Chapter Seventeen.

Chapter Seventeen.The Laurel Walk Again.The Littlewoods’ guests left the next day, all, that is to say, except the owner of Craig-Morion himself, who, finding more to interest and occupy him than he had anticipated, was glad to avail himself of his hostess’ sincerely meant invitation to remain as long as it suited him to do so. For one reason or another he had called two or three times at Fir Cottage, and each time he had gained ground with his kinsman, more than once, indeed, inveigling the valetudinarian into a walk all over the property, such as for many years past he would have thought himself incapable of.And the effect of this humanising influence on the elder man was of the happiest, not only as regarded himself, but for his family also. Yet in those dayssomethingat Fir Cottage felt out of gear; now and then it almost seemed as if Frances and her next sister had to some extent exchanged natures, Frances’ spirits were fitful and uncertain, at times verging on excitement, then again lapsing into unusual dreaminess and absent-mindedness, while Betty was quiet, self-possessed, and, to all outward appearance at least, calm and equable. She had, too, a fit of extreme industry: from morning till night she was busy about something or other, so that Eira found it difficult ever to buttonhole her for one of their “good long talks.”“I don’t understand you, Betty,” she said one day. “Just now, when we have something more interesting to discuss than ever in our lives before, there is no getting a word out of you. What are you always fussing about? could almost fancy—”“What?” asked Betty.Eira laughed.“Don’t be vexed,” she said: “you make me feel as if you were preparing in good time to take Frances’ place, but you know you couldn’t possibly do so without my help.”To her surprise, Betty faced round upon her with some indignation.“I don’t see that at all,” she replied. “I am tired of being treated like a baby. I am fit for much more than you think. But I am not going to talk about possibilities any more. We have done so too much, and—and I think it is rather indelicate.”“You are very unkind,” said poor Eira, looking more than half ready to cry, “and from now I vow that I shall pay you out in your own coin. You may try as you like, but you won’t get me to talk aboutitorhimany more, and I won’t tell you anything I get to know.”“Very glad to hear it,” said Betty, though in her heart she already wished that she had not snubbed Eira quite so fiercely, for the younger girl had opportunities of judging and remarking the drift of events, as Betty herself, in some ways increasingly self-conscious and less of an outsider than she would have liked to own, was unable to do. Eira, hurt feelings notwithstanding, was not slow to find consolation even in Betty’s unwonted petulance.“She really thinks it’s serious, and she is beginning to feel unhappy at the thought of Frances leaving us,” thought Eira. “I am not even sure but that Mr Littlewood has said something about it to Betty, and that she is desperately afraid of breaking his confidence. She has a funny look sometimes when he is with us—half-frightened, as if she wanted to get away. Perhaps,” reflectively, “it has to do with his going back to India.” For that such a possibility was in question, words let fall by Horace himself, and by his sister, had made no secret of.On the whole, just at this time the domesticatmosphereof the big house was more genial than that of the little one, despite the improvement in Lady Emma’s husband. For one thing Mrs Littlewood laid herself out to be agreeable to the elder Mr Morion, and declared to Ryder—not a little, strange to say, considering how recently his own attitude to his cousins had been one of slightly resentful indifference, not a little to the younger man’s gratification—that she had no idea “the old bear” could have proved so well worth knowing.“He is really quite interesting, once you start him on subjects he is well up in,” she said, “so long as you can keep him from the terrible topic of his ailments. And my admiration for Lady Emma increases daily: she is really a saint of unselfishness, quite beaming with pleasure if she thinks her husband is enjoying himself.”“It is very good of you,” was the reply, “to draw out the best of them in this way; as you must know there are very few people who could have done it with your perfect tact.”“Tact,” she replied, “in spite of the fashion of exalting it into a positive virtue, is to my mind a mere question of ‘knack.’ Superficial tact, at least, which often serves the purpose as well as or better than anything deeper!”“You do yourself injustice,” said Ryder. “I don’t believe your tact has no more sturdy root.”“You are right perhaps to some extent,” she said. “I am glad to please Madeleine in the matter. If you want the best kind of tact, that which springs from real honest kindness of heart and thoughtfulness for others, you will find it inher. Though she does not show it to every one, I must allow. For instance,” with a smile, “she does not care a farthing if she rubsyouthe wrong way, but she would not hurt by the shadow of a touch any one whom—” but here she hesitated, scarcely liking to allude to her companion’s now thoroughly recognised relatives as in any way objects for pitying consideration—“well, any one whom things have gone hardly with.”“Madeleine is very good, very good indeed,” he answered cordially; “and so far as I have any right to be so, I am really grateful in the present instance. She has brought a good deal of brightness into those young lives already, and that with no jarring note. Though,” and here in his turn he smiled, “I must own it would be difficult to show kindness to Frances Morion in which there was the slightest touch of condescension: thoroughly gentle and sweet asshe is, there is yet a rather remarkable dignity about her for a young person. Don’t you agree with me?”“To tell you the truth,” said Mrs Littlewood, turning back the lace ruffles which fell so becomingly over her beautiful white hands, “to tell you the truth, I have seen too little of the eldest Miss Morion personally to be able to judge of her, and the characteristic that has struck you in her is not one that appeals to me in a young girl—not, of course, that sheisvery young, though living so entirely out of the world, of course, detracts from a girl’ssavoir-faire. One may have the deficiencies of youth even when youth itself is past.”Mr Morion listened in silence, and Mrs Littlewood, fearing that for once she had allowed prejudice to overcome her good sense, with a glance at his impassive face, went on again in a different tone.“I will tell you whom Ihavetaken a great fancy to,” she said; “and that is that charming little Betty! There is no need to see much of her to fall in love with her! She is so perfectly sweet andnaïve, candid and transparent as the day.”Mr Morion smiled rather enigmatically.“I agree with you there,” he replied; and Mrs Littlewood felt relieved, though she detected a reserve of expression on her hearer’s face, which she was quite at a loss to understand.He rose as he spoke, and strolled towards the door. Thetête-à-têtehad taken place in Mrs Littlewood’s boudoir.“Then I may really feel satisfied,” he said, as he turned the handle, “that my remaining a few days longer is in no way outstaying my welcome?”“Certainly not,” was the reply; “I mean,” with a smile, “that you could not outstay your welcome with us.”“You are very good,” he said, and as he passed through the outer room there was a smile on his face. He was at no loss to understand his hostess, for whom, nevertheless, he had a sincere regard.“I may as well set her mind at rest. She thinks she has annoyed me,” he thought, and, turning back, he glanced in again. Mrs Littlewood was still sitting as he had left her, and she seemed to be absorbed in thought.“By-the-by,” he said, and at the sound of his voice she started slightly, “I shall be looking in at Fir Cottage this afternoon; have you any message?”“Ihave, as it happens,” she replied. “Will you ask Lady Emma if she would care to drive with me to-morrow? If it is fine and not too cold, that is to say; the wind is still so uncertain, though for myself I scarcely dread it. You don’t know how much the better I feel for this bracing air of yours, Mr Morion!”“I am delighted to hear it,” he answered. “I shall not forget your message.”“There are two or three calls,” Mrs Littlewood resumed, “at some distance, which I really must not neglect longer. You might mention incidentally,” with a little hesitation, “that I thought of driving in the Heatherbridge direction, for I fancy Lady Emma might be glad of the opportunity of paying calls about there too.”Mr Morion bent his head and finally disappeared, fully appreciating the situation and tacitamende.His cousin, as he anticipated, was at home, and after some talk, in which the younger man’s interest was not feigned—for his relative, as has been said, was really cultivated, and possessed, despite his egoism, of much valuable if somewhat eccentric information in more than one direction, and by no means destitute, when he chose to use it, of solid, practical good sense—they adjourned to the drawing-room, where for once only the two younger girls were in charge of the tea-table.As he handed a cup to Lady Emma, the newcomer delivered his message. It was received, he saw, with satisfaction, for though she did not say so, these distant calls had for long weighed rather heavily on the lady’s mind.“Pray thank Mrs Littlewood,” she replied. “I should enjoy the drive very much.”“Her daughter would thank you for saying so,” Ryder Morion replied. “One of Madeleine’s fads is a dislike to a long country drive in a big carriage, though she doesn’t say so to her mother.”“And,” said Eira quickly, “she and Frances have planned to go to Scaling Harbour to-morrow, I know, and Mr Littlewood too, perhaps.”Betty, in her corner, said nothing.“Oh, indeed!” remarked the visitor, glancing round. “I was just going to ask for your sister. I thought possibly she was busy about something of the kind to-day.”“No,” replied Eira, “I don’t know where she is. Betty and I have been looking for her. She may have gone up to the vicarage. Poor Mrs Ferraby has had such a bad cold. Yes, I am almost certain she must be there.”“We all seem straying in different directions to-day,” said Ryder, the little suggestion of familiar companionship falling not unpleasingly on the ears of those present. “Madeleine is shopping vehemently at Craig Bay. Horace, I know,” and as he mentioned the name he turned half involuntarily to Betty, as if to draw her into the conversation, “is off to Heatherbridge himself this afternoon, by rail. He is, I fancy, a little anxious about his leave, and preferred telegraphing from a better office than yours here.”Betty looked up with evident interest in her eyes, and spoke for the first time.“Is he afraid of having to go back to India soon?” she inquired.“Not to India, as yet at least, but there is some possibility of his having to put in an appearance at the depot, or something of the sort.”“I think it would be perfectly horrible to have to go to India?” exclaimed Betty abruptly.“That depends, I should say,” Ryder replied, “like most things in this life, on circumstances.” And Betty felt that his eyes were keenly fixed on her.She got up, and walked across to the window. “Eira,” she said, “don’t you think we might go up to the vicarage to meet Francie and walk back with her?Iam going to, any way.”“I am afraid I can’t,” said Eira. “I must finish my letter to Mrs Ramsay. It is a specially interesting one this time,” with a quick look in their guest’s direction; “she will be so glad to hear about Scaling Harbour,” the last words almost in an undertone.“And you, Betty,” interposed her mother unexpectedly—there was a touch of Betty’s abruptness about Lady Emma sometimes—“you must not think of going out this evening. It would be madness, when I have kept you in all day on account of your throat! Sore throats,” half turning to Ryder Morion, in an explanatory tone, “need of all things to be stopped at the beginning.”“I quite agree with you,” he said, and as he spoke he rose to take leave. “Perhaps, Miss Betty,” he added in a slightly rallying tone, as he shook hands with her, “a little taste of your dreaded warm climates would do you no harm!” He kept his eyes on her for a moment, and noticed, by no means to his dissatisfaction, that her colour deepened a little.When he left the house he turned half mechanically towards the vicarage. The eveningsweremuch longer now, though not always correspondingly milder, for in this hilly, often storm-tossed northern country, weather and seasons are by no means to be depended upon in any orthodox way. And to-night it was not only chilly, but already, thanks to the darkening clouds which were gathering about the sunset, dusk had fallen earlier than might have been expected.Ryder Morion stood still and looked about him, though there was no view to speak of.“It is a queer part of the country,” he thought, “or so at least it strikes me, and yet—I feel at home in it too. I am glad to belong to it. No doubt that’s natural when one thinks for how many generations one’s people have been here, and I should be sorry to give it up, sorry at least for it to belong to another name, though if old George had had a son, I don’t quite know—” And he walked on again till he came to the point in the road where on one side the little gate at the end of the Laurel Walk led out of his own grounds, and a few yards farther on, across the road, stood the small group of buildings consisting of the church, the vicarage, and one or two adjacent cottages.Why he had chosen this way home he scarcely knew, but as he lingered for a moment before entering the gloomy little avenue, he caught sight of a figure just emerging from the lych-gate on the other side. A woman’s figure, and something light-coloured, a white fleecy “cloud,” which she had thrown round her neck, recalled to his memory the curious experience of a week or so ago—the night that he had first met his cousins at the big house, when he and Frances, standing at the library window, had gazed in perplexity at the luminous object moving down the walk.“I never had a chance of asking her what she thought of it,” he said to himself, “or rather it went out of my head. I wonder if it was some reflection from indoors?” And as this passed through his mind he recognised the newcomer as the “she” of his cogitations.Half-impulsively he moved forward to meet her.“Good-evening, Miss Morion,” he said. “You weren’t startled, I hope, by seeing me here? It is so dark and gloomy already this evening.”“Scarcely startled,” was the reply, with a smile, “but I did wonder who you were. You see, that path is so seldom used, I suppose that the people about avoid it purposely, though indeed it is only convenient as a short cut from the house to the church.”By tacit consent they both came to a halt in front of the little gate again.“I have just been at Fir Cottage,” said Mr Morion: “your sister Betty wanted to come to meet you, but Lady Emma negatived it.”“I am very glad she did not come,” said Frances. “She has a little cold, and it is a chilly evening.”“And I am keeping you standing,” he said; but still neither moved, and the eyes of both were turned in the same direction.Frances seemed on the point of speaking, for she slightly parted her lips, only, however, to close them again. But some sort of “brain wave” was in the air, for a sudden impulse made her companion turn towards her with a query.“Miss Morion,” he said, “though I had forgotten about it between times, I have more than once meant to ask you, if you don’t mind my doing so, what you thought about that queer light—reflection—that we both noticed the other evening?”“I was just thinking about it,” said Frances in her straightforward way.“And how do you account for it? For I think it struck you even more than it did me. Horace asked me what we were both staring out at, but—I don’t quite know why—I turned the subject. I thought I would ask you first.”“Horace,” said Frances hastily—“Mr Littlewood, I mean—knows that the Laurel Walk is said to be haunted,” but with these words she stopped again. Her hearer’s interest increased.“Surely,” he said, “I must have heard something about it, but it is very vague. Who is our family ghost? And,” with some hesitation and a smile, “was it onitsaccount—I don’t know what gender to use—that you seemed startled that evening?”“Well, yes,” she acknowledged, replying only to his last question. “I suppose it was. I have never myself seen anything or heard anything of the ghost before, though Eira was once very frightened by some inexplicable sounds in—in church, in the family pew, which is supposed to be one of the limits of its wanderings. But,” she went on quickly, for she was anxious to avoid direct reference to the old story itself, “I cannot in any way account for what we saw that evening, and I believe in such cases the witness oftwois very rare.”“Did it look to you then like a human being?” he inquired. “To me it was almost too small for that, though it certainly seemed as if it were walking slowly along; not with any jerky movement, such as the reflection of a lamp being carried about, upstairs perhaps, might have thrown out into the darkness.”Frances shook her head.“No lamp could have produced the effect we saw,” she said. “I just can’t account for it by natural causes, though I am really not given to superstitious fancies.”Mr Morion was silent, but still his gaze, as well as that of his companion, was fixed on the Laurel Walk, now almost dark. Suddenly the gate gave a little click, though no one was touching it. Both started, both gave a little laugh, and at that moment a gust of cold air, though till then the evening had been very still, if chilly, passed them with a sort of sobbing sigh, a sound that seemed to be wafted along the straight gloomy path in their direction. Involuntarily, Frances gave a little shiver, and she felt rather than saw that her sensation was not unshared by her companion.He glanced at her.“Odd,” he said abruptly, “that breath of cold air, I mean, when all is so quiet to-night. It is a creepy spot, and not improbably the creepiness has localised the legend.”“If it is only a legend,” said Frances. “After all, one is driven back upon one’s ignorance in such matters.”“The ‘more things in heaven and earth’ you are thinking of, I am sure,” said he. “No one has ever said it better, and no one ever will. But we must not stand here any longer, ghost or no ghost, unless you are really to get thoroughly chilled.” And they both turned back on to the road, Mr Morion accompanying her to her own gate.“Some time or other,” he said, as he shook hands, “I should like to hear more of our ghost story and its origin. I even doubt if I have been fully or correctly informed of the facts which started it originally.”“Fully informed you could not be,” was the reply, “for no one knows the whole facts of the case, and I am pretty sure no one ever will. And even as to what we do know, I should not, to speak quite frankly, wish to be the one to tell you more! Very likely,” after a moment’s pause, “you know as much as we.”With these words she passed through the gate which he was holding open for her, though a friendly little nod of farewell took away any possible savour of animosity from her words.Ryder Morion went slowly home, this time by the lower path leading through the new open part of the park.

The Littlewoods’ guests left the next day, all, that is to say, except the owner of Craig-Morion himself, who, finding more to interest and occupy him than he had anticipated, was glad to avail himself of his hostess’ sincerely meant invitation to remain as long as it suited him to do so. For one reason or another he had called two or three times at Fir Cottage, and each time he had gained ground with his kinsman, more than once, indeed, inveigling the valetudinarian into a walk all over the property, such as for many years past he would have thought himself incapable of.

And the effect of this humanising influence on the elder man was of the happiest, not only as regarded himself, but for his family also. Yet in those dayssomethingat Fir Cottage felt out of gear; now and then it almost seemed as if Frances and her next sister had to some extent exchanged natures, Frances’ spirits were fitful and uncertain, at times verging on excitement, then again lapsing into unusual dreaminess and absent-mindedness, while Betty was quiet, self-possessed, and, to all outward appearance at least, calm and equable. She had, too, a fit of extreme industry: from morning till night she was busy about something or other, so that Eira found it difficult ever to buttonhole her for one of their “good long talks.”

“I don’t understand you, Betty,” she said one day. “Just now, when we have something more interesting to discuss than ever in our lives before, there is no getting a word out of you. What are you always fussing about? could almost fancy—”

“What?” asked Betty.

Eira laughed.

“Don’t be vexed,” she said: “you make me feel as if you were preparing in good time to take Frances’ place, but you know you couldn’t possibly do so without my help.”

To her surprise, Betty faced round upon her with some indignation.

“I don’t see that at all,” she replied. “I am tired of being treated like a baby. I am fit for much more than you think. But I am not going to talk about possibilities any more. We have done so too much, and—and I think it is rather indelicate.”

“You are very unkind,” said poor Eira, looking more than half ready to cry, “and from now I vow that I shall pay you out in your own coin. You may try as you like, but you won’t get me to talk aboutitorhimany more, and I won’t tell you anything I get to know.”

“Very glad to hear it,” said Betty, though in her heart she already wished that she had not snubbed Eira quite so fiercely, for the younger girl had opportunities of judging and remarking the drift of events, as Betty herself, in some ways increasingly self-conscious and less of an outsider than she would have liked to own, was unable to do. Eira, hurt feelings notwithstanding, was not slow to find consolation even in Betty’s unwonted petulance.

“She really thinks it’s serious, and she is beginning to feel unhappy at the thought of Frances leaving us,” thought Eira. “I am not even sure but that Mr Littlewood has said something about it to Betty, and that she is desperately afraid of breaking his confidence. She has a funny look sometimes when he is with us—half-frightened, as if she wanted to get away. Perhaps,” reflectively, “it has to do with his going back to India.” For that such a possibility was in question, words let fall by Horace himself, and by his sister, had made no secret of.

On the whole, just at this time the domesticatmosphereof the big house was more genial than that of the little one, despite the improvement in Lady Emma’s husband. For one thing Mrs Littlewood laid herself out to be agreeable to the elder Mr Morion, and declared to Ryder—not a little, strange to say, considering how recently his own attitude to his cousins had been one of slightly resentful indifference, not a little to the younger man’s gratification—that she had no idea “the old bear” could have proved so well worth knowing.

“He is really quite interesting, once you start him on subjects he is well up in,” she said, “so long as you can keep him from the terrible topic of his ailments. And my admiration for Lady Emma increases daily: she is really a saint of unselfishness, quite beaming with pleasure if she thinks her husband is enjoying himself.”

“It is very good of you,” was the reply, “to draw out the best of them in this way; as you must know there are very few people who could have done it with your perfect tact.”

“Tact,” she replied, “in spite of the fashion of exalting it into a positive virtue, is to my mind a mere question of ‘knack.’ Superficial tact, at least, which often serves the purpose as well as or better than anything deeper!”

“You do yourself injustice,” said Ryder. “I don’t believe your tact has no more sturdy root.”

“You are right perhaps to some extent,” she said. “I am glad to please Madeleine in the matter. If you want the best kind of tact, that which springs from real honest kindness of heart and thoughtfulness for others, you will find it inher. Though she does not show it to every one, I must allow. For instance,” with a smile, “she does not care a farthing if she rubsyouthe wrong way, but she would not hurt by the shadow of a touch any one whom—” but here she hesitated, scarcely liking to allude to her companion’s now thoroughly recognised relatives as in any way objects for pitying consideration—“well, any one whom things have gone hardly with.”

“Madeleine is very good, very good indeed,” he answered cordially; “and so far as I have any right to be so, I am really grateful in the present instance. She has brought a good deal of brightness into those young lives already, and that with no jarring note. Though,” and here in his turn he smiled, “I must own it would be difficult to show kindness to Frances Morion in which there was the slightest touch of condescension: thoroughly gentle and sweet asshe is, there is yet a rather remarkable dignity about her for a young person. Don’t you agree with me?”

“To tell you the truth,” said Mrs Littlewood, turning back the lace ruffles which fell so becomingly over her beautiful white hands, “to tell you the truth, I have seen too little of the eldest Miss Morion personally to be able to judge of her, and the characteristic that has struck you in her is not one that appeals to me in a young girl—not, of course, that sheisvery young, though living so entirely out of the world, of course, detracts from a girl’ssavoir-faire. One may have the deficiencies of youth even when youth itself is past.”

Mr Morion listened in silence, and Mrs Littlewood, fearing that for once she had allowed prejudice to overcome her good sense, with a glance at his impassive face, went on again in a different tone.

“I will tell you whom Ihavetaken a great fancy to,” she said; “and that is that charming little Betty! There is no need to see much of her to fall in love with her! She is so perfectly sweet andnaïve, candid and transparent as the day.”

Mr Morion smiled rather enigmatically.

“I agree with you there,” he replied; and Mrs Littlewood felt relieved, though she detected a reserve of expression on her hearer’s face, which she was quite at a loss to understand.

He rose as he spoke, and strolled towards the door. Thetête-à-têtehad taken place in Mrs Littlewood’s boudoir.

“Then I may really feel satisfied,” he said, as he turned the handle, “that my remaining a few days longer is in no way outstaying my welcome?”

“Certainly not,” was the reply; “I mean,” with a smile, “that you could not outstay your welcome with us.”

“You are very good,” he said, and as he passed through the outer room there was a smile on his face. He was at no loss to understand his hostess, for whom, nevertheless, he had a sincere regard.

“I may as well set her mind at rest. She thinks she has annoyed me,” he thought, and, turning back, he glanced in again. Mrs Littlewood was still sitting as he had left her, and she seemed to be absorbed in thought.

“By-the-by,” he said, and at the sound of his voice she started slightly, “I shall be looking in at Fir Cottage this afternoon; have you any message?”

“Ihave, as it happens,” she replied. “Will you ask Lady Emma if she would care to drive with me to-morrow? If it is fine and not too cold, that is to say; the wind is still so uncertain, though for myself I scarcely dread it. You don’t know how much the better I feel for this bracing air of yours, Mr Morion!”

“I am delighted to hear it,” he answered. “I shall not forget your message.”

“There are two or three calls,” Mrs Littlewood resumed, “at some distance, which I really must not neglect longer. You might mention incidentally,” with a little hesitation, “that I thought of driving in the Heatherbridge direction, for I fancy Lady Emma might be glad of the opportunity of paying calls about there too.”

Mr Morion bent his head and finally disappeared, fully appreciating the situation and tacitamende.

His cousin, as he anticipated, was at home, and after some talk, in which the younger man’s interest was not feigned—for his relative, as has been said, was really cultivated, and possessed, despite his egoism, of much valuable if somewhat eccentric information in more than one direction, and by no means destitute, when he chose to use it, of solid, practical good sense—they adjourned to the drawing-room, where for once only the two younger girls were in charge of the tea-table.

As he handed a cup to Lady Emma, the newcomer delivered his message. It was received, he saw, with satisfaction, for though she did not say so, these distant calls had for long weighed rather heavily on the lady’s mind.

“Pray thank Mrs Littlewood,” she replied. “I should enjoy the drive very much.”

“Her daughter would thank you for saying so,” Ryder Morion replied. “One of Madeleine’s fads is a dislike to a long country drive in a big carriage, though she doesn’t say so to her mother.”

“And,” said Eira quickly, “she and Frances have planned to go to Scaling Harbour to-morrow, I know, and Mr Littlewood too, perhaps.”

Betty, in her corner, said nothing.

“Oh, indeed!” remarked the visitor, glancing round. “I was just going to ask for your sister. I thought possibly she was busy about something of the kind to-day.”

“No,” replied Eira, “I don’t know where she is. Betty and I have been looking for her. She may have gone up to the vicarage. Poor Mrs Ferraby has had such a bad cold. Yes, I am almost certain she must be there.”

“We all seem straying in different directions to-day,” said Ryder, the little suggestion of familiar companionship falling not unpleasingly on the ears of those present. “Madeleine is shopping vehemently at Craig Bay. Horace, I know,” and as he mentioned the name he turned half involuntarily to Betty, as if to draw her into the conversation, “is off to Heatherbridge himself this afternoon, by rail. He is, I fancy, a little anxious about his leave, and preferred telegraphing from a better office than yours here.”

Betty looked up with evident interest in her eyes, and spoke for the first time.

“Is he afraid of having to go back to India soon?” she inquired.

“Not to India, as yet at least, but there is some possibility of his having to put in an appearance at the depot, or something of the sort.”

“I think it would be perfectly horrible to have to go to India?” exclaimed Betty abruptly.

“That depends, I should say,” Ryder replied, “like most things in this life, on circumstances.” And Betty felt that his eyes were keenly fixed on her.

She got up, and walked across to the window. “Eira,” she said, “don’t you think we might go up to the vicarage to meet Francie and walk back with her?Iam going to, any way.”

“I am afraid I can’t,” said Eira. “I must finish my letter to Mrs Ramsay. It is a specially interesting one this time,” with a quick look in their guest’s direction; “she will be so glad to hear about Scaling Harbour,” the last words almost in an undertone.

“And you, Betty,” interposed her mother unexpectedly—there was a touch of Betty’s abruptness about Lady Emma sometimes—“you must not think of going out this evening. It would be madness, when I have kept you in all day on account of your throat! Sore throats,” half turning to Ryder Morion, in an explanatory tone, “need of all things to be stopped at the beginning.”

“I quite agree with you,” he said, and as he spoke he rose to take leave. “Perhaps, Miss Betty,” he added in a slightly rallying tone, as he shook hands with her, “a little taste of your dreaded warm climates would do you no harm!” He kept his eyes on her for a moment, and noticed, by no means to his dissatisfaction, that her colour deepened a little.

When he left the house he turned half mechanically towards the vicarage. The eveningsweremuch longer now, though not always correspondingly milder, for in this hilly, often storm-tossed northern country, weather and seasons are by no means to be depended upon in any orthodox way. And to-night it was not only chilly, but already, thanks to the darkening clouds which were gathering about the sunset, dusk had fallen earlier than might have been expected.

Ryder Morion stood still and looked about him, though there was no view to speak of.

“It is a queer part of the country,” he thought, “or so at least it strikes me, and yet—I feel at home in it too. I am glad to belong to it. No doubt that’s natural when one thinks for how many generations one’s people have been here, and I should be sorry to give it up, sorry at least for it to belong to another name, though if old George had had a son, I don’t quite know—” And he walked on again till he came to the point in the road where on one side the little gate at the end of the Laurel Walk led out of his own grounds, and a few yards farther on, across the road, stood the small group of buildings consisting of the church, the vicarage, and one or two adjacent cottages.

Why he had chosen this way home he scarcely knew, but as he lingered for a moment before entering the gloomy little avenue, he caught sight of a figure just emerging from the lych-gate on the other side. A woman’s figure, and something light-coloured, a white fleecy “cloud,” which she had thrown round her neck, recalled to his memory the curious experience of a week or so ago—the night that he had first met his cousins at the big house, when he and Frances, standing at the library window, had gazed in perplexity at the luminous object moving down the walk.

“I never had a chance of asking her what she thought of it,” he said to himself, “or rather it went out of my head. I wonder if it was some reflection from indoors?” And as this passed through his mind he recognised the newcomer as the “she” of his cogitations.

Half-impulsively he moved forward to meet her.

“Good-evening, Miss Morion,” he said. “You weren’t startled, I hope, by seeing me here? It is so dark and gloomy already this evening.”

“Scarcely startled,” was the reply, with a smile, “but I did wonder who you were. You see, that path is so seldom used, I suppose that the people about avoid it purposely, though indeed it is only convenient as a short cut from the house to the church.”

By tacit consent they both came to a halt in front of the little gate again.

“I have just been at Fir Cottage,” said Mr Morion: “your sister Betty wanted to come to meet you, but Lady Emma negatived it.”

“I am very glad she did not come,” said Frances. “She has a little cold, and it is a chilly evening.”

“And I am keeping you standing,” he said; but still neither moved, and the eyes of both were turned in the same direction.

Frances seemed on the point of speaking, for she slightly parted her lips, only, however, to close them again. But some sort of “brain wave” was in the air, for a sudden impulse made her companion turn towards her with a query.

“Miss Morion,” he said, “though I had forgotten about it between times, I have more than once meant to ask you, if you don’t mind my doing so, what you thought about that queer light—reflection—that we both noticed the other evening?”

“I was just thinking about it,” said Frances in her straightforward way.

“And how do you account for it? For I think it struck you even more than it did me. Horace asked me what we were both staring out at, but—I don’t quite know why—I turned the subject. I thought I would ask you first.”

“Horace,” said Frances hastily—“Mr Littlewood, I mean—knows that the Laurel Walk is said to be haunted,” but with these words she stopped again. Her hearer’s interest increased.

“Surely,” he said, “I must have heard something about it, but it is very vague. Who is our family ghost? And,” with some hesitation and a smile, “was it onitsaccount—I don’t know what gender to use—that you seemed startled that evening?”

“Well, yes,” she acknowledged, replying only to his last question. “I suppose it was. I have never myself seen anything or heard anything of the ghost before, though Eira was once very frightened by some inexplicable sounds in—in church, in the family pew, which is supposed to be one of the limits of its wanderings. But,” she went on quickly, for she was anxious to avoid direct reference to the old story itself, “I cannot in any way account for what we saw that evening, and I believe in such cases the witness oftwois very rare.”

“Did it look to you then like a human being?” he inquired. “To me it was almost too small for that, though it certainly seemed as if it were walking slowly along; not with any jerky movement, such as the reflection of a lamp being carried about, upstairs perhaps, might have thrown out into the darkness.”

Frances shook her head.

“No lamp could have produced the effect we saw,” she said. “I just can’t account for it by natural causes, though I am really not given to superstitious fancies.”

Mr Morion was silent, but still his gaze, as well as that of his companion, was fixed on the Laurel Walk, now almost dark. Suddenly the gate gave a little click, though no one was touching it. Both started, both gave a little laugh, and at that moment a gust of cold air, though till then the evening had been very still, if chilly, passed them with a sort of sobbing sigh, a sound that seemed to be wafted along the straight gloomy path in their direction. Involuntarily, Frances gave a little shiver, and she felt rather than saw that her sensation was not unshared by her companion.

He glanced at her.

“Odd,” he said abruptly, “that breath of cold air, I mean, when all is so quiet to-night. It is a creepy spot, and not improbably the creepiness has localised the legend.”

“If it is only a legend,” said Frances. “After all, one is driven back upon one’s ignorance in such matters.”

“The ‘more things in heaven and earth’ you are thinking of, I am sure,” said he. “No one has ever said it better, and no one ever will. But we must not stand here any longer, ghost or no ghost, unless you are really to get thoroughly chilled.” And they both turned back on to the road, Mr Morion accompanying her to her own gate.

“Some time or other,” he said, as he shook hands, “I should like to hear more of our ghost story and its origin. I even doubt if I have been fully or correctly informed of the facts which started it originally.”

“Fully informed you could not be,” was the reply, “for no one knows the whole facts of the case, and I am pretty sure no one ever will. And even as to what we do know, I should not, to speak quite frankly, wish to be the one to tell you more! Very likely,” after a moment’s pause, “you know as much as we.”

With these words she passed through the gate which he was holding open for her, though a friendly little nod of farewell took away any possible savour of animosity from her words.

Ryder Morion went slowly home, this time by the lower path leading through the new open part of the park.

Chapter Eighteen.“Elise.”That evening, that still chilly evening, was always in Frances’ mind, when she recalled the winter of the Littlewoods’ sojourn at Craig-Morion, associated with the eve of the real spring. For the next morning came one of those bursts of warmth and sunshine which go far to make amends for the trying side of our capricious climate.And this year there was no harking back upon the winter. It said “good-bye” and went, closing the door behind it like a well-trained servant. The month of March for once was true to its proverbial character, while its often coquettish successor, April, proved, even up in the north, so altogether charming that the visitors to the big house were constantly tempted into expressions of regret that its close must see their departure for the south.“I had no idea,” said Madeleine one day, when she and her Fir Cottage friends were primrose and cowslip gathering as busily as if they were still children, “that I should have been so sorry to leave this place, though I think I had premonitions of great enjoyment here.”“I am so glad,” was the reply from Frances, “so very glad that you liked being here.”“It has been more than half,” Madeleine rejoined—“three-quarters, seven-eighths, if you like—owing to all of you, as you must know.”“Well, only think, then,” said Eira, “what your being here has been to us! But don’t talk as if it was all at an end already! We have three weeks at least of this lovely weather, for I am determined to believe in its lasting till you go.”“I hope it will,” said Madeleine, “for more reasons than one. I waited to tell you and Betty about some news we have had.”Betty, who was near her, glanced up quickly. Betty was looking tired and pale, notwithstanding the sunshine and the warmth. “Perhaps, indeed, because of them,” said her mother; “early springs are often trying to sensitive people.”“Oh! I hope it is not that your brother is going away,” said Eira. “He’s so nice about planning expeditions! And now that the spring is here, there really are some you should make in the neighbourhood. There are ruins and things we have scarcely even seen ourselves. It would be nice to have a brother,” with a little sigh.“If we had had one,” said Betty, “he could not have stayed at home. He would have most probably been away in India or the colonies, or some terrible place! A brother’s no good if you are poor.”“And as for having one always with you,” said Madeleine, “thatis not to be counted on, whatever other circumstances are. I am not speaking about Horace’s present plans, though, for I hope when he comes back,”—he had not yet returned from a short absence in town, whither he had accompanied Mr Ryder Morion—“that it will be to stay nearly as long as we do. No, my news is not about him, and perhaps it is rather horrid of me not to feel more pleased about it. It is only that the Conrads are coming down upon us,” with a half-rueful smile. “Next week they come, for ten days or so; it is sure to get into a fortnight, and I feel as if it would be a finish up of this comfortable, self-arranging life that I have so enjoyed!”“Will your sister-in-law expect you to be so much with her then?” asked Frances.“N-no,” said Madeleine, “not exactly that. Mamma and she suit each other perfectly, and require no third person—are much better without one, indeed. But—oh, really,” with a change of tone, “I cannot explain it without seeming a little unkind, so, if I do seem so, promise to forget that part of it, for I do want you to understand about my sister-in-law. She is, so to say, a typical person, one of the best of her class, quite good and high principled, and with a strong sense of her responsibilities, and all that side of things. But yet she and I are not and never could be great friends, though, on the other hand, I am equally sure that we should never quarrel. Now with her brother, Ryder, I very often—no, I can’t sayquarrel, it’s too strong an expression—but we very often openly disagree and argue it out, and yet I feel that we have more in common than Elise and Ievercould have.”Her three companions listened with great interest, Frances and Betty especially.“I think I do understand,” said the former, “and I am sure I shall do so still better when I have seen her. But you know, Madeleine, you don’t perhaps take sufficiently into account that you yourself are not a typical person, by any means!”“Am I not?” said Madeleine, laughing. “In what way?”“There are very few,” said Frances gravely, “who would have remained so unspoilt,unself-engrossed as you, in the same circumstances.”This was strong commendation, above all from such a person as Frances, whom no one could have suspected for an instant of flattery, and who yet loved to be able to admire. And whenever she had a fit occasion to express her admiration and appreciation, few things pleased her more than doing so, and few people could have done so more gratifyingly.For such power of expression is not a common gift. Nothing is easier than to criticise with even a certain cleverness, on which its possessors will always be found to pride themselves most unduly; but to “admire,” to discern “the admirable,” of which few human beings are entirely devoid, one must indeed have risen to a far higher plane, both morally and intellectually. Nay, indeed, might not one almost add “spiritually?” And a curious anomaly is to be observed as regards this subject. One often hears the excuse—“I am not effusive—it does not come naturally to me to praise people. I have a horror of flattery”—yet this same reticence, this same powerlessness of expression disappears in a really remarkable and all but magical way when adisagreeable or hurting remark, personal or otherwise, suggests itself.Madeleine’s pleasant brown eyes sparkled with gratification.“I do like you to say so,” she said, “for I know you mean it, little as I feel I deserve it. Don’t you think,” she continued, “that real praise always makes one feel very humble?”“Yes,” said Frances, with a smile, “your thinking so much ofminehas that effect on me at this moment.”“Please leave off paying each other compliments,” said Eira, “I want to hear some more about Mrs Conrad Littlewood. Is she always called ‘Elise?’ her real name is Elizabeth, I know. I don’t think Elise suits a very stately, ‘grande dame’ sort of person!”“She isn’t that,” said Madeleine, “she is really very nice—what a stupid expression!—it is just, I suppose, that she has always lived in a certain way, and not come really into contact with the other half of the world, though she believes herself to be very wide-minded, andisbenevolent. I often think if she hadn’t married my brother, though he is a good fellow too, she would have been different—really wider in her outlook.”She smiled to herself as she spoke.“What are you thinking about?” asked Frances.“I was only picturing to myself,” was the reply, “how differently you and she would go about the same sort of thing, even with equally good intentions. I was thinking, down at the harbour, how you forget yourself and your own standpoint almost, for the time, in your sympathy with the people! That is how you gain their confidence. Whereas Elise, with the best will in the world, however kindly she spoke, would remain an outsider. She would come away saying one must never expect gratitude, and be very good to them all the same, and very pleased with herself for not being repelled by their peculiar offhand manners and want of deference.”“Well,” said Betty, speaking for the first time. “I must say I should have some fellow-feeling with my namesake as regards your pet fisher-folk. They are unusually queer, you must allow; in fact, they seem to me half-savages, wherever they came from.”“Your bark is worse than your bite, Betty,” said Eira. “I saw you hugging, yes, reallyhugging, one of those little black-eyed imps down there one day, one of the rare days we persuaded you to go with us. And he clung on to you like a limpet!”“Oh,” said Betty coolly, “that was because he was like a little Murillo! and his mother looked quite fierce.”“Nonsense,” said Frances. “She was intensely gratified and horribly shy. If our poor friends can be so misunderstood, Madeleine, I think on the whole we had better not suggest Mrs Conrad Littlewood’s visiting them. Is it next week she and your brother are coming?”“Yes,” Madeleine replied. “We must make the best of our time till then.”And she and Frances went on talking together on the subject which their conversation had drifted into—“that everlasting Scaling Harbour,” as naughty Betty called it.“I hope,” said Eira, when Madeleine had left them and they were turning in at their own gate, “I hope Horace Littlewood will come back a few days before those other people come up—just for us to have a sort of Saint Martin’s Summer of what this winter has been. For I feel convinced that once they are here it will be the real good-bye to it all.”“Or,” thought Frances in her secret heart, “the real beginning;” but aloud she said nothing, though she endorsed Eira’s hopes as regarded Horace’s return. Somehow—how was it, she asked herself, that she felt more drawn to him, more nearly sure of her own capacity for responding to the devotion which, from her first suspicion of its existence, had profoundly touched and gratified her, in his absence than when actually with him? Was it always so, she wondered, or was she in any way, thanks to her delayed experience in such things, exceptional? If only there were any one, any woman, she could quite entirely confide in! If her mother had been what—in fiction at least—some mothers are to their daughters—closer, in fuller sympathy, more able, as it were, to recall her own youth and the perplexities, hopes, and fears which doubtless had their place in it—how gladly would Frances have confided in her! But as things were, this would have been useless, nay, more than useless, impossible.“I know,” she thought, “how good and unselfish mamma is. Never was there a better wife, but I have read somewhere that every woman is more wife than mother, orvice versa. I think the former must be the case with mamma, and in one way I should be glad of it, for I think it has given more object and motive to my own life, in the trying to be a real elder sister to the others.”Eira’s hopes as to what she had spoken of as a “Saint Martin’s Summer,” in connection with the pleasant experiences of the last two or three months, were not destined to be fulfilled.For the expected guests at Craig-Morion arrived there some days before Horace Littlewood’s own return.A day or two afterwards Lady Emma called, but found no one at home, somewhat to the disappointment of her daughters, whose curiosity concerning Mrs Littlewood the younger had been naturally aroused by Madeleine’s description of her. All the more welcome, therefore, was Madeleine’s own appearance at Fir Cottage about five o’clock the following afternoon.“I thought I was never going to get here again, and that the end of everything had come,” she exclaimed, as she threw herself into the most luxurious of the wicker chairs, the pride of the sisters’ little sitting-room, which Eira drew forward for her eagerly, as soon as her bright face was perceived at the door.By good luck, as some special formalities in the shape of curtains changing or something of the kind were taking place in the drawing-room, a pleasant fire was burning in the little grate, for however bright and sunny spring days may be, it is rarely the case that their close is not chilly. And Lady Emma was herself spending the afternoon with her husband in the study.“How cosy it is in here!” Madeleine went on. “I just managed to escape before I was caught for tea. When Elise is there I really don’t see that it does her any harm for her to act daughter of the house—every one knows that mamma and she are devoted to each other.”“Then you have not had tea?” said Frances quickly, “nor, for a wonder, have we. Eira—” but Eira had already disappeared, returning in an incredibly short time, followed by the parlour-maid and a welcome little clatter of tea-cups, for Madeleine’s attractiveness had not stopped short at winning the younger members of the household—Mr Morion appreciating her quick intelligence, and Lady Emma often declaring that Miss Littlewood’s manners reminded her of the days of her own maidenhood, when the young knew what it was to pay some deference and attention to their elders—thanks to which fortunate circumstances, “tea in our own room” had been more readily conceded than would otherwise have been the case.Frances glanced at their guest with a little smile, though she waited to speak till the servant had closed the door behind her.“You are not quite,” she said, “in your usual spirits, Madeleine.”“No,” was the honest reply. “Somehow Elise seems to rub me the wrong way this time more than usual, and it makes me blame myself, for I know she means to be nice, and she is really interested in the old place and all about it, as she should be, of course.”She did not allude to, or even hint at, her sister-in-law’s “tone,” when “those other Morions,” as she called them, had been spoken of, though this had, in point of fact, been the chief cause in her own mind of the annoyance she had experienced—annoyance the more difficult to pass over philosophically as it had to be borne in silence, past experience having well taught her that any expressed disagreement with Elise, on her part, was sure to do more harm than good.“And for Horace’s sake,” she said to herself, “I must be as wise as possible. Perhaps when she sees them for herself, if I don’t set up her opposition, she will be won over, to some extent at least.”“Poor Madeleine!” said Frances sympathisingly, “yes, I agree with you. I think that sort of thing is more trying than—almost than a quarrel, an honest quarrel, between friends even, which often puts things right again.”“Oh, far, far more,” said Madeleine, yet in spite of the emphasis she spoke absently. “I must not forget,” she began again after a little pause, “that I have a message from mamma. If I don’t see Lady Emma, will some of you undertake to deliver it conscientiously? It is to ask you all to tea to-morrow, to meet Elise of course. Ithinkthat your father and mother are going to be asked more formally to dine next week, but of course I had no message about that.”“I doubt if they will be able to go,” said Frances, “for papa is anticipating a touch of bronchitis, having already got a cold,” and she could not repress a tiny smile.“I doubt,” said Eira, “very seriously indeed, my dear Madeleine, if the youngest Miss Morion will be able to join you to-morrow afternoon!”“Why not?” exclaimed Frances; “oh, you must come, Eira,” for Eira’s comfortable absence of self-consciousness had often been a relief in the somewhat strained position brought about greatly by Mrs Littlewood’s undoubted prejudice against Frances, of late even more marked than heretofore.“Oh,” replied Eira airily, “because I should be terrified out of my wits by your respected sister-in-law. And as I’ve two elder sisters, I don’t see that I need sacrifice myself.”“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Madeleine. “You know you are never really shy or frightened. You are quite different from little Betty here.”Eira reared her head.“Perhaps that is true,” she said, “but I havefeelings, all the same, Madeleine. If there is one thing in the world that I hate, it is being criticised.”“You don’t suppose anyone likes it,” said Betty, “and I don’t quite see why you, the youngest of us all, should imagine that you will come in for much of it. It’s rather conceited of you!”Eira’s colour rose.“You might credit me with disliking the idea of it for us all,” she said. “You really are getting into the way of saying such disagreeable things, Betty.”Before Betty had time to reply, perhaps fortunately so, Frances interrupted the discussion.“My dear Eira,” she said, “it is all very well to treat Madeleine to the privileges of intimate friend in the shape of small family jars, but I really think you are overdoing it a little.”“Yes,” agreed Madeleine, though the kindly laugh which accompanied her words took from them any possible sting. “You will end by makingmethe self-conscious one if you don’t take care. I shall feel as if I had been dreadfully disloyal to poor Elise if I have made you feel so about her! She is not unkind, and she does not mean to be censorious. It is only—I wish I could make you understand—that she has got an orthodox little conventional standard of her own that she tries to fit every one into, and if they won’t go in, why then—”“A kind of bed of oh! what was the man’s name? It begins with P—Pro—” said Eira.“Procrustes,” said Frances, with a smile; and Madeleine laughed. Only Betty remained grave.“The results are not quite so terrible in Elise’s case,” said her sister-in-law. “You really need not be afraid of her. ButIam rather afraid of my own sensations to-morrow! If the poor thing looks at you, or makes the mildest remark, you will suspect something personal! You, at least, Eira, will do so, and then you will get onto your high horse at once!”“No, no,” said Frances, “she will not be so foolish. Mounting one’s high horse is a very lowering proceeding.”“Yes,” said Eira, “I think I agree with you—on consideration. And if I come, Madeleine, please forget all the silly things I have said. Candidly speaking, I think my chief feeling about your sister-in-law is curiosity. I liked Mr Ryder Morion, and it is interesting to fit in what you have said of her with a certain amount of resemblance to him—her brother.”But Eira’s curiosity was not destined to be directly gratified as soon as she expected. For Lady Emma, on receiving the invitation, decided that it was far better not to accept it too literally as regarded the “all of you,” and it was accompanied by her two elder daughters only that she set forth, the following afternoon, on the visit to the Craig-Morion of much more formality than the recent almost familiar intercourse which even the elders of the two households had half-unconsciously drifted into.Nor was this feeling modified by the reception which awaited them. Conrad Littlewood’s wife was nothing if not ceremonious. She prided herself, and that somewhat unduly—for she was a less clever woman intellectually than she believed—on her infallible discrimination as to shades of position, and still more of character as affecting such position. There were people decidedly beneath her to whom she considered it quite “safe” and even expedient to unbend to the point of making herself charming, in the superficial sense of the word. There were others, again, whom even she recognised as superiors in every sense of the word, whom she would on no account have condescended to appear to court. To-day she was in a not unpleasing state of expectancy as regarded these hitherto unknown relations. Kinship to a certain point she recognised as establishing its own distinct claims; beyond this, “I must wait till I see them,” she said to herself, for she did not pin her faith by any means to her mother-in-law’sdictaon such points, and in the present instance still less than usual.“For, after all, they are my own blood-relations,” she thought, “and it is only through us that they are anything to Mrs Littlewood, or that she has had anything to do with them. And she does take up prejudices. I can see that she dislikes the eldest daughter.” And in this, as we know, Elise was not mistaken, for as regarded Frances the dowager lady had allowed her own keen and true perceptions to be unfairly clouded.The visitors were ushered into the large drawing-room, hitherto but rarely occupied during the daytime. There was also an atmosphere of things being to a greater extenten grand tenuethan had been usual; and the very look of Mrs Conrad’s tall figure, robed in unexceptionable, somewhat severe attire, as she rose and stood aside for a moment till the first greetings had been exchanged, effectually destroyed the old association of pleasurable intimacy.Lady Emma, as was always the case when she chose to give herself a little trouble, was fully equal to the occasion. She held out her hand with the amiable but slightly indifferent air of an elder to a much younger woman, in whom nevertheless she feels in duty bound to show some special interest.“I am pleased to meet you,” she said. “I hope you are pleasantly impressed by this place?”Mrs Conrad was somewhat taken aback.She covered this at once by turning to the two girls.“Your daughters, I suppose?” she said, more stiffly than she had intended to speak, for the first glimpse of Frances’ graceful and yet dignified person also tended to bewilder her, and her eyes rested with greater satisfaction on Betty’s less imposing figure and dainty face, out of which two grave dark eyes were looking up, with the unconscious expression of childlike appeal habitual to her when she was feeling shy. And the touch of Elise’s fingers as they met those of the younger girl had a kindly pressure entirely wanting in that which she bestowed upon Frances.“I feel, after all, that I shall agree with mother,” was the thought that flashed across her mind: “the little one is infinitely the nicer. The elder girl is handsome, but evidently too pleased with herself. Independently of outside circumstances, not at all what we should choose for—” But the consciousness of some pause in the conversation that had followed the Morions’ entrance aroused her to her duties to the visitors, and prevented her from pursuing her private reflections further.She turned to Frances, who was sitting near her, as she was not sorry to see. For the unfavourable prepossession had by no means diminished her curiosity as to this certainly not “commonplace-looking” girl.And Elise Littlewood was fond of thinking of herself as a student of character.“I suppose you are devoted to the country, Miss Morion?” she said. “Naturally so. It must be in many ways delightful,” with the smallest of sighs, “to be able to enjoy it in the spring and early summer.”“Of course,” said Frances, “those seasons are the loveliest everywhere. But I don’t quite agree with you that one naturally likes what one has the most of. On the contrary, many people long for the things that don’t come in their way,” and as she spoke a slight twinkle of amusement might have been discerned in her usually quiet eyes.“Perhaps so,” was the rejoinder, “though it is perfectly impossible for any one to judge fairly of a kind of life they have never experienced.”The touch of acerbity in the speaker’s tone roused Frances to a very rare impulse of self-assertion, and she was on the point of a reply which, however courteous, would not have tended to smooth matters, when there came an unexpected distraction in the sound of wheels driving up rapidly to the hall door, for the windows of the large drawing-room looked on to the front entrance.“Who can that be?” said the elder Mrs Littlewood.“It is too early for Conrad,” said his wife, “and yet,” for by this time she was glancing out of the window—“yes, it is a dog-cart; why, I declare, it is Horace!”“Horace!” exclaimed his mother, “impossible! He was not to return till next week, and then only to—say good-bye.”But all the same she rose to her feet, and turned towards the door with a word of apology to Lady Emma.

That evening, that still chilly evening, was always in Frances’ mind, when she recalled the winter of the Littlewoods’ sojourn at Craig-Morion, associated with the eve of the real spring. For the next morning came one of those bursts of warmth and sunshine which go far to make amends for the trying side of our capricious climate.

And this year there was no harking back upon the winter. It said “good-bye” and went, closing the door behind it like a well-trained servant. The month of March for once was true to its proverbial character, while its often coquettish successor, April, proved, even up in the north, so altogether charming that the visitors to the big house were constantly tempted into expressions of regret that its close must see their departure for the south.

“I had no idea,” said Madeleine one day, when she and her Fir Cottage friends were primrose and cowslip gathering as busily as if they were still children, “that I should have been so sorry to leave this place, though I think I had premonitions of great enjoyment here.”

“I am so glad,” was the reply from Frances, “so very glad that you liked being here.”

“It has been more than half,” Madeleine rejoined—“three-quarters, seven-eighths, if you like—owing to all of you, as you must know.”

“Well, only think, then,” said Eira, “what your being here has been to us! But don’t talk as if it was all at an end already! We have three weeks at least of this lovely weather, for I am determined to believe in its lasting till you go.”

“I hope it will,” said Madeleine, “for more reasons than one. I waited to tell you and Betty about some news we have had.”

Betty, who was near her, glanced up quickly. Betty was looking tired and pale, notwithstanding the sunshine and the warmth. “Perhaps, indeed, because of them,” said her mother; “early springs are often trying to sensitive people.”

“Oh! I hope it is not that your brother is going away,” said Eira. “He’s so nice about planning expeditions! And now that the spring is here, there really are some you should make in the neighbourhood. There are ruins and things we have scarcely even seen ourselves. It would be nice to have a brother,” with a little sigh.

“If we had had one,” said Betty, “he could not have stayed at home. He would have most probably been away in India or the colonies, or some terrible place! A brother’s no good if you are poor.”

“And as for having one always with you,” said Madeleine, “thatis not to be counted on, whatever other circumstances are. I am not speaking about Horace’s present plans, though, for I hope when he comes back,”—he had not yet returned from a short absence in town, whither he had accompanied Mr Ryder Morion—“that it will be to stay nearly as long as we do. No, my news is not about him, and perhaps it is rather horrid of me not to feel more pleased about it. It is only that the Conrads are coming down upon us,” with a half-rueful smile. “Next week they come, for ten days or so; it is sure to get into a fortnight, and I feel as if it would be a finish up of this comfortable, self-arranging life that I have so enjoyed!”

“Will your sister-in-law expect you to be so much with her then?” asked Frances.

“N-no,” said Madeleine, “not exactly that. Mamma and she suit each other perfectly, and require no third person—are much better without one, indeed. But—oh, really,” with a change of tone, “I cannot explain it without seeming a little unkind, so, if I do seem so, promise to forget that part of it, for I do want you to understand about my sister-in-law. She is, so to say, a typical person, one of the best of her class, quite good and high principled, and with a strong sense of her responsibilities, and all that side of things. But yet she and I are not and never could be great friends, though, on the other hand, I am equally sure that we should never quarrel. Now with her brother, Ryder, I very often—no, I can’t sayquarrel, it’s too strong an expression—but we very often openly disagree and argue it out, and yet I feel that we have more in common than Elise and Ievercould have.”

Her three companions listened with great interest, Frances and Betty especially.

“I think I do understand,” said the former, “and I am sure I shall do so still better when I have seen her. But you know, Madeleine, you don’t perhaps take sufficiently into account that you yourself are not a typical person, by any means!”

“Am I not?” said Madeleine, laughing. “In what way?”

“There are very few,” said Frances gravely, “who would have remained so unspoilt,unself-engrossed as you, in the same circumstances.”

This was strong commendation, above all from such a person as Frances, whom no one could have suspected for an instant of flattery, and who yet loved to be able to admire. And whenever she had a fit occasion to express her admiration and appreciation, few things pleased her more than doing so, and few people could have done so more gratifyingly.

For such power of expression is not a common gift. Nothing is easier than to criticise with even a certain cleverness, on which its possessors will always be found to pride themselves most unduly; but to “admire,” to discern “the admirable,” of which few human beings are entirely devoid, one must indeed have risen to a far higher plane, both morally and intellectually. Nay, indeed, might not one almost add “spiritually?” And a curious anomaly is to be observed as regards this subject. One often hears the excuse—“I am not effusive—it does not come naturally to me to praise people. I have a horror of flattery”—yet this same reticence, this same powerlessness of expression disappears in a really remarkable and all but magical way when adisagreeable or hurting remark, personal or otherwise, suggests itself.

Madeleine’s pleasant brown eyes sparkled with gratification.

“I do like you to say so,” she said, “for I know you mean it, little as I feel I deserve it. Don’t you think,” she continued, “that real praise always makes one feel very humble?”

“Yes,” said Frances, with a smile, “your thinking so much ofminehas that effect on me at this moment.”

“Please leave off paying each other compliments,” said Eira, “I want to hear some more about Mrs Conrad Littlewood. Is she always called ‘Elise?’ her real name is Elizabeth, I know. I don’t think Elise suits a very stately, ‘grande dame’ sort of person!”

“She isn’t that,” said Madeleine, “she is really very nice—what a stupid expression!—it is just, I suppose, that she has always lived in a certain way, and not come really into contact with the other half of the world, though she believes herself to be very wide-minded, andisbenevolent. I often think if she hadn’t married my brother, though he is a good fellow too, she would have been different—really wider in her outlook.”

She smiled to herself as she spoke.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Frances.

“I was only picturing to myself,” was the reply, “how differently you and she would go about the same sort of thing, even with equally good intentions. I was thinking, down at the harbour, how you forget yourself and your own standpoint almost, for the time, in your sympathy with the people! That is how you gain their confidence. Whereas Elise, with the best will in the world, however kindly she spoke, would remain an outsider. She would come away saying one must never expect gratitude, and be very good to them all the same, and very pleased with herself for not being repelled by their peculiar offhand manners and want of deference.”

“Well,” said Betty, speaking for the first time. “I must say I should have some fellow-feeling with my namesake as regards your pet fisher-folk. They are unusually queer, you must allow; in fact, they seem to me half-savages, wherever they came from.”

“Your bark is worse than your bite, Betty,” said Eira. “I saw you hugging, yes, reallyhugging, one of those little black-eyed imps down there one day, one of the rare days we persuaded you to go with us. And he clung on to you like a limpet!”

“Oh,” said Betty coolly, “that was because he was like a little Murillo! and his mother looked quite fierce.”

“Nonsense,” said Frances. “She was intensely gratified and horribly shy. If our poor friends can be so misunderstood, Madeleine, I think on the whole we had better not suggest Mrs Conrad Littlewood’s visiting them. Is it next week she and your brother are coming?”

“Yes,” Madeleine replied. “We must make the best of our time till then.”

And she and Frances went on talking together on the subject which their conversation had drifted into—“that everlasting Scaling Harbour,” as naughty Betty called it.

“I hope,” said Eira, when Madeleine had left them and they were turning in at their own gate, “I hope Horace Littlewood will come back a few days before those other people come up—just for us to have a sort of Saint Martin’s Summer of what this winter has been. For I feel convinced that once they are here it will be the real good-bye to it all.”

“Or,” thought Frances in her secret heart, “the real beginning;” but aloud she said nothing, though she endorsed Eira’s hopes as regarded Horace’s return. Somehow—how was it, she asked herself, that she felt more drawn to him, more nearly sure of her own capacity for responding to the devotion which, from her first suspicion of its existence, had profoundly touched and gratified her, in his absence than when actually with him? Was it always so, she wondered, or was she in any way, thanks to her delayed experience in such things, exceptional? If only there were any one, any woman, she could quite entirely confide in! If her mother had been what—in fiction at least—some mothers are to their daughters—closer, in fuller sympathy, more able, as it were, to recall her own youth and the perplexities, hopes, and fears which doubtless had their place in it—how gladly would Frances have confided in her! But as things were, this would have been useless, nay, more than useless, impossible.

“I know,” she thought, “how good and unselfish mamma is. Never was there a better wife, but I have read somewhere that every woman is more wife than mother, orvice versa. I think the former must be the case with mamma, and in one way I should be glad of it, for I think it has given more object and motive to my own life, in the trying to be a real elder sister to the others.”

Eira’s hopes as to what she had spoken of as a “Saint Martin’s Summer,” in connection with the pleasant experiences of the last two or three months, were not destined to be fulfilled.

For the expected guests at Craig-Morion arrived there some days before Horace Littlewood’s own return.

A day or two afterwards Lady Emma called, but found no one at home, somewhat to the disappointment of her daughters, whose curiosity concerning Mrs Littlewood the younger had been naturally aroused by Madeleine’s description of her. All the more welcome, therefore, was Madeleine’s own appearance at Fir Cottage about five o’clock the following afternoon.

“I thought I was never going to get here again, and that the end of everything had come,” she exclaimed, as she threw herself into the most luxurious of the wicker chairs, the pride of the sisters’ little sitting-room, which Eira drew forward for her eagerly, as soon as her bright face was perceived at the door.

By good luck, as some special formalities in the shape of curtains changing or something of the kind were taking place in the drawing-room, a pleasant fire was burning in the little grate, for however bright and sunny spring days may be, it is rarely the case that their close is not chilly. And Lady Emma was herself spending the afternoon with her husband in the study.

“How cosy it is in here!” Madeleine went on. “I just managed to escape before I was caught for tea. When Elise is there I really don’t see that it does her any harm for her to act daughter of the house—every one knows that mamma and she are devoted to each other.”

“Then you have not had tea?” said Frances quickly, “nor, for a wonder, have we. Eira—” but Eira had already disappeared, returning in an incredibly short time, followed by the parlour-maid and a welcome little clatter of tea-cups, for Madeleine’s attractiveness had not stopped short at winning the younger members of the household—Mr Morion appreciating her quick intelligence, and Lady Emma often declaring that Miss Littlewood’s manners reminded her of the days of her own maidenhood, when the young knew what it was to pay some deference and attention to their elders—thanks to which fortunate circumstances, “tea in our own room” had been more readily conceded than would otherwise have been the case.

Frances glanced at their guest with a little smile, though she waited to speak till the servant had closed the door behind her.

“You are not quite,” she said, “in your usual spirits, Madeleine.”

“No,” was the honest reply. “Somehow Elise seems to rub me the wrong way this time more than usual, and it makes me blame myself, for I know she means to be nice, and she is really interested in the old place and all about it, as she should be, of course.”

She did not allude to, or even hint at, her sister-in-law’s “tone,” when “those other Morions,” as she called them, had been spoken of, though this had, in point of fact, been the chief cause in her own mind of the annoyance she had experienced—annoyance the more difficult to pass over philosophically as it had to be borne in silence, past experience having well taught her that any expressed disagreement with Elise, on her part, was sure to do more harm than good.

“And for Horace’s sake,” she said to herself, “I must be as wise as possible. Perhaps when she sees them for herself, if I don’t set up her opposition, she will be won over, to some extent at least.”

“Poor Madeleine!” said Frances sympathisingly, “yes, I agree with you. I think that sort of thing is more trying than—almost than a quarrel, an honest quarrel, between friends even, which often puts things right again.”

“Oh, far, far more,” said Madeleine, yet in spite of the emphasis she spoke absently. “I must not forget,” she began again after a little pause, “that I have a message from mamma. If I don’t see Lady Emma, will some of you undertake to deliver it conscientiously? It is to ask you all to tea to-morrow, to meet Elise of course. Ithinkthat your father and mother are going to be asked more formally to dine next week, but of course I had no message about that.”

“I doubt if they will be able to go,” said Frances, “for papa is anticipating a touch of bronchitis, having already got a cold,” and she could not repress a tiny smile.

“I doubt,” said Eira, “very seriously indeed, my dear Madeleine, if the youngest Miss Morion will be able to join you to-morrow afternoon!”

“Why not?” exclaimed Frances; “oh, you must come, Eira,” for Eira’s comfortable absence of self-consciousness had often been a relief in the somewhat strained position brought about greatly by Mrs Littlewood’s undoubted prejudice against Frances, of late even more marked than heretofore.

“Oh,” replied Eira airily, “because I should be terrified out of my wits by your respected sister-in-law. And as I’ve two elder sisters, I don’t see that I need sacrifice myself.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Madeleine. “You know you are never really shy or frightened. You are quite different from little Betty here.”

Eira reared her head.

“Perhaps that is true,” she said, “but I havefeelings, all the same, Madeleine. If there is one thing in the world that I hate, it is being criticised.”

“You don’t suppose anyone likes it,” said Betty, “and I don’t quite see why you, the youngest of us all, should imagine that you will come in for much of it. It’s rather conceited of you!”

Eira’s colour rose.

“You might credit me with disliking the idea of it for us all,” she said. “You really are getting into the way of saying such disagreeable things, Betty.”

Before Betty had time to reply, perhaps fortunately so, Frances interrupted the discussion.

“My dear Eira,” she said, “it is all very well to treat Madeleine to the privileges of intimate friend in the shape of small family jars, but I really think you are overdoing it a little.”

“Yes,” agreed Madeleine, though the kindly laugh which accompanied her words took from them any possible sting. “You will end by makingmethe self-conscious one if you don’t take care. I shall feel as if I had been dreadfully disloyal to poor Elise if I have made you feel so about her! She is not unkind, and she does not mean to be censorious. It is only—I wish I could make you understand—that she has got an orthodox little conventional standard of her own that she tries to fit every one into, and if they won’t go in, why then—”

“A kind of bed of oh! what was the man’s name? It begins with P—Pro—” said Eira.

“Procrustes,” said Frances, with a smile; and Madeleine laughed. Only Betty remained grave.

“The results are not quite so terrible in Elise’s case,” said her sister-in-law. “You really need not be afraid of her. ButIam rather afraid of my own sensations to-morrow! If the poor thing looks at you, or makes the mildest remark, you will suspect something personal! You, at least, Eira, will do so, and then you will get onto your high horse at once!”

“No, no,” said Frances, “she will not be so foolish. Mounting one’s high horse is a very lowering proceeding.”

“Yes,” said Eira, “I think I agree with you—on consideration. And if I come, Madeleine, please forget all the silly things I have said. Candidly speaking, I think my chief feeling about your sister-in-law is curiosity. I liked Mr Ryder Morion, and it is interesting to fit in what you have said of her with a certain amount of resemblance to him—her brother.”

But Eira’s curiosity was not destined to be directly gratified as soon as she expected. For Lady Emma, on receiving the invitation, decided that it was far better not to accept it too literally as regarded the “all of you,” and it was accompanied by her two elder daughters only that she set forth, the following afternoon, on the visit to the Craig-Morion of much more formality than the recent almost familiar intercourse which even the elders of the two households had half-unconsciously drifted into.

Nor was this feeling modified by the reception which awaited them. Conrad Littlewood’s wife was nothing if not ceremonious. She prided herself, and that somewhat unduly—for she was a less clever woman intellectually than she believed—on her infallible discrimination as to shades of position, and still more of character as affecting such position. There were people decidedly beneath her to whom she considered it quite “safe” and even expedient to unbend to the point of making herself charming, in the superficial sense of the word. There were others, again, whom even she recognised as superiors in every sense of the word, whom she would on no account have condescended to appear to court. To-day she was in a not unpleasing state of expectancy as regarded these hitherto unknown relations. Kinship to a certain point she recognised as establishing its own distinct claims; beyond this, “I must wait till I see them,” she said to herself, for she did not pin her faith by any means to her mother-in-law’sdictaon such points, and in the present instance still less than usual.

“For, after all, they are my own blood-relations,” she thought, “and it is only through us that they are anything to Mrs Littlewood, or that she has had anything to do with them. And she does take up prejudices. I can see that she dislikes the eldest daughter.” And in this, as we know, Elise was not mistaken, for as regarded Frances the dowager lady had allowed her own keen and true perceptions to be unfairly clouded.

The visitors were ushered into the large drawing-room, hitherto but rarely occupied during the daytime. There was also an atmosphere of things being to a greater extenten grand tenuethan had been usual; and the very look of Mrs Conrad’s tall figure, robed in unexceptionable, somewhat severe attire, as she rose and stood aside for a moment till the first greetings had been exchanged, effectually destroyed the old association of pleasurable intimacy.

Lady Emma, as was always the case when she chose to give herself a little trouble, was fully equal to the occasion. She held out her hand with the amiable but slightly indifferent air of an elder to a much younger woman, in whom nevertheless she feels in duty bound to show some special interest.

“I am pleased to meet you,” she said. “I hope you are pleasantly impressed by this place?”

Mrs Conrad was somewhat taken aback.

She covered this at once by turning to the two girls.

“Your daughters, I suppose?” she said, more stiffly than she had intended to speak, for the first glimpse of Frances’ graceful and yet dignified person also tended to bewilder her, and her eyes rested with greater satisfaction on Betty’s less imposing figure and dainty face, out of which two grave dark eyes were looking up, with the unconscious expression of childlike appeal habitual to her when she was feeling shy. And the touch of Elise’s fingers as they met those of the younger girl had a kindly pressure entirely wanting in that which she bestowed upon Frances.

“I feel, after all, that I shall agree with mother,” was the thought that flashed across her mind: “the little one is infinitely the nicer. The elder girl is handsome, but evidently too pleased with herself. Independently of outside circumstances, not at all what we should choose for—” But the consciousness of some pause in the conversation that had followed the Morions’ entrance aroused her to her duties to the visitors, and prevented her from pursuing her private reflections further.

She turned to Frances, who was sitting near her, as she was not sorry to see. For the unfavourable prepossession had by no means diminished her curiosity as to this certainly not “commonplace-looking” girl.

And Elise Littlewood was fond of thinking of herself as a student of character.

“I suppose you are devoted to the country, Miss Morion?” she said. “Naturally so. It must be in many ways delightful,” with the smallest of sighs, “to be able to enjoy it in the spring and early summer.”

“Of course,” said Frances, “those seasons are the loveliest everywhere. But I don’t quite agree with you that one naturally likes what one has the most of. On the contrary, many people long for the things that don’t come in their way,” and as she spoke a slight twinkle of amusement might have been discerned in her usually quiet eyes.

“Perhaps so,” was the rejoinder, “though it is perfectly impossible for any one to judge fairly of a kind of life they have never experienced.”

The touch of acerbity in the speaker’s tone roused Frances to a very rare impulse of self-assertion, and she was on the point of a reply which, however courteous, would not have tended to smooth matters, when there came an unexpected distraction in the sound of wheels driving up rapidly to the hall door, for the windows of the large drawing-room looked on to the front entrance.

“Who can that be?” said the elder Mrs Littlewood.

“It is too early for Conrad,” said his wife, “and yet,” for by this time she was glancing out of the window—“yes, it is a dog-cart; why, I declare, it is Horace!”

“Horace!” exclaimed his mother, “impossible! He was not to return till next week, and then only to—say good-bye.”

But all the same she rose to her feet, and turned towards the door with a word of apology to Lady Emma.

Chapter Nineteen.Unsatisfactory.If Mrs Littlewood’s intention had been to meet the newcomer in the hall, and by the exercise of some diplomacy prevent his joining the party of ladies in the drawing-room, it was frustrated. For before she reached the door it was thrown open, not by a servant, but by Horace himself. An expression of surprise crossed his face on first catching sight of the six or seven occupants of the room, to be, however, quickly replaced by a smile of pleasure and slightly heightened colour.“So glad I am in time for a cup of tea,” he said; “I was in luck to find the dog-cart waiting for Con at the station—don’t be afraid, Elise, I’ve sent it straight back again—I wasn’t expected,” he continued, to Lady Emma, as he shook hands with her, then with Betty, who happened to come next, and lastly with Frances, on whose fingers he bestowed an earnest pressure which brought the colour into her cheeks, this latter incident, slight as it was, not passing unperceived by Elise’s observant eyes.Then things settled down again, Horace accepting his position as the only man of the party with perfect equanimity, and availing himself with satisfaction of the resources of the tea-table, going on to explain that he had had no luncheon and was as hungry as a hawk.“That’s what men always say,” observed Madeleine. “I mean they always have some excuse ready if they have a weakness for afternoon-tea.”“I’m not ashamed of an honest appetite at any time,” said Horace. “May I have some more sandwiches, Madeleine?”“My dear boy,” said his mother, “you will spoil your dinner, to use a commonplace expression. Do you know what o’clock it is?” At these words Lady Emma made a slight movement, as if in preparation for going. Mrs Littlewood turned at once, laying a detaining hand on her arm.“Please don’t think of leaving us yet,” she said, “it is only a little past six. The evenings are so light now.”But by this time Lady Emma was on her feet, and she was not the sort of person to sit down again, once she had decided to go. So a little bustle of leave-taking ensued, the lady of the house excelling herself in cordiality, for in her heart she felt a little guilty. Her punishment followed quickly, for, without waiting for the fresh relay of sandwiches which his sister had ordered, Horace calmly accompanied the Morions across the hall and, seizing a cap as he passed, out into the grounds, with the evident intention of escorting them, if not the whole way home, at least to the door in the wall.In the natural order of things he should have walked first with Lady Emma, but Betty was too quick for him.“Let me go on with you, mamma,” she whispered, slipping her little hand inside her mother’s arm, and hurrying forward with her, so as to leave the other two in the rear.Whether or no her tactics were at all appreciated by Lady Emma, the action was not repulsed; indeed there would have been explanation enough of it in the family legend of Betty’s chronic shyness.Somewhat to Frances’ surprise Horace walked for a few moments in silence; gradually the consciousness of this became almost oppressive to her, and, anxious at any cost to break it, she turned towards him with a few quick words.“You have come back sooner than you expected?” she said.He gave a slight start.“Yes, that is to say sooner than I have lately expected,” he answered. “Though when I left here I had no idea of being away so long. Things never turn out as one anticipates, and still more rarely as one hopes,” and again he grew silent, and this time Frances made no further effort at talking.So they walked till within a few yards of the boundary of the grounds, Lady Emma and Betty coming to a halt when they reached the door in the wall, glancing towards the two in the rear, to show that they were waiting for them.Then, at last, Horace spoke again, this time hurriedly and nervously and as if indifferent whether this was perceived or not.“I have been hesitating,” he said, “hesitating terribly, as to what was best to do. I was not even sure of seeing you at all, for I leave again to-morrow night, so I think it is hopeless to attempt any satisfactory explanation. My only comfort is that I believe you trust me, and as soon as I possibly can do so, I will write to you fully.”Frances glanced up at him; her face was calm but very pale.“Just tell me one thing,” she said. “Is there any chance of—is it likely that you will have to return to India immediately or very soon?”He shook his head.“No,” he replied. “It is not quite as bad as that. At all costs, whatever turns up, I shall not leave England without coming down here again.”By this time they were within earshot of the others, and no more was said.“I am afraid,” began Horace, addressing himself to Lady Emma, “that this must be good-bye, for some little time to come, at least. I had hoped to have had a week or two here still.”“Indeed,” said Lady Emma courteously, but with some not unintended indifference of manner. “I am sorry for you all to leave just as our best season is coming on, but we shall of course be pleased to see you if ever you are in the neighbourhood again,” and she held out her hand as if in polite dismissal. “We must not linger, my dears.”Neither of her daughters replied. Frances shook hands with Horace without looking at him. Betty’s little face, on the contrary, was turned full upon him, and as her dark eyes scanned him with a strange, indescribable, almost pathetic questioning, verging on reproach, his hand retained hers for a second longer than need have been. Then her mother and sister disappeared through the doorway, and before following: them she looked at her hand with a curious expression. Had it been her fancy? What did he mean?As she passed through the door she closed it behind her without looking back, so she did not see him still standing there, where they had said good-bye, motionless.When Horace got back to the house again, he hesitated for a moment as he was crossing the hall in the direction of his own quarters.“No,” he said to himself, “I had better go back to the drawing-room. If things are ever to come right I shall have worse than that to do, and I must face it. If even I could win over Elise, it would be something, perhaps even a great deal, to the good, for Conrad always sees through her eyes.”He rejoined the family circle therefore. When his mother saw him a slight touch of relief overspread her face; she had been dreading his accompanying the Morions all the way home and not returning till dinner-time.“Youhavetaken us by surprise, Horace,” she said, smiling at him with what was intended to be a perfectly natural expression, “and I am so anxious to hear what you have settled. It was provoking that we were not alone when you came back, but poor, dear Lady Emma is not wanting in tact, after all.”Her daughter-in-law half rose from her seat: “I think,” she said, “in my turn I had better leave you; you must have a lot to talk about.”“Nothing but what I flatter myself you may be interested in, too, Elise,” replied Horace quickly, gently advancing her chair again. “I am very lucky to have got down here at all to have a glimpse of you and Con. But I am sorry to say it will be only a glimpse. I have to leave again to-morrow night, mother.”His mother’s face fell, for though she did not desire his prolonged stay at Craig-Morion, she hated parting with him, and she feared that this recall to his work meant business.“To-morrow!” she repeated, rather blankly. “That is very soon, but,” as a new idea struck her, “it means, I hope, that you are only joining at the depot preliminary to—what you know I long for! Otherwise you would have had all your leave clear, till you had to go back to India, would you not?”He had sat down beside her, and took her hand in his.“Not exactly that, mother dear,” he replied. “I am not forced to join at the depot, but my doing so will be a great help to them just now, as one or two are on sick leave, and they are unexpectedly short-handed. I may get a month or two, later on, just before I shall have to start.”“Oh, Horace!” his mother exclaimed.“Are you really deciding to go out again,” said Elise, “when mother does so want you to give it up? Are you so devoted to your profession, Horace? It isn’t as if there were active service in prospect. I do think you have had enough of it.”“But remember, my dear Elise,” answered Horace, “that I am not a second Con, and I am quite content to be myself. But I could not stand nothing to do, and no distinct position. I should hate hanging about.”“But you know, my dear boy,” said his mother, “there are plenty of things you could get to do.”“Not without some capital,” said Horace pointedly.“Perhaps not,” she replied, flushing a little. “All the same you need not talk as if you were alone in the world. There is nothing I long for more than to see you settled down with—plenty to do, and—” but she did not finish her sentence—“that would come no doubt in good time.”“I don’t know that it would,” said Horace, not affecting ignorance of her meaning, “not if I give up my only certainty, or, practically speaking, my only certainty of better things in the future, at any rate.”For though Horace was not entirely unprovided for on the paternal side as a younger son, the family property was strictly entailed on the elder brother, leaving the others to a great extent dependent on their mother.Mrs Littlewood made a movement as if to withdraw her hand.“You pain me, Horace,” she said, “when you say such things.”He retained her fingers in his clasp.“Heaven knows I don’t mean to do so in the least, mother dear,” he said. “But you, and Elise too,” with a little smile towards her, “are not the sort of women to respect a man less for wishing to guard his independence, for wishing to feel that he is doing some work in the world, earning enough at least not to feel himself afainéant.”“There is always useful work to do,” said Elise, “though, perhaps, the most useful to others does not directly repay the doer of it. Look at Conrad, how he devotes his time to our tenants, and the many dependent on us.”“Of course,” said Horace, “and he is quite right, but the positions are perfectly different. I want to feel—well—” he stopped, and, getting up, strolled towards the window. The two ladies exchanged glances. Then Elise, by a gesture, made her mother-in-law understand that she thought it would be better for her herself to leave the room; but Mrs Littlewood negatived the suggestion in the same way. And in a moment or two, Horace came back again and took up his position by the fire.“It’s really too bad of me,” he said, “to be entertaining you with all this talk about myself.”“No, my dear boy,” said his mother, “but I just wish I understood you a little better.”“Youarerather enigmatical, you know,” said Elise. “If it were not—” but here she hesitated.“Go on,” said Horace smiling, and, as this was followed by no hint of caution from his mother, Elise did go on.“After all, it was something silly I was going to say!” the younger woman continued, “for I know you have been quite out of the way of anything of the kind for ever so long, but except for that, I was going to say I should almost have suspected it was a case of the ‘not impossible she’ with you!”Mrs Littlewood glanced up, for her, nervously at her son. He was quite calm and apparently in no way annoyed by his sister-in-law’s speech.“Provided itwere‘anot impossibleshe,’” said his mother pointedly. “Few things, indeed nothing, would give me greater pleasure!” Horace did not reply for a moment or two.“I quite believe you, my dear mother,” he said at last, “but,” as the sound of approaching wheels was heard, “there’s the dog-cart again and Conrad. I hope it was in time for him.”“By-the-by, Elise,” said her mother-in-law, “we must settle about asking the old people at Fir Cottage to dine here soon. We must make sure of Conrad. I don’t think we need ask any of the daughters again, and really, poor girls, I doubt if it gives them any pleasure—they are so painfully shy.”“Not the eldest one,” said Elise. “To me she would be much more attractive if she were less self-confident, I might almost say self-asserting, but I suppose it is a natural result of the kind of life they have led, that they should fall into one extreme or the other. I almost wonder Miss Morion hasn’t taken some line of her own, like the rather emancipated young women of the day. Especially as, in their practical reasons for this being advisable. Surely no foolish family pride can be in the way.”“I really don’t know,” said Mrs Littlewood. “Where people have nothing but a good old name to fall back upon, they are, I fear, apt to overestimate its value. Of course,” with a little hesitation, “I cannot in anyway think of them as relations of yours, Elise!”“Naturally so,” said her daughter-in-law indifferently. “Nor can I feel as if they were except in so far that I should really be glad to be of use to them if any opportunity offered itself. And I must say,” with a certain softening in her tone, “there is something very sweet and lovable about the younger one.”“I am glad you feel that,” said the elder woman, “dear little Betty. Yes, her shyness is certainly an additional charm. I really love the child.”Horace had taken no part in this conversation; up till now he had remained standing on the hearth-rug with an impassive countenance. Now, he turned abruptly, murmuring something about his brother, towards the door. But as the movement caught her attention, Elise, whose ears were very keen, glanced up at him. Somewhat to her surprise, there was a slight smile on his face, a smile that no one could have mistaken for one of anything but pleasure, and—or was it her fancy? or the glow from the fire? No, he had not been facing it, and, as she glanced again, she felt sure she wasnotmistaken—a distinct heightening of colour through the still remaining sunburn on her brother-in-law’s cheeks and forehead.“Really,” thought the younger Mrs Littlewood, “the plot thickens. I cannot make him out. I wonder if Ryder could explain things? But he is sometimes so absurdly Quixotic, unconventional; a man in his position may, of course, take up that line if he chooses without detriment to himself, though I hope he would not be unwise enough to back up poor old Horace in anything absurd; still,allmen are contradictory. I don’t think it would be well to consult Ryder. And, at present, at any rate, I will not say anything to mother.”For Elise was not fond of giving an opinion or taking a distinct line on any subject till she was fairly sure of her data; a characteristic caution which, perhaps, had a good deal to do with the reputation for wisdom which she enjoyed, and that in the literal sense of the word, among her special friends.The dinner invitation to Mr and Lady Emma Morion was duly sent, and duly—declined, though with all the expressions of regret that courtesy could demand. Mr Morion’s expected bronchitis was still hovering about somewhere—ready to pounce upon him, or, so at least, he believed, which in the present instance served the purpose quite as well. For Lady Emma did not care to spend an evening at the big house without a daughter, and was glad of a civil excuse. She had not “taken to” the new Mrs Littlewood, and in her secret heart—the home of more genuine maternal pride and affection than would easily have been believed—it was to this new influence that she attributed the fact of none of her daughters being included in the invitation.And with this interchange of notes the more formal intercourse between the two houses practically ceased. Mr Morion called on the younger Mrs Littlewood in spite of the sword of Damocles, in the shape of bronchitis, hanging over him, and seemed, on the whole, to have been more favourably impressed by her than were the ladies of his family—possibly because she had taken more pains in his case that it should be so.As regarded Madeleine, however, things were quite different; that is to say, they remained to the last on the old familiar footing. As often as was possible for her, she made her escape from Craig-Morion during her sister-in-law’s visit, if but for half-an-hour or so at a time, to her friends at Fir Cottage, where she was always welcomed with the same affection that on her side brought her thither. But she seemed, for her, almost dull and depressed, and, when taxed with this by Eira, tried to evade any definite reply, attributing it only to her regret at leaving and that circumstances should have so interfered with the pleasant conditions of things previous to “the Conrads’” appearance on the scene.“If they had come earlier in the winter,” she said, “it wouldn’t have mattered so much. We should have had time to get over it again before this, and I should have had Horace to back me up at home. As it is I really feel like a caged bird sometimes, mentally as well as physically. I couldn’t stand much more of it, and I know that nothing would be so foolish as any sort of ‘squabbling’ among us.”“And they are staying longer than you expected?” inquired Frances.“Yes, indeed, a whole week longer,” was the reply; “they only leave two days before we go ourselves. They seem to have rather taken a fancy to the place. Elise is becoming quite interested in family lore. She should have applied to some of you on the subject.”She did not add, as she might have done, that her sister-in-law had announced on more than one occasion that such matters were of no real interest to so very remote and junior a branch of a family, for Madeleine was the very reverse of a mischief-maker, and, much as she would have appreciated the full sympathy of her friends had she entered more into detail as to the difficulties of her present position, she even blamed herself for the little she had allowed herself to say.“And your brother Horace,” said Eira, “is not coming back at all?”“I am afraid not,” was the reply, with an unmistakable sigh, which it took some self-restraint on Eira’s part not to echo.A sort of cloud seemed to be falling over the brightened life at Fir Cottage again. The day before that of Madeleine’s leaving, when she ran in to say good-bye, it was all that Eira at least could do, not to speak of her sisters, to repress the tears very near her eyes—tears in which disappointment, as well as the natural regret in parting with their friend, had no smallpart.

If Mrs Littlewood’s intention had been to meet the newcomer in the hall, and by the exercise of some diplomacy prevent his joining the party of ladies in the drawing-room, it was frustrated. For before she reached the door it was thrown open, not by a servant, but by Horace himself. An expression of surprise crossed his face on first catching sight of the six or seven occupants of the room, to be, however, quickly replaced by a smile of pleasure and slightly heightened colour.

“So glad I am in time for a cup of tea,” he said; “I was in luck to find the dog-cart waiting for Con at the station—don’t be afraid, Elise, I’ve sent it straight back again—I wasn’t expected,” he continued, to Lady Emma, as he shook hands with her, then with Betty, who happened to come next, and lastly with Frances, on whose fingers he bestowed an earnest pressure which brought the colour into her cheeks, this latter incident, slight as it was, not passing unperceived by Elise’s observant eyes.

Then things settled down again, Horace accepting his position as the only man of the party with perfect equanimity, and availing himself with satisfaction of the resources of the tea-table, going on to explain that he had had no luncheon and was as hungry as a hawk.

“That’s what men always say,” observed Madeleine. “I mean they always have some excuse ready if they have a weakness for afternoon-tea.”

“I’m not ashamed of an honest appetite at any time,” said Horace. “May I have some more sandwiches, Madeleine?”

“My dear boy,” said his mother, “you will spoil your dinner, to use a commonplace expression. Do you know what o’clock it is?” At these words Lady Emma made a slight movement, as if in preparation for going. Mrs Littlewood turned at once, laying a detaining hand on her arm.

“Please don’t think of leaving us yet,” she said, “it is only a little past six. The evenings are so light now.”

But by this time Lady Emma was on her feet, and she was not the sort of person to sit down again, once she had decided to go. So a little bustle of leave-taking ensued, the lady of the house excelling herself in cordiality, for in her heart she felt a little guilty. Her punishment followed quickly, for, without waiting for the fresh relay of sandwiches which his sister had ordered, Horace calmly accompanied the Morions across the hall and, seizing a cap as he passed, out into the grounds, with the evident intention of escorting them, if not the whole way home, at least to the door in the wall.

In the natural order of things he should have walked first with Lady Emma, but Betty was too quick for him.

“Let me go on with you, mamma,” she whispered, slipping her little hand inside her mother’s arm, and hurrying forward with her, so as to leave the other two in the rear.

Whether or no her tactics were at all appreciated by Lady Emma, the action was not repulsed; indeed there would have been explanation enough of it in the family legend of Betty’s chronic shyness.

Somewhat to Frances’ surprise Horace walked for a few moments in silence; gradually the consciousness of this became almost oppressive to her, and, anxious at any cost to break it, she turned towards him with a few quick words.

“You have come back sooner than you expected?” she said.

He gave a slight start.

“Yes, that is to say sooner than I have lately expected,” he answered. “Though when I left here I had no idea of being away so long. Things never turn out as one anticipates, and still more rarely as one hopes,” and again he grew silent, and this time Frances made no further effort at talking.

So they walked till within a few yards of the boundary of the grounds, Lady Emma and Betty coming to a halt when they reached the door in the wall, glancing towards the two in the rear, to show that they were waiting for them.

Then, at last, Horace spoke again, this time hurriedly and nervously and as if indifferent whether this was perceived or not.

“I have been hesitating,” he said, “hesitating terribly, as to what was best to do. I was not even sure of seeing you at all, for I leave again to-morrow night, so I think it is hopeless to attempt any satisfactory explanation. My only comfort is that I believe you trust me, and as soon as I possibly can do so, I will write to you fully.”

Frances glanced up at him; her face was calm but very pale.

“Just tell me one thing,” she said. “Is there any chance of—is it likely that you will have to return to India immediately or very soon?”

He shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “It is not quite as bad as that. At all costs, whatever turns up, I shall not leave England without coming down here again.”

By this time they were within earshot of the others, and no more was said.

“I am afraid,” began Horace, addressing himself to Lady Emma, “that this must be good-bye, for some little time to come, at least. I had hoped to have had a week or two here still.”

“Indeed,” said Lady Emma courteously, but with some not unintended indifference of manner. “I am sorry for you all to leave just as our best season is coming on, but we shall of course be pleased to see you if ever you are in the neighbourhood again,” and she held out her hand as if in polite dismissal. “We must not linger, my dears.”

Neither of her daughters replied. Frances shook hands with Horace without looking at him. Betty’s little face, on the contrary, was turned full upon him, and as her dark eyes scanned him with a strange, indescribable, almost pathetic questioning, verging on reproach, his hand retained hers for a second longer than need have been. Then her mother and sister disappeared through the doorway, and before following: them she looked at her hand with a curious expression. Had it been her fancy? What did he mean?

As she passed through the door she closed it behind her without looking back, so she did not see him still standing there, where they had said good-bye, motionless.

When Horace got back to the house again, he hesitated for a moment as he was crossing the hall in the direction of his own quarters.

“No,” he said to himself, “I had better go back to the drawing-room. If things are ever to come right I shall have worse than that to do, and I must face it. If even I could win over Elise, it would be something, perhaps even a great deal, to the good, for Conrad always sees through her eyes.”

He rejoined the family circle therefore. When his mother saw him a slight touch of relief overspread her face; she had been dreading his accompanying the Morions all the way home and not returning till dinner-time.

“Youhavetaken us by surprise, Horace,” she said, smiling at him with what was intended to be a perfectly natural expression, “and I am so anxious to hear what you have settled. It was provoking that we were not alone when you came back, but poor, dear Lady Emma is not wanting in tact, after all.”

Her daughter-in-law half rose from her seat: “I think,” she said, “in my turn I had better leave you; you must have a lot to talk about.”

“Nothing but what I flatter myself you may be interested in, too, Elise,” replied Horace quickly, gently advancing her chair again. “I am very lucky to have got down here at all to have a glimpse of you and Con. But I am sorry to say it will be only a glimpse. I have to leave again to-morrow night, mother.”

His mother’s face fell, for though she did not desire his prolonged stay at Craig-Morion, she hated parting with him, and she feared that this recall to his work meant business.

“To-morrow!” she repeated, rather blankly. “That is very soon, but,” as a new idea struck her, “it means, I hope, that you are only joining at the depot preliminary to—what you know I long for! Otherwise you would have had all your leave clear, till you had to go back to India, would you not?”

He had sat down beside her, and took her hand in his.

“Not exactly that, mother dear,” he replied. “I am not forced to join at the depot, but my doing so will be a great help to them just now, as one or two are on sick leave, and they are unexpectedly short-handed. I may get a month or two, later on, just before I shall have to start.”

“Oh, Horace!” his mother exclaimed.

“Are you really deciding to go out again,” said Elise, “when mother does so want you to give it up? Are you so devoted to your profession, Horace? It isn’t as if there were active service in prospect. I do think you have had enough of it.”

“But remember, my dear Elise,” answered Horace, “that I am not a second Con, and I am quite content to be myself. But I could not stand nothing to do, and no distinct position. I should hate hanging about.”

“But you know, my dear boy,” said his mother, “there are plenty of things you could get to do.”

“Not without some capital,” said Horace pointedly.

“Perhaps not,” she replied, flushing a little. “All the same you need not talk as if you were alone in the world. There is nothing I long for more than to see you settled down with—plenty to do, and—” but she did not finish her sentence—“that would come no doubt in good time.”

“I don’t know that it would,” said Horace, not affecting ignorance of her meaning, “not if I give up my only certainty, or, practically speaking, my only certainty of better things in the future, at any rate.”

For though Horace was not entirely unprovided for on the paternal side as a younger son, the family property was strictly entailed on the elder brother, leaving the others to a great extent dependent on their mother.

Mrs Littlewood made a movement as if to withdraw her hand.

“You pain me, Horace,” she said, “when you say such things.”

He retained her fingers in his clasp.

“Heaven knows I don’t mean to do so in the least, mother dear,” he said. “But you, and Elise too,” with a little smile towards her, “are not the sort of women to respect a man less for wishing to guard his independence, for wishing to feel that he is doing some work in the world, earning enough at least not to feel himself afainéant.”

“There is always useful work to do,” said Elise, “though, perhaps, the most useful to others does not directly repay the doer of it. Look at Conrad, how he devotes his time to our tenants, and the many dependent on us.”

“Of course,” said Horace, “and he is quite right, but the positions are perfectly different. I want to feel—well—” he stopped, and, getting up, strolled towards the window. The two ladies exchanged glances. Then Elise, by a gesture, made her mother-in-law understand that she thought it would be better for her herself to leave the room; but Mrs Littlewood negatived the suggestion in the same way. And in a moment or two, Horace came back again and took up his position by the fire.

“It’s really too bad of me,” he said, “to be entertaining you with all this talk about myself.”

“No, my dear boy,” said his mother, “but I just wish I understood you a little better.”

“Youarerather enigmatical, you know,” said Elise. “If it were not—” but here she hesitated.

“Go on,” said Horace smiling, and, as this was followed by no hint of caution from his mother, Elise did go on.

“After all, it was something silly I was going to say!” the younger woman continued, “for I know you have been quite out of the way of anything of the kind for ever so long, but except for that, I was going to say I should almost have suspected it was a case of the ‘not impossible she’ with you!”

Mrs Littlewood glanced up, for her, nervously at her son. He was quite calm and apparently in no way annoyed by his sister-in-law’s speech.

“Provided itwere‘anot impossibleshe,’” said his mother pointedly. “Few things, indeed nothing, would give me greater pleasure!” Horace did not reply for a moment or two.

“I quite believe you, my dear mother,” he said at last, “but,” as the sound of approaching wheels was heard, “there’s the dog-cart again and Conrad. I hope it was in time for him.”

“By-the-by, Elise,” said her mother-in-law, “we must settle about asking the old people at Fir Cottage to dine here soon. We must make sure of Conrad. I don’t think we need ask any of the daughters again, and really, poor girls, I doubt if it gives them any pleasure—they are so painfully shy.”

“Not the eldest one,” said Elise. “To me she would be much more attractive if she were less self-confident, I might almost say self-asserting, but I suppose it is a natural result of the kind of life they have led, that they should fall into one extreme or the other. I almost wonder Miss Morion hasn’t taken some line of her own, like the rather emancipated young women of the day. Especially as, in their practical reasons for this being advisable. Surely no foolish family pride can be in the way.”

“I really don’t know,” said Mrs Littlewood. “Where people have nothing but a good old name to fall back upon, they are, I fear, apt to overestimate its value. Of course,” with a little hesitation, “I cannot in anyway think of them as relations of yours, Elise!”

“Naturally so,” said her daughter-in-law indifferently. “Nor can I feel as if they were except in so far that I should really be glad to be of use to them if any opportunity offered itself. And I must say,” with a certain softening in her tone, “there is something very sweet and lovable about the younger one.”

“I am glad you feel that,” said the elder woman, “dear little Betty. Yes, her shyness is certainly an additional charm. I really love the child.”

Horace had taken no part in this conversation; up till now he had remained standing on the hearth-rug with an impassive countenance. Now, he turned abruptly, murmuring something about his brother, towards the door. But as the movement caught her attention, Elise, whose ears were very keen, glanced up at him. Somewhat to her surprise, there was a slight smile on his face, a smile that no one could have mistaken for one of anything but pleasure, and—or was it her fancy? or the glow from the fire? No, he had not been facing it, and, as she glanced again, she felt sure she wasnotmistaken—a distinct heightening of colour through the still remaining sunburn on her brother-in-law’s cheeks and forehead.

“Really,” thought the younger Mrs Littlewood, “the plot thickens. I cannot make him out. I wonder if Ryder could explain things? But he is sometimes so absurdly Quixotic, unconventional; a man in his position may, of course, take up that line if he chooses without detriment to himself, though I hope he would not be unwise enough to back up poor old Horace in anything absurd; still,allmen are contradictory. I don’t think it would be well to consult Ryder. And, at present, at any rate, I will not say anything to mother.”

For Elise was not fond of giving an opinion or taking a distinct line on any subject till she was fairly sure of her data; a characteristic caution which, perhaps, had a good deal to do with the reputation for wisdom which she enjoyed, and that in the literal sense of the word, among her special friends.

The dinner invitation to Mr and Lady Emma Morion was duly sent, and duly—declined, though with all the expressions of regret that courtesy could demand. Mr Morion’s expected bronchitis was still hovering about somewhere—ready to pounce upon him, or, so at least, he believed, which in the present instance served the purpose quite as well. For Lady Emma did not care to spend an evening at the big house without a daughter, and was glad of a civil excuse. She had not “taken to” the new Mrs Littlewood, and in her secret heart—the home of more genuine maternal pride and affection than would easily have been believed—it was to this new influence that she attributed the fact of none of her daughters being included in the invitation.

And with this interchange of notes the more formal intercourse between the two houses practically ceased. Mr Morion called on the younger Mrs Littlewood in spite of the sword of Damocles, in the shape of bronchitis, hanging over him, and seemed, on the whole, to have been more favourably impressed by her than were the ladies of his family—possibly because she had taken more pains in his case that it should be so.

As regarded Madeleine, however, things were quite different; that is to say, they remained to the last on the old familiar footing. As often as was possible for her, she made her escape from Craig-Morion during her sister-in-law’s visit, if but for half-an-hour or so at a time, to her friends at Fir Cottage, where she was always welcomed with the same affection that on her side brought her thither. But she seemed, for her, almost dull and depressed, and, when taxed with this by Eira, tried to evade any definite reply, attributing it only to her regret at leaving and that circumstances should have so interfered with the pleasant conditions of things previous to “the Conrads’” appearance on the scene.

“If they had come earlier in the winter,” she said, “it wouldn’t have mattered so much. We should have had time to get over it again before this, and I should have had Horace to back me up at home. As it is I really feel like a caged bird sometimes, mentally as well as physically. I couldn’t stand much more of it, and I know that nothing would be so foolish as any sort of ‘squabbling’ among us.”

“And they are staying longer than you expected?” inquired Frances.

“Yes, indeed, a whole week longer,” was the reply; “they only leave two days before we go ourselves. They seem to have rather taken a fancy to the place. Elise is becoming quite interested in family lore. She should have applied to some of you on the subject.”

She did not add, as she might have done, that her sister-in-law had announced on more than one occasion that such matters were of no real interest to so very remote and junior a branch of a family, for Madeleine was the very reverse of a mischief-maker, and, much as she would have appreciated the full sympathy of her friends had she entered more into detail as to the difficulties of her present position, she even blamed herself for the little she had allowed herself to say.

“And your brother Horace,” said Eira, “is not coming back at all?”

“I am afraid not,” was the reply, with an unmistakable sigh, which it took some self-restraint on Eira’s part not to echo.

A sort of cloud seemed to be falling over the brightened life at Fir Cottage again. The day before that of Madeleine’s leaving, when she ran in to say good-bye, it was all that Eira at least could do, not to speak of her sisters, to repress the tears very near her eyes—tears in which disappointment, as well as the natural regret in parting with their friend, had no smallpart.

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