Chapter Twenty Three.

Chapter Twenty Three.At East Moddersham.“It was all so touching,” said Lady Marth. “I cannot tell you how patient Hebe was, thinking of every one more than of herself. I don’t know any one else who would have behaved so beautifully through such a trial.”And her somewhat hard though handsome features softened as she spoke, and her dark eyes looked almost as if there were tears in them.Sir Adam, on his side, felt that he had perhaps been judging her too sharply.“Of course,” he thought to himself, “but for their being friends of my own, I would never have known or cared whether she was kind to the Derwents or not. And I suppose one should try not to be personal; still—”At that moment a slight pause in the conversation at the other end of the table allowed Lady Harriot’s rather harsh, unmodulated voice to be heard very distinctly. She was speaking to a lady seated opposite to her, a visitor at East Moddersham, and not a resident in the neighbourhood.“Yes,” she said, “you positively must get Lady Marth to drive you into Blissmore to see their things. I have been getting them all the custom I could, and I do think, now they have made a good start, they may get on well, poor things.”“I’ll make a point of giving them an order,” the lady replied good-naturedly. “One does feel so sorry for them.”Sir Adam was an old man, and a man of the world; but his face reddened perceptibly.“Excuse me, Lady Harriot,” he said very clearly—and somehow every one stopped speaking to listen—“If you are alluding to Mrs Derwent and her daughters, I must not leave any misapprehension about them. There will soon be no need for any one to patronise them, however kind the motive. Their being in their present position has been the result of a complete misapprehension, for which, I must confess, I am myself to blame.”Lady Harriot stared.“My dear Sir Adam,” she said, “why didn’t you tell me so before?”But Sir Adam had already turned to Lady Marth, and did not seem to hear the question. Lady Harriot nodded across the table confidentially.“Never mind,” she said in a low voice. “Be sure you go to see their things, all the same.”Lady Marth had looked up in astonishment at Sir Adam’s speech.“Are you talking of some people who took a house on Pinnerton Green and have left it again already?” she said. “I had no idea they were friends ofyours! I remember Hebe rather took up the daughters in connection with that guild of hers that she’s so enthusiastic about.”Sir Adam’s face was grave and his tone very cold as he replied.“You cannot possibly havemetthem,” he said, “or your discrimination would have shown you that, whether friends of mine or not, they are very different from what you have evidently imagined them.”“Why, you seem quite vexed with me,” said Lady Marth, trying to carry it off lightly. “How can I be expected to know all about the good people on the Green, or to have guessed by instinct that the Derwents had anything to do with you?”“Lady Hebe found out enough to make her show them all the kindness in her power,” he replied. “Lady Harriot called on them, poor dear soul, meaning to do her best, and Mrs Harrowby surely mentioned them to you?”“Perhaps she did,” replied Lady Marth carelessly; “but the vicar’s wife, you know, Sir Adam, doesn’t count in that way. It’s her rôle, or she thinks it is, to ignore all class distinctions.”“In this case there were none to ignore,” said Sir Adam, still more frigidly.“I don’t say there were,” she replied. “Of course not with friends of yours. But how was I to know that? Now, you’re not to be vexed with me, for you’ve really no cause to be.” But as she said this, a certain afternoon in the vicarage drawing-room recurred to her memory—a beautiful, fair-haired girl, standing near her, a faint flush rising to her face as she—Lady Marth—drew herself back with words, to say the least, neither courteous nor amiable. Her tone to Sir Adam softened still more. “Of course,” she continued, “I shall be more than delighted to pay any attention in my power to Mrs Derwent—that is to say, if you wish it.”“Thank you,” he answered, gratified, in spite of himself, by her evident sincerity. “I will tell you more about them some other time. I may see Hebe after dinner, may I not?” he went on. “Archie said something about her wishing it.”“Oh yes,” replied Lady Marth. “She is counting upon it, I know. If you will follow us into the drawing-room a little before the other men, I will take you to her. She is really quite well in herself, but we daren’t risk any glare of light for her as yet. Isn’t it nice to see poor Norman looking so much happier?”“Yes; of the two, I think he does more credit to their travels than young Dunstan,” Sir Adam replied thoughtlessly.He regretted the remark as soon as he had made it, but a glance at Lady Marth’s face reassured him. She was in utter unconsciousness that Archie Dunstan and Blanche Derwent had ever met.“Not that I have much ground for the idea, though,” he said to himself. “I wonder if Hebe can possibly enlighten me.”They were approaching the end of dinner, and the rest of the conversation between himself and his hostess was on general subjects. But as she followed her guests to the drawing-room, she touched him gently on the arm.“I shall expect you in a few minutes,” she said; and a quarter of an hour or so later, Sir Adam found himself following her up the first flight of the broad oak staircase, along a passage, the rooms of which, since her first coming there as a little child, had always been appropriated to Sir Conway’s ward.“Poor dear child,” thought the old man to himself. “Things don’t seem so unequal, after all, in life. Stasy’s children have had more than Hebe, heiress though she is. She has never known what ‘home’ really is as they have done?”But it was a very happy Hebe who rose from a low seat near the fireplace in her pretty boudoir, to greet him as he followed Lady Marth into the room.“Now, I shall leave you alone,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve heaps to say to each other.”They had more to talk of even than the lady of the house suspected. For long after Hebe had replied to all her old friend’s inquiries about herself—the result of the operation, and the still necessary precautions to be observed—and had told him the happy hopes for the future she now dared to entertain, they still went on talking earnestly and eagerly.“I think our marriage will be early in the spring,” Hebe had said, and the allusion seemed to send Sir Adam’s thoughts in a further direction.“Hebe,” he said, “I want to speak to you about my friends the Derwents, whom I am delighted to find you’ve got to know on your own account.”The girl’s face lighted up with the keenest interest. “I too want to talk about them to you,” she said. “I have just been wondering if I may speak to youquiteopenly.”“Certainly you may do so—it is just what I have been hoping for,” replied Sir Adam, and the hands of the pretty clock on Hebe’s mantelpiece had very nearly made their accustomed journey of a full hour before it suddenly struck Sir Adam that he was scarcely behaving with courtesy to his hosts in spending so much of the evening away from the rest of the party.Just then Norman Milward put his head in at the door.“I’m most sorry to interrupt you,” he said. “But Lady Marth thinks that perhaps—”“Of course,” said Sir Adam, rising as he spoke; “I had no business to stay so long.—Then you’ll expect us to-morrow afternoon, my dear child? I will explain it to Lady Marth.—You’ll stay up here, I suppose, Milward?”“Yes,” the young man replied; “I’ve scarcely seen her yet. It seems all too good to be true.”Sir Adam glanced back at them as he left the room, standing together on the hearthrug, the firelight dancing on the two bright heads, on the two young faces so very full of happy gratitude.“I scarcely feel like a childless old fogy, after all,” he thought, as he made his way down-stairs. “It seems to me I have a good many children. That little Stasy now—Blanche is charming, but Stasy is perfectly irresistible.”About four o’clock the next afternoon the Alderwood brougham might have been seen on the road from Blissmore to East Moddersham. There were two people inside it—Blanche Derwent and Sir Adam. It was a cold day, for the autumn was now advancing rapidly.“Dear me,” said Blanche, with a slight shiver, as she glanced out of the window at her side, “this road is beginning to look quite wintry. It is just about a year since mamma and Stasy and I drove along here for the first time, the day we came down to look at Pinnerton Lodge—only a year!”Sir Adam stooped and drew the fur rug a little more closely round her.“Blanche, my dear,” he said, “you are a sweet, good child, I know, but I’mveryangry with you, nevertheless. You really might have helped me to make your mother see things more reasonably.”“But if I don’t see them ‘reasonably’ myself?” said Blanche. “I can’t help quite agreeing with what mamma feels; and after all, Sir Adam, it is only a few months’ delay.”“But a few months mean a good deal at my age,” he persisted. “Your mother promises to look upon me—for the years, certainly not many, that still remain to me—entirely as a father. Why should we put off acting upon this at once, for a scruple which, after all, need be of no importance?” Blanche hesitated.“I can’t feel that,” she said. “To me it seems so much better, from every point of view, to carry out our plan for the time arranged. And you know, Sir Adam, it will not practically make much difference. You couldn’t risk all the winter in England, and mamma thinks it better not to interrupt Herty’s and Stasy’s lessons, though, of course, these are secondary reasons; the real one is our promise to Miss Halliday and—”“And what?”“Perhaps it is selfish,” said Blanche. “But somehow it seems to me more dignified not to give up what we are doing, so hurriedly, as if—almost as if we were at all ashamed of it;” and she blushed a little.“There’s something in that perhaps,” replied her old friend. “Perhaps in my heart I agree with you to some extent. But I am tired of wandering about by myself. I am longing to feel I have got a home again, and daughters to care about me in my last days.”“Dear Sir Adam,” said Blanche, “you don’t know how I love to hear you speak like that! The winter will seem as bright as possible to us with the looking forward to going back to Pinnerton in the spring. You’re going to see our house to-day, aren’t you, while I am with Lady Hebe? You mustn’t be disappointed in its size. It isn’t at all large, you know, but those half-finished rooms mamma was telling you about can easily be made very nice.”“Yes, I’m sure of it,” said Sir Adam. “I’ve no love for very big houses and the worries they entail. The Bracys are very good-natured, and will let us make plans beforehand, so as to lose no time. They turn out in May next year, don’t they? And by then your beloved Miss Halliday will have found an assistant to suit her—not as difficult a matter as a moneyed partner, which she will not now require. Then, as I was saying, I shall take a house in London for a short time, and all of you must join me there. We must give Stasy a pleasanter impression of London than she has, poor child. But here we are—”Blanche looked up with interest at the fine old house. It was the first time she had seen more of it than its gables and chimneys through the trees, even though for several months they had been within a stone’s-throw of the lodge gates.“I will take you up at once to Hebe’s room,” said Sir Adam, “as she is expecting you;” and he led the way across the hall to the wide staircase.“And how shall I meet you again?” said Blanche, who was not above a certain sensation of nervousness at the thought of encountering the formidable Lady Marth in her own house.“It will be all right,” Sir Adam replied, laying his hand lightly on her shoulder as he spoke. “Hebe will look after you,” for he was quick enough to perceive her slight timidity, and liked her none the less for it. His kind tone reassured her, but had she known who was at that moment crossing the hall below them, it is very certain that Blanche’s habitual calm would have been still more seriously disturbed.She forgot all about Lady Marth and everything else for the moment in the pleasure of seeing Hebe Shetland again—her “girl with the happy face,” chastened perhaps, somewhat paler and thinner than she remembered her, but sweeter still, and best of all, with the same bright sunny eyes, bearing no traces of the suffering they had gone through.Hebe caught her by both hands and kissed her.“Dear Blanche,” she said.The words and gesture surprised Blanche a little, but pleased her still more; while to Hebe it was an immense gratification to feel that she and the girl she had instinctively chosen as a friend could now meet on equal ground, with no constraint.“It is so good of you to come,” she said to Blanche.“So good of Sir Adam to bring you”—But Sir Adam had already disappeared. “I have been looking forward so very much to seeing you again. I only wish you were at Pinnerton Lodge, and then you would come to see me often, wouldn’t you?”“Yes, indeed,” said Blanche heartily, thinking to herself with satisfaction that, thanks to Sir Adam, there could no longer be any complication in the matter. “But we shall not be at Pinnerton for a good while—not till next summer; however, I will come to see you whenever I can, you may be quite sure.”“I’m afraid I shan’t be allowed to go as far as Blissmore just yet,” said Hebe; “I have to guard against any chill. But I had quite hoped you were coming back to the Lodge soon, from what Sir Adam said last night.”“Dear Sir Adam,” said Blanche. “I could never tell you how good he is to us! But still, things must stay as they are for a while.” And then she went on to explain to Hebe the position of affairs with regard to Miss Halliday, and how much they felt themselves indebted to her, adding simply: “At that time she really seemed our only friend.”Hebe stroked Blanche’s hand.“I quite understand how you feel,” she said, “and I have no doubt you are right. But Sir Adam was so full of it last night, he was sure he’d get your tenants to turn out at once, and—he’s such an old man now, Blanche—he can’t have many years to live. Don’t you think perhaps, for his sake, you should not bequiteso scrupulous?”“It may be possible to arrange things a little sooner,” said Blanche. “Of course his wishes will be almost our first thought now. But, you see, in any case he must not risk the winter in this climate.”“I was forgetting that,” said Hebe regretfully. “He seems so much stronger lately.”Then they went on to talk of other things, Hebe giving a few details of all she had gone through.“I can bear to think of it now that it is all so happily over;” and in the interest of their conversation time passed rapidly.Hebe started when the silvery sound of a gong reached them from the hall below.“That’s the tea-gong,” she said. “I am allowed to go down to tea, for Josephine keeps the room in a half-light for me. I had no idea it was so late.”The two girls went down the staircase together; the drawing-room door stood open, and a hum of voices reached their ears before they entered the room. Then Lady Marth’s clear, decided tones rang out conspicuously above the others.“Nonsense!” she was saying. “You can both stay if you choose—you know you are always welcome.”“That must be Norman,” said Hebe gladly, “and—”But Blanche heard no more, for by this time they were inside the room, and Lady Marth was addressing her.“How do you do, Miss Derwent? My hands are full of teacups, you see. I persuaded Sir Adam to stay to tea.”Some one came forward from the little group near the fire. It was almost too dark to distinguish faces at the first moment, but Hebe’s, “This is Norman, Blanche,” prepared her for his cordial greeting.“Here’s a nice corner for you both,” said Mr Milward. “No foot-stools to stumble over!”“I see better in the dark than the rest of you, I think,” said Hebe laughingly; “it is too bad for you all to suffer for my sake.—Oh,” she exclaimed, “is that you, Archie? I didn’t know you were coming back again to-day.”“Norman brought me over,” Mr Dunstan replied.“And he’s pretending he can’t stay to dinner,” put in Lady Marth.—“As if your aunt would mind, Archie!”He did not at once reply. He was shaking hands with Blanche.“How do you do, Miss Derwent?” he said easily. “I hope Mrs Derwent is well, and that famous little brother of yours?”“Yes, thank you,” said Blanche, in a tone which she endeavoured to render unconstrained, though feeling for once nervous, and ill at ease and disgusted at herself for being so, especially as Mr Dunstan struck her as his airiest, most conventional self.“I really can’t stay,” he went on, turning again to Lady Marth. “Auntie is counting upon me, as she has got a man too few, and some people are coming to dinner.”“It’s only to take in Rosy,” said Norman, with a brother’s brutality.“Only Rosy!” repeated Lady Marth. “My dear Norman, if Rosy were any one but your sister, I don’t think you would be quite so much at a loss to account for Archie’s obstinacy.”Archie laughed a hearty unconstrained laugh. “Archie’s taste is not peculiar; every one loves atête-à-têtewith Rosy, when they have a chance of it,” said Hebe, with apparently uncalled-for warmth.“Of course they do,” said Sir Adam, speaking for the first time.—“And now, my dear Blanche, if you’ve had a cup of tea, I think we must be off—I have to get back to Alderwood in time for dinner, too, Master Archie. By-the-bye, we’ve got the large brougham—will you come with usviâBlissmore, though it is rather a round?”“Well no, I think I prefer Norman’s cart, which is here,” said Mr Dunstan lightly. “Though many thanks, all the same.”“And how is Norman going to get home, then?” said Lady Marth. “You’re not going to force him away too?”“The cart can come back,” said Archie.“Thank you,” said Norman, somewhat grimly. “Pray, be on no ceremony.”“There comes our brougham,” said Sir Adam, shaking hands with Lady Marth, Blanche following his example.Then came a more affectionate farewell from Hebe, who accompanied them to the drawing-room door.“I mustn’t go farther,” she said; but Norman Milward crossed the hall to see them off, Mr Dunstan having contented himself with a regulation hand-shake, when standing beside his hostess on the hearthrug.The air outside felt chilly as they stepped into the carriage, but not so chilly as a strange, unreasonable breath of disappointment, which seemed to pass through Blanche, though, even to herself, she would have shrunk from calling it by such a name.

“It was all so touching,” said Lady Marth. “I cannot tell you how patient Hebe was, thinking of every one more than of herself. I don’t know any one else who would have behaved so beautifully through such a trial.”

And her somewhat hard though handsome features softened as she spoke, and her dark eyes looked almost as if there were tears in them.

Sir Adam, on his side, felt that he had perhaps been judging her too sharply.

“Of course,” he thought to himself, “but for their being friends of my own, I would never have known or cared whether she was kind to the Derwents or not. And I suppose one should try not to be personal; still—”

At that moment a slight pause in the conversation at the other end of the table allowed Lady Harriot’s rather harsh, unmodulated voice to be heard very distinctly. She was speaking to a lady seated opposite to her, a visitor at East Moddersham, and not a resident in the neighbourhood.

“Yes,” she said, “you positively must get Lady Marth to drive you into Blissmore to see their things. I have been getting them all the custom I could, and I do think, now they have made a good start, they may get on well, poor things.”

“I’ll make a point of giving them an order,” the lady replied good-naturedly. “One does feel so sorry for them.”

Sir Adam was an old man, and a man of the world; but his face reddened perceptibly.

“Excuse me, Lady Harriot,” he said very clearly—and somehow every one stopped speaking to listen—“If you are alluding to Mrs Derwent and her daughters, I must not leave any misapprehension about them. There will soon be no need for any one to patronise them, however kind the motive. Their being in their present position has been the result of a complete misapprehension, for which, I must confess, I am myself to blame.”

Lady Harriot stared.

“My dear Sir Adam,” she said, “why didn’t you tell me so before?”

But Sir Adam had already turned to Lady Marth, and did not seem to hear the question. Lady Harriot nodded across the table confidentially.

“Never mind,” she said in a low voice. “Be sure you go to see their things, all the same.”

Lady Marth had looked up in astonishment at Sir Adam’s speech.

“Are you talking of some people who took a house on Pinnerton Green and have left it again already?” she said. “I had no idea they were friends ofyours! I remember Hebe rather took up the daughters in connection with that guild of hers that she’s so enthusiastic about.”

Sir Adam’s face was grave and his tone very cold as he replied.

“You cannot possibly havemetthem,” he said, “or your discrimination would have shown you that, whether friends of mine or not, they are very different from what you have evidently imagined them.”

“Why, you seem quite vexed with me,” said Lady Marth, trying to carry it off lightly. “How can I be expected to know all about the good people on the Green, or to have guessed by instinct that the Derwents had anything to do with you?”

“Lady Hebe found out enough to make her show them all the kindness in her power,” he replied. “Lady Harriot called on them, poor dear soul, meaning to do her best, and Mrs Harrowby surely mentioned them to you?”

“Perhaps she did,” replied Lady Marth carelessly; “but the vicar’s wife, you know, Sir Adam, doesn’t count in that way. It’s her rôle, or she thinks it is, to ignore all class distinctions.”

“In this case there were none to ignore,” said Sir Adam, still more frigidly.

“I don’t say there were,” she replied. “Of course not with friends of yours. But how was I to know that? Now, you’re not to be vexed with me, for you’ve really no cause to be.” But as she said this, a certain afternoon in the vicarage drawing-room recurred to her memory—a beautiful, fair-haired girl, standing near her, a faint flush rising to her face as she—Lady Marth—drew herself back with words, to say the least, neither courteous nor amiable. Her tone to Sir Adam softened still more. “Of course,” she continued, “I shall be more than delighted to pay any attention in my power to Mrs Derwent—that is to say, if you wish it.”

“Thank you,” he answered, gratified, in spite of himself, by her evident sincerity. “I will tell you more about them some other time. I may see Hebe after dinner, may I not?” he went on. “Archie said something about her wishing it.”

“Oh yes,” replied Lady Marth. “She is counting upon it, I know. If you will follow us into the drawing-room a little before the other men, I will take you to her. She is really quite well in herself, but we daren’t risk any glare of light for her as yet. Isn’t it nice to see poor Norman looking so much happier?”

“Yes; of the two, I think he does more credit to their travels than young Dunstan,” Sir Adam replied thoughtlessly.

He regretted the remark as soon as he had made it, but a glance at Lady Marth’s face reassured him. She was in utter unconsciousness that Archie Dunstan and Blanche Derwent had ever met.

“Not that I have much ground for the idea, though,” he said to himself. “I wonder if Hebe can possibly enlighten me.”

They were approaching the end of dinner, and the rest of the conversation between himself and his hostess was on general subjects. But as she followed her guests to the drawing-room, she touched him gently on the arm.

“I shall expect you in a few minutes,” she said; and a quarter of an hour or so later, Sir Adam found himself following her up the first flight of the broad oak staircase, along a passage, the rooms of which, since her first coming there as a little child, had always been appropriated to Sir Conway’s ward.

“Poor dear child,” thought the old man to himself. “Things don’t seem so unequal, after all, in life. Stasy’s children have had more than Hebe, heiress though she is. She has never known what ‘home’ really is as they have done?”

But it was a very happy Hebe who rose from a low seat near the fireplace in her pretty boudoir, to greet him as he followed Lady Marth into the room.

“Now, I shall leave you alone,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve heaps to say to each other.”

They had more to talk of even than the lady of the house suspected. For long after Hebe had replied to all her old friend’s inquiries about herself—the result of the operation, and the still necessary precautions to be observed—and had told him the happy hopes for the future she now dared to entertain, they still went on talking earnestly and eagerly.

“I think our marriage will be early in the spring,” Hebe had said, and the allusion seemed to send Sir Adam’s thoughts in a further direction.

“Hebe,” he said, “I want to speak to you about my friends the Derwents, whom I am delighted to find you’ve got to know on your own account.”

The girl’s face lighted up with the keenest interest. “I too want to talk about them to you,” she said. “I have just been wondering if I may speak to youquiteopenly.”

“Certainly you may do so—it is just what I have been hoping for,” replied Sir Adam, and the hands of the pretty clock on Hebe’s mantelpiece had very nearly made their accustomed journey of a full hour before it suddenly struck Sir Adam that he was scarcely behaving with courtesy to his hosts in spending so much of the evening away from the rest of the party.

Just then Norman Milward put his head in at the door.

“I’m most sorry to interrupt you,” he said. “But Lady Marth thinks that perhaps—”

“Of course,” said Sir Adam, rising as he spoke; “I had no business to stay so long.—Then you’ll expect us to-morrow afternoon, my dear child? I will explain it to Lady Marth.—You’ll stay up here, I suppose, Milward?”

“Yes,” the young man replied; “I’ve scarcely seen her yet. It seems all too good to be true.”

Sir Adam glanced back at them as he left the room, standing together on the hearthrug, the firelight dancing on the two bright heads, on the two young faces so very full of happy gratitude.

“I scarcely feel like a childless old fogy, after all,” he thought, as he made his way down-stairs. “It seems to me I have a good many children. That little Stasy now—Blanche is charming, but Stasy is perfectly irresistible.”

About four o’clock the next afternoon the Alderwood brougham might have been seen on the road from Blissmore to East Moddersham. There were two people inside it—Blanche Derwent and Sir Adam. It was a cold day, for the autumn was now advancing rapidly.

“Dear me,” said Blanche, with a slight shiver, as she glanced out of the window at her side, “this road is beginning to look quite wintry. It is just about a year since mamma and Stasy and I drove along here for the first time, the day we came down to look at Pinnerton Lodge—only a year!”

Sir Adam stooped and drew the fur rug a little more closely round her.

“Blanche, my dear,” he said, “you are a sweet, good child, I know, but I’mveryangry with you, nevertheless. You really might have helped me to make your mother see things more reasonably.”

“But if I don’t see them ‘reasonably’ myself?” said Blanche. “I can’t help quite agreeing with what mamma feels; and after all, Sir Adam, it is only a few months’ delay.”

“But a few months mean a good deal at my age,” he persisted. “Your mother promises to look upon me—for the years, certainly not many, that still remain to me—entirely as a father. Why should we put off acting upon this at once, for a scruple which, after all, need be of no importance?” Blanche hesitated.

“I can’t feel that,” she said. “To me it seems so much better, from every point of view, to carry out our plan for the time arranged. And you know, Sir Adam, it will not practically make much difference. You couldn’t risk all the winter in England, and mamma thinks it better not to interrupt Herty’s and Stasy’s lessons, though, of course, these are secondary reasons; the real one is our promise to Miss Halliday and—”

“And what?”

“Perhaps it is selfish,” said Blanche. “But somehow it seems to me more dignified not to give up what we are doing, so hurriedly, as if—almost as if we were at all ashamed of it;” and she blushed a little.

“There’s something in that perhaps,” replied her old friend. “Perhaps in my heart I agree with you to some extent. But I am tired of wandering about by myself. I am longing to feel I have got a home again, and daughters to care about me in my last days.”

“Dear Sir Adam,” said Blanche, “you don’t know how I love to hear you speak like that! The winter will seem as bright as possible to us with the looking forward to going back to Pinnerton in the spring. You’re going to see our house to-day, aren’t you, while I am with Lady Hebe? You mustn’t be disappointed in its size. It isn’t at all large, you know, but those half-finished rooms mamma was telling you about can easily be made very nice.”

“Yes, I’m sure of it,” said Sir Adam. “I’ve no love for very big houses and the worries they entail. The Bracys are very good-natured, and will let us make plans beforehand, so as to lose no time. They turn out in May next year, don’t they? And by then your beloved Miss Halliday will have found an assistant to suit her—not as difficult a matter as a moneyed partner, which she will not now require. Then, as I was saying, I shall take a house in London for a short time, and all of you must join me there. We must give Stasy a pleasanter impression of London than she has, poor child. But here we are—”

Blanche looked up with interest at the fine old house. It was the first time she had seen more of it than its gables and chimneys through the trees, even though for several months they had been within a stone’s-throw of the lodge gates.

“I will take you up at once to Hebe’s room,” said Sir Adam, “as she is expecting you;” and he led the way across the hall to the wide staircase.

“And how shall I meet you again?” said Blanche, who was not above a certain sensation of nervousness at the thought of encountering the formidable Lady Marth in her own house.

“It will be all right,” Sir Adam replied, laying his hand lightly on her shoulder as he spoke. “Hebe will look after you,” for he was quick enough to perceive her slight timidity, and liked her none the less for it. His kind tone reassured her, but had she known who was at that moment crossing the hall below them, it is very certain that Blanche’s habitual calm would have been still more seriously disturbed.

She forgot all about Lady Marth and everything else for the moment in the pleasure of seeing Hebe Shetland again—her “girl with the happy face,” chastened perhaps, somewhat paler and thinner than she remembered her, but sweeter still, and best of all, with the same bright sunny eyes, bearing no traces of the suffering they had gone through.

Hebe caught her by both hands and kissed her.

“Dear Blanche,” she said.

The words and gesture surprised Blanche a little, but pleased her still more; while to Hebe it was an immense gratification to feel that she and the girl she had instinctively chosen as a friend could now meet on equal ground, with no constraint.

“It is so good of you to come,” she said to Blanche.

“So good of Sir Adam to bring you”—But Sir Adam had already disappeared. “I have been looking forward so very much to seeing you again. I only wish you were at Pinnerton Lodge, and then you would come to see me often, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Blanche heartily, thinking to herself with satisfaction that, thanks to Sir Adam, there could no longer be any complication in the matter. “But we shall not be at Pinnerton for a good while—not till next summer; however, I will come to see you whenever I can, you may be quite sure.”

“I’m afraid I shan’t be allowed to go as far as Blissmore just yet,” said Hebe; “I have to guard against any chill. But I had quite hoped you were coming back to the Lodge soon, from what Sir Adam said last night.”

“Dear Sir Adam,” said Blanche. “I could never tell you how good he is to us! But still, things must stay as they are for a while.” And then she went on to explain to Hebe the position of affairs with regard to Miss Halliday, and how much they felt themselves indebted to her, adding simply: “At that time she really seemed our only friend.”

Hebe stroked Blanche’s hand.

“I quite understand how you feel,” she said, “and I have no doubt you are right. But Sir Adam was so full of it last night, he was sure he’d get your tenants to turn out at once, and—he’s such an old man now, Blanche—he can’t have many years to live. Don’t you think perhaps, for his sake, you should not bequiteso scrupulous?”

“It may be possible to arrange things a little sooner,” said Blanche. “Of course his wishes will be almost our first thought now. But, you see, in any case he must not risk the winter in this climate.”

“I was forgetting that,” said Hebe regretfully. “He seems so much stronger lately.”

Then they went on to talk of other things, Hebe giving a few details of all she had gone through.

“I can bear to think of it now that it is all so happily over;” and in the interest of their conversation time passed rapidly.

Hebe started when the silvery sound of a gong reached them from the hall below.

“That’s the tea-gong,” she said. “I am allowed to go down to tea, for Josephine keeps the room in a half-light for me. I had no idea it was so late.”

The two girls went down the staircase together; the drawing-room door stood open, and a hum of voices reached their ears before they entered the room. Then Lady Marth’s clear, decided tones rang out conspicuously above the others.

“Nonsense!” she was saying. “You can both stay if you choose—you know you are always welcome.”

“That must be Norman,” said Hebe gladly, “and—”

But Blanche heard no more, for by this time they were inside the room, and Lady Marth was addressing her.

“How do you do, Miss Derwent? My hands are full of teacups, you see. I persuaded Sir Adam to stay to tea.”

Some one came forward from the little group near the fire. It was almost too dark to distinguish faces at the first moment, but Hebe’s, “This is Norman, Blanche,” prepared her for his cordial greeting.

“Here’s a nice corner for you both,” said Mr Milward. “No foot-stools to stumble over!”

“I see better in the dark than the rest of you, I think,” said Hebe laughingly; “it is too bad for you all to suffer for my sake.—Oh,” she exclaimed, “is that you, Archie? I didn’t know you were coming back again to-day.”

“Norman brought me over,” Mr Dunstan replied.

“And he’s pretending he can’t stay to dinner,” put in Lady Marth.—“As if your aunt would mind, Archie!”

He did not at once reply. He was shaking hands with Blanche.

“How do you do, Miss Derwent?” he said easily. “I hope Mrs Derwent is well, and that famous little brother of yours?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Blanche, in a tone which she endeavoured to render unconstrained, though feeling for once nervous, and ill at ease and disgusted at herself for being so, especially as Mr Dunstan struck her as his airiest, most conventional self.

“I really can’t stay,” he went on, turning again to Lady Marth. “Auntie is counting upon me, as she has got a man too few, and some people are coming to dinner.”

“It’s only to take in Rosy,” said Norman, with a brother’s brutality.

“Only Rosy!” repeated Lady Marth. “My dear Norman, if Rosy were any one but your sister, I don’t think you would be quite so much at a loss to account for Archie’s obstinacy.”

Archie laughed a hearty unconstrained laugh. “Archie’s taste is not peculiar; every one loves atête-à-têtewith Rosy, when they have a chance of it,” said Hebe, with apparently uncalled-for warmth.

“Of course they do,” said Sir Adam, speaking for the first time.—“And now, my dear Blanche, if you’ve had a cup of tea, I think we must be off—I have to get back to Alderwood in time for dinner, too, Master Archie. By-the-bye, we’ve got the large brougham—will you come with usviâBlissmore, though it is rather a round?”

“Well no, I think I prefer Norman’s cart, which is here,” said Mr Dunstan lightly. “Though many thanks, all the same.”

“And how is Norman going to get home, then?” said Lady Marth. “You’re not going to force him away too?”

“The cart can come back,” said Archie.

“Thank you,” said Norman, somewhat grimly. “Pray, be on no ceremony.”

“There comes our brougham,” said Sir Adam, shaking hands with Lady Marth, Blanche following his example.

Then came a more affectionate farewell from Hebe, who accompanied them to the drawing-room door.

“I mustn’t go farther,” she said; but Norman Milward crossed the hall to see them off, Mr Dunstan having contented himself with a regulation hand-shake, when standing beside his hostess on the hearthrug.

The air outside felt chilly as they stepped into the carriage, but not so chilly as a strange, unreasonable breath of disappointment, which seemed to pass through Blanche, though, even to herself, she would have shrunk from calling it by such a name.

Chapter Twenty Four.Hebe’s Good News.May again! A later spring this year than last. As Blanche Derwent stood at the window of a house in a broad, airy street, at one end of which the trees of the Park were to be seen, she could scarcely believe it was same time of year, the same date, actually, as the day on which the news of their reversal of fortune had reached her mother at Pinnerton Lodge.“That was such a lovely summery day,” she said to herself. “I remember it so well; Stasy and I walking home from Blissmore, laughing and talking—I even remember what we were talking about—how Stasy was flattering me;” and Blanche’s colour deepened a little. “And then to find poor mamma as she was when we got home! It was dreadful. And yet, how wonderfully all that side of things has come right! Ishouldbe grateful, and I think I am;” but still she gave a little sigh.Sir Adam had carried out his scheme. He had taken a house in London for a part of the season, and had got his god-daughter and her children with him, excepting Herty, whom it had been thought wiser to leave under Miss Halliday’s care, not to interrupt his lessons.Just then Stasy joined her sister.“What are you doing, Blanche?” she said brightly.“I thought it was against your principles to stand idle at the window. Even though these lovely London streets are delightful to look out on.”Blanche smiled.“How you have changed, Stasy! London used to be a synonym with you for everything dreary and miserable.”“Yes, I daresay. London in November, with a fog, in a horrid hotel, and without a creature to speak to, isn’t exactly the same thing as London in May, in a bright open street like this, and with—really, I must say, everything one could reasonably wish to have.”“London means a great many things—worlds and worlds of different lives,” said Blanche soberly. “I was just thinking how bare the trees are, Stasy, compared with this time last year;” and she reminded her sister of the date.Stasy seemed impressed.“It should make us awfully thankful,” she said, “and I’m sure it does. But I don’t quite understand you lately, Blanchie. You so often seem rather depressed, and just a little gloomy.”She looked at her sister anxiously as she spoke.“I wonder,” she went on—“I wonder if it is that you kept up too well when we were in such trouble. You were always so cheerful, and I used to be so cross. Do you remember my raging at Mrs Burgess’s caps?”“No,” said Blanche decidedly. “You were always as good as could be. I don’t know how we should have got on without your fun and mischief, and I know I’ve grown horrid lately.”“Are you not well, perhaps?” said Stasy. “I don’t think you have been quite yourself for a long time. I remember noticing it first, that Christmas week at Alderwood, when I did so enjoy myself. Even Lady Marth couldn’t freeze me up.”“On the contrary, I think you’re rather a favourite of hers,” remarked Blanche.“Oh, I don’t mind her,” said Stasy. “She’s not bad, after all; only she wants to manage every one’s affairs for them. I wonder if she’ll ever succeed in her match-making?”“What do you mean?” said Blanche.“Oh, you know, you must have forgotten about it. Rosy Milward and Archie Dunstan, of course.”Blanche turned on her sharply.“I do hope, Stasy, you’re not going to get into that odious habit of calling men you scarcely know, by their first names.”Stasy opened her eyes very wide.“I do know him, very well, I consider, and so do you, only you don’t like him. We saw a great deal of him at Christmas time, andIshall always consider him a true friend, whether you do or not. And so will mamma, I’m sure; the way he stuck to us, and was so kind to Herty at the time when no one else troubled their heads about us at all. Indeed, I’m by no means sure that Sir Adam would have found out about us as he did, not for a long time anyway, but for Mr Dunstan the younger. Does that suit you, Blanchie?”Blanche took no notice of Stasy’s sarcasm.“I know he was very good at that time,” she said. “I think he has most kind and generous impulses, but I don’t think his character can be very deep.”“I think you are perfectly unfair and very censorious,” said Stasy indignantly. “Because you don’t personally like the man, andcannotgive any good reason for your dislike, you imagine qualities, or no qualities, to justify your own prejudice.”“Well, what does it matter what I think?” said Blanche, in a tone which she intended to be light and indifferent. “Rosy Milward’s opinion of him is, I suppose, the thing that signifies.”Somethingin her voice struck Stasy. She eyed Blanche curiously.“I don’t know that,” she said, speaking more slowly than was usual with her. “I’m not at all sure that Archie Dunstan does care in any special way what dear Rosy thinks about him.”“Do you not think so?” said Blanche, with involuntary eagerness; but before Stasy had time to reply, they were interrupted by their mother’s entering the room.“Quick, dears,” she said. “You must get ready. Sir Adam will be waiting for you.”For the kind old man was devoting himself to “doing” London for his adopted grand-daughters’ benefit, two or three times a week, in the earlier part of the day.At that very moment, at no great distance from the spot where Blanche and Stasy Derwent had been discussing Archie Dunstan’s character, the very person in question was sitting beside Lady Marth in her boudoir, listening to a very solemn oration discoursed, for his benefit, by that somewhat dictatorial lady herself.She had summoned him by a note the evening before, and as he felt himself in duty bound to obey the behest of an old friend, he had made his appearance punctually. He was not without some suspicion as to the nature of the good advice she intended to bestow upon him, but saw no advantage in evading the interview.“I must put an end to it, once for all,” he thought to himself. “Why will women meddle in such matters? But Josephine is honest and trustworthy when she feels herself trusted, so I’d rather have to do with her than with many would-be match-makers.”So he sat in silence, patiently enough, to all appearance, while Lady Marth unbosomed herself of what she considered her mission, prefacing her advice with the usual excuses for interference, on the ground that, sooner or later, both of the principals concerned would thank her for having acted as a true friend in the matter.Archie bent his head in acknowledgment of her kind intentions, but beyond this, neither by word nor look did he help her out with what she had to say.This attitude of his made her task by no means easier. For some little time she floundered about in unusual embarrassment; but once fairly under weigh, her words flowed fluently. She dilated on Archie’s lonely position—the advisability of his making up his mind to marry, instead of remaining a target for the aims of designing mammas or rich husband-hunting daughters, and possibly some day finding himself pinned by their well-directed arrows. She hinted at the satisfaction and security of being cared for, “for himself,” and by one who had known him long and thoroughly, to all of which Archie listened unmoved, with the utmost deference and attention, till her ladyship at last pulled up short, partly through breathlessness, partly because, without the encouragement of a responsive word or gesture, she had really nothing more to say.Then he looked up, but nothing in his face helped her to any conclusion as to the effect of her exordium.“I must thank you,” he said, “for your great interest in my welfare. Believe me, I shall always remember it.” Which statement was certainly well founded, though the glimmer of a smile danced in his eyes as he made his little speech.The smile, however, Lady Marth was too engrossed to perceive.“But”—and at this word, for the first time, her heart misgave her as to what was to follow—“but it is best for me at once to make you understand my position. I am not likely to marry. It seems to me at present almost certain that I never shall.”“Archie!” exclaimed Lady Marth, startled and surprised, “why not?”“Simply for this reason. There is only one woman in the world whom I can imagine myself caring for in that way, and she”—here, even Archies calm somewhat deserted him—“she,” he went on, with a touch of bitterness quite new to him, “won’t have anything to say to me.”“I can scarcely believe it,” exclaimed his hearer.“Theremustbe some mistake!”“Thank you for the inferred compliment,” he replied. “But no—it is quite true; there is no mistake.”Then a wild idea struck Lady Marth, suggested by her irrepressible belief in her own powers of discernment.“You don’t mean to say,” she began. “Is it possible that we are both thinking of the same person! It can’t be thatRosyhas refused you.”Archie laughed, quite unconstrainedly.“As things are,” he said, “I suppose I may be quite frank. Rosy!—oh dear, no; we are the best of friends, as you are aware, but thoroughly and completely like brother and sister. And it is by no means improbable that she suspects the real state of the case, as Hebe is in my confidence.”“Then who in all the world can it be?” said Lady Marth, completely nonplussed, “for somehow you seem to infer that it’s some one I know.”“I don’t mind telling you,” said Archie. “You do know her—it is Blanche Derwent.”For a moment or two Lady Marth did not speak. Then she said, half timidly:“It must have been very sudden. You have seen very little of her? Oh yes, there was that Christmas week at Alderwood.”“It all happened long before then,” said Archie.“It is true, I had not seen much of her, but it doesn’t seem to me now that time is required in such a case. It was soon after they left Pinnerton, and took up that millinery business.”“Before Sir Adam came home?”“Of course,” said Archie drily.“And she refused you—then?”“Naturally, as she didn’t care for me.”Lady Marth again relapsed into silence. The confusion of ideas in her mind was too great to find expression in words. She had read of such things; in novels, perhaps, they seemed credible and rather fine. But in real life—no, she couldn’t take it in.Archie showed no inclination to say more. He rose, and held out his hand.“Good-bye,” he said. “Thank you for your interest in me.”“Good-bye,” she replied, “and—no, perhaps I had better say nothing. Except, yes—honestly, Archie, I should like to see you happy.”“Thank you,” he repeated.When Archie found himself in the street again, he looked about him vaguely, and sauntered on, scarcely knowing why or whither, thinking over the interview which had just taken place, and recalling, not without a certain grim humour, Josephine Marth’s blank amazement.Suddenly the sound of his own name not far from him made him start, and looking up, on the opposite pavement he caught sight of three familiar figures, Sir Adam and his two “grand-daughters.”“Where are you off to?” said the old man. “You don’t look as if you were bound on anything very important. Come with us—we’re going to see some of the pictures.”Mr Dunstan hesitated.“Yes, do come,” said Stasy, with whom he was on the friendliest of terms. “Three is no company, you know, and I’m always getting left behind by myself.”He glanced up, still irresolute, but at that moment he caught Blanche’s eyes, and something—an impalpable something in their blue depths—brought him to a sudden determination.“If I won’t be in the way,” he said, “I should like nothing better.”And the four walked on together.“Norman,” said Lady Hebe that same evening, when they met for a few moments before dinner in her guardian’s house—it was within a week or two of the date fixed for their marriage—“Norman, I’ve something wonderful to tell you. Archie Dunstan rushed in late this afternoon to see me for a moment—”“Well?” said Norman, as she paused. “Do you want me to guess?”“No,” said Hebe, “I want to tell you straight off. Archie knew how I should enjoy doing so. Its all right, Norman—between him and Blanche, I mean. Just fancy!Aren’tyou pleased?”And never had Hebe’s face looked happier than as she said the words.End of “Blanche.”

May again! A later spring this year than last. As Blanche Derwent stood at the window of a house in a broad, airy street, at one end of which the trees of the Park were to be seen, she could scarcely believe it was same time of year, the same date, actually, as the day on which the news of their reversal of fortune had reached her mother at Pinnerton Lodge.

“That was such a lovely summery day,” she said to herself. “I remember it so well; Stasy and I walking home from Blissmore, laughing and talking—I even remember what we were talking about—how Stasy was flattering me;” and Blanche’s colour deepened a little. “And then to find poor mamma as she was when we got home! It was dreadful. And yet, how wonderfully all that side of things has come right! Ishouldbe grateful, and I think I am;” but still she gave a little sigh.

Sir Adam had carried out his scheme. He had taken a house in London for a part of the season, and had got his god-daughter and her children with him, excepting Herty, whom it had been thought wiser to leave under Miss Halliday’s care, not to interrupt his lessons.

Just then Stasy joined her sister.

“What are you doing, Blanche?” she said brightly.

“I thought it was against your principles to stand idle at the window. Even though these lovely London streets are delightful to look out on.”

Blanche smiled.

“How you have changed, Stasy! London used to be a synonym with you for everything dreary and miserable.”

“Yes, I daresay. London in November, with a fog, in a horrid hotel, and without a creature to speak to, isn’t exactly the same thing as London in May, in a bright open street like this, and with—really, I must say, everything one could reasonably wish to have.”

“London means a great many things—worlds and worlds of different lives,” said Blanche soberly. “I was just thinking how bare the trees are, Stasy, compared with this time last year;” and she reminded her sister of the date.

Stasy seemed impressed.

“It should make us awfully thankful,” she said, “and I’m sure it does. But I don’t quite understand you lately, Blanchie. You so often seem rather depressed, and just a little gloomy.”

She looked at her sister anxiously as she spoke.

“I wonder,” she went on—“I wonder if it is that you kept up too well when we were in such trouble. You were always so cheerful, and I used to be so cross. Do you remember my raging at Mrs Burgess’s caps?”

“No,” said Blanche decidedly. “You were always as good as could be. I don’t know how we should have got on without your fun and mischief, and I know I’ve grown horrid lately.”

“Are you not well, perhaps?” said Stasy. “I don’t think you have been quite yourself for a long time. I remember noticing it first, that Christmas week at Alderwood, when I did so enjoy myself. Even Lady Marth couldn’t freeze me up.”

“On the contrary, I think you’re rather a favourite of hers,” remarked Blanche.

“Oh, I don’t mind her,” said Stasy. “She’s not bad, after all; only she wants to manage every one’s affairs for them. I wonder if she’ll ever succeed in her match-making?”

“What do you mean?” said Blanche.

“Oh, you know, you must have forgotten about it. Rosy Milward and Archie Dunstan, of course.”

Blanche turned on her sharply.

“I do hope, Stasy, you’re not going to get into that odious habit of calling men you scarcely know, by their first names.”

Stasy opened her eyes very wide.

“I do know him, very well, I consider, and so do you, only you don’t like him. We saw a great deal of him at Christmas time, andIshall always consider him a true friend, whether you do or not. And so will mamma, I’m sure; the way he stuck to us, and was so kind to Herty at the time when no one else troubled their heads about us at all. Indeed, I’m by no means sure that Sir Adam would have found out about us as he did, not for a long time anyway, but for Mr Dunstan the younger. Does that suit you, Blanchie?”

Blanche took no notice of Stasy’s sarcasm.

“I know he was very good at that time,” she said. “I think he has most kind and generous impulses, but I don’t think his character can be very deep.”

“I think you are perfectly unfair and very censorious,” said Stasy indignantly. “Because you don’t personally like the man, andcannotgive any good reason for your dislike, you imagine qualities, or no qualities, to justify your own prejudice.”

“Well, what does it matter what I think?” said Blanche, in a tone which she intended to be light and indifferent. “Rosy Milward’s opinion of him is, I suppose, the thing that signifies.”

Somethingin her voice struck Stasy. She eyed Blanche curiously.

“I don’t know that,” she said, speaking more slowly than was usual with her. “I’m not at all sure that Archie Dunstan does care in any special way what dear Rosy thinks about him.”

“Do you not think so?” said Blanche, with involuntary eagerness; but before Stasy had time to reply, they were interrupted by their mother’s entering the room.

“Quick, dears,” she said. “You must get ready. Sir Adam will be waiting for you.”

For the kind old man was devoting himself to “doing” London for his adopted grand-daughters’ benefit, two or three times a week, in the earlier part of the day.

At that very moment, at no great distance from the spot where Blanche and Stasy Derwent had been discussing Archie Dunstan’s character, the very person in question was sitting beside Lady Marth in her boudoir, listening to a very solemn oration discoursed, for his benefit, by that somewhat dictatorial lady herself.

She had summoned him by a note the evening before, and as he felt himself in duty bound to obey the behest of an old friend, he had made his appearance punctually. He was not without some suspicion as to the nature of the good advice she intended to bestow upon him, but saw no advantage in evading the interview.

“I must put an end to it, once for all,” he thought to himself. “Why will women meddle in such matters? But Josephine is honest and trustworthy when she feels herself trusted, so I’d rather have to do with her than with many would-be match-makers.”

So he sat in silence, patiently enough, to all appearance, while Lady Marth unbosomed herself of what she considered her mission, prefacing her advice with the usual excuses for interference, on the ground that, sooner or later, both of the principals concerned would thank her for having acted as a true friend in the matter.

Archie bent his head in acknowledgment of her kind intentions, but beyond this, neither by word nor look did he help her out with what she had to say.

This attitude of his made her task by no means easier. For some little time she floundered about in unusual embarrassment; but once fairly under weigh, her words flowed fluently. She dilated on Archie’s lonely position—the advisability of his making up his mind to marry, instead of remaining a target for the aims of designing mammas or rich husband-hunting daughters, and possibly some day finding himself pinned by their well-directed arrows. She hinted at the satisfaction and security of being cared for, “for himself,” and by one who had known him long and thoroughly, to all of which Archie listened unmoved, with the utmost deference and attention, till her ladyship at last pulled up short, partly through breathlessness, partly because, without the encouragement of a responsive word or gesture, she had really nothing more to say.

Then he looked up, but nothing in his face helped her to any conclusion as to the effect of her exordium.

“I must thank you,” he said, “for your great interest in my welfare. Believe me, I shall always remember it.” Which statement was certainly well founded, though the glimmer of a smile danced in his eyes as he made his little speech.

The smile, however, Lady Marth was too engrossed to perceive.

“But”—and at this word, for the first time, her heart misgave her as to what was to follow—“but it is best for me at once to make you understand my position. I am not likely to marry. It seems to me at present almost certain that I never shall.”

“Archie!” exclaimed Lady Marth, startled and surprised, “why not?”

“Simply for this reason. There is only one woman in the world whom I can imagine myself caring for in that way, and she”—here, even Archies calm somewhat deserted him—“she,” he went on, with a touch of bitterness quite new to him, “won’t have anything to say to me.”

“I can scarcely believe it,” exclaimed his hearer.

“Theremustbe some mistake!”

“Thank you for the inferred compliment,” he replied. “But no—it is quite true; there is no mistake.”

Then a wild idea struck Lady Marth, suggested by her irrepressible belief in her own powers of discernment.

“You don’t mean to say,” she began. “Is it possible that we are both thinking of the same person! It can’t be thatRosyhas refused you.”

Archie laughed, quite unconstrainedly.

“As things are,” he said, “I suppose I may be quite frank. Rosy!—oh dear, no; we are the best of friends, as you are aware, but thoroughly and completely like brother and sister. And it is by no means improbable that she suspects the real state of the case, as Hebe is in my confidence.”

“Then who in all the world can it be?” said Lady Marth, completely nonplussed, “for somehow you seem to infer that it’s some one I know.”

“I don’t mind telling you,” said Archie. “You do know her—it is Blanche Derwent.”

For a moment or two Lady Marth did not speak. Then she said, half timidly:

“It must have been very sudden. You have seen very little of her? Oh yes, there was that Christmas week at Alderwood.”

“It all happened long before then,” said Archie.

“It is true, I had not seen much of her, but it doesn’t seem to me now that time is required in such a case. It was soon after they left Pinnerton, and took up that millinery business.”

“Before Sir Adam came home?”

“Of course,” said Archie drily.

“And she refused you—then?”

“Naturally, as she didn’t care for me.”

Lady Marth again relapsed into silence. The confusion of ideas in her mind was too great to find expression in words. She had read of such things; in novels, perhaps, they seemed credible and rather fine. But in real life—no, she couldn’t take it in.

Archie showed no inclination to say more. He rose, and held out his hand.

“Good-bye,” he said. “Thank you for your interest in me.”

“Good-bye,” she replied, “and—no, perhaps I had better say nothing. Except, yes—honestly, Archie, I should like to see you happy.”

“Thank you,” he repeated.

When Archie found himself in the street again, he looked about him vaguely, and sauntered on, scarcely knowing why or whither, thinking over the interview which had just taken place, and recalling, not without a certain grim humour, Josephine Marth’s blank amazement.

Suddenly the sound of his own name not far from him made him start, and looking up, on the opposite pavement he caught sight of three familiar figures, Sir Adam and his two “grand-daughters.”

“Where are you off to?” said the old man. “You don’t look as if you were bound on anything very important. Come with us—we’re going to see some of the pictures.”

Mr Dunstan hesitated.

“Yes, do come,” said Stasy, with whom he was on the friendliest of terms. “Three is no company, you know, and I’m always getting left behind by myself.”

He glanced up, still irresolute, but at that moment he caught Blanche’s eyes, and something—an impalpable something in their blue depths—brought him to a sudden determination.

“If I won’t be in the way,” he said, “I should like nothing better.”

And the four walked on together.

“Norman,” said Lady Hebe that same evening, when they met for a few moments before dinner in her guardian’s house—it was within a week or two of the date fixed for their marriage—“Norman, I’ve something wonderful to tell you. Archie Dunstan rushed in late this afternoon to see me for a moment—”

“Well?” said Norman, as she paused. “Do you want me to guess?”

“No,” said Hebe, “I want to tell you straight off. Archie knew how I should enjoy doing so. Its all right, Norman—between him and Blanche, I mean. Just fancy!Aren’tyou pleased?”

And never had Hebe’s face looked happier than as she said the words.

End of “Blanche.”

Chapter Twenty Five.One Sunday Morning.The Rector of a large West-end church was ill. His illness was not very serious, nor did it threaten to be protracted, but it fell at a bad moment. It was the middle of the season, the time at which his church was more crowded than at any other of the year. He was an earnest and thoughtful man, and one who, despite much discouragement, laboured energetically to do his best; but on the Friday evening, preceding the second Sunday in June, he was obliged to acknowledge that for some days he would be unfit to officiate in his usual place.“What shall I do?” he said in distress. “What shall I do about the sermon on Sunday morning? The curates can manage the rest, but it will be as much as theycando. I cannot ask either of them to prepare another sermon so hurriedly. And the one I had ready has cost me much time and thought—I had even built some hopes upon it. One never knows—”“Your sermon will keep till another Sunday. That is not the question,” said his wife.“No, truly,” he agreed, with some bitterness; “my sermon, as you say, will keep. Nor can I flatter myself that any one will be the loser if it never be preached at all. Do sermons ever do good, I sometimes ask myself? Yet many of us—I could almost say most of us—do our best. We spare neither time nor trouble nor prayer; but all falls on stony ground, it seems to me. And we are but human—liable to error and mistake, and but few among us have great gift of eloquence. It is easy, I know, to pick holes and criticise; but is the fault all on the side of the sermons, I wonder?”“You misunderstood me, Reginald,” said his wife gently. “No, truly; the fault must lie in great part with the hearers. All other efforts to instruct or do good are received with some amount of respect and appreciation. No popular lecturers, for instance, are listened to with such indifference or criticised so captiously as the mass of English clergy. It is the tone of the day, the fashion of the age. Though one rose from the dead—nay, if an angel from heaven came down to preach one Sunday morning,” she went on with sad impressiveness, “he would be found fault with, or sneered at, or criticised, and accused of having nothing to say, or not knowing how to say it; yes, I verily believe it would be so.”Her husband smiled, though his smile was a melancholy one, at her earnestness.“I have it,” he exclaimed suddenly; “I will write to Lyle by to-night’s post. He will come if he can, I am sure, and I know he only preaches occasionally where he is.”The letter was written and despatched. Mr Lyle was a young clergyman doing assistant duty temporarily at a church in the suburbs while waiting for a living promised to him. His answer came by return. He would be glad to do as his friend asked. “But I shall go straight to Saint X’s on Sunday morning,” he wrote. “I shall not probably be able to reach it till the last moment, as I have an early service here. Ask them to count on me for nothing but the sermon. I shall look in after the service and shall hope to find you better.”“He will be here at luncheon, then, I suppose?” said the Rector’s wife—Mildred was her name.“Doubtless; at least you will ask him to come. You can wait to see him after the service,” her husband replied. “With you there he will haveoneattentive hearer, I can safely promise him,” he added, with a smile.“I cannot help listening, even when it is not you, Reginald,” she said naïvely. “It seems to me only natural to do so and to try to gainsomethingat least. We cannot expect perfection in sermons surely, even less than in lesser things. And if the perfection were there, could we, imperfect as we are, recognise it?”Sunday morning rose, bright and glowing over the great city—a real midsummer’s day.“How beautiful it must be in the country to-day!” thought Mildred, as she made her way to church; “it is beautiful even here in town. I wonder why I feel so happy to-day. It is greatly, no doubt, that Reginald is better, and the sunshine is so lovely. When I feel as I do this morning Ilongto believe that the world is growing better, not worse, that the misery, and the ignorance, and the sins are lessening, however slowly; I feel as if I could give my life to help it on.”There was scarcely any one in the church when she entered and sat down in her accustomed place. Gradually it filled—up the aisles flecked with the brilliant colours of the painted windows, as the sunshine made its way through them, the congregation crowded in, in decorous silence. There were but few poor, few even of the the so-called working classes, for Saint X’s is in a rich and fashionable neighbourhood, yet there was diversity enough and of many kinds among those now pressing in through its doors. There were old, and middle-aged, and young—from the aged lady on her son’s arm, who, as she feebly moved along, said to herself that this might perhaps be her last attendance at public worship, to the little round-eyed wondering cherub coming to church for the first time. There was the anxious mother of a family, who came from a vague feeling that it was a right and respectable thing to do, though it was but seldom that she could sufficiently distract her mind from cares and calculations to take in clearly the sense of the words that fell upon her ears. There was the man of learning, who smiled indulgently at the survival of the ancient creeds and customs, while believing them doomed. There were bright and lovely young faces, whose owners, in the heyday of youth and prosperity, found it difficult to put aside for the time the thoughts of present enjoyment for graver matters. There were some in deep mourning, to whom, on the other hand, it seemed impossible that aught in life could ever cheer or interest them again.There were men and women of many different and differing modes of thought, all assembled for the avowed purpose of praying to God and praising Him in company, and of listening to the exhortation or instruction of a man they recognised as empowered to deliver it. And among them all, how many, think you, prayed from the heart and not only with the lips? how many thrilled with solemn rejoicing as the beautiful words of adoration rose with the strains of the organ’s tones? how many ever thought of the “sermon,” save as a most legitimate subject for sharp criticism or indifferent contempt?The service went on with the usual decorum. From her place Mildred could see all that passed. She noticed that the two curates were alone and unaided.“Mr Lyle cannot yet have come,” she thought nervously. “Surely nothing can have detained him?” and a slight misgiving, lest he should not have got away in time, began to assail her. But when the moment for commencing the Communion service came, the sight of a third white-surpliced figure removed all her apprehensions, and with a sigh of relief she knelt again, joining her voice to the responses. She observed that the new-comer took no active part in the service; he remained kneeling where she had first perceived him. But it seemed to her that the music and the voices had never sounded so rich and melodious, and once or twice tones caught her ears which she fancied she had not before remarked.“I wonder if it can be Mr Lyle singing,” she thought. “I do not remember if Reginald ever mentioned his having a beautiful voice.”And when the time came for the preacher to ascend the pulpit, she watched for him with increased interest. It needed but the first few syllables which fell from his lips to satisfy her that his was the voice which she had perceived; and with calm yet earnest expectancy she waited to hear what he had to say.At the first glance he looked very young. His face was pale, and he was of a fair complexion. There was nothing in him to strike or attract a careless or superficial observer. But when the soft yet penetrating tones of his voice caught the ear, one felt constrained to bestow a closer attention on the speaker, and this, once given, was not easily withdrawn. For there was a power in his eyes, though their habitual expression was mild, such as it would be vain for me to attempt to describe—a strength and firmness in the lines of the youthful face which marked him as one not used to speak in vain.“Is he young?” thought Mildred more than once. “It seems in some way difficult to believe it, though his features are in no way time-worn; and those wonderful eyes are as clear and candid as the eyes of a child that has scarcely yet learned to look out on to this troubled world.”And her perplexity was shared by many among the hearers.They had settled themselves comfortably to listen or not to listen, according to their wont, as the preacher ascended the pulpit steps.A momentary feeling of surprise—in a few cases of disappointment—passed through the congregation on catching sight of the unfamiliar face.“Another new curate, no doubt,” thought a portly and pompous churchwarden. “And what a boy! Well, if the Rector chooses to throw away his money on three when two are quite enough for the work, it is no business of ours. Still, it would be more becoming to consult us, and not to set a beardless youth like that to teach us. I, for one, shall not irritate myself by listening to his platitudes.”And he ensconsed himself more snugly in his corner to carry out his intention. But what was there in that vibrating voice thatwouldbe heard?—that so often as Mr Goldmain turned his thoughts in other directions, drew them back again like a flock of rebellious sheep, constraining him to hearken? Then his mood changed: annoyed, he knew not why, he set himself to cavil and object.“Arrant Socialism!” he called the sermon when describing it afterwards. “Shallow, superficial, unpractical nonsense, about drawing all classes together by sympathy and charity. It sounds plausible enough, I daresay; so did many of the theories and doctrines of the first movers in the great French Revolution, I have no doubt. No, no! Let each do his duty in that station of life where God has placed him; that ismyinterpretation of religion. Our great charitable institutions must be kept up, of course, so that thedeservingpoor may be helped when they really need it; though even among the respectable, in nine cases out of ten, my dear sir, you may believe me, it’s their own fault. But as for this dream of universal brotherhood, ‘of the rich mingling in the daily life of the poor, weeping with them in their sorrows, rejoicing in their joys,’ it is sentimental twaddle. It would revolutionise society, it would break down all the barriers which keep the masses in their places. And to have this nonsense preached to us by a chit of a boy, it makes me lose my temper, I confess. I have not seen our worthy Rector yet, but when I do, I must tell him plainly that if he is not more careful whom he puts in his pulpit when he is absent or ill—hypochondriacal fellow he is, I fancy—I shall look out for seats in some other church than Saint X’s.”Such was Mr Goldmain’s impression of the sermon. For though he closed his eyes in order that those about him might think he was asleep, he did not succeed in achieving even the shortest of dozes. Nay, more, he felt as if mentally stung by nettles for the rest of the day, so irritated, and, though for worlds he would not have confessed it, ill at ease, had the strange preacher’s discourse left him. But the soil of his conscience was choked with thorns; there was room for naught beside. Mr Goldmain was of this world, worldly, and such he remained.He might have spared himself the trouble of thinking of how he appeared to those around him. They were none of them paying any attention to him. In the next seat sat some richly-clad ladies of uncertain age. They had become members of the Saint X’s congregation because they had been told they would find its Rector’s views in no way “extreme.” For these worthy women had an exaggerated horror of everything “high,” or, as they expressed it, “verging on papistry.” That God could be worshipped “in spirit and in truth,” in any but their own pet “evangelical” fashion, was a possibility that had not yet suggested itself to their dull brains. And they too, this Sunday morning, felt a shock of disapproval when, looking up at the sound of the vibrating voice, the fair face of the strange preacher met their gaze.“Like a young novice, or whatever it is they call those who are going to be priests; looks as if he fasted and half-starved himself,” whispered one to the other. “The Rector should be more careful. Who knows but what he is a Jesuit in disguise?” replied the third.And at intervals during the sermon little groans or ejaculations of disapproval might have been heard from the seats of the wealthy spinsters.“I did my best not to listen,” said the eldest candidly, as they were walking home, “for I knew in a moment what it was going to be. But no doubt he had a persuasive tone and manner. Poor deluded young man—he will be over to Rome in no time! Did you hear—all that about ‘the Church?’—”“The ‘invisible’ Church, he spoke of also, I think,” suggested the younger sister timidly.“Ah, I daresay, just to hide their real meaning; but I can see through it. There was all that in favour of images, too—symbols he called them. What was it he said, Janet? You have the best memory.””‘The childlike expressions of human yearnings after the Divine, which is not for you to condemn or despise,’” quoted Janet.“Ah, yes—all very fine. We shall be having Madonnas and rosaries and graven images in our English churches next,” said the eldest sister somewhat confusedly.“He seemed to me a conscientious young man, very much in earnest, I should have said,” observed the younger sister humbly.“Of course, they take that tone; that is the very danger of it,” answered the elder lady. “I really must ask the Rector to be on his guard.”And yet by another group seated just across the aisle the stranger’s sermon had been criticised in a very different fashion. By some among his hearers his views were pronounced to be, not too “high,” or “leading to Rome,” but dangerously “broad.”“I dislike those allusions to ‘evolution’ and ‘development’ in the pulpit. It is not the place for science; our preachers should keep to the Bible, and not give heed to all the talk of the day about matters which have nothing to do with religion,” said an elderly gentleman dogmatically.His companion smiled; they, too, were walking down the street. “Yes, religion or teachers of religion get rather out of their depth when they touch upon science, certainly,” he said.“But if science be true, and religion be true,truthscannot disagree,” said a young girl, who was walking between the two, her bright intelligent face raised to the last speaker, her brother, as he spoke. “You are a very clever and learned man, Gerald, and I am only a very young and ignorant girl, but yet Ifeelyou are wrong, and I never felt this more intensely than when listening to this stranger this morning. Why should we refuse to believe what we cannot understand? Is it not the very height of presumption, and even stupidity, to do so? I cannot remember his words, but they seemed to me to say it as I have never heard it said before. And—I hoped you felt it so, too.”But the philosopher only shook his head. The two were some paces in front of the old gentleman by now; they knew that such talk annoyed him, hedged in, in his “orthodoxy.”“I am glad if you were pleased, my dear child,” said the brother; “but I must keep to my old opinion. Reality and dreamscannotbe reconciled. We can only know that which we have experience of. Still, I allow that he put it in rather an original way.”“You mean,” said the girl, eagerly, “when he said that our refusing to believe in God and the spiritual universe, because we cannot see and touch them, is like a deaf-mute refusing to believe in music—that we complain of the things of God not being proved and explained to us before we have learned the alphabet of the spiritual language.”“That we complain of not being treated as gods before we have learned to live as men. Yes, that was rather fine,” the other allowed. “But still, my dear child, I cannot see that these discussions are profitable. We have plenty to do and learn about matters as to which wecanarrive at certainty. Why not be content to leave those matters as to which weknownothing? I don’t quarrel with the clergy for trying to bring us to a different way of thinking; it is their business, and as long as there are priests, we must submit to their platitudes. But what can a young theologian, determined to see things in but one way, know of the researches of science, the true spirit of philosophy?”The girl looked grievously disappointed, and tears filled her beautiful eyes.“Gerald,” she said, “I could not live in the negation of all belief that you advocate; still less,” she went on in a lower voice, “could I die in it. Uncle thought the preacher dangerously ‘liberal;’youthink him narrow and ignorant. For me, I can only say, if I may use the words without irreverence, that my heart burned within me as I listened.”“Little enthusiast!” said her brother, smiling. Mentally he thought to himself that it would really be a pity if Agatha went too far in “that direction,” and his eyes wandering across the street, caught sight of a party of young people, laughing and talking, though in well-bred fashion, as they went along. “She should be more like other girls of her age,” he reflected, as his glance again fell on the thoughtful young face at his side.“You should be pleased and flattered, Agatha,” he said, “that I gave so much attention as I did to this pet preacher of yours.”“I don’t know him, Gerald,” she replied. “I never saw or heard him before.”“Really,” he said, “I had half an idea that you had some reason for so particularly asking me to go to church this morning.”“Oh, no. I expected the Rector would be preaching himself,” she said. “But I am glad you came, Gerald. You do allow that it was a remarkable sermon.”“Ye-es,” he replied, smiling again, and with that Agatha was forced to be contented.Across the street the same subject was being discussed.“I feel quite tired,” laughed one of the pretty girls to the man beside her. “Do you know, for once in my life, I really listened to the sermon?”“You don’t mean to say so,” he replied. But something in his tone made her glance up at him archly.“Why do you seem so conscious?” she said. “Were you asleep?”“No, I scarcely think so. I was very sleepy at the beginning, it was so hot. But there was something rather impressive in that fellow’s voice. To confess the truth, I caught myself listening, like you.”“If one could always listen, it would make church-going less wearisome,” said the girl. “As a rule, I never attempt it; they always say the same thing.”“And there was nothing particularly new in what that pale-faced young man had to say this morning, after all,” said her companion. “It was the mere accident of his having an unusually good voice.”“Yes, I suppose so,” replied the young lady, indifferently, “though I’ve really forgotten what it was about—there are too many other things to think about when one is young and—”“Lovely,” interrupted her companion. “Yes—and for my part I don’t see what we’re in the world for, if it isn’t to make ourselves as happy as we can. That’smyreligion.”“A very pleasant one, if it has no other merit,” the girl replied, with a laugh.At that moment a carriage passed them. It had but one occupant—an elderly lady. Her face, though worn and even prematurely aged, was sweet and calm. Her glance fell for an instant on the upturned laughing face of the girl.“Something in her recalls my Margaret,” thought the lady; “but Margaret was more serious. How is it that they all seem to have been so near me to-day? All my dead children who have left me—I am so glad I went to church. I have not felt so near them all for years. I could almost fancy that young man knew something of my sorrows, his glance rested on me once or twice with such sympathy. How beautiful and how strengthening were his words! Yes—we are not really separated—I am content to wait while God has work for me to do here. And I am glad I am rich when I feel how many I can help. God bless that preacher, whoever he is, for the strength and comfort he has given me to-day.”Mildred in her place sat quietly waiting till the congregation had dispersed. Then she rose and went forward to speak to the verger.“Will you tell the clergyman,” she said, “Mr Lyle is his name—that I hope he will return with me to the rectory to luncheon. I will wait here till he comes out.”The man went with her message. But in a moment or two he reappeared looking somewhat surprised.“He has gone, ma’am,” he said. “I can’t make out how he went off so quickly. No one seems to have seen him.”“He must have hurried off at once. No doubt I shall find him at home,” she said, feeling nevertheless a little disappointed. She had looked forward to the few minutes’ talk with the preacher who had so impressed her; she would have liked to thank him without delay.“I shall feel too shy to say it to him before Reginald, I am afraid,” she thought. “I am a little surprised he did not tell me more of this Mr Lyle.”And she set off eagerly to return home. At the church door she almost ran against one of the curates, an honest and hard-working, but dictatorial young man, with whom she did not feel much sympathy. He accompanied her a few steps down the street.“And how did you like the sermon?” he said.Mildred replied by repeating his own question, hoping thus to escape a discussion she felt sure would not be to her mind.“How didyoulike it, Mr Grenfell?” she asked.He smiled in a superior way, conscious to his fingertips of his unassailable theology.“I daresay he may come to be something of a preacher in time,” he said. “But he was crude—very crude—and I should say he would do well to go through a good course of divinity. He evidentlythinkshe knows all about it; but if I could have a talk with him I could knock his arguments to shivers, I could—”“Mr Grenfell,” said Mildred, feeling very repelled by his manner, “do you think religion is only theology of the Schools? If you could not feel the love of God, and love to man—the ‘enthusiasm of humanity,’ if you like to call it so—breathing through Mr Lyle’s every word and look and tone, I am sorry for you.”Mr Grenfell grew very red.“I am sorry,” he began, “I did not mean—I will think over what you say. Perhaps it is true that we clergy get into that way of thinking—as if religion were a branch of learning more than anything else. Thank you,” and with a shake of the hand he turned away.A step or two further on, Mildred overtook a young man—a cripple, and owing to his infirmity, in poor circumstances, though a gentleman by birth. She was passing with a kindly bow, when he stopped her.“Might I ask the name of the clergyman who preached this morning?” he asked, raising his face, still glowing with pleasure, to hers.“Mr Lyle,” she replied; “at least,” as for the first time a slight misgiving crossed her mind, “I feel almost sure that is his name.”“Thank you,” the cripple said. “I am glad to know it, though it matters little. Whoever he was, I pray God to bless him, I little knew what I was going to church to hear this morning; I felt as if an angel had unawares come to speak to us.”And in the relief of this warm sympathy Mildred held out her hand.“Thankyou, Mr Denis, for speaking so,” she said; “you are the first who seem to have felt as I did.”Then she hurried on.She found her husband on the sofa, but looking feverish and uneasy.“How?” he began, but she interrupted him.“Is Mr Lyle not here?” she said.“Mr Lyle!” Reginald repeated. “What do you mean? You had scarcely gone when a special messenger brought this from him;” and he held out a short note of excessive regret and apology from the young priest, at finding the utter impossibility of reaching Saint X’s in time for the morning service. “I have been on thorns,” said the Rector, “and I could do nothing. There was no one to send. Did Grenfell preach, or was there no sermon?”Mildred sat down, feeling strangely bewildered.“I cannot explain it,” she said. “Reginald, tell me what is Mr Lyle’s personal appearance? Can he have come after all? even after despatching his message? Is he slight and fair—rather tall and almost boyish-looking, but with most sweet yet keen eyes, and a wonderful voice?”The Rector could hardly help smiling.“Lyle,” he replied, “is slight, but short, and dark—very dark, with a quick lively way of moving, and a rather thin, though clear voice. He has not a grain of music or poetry in his composition.”Nothing could be more unlike the preacher of that morning.Mildred told her husband all she could recollect of the sermon. Its vivid impression remained; but the words had grown hazy, and curiously enough she could not recall the text. But Reginald listened with full sympathy and belief.“I wish I could have heard it,” he said. “Were the days for such blessed visitations not over, I should think.” But there he hesitated.Mildred understood, and the words of the cripple, Mr Denis—“an angel unawares”—returned to her memory.The events I have related were never explained, nor of the many who had been present that Sunday morning at Saint X’s did any ever again look upon the fair face of the mysterious stranger.But—till the matter had passed from the minds of all but two or three—the Rector had to listen with patience to much fault-finding with the sermon, and with its preacher.The End.

The Rector of a large West-end church was ill. His illness was not very serious, nor did it threaten to be protracted, but it fell at a bad moment. It was the middle of the season, the time at which his church was more crowded than at any other of the year. He was an earnest and thoughtful man, and one who, despite much discouragement, laboured energetically to do his best; but on the Friday evening, preceding the second Sunday in June, he was obliged to acknowledge that for some days he would be unfit to officiate in his usual place.

“What shall I do?” he said in distress. “What shall I do about the sermon on Sunday morning? The curates can manage the rest, but it will be as much as theycando. I cannot ask either of them to prepare another sermon so hurriedly. And the one I had ready has cost me much time and thought—I had even built some hopes upon it. One never knows—”

“Your sermon will keep till another Sunday. That is not the question,” said his wife.

“No, truly,” he agreed, with some bitterness; “my sermon, as you say, will keep. Nor can I flatter myself that any one will be the loser if it never be preached at all. Do sermons ever do good, I sometimes ask myself? Yet many of us—I could almost say most of us—do our best. We spare neither time nor trouble nor prayer; but all falls on stony ground, it seems to me. And we are but human—liable to error and mistake, and but few among us have great gift of eloquence. It is easy, I know, to pick holes and criticise; but is the fault all on the side of the sermons, I wonder?”

“You misunderstood me, Reginald,” said his wife gently. “No, truly; the fault must lie in great part with the hearers. All other efforts to instruct or do good are received with some amount of respect and appreciation. No popular lecturers, for instance, are listened to with such indifference or criticised so captiously as the mass of English clergy. It is the tone of the day, the fashion of the age. Though one rose from the dead—nay, if an angel from heaven came down to preach one Sunday morning,” she went on with sad impressiveness, “he would be found fault with, or sneered at, or criticised, and accused of having nothing to say, or not knowing how to say it; yes, I verily believe it would be so.”

Her husband smiled, though his smile was a melancholy one, at her earnestness.

“I have it,” he exclaimed suddenly; “I will write to Lyle by to-night’s post. He will come if he can, I am sure, and I know he only preaches occasionally where he is.”

The letter was written and despatched. Mr Lyle was a young clergyman doing assistant duty temporarily at a church in the suburbs while waiting for a living promised to him. His answer came by return. He would be glad to do as his friend asked. “But I shall go straight to Saint X’s on Sunday morning,” he wrote. “I shall not probably be able to reach it till the last moment, as I have an early service here. Ask them to count on me for nothing but the sermon. I shall look in after the service and shall hope to find you better.”

“He will be here at luncheon, then, I suppose?” said the Rector’s wife—Mildred was her name.

“Doubtless; at least you will ask him to come. You can wait to see him after the service,” her husband replied. “With you there he will haveoneattentive hearer, I can safely promise him,” he added, with a smile.

“I cannot help listening, even when it is not you, Reginald,” she said naïvely. “It seems to me only natural to do so and to try to gainsomethingat least. We cannot expect perfection in sermons surely, even less than in lesser things. And if the perfection were there, could we, imperfect as we are, recognise it?”

Sunday morning rose, bright and glowing over the great city—a real midsummer’s day.

“How beautiful it must be in the country to-day!” thought Mildred, as she made her way to church; “it is beautiful even here in town. I wonder why I feel so happy to-day. It is greatly, no doubt, that Reginald is better, and the sunshine is so lovely. When I feel as I do this morning Ilongto believe that the world is growing better, not worse, that the misery, and the ignorance, and the sins are lessening, however slowly; I feel as if I could give my life to help it on.”

There was scarcely any one in the church when she entered and sat down in her accustomed place. Gradually it filled—up the aisles flecked with the brilliant colours of the painted windows, as the sunshine made its way through them, the congregation crowded in, in decorous silence. There were but few poor, few even of the the so-called working classes, for Saint X’s is in a rich and fashionable neighbourhood, yet there was diversity enough and of many kinds among those now pressing in through its doors. There were old, and middle-aged, and young—from the aged lady on her son’s arm, who, as she feebly moved along, said to herself that this might perhaps be her last attendance at public worship, to the little round-eyed wondering cherub coming to church for the first time. There was the anxious mother of a family, who came from a vague feeling that it was a right and respectable thing to do, though it was but seldom that she could sufficiently distract her mind from cares and calculations to take in clearly the sense of the words that fell upon her ears. There was the man of learning, who smiled indulgently at the survival of the ancient creeds and customs, while believing them doomed. There were bright and lovely young faces, whose owners, in the heyday of youth and prosperity, found it difficult to put aside for the time the thoughts of present enjoyment for graver matters. There were some in deep mourning, to whom, on the other hand, it seemed impossible that aught in life could ever cheer or interest them again.

There were men and women of many different and differing modes of thought, all assembled for the avowed purpose of praying to God and praising Him in company, and of listening to the exhortation or instruction of a man they recognised as empowered to deliver it. And among them all, how many, think you, prayed from the heart and not only with the lips? how many thrilled with solemn rejoicing as the beautiful words of adoration rose with the strains of the organ’s tones? how many ever thought of the “sermon,” save as a most legitimate subject for sharp criticism or indifferent contempt?

The service went on with the usual decorum. From her place Mildred could see all that passed. She noticed that the two curates were alone and unaided.

“Mr Lyle cannot yet have come,” she thought nervously. “Surely nothing can have detained him?” and a slight misgiving, lest he should not have got away in time, began to assail her. But when the moment for commencing the Communion service came, the sight of a third white-surpliced figure removed all her apprehensions, and with a sigh of relief she knelt again, joining her voice to the responses. She observed that the new-comer took no active part in the service; he remained kneeling where she had first perceived him. But it seemed to her that the music and the voices had never sounded so rich and melodious, and once or twice tones caught her ears which she fancied she had not before remarked.

“I wonder if it can be Mr Lyle singing,” she thought. “I do not remember if Reginald ever mentioned his having a beautiful voice.”

And when the time came for the preacher to ascend the pulpit, she watched for him with increased interest. It needed but the first few syllables which fell from his lips to satisfy her that his was the voice which she had perceived; and with calm yet earnest expectancy she waited to hear what he had to say.

At the first glance he looked very young. His face was pale, and he was of a fair complexion. There was nothing in him to strike or attract a careless or superficial observer. But when the soft yet penetrating tones of his voice caught the ear, one felt constrained to bestow a closer attention on the speaker, and this, once given, was not easily withdrawn. For there was a power in his eyes, though their habitual expression was mild, such as it would be vain for me to attempt to describe—a strength and firmness in the lines of the youthful face which marked him as one not used to speak in vain.

“Is he young?” thought Mildred more than once. “It seems in some way difficult to believe it, though his features are in no way time-worn; and those wonderful eyes are as clear and candid as the eyes of a child that has scarcely yet learned to look out on to this troubled world.”

And her perplexity was shared by many among the hearers.

They had settled themselves comfortably to listen or not to listen, according to their wont, as the preacher ascended the pulpit steps.

A momentary feeling of surprise—in a few cases of disappointment—passed through the congregation on catching sight of the unfamiliar face.

“Another new curate, no doubt,” thought a portly and pompous churchwarden. “And what a boy! Well, if the Rector chooses to throw away his money on three when two are quite enough for the work, it is no business of ours. Still, it would be more becoming to consult us, and not to set a beardless youth like that to teach us. I, for one, shall not irritate myself by listening to his platitudes.”

And he ensconsed himself more snugly in his corner to carry out his intention. But what was there in that vibrating voice thatwouldbe heard?—that so often as Mr Goldmain turned his thoughts in other directions, drew them back again like a flock of rebellious sheep, constraining him to hearken? Then his mood changed: annoyed, he knew not why, he set himself to cavil and object.

“Arrant Socialism!” he called the sermon when describing it afterwards. “Shallow, superficial, unpractical nonsense, about drawing all classes together by sympathy and charity. It sounds plausible enough, I daresay; so did many of the theories and doctrines of the first movers in the great French Revolution, I have no doubt. No, no! Let each do his duty in that station of life where God has placed him; that ismyinterpretation of religion. Our great charitable institutions must be kept up, of course, so that thedeservingpoor may be helped when they really need it; though even among the respectable, in nine cases out of ten, my dear sir, you may believe me, it’s their own fault. But as for this dream of universal brotherhood, ‘of the rich mingling in the daily life of the poor, weeping with them in their sorrows, rejoicing in their joys,’ it is sentimental twaddle. It would revolutionise society, it would break down all the barriers which keep the masses in their places. And to have this nonsense preached to us by a chit of a boy, it makes me lose my temper, I confess. I have not seen our worthy Rector yet, but when I do, I must tell him plainly that if he is not more careful whom he puts in his pulpit when he is absent or ill—hypochondriacal fellow he is, I fancy—I shall look out for seats in some other church than Saint X’s.”

Such was Mr Goldmain’s impression of the sermon. For though he closed his eyes in order that those about him might think he was asleep, he did not succeed in achieving even the shortest of dozes. Nay, more, he felt as if mentally stung by nettles for the rest of the day, so irritated, and, though for worlds he would not have confessed it, ill at ease, had the strange preacher’s discourse left him. But the soil of his conscience was choked with thorns; there was room for naught beside. Mr Goldmain was of this world, worldly, and such he remained.

He might have spared himself the trouble of thinking of how he appeared to those around him. They were none of them paying any attention to him. In the next seat sat some richly-clad ladies of uncertain age. They had become members of the Saint X’s congregation because they had been told they would find its Rector’s views in no way “extreme.” For these worthy women had an exaggerated horror of everything “high,” or, as they expressed it, “verging on papistry.” That God could be worshipped “in spirit and in truth,” in any but their own pet “evangelical” fashion, was a possibility that had not yet suggested itself to their dull brains. And they too, this Sunday morning, felt a shock of disapproval when, looking up at the sound of the vibrating voice, the fair face of the strange preacher met their gaze.

“Like a young novice, or whatever it is they call those who are going to be priests; looks as if he fasted and half-starved himself,” whispered one to the other. “The Rector should be more careful. Who knows but what he is a Jesuit in disguise?” replied the third.

And at intervals during the sermon little groans or ejaculations of disapproval might have been heard from the seats of the wealthy spinsters.

“I did my best not to listen,” said the eldest candidly, as they were walking home, “for I knew in a moment what it was going to be. But no doubt he had a persuasive tone and manner. Poor deluded young man—he will be over to Rome in no time! Did you hear—all that about ‘the Church?’—”

“The ‘invisible’ Church, he spoke of also, I think,” suggested the younger sister timidly.

“Ah, I daresay, just to hide their real meaning; but I can see through it. There was all that in favour of images, too—symbols he called them. What was it he said, Janet? You have the best memory.”

”‘The childlike expressions of human yearnings after the Divine, which is not for you to condemn or despise,’” quoted Janet.

“Ah, yes—all very fine. We shall be having Madonnas and rosaries and graven images in our English churches next,” said the eldest sister somewhat confusedly.

“He seemed to me a conscientious young man, very much in earnest, I should have said,” observed the younger sister humbly.

“Of course, they take that tone; that is the very danger of it,” answered the elder lady. “I really must ask the Rector to be on his guard.”

And yet by another group seated just across the aisle the stranger’s sermon had been criticised in a very different fashion. By some among his hearers his views were pronounced to be, not too “high,” or “leading to Rome,” but dangerously “broad.”

“I dislike those allusions to ‘evolution’ and ‘development’ in the pulpit. It is not the place for science; our preachers should keep to the Bible, and not give heed to all the talk of the day about matters which have nothing to do with religion,” said an elderly gentleman dogmatically.

His companion smiled; they, too, were walking down the street. “Yes, religion or teachers of religion get rather out of their depth when they touch upon science, certainly,” he said.

“But if science be true, and religion be true,truthscannot disagree,” said a young girl, who was walking between the two, her bright intelligent face raised to the last speaker, her brother, as he spoke. “You are a very clever and learned man, Gerald, and I am only a very young and ignorant girl, but yet Ifeelyou are wrong, and I never felt this more intensely than when listening to this stranger this morning. Why should we refuse to believe what we cannot understand? Is it not the very height of presumption, and even stupidity, to do so? I cannot remember his words, but they seemed to me to say it as I have never heard it said before. And—I hoped you felt it so, too.”

But the philosopher only shook his head. The two were some paces in front of the old gentleman by now; they knew that such talk annoyed him, hedged in, in his “orthodoxy.”

“I am glad if you were pleased, my dear child,” said the brother; “but I must keep to my old opinion. Reality and dreamscannotbe reconciled. We can only know that which we have experience of. Still, I allow that he put it in rather an original way.”

“You mean,” said the girl, eagerly, “when he said that our refusing to believe in God and the spiritual universe, because we cannot see and touch them, is like a deaf-mute refusing to believe in music—that we complain of the things of God not being proved and explained to us before we have learned the alphabet of the spiritual language.”

“That we complain of not being treated as gods before we have learned to live as men. Yes, that was rather fine,” the other allowed. “But still, my dear child, I cannot see that these discussions are profitable. We have plenty to do and learn about matters as to which wecanarrive at certainty. Why not be content to leave those matters as to which weknownothing? I don’t quarrel with the clergy for trying to bring us to a different way of thinking; it is their business, and as long as there are priests, we must submit to their platitudes. But what can a young theologian, determined to see things in but one way, know of the researches of science, the true spirit of philosophy?”

The girl looked grievously disappointed, and tears filled her beautiful eyes.

“Gerald,” she said, “I could not live in the negation of all belief that you advocate; still less,” she went on in a lower voice, “could I die in it. Uncle thought the preacher dangerously ‘liberal;’youthink him narrow and ignorant. For me, I can only say, if I may use the words without irreverence, that my heart burned within me as I listened.”

“Little enthusiast!” said her brother, smiling. Mentally he thought to himself that it would really be a pity if Agatha went too far in “that direction,” and his eyes wandering across the street, caught sight of a party of young people, laughing and talking, though in well-bred fashion, as they went along. “She should be more like other girls of her age,” he reflected, as his glance again fell on the thoughtful young face at his side.

“You should be pleased and flattered, Agatha,” he said, “that I gave so much attention as I did to this pet preacher of yours.”

“I don’t know him, Gerald,” she replied. “I never saw or heard him before.”

“Really,” he said, “I had half an idea that you had some reason for so particularly asking me to go to church this morning.”

“Oh, no. I expected the Rector would be preaching himself,” she said. “But I am glad you came, Gerald. You do allow that it was a remarkable sermon.”

“Ye-es,” he replied, smiling again, and with that Agatha was forced to be contented.

Across the street the same subject was being discussed.

“I feel quite tired,” laughed one of the pretty girls to the man beside her. “Do you know, for once in my life, I really listened to the sermon?”

“You don’t mean to say so,” he replied. But something in his tone made her glance up at him archly.

“Why do you seem so conscious?” she said. “Were you asleep?”

“No, I scarcely think so. I was very sleepy at the beginning, it was so hot. But there was something rather impressive in that fellow’s voice. To confess the truth, I caught myself listening, like you.”

“If one could always listen, it would make church-going less wearisome,” said the girl. “As a rule, I never attempt it; they always say the same thing.”

“And there was nothing particularly new in what that pale-faced young man had to say this morning, after all,” said her companion. “It was the mere accident of his having an unusually good voice.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” replied the young lady, indifferently, “though I’ve really forgotten what it was about—there are too many other things to think about when one is young and—”

“Lovely,” interrupted her companion. “Yes—and for my part I don’t see what we’re in the world for, if it isn’t to make ourselves as happy as we can. That’smyreligion.”

“A very pleasant one, if it has no other merit,” the girl replied, with a laugh.

At that moment a carriage passed them. It had but one occupant—an elderly lady. Her face, though worn and even prematurely aged, was sweet and calm. Her glance fell for an instant on the upturned laughing face of the girl.

“Something in her recalls my Margaret,” thought the lady; “but Margaret was more serious. How is it that they all seem to have been so near me to-day? All my dead children who have left me—I am so glad I went to church. I have not felt so near them all for years. I could almost fancy that young man knew something of my sorrows, his glance rested on me once or twice with such sympathy. How beautiful and how strengthening were his words! Yes—we are not really separated—I am content to wait while God has work for me to do here. And I am glad I am rich when I feel how many I can help. God bless that preacher, whoever he is, for the strength and comfort he has given me to-day.”

Mildred in her place sat quietly waiting till the congregation had dispersed. Then she rose and went forward to speak to the verger.

“Will you tell the clergyman,” she said, “Mr Lyle is his name—that I hope he will return with me to the rectory to luncheon. I will wait here till he comes out.”

The man went with her message. But in a moment or two he reappeared looking somewhat surprised.

“He has gone, ma’am,” he said. “I can’t make out how he went off so quickly. No one seems to have seen him.”

“He must have hurried off at once. No doubt I shall find him at home,” she said, feeling nevertheless a little disappointed. She had looked forward to the few minutes’ talk with the preacher who had so impressed her; she would have liked to thank him without delay.

“I shall feel too shy to say it to him before Reginald, I am afraid,” she thought. “I am a little surprised he did not tell me more of this Mr Lyle.”

And she set off eagerly to return home. At the church door she almost ran against one of the curates, an honest and hard-working, but dictatorial young man, with whom she did not feel much sympathy. He accompanied her a few steps down the street.

“And how did you like the sermon?” he said.

Mildred replied by repeating his own question, hoping thus to escape a discussion she felt sure would not be to her mind.

“How didyoulike it, Mr Grenfell?” she asked.

He smiled in a superior way, conscious to his fingertips of his unassailable theology.

“I daresay he may come to be something of a preacher in time,” he said. “But he was crude—very crude—and I should say he would do well to go through a good course of divinity. He evidentlythinkshe knows all about it; but if I could have a talk with him I could knock his arguments to shivers, I could—”

“Mr Grenfell,” said Mildred, feeling very repelled by his manner, “do you think religion is only theology of the Schools? If you could not feel the love of God, and love to man—the ‘enthusiasm of humanity,’ if you like to call it so—breathing through Mr Lyle’s every word and look and tone, I am sorry for you.”

Mr Grenfell grew very red.

“I am sorry,” he began, “I did not mean—I will think over what you say. Perhaps it is true that we clergy get into that way of thinking—as if religion were a branch of learning more than anything else. Thank you,” and with a shake of the hand he turned away.

A step or two further on, Mildred overtook a young man—a cripple, and owing to his infirmity, in poor circumstances, though a gentleman by birth. She was passing with a kindly bow, when he stopped her.

“Might I ask the name of the clergyman who preached this morning?” he asked, raising his face, still glowing with pleasure, to hers.

“Mr Lyle,” she replied; “at least,” as for the first time a slight misgiving crossed her mind, “I feel almost sure that is his name.”

“Thank you,” the cripple said. “I am glad to know it, though it matters little. Whoever he was, I pray God to bless him, I little knew what I was going to church to hear this morning; I felt as if an angel had unawares come to speak to us.”

And in the relief of this warm sympathy Mildred held out her hand.

“Thankyou, Mr Denis, for speaking so,” she said; “you are the first who seem to have felt as I did.”

Then she hurried on.

She found her husband on the sofa, but looking feverish and uneasy.

“How?” he began, but she interrupted him.

“Is Mr Lyle not here?” she said.

“Mr Lyle!” Reginald repeated. “What do you mean? You had scarcely gone when a special messenger brought this from him;” and he held out a short note of excessive regret and apology from the young priest, at finding the utter impossibility of reaching Saint X’s in time for the morning service. “I have been on thorns,” said the Rector, “and I could do nothing. There was no one to send. Did Grenfell preach, or was there no sermon?”

Mildred sat down, feeling strangely bewildered.

“I cannot explain it,” she said. “Reginald, tell me what is Mr Lyle’s personal appearance? Can he have come after all? even after despatching his message? Is he slight and fair—rather tall and almost boyish-looking, but with most sweet yet keen eyes, and a wonderful voice?”

The Rector could hardly help smiling.

“Lyle,” he replied, “is slight, but short, and dark—very dark, with a quick lively way of moving, and a rather thin, though clear voice. He has not a grain of music or poetry in his composition.”

Nothing could be more unlike the preacher of that morning.

Mildred told her husband all she could recollect of the sermon. Its vivid impression remained; but the words had grown hazy, and curiously enough she could not recall the text. But Reginald listened with full sympathy and belief.

“I wish I could have heard it,” he said. “Were the days for such blessed visitations not over, I should think.” But there he hesitated.

Mildred understood, and the words of the cripple, Mr Denis—“an angel unawares”—returned to her memory.

The events I have related were never explained, nor of the many who had been present that Sunday morning at Saint X’s did any ever again look upon the fair face of the mysterious stranger.

But—till the matter had passed from the minds of all but two or three—the Rector had to listen with patience to much fault-finding with the sermon, and with its preacher.

The End.

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