Chapter Six.

Chapter Six.“Not at Home.”“What in the world,” said Betty, “what in the whole world, Frances, did you get to talk about to him, all that long way across the park?”“Really, Betty,” said Frances, forher, almost crossly, “you are too bad! Did I elect to have atête-à-têtewith Mr Littlewood? If it were worth while I might blame you and Eira seriously for the way you behaved—like two—”Betty was on the point of interrupting with some vehement repetition of the dislike she had taken, and that not causelessly, to their uninvited visitor, when a significative tug at her sleeve from Eira startled her into silence, though thereby Frances’ intended lecture made no further way, as the interruption came from Eira instead.“You are not to say ‘silly school-girls,’” she exclaimed. “I know that’s what you were going to say. We simply walked on because three women and one man seem—are—so stupid. Why does it always seem as if there were too many women?”“In a family where there are no brothers it couldn’t very well seem anything else,” replied Frances, rather shortly; but she did not resume her remonstrances, for by this time they were by the front door, and she hurried into the drawing-room, where, as she expected, tea, and a somewhat ruffled Lady Emma, were awaiting them.“You are very late, why—” were the words that greeted her; but before hearing more, Eira softly closed the door, holding back Betty for a moment’s confabulation in the hall.“What is it, Eira?” said Betty impatiently. “You tug my sleeve, and then you pull me back when I’m tired and want some tea. What is it you want to say?”“We had better leave our cloaks outside,” said Eira, rapidly unbuttoning her own garment as she spoke. “What I want to say can’t be said in a moment, it is something too tremendous! I only felt that I must give you a hint to be more careful in your way of speaking about Mr Littlewood.”“Why?” asked Betty, opening her dark eyes to their widest.“Because,” said Eira, “I am not at all sure but what a most wonderful thing is going to happen, or, for that matter, has happened. Betty, suppose—just suppose—thathehas fallen in love with Frances.”Betty gasped, unable for a moment to articulate.“That man!” she at last ejaculated.“Well, why not?” returned Eira. “You’vetaken a dislike to him of some kind, or you fancy you have, and of course I don’t mean to say that I think he’s good enough, but still—but I can’t speak about it just now, only take care!”She had certainly succeeded in taking Betty’s breath away. The girl would scarcely have been capable of a coherent reply, but she was not called upon for one. The drawing-room door opened, and their elder sister’s voice was heard.“Do come in to tea,” she said, “and, Eira, you run and tell papa it is ready. I had no idea it was so late,” she went on. “Poor mamma has been wondering what was keeping us,” she added, in a deprecatory tone, as Betty followed her into the room.“We can’t blame Mr Littlewood for it,” said Betty eagerly; “we were walking almost all the time we were talking to him, sohecan’t have delayed us!”“Mr Littlewood?” repeated Lady Emma, in the high-pitched tone which with her was one of the signs of disturbed equanimity. “Mr Littlewood? What is she talking about? You don’t intend to say that you have been a walk with a—perfect stranger! Frances, what does this mean? I insist on your telling me.”“I have not the veryleastobjection to telling you, mamma,” said Frances. “In fact, I have a message for you from Mr Littlewood, which I was just going to deliver.”Her tone was absolutely respectful, but there was a touch of coldness in it, not without its effect on her mother. In her heart Lady Emma not only trusted her eldest daughter entirely, but looked up to her in a way which showed her own involuntary consciousness of the superiority in many ways of the girl’s character to her own. But any approach to acknowledgment of this real underlying admiration and respect would have seemed to her so strange and paradoxical, considering their mutual relations, as to be almost equivalent to a reversal of the fifth commandment.She contented herself with replying in a calmer tone, “Did you meet Mr Littlewood, then? Naturally I can’t understand things till you explain them.”“Yes,” Frances replied, “we met him on our way home, not in the park, but in the little copse on the Massingham road.”“I am glad you were not in the park,” said Lady Emma.“But we did come through it after meeting him,” said Frances. “It would have been affected to do otherwise just because he is staying at the house, and I suppose, as he was walking our way, he could scarcely have avoided walking on beside us. He asked me if he might call to say good-bye to you, mamma, to-morrow afternoon?”The last words, unfortunately as it turned out, were overheard by Mr Morion as he entered the room. His wife, taught by long experience, made no reply, so the message remained uncommented upon, unless a doubtful grunt from the depths of the arm-chair where the master of the house had settled himself could have been taken as referring to it.Silence, not an unusual state of things at Fir Cottage, ensued, and as soon as the two younger girls could escape from the room they hastened to their own quarters, a small and in wintertime decidedly dreary little chamber, which in old days had been used as their schoolroom. It looked out to the side of the house and was ill lighted. But its propinquity to the kitchen was, practically speaking, in cold weather no small boon, preventing its ever becoming very chilly, for, though it boasted a fireplace, the restrictions as to fuel formed one of the most disagreeable economies in practice at Fir Cottage. In summer, on the other hand, the schoolroom was apt to become unbearably hot; but in summer, if it is anything like a normal season, and in the country, life usually presents itself under a very different aspect. Such things as fires and chilblains do not enter into one’s calculations; one’s own room, in nine cases out of ten, is a pleasant resort, and even if not so, are there not out-of-doors boudoirs by the dozen?Dreary enough, though, the little room looked this evening, when by the light of one candle Betty and Eira established themselves as comfortably as circumstances allowed of, that is to say, on two little low basket-chairs, dismissed from the drawing-room long ago as too shabby, which had been one of their few luxuries in lessons days. Just now, also, the extraordinary possibilities which they were about to discuss so filled their imaginations that the uninviting surroundings over which they often groaned would have passed unnoticed had they been ten times worse. And worse they might have been most assuredly! For one fairy gift was shared alike by the three sisters—the gift of dainty orderliness; and where this reigns one may defy poverty to do its worst, for with such a background the tiniest attempt at prettiness or grace is trebled in pleasing effect.“Eira,” said Betty in an almost awe-struck whisper, “do you really, really mean what you said? Do you think itpossible? And—” with a touch of hesitation, quaint and almost touching in its contrast to the outspoken treatment of such subjects by the typical maiden of to-day, “if—if he had—fallen in love with Frances,couldshe ever care for him, I wonder?”A dreamy questioning came into her eyes as she spoke.“I don’t see why she shouldn’t,” said Eira. “Of course neither you nor I can picture to ourselvesanyman being good enough for Frances, so we need not expect the impossible. But taking that for granted, I don’t see why she mightn’t get to care for this man. Indeed, she has liked him from the beginning, and stuck up for him against you. And as men go—of course we really don’t know any, but I supposesomebooks are more or less true to life?—as men go, I suppose any one would consider him very attractive.”“Perhaps,” said Betty gently, for she was already beginning to see herbête noirethrough very different spectacles, “perhaps. And then,” she added, with an amusing little air of profound worldly wisdom, “he must be rich, and made a good deal of, and all that sort of thing, and for a man of that kind to find out what a girl reallyis, in spite of her plain simple life, and way of dressing, and all that—though, of course, nobody can say that Francie is not good-looking, far more than merely pretty—don’t you think, Eira, that that of itself shows that he must have a great deal of good in him?”“Yes,” Eira agreed, “I do. Though it doesn’t do to be too humble, Betty, even about external things. Remember, however poor we are, that as far as family and ancestry go we could scarcely be better. No one need think it a condescension to marry a Morion.”“Of course,” said Betty, speaking half absently. “Oh, Eira, how interesting it will be when he comes to-morrow! Do let us think what we can do to—to show everything to advantage. If wecouldpersuade Francie to sing, for her voice is so lovely!”“She never would,” said Eira, “not to any one like that, who is pretty sure to be a good judge, for she knows her voice is untrained. Why, she has never had a lesson in her life! Can’t we do anything about herdress, however? She always looks nice, perfectly nice, but almost too plain, too severe, as if she had retired from the world and was above such things as dress and looks.”“Perhaps it’s just that that attracts him in her,” said Betty—“the difference, I mean, between her and the fashionable girls he is accustomed to.”“Yes,” replied Eira, “up to a certain point that’s all very well, but no man would like to have a wife, however beautiful she was, who did not to some extent look like other people. Betty, how could we contrive to make her wear her own black silk blouse to-morrow? It is even more becoming to her than ours are, and a little handsomer. Don’t you remember her saying when we got them that hers mustn’t look too young? She is rather absurd about her age, for certainly she doesn’t look older than twenty-four at most.”“I wonder how old Mr Littlewood is?” said Betty, thoughtfully: “I’mafraidnot more than twenty-seven; and Frances is one of those people who would think it almost a crime to marry a man younger than herself.”“We can easily keep off the subject,” said Eira. “Indeed, after he has left, I think we had better say very little about him, though we may go on planning all the time by ourselves, you know, how to help it on in every possible way, once he comes back again.“Oh, Betty!” and she clasped her hands in excitement, “isn’t it nice to have something to make plans about?”Somewhat to their surprise and still more to their satisfaction, the two girls found their sister, the next morning, much more amenable to their tactfully administered suggestions than they had anticipated.“Yes,” she said simply, “I should like to make the room nice, and ourselves too, so that he may take as favourable an impression as possible back with him to his people and the other Morions, and you will be careful, Betty dear, won’t you, not to hoist your flag of war again?”“Don’t be afraid,” said Betty, kissing her sister as she spoke. “I see now that I behaved idiotically, and I see too how kind he was to take it as he did.”In their uncertainty as to the time at which their acquaintance might call, the sisters decided on taking their usual walk in the morning, and remaining about the premises after luncheon. There was not much fear of their mother’s not being at home, in the literal as well as conventional sense of the words, for Lady Emma was not given to constitutionals, or, except on the rarest occasions, to returning the formal calls of the few neighbours with whom she was on visiting terms, and in her heart she was rather gratified than otherwise at the stranger’s overtures, due, as she imagined, to some extent at least, to the impression made upon him by her own cold dignity of manner, seconded, however childishly, by Betty’s outburst of self or family assertion.All, therefore, promised propitiously for the expected visit of farewell, though at luncheon a not unfamiliar gloom was to be discerned on the paternal countenance which sent a thrill through the hearts of the two younger girls, Betty’s especially, the most sensitive to such misgivings.“Let us keep out of his way,” she whispered to Eira as they left the dining-room: “if he had the least, the very least, idea that we wanted to stay at home he would be sending us off on some message to that wretched chemist’s, as sure as fate!”“But how about Frances?” said Eira, in alarm.“I think it’s all right,” Betty replied. “Both she and mamma, though they don’t perhaps say so, want it all to be nice, I feel sure. I saw Frances giving some finishing touches to the drawing-room, which really looks its best, and I heard mamma saying something about tea cakes, and you know how in reality mamma depends on Frances:shewon’t let her go out, even for papa.”Mr Morion’s “den,” as in jocund moments he condescended to call it, opened unfortunately on to the hall, almost opposite the drawing-room. In some moods he had a curious and inconvenient habit of sitting with the door open, and though he sometimes complained of advancing years bringing loss of hearing, there were times at which his ears seemed really preternaturally acute, and this afternoon, thanks to this peculiarity, aided possibly by some occult intuition of anticipation in the air, he was somewhat on thequi-vivefor—he knew not what. Suffice to say he was in a raw state of nervous irritability, ready to quarrel with his own shadow, could that meek and trodden-upon phantom have responded to his need.Four o’clock struck, the light was rapidly waning, when he issued an order to whatever daughter was within hearing to have tea hastened, as he wanted it earlier than usual.It was Frances who heard him, and she at once rang the bell, though not without a silent regret as to this unusual precipitancy.“For Mr Littlewood is pretty certain not to call before half-past,” she reflected, “and afternoon-tea looks so untidy when it has been up some time.”Some little delay, however, ensued. It was between a quarter and twenty minutes past the hour when she summoned her sisters, hidden till then in their little sitting-room.“Has he come?” whispered Betty.Frances shook her head.“No,” she replied, in the same voice, “but papa would have tea extra early. Help me to keep the table tidy.”Mr Morion, by this time, had taken possession of an arm-chair by the drawing-room fire, which he pulled forward out of its place, as he was feeling chilly. As Frances was handing him his cup of tea the front door bell rang. A thrill of expectancy passed through Betty and Eira.“Who can that be?” said their father, in a tone of annoyance.“It is probably Mr Littlewood,” said Lady Emma quietly, “calling to say good-bye. I was expecting him.”“Very strange, then, that you didn’t mention it to me,” replied her husband acridly. “Am I in a fit state of health to be troubled with visitors to-day? Not that it signifies: he need not be admitted.”“Papa,” said Frances, in a tone of remonstrance, “it will seem very rude—he asked if he might call—we met him yesterday, and—”But the parlour-maid’s approaching footsteps were already to be heard in the hall, and, without taking the slightest notice of his daughters words, Mr Morion rose from his seat, and, opening the door, gave his orders in a decided voice.“Parker,” he said, “if that is a visitor, say at once that her ladyship is not at home, and that I am not at home either.”No one spoke. In the perfect silence the short colloquy which ensued at the front door was distinctly heard. Then came the sound of its shutting, and Parker appeared in the drawing-room with a card on a salver, which bore the name of Mr Horace Littlewood, an address, and added, in pencil in one corner, the letters, “p.p.c.”Mr Morion threw it on to the table without comment; then turned sharply on Frances with a demand for a second cup of tea.Frances handed it to him. Her face had grown scarlet—a most unusual occurrence with her. Lady Emma leaned back in her chair with an expressionless face. The younger girls, sitting together, clasped each other’s hand secretly in mute, inexpressible disappointment and indignation. Frances, crossing the room on the pretext of handing them their tea, glanced at them with such sympathy in her eyes as all but upset their outward composure. It is, indeed, to be questioned if in Eira’s case at least her tea was not mingled with unperceived tears; and as soon as they dared to do so all three sisters left the room.Two or three days later came the climax to the episode which had broken the monotony of life at Fir Cottage, in anticipation even more than in actuality. For Frances, returning from one of the endless expeditions to the village from which as often as possible she saved the younger ones, came into their little sitting-room with a half-rueful, half-comical expression on her face.“My dear pets,” she said, “I feel half-inclined to laugh at myself for minding what I have just heard, but for once I must own to absurd disappointment. Mr Webb has just told me that the Littlewoods have given up thoughts of taking Craig-Morion.”Betty and Eira gazed at her speechless.“I had hoped,” she went on, “that it would have brought some brightness, change, at least, and variety into your lives, you poor dears.” They glanced at each other.“Dear Frances,” said Betty at last.“But how little—oh! how little,” she said to Eira, when they were alone again, “Frances suspects why we mind so much!”Eira was by this time quietly wiping her eyes.“Betty,” she replied, “from this moment I give up castle-building for ever. Let us settle down to be three old maids—they always go in threes—the sooner the better.”“Yes,” Betty agreed, “andsomeday, I suppose, Eira, we shall find out how to make some use of our lives.”“I don’t know,” said Eira. “I’m not as good as you and Frances. Just now I don’t feel as if I cared!”

“What in the world,” said Betty, “what in the whole world, Frances, did you get to talk about to him, all that long way across the park?”

“Really, Betty,” said Frances, forher, almost crossly, “you are too bad! Did I elect to have atête-à-têtewith Mr Littlewood? If it were worth while I might blame you and Eira seriously for the way you behaved—like two—”

Betty was on the point of interrupting with some vehement repetition of the dislike she had taken, and that not causelessly, to their uninvited visitor, when a significative tug at her sleeve from Eira startled her into silence, though thereby Frances’ intended lecture made no further way, as the interruption came from Eira instead.

“You are not to say ‘silly school-girls,’” she exclaimed. “I know that’s what you were going to say. We simply walked on because three women and one man seem—are—so stupid. Why does it always seem as if there were too many women?”

“In a family where there are no brothers it couldn’t very well seem anything else,” replied Frances, rather shortly; but she did not resume her remonstrances, for by this time they were by the front door, and she hurried into the drawing-room, where, as she expected, tea, and a somewhat ruffled Lady Emma, were awaiting them.

“You are very late, why—” were the words that greeted her; but before hearing more, Eira softly closed the door, holding back Betty for a moment’s confabulation in the hall.

“What is it, Eira?” said Betty impatiently. “You tug my sleeve, and then you pull me back when I’m tired and want some tea. What is it you want to say?”

“We had better leave our cloaks outside,” said Eira, rapidly unbuttoning her own garment as she spoke. “What I want to say can’t be said in a moment, it is something too tremendous! I only felt that I must give you a hint to be more careful in your way of speaking about Mr Littlewood.”

“Why?” asked Betty, opening her dark eyes to their widest.

“Because,” said Eira, “I am not at all sure but what a most wonderful thing is going to happen, or, for that matter, has happened. Betty, suppose—just suppose—thathehas fallen in love with Frances.”

Betty gasped, unable for a moment to articulate.

“That man!” she at last ejaculated.

“Well, why not?” returned Eira. “You’vetaken a dislike to him of some kind, or you fancy you have, and of course I don’t mean to say that I think he’s good enough, but still—but I can’t speak about it just now, only take care!”

She had certainly succeeded in taking Betty’s breath away. The girl would scarcely have been capable of a coherent reply, but she was not called upon for one. The drawing-room door opened, and their elder sister’s voice was heard.

“Do come in to tea,” she said, “and, Eira, you run and tell papa it is ready. I had no idea it was so late,” she went on. “Poor mamma has been wondering what was keeping us,” she added, in a deprecatory tone, as Betty followed her into the room.

“We can’t blame Mr Littlewood for it,” said Betty eagerly; “we were walking almost all the time we were talking to him, sohecan’t have delayed us!”

“Mr Littlewood?” repeated Lady Emma, in the high-pitched tone which with her was one of the signs of disturbed equanimity. “Mr Littlewood? What is she talking about? You don’t intend to say that you have been a walk with a—perfect stranger! Frances, what does this mean? I insist on your telling me.”

“I have not the veryleastobjection to telling you, mamma,” said Frances. “In fact, I have a message for you from Mr Littlewood, which I was just going to deliver.”

Her tone was absolutely respectful, but there was a touch of coldness in it, not without its effect on her mother. In her heart Lady Emma not only trusted her eldest daughter entirely, but looked up to her in a way which showed her own involuntary consciousness of the superiority in many ways of the girl’s character to her own. But any approach to acknowledgment of this real underlying admiration and respect would have seemed to her so strange and paradoxical, considering their mutual relations, as to be almost equivalent to a reversal of the fifth commandment.

She contented herself with replying in a calmer tone, “Did you meet Mr Littlewood, then? Naturally I can’t understand things till you explain them.”

“Yes,” Frances replied, “we met him on our way home, not in the park, but in the little copse on the Massingham road.”

“I am glad you were not in the park,” said Lady Emma.

“But we did come through it after meeting him,” said Frances. “It would have been affected to do otherwise just because he is staying at the house, and I suppose, as he was walking our way, he could scarcely have avoided walking on beside us. He asked me if he might call to say good-bye to you, mamma, to-morrow afternoon?”

The last words, unfortunately as it turned out, were overheard by Mr Morion as he entered the room. His wife, taught by long experience, made no reply, so the message remained uncommented upon, unless a doubtful grunt from the depths of the arm-chair where the master of the house had settled himself could have been taken as referring to it.

Silence, not an unusual state of things at Fir Cottage, ensued, and as soon as the two younger girls could escape from the room they hastened to their own quarters, a small and in wintertime decidedly dreary little chamber, which in old days had been used as their schoolroom. It looked out to the side of the house and was ill lighted. But its propinquity to the kitchen was, practically speaking, in cold weather no small boon, preventing its ever becoming very chilly, for, though it boasted a fireplace, the restrictions as to fuel formed one of the most disagreeable economies in practice at Fir Cottage. In summer, on the other hand, the schoolroom was apt to become unbearably hot; but in summer, if it is anything like a normal season, and in the country, life usually presents itself under a very different aspect. Such things as fires and chilblains do not enter into one’s calculations; one’s own room, in nine cases out of ten, is a pleasant resort, and even if not so, are there not out-of-doors boudoirs by the dozen?

Dreary enough, though, the little room looked this evening, when by the light of one candle Betty and Eira established themselves as comfortably as circumstances allowed of, that is to say, on two little low basket-chairs, dismissed from the drawing-room long ago as too shabby, which had been one of their few luxuries in lessons days. Just now, also, the extraordinary possibilities which they were about to discuss so filled their imaginations that the uninviting surroundings over which they often groaned would have passed unnoticed had they been ten times worse. And worse they might have been most assuredly! For one fairy gift was shared alike by the three sisters—the gift of dainty orderliness; and where this reigns one may defy poverty to do its worst, for with such a background the tiniest attempt at prettiness or grace is trebled in pleasing effect.

“Eira,” said Betty in an almost awe-struck whisper, “do you really, really mean what you said? Do you think itpossible? And—” with a touch of hesitation, quaint and almost touching in its contrast to the outspoken treatment of such subjects by the typical maiden of to-day, “if—if he had—fallen in love with Frances,couldshe ever care for him, I wonder?”

A dreamy questioning came into her eyes as she spoke.

“I don’t see why she shouldn’t,” said Eira. “Of course neither you nor I can picture to ourselvesanyman being good enough for Frances, so we need not expect the impossible. But taking that for granted, I don’t see why she mightn’t get to care for this man. Indeed, she has liked him from the beginning, and stuck up for him against you. And as men go—of course we really don’t know any, but I supposesomebooks are more or less true to life?—as men go, I suppose any one would consider him very attractive.”

“Perhaps,” said Betty gently, for she was already beginning to see herbête noirethrough very different spectacles, “perhaps. And then,” she added, with an amusing little air of profound worldly wisdom, “he must be rich, and made a good deal of, and all that sort of thing, and for a man of that kind to find out what a girl reallyis, in spite of her plain simple life, and way of dressing, and all that—though, of course, nobody can say that Francie is not good-looking, far more than merely pretty—don’t you think, Eira, that that of itself shows that he must have a great deal of good in him?”

“Yes,” Eira agreed, “I do. Though it doesn’t do to be too humble, Betty, even about external things. Remember, however poor we are, that as far as family and ancestry go we could scarcely be better. No one need think it a condescension to marry a Morion.”

“Of course,” said Betty, speaking half absently. “Oh, Eira, how interesting it will be when he comes to-morrow! Do let us think what we can do to—to show everything to advantage. If wecouldpersuade Francie to sing, for her voice is so lovely!”

“She never would,” said Eira, “not to any one like that, who is pretty sure to be a good judge, for she knows her voice is untrained. Why, she has never had a lesson in her life! Can’t we do anything about herdress, however? She always looks nice, perfectly nice, but almost too plain, too severe, as if she had retired from the world and was above such things as dress and looks.”

“Perhaps it’s just that that attracts him in her,” said Betty—“the difference, I mean, between her and the fashionable girls he is accustomed to.”

“Yes,” replied Eira, “up to a certain point that’s all very well, but no man would like to have a wife, however beautiful she was, who did not to some extent look like other people. Betty, how could we contrive to make her wear her own black silk blouse to-morrow? It is even more becoming to her than ours are, and a little handsomer. Don’t you remember her saying when we got them that hers mustn’t look too young? She is rather absurd about her age, for certainly she doesn’t look older than twenty-four at most.”

“I wonder how old Mr Littlewood is?” said Betty, thoughtfully: “I’mafraidnot more than twenty-seven; and Frances is one of those people who would think it almost a crime to marry a man younger than herself.”

“We can easily keep off the subject,” said Eira. “Indeed, after he has left, I think we had better say very little about him, though we may go on planning all the time by ourselves, you know, how to help it on in every possible way, once he comes back again.

“Oh, Betty!” and she clasped her hands in excitement, “isn’t it nice to have something to make plans about?”

Somewhat to their surprise and still more to their satisfaction, the two girls found their sister, the next morning, much more amenable to their tactfully administered suggestions than they had anticipated.

“Yes,” she said simply, “I should like to make the room nice, and ourselves too, so that he may take as favourable an impression as possible back with him to his people and the other Morions, and you will be careful, Betty dear, won’t you, not to hoist your flag of war again?”

“Don’t be afraid,” said Betty, kissing her sister as she spoke. “I see now that I behaved idiotically, and I see too how kind he was to take it as he did.”

In their uncertainty as to the time at which their acquaintance might call, the sisters decided on taking their usual walk in the morning, and remaining about the premises after luncheon. There was not much fear of their mother’s not being at home, in the literal as well as conventional sense of the words, for Lady Emma was not given to constitutionals, or, except on the rarest occasions, to returning the formal calls of the few neighbours with whom she was on visiting terms, and in her heart she was rather gratified than otherwise at the stranger’s overtures, due, as she imagined, to some extent at least, to the impression made upon him by her own cold dignity of manner, seconded, however childishly, by Betty’s outburst of self or family assertion.

All, therefore, promised propitiously for the expected visit of farewell, though at luncheon a not unfamiliar gloom was to be discerned on the paternal countenance which sent a thrill through the hearts of the two younger girls, Betty’s especially, the most sensitive to such misgivings.

“Let us keep out of his way,” she whispered to Eira as they left the dining-room: “if he had the least, the very least, idea that we wanted to stay at home he would be sending us off on some message to that wretched chemist’s, as sure as fate!”

“But how about Frances?” said Eira, in alarm.

“I think it’s all right,” Betty replied. “Both she and mamma, though they don’t perhaps say so, want it all to be nice, I feel sure. I saw Frances giving some finishing touches to the drawing-room, which really looks its best, and I heard mamma saying something about tea cakes, and you know how in reality mamma depends on Frances:shewon’t let her go out, even for papa.”

Mr Morion’s “den,” as in jocund moments he condescended to call it, opened unfortunately on to the hall, almost opposite the drawing-room. In some moods he had a curious and inconvenient habit of sitting with the door open, and though he sometimes complained of advancing years bringing loss of hearing, there were times at which his ears seemed really preternaturally acute, and this afternoon, thanks to this peculiarity, aided possibly by some occult intuition of anticipation in the air, he was somewhat on thequi-vivefor—he knew not what. Suffice to say he was in a raw state of nervous irritability, ready to quarrel with his own shadow, could that meek and trodden-upon phantom have responded to his need.

Four o’clock struck, the light was rapidly waning, when he issued an order to whatever daughter was within hearing to have tea hastened, as he wanted it earlier than usual.

It was Frances who heard him, and she at once rang the bell, though not without a silent regret as to this unusual precipitancy.

“For Mr Littlewood is pretty certain not to call before half-past,” she reflected, “and afternoon-tea looks so untidy when it has been up some time.”

Some little delay, however, ensued. It was between a quarter and twenty minutes past the hour when she summoned her sisters, hidden till then in their little sitting-room.

“Has he come?” whispered Betty.

Frances shook her head.

“No,” she replied, in the same voice, “but papa would have tea extra early. Help me to keep the table tidy.”

Mr Morion, by this time, had taken possession of an arm-chair by the drawing-room fire, which he pulled forward out of its place, as he was feeling chilly. As Frances was handing him his cup of tea the front door bell rang. A thrill of expectancy passed through Betty and Eira.

“Who can that be?” said their father, in a tone of annoyance.

“It is probably Mr Littlewood,” said Lady Emma quietly, “calling to say good-bye. I was expecting him.”

“Very strange, then, that you didn’t mention it to me,” replied her husband acridly. “Am I in a fit state of health to be troubled with visitors to-day? Not that it signifies: he need not be admitted.”

“Papa,” said Frances, in a tone of remonstrance, “it will seem very rude—he asked if he might call—we met him yesterday, and—”

But the parlour-maid’s approaching footsteps were already to be heard in the hall, and, without taking the slightest notice of his daughters words, Mr Morion rose from his seat, and, opening the door, gave his orders in a decided voice.

“Parker,” he said, “if that is a visitor, say at once that her ladyship is not at home, and that I am not at home either.”

No one spoke. In the perfect silence the short colloquy which ensued at the front door was distinctly heard. Then came the sound of its shutting, and Parker appeared in the drawing-room with a card on a salver, which bore the name of Mr Horace Littlewood, an address, and added, in pencil in one corner, the letters, “p.p.c.”

Mr Morion threw it on to the table without comment; then turned sharply on Frances with a demand for a second cup of tea.

Frances handed it to him. Her face had grown scarlet—a most unusual occurrence with her. Lady Emma leaned back in her chair with an expressionless face. The younger girls, sitting together, clasped each other’s hand secretly in mute, inexpressible disappointment and indignation. Frances, crossing the room on the pretext of handing them their tea, glanced at them with such sympathy in her eyes as all but upset their outward composure. It is, indeed, to be questioned if in Eira’s case at least her tea was not mingled with unperceived tears; and as soon as they dared to do so all three sisters left the room.

Two or three days later came the climax to the episode which had broken the monotony of life at Fir Cottage, in anticipation even more than in actuality. For Frances, returning from one of the endless expeditions to the village from which as often as possible she saved the younger ones, came into their little sitting-room with a half-rueful, half-comical expression on her face.

“My dear pets,” she said, “I feel half-inclined to laugh at myself for minding what I have just heard, but for once I must own to absurd disappointment. Mr Webb has just told me that the Littlewoods have given up thoughts of taking Craig-Morion.”

Betty and Eira gazed at her speechless.

“I had hoped,” she went on, “that it would have brought some brightness, change, at least, and variety into your lives, you poor dears.” They glanced at each other.

“Dear Frances,” said Betty at last.

“But how little—oh! how little,” she said to Eira, when they were alone again, “Frances suspects why we mind so much!”

Eira was by this time quietly wiping her eyes.

“Betty,” she replied, “from this moment I give up castle-building for ever. Let us settle down to be three old maids—they always go in threes—the sooner the better.”

“Yes,” Betty agreed, “andsomeday, I suppose, Eira, we shall find out how to make some use of our lives.”

“I don’t know,” said Eira. “I’m not as good as you and Frances. Just now I don’t feel as if I cared!”

Chapter Seven.The Curtained Pew.There is a commonplace saying that old people love best the springtime of the year, as it brings back the brighter memories of their youth, and to a certain extent the sense of buoyancy which fades with increasing age; while the young, on the other hand, love the autumn with its tender sadness in contrast to their own joyous anticipations. But generalities are, after all, but generalities; there was little in the lives of the three Morion daughters this autumn to induce them to turn with any sentimentality or even sentiment to outside nature in its fall; there was too much real greyness, too much real endurance of daily, hourly depressing circumstances for them to long for anything but change.“It wouldn’t be so bad, it really wouldn’t,” said Eira, “if it were the spring, but another long, long winter, when we can be so much less out of doors; and to have had the glimpse of a chance of a break in it all only seems to have made it worse. Surely, Frances, without wrong complaining and grumbling, isn’t it the case that we are peculiarly unlucky in some ways—that our lives are, I mean? Now, supposing we had had to work for our living, we should probably have been far happier, don’t you think?”Frances hesitated in her reply, and a shadow clouded her face. Unwittingly enough, Eira had touched on perplexing ground, all too familiar to the eldest sister’s thoughtful mind. Had she done wrong or unwisely in regard to her younger sisters? Not very much, perhaps, had been practically in her power, but, still, had she given too much consideration to the right of their all too quickly passing youth, the right of happiness, of enjoyment, of the many things that only during youth can normally exist, and too little to the actual formation of character, to the development of their individual capacities? Had she been too sorry for them, or shown it too much? Strange reflections, more maternal than sisterly, when the actual small amount of difference in their ages was remembered. But since little girlhood Frances Morion had felt herself more mother than sister to the two younger ones.“That’s a big question, Eira,” she said, trying to speak lightly. “We must believe that the circumstances of every life are, to a certain point at least, meant—intended.” And her voice changed as she went on, more slowly and seriously: “The puzzle is to find out the point at which we should resist them, and not carry resignation or submission too far.”“There’s not much puzzle about it for us,” said Betty. “We are pretty clearly hedged in! Papa and mamma wouldneverallow us to take any sort of line of our own.”“Then, for the present at least,” said Frances, “the line is drawn, and I suppose if by the end of life one had learnt perfect patience one would have learnt a good deal; but still—”“Still what?” said Eira.“I am not quite ready to say what is in my mind,” replied her sister. “Perhaps it will come when I have thought more about it. Roughly speaking, I was considering if there is nothing that we can do—nothing that I can help you two to do, in the way of extending your interest a little, even as things are. And, of course, the best way to do that is to look out for what we can reach of helping others.”“Wedodo what we can, I think, Francie,” said Eira, in a tone of some disappointment. “We have our Sunday-school classes, and Betty’s blind old man and my bedridden old woman that we go to read to; but beyond that there are always the old difficulties: papa’s opposition and—want of money. I’m sure now we could do a lot at Scaling Harbour, among the fisher-children—such a terribly rough set—ifwe had money and a little more freedom.”“I know,” said Frances quietly; but, though for the moment the subject dropped, she thought the more.And the next few weeks gave her both leisure and cause for ever-deepening reflection.The weather was unusually and monotonously disagreeable. Raw, grey, and as cold as weather can be when it just falls short of the stimulus and exhilaration which, to the young and strong at least, usually accompany frost. Letters, rare at all times, dwindled down to almost none. Even a family chronicle from their ex-governess, now a settler’s wife in the Far West, was hailed almost enthusiastically as a welcome distraction.“There is only one thing in the world that I have to be thankful for,” said Eira one day, when, defiant of wind and threatening rain, they started for their afternoon walk, “and that is, that, thanks to you, Francie, and all the wonderful things you’ve done for me and made me do, my chilblains haven’t got bad again—not since—oh, yes! do you remember?—not since the time Mr Littlewood was here.”“That’sonegood thing,” said Frances, “one very good thing. I sometimes think I wouldn’t have made a bad woman-doctor.”“What a horrible idea!” said Betty, with a shudder. “I hope it doesn’t mean that you ever think of becoming a hospital nurse. If you did, I should just simply drown myself, and make Eira do the same!”“Hush!” said Frances. “Don’t say such things, even in fun. No, I’ve no ambition of the kind—not while I’ve got my own place at home, any way. But it’s rather curious you should have said that, Betty, for an idea has come into my head of something we could do for the people at Scaling Harbour, which really would cost us nothing, or next to nothing. It struck me when Mrs Ramsay”—(the ex-governess)—“sent me that commission for a few simple surgical books, to teach her to know what to do out there in case of accidents, which she says are always happening.”“And certainly, by all accounts,” said Eira, with interest, “they are always happening at Scaling Harbour. But what is your idea?”“It is not very definite yet,” said Frances. “Only the first steps towards it. What I am thinking of is, if we could use part of this winter, when we have so much time on our hands, for teaching ourselves the elements of surgical aid, and then when we have, to some extent, mastered it, to give simple little lectures—lessons, rather—to the fisher-women down there once a week or once a fortnight.”Eira’s eyes brightened.“Yes,” she said, “I would like that! There is something, I think, very attractive about those people; something a trifle wild, almost foreign. They do say, you know,” she went on, “that there’s a strain of Spanish descent among them; and, in any case, they are quite unlike the inland people about here, who are peculiarly dull and phlegmatic.”“Ishould be frightened to go much among them,” said Betty.“Possibly,” went on Frances, “we might persuade mamma to let two or three of them come up to us a few times. We could teach them a little of the practical part in the first place, and get to know them, and then they might talk about it to their neighbours. To begin with, all we want is one or two sensible books, or possibly, a set of ambulance lessons by correspondence. I think I have heard of such things.”“They would be sure to cost a lot of money,” said Betty, who was evidently not inclined to take an optimistic view of the scheme.“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Betty,” said Eira. “We can but try.”“And even if we couldn’t manage it just now,” said Frances, “something might make it feasible after a time. It might prove the getting in the thin end of the wedge; you know papa and mamma sometimes come round to things if we wait long enough for—for them to get accustomed to the idea, as it were.”“And when that time comes,” said Betty dolorously, “all the interest of the thing we wanted has gone.”“O Betty, do not croak so,” said Eira; “it’ll depend on ourselves to keep up the interest by talking about it.”“Yes,” said Frances, “you are quite right, though Ihavenoticed that pleasant things seldom come quickly, and troubles and disappointments do. It isn’t often that one has some quite delightful surprise! Nice things either come in bits, so that you scarcely realise the niceness, or else they are pulled back when you feel sure of them, so that, even if they come after all, the bloom seems taken off.”“Dear me, Frances,” said Eira, glancing up at her with a smile, “you are quite a pessimist for once.”“No—no,” returned Frances. “I don’t mean to be. I was really thinking about it to myself and wondering why it is so. When there appears to be a sort of rule about anything, you can’t help beginning to hunt for the reason of it.”“The rule with us,” said Betty, still in the same plaintive tone, “according to the old saying, is no rule, for the exceptions never appear.”Both Frances and Eira laughed.“Why, Betty, you are becoming quite paradoxical, inspired by melancholy,” exclaimed the latter; but not the ghost of a smile was to be raised this afternoon on Betty’s pretty little face.“I suppose it’s very wrong of me,” she said, “but I do feel cross and dull. Even these horrid, dirty roads, and this detestable wind, add to it all. It’s scarcely worth while coming out, except that there’s nothing to do indoors.”“I really think it’s no use attempting a long walk,” said Frances. “Let us turn here, and get home by the other road, past the church; it will be a little more sheltered.”“If the church were open and decently warm,” said Eira, “like the little new one in the village, it would be rather nice to go in there sometimes. I’m not imaginative, but I can fancy things in there. Even the mustiness, the veryoldsmell, carries one back in a fascinating way. I always begin thinking of great-grand-aunt Elizabeth, though I’ve no love for her! But she must have been young once upon a time, and pretty and lovable perhaps.”“Perhaps she was,” agreed Frances, “though her position—put in her brother’s place—makes one feel as if she may have been unsisterly and designing. But then, no one knows the rights of the story, or what her brother had done for his father to disinherit him.”They were nearing the church by this time; as the old porch came within view, Eira gave a little cry of satisfaction.“It is open, I declare,” she said. “Do let us go in, Francie. I hate going home before there is a prospect of tea, and it’s too early for that yet.”Her sisters made no objection, and they entered. Inside it felt comparatively warm, and, though at first almost dark, as their eyes got accustomed to the gloom they caught sight of the old vicar, standing in a pew near the chancel, apparently looking for something.He turned as he heard their steps, and greeted them kindly:“Good-day, young ladies,” he said. “If I may venture to trouble you, Miss Eira—your young eyes are keener than mine. Mrs Ferraby has lost a little brooch, not a thing of much value except to herself, and it struck her that it may have dropped off her in church, as that was the last time she remembered wearing it. Of course it would be better to look for it by a clearer light.”As he spoke he drew still further aside the red moreen curtain which separated the vicarage pew from the larger square one belonging to the big house, permission to occupy which was one of the very few advantages enjoyed by the Fir Cottage family, as representatives of the Morions. Betty and Eira came forward eagerly.“Do let us look,” they said, both together; Eira, who was the old vicar’s favourite, adding, playfully, “But you must come out yourself, Mr Ferraby, please. If it is anywhere, it is pretty sure to be on the floor.”“I don’t know that,” said Betty, who had no special wish to grope on her hands and knees. “You may feel on the floor if you like, Eira; I shall look on the seats and the book-rail.” And, strange to say, she had scarcely begun to do so when she gave a little cry of pleasure. “Here it is,” she exclaimed, “wedged into a crack in the woodwork between the pews, ever so neatly; but no doubt it would have dropped down the first time the pew was dusted,” and with deft fingers she withdrew the little trinket from its temporary resting-place. “It is queer,” she added; “there must be a hollow space between this and the panel on our side. Perhaps it’s the place with a little door where we leave our prayer-books,” and, standing on a hassock, she peered over into their own pew, adding, “No, our book-cupboard is farther along.”No one paid any attention, however, to her researches. Mr Ferraby was too delighted to have recovered the brooch to care much about where it had been concealed. He thanked Betty with effusion.“My good wife will not have come home yet; she is in the village,” he said. “So I am not in a hurry, and quite at your service, young ladies. Were you looking for me?”For, in his mild, unenergetic, though kindly way, the old vicar was always ready to be consulted as to the few poor people under his wing, or indeed on any other subject as to which the Morion sisters could apply for his advice or sympathy.For half an instant an impulse came over Frances to confide in him her little scheme for benefiting the fisher-folk at Scaling Harbour, but a glance at the bent and fragile figure of their old friend made her dismiss the idea.“He wouldn’t understand it,” she thought; “it would seem to him new-fangled and unnecessary; and then he is so poor and so generous,”—for it was well known that out of his tiny stipend Mr Ferraby was far too ready to give more than he could really afford—“he would be writing for books for us, even if he thought it would only be an amusement. No, I had better not speak of it.”And—“Thank you,” Frances went on aloud, “no, we had no idea you were in the church; seeing it open, we just strolled in, with no better motive than to kill a little time, I’m afraid. It is not tempting weather for walking.”“No, indeed,” the vicar agreed. “The season is peculiarly dull and depressing this year, even to one who should be well accustomed to this climate and to everything about the place. I have been here over fifty years, half a century,” and he gave a little sigh.“And we have been here,” said Eira, “nearly all of our lives that we can remember; soweshould be accustomed to it, too, shouldn’t we, Mr Ferraby?”He shook his head.“Scarcely so,” he replied, “at least not necessarily. The sort of ‘getting accustomed’ to things—in reality I was thinking of more than the climate—that I had in my mind—is not of a piece with youth and its natural distaste for monotony. My wife and I often think it must be dreary for you three, and we wish we had it in our power to help you to a little variety. If things had been different with us—if that poor boy of ours had been spared—we should not now be the dull old couple I fear we are.”His hearers were touched by his simple self-depreciation.“Dear Mr Ferraby,” said Frances, “you mustn’t speak like that. It is very nice for us to feel that we are always sure of two such kind friends at hand.”There was more pathos in his allusion than a stranger would have understood, for this same “boy,” of whom he spoke, would by this time have been not far off fifty himself, though to his parents he ever remained the bright, promising young fellow suddenly cut off in his early manhood.“Who was here before you came, Mr Ferraby?” Eira inquired abruptly.The little group was seated by this time in the large, square pew, which almost looked like a cosy little room, and even to-day it felt fairly warm.“Who was here before me?” the old man repeated. “Broadhurst was the last vicar, and before him there was a private chaplain resident at Craig-Morion. That was in its palmy days, when the family spent most of the year here—quite early in this century, that is to say—for I remember Broadhurst telling me that things had been quiet enough during his time, and he was here for nearly twenty years.”“And you never saw our great-grand-aunt Elizabeth, did you?” Betty inquired. “I think we’ve asked you before.”“No,” the vicar replied. “Strangely enough, her funeral was one of the first ceremonies at which I officiated—that was in the year forty. She was very ill when I came, and refused to see me, and indeed, for several years before that, she had led a life of utter seclusion. I remember hoping for brighter days coming, for I was young then, and no misanthrope, but they never did, as the elder of her two nephews took a dislike to the place, which his son—a grandson now—seems to have inherited!”“I wonder how it would have been if our grandfather—her younger nephew—had come in for it, as she led him to expect,” said Frances. “Of course, you know all about that, Mr Ferraby?”“Very different, I expect,” said the vicar. “I often wish there was a law against pluralists of estates, as well as of livings. When a man has only one place, you see, it is his home, and that insures his interest in it. Putting aside my natural wish that the big house here wereyourhome, I really do feel it a terrible loss that its owner should be such a complete absentee.”“It is very wrong,” said Frances, “wrong of Mr Morion, I mean, never to come here, even though there are not many tenants. I should be glad to have an opportunity of saying so to him. You heard of the talk there was a little while ago of some of his connections coming here for a time, I suppose, Mr Ferraby?”“Yes,” the vicar replied, “and I began to build some hopes on it, and was disappointed to hear it had ended in nothing.”He glanced round the whole building as he spoke.“I should like to see this church in better condition,” he went on. “Not that I go in for new-fangled ways, but a good deal could be done without trenching on such ground. I can’t say that it is substantially out of repair, but Mr Milne only advises what is absolutely necessary, and unless Mr Morion came down here enough to get to care for the place, I can hope for nothing more.”“Is it any prejudice against the place?” said Betty, in her abrupt way. Then a curious gleam came into her eyes. “You know what the people about here say, Mr Ferraby?” she asked; “that great-grand-aunt Elizabeth ‘walks.’ I wonder if possibly, when Mr Littlewood was here, anything—of that kind, like seeing her—happened to him. For he told us his people’s coming was all but decided upon.”The old vicar looked at her as if he scarcely understood, and Frances turned rather sharply.“Don’t talk nonsense, Betty,” she said. “Somehow things of that kind—about a place being haunted and so on—ooze out, if one isn’t very careful, and I can’t see but what they may do mischief.”Mr Ferraby looked at her approvingly.“I quite agree with you, Frances,” he said: “though certainly nobody would accuse the good folk about here of too much imagination or nerves. Hard work have I to impress them in any way, yet it is an undoubted fact that stolid souls of this kind are often absurdly superstitious. They are too conservative, perhaps, or too stupid, to invent new ideas. If they would hark back a little further still, one would have better ground to work upon.”“Mr Ferraby,” said Betty, “you’re becoming quite a Radical.”“No, no, my dear,” he replied, “have I not just said that I wish they would retain some of the belief in the supernatural, even if mingled with some superstition, which the last century did so much to destroy? That is what Imeantto imply, though I did not express it clearly. Yes,” he went on, replying to her former remark, “I have of course heard the talk about old Miss Morion’s unrestful condition. But,”—and, had it been light enough to see his faded blue eyes more clearly, a gleam of mischief, akin somewhat to the recent sparkle in Betty’s own orbs, might have been discovered—“you are not quite on the right tack. It is not the house, but thischurchwhich the poor lady is said to frequent. Indeed, the very spot where we are seated is said to be her favourite resort.”Betty almost screamed, and even Frances and Eira involuntarily drew closer together, for there was no denying the creepiness of their old friend’s information under present circumstances.“No,” said Eira eagerly, “I never heard that. Have you any theory to account for her coming here? Can it be that she wants to be shriven for her misdeeds, and that she chooses the spot where, Sunday after Sunday, she accused herself of being a miserable sinner?”“Come now, my dear,” said the old man, “don’t be too severe upon your dead kinswoman.”“No,” said Frances, “it isn’t kind, for, after all, we don’t know that she did break her word. The will may have been stolen or suppressed.”“I beg her pardon, then,” said Eira. “I wonder if she can hear me! Can’t you tell us something more, Mr Ferraby? Does she suddenly appear here, or is she seen coming from the house?”“I believe,” the vicar replied, “she is supposed to come along the path they call the Laurel Walk, that leads from the side-entrance. A safe place to choose, as it is always dark and shadowy there; and her visits are not restricted to the night, though I forget what is supposed to be her favourite time.”“Late on a winter’s afternoon, I should say,” remarked Eira. “Just such a time as this, don’t you think?”At this Betty started to her feet.“Eira,” she said, “you are very, very unkind, and—Mr Ferraby, you don’t know how she tries to frighten me sometimes, though I dare say I’m very silly.”The others could scarcely help laughing at her pitiful tone, though Frances’ ears detected that very little more would bring tears.“Let us go,” she said; “it is getting chilly, and mamma will be expecting us.”Betty caught hold of her arm.“Idarenot walk down the aisle alone,” she whispered, “especially with Eira behind us.”“Eira,” said Frances, “are you coming, or will you follow with Mr Ferraby?”“I must be off too,” said the vicar. “I am eager to tell my wife of Miss Betty’s successful search.”So the quartette, Eira bringing up the rear, made their way to the door.“I wish,” thought she, “I could do some little thing to frighten Betty. I know what—I will stretch out my umbrella and touch her neck with the cold end,” for there was still light enough for this piece of mischief; and she was leaning forward to put it into execution when a slight sound in the pew they had just quitted arrested her. It was that of stiffly rustling garments, as of a person clad therein rising with difficulty from a kneeling posture.The biter was bitten!“Mr Ferraby,” she exclaimed, clutching at his arm, “did you hear that?”“What?” was the reply. “No, nothing; but then I am a little deaf.”“What is it?” said Frances quickly.Eira turned off the question with some laughing remark as to the difficulty of groping their way without misadventure; but the old vicar glanced at her curiously in the clearer light outside the porch.“That child had better not be too confident about her own nerves,” he thought to himself. “She is looking quite pale.”

There is a commonplace saying that old people love best the springtime of the year, as it brings back the brighter memories of their youth, and to a certain extent the sense of buoyancy which fades with increasing age; while the young, on the other hand, love the autumn with its tender sadness in contrast to their own joyous anticipations. But generalities are, after all, but generalities; there was little in the lives of the three Morion daughters this autumn to induce them to turn with any sentimentality or even sentiment to outside nature in its fall; there was too much real greyness, too much real endurance of daily, hourly depressing circumstances for them to long for anything but change.

“It wouldn’t be so bad, it really wouldn’t,” said Eira, “if it were the spring, but another long, long winter, when we can be so much less out of doors; and to have had the glimpse of a chance of a break in it all only seems to have made it worse. Surely, Frances, without wrong complaining and grumbling, isn’t it the case that we are peculiarly unlucky in some ways—that our lives are, I mean? Now, supposing we had had to work for our living, we should probably have been far happier, don’t you think?”

Frances hesitated in her reply, and a shadow clouded her face. Unwittingly enough, Eira had touched on perplexing ground, all too familiar to the eldest sister’s thoughtful mind. Had she done wrong or unwisely in regard to her younger sisters? Not very much, perhaps, had been practically in her power, but, still, had she given too much consideration to the right of their all too quickly passing youth, the right of happiness, of enjoyment, of the many things that only during youth can normally exist, and too little to the actual formation of character, to the development of their individual capacities? Had she been too sorry for them, or shown it too much? Strange reflections, more maternal than sisterly, when the actual small amount of difference in their ages was remembered. But since little girlhood Frances Morion had felt herself more mother than sister to the two younger ones.

“That’s a big question, Eira,” she said, trying to speak lightly. “We must believe that the circumstances of every life are, to a certain point at least, meant—intended.” And her voice changed as she went on, more slowly and seriously: “The puzzle is to find out the point at which we should resist them, and not carry resignation or submission too far.”

“There’s not much puzzle about it for us,” said Betty. “We are pretty clearly hedged in! Papa and mamma wouldneverallow us to take any sort of line of our own.”

“Then, for the present at least,” said Frances, “the line is drawn, and I suppose if by the end of life one had learnt perfect patience one would have learnt a good deal; but still—”

“Still what?” said Eira.

“I am not quite ready to say what is in my mind,” replied her sister. “Perhaps it will come when I have thought more about it. Roughly speaking, I was considering if there is nothing that we can do—nothing that I can help you two to do, in the way of extending your interest a little, even as things are. And, of course, the best way to do that is to look out for what we can reach of helping others.”

“Wedodo what we can, I think, Francie,” said Eira, in a tone of some disappointment. “We have our Sunday-school classes, and Betty’s blind old man and my bedridden old woman that we go to read to; but beyond that there are always the old difficulties: papa’s opposition and—want of money. I’m sure now we could do a lot at Scaling Harbour, among the fisher-children—such a terribly rough set—ifwe had money and a little more freedom.”

“I know,” said Frances quietly; but, though for the moment the subject dropped, she thought the more.

And the next few weeks gave her both leisure and cause for ever-deepening reflection.

The weather was unusually and monotonously disagreeable. Raw, grey, and as cold as weather can be when it just falls short of the stimulus and exhilaration which, to the young and strong at least, usually accompany frost. Letters, rare at all times, dwindled down to almost none. Even a family chronicle from their ex-governess, now a settler’s wife in the Far West, was hailed almost enthusiastically as a welcome distraction.

“There is only one thing in the world that I have to be thankful for,” said Eira one day, when, defiant of wind and threatening rain, they started for their afternoon walk, “and that is, that, thanks to you, Francie, and all the wonderful things you’ve done for me and made me do, my chilblains haven’t got bad again—not since—oh, yes! do you remember?—not since the time Mr Littlewood was here.”

“That’sonegood thing,” said Frances, “one very good thing. I sometimes think I wouldn’t have made a bad woman-doctor.”

“What a horrible idea!” said Betty, with a shudder. “I hope it doesn’t mean that you ever think of becoming a hospital nurse. If you did, I should just simply drown myself, and make Eira do the same!”

“Hush!” said Frances. “Don’t say such things, even in fun. No, I’ve no ambition of the kind—not while I’ve got my own place at home, any way. But it’s rather curious you should have said that, Betty, for an idea has come into my head of something we could do for the people at Scaling Harbour, which really would cost us nothing, or next to nothing. It struck me when Mrs Ramsay”—(the ex-governess)—“sent me that commission for a few simple surgical books, to teach her to know what to do out there in case of accidents, which she says are always happening.”

“And certainly, by all accounts,” said Eira, with interest, “they are always happening at Scaling Harbour. But what is your idea?”

“It is not very definite yet,” said Frances. “Only the first steps towards it. What I am thinking of is, if we could use part of this winter, when we have so much time on our hands, for teaching ourselves the elements of surgical aid, and then when we have, to some extent, mastered it, to give simple little lectures—lessons, rather—to the fisher-women down there once a week or once a fortnight.”

Eira’s eyes brightened.

“Yes,” she said, “I would like that! There is something, I think, very attractive about those people; something a trifle wild, almost foreign. They do say, you know,” she went on, “that there’s a strain of Spanish descent among them; and, in any case, they are quite unlike the inland people about here, who are peculiarly dull and phlegmatic.”

“Ishould be frightened to go much among them,” said Betty.

“Possibly,” went on Frances, “we might persuade mamma to let two or three of them come up to us a few times. We could teach them a little of the practical part in the first place, and get to know them, and then they might talk about it to their neighbours. To begin with, all we want is one or two sensible books, or possibly, a set of ambulance lessons by correspondence. I think I have heard of such things.”

“They would be sure to cost a lot of money,” said Betty, who was evidently not inclined to take an optimistic view of the scheme.

“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Betty,” said Eira. “We can but try.”

“And even if we couldn’t manage it just now,” said Frances, “something might make it feasible after a time. It might prove the getting in the thin end of the wedge; you know papa and mamma sometimes come round to things if we wait long enough for—for them to get accustomed to the idea, as it were.”

“And when that time comes,” said Betty dolorously, “all the interest of the thing we wanted has gone.”

“O Betty, do not croak so,” said Eira; “it’ll depend on ourselves to keep up the interest by talking about it.”

“Yes,” said Frances, “you are quite right, though Ihavenoticed that pleasant things seldom come quickly, and troubles and disappointments do. It isn’t often that one has some quite delightful surprise! Nice things either come in bits, so that you scarcely realise the niceness, or else they are pulled back when you feel sure of them, so that, even if they come after all, the bloom seems taken off.”

“Dear me, Frances,” said Eira, glancing up at her with a smile, “you are quite a pessimist for once.”

“No—no,” returned Frances. “I don’t mean to be. I was really thinking about it to myself and wondering why it is so. When there appears to be a sort of rule about anything, you can’t help beginning to hunt for the reason of it.”

“The rule with us,” said Betty, still in the same plaintive tone, “according to the old saying, is no rule, for the exceptions never appear.”

Both Frances and Eira laughed.

“Why, Betty, you are becoming quite paradoxical, inspired by melancholy,” exclaimed the latter; but not the ghost of a smile was to be raised this afternoon on Betty’s pretty little face.

“I suppose it’s very wrong of me,” she said, “but I do feel cross and dull. Even these horrid, dirty roads, and this detestable wind, add to it all. It’s scarcely worth while coming out, except that there’s nothing to do indoors.”

“I really think it’s no use attempting a long walk,” said Frances. “Let us turn here, and get home by the other road, past the church; it will be a little more sheltered.”

“If the church were open and decently warm,” said Eira, “like the little new one in the village, it would be rather nice to go in there sometimes. I’m not imaginative, but I can fancy things in there. Even the mustiness, the veryoldsmell, carries one back in a fascinating way. I always begin thinking of great-grand-aunt Elizabeth, though I’ve no love for her! But she must have been young once upon a time, and pretty and lovable perhaps.”

“Perhaps she was,” agreed Frances, “though her position—put in her brother’s place—makes one feel as if she may have been unsisterly and designing. But then, no one knows the rights of the story, or what her brother had done for his father to disinherit him.”

They were nearing the church by this time; as the old porch came within view, Eira gave a little cry of satisfaction.

“It is open, I declare,” she said. “Do let us go in, Francie. I hate going home before there is a prospect of tea, and it’s too early for that yet.”

Her sisters made no objection, and they entered. Inside it felt comparatively warm, and, though at first almost dark, as their eyes got accustomed to the gloom they caught sight of the old vicar, standing in a pew near the chancel, apparently looking for something.

He turned as he heard their steps, and greeted them kindly:

“Good-day, young ladies,” he said. “If I may venture to trouble you, Miss Eira—your young eyes are keener than mine. Mrs Ferraby has lost a little brooch, not a thing of much value except to herself, and it struck her that it may have dropped off her in church, as that was the last time she remembered wearing it. Of course it would be better to look for it by a clearer light.”

As he spoke he drew still further aside the red moreen curtain which separated the vicarage pew from the larger square one belonging to the big house, permission to occupy which was one of the very few advantages enjoyed by the Fir Cottage family, as representatives of the Morions. Betty and Eira came forward eagerly.

“Do let us look,” they said, both together; Eira, who was the old vicar’s favourite, adding, playfully, “But you must come out yourself, Mr Ferraby, please. If it is anywhere, it is pretty sure to be on the floor.”

“I don’t know that,” said Betty, who had no special wish to grope on her hands and knees. “You may feel on the floor if you like, Eira; I shall look on the seats and the book-rail.” And, strange to say, she had scarcely begun to do so when she gave a little cry of pleasure. “Here it is,” she exclaimed, “wedged into a crack in the woodwork between the pews, ever so neatly; but no doubt it would have dropped down the first time the pew was dusted,” and with deft fingers she withdrew the little trinket from its temporary resting-place. “It is queer,” she added; “there must be a hollow space between this and the panel on our side. Perhaps it’s the place with a little door where we leave our prayer-books,” and, standing on a hassock, she peered over into their own pew, adding, “No, our book-cupboard is farther along.”

No one paid any attention, however, to her researches. Mr Ferraby was too delighted to have recovered the brooch to care much about where it had been concealed. He thanked Betty with effusion.

“My good wife will not have come home yet; she is in the village,” he said. “So I am not in a hurry, and quite at your service, young ladies. Were you looking for me?”

For, in his mild, unenergetic, though kindly way, the old vicar was always ready to be consulted as to the few poor people under his wing, or indeed on any other subject as to which the Morion sisters could apply for his advice or sympathy.

For half an instant an impulse came over Frances to confide in him her little scheme for benefiting the fisher-folk at Scaling Harbour, but a glance at the bent and fragile figure of their old friend made her dismiss the idea.

“He wouldn’t understand it,” she thought; “it would seem to him new-fangled and unnecessary; and then he is so poor and so generous,”—for it was well known that out of his tiny stipend Mr Ferraby was far too ready to give more than he could really afford—“he would be writing for books for us, even if he thought it would only be an amusement. No, I had better not speak of it.”

And—“Thank you,” Frances went on aloud, “no, we had no idea you were in the church; seeing it open, we just strolled in, with no better motive than to kill a little time, I’m afraid. It is not tempting weather for walking.”

“No, indeed,” the vicar agreed. “The season is peculiarly dull and depressing this year, even to one who should be well accustomed to this climate and to everything about the place. I have been here over fifty years, half a century,” and he gave a little sigh.

“And we have been here,” said Eira, “nearly all of our lives that we can remember; soweshould be accustomed to it, too, shouldn’t we, Mr Ferraby?”

He shook his head.

“Scarcely so,” he replied, “at least not necessarily. The sort of ‘getting accustomed’ to things—in reality I was thinking of more than the climate—that I had in my mind—is not of a piece with youth and its natural distaste for monotony. My wife and I often think it must be dreary for you three, and we wish we had it in our power to help you to a little variety. If things had been different with us—if that poor boy of ours had been spared—we should not now be the dull old couple I fear we are.”

His hearers were touched by his simple self-depreciation.

“Dear Mr Ferraby,” said Frances, “you mustn’t speak like that. It is very nice for us to feel that we are always sure of two such kind friends at hand.”

There was more pathos in his allusion than a stranger would have understood, for this same “boy,” of whom he spoke, would by this time have been not far off fifty himself, though to his parents he ever remained the bright, promising young fellow suddenly cut off in his early manhood.

“Who was here before you came, Mr Ferraby?” Eira inquired abruptly.

The little group was seated by this time in the large, square pew, which almost looked like a cosy little room, and even to-day it felt fairly warm.

“Who was here before me?” the old man repeated. “Broadhurst was the last vicar, and before him there was a private chaplain resident at Craig-Morion. That was in its palmy days, when the family spent most of the year here—quite early in this century, that is to say—for I remember Broadhurst telling me that things had been quiet enough during his time, and he was here for nearly twenty years.”

“And you never saw our great-grand-aunt Elizabeth, did you?” Betty inquired. “I think we’ve asked you before.”

“No,” the vicar replied. “Strangely enough, her funeral was one of the first ceremonies at which I officiated—that was in the year forty. She was very ill when I came, and refused to see me, and indeed, for several years before that, she had led a life of utter seclusion. I remember hoping for brighter days coming, for I was young then, and no misanthrope, but they never did, as the elder of her two nephews took a dislike to the place, which his son—a grandson now—seems to have inherited!”

“I wonder how it would have been if our grandfather—her younger nephew—had come in for it, as she led him to expect,” said Frances. “Of course, you know all about that, Mr Ferraby?”

“Very different, I expect,” said the vicar. “I often wish there was a law against pluralists of estates, as well as of livings. When a man has only one place, you see, it is his home, and that insures his interest in it. Putting aside my natural wish that the big house here wereyourhome, I really do feel it a terrible loss that its owner should be such a complete absentee.”

“It is very wrong,” said Frances, “wrong of Mr Morion, I mean, never to come here, even though there are not many tenants. I should be glad to have an opportunity of saying so to him. You heard of the talk there was a little while ago of some of his connections coming here for a time, I suppose, Mr Ferraby?”

“Yes,” the vicar replied, “and I began to build some hopes on it, and was disappointed to hear it had ended in nothing.”

He glanced round the whole building as he spoke.

“I should like to see this church in better condition,” he went on. “Not that I go in for new-fangled ways, but a good deal could be done without trenching on such ground. I can’t say that it is substantially out of repair, but Mr Milne only advises what is absolutely necessary, and unless Mr Morion came down here enough to get to care for the place, I can hope for nothing more.”

“Is it any prejudice against the place?” said Betty, in her abrupt way. Then a curious gleam came into her eyes. “You know what the people about here say, Mr Ferraby?” she asked; “that great-grand-aunt Elizabeth ‘walks.’ I wonder if possibly, when Mr Littlewood was here, anything—of that kind, like seeing her—happened to him. For he told us his people’s coming was all but decided upon.”

The old vicar looked at her as if he scarcely understood, and Frances turned rather sharply.

“Don’t talk nonsense, Betty,” she said. “Somehow things of that kind—about a place being haunted and so on—ooze out, if one isn’t very careful, and I can’t see but what they may do mischief.”

Mr Ferraby looked at her approvingly.

“I quite agree with you, Frances,” he said: “though certainly nobody would accuse the good folk about here of too much imagination or nerves. Hard work have I to impress them in any way, yet it is an undoubted fact that stolid souls of this kind are often absurdly superstitious. They are too conservative, perhaps, or too stupid, to invent new ideas. If they would hark back a little further still, one would have better ground to work upon.”

“Mr Ferraby,” said Betty, “you’re becoming quite a Radical.”

“No, no, my dear,” he replied, “have I not just said that I wish they would retain some of the belief in the supernatural, even if mingled with some superstition, which the last century did so much to destroy? That is what Imeantto imply, though I did not express it clearly. Yes,” he went on, replying to her former remark, “I have of course heard the talk about old Miss Morion’s unrestful condition. But,”—and, had it been light enough to see his faded blue eyes more clearly, a gleam of mischief, akin somewhat to the recent sparkle in Betty’s own orbs, might have been discovered—“you are not quite on the right tack. It is not the house, but thischurchwhich the poor lady is said to frequent. Indeed, the very spot where we are seated is said to be her favourite resort.”

Betty almost screamed, and even Frances and Eira involuntarily drew closer together, for there was no denying the creepiness of their old friend’s information under present circumstances.

“No,” said Eira eagerly, “I never heard that. Have you any theory to account for her coming here? Can it be that she wants to be shriven for her misdeeds, and that she chooses the spot where, Sunday after Sunday, she accused herself of being a miserable sinner?”

“Come now, my dear,” said the old man, “don’t be too severe upon your dead kinswoman.”

“No,” said Frances, “it isn’t kind, for, after all, we don’t know that she did break her word. The will may have been stolen or suppressed.”

“I beg her pardon, then,” said Eira. “I wonder if she can hear me! Can’t you tell us something more, Mr Ferraby? Does she suddenly appear here, or is she seen coming from the house?”

“I believe,” the vicar replied, “she is supposed to come along the path they call the Laurel Walk, that leads from the side-entrance. A safe place to choose, as it is always dark and shadowy there; and her visits are not restricted to the night, though I forget what is supposed to be her favourite time.”

“Late on a winter’s afternoon, I should say,” remarked Eira. “Just such a time as this, don’t you think?”

At this Betty started to her feet.

“Eira,” she said, “you are very, very unkind, and—Mr Ferraby, you don’t know how she tries to frighten me sometimes, though I dare say I’m very silly.”

The others could scarcely help laughing at her pitiful tone, though Frances’ ears detected that very little more would bring tears.

“Let us go,” she said; “it is getting chilly, and mamma will be expecting us.”

Betty caught hold of her arm.

“Idarenot walk down the aisle alone,” she whispered, “especially with Eira behind us.”

“Eira,” said Frances, “are you coming, or will you follow with Mr Ferraby?”

“I must be off too,” said the vicar. “I am eager to tell my wife of Miss Betty’s successful search.”

So the quartette, Eira bringing up the rear, made their way to the door.

“I wish,” thought she, “I could do some little thing to frighten Betty. I know what—I will stretch out my umbrella and touch her neck with the cold end,” for there was still light enough for this piece of mischief; and she was leaning forward to put it into execution when a slight sound in the pew they had just quitted arrested her. It was that of stiffly rustling garments, as of a person clad therein rising with difficulty from a kneeling posture.

The biter was bitten!

“Mr Ferraby,” she exclaimed, clutching at his arm, “did you hear that?”

“What?” was the reply. “No, nothing; but then I am a little deaf.”

“What is it?” said Frances quickly.

Eira turned off the question with some laughing remark as to the difficulty of groping their way without misadventure; but the old vicar glanced at her curiously in the clearer light outside the porch.

“That child had better not be too confident about her own nerves,” he thought to himself. “She is looking quite pale.”

Chapter Eight.When Things are at the Worst.There was no waiting for tea this afternoon; on the contrary, when the three girls reached home, tea was waiting for them, and, beside the table, their mother, with unmistakable annoyance in her face.“Why have you stayed out so late?” she questioned. “You know how it vexes your father; in fact, he has had tea and has gone back to the study.”“I am very sorry, mamma,” said Frances. “It was thoughtless of me. We have been in the church with Mr Ferraby,” and she went on to relate the little incident of the lost brooch, and how cleverly Betty had found it, thinking that it would distract Lady Emma’s attention—in which hope she was not disappointed; so well did she succeed in gaining her mother’s interest that, under cover of the little narrative, Betty was able to steal from the room with the teapot and to obtain a fresh supply, without risk of tannin poisoning, unobserved.Tea over, Betty and Eira disappeared, as was their habit, leaving Frances to entertain their mother, during what—in a very small country house, above all, one in which the family party is but seldom unbroken—is perhaps the dreariest hour of the twenty-four which make up a winter’s day and night.Frances’ spirits rose on finding that her mother’s annoyance had been but passing. For half a minute she felt tempted to relate to her their conversation with the vicar, but on second thought she decided that it was better to avoid the always sore subject of the Craig-Morion inheritance. So she went on talking lightly and pleasantly on ordinary topics.“I told you of Mrs Ramsay’s letter, did I not, mamma? She really seems to have fallen on her feet, and to be quite happy as a colonist’s wife.”“Yes,” her mother agreed, with a little shudder, “though to me it is perfectly incomprehensible how any one, any lady—and Miss O’Hara was essentially a lady—can endure it.”“She was so brave,” said Frances. “I often think, mamma, that I owe a great deal to her—or rather, to go to the root of it, to you, for choosing her so well.”Her mother looked gratified. To do her justice, in spite of her cold reticence of manner, she was easily gratified, especially by any expression of appreciation from her eldest daughter.“Her coming to us,” she said, “was really more good luck than good management on my part, and I do believe she was happier with us than she could have been in many other families. She knew that I understood her position—in a sense,” with a little sigh, “not unlike my own. We poor Irish always sympathise with each other, whatever our faults are. I often wish Miss O’Hara—no, I really must say Mrs Ramsay—could have stayed longer, for the sake of the two younger ones, except, of course, that had she not married it would have been too much of a sacrifice to expect of her—the staying on, I mean, at a still smaller salary.”“Perhaps it was all for the best,” said Frances cheerfully, if tritely. “The teaching Betty and Eira was an immense interest to me; and I can never be thankful enough that I had it. Indeed, sometimes, mamma,”—she stopped, hesitating. “May I tell you something I have been thinking about?” she went on, for it seemed just then one of the occasions on which her mother and herself were drawn together in fuller sympathy than often happened.“Of course,” replied Lady Emma. “Why need you hesitate? I am sure I am always ready to give attention to anything you want to say.”“It is about Betty and Eira,” said Frances. “Sometimes it does seem to me that we look upon them still too much as children; that they haven’t enough interest—responsibility—I scarcely know what to call it, for they are not idle exactly.”Lady Emma sighed.“Oh, my dear Frances,” she said, “I don’t think there’s any use in your worrying yourself or me about that sort of thing. It is simply a bit of the whole—inevitable, as we are placed. At their age, of course, girls of our class are usually absorbed by amusement and society—too much so, I dare say, in many cases. But still there it is, and I hope I should have steered clear of letting them spend their lives in empty frivolity in other circumstances. I think my mother did so; for, of course, poor as we were, it was nothing to be compared with what my married life has made me acquainted with. Each of us had one or two seasons in London, and there was always a good deal going on at Castle Avone in the winter, and yet we were taught to be good housekeepers and to look after our poor people, and all that sort of thing.”“Yes,” said Frances, “I know.” For in her more effusive moments her mother had sometimes entertained the three girls with reminiscences of the happy, careless Irish home-life, in which, to see her now, it was difficult to believe that poor Lady Emma Morion had ever had the heart or spirit to join. “Yes, I know,” Frances repeated, “it always sounds to me delightful. But it was not so much amusement that I was thinking about for Betty and Eira. That kind of thing is literally and practically out of our power. But I have been wondering if we couldn’t help them to have some more definite occupation or interest—they are both, though with such perfectly different temperaments, in danger of becoming very desultory, I fear—if not, what is even worse, discontented, and every one knows there is nothing so invigorating as feeling oneself of use to other people,” and with that she proceeded with great care and tact to unfold to her mother her simple little scheme in connection with the fisher-people at Scaling Harbour.Lady Emma listened with attention, and not without interest, but with no brightening of expression or respondent gleam, such as had sprung out of Eira’s eyes when the plan was first mentioned. Not that Frances had expected this—even Betty, unselfish and tender-hearted as she was, had none of the latent enthusiasm which Frances often found so invigorating in her youngest sister, and which went far to balance her greater amount of self-will. And Betty had not welcomed the suggestion with any eagerness; so how could she expect anything of the kind from her mother, tired and in a sense worn out by the incessant small worries of her restricted home-life?No, it was not to be wondered at that Lady Emma could not rise to any very great interest in philanthropic work.“Poor mamma,” thought Frances, always ready to judge the deficiencies of others in the gentlest and most generous spirit, “she has reason enough to be absorbed by home things.” But she watched her mother’s face anxiously, nevertheless, hoping for at least conditional consent, and what furtherance of the scheme should be possible for her to promise.And the disappointment was extreme when Lady Emma slowly shook her head.“That’s been put into your mind by Mrs Ramsay’s writing to you on the subject,” she began, and immediately poor Frances’ hopes faded. “I can’t say that it’s the sort of thing I should at all care for you to do, though what ever I feel about it really does not signify, as your father would never allow it. Then there is the expense of it—everything of that kind costs money.”“Very little, as I tried to explain,” said Frances; “some of the books I got for Mrs Ramsay were most inexpensive.”“I dare say,” said her mother, touched a little, in spite of herself, at the girl’s evident disappointment. “Of course, if I had any money to spare, I should have no objection to your all acquiring a little good practical knowledge of the kind. We, my sisters and I, were by no means ignorant about household remedies. The poor people used to come to the Castle as a matter of course when they were at a loss what to do. But it was so different! The people at Scaling Harbour can send for a doctor. There is a parish doctor, I suppose?”Frances said no more. She knew by experience that it was a mistake to enter into an argument which would only end by emphasising opposition. She had learnt for so long the philosophy of thankfulness for small mercies that she was even glad of the inferred permission to get the books, should the chance of so doing ever present itself—but for the present, yes, the outlook was dreary enough. Frances could not but own it to herself.“It does seem hard,” she thought, “very hard, not even to be allowed to use what little talent one may have in some good, sensible direction.”She was on her way to join her sisters when she made these reflections, though with no intention of repeating to them the conversation that had just passed. She found them in the dining-room, kneeling on the rug before the fire—at this hour of the day a safe resort, as Mr Morion, though nothing would have made him acknowledge it, indulged in a before-dinner nap, apt to be somewhat prolonged, between tea and dinner-time. Considerably to her surprise, even more to her relief, the two girls were talking eagerly, almost indeed excitedly, though their voices were low.“Oh, Francie, I’m so glad you’ve come!” said Betty. “Do you know what Eira has been telling me? She didn’t want to frighten me, but I made her tell. Do you know she really did hear something in the church?” and she proceeded to repeat Eira’s strange experience of the sound of rustling garments in the big pew.Frances was inclined to be sceptical; sensible people usually are when first confronted with anything of the kind. It was easily to be accounted for, she thought, considering that Mr Ferraby had just been telling that the squire’s pew was, by repute, the haunted spot.“I dare say it was one of the stiff moreen curtains dropping back into its place again, after you had been pushing them aside,” she said. But Eira shook her head.“No,” she maintained, with conviction in her voice, “it wasn’t the least like that. It was a slow, rising sort of sound, and it was the rustle of silk, of stiff silk—of that I am certain; at least, I mean to say I am certain that that was the impression produced on my senses.”“You’d better write it out for the Psychical Society, it has made you so eloquent,” said Frances laughingly, though in the depths of her heart she was not a little impressed. Then came an exclamation from Betty, which, accustomed as they were to the startling suggestions she was apt to burst out with, for once really took their breath away.“Frances,” she said, “I’ve thought of something. I’m getting nearly desperate for a change of some kind, and I feel as if I could be brave enough to doanything, especially if you and Eira will back me up. Supposing we three manage to get into the church some evening and wait for the ghost, and try to get something out of her? Would you have the nerve for it?” Her eyes gleamed with excitement, and her whole face was lighted up in a way that for the moment transformed it.“Betty!” exclaimed her sisters, together, in amazement.“You must be joking,” Frances added. “You, of all people, to dream of such a thing!”“I am not joking,” Betty replied. “Just fancy, if wedidfind out anything. It would be worth while having one’s hair turned grey with fright to begin with.”“Betty,” said Eira solemnly, “you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you had said such a thing this time yesterday, I should have felt quite different about it. But I can’t put into words the impression left upon me by what I heard—little as it seems. No, indeed,” and she shook her head, “I should never be able to attempt anything of the kind.”“If you both work yourselves up about it so,” said Frances, “you will make me sorry that it has ever been alluded to. Don’t talk about it any more to-night, or neither of you will sleep. Promise me you won’t?”“Very well,” Betty replied reluctantly, though her face fell as she gave the promise; for, although it only bound her to the avoidance of the subject for that evening, she felt pretty sure that there would be no chance of enlisting either of her sisters in her scheme. “And,” she thought to herself, “I’mafraidI should never have courage to try it alone, and without courage it would be no use, as everybody knows that unless you speak first to a ghost, he, or she, orit—why does ‘it’ seem so much more terrible?—will never speak to you!”If it is true, as is often said, that happy times require no chronicler, it is certainly also the case in life that one has to traverse dreary, monotonous stretches of which there is literally nothing to record. This, certainly, was no new experience to the Morion sisters, but it is to be questioned if they had ever before been so painfully conscious of the almost unendurable dreariness of their general circumstances.Nature, even, seemed maliciously inclined just now to make things worse for them. No winter sprightliness came to relieve the autumn gloom which, in this country, we have come to look upon as more or less inevitable. It was the dullest of dull weather; the very thought of Christmas seemed out of place.“It is as if the sun had really said ‘good-bye’ to us for ever,” remarked Betty one day. “I am growing so stupefied that I think the only living creatures I now envy are dormice. Don’t you think, Eira, that Providence, if that isn’t irreverent, might have arranged for human beings to have a good long sleep of several months together, if, or when, they have absolutely nothing to do which it would in the least matter to themselves or any one else if they left undone?”Eira’s only answer was a sigh, and even Frances, from the low chair where, for once in a way, she was sitting idle, said nothing. For poor Frances’ spirits were, at the present moment, really depressed by physical causes; she had had a wretched cold, which, though not very severe, had been sufficiently so to lower her vitality uncomfortably and disturb her usually well-balanced mental and moral condition.She glanced at the window.“Who would think it was Christmas week?” she said. “Actually, it comes next Friday, and this is Tuesday.”“I had almost forgotten it,” said Eira. “What about those little things, Frances, that you said you had still to get in the village? Cards, wasn’t it?”“Yes,” Frances replied, “and one or two trifles; literal trifles they’ll have to be this year, for the servants and our two or three poor people. Which of you will come with me this afternoon to help me to choose them?”Eira looked at her doubtfully.“Are yousure, Francie dear,” she said, “that you are fit to go out to-day? Your cold has pulled you down so.”“Oh, it’s over now,” said Frances. “A walk will do me good. Are you coming too, Betty?”“Would you mind if I didn’t?” said Betty; “for once I’ve got some sewing that I’m rather in a hurry about, but I will come to meet you—you won’t be very long?”“As quick as possible, you may be sure,” replied Frances. “But, any way,” she added, with a smile, “if possibly we are later than I mean to be, we won’t expect to see you, Betty, as I know you’ve no love for being out alone when it’s getting dark.”So they set off, and Betty, exhilarated a little by the work she hoped to finish in their absence, which had to do with her Christmas presents for her sisters, spent the first part of the afternoon cheerily enough, though by herself.“I do feel brighter to-day somehow,” she thought, “and, after all, it’s terribly pagan not to cheer up at Christmas-time. Then, too, though it’s such a platitude, things are never so bad but they might be worse. Supposing Francie’s cold had turned into bronchitis, or something dreadful like that, and she had been very, very ill, how miserable we might have been just now! What would Eira and I do without her? Even if she married, how dreadfully dull it would be—but no, it wouldn’t, she would have a charming home of her own, and we would go and stay with her and—oh, yes! it would change everything. But I must remember I had made up my mind to give up building castles in the air!”By four o’clock she was ready to go out to meet her sisters, her work completed and laid safely away. It was dusk, almost more than dusk, when she opened the gate and passed out into the road. But a little further on it grew lighter again, as here the trees were less thickly planted. Betty went into the park through the usual entrance, and, crossing through the shrubbery quickly, stood for a moment on a little knoll which commanded a view of the open drive from the lodge, by which her sisters would make their way.It was light enough still to have perceived them, had they been within the park walls; but they were not to be seen.“I don’t care to go all the way to the gates,” she said to herself. “I’m not in the humour for gossiping with the old Webbs. I’ll just walk up and down about here till I see them, or till I hear the gates clang. It is so very, very still to-day, and the ground feels harder, as if frost were coming; I could almost hear their steps before I saw them.”But, though clear and still, it was not a bright evening. Walking up and down soon palls, and Betty stood still, half hesitating as to whether she should change her mind and go farther to meet the others.Suddenly—most things were sudden with Betty—an idea struck her.“I have a great mind,” she thought, “to run up to the church end of the Laurel Walk, and peep along it, just to see if possibly—oh! of course there could be nothing to see, or even to hear; but it would be rather fun to be able to tell Eira that I had done it. She couldn’t but think it brave of me, and I can certainly be back in time to meet them, before they’re half across.”But she had reckoned without her host—that is to say, in ignorance of her own uncertainty as to the nearest way to the aforesaid Laurel Walk, for it was in a part of the grounds she seldom frequented, as it led straight from the church to a side-entrance of the big house, nowadays rarely used. Betty made two or three wrongdétours—not to be wondered at, for, once in among the shrubs again, it was really almost dark; and when at last she came out at the point she was in search of she began to repent what now seemed to her foolhardiness, for the thickly bordered path in question did look from her end of its long, narrow course extremely eerie and forbidding.“I can’t risk losing my way in those shrubberies again,” she thought. “I remember now that there is a side-path a little farther along, which will take me by a short cut out into the open again. I’ll run along as fast as I can till I come to it.”But alas! for poor Betty. There was more than one side-path, and the first she tried, after pursuing it for some yards, only landed her more confusingly than ever in the thickest part of the plantation.“This isn’t the right one,” she thought. “I must go back again, and rather than risk remaining hereabouts I’ll go straight to the church.”Running just here was not an easy matter. The nervous fears which were beginning, in spite of herself, to overcome her, were once or twice dispersed for a moment by a bang against some obtruding tree or branch.“Oh, how silly I have been!” thought Betty. “But here’s the opening into the Laurel Walk. Yes, I’d better make straight for the church.”Something—she could not have said what—made her stop for a moment, as she turned into the path of uncanny reputation. She started—what was that? A rustle of some kind in the direction of the house, a falling branch or leaf, no doubt—all was so still! She turned towards the churchyard, walking fast, her heart beating quickly enough already, when—oh, horrors!—she heard all too distinctly the sound of a tread behind her. For half an instant she stopped in vain hope that she might have been mistaken.It stopped.“Shall I have strength to get out of this horrible place?” thought Betty, for she felt her limbs already all but failing her, from her now excessive trembling. But desperation gives courage. She hurried on again; again, too, the footsteps behind became audible.“Oh,” thought Betty, “if it tries to overtake me, I shall die. If I can but keep up for half a minute more, I shall be at the little gate into the churchyard, if only—oh, if only it’s not padlocked!”

There was no waiting for tea this afternoon; on the contrary, when the three girls reached home, tea was waiting for them, and, beside the table, their mother, with unmistakable annoyance in her face.

“Why have you stayed out so late?” she questioned. “You know how it vexes your father; in fact, he has had tea and has gone back to the study.”

“I am very sorry, mamma,” said Frances. “It was thoughtless of me. We have been in the church with Mr Ferraby,” and she went on to relate the little incident of the lost brooch, and how cleverly Betty had found it, thinking that it would distract Lady Emma’s attention—in which hope she was not disappointed; so well did she succeed in gaining her mother’s interest that, under cover of the little narrative, Betty was able to steal from the room with the teapot and to obtain a fresh supply, without risk of tannin poisoning, unobserved.

Tea over, Betty and Eira disappeared, as was their habit, leaving Frances to entertain their mother, during what—in a very small country house, above all, one in which the family party is but seldom unbroken—is perhaps the dreariest hour of the twenty-four which make up a winter’s day and night.

Frances’ spirits rose on finding that her mother’s annoyance had been but passing. For half a minute she felt tempted to relate to her their conversation with the vicar, but on second thought she decided that it was better to avoid the always sore subject of the Craig-Morion inheritance. So she went on talking lightly and pleasantly on ordinary topics.

“I told you of Mrs Ramsay’s letter, did I not, mamma? She really seems to have fallen on her feet, and to be quite happy as a colonist’s wife.”

“Yes,” her mother agreed, with a little shudder, “though to me it is perfectly incomprehensible how any one, any lady—and Miss O’Hara was essentially a lady—can endure it.”

“She was so brave,” said Frances. “I often think, mamma, that I owe a great deal to her—or rather, to go to the root of it, to you, for choosing her so well.”

Her mother looked gratified. To do her justice, in spite of her cold reticence of manner, she was easily gratified, especially by any expression of appreciation from her eldest daughter.

“Her coming to us,” she said, “was really more good luck than good management on my part, and I do believe she was happier with us than she could have been in many other families. She knew that I understood her position—in a sense,” with a little sigh, “not unlike my own. We poor Irish always sympathise with each other, whatever our faults are. I often wish Miss O’Hara—no, I really must say Mrs Ramsay—could have stayed longer, for the sake of the two younger ones, except, of course, that had she not married it would have been too much of a sacrifice to expect of her—the staying on, I mean, at a still smaller salary.”

“Perhaps it was all for the best,” said Frances cheerfully, if tritely. “The teaching Betty and Eira was an immense interest to me; and I can never be thankful enough that I had it. Indeed, sometimes, mamma,”—she stopped, hesitating. “May I tell you something I have been thinking about?” she went on, for it seemed just then one of the occasions on which her mother and herself were drawn together in fuller sympathy than often happened.

“Of course,” replied Lady Emma. “Why need you hesitate? I am sure I am always ready to give attention to anything you want to say.”

“It is about Betty and Eira,” said Frances. “Sometimes it does seem to me that we look upon them still too much as children; that they haven’t enough interest—responsibility—I scarcely know what to call it, for they are not idle exactly.”

Lady Emma sighed.

“Oh, my dear Frances,” she said, “I don’t think there’s any use in your worrying yourself or me about that sort of thing. It is simply a bit of the whole—inevitable, as we are placed. At their age, of course, girls of our class are usually absorbed by amusement and society—too much so, I dare say, in many cases. But still there it is, and I hope I should have steered clear of letting them spend their lives in empty frivolity in other circumstances. I think my mother did so; for, of course, poor as we were, it was nothing to be compared with what my married life has made me acquainted with. Each of us had one or two seasons in London, and there was always a good deal going on at Castle Avone in the winter, and yet we were taught to be good housekeepers and to look after our poor people, and all that sort of thing.”

“Yes,” said Frances, “I know.” For in her more effusive moments her mother had sometimes entertained the three girls with reminiscences of the happy, careless Irish home-life, in which, to see her now, it was difficult to believe that poor Lady Emma Morion had ever had the heart or spirit to join. “Yes, I know,” Frances repeated, “it always sounds to me delightful. But it was not so much amusement that I was thinking about for Betty and Eira. That kind of thing is literally and practically out of our power. But I have been wondering if we couldn’t help them to have some more definite occupation or interest—they are both, though with such perfectly different temperaments, in danger of becoming very desultory, I fear—if not, what is even worse, discontented, and every one knows there is nothing so invigorating as feeling oneself of use to other people,” and with that she proceeded with great care and tact to unfold to her mother her simple little scheme in connection with the fisher-people at Scaling Harbour.

Lady Emma listened with attention, and not without interest, but with no brightening of expression or respondent gleam, such as had sprung out of Eira’s eyes when the plan was first mentioned. Not that Frances had expected this—even Betty, unselfish and tender-hearted as she was, had none of the latent enthusiasm which Frances often found so invigorating in her youngest sister, and which went far to balance her greater amount of self-will. And Betty had not welcomed the suggestion with any eagerness; so how could she expect anything of the kind from her mother, tired and in a sense worn out by the incessant small worries of her restricted home-life?

No, it was not to be wondered at that Lady Emma could not rise to any very great interest in philanthropic work.

“Poor mamma,” thought Frances, always ready to judge the deficiencies of others in the gentlest and most generous spirit, “she has reason enough to be absorbed by home things.” But she watched her mother’s face anxiously, nevertheless, hoping for at least conditional consent, and what furtherance of the scheme should be possible for her to promise.

And the disappointment was extreme when Lady Emma slowly shook her head.

“That’s been put into your mind by Mrs Ramsay’s writing to you on the subject,” she began, and immediately poor Frances’ hopes faded. “I can’t say that it’s the sort of thing I should at all care for you to do, though what ever I feel about it really does not signify, as your father would never allow it. Then there is the expense of it—everything of that kind costs money.”

“Very little, as I tried to explain,” said Frances; “some of the books I got for Mrs Ramsay were most inexpensive.”

“I dare say,” said her mother, touched a little, in spite of herself, at the girl’s evident disappointment. “Of course, if I had any money to spare, I should have no objection to your all acquiring a little good practical knowledge of the kind. We, my sisters and I, were by no means ignorant about household remedies. The poor people used to come to the Castle as a matter of course when they were at a loss what to do. But it was so different! The people at Scaling Harbour can send for a doctor. There is a parish doctor, I suppose?”

Frances said no more. She knew by experience that it was a mistake to enter into an argument which would only end by emphasising opposition. She had learnt for so long the philosophy of thankfulness for small mercies that she was even glad of the inferred permission to get the books, should the chance of so doing ever present itself—but for the present, yes, the outlook was dreary enough. Frances could not but own it to herself.

“It does seem hard,” she thought, “very hard, not even to be allowed to use what little talent one may have in some good, sensible direction.”

She was on her way to join her sisters when she made these reflections, though with no intention of repeating to them the conversation that had just passed. She found them in the dining-room, kneeling on the rug before the fire—at this hour of the day a safe resort, as Mr Morion, though nothing would have made him acknowledge it, indulged in a before-dinner nap, apt to be somewhat prolonged, between tea and dinner-time. Considerably to her surprise, even more to her relief, the two girls were talking eagerly, almost indeed excitedly, though their voices were low.

“Oh, Francie, I’m so glad you’ve come!” said Betty. “Do you know what Eira has been telling me? She didn’t want to frighten me, but I made her tell. Do you know she really did hear something in the church?” and she proceeded to repeat Eira’s strange experience of the sound of rustling garments in the big pew.

Frances was inclined to be sceptical; sensible people usually are when first confronted with anything of the kind. It was easily to be accounted for, she thought, considering that Mr Ferraby had just been telling that the squire’s pew was, by repute, the haunted spot.

“I dare say it was one of the stiff moreen curtains dropping back into its place again, after you had been pushing them aside,” she said. But Eira shook her head.

“No,” she maintained, with conviction in her voice, “it wasn’t the least like that. It was a slow, rising sort of sound, and it was the rustle of silk, of stiff silk—of that I am certain; at least, I mean to say I am certain that that was the impression produced on my senses.”

“You’d better write it out for the Psychical Society, it has made you so eloquent,” said Frances laughingly, though in the depths of her heart she was not a little impressed. Then came an exclamation from Betty, which, accustomed as they were to the startling suggestions she was apt to burst out with, for once really took their breath away.

“Frances,” she said, “I’ve thought of something. I’m getting nearly desperate for a change of some kind, and I feel as if I could be brave enough to doanything, especially if you and Eira will back me up. Supposing we three manage to get into the church some evening and wait for the ghost, and try to get something out of her? Would you have the nerve for it?” Her eyes gleamed with excitement, and her whole face was lighted up in a way that for the moment transformed it.

“Betty!” exclaimed her sisters, together, in amazement.

“You must be joking,” Frances added. “You, of all people, to dream of such a thing!”

“I am not joking,” Betty replied. “Just fancy, if wedidfind out anything. It would be worth while having one’s hair turned grey with fright to begin with.”

“Betty,” said Eira solemnly, “you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you had said such a thing this time yesterday, I should have felt quite different about it. But I can’t put into words the impression left upon me by what I heard—little as it seems. No, indeed,” and she shook her head, “I should never be able to attempt anything of the kind.”

“If you both work yourselves up about it so,” said Frances, “you will make me sorry that it has ever been alluded to. Don’t talk about it any more to-night, or neither of you will sleep. Promise me you won’t?”

“Very well,” Betty replied reluctantly, though her face fell as she gave the promise; for, although it only bound her to the avoidance of the subject for that evening, she felt pretty sure that there would be no chance of enlisting either of her sisters in her scheme. “And,” she thought to herself, “I’mafraidI should never have courage to try it alone, and without courage it would be no use, as everybody knows that unless you speak first to a ghost, he, or she, orit—why does ‘it’ seem so much more terrible?—will never speak to you!”

If it is true, as is often said, that happy times require no chronicler, it is certainly also the case in life that one has to traverse dreary, monotonous stretches of which there is literally nothing to record. This, certainly, was no new experience to the Morion sisters, but it is to be questioned if they had ever before been so painfully conscious of the almost unendurable dreariness of their general circumstances.

Nature, even, seemed maliciously inclined just now to make things worse for them. No winter sprightliness came to relieve the autumn gloom which, in this country, we have come to look upon as more or less inevitable. It was the dullest of dull weather; the very thought of Christmas seemed out of place.

“It is as if the sun had really said ‘good-bye’ to us for ever,” remarked Betty one day. “I am growing so stupefied that I think the only living creatures I now envy are dormice. Don’t you think, Eira, that Providence, if that isn’t irreverent, might have arranged for human beings to have a good long sleep of several months together, if, or when, they have absolutely nothing to do which it would in the least matter to themselves or any one else if they left undone?”

Eira’s only answer was a sigh, and even Frances, from the low chair where, for once in a way, she was sitting idle, said nothing. For poor Frances’ spirits were, at the present moment, really depressed by physical causes; she had had a wretched cold, which, though not very severe, had been sufficiently so to lower her vitality uncomfortably and disturb her usually well-balanced mental and moral condition.

She glanced at the window.

“Who would think it was Christmas week?” she said. “Actually, it comes next Friday, and this is Tuesday.”

“I had almost forgotten it,” said Eira. “What about those little things, Frances, that you said you had still to get in the village? Cards, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Frances replied, “and one or two trifles; literal trifles they’ll have to be this year, for the servants and our two or three poor people. Which of you will come with me this afternoon to help me to choose them?”

Eira looked at her doubtfully.

“Are yousure, Francie dear,” she said, “that you are fit to go out to-day? Your cold has pulled you down so.”

“Oh, it’s over now,” said Frances. “A walk will do me good. Are you coming too, Betty?”

“Would you mind if I didn’t?” said Betty; “for once I’ve got some sewing that I’m rather in a hurry about, but I will come to meet you—you won’t be very long?”

“As quick as possible, you may be sure,” replied Frances. “But, any way,” she added, with a smile, “if possibly we are later than I mean to be, we won’t expect to see you, Betty, as I know you’ve no love for being out alone when it’s getting dark.”

So they set off, and Betty, exhilarated a little by the work she hoped to finish in their absence, which had to do with her Christmas presents for her sisters, spent the first part of the afternoon cheerily enough, though by herself.

“I do feel brighter to-day somehow,” she thought, “and, after all, it’s terribly pagan not to cheer up at Christmas-time. Then, too, though it’s such a platitude, things are never so bad but they might be worse. Supposing Francie’s cold had turned into bronchitis, or something dreadful like that, and she had been very, very ill, how miserable we might have been just now! What would Eira and I do without her? Even if she married, how dreadfully dull it would be—but no, it wouldn’t, she would have a charming home of her own, and we would go and stay with her and—oh, yes! it would change everything. But I must remember I had made up my mind to give up building castles in the air!”

By four o’clock she was ready to go out to meet her sisters, her work completed and laid safely away. It was dusk, almost more than dusk, when she opened the gate and passed out into the road. But a little further on it grew lighter again, as here the trees were less thickly planted. Betty went into the park through the usual entrance, and, crossing through the shrubbery quickly, stood for a moment on a little knoll which commanded a view of the open drive from the lodge, by which her sisters would make their way.

It was light enough still to have perceived them, had they been within the park walls; but they were not to be seen.

“I don’t care to go all the way to the gates,” she said to herself. “I’m not in the humour for gossiping with the old Webbs. I’ll just walk up and down about here till I see them, or till I hear the gates clang. It is so very, very still to-day, and the ground feels harder, as if frost were coming; I could almost hear their steps before I saw them.”

But, though clear and still, it was not a bright evening. Walking up and down soon palls, and Betty stood still, half hesitating as to whether she should change her mind and go farther to meet the others.

Suddenly—most things were sudden with Betty—an idea struck her.

“I have a great mind,” she thought, “to run up to the church end of the Laurel Walk, and peep along it, just to see if possibly—oh! of course there could be nothing to see, or even to hear; but it would be rather fun to be able to tell Eira that I had done it. She couldn’t but think it brave of me, and I can certainly be back in time to meet them, before they’re half across.”

But she had reckoned without her host—that is to say, in ignorance of her own uncertainty as to the nearest way to the aforesaid Laurel Walk, for it was in a part of the grounds she seldom frequented, as it led straight from the church to a side-entrance of the big house, nowadays rarely used. Betty made two or three wrongdétours—not to be wondered at, for, once in among the shrubs again, it was really almost dark; and when at last she came out at the point she was in search of she began to repent what now seemed to her foolhardiness, for the thickly bordered path in question did look from her end of its long, narrow course extremely eerie and forbidding.

“I can’t risk losing my way in those shrubberies again,” she thought. “I remember now that there is a side-path a little farther along, which will take me by a short cut out into the open again. I’ll run along as fast as I can till I come to it.”

But alas! for poor Betty. There was more than one side-path, and the first she tried, after pursuing it for some yards, only landed her more confusingly than ever in the thickest part of the plantation.

“This isn’t the right one,” she thought. “I must go back again, and rather than risk remaining hereabouts I’ll go straight to the church.”

Running just here was not an easy matter. The nervous fears which were beginning, in spite of herself, to overcome her, were once or twice dispersed for a moment by a bang against some obtruding tree or branch.

“Oh, how silly I have been!” thought Betty. “But here’s the opening into the Laurel Walk. Yes, I’d better make straight for the church.”

Something—she could not have said what—made her stop for a moment, as she turned into the path of uncanny reputation. She started—what was that? A rustle of some kind in the direction of the house, a falling branch or leaf, no doubt—all was so still! She turned towards the churchyard, walking fast, her heart beating quickly enough already, when—oh, horrors!—she heard all too distinctly the sound of a tread behind her. For half an instant she stopped in vain hope that she might have been mistaken.

It stopped.

“Shall I have strength to get out of this horrible place?” thought Betty, for she felt her limbs already all but failing her, from her now excessive trembling. But desperation gives courage. She hurried on again; again, too, the footsteps behind became audible.

“Oh,” thought Betty, “if it tries to overtake me, I shall die. If I can but keep up for half a minute more, I shall be at the little gate into the churchyard, if only—oh, if only it’s not padlocked!”

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