Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.Difficulties.“And ’t was na for a Popish yokeThat bravest men came forthTo part wi’ life and dearest ties,And a’ that life was worth.”Jacobite Ballad.“Ephraim Hebblethwaite!” I cried out.“I believe so,” he said, laughing.“Where did you come from?”“From a certain place in the North, called Brocklebank.”“But what brought you to London?” I cried.“What brought me to London?” he repeated, in quite a different tone,—so much softer. “Well, Cary, I wanted to see something.”“Have you been to see it?” I asked, more to give myself time to cool down than because I cared to know.“Yes, I have been to see it,” he said, and smiled.“And did you find it as agreeable as you expected?”“Quite. I had seen it before, and I wanted to know if it were spoiled.”“Oh, I hope it is not spoiled!” said I.“Not at all,” said he, his voice growing softer and softer. “No, it is not spoiled yet, Cary.”“Do you expect it will be?” I was getting cooler now.“I don’t know,” he answered, very gravely for him, for Ephraim is not at all given to moroseness and long faces. “God grant it never may!”I could not think what he meant, and I did not like to ask him. Indeed, I had not much opportunity, for he began talking about our journey, and Brocklebank, and all the people there, and I was so interested that we did not get back to what Ephraim came to see.There is a new Vicar, he says, whose name is Mr Liversedge, and he has quite changed things in the parish. The people are divided about him; some like him, and some do not. He does not read his sermons, which is very strange, but speaks them out just as if he were talking to you; and he has begun to catechise the children in an afternoon, and to visit everybody in the parish; and he neither shoots, hunts, nor fishes. His sermons have a ring in them, says Ephraim; they wake you up, Old John Oakley complains that he can’t nap nigh so comfortable as when th’ old Vicar were there; and Mally Crosthwaite says she never heard such goings on—why, th’ parson asked her if she were a Christian!—she that had always kept to her church, rain and shine, and never missed once! and it was hard if she were to miss the Christmas dole this year, along o’ not being a Christian. She’d always thought being Church was plenty good enough—none o’ your low Dissenting work: but, mercy on us, she didn’t know what to say to this here parson, that she didn’t! A Christian, indeed! The parson was a Christian, was he? Well, if so, she didn’t make much ’count o’ Christians, for all he was a parson. Didn’t he tell old John he couldn’t recommend him for the dole, just by reason he rapped out an oath or two when his grand-daughter let the milk-jug fall?—and if old Bet Donnerthwaite had had a sup too much one night at the ale-house, was it for a gentleman born like the parson to take note of that?“But he has done worse things than that, Cary,” said Ephraim, with grave mouth and laughing eyes.“What? Go on,” said I, for I saw something funny was coming.“Why, would you believe it?” said Ephraim. “He called on Mr Bagnall, and asked him if he felt satisfied with the pattern he was setting his flock.”“I am very glad he did!” said I. “What did Mr Bagnall say?”“Got into an awful rage, and told it to all the neighbourhood—as bearing against Mr Liversedge, you understand.”“Well, then, he is a greater simpleton than I took him for,” said I.“I am rather afraid,” said Ephraim, in a hesitating tone, “that he will call at the Fells: and if he say anything that the Squire thinks impertinent or interfering, he will make an enemy of him.”“Oh, Father would just show him the door,” said I, “without more ado.”“Yes, I fear so,” replied Ephraim. “And I am sure he is a good man, Cary. A little rash and incautious, perhaps; does not take time to study character, and so forth; but I am sure he means to do right.”“It will be a pity,” said I. “Ephraim, do you think the Prince will march on London?”“I have not a doubt of it, Cary.”“Oh!” said I. I don’t quite know whether I felt more glad or sorry. “But you will not stay here if he do?”“Yes, I think I shall,” said he.“You will join the army?”“No, not unless I am pressed.”I suppose my face asked another question, for he added with a smile, “I came to keep watch of—that. I must see that it is not spoiled.”I wonder whatthatis! If Ephraim would tell me, I might take some care of it too. I should not like anything he cared for to be spoiled.As I sat in a corner afterwards, I was looking at him, and comparing him in my own mind with all the fine gentlemen in the chamber. Ephraim was quite as handsome as any of them; but his clothes certainly had a country cut, and he did not show as easy manners as they. I am afraid Grandmamma would say he had no manners. He actually put his hand out to save a tray when Grandmamma’s black boy, Caesar, stumbled at the tiger-skin mat: and I am sure no other gentleman in the room would have condescended to see it. There are many little things by which it is easy to tell that Ephraim has not been used to the best society. And yet, I could not help feeling that if I were ill and wanted to be helped up-stairs, or if I were wretched and wanted comforting, it would be Ephraim to whom I should appeal, and not one of these fine gentlemen. They seemed only to be made for sunshine. He would wear, and stand rain. If Hatty’s “men” were all Ephraims, there might be some sense in caring for their opinions. But these fellows—I really can’t afford a better word—these “chiels with glasses in their e’en,” as Sam says, who seem to have no opinions beyond the colour of their coats and paying compliments to everything they see with a petticoat on—do they expect sensible women to care what they think? Let them have a little more sense themselves first—that’s what I say!I said so, one morning as we were dressing: and to my surprise, Annas replied,—“I fancy they have sense enough, Cary, when there are no women in the room. They think we only care for nonsense.”“Yes, I expect that is it,” added Flora.I flew out. I could not stand that. What sort of women must their mothers and sisters be?“Card-playing snuff-takers and giddy flirts,” said Annas. “Be just to them, Cary. If they never see women of any other sort, how are they to know that such are?”“Poor wretches! do you think that possible. Annas?” said I.“Miserably possible,” she said, very seriously. “In every human heart, Cary, there is a place where the man or the woman dwells inside all the frippery and mannerism; the real creature itself, stripped of all disguises. Dig down to that place if you want to see it.”“I should think it takes a vast deal of digging!”“Yes, in some people. But that is the thing God looks at: that is it for which Christ died, and for which Christ’s servants ought to feel love and pity.”I thought it would be terribly difficult to feel love or pity for some people!My Uncle Charles has just come in, and he says a rumour is flying that there has been a great battle near Edinburgh, and that the Prince (who was victorious) is marching on Carlisle. Flora went very white, and even Annas set her lips: but I do not see what we have to fear—at least if Angus and Mr Keith are safe.“Charles,” said Grandmamma, “where are those white cockades we used to have?”“I haven’t a notion, Mother.”Nor had my Aunt Dorothea. But when Perkins was asked, she said, “Isn’t it them, Madam, as you pinned in a parcel, and laid away in the garret?”“Oh, I dare say,” said Grandmamma. “Fetch them down, and let us see if they are worth anything.”So Perkins fetched the parcel, and the cockades were looked over, and pronounced useable by torchlight, though too bad a colour for the day-time.“Keep the packet handy, Perkins,” said Grandmamma.“Shall I give them out now, Madam?” asked Perkins.“Oh, not yet!” said Grandmamma. “Wait till we see how things turn out. White soils so soon, too: we had much better go on with the black ones, at any rate, till the Prince has passed Bedford.”It is wicked, I suppose, to despise one’s elders. But is it not sometimes very difficult to help doing it?I have been reading over the last page or two that I writ, and I came on a line that set me thinking. Things do set me thinking of late in a way they never used to do. It was that about Ephraim’s not being used to the best society. What is the best society? God and the angels; I suppose nobody could question that. Yet, if an angel had been in Grandmamma’s rooms just then, would he not have cared more that Caesar should not fall and hurt himself, and most likely be scolded as well, than that he should be thought to have fine easy manners himself? And I suppose the Lord Jesus died even for Caesar, black though he be. Well, then, the next best society must be those who are going to Heaven: and Ephraim is one of them, I believe. And those who are not going must be bad society, even if they are dressed up to the latest fashion-book, and have the newest and finest breeding at the tips of their fingers. The world seems to be turned round. Ah, but what was that text Mr Whitefield quoted? “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, are not of the Father, but are of the world.” Then must we turn the world round before we get things put straight? It looks like it. I have just been looking at another text, where Saint Paul gives a list of the works of the flesh; (Note: Galatians five 19 to 21.) and I find, along with some things which everybody calls wicked, a lot of others which everybody in “the world” does, and never seems to think of as wrong. “Hatred, variance, emulations, ... envyings, ... drunkenness, revellings, and such like:” and he says, “They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” That is dreadful. I am afraid the world must be worse than I thought. I must take heed to my Aunt Kezia’s rules—set the Lord always before me, and remember that this world passeth away. I suppose the world will laugh at me, if I be not one of its people. What will that matter, if it passeth away? The angels will like me all the better: and they are the best society.And I was thinking the other night as I lay awake, what an awful thing it would be to hear the Lord Jesus, the very Man who died for me, say, “Depart from Me!” I think I could stand the world’s laughter, but I am sure I could never bear that. Christ could help and comfort me if the world used me ill; but who could help me, or comfort me, when He had cast me out? There would be nothing to take refuge in—not even the world, for it would be done with then.Oh, I do hope our Saviour will never say that to me!I seem bound to get into fights with Miss Newton. I do not mean quarrels, but arguments. She is a pleasant, good-humoured girl, but she has such queer ideas. I dare say she thinks I have. I do not know what my Aunt Kezia would say to her. She does not appear to see the right and wrong of things at all. It is only what people will think, and what one likes. If everybody did only what they liked,—is that proper grammar, I wonder? Oh, well, never mind!—I think it would make the world a very disagreeable place to live in, and it is not too pleasant now. And as to people thinking, what on earth does it signify what they think, if they don’t think right? If one person thinking that two and two make three does not alter the fact, why should ten thousand people thinking so be held to make any difference? How many simpletons does it take to be equal to a wise man? I wonder people do not see how ridiculous such notions are.We hear nothing at all from the North—the seat of war, as they begin to call it now. Everybody supposes that the Prince is marching southwards, and will be here some day before long. It diverts me exceedingly to sit every Tuesday in a corner of the room, and watch the red ribbons disappearing and the white ones coming instead. Grandmamma’s two footmen, Morris and Dobson, have orders to take the black cockade out of their hats and clap on a white one, the minute they hear that the royal army enters Middlesex.

“And ’t was na for a Popish yokeThat bravest men came forthTo part wi’ life and dearest ties,And a’ that life was worth.”Jacobite Ballad.

“And ’t was na for a Popish yokeThat bravest men came forthTo part wi’ life and dearest ties,And a’ that life was worth.”Jacobite Ballad.

“Ephraim Hebblethwaite!” I cried out.

“I believe so,” he said, laughing.

“Where did you come from?”

“From a certain place in the North, called Brocklebank.”

“But what brought you to London?” I cried.

“What brought me to London?” he repeated, in quite a different tone,—so much softer. “Well, Cary, I wanted to see something.”

“Have you been to see it?” I asked, more to give myself time to cool down than because I cared to know.

“Yes, I have been to see it,” he said, and smiled.

“And did you find it as agreeable as you expected?”

“Quite. I had seen it before, and I wanted to know if it were spoiled.”

“Oh, I hope it is not spoiled!” said I.

“Not at all,” said he, his voice growing softer and softer. “No, it is not spoiled yet, Cary.”

“Do you expect it will be?” I was getting cooler now.

“I don’t know,” he answered, very gravely for him, for Ephraim is not at all given to moroseness and long faces. “God grant it never may!”

I could not think what he meant, and I did not like to ask him. Indeed, I had not much opportunity, for he began talking about our journey, and Brocklebank, and all the people there, and I was so interested that we did not get back to what Ephraim came to see.

There is a new Vicar, he says, whose name is Mr Liversedge, and he has quite changed things in the parish. The people are divided about him; some like him, and some do not. He does not read his sermons, which is very strange, but speaks them out just as if he were talking to you; and he has begun to catechise the children in an afternoon, and to visit everybody in the parish; and he neither shoots, hunts, nor fishes. His sermons have a ring in them, says Ephraim; they wake you up, Old John Oakley complains that he can’t nap nigh so comfortable as when th’ old Vicar were there; and Mally Crosthwaite says she never heard such goings on—why, th’ parson asked her if she were a Christian!—she that had always kept to her church, rain and shine, and never missed once! and it was hard if she were to miss the Christmas dole this year, along o’ not being a Christian. She’d always thought being Church was plenty good enough—none o’ your low Dissenting work: but, mercy on us, she didn’t know what to say to this here parson, that she didn’t! A Christian, indeed! The parson was a Christian, was he? Well, if so, she didn’t make much ’count o’ Christians, for all he was a parson. Didn’t he tell old John he couldn’t recommend him for the dole, just by reason he rapped out an oath or two when his grand-daughter let the milk-jug fall?—and if old Bet Donnerthwaite had had a sup too much one night at the ale-house, was it for a gentleman born like the parson to take note of that?

“But he has done worse things than that, Cary,” said Ephraim, with grave mouth and laughing eyes.

“What? Go on,” said I, for I saw something funny was coming.

“Why, would you believe it?” said Ephraim. “He called on Mr Bagnall, and asked him if he felt satisfied with the pattern he was setting his flock.”

“I am very glad he did!” said I. “What did Mr Bagnall say?”

“Got into an awful rage, and told it to all the neighbourhood—as bearing against Mr Liversedge, you understand.”

“Well, then, he is a greater simpleton than I took him for,” said I.

“I am rather afraid,” said Ephraim, in a hesitating tone, “that he will call at the Fells: and if he say anything that the Squire thinks impertinent or interfering, he will make an enemy of him.”

“Oh, Father would just show him the door,” said I, “without more ado.”

“Yes, I fear so,” replied Ephraim. “And I am sure he is a good man, Cary. A little rash and incautious, perhaps; does not take time to study character, and so forth; but I am sure he means to do right.”

“It will be a pity,” said I. “Ephraim, do you think the Prince will march on London?”

“I have not a doubt of it, Cary.”

“Oh!” said I. I don’t quite know whether I felt more glad or sorry. “But you will not stay here if he do?”

“Yes, I think I shall,” said he.

“You will join the army?”

“No, not unless I am pressed.”

I suppose my face asked another question, for he added with a smile, “I came to keep watch of—that. I must see that it is not spoiled.”

I wonder whatthatis! If Ephraim would tell me, I might take some care of it too. I should not like anything he cared for to be spoiled.

As I sat in a corner afterwards, I was looking at him, and comparing him in my own mind with all the fine gentlemen in the chamber. Ephraim was quite as handsome as any of them; but his clothes certainly had a country cut, and he did not show as easy manners as they. I am afraid Grandmamma would say he had no manners. He actually put his hand out to save a tray when Grandmamma’s black boy, Caesar, stumbled at the tiger-skin mat: and I am sure no other gentleman in the room would have condescended to see it. There are many little things by which it is easy to tell that Ephraim has not been used to the best society. And yet, I could not help feeling that if I were ill and wanted to be helped up-stairs, or if I were wretched and wanted comforting, it would be Ephraim to whom I should appeal, and not one of these fine gentlemen. They seemed only to be made for sunshine. He would wear, and stand rain. If Hatty’s “men” were all Ephraims, there might be some sense in caring for their opinions. But these fellows—I really can’t afford a better word—these “chiels with glasses in their e’en,” as Sam says, who seem to have no opinions beyond the colour of their coats and paying compliments to everything they see with a petticoat on—do they expect sensible women to care what they think? Let them have a little more sense themselves first—that’s what I say!

I said so, one morning as we were dressing: and to my surprise, Annas replied,—

“I fancy they have sense enough, Cary, when there are no women in the room. They think we only care for nonsense.”

“Yes, I expect that is it,” added Flora.

I flew out. I could not stand that. What sort of women must their mothers and sisters be?

“Card-playing snuff-takers and giddy flirts,” said Annas. “Be just to them, Cary. If they never see women of any other sort, how are they to know that such are?”

“Poor wretches! do you think that possible. Annas?” said I.

“Miserably possible,” she said, very seriously. “In every human heart, Cary, there is a place where the man or the woman dwells inside all the frippery and mannerism; the real creature itself, stripped of all disguises. Dig down to that place if you want to see it.”

“I should think it takes a vast deal of digging!”

“Yes, in some people. But that is the thing God looks at: that is it for which Christ died, and for which Christ’s servants ought to feel love and pity.”

I thought it would be terribly difficult to feel love or pity for some people!

My Uncle Charles has just come in, and he says a rumour is flying that there has been a great battle near Edinburgh, and that the Prince (who was victorious) is marching on Carlisle. Flora went very white, and even Annas set her lips: but I do not see what we have to fear—at least if Angus and Mr Keith are safe.

“Charles,” said Grandmamma, “where are those white cockades we used to have?”

“I haven’t a notion, Mother.”

Nor had my Aunt Dorothea. But when Perkins was asked, she said, “Isn’t it them, Madam, as you pinned in a parcel, and laid away in the garret?”

“Oh, I dare say,” said Grandmamma. “Fetch them down, and let us see if they are worth anything.”

So Perkins fetched the parcel, and the cockades were looked over, and pronounced useable by torchlight, though too bad a colour for the day-time.

“Keep the packet handy, Perkins,” said Grandmamma.

“Shall I give them out now, Madam?” asked Perkins.

“Oh, not yet!” said Grandmamma. “Wait till we see how things turn out. White soils so soon, too: we had much better go on with the black ones, at any rate, till the Prince has passed Bedford.”

It is wicked, I suppose, to despise one’s elders. But is it not sometimes very difficult to help doing it?

I have been reading over the last page or two that I writ, and I came on a line that set me thinking. Things do set me thinking of late in a way they never used to do. It was that about Ephraim’s not being used to the best society. What is the best society? God and the angels; I suppose nobody could question that. Yet, if an angel had been in Grandmamma’s rooms just then, would he not have cared more that Caesar should not fall and hurt himself, and most likely be scolded as well, than that he should be thought to have fine easy manners himself? And I suppose the Lord Jesus died even for Caesar, black though he be. Well, then, the next best society must be those who are going to Heaven: and Ephraim is one of them, I believe. And those who are not going must be bad society, even if they are dressed up to the latest fashion-book, and have the newest and finest breeding at the tips of their fingers. The world seems to be turned round. Ah, but what was that text Mr Whitefield quoted? “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, are not of the Father, but are of the world.” Then must we turn the world round before we get things put straight? It looks like it. I have just been looking at another text, where Saint Paul gives a list of the works of the flesh; (Note: Galatians five 19 to 21.) and I find, along with some things which everybody calls wicked, a lot of others which everybody in “the world” does, and never seems to think of as wrong. “Hatred, variance, emulations, ... envyings, ... drunkenness, revellings, and such like:” and he says, “They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” That is dreadful. I am afraid the world must be worse than I thought. I must take heed to my Aunt Kezia’s rules—set the Lord always before me, and remember that this world passeth away. I suppose the world will laugh at me, if I be not one of its people. What will that matter, if it passeth away? The angels will like me all the better: and they are the best society.

And I was thinking the other night as I lay awake, what an awful thing it would be to hear the Lord Jesus, the very Man who died for me, say, “Depart from Me!” I think I could stand the world’s laughter, but I am sure I could never bear that. Christ could help and comfort me if the world used me ill; but who could help me, or comfort me, when He had cast me out? There would be nothing to take refuge in—not even the world, for it would be done with then.

Oh, I do hope our Saviour will never say that to me!

I seem bound to get into fights with Miss Newton. I do not mean quarrels, but arguments. She is a pleasant, good-humoured girl, but she has such queer ideas. I dare say she thinks I have. I do not know what my Aunt Kezia would say to her. She does not appear to see the right and wrong of things at all. It is only what people will think, and what one likes. If everybody did only what they liked,—is that proper grammar, I wonder? Oh, well, never mind!—I think it would make the world a very disagreeable place to live in, and it is not too pleasant now. And as to people thinking, what on earth does it signify what they think, if they don’t think right? If one person thinking that two and two make three does not alter the fact, why should ten thousand people thinking so be held to make any difference? How many simpletons does it take to be equal to a wise man? I wonder people do not see how ridiculous such notions are.

We hear nothing at all from the North—the seat of war, as they begin to call it now. Everybody supposes that the Prince is marching southwards, and will be here some day before long. It diverts me exceedingly to sit every Tuesday in a corner of the room, and watch the red ribbons disappearing and the white ones coming instead. Grandmamma’s two footmen, Morris and Dobson, have orders to take the black cockade out of their hats and clap on a white one, the minute they hear that the royal army enters Middlesex.

November 22nd.

November 22nd.

The Prince has taken Carlisle! It is said that he is marching on Derby as fast as his troops can come. Everybody is in a flutter. I can guess where Father is, and how excited he will be. I know he would go to wait on his Royal Highness directly, and I should not wonder if a number of the officers are quartered at Brocklebank—were, I should say. I almost wish we were there! But when I said so to Ephraim, who comes every Tuesday, such a strange look of pain came into his eyes, and he said, “Don’t, Cary!” so sadly. I wonder what the next thing will be!After I had written this, came one of Grandmamma’s extra assemblies—Oh, I should have altered my date! it is so troublesome—on Thursday evening, and I looked round, and could not see one red ribbon that was not mixed with white. A great many wore plain white, and among them Miss Newton. I sat down by her.“How do you this evening, Miss Newton?” I mischievously asked. “I am so delighted to see you become a Tory since I saw you last Tuesday.”“How do you know I was not one before?” asked she, laughing.“Your ribbons were not,” said I. “They were red on Tuesday.”“Well, you ought to compliment me on the suddenness of my conversion,” said she: “for I never was a trimmer. Oh, how absurd it is to make ribbons and patches mean things! Why should one not wear red and white just as one does green and blue?”“It would be a boon to some people, I am sure,” said I.“Perhaps we shall, some day, when the world has become sensible,” said Miss Newton.“Can you give me the date, Madam?”It was a strange voice which asked this question. I looked up over my shoulder, and saw a man of no particular age, dressed in gown and cassock. (Note 1.) Miss Newton looked up too, laughing.“Indeed I cannot, Mr Raymond,” said she. “Can you?”“Only by events,” he answered. “I should expect it to be after the King has entered His capital.”I felt, rather than saw, what he meant.“I am a poor hand at riddles,” said Miss Newton, shaking her head. “I did not expect to see you here, Mr Raymond.”“Nor would you have seen me here,” was the answer, “had I not been charged to deliver a message of grave import to one who is here.”“Not me, I hope?” said Miss Newton, looking graver.“Not you. I trust you will thank God for it. And now, can you kindly direct me to the young lady for whom I am to look? Is there here a Miss Flora Drummond?”I sprang up with a smothered cry of “Angus!”“Are you Miss Drummond?” he asked, very kindly.“Flora Drummond is my cousin,” I answered. “I will take you to her. But is it about Angus?”“It is about her brother, Lieutenant Drummond. He is not killed—let me say so at once.”We were pressing through the superb crowd, and the moment afterwards we reached Flora. She was standing by a little table, talking with Ephraim Hebblethwaite, who spoke to Mr Raymond in a way which showed that they knew each other. Flora just looked at him, and then said, quietly enough to all appearance, though she went very white—“You have bad news for some one, and I think for me.”“Lieutenant Drummond was severely wounded at Prestonpans, and has fallen into the hands of the King’s troops,” said Mr Raymond, gently, as if he wished her to know the worst at once. “He is a prisoner now.”Flora clasped her hands with a long breath of pain and apprehension. “You are sure, Sir? There is no mistake?”“I think, none,” he replied. “I have the news from Colonel Keith.”“If you heard it from him, it must be true,” she said. “But is he in London?”“Yes; and he ran some risk, as you may guess, to send that message to you.”“Duncan is always good,” said Flora, with tears in her eyes. “He was not hurt, I hope? Will you see him again?”“He said he was not hurt worth mention.” (I began to wonder what size of a hurt Mr Keith would think worth mention.) “Yes, I shall see him again this evening or to-morrow.”“Oh, do give him the kindest words and thanks from me,” said Flora, commanding her voice with some difficulty. “I wish I could have seen him! Let me tell Annas—she may wish—” and away she went to fetch Annas, while Mr Raymond looked after her with a look which I thought half sad and half diverted.“Will you tell me,” I said, “how Mr Keith ran any risk?”“Why, you do not suppose, young lady, that London is in the hands of the rebels?”“The rebels!—Oh, you are a Whig; I see. But the Prince is coming, and fast. Is he not?”“Not just yet, I think,” said Mr Raymond, with an odd look in his eyes.“Why, we hear it from all quarters,” said I; “and the red ribbons are all getting white.”Mr Raymond smiled. “Rather a singular transformation, truly. But I think the ribbons will be well worn before the young Chevalier reviews his army in Hyde Park.”“I will not believe it!” cried I. “The Prince must be victorious! God defends the right!”“God defends His own,” said Mr Raymond. “Do you see in history that He always defends the cause which you account to be right?”No; I could not say that.“How can you be an opponent of the Cause?” I cried—I am afraid, shifting my ground.He smiled again. “I can well understand the attraction of the Cause,” said he, “to a young and enthusiastic nature. There is something very enticing in the son of an exiled Prince, come to win back what he conceives to be the inheritance of his fathers. And in truth, if the Old Pretender were really the son of King James,—well, it might be more difficult to say what a man’s duty would be in that case. But that, as you know, is thought by many to be at best very doubtful.”“You do not believe he is?” cried I.“I do not believe it,” said Mr Raymond.I wondered how he could possibly doubt it.“Nor is that all that is to be considered,” he went on. “I can tell you, young lady, if he were to succeed, we should all rue it bitterly before long. His triumph is the triumph of Rome—the triumph of persecution and martyrdom and agony for God’s people.”“I know that,” said I. “But right is right, for all that! The Crown is his, not the Elector’s. On that principle, any man might steal money, if he meant to do good with it.”“The Crown is neither George’s nor James’s, as some think,” said Mr Raymond, “but belongs to the people.”Who could have stood such a speech as that?“The people!” I cried. “The mob—the rabble—the Crown is theirs! How can any man imagine such a thing?”“You forget, methinks, young lady,” said Mr Raymond, as quietly as before, “that you are one of those of whom you speak.”“I forget nothing of the kind,” cried I, too angry to be civil. “Of course I know I am one of the people. What do you mean? Am I to maintain that black beetles are cherubim, because I am a black beetle? Truth is truth. The Crown is God’s, not the people’s. When He chose to make the present King—King James of course, not that wretched Elector—the son of his father, He distinctly told the people whom He wished them to have for their king. What right have they to dispute His ordinance?”I was quite beyond myself. I had forgotten where I was, and to whom I was talking—forgotten Mr Raymond, and Angus, and Flora, and even Grandmamma. It seemed to me as if there were only two parties in the world, and on the one hand were God and the King, and on the other a miserable mass of silly nobodies called The People. How could such contemptible insects presume to judge for themselves, or to set their wills up in opposition to the will of him whom God had commanded them to obey?The softest, lightest of touches fell on my shoulder. I looked up into the grave grey eyes of Annas Keith. And feeling myself excessively rude and utterly extinguished,—(and yet, after all, right)—I slipped out of the group, and made my way into the farthest corner. Mr Raymond, of course, would think me no gentlewoman. Well, it did not much matter what he thought; he was only a Whig. And when the Prince were actually come, which would be in a very few days at the furthest—then he would see which of us was right. Meantime, I could wait. And the next minute I felt as if I could not wait—no, not another instant.“Sit down, Cary. You look tired,” said Ephraim beside me.“I am not a bit tired, thank you,” said I, “but I am abominably angry.”“Nothing more tiring,” said he. “What about?”“Oh, don’t make me go over it! I have been talking to a Whig.”“That means, I suppose, that the Whig has been talking to you. Which beat? I beg pardon—you did, of course.”“I was right and he was wrong, if you mean that,” said I. “But whether he thinks he is beaten—”“If he be an Englishman, he does not,” said Ephraim. “Particularly if he be a North Country man.”“I don’t know what country he comes from,” cried I. “I should like to make mincemeat of him.”“Indigestible,” suggested Ephraim, quite gravely.“Ephraim, what are we to do for Angus?” said I, as it came back to me: and I told him the news which Mr Raymond had brought. Ephraim gave a soft whispered whistle.“You may well ask,” said he. “I am afraid, Cary, nothing can be done.”“What will they do to him?”His face grew graver still.“You know,” he said, in a low voice, “what they did to Lord Derwentwater. Colonel Keith had better lie close.”“But that Whig knows where he is!” cried I. “He—Ephraim, do you know him?”“Know whom, Cary?”“Mr Raymond.”“Is he your Whig?” asked Ephraim, laughing. “Pray, don’t make him into mincemeat; he is one of the best men in England.”“He need be,” said I; “he is a horrid Whig! What do you, being friends with such a man?”“He is a very good man, Cary. He was one of my tutors at school. I never knew what his politics were before to-night.”We were silent for a while; and then Grandmamma sent for me, not, as I feared, to scold me for being loud-spoken and warm, but to tell me that one of my lappets hung below the other, and I must make Perkins alter it before Tuesday. I do not know how I bore the rest of the evening.When I went up at last to our chamber, I found it empty. Lucette, Grandmamma’s French woman, who waits on her, while Perkins is rather my Aunt Dorothea’s and ours, came in to tell me that Perkins was gone to bed with a headache, and hoped that we would allow her to wait on us to-night, when she was dismissed by the elder ladies.“Oh, I want no waiting at all,” said I, “if somebody will just take the pins out of my head-dress carefully. Do that, Lucette, and then I shall need nothing else, I cannot speak for the other young ladies.”Lucette threw a wrapping-cape over my shoulders, and began to remove the pins with deft fingers. Grandmamma had not yet come up-stairs.“Mademoiselle Agnes looks charmante to-night,” said she: “but then she is always charmante. But what has Mademoiselle Flore? So white, so white she is! I saw her through the door.”I told her that Flora’s brother had been taken prisoner.“Ah, this horrible war!” cried she. “Can the grands Seigneurs not leave alone the wars? or else fight out their quarrels their own selves?”“Oh, the Prince will soon be here,” said I, “and then it will all be over.”“All be over? Ah,sapristi! Mademoiselle does not know. The Prince means the priests: and the priests mean—Bon! have I not heard my grandmother tell?”“Tell what, Lucette? I thought you were a Papist, like all Frenchwomen.”“A Catholic—I? Why then came my grandfather to this country, and my father, and all? Does Mademoiselle suppose they loved better Spitalfields than Blois? Should they then leave a country where the sun is glorious and the vinesravissantes, for this black cold place where the sun shine once a year?Vraiment! Serait-il possible?”I laughed. “The sun shines oftener in Cumberland, Lucette. I won’t defend Spitalfields. But I want to know what your grandmother told you about the priests.”“The priests have two sides, Mademoiselle. On the one is the confessional: you must go—you shall not choose. You kneel; you speak out all—every thought in your heart, every secret of your dearest friend. You may not hide one little thought. The priest hears you hesitate? The questions come:—Mademoiselle, terrible questions, questions I could not ask, nor you understand. You learn to understand them. They burn up your heart, they drag down to Hell your soul. That is one side.”“Would they see me there twice!” said I.“Then, if not so, there is the other side. The chains, the torture-irons, the fire. You can choose, so: you tell, or you die. There is no more choice. Does Mademoiselle wonder that we came?”“No, indeed, Lucette. How could I? But that was in France. This is England. We are a different sort of people here.”“You—yes. But the Church and the priests are the same everywhere. Everywhere! May the good God keep them from us!”“Why, Lucette! you are praying against the Prince, if it be as you say!”“Ah! would I then do harm toMonseigneur le Prince? Let him leave there the priests, and none shall be more glad to see him come than I. I love the right, always. But the priests! No, no.”“But if it be right, Lucette?”“The good God knows what is right. But, Mademoiselle, can it be right to bring in the priests and the confessions?”“Is it not God who brings them, Lucette? We only bring the King. If the King choose to bring the priests—”“Ah! then the Lord will bring the fires. But the Lord bring the priests! The Lord shut up the prêches and set up the mass? The Lord burn His poor servants, and clothe the servants of Satan in gold and scarlet? The Lord forbid His Word, and set up images?Comment, Mademoiselle! It would not be possible.”“But, Lucette, the King has the right.”“The Lord Christ has the right,” said Lucette, solemnly. “Is it not He whose right it is? Mademoiselle, He stands before the King!”We heard Grandmamma saying good-night to my Uncle Charles at the foot of the stairs, and Lucette ran off to her chamber.I felt more plagued than ever. Whatisright?Just then Annas and Flora came up; Annas grave but composed, Flora with a white face and red eyes.“O Cary, Cary!” She came and put her arms round me. “Pray for Angus; we shall never see him again. And he is not ready—he is not ready.”“My poor Flora!” I said, and I did my best to soothe her. But Annas did better.“The Lord can make him ready,” she said. “He healed the paralytic man, dear, as some have it, entirely for the faith of them that bore him. And surely the daughter of the Canaanitish woman could have no faith herself.”“Pray for him, Annas!” sobbed Flora. “You have more faith than I.”“I am not so hard tried—yet,” was the grave reply.“You do not think Mr Keith in danger?” said I.“I think the Lord sitteth above the water-floods, Cary; and I would rather not look lower. Not till I must, and that may be very soon.”“Annas,” said I, “I wish you would tell me what right is. I do get so puzzled.”“What puzzles you, Cary? Right is what God wills.”“But would the Prince not have the right, if God did not will him to succeed?”“The Lawgiver can always repeal His own laws. We in the crowd, Cary, can only judge when they be repealed by hearing Him decree something contrary to them. And there are no precedents in that Court. ‘Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He.’ We can only wait and see. Until we do see it, we must follow our last orders.”“My Father says,” added Flora, “that this question was made harder than it need have been, by the throwing out of the Exclusion Bill. The House of Commons passed it, but the Bishops and Lord Halifax threw it out; if that had been passed, making it impossible for a Papist to be King, then King James would never have come to the throne at all, and all the troubles and persecutions of his reign would not have happened. That, my Father says, was where they went wrong.”“Well,” said I, “it does look like it. But how queer that the Bishops should be the people to go wrong!”Annas laughed.“You will find that nothing new, Cary, if you search,” said she. “‘They that lead thee cause thee to err’ is as old a calamity as the Prophets. And where priests or would-be priests are the leaders, they very generally do go wrong.”“I wish,” said I, “there were a few more ‘Thou shalt nots’ in the Bible.”“Have you finished obeying all there are?”I considered that question with one sleeve off.“Well, no, I suppose not,” I said at length, pulling off the other.Annas smiled gravely, and said no more.Glorious news! The Prince is at Derby. I am sure there is no more need to fear for Angus. His Royal Highness will be here in a very few days now: and then let the Whigs look to themselves!Grandmamma has bought some more white cockades. She says Hatty has improved wonderfully; her cheeks are not so shockingly red, and she speaks better, and has more decent manners. She thinks the Crosslands have done her a great deal of good. I thought Hatty looking not at all well the last time she was here; and so grave for her—almost sad. And I am afraid the Crosslands, or somebody, have done her a great deal of bad. But somehow, Hatty is one of those people whom you cannot question unless she likes. Something inside me will not put the questions. I don’t know what it is.I wish I knew everything! If I could only understand myself, I should get on better. And how am I going to understand other people?Note 1. A clergyman always wore his cassock at this time. Whitefield was very severe on those worldly clergy who laid it aside, and went “disguised”—namely, in the ordinary coat—to entertainments of various kinds.

The Prince has taken Carlisle! It is said that he is marching on Derby as fast as his troops can come. Everybody is in a flutter. I can guess where Father is, and how excited he will be. I know he would go to wait on his Royal Highness directly, and I should not wonder if a number of the officers are quartered at Brocklebank—were, I should say. I almost wish we were there! But when I said so to Ephraim, who comes every Tuesday, such a strange look of pain came into his eyes, and he said, “Don’t, Cary!” so sadly. I wonder what the next thing will be!

After I had written this, came one of Grandmamma’s extra assemblies—Oh, I should have altered my date! it is so troublesome—on Thursday evening, and I looked round, and could not see one red ribbon that was not mixed with white. A great many wore plain white, and among them Miss Newton. I sat down by her.

“How do you this evening, Miss Newton?” I mischievously asked. “I am so delighted to see you become a Tory since I saw you last Tuesday.”

“How do you know I was not one before?” asked she, laughing.

“Your ribbons were not,” said I. “They were red on Tuesday.”

“Well, you ought to compliment me on the suddenness of my conversion,” said she: “for I never was a trimmer. Oh, how absurd it is to make ribbons and patches mean things! Why should one not wear red and white just as one does green and blue?”

“It would be a boon to some people, I am sure,” said I.

“Perhaps we shall, some day, when the world has become sensible,” said Miss Newton.

“Can you give me the date, Madam?”

It was a strange voice which asked this question. I looked up over my shoulder, and saw a man of no particular age, dressed in gown and cassock. (Note 1.) Miss Newton looked up too, laughing.

“Indeed I cannot, Mr Raymond,” said she. “Can you?”

“Only by events,” he answered. “I should expect it to be after the King has entered His capital.”

I felt, rather than saw, what he meant.

“I am a poor hand at riddles,” said Miss Newton, shaking her head. “I did not expect to see you here, Mr Raymond.”

“Nor would you have seen me here,” was the answer, “had I not been charged to deliver a message of grave import to one who is here.”

“Not me, I hope?” said Miss Newton, looking graver.

“Not you. I trust you will thank God for it. And now, can you kindly direct me to the young lady for whom I am to look? Is there here a Miss Flora Drummond?”

I sprang up with a smothered cry of “Angus!”

“Are you Miss Drummond?” he asked, very kindly.

“Flora Drummond is my cousin,” I answered. “I will take you to her. But is it about Angus?”

“It is about her brother, Lieutenant Drummond. He is not killed—let me say so at once.”

We were pressing through the superb crowd, and the moment afterwards we reached Flora. She was standing by a little table, talking with Ephraim Hebblethwaite, who spoke to Mr Raymond in a way which showed that they knew each other. Flora just looked at him, and then said, quietly enough to all appearance, though she went very white—

“You have bad news for some one, and I think for me.”

“Lieutenant Drummond was severely wounded at Prestonpans, and has fallen into the hands of the King’s troops,” said Mr Raymond, gently, as if he wished her to know the worst at once. “He is a prisoner now.”

Flora clasped her hands with a long breath of pain and apprehension. “You are sure, Sir? There is no mistake?”

“I think, none,” he replied. “I have the news from Colonel Keith.”

“If you heard it from him, it must be true,” she said. “But is he in London?”

“Yes; and he ran some risk, as you may guess, to send that message to you.”

“Duncan is always good,” said Flora, with tears in her eyes. “He was not hurt, I hope? Will you see him again?”

“He said he was not hurt worth mention.” (I began to wonder what size of a hurt Mr Keith would think worth mention.) “Yes, I shall see him again this evening or to-morrow.”

“Oh, do give him the kindest words and thanks from me,” said Flora, commanding her voice with some difficulty. “I wish I could have seen him! Let me tell Annas—she may wish—” and away she went to fetch Annas, while Mr Raymond looked after her with a look which I thought half sad and half diverted.

“Will you tell me,” I said, “how Mr Keith ran any risk?”

“Why, you do not suppose, young lady, that London is in the hands of the rebels?”

“The rebels!—Oh, you are a Whig; I see. But the Prince is coming, and fast. Is he not?”

“Not just yet, I think,” said Mr Raymond, with an odd look in his eyes.

“Why, we hear it from all quarters,” said I; “and the red ribbons are all getting white.”

Mr Raymond smiled. “Rather a singular transformation, truly. But I think the ribbons will be well worn before the young Chevalier reviews his army in Hyde Park.”

“I will not believe it!” cried I. “The Prince must be victorious! God defends the right!”

“God defends His own,” said Mr Raymond. “Do you see in history that He always defends the cause which you account to be right?”

No; I could not say that.

“How can you be an opponent of the Cause?” I cried—I am afraid, shifting my ground.

He smiled again. “I can well understand the attraction of the Cause,” said he, “to a young and enthusiastic nature. There is something very enticing in the son of an exiled Prince, come to win back what he conceives to be the inheritance of his fathers. And in truth, if the Old Pretender were really the son of King James,—well, it might be more difficult to say what a man’s duty would be in that case. But that, as you know, is thought by many to be at best very doubtful.”

“You do not believe he is?” cried I.

“I do not believe it,” said Mr Raymond.

I wondered how he could possibly doubt it.

“Nor is that all that is to be considered,” he went on. “I can tell you, young lady, if he were to succeed, we should all rue it bitterly before long. His triumph is the triumph of Rome—the triumph of persecution and martyrdom and agony for God’s people.”

“I know that,” said I. “But right is right, for all that! The Crown is his, not the Elector’s. On that principle, any man might steal money, if he meant to do good with it.”

“The Crown is neither George’s nor James’s, as some think,” said Mr Raymond, “but belongs to the people.”

Who could have stood such a speech as that?

“The people!” I cried. “The mob—the rabble—the Crown is theirs! How can any man imagine such a thing?”

“You forget, methinks, young lady,” said Mr Raymond, as quietly as before, “that you are one of those of whom you speak.”

“I forget nothing of the kind,” cried I, too angry to be civil. “Of course I know I am one of the people. What do you mean? Am I to maintain that black beetles are cherubim, because I am a black beetle? Truth is truth. The Crown is God’s, not the people’s. When He chose to make the present King—King James of course, not that wretched Elector—the son of his father, He distinctly told the people whom He wished them to have for their king. What right have they to dispute His ordinance?”

I was quite beyond myself. I had forgotten where I was, and to whom I was talking—forgotten Mr Raymond, and Angus, and Flora, and even Grandmamma. It seemed to me as if there were only two parties in the world, and on the one hand were God and the King, and on the other a miserable mass of silly nobodies called The People. How could such contemptible insects presume to judge for themselves, or to set their wills up in opposition to the will of him whom God had commanded them to obey?

The softest, lightest of touches fell on my shoulder. I looked up into the grave grey eyes of Annas Keith. And feeling myself excessively rude and utterly extinguished,—(and yet, after all, right)—I slipped out of the group, and made my way into the farthest corner. Mr Raymond, of course, would think me no gentlewoman. Well, it did not much matter what he thought; he was only a Whig. And when the Prince were actually come, which would be in a very few days at the furthest—then he would see which of us was right. Meantime, I could wait. And the next minute I felt as if I could not wait—no, not another instant.

“Sit down, Cary. You look tired,” said Ephraim beside me.

“I am not a bit tired, thank you,” said I, “but I am abominably angry.”

“Nothing more tiring,” said he. “What about?”

“Oh, don’t make me go over it! I have been talking to a Whig.”

“That means, I suppose, that the Whig has been talking to you. Which beat? I beg pardon—you did, of course.”

“I was right and he was wrong, if you mean that,” said I. “But whether he thinks he is beaten—”

“If he be an Englishman, he does not,” said Ephraim. “Particularly if he be a North Country man.”

“I don’t know what country he comes from,” cried I. “I should like to make mincemeat of him.”

“Indigestible,” suggested Ephraim, quite gravely.

“Ephraim, what are we to do for Angus?” said I, as it came back to me: and I told him the news which Mr Raymond had brought. Ephraim gave a soft whispered whistle.

“You may well ask,” said he. “I am afraid, Cary, nothing can be done.”

“What will they do to him?”

His face grew graver still.

“You know,” he said, in a low voice, “what they did to Lord Derwentwater. Colonel Keith had better lie close.”

“But that Whig knows where he is!” cried I. “He—Ephraim, do you know him?”

“Know whom, Cary?”

“Mr Raymond.”

“Is he your Whig?” asked Ephraim, laughing. “Pray, don’t make him into mincemeat; he is one of the best men in England.”

“He need be,” said I; “he is a horrid Whig! What do you, being friends with such a man?”

“He is a very good man, Cary. He was one of my tutors at school. I never knew what his politics were before to-night.”

We were silent for a while; and then Grandmamma sent for me, not, as I feared, to scold me for being loud-spoken and warm, but to tell me that one of my lappets hung below the other, and I must make Perkins alter it before Tuesday. I do not know how I bore the rest of the evening.

When I went up at last to our chamber, I found it empty. Lucette, Grandmamma’s French woman, who waits on her, while Perkins is rather my Aunt Dorothea’s and ours, came in to tell me that Perkins was gone to bed with a headache, and hoped that we would allow her to wait on us to-night, when she was dismissed by the elder ladies.

“Oh, I want no waiting at all,” said I, “if somebody will just take the pins out of my head-dress carefully. Do that, Lucette, and then I shall need nothing else, I cannot speak for the other young ladies.”

Lucette threw a wrapping-cape over my shoulders, and began to remove the pins with deft fingers. Grandmamma had not yet come up-stairs.

“Mademoiselle Agnes looks charmante to-night,” said she: “but then she is always charmante. But what has Mademoiselle Flore? So white, so white she is! I saw her through the door.”

I told her that Flora’s brother had been taken prisoner.

“Ah, this horrible war!” cried she. “Can the grands Seigneurs not leave alone the wars? or else fight out their quarrels their own selves?”

“Oh, the Prince will soon be here,” said I, “and then it will all be over.”

“All be over? Ah,sapristi! Mademoiselle does not know. The Prince means the priests: and the priests mean—Bon! have I not heard my grandmother tell?”

“Tell what, Lucette? I thought you were a Papist, like all Frenchwomen.”

“A Catholic—I? Why then came my grandfather to this country, and my father, and all? Does Mademoiselle suppose they loved better Spitalfields than Blois? Should they then leave a country where the sun is glorious and the vinesravissantes, for this black cold place where the sun shine once a year?Vraiment! Serait-il possible?”

I laughed. “The sun shines oftener in Cumberland, Lucette. I won’t defend Spitalfields. But I want to know what your grandmother told you about the priests.”

“The priests have two sides, Mademoiselle. On the one is the confessional: you must go—you shall not choose. You kneel; you speak out all—every thought in your heart, every secret of your dearest friend. You may not hide one little thought. The priest hears you hesitate? The questions come:—Mademoiselle, terrible questions, questions I could not ask, nor you understand. You learn to understand them. They burn up your heart, they drag down to Hell your soul. That is one side.”

“Would they see me there twice!” said I.

“Then, if not so, there is the other side. The chains, the torture-irons, the fire. You can choose, so: you tell, or you die. There is no more choice. Does Mademoiselle wonder that we came?”

“No, indeed, Lucette. How could I? But that was in France. This is England. We are a different sort of people here.”

“You—yes. But the Church and the priests are the same everywhere. Everywhere! May the good God keep them from us!”

“Why, Lucette! you are praying against the Prince, if it be as you say!”

“Ah! would I then do harm toMonseigneur le Prince? Let him leave there the priests, and none shall be more glad to see him come than I. I love the right, always. But the priests! No, no.”

“But if it be right, Lucette?”

“The good God knows what is right. But, Mademoiselle, can it be right to bring in the priests and the confessions?”

“Is it not God who brings them, Lucette? We only bring the King. If the King choose to bring the priests—”

“Ah! then the Lord will bring the fires. But the Lord bring the priests! The Lord shut up the prêches and set up the mass? The Lord burn His poor servants, and clothe the servants of Satan in gold and scarlet? The Lord forbid His Word, and set up images?Comment, Mademoiselle! It would not be possible.”

“But, Lucette, the King has the right.”

“The Lord Christ has the right,” said Lucette, solemnly. “Is it not He whose right it is? Mademoiselle, He stands before the King!”

We heard Grandmamma saying good-night to my Uncle Charles at the foot of the stairs, and Lucette ran off to her chamber.

I felt more plagued than ever. Whatisright?

Just then Annas and Flora came up; Annas grave but composed, Flora with a white face and red eyes.

“O Cary, Cary!” She came and put her arms round me. “Pray for Angus; we shall never see him again. And he is not ready—he is not ready.”

“My poor Flora!” I said, and I did my best to soothe her. But Annas did better.

“The Lord can make him ready,” she said. “He healed the paralytic man, dear, as some have it, entirely for the faith of them that bore him. And surely the daughter of the Canaanitish woman could have no faith herself.”

“Pray for him, Annas!” sobbed Flora. “You have more faith than I.”

“I am not so hard tried—yet,” was the grave reply.

“You do not think Mr Keith in danger?” said I.

“I think the Lord sitteth above the water-floods, Cary; and I would rather not look lower. Not till I must, and that may be very soon.”

“Annas,” said I, “I wish you would tell me what right is. I do get so puzzled.”

“What puzzles you, Cary? Right is what God wills.”

“But would the Prince not have the right, if God did not will him to succeed?”

“The Lawgiver can always repeal His own laws. We in the crowd, Cary, can only judge when they be repealed by hearing Him decree something contrary to them. And there are no precedents in that Court. ‘Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He.’ We can only wait and see. Until we do see it, we must follow our last orders.”

“My Father says,” added Flora, “that this question was made harder than it need have been, by the throwing out of the Exclusion Bill. The House of Commons passed it, but the Bishops and Lord Halifax threw it out; if that had been passed, making it impossible for a Papist to be King, then King James would never have come to the throne at all, and all the troubles and persecutions of his reign would not have happened. That, my Father says, was where they went wrong.”

“Well,” said I, “it does look like it. But how queer that the Bishops should be the people to go wrong!”

Annas laughed.

“You will find that nothing new, Cary, if you search,” said she. “‘They that lead thee cause thee to err’ is as old a calamity as the Prophets. And where priests or would-be priests are the leaders, they very generally do go wrong.”

“I wish,” said I, “there were a few more ‘Thou shalt nots’ in the Bible.”

“Have you finished obeying all there are?”

I considered that question with one sleeve off.

“Well, no, I suppose not,” I said at length, pulling off the other.

Annas smiled gravely, and said no more.

Glorious news! The Prince is at Derby. I am sure there is no more need to fear for Angus. His Royal Highness will be here in a very few days now: and then let the Whigs look to themselves!

Grandmamma has bought some more white cockades. She says Hatty has improved wonderfully; her cheeks are not so shockingly red, and she speaks better, and has more decent manners. She thinks the Crosslands have done her a great deal of good. I thought Hatty looking not at all well the last time she was here; and so grave for her—almost sad. And I am afraid the Crosslands, or somebody, have done her a great deal of bad. But somehow, Hatty is one of those people whom you cannot question unless she likes. Something inside me will not put the questions. I don’t know what it is.

I wish I knew everything! If I could only understand myself, I should get on better. And how am I going to understand other people?

Note 1. A clergyman always wore his cassock at this time. Whitefield was very severe on those worldly clergy who laid it aside, and went “disguised”—namely, in the ordinary coat—to entertainments of various kinds.

Chapter Ten.Spiders’ Webs.“Why does he find so many tangled threads,So many dislocated purposes,So many failures in the race of life?”Rev. Horatius Bonar, D.D.We had a grand time of it last night, to celebrate the Prince’s entry into Derby. I did not see one red ribbon. Grandmamma is very much put out at the forbidding of French cambrics; she says nobody will be able to have a decent ruffle or a respectable handkerchief now: but what can you expect of these Hanoverians? And I am sure she looked smart enough last night. We had dancing—first, the minuet, and then a round—“Pepper’s black,” and then “Dull Sir John,” and a country dance, “Smiling Polly.” Flora would not dance, and Grandmamma excused her, because she was a minister’s daughter: Grandmamma always says a clergyman when she tells people: she says minister is a low word only used by Dissenters, and she does not want people to know that any guest of hers has any connection with those creatures. “However, thank Heaven! (says she) the girl is not my grand-daughter!” I don’t know what she would say if I were to turn Dissenter. I suppose she would cut me off with a shilling. Ephraim said so, and I asked him what it meant. Shillings are not very sharp, and what was I to be cut off? Ephraim seemed excessively amused.“You are too good, Cary,” said he. “Did you think the shilling was a knife to cut you off something? It means she will only leave you a shilling in her will.”“Well, that will be a shilling more than I expect,” said I: and Ephraim went off laughing.I asked Miss Newton, as she seemed to know him, who Mr Raymond was. She says he is the lecturer at Saint Helen’s, and might have been a decent man if that horrid creature Mr Wesley had not got hold of him.“Oh, do you know anything about Mr Wesley, or Mr Whitefield?” cried I. “Are they in London now?”If I could hear them again!“I am sure I cannot tell you,” said Miss Newton, laughing. “I have heard my father speak of them with some very strong language after it—that I know. My dear Miss Courtenay, does everything rouse your enthusiasm? For how you can bring that brilliant light into your eyes for the Prince, and for Mr Wesley, is quite beyond me. I should have thought they were the two opposite ends of a pole.”“I don’t know anything about Mr Wesley,” I said, “and I have only heard Mr Whitefield preach once in Scotland.”“You have heard him?” she asked.“Yes, and liked him very much,” said I.Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders in that little French way she has. “Why, some people think him the worse of the two,” she said. “I don’t know anything about them, I can tell you—only that Mr Wesley makes Dissenters faster than you could make tatting-stitches.”“What does he do to them?” said I.“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” said she. “If he had lived in former times, I am sure he would have been taken up for witchcraft. He is a clergyman, or they say so; but I really wonder the Bishops have not turned him out of the Church long ago.”“A clergyman, and makes people Dissenters!” cried I. “Why, Mr Whitefield quoted the Articles in his sermon.”“They said so,” she replied. “I know nothing about it; I never heard the man, thank Heaven! but they say he goes about preaching to all sorts of dreadful creatures—those wild miners down in Cornwall, and coal-heavers, and any sort of mobs he can get to listen. Only fancy a clergyman—a gentleman—doing any such thing!”I thought a moment, and some words came to my mind.“Do you think Mr Wesley was wrong?” I said. “‘The common people heard Him gladly.’ And I suppose you would not say that our Lord was not a gentleman.”“Dear Miss Courtenay, forgive me, but what very odd things you say! And—excuse me—don’t you know it is not thought at all good taste to quote the Bible in polite society?”“Is the Bible worse off for that?” said I. “Or is it the polite society? The best society, I suppose, ought to be in Heaven: and I fancy they do not shut out the Bible there. What think you?”“Are you very innocent?” she answered, laughing; “or are you only making believe? You must know, surely, that religion is not talked about except from the pulpit, and on Sundays.”“But can we all be sure of dying on a Sunday?” I answered. “We shall want religion then, shall we not?”“Hush! we don’t talk of dying either—it is too shocking!”“But don’t we do it sometimes?” I said.Miss Newton looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or be angry—certainly very much disturbed.“Let us talk of something more agreeable, I beg,” said she. “See, Miss Bracewell is going to sing.”“Oh, she will sing nothing worth listening to,” said I.“I suppose you think only Methodist hymns worth listening to,” responded Miss Newton, rather sneeringly.I don’t like to be sneered at. I suppose nobody does. But it does not make me feel timid and yield, as it seems to do many: it only makes me angry.“Well,” said I, “listen how much this is worth.”Amelia drew off her gloves with a listless air which I believe she thought exceedingly genteel. I cannot undertake to describe her song: it was one of those queer lackadaisical ditties which always remind me of those tunes which go just where you don’t expect them to go, and end nowhere. I hate them. And I don’t like the songs much better. Of course there was a lady wringing her hands—why do people in ballads wring their hands so much? I never saw anybody do it in my life—and a cavalier on a coal-black steed, and a silvery moon; what would become of the songwriters if there were no moon and no sea?—and “she sat and wailed,” and he did something or other, I could not exactly hear what; and at last he, or she, or both of them (only that would not suit the grammar) “was at rest,” and I was thankful to hear it, for Amelia stopped singing.“How sweet and sad!” said Miss Newton.“Do you like that kind of song? I think it is rubbish.”She laughed with that little deprecating air which she often uses to me. I looked up to see who was going to sing next: and to my extreme surprise, and almost equal pleasure, I saw Annas sit down to the harp.“Oh, Miss Keith is going to sing!” cried I. “I should like to hear hers.”“A Scottish ballad, no doubt,” replied Miss Newton.There was a soft, low, weird-like prelude: and then came a voice like that of a thrush, at which every other in the room seemed to hush instinctively. Each word was clear.This was Annas’s song.“She said,—‘We parted for a while,But we shall meet again ere long;I work in lowly, lonely room,And he amid the foreign throng:But here I willingly abide,—Here, where I see the other side.“‘Look to those hills which reach awayBeyond the sea that rolls between;Here from my casement, day by day,Their happy summits can be seen:Happy, although they us divide,—I know he sees the other side.“‘The days go on to make the year—A year we must be parted yet—I sing amid my crosses light,For on those hills mine eyes are set:You say, those hills our eyes divide?Ay, but he sees the other side!“‘So these dividing hills becomeOur point of meeting, every eve;Up to the hills we look and prayAnd love—our work so soon we leave;And then no more shall aught divide—We dwell upon the other side.’”“Pretty!” said Miss Newton, in the tone which people use when they do not think a thing pretty, but fancy that you expect them to say so: “but not so charming as Miss Bracewell’s song.”“Wait,” said I; “she has not finished yet.”The harp was speaking now—in a sad low voice, rising gradually to a note of triumph. Then it sank low again, and Annas’s voice continued the song.“She said,—‘We parted for a while,But we shall meet again ere long;I dwell in lonely, lowly room,And he hath joined the heavenly throng:Yet here I willingly abide,For yet I see the Other Side.“‘I look unto the hills of GodBeyond the life that rolls between;Here from my work by faith each dayTheir blessed summits can be seen;Blessed, although they us divide,—I know he sees the Other Side.“‘The days go on, the days go on,—Through earthly life we meet not yet;I sing amid my crosses light,For on those hills mine eyes are set:’Tis true, those hills our eyes divide—Ay, but he sees the Other Side!“‘So the eternal hills becomeOur point of meeting, every eve;Up to the hills I look and prayAnd love—soon all my work I leave:And then no more shall aught divide—We dwell upon the Other Side.’”I turned to Miss Newton with my eyes full, as Annas rose from the harp. The expression of her face was a curious mixture of feelings.“Was ever such a song sung in Mrs Desborough’s drawing-room!” she cried. “She will think it no better than a Methodist hymn. I am afraid Miss Keith has done herself no good with her hostess.”“But Grandmamma would never—” I said, hesitatingly. “Annas Keith’s connections are—”“I advise you not to be too sure what she could never,” answered Miss Newton, with a little capable nod. “Mrs Desborough would scarce be civil to the Princess herself if she sang a pious song in her drawing-room on a reception evening.”“But it was charming!” I said.Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders. “The same things do not charm everybody,” said she. “It seemed to me no better than that Methodist doggerel. The latter half, at least; the beginning promised better.”When we went up to bed, Annas came to me as I stood folding my shoulder-knots, and laid a hand on each of my shoulders from behind.“Cary, we must say ‘good-bye,’ I think. I scarce expected it. But Mrs Desborough’s face, when my song was ended, had ‘good-bye’ in it.”“O Annas!” said I. “Surely she would never be angry with you for a mere song! Your connections are so good, and Grandmamma thinks so much of connections.”“If my song had only had a few wicked words in it,” replied Annas, with that slight curl of her lip which I was learning to understand, “I dare say she would have recovered it by to-morrow. And if my connections had been poor people,—or better, Whigs,—or better still, disreputable rakes—she might have got over that. But a pious song, and a sisterly connection of spirit with Mr Whitefield and the Scottish Covenanters. No, Cary, she will not survive that. I never yet knew a worldly woman forgive that one crime of crimes—Calvinism. Anything else! Don’t you see why, my dear? It sets her outside. And she knows that I know she is outside. Therefore I am unforgivable. However absurd the idea may be in reality, it is to her mind equivalent to my setting her outside. She is unable to recognise that she has chosen to stay without, and I am guilty of nothing worse than unavoidably seeing that she is there. That I should be able to see it is unpardonable. I am sorry it should have happened just now; but I suppose it was to be.”“Are you going to tell her so?” I asked, wondering what Annas meant.“I expect she will tell me before to-morrow is over,” said Annas, with a peculiar smile.“But what made you choose that song, then? I thought it so pretty.”“I chose the one I knew, to which I supposed she would object the least,” replied Annas. “She asked me to sing.”When we came down to breakfast, the next morning, I felt that something was in the air. Grandmamma sat so particularly straight up, and my Aunt Dorothea looked so prim, and my Uncle Charles fidgetted about between the fire and the window, like a man who knew of something coming which he wanted to have over. My Aunt Dorothea poured the chocolate in silence. When all were served, Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff.“Miss Keith!”“Madam!”“Do you think the air of the Isle of Wight wholesome at this season of the year?”“So much so, Madam, that I am inclined to propose we should resume our journey thither.”Grandmamma took another pinch.“I will beg you, then, to make my compliments to Sir James, and tell him how much entertained I have been by your visit, and especially by your performance on the harp. You have a fine finger, Miss Keith, and your choice of a song is unexceptionable.”“I thank you for the compliment, Madam, which I shall be happy to make to Sir James.”There was nothing but dead silence after that until breakfast was over. When we were back in our room, I broke down. To lose both Annas and Flora was too much.“O Annas! why did you take the bull by the horns?” I cried.She laughed. “It is always the best way, Cary, when you see him put his head down!”Annas and Flora are gone, and I feel like one shipwrecked. I wander about the house, and do not know what to do. I might read, but Grandmamma has no books except dreary romances in huge volumes, which date, I suppose, from the time when she was a girl at school; and my Uncle Charles has none but books about farming and etiquette. I have looked up and mended all my clothes, and cannot find any sewing to do. I wrote to Sophy only last week, and they will not expect another letter for a while. I wish something pleasant would happen. The only thing I can think of to do is to go in a chair to visit Hatty and the Bracewells, and I am afraid that would be something unpleasant. I have not spoken to Mr Crossland, but I do not like the look of him; and Mrs Crossland is a stranger, and I am tired of strangers. They so seldom seem to turn out pleasant people.Just as I had written that, as if to complete my vexation, my Aunt Dorothea looked in and told me to put on my cherry satin this evening, for Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter were expected. If there be a creature I particularly wish not to see, he is sure to come! I wish I knew why things are always going wrong in this world! There are two or three people that I would give a good deal for, and I am quite sure they will not be here; and I should think Cecilia dear at three-farthings, with Sir Anthony thrown in for the penny.I wish I were making jumballs in the kitchen at Brocklebank, and could have a good talk with my Aunt Kezia afterwards! Somehow, I never cared much about it when I could, and now that I cannot, I feel as if I would give anything for it. Are things always like that? Does nothing in this world ever happen just as one would like it in every point?In my cherry-coloured satin, with white shoulder-knots, a blue pompoon in my hair, and my new hoop (I detest these hoops; they are horrid), I came down to the withdrawing room, and cast my eye round the chamber. Grandmamma, in brocaded black silk, sat where she always does, at the side of the fire, and my Uncle Charles—who for a wonder was at home—and my Aunt Dorothea were receiving the people as they came in. The Bracewells were there already, and Hatty, and Mr Crossland, and a middle-aged lady, who I suppose was his mother, and Miss Newton, and a few more whose faces and names I know. Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter came in just after I got there.What has come over Hatty? She does not look like the same girl. Grandmamma can never talk of her glazed red cheeks now. She is whiter almost than I am, and so thin! I am quite sure she is either ill, or unhappy, or both. But I cannot ask her, for somehow we never meet each other except for a minute. Several times I have thought, and the thought grows upon me, that somebody does not want Hatty and me to have a quiet talk with each other. At first I thought it was Hatty who kept away from me herself, but I am beginning to think now that somebody else is doing it. I do not trust that young Mr Crossland, not one bit. Yet, why he should wish to keep us apart, I cannot even imagine. I made up my mind to get hold of Hatty and ask her when she were going home; I think she would be safer there than here. But it was a long, long while before I could reach her. So many people seemed to be hemming her in. I sat on an ottoman in the corner, watching my opportunity, when all at once a voice called me back to something else.“Dear little Cary, I have been so wishing for a chat with you.”Hatty used to say that you may always know something funny is coming when you see a cat wag her tail. I had come to the conclusion that whenever one person addressed me with endearing phrases, something sinister was coming. I looked up this time: I did not courtesy and walk away, as I did on the last occasion. I wanted to avoid an open quarrel. If she had sought me out after that, I could not avoid it. But to speak to me as if nothing had happened!—how could the woman be so brazen as that?I looked up, and saw a large gold-coloured fan, most beautifully painted with birds of all the hues of the rainbow, from over which those tawny eyes were glancing at me; and for one moment I wished that hating people were not wicked.“For what purpose, Madam?” I replied.“Dear child, you are angry with me,” she said, and the soft, warm, gloved hand pressed mine, before I could draw it away. “It is so natural, for of course you do not understand. But it makes me very sorry, for I loved you so much.”O serpent, how beautiful you are! But you are a serpent still.“Did you?” I said, and my voice sounded hard and cold to my own ears. “I take the liberty of doubting whether you and I give that name to the same thing.”The light gleamed and flashed, softened and darkened, then shot out again from those wonderful, beautiful eyes.“And you won’t forgive me?” she said, in a soft sad voice. How she can govern that voice, to be sure!“Forgive you? Yes,” I answered. “But trust you? No. I think never again, my Lady Parmenter.”“You will be sorry some day that you did not.”Was it a regret? was it a threat? The voice conveyed neither, and might have stood for both. I looked up again, but she had vanished, and where she had been the moment before stood Mr Raymond.“A penny for your thoughts, Miss Courtenay.”“You shall have my past thoughts, if you please,” said I, trying to speak lightly. “I would rather not sell my present ones at the price.”He smiled, and drew out a new penny. “Then let me make the less valuable purchase.”Even Mr Raymond was a welcome change from her.“Then tell me, Mr Raymond,” said I, “do things ever happen exactly as one wishes them to do?”“Once in a thousand times, perhaps,” said he. “I should imagine, though, that the occasion usually comes after long waiting and bitter pain. Generally there is something to remind us that this is not our rest.”“Why?” I said, and I heard my soul go into the word.“Why not?” answered he, pithily. “Is the servant so much greater than his Lord that he may reasonably look for things to be otherwise? Cast your mind’s eye over the life of Christ our Master, and see on how many occasions matters happened in a way which you would suppose entirely to His liking? Can you name one?”I thought, and could not see anything, except when He did a miracle, or when He spent a night in prayer to God.“I give you those nights of prayer,” said Mr Raymond. “But I think you must yield me the miracles. Unquestionably it must have given Him pleasure to relieve pain; but see how much pain to Himself was often mixed in it!—‘Looking up to Heaven, He sighed’ ere He did one; He wept, just before performing another; He cried, ‘How long shall I be with you, and suffer you!’ ere he worked a third. No, Miss Courtenay, the miracles of our Divine Master were not all pleasure to Himself. Indeed, I should be inclined to venture further, and ask if we have no hint that they were wrought at a considerable cost to Himself. He ‘took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses’; He knew when ‘virtue had gone out of Him.’ That may mean only that His Divine knowledge was conscious of it; but taking both passages together, is it not possible that His wonderful works were wrought at personal expense—that His human body suffered weakness, faintness, perhaps acute pain, as the natural consequence of doing them? You will understand that I merely throw out the hint. Scripture does not speak decisively; and where God does not decide, it is well for men to be cautious.”“Mr Raymond,” I exclaimed, “how can you be a Whig?”“Pardon me, but what is the connection?” asked he, looking both astonished and diverted.“Don’t you see it? You are much too good for one.”Mr Raymond laughed. “Thank you; I fear I did not detect the compliment. May I put the counter question, and ask how you came to be a Tory?”“Why, I was born so,” said I.“And so was I a Whig,” replied he.“Excuse me!” came laughingly from my other hand, in Miss Newton’s voice. “The waters are not quite so smooth as they were, and I thought I had better be at hand to pour a little oil if necessary. Mr Raymond, I am afraid you are getting worldly. Is that not the proper word?”“It is the proper word for an improper thing,” said Mr Raymond. “On what evidence do you rest your accusation, Miss Theresa?”“On the fact that you have twice in one week made your appearance in Mrs Desborough’s rooms, which are the very pink of worldliness.”“Have I come without reason?”“You have not given it me,” said the young lady, laughing. “You cannot always come to tell one of the guests that his (or her) relations have been taken prisoner.”I looked up so suddenly that Mr Raymond answered my eyes before he replied to Miss Newton’s words.“No, Miss Courtenay, I did not come with ill news. I suppose a man may have two reasons at different times for the same action?”“Where is our handsome friend of the dreadful name?” asked Miss Newton.“Mr Hebblethwaite? He told me he could not be here this evening.”“That man will have to change his name before anybody will marry him,” said Miss Newton.“Then, if he takes my advice, he will continue in single blessedness,” was Mr Raymond’s answer.“Now, why?”“Do you not think it would be preferable to marrying a woman whose regard for you was limited by the alphabet?”“Mr Raymond, you and Miss Courtenay do say such odd things! Is that because you are religious people?”Oh, what a strange feeling came over me when Miss Newton said that! What made her count me a “religious person”? Am I one? I should not have dared to say it. I should like to be so; I am afraid to go further. To reckon myself one would be to sign my name as a queen, and I am not sufficiently sure of my royal blood to do it.But what had I ever said to Miss Newton that she should entertain such an idea? Mr Raymond glanced at me with a brotherly sort of smile, which I wished from my heart that I deserved, (for all he is a Whig!) and was afraid I did not. Then he said,—“Religious people, I believe, are often very odd things in the eyes of irreligious people. Do you count yourself among the latter class, Miss Theresa?”“Oh, I don’t make any profession,” said she. “I have but one life, and I want to enjoy it.”“That is exactly my position,” said Mr Raymond, smiling.“Now, what do you mean?” demanded she. “Don’t the Methodists label everything ‘wicked’ that one wants to do?”“‘One’ sometimes means another,” replied Mr Raymond, with a funny look in his eyes. “They do not put that label on anything I want to do. I cannot answer for other people.”“I am sure they would put it on a thousand things that I should,” said Miss Newton.“Am I to understand that speaks badly for them?—or for you?”“Mr Raymond! You know I make no profession of religion. I think it is much better to be free.”The look in Mr Raymond’s eyes seemed to me very like Divine compassion.“Miss Theresa, your remark makes me ask two questions: Do you suppose that ‘making no profession’ will excuse you to the Lord? Does your Bible read, ‘He that maketh no profession shall be saved’? And also—Are you free?”“Am I free? Why, of course I am!” she cried. “I can do what I like, without asking leave of priest or minister.”“God forbid that you should ask leave of priest or minister! But I can do what I like, also. What the Lord likes, I like. No priest on earth shall come between Him and me.”“That sounds very grand, Mr Raymond. But just listen to me. I know a young gentlewoman who says the same thing. She is dead against everything which she thinks to be Popery. Submit to the Pope?—no, not for a moment! But this dear creature has a pet minister, who is to her exactly what the Pope is to his subjects. She won’t dance, because Mr Gardiner disapproves of it; she can’t sing a song, of the most innocent sort, because Mr Gardiner thinks songs naughty; she won’t do this, and she can’t go there, because Mr Gardiner says this and that. Now, what do you call that?”“Human nature, Miss Theresa. Depend upon it, Popery would never have the hold it has if there were not in it something very palatable to human nature. Human nature is of two varieties, and Satan’s two grand masterpieces appeal to both. To the proud man, who is a law unto himself, he brings infidelity as the grand temptation: ‘Ye shall be as gods’—‘Yea, hath God said?’—and lastly, ‘There is no God.’ To the weaker nature, which demands authority to lean on, he brings Popery, offering to decide for you all the difficult questions of heart and life with authority—offering you the romantic fancy of a semi-goddess in its worship of the Virgin, in whose gentle bosom you may repose every trouble, and an infallible Church which can set everything right for you. Now just notice how far God’s religion is from both. It does not say, ‘Ye shall be as gods;’ but, ‘This Man receiveth sinners’: not, ‘Hath God said?’ but, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ Turn to the other side, and instead of your compassionate goddess, it offers you Jesus, the God-man, able to succour them that are tempted, in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted. Infallibility, too, it offers you, but not resident in a man, nor in a body of men. It resides in a book, which is not the word of man, but the Word of God, and effective only when it is interpreted and applied by the living Spirit, whose guidance may be had by the weakest and poorest child that will ask God for Him.”“We are not in church, my dear Mr Raymond!” said Miss Newton, shrugging her shoulders. “If you preach over the hour, Mrs Desborough will be sending Caesar to show you the clock.”“I have not exceeded it yet, I think,” said Mr Raymond.“Well, I wish you would talk to Eliza Wilkinson instead of me. She says she has been—is ‘converted’ the word? I am ill up in Methodist terms. And ever since she is converted, or was converted, she does not commit sin. I wish you would talk to her.”“I am not fit to talk to such a seraph. I am a sinner.”“Oh, but I think there is some distinction, which I do not properly understand. She does not wilfully sin; and as to those little things which everybody does, that are not quite right, you know,—well, they don’t count for anything. She is a child of God, she says, and therefore He will not be hard upon her for little nothings. Is that your creed, Mr Raymond?”“Do you know the true name of that creed, Miss Theresa?”“Dear, no! I understand nothing about it.”Mr Raymond’s voice was very solemn: “‘So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes,which thing I hate.’ ‘Turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness.’ Antinomianism is the name of it. It has existed in the Church of God from a date, you see, earlier than the close of the inspired canon. Essentially the same thing survives in the Popish Church, under the name of mortal and venial sins; and it creeps sooner or later into every denomination, in its robes of an angel of light. But it belongs to the darkness. Sin! Do we know the meaning of that awful word? I believe none but God knows rightly what sin is. But he who does not know something of what sin is can have very poor ideas of the Christ who saves from sin. He does not save men in sin, but from sin: not only from penalty,—from sin. Christ is not dead, but alive. And sin is not a painted plaything, but a deadly poison. God forgive them who speak lightly of it!”I do not know what Miss Newton said to this, for at that minute I caught sight of Hatty in a corner, alone, and seized my opportunity at once. Threading my way with some difficulty among bewigged and belaced gentlemen, and ladies with long trains and fluttering fans, I reached my sister, and sat down by her.“Hatty,” said I, “I hardly ever get a word with you. How long do you stay with the Crosslands?”“I do not know, Cary,” she answered, looking down, and playing with her fan.“Do you know that you look very far from well?”“There are mirrors in Charles Street,” she replied, with a slight curl of her lip.“Hatty, are those people kind to you?” I said, thinking I had better, like Annas, take the bull by the horns.“I suppose so. They mean to be. Let it alone, Cary; you are not old enough to interfere—hardly to understand.”“I am only eighteen months younger than you,” said I. “I do not wish to interfere, Hatty; but I do want to understand. Surely your own sister may be concerned if she see you looking ill and unhappy.”“Do I look so, Cary?”I thought, from the tone, that Hatty was giving way a little.“You look both,” I said. “I wish you would come here.”“Do you wish it, Cary?” The tone now was very unlike Hatty.“Indeed I do, Hatty,” said I, warmly. “I don’t half believe in those people in Charles Street; and as to Amelia and Charlotte, I doubt if either of them would see anything, look how you might.”“Oh, Charlotte is not to blame; thoughtlessness is her worst fault,” said Hatty, still playing with her fan.“And somebody is to blame? Is it Amelia?”“I did not say so,” was the answer.“No,” I said, feeling disappointed; “I cannot get you to say anything. Hatty, I do wish you would trust me. Nobody here loves you except me.”“You did not love me much once, Cary.”“Oh, I get vexed when you tease me, that is all,” said I. “But I want you to look happier, Hatty, dear.”“I should not tease you much now, Cary.”I looked up, and saw that Hatty’s eyes were full of tears.“Do come here, Hatty!” I said, earnestly.“Grandmamma has not asked me,” she replied.“Then I will beg her to ask you. I think she will. She said the other day that you were very much improved.”“At all events, my red cheeks and my plough-boy appetite would scarcely distress her now,” returned Hatty, rather bitterly. “Mr Crossland is coming for me—I must go.” And while she held my hand, I was amazed to hear a low whisper, in a voice of unutterable longing,—“Cary, pray for me!”That horrid Mr Crossland came up and carried her off. Poor dear Hatty! I am sure something is wrong. And somehow, I think I love her better since I began to pray for her, only that was not last night, as she seemed to think.This morning at breakfast, I asked Grandmamma if she would do me a favour.“Yes, child, if it be reasonable,” said she. “What would you have?”“Please, Grandmamma, will you ask Hatty to come for a little while? I should so like to have her; and I cannot talk to her comfortably in a room full of people.”Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff, as she generally does when she wants to consider a minute.“She is very much improved,” said she. “She really is almost presentable. I should not feel ashamed, I think, of introducing her as my grand-daughter. Well, Cary, if you wish it, I do not mind. You are a tolerably good girl, and I do not object to give you a pleasure. But it must be after she has finished her visit to the Crosslands. I could not entice her away.”“I asked her how long she was going to stay there, Grandmamma, and she said she did not know.”“Then, my dear, you must wait till she do.” (Note 1.)But what may happen before then? I knew it would be of no use to say any more to Grandmamma: she is a perfect Mede and Persian when she have once declared her royal pleasure. And my Aunt Dorothea will never interfere. My Uncle Charles is the only one who dare say another word, and it was a question if he would. He is good-natured enough, but so careless that I could not feel at all certain of enlisting him. Oh dear! I do feel to be growing so old with all my cares! It seems as if Hatty, and Annas, and Flora, and Angus, and Colonel Keith, and the Prince,—I beg his pardon, he should have come first,—were all on my shoulders at once. And I don’t feel strong enough to carry such a lot of people.I wish my Aunt Kezia was here. I have wished it so many times lately.When I had written so far, I turned back to look at my Aunt Kezia’s rules. And then I saw how foolish I am. Why, instead of putting the Lord first, I had been leaving Him out of the whole thing. Could He not carry all these cares for me? Did He not know what ailed Hatty, and how to deliver Angus, and all about it? I knelt down there and then (I always write in my own chamber), and asked Him to send Hatty to me, and better still, to bring her to Him; and to show me whether I had better speak to my Uncle Charles, or try to get things out of Amelia. As to Charlotte, I would not ask her about anything which I did not care to tell the town crier.The next morning—(there, my dates are getting all wrong again! It is no use trying to keep them straight)—as my Uncle Charles was putting on his gloves to go out, he said,—“Well, Cary, shall I bring you a fairing of any sort?”“Uncle Charles,” I said, leaping to a decision at once, “do bring me Hatty! I am sure she is not happy. Do get Grandmamma to let her come now.”“Not happy!” cried my Uncle Charles, lifting his eyebrows. “Why, what is the matter with the girl? Can’t she get married? Time enough, surely.”Oh dear, how can men be so silly! But I let it pass, for I wanted Hatty to come, much more than to make my Uncle Charles sensible. In fact, I am afraid the last would take too much time and labour. There, now, I should not have said that.“Won’t you try, Uncle Charles? I do want her so much.”“Child, I cannot interfere with my mother. Ask Hatty to spend the day. Then you can have a talk with her.”“Uncle, please, will you ask Grandmamma?”“If you like,” said he, with a laugh.I heard no more about it till supper-time, when my Uncle Charles said, as if it had just occurred to him (which I dare say it had),—“Madam, I think this little puss is disappointed that Hatty cannot come at once. Might she not spend the day here? It would be a treat for both girls.”Grandmamma’s snuff-box came out as usual. I sat on thorns, while she rapped her box, opened it, took a pinch, shut the box with a snap, and consigned it to her pocket.“Yes,” she said, at last. “Dorothea, you can send Caesar with a note.”“Oh, thank you, Grandmamma!” cried I.Grandmamma looked at me, and gave an odd little laugh.“These fresh girls!” she said, “how they do care about things, to be sure!”“Grandmamma, is it pleasanter not to care about things?” said I.“It is better, my dear. To be at all warm or enthusiastic betrays under-breeding.”“But—please, Grandmamma—do not well-bred people get very warm over politics?”“Sometimes well-bred people forget themselves,” said Grandmamma, “But it is more allowable to be warm over some matters than others. Politics are to some degree an exception. We do not make exhibitions of our personal affections, Caroline, and above all things we avoid showing warmth on religious questions. We do not talk of such things at all in good society.”Now—I say this to my book, of course, not to Grandmamma—is not that very strange? We are not to be warm over the most important things, matters of life and death, things we really care about in our inmost hearts: but over all the little affairs that we do not care about, we may lose our tempers a little (in an elegant and reasonable way) if we choose to do so. Would it not be better the other way about?Note 1. The use of the subjunctive withwhenanduntil, now obsolete, was correct English until the present century was some thirty years old.

“Why does he find so many tangled threads,So many dislocated purposes,So many failures in the race of life?”Rev. Horatius Bonar, D.D.

“Why does he find so many tangled threads,So many dislocated purposes,So many failures in the race of life?”Rev. Horatius Bonar, D.D.

We had a grand time of it last night, to celebrate the Prince’s entry into Derby. I did not see one red ribbon. Grandmamma is very much put out at the forbidding of French cambrics; she says nobody will be able to have a decent ruffle or a respectable handkerchief now: but what can you expect of these Hanoverians? And I am sure she looked smart enough last night. We had dancing—first, the minuet, and then a round—“Pepper’s black,” and then “Dull Sir John,” and a country dance, “Smiling Polly.” Flora would not dance, and Grandmamma excused her, because she was a minister’s daughter: Grandmamma always says a clergyman when she tells people: she says minister is a low word only used by Dissenters, and she does not want people to know that any guest of hers has any connection with those creatures. “However, thank Heaven! (says she) the girl is not my grand-daughter!” I don’t know what she would say if I were to turn Dissenter. I suppose she would cut me off with a shilling. Ephraim said so, and I asked him what it meant. Shillings are not very sharp, and what was I to be cut off? Ephraim seemed excessively amused.

“You are too good, Cary,” said he. “Did you think the shilling was a knife to cut you off something? It means she will only leave you a shilling in her will.”

“Well, that will be a shilling more than I expect,” said I: and Ephraim went off laughing.

I asked Miss Newton, as she seemed to know him, who Mr Raymond was. She says he is the lecturer at Saint Helen’s, and might have been a decent man if that horrid creature Mr Wesley had not got hold of him.

“Oh, do you know anything about Mr Wesley, or Mr Whitefield?” cried I. “Are they in London now?”

If I could hear them again!

“I am sure I cannot tell you,” said Miss Newton, laughing. “I have heard my father speak of them with some very strong language after it—that I know. My dear Miss Courtenay, does everything rouse your enthusiasm? For how you can bring that brilliant light into your eyes for the Prince, and for Mr Wesley, is quite beyond me. I should have thought they were the two opposite ends of a pole.”

“I don’t know anything about Mr Wesley,” I said, “and I have only heard Mr Whitefield preach once in Scotland.”

“You have heard him?” she asked.

“Yes, and liked him very much,” said I.

Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders in that little French way she has. “Why, some people think him the worse of the two,” she said. “I don’t know anything about them, I can tell you—only that Mr Wesley makes Dissenters faster than you could make tatting-stitches.”

“What does he do to them?” said I.

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” said she. “If he had lived in former times, I am sure he would have been taken up for witchcraft. He is a clergyman, or they say so; but I really wonder the Bishops have not turned him out of the Church long ago.”

“A clergyman, and makes people Dissenters!” cried I. “Why, Mr Whitefield quoted the Articles in his sermon.”

“They said so,” she replied. “I know nothing about it; I never heard the man, thank Heaven! but they say he goes about preaching to all sorts of dreadful creatures—those wild miners down in Cornwall, and coal-heavers, and any sort of mobs he can get to listen. Only fancy a clergyman—a gentleman—doing any such thing!”

I thought a moment, and some words came to my mind.

“Do you think Mr Wesley was wrong?” I said. “‘The common people heard Him gladly.’ And I suppose you would not say that our Lord was not a gentleman.”

“Dear Miss Courtenay, forgive me, but what very odd things you say! And—excuse me—don’t you know it is not thought at all good taste to quote the Bible in polite society?”

“Is the Bible worse off for that?” said I. “Or is it the polite society? The best society, I suppose, ought to be in Heaven: and I fancy they do not shut out the Bible there. What think you?”

“Are you very innocent?” she answered, laughing; “or are you only making believe? You must know, surely, that religion is not talked about except from the pulpit, and on Sundays.”

“But can we all be sure of dying on a Sunday?” I answered. “We shall want religion then, shall we not?”

“Hush! we don’t talk of dying either—it is too shocking!”

“But don’t we do it sometimes?” I said.

Miss Newton looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or be angry—certainly very much disturbed.

“Let us talk of something more agreeable, I beg,” said she. “See, Miss Bracewell is going to sing.”

“Oh, she will sing nothing worth listening to,” said I.

“I suppose you think only Methodist hymns worth listening to,” responded Miss Newton, rather sneeringly.

I don’t like to be sneered at. I suppose nobody does. But it does not make me feel timid and yield, as it seems to do many: it only makes me angry.

“Well,” said I, “listen how much this is worth.”

Amelia drew off her gloves with a listless air which I believe she thought exceedingly genteel. I cannot undertake to describe her song: it was one of those queer lackadaisical ditties which always remind me of those tunes which go just where you don’t expect them to go, and end nowhere. I hate them. And I don’t like the songs much better. Of course there was a lady wringing her hands—why do people in ballads wring their hands so much? I never saw anybody do it in my life—and a cavalier on a coal-black steed, and a silvery moon; what would become of the songwriters if there were no moon and no sea?—and “she sat and wailed,” and he did something or other, I could not exactly hear what; and at last he, or she, or both of them (only that would not suit the grammar) “was at rest,” and I was thankful to hear it, for Amelia stopped singing.

“How sweet and sad!” said Miss Newton.

“Do you like that kind of song? I think it is rubbish.”

She laughed with that little deprecating air which she often uses to me. I looked up to see who was going to sing next: and to my extreme surprise, and almost equal pleasure, I saw Annas sit down to the harp.

“Oh, Miss Keith is going to sing!” cried I. “I should like to hear hers.”

“A Scottish ballad, no doubt,” replied Miss Newton.

There was a soft, low, weird-like prelude: and then came a voice like that of a thrush, at which every other in the room seemed to hush instinctively. Each word was clear.

This was Annas’s song.

“She said,—‘We parted for a while,But we shall meet again ere long;I work in lowly, lonely room,And he amid the foreign throng:But here I willingly abide,—Here, where I see the other side.“‘Look to those hills which reach awayBeyond the sea that rolls between;Here from my casement, day by day,Their happy summits can be seen:Happy, although they us divide,—I know he sees the other side.“‘The days go on to make the year—A year we must be parted yet—I sing amid my crosses light,For on those hills mine eyes are set:You say, those hills our eyes divide?Ay, but he sees the other side!“‘So these dividing hills becomeOur point of meeting, every eve;Up to the hills we look and prayAnd love—our work so soon we leave;And then no more shall aught divide—We dwell upon the other side.’”

“She said,—‘We parted for a while,But we shall meet again ere long;I work in lowly, lonely room,And he amid the foreign throng:But here I willingly abide,—Here, where I see the other side.“‘Look to those hills which reach awayBeyond the sea that rolls between;Here from my casement, day by day,Their happy summits can be seen:Happy, although they us divide,—I know he sees the other side.“‘The days go on to make the year—A year we must be parted yet—I sing amid my crosses light,For on those hills mine eyes are set:You say, those hills our eyes divide?Ay, but he sees the other side!“‘So these dividing hills becomeOur point of meeting, every eve;Up to the hills we look and prayAnd love—our work so soon we leave;And then no more shall aught divide—We dwell upon the other side.’”

“Pretty!” said Miss Newton, in the tone which people use when they do not think a thing pretty, but fancy that you expect them to say so: “but not so charming as Miss Bracewell’s song.”

“Wait,” said I; “she has not finished yet.”

The harp was speaking now—in a sad low voice, rising gradually to a note of triumph. Then it sank low again, and Annas’s voice continued the song.

“She said,—‘We parted for a while,But we shall meet again ere long;I dwell in lonely, lowly room,And he hath joined the heavenly throng:Yet here I willingly abide,For yet I see the Other Side.“‘I look unto the hills of GodBeyond the life that rolls between;Here from my work by faith each dayTheir blessed summits can be seen;Blessed, although they us divide,—I know he sees the Other Side.“‘The days go on, the days go on,—Through earthly life we meet not yet;I sing amid my crosses light,For on those hills mine eyes are set:’Tis true, those hills our eyes divide—Ay, but he sees the Other Side!“‘So the eternal hills becomeOur point of meeting, every eve;Up to the hills I look and prayAnd love—soon all my work I leave:And then no more shall aught divide—We dwell upon the Other Side.’”

“She said,—‘We parted for a while,But we shall meet again ere long;I dwell in lonely, lowly room,And he hath joined the heavenly throng:Yet here I willingly abide,For yet I see the Other Side.“‘I look unto the hills of GodBeyond the life that rolls between;Here from my work by faith each dayTheir blessed summits can be seen;Blessed, although they us divide,—I know he sees the Other Side.“‘The days go on, the days go on,—Through earthly life we meet not yet;I sing amid my crosses light,For on those hills mine eyes are set:’Tis true, those hills our eyes divide—Ay, but he sees the Other Side!“‘So the eternal hills becomeOur point of meeting, every eve;Up to the hills I look and prayAnd love—soon all my work I leave:And then no more shall aught divide—We dwell upon the Other Side.’”

I turned to Miss Newton with my eyes full, as Annas rose from the harp. The expression of her face was a curious mixture of feelings.

“Was ever such a song sung in Mrs Desborough’s drawing-room!” she cried. “She will think it no better than a Methodist hymn. I am afraid Miss Keith has done herself no good with her hostess.”

“But Grandmamma would never—” I said, hesitatingly. “Annas Keith’s connections are—”

“I advise you not to be too sure what she could never,” answered Miss Newton, with a little capable nod. “Mrs Desborough would scarce be civil to the Princess herself if she sang a pious song in her drawing-room on a reception evening.”

“But it was charming!” I said.

Miss Newton shrugged her shoulders. “The same things do not charm everybody,” said she. “It seemed to me no better than that Methodist doggerel. The latter half, at least; the beginning promised better.”

When we went up to bed, Annas came to me as I stood folding my shoulder-knots, and laid a hand on each of my shoulders from behind.

“Cary, we must say ‘good-bye,’ I think. I scarce expected it. But Mrs Desborough’s face, when my song was ended, had ‘good-bye’ in it.”

“O Annas!” said I. “Surely she would never be angry with you for a mere song! Your connections are so good, and Grandmamma thinks so much of connections.”

“If my song had only had a few wicked words in it,” replied Annas, with that slight curl of her lip which I was learning to understand, “I dare say she would have recovered it by to-morrow. And if my connections had been poor people,—or better, Whigs,—or better still, disreputable rakes—she might have got over that. But a pious song, and a sisterly connection of spirit with Mr Whitefield and the Scottish Covenanters. No, Cary, she will not survive that. I never yet knew a worldly woman forgive that one crime of crimes—Calvinism. Anything else! Don’t you see why, my dear? It sets her outside. And she knows that I know she is outside. Therefore I am unforgivable. However absurd the idea may be in reality, it is to her mind equivalent to my setting her outside. She is unable to recognise that she has chosen to stay without, and I am guilty of nothing worse than unavoidably seeing that she is there. That I should be able to see it is unpardonable. I am sorry it should have happened just now; but I suppose it was to be.”

“Are you going to tell her so?” I asked, wondering what Annas meant.

“I expect she will tell me before to-morrow is over,” said Annas, with a peculiar smile.

“But what made you choose that song, then? I thought it so pretty.”

“I chose the one I knew, to which I supposed she would object the least,” replied Annas. “She asked me to sing.”

When we came down to breakfast, the next morning, I felt that something was in the air. Grandmamma sat so particularly straight up, and my Aunt Dorothea looked so prim, and my Uncle Charles fidgetted about between the fire and the window, like a man who knew of something coming which he wanted to have over. My Aunt Dorothea poured the chocolate in silence. When all were served, Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff.

“Miss Keith!”

“Madam!”

“Do you think the air of the Isle of Wight wholesome at this season of the year?”

“So much so, Madam, that I am inclined to propose we should resume our journey thither.”

Grandmamma took another pinch.

“I will beg you, then, to make my compliments to Sir James, and tell him how much entertained I have been by your visit, and especially by your performance on the harp. You have a fine finger, Miss Keith, and your choice of a song is unexceptionable.”

“I thank you for the compliment, Madam, which I shall be happy to make to Sir James.”

There was nothing but dead silence after that until breakfast was over. When we were back in our room, I broke down. To lose both Annas and Flora was too much.

“O Annas! why did you take the bull by the horns?” I cried.

She laughed. “It is always the best way, Cary, when you see him put his head down!”

Annas and Flora are gone, and I feel like one shipwrecked. I wander about the house, and do not know what to do. I might read, but Grandmamma has no books except dreary romances in huge volumes, which date, I suppose, from the time when she was a girl at school; and my Uncle Charles has none but books about farming and etiquette. I have looked up and mended all my clothes, and cannot find any sewing to do. I wrote to Sophy only last week, and they will not expect another letter for a while. I wish something pleasant would happen. The only thing I can think of to do is to go in a chair to visit Hatty and the Bracewells, and I am afraid that would be something unpleasant. I have not spoken to Mr Crossland, but I do not like the look of him; and Mrs Crossland is a stranger, and I am tired of strangers. They so seldom seem to turn out pleasant people.

Just as I had written that, as if to complete my vexation, my Aunt Dorothea looked in and told me to put on my cherry satin this evening, for Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter were expected. If there be a creature I particularly wish not to see, he is sure to come! I wish I knew why things are always going wrong in this world! There are two or three people that I would give a good deal for, and I am quite sure they will not be here; and I should think Cecilia dear at three-farthings, with Sir Anthony thrown in for the penny.

I wish I were making jumballs in the kitchen at Brocklebank, and could have a good talk with my Aunt Kezia afterwards! Somehow, I never cared much about it when I could, and now that I cannot, I feel as if I would give anything for it. Are things always like that? Does nothing in this world ever happen just as one would like it in every point?

In my cherry-coloured satin, with white shoulder-knots, a blue pompoon in my hair, and my new hoop (I detest these hoops; they are horrid), I came down to the withdrawing room, and cast my eye round the chamber. Grandmamma, in brocaded black silk, sat where she always does, at the side of the fire, and my Uncle Charles—who for a wonder was at home—and my Aunt Dorothea were receiving the people as they came in. The Bracewells were there already, and Hatty, and Mr Crossland, and a middle-aged lady, who I suppose was his mother, and Miss Newton, and a few more whose faces and names I know. Sir Anthony and my Lady Parmenter came in just after I got there.

What has come over Hatty? She does not look like the same girl. Grandmamma can never talk of her glazed red cheeks now. She is whiter almost than I am, and so thin! I am quite sure she is either ill, or unhappy, or both. But I cannot ask her, for somehow we never meet each other except for a minute. Several times I have thought, and the thought grows upon me, that somebody does not want Hatty and me to have a quiet talk with each other. At first I thought it was Hatty who kept away from me herself, but I am beginning to think now that somebody else is doing it. I do not trust that young Mr Crossland, not one bit. Yet, why he should wish to keep us apart, I cannot even imagine. I made up my mind to get hold of Hatty and ask her when she were going home; I think she would be safer there than here. But it was a long, long while before I could reach her. So many people seemed to be hemming her in. I sat on an ottoman in the corner, watching my opportunity, when all at once a voice called me back to something else.

“Dear little Cary, I have been so wishing for a chat with you.”

Hatty used to say that you may always know something funny is coming when you see a cat wag her tail. I had come to the conclusion that whenever one person addressed me with endearing phrases, something sinister was coming. I looked up this time: I did not courtesy and walk away, as I did on the last occasion. I wanted to avoid an open quarrel. If she had sought me out after that, I could not avoid it. But to speak to me as if nothing had happened!—how could the woman be so brazen as that?

I looked up, and saw a large gold-coloured fan, most beautifully painted with birds of all the hues of the rainbow, from over which those tawny eyes were glancing at me; and for one moment I wished that hating people were not wicked.

“For what purpose, Madam?” I replied.

“Dear child, you are angry with me,” she said, and the soft, warm, gloved hand pressed mine, before I could draw it away. “It is so natural, for of course you do not understand. But it makes me very sorry, for I loved you so much.”

O serpent, how beautiful you are! But you are a serpent still.

“Did you?” I said, and my voice sounded hard and cold to my own ears. “I take the liberty of doubting whether you and I give that name to the same thing.”

The light gleamed and flashed, softened and darkened, then shot out again from those wonderful, beautiful eyes.

“And you won’t forgive me?” she said, in a soft sad voice. How she can govern that voice, to be sure!

“Forgive you? Yes,” I answered. “But trust you? No. I think never again, my Lady Parmenter.”

“You will be sorry some day that you did not.”

Was it a regret? was it a threat? The voice conveyed neither, and might have stood for both. I looked up again, but she had vanished, and where she had been the moment before stood Mr Raymond.

“A penny for your thoughts, Miss Courtenay.”

“You shall have my past thoughts, if you please,” said I, trying to speak lightly. “I would rather not sell my present ones at the price.”

He smiled, and drew out a new penny. “Then let me make the less valuable purchase.”

Even Mr Raymond was a welcome change from her.

“Then tell me, Mr Raymond,” said I, “do things ever happen exactly as one wishes them to do?”

“Once in a thousand times, perhaps,” said he. “I should imagine, though, that the occasion usually comes after long waiting and bitter pain. Generally there is something to remind us that this is not our rest.”

“Why?” I said, and I heard my soul go into the word.

“Why not?” answered he, pithily. “Is the servant so much greater than his Lord that he may reasonably look for things to be otherwise? Cast your mind’s eye over the life of Christ our Master, and see on how many occasions matters happened in a way which you would suppose entirely to His liking? Can you name one?”

I thought, and could not see anything, except when He did a miracle, or when He spent a night in prayer to God.

“I give you those nights of prayer,” said Mr Raymond. “But I think you must yield me the miracles. Unquestionably it must have given Him pleasure to relieve pain; but see how much pain to Himself was often mixed in it!—‘Looking up to Heaven, He sighed’ ere He did one; He wept, just before performing another; He cried, ‘How long shall I be with you, and suffer you!’ ere he worked a third. No, Miss Courtenay, the miracles of our Divine Master were not all pleasure to Himself. Indeed, I should be inclined to venture further, and ask if we have no hint that they were wrought at a considerable cost to Himself. He ‘took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses’; He knew when ‘virtue had gone out of Him.’ That may mean only that His Divine knowledge was conscious of it; but taking both passages together, is it not possible that His wonderful works were wrought at personal expense—that His human body suffered weakness, faintness, perhaps acute pain, as the natural consequence of doing them? You will understand that I merely throw out the hint. Scripture does not speak decisively; and where God does not decide, it is well for men to be cautious.”

“Mr Raymond,” I exclaimed, “how can you be a Whig?”

“Pardon me, but what is the connection?” asked he, looking both astonished and diverted.

“Don’t you see it? You are much too good for one.”

Mr Raymond laughed. “Thank you; I fear I did not detect the compliment. May I put the counter question, and ask how you came to be a Tory?”

“Why, I was born so,” said I.

“And so was I a Whig,” replied he.

“Excuse me!” came laughingly from my other hand, in Miss Newton’s voice. “The waters are not quite so smooth as they were, and I thought I had better be at hand to pour a little oil if necessary. Mr Raymond, I am afraid you are getting worldly. Is that not the proper word?”

“It is the proper word for an improper thing,” said Mr Raymond. “On what evidence do you rest your accusation, Miss Theresa?”

“On the fact that you have twice in one week made your appearance in Mrs Desborough’s rooms, which are the very pink of worldliness.”

“Have I come without reason?”

“You have not given it me,” said the young lady, laughing. “You cannot always come to tell one of the guests that his (or her) relations have been taken prisoner.”

I looked up so suddenly that Mr Raymond answered my eyes before he replied to Miss Newton’s words.

“No, Miss Courtenay, I did not come with ill news. I suppose a man may have two reasons at different times for the same action?”

“Where is our handsome friend of the dreadful name?” asked Miss Newton.

“Mr Hebblethwaite? He told me he could not be here this evening.”

“That man will have to change his name before anybody will marry him,” said Miss Newton.

“Then, if he takes my advice, he will continue in single blessedness,” was Mr Raymond’s answer.

“Now, why?”

“Do you not think it would be preferable to marrying a woman whose regard for you was limited by the alphabet?”

“Mr Raymond, you and Miss Courtenay do say such odd things! Is that because you are religious people?”

Oh, what a strange feeling came over me when Miss Newton said that! What made her count me a “religious person”? Am I one? I should not have dared to say it. I should like to be so; I am afraid to go further. To reckon myself one would be to sign my name as a queen, and I am not sufficiently sure of my royal blood to do it.

But what had I ever said to Miss Newton that she should entertain such an idea? Mr Raymond glanced at me with a brotherly sort of smile, which I wished from my heart that I deserved, (for all he is a Whig!) and was afraid I did not. Then he said,—

“Religious people, I believe, are often very odd things in the eyes of irreligious people. Do you count yourself among the latter class, Miss Theresa?”

“Oh, I don’t make any profession,” said she. “I have but one life, and I want to enjoy it.”

“That is exactly my position,” said Mr Raymond, smiling.

“Now, what do you mean?” demanded she. “Don’t the Methodists label everything ‘wicked’ that one wants to do?”

“‘One’ sometimes means another,” replied Mr Raymond, with a funny look in his eyes. “They do not put that label on anything I want to do. I cannot answer for other people.”

“I am sure they would put it on a thousand things that I should,” said Miss Newton.

“Am I to understand that speaks badly for them?—or for you?”

“Mr Raymond! You know I make no profession of religion. I think it is much better to be free.”

The look in Mr Raymond’s eyes seemed to me very like Divine compassion.

“Miss Theresa, your remark makes me ask two questions: Do you suppose that ‘making no profession’ will excuse you to the Lord? Does your Bible read, ‘He that maketh no profession shall be saved’? And also—Are you free?”

“Am I free? Why, of course I am!” she cried. “I can do what I like, without asking leave of priest or minister.”

“God forbid that you should ask leave of priest or minister! But I can do what I like, also. What the Lord likes, I like. No priest on earth shall come between Him and me.”

“That sounds very grand, Mr Raymond. But just listen to me. I know a young gentlewoman who says the same thing. She is dead against everything which she thinks to be Popery. Submit to the Pope?—no, not for a moment! But this dear creature has a pet minister, who is to her exactly what the Pope is to his subjects. She won’t dance, because Mr Gardiner disapproves of it; she can’t sing a song, of the most innocent sort, because Mr Gardiner thinks songs naughty; she won’t do this, and she can’t go there, because Mr Gardiner says this and that. Now, what do you call that?”

“Human nature, Miss Theresa. Depend upon it, Popery would never have the hold it has if there were not in it something very palatable to human nature. Human nature is of two varieties, and Satan’s two grand masterpieces appeal to both. To the proud man, who is a law unto himself, he brings infidelity as the grand temptation: ‘Ye shall be as gods’—‘Yea, hath God said?’—and lastly, ‘There is no God.’ To the weaker nature, which demands authority to lean on, he brings Popery, offering to decide for you all the difficult questions of heart and life with authority—offering you the romantic fancy of a semi-goddess in its worship of the Virgin, in whose gentle bosom you may repose every trouble, and an infallible Church which can set everything right for you. Now just notice how far God’s religion is from both. It does not say, ‘Ye shall be as gods;’ but, ‘This Man receiveth sinners’: not, ‘Hath God said?’ but, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ Turn to the other side, and instead of your compassionate goddess, it offers you Jesus, the God-man, able to succour them that are tempted, in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted. Infallibility, too, it offers you, but not resident in a man, nor in a body of men. It resides in a book, which is not the word of man, but the Word of God, and effective only when it is interpreted and applied by the living Spirit, whose guidance may be had by the weakest and poorest child that will ask God for Him.”

“We are not in church, my dear Mr Raymond!” said Miss Newton, shrugging her shoulders. “If you preach over the hour, Mrs Desborough will be sending Caesar to show you the clock.”

“I have not exceeded it yet, I think,” said Mr Raymond.

“Well, I wish you would talk to Eliza Wilkinson instead of me. She says she has been—is ‘converted’ the word? I am ill up in Methodist terms. And ever since she is converted, or was converted, she does not commit sin. I wish you would talk to her.”

“I am not fit to talk to such a seraph. I am a sinner.”

“Oh, but I think there is some distinction, which I do not properly understand. She does not wilfully sin; and as to those little things which everybody does, that are not quite right, you know,—well, they don’t count for anything. She is a child of God, she says, and therefore He will not be hard upon her for little nothings. Is that your creed, Mr Raymond?”

“Do you know the true name of that creed, Miss Theresa?”

“Dear, no! I understand nothing about it.”

Mr Raymond’s voice was very solemn: “‘So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes,which thing I hate.’ ‘Turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness.’ Antinomianism is the name of it. It has existed in the Church of God from a date, you see, earlier than the close of the inspired canon. Essentially the same thing survives in the Popish Church, under the name of mortal and venial sins; and it creeps sooner or later into every denomination, in its robes of an angel of light. But it belongs to the darkness. Sin! Do we know the meaning of that awful word? I believe none but God knows rightly what sin is. But he who does not know something of what sin is can have very poor ideas of the Christ who saves from sin. He does not save men in sin, but from sin: not only from penalty,—from sin. Christ is not dead, but alive. And sin is not a painted plaything, but a deadly poison. God forgive them who speak lightly of it!”

I do not know what Miss Newton said to this, for at that minute I caught sight of Hatty in a corner, alone, and seized my opportunity at once. Threading my way with some difficulty among bewigged and belaced gentlemen, and ladies with long trains and fluttering fans, I reached my sister, and sat down by her.

“Hatty,” said I, “I hardly ever get a word with you. How long do you stay with the Crosslands?”

“I do not know, Cary,” she answered, looking down, and playing with her fan.

“Do you know that you look very far from well?”

“There are mirrors in Charles Street,” she replied, with a slight curl of her lip.

“Hatty, are those people kind to you?” I said, thinking I had better, like Annas, take the bull by the horns.

“I suppose so. They mean to be. Let it alone, Cary; you are not old enough to interfere—hardly to understand.”

“I am only eighteen months younger than you,” said I. “I do not wish to interfere, Hatty; but I do want to understand. Surely your own sister may be concerned if she see you looking ill and unhappy.”

“Do I look so, Cary?”

I thought, from the tone, that Hatty was giving way a little.

“You look both,” I said. “I wish you would come here.”

“Do you wish it, Cary?” The tone now was very unlike Hatty.

“Indeed I do, Hatty,” said I, warmly. “I don’t half believe in those people in Charles Street; and as to Amelia and Charlotte, I doubt if either of them would see anything, look how you might.”

“Oh, Charlotte is not to blame; thoughtlessness is her worst fault,” said Hatty, still playing with her fan.

“And somebody is to blame? Is it Amelia?”

“I did not say so,” was the answer.

“No,” I said, feeling disappointed; “I cannot get you to say anything. Hatty, I do wish you would trust me. Nobody here loves you except me.”

“You did not love me much once, Cary.”

“Oh, I get vexed when you tease me, that is all,” said I. “But I want you to look happier, Hatty, dear.”

“I should not tease you much now, Cary.”

I looked up, and saw that Hatty’s eyes were full of tears.

“Do come here, Hatty!” I said, earnestly.

“Grandmamma has not asked me,” she replied.

“Then I will beg her to ask you. I think she will. She said the other day that you were very much improved.”

“At all events, my red cheeks and my plough-boy appetite would scarcely distress her now,” returned Hatty, rather bitterly. “Mr Crossland is coming for me—I must go.” And while she held my hand, I was amazed to hear a low whisper, in a voice of unutterable longing,—“Cary, pray for me!”

That horrid Mr Crossland came up and carried her off. Poor dear Hatty! I am sure something is wrong. And somehow, I think I love her better since I began to pray for her, only that was not last night, as she seemed to think.

This morning at breakfast, I asked Grandmamma if she would do me a favour.

“Yes, child, if it be reasonable,” said she. “What would you have?”

“Please, Grandmamma, will you ask Hatty to come for a little while? I should so like to have her; and I cannot talk to her comfortably in a room full of people.”

Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff, as she generally does when she wants to consider a minute.

“She is very much improved,” said she. “She really is almost presentable. I should not feel ashamed, I think, of introducing her as my grand-daughter. Well, Cary, if you wish it, I do not mind. You are a tolerably good girl, and I do not object to give you a pleasure. But it must be after she has finished her visit to the Crosslands. I could not entice her away.”

“I asked her how long she was going to stay there, Grandmamma, and she said she did not know.”

“Then, my dear, you must wait till she do.” (Note 1.)

But what may happen before then? I knew it would be of no use to say any more to Grandmamma: she is a perfect Mede and Persian when she have once declared her royal pleasure. And my Aunt Dorothea will never interfere. My Uncle Charles is the only one who dare say another word, and it was a question if he would. He is good-natured enough, but so careless that I could not feel at all certain of enlisting him. Oh dear! I do feel to be growing so old with all my cares! It seems as if Hatty, and Annas, and Flora, and Angus, and Colonel Keith, and the Prince,—I beg his pardon, he should have come first,—were all on my shoulders at once. And I don’t feel strong enough to carry such a lot of people.

I wish my Aunt Kezia was here. I have wished it so many times lately.

When I had written so far, I turned back to look at my Aunt Kezia’s rules. And then I saw how foolish I am. Why, instead of putting the Lord first, I had been leaving Him out of the whole thing. Could He not carry all these cares for me? Did He not know what ailed Hatty, and how to deliver Angus, and all about it? I knelt down there and then (I always write in my own chamber), and asked Him to send Hatty to me, and better still, to bring her to Him; and to show me whether I had better speak to my Uncle Charles, or try to get things out of Amelia. As to Charlotte, I would not ask her about anything which I did not care to tell the town crier.

The next morning—(there, my dates are getting all wrong again! It is no use trying to keep them straight)—as my Uncle Charles was putting on his gloves to go out, he said,—

“Well, Cary, shall I bring you a fairing of any sort?”

“Uncle Charles,” I said, leaping to a decision at once, “do bring me Hatty! I am sure she is not happy. Do get Grandmamma to let her come now.”

“Not happy!” cried my Uncle Charles, lifting his eyebrows. “Why, what is the matter with the girl? Can’t she get married? Time enough, surely.”

Oh dear, how can men be so silly! But I let it pass, for I wanted Hatty to come, much more than to make my Uncle Charles sensible. In fact, I am afraid the last would take too much time and labour. There, now, I should not have said that.

“Won’t you try, Uncle Charles? I do want her so much.”

“Child, I cannot interfere with my mother. Ask Hatty to spend the day. Then you can have a talk with her.”

“Uncle, please, will you ask Grandmamma?”

“If you like,” said he, with a laugh.

I heard no more about it till supper-time, when my Uncle Charles said, as if it had just occurred to him (which I dare say it had),—“Madam, I think this little puss is disappointed that Hatty cannot come at once. Might she not spend the day here? It would be a treat for both girls.”

Grandmamma’s snuff-box came out as usual. I sat on thorns, while she rapped her box, opened it, took a pinch, shut the box with a snap, and consigned it to her pocket.

“Yes,” she said, at last. “Dorothea, you can send Caesar with a note.”

“Oh, thank you, Grandmamma!” cried I.

Grandmamma looked at me, and gave an odd little laugh.

“These fresh girls!” she said, “how they do care about things, to be sure!”

“Grandmamma, is it pleasanter not to care about things?” said I.

“It is better, my dear. To be at all warm or enthusiastic betrays under-breeding.”

“But—please, Grandmamma—do not well-bred people get very warm over politics?”

“Sometimes well-bred people forget themselves,” said Grandmamma, “But it is more allowable to be warm over some matters than others. Politics are to some degree an exception. We do not make exhibitions of our personal affections, Caroline, and above all things we avoid showing warmth on religious questions. We do not talk of such things at all in good society.”

Now—I say this to my book, of course, not to Grandmamma—is not that very strange? We are not to be warm over the most important things, matters of life and death, things we really care about in our inmost hearts: but over all the little affairs that we do not care about, we may lose our tempers a little (in an elegant and reasonable way) if we choose to do so. Would it not be better the other way about?

Note 1. The use of the subjunctive withwhenanduntil, now obsolete, was correct English until the present century was some thirty years old.

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