"It is false, on my honour. You will not allow it to make any difference to our——"
"Not allow it to make any difference," interposed Lizzie, imperiously cutting short his words. "Do you take me for a fool, Ben Carr?You'veseen the last of me, I can tell you that; and if pa were living still, he should prosecute you for getting my consent to a marriage under false pretences."
"If I do not prosecute you, Benjamin Carr," resumed Mrs. Dundyke, "you owe it partly to my consideration for your family, partly to the unhappy fact that it could not bring my poor husband back to life. It could not restore to him the mental power he lost, the faculties that were destroyed. It could not bring back to me my lost happiness. How far you may have been guilty, I know not. It must rest with your conscience, and so shall your punishment."
He stood something like a stag at bay—half doubting whether to slink away, whether to turn and beard his pursuers. Barbara Fauntleroy threw wide the door.
"You had better quit us, I think, Mr. Carr."
"I see what it is," said he, at length, to the Miss Fauntleroys. "You are just now too prejudiced to listen to reason. The tale that woman has been telling you of me is a mistaken one; and when you are calm, I will endeavour to convince you of it."
"Calm, man!" cried Barbara, with a laugh. "I'm calm enough. It isn't such an interlude, as this, that could take any calmness away from me. It has been as good to me as a scene at the play."
But the gentleman did not wait to hear the conclusion. He had escaped through the open door. Those left stared at one another.
"Come along," said Lizzie, with unruffled composure; "don't let the dinner get colder than it is. I dare say I'm well rid of him. Where's our glasses of champagne? A drop will do us all good. Oh dear, Mrs. Dundyke!Praydon't suffer it to trouble you!"
She had sat down in a far corner, poor woman, with her face hidden, drowned in a storm of silent tears.
The event, quickly though it had transpired—over, as it were, in a moment—exercised a powerful influence on the spirits of Mrs. Dundyke. It brought the old trouble so vividly before her, that she could not rally again as the days went on; and she told Mildred that she should go back to London, but would come to her again at a future time. The resolution was a sudden one. Mrs. Arkell happened to call the same day, and was told of it.
"Going back to London to-morrow!" repeated Mrs. Arkell in consternation; and she hastened to her sister's room.
Mrs. Dundyke had her drawers all out, and her travelling trunk open, beginning to put things together. Mrs. Arkell went in, and closed the door.
"Betsey, you are going back, I hear; therefore I must at once ask the question that I have been intending to ask before your departure. It may sound to you somewhat premature: I don't know. Will you forget and forgive?"
"Forget and forgive what?"
"My coldness during the past years."
"I am willing to forgive it, Charlotte, if that will do you any good. To forget it is an impossibility."
Mrs. Dundyke spoke with civil indifference. She was wrapping different toilet articles in paper, and she continued her occupation. Mrs. Arkell, in a state of bitter vexation at the turn things had taken, terribly self-repentant that she should have pursued a line of conduct so inimical to her own interests, sat down on a low chair, and fairly burst into tears.
"Why, what's the matter, Charlotte?"
"You are a rich woman now, and therefore you despise us. We are growing poor."
"How can you talk such nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Dundyke, screwing down the silver stopper of a scent-bottle. "If I became as rich and as grand as a duke, it could never cause me to make the slightest difference in my conduct to anybody, high or low."
"Our intercourse has been so cold, so estranged, during this visit!"
"And, but that you find I am a little better off than you thought for, would you have allowed it to be otherwise than cold and estranged?" returned Mrs. Dundyke, putting down the scent-bottle, and facing her sister.
There was no reply. What, indeed, could there be?
"Charlotte," said Mrs. Dundyke, dropping her voice to earnestness, as she went close to her sister, "the past wore me out. Ask yourself what your treatment of me was—for years, and years, and years. You know how I loved you—how I tried to conciliate you by every means in my power—to be to you a sister; and you would not. You threw my affection back upon myself; you prevented Mr. Arkell and your children coming to me; you heaped unnecessary scorn upon my husband. I bore it; I strove against it; but my patience and my love gave way at last, and I am sorry to say resentment grew in its place. Those feelings of affection, worn out by slow degrees, can never grow again."
"It is as much as to say that you hate me!"
"Not so. We can be civil when we meet; and that can be as often as circumstances bring us into the same locality. But I do not think there can ever be cordiality between us again."
"I had thought you were of a forgiving disposition, Betsey."
"So I am."
"I had thought——" Mrs. Arkell paused a moment, as if half ashamed of what she was about to say—"I had thought to enlist your sisterly feelings for me; that is, for my daughters. You are rich now; you have plenty of money to spare; and their patrimony has dwindled down to nothing—nothing compared to what it ought to have been. They——"
"Stay, Charlotte. We may as well come to an understanding on this point at once; it will serve for always. Your daughters have never condescended to recognise me in their lives; it was perhaps your fault, perhaps theirs: I don't know. But the effect upon me has not been a pleasant one. I shall decline to help them."
Mrs. Arkell's proud spirit was rising. What it had cost thus to bend herself to her life-despised sister, she alone knew. She beat her foot upon the hearth-rug.
"I don't know how they'll get along. But for Mr. Arkell's having kept on the business for Travice, we should be rich still. He has always been a fool in some things."
"Don't disparage your husband before me, Charlotte; I shall not listen calmly; you were never worthy of him. I love Mr. Arkell for his goodness, and I love your son. If you asked me for help for Travice, you should have it; never for your daughters."
"Very kind, I'm sure! when you know he does not want it," was the provoking and angry answer. "Travice is placed above requiring your help, by marriage with Miss Fauntleroy."
And Mrs. Arkell gave her head a scornful toss as she went out, and banged the chamber-door after her.
The consent of Travice once obtained, the necessary word spoken to Miss Fauntleroy, Mrs. Arkell hurried the marriage on in earnest. So long as Travice had only made the offer, and given no signs of wishing for the ceremony to take place, not much could be done; but he had now said to Barbara, "Fix your own day."
There was no trouble needed in regard to a house; at least, there had not hitherto been. The house that the Miss Fauntleroys lived in was their own, and Barbara wished to continue in it. It was supposed that her sister would be moving to a farm in the parish of Eckford. That was now frustrated. "Never mind," said Barbara, in her easy way, "Lizzie can stop on with us; Travice won't mind it, and I shall like it. If we find afterwards that it does not answer, different arrangements can be made."
The Miss Fauntleroys were generous in the matter of Benjamin Carr. Those others who had been present were generous, even Mrs. Dundyke. The identification of the gentleman with the Mr. Hardcastle, of Geneva memory, was not allowed to transpire: they all had regard to the feelings of the squire and his family. It was fortunate that the only servant in the room had gone from it with Benjamin Carr's over-coat, and Barbara had had the presence of mind to slip the bolt of the door. Mr. Ben Carr, however, thought it well to take a tour just at this time, and he did not show his face in Westerbury previous to his departure.
Lucy Arkell was solicited to be one of the bridesmaids; but Lucy declined. Mildred remembered a wedding whichshehad declined to attend as bridesmaid. How little, how little did she think that the same cruel pain was swaying the motives of Lucy!
Lucy and her aunt saw but little now of the Arkells. Travice never called; Mr. Arkell, full of trouble, confined himself to his home; and Mrs. Arkell had not entered the house since the rebuff given her by Mrs. Dundyke. Lucy held aloof from them; and Mildred certainly did not go there of her own accord. It therefore came to pass that they heard little news of the doings there, except what might be dropped by chance callers-in.
And now, as if Mildred had really been gifted with prevision, Tom Palmer made an offer of his hand and heart to Lucy. Lucy's response was by no means a dignified one—she burst out crying. Mildred, in surprise, asked what was the matter, and Lucy said she had not thought her old friend Tom could have been so unkind. Unkind! But the result was, that Lucy refused him in the most positive manner, then and for always. Mildred began to think that she could not understand Lucy.
There was a grand party given one night at Mrs. Arkell's, and they went to that. Mildred accepted the invitation without consulting Lucy. The Palmers were there; and Travice treated Tom very cavalierly. In fact, that word is an appropriate one to characterise his general behaviour to everybody throughout the evening. And, so far as anybody saw, he never once went near Miss Fauntleroy, with the exception that he took her into the supper room. Mr. Arkell did not appear until quite late in the evening. It was said he had an engagement. So he had, with men of business; while the revelry was going on in doors, he was in his counting-house, endeavouring to negotiate for a loan of money, in which he was not successful. Little heart had he at ten o'clock to go in and dress himself and enter upon that scene of gaiety. Mildred exchanged but a few sentences with him, but she thought he was in remarkably low spirits.
"Are you not well, William?" she asked.
"I have a headache, Mildred."
It was a day or two after this, and but a few days previous to the completion of the wedding, when unpleasant rumours, touching the solvency of the good old house of George Arkell and Son, reached the ears of Miss Arkell. They were whispered to her by Mr. Palmer, the old friend of the family.
"It is said their names will be in theGazettethe day after to-morrow, unless some foreign help can come to them."
Miss Arkell sat, deeply shocked; and poor Lucy's colour went and came, showing the effect the news had upon her.
"I had no idea that they were in embarrassment," said Mildred.
"It is so. You see, this wedding of young Travice Arkell's, that is to bring so much money into the family, has been delayed too long," observed Mr. Palmer. "It is said now that Travice, poor fellow, has an unconquerable antipathy to his bride, and though he consented to the alliance to save his family, he has been unable to bring his mind to conclude it. While the grass grows, the steed starves, you know."
"Miss Fauntleroy was willing that her money should be sacrificed."
"It would not have been sacrificed, not a penny of it; but the use of it would have enabled the house to redeem its own money, and bring its affairs to a satisfactory close. Had there been any risk to the money, William Arkell would not have agreed to touch it: you know his honourable nature. However, through the protracted delay—which Travice will no doubt reflect sharply upon himself for—the marriage and the money will come too late to save them."
Mr. Palmer departed, and Lucy sat like one in a dream. Her aunt glanced at her, and mused, and glanced again. "What are you thinking of, Lucy?" she asked.
Lucy burst into tears. "Aunt, I was thinking what a blight it is to be poor! If I had thousands, I would willingly devote them all to save Mr. Arkell. Papa told me, when he lay dying, how his cousin William had helped him from time to time; had saved his home more than once; and had never been paid back again."
"And suppose youhadmoney—attend to me, Lucy, for I wish a serious answer—suppose you were in possession of money, would you be really willing to sacrifice a portion of it, to save this good friend, William Arkell?"
"All, aunt, all!" she answered, eagerly, "and think it no sacrifice."
"Then put on your bonnet, Lucy, child," returned Miss Arkell, "and come with me."
They went forth to the house of Mr. Arkell; and as it turned out, the visit was opportune, for Mrs. Arkell was away, dining from home. Mr. Arkell was in a little back parlour, looking over accounts and papers, with his son. The old man—and he was looking an old man that evening, with trouble, not with years—rose in surprise when he saw who were his visitors, and Travice's hectic colour went and came. Mildred had never been in the room since she was a young woman, and it called up painful recollections. It was the twilight hour of the evening: that best hour, of all the twenty-four, for any embarrassing communication.
"William," began Miss Arkell, seating herself by her cousin, and speaking in a low tone, "we have heard it whispered that your affairs are temporarily involved. Is it so?"
"The world will soon know it, Mildred, above a whisper."
"It is even so then! What has led to it?"
"Oh, Mildred! can you ask what has led to it, when you look at the misery and distress everywhere around us? Search theGazettefor the past years, and see how many names you will find in it, who once stood as high as ours! The only wonder is, that we have not yet gone with the stream. It is a hard case, Mildred, when we have toiled all our lives, that the labour should come to nothing at last," he continued; "that our closing years, which ought to be given to thoughts of another world, must be distracted with the anxious cares of this."
"Is your difficulty serious, or only temporary?" resumed Miss Arkell.
"It ought to be only temporary," he replied; "but the worst is, I cannot, at the present moment, command my resources. We have kept on manufacturing, hoping for better times; and, to tell you the truth, Mildred, I could not reconcile it to my conscience to turn off my old workmen to beggary. There was Travice, too. I have a heavy stock of goods on hand; to the amount of some thousands; and this locks up my diminished capital. I am still worth what would cover my business liabilities twice over—and I have no others—but I cannot avail myself of it for present emergencies. I have turned every stone, Mildred, to keep my head above water: and I believe I can struggle no longer."
"What amount of money would effectually relieve you?" asked Miss Arkell.
"About three thousand pounds," he replied, answering the question without any apparent interest.
"Then to-morrow morning vouchers for that sum shall be placed in the Westerbury bank at your disposal.And for double that sum, if you require it."
Mr. Arkell looked up in astonishment; and finally addressed to her the very words which he had once before done, in early life, upon a far different subject.
"You are dreaming, Mildred!"
She remembered them; had she ever forgotten one word said to her on that eventful night? and sighed as she replied:
"This money is mine. I enjoyed, as you know, a most liberal salary for seven or eight-and-twenty years; and the money, as it came in, was placed out from the first to good interest; later, a part of it to good use. Lady Dewsbury also bequeathed me a munificent sum by her will; so that altogether I am worth——"
His excessive surprise could not let her continue. That Mildred had saved just sufficient to live upon, he had deemed probable; but not more. She had been always assisting Peter. He interrupted her with words to this effect.
Mildred smiled. "I could place at your disposal twelve thousand pounds, if needs must," she said. "I had a friend who helped me to lay out my money to advantage. It was Mr. Dundyke. William,howcan I better use part of this money than by serving you?"
William Arkell shook his head in deprecation. Not all at once, in the suddenness of the surprise, could he accept the idea of being assisted by Mildred. Peter had taken enough from her.
"Peter did not take enough from me," she firmly said. "It is only since Peter's death that I have learnt how straitened he always was—he kept it from me. I have been taking great blame to myself, for it seems to me that I ought to have guessed it—and I did not. But Peter is gone, and you are left. Oh, William, let me help you!"
"Mildred, I have no right to it fromyou."
She laid her hand upon his arm in her eagerness. She bent her gentle face, with its still sweet expression, near to him, and spoke in a whisper.
"Letme help you. It will be a recompense for the past pain of my lonely life."
His eyes looked straight into hers for the moment. "I have had my pain, too, Mildred."
"But this loan? you will take it. Lucy, speak up," added Miss Arkell, turning to her niece. "This money is willed to you, and will be yours sometime. Is it not at your wish that I come this evening, as well as at my own?"
"Oh, sir," sobbed Lucy to Mr. Arkell, "take it all. Let my aunt retain what will be sufficient for her life, but keep none for me; I am young and healthy, and can go out and work for my living, as she has done. Take all the rest, and save the credit of the family."
William Arkell turned to Lucy, the tears trickling down his cheeks. She had taken off her bonnet on entering, and he laid his hand fondly on her head.
"Lucy, child, were this money exclusively your aunt's, I would not hesitate to make use of sufficient of it now to save my good name. In that ease, I should wind up my affairs as soon as would be conveniently possible, retire from business, and see how far what is left to me would go towards a living. It would be enough; and my wife would have to bring her mind to think it so. But this sum that your aunt offers me—that you second—may be the very money she has been intending to hand over with you as a marriage portion. And what would your husband say at its being thus temporarily appropriated?"
"My husband!" exclaimed Lucy, in amazement; "a marriage portion for me! When I take the one, it will be time enough to think of the other." Miss Arkell, too, looked up with a questioning gaze, for she had quite forgotten the little romance—her romance—concerning young Mr. Palmer.
"I shall never marry," continued Lucy, in answer to Mr. Arkell's puzzled look. "I think I am better as I am."
"But, Lucy, youaregoing to marry. You are going to marry Tom Palmer."
Lucy laughed. She could not help it, she said, apologetically. She had laughed ever since he asked her, except just at the time, at the very idea of her marrying Tom Palmer, the little friend of her girlhood. Tom laughed at it himself now; and they were as good friends as before. "But howdidyou hear of it?" she exclaimed.
Travice came forward, his cheek pale, his lip quivering. He laid his fevered hand on Lucy's shoulder.
"Is this true, Lucy?" he whispered. "Is it true that you do not love Tom Palmer?"
"Love him!" cried Lucy, indignantly, sad reproach in her eye, as she turned it on Travice. "You have seen us together hundreds of times; did you ever detect anything in my manner to induce you to think I 'loved' him?"
"Ilovedyou," murmured Travice, for he read that reproach aright, and the scales which had obscured his eyes fell from them, as by magic. "I have long loved you—deeply, passionately. My brightest hopes were fixed on you; the heyday visions of all my future existence represented you by my side, my wife. But these misfortunes and losses came thick and fast upon my father. They told me at home here,hetold me, that I was poor and that you were poor, and that it would be madness in us to think of marrying then, as it would have been. So I said to myself that I would be patient, and wait—would be content with loving you in secret, as I had done—with seeing you daily as a relative. And then the news burst upon me that you were to marry Tom Palmer; and I thought what a fool I had been to fancy you cared for me; for I knew that you were not one to marry where you did not love."
The tears were coursing down her cheeks. "But I don't understand," she said. "It is but just, as it were, that Tom has asked me; and you must be speaking of sometime ago."
The fault was Mildred's. Not quite all at once could they understand it; not until later.
"I shall never marry; indeed I shall never marry," murmured Lucy, as she yielded for the moment to the passionate embrace in which Travice clasped her, and kissed away her tears of anguish. "My lot in life must be like my aunt's now, unloving and unloved."
"Oh, is there no escape for us!" exclaimed Travice, wildly, as all the painful embarrassment of his position rushed over his mind. "Can we not fly together, Lucy—fly to some remote desert place, and leave care and sorrow behind us? Ere the lapse of many days, another woman expects to be my wife! Is there no way of escape for us?"
None; none. The misery of Travice Arkell and his cousin was sealed: their prospects, so far as this world went, were blighted. There were no means by which he could escape the marriage that was rushing on to him with the speed of wings: no means known in the code of honour. And for Lucy, what was left but to live on unwedded, burying her crushed affections within herself, as her aunt had done?—live on, and, by the help of time, strive to subdue that love which was burning in her heart for the husband of another, rendering every moment of the years that would pass, one continued, silent agony!
"The same fate—the same fate!" moaned Mildred Arkell to herself, whilst Lucy sunk into a chair and covered her pale face with her trembling hands. "I might have guessed it! Like aunt, like niece. She must go through life as I have done—and bear—and bear! Strange, that the younger brother's family, throughout two generations, should have cast their shadow for evil upon that of the elder! A blight must have fallen upon my father's race; but, perhaps in mercy, Lucy is the last of it. If I could have foreseen this, years ago, the same atmosphere in which lived Travice Arkell should not have been breathed by Lucy. The same fate! the same fate!"
Lucy was sobbing silently behind her hands. Travice stood, the image of despair. Mildred turned to him.
"Then you do not love Miss Fauntleroy?"
"Love her! Ihateher!" was the answer that burst from him in his misery. "May Heaven forgive me for the false part I shall have to play!"
But there was no escape for him. Mildred knew there was not; Mr. Arkell knew it; and his heart ached for the fate of this, his dearly-loved son.
"My boy," he said, "I would willingly die to save you—die to secure your happiness. I did not know this sacrifice was so very bitter."
Travice cast back a look of love. "You have done all you could for me; do notyoutake it to heart. I may get to bear it in time."
"Get tobearit!" What a volume of expression was in the words! Mildred rose and approached Mr. Arkell.
"We had better be going, William. But oh! why did you let it come to this? Why did you not make a confidante of me?"
"I did not know you could help me, Mildred; indeed I did not."
"I will tell you who would have been as thankful to help you as I am—and that is your sister-in-law, Betsey Dundyke. She could have helped you more largely than I can."
"But not more lovingly. God bless you, Mildred!" he whispered, detaining her for a moment as she was following Travice and Lucy out.
Her eyes swam with tears as she looked up at him; her hands rested confidingly in his.
"If you knew what the happiness of serving you is, William! If you knew what a recompence this moment is for the bitter past!"
"God bless you, Mildred!" he repeated, "God bless you for ever."
She drew her veil over her face to pass out, just as she had drawn it after that interview, following his marriage, in the years gone by.
And so the credit of the good and respected old house was saved; saved by Mildred. Had it taken every farthing she had amassed; so that she must have gone forth again, in her middle age, and laboured for a living, she had rejoiced to do it! William Arkell had not waited until now, to know the value of the heart he had thrown away.
And the marriage day drew on. But before it dawned, Westerbury knew that it would bring no marriage with it. Miss Fauntleroy knew it. For the bridegroom was lying between life and death.
Of a sensitive, nervous, excitable temperament, the explanation of that evening, taken in conjunction with the dreadful tension to which his mind had been latterly subjected, far greater than any one had suspected, was too much for Travice Arkell. Conscious that Lucy Arkell passionately loved him; knowing now that she had the money, without which he could not marry, and that part of that money was actually advanced to save his father's credit; knowing also, that he must never more think of her, but must tie himself to one whom he abhorred; that he and Lucy must never again see each other in life, but as friends, and not too much of that, he became ill. Reflection preyed upon him: remorse for doubting Lucy, and hastening to offer himself to Miss Fauntleroy, seated itself in his mind, and ere the day fixed for his marriage arrived, he was laid up with brain fever.
With brain fever! In vain they tried their remedies: their ice to his head; their cooling medicines; their blisters to his feet. His unconscious ravings were, at moments, distressing to hear: his deep love for Lucy; his impassioned adjurations to her to fly with him, and be at peace; his shuddering hatred of Miss Fauntleroy. On the last day of his life, as the doctors thought, Lucy was sent for, in the hope that her presence might calm him. But he did not know her: he was past knowing any one.
"Lucy!" he would utter, in a hollow voice, unconscious that she or any one else was present—"Lucy! we will leave the place for ever. Have you got your things ready? We will go whereshecan't find us out, and force me to her. Lucy! where are you? Lucy!"
And Mrs. Arkell! She was the most bitterly repentant. Many a sentence is spoken lightly, many an idle threat, many a reckless wish; but the vain folly is not often brought home to the heart, as it was to Mrs. Arkell.
"I would pray Heaven to let me follow you to your grave, Travice, rather than see you marry Lucy Arkell."Hewas past feeling or remembering the words; but they came home toher. She cast herself upon the bed, praying wildly for forgiveness, clinging to him in all the agony of useless remorse.
"Oh, what matters honour; what matters anything in comparison with his precious life!" she cried, with streaming eyes. "Tell him, Lucy,—perhaps he will understandyou—that he shall indeed marry you if he will but set his mind at rest, and get well; he shall never again see Miss Fauntleroy. Lucy! are there no means of calming him? If this terrible excitement lasts, it will kill him. Tell him it is you he shall marry, not Barbara Fauntleroy."
"I cannot tell him so," said Lucy, from the very depth of her aching heart. "It would not be right to deceive him, even now. There can be no escape, if he lives, from the marriage with Miss Fauntleroy."
A few more hours, and the crisis came. The handsome, the intelligent, the refined Travice Arkell, lay still, in a lethargy that was taken to be that of death. It went forth to Westerbury that he was dead; and Lucy took her last look at him, and walked home with her aunt Mildred—to a home, which, however well supplied it was now with the world's comforts, could only seem to her one of desolation. Lucy Arkell's eyes were dry; dry with that intensity of anguish that admits not of tears, and her brain seemed little less confused thanhishad done, in these last few days of life.
Mildred sat down in her home, and seemed to see into the future. She saw herself and her niece living on in their quiet and monotonous home; her own form drooping with the weight of years, Lucy's approaching middle life. "The old maids" they would be slightingly termed by those who knew little indeed of their inward history. And in their lonely hearts, enshrined in its most hidden depths, the image that respectively filled each in early life, the father and son, William and Travice Arkell, never, never replaced by any other, but holding their own there so long as time should last.
Seated by her fire on that desolate night, she saw it as in a vision.
But Travice Arkell did not die. The lethargy that was thought to be death proved to be only the exhaustion of spent nature. When the first faint indications of his awaking from it appeared, the physicians said it was possible that he might recover. He lay for some days in a critical state, hopes and fears about equally balancing, and then he began to get visibly stronger.
"I have been nearly dead, have I not?" he asked one day of his father, who was sitting by the bed.
"But you are better now, Travice. You will get well. Thank God!"
"Yes, the danger's over. I feel that, myself. Dear father! how troubled you have been!"
"Travice, I could hardly have borne to lose you," he murmured, leaning over him. "And—thus."
"I shall soon be well again; soon be strong. Be stronger, I hope," and Travice faintly pressed the hand in which his lay, "to go through the duties that lie before me, than I was previously."
Mr. Arkell sighed from the very depths of his heart. If his son could but have looked forward to arise to a life of peace, instead of pain!
Mildred was with the invalid often. Mrs. Dundyke, who, concerned at the imminent danger of one in whom she had always considered that she held a right, had hastened to Westerbury when the news was sent to her, likewise used to go and sit with him. But not Lucy. It was instinctively felt by all that the sight of Lucy could only bring the future more palpably before him. It might have been so different!
Mrs. Dundyke saw Mr. Arkell in private.
"Is therenoescape for him?" she asked; "no escape from this marriage with Miss Fauntleroy? I would give all I am worth to effect it."
"And I would give my life," was the agitated answer. "There is none. Honour must be kept before all things. Travice himself knows there is none; neither would he accept any, were it offered out of the line of strict honour."
"It is a life's sacrifice," said Mrs. Dundyke. "It is sacrificing both him and Lucy."
"Had I possessed but the faintest idea of the sacrifice it really was, even for him, it should never have been contemplated, no matter what the cost," was Mr. Arkell's answer.
"And there was no need of it. If you had but known that! My fortune is a large one now, and the greater portion of it I intended for Travice."
"Betsey!"
"I intended it for no one else. Perhaps I ought to have been more open in expressing my intentions; but you know how I have been held aloof by Charlotte. And I did not suppose that Travice was in necessity of any sort. If he marries Miss Fauntleroy, the half of what I die possessed of will be his; the other half will go to Lucy Arkell. Were it possible that he could marry Lucy, they'd not wait for my death to be placed above the frowns of the world."
"Oh Betsey, how generous you are! But there is no escape for him," added Mr. Arkell, with a groan at the bitter fact. "He cannot desert Miss Fauntleroy."
It was indisputably true. And that buxom bride-elect herself seemed to have no idea that anybody wanted to be off the bargain, for her visits to the house were frequent, and her spirits were unusually high.
You all know the old rhyme about a certain gentleman's penitence when he was sick; though it may not be deemed the perfection of good manners to quote it here. It was a very apt illustration of the feelings of Mrs. Arkell. While her son lay sick unto death, she would have married him to Lucy Arkell; but no sooner was the danger of death removed, and he advancing towards convalescence, than the old pride—avarice—love of rule—call it what you will—resumed sway within her; and she had almost been ready to say again that a mouldy grave would be preferable for him, rather than desertion of Miss Fauntleroy. In fine, the old state of things was obtaining sway, both as to Mrs. Arkell's opinions and to the course of events.
"When can I see him?" asked Miss Fauntleroy one day.
Not the first time, this, that she had put the question, and it a little puzzled Mrs. Arkell to answer it. It was only natural and proper, considering the relation in which each stood to the other, that Miss Fauntleroy should see him; but Mrs. Arkell had positively not dared to hint at such a visit to her son.
"Travice sits up now, does he not?" continued the young lady.
"Yes, he has sat up a little in the afternoon these two days past. We call it sitting up, Barbara, but, in point of fact, he lies the whole time on the sofa. He is not strong enough to sit up."
"Then I'm sure I may see him. It might not have been proper, I suppose, to pay him a visit in bed," she added, laughing loudly; "but there can't be any impropriety now. I want to see him, Mrs. Arkell; I want it very particularly."
"Of course, Barbara; I can understand that you do. I should, in your place. The only consideration is, whether it may not agitate him too much."
"Not it," said Barbara. "I wish you'd go and ask him when I may come. I suppose he is up now?"
Mrs. Arkell had no ready plea for refusal, and she went upstairs there and then. Travice was lying on the sofa, exhausted with the exertion of getting to it.
"My dear, I think you look better," Mrs. Arkell began, not altogether relishing her task; and she gently pushed the bits of brown hair, now beginning to grow again, from the damp, white forehead. "Do you feel so?"
He drew her fingers for a moment into his, and held them there. He was always ready to respond to his mother's little tokens of affection. She had opposed him in the matter of Lucy Arkell, but he was ever generous, ever just, and he blamed circumstances more than he blamed her.
"I feel a great deal better than I did a week ago. I shall get on now."
Mrs. Arkell paused. "Some one wants to see you, Travice."
The hectic came into his white face as she spoke—a wild rush of crimson. Was it possible that he thought she spoke of Lucy? The idea occurred, to Mrs. Arkell.
"My dear, it is Barbara. She has asked to see you a great many times. She is downstairs now."
Travice raised his thin hand, and laid it for a moment over his face, over his closed eyes. Was he praying for help in his pain?—for strength to go through what must be gone through—his duty in the future; and to do it bravely?
"Travice, my dear, but for this illness she would now have been your wife. It is only natural that she should wish to come and see you."
"Yes, of course," he said, removing his hand, and speaking very calmly; "I have been expecting that she would."
"When shall she come up? Now?"
He did not speak for a moment.
"Not now; not to-day; the getting up seemed to tire me more than it has done yet. Tell her so from me. Perhaps she will take the trouble to call again to-morrow, and come up then."
The message was carried to Miss Fauntleroy, and she did not fail in the appointment. Mrs. Arkell took her upstairs without notice to her son; possibly she feared some excuse again. The sofa was drawn near the fire as before, and Travice lay on it; had he been apprised of the visit, he might have tried to sit up to receive her.
She was very big as usual, and very grand. A rich watered lilac silk dress, looped up above a scarlet petticoat; a velvet something on her arms and shoulders, of which I really don't know the name, covered with glittering jet trimmings; and a spangled bonnet with fancy feathers. As she sailed into the room, her petticoats, that might have covered the dome of St. Paul's, knocked over a little brass stand and kettle, some careless attendant having left them on the carpet, near the wall. There was no damage, except noise, for the kettle was empty.
"That's my crinoline!" cried the hearty, good-humoured girl. "Never mind; there's worse misfortunes at sea."
"No, Travice, you had better not rise," interposed Mrs. Arkell, for he was struggling into a sitting position. "Barbara will excuse it; she knows how weak you are."
"And I'll not allow you to rise, that's more," said Barbara, laying her hand upon him. "I am not come to make you worse, but to make you better—if I can."
Mrs. Arkell, not altogether easy yet upon the feelings of Travice as to the visit, anxious, as we all are with anything on our consciences, to get away, invited Barbara to a chair, and hastened from the room. Travice tried to receive her as he ought, and put out his hand with a wan smile.
"How are you, Barbara?"
There was no reply, except that the thin hand was taken between both of hers. He looked up, and saw that her eyes were swimming in tears. A moment's struggle, and they came forth, with a burst.
"There! it's of no good. What a fool I am!"
Just a minute or two's indulgence to the burst, and it was over. Miss Fauntleroy rubbed away the traces, and her broad face wore its smiles again. She drew a chair close, and sat down in front of him.
"I was not prepared to see you look like this, Travice. How dreadfully it has pulled you down!"
She was gazing at his face as she spoke. Her entrance had not called up anything of colour or emotion to illumine it. The transparent skin was drawn over the delicate features, and the refinement, always characterizing it, was more conspicuous than it had ever been. No two faces, perhaps, could present a greater contrast than his did, with the broad, vulgar, hearty, and in a sense, handsome one of hers.
"Yes, it has pulled me down. At one period there was little chance of my life, I believe. But they no doubt told you all at the time. I daresay you knew more of the different stages of the danger than I did."
"And what was it that brought it on?" asked Miss Fauntleroy, untying her bonnet, and throwing back the strings. "Brain fever is not a common disorder; it does not go about in the air!"
There was a slight trace of colour now on the thin cheeks, and she noticed it. Travice faintly shook his head to disclaim any knowledge on his own part.
"It is not very often that we know how these illnesses are brought on. My chief concern now"—and he looked up at her with a smile—"must be to find out how I can best throw it off."
"I have been very anxious for some days to see you," she resumed, after a pause. "Do you know what I have come to say?"
"No," he said, rather languidly.
"But I'll tell you first what I heard. When you were lying in that awful state between life and death—and itisan awful state, Travice, the danger of passing, without warning, to the presence of one's Maker—I heard that it wasIwho had brought on the fever."
His whole face was flushed now—a consciousness of the past had risen up so vividly within him. "You!" he uttered. "What do you mean?"
"Ah! Travice, I see how it has been. I know all. You have tried to like me, and you cannot. Be still, be calm; I do not reproach you even in thought. You loved Lucy Arkell long before anybody thought of me, in connection with you; and I declare I honour the constancy of your heart in keeping true to her. Now, if you are not tranquil I shall get my ears boxed by your doctors, and I'll not come and see you again."
"But——"
"You just be quiet. I'm going to do the talking, and you the listening. There, I'll hold your hands in mine, as some old, prudent spirit might, to keep you still—a sister, say. That's all I shall ever be to you, Travice."
His chest was beginning to heave with emotion.
"I have a great mind to run away, and leave you to fancy you are going to be tied to me after all!Praycalm yourself. Oh! Travice, why did you not tell me the truth—that you had no shadow of liking for me; that your love for another was stronger than death? I should have been a little mortified at first, but not for long. It is not your fault; you did all you could; and it has nearly killed you——"
"Who has been telling you this?" he interrupted.
"Never mind. Perhaps somebody, perhaps nobody. It's the town's talk, and that's enough. Do you think I could be so wicked and selfish a woman as to hold you to your engagement, knowing this? No! Never shall it be said of Barbara Fauntleroy, in this or in aught else, that she secured her own happiness at the expense of anybody else's."
"But Barbara——"
"Don't 'Barbara' me, but listen," she interrupted playfully, laying her finger on his lips. "At present you hate me, and I don't say that your heart may not have cause; but I want to turn that hatred into love. If I can't get it as a wife, Travice, I may as a friend. I like you very much, and I can't afford to lose you quite. Heaven knows in what way I might have lost you, had we been married; or what would have been the ending."
He lay looking at her, not altogether comprehending the words, in his weakness.
"You shall marry Lucy as soon as you are strong enough; and a little bird has whispered me a secret that I fancy you don't know yet—that you'll have plenty and plenty of money, more than I should have brought you. We'll have a jolly wedding; and I'll be bridesmaid, if she'll let me."
Barbara had talked till her eyes were running down with tears. His lashes began to glisten.
"I couldn't do it, Barbara," he whispered; "I couldn't do it."
"Perhaps not; but I can, and shall. Listen, you difficult old fellow, and set your mind and your conscience at rest. Before that great and good Being, who has spared you through this death-sickness, and has sparedme, perhaps, a life of unhappiness, I solemnly swear that I will not marry you! I don't think I have much pride, but I've some; and I am above stooping to accept a man that all the world knows hates me like poison. I'd not have you now, Travice, though there were no Lucy Arkell in the world. A pretty figure I should cut on our wedding day, if I did hold you to your bargain! The town might follow us to church with a serenade of marrowbones and cleavers, as they do the butchers. I'll not leave you until you tell me all is at an end between us—on your side as on mine."
"It is not right, Barbara. It is not right that I should treat you so."
"I'll not leave you until you tell me all is at an end."
"Ican'ttell it you."
"I'll not leave you until you tell me all is at an end," she persistently repeated. "No, not if I have to stop in the room all the blessed night, as your real sister might. What do I care for their fads and their punctilios? Here I'll stop."
He looked up in her face with a smile. It had more oflovein it than Barbara had ever seen expressed to her from him. She bent down and kissed his lips.
"There! that's an earnest of our new friendship. Not that I shall be giving you kisses in future, or expect any from you. Lucy might not like it, you know, or you either. I don't sayIshould, for I may be marrying on my own score. We might have been an estranged man and wife, Travice, wishing each other dead and buried and perhaps not gone to heaven, every day of our lives. We will be two firm friends. You don't rejectme, you know;Ireject you, and you can't help yourself."
"We will be friends always, Barbara," he said, from the depths of his inmost heart, as he held her warm hand on his breast. "I am beginning to love you as one already."
"There's a darling fellow! Yes, I should call you so though Lucy were present. Oh, Travice! it's best as it is! A little bit of smart to get over—and that's what I have been doing the past week or so—and we begin on a truer basis. I never was suited to you, and that's the truth. But we can be the best friends living. It won't spoil my appetite, Travice; I'm not of that flimsy temperament. Fancymegetting brain-fever through being crossed in love!"
She laughed out loud at the thought—a ringing, merry laugh. It put Travice at ease on the score of the "smart."
"And now I'm going into the manufactory to tell Mr. Arkell that you and I aretwo. If he asks for the cause, perhaps I shall whisper to him that I've found out you won't suit me and I prefer to look out for somebody that will; and when Mrs. Arkell asks it me, 'We've split, ma'am—split' I shall tell her. Travice! Travice! did you really think I could stand, knowing it, in the way of anybody's life's happiness?"
He drew her face down to his. He kissed it as he had never kissed it before.
"Friends for life! Firm, warm friends for life, you and I and Lucy! God bless you, Barbara!"
"Mind! I stand out for a jolly ball at the wedding! Lizzie and I mean to dance all night. Fancy us!" she added, with a laugh that rang through the room, "the two forlorn damsels that were to have been brides ourselves! Never mind; we shan't die for the lack of husbands, if we choose to accept them. But it's to be hoped our second ventures will turn out more substantial than our first."
And Travice Arkell, nearly overcome with emotion and weakness, closed his eyes and folded his hands as she went laughing from the room, his lips faintly moving.
"What can I do unto God for all the benefits that He hath done unto me?"
It was during this illness of Travice Arkell's that a circumstance took place which caused some slight degree of excitement in Westerbury. Edward Blissett Hughes, who had gone away from the town between twenty and thirty years before, and of whom nobody had heard much, if any, tidings of since, suddenly made his appearance in it again. His return might not have given rise to much comment, but for the very prominent manner in which his name had been brought forward in connexion with the assize cause; and perhaps no one was more surprised than Mr. Hughes himself when he found how noted he had become.
It matters not to tell how the slim working man of three or four-and-thirty, came back a round, comfortable, portly gentleman of sixty, with a smart, portly wife, and well to do in the world. Well to do?—nay, wealthy. Or how he had but come for a transitory visit to his native place, and would soon be gone again. All that matters not to us; and his return needed not to have been mentioned at all, but that he explained one or two points in the past history, which had never been made quite clear to Westerbury.
One of the first persons to go to see him was William Arkell; and it was from that gentleman Mr. Hughes first learnt the details of the dispute and the assize trial.
Robert Carr had been moremalin—as the French would express it—than people gave him credit for. That few hours' journey of his to London, three days previous to the flight, had been taken for one sole purpose—the procuring of a marriage licence. Edward Hughes, vexed at the free tone that the comments of the town were assuming in reference to his young sister, made a tardy interference, and gave Robert Carr his choice—the breaking off the acquaintance, or a marriage. Robert Carr chose the latter alternative, stipulating that it should be kept a close secret; and he ran up to town for the licence. Whether he really meant to use it, or whether he only bought it to appease in a degree the aroused precautions of the brother, cannot be told. That he certainly did not intend to make use of it so soon, Edward Hughes freely acknowledged now. The hasty marriage, the flight following upon it, grew out of that last quarrel with his father. From the dispute at dinner-time, Robert went straight to the Hughes's house, saw Martha Ann, got her consent, and then sought the brother at his workshop, as Edward Hughes still phrased it, and arranged the plans with him for the following morning. Sophia Hughes was of necessity made a party to the scheme, but she was not told of it until night; and Mary they did not tell at all, not daring to trust her. Brother and sister bound themselves to secrecy, for the sake of the fortune that Robert Carr would assuredly lose if the marriage became known; and they suffered the taint to fall on their sister's name, content to know that it was undeserved, and to look forward to the time when all should be cleared up by the reconciliation between father and son, or by the death of Mr. Carr. They were anxious for the marriage, so far beyond anything they could have expected, and, consequently, did not stand at a little sacrifice. Human nature is the same all the world over, and ambition is inherent in it. Robert Carr, on his part, risked something—the chance that, with all their precautions, the fact of the marriage might become known. That it did not, the event proved, as you know; but circumstances at that moment especially favoured them. The rector of St. James the Less was ill; the Reverend Mr. Bell was Robert Carr's firm friend and kept the secret, and there was no clerk. They stole into the church one by one on the winter's morning. Mr. Bell was there before daylight, got it open, and waited for them. The moment Mary Hughes was out of the house, at half-past seven, in pursuance of her engagement at Mrs. Arkell's, Martha Ann was so enveloped in cloaks and shawls that she could not have been readily recognised, had anybody met her, and sent off alone to the church. Her brother and sister followed by degrees. Robert Carr was already there; and as soon as the clock struck eight, the service was performed. One circumstance, quite a little romance in itself, Mr. Hughes mentioned now; and but for a fortunate help in the time of need, the marriage might, after all, not have been completed. Robert Carr had forgotten the ring. Not only Robert, but all of them. That important essential had never once occurred to their thoughts, and none had been bought. The service was arrested midway for the want of it. A few moments' consternation, and then Sophia Hughes came to the rescue. She had been in the habit of wearing her mother's wedding-ring since her death, and she took it from her finger, and the service was completed with it. The party stole away from the church by degrees, one by one, as they had gone to it, and escaped observation. Few people were abroad that dark, dull morning; and the church stood in a lonely, unfrequented part. The getting away afterwards in Mr. Arkell's carriage was easy.
"Ah," said Mr. Arkell now to the brother, "I did not forgive Robert Carr that trick he played upon me for a long while, it so vexed my father. He thought the worst, you know; and for your sister's sake, could not forgive Robert Carr. Had he known of the marriage, it would have been a different thing."
"No one knew of it—not a soul," said Mr. Hughes. "Had we told one, we might as well have told all. I and Sophia knew that we could keep our own counsel; but we could not answer beyond ourselves—not even for Mary."
"Could you not trust her?"
"Trust her!" echoed Mr. Hughes. "Her tongue was like a sieve: it let out everything. She missed mother's ring off Sophia's finger. Sophia said she had lost it—she didn't know what else to say—and before two days were out, the town-crier came to ask if she'd not like it cried. Mary had talked of the loss high and low."
"Did she never know that there had been a marriage?" asked Mr. Arkell.
"Quite at the last, when she had but a day or two left of life. Sophia told her then; she had grieved much over Martha Ann, and was grieving still. Sophia told her, and it sent her easy to her grave. Soon after she died, Sophia married Jem Pycroft, and they came out to me. She's dead now. So that there's only me left out of the four of us," added the returned traveller, after a pause.
"And Martha Ann's eldest son became a clergyman, you say; and he died! I should like to see the other two children she left. Do they live in Rotterdam?"
"I am not sure; but you would no doubt hear of them there. They sold off Marmaduke Carr's property when they came into it, after the trial. It's not to be wondered at: they had no pleasant associations connected with Westerbury."
Edward Hughes burst into a laugh. "What a blow it must have been for stingy John Carr!"
"It was that," said Mr. Arkell. "He is always pleading poverty; but there's no doubt he has been saving money ever since the old squire died and he came into possession. That can't be far short of twenty years now."
"Twenty years! How time flies in this world, sir!" was the concluding remark of Mr. Hughes.
There was no drawback thrown in the way ofthismarriage of Travice Arkell's, by himself, or by anybody else; and the day for it was fixed as soon as he became convalescent. Mrs. Arkell had to reconcile herself to it in the best way she could; and if she found it a pill to swallow, it was at least a gilded one: Mrs. Dundyke's money would go to him and Lucy—and there was Miss Arkell's as well. They would be placed above the frowns of the world the hour they married, and Travice could turn amateur astronomer at will.
On the day before that appointed for the ceremony, Lucy, in passing through the cloisters with Mrs. Dundyke, from some errand in the town, stopped as she came to that gravestone in the cloisters. She bent her head over it, for she could hardly read the inscription—what with the growing dusk, and what with her blinding tears.
"Oh, Aunt Betsey"—she had caught the name from Travice—"if he had but lived! If he could but be with us to-morrow!"
Aunt Betsey touched with her gentle finger the sorrowing face. "He is better off, Lucy."
"Yes, I know. But in times of joy it seems hard to remember it. I wonder—I hope it is not wrong to wonder it—whether he and mamma are always with me in spirit? I have grown to think so."
"The thinking it will not do you harm, Lucy."
"Oh, was it not a cruel thing, Aunt Betsey, for that boy Lewis to throw him down! He was forgiven by everybody at the time; but in my heart—I won't say it. But for that, Henry might be alive now. They left the college school afterwards. Did you know that?"
"The Lewises? Yes; I think I heard it."
"A reaction set in for Henry after he died, and the boys grew shy and cool to the two Lewises. In fact, they were sent to Coventry. They did not like it, and they left. The eldest went up to be in some office in London, and the youngest has gone to a private school."
"It is strange that the two greatinflictedevils in your family and in mine, should have come from the Carrs!" exclaimed Mrs. Dundyke. "But, my dear, do not let us get into a sorrowful train of thought to-day. And, all the sorrow we can give, cannot bring back to us those who are gone."
"I wish you could have seen him!" murmured Lucy. "He was so beautiful! he——"
"Here are people coming, my dear."
Lucy turned away, drying her eyes. A clerical dignitary and a young lady were advancing through the cloisters. As they met, the young lady bowed to Lucy, and the gentleman raised his shovel hat—not so much as to acquaintances, as because they were ladies passing through his cloisters.
"Who are they?" whispered Mrs. Dundyke, when the echo of their footsteps had died away.
"The dean and Miss Beauclerc. Aunt Betsey, she knew Henry so well! She came to see him in his coffin."
They were at Mr. Arkell's house, in the evening—Lucy, her aunt, and Mrs. Dundyke. The breakfast in the morning was to be given in it, Miss Arkell's house being small, and the carriages would drive there direct from St. James-the-Less. Mrs. Arkell, gracious now beyond everything, had sent for them to spend the last evening, and see the already laid-out table in the large drawing-room. She could not spare Travice that last evening, she said.
Oh, how it all came home to Mildred!Shehad gone to that house the evening before a wedding in the years gone by, taken to it perforce, because she dared make no plea of refusal. She had seen the laid-out table in the drawing-room then, just as she was looking down upon it now.
"Lucy's destiny is happier!" she unconsciously murmured.
"Did you speak, Mildred?"
She raised her eyes to the questioner by her side, William Arkell. She had not observed that he was there.
"I?—Yes; I say Lucy's will be a happy destiny."
"Very happy," he assented, glancing at a group at the end, who were engaged in a hot and laughing dispute, as to the placing of the guests, Travice maintaining his own opinion against Aunt Betsey and Lucy. Travice looked very well now. His hair was long again; his face, delicate still—but it was in the nature of its features to be so—had resumed its hue of health. Lucy was radiant in smiles and blue ribbons, under the light of the chandelier.
"I begin to think that destinies are more equally apportioned than we are willing to imagine; that where there are fewer flowers there are fewer thorns," Mr. Arkell observed in a low tone. "There is a better life, Mildred, awaiting us hereafter."
"Ah, yes. Where there shall be neither neglect, nor disappointment, nor pain; where——"
"Here you are!" broke out a loud, hearty, laughing voice upon their ears. "I knew it was where I should find you. Lucy, I have been to your house after you. Take my load off me, Travice."
Need you be told that the voice was Barbara Fauntleroy's? She came staggering in under the load: a something held out before her, nearly as tall as herself.
A beautiful epergne for the centre of the table, of solid silver. Travice was taking it from her, but awkwardly—he was one of the incapable ones, like poor Peter Arkell. Miss Fauntleroy rated him and pushed him away, and lifted it on the table herself, with her strong hands.
"It's our present to you two, mine and Lizzie's. You'll accept it, won't you, Lucy?"
Kindness invariably touched the chord of Lucy Arkell's feelings, perhaps because she had not been in the way of having a great deal of it shown to her in her past life. The tears were in her earnest eyes, as she gently took the hands of Miss Fauntleroy.
"I cannot thank you as I ought. I——"
"Thank me, child! It's not so much to thank me for. Doesn't it look well on the table, though? Mrs. Arkell must allow it to stand there for the breakfast."
"For that,and for all else," whispered Lucy, with marked emotion, retaining the hands in her warm clasp. "You must let us show our gratitude to you always, Barbara."
Barbara Fauntleroy bent her full red lips on Lucy's fair forehead. "Our bargain—his and mine—was, that we were all three to be firm and fast friends through life, you know. Lucy, there's nobody in the world wishes you happier than I do. Jolly good luck to you both!"
"Thank you, Barbara," said Travice, who was standing by.
"And now, who'll come and release Lizzie?" resumed Miss Fauntleroy. "We shall have her rampant. She's in a fly at the door, and can't get out of it."
"Not get out of it!" repeated Mr. Arkell.
"Not a bit of it. It's filled with flower-pots from our hot-house. We thought perhaps you'd not have enough for the rooms, so we've brought a load. But Lizzie got into the fly first, you see, to pack them for bringing steadily, and she can't get out till they are out. I took care of the epergne, and Lizzie of the pots."
With a general laugh, everybody rushed to get to the imprisoned Lizzie. Lucy lingered a moment, ostensibly looking at the epergne, really drying her tears away. Travice came back to her.
He took her in his arms; he kissed the tears from her cheeks; he whispered words of the sweetest tenderness, asking what her grief was.
"Not grief, Travice—joy. I was thinking of the past. What would have become of us but for her generosity?"
"But for her generosity, Lucy, I should have been her husband now. I should never have held my darling in my arms. Yes, she was generous! God bless her always! I'll never hate anybody again, Lucy."
Lucy glanced up shyly at him, a smile parting her lips at the last words. And she put her hand within the arm of him who was soon to be her husband, as they went out in the wake of the rest, to rescue the flower-pots and Miss Lizzie Fauntleroy.
And Mr. St. John and the dean's daughter? Ah! not in this place can their after-history be given. But you may hear it sometime.