'Better so,' said Cherry, quietly.
'Yes,' said Lance; 'to have had these before one's eyes would have made one ready to fly at that man's throat,' glancing at the old squire in uniform.
'And now,' said Cherry, 'they are smiling their greeting to us.'
'You'll turn out the Squire, won't you, Felix?' added Lance. 'You won't keep him here, gloating on his victims?'
'Certainly not, if he suggests such ideas,' said Felix. 'It is Cherry's domain, though, and she must decide whether to banish him.'
'Oh! oh!' screamed Angela, who had meanwhile followed Bernard out of the room. 'Come here, all of you! Felix, we must have a ball! Nature and fate decree it.'
Felix laughed, gave Cherry his arm, and the procession moved on. 'Tripp says this conservatory was glazed for a surprise to my mother while she was on her wedding tour,' said Clement. 'You know this wing is the recent part of the house, built by my old great-uncle, when people had come to have large notions as to drawing and dining rooms. Here's the dining-room, but we shall go in there for severe tea presently. This is the middle period, the Stewart style part,' as they came back into the wainscotted hall, rising to the top of the house, with a staircase opposite to the front-door, and a handsome balustraded gallery running round the first floor.
But Angela's discovery was a great arched doorway, mantled only by a curtain, and leading into the only really ancient part of the building (except one turret). It was a very long room, with dark oak floor, six arched and cusped windows looking into as many arches of the cloister that ran along it, and black wainscot panelled walls, and oak beams, painted with coats-of-arms. So long was it, that the billiard table at one end, and at the other Clement's table laid out for the ringers' supper, made little show in it; and Angela, pouncing on Will Harewood, waltzed wildly with him up and down the shining floor, while Bernard learnedly expounded to Stella the games at billiards he had enjoyed with Mr. Somers there, and Lance went straight to the organ at the farther end.
'Ah! if you can do any good with that!' said Clement. 'I have been trying, but have only driven it and myself distracted!'
'How well I know the place!' cried Wilmet. 'Oh, if Alda could see it! I remember your driving us all in a team here, Fee!—Yes, Kit, trot, trot, all along. It is as if I saw you, Cherry, taking your first run alone there.'
'Better than now, I fear,' said Felix. 'Why, Cherry, woman, we must lay down bridges of matting for you,' as he felt her clutch his arm.
'Are all the floors so dreadful?' she sighed, as Clement next opened from the hall door into the library, with only a bit of carpet as an island in the middle. The library ranged with the drawing and dining rooms, though older. It had a window and a door into the cloister, and two windows to the east, and was surrounded with caged book-shelves. Here stood an harmonium, and the table and deep window-seats were piled with the miscellaneous parish appurtenances of the nineteenth-century pastor.
'You had better have this room, Felix,' said Clement; 'there was so much to do that I could not get my traps moved after Somers went.'
To which Felix replied by insisting that Clement should retain it. The door into the cloister, communicating with the church and churchyard, made it particularly eligible for the Vicar; and the study, on the opposite side of the hall, the Squire's favourite sitting-room, with the two south windows, would suit him and Pur,—the better that the adjoining room, where old Fulbert had slept in his infirm days, would serve as a housekeeper's room for Sibby and a retreat and home for Theodore. It opened into a passage leading to the offices.
'Never mind them now,' said Clement. 'Let Martha recover before we face her. I don't know which she resents most, the supper, or my sending in Kerenhappuch to help her. You all will be glad to find your nests, ladies,' he added, as poor Cherry surmounted each slippery shallow step, clinging hard to Felix's arm, while Angela and Stella had flown all round the upper story, and were helping Bill to laugh at the round-eyed range of ancestors in the corridor.
'Here I put you, our grand company, Mettie,' said Clement, opening the door of the handsome bedroom of the drawing-room wing; 'the nursery is up over, as I daresay you remember.'
'As if I did not!'
And up to it with one accord they all went, Cherry and all—for the stairs were close by, and of deal. At the moment of entrance, Felix, Wilmet, and Cherry, broke into a simultaneous shout of delight, as they beheld, staring at them in open-nostrilled pride, the rocking-horse of their youth. In one moment Cherry's arms were round its neck, Wilmet had her boy on the saddle, Felix was gently moving it, and patting its dappled sides with the tenderness of ancient love.
'This at least is unprofaned! I suppose no child has mounted it since we five hung rocking on it altogether that last morning!'
'I should like a ride now, dear old Gee-gee,' said Cherry, half sentimentally, as Kit insisted on being taken down to go to his Emma and his tea; and to her surprise and fright, her brothers snatched her up, and deposited her on its back, between screaming and laughing; and hardly was she lifted down, before Wilmet was on her knees, as Lance said, worshipping the doll's house over which she and Alda had broken their hearts, and setting all the the chairs and tables on their legs again.
The very cribs in the inner nursery were all in their old places; and to the great amusement of the rest, the four who had the honour of being natives, each sat down upon his or her own; and Felix and Wilmet had quite a little quarrel which owned the favoured cane-sided one, where one could poke one's fingers through.
'One's fingers—or rather two's fingers—are rather too big to decide that question now,' said Felix. 'However, you can take possession by deputy, Mettie, and some day Alda shall fill them all.'
'Ah! to meet her here!'
But there was one more sadly missed—the King Oberon of the nursery, whose star of cracked glass still marked one of the panes. Kit was the first to see it, trot up to point, and say 'Naughty!' but no one answered him, and Felix struggled back to a cheerful tone to say, 'After all, cane crib and all, I was not here to the last; I slept in Papa's dressing-room after Clem came to the fore.'
'Mamma's room was the one over the library,' said Cherry, as they descended.
'Here it is!' with transomed windows, trailed over with vine and Virginia creeper, one towards the river, and two towards the church, and Cherry's own particular boxes were in it. 'Oh! my dear Lord Chamberlain,' she cried, 'this is the place the master ought to have!'
'I had rather be on the other side, Cherry,' said Felix. 'It is better for Theodore that Clem and I should have rooms opening into one another, as he will look to him when I sleep out.'
'And I thought the dressing-room would serve for Stella,' added Clement. 'Why, she is quite pink!'
'Have I really a room to myself?'
'There are enough in the house for that, my little Star,' said Felix. 'I suppose you will hardly make a further progress now, Whiteheart?'
'Only let me show her the Prior's room,' said Clement, taking her to the floor above the billiard-room. It had been a smoking-room in the last reign; the windows were hung with heavy curtains; there was both a stove and a cheerful grate in it, a thick carpet and cushions in the windows, and a high screen, to cut off the draught from the little window into the south transept, where the Prior of old used to hear Mass, if indisposed.
'I have been purifying this room, literally and metaphorically,' said Clement, thinking of the pictures he had removed, and the air he had let in. 'It will make Cherry a capital painting-room.'
'Oh! but it is too much! You must not give me all the best rooms in the house.'
'Who should have them but our lady of the house?' cried both brothers.
'And after all, there are conveniences in not painting in the drawing-room,' said Cherry. 'May I tell, Lance?' as they both fell into a transport of laughter. 'You must know, Willie there insisted that I should do Cleomenes after the battle, when he would not go into his deserted house. He used so much moral compulsion, that though I knew that a Greek warrior was as much beyond me as an archangel, I only feebly objected the want of a model; and Lance, in a spirit of classic friendship, said he would sit. So one afternoon—there he stood, with his trousers turned up to his knees, and his shirt-sleeves up to his shoulders, no shoes or stockings—the table-cover gracefully disposed with a big shawl-brooch on one shoulder for a chlamys—leaning on Sibby's long broom-stick by way of a spear, endeavouring to compose his face as if his wife were dead, and his children in captivity, and he just beaten horse and foot, and going after them.'
'Cleomenes is no laughing matter,' sternly interposed Bill.
'Cleomenes was not, but Lance was. Well, I was just making a study of his foot, never dreaming of anybody getting in but by the street-door, when of all things in the world, up comes Miss Pearson herself—Miss Pearson, senior! and three girls! They had met a mad ox in the street, or some trifle of that sort, had bolted into the shop nearly in fits, and this unthinking Felix had popped them through the office to be still more scandalized upstairs.'
'Poor Miss Pearson!' said Lance; 'I shall never forget her gentle "Do I intrude?" going off into the wildest scream. And I couldn't escape by the other door, for Cherry had her easel up against it. She could only shriek "He's sitting!" technically, you see, like an old hen, or a schoolmaster, for I wasn't sitting at all.'
'Well, you need have no such catastrophes here,' said Felix, when the laughter began to subside; 'but your progress has been long enough; now we have landed you. You younger fry, you must shake into your rooms as you choose.'
'I secure the octagon turret-room at the end of the corridor,' cried Angela.
'And I shall hold to my room with the rum ceiling,' said Bernard. 'It is as good as the barrack at home! Come and see, Lance.'
'I ordered tea at seven,' said Clement, 'that Felix might be ready to speak to the ringers after it. You must take us in hand, now, Cherry; that is my last domestic order.'
So Cherry was left with her little sister. There was a little bustle of unpacking at first; but by the time Cherry was ready, she missed all sounds of Stella, and looking into her room, saw the child standing by the window, gazing intently out in a kind of dream, which ended in her running up to Cherry with a gasp of ecstasy, and hiding her face against her. 'O Cherry!' she said, 'I did not know it could be so—so—so exquisite!' and her bosom heaved with the struggle of new emotion—she who had seen nothing but Bexley suburbs in her little life.
'It does seem almost impossible to believe we are really always to live with these lovely sights,' said Cherry. 'It is like getting into the Promised Land! Why, my Star, it quite overcomes you!'
'Oh! if Tedo could—could—' It was a sort of moan that burst from Stella, followed by a shower of tears.
'Ah! Stella, sweet! We all of us miss somebody. It is not the Promised Land yet, for there you know there will be Ephphatha indeed!' and Cherry strangled her own sob, as her supplication went up that all might be as well there with her heart's grief as with Stella's. 'Besides,' she added, cheerfully, 'Theodore will be happier here; he will have more liberty and more pets.'
'And he likes the bells,' said Stella; but there was a wistful yearning look on the sweet face, as if the excess of pleasure increased the longing for companionship in her twin.
Cherry took her hand to encounter the dread waste of slipperiness before her; but in further proof who was the lady and the darling of the house, no sooner did her door open, than Felix hastened across from his room, Clement strode up from the library, John Harewood's head emerged from his dressing-room door; but Lance was beforehand with all, for he was close by, helping Golightly the gardener to carry the boxes as near as possible to their destinations.
He bore her off in triumph, with so much laughter, that the consequence was a slip, and a shout of warning displeasure from the elder brothers.
'No fault of his,' cried back Cherry, holding tight to him. 'Only if four brothers at once will make me so proud, I can but have a fall.'
'Aren't you prouder now?' said Lance, as they trooped into the dining-room. 'There's a table to sit down at the head of!'
What a glittering array it was of glass and silver and brightly-coloured china; and the profusion of country fare—roast fowl, green pease, yellow butter in ice, virgin combs of transparent liquid golden honey, mountains of strawberries, great jugs of milk and cream. There was no formality indeed in the Amen that responded to their chaplain's grace.
'Good creatures verily,' ejaculated Felix, as he took up carving-knife and fork.
'Is it a feast for his birthday?' whispered Stella, 'or is it to be always like this?'
'You see,' said Cherry to her neighbour, the Major, 'we remember when we used to have a quart of blue milk, and save for the babies.'
'I say, Felix,' cried Angela, 'have we got a farm, with cows, and turkey-cocks, and turnips, and all sorts of jolly things?'
'Stunning!' said Bernard; 'and an old bull with a ring in his nose, that would toss you as soon as look at you!'
'That home farm is a difficulty,' said Felix. 'I believe I ought to get rid of it, for I know nothing of farming, and have no time to learn.'
'Oh, let me manage it, if that's all!' said Angel. 'I'll get a smock-frock and big shoes, and a long whip, and get up at four in the morning.'
'Seriously, I hope you can keep it in your own hands,' said Clement. 'There's no getting milk otherwise. You might as well ask the farmers' wives for their hearts' blood. There's a child that I baptized soon after I came; the mother is sickly, and had lost two before. I found her feeding it with some mess of pounded acorns, and recommended milk, but found I might as well have talked of melted gold. Even when I offered to pay, it could not be done—would break up the cheese-making. I thought of buying a cow and some hay, and putting her in the Vicarage; but when I saw a great jug of hot milk come in with my coffee every morning, I ended by getting a mug and carrying it down every day; and really the child has lived.'
'But, Clem,' said Angel, with a sort of affectation of solemnity, 'wasn't that a difficult case of conscience? Weren't you stealing Mr. Underwood's milk?'
'No; for our oldrégime—not to say St. Matthew's—had taught him to go without,' said Felix, smiling, for he had seen the mug in force.
'Till the new Squire came, and I could unblushingly prey on him,' rejoined Clement.
'Whereby I propose,' said Major Harewood, 'that we drink the health of the said new Squire—with all birthday wishes—and long may he reign!'
'All birthday wishes, Felix,' responded Wilmet, who, like some of the others, had begun tea with a glass of claret. 'Do you remember this day thirteen years, when Robin did not know what a cold chicken was?'
'I remember it well,' said Felix, gravely. 'It seems to me to have been the last day that I was a boy. Thank you,' as each bright face nodded at him. 'Haven't I made speeches enough? Well, then, Ladies and Gentlemen, many thanks to you for coming here to-day. It's little good this place would be to me without you. And—' from the playfulness a sudden emotion came over and thrilled his voice—'may God grant we may still be all as happy together as we have been these thirteen years!'
'I would not have missed this for anything!' was John's very warm aside; but a little afraid of emotion, he added, 'Yes, you are worth looking at. You certainly are a right goodly family.'
'Seen in the light of prosperity,' said Cherry.
'He need not be accused of that,' said Wilmet. 'He never saw so many of us together before.'
'Except the first time,' said John, 'when I thought you would never have done coming into the room.'
'Poor John!' said Felix, 'I pity your blushes. I wonder you were not frightened away at once!'
'And it was not Robin's fault,' said Cherry. 'Do you remember, Bobbie, the agony you were in, till you grew desperate, and stopped Clem and me by speaking out?'
'Robin could have had nothing to speak about,' said Wilmet, with a resumption of her old manner that tickled the others exceedingly.
'Indeed!' quoth Lance. 'Bill remembers his confidences by the river.'
'Moonshine!' growled Bill, but scarce heeded, for John had turned to his wife with a droll injured air of condolence, saying, 'Ah! my dear, these little secrets will come out; but we must make the best of it!'
'And talking of rivers and moonshine,' cried Angela, 'we'll have a turn in the boat. Hurrah for the boat! Come, Bear—come, Bill—I want my first lesson in rowing.'
'Stay,' said Felix; 'that eddy where the Leston comes down makes the river not safe when you do not know it. Now, girls, all of you, remember once for all that I desire you will never go in the boat without some one who can swim, nor take Theodore without me.'
He seldom gave a direct command, but there was enforcement in his tone; and John added, 'Quite right. I see it is a stream not to be trusted.'
'It is just a device to hinder our going at all,' pouted Angela.
'And swimming is a mere hindrance to drowning aisy, if you are to be drownded,' added Bill.
'Do you know,' added Clement, 'that
"To Leston and EweUnderwood pays due,"
in every generation?'
'Where did you pick up that adage?' asked Felix.
'A prophecy, a prophecy!' cried Angela. 'What fun! I shall hold up my head more than ever, now we have a saw of our own! What fun!'
'Where did you hear it?' repeated Cherry, who as well as Stella looked discomfited.
'I did not hear it,' said Clement, 'the people were far too polite to tell me; but it was administered to Somers by way of warning, after some eccentric proceedings in the boat with Bear. They say an Underwood is drowned in every generation—I suppose since the sacrilege.'
'Prove the fact,' said Felix.
'Somers and I did try to make out,' said Clement, 'between registers and monuments. We found one Lancelot in 1750, with a note "Drowned" attached to his name, and a conglomeration of urns and water-nymphs—Leston and Ewe, I presume—scrambling about his monument in the south transept; and the old Squire had told me that the crayon young lady in a cap in the library was our old great-uncle's intended, but was drowned in crossing the ferry at Ewmouth, before the bridge was built. She is not very pretty; and I was going to have put a photograph in her place, but it seemed to me profane, when she had hung there so many years for the poor old faithful lover to look at.'
'The Ewe seems to have been in overhaste to claim its due, before she was an Underwood,' said Angela.
'Quite enough for an adage,' said John; 'one real Underwood, and one intended.'
'However, as I do not mean the rivers to get their due through any fool-hardiness,' said Felix, 'you must attend to my rule.'
'And I think it renders boating reasonably safe,' added Clement. 'There are no holes, and the only danger is when there has been a good deal of rain to make the currents strong; otherwise it is quite safe for a tolerable swimmer. I learnt at Cambridge, and Bear is a perfect cork; but I did not know you could swim, Fee.'
'I improved my opportunities at Ewmouth five years ago, when unluckily Lance could not.'
'I should try again if I were to be much here,' said Lance; but the general voice dissuaded him; and at the same time Tripp knocked at the door—the summons to the Vicar and Squire to visit the ringers at their banquet.
'You had better go to bed, Cherry,' said Felix, as he rose; 'you look like a white rag.'
'Triumphs are tiring processes, to say nothing of making tea,' said Cherry; 'but I don't want to disturb Sibby just yet.'
'I'll put you to bed, if you like,' said Wilmet 'I want to send Emma down, and keep within hearing of the children.'
'Oh, that will be most delicious of all! So like old times!' And the two sisters went off, to be happy together, and coo a little delight in their Squire and his beautiful home, mingled with a domestic consultation how the bared drawing-room could be inexpensively rendered a pleasant family gathering place.
'A little chintz will do a great deal,' said Wilmet; 'we will see about it.'
Which assurance set Cherry's mind at rest on that score, for her belief in Wilmet's notable abilities was boundless. 'But what is the matter with Robina?' she added after a few minutes, recalling the events of the day. 'She is so silent, and has a distressed anxious look I never saw about her before. I wonder whether she regrets the not coming home for good.'
'I am not sure,' said Wilmet; 'I am inclined to think she is sorry to be away from Repworth Towers.'
'O Wilmet! impossible, unnatural!'
'I never do quite understand Robin,' said Wilmet. 'She seems the simplest, soberest girl in the world; and yet I suppose that folly of Alice's put things into her head, for she has a strange propensity to think people are paying her attention. Even at Barèges I saw symptoms of it, which I put a stop to at once.'
'I can't think it of any one so honest and sensible as the Robin.'
'I know it, unfortunately; and it is the more curious that she has only moderate good looks, and no other tokens of vanity. It is particularly unlucky in her position.'
'You don't imagine there's anything going on!'
'I hope not.'
'I have a great deal too much confidence in the Robin to suspect her.'
'Not of consciously doing wrong, but of having been flattered, and now perhaps in a difficulty. However, I shall say nothing till we have seen more. She may be only tired.'
Felix—with all that was on his hands—had likewise noted the absence of the Robin's chirp, and looked for her when he came back from the ringers' supper, to which Clement and Lance had followed him. They then went off to Clement's library for a consultation about some music; and Felix, repairing to the drawing-room, found nothing there but a lonely cockchafer, knocking his head against a lonely lamp on the lonely round table in the centre—not an enlivening spectacle; but hearing steps on the gravel, he went out, and found John pacing under the wall with a cigar, and Bernard emulously following in his wake.
'Where are all the others?' he asked; 'it is not far from ten.'
'Wilmet went up to the babies,' said John; 'the others are about somewhere.'
'Larking about,' added Bernard, with superior wisdom. 'Well, John, you were saying—'
Felix was too thankful to have Bernard doing anything so sensible as to talk to John to interrupt them further, and turned away. He stood for a few minutes to enjoy the strange repose of the exquisite loveliness of the scene—the summer sunset, not yet entirely died away, but tingeing the northern sky with pure light, while the great moon, still low, silvered the river, and defined the grand outline of the church.
And this, not only a scene to be gazed at, but the home he had reached at last—the home so long withheld!
'Entering into rest,' he said to himself, for the repose of mind was great. 'And yet—
"Your rest must be no rest below."
No, home duties—higher duties, still more—forbid me to make this more than a resting-place—not rest. "There remaineth yet a rest for the people of God"—yet a home, but its shadow here is very sweet. Let it not beguile me!'
Just then Angela's laugh, a very musical and yet a very giddy one, like a rapid peal of silver bells, caught his ear; and in the moonlight in the churchyard he saw her tall light figure, and what could be none other than Will beside her. He was vexed. She was bare-headed, and the churchyard was open to the village on the other side, and had a public pathway through it. He walked quickly towards them, and called as soon as he could do so in a low voice, 'Come in directly, Angela. You know this is not private ground.'
'O Felix, we have found such a delicious ghost! Don't you see its white wings?'
'Angel thinks it is her own kin, a fossil cherub,' said Will. 'Why aren't you all out? 'tis not a scene to be wasted, especially with Angels and Ministers of Grace to defend us.'
'Minister ofGrace—that's Robin,' laughed Angela.
'Hush, Angela! come in,' said Felix, severely; 'this is no place for nonsense—especially unkind nonsense,' he added in a lower voice.
She did not answer, but the church clock began its chimes—sweet, mysterious, tender—given by some musical Underwood long ago, and sounding in the dark quite unearthly, while the long deep tones of the ten o'clock that followed came with awe upon the ear. Will was heard to give a long sigh, but no one spoke as they all came back to the drawing-room, which was full enough by this time—four gentlemen, hotly discussing a cricket-match by the chimney-piece; Wilmet knitting on a stiff chair in the corner; and Robina, under the lamp, hard at work on some point-lace on a green roll.
'Putting out your eyes, Bob,' said Felix, feeling the need of saying something kind to her. 'What are you doing that for?'
'Lady de la Poer has some point de Venise that she can't use because one ruffle is wanting,' said Robina, 'and I have made out the pattern. I want to take it back with me and surprise her.'
'It is all willing sacrifice when one puts out one's eyes in a marchioness's service,' said Will's voice from the window.
Robina looked up resolutely. 'Very willing when one is grateful for a great deal of motherly kindness,' she said, steadily, and yet with a certain sadness in her voice.
'Oh yes! a handle to one's name makes a little civility go a great way.'
'You know nothing about it.' The voice was steady but indignant, and there was a flush of deep colour on the cheeks.
'It is quite true, Robina,' said John. 'It is one of the trials of life, that when we live in two different worlds, the inhabitants of the one are apt to resent and misunderstand our feelings for the other.'
They were all grateful for this generalization; and Felix now spoke of the household prayers. 'I had not begun them,' said Clement; 'I thought the real master of the house should take the initiative.'
'Set up the domestic halter, as Mrs. Shapcote says,' added Lance.
'We might make that organ available,' said Felix, 'and screen off the end part of the long room where it stands, for a permanency.'
'Yes, there's rather a nice window down there with our Rood in it—nothing incongruous,' said Clement, 'if Lance can only cure the organ.'
'Meantime, I suppose we had better have the servants in here, and use the piano.'
'They will be all dispersed, and not like to come in,' said Wilmet.
'Possibly,' said Felix, 'but I shall go and see. I have a feeling against beginning our first night in our new home without some collective commendation of ourselves.'
'If we had but an authorized form for dedicating a new home, like the Russian Church,' said Clement.
'You have not thought of anything in especial. Well, see.' And he pointed to some marks in the prayer-book he left in Clement's hand, while he left the room for a word or two, which he thought would better prepare the household than a peremptory bell.
Clement was struck, as indeed they all were, with his selection. There was the Psalm, 'Except the Lord build the house;' a short lesson (the reading of which Felix reserved to himself), namely, the words from Deuteronomy, against the presumption of prosperity; and the Collects, 'Prevent us O Lord in all our doings,' 'Charity,' 'the sundry and manifold changes of the world,' and 'things temporal and things eternal;' and then came the hymn—it was, 'Lead Thou me on.' Felix believed he had heard its echoes in his little bed that last Sunday night, and therefore wished for it, though it seemed a strange choice for the new house. How Edward and Mary must have felt that 'one step enough for me,' when they went forth with their little ones into the moor and fen! But in this hour of restoration, was it still to be a looking forth into mist and fog, led only by the kindly Light,
'Till through the dawn the Angel faces smile.'
Some who looked at those pictures felt as if they had had a foretaste of those angel faces.
'And,' said Kerenhappuch to her father, 'to see Miss Mary's sons, those dear young gentlemen, all a standing singing together like so many lambs—it was just a picture like the three chorister boys. I says to myself, "Keren, this 'ill be a blessed place. If this isn't the angels come down after all!"'
'He muttered, "Eggs and bacon,Lobster, and duck, and toasted cheese."'Phantasmagoria.
'When did Bernard Underwood say his people were coming?'
'On Wednesday.'
'To-day! That's right. I can take you over to-morrow to call on them.'
'So soon!'
'Welcomes can't be too soon.'
'If one is not settled in?'
'The furniture was left to them.'
'That's all men know about it!'
'I know this, that if I don't go to-morrow, I have not another free day for a fortnight.'
'It is all very well for you. I daresay the man-kind have a room in some trim, or don't know it if they have not; but to fall promiscuously on the female sect, with their little amenities in an experimental state of development, is the way to be obnoxious. Can't you go solus, and make pretty speeches?'
'No, Ethel; it must be attention here from woman to woman. It may help them to start in the neighbourhood.'
'I submit. How are we to go? What is the distance?'
'Twelve miles. Suppose we went by railway, and took a boat up from Ewmouth. What do you say to that, Daisy?'
'That I have had quite enough specimens of the family in Master Bernard and his clerical brother.'
'You liked the former specimens well enough. Eh! Do you remember Daisiana?'
An angry flush rose to Gertrude May's cheeks, but she tried to answer composedly, 'The man-kind, as Ethel calls them, are no matter; but what can woman-kind be, after a life-struggle to preserve gentility over a stationer's shop?'
'The more reason they should be susceptible to mortification from their father's old friends,' said Dr. May, as he left the room.
'No, you can't get off, Daisy,' said Ethel. 'It must be done, and I only wish it could be a little later, for fear we should inflict more vexation than pleasure.'
'No; it can't be helped. He is going to run a-muck and take us in his train,' said the spoilt child, shrugging her shoulders.
On the Thursday morning, at the Vale Leston breakfast-table it was, 'The first thing is to make the drawing-room habitable before any one calls.'
'No one will presume on such barbarity till after Sunday!' exclaimed Cherry.
'Unless the Miss Hepburns should—' said Wilmet.
'No,' decidedly stated Clement; 'they told me they should wait till Monday.'
'And your library is as respectable as it is in the nature of the male animal to keep its lair,' said Cherry; 'so I don't mind if a gentleman comes, such as Captain Audley.'
'You need not trouble yourself about Captain Audley,' interposed Bernard. 'Never calls on ladies by any chance; hates 'em worse than poison.'
'Bosh, Bear! We met him at a picnic,' quoth Lance.
'That was long ago, and it grows on him; and it's monstrous hard lines on Charlie, now he's big enough to be spooney, that he never will go anywhere among humans. He's gone off in his yacht now to shoot seals, and cut the Arckey—Archey—Archidiaconal meeting.'
'Archidiaconal? He's not a churchwarden, is he?'
'What is it, Clem? You know. A whole lot of fine ladies and swells and dons and big-wigs coming to Ewmouth to go on about Gothic arches, and Roman camps, and Britons' bones, and all that sort of rubbish.'
'Does Stoneborough derive archæology from arches?' said Felix.
'Perhaps he thinks Archidiaconal functions consist in looking after them,' added Will.
'I remember now,' said Clement; 'there is really to be a meeting of the Archæological Society at Ewmouth, and it is to be apprehended that they may make a descent upon this place.'
'Happy hunting grounds,' said Felix. 'I only hope they will give us due notice.'
The bare idea quickened the breakfast. By ten o'clock a survey had been taken, and Cherry had thankfully accepted Wilmet's assurance that there were sufficient resources scattered through the house to repair the ravages of Mrs. Fulbert without more serious expense than that of a piece of chintz; and having resigned the command into her hands, beheld her consulting Clement on the possibility of being driven into Ewmouth, which he undertook to do in person in his dog-cart without loss of time. An exchange of all the other existing vehicles had been arranged for one roomy waggonette, and a basket pony-carriage, fit for Cherry to drive if ever she took courage—they had only been kept to meet the exigencies of the arrivalen masse.
By a quarter to one Dr. May had landed his daughters at the garden steps, and was walking them up to the cloister door, when they were greeted with a hideous whistling bray, followed by the apparition of a figure with a pink and white shirt and grey legs, a great deal of dust and brown moustaches, upon inflated cheeks puffing vigorously through a big golden tube, which he next proceeded to spy down with one eye, and through that telescope became aware of one of the new comers, and uttered an ejaculation, 'Dr. May, by all that's lucky!' at the same time, using both eyes more naturally, he perceived the two ladies, blushed up to the eyes, and came forward with an apologetic greeting and hands far too dusty for any grasp less eager than the doctor's. 'Grown out of knowledge, but you're an old friend, I see.'
'I'm sorry to be in this awful mess, but I want to get the organ to rights before Saturday, when I must get back,' he said, as he led them through a world of organ-pipes, scattered here, there, and everywhere, and conducted them straight to the drawing-room. There the scene disclosed a giddy fabric, consisting of the round table, pushed up to a window and surmounted by a chair, and that again by a footstool, on the top of all a lady, dropping a measuring-tape to the floor, where a little girl was holding it by the ring at the end. The floor was bespread with slippery glossy lengths of chintz, patterned with pink and purple heather, on which a third sister was performing with a big pair of scissors in a crawling position on the floor, and a fourth was supplying the yawning shelves of a chiffonier with books. Ethel's prognostic was justified to the full.
'Wilmet!' exclaimed Lance, 'take care! How could you? Why didn't you send me up?'
'I should not have trusted you; but now you may help me, down.' And there she became conscious of the guests, but with a curious simplicity and dignity, she took no notice of them; while they thought it best to engross themselves in shaking hands with the lame sister, with her who scrambled up from the floor with a red and fagged visage, and with the little one, who, amid all the dust and confusion, looked as dainty and shining-haired as if she had been newly adorned for a feast.
'Here she is on the ordinary level of society!' said Geraldine. 'This is Mrs. Harewood, Dr. May—Wilmet, whom I think you remember.'
Wilmet had brought her composure down with her, and astonished the visitors therewith, as well as by the rare quality of her beauty, reminding Ethel of the fair matronly dames of early Italian art, both for her silence and her substantial stateliness. Nor was there the least flutter or affectation about Cherry; she thought the adventure fun, and had seen in a moment what sort of treatment was suitable to the present company, so she merrily observed, 'Now that Lance has given you a pleasing peep behind the scenes, won't you come to a less dismantled region?'
'It is only the consequence of resigning oneself to one's gentlemen,' returned Ethel. 'If I had had my way, you should have had time to "big your bower."'
'Ah! but we could not afford to miss a kind welcome,' said Geraldine, with the little pathos of sweetness that was such an attraction. 'My brother is surveying his new domains, but he will come in almost directly to early dinner. You are come for it? You'll come and take off your hats. Lance!'
Lance had fled, so soon as he had extricated Wilmet from her perilous attitude. No wonder; particular as he was about young ladies, his déshabillé, nearly as bad as that of Cleomenes, must have been dreadful to him; and it was Wilmet who gave Cherry an arm over the oak floor. They put Dr. May into the library, where Clement came to light; while they took the daughters upstairs, where they were almost as much pleased to see, as the sisters to show, the beauties of the quaint old house, and were perfectly sensible of the well-bred simplicity, playfulness, and absence of all false shame, so entirely different from what they had expected.
Ethel had been prepared to spend her day in a state of good-humoured forbearance and repression of Gertrude's intolerance. Instead of which she found herself in that state of ease which comes of accordance of tone, and she saw—what she had never beheld before—in her keen unvenerative sister, who had never formed any kind of attachment out of her own family and not many in it, the process of falling into an enthusiasm. That lame Miss Underwood, like an old fairy with her ivory-headed crutch stick; her marked eye-brows, thin expressive face, with its flashes of fun and plaintive sweetness, youthful complexion and pronounced features, was—what Daisy called—'so uncommon' as to strike her fancy, to a wonderful degree, and she had hardly eyes or ears to spare for anybody else; when at the sound of the dinner-bell, which had a charming little extinguisher of its own at the top of the octagon tower, the whole of the party were exhibited in the dining-room—Felix and John Harewood from a round of inspection with the bailiff; Angela from the kitchen-garden. She had been set to work unpacking books with Robina, but becoming discursive, had flown off to a tour on the leads with Bernard. 'So much less considerate than Stella!' sighed Robin, left to the tasks that could only fall to the quietest and strongest female of the family. For one happy half hour she was cheered by Will, who volunteered help, gave her all the volumes wrong, or put them upside-down, then lighting on Chaucer, read aloud Palæmon and Arcite, with comments, until Angela burst in, and whirled him away to shake an apple-tree for half a dozen urchins, with whom she had made acquaintance in the churchyard; and Robina had toiled on alone till, on Wilmet's return, she was swept into the furniture vortex.
Dr. May's heart, like Ethel's, warmed to the long table so like their own best days; and the perfect absence of pretension in the plain leg of mutton and vegetables delighted them eagerly. Moreover, he was dazzled by Wilmet's grand beauty, and the general comeliness of his old friend's family, while he talked with immense satisfaction to Felix and Major Harewood; but some strange change had fallen on Daisy.
She had been only fourteen at the time of her escapade on the Kitten's Tail, and now at nineteen the presence of the gentleman concerned in it seemed actually to keep her silent, so that she did not respond to the advances of her nearest contemporaries, Robina and Angela, one of whom had a good deal more manner and the other a good deal more assurance than she could boast; and though Lance had reappeared in irreproachable costume, she daunted his attempts at conversation by her evident determination to listen to the elders' discussion of architects.
'Aren't you going to the Church?' asked Robina, finding him leaning against the cloister door when there had been a move to show the Church to the visitors.
'No use in crowding them up with all the ruck. I shall strip, and go back to my organ-pipes. I shall not come here much. 'Tis no use being in a false position.'
'Nonsense. A false position is pretending to be what one is not.'
'Here I pretend to be on equality, and am shown my place,' said Lance, disconsolately; for he was very soft-hearted, and had an immense turn for young ladies.
'You're annihilated by a breath,' said Robin; 'besides, it was only shyness.'
'Shy? You should have seen her last time!'
'That's the very reason. If you only knew how horrid things done at one end of one's teens feel at the other!'
However, with Robina things were mending. Will had recovered his temper. There had been nothing to remind him of the obnoxious family at Repworth, when the pointlace had yielded perforce to the heather-patterned chintz, which was crackling about in all directions under the needles of all the ladies, and even of Krishnu. Everybody, except Angela, who said it hurt her fingers, was at work at petticoats for ottomans and robes for armchairs, or coats for curious settees routed out from upstairs, while Wilmet used the sewing-machine on the curtains, to supply the place of the brocade borne off by Mrs. Fulbert, and brought to light exquisite tamboured work of Lady Geraldine's that happily had been entirely unappreciated in the last reign.
Robina was stitching away the next day, when she had a treat. Bill came after her with the blottiest of all rolls of MS., being an essay to prove that the sun, the dawn, and the clouds, werenotthe origin of everything and everybody everywhere in legend and mythology, and he wanted a pair of ears to which to read it, so that he might hear it himself before submitting it to John. Lance was perpetrating worse screeches than ever with his organ-pipes, and could not Robin bring her needling out of the sound of them and listen to a fellow?
Ample space was no small privilege to a family accustomed to be cramped and crowded, and there was a pleasant sense of expansion in sitting down under the cedar-tree, with Bill luxuriously spread on the grass.
Such a sense Felix had in sorting his papers into the numerous drawers and pigeon-holes in his ample study-table, trusting himself not to make them so many traps for losing things, since he did not hold with Bill, that it is best to have no partitions, and have only one place to search through. Clement was making over to him the memoranda of the transactions conducted in his absence, when horses' feet were heard at the front-door, and Clement reconnoitring at the window, said, 'Mr. Milwright—the Rector of Ewford—no doubt it is about the Archæology.'
'A friend of yours?'
'Not particularly. I sat next him at the Visitation, and as the Charge ended, he touched me and said, "I'll show you the only bit of fourteenth-century glass in the choir;" and when we came out, and he heard my name, he said, "I congratulate you on the possession of the finest specimen of Cistercian architecture in the rural deanery." I'm afraid he minds his ecclesiology more than his ecclesia.'
By this time the entrance was effected of a lively well-bred man of middle age, not at all the conventional antiquarian, though still with one master idea. He apologized for his early call, but explained his purpose, namely to ask permission to conduct a party of the archæologists over the Church and Priory, and to make a preliminary inspection at once, to compare his old notes and prepare fresh ones. They were both willingly granted; and Felix went to summon his sisters, who would gladly profit by the primary survey without a crowd, and be delighted to learn the traditions of the place, which were necessarily a good deal lost to them. When the pair under the cedar looked round on hearing voices, Robina exclaimed with surprise and recognition of the guest.
'How do you know him?' asked her companion.
'He was staying at the Towers last winter. He was once a curate at Repworth.'
'Will he know you?'
'Not so likely as if he had seen me as a brass; but I must go and speak to him.'
'Such an enchanting encounter in your exile!'
'Nonsense! I only don't choose to seem ashamed of my vocation,' she answered rather proudly, as she came forward to join the party, for whose benefit Mr. Milwright was drawing the plan of the original Priory with his stick in the gravel. Felix was about to introduce her, but she held out her hand, saying, 'I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Milwright before at Repworth. I am one of the governesses.'
He made civil acknowledgment, but would hardly have cared if she had avowed herself kitchen-maid there. He knew only that two intelligent auditors had come up; and all were soon absorbed in the interest of his discourse, an entirely new pleasure to most.
To read in the peculiarity of the dog-tooth round the pointed arch, as clearly as in Arabic figures, the date when the church was founded, and to bring out stone by stone each fresh stage of improvement; to see when a building prior came from France, and put in a flamboyant window in the south transept; when a sturdy baron atoned for ravages in Brittany, by giving that perpendicular tower and cloister; and when, in a spirit of renovation, the last effort broke forth in those marvellous fan pendants in the Lady Chapel—these were feats delightful to enter into, and it was amusing as well as instructive to see the ecclesiologist poke into rubbishy corners, and disinter fragments of capitals and mouldings, sedilia and piscinæ, altars, and prior's coffin-lids with floriated crosses, giving an account of their origin as confidently as if he had had a pre-existence as a brother in the Priory. Moreover, his intentions furnished an excellent pretext for doing away with the seventy-five yards of black without outraging the squire's memory; indeed, Clement undid a good deal of it to facilitate the researches, and no one could pass it without a sly tweak to detach another nail.
'I'll keep the hatchment over the door as long as man can wish,' said Felix; 'but the Church in mourning I cannot stand.'
'And I think the three-decker might come down too,' added Clement. 'It is clearly within the chancel, and is your undisputed property.'
In which opinion Mr. Milwright, as a Rector, confirmed him, and likewise bestowed some good advice as to the manner of the intended restoration. 'The worst of it is,' he said, 'it can't be done under some thousands; and there's so much work of that sort about, the public is nearly wrung dry. However, it would be the very time to set a subscription going.'
'Paying toll,' said Felix, drily. 'No. I think the Rectory ought to do it gradually.'
'Oh, I beg your pardon.' And Mr. Milwright recollected that he had heard something of young Underwood being in trade, and concluded that he had made a good thing of it; and when on the way to the house some question was asked as to what was usual on such domiciliary visits, he did not scruple to say that a luncheon was usually bestowed by the inhabitants.
The visit to the house was still more entertaining. The long room was explained to be the remnant of the old hospitium below, with the Prior's chamber above; but the cellar was the oldest part of the house. Felix had been thither to take stock of the wine, and had only carried away a sense of the elaborate arrangement of the bins, and the ages it would take to consume their contents; but Mr. Milwright passed all these, and finally made a set like a pointer at a big beer-barrel, pointing to a low door behind it. Golightly was sent for to assist in moving it, which he did with great reluctance, asserting on the authority of Mrs. Macnamara (Sibby) that it led to nothing but ruins and foul air.
'Ah!' said Mr. Milwright, 'I am glad my friend Dobby is not quite forgotten.'
'Indeed, Sir, if you mean to imply that I ever was actuated by such a superstition!' cried Golightly, giving all his strength to assist his young masters; while Angela capered about in delight at having acquired a ghost as well as a prophecy, and Felix recollected having been threatened with Dobby by a young nursery-maid. The door proved to lead to a vaulted passage cut out in the solid rock, and ending in a beautiful semicircular chamber with melon-like divisions, uniting in one large boss at the summit, carved with the five stars which had been the shield of the Priory. The bad conscience of some despoiling Underwood had probably led to the idea of a walled-up monk, whose phantom was accustomed to take his walks abroad, rattling a chain, under the pleasing name of Dobby.
But the vault was a grand possession, and the access to it was to be made as favourable as circumstances would permit. Mr. Milwright next showed that the big knobs at the posts of the balustrade of the staircase unscrewed for the insertion of flambeaux, since the builders of the mansion, following instincts bequeathed from times of peril, had put their banqueting-room at the top of the house. All that was now divided by floor and wainscot into the long corridor and a rabbit-warren of rooms, had once been a banqueting-hall, the ceiling of which, in the upper story, still showed handsome chequer-work of plaster mouldings, the intersections alternately adorned with roods and crowns, L.U., and J.R. The octagon tower at the end was of earlier date, and had formed a part of the principal entrance, flanking one of the two great gateway towers, of which only one stump remained, built into a wood shed.
And, as to the Prior's kitchen, a splendid octagon, with eight arches for as many fires, and a chimney in the middle, it had been so hemmed in with sheds and leans-to, that though it existed as a coalhole, no one had yet explored it. Geraldine was ashamed, both as housewife and antiquary; but she had been so much engrossed during these two first days that she had by no means learnt all the ins and outs of her new old home, of which all felt much prouder than before, and on the renovation of which Mr. Milwright preached as earnestly as that of the Church.
He took leave, having greatly excited the whole family as to the coming feast of antiquities, and their own especial share of it.
'What shall you do about this luncheon?' asked Wilmet, when the party next assembled round the long table.
'Give it,' briefly answered Felix.
'It will be tremendously expensive.'
'An elegant cold collation from the pastrycook at Ewmouth would be; but I don't see why we should not have a few cold joints. Eh, Cherry?'
'Like our celebrated supper to the Minsterham choir,' responded she.
'You neither of you know what it will lead to,' was the old phrase into which Wilmet relapsed.
'Never mind her,' interposed her husband. 'She is demoralized by regimental déjeûners.'
'It serves you right for dragging me to them,' retorted Wilmet.
'I don't do so to please you, my dear, but because I can't have Major Harewood said to mew up his handsome wife out of sight.'
'I own,' she said, not quite pleased, 'I am afraid of this affair being more expensive than Felix imagines. If it is done at all, it must be done properly.'
'Of course it must,' pronounced Bernard. 'If it is to be a snobbish concern, I wash my hands of it. I shall go off to Jem Shaw out of the way!'
'I'll tell you how to make it snobbish, Bear,' said Cherry. 'To have the very same waiters in the very same cotton gloves, handing about the very same lobster-salad, in the very same moulds, and and tongues in the very same ruffles, with the very same carrot and turnip flowers on them, that have haunted the archæologists at every meal.'
'Bravo, Cherry!' broke in Will. 'Commend me to the unconventional woman!'
'Whereas,' proceeded Cherry, still directing herself on Bernard, 'no snob ever had such a place as the hospitium, nor such a salt-cellar as Amelia showed me this morning, and which I'm sadly afraid was filched from my Lord Prior, nor such wonderful old China plates and dishes, with all the acts of the romance of the willow pattern.'
'It's all plates and dishes so far, with nothing on them, like a Spanish don,' said Lance.
'Stay a bit,' said Cherry. 'We'll get a big piece of hung beef, and break into Mrs. Froggatt's parting gift of hams. Then Will and Bear shall kill us some rabbits, and they and the pigeons in that delicious old dovecote will make no end of pies; and what with the chick-a-biddies in the yard, and the unlimited lobsters Tripp talks of, and a big dish of curds and cream, and Wilmet's famous lemon cheesecakes, and all the melons and the cucumbers, and the apricocks and mulberries, the purple grapes, green figs, and dewberries, I think Bear's snob will be rather surprised! Then we'll have clean plates on the side-table, and let the gentlemen fetch them for the ladies; and if John will lend us Zadok, and Miss Lightfoot and Mr. Golightly act according to their names, I think we shall manage it all without any outgoing except for the solid eatables.'
'And drinkables there are enough and to spare in the cellar,' said Felix; 'and John must sit in judgment on them. It seems to me a clear matter of hospitality to feed hungry and tired people who turn up at one's house, and they must be content without mere display. In fact I see how to pay for such a feast as Cherry's genius sketches, and our tickets into the bargain. I'll write up to the "Old World," and offer an account of the whole concern.'
'Learning is better than house and land,' muttered Will.
'But it makes extra work of your holiday,' objected Wilmet.
'Reporting comes as natural to me as listening,' said Felix; 'besides, I mean this to be only a sketch at the end of each day. I won't go as a reporter this time, it is thrusting it too much down people's throats; and besides, this is rather out of Pur's line.'
'I shall do it for that,' said Cherry. 'I won't have poor Pur neglected.'
'We must have my father up here,' added John. 'What a banquet it will be to him!'
'He might deliver his mind of his lecture on mediæval seals, which got so much too learned for Minsterham,' added Will.
There ensued a dispute for the possession of the Librarian. Major and Mrs. Harewood meant to move off to their lodgings at the Glebe Farm on the Monday, for even these two days showed that Theodore and Kit were incompatible elements in the household. The poor little uncle's uncertain conscience had been so far reached, that he knew he must keep his hands off; but to see the child noticed by any one he loved was misery to him, and 'Master Kistofer' was by no means safe from being the aggressor. He viewed all toys as his exclusive right, and did not scruple to snatch from the astonished fingers; and as he was active and enterprising, and could climb stairs and open doors, it was never certain where he might next appear, nor would he obey anybody except his own natural lawful authorities. Poor Stella was continually on the alert; indeed she was the greatest sufferer, for her only weapon against her nephew was coaxing, the sight of which excited Theodore to a passion of jealousy; and though she never uttered a murmur, she was undergoing a perpetual agony between them. The only safety was when Kit was in the charge of Zadok, whose dark face was Theodore's horror, and another reason for relieving the Priory of the establishment. John apologized for the luxury of such an attendant as Krishnu. He had brought him home with the idea of letting him study at St. Augustine's, but his care had become a necessity during that tardy convalescence; and when it proved that his attainments were not up to the St Augustine's mark, and that he had no strong inclination to make them so, but shrank from leaving his master, the decision was welcome. He was northern mountaineer enough to bear the climate; and Wilmet declared that he did the work of half there besides his own proper business. He certainly was invaluable in those days of bustle and arrival, and would have been more so but for the unlucky feud between Kit and Theodore. However, the farm was so near, that the safe members of the family could be together almost as much as ever.
Visitors thickened. The reported excursion of the Archæological Society made every one feel that it was expedient that the first call should have been previously made. Sunday was the limit Even the Miss Hepburns came not till that day; Clement merely presented them when he brought down his imposing staff of new assistants to the horse-boxes that so conveniently partitioned the classes, and gladly made over the big boys to the well-practised Squire—a set of little stolid urchins to Angela, and all the infants to Stella. If he hoped his display would induce the former teachers to withdraw, he was mistaken; their close white-trimmed bonnets still kept guard over the girls.
On the Monday they called, and kept on safe commonplace ground, like the ladies they were, and grew so cordial that Wilmet proposed walking back to see the invalid and introduce Robina, her namesake godchild.
The girl's staid looks and manners gave great satisfaction, in contrast with Geraldine and Angela, who were thought flighty, and demonstrations were made which led to the explanation that she was only on a visit at home. 'A governess!' The four ladies were horror-struck. 'So selfish of Mr. Underwood!'
Robin swelled up like her kind preparing for duels on the October lawn. 'My BROTHER!' she said, in the emphatic tone that never meant any one but Felix.
'It is entirely her own choice,' added Wilmet.
'Nothing should have induced him to consent,' said Miss Isabella, decidedly.
'We did not see it in that light,' said Wilmet. 'He has worked so hard for us all, that we are glad to do anything to relieve him.'
'It can't be necessary!' exclaimed Miss Bridget, who always spoke breathlessly, and looking appealingly to Isabella.
'Not absolutely necessary,' said Wilmet; 'but you know that so many would be a burthen on a much larger property.'
There was a gasp all round at this, and Miss Isabella warmly said, 'My dear Mrs. Harewood, do not let yourself be blinded. We know perfectly what the property is, and allowing for Mrs. Fulbert's settlement and any follies of the poor young man, I can assure you there is no reason your sisters should not remain at home, which is the only proper place for young women. I speak to you, as the married sister, who, as your brother Edward tells me, have acted the part of a mother. It is your bounden duty to protect your sisters.' (Wilmet had to frown at Robin, who sprang up in her chair.) 'Of course your brother is meaning to marry;' (The negative went for nothing.) 'You cannot expect anything else; but still it is his first obligation not to cast them off, but to provide a home for them near at hand—the only becoming thing.'
'Home is quite ready for us all, always,' cried Robina. 'My brother would never let us want that; but while I can, I had rather maintain myself than be a burthen upon him.'
'Ah! my dear, that is a dangerous because plausible spirit of pride and independence. As those who have tried can tell you, very little suffices single women, who have long ago broken with the world.'
This beautiful sentiment was received with an assenting breath by the other three, while Miss Isabella triumphantly added, 'And that your brother is bound to provide.'
'I saw it stated,' continued Miss Martha, 'that no one worthy the name of man will permit the ladies of his family to go out into the world for maintenance.'
'A man that provideth not for his own household,' whispered sadly even gentle Miss Hepburn.
'And, Isabella—tell them,' pursued Miss Bridget, 'from facts we know—'
'Yes,' said Miss Isabella, striking the nail. 'If it is alleged to you that the estate is not sufficient, I warn you that there must be something wrong about the matter.'
'You know,' said Wilmet, feeling it almost wrong to extend the misdeeds of the dead so much, 'the estate does not come clear.'
'I allow for that, but I know from Mrs. Fulbert herself what that is; and, pardon me, that is no sufficient plea, and you ought not to be allowed to think it is. Why, the Rectory alone is twelve hundred a year!'
Was Felix's secret to be kept at the expense of his character? However, Miss Martha brought some relief, by saying, 'And of course it can't be true that those persons who were staying with Mr. Edward were monks, come down to take possession of the Priory and restore it?'
The sisters laughed, and Wilmet explained. 'They were former fellow-curates of his. They came down to help, because he was so much knocked up.'
'Then,' said Miss Isabella, hushing some further observations that evidently quivered on her sisters' tongues, 'we may assure our friends that there is no truth in the preposterous rumour of a so-called restitution.'
'Certainly not of the Priory,' said Wilmet.
'Nor the Rectory?' chimed in Miss Bridget.
'I am hardly at liberty to answer,' said Wilmet. 'I do not know what my brother means to do, nor will he act hastily; but I know he has strong feelings about tithes, and that all the rest wish to be no hindrance in the way of what he thinks right.'
'To sacrifice his family to a scruple!'
'Quite fanatical!'
'And we heard he was so sensible!' mourned the sisterhood; while their spokeswoman returned to the charge.
'You remember, my dear lady, that the wealth which corrupted the clergy was curtailed by the wisdom of our forefathers?'
'Tithes!' breathed Robin, for here she thought they had an indisputable stronghold.
'We are not under the Jewish dispensation,' said Miss Isabella, with a half severe, half triumphant expression; 'but I see how it is. I have traced it all along—the system of works.'
'Yes, Isabella; you saw from the time that Mr. Edward, dear misguided young man, took from the poor dear children that precious hymn,
"Till to Redemption's[1]work you clingBy a simple faith,'Doing' is a deadly thing,'Doing' ends in death."'
So sighed Bridget; while Martha added, 'If Mr. Underwood would only come to discuss it with Isabella, I am sure she would convince him.'
'And then you need not be sacrificed, my dear!' said the eldest lady.
'Nor his position in society!' added another.
'For you know, Mrs. Harewood, it is hardly fair towards the neighbourhood to connect it with trade. Our county people are not accustomed to it.'
'I daresay not,' said Wilmet, who had risen during the last sayings. 'Good-bye! I will tell my brother what you say.'
'Do so, my dear; I cannot bear to see a family I have known so long, suffer for, I must say, a mere Judaizing scruple!'
Robina uttered two gasps on her way home. 'Doing ends in death!' The other—'Single women who have broken with the world!'
Confession to Felix of the betrayal of his purpose was needful. He took it coolly enough. 'Never mind! We can't charge poor Fulbert's memory with such adeficit;but there are not many who will probe so hard.'
As Cherry saw, he could stand its being talked of much better as a very chimerical and unjustifiable action than even as simple honesty. 'Do you mean to encounter them?' she asked. 'I see now the meaning of Perseus going among the Graiæ,-for they seem to have but one eye; and I think poor Clement would be glad if they had but one tooth.'
'No,' said that misguided young man; 'don't be unfair on them. They are not in the least spiteful. Miss Martha is the only one who has the gossip in her, and her sisters always repress her. They are very good women, and I believe I have learnt much from them.'
He said it with melancholy candour; and Robina indignantly recurred to their unconscious worldliness about what was due to the county; to which Clement replied, that he feared that they would find that Felix's resolutiondidcost them something besides mere luxury.
Cherry understood this when the Staples family called. The father was all that was warm and cordial; and his wife meant to be the same, but she patronized. She expatiated on the rapacity of Mrs. Fulbert in carrying off so many handsome articles, and gave a sort of 'all very well' commendation of the substitutes. And she proffered recommendations to shops and servants, and the use of her name, and even chaperonage, in a manner that made Cherry shrink into herself with dry thanks. It was credible that Mrs. Staples pitied the present Underwoods, and thought they had been so much damaged by their present circumstances as not to know how to do justice to their promotion.
The daughter Felix and Lance had liked best was married to Mr. Welsh, the member for Ewmouth, a self-made man, and great shipowner, who, though disappointed that working among the people had not imbued Mr. Underwood with popular politics, was friendly and pleasant; and his wife, a merry prosperous young matron, much more lady-like than her mother, and drolly vehement in her new opinions, was only vexed that the new comers declined her dinner-parties, and could only be engaged to lunch on the first great archæological day. She knew nothing about archæologists, but she should keep open house, and it would be great fun.
Very different were the next visitors—namely, Sir Vesey Hammond, the patriarch of the county, the undisturbed forty years' member, the very picture of a country gentleman, white-haired, clear-eyed, ruddy-cheeked, tall and robust, all vigorous health, and bringing an almost equally beautiful old wife. Theirs was a real welcome. They had come fifteen miles to give it; for had not Sir Vesey been a friend of great-uncle Fulbert, and had not Mary been the admiration of both? Did not Lady Hammond recollect the twins, and was not she equally ready to do homage to 'Master Kistofer'? Nay! did she not even appease any lurking furniture regrets, by exclaiming, 'I am so fond of this room, and now it looks like old times. I never could like it as Mrs. Fulbert Underwood made it, but now it is so bright and fresh and liveable! Ah! there's the dear old treble-seated settee again. I must go and sit in it for old acquaintance' sake!'
There was a wonderful matronly charm about her, with her dark eyes that had last none of their softness, her snowy hair, and her sweet old face; and all the sisters drew round, unspeakably attracted by the motherliness that gave them a sense of what had been so long wanting to them.
Her husband seemed to be satisfying himself that the new squire's politics neither disgraced him, nor he his politics. Cherry caught an echo of—'tells me you have been editing a Conservative paper.'
'Yes, Sir; I do so still.'
'I am glad of it. You are a benefactor to the country!'
Wherewith Cherry had to respond to the old lady; and when next her ears were open county matters had set in, and the baronet was hailing a useful auxiliary, and pressing Felix to come to dinner, next Thursday, to be introduced to the lord-lieutenant of the county; and she found herself included by both in the invitation.
There was a pause for an answer, and the colour came into Felix's face. 'You are very kind, Sir Vesey; but my sister is rather an invalid, and I am still in business—only backwards and forwards here. In short, as I told Mr. Staples just now, we cannot afford dinner visiting.'
'I understand,' said Sir Vesey, quickly and kindly, and no doubt crediting poor Fulbert with a good deal. 'We are quite out of distance for mere dinners. Fifteen miles is far too much for driving home at night; but could not you and your sister come and spend a couple of nights? We would meet you at the station.'