to day. There is nothing easier than procrastination if you once give in to it. Few people speak the truth like my Tom, bless him!'

Susan would not grieve her husband by hinting at these suspicions, though they grew stronger as time went on. Mat never brought his wife to see them; he seldom wrote, unless to tell them of the birth of a child, and then his letters were brief and unsatisfactory. Tom once wrote and asked him if he were happy, 'for somehow Susan and I have got into our heads that things are not quite square,' wrote the simple fellow. 'Do come and let us have a chat together over our pipes. Prissy is getting quite a big girl; you would hardly know her now.'

Perhaps Mat was touched by this persistent kindness on his brother's part, for he answered that letter by return of post.

'One must not expect too much happiness in this crooked old world,' he wrote; 'but you and Susan are such old-fashioned people. Olive and I have as much enjoyment of life as ordinary folk. We quarrel sometimes and make it up again. I was never a very patient mortal—eh, old chap?—and one's temper does not improve with age.' And then after a little talk about the children, who had been ill with scarlatina, the letter wound up by begging the loan of a five-pound note.

Tom did not show this letter to Susan. For the first time in his life he kept a secret from the wife of his bosom. He put two five-pound notes in an envelope, and sent them with his love to Olive and the children. A pang of remorse must have crossed Mat's heart at this fresh act of kindness; but though he acknowledged the gift with the utmost gratitude, he neither came nor wrote again for a long time.

Some time after that Tom took an odd notion in his head: he would go up to London and see Mat and his wife and children; he was just hankering for a sight of the lad, as he told Susan. To be sure, Mat had never invited him—never hinted at such a thing in his letters; he could not be sure of his welcome. Susan tried to dissuade him, but to no purpose; for once Tom was deaf to his little woman's advice. He left her in charge of the shop one fine spring morning and started for London and Bayswater, where Mat lived.

He came back earlier than Susan expected, and there was a sad look in his eyes as he sat down and filled his pipe. Susan forbore to question him at first; she got him some supper and a jug of the best ale, and presently he began to talk of his own accord:

'There were other people living in No. 23 Mortimer Terrace. The O'Briens had left more than a year ago, and no one knew where they were. Fancy Mat leaving and never giving me his address!' finished Tom with an air of deep depression.

He was evidently much wounded at this want of brotherly confidence.

'But surely you know his business address, dear?' Susan asked quietly.

No; Tom did not know even that. He reminded her that Mat had long ago left his old employers, and had set up for himself; but Tom did not know where his office was.

'I always wrote to his private address, you know, Susan,' he went on. 'Mat told me that no one ever opened his letters but himself; but how am I to find him out now if he chooses to hide himself from his only brother?'

And though Tom said no more, he moped for many a day after that fruitless expedition.

By and by the truth leaked out—Mat was in trouble, and in such trouble that no fraternal help could avail him. One awful day, a day that turned Tom's hair gray with horror and anguish, he heard that Mat—handsome, brilliant Mat—was in a felon's cell, condemned to penal servitude for a long term of years. In a moment of despair he had forged the name of one of his so-called friends, and by this terrible act had obtained possession of a large sum of money.

Tom's anguish at this news was not to be described; he cried like a child, and Susan vainly tried to comfort him.

'My father's name,' he kept repeating—'he has disgraced our honest name! I will never forgive him; I will have nothing more to do with him—he has covered us all with shame!'

And then the next moment he relented at the thought of Mat, beaten down and miserable, and perhaps repentant, in his wretched cell.

CHAPTER X

PRISCILLA BAXTER

'How many people are busy in this world in gathering together a handful of thorns to sit upon!'—Jeremy Taylor.

Audrey never forgot the day when she first heard this sad story. It was on a winter's afternoon, and she and Mr. O'Brien were alone in the cottage. She remembered how the setting sun threw ruddy streaks across the snow, and how the light of the fire beside which they sat later on in the twilight illumined the low room and flashed out on the privet hedge, now a mass of sparkling icicles. She and Geraldine had driven into Brail, and by and by the carriage was coming back to fetch her.

They had been talking of Mat, and Mr. O'Brien had shown her some of his letters; and then, all at once, his face had grown very white and troubled, and in a few husky sentences he had told her the rest of the story; and as Audrey listened there was a gleam of a teardrop on her long lashes.

'But you went to see him—surely you went to see him?' she asked tremulously, as he came to a sudden pause; but he shook his gray head very sorrowfully.

'I would have gone, ay, willingly, when my anger had burnt out a bit. I just hungered to see the poor lad—he was still a lad to me—and to shake him by the hand; for all he had done, he was still Mat, you see; but he would not let me: he begged and prayed of me not to come.'

'Ah, that was cruel!'

'Nay, he meant no unkindness; but he was pretty nearly crazed, poor chap! I have the letter now that he wrote to me; the chaplain sent it, but no eye but mine must ever see it. I have written it down in my will that it is to be buried with me: "Don't come unless you wish me to do something desperate, Tom; I think if I saw your honest face in my cell I should just make away with myself. No, no, dear old chap; let me dree my weird, as Susan used to say. I have shamed you all, and my heart is broken; try to forget that you ever had a brother Mat." Eh, they were desperate words for a man to write; but I do not doubt that he meant them.'

'Did he mention his wife and children?'

'No, never a word of them. I wrote to him more than once, but he never answered me. He was such a long way off, you see; they send them to Dartmoor now. As far as I know, Mat may be dead and buried. Well, it is hard lines, and I have known a peck of troubles in my time. There, you know it all, Miss Ross; it beats me why I've told you, for no one in the world knows it but Prissy—you have drawn it out of me somehow; you've got a hearty way with you that reminds me of my Susan, and I never had but that one secret from her—when I sent Mat the two five-pound notes.'

'Your story is safe with me, my dear old friend,' returned Audrey, laying her hand on his arm; 'you must never regret telling me. I have heard so many sad histories—people always tell me their troubles; they know they can trust me. I am fond of talking,' went on Audrey, in her earnest way, 'but I have never betrayed a person's confidence; I have never once repeated anything that my friends have told me—their troubles are as sacred to me as my own would be.'

'I am bound to believe you,' returned Mr. O'Brien, looking thoughtfully at the girlish face and steadfast eyes; 'Prissy says it always gives her a comfortable feeling to talk out her troubles to you. It is a gift, I am thinking; but you are young to have it. Did I ever tell you, Miss Ross, what Susan said to me when she was dying?'

'No, I am sure you never told me that.'

'Well, Prissy had gone to lie down, and I was alone with Susan. It was the room above us where she died. I was sitting by the fire, thinking she was having a fine sleep, and would surely be better for it, when she suddenly spoke my name: "Tom," she said, "I know just what you are thinking about: you have got Mat in your mind." Well, I could not deny that, and Susan was always so sharp in finding me out; and then she begged me to sit by her a bit: "For you are very low about everything, dear Tom," she went on; "you've got to lose me, and there's Prissy, poor girl! with her bad husband; and when you have nothing better to do you think about Mat. Sometimes I wish you were back in the shop, when I see you looking at the fire in that way."

"I was only wondering whether I should ever see the poor lad again," I returned, with a sigh; "that was all my thought, Susan."

"I am sure you will see him again," she replied very earnestly, with a kind of solemnity in her voice; "I don't know why I think so, Tom, but they say the dying are very clear-sighted, and it is strong upon me that Mat will one day seek you out." Now, wasn't that strange, Miss Ross?'

'No,' replied Audrey, 'she may have spoken the truth; while there is life there is hope. Do not be disheartened, my dear friend; you have had great troubles, but God has helped you to bear them, and you are not without your blessings.'

'That's true,' he returned, looking round him; 'I would sooner live in this cottage than in a palace. I don't believe, as the Captain says, there is a prettier place anywhere. I like to think Susan lies so near me, in Brail Churchyard, and that by and by I'll lie beside her; and if I could only see my girl more cheerful——'

'Oh, you must give her time to live down her worries. There! I hear the carriage;' and Audrey went in search of her fur-lined cloak.

This conversation had taken place about eighteen months ago, and though Audrey had never alluded to it of her own accord, it touched her greatly to notice how, when he was alone with her, Mr. O'Brien would drop a few words which showed how clearly he remembered it.

'There is no one else to whom I can speak of Mat,' he said one day; 'Prissy never cared much about him—I think she dislikes the subject; as sure as ever I mention Mat she cries and begins to talk of Joe.'

Audrey was not at all surprised when Mr. O'Brien made that allusion as she was stroking the tortoise-shell cat in the sunshine. She could hear Mrs. Baxter laying the tea-things in the other parlour, where they generally sat, and the smell of the hot cakes and fragrant new bread reached them. The cuckoo's note was distinctly audible in the distance; a brown bee had buried himself in the calyx of one of the lilies; and some white butterflies were skimming over the flower-beds. The sweet stillness of the summer afternoon seemed to lull her into a reverie; how impossible it was to realise sin and sorrow and broken hearts and the great hungry needs of humanity, when the sky was so blue and cloudless, and the insects were humming in the fulness of their tiny joy! 'Will sorrow ever come to me?' thought the girl dreamily; 'of course, I know it must some day; but it seems so strange to think of a time when I shall be no longer young and strong and full of joy.' And then a wave of pity swept over her soft heart as she noticed the wrinkles in her old friend's face. 'I wish Mrs. Baxter were more cheerful,' she said inwardly; 'she has depressed him, and he has been missing me all these weeks.'

Audrey tried to be very good to him as they sat together for the next half-hour. She told him the Rutherford news, and then asked him all manner of questions. Audrey was a hypocrite in her innocent fashion; she could not really have been so anxious to know how the strawberries and peas were doing in the little kitchen garden behind the cottage, and if the speckled hen were sitting, or if Hannah, the new girl, were likely to satisfy Mrs. Baxter. And yet all these questions were put, as though everything depended on the answers. 'For you know, Mr. O'Brien,' she went on very seriously, 'Ralph declares that we shall have very little fruit this season—those tiresome winds have stripped the apple-trees—and for some reason or other we have never had such a poor show of gooseberries.'

'The potatoes are doing finely, though,' returned Mr. O'Brien, who had risen to the bait; 'after tea I hope you will walk round the garden with me, ma'am, and you will be surprised to see the way some of the things have improved.'

'Tea is ready, father,' observed Mrs. Baxter at this point. 'Miss Ross, will you take that chair by the window? you will feel the air there. I am going to ask a blessing, father: "For what we are going to receive the Lord make us truly thankful." Yes, Miss Ross, those are your favourite scones, and Hannah is baking some more; there's plum preserve and lemon marmalade and home-made seed-cake.' And Mrs. Baxter pressed one viand after another upon her guest, before she could turn her attention to the teapot, which was at present enveloped in a huge braided cosy.

'Dear me! I shall never be able to eat my dinner, Mrs. Baxter, and then mother will be miserable; you have no idea the fuss she makes if I ever say I am not hungry.'

'She is perfectly right, Miss Ross,' was the mournful answer; 'there is no blessing to equal good health, and health mainly depends on appetite. Where would father and I have been if we had not kept our health? It is a wonderful blessing, is it not, father, that I have been so strong? or I should have sunk long ago. But, as poor dear mother used to say, there is no blessing like a good constitution.'

Everyone has his or her style of conversation, just as all authors have their own peculiar style of writing. Mrs. Baxter, for example, delighted in iteration; she had a habit of taking a particular word and working it to death. Michael was the first person to notice this little peculiarity. After his first visit to Vineyard Cottage, as he was driving Audrey home in the dog-cart, he said to her:

'Did you notice how often Mrs. Baxter used the same word? I am sure she said "trouble" fifty times, if she said it once. She is not a bad-looking young woman, but she is a painfully monotonous talker. I should say she is totally devoid of originality.'

'I know nothing about health, Mrs. Baxter,' returned Audrey with aggressive cheerfulness. 'I am always so well, you see. I never had the doctor in my life, except when I had the measles.'

'And the whooping-cough, Miss Ross. Don't say you have not had the whooping-cough!'

'Oh yes; when I was a baby. But I hope you do not expect me to remember that.'

'I am glad to hear it, I am sure, for you gave me quite a turn. There is nothing worse than having the whooping-cough late in life—it is quite ruinous to the constitution. You know that, don't you, father?—for great-aunt Saunders never got rid of it winter and summer. She had a good constitution, too; never ailed much, and brought up a large family—though most of them died before her: they had not her constitution, had they, father? Great-aunt Saunders was a stout-built sort of woman; but with all her good constitution and regular living she never got rid of the whooping-cough.'

'Shall I give you a slice of this excellent cake?' asked Audrey politely, and with a laudable desire to hear no more of great-aunt Saunders' good constitution, and, to change the subject, she begged for a recipe of the seed-cake for her mother.

Mrs. Baxter looked almost happy as she gave it. She was an excellent cook, and her light hand for cakes and pastry, her delicious scones and crisp short-cake, must have been remembered with regret by the recusant Joe, and may have had something to do with his anxious claims. Mrs. Baxter forgot her beloved iteration; her monotonous voice roused into positive animation as she verbally weighed out quantities.

'A great deal depends on the oven, Miss Ross, as I tell Hannah. Many and many a well-mixed cake has been spoiled by the baking; you may use the best of materials, but if the oven is over-hot——' and so on, to all of which Audrey listened with that pleased air of intelligent interest which once made Michael call her 'the most consummate little hypocrite on the face of the earth.'

'For you were not a bit interested in listening to old Dr. Sullivan's account of those beetles,' he said on that occasion. 'You know nothing about beetles, Audrey. I saw you once yawning behind your hand—which was positively rude—and yet there you were making big eyes at the dear old man, and hanging on his words as though they were diamonds and pearls.'

'You are too hard on me, Michael,' returned Audrey, who was a little hurt at this accusation. She rarely quarrelled with Michael, but now and then his keen man's wit was too much for her. 'I was very much interested in what Dr. Sullivan was saying, although I certainly do not understand the habits of beetles, any more than I understand the Greek literature about which you are pleased to talk to me,' in a pointed tone. 'And if I yawned'—speaking still in an injured voice—'it was because I had been up half the night with poor little Patience Atkinson—and I don't like you to call me a hypocrite, when I only meant to be kind,' finished Audrey, defending herself bravely in spite of an inward qualm that told her that perhaps Michael was right.

Michael looked at her with one of his rare smiles; he saw the girl was a little sore.

'My dear,' he said, taking her hand, 'don't be vexed with me. You know we always speak the truth to each other. You must not mind my little joke. After all, your friends love you the better for your innocent hypocrisy. We all pretend a little; conventionality demands it. Which of us would have the courage to say to any man, "My good friend, do hold your tongue—you are simply boring me with these everlasting stories"?'

'But, Michael,' persisted Audrey, for she wanted to make this thing very clear to herself as well as to him, 'I think you are wrong in one thing: I am really very seldom bored, as you call it. Even if I do not understand things—if they are not particularly interesting—it pleases me to listen to people. Old Dr. Sullivan did look so happy with that row of nasty little beetles before him, that I was quite pleased to watch him. You know people always talk so well on a subject that interests them.'

'I know one thing—that there are very few people in the world so amiable as a certain young lady of my acquaintance. The world would be a better place to live in if there were more like her——' But here he checked himself, for he had long ago learnt the useful lesson that speech is silvern and silence is golden, and that over-much praise seldom benefited anyone.

When tea was over, Audrey accompanied Mr. O'Brien round his small domain, while he proudly commented on the flourishing state of his fruit and vegetables. Before she left the cottage she contrived to exchange a few words with Mrs. Baxter, who had remained in the house, and whom she found in the tiny kitchen washing up the best cups and saucers.

'Girls are mostly careless, Miss Ross,' she explained in an apologetic manner; 'and Hannah is no better than the rest, so I always wash up mother's china myself. It would worry me more than I am already if a cup were to be broken.'

'I am so sorry to hear your husband has been troubling you again, Mrs. Baxter.'

'Yes, indeed, Miss Ross, and it is a crying shame for Joe to persecute me as he does. Sometimes I feel I must just run away and hide myself, his visits put me into such a nervous state. It is so bad for father, too. He is not as young as he used to be, and since mother's death there has been a great change in him. Last time Joe came he put himself out terribly, and was for taking the stick to him. I was all in a tremble—I was indeed, Miss Ross—for Joe had been drinking, and father's a powerful man, and there might have been mischief.'

'I think your husband must be made to understand that he is to leave you alone.'

'Oh, you don't know what men are, Miss Ross. They are over-fond of their own way. Joe does not find things comfortable without me, and then he is always so greedy for money. The ways of Providence are very dark and mysterious. When I married Joe I expected as much happiness as other women. He was so pleasant-spoken, had such a way with him, that even father and mother were deceived in him; he never took anything but his tankard of home-brewed ale at our place, and he was so trim and so well set up that all the girls were envying me. But the day I wore my gray silk dress to go with him to church was the most unfortunate day of my life. Mother would far better have laid me in my shroud,' finished Mrs. Baxter, with a homely tragedy that was impressive enough in its way.

'Oh, you must not say that,' returned Audrey hastily. 'Life will not always be so hard, I hope;' and then she shook hands with the poor woman.

Audrey enjoyed her walk back. It was a delicious evening, and the birds were singing from every brake and hedgerow. Once or twice she heard the harsh call of the corncrake mingled with the flute-like notes of the thrush; a lark was carolling high up in the blue sky—by and by she heard him descend. Audrey walked swiftly down the long grass lanes, and, as she neared Rutherford she could see a dim man's figure in the distance. Of course it was Michael coming to meet her, attended by his faithful Booty. Audrey smiled and quickened her pace. She was quite used to these small attentions, this brotherly surveillance on Michael's part—she was never surprised to find him at some unexpected point waiting patiently for her.

'Am I late?' she asked hastily, as he rose from the stile and slipped his book in his pocket. 'I have had such a nice afternoon. They were so pleased to see me, and made so much of me;' then, with a quick change of tone, 'You have walked too far to meet me, Michael—you are looking paler than usual this evening!'

'Nonsense,' he returned good-humouredly; 'I am all right. Was Mrs. Baxter as mournful as usual?' To which question Audrey returned a full explanatory answer.

Michael listened with his usual interest, but he made few comments. Perhaps his mind was on other things, for when she had finished he said somewhat irrelevantly:

'You are right, Audrey—Mrs. Blake is certainly a very pretty woman.'

In a moment Vineyard Cottage, Mr. O'Brien, and the mournful Priscilla vanished from Audrey's mind.

'Oh, Michael! have you really seen her?' she asked breathlessly.

'Well, I am not sure,' was the somewhat provoking answer. 'You were not there to introduce us, you know, and of course I could not swear that it was Mrs. Blake.'

'Dear me, how slow you are, Michael!' for he was speaking in a drawling manner. 'Why can't you tell me all about it in a sensible way?'

'Because there is not much to tell,' he returned calmly. 'I was just passing the Gray Cottage, when a lady in black came out of the gate. I was so close that I had to draw back to let her pass, and of course I just lifted my hat; and she bowed and gave me the sweetest smile—it haunts me now,' murmured Captain Burnett in a sort of audible aside.

'A lady in black coming out of the Gray Cottage?—of course it was Mrs. Blake, you foolish fellow!'

'You think so?' rather sleepily. 'Well, perhaps you are right. I certainly heard a window open, and a girl's voice called out, "Mamma, will you come back a moment? You have forgotten your sunshade." And the lady in black said, "Oh, how stupid of me, Mollie!" and then she whisked through the gate again.'

'Did you stand still in the middle of the road to hear all this, Michael?'

'No, my dear. There was something wrong with the lock of the school-house gate. It is sometimes a little difficult—I must tell Sayers it wants oiling.' Michael's face was inimitable as he made this remark.

'And so you saw her come out again. Oh, you deep, good-for-nothing Michael!'

'I saw her come out again, and she had the sunshade. She walks well, Audrey, and she has a pretty, graceful figure—and as for her face——'

'Well!' impatiently.

'I think I will keep that to myself,' he replied with a wicked smile. 'Do you fancy we could coax Cousin Emmeline to call soon? I begin to feel anxious to enlarge my stock of acquaintance, and you must allow that a bewitching widow is rather alluring——' He paused.

'Michael,' giving his arm a little jerk, 'a joke is a joke; but, mind, I will not have you falling in love with Mrs. Blake. Dear me! what would Gage say?'

And at this Michael laughed, and Audrey laughed too—though just for the moment she did feel a wee bit uncomfortable, for even the notion of Michael falling in love with any woman was not quite pleasant.

'Really, Michael, we must walk faster,' she said, recovering herself, 'or I shall not have time to dress for dinner.' And then they both quickened their footsteps, and no more nonsense was talked about the fascinating Mrs. Blake.

CHAPTER XI

'A GIRL AFTER MY OWN HEART'

'I will go to the Gray Cottage this afternoon,' was Audrey's first thought the next morning when she woke; but she kept this intention to herself when Geraldine came in, after breakfast, to beg for some favourite recipes of her mother's that she had lost or mislaid. 'And if you have nothing better to do,' she said, turning to Audrey, who was filling the flower-vases, 'I shall be very glad of your company this afternoon, as Percival is going up to London.'

'Shall you be alone, Gage? I mean, are you expecting any special visitor?'

'Well, old Mrs. Drayton is driving over to luncheon with that deaf niece of hers; but they will go away early—they always do. Come up later, Audrey, and bring your work; and perhaps Michael will fetch you—it is so long since we have seen him. I will not ask you both to stay to dinner, as Percival is always a little tired after a journey to London, and a tête-à-tête dinner will suit him better; but we could have a long afternoon—you know you refused me yesterday because of the O'Briens.'

'I will come up to tea, Gage,' interrupted Audrey somewhat hastily; 'I would rather avoid Miss Drayton, and Miss Montague is simply terrible. You may expect me about half-past four, and I will give Michael your message.'

And Audrey carried off her vase to avoid any more necessary questioning. Gage seemed always wanting her now; was it all sisterly affection, Audrey wondered, or a clever device to counteract the Blake influence?

'By the bye, mother,' observed Mrs. Harcourt carelessly, as she gathered up sundry papers, 'I suppose you will soon be leaving your card on Mrs. Blake? Percival thought I had better call with you, and if you are disengaged next Tuesday or Wednesday——'

'Why, that is a week hence, my love!'

'Yes, mother dear, I know; but I have so many engagements just now that I am obliged to make my plans beforehand. Besides, we could not very well call before—you know what a muddle they were in.'

'Yes, I remember; and Audrey helped them so nicely to get straight. Very well, we will say Tuesday; and I really am very much obliged to Percival for his suggestion, for after all this talk, and the things Edith Bryce told you yesterday, I shall be quite nervous in calling alone.' But here a significant look from her daughter checked her, and she changed the subject rather awkwardly.

'So dear Edith has been talking again,' thought Audrey, as she stepped out on the terrace with her empty basket; 'I almost wish I had been at Hillside yesterday, and heard things with my own ears.' And then she stopped to cut off a dark crimson rose that grew under the schoolroom window, and as she did so she became aware that Mr. Blake had put down his book and was watching her. She gave him a smile and a nod, and walked to the other end of the garden.

'I always forget the schoolroom window,' she said to herself, with a slight blush, as she recalled that fixed look; 'Mr. Ollier generally sat with his back to the window and took no notice—he was as blind as a bat, too—but Mr. Blake is very observant.'

Mrs. Ross had arranged to drive into Dulverton after luncheon with her husband. When Audrey had seen them off, and had exchanged a parting joke with her father, she started off for the Gray Cottage. Things had arranged themselves admirably: she had two hours before Geraldine would expect her. Michael had consented to fetch her—Kester was coming to him early in the afternoon, and he had also promised to take a class for Dr. Ross; he would put in an appearance about half-past five. And Audrey professed herself satisfied with this arrangement.

Audrey met Kester on her way to the Cottage. The poor boy was dragging himself along rather painfully on his crutches; the heat tried him, he said, but he seemed bright and cheerful. Audrey looked pitifully at his shabby jacket and old boots; she noticed, too, the frayed edges of his wristbands. 'Is it poverty or bad management?' she thought; and then she asked Kester how he liked his new tutor. The boy flushed up in a moment.

'Awfully—I like him awfully, Miss Ross, and so does Cyril. You have no idea of the trouble he takes with me; I know nothing of mathematics, but I mean to learn. Why,' went on Kester, with an important air, 'I am so busy now, working up for Cyril and Captain Burnett, that I can hardly find time for Mollie's sums and Latin.'

Evidently Kester did not wish to be pitied for his additional labours.

'Poor fellow, how happy he looks!' Audrey said to herself, as she went on. 'Michael is doing good work there.' But somehow she could not forget those frayed wristbands all the remainder of the day; there was a button off his jacket, too—she had noticed the unsightly gap. 'I wish Mrs. Blake had a little more method,' she thought; 'Mollie and Kester are certainly rather neglected. How could poor Mollie go to chapel in that frock?'

Audrey let herself in at the green gate; but this time there was no Mollie on the threshold. She rang, and Biddy came hobbling out of the kitchen.

'The mistress is in there,' she said, with a jerk of her head towards the dining-room, and then she threw open the door. 'Here's Miss Ross, mistress,' she said unceremoniously.

Biddy was evidently unaccustomed to parlour work. Mollie, who was sewing in the window beside her mother, threw down her work with a delighted exclamation, and Zack gave a bark of recognition. Mrs. Blake welcomed her very cordially.

'My dear Miss Ross,' she said in her soft, pretty voice, 'we thought you had quite forsaken us; poor Mollie has been as restless as possible. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you again; I was half afraid you had disappeared altogether, after the fashion of a benevolent brownie.'

'I have so many friends,' began Audrey; but Mrs. Blake interrupted her:

'There, I told you so, Mollie. I said to this foolish child, when she was bemoaning your absence, "You may take my word for it, Mollie, Miss Ross has a large circle of friends and acquaintances—it is only to be expected in her position—and of course we must not monopolise her; especially as we are new-comers and comparative strangers."'

'Mollie thinks differently—don't you, Mollie? We are quite old friends, are we not?' and Audrey gave her a kind glance.

How flushed and tired the poor child was looking! but she brightened up in a moment.

'Of course we are not strangers,' she returned, quite indignantly; 'mamma is only saying that because she wishes you to contradict her. Oh, Miss Ross,' nestling up to her, 'I have so wanted to see you—I have looked out for you every day!'

'I could not possibly come before, dear.'

'No—but now you will stay for a long time? Mamma, won't you ask Miss Ross to stay to tea? and Biddy will bake some scones. Biddy will do anything for Miss Ross; she said so the other day.'

'My dear child, I could not possibly stay; I am going to have tea with my sister—she lives in one of the Hill houses. Another time, Mollie,' as a cloud of disappointment passed over Mollie's face; and to divert her thoughts she took up the work: 'Why, what pretty stuff! is this for your new frock?'

Mollie's brow cleared like magic.

'Yes; is it not lovely? Cyril chose it; he bought it for my last birthday, only mamma was too busy to make it up. But both my frocks will be done to-night—mamma says she will not go to bed until they are finished.'

'Well, and I mean to keep my word,' returned Mrs. Blake good-humouredly; 'and your new hat will be trimmed, too, and then Cyril will not grumble any more about his sister's shabbiness. I have been working like a slave ever since I got up this morning, and yet this naughty child pretended she was tired because I wanted her to stitch the sleeves.'

'But, mamma, I had to iron all those handkerchiefs for Biddy.'

'Yes, I know—and it was terribly hot in the kitchen; she does look tired, does she not, Miss Ross? I have a good idea, Mollie: put down that sleeve, and I will finish it myself in a twinkling, and fetch your hat and go down to the cricket-field and bring Cyril back with you to tea—it will be a nice walk for you.'

'Oh, mamma!' protested Mollie; 'I would so much rather stay here with you and Miss Ross, and I don't care about the walk.'

'But if I wish you to go;' and there was a certain inflection in Mrs. Blake's soft voice which evidently obliged poor Mollie to obey. She rose reluctantly, but there were tears of vexation in her eyes. Audrey felt grieved for her favourite, but she was unwilling to interfere; she only took the girl's hand and detained her a moment.

'Mrs. Blake, could you spare Mollie to me to-morrow afternoon? I want to show her our garden—it is looking so lovely just now.'

'You are very kind,' hesitating slightly; 'but are you sure that it will be convenient to Mrs. Ross?'

'My mother has nothing to do with it—Mollie will be my visitor,' returned Audrey quietly; and then she continued diplomatically: 'I know my mother intends to call on you next week, Mrs. Blake; she and my sister were planning it this morning—they are only waiting until you are settled.'

Evidently Mrs. Blake was much pleased with this piece of intelligence; she coloured slightly, and her manner became more animated.

'That is very kind; I do so long to see Mrs. Ross: Cyril is charmed with her, and he thinks Mrs. Harcourt wonderfully handsome. Oh yes, I can easily spare Mollie; and her frock and hat will be all ready. Now off with you, child,' with laughing peremptoriness; and Mollie only paused to kiss her friend and whisper that she was quite happy now, as she would have her all to herself the next day.

'Mollie has got to a difficult age,' observed Mrs. Blake, stitching rapidly as she spoke; and Audrey again admired the lovely profile and finely shaped head; 'she is getting a little self-willed and wants her own way. And then she is such a chatterbox; she will hardly let me get in a word. Sometimes I like to have my friends to myself; you can understand that, Miss Ross?'

'Oh yes, that is easily understood,' returned Audrey, who nevertheless missed Mollie.

'I thought I could talk to you more easily without her this afternoon; I wanted to speak to you about your cousin—Captain Burnett is your cousin, is he not?'

'He is my father's cousin.'

'Ah, well, that is much the same. Is he a pale, slight-looking man with a reddish-brown moustache?'

'Certainly that description suits Michael. I think he has such a nice face, Mrs. Blake.'

'I daresay; he is not handsome, but he looks like a soldier. What keen, bright eyes he has! The children have talked about him so much that I was quite curious to see him.'

'It is certain that you have seen him; no one else in Rutherford answers to that description. It is odd how everyone makes that remark about Michael's eyes.'

'Yes, they are a little too searching. I have plenty of courage, but I am disposed to feel afraid of Captain Burnett. What I wanted to say, Miss Ross, is this—that I am truly grateful to your cousin for his kind interest in my poor boy.'

'Do you mean this as a message?'

'That is just as you think proper; but in my opinion he ought to know how much Kester's mother appreciates his kindness. When I first heard of the plan, I will confess to you honestly, Miss Ross, I was a little bit alarmed. Kester did not explain things properly—he would have it that Captain Burnett meant to give him lessons here, and I told Cyril that would never do. Cyril was a trifle bothered about it himself, until he had a talk with Captain Burnett and found out that Kester was to go to Woodcote.'

'Oh yes, of course; Michael intended that all along.'

'True, and I ought not to have flurried myself. But if you only knew what I went through at Headingly, and the unkind things that people said of me! A burnt child dreads the fire, and I was determined that no one should have an opportunity of speaking against me at Rutherford. What a hard world it is, Miss Ross! Just because I am—well'—with a little laugh—'what you call good-looking—why should I deny the truth? I am sure I care little about my looks except for Cyril's sake; but just because I am not plain, people take advantage of my unprotected position. Oh, the things that were said!' with a quick frown of annoyance at the recollection. 'I daresay some of them have reached your ears. Haven't you heard, for example, that I tried to set my cap at Dr. Forester, only his daughter grew alarmed and insulted me so grossly that I vowed never to speak to him again? Have you not heard that, Miss Ross?'

Audrey was obliged to confess that something of this story had reached her.

'But I did not believe it, Mrs. Blake, and I do not believe it now,' she continued hastily.

Mrs. Blake's eyes filled with indignant tears.

'It was not true—not a word of it!' she returned in a low vehement voice. 'You may ask Cyril. Oh, how angry he was when the report reached him! He came home and took me in his arms and said we should not stay there—no one should talk against his mother. They did say such horrid things against me, Miss Ross; and yet how could I help Dr. Forester calling on me sometimes? He was never invited—no one asked him to repeat his visits. Mollie will tell you I was barely civil to him. I suppose he admired me, that is the truth; and his daughter knew it, and it made her bitter. Well, after that, I declared that nothing would induce me to receive gentlemen again, unless they were Cyril's friends and he brought them himself.'

Audrey was silent. She had been very angry when Geraldine had told her the story. She had declared it was a pure fabrication—a piece of village gossip.

'Besides, if it were true,' she had continued, 'where is the harm of a wealthy widower, with one daughter, falling in love with a good-looking widow? And yet Edith Bryce seems to hint darkly at some misconduct on Mrs. Blake's part.'

'You are putting it too strongly, dear,' replied her sister. 'Edith only said she considered Mrs. Blake rather flippant in manner, and a little too gracious to gentlemen——' but Audrey had refused to hear more.

'I was utterly wretched at Headingly,' went on Mrs. Blake, in her sweet, plaintive voice; 'and Cyril grew to hate it at last—for my sake. He says he is sure it will be different here, and that people are so much nicer. I believe he thinks you angelic, Miss Ross, and your mother only a degree less so. Only last night he said to me, as we were walking up and down in the moonlight, "I am certain you will be happy at Rutherford, mother. You have one nice friend already, and——" But, there, I had better not repeat my boy's words.'

Audrey felt anxious to change the subject.

'Where did you live before you went to Headingly?' she asked abruptly, and Mrs. Blake was clever enough to take her cue.

'We were in lodgings in Richmond,' she answered readily. 'You know we were poor, and I was straining every nerve to keep Cyril at Oxford. I had been saving up every year for it, but I cannot deny we were sadly pinched. I had to send Biddy home for a year or two, and Mollie and Kester and I lived in three little rooms, in such a dull street. Cyril generally got a holiday engagement for the summer, but when he joined us—I procured him a bedroom near us—it used to make him very unhappy to see the way we lived. But I always comforted him by reminding him that one day he would make a home for us, and that cheered him up.'

'You were certainly very good to him. Some mothers would not have done half so much,' observed Audrey.

She was repaid for this little speech, as a smile, almost infantile in its sweetness, came to Mrs. Blake's lip.

'I wish Cyril could hear you say that. But he knows—he feels—I have done my best for him. Yes, my darling, I have indeed!' She clasped her hands and sighed. 'What did a little extra work, a few sacrifices, matter, when one looked to the future? We were very straitened—the poor children did not always have what they needed—but I don't think we were, any of us, unhappy.'

'I can so well understand that. I think people are too much afraid of being poor. I could never see, myself, why poverty should hinder happiness.'

'Do you not?' looking at her a little curiously; 'but you have not served my apprenticeship. You do not know how hard it is for a pleasure-loving nature to be deprived of so many sources of enjoyment—to have to stint one's taste for pretty things—to be perpetually saying "no" to one's self.'

'And yet you own that you were happy.'

'Well, yes, after a fashion. I think the poor children were, until Kester got so ill. Mollie and I used to walk about Richmond Park and build castles in the air. We planned what we would do if we were rich, and sometimes we would amuse ourselves by looking into the shop-windows and thinking what we should like to buy—like a couple of gutter children—and sometimes, on a winter's evening, we would blow out the candles and sit round the fire and tell stories.'

'And then you say Kester fell ill?'

'Well, it was not exactly an illness. But he seemed to dwindle and pine, somehow, and Cyril and I got dreadfully anxious about him. I don't think Richmond suited him, and I could not give him the comforts he needed; and he fretted so about his want of education. He seemed to get better directly we went to Headingly and Cyril began to give him lessons.'

'Yes, I see;' and then Audrey took advantage of the pause to look at her watch. It was later than she thought, and she rose reluctantly to go. Mrs. Blake rose too.

'Don't you think me an odd, unconventional sort of person to tell you all this?' she asked a little abruptly. 'Do you know, Cyril often says that I make him very anxious, because I am so dreadfully impulsive and speak out everything I think; but I made up my mind that afternoon when Cyril told me that Mrs. Bryce was a connection of your sister's that I would talk to you about the Headingly worries on the first opportunity.'

'I am very glad you have spoken to me; I think it was very brave of you.'

'No, my dear Miss Ross, not brave, but cowardly. I was so afraid you would be prejudiced against me; and you must know that I have taken a great fancy to you. I am a very strange creature: I always like or dislike a person at first sight, and I never—perhaps I should say I scarcely ever—change my opinion.'

'I think that is a great mistake. It is impossible to read some people at first sight.'

'Perhaps so; but you were distinctly legible. When I looked out of my window and saw you setting out the little tea-table on the lawn with Mollie, I said to myself, "That is a girl after my own heart."'

Audrey laughed; but the little compliment pleased her. Somehow Mrs. Blake's manner made everything she said seem charming. Audrey felt more and more drawn to this fascinating woman.

'And I want you to come very often, and to be my friend as well as Mollie's,' with soft insistence.

'Yes; yours and Mollie's and Kester's,' replied Audrey in an amused voice.

'And not Cyril's? My dear Miss Ross, I hope you do not mean to exclude Cyril.'

'Oh, of course not,' rather hurriedly. 'But, Mrs. Blake, you must really let me go, or Geraldine will be waiting tea; as it is, I shall have to walk very fast, to make up for lost time.'

Audrey's thoughts were very busy as she walked swiftly up the Hill.

'I like her—I like her exceedingly,' she said to herself; 'I have never met a more interesting person: she is so naïve and winning in her manner. I feel I shall soon love her; and yet all the time I see her faults so plainly. She is terribly unpractical, and manages as badly as possible. Edith Bryce was right when she said that. And she is foolish with regard to her eldest son—no mother ought to be so partial. I am afraid Kester must feel it; all his interests are secondary to his brother's. It is hardly fair. And Mollie, too—the child seems a perfect drudge. No, my dear woman, I admire you more than I can say, and I know I shall very soon get fond of you; but you are not blameless.'

And then a curious doubt crept into Audrey's mind: with all her impulsiveness, was not Mrs. Blake rather a clever woman, to tell that Forester story in her own way? Audrey had already heard a very different version. She knew Agatha Forester had lived in deadly terror of the charming widow. It was true that she had declined to believe the story, and that her sympathies were enlisted on Mrs. Blake's side; but, still, was it not rather a clever stratagem on Mrs. Blake's part to secure her as an ally? But Audrey dismissed this thought as quickly as it passed through her mind.

'Why, what nonsense!' she argued. 'I am accusing Mrs. Blake of being a little deep, when she herself owned frankly that she was anxious to prejudice me in her favour. Of course she knew Edith Bryce would talk to Gage, and it was only wise of her to tell me the truth. People must have treated her very badly at Headingly, or her son would not have taken her part. He seems to have plenty of common-sense, although he dotes on her. They are a wonderfully interesting family, and I seem to know them all so well already.' And this last reflection brought her to Hillside.

CHAPTER XII

MOLLIE GOES TO DEEP-WATER CHINE

Mollie arrived very punctually the next afternoon. Audrey, who was watching for her, hardly recognised the girl as she came slowly along the terrace. She wore a pretty gray stuff frock and a straw hat, trimmed very tastefully with the simplest materials; and her usually unkempt locks were neatly arranged in a broad glossy plait that reached to her waist.

Audrey felt quite proud of her appearance, and took her into the drawing-room to see her mother and sister; for Geraldine had just dropped in on her way down the town. Mrs. Ross received her very nicely; but Geraldine took very little notice of her. Mollie was rather shy and awkward, and answered all Mrs. Ross's questions in monosyllables. She seemed so hot and confused that Mrs. Ross's motherly heart took compassion on her.

'Do not let us keep you, my dear,' she said, addressing Audrey. 'I am sure Geraldine will excuse you; and it is far too fine to stay indoors.'

'In that case, we will go, Mollie,' returned Audrey in a relieved tone. 'Good-bye, Gage; I daresay I shall see you to-morrow. And, mother, let me know when tea is ready;' and then she beckoned Mollie to follow her.

Mollie was no longer silent when she found herself alone with her friend.

'Oh dear, Miss Ross, what a grand house you live in, and what a lovely garden! Ours must seem such a poor, poky little place after this, and yet we were all so pleased with it. I do like Mrs. Ross so; she is such a dear old lady'—Audrey had never heard her mother called a 'dear old lady' before—'and what a grand-looking person your sister is! I never saw anyone so handsome.'

But Mollie's tone was a trifle dubious.

'I hope you mean to like her too, Mollie.'

'I don't seem to know her yet,' replied Mollie evasively; 'but I liked looking at her. Somehow I could not talk before her. Where are we going, Miss Ross? There is no pond that I can see.'

'No lake,' corrected Audrey, with much dignity. 'No, Mollie; I am going to introduce you to the greenhouses and poultry-yard first; then there are the pigs, and the boys' play-ground—oh, a host of sights!—before we make our way down to the lake.'

'Ah, now you mean to be funny, because Cyril always calls it the pond—and Kester too. You must be very rich, Miss Ross, to live here and have all these fine things. Mamma was saying so to Cyril when he was telling us about it.'

'This is my favourite little bantam, Mollie,' interposed Audrey; and then Mollie gave herself up to enjoyment, there were so many things to see. Mollie wondered and exclaimed and admired, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, until Audrey told herself the child was positively pretty.

At last they found themselves by the tiny lake, with their hands full of bread for Snowflake and Eiderdown, while a little troop of rare foreign ducks hung somewhat timidly in the rear. Presently, to Mollie's intense delight, they got into the canoe, and Audrey, with much gravity, commenced their voyage.

'For you may laugh, Mollie,' she said severely, 'but you have no idea of the extent of the place. This island is called "The Swans' Nest." We need not land, because we can see it perfectly from the canoe; but you may perhaps notice a small wooden building somewhere in the recesses of the island.'

'Oh yes, I see it perfectly,' returned Mollie, with the utmost candour. 'I could almost cover the island with my pocket-handkerchief; but, of course, it is very pretty.'

Audrey gave her a withering glance.

'We will go on a little farther. You have a capital view of Woodcote now; the house is in fine perspective. There is Michael's Bench, so called after my cousin, Captain Burnett; and this, Mollie'—pointing to a pretty little thicket of trees and shrubs reaching down to the water—'is Deep-water Chine. With your permission, we will rest here a moment.'

'Have we got to the end of our voyage?' laughed Mollie. 'Oh dear, Miss Ross, how droll you are this afternoon! But it is pretty—sweetly pretty; and how lovely those swans are! How happy you must be to live in such a dear place!'

'I am very fond of it,' returned Audrey dreamily. 'Listen to those birds; father is so fond of them. You cannot admire the place more than I do, Mollie. To me Woodcote is the finest place in the world; it would be dreadful to leave it.'

'Why should you ever leave it, Miss Ross?'

'Why, indeed?' with an amused curl of her lip. 'I don't suppose I ever shall leave it, Mollie.'

'Not unless you married,' replied Mollie, in a serious voice. 'People are obliged to go away when they are married, are they not? But perhaps you will have as grand a place of your own.'

'I have half made up my mind that I will be an old maid,' returned Audrey lazily. 'Old maids lead such nice, useful, unselfish lives.' And then, as Mollie opened her eyes rather widely at this, she went on: 'What a pretty frock that is!—and that smocking is exquisitely done. I really must ask your mother to give me lessons—for it will be useful if I ever should have any nephews and nieces,' thought Audrey, who was practical in her own way.

'Mamma will be delighted to teach you; she is so fond of you, Miss Ross. She was talking about you half the evening. Do you know, she did not go to bed until past one o'clock; she was finishing my blue cambric. Cyril begged her to put it down half a dozen times, but she said no, she had made up her mind to finish it—and the hat, too. He had to go off to bed and leave her at last, and it was not really done until past one.'

Audrey made no comment. She was asking herself how far she ought to encourage Mollie's childish loquacity—she was very original and amusing.

'But if I do not check her,' thought Audrey, 'there is no knowing what she may say next. All the Blakes are so very outspoken.'

But Mollie was disposed to enlarge on a topic that interested her so closely. She had arrived at an age when a girl begins to feel some anxiety to make the best of herself. Her nice new frock was an important ingredient in the day's pleasure; she felt a different Mollie from the Mollie of yesterday. It was as though Cinderella, dusty and begrimed with her ashes, had suddenly donned her princess's robe.

'I am so glad you think my frock pretty,' she went on. 'I shall be able to go to chapel with Cyril next Sunday. This is my Sunday frock; my blue cambric is for every afternoon. It was very fortunate mamma was in her working mood yesterday, for she would never have allowed me to come in my old brown frock. She is so busy to-day; she made me bring her down a pile of Kester's shirts that want mending—"For the poor boy is in rags," she said. Stop! I think it was Cyril who said that. I thought it was funny for mamma to notice about Kester. Yes, it was Cyril.'

'Mollie, do you know your mother calls you a sad chatterbox?' observed Audrey at this point.

Mollie coloured up and looked perturbed.

'Oh, Miss Ross, did mamma tell you that really? Perhaps that was why she wanted to get rid of me yesterday, because I talk so much. Do you know'—dropping her voice and looking rather melancholy—'I never do seem to please mamma, however much I try; and I do try—oh! so hard. I never mind Cyril laughing at me, because he does it so good-naturedly; but when mamma speaks in that reproachful voice, and says that at my age I might help her more, I do feel so unhappy. I often cry about it when I go to bed, and then the next day I am sure to be more stupid, and forget things and make mistakes, and then mamma gets more displeased with me than ever.'

'My dear little Mollie, I am sure you work hard enough.'

'Yes, but there is so much to do,' returned Mollie, with a heavy sigh. 'Biddy is so old, she cannot make the beds and sweep and clean and cook the dinner without any help. Kester is always saying that if we had a younger and stronger servant we should do so much better. But mamma is so angry when she hears him say that; she declares nothing will induce her to part with Biddy—Biddy used to be mamma's nurse, you know. Sometimes I get so tired of doing the same things day after day, and I long to go out and play tennis, like other girls. But that is not the worst'—and here poor Mollie looked ready to cry; 'do you mind if I tell you, Miss Ross? I seem talking so much about myself, and I am so afraid of wearying you.'

'No, dear; you may tell me anything you like—about yourself, I mean,' corrected Audrey hastily.

'Yes, I know what you mean, and it will make me so comfortable to talk it all out—and I have only Kester, you know. I am so afraid, and Kester is afraid, too, that with all this rough work I shall never be as ladylike as mamma. She has such beautiful manners, and, then, have you noticed her hands, Miss Ross? they are so white and pretty; and look at mine!' and Mollie thrust out a brown, roughened little hand for inspection.

'You have a pretty hand, too, Mollie, though it is not quite soft at present; but if I were you, I should be proud to think that it was hard with good honest work for others.'

'Yes, if only Cyril would not notice it; he told me one day that no young lady ought to have hands like a kitchenmaid. Mamma heard him say it, and she begged me to use glycerine and sleep in gloves, but I could not do such things. I am afraid you think me very complaining, Miss Ross, but I have not got to the worst trouble of all, and that is—that I have so little time for my lessons.'

'Oh, I was going to ask you about that.'

'I fret about it dreadfully sometimes, and then Kester is so sorry for me. He does all he can for me, poor boy! but sometimes on a hot afternoon I am too sleepy and stupid to do my sums and Latin. I don't like sums, Miss Ross, or Latin either: I would so much rather read French and history with mamma—she reads so beautifully and teaches so well—but somehow she is so often too busy or too tired to attend to me.'

'And who teaches you music?'

'No one,' and here Mollie's face wore a look of the deepest dejection; 'we have no piano, and mamma does not play. When we lived at Richmond the lady in the drawing-room taught me my notes, and I used to practise scales and exercises in her room. She was such a funny old dear, with queer little pinned-up curls. Her name was Miss Foster—she had been a governess—and she used to be so kind to Kester and me. She would ask us into her room, and give us cake and nice things; but I don't think she liked mamma—she was always pitying us and calling us "poor children;" but I am sure we were very happy.'

'And she gave you music-lessons?'

'Yes, and I got on quite nicely. I am so fond of music, Miss Ross, and so is Cyril; he sings beautifully, and can play his own accompaniments. He talks of hiring a piano, and then perhaps I can practise my scales and exercises.'

Audrey made no answer for a moment—she was deep in thought—and then she said suddenly:

'Are you busy all the morning, Mollie? I mean, if you had a piano, when would you practise?'

This question seemed to puzzle Mollie.

'I hardly know, Miss Ross—in the morning, I think, when I had done helping Biddy. Kester generally wants me for an hour in the afternoon, and there is the chance, too, that mamma might call me to read history with her. I daresay I could get half an hour or so before dinner—luncheon, I mean.'

'Would you like to come to me twice a week for a lesson? Oh, Mollie dear, take care!' for the girl was starting up in her excitement; 'the water is very deep here, and if you upset us——'

'No, no, I will sit quite still; but I did so want to kiss you—it is such a lovely idea!'

'I am so glad you approve of it. I tell you what, Mollie, I will call one afternoon and settle it with your mother. The morning will suit me best; I generally go out after luncheon, unless we have a tennis-party at home; but with a little management I think I could contrive to spare you an hour twice a week—perhaps an hour and a half,' finished Audrey, whose busy brain had already suggested that a French exercise or half an hour's French reading might be thrown in after the music-lesson.

Audrey was a good linguist, and played very nicely; it made her quite happy to think that she could turn her accomplishments to account. And really the child was so disgracefully neglected—Audrey did not scruple a bit to use the word 'disgracefully.' It was strange how all her sympathy was enlisted on Mollie's behalf, and yet she could not like Mrs. Blake one whit the less for her mismanagement of the girl. On the contrary, Audrey only felt her interest quicken with every fresh side-light and detail; she longed to take the Blake household under her especial protection, to manipulate the existing arrangements, and put things on a different footing. Biddy should go—that should be the first innovation; a strong, sturdy Rutherford girl like Rhoda Atkinson should come in her place. Poor little Mollie should be set free from all but the lightest household duties—a little dusting or pastry-making; she should have regular hours for practising, for reading French, even for drawing. Geraldine was very good-natured, she drew beautifully—Audrey was quite sure that after a time she might be pressed into the service. Between herself, Gage, and Kester, Mollie might turn out an accomplished woman. Dreams, mere dreams, if Mrs. Blake could not be induced to part with Biddy; and here the thought of the little work-roughened hands gave Audrey a positive pang.

Mollie, on the contrary, sat and beamed at her young benefactress. She was that; she was everything perfect in Mollie's eyes. Mollie's cup of happiness was full to overflowing! to see her dear Miss Ross twice a week, to be taught by her, to study her beloved music; Mollie's heart sang for joy: the sunshine seemed to intoxicate her. She was in a new world—a world with swans and birds and bees in it—full of leafy shadows and rippling, tiny waves. The kind face opposite her broke into a smile.

'Well, Mollie, are you tired of sitting here? Shall we go back to the landing-place?'

'Miss Ross, there is Cyril looking for us!' exclaimed Mollie, almost beside herself with excitement. 'Yes, do please let us go back; he is waving to us.' And Audrey paddled across the pond.

Cyril lifted his straw hat rather gravely; but there was restrained eagerness in his manner as he helped them to alight.

'Mrs. Ross sent me to fetch you,' he said quietly. 'Tea is ready, and Miss Cardell and her brother are in the drawing-room. Mrs. Ross begged me to come back with you. Why, Mollie'—with a pleased look—'I should hardly have known you. She looks almost grown up, does she not, Miss Ross?'

His manner had changed in a moment. He looked bright and animated; his slight gravity vanished. It was Audrey who became suddenly embarrassed; the eager look with which the young man had greeted her had not been unnoticed by her. Cyril's dark eyes were very expressive. More than once during the last day or two Audrey had innocently intercepted those strange, searching glances, and they vaguely disturbed her.

'It is very good of you to take all this trouble with Mollie,' continued Cyril, as he walked beside her towards the house. 'I need not ask if she has been happy—eh, Mollie?'

'I have had a lovely time!' exclaimed Mollie, almost treading on Cyril's heels in her excitement. 'Oh, Cyril, do ask Miss Ross to take you in the canoe to Deep-water Chine! It is such a delicious place! The trees dip into the water, and the birds come down to drink and bathe; and we saw a water-rat and a water-wagtail, and there was the cuckoo; and we could hear the cooing of the wood-pigeons whenever we were silent; and, oh! it was paradise!'

'I can believe it,' returned Cyril, in a low voice.

'Mr. Blake,' asked Audrey hastily, 'why is it that you are not on the cricket-field with the boys?'

'Conybeare has taken my place. A lot of the boys were kept in, which means I was a prisoner too. I have only just opened the gaol-door to the poor wretches. If you want to see a heart-breaking sight, Miss Ross—one sad enough to touch the stoniest heart—go into the schoolroom on a half-holiday on a summer's afternoon when half a dozen boys are kept in for lessons returned. The utter misery depicted on those boys' faces is not to be described.'

'I should just shut up their books and tell them to be off.'

'I daresay you would,' with an amused look at her. 'I can well imagine that that would be Miss Ross's rôle. We masters have to harden our hearts; "discipline must be maintained," as that delightful old fellow in Bleak House used to say; bad work brings its own punishment.'

'You are as stern as Captain Burnett. By the bye, where is Michael?'

'He has gone out with Dr. Ross. That is why Mrs. Ross wants me to make myself useful'—and Cyril did make himself useful.

Some more visitors dropped in, Geraldine amongst them. She had finished her business in the town, had paid a couple of calls, and now looked in on her way home. Somehow, Woodcote was always on the way home; but, then, as everyone said, there were few daughters so devoted to their mother as young Mrs. Harcourt.

Audrey, who was presiding at the tea-table, saw her sister looking at Mr. Blake with reluctant admiration; she had never before noticed the quiet ease of his manners. He had lost his first shyness, and was now making himself exceedingly pleasant to Mrs. Ross's guests. Mr. Cardell, who was a stiff, solemn-faced young man, was placed at a decided disadvantage; clever and gentlemanly as he was, he looked positively awkward beside Mr. Blake. Mr. Blake seemed to see everything—to notice in a moment if a lady wanted her cup put down, if her tea were not to her taste; he carried sugar and cream to one, cake or bread and butter to another. He seemed to know by instinct when the teapot wanted replenishing, and was ready to lift the heavy kettle; but he never remained by Audrey's side a moment.

As Audrey busied herself among her teacups she was amused by overhearing a fragment of conversation behind her. Emily Cardell, a plain, good-natured sort of girl, had seated herself beside Geraldine.

'Mr. Blake seems a decided acquisition,' she observed, in a loud whisper that was distinctly audible. 'We ought all to be very much obliged to Dr. Ross. He is very young, but so distinguished-looking. Poor Oliver is quite cast in the shade.'

'I don't know about that, Emily.'

'I suppose you think comparisons are odious? But, all the same, I am sure you must admire Mr. Blake.'

'I think he is very gentlemanly and pleasant.'

'Dear me, Geraldine! that is very moderate praise. I never saw anyone with more finished manners.'

Here Audrey moved away, but her lip curled a little. Would Geraldine's tone have been so utterly devoid of enthusiasm if she had not known her sister was within earshot?

Just then Mollie touched Audrey on the arm.

'Miss Ross, Cyril says that I have been here long enough, and that he is going to take me away.'

'Are you sure that I worded it quite so ungraciously?' observed Cyril, who had followed her. 'All the same, I think you will endorse my opinion, Miss Ross. Mollie has been here all the afternoon.'

'It has been a very pleasant afternoon,' returned Audrey, with one of her kind looks at Mollie; 'and I hope we shall have many more. Mollie and I mean to see a good deal of each other.' And then she bade them good-bye and turned to the other guests, who were also making their adieux.

Geraldine remained behind to exchange a few confidential words with her mother, and Audrey stepped out on the terrace. As she did so, she was surprised to see Michael sitting just outside the drawing-room window. He had evidently been there some time.

As she sat down beside him she was struck by his air of dejection.

'Oh, Michael, how tired you look! have you had your tea?'

He shook his head.

'Then I will go and fetch you some. Do let me, Michael;' for he had stopped her.

Michael's hand was very thin and white, but when he cared to put out his strength it had a grasp like iron; and that firm, soft grip on Audrey's wrist kept her a prisoner.

'No, don't go; it is so late that I would rather wait for dinner. I heard the teacups, but I was too lazy to move, and to judge from the voices, the room must have been pretty full.'

'Yes; the Cardells and the Fortescues and Gage were there.'

'Mr. Blake, too, was he not?'

'Yes, mother asked him—she wanted him to help entertain the Cardells.'

'Yes, I see; and he seems disposed to be friendly—your father has asked him to dinner to-morrow night to meet the Pagets.'

'Indeed!' and Audrey tried to suppress the pleasure she felt at this intelligence. 'Have you any objection?' She asked the question in a joking manner; to her surprise her cousin answered her quite gravely:

'Well, I think it will be a pity to take too much notice of him—he is young enough to be spoilt. People are glad to have a good-looking fellow like Blake at their parties; and, then, I hear he has a magnificent voice. I expect half the young ladies of Rutherford will be in love with him—Miss Emily Cardell among them; eh, Audrey?'

'I am sure I don't know,' returned Audrey coldly; 'Mr. Blake's good looks are nothing to me.' She spoke with unusual petulance, as though something in her cousin's remarks had not pleased her. 'Well, if you will not have some tea, Michael, I must just go back to mother and Gage;' and as Michael said no word to detain her, she moved away so quickly that she did not hear the half-stifled sigh with which Michael took up his paper again.

CHAPTER XIII

GERALDINE GIVES HER OPINION

'We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.'—Emerson.

'She has a most winning manner and a soft voice.'—The Abbot.

Audrey was able to fulfil her promise to Mollie the very next day, when she encountered Mrs. Blake unexpectedly some little way from the town. She was just turning down a lane where one of her protégées, a little lame seamstress, lived, when Zack suddenly bounded round the corner and jumped on her, with one of his delighted barks, and the next moment she saw a lady in black walking very quickly towards her. She wore a large shady hat that completely hid her face, but there was no mistaking that graceful figure. Mrs. Blake had a peculiar walk: it was rapid, decided, and had a light skimming movement, that reminded Audrey of some bird flying very near the ground; and she had a singular habit as she walked of turning her head from side to side, as though scanning distant objects, which deepened this resemblance.

'What a charming surprise!' she exclaimed, quickening her pace until it became a little run; 'who would have thought of meeting you, my dear Miss Ross, in this out-of-the-way corner? Some errand of mercy has brought you, of course,' with a glance at Audrey's basket. 'That dainty little white cloth reminds me of Red Riding Hood; I would wager anything that under it there are new-laid eggs and butter. Down, Zack! you are sniffing at it just as though you were that wicked wolf himself.'

'I am going to see Rhoda Williams,' returned Audrey; 'she is lame, poor girl! and has miserable health besides, but she works beautifully. Geraldine and I employ her as much as possible. I suppose you and Zack have been having a walk.

'My dear Miss Ross,' with extreme gravity, 'I am not taking an ordinary constitutional—I have come out in the hope of preserving my reason. I have been enacting a new version of Hood's "Song of the Shirt"; for the last two days it has been "Stitch, stitch, stitch,"—how do the words run on?—until I was on the brink of delirium. An hour ago I said to Mollie: "If you have any love for your mother, carry away that basket and hide it; do not let me see it again for twenty-four hours—nature is exhausted;" and then I put on my hat, and, at the risk of spoiling my complexion, came out into this blessed sunshine.'