CHAPTER XXIVA CARD HOUSETHEnews of the engagement fell like a bombshell into the circle at Waterchurch; to all but Llewellyn it came as an absolute surprise. Harry’s temporary attachment to any pretty girl who came in his way was taken as such a matter of course by his parents, that the attentions he had bestowed on Isoline during the few days she had stayed with them were nothing out of the ordinary run of events.Mr. Lewis had made his consent conditional, promising to give it when he should hear of the Squire’s approval, and withholding it entirely till Harry should assure him of the sanction. Isoline, to whom her uncle’s decision suggested a flying in the face of Providence, relapsed into soft obstinacy, submitting outwardly to what for the moment seemed inevitable, and covering a persistence which would recognize no scruple with a layer of docility. Her attitude was that of a sand-bag towards a bullet—it offered no visible resistance. At the same time it was impenetrable.The Vicar had but little respect for the conventional view of marriage. While he held it unwise for young people to plunge hand in hand into the dismal bog of extreme poverty, only to waste their youth and strength in the sordid flounderings which alone can keep their heads above water, his ideas of the important things of life were at variance with those of most people. He regarded the poverty which necessitates some self-denial as a strengthener of the bonds which tie those whose love is love indeed, and the outward circumstanceswhich (whatever they may say) are the things deemed most essential by the majority, seemed to him to have a secondary place.He was an intensely spiritual man. Abstract things were more real to him than the things usually called tangible facts. Though he lived in a retired spot and kept so much apart from the world, his earlier life had lain in crowded places, and he had studied men and women very profoundly. His mental search after truth had been keen, and he was one who liked half-truths so little that it irked him to have to mix with those whose current coin they were. He would almost have preferred lies. That was one reason why solitude was dear to him. There was only one person among his neighbours with whom he felt himself in true accord, and that was Lady Harriet Fenton. She was a woman whom no expediency and no custom could ever induce to deal in false values.The tying up for life of two people seemed immeasurably more awful to the Vicar than it does to the world in general, for he reckoned with things to whose existence little attention is paid. The power of two characters to raise or lower each other, was in his eyes a more real thing than the power of two purses to maintain the establishment that their owners’ friends expect of them. But while he held these opinions, he had seen enough to show him that to hundreds of natures the suitable establishment is all-satisfying, and will preserve them in a lukewarm felicity until death parts them. He knew that strong meat is not for babes. Isoline was a babe, but he was not so sure about Harry. Mr. Fenton’s difficulties were no secret to him, and he was aware that, should the young man marry, he would have to content himself with very little. Isoline, even when her husband should have become head of the family, would scarcely be able to keep up the show he suspected her of coveting. It was a point on which he resolved to enlighten her.Although he considered him far too young to think of marriage, he had always liked Harry, for his simplicity andimpetuous ways struck him less as blunt intelligence than as late development, and he believed that, were he to develop in the society of Isoline, he would develop away from her; his character at twenty-five was yet in the making, while hers, at nineteen, was set. All this was more to him than the fact that his niece would, socially speaking, be marrying well.As they sat at breakfast on the following morning with the windows wide open to the orchard, he began upon the subject.“Isoline, I feel that I ought to tell you a few things you may not know. If Mr. Fenton gives his consent, and I consequently give mine, I suppose you and Harry will expect to be married before very long. You have always had most things that you want, being an only child; do you think you will be quite happy with less? You may think perhaps that Mr. Fenton is a rich man.”“I am not accepting Harry for his money,” observed Isoline, with dignity.“That would be rather difficult, my dear, seeing that he has not got any,” said the Vicar, with some dryness.She opened her eyes. “I hardly understand. What should I have to do without?”“Well, I fancy you spend a good deal upon your dresses for a young girl. Not that I blame you, for you always look very nice, and you have seventy pounds a year of your own to be pretty with. Of course, when you are here you are my guest, and you are no expense, for what does for me does for us both. I think your aunt in Hereford finds the same—and rightly.”She nodded.“It would be hard indeed if you had not a home while we are so well able to afford you one,” continued the Vicar, who had denied himself a much-needed carpet for his study in order to add a few luxuries to her bedroom.“You are both most kind to me.”“But, my dear, it is only right. All the same I cannot helpfearing that you may miss it. You will not have so many new gowns and smart hats.”Isoline said nothing, but she looked a little incredulous.“Harry’s father allows him two hundred a year. If he married he might possibly increase it a little—a very little—but I know that is all he could do. Harry has no profession. Personally, I think that a mistake, for, in my opinion, every young man who has not learned to work has missed something, but that is Mr. Fenton’s affair, not mine. Between you both, you would not have three hundred a year, and, even if a little more were forthcoming, you would barely have three hundred and fifty. That is very well when a man has something to work at.”“But why will not Mr. Fenton give Harry more?”“He has not got it to give.”She looked dumbly at him, tears gathering in her eyes; her lips quivered.“My dear, my dear,” said her uncle, “don’t be so upset. I did not mean to dishearten you, but it was right to tell you the truth. We have not heard what the Squire has to say, and something might be found, no doubt, for Harry to do.”He was quite glad to see her display some real feeling, and he came round to her side and put his arm tenderly about her.“Don’t, my little girl, do not be so distressed,” he said, pressing his lined cheek against her soft one. “If Mr. Fenton says ‘Yes,’ and Harry is a man—which I am sure he is—we shall find some way out of the difficulty. It will be a capital thing for him to work a little, for he will want money all his life, if he is to stand in his father’s place.”She wept on unrestrainedly, and her emotion touched him; it roused in him a hope that he had judged her hardly. After all, he had possibly often misunderstood her, and Harry’s affection might yet bring out things her education had stifled. Though the small interests of provincial town life were bad training for a woman, they might not have quite succeeded inspoiling her. But it was not for love that her tears flowed, it was for a fallen card house.He spoke very gravely and gently.“You will have to do your best for him, as Lady Harriet has done for his father,” he continued, still encircling her with his arm. “You will have a good model in your mother-in-law, Isoline.”A feeling of dislike went through her as she thought of Lady Harriet’s plain clothes and the way she had tramped through the mud of the farmyard when she had shown her the Alderney cows; she seemed to have supposed that it would amuse her to see these dull animals. And then, her strong boots! It was horrible, unfeminine. She had certainly worn a silk gown at dinner, with a piece of valuable lace on it, but it had been the same one each night. And this was to be her pattern!“I did not care very much for Lady Harriet,” she faltered.“You have not seen her very often,” replied the Vicar; “she is one of those women of whom one can say that the more one knows them, the more one honours them.”“Why?” asked Isoline. “What does she do?”“Mr. Fenton has lived very much up to his income, and they have to be extremely careful. There is a great deal of business to be done, more than he can manage, and she is invaluable in the help she gives him. She spends nothing on herself; her whole heart is in the place. If it were not for her, I don’t know that it would be in the Squire’s possession now.”Isoline did not return her uncle’s caress in any way, but she dried her eyes, and went cheerlessly on with her breakfast. After it was over she went out into the orchard, and strolled down to where it met the brook. She stood for a few minutes looking disconsolately into the water as it bubbled by; across it she could see up the sloping field to the cherry-tree under which she had sat on the preceding day. How happy she had been then!She pitied herself sincerely. The light which had glimmered before her during all her stay at Crishowell had proved to be no better than a malignant Jack-o’-lantern luring her on to the unsolid ground. But the fatal step had not been taken, though she had put out her foot; her uncle had shown her to what she was on the verge of trusting herself.She felt vaguely resentful against Harry. What business had he, she asked herself, to entangle her in this way, knowing, as know he must, that he had nothing to support her with decently? It was not fair. She turned from the brookside and walked back towards the house. Howlie Seaborne was coming towards her with a letter in his hand. He held it out between thumb and forefinger.Though she had never received a letter from Harry, she knew by instinct where this one had come from, and took it carelessly, conscious that the boy was staring critically at her with his prominent eyes. She turned it over as though doubtful of its origin.“It’s from the young general,” explained Howlie.Her disapproving face made him cover his mouth quickly with his hand as though the words had escaped from it unawares. It was an indescribably vulgar action.“Is there any answer?” she inquired.“Don’t knaw,” said Howlie shortly.“But did you ask?”“Naw; an’ oi can’t stop ’im now, no more nor if he was a lump o’ dirt rowlin’ down the hill.”“But who was he?” she asked, with a wild thought that Harry might have brought the letter in person.“A man with a squintin’ oye.”She walked away from him, breaking the seal, and he returned to the kitchen, his tongue in his cheek; he was a Herefordshire boy who had only come to the place a few months before, but there was little he did not know, and he was well aware that the messenger lived one mile from Waterchurch Court.“Darling,” the letter began, “I cannot help writing to you so soon, though I have not very much to tell. I have spoken to my father. I am afraid we may have some difficulties, but I have not had the chance of a serious talk with him yet, and I cannot quite tell you anything definite. But, whatever happens, I willnever,nevergive you up, and all will come right in the end, I know, if we are only true to each other. I will trust you, darling, be sure, and you know that I am always your devoted lover,“H. FENTON.“P.S.—Oh, Isoline, how I love you! How I wish we were sitting under the cherry-tree again!”She could not help being pleased with the letter, it rang so true; and for the moment, as Harry, honest and trusting, was brought more vividly before her by his written words, she sighed to think of the undeserved ill-turn her luck had played her. She was regretful as she thought how much he loved her. What a smart air he had! What a handsome, bright face! He seemed so proper a person—so like the husband she had pictured as a suitable one for herself, that it was almost a risk to sever herself from him. He was a man with whom any girl might be proud to show herself, and he would, socially, give her the place for which she felt fitted. The feeling was so strong that it went near to overwhelming her more prudent considerations. Might it not, after all, be better to throw in her lot with him? Though he could not give her the riches she had dreamed of before her uncle had shattered the dream, she would, as his wife, be somebody. But then, she would have to economize, to deny herself—do all the horrible things that Lady Harriet did, and there would be no going to London and entering the brilliant vista of balls, operas, and dinner-parties at which it had been her hope to shine.She had imagined her carriage surrounded by a circle of admirers, as were the carriages of the “fine ladies” she hadread about, while she lay back on her cushions and listened to the hum of compliment with which the air would be filled. That would never be a reality if she married a poor man. A mere chance had brought such possibilities within her reach, but they had melted away—snares and delusions—leaving only a vision of drudgery and homeliness behind. Small wonder if she had wept.She had barely enjoyed an hour’s possession of the ring Harry brought her, for it had lain in Mr. Lewis’ desk since the evening before, when her lover had broken the news to him and heard his verdict. The Vicar would not allow his niece to wear it until Mr. Fenton’s consent should formally ratify the engagement, and he had insisted upon its being returned. The young man had stoutly refused to take it back, and, by way of settling the difficulty, it had been sealed up in a little box and locked into the desk in which the parish money and one or two valuables were kept. It had been a bitter disappointment, and it was followed by a worse one.She wondered what her aunt in Hereford would think of her engagement, and believed that, were she beside her at present, she would exert herself much to prevent its being broken, her ambitions being more social than pecuniary. She was really very thankful that Miss Ridgeway was not at Crishowell, for the course she meant to take would be made far harder by the lady’s presence.She looked upon the doctor who had postponed her return for several months as her own unconscious benefactor, and she cherished the hope of inducing Mr. Lewis to be silent so that her aunt might never know what had happened. She would consider Harry’s proposal as a grand chance, and would not understand at how far too high a price that chance would have to be taken. There were troublous times in front of her she could not but suspect; Mr. Fenton might consent, and Harry would be by no means easy to deal with; but she had her uncle’s word that money obstacles would be great, and on these she would take her stand with as much determination asshe could show with propriety. It would have to be gone through, and the notion made her shudder. The gin of her own making might be closing round her, but, at all events, she would have one frantic leap for freedom before the teeth shut.The letter lay in her pocket, and she took it out and re-read it; its black and white page spread on her knee looked to her like some dangerous document binding her to the fate from which she so desired to flee. “Whatever happens I willnever,nevergive you up,” it said. She went quickly down the orchard, and, standing by the brook, tore it into small pieces, parting her fingers widely and letting the fragments float outwards on the water. They were carried along, disappearing one after another in the little rapids between the stones. A wagtail, curtseying with its feet in the eddy, jumped up and twittered away into the green of the undergrowth with a parti-coloured flash of wings.She saw the last scrap of the letter turning a bend of the bank and sailing swiftly under the shadow of the footbridge, and then went back to the house with a sigh of relief, unconscious that Howlie’s eyes were watching her attentively from the kitchen window.The boy drew a long breath of astonishment, and opened his mouth as he observed her action. He admired Harry greatly.
THEnews of the engagement fell like a bombshell into the circle at Waterchurch; to all but Llewellyn it came as an absolute surprise. Harry’s temporary attachment to any pretty girl who came in his way was taken as such a matter of course by his parents, that the attentions he had bestowed on Isoline during the few days she had stayed with them were nothing out of the ordinary run of events.
Mr. Lewis had made his consent conditional, promising to give it when he should hear of the Squire’s approval, and withholding it entirely till Harry should assure him of the sanction. Isoline, to whom her uncle’s decision suggested a flying in the face of Providence, relapsed into soft obstinacy, submitting outwardly to what for the moment seemed inevitable, and covering a persistence which would recognize no scruple with a layer of docility. Her attitude was that of a sand-bag towards a bullet—it offered no visible resistance. At the same time it was impenetrable.
The Vicar had but little respect for the conventional view of marriage. While he held it unwise for young people to plunge hand in hand into the dismal bog of extreme poverty, only to waste their youth and strength in the sordid flounderings which alone can keep their heads above water, his ideas of the important things of life were at variance with those of most people. He regarded the poverty which necessitates some self-denial as a strengthener of the bonds which tie those whose love is love indeed, and the outward circumstanceswhich (whatever they may say) are the things deemed most essential by the majority, seemed to him to have a secondary place.
He was an intensely spiritual man. Abstract things were more real to him than the things usually called tangible facts. Though he lived in a retired spot and kept so much apart from the world, his earlier life had lain in crowded places, and he had studied men and women very profoundly. His mental search after truth had been keen, and he was one who liked half-truths so little that it irked him to have to mix with those whose current coin they were. He would almost have preferred lies. That was one reason why solitude was dear to him. There was only one person among his neighbours with whom he felt himself in true accord, and that was Lady Harriet Fenton. She was a woman whom no expediency and no custom could ever induce to deal in false values.
The tying up for life of two people seemed immeasurably more awful to the Vicar than it does to the world in general, for he reckoned with things to whose existence little attention is paid. The power of two characters to raise or lower each other, was in his eyes a more real thing than the power of two purses to maintain the establishment that their owners’ friends expect of them. But while he held these opinions, he had seen enough to show him that to hundreds of natures the suitable establishment is all-satisfying, and will preserve them in a lukewarm felicity until death parts them. He knew that strong meat is not for babes. Isoline was a babe, but he was not so sure about Harry. Mr. Fenton’s difficulties were no secret to him, and he was aware that, should the young man marry, he would have to content himself with very little. Isoline, even when her husband should have become head of the family, would scarcely be able to keep up the show he suspected her of coveting. It was a point on which he resolved to enlighten her.
Although he considered him far too young to think of marriage, he had always liked Harry, for his simplicity andimpetuous ways struck him less as blunt intelligence than as late development, and he believed that, were he to develop in the society of Isoline, he would develop away from her; his character at twenty-five was yet in the making, while hers, at nineteen, was set. All this was more to him than the fact that his niece would, socially speaking, be marrying well.
As they sat at breakfast on the following morning with the windows wide open to the orchard, he began upon the subject.
“Isoline, I feel that I ought to tell you a few things you may not know. If Mr. Fenton gives his consent, and I consequently give mine, I suppose you and Harry will expect to be married before very long. You have always had most things that you want, being an only child; do you think you will be quite happy with less? You may think perhaps that Mr. Fenton is a rich man.”
“I am not accepting Harry for his money,” observed Isoline, with dignity.
“That would be rather difficult, my dear, seeing that he has not got any,” said the Vicar, with some dryness.
She opened her eyes. “I hardly understand. What should I have to do without?”
“Well, I fancy you spend a good deal upon your dresses for a young girl. Not that I blame you, for you always look very nice, and you have seventy pounds a year of your own to be pretty with. Of course, when you are here you are my guest, and you are no expense, for what does for me does for us both. I think your aunt in Hereford finds the same—and rightly.”
She nodded.
“It would be hard indeed if you had not a home while we are so well able to afford you one,” continued the Vicar, who had denied himself a much-needed carpet for his study in order to add a few luxuries to her bedroom.
“You are both most kind to me.”
“But, my dear, it is only right. All the same I cannot helpfearing that you may miss it. You will not have so many new gowns and smart hats.”
Isoline said nothing, but she looked a little incredulous.
“Harry’s father allows him two hundred a year. If he married he might possibly increase it a little—a very little—but I know that is all he could do. Harry has no profession. Personally, I think that a mistake, for, in my opinion, every young man who has not learned to work has missed something, but that is Mr. Fenton’s affair, not mine. Between you both, you would not have three hundred a year, and, even if a little more were forthcoming, you would barely have three hundred and fifty. That is very well when a man has something to work at.”
“But why will not Mr. Fenton give Harry more?”
“He has not got it to give.”
She looked dumbly at him, tears gathering in her eyes; her lips quivered.
“My dear, my dear,” said her uncle, “don’t be so upset. I did not mean to dishearten you, but it was right to tell you the truth. We have not heard what the Squire has to say, and something might be found, no doubt, for Harry to do.”
He was quite glad to see her display some real feeling, and he came round to her side and put his arm tenderly about her.
“Don’t, my little girl, do not be so distressed,” he said, pressing his lined cheek against her soft one. “If Mr. Fenton says ‘Yes,’ and Harry is a man—which I am sure he is—we shall find some way out of the difficulty. It will be a capital thing for him to work a little, for he will want money all his life, if he is to stand in his father’s place.”
She wept on unrestrainedly, and her emotion touched him; it roused in him a hope that he had judged her hardly. After all, he had possibly often misunderstood her, and Harry’s affection might yet bring out things her education had stifled. Though the small interests of provincial town life were bad training for a woman, they might not have quite succeeded inspoiling her. But it was not for love that her tears flowed, it was for a fallen card house.
He spoke very gravely and gently.
“You will have to do your best for him, as Lady Harriet has done for his father,” he continued, still encircling her with his arm. “You will have a good model in your mother-in-law, Isoline.”
A feeling of dislike went through her as she thought of Lady Harriet’s plain clothes and the way she had tramped through the mud of the farmyard when she had shown her the Alderney cows; she seemed to have supposed that it would amuse her to see these dull animals. And then, her strong boots! It was horrible, unfeminine. She had certainly worn a silk gown at dinner, with a piece of valuable lace on it, but it had been the same one each night. And this was to be her pattern!
“I did not care very much for Lady Harriet,” she faltered.
“You have not seen her very often,” replied the Vicar; “she is one of those women of whom one can say that the more one knows them, the more one honours them.”
“Why?” asked Isoline. “What does she do?”
“Mr. Fenton has lived very much up to his income, and they have to be extremely careful. There is a great deal of business to be done, more than he can manage, and she is invaluable in the help she gives him. She spends nothing on herself; her whole heart is in the place. If it were not for her, I don’t know that it would be in the Squire’s possession now.”
Isoline did not return her uncle’s caress in any way, but she dried her eyes, and went cheerlessly on with her breakfast. After it was over she went out into the orchard, and strolled down to where it met the brook. She stood for a few minutes looking disconsolately into the water as it bubbled by; across it she could see up the sloping field to the cherry-tree under which she had sat on the preceding day. How happy she had been then!
She pitied herself sincerely. The light which had glimmered before her during all her stay at Crishowell had proved to be no better than a malignant Jack-o’-lantern luring her on to the unsolid ground. But the fatal step had not been taken, though she had put out her foot; her uncle had shown her to what she was on the verge of trusting herself.
She felt vaguely resentful against Harry. What business had he, she asked herself, to entangle her in this way, knowing, as know he must, that he had nothing to support her with decently? It was not fair. She turned from the brookside and walked back towards the house. Howlie Seaborne was coming towards her with a letter in his hand. He held it out between thumb and forefinger.
Though she had never received a letter from Harry, she knew by instinct where this one had come from, and took it carelessly, conscious that the boy was staring critically at her with his prominent eyes. She turned it over as though doubtful of its origin.
“It’s from the young general,” explained Howlie.
Her disapproving face made him cover his mouth quickly with his hand as though the words had escaped from it unawares. It was an indescribably vulgar action.
“Is there any answer?” she inquired.
“Don’t knaw,” said Howlie shortly.
“But did you ask?”
“Naw; an’ oi can’t stop ’im now, no more nor if he was a lump o’ dirt rowlin’ down the hill.”
“But who was he?” she asked, with a wild thought that Harry might have brought the letter in person.
“A man with a squintin’ oye.”
She walked away from him, breaking the seal, and he returned to the kitchen, his tongue in his cheek; he was a Herefordshire boy who had only come to the place a few months before, but there was little he did not know, and he was well aware that the messenger lived one mile from Waterchurch Court.
“Darling,” the letter began, “I cannot help writing to you so soon, though I have not very much to tell. I have spoken to my father. I am afraid we may have some difficulties, but I have not had the chance of a serious talk with him yet, and I cannot quite tell you anything definite. But, whatever happens, I willnever,nevergive you up, and all will come right in the end, I know, if we are only true to each other. I will trust you, darling, be sure, and you know that I am always your devoted lover,“H. FENTON.“P.S.—Oh, Isoline, how I love you! How I wish we were sitting under the cherry-tree again!”
“Darling,” the letter began, “I cannot help writing to you so soon, though I have not very much to tell. I have spoken to my father. I am afraid we may have some difficulties, but I have not had the chance of a serious talk with him yet, and I cannot quite tell you anything definite. But, whatever happens, I willnever,nevergive you up, and all will come right in the end, I know, if we are only true to each other. I will trust you, darling, be sure, and you know that I am always your devoted lover,
“H. FENTON.
“P.S.—Oh, Isoline, how I love you! How I wish we were sitting under the cherry-tree again!”
She could not help being pleased with the letter, it rang so true; and for the moment, as Harry, honest and trusting, was brought more vividly before her by his written words, she sighed to think of the undeserved ill-turn her luck had played her. She was regretful as she thought how much he loved her. What a smart air he had! What a handsome, bright face! He seemed so proper a person—so like the husband she had pictured as a suitable one for herself, that it was almost a risk to sever herself from him. He was a man with whom any girl might be proud to show herself, and he would, socially, give her the place for which she felt fitted. The feeling was so strong that it went near to overwhelming her more prudent considerations. Might it not, after all, be better to throw in her lot with him? Though he could not give her the riches she had dreamed of before her uncle had shattered the dream, she would, as his wife, be somebody. But then, she would have to economize, to deny herself—do all the horrible things that Lady Harriet did, and there would be no going to London and entering the brilliant vista of balls, operas, and dinner-parties at which it had been her hope to shine.
She had imagined her carriage surrounded by a circle of admirers, as were the carriages of the “fine ladies” she hadread about, while she lay back on her cushions and listened to the hum of compliment with which the air would be filled. That would never be a reality if she married a poor man. A mere chance had brought such possibilities within her reach, but they had melted away—snares and delusions—leaving only a vision of drudgery and homeliness behind. Small wonder if she had wept.
She had barely enjoyed an hour’s possession of the ring Harry brought her, for it had lain in Mr. Lewis’ desk since the evening before, when her lover had broken the news to him and heard his verdict. The Vicar would not allow his niece to wear it until Mr. Fenton’s consent should formally ratify the engagement, and he had insisted upon its being returned. The young man had stoutly refused to take it back, and, by way of settling the difficulty, it had been sealed up in a little box and locked into the desk in which the parish money and one or two valuables were kept. It had been a bitter disappointment, and it was followed by a worse one.
She wondered what her aunt in Hereford would think of her engagement, and believed that, were she beside her at present, she would exert herself much to prevent its being broken, her ambitions being more social than pecuniary. She was really very thankful that Miss Ridgeway was not at Crishowell, for the course she meant to take would be made far harder by the lady’s presence.
She looked upon the doctor who had postponed her return for several months as her own unconscious benefactor, and she cherished the hope of inducing Mr. Lewis to be silent so that her aunt might never know what had happened. She would consider Harry’s proposal as a grand chance, and would not understand at how far too high a price that chance would have to be taken. There were troublous times in front of her she could not but suspect; Mr. Fenton might consent, and Harry would be by no means easy to deal with; but she had her uncle’s word that money obstacles would be great, and on these she would take her stand with as much determination asshe could show with propriety. It would have to be gone through, and the notion made her shudder. The gin of her own making might be closing round her, but, at all events, she would have one frantic leap for freedom before the teeth shut.
The letter lay in her pocket, and she took it out and re-read it; its black and white page spread on her knee looked to her like some dangerous document binding her to the fate from which she so desired to flee. “Whatever happens I willnever,nevergive you up,” it said. She went quickly down the orchard, and, standing by the brook, tore it into small pieces, parting her fingers widely and letting the fragments float outwards on the water. They were carried along, disappearing one after another in the little rapids between the stones. A wagtail, curtseying with its feet in the eddy, jumped up and twittered away into the green of the undergrowth with a parti-coloured flash of wings.
She saw the last scrap of the letter turning a bend of the bank and sailing swiftly under the shadow of the footbridge, and then went back to the house with a sigh of relief, unconscious that Howlie’s eyes were watching her attentively from the kitchen window.
The boy drew a long breath of astonishment, and opened his mouth as he observed her action. He admired Harry greatly.