Volume One—Chapter Twelve.

Volume One—Chapter Twelve.The Professor in Company.Sir John went upstairs furiously, taking three steps at a time—twice. Then he finished that flight two at a time; walked fast up the first half of the second flight, one step at a time; slowly up the second half; paused on the landing, and then went deliberately along the corridor, with its row of painted ancestors watching him from one side, as if wondering when he was coming to join them there.Sir John Day was a man who soon made up his mind, whether it was about turning an arable field into pasture, or the setting of a new kind of corn. He settled in five minutes to have steam upon the farm, and did not ponder upon Glynne’s engagement for more than ten; so that he was able to make his plans very well in the sixty feet that he had to traverse before he reached his brother’s door, upon whose panel he gave a tremendous thump, and then entered at once.The major was in his shirt-sleeves, apparently turning himself into a jack-in-the-box, for he was standing in an old bullock trunk, one which had journeyed with him pretty well all over India; and as Sir John entered the room sharply, and closed the door behind him, the major started up, looking fiercely and angrily at the intruder.“Oh, you’re packing, then?” said Sir John, in the most uncompromising tone.“Yes, sir, I am packing,” said the major, getting out of the trunk, and slamming down the lid; “and I think, sir, that I might be permitted to do that in peace and quietness.”“Peace? Yes, of course you may,” said Sir John, sharply, “only you will make it war.”“I was not aware,” said the major, “that it was necessary for me to lock my door—I beg your pardon—your door. And now, may I ask the object of this intrusion? If it is to resume the quarrel, you may spare yourself the pains.”“Indeed!” said Sir John shortly.“Well,” continued the major, “why have you come?”“You are going, then?”“Of course I am, sir.”“Well, I came to tell you I’m very glad of it,” cried Sir John, clapping his brother on the shoulder; and then—“I say, Jem, I wish I hadn’t such a peppery temper.”“No, no, Jack, no, no,” cried the major, excitedly; “it was I who was to blame.”“Wrong, Jem. I contradicted you—very offensively, too, and I am confoundedly in the wrong. I didn’t know it till Glynne came and pulled me up short. I say, it’s a great pity for us to quarrel, isn’t it?”“Yes,” said the major, laying his hands upon his brother’s shoulders, “it is—it is, indeed, Jack, and I can’t help thinking that I shall be doing wisely in going back to my old chambers, for this projected wedding worries me. We’ll see one another more seldom, and we won’t have words together then. You see—no; stop a moment! Let me speak. You see, I feel my old wound now and then, and it makes me irritable, and then the climate has touched up my liver a bit. Yes, I had better go.”“Don’t be a fool, Jem,” cried Sir John. “Go, indeed! Why, what the dickens do you suppose I should do without you here? Tchah! tush! you go! Absurd. There, get dressed, man, and come down to dinner. No: come along down with me first, and we’ll get a bottle or two out of the number six bin. There’ll just be time.”The major shook his head, as he looked at the bullock trunk and a very much bruised and battered old portmanteau waiting to be filled.“Now, Jem, old fellow, don’t let’s quarrel again,” cried Sir John, pathetically.“No, no, certainly not, my dear Jack. No more quarrelling, but I think this time I’ll hold to my word.”“Now, my dear old fellow,” cried Sir John, gripping his brother’s shoulders more tightly, and shaking him to and fro, “do be reasonable. Look here: I’ve asked little Lucy Alleyne to comesans façon, and—”“Is she coming?” cried the major, eagerly.“Yes, and you can talk toadstools as long as you like.”The major seemed to be hesitating, and he looked curiously at his brother.“Is Alleyne coming?”“I asked him, but he is very doubtful; perhaps he is glued to the end of his telescope for the next twelve hours. Here, have that confounded baggage put away.”The major looked a little more thoughtful. He was hesitating, and thinking of Glynne, who just then tapped softly at the door.“Come in,” roared Sir John; and she entered, looked quickly from one to the other, and then went up to her uncle, and kissed him affectionately.“There,” cried Sir John, looking half-pleased, half-annoyed; “it’s enough to make a man wish you would go, Jem.”“No, it isn’t,” said the major, drawing his niece closer to him. “There, there, my dear, you were quite right. I’m a terrible old capsicum, am I not?”“No, uncle,” said Glynne, nestling to him; “but hadn’t we better forget all this?”“Right, my dear, right,” cried Sir John. “There, come along, and let your uncle dress for dinner. Where’s Rob?”“I think he went for a long walk, papa.”“Humph! I hope he’ll be in training at last,” said Sir John, good-humouredly. “You’re a lucky girl, Glynne, to have a man wanting to make himself perfect before he marries you. You ought to go and do likewise.”“Don’t try, Glynne, my dear,” said her uncle affectionately. “A perfect woman would be a horror. You are just right as you are.”“Well, you are not, Jem,” said Sir John, laughing, “so make haste, and come down. Come along, Glynne.”He led the way, and, as he passed through the door, Glynne turned to look back at her uncle, their eyes meeting in a peculiarly wistful, inquiring look, that seemed to suggest a mutual desire to know the other’s thoughts.Then the door closed, and in the most matter-of-fact way, the major proceeded to dress for dinner as if he had never quarrelled with his brother in his life.When he descended, it was to find Alleyne in the drawing-room with his sister. Glynne was entertaining them, for Sir John had, on leaving his brother, gone down into the cellar for the special bottle of port, and, after its selection, found so much satisfaction in the mildewy, sawdusty, damp-smelling place that he stopped for some twenty minutes, poking his bedroom candlestick into dark corners and archways where the bottoms of bottles could be seen resting as they had rested for many years past—each bin having a little history of its own, so full of recollections that the baronet had at last to drag himself away, and hurry up to dress.Rolph was also late—so much so that he had encountered Sir John on the stairs, and the party in the drawing-room had a good quarter of an hour’s chat in the twilight, before the candles were lit.“And you think it possible that it is caused by another planet?” Glynne was saying as the major entered the room; and he paused for a moment or two noting the change that had come over his niece. There was an eager look in her eyes; her face was more animated as she sat in the window catching the last reflections of the western glow, listening the while to Alleyne, who, with his back to the light, was talking in a low, deep voice of some problem in his favourite pursuit.“Yes; just as happened over Neptune. That appears to be the only solution of the difficulty,” he replied.“Then why not direct your glass exactly at the place where you feel this planet must be?”Alleyne smiled as he spoke next.“I did not explain to you,” he said, “that if such a planet does exist it must be, comparatively, very small, and so surrounded by the intense light of the sun that no glass we have yet made would render it visible.”“How strange!” said Glynne, thoughtfully; and her eyes vaguely wandered over the evening sky, and then back to rest in a rapt, dreamy way upon the quiet, absorbed face of the visitor.“I was looking at Jupiter last night,” she said, suddenly, “trying to see his moons.”“Yes?”“But our glass is not sufficiently powerful. I could only distinguish two.”“Perhaps it was not the fault of your glass,” said Alleyne, smiling. “A glass of a very low power will show them. I have often watched them through a good binocular.”“I’m afraid ours is a very bad one,” said Glynne.“No, I should be more disposed to think it a good one, Miss Day. The reason you did not see them is this; one was eclipsed by the planet—in other words, behind it—while the others are passing across its body, whose brightness almost hides them—in fact, does hide them to such an extent that they would not be seen by you.”There was a few minutes’ silence here, broken at last by Glynne, as she said in a low, thoughtful voice,—“How much you know. How grand it must be.”Alleyne laughed softly before replying.“How much I know!” he said, in a voice full of regret. “My dear madam, I know just enough to see what a very little I have learned; how pitifully small in such a science as astronomy is all that a life devoted to its depths would be.”“For shame, Moray,” cried Lucy, warmly. “You know that people say you are very clever indeed.”“Yes,” he replied, “I know what they say; but that is only their judgment. I know how trifling are the things I have learned compared with what there is to acquire.”“What a goose Glynne is,” said the major to himself, as he stood listening to the conversation. “Why, this man is worth a dozen Rolphs.”“But, Mr Alleyne,” said Glynne, eagerly, “is it possible—could I—I mean, should you think I was asking too much if I expressed a wish to see something of these wonders of which you have been speaking?”“Oh, no, Moray would show you everything he could. He’s the most unselfish, patient fellow in the world,” cried Lucy.Glynne turned from her almost impatiently to Alleyne, who said, with a grave smile upon his face,—“You have no brother, Miss Day. If you had, I hope you would not do all you could, by flattery and spoiling, to make him weak and conceited.”“Indeed I don’t do anything of the kind, Moray,” said Lucy, indignantly; “and now, for that, I’ll tell the truth, Glynne; he’s a regular bat, an owl, a recluse, and we’re obliged to drag him out into the light of day, or he’d stop in his room till he grew mouldy, that he would. Why, he goes in spirit right away to the moon sometimes, and it only seems as if his body was left behind.”“What, do you mean to say he’s moonstruck?” said the major, merrily, and looking half-surprised at the quick, indignant look darted at him by Glynne.“I’m afraid that Lucy here is quite right,” said Alleyne, smiling as he took his sister’s hand in his and patted it. “I do get so intent upon my studies that all every-day life affairs are regularly forgotten. But I do not work half so hard now. They fetched a doctor to me, and it is forbidden. In fact, I have plenty of time now, and if Miss Day will pay my my poor observatory a visit, I will show her everything that lies in my power.”“Oh, Mr Alleyne, I should be so glad,” cried Glynne eagerly, and to Lucy’s great delight. “I want to see Saturn’s rings, and the seas and continents in Mars, and the twin stars.”“Well, you needn’t trouble Mr Alleyne,” said Rolph, who had just entered. “There’s a fellow at Hyde Park corner, with a big glass, lets people look through for a penny. He’d be glad enough to come down for a half-crown or two.”“Why, how absurd, Robert,” said Glynne, turning upon him good-humouredly. “I want to see and learn about these things from someone who is an astronomer.”“Oh,” said Rolph, “do you? Well, I see no reason why you shouldn’t go and have a peep or two through Mr Alleyne’s glass. I’ll come with you.”“Here, I’m very sorry, Alleyne. Miss Alleyne, I don’t know what sort of a host you’ll think me for being so late,” cried Sir John, bustling in. “I hope Glynne has been playing my part well.”“Admirably, Sir John,” replied Alleyne. “We have been talking upon my favourite topic, and the time soon glides by when one is engaged upon questions regarding the planets.”“But I say, you know, Mr Alleyne,” said Rolph, who, with all the confidence of one in his own house and proprietary rights over the lady, came and seated himself upon the elbow of the easy-chair in which Glynne reclined, and laid his arm behind her on the back, “I want to know what’s the good of a fellow sacrificing his health, and shutting himself up from society, for the study of these abstruse scientific matters. ’Pon my word, I can’t see what difference it makes to us whether Jupiter has got one moon, or ten moons, or a hundred. He’s such a precious long way off.”Glynne looked up at him with a good-humoured air of pain, but only to turn back and listen to Alleyne.“It requires study, Captain Rolph,” he said thoughtfully, “and time to appreciate the value of the results achieved in astronomy. Perhaps we have nothing to show that is of direct utility to man, but everything in nature is so grand—there is so much to be learned, that, for my part, I wonder why everybody does not thirst for knowledge.”“Yes,” said Glynne, thoughtfully, and below her breath.“Oh, we all dabble in science, more or less,” said Rolph, glancing at Sir John with a look that seemed to say, “You see how I’ll trot him out.” “Here’s the major goes in for toadstools, and Sir John for big muttons and portly pigs.”“And Captain Rolph for exhibitions of endurance, to prove that a man is stronger than a horse,” said the major, drily.“Yes, and not a bad thing, either, eh, Sir John?”“Oh, every man to his taste,” said the host; “but I believe in a man feeding himself up, and not starving himself down.”“Oilcake and turnips, eh?”“Yes, both good things in their way, but I like the chemical components to have taken other forms, Rob, my boy; good Highland Scots beef and Southdown mutton.”“I hope you will be able to indulge in a good dinner, Rolph?” said the major, looking at the young officer as if he amused him.“Trust me for that, major,” replied the young man loudly. “I’m not bad at table.”“I thought, perhaps,” said the major sarcastically, “that you might be in training, and forbidden to eat anything but raw steak and dry biscuit.”“Oh, dear, no,” said Rolph seriously. “Quite free now, major, quite free.”“That’s a blessing,” muttered Sir John, who looked annoyed and fidgety. “Hah, dinner at last.”“Walking makes me hungry and impatient, Miss Alleyne. Come along, you are my property. First lady.”He held out his arm, and, as Lucy laid her little hand upon it, he went out of the drawing-room chatting merrily; and, as he did so, Rolph leaped from his seat, and drew himself upright as if to display the breadth of his chest and the size of his muscles.“Glad of it,” he said. “I’m sharp set. Come along, Glynne.”Alleyne gazed at them intently with a strange feeling of depression coming over his spirit, and so lost to other surroundings that he did not reply to the major, who came up to him, moved by a desire to be polite to a man whom he was beginning to esteem.Then Major Day drew back and his keen eyes brightened, for Glynne said quietly,—“You forget. Go on in with uncle.”“Eh?” said the young officer, looking puzzled.“Go on in with my uncle,” said Glynne quietly.And she crossed to where Alleyne was standing, and, in the character of hostess, laid her hand upon his arm.“There, you’re dismissed for to-night, Rolph,” said the major, who could hardly conceal his satisfaction at this trifling incident.Then, thrusting his arm through that of the athlete, he marched him to the dining-room, the young man’s face growing dark and full of annoyance at having to give way in this case of ordinary etiquette.“Confound the fellow! I wish they wouldn’t ask him here,” he muttered.“Mind seems to be taking the lead over muscles to-day,” said the major to himself, as he walked beside the young officer to the dining-room, while Glynne came more slowly behind, her eyes growing deeper and very thoughtful as she listened to Alleyne’s words.

Sir John went upstairs furiously, taking three steps at a time—twice. Then he finished that flight two at a time; walked fast up the first half of the second flight, one step at a time; slowly up the second half; paused on the landing, and then went deliberately along the corridor, with its row of painted ancestors watching him from one side, as if wondering when he was coming to join them there.

Sir John Day was a man who soon made up his mind, whether it was about turning an arable field into pasture, or the setting of a new kind of corn. He settled in five minutes to have steam upon the farm, and did not ponder upon Glynne’s engagement for more than ten; so that he was able to make his plans very well in the sixty feet that he had to traverse before he reached his brother’s door, upon whose panel he gave a tremendous thump, and then entered at once.

The major was in his shirt-sleeves, apparently turning himself into a jack-in-the-box, for he was standing in an old bullock trunk, one which had journeyed with him pretty well all over India; and as Sir John entered the room sharply, and closed the door behind him, the major started up, looking fiercely and angrily at the intruder.

“Oh, you’re packing, then?” said Sir John, in the most uncompromising tone.

“Yes, sir, I am packing,” said the major, getting out of the trunk, and slamming down the lid; “and I think, sir, that I might be permitted to do that in peace and quietness.”

“Peace? Yes, of course you may,” said Sir John, sharply, “only you will make it war.”

“I was not aware,” said the major, “that it was necessary for me to lock my door—I beg your pardon—your door. And now, may I ask the object of this intrusion? If it is to resume the quarrel, you may spare yourself the pains.”

“Indeed!” said Sir John shortly.

“Well,” continued the major, “why have you come?”

“You are going, then?”

“Of course I am, sir.”

“Well, I came to tell you I’m very glad of it,” cried Sir John, clapping his brother on the shoulder; and then—“I say, Jem, I wish I hadn’t such a peppery temper.”

“No, no, Jack, no, no,” cried the major, excitedly; “it was I who was to blame.”

“Wrong, Jem. I contradicted you—very offensively, too, and I am confoundedly in the wrong. I didn’t know it till Glynne came and pulled me up short. I say, it’s a great pity for us to quarrel, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said the major, laying his hands upon his brother’s shoulders, “it is—it is, indeed, Jack, and I can’t help thinking that I shall be doing wisely in going back to my old chambers, for this projected wedding worries me. We’ll see one another more seldom, and we won’t have words together then. You see—no; stop a moment! Let me speak. You see, I feel my old wound now and then, and it makes me irritable, and then the climate has touched up my liver a bit. Yes, I had better go.”

“Don’t be a fool, Jem,” cried Sir John. “Go, indeed! Why, what the dickens do you suppose I should do without you here? Tchah! tush! you go! Absurd. There, get dressed, man, and come down to dinner. No: come along down with me first, and we’ll get a bottle or two out of the number six bin. There’ll just be time.”

The major shook his head, as he looked at the bullock trunk and a very much bruised and battered old portmanteau waiting to be filled.

“Now, Jem, old fellow, don’t let’s quarrel again,” cried Sir John, pathetically.

“No, no, certainly not, my dear Jack. No more quarrelling, but I think this time I’ll hold to my word.”

“Now, my dear old fellow,” cried Sir John, gripping his brother’s shoulders more tightly, and shaking him to and fro, “do be reasonable. Look here: I’ve asked little Lucy Alleyne to comesans façon, and—”

“Is she coming?” cried the major, eagerly.

“Yes, and you can talk toadstools as long as you like.”

The major seemed to be hesitating, and he looked curiously at his brother.

“Is Alleyne coming?”

“I asked him, but he is very doubtful; perhaps he is glued to the end of his telescope for the next twelve hours. Here, have that confounded baggage put away.”

The major looked a little more thoughtful. He was hesitating, and thinking of Glynne, who just then tapped softly at the door.

“Come in,” roared Sir John; and she entered, looked quickly from one to the other, and then went up to her uncle, and kissed him affectionately.

“There,” cried Sir John, looking half-pleased, half-annoyed; “it’s enough to make a man wish you would go, Jem.”

“No, it isn’t,” said the major, drawing his niece closer to him. “There, there, my dear, you were quite right. I’m a terrible old capsicum, am I not?”

“No, uncle,” said Glynne, nestling to him; “but hadn’t we better forget all this?”

“Right, my dear, right,” cried Sir John. “There, come along, and let your uncle dress for dinner. Where’s Rob?”

“I think he went for a long walk, papa.”

“Humph! I hope he’ll be in training at last,” said Sir John, good-humouredly. “You’re a lucky girl, Glynne, to have a man wanting to make himself perfect before he marries you. You ought to go and do likewise.”

“Don’t try, Glynne, my dear,” said her uncle affectionately. “A perfect woman would be a horror. You are just right as you are.”

“Well, you are not, Jem,” said Sir John, laughing, “so make haste, and come down. Come along, Glynne.”

He led the way, and, as he passed through the door, Glynne turned to look back at her uncle, their eyes meeting in a peculiarly wistful, inquiring look, that seemed to suggest a mutual desire to know the other’s thoughts.

Then the door closed, and in the most matter-of-fact way, the major proceeded to dress for dinner as if he had never quarrelled with his brother in his life.

When he descended, it was to find Alleyne in the drawing-room with his sister. Glynne was entertaining them, for Sir John had, on leaving his brother, gone down into the cellar for the special bottle of port, and, after its selection, found so much satisfaction in the mildewy, sawdusty, damp-smelling place that he stopped for some twenty minutes, poking his bedroom candlestick into dark corners and archways where the bottoms of bottles could be seen resting as they had rested for many years past—each bin having a little history of its own, so full of recollections that the baronet had at last to drag himself away, and hurry up to dress.

Rolph was also late—so much so that he had encountered Sir John on the stairs, and the party in the drawing-room had a good quarter of an hour’s chat in the twilight, before the candles were lit.

“And you think it possible that it is caused by another planet?” Glynne was saying as the major entered the room; and he paused for a moment or two noting the change that had come over his niece. There was an eager look in her eyes; her face was more animated as she sat in the window catching the last reflections of the western glow, listening the while to Alleyne, who, with his back to the light, was talking in a low, deep voice of some problem in his favourite pursuit.

“Yes; just as happened over Neptune. That appears to be the only solution of the difficulty,” he replied.

“Then why not direct your glass exactly at the place where you feel this planet must be?”

Alleyne smiled as he spoke next.

“I did not explain to you,” he said, “that if such a planet does exist it must be, comparatively, very small, and so surrounded by the intense light of the sun that no glass we have yet made would render it visible.”

“How strange!” said Glynne, thoughtfully; and her eyes vaguely wandered over the evening sky, and then back to rest in a rapt, dreamy way upon the quiet, absorbed face of the visitor.

“I was looking at Jupiter last night,” she said, suddenly, “trying to see his moons.”

“Yes?”

“But our glass is not sufficiently powerful. I could only distinguish two.”

“Perhaps it was not the fault of your glass,” said Alleyne, smiling. “A glass of a very low power will show them. I have often watched them through a good binocular.”

“I’m afraid ours is a very bad one,” said Glynne.

“No, I should be more disposed to think it a good one, Miss Day. The reason you did not see them is this; one was eclipsed by the planet—in other words, behind it—while the others are passing across its body, whose brightness almost hides them—in fact, does hide them to such an extent that they would not be seen by you.”

There was a few minutes’ silence here, broken at last by Glynne, as she said in a low, thoughtful voice,—

“How much you know. How grand it must be.”

Alleyne laughed softly before replying.

“How much I know!” he said, in a voice full of regret. “My dear madam, I know just enough to see what a very little I have learned; how pitifully small in such a science as astronomy is all that a life devoted to its depths would be.”

“For shame, Moray,” cried Lucy, warmly. “You know that people say you are very clever indeed.”

“Yes,” he replied, “I know what they say; but that is only their judgment. I know how trifling are the things I have learned compared with what there is to acquire.”

“What a goose Glynne is,” said the major to himself, as he stood listening to the conversation. “Why, this man is worth a dozen Rolphs.”

“But, Mr Alleyne,” said Glynne, eagerly, “is it possible—could I—I mean, should you think I was asking too much if I expressed a wish to see something of these wonders of which you have been speaking?”

“Oh, no, Moray would show you everything he could. He’s the most unselfish, patient fellow in the world,” cried Lucy.

Glynne turned from her almost impatiently to Alleyne, who said, with a grave smile upon his face,—

“You have no brother, Miss Day. If you had, I hope you would not do all you could, by flattery and spoiling, to make him weak and conceited.”

“Indeed I don’t do anything of the kind, Moray,” said Lucy, indignantly; “and now, for that, I’ll tell the truth, Glynne; he’s a regular bat, an owl, a recluse, and we’re obliged to drag him out into the light of day, or he’d stop in his room till he grew mouldy, that he would. Why, he goes in spirit right away to the moon sometimes, and it only seems as if his body was left behind.”

“What, do you mean to say he’s moonstruck?” said the major, merrily, and looking half-surprised at the quick, indignant look darted at him by Glynne.

“I’m afraid that Lucy here is quite right,” said Alleyne, smiling as he took his sister’s hand in his and patted it. “I do get so intent upon my studies that all every-day life affairs are regularly forgotten. But I do not work half so hard now. They fetched a doctor to me, and it is forbidden. In fact, I have plenty of time now, and if Miss Day will pay my my poor observatory a visit, I will show her everything that lies in my power.”

“Oh, Mr Alleyne, I should be so glad,” cried Glynne eagerly, and to Lucy’s great delight. “I want to see Saturn’s rings, and the seas and continents in Mars, and the twin stars.”

“Well, you needn’t trouble Mr Alleyne,” said Rolph, who had just entered. “There’s a fellow at Hyde Park corner, with a big glass, lets people look through for a penny. He’d be glad enough to come down for a half-crown or two.”

“Why, how absurd, Robert,” said Glynne, turning upon him good-humouredly. “I want to see and learn about these things from someone who is an astronomer.”

“Oh,” said Rolph, “do you? Well, I see no reason why you shouldn’t go and have a peep or two through Mr Alleyne’s glass. I’ll come with you.”

“Here, I’m very sorry, Alleyne. Miss Alleyne, I don’t know what sort of a host you’ll think me for being so late,” cried Sir John, bustling in. “I hope Glynne has been playing my part well.”

“Admirably, Sir John,” replied Alleyne. “We have been talking upon my favourite topic, and the time soon glides by when one is engaged upon questions regarding the planets.”

“But I say, you know, Mr Alleyne,” said Rolph, who, with all the confidence of one in his own house and proprietary rights over the lady, came and seated himself upon the elbow of the easy-chair in which Glynne reclined, and laid his arm behind her on the back, “I want to know what’s the good of a fellow sacrificing his health, and shutting himself up from society, for the study of these abstruse scientific matters. ’Pon my word, I can’t see what difference it makes to us whether Jupiter has got one moon, or ten moons, or a hundred. He’s such a precious long way off.”

Glynne looked up at him with a good-humoured air of pain, but only to turn back and listen to Alleyne.

“It requires study, Captain Rolph,” he said thoughtfully, “and time to appreciate the value of the results achieved in astronomy. Perhaps we have nothing to show that is of direct utility to man, but everything in nature is so grand—there is so much to be learned, that, for my part, I wonder why everybody does not thirst for knowledge.”

“Yes,” said Glynne, thoughtfully, and below her breath.

“Oh, we all dabble in science, more or less,” said Rolph, glancing at Sir John with a look that seemed to say, “You see how I’ll trot him out.” “Here’s the major goes in for toadstools, and Sir John for big muttons and portly pigs.”

“And Captain Rolph for exhibitions of endurance, to prove that a man is stronger than a horse,” said the major, drily.

“Yes, and not a bad thing, either, eh, Sir John?”

“Oh, every man to his taste,” said the host; “but I believe in a man feeding himself up, and not starving himself down.”

“Oilcake and turnips, eh?”

“Yes, both good things in their way, but I like the chemical components to have taken other forms, Rob, my boy; good Highland Scots beef and Southdown mutton.”

“I hope you will be able to indulge in a good dinner, Rolph?” said the major, looking at the young officer as if he amused him.

“Trust me for that, major,” replied the young man loudly. “I’m not bad at table.”

“I thought, perhaps,” said the major sarcastically, “that you might be in training, and forbidden to eat anything but raw steak and dry biscuit.”

“Oh, dear, no,” said Rolph seriously. “Quite free now, major, quite free.”

“That’s a blessing,” muttered Sir John, who looked annoyed and fidgety. “Hah, dinner at last.”

“Walking makes me hungry and impatient, Miss Alleyne. Come along, you are my property. First lady.”

He held out his arm, and, as Lucy laid her little hand upon it, he went out of the drawing-room chatting merrily; and, as he did so, Rolph leaped from his seat, and drew himself upright as if to display the breadth of his chest and the size of his muscles.

“Glad of it,” he said. “I’m sharp set. Come along, Glynne.”

Alleyne gazed at them intently with a strange feeling of depression coming over his spirit, and so lost to other surroundings that he did not reply to the major, who came up to him, moved by a desire to be polite to a man whom he was beginning to esteem.

Then Major Day drew back and his keen eyes brightened, for Glynne said quietly,—

“You forget. Go on in with uncle.”

“Eh?” said the young officer, looking puzzled.

“Go on in with my uncle,” said Glynne quietly.

And she crossed to where Alleyne was standing, and, in the character of hostess, laid her hand upon his arm.

“There, you’re dismissed for to-night, Rolph,” said the major, who could hardly conceal his satisfaction at this trifling incident.

Then, thrusting his arm through that of the athlete, he marched him to the dining-room, the young man’s face growing dark and full of annoyance at having to give way in this case of ordinary etiquette.

“Confound the fellow! I wish they wouldn’t ask him here,” he muttered.

“Mind seems to be taking the lead over muscles to-day,” said the major to himself, as he walked beside the young officer to the dining-room, while Glynne came more slowly behind, her eyes growing deeper and very thoughtful as she listened to Alleyne’s words.

Volume One—Chapter Thirteen.Mars Makes a Mistake.The dinner, with its pleasant surroundings of flowers and glittering plate and glass, with the finest and whitest of linen, was delightful to Lucy, though to her it was as if there was something wanting, in spite of her position as principal guest. This resulted in her receiving endless little attentions from Sir John; but more than once she felt quite irritated with her brother, who seemed to find no more pleasure in the carefully cooked viands than in the homely joints at The Firs. He ate a little of what was handed to him, almost mechanically, and drank sparingly of the baronet’s choice wines; but his mind was busy upon nothing else than the subject upon which Glynne was asking him questions.The major had plenty to say to Lucy, but he kept noticing the increase of animation in Glynne. For she had been awakened from her ordinary, placid, dreamy state to an intense interest in the subject under discussion.Major Day did not know why he did it, but three times as that dinner progressed, he laid down his knife and fork, thrust his hands beneath the table, and rubbed them softly.“Muscles is out in the cold to-night,” he muttered. “He’ll have to go in training for exercising his patience. Bring him to his senses.”Possibly it was very weak of the major, but he had fresh in his memory, several little pieces of bitter ridicule directed at him by the captain, respecting the botanical pursuit in which he engaged.Now, it so happened that early in the day the major had been out for a long walk, and had come upon a magnificent cluster of a fungus that he had not yet tried for its edible qualities. It was the peculiar grey-brown, scaly-topped mushroom, called by botanistsAmanita Rubescens, and said to be of admirable culinary value.“We’ll have a dish of these to-night,” thought the major, picking a fair quantity of the choicest specimens, which he took home and gave to the butler, with instructions to hand them to the cook for a dish in the second course.Morris, the butler, put the basket down upon the hall table, and went to see to the drawing down of a window blind; and no sooner had he gone than Rolph, who had heard the order, came from the billiard-room into the hall to get his hat and stick preparatory to starting for a walk.He was passing the major’s basket where it stood upon the hall table, when an idea flashed across his brain, and he stopped, glanced round, grinned, and then, as no one was near, took up the creel, walked swiftly across the hall out into the garden, dived into the plantation, ran rapidly down the long walk out of sight of the house, and turned into the pheasant preserve. Here, throwing out the major’s fungi, he looked sharply about and soon collected an equal quantity of the first specimens he encountered, and then turned back.“A sarcastic old humbug,” he muttered; “let him have a dish of these, and if any of them disagree with him, it will be a lesson for the old wretch. He experimented upon me once with his confoundedboleti, as he called them; now, I’ll experimentalise upon him.”As a rule such an act as this could not have been performed unseen, but fate favoured the captain upon this occasion, and he reached the hall without being noticed, replaced the creel upon the table from which he had taken it, and then went for a walk.Now, it so happened that Morris, the butler, had crossed the hall since, but the creel not being where he had placed it, he did not recall his orders; but going to answer a bell half-an-hour afterwards, he caught sight of the basket, remembered what he had been told, and, on his return, took the fungi into the kitchen.“Here, cook,” he said, “you’re to dress these for the second course.”In due time cook, who was a very slow-moving, thoughtful woman, found herself by the basket which she opened, and then turned the fungi out upon a dish.“Well,” she exclaimed, “of all the trash! Mrs Mason, do, for goodness’ sake, look at these.”Glynne’s maid, who was performing some mystic kind of cooking on her own account, to wit, stirring up a saucepan full of thin blue starch with a tallow candle, turned and looked at the basket of fungi, and said,—“Oh, the idea! What are they for?”“To cook, because them star-gazing folks are coming. Morris says Miss Glynne’s always talking about finding the focus now.”“But these things are poison.”“Of course they are. I wouldn’t give them to a pig;” and with all the autocratic determination of a lady in her position, she took the dish, and threw its contents behind her big roasting fire. “There, that’s the place for them! Mary, go and tell Jones I want him.”Jones was cook’s mortal enemy; and in the capacity of supplier of fruit and vegetables for kitchen use, he had daily skirmishes with the lady, whom he openly accused of spoiling his choice productions, and sending them to table unfit for use, while she retaliated by telling him often that he could not grow a bit of garden-stuff fit to be seen—that his potatoes were watery, his beetroot pink, his cauliflowers masses of caterpillars and slugs.Under these circumstances, Jones tied the string of his blue serge apron a little more tightly, twisted the said serge into a tail, which he tucked round his waist, and leaving the forcing-house, where he was busy, set his teeth, pushed his hat down over his nose, and, quite prepared for a serious quarrel, walked heavily into the kitchen. But only to be disarmed, for there was a plate on the white table, containing a splendid wedge of raised pie, with a piece of bread, and a jug of ale beside a horn.Jones looked at cook, and she nodded and smiled; she also condescended to put her lips first to the freshly-filled horn, and then folded her arms and leaned against the table, while the gardener ate his “snack,” feeling that after all, though she had her bit of temper, cook was really what he called “a good sort.”“Ah,” he said at last, with a sigh, after a little current chat, “I must be off now. Let’s see; you’ve got in all you want for to-night?”“Yes, everything,” said cook, smiling, “and I must get to work, too. You haven’t any mushrooms, I suppose?”“Haven’t got any mushrooms?” said Jones, reproachfully. “Why, I’ve a bed just coming on.”“Then I should like to make a dish to-day, and use a few in one of my sauces,” said cook; and half-an-hour later Jones returned with a basketful, which he deposited upon the table with a thrill of pride.The presence of Moray Alleyne, and the way in which he was taken up, as the captain called it, by Glynne, so filled the mind of Rolph, that there was no room for anything else, and as the dinner went on, his annoyance so sharpened his appetite that he ate very heartily of the twoentréesand the joint. It was not until the second course was in progress that a dish was handed round, to which, after a telegraphic glance between the major and Lucy, that young lady helped herself. Glynne took some mechanically, to the major’s great delight, and, like Lucy, went on eating. Then the dish was handed to Rolph, who fixed his glass in his eye, and started slightly as he suddenly recalled the trick he had played in the hall.“What’s this?” he said in an undertone to the butler.“Sham pinions ho nateral, sir.”“Humph! no. Take the dish to Mr Alleyne.”The man took the dish round to the guest, who, talking the while to Glynne, helped himself liberally, and went on eating.“Won’t you have some, Rolph?” said the major, helping himself in turn.“I! No. Don’t care for such dishes.”“Seems to be very good,” said the major. “Smells delicious, and everyone’s eating it.”“Not the ladies?” whispered Rolph.“Yes; they’re revelling.”“Good heavens!” muttered Rolph; and he turned cold and damp, the perspiration standing upon his brow.“Nothing worse in this world than prejudice,” said the major, taking a mouthful of the delicate dish.“Ah, yes: superb. Jack, old fellow, try some of these fungi.”“Get out!” said Sir John, sipping his wine.“But, my dear boy, they are simply magnificent,” cried the major. “Here, take the dish to your master.”The mushrooms were handed, and Sir John tried a little, recalled the dish, and had some more, while Rolph sat perfectly still, not daring to speak, though he saw everyone at the table partaking of the stew.“What are these?” said Sir John. “They’re very good.”“Agaricus Rubescens, my boy. Tons of them rot every year, because there is no one to pick them but Miss Lucy Alleyne and your humble servant here.”“Well, don’t let’s have any more go rotten,” cried Sir John. “They’re delicious, eh, Mr Alleyne?”“I beg your pardon,” said the visitor, looking up.“These fungi,” said the host, “uncommonly good.”“Yes, admirable,” said Alleyne, who had finished his, and had not the most remote recollection of their quality.“I don’t believe he tasted them,” said Sir John to himself.“These are the fungi, Morris, that I gave you to-day to take into the kitchen?” said the major.“Yes, sir,” said Morris, and the major finished his with great gusto.“Uncommonly delicious!” he said.“Capital, Jem,” cried Sir John; “but I hope they won’t poison us.”“Trust me for that. They’ve been well tested, and are perfectly wholesome. Splendid dish.”“They’ll all be in agonies before long,” thought Rolph. “I hope poor Glynne won’t be very bad. A bit of an attack would serve her right, though, for going on like that with the star-gazer. Phew! how hot the room is.”“I give you credit, Jem,” cried the host. “What do you say, Miss Alleyne? It’s of no use to ask these people; they are off on comets or something else.”“Oh, I’m growing a confirmed fungus-eater, Sir John,” said Lucy. “I am Major Day’s disciple. I think them delicious.”“You’re a very charming little lassie, and I like you immensely,” thought Sir John, gazing at Lucy curiously and thoughtfully; “but I hope Jem has too much common sense to be making a fool of himself over you. He likes you, I know, but fungus-hunting is one thing and wife-hunting another. No, I won’t think it of you. You wouldn’t lead him on, and he’s too full of sound sense.”“I shall have to leave the table,” said Rolph to himself. “I never felt so uncomfortable in my life. Ought I to go and get a doctor here? D—n the toadstools! I only meant the major to taste them. Who’d ever have thought that they’d all go in for them. Phew! how hot the room is. Champagne.”The butler filled up his glass, and Rolph, in his excitement, tossed it off, with the result that the next time Morris went round, he filled the captain’s glass again.“The thought of it all makes me feel ill,” said Rolph to himself.“I’ve got a splendid pupil in Miss Alleyne,” said the major, sipping his wine. “I’ve given Glynne up. She can’t tell an agaric from one of the polypori. Mr Alleyne, if you’re trying to teach her star-names, you may give it up as a bad job.”“Don’t interrupt, uncle,” said Glynne, shaking her finger at him, playfully.“How pale the poor girl looks,” thought Rolph, who was now in an agony of apprehension. “Phew! this room is warm!” and he gulped down his glass of wine.“Jack,” said the major, “I couldn’t have believed those fungi would be so delicious; cook has won thecordon bleu. Here, Morris, you are sure these are the same fungi?”“Certain, sir,” replied the butler. “I took them into the kitchen myself.”“And were they all used?”“I think so, sir; part for the ontries in the first course.”“What!” roared Rolph, who had been horribly guilty over that dish; and he turned white as he clutched the seat of his chair.“Salmy of poulay ho sham pinions, sir,” said Morris, politely; and he picked amenufrom the table and laid it before the captain, who refixed the glass in his eye and glared at the card.“Do you mean to say that the hashed chicken and the other dish was made up with those con—those toadstools that were—were in that basket?”“Yes, sir, the basket Major Day brought in, sir,” said Morris.Sir John chuckled. The major burst into a regular roar.“Are—are you sure, Morris?” gasped Rolph, turning a sickly yellow.“Yes, sir; quite sure.”“My dear fellow,” cried the major, wiping his eyes, “what is the matter?”“I’ve—I’ve eaten a great many of them,” panted Rolph.“Well, so we all have, and delicious they were. Why, hang it, man, they won’t poison you.”“Don’t!” gasped Rolph, with a wild look in his eyes; and, clutching at the decanter, he poured a quantity of sherry into a tumbler and gulped it down.“I say, Rob, are you ill?” said Sir John, kindly.“Yes—no—I don’t know,” gasped the captain, gazing wildly from one to the other, in search of a fresh victim to the poison.“Would you like to leave the table?” said Sir John. “Here, Morris, give Captain Rolph a liqueur of brandy.”The butler hurriedly filled a wine glass, and the captain tossed it off as if it had been water, gazing dizzily round at the anxious faces at the table.“Do you feel very bad, Robert?” said Glynne, rising and going round to his side to speak with great sympathy, as she softly laid her hand upon his broad shoulder.“Horribly,” whispered the captain, who was fast losing his nerve. “Don’t you?”“I? No. I am quite well.”“It was those cursed toadstools,” cried Rolph, savagely.“Nonsense, my dear sir,” said the major, firmly. “We have all eaten them, and they were delicious.”“Give me your arm, some one,” groaned Rolph, rising from his chair; and the major caught him, and helped him from the room, Alleyne and Sir John following, after begging Lucy and Glynne to remain seated.“Send for a doctor—quick—I’m poisoned,” said Rolph—“quick!”“Here, send to the town,” cried Sir John. “Let a groom gallop over. No; there’s Mr Oldroyd in the village. Here, you, James, run across the park, you’ll be there in ten minutes.”“Telegraph—physician,” gasped Rolph.“Poor fellow! He seems bad.”“I think,” said Alleyne, quietly, “that a good deal of it is nervous dread.”Rolph looked daggers at him, and then closed his eyes and groaned, as he lay back on a sofa in the library.“Have—have you telegraphed—sent a telegram?” said Rolph, after lying back with his eyes closed for a few minutes.“I have sent for Mr Oldroyd,” said Sir John, “and we will go by his advice. It would take a man half an hour to gallop to the station. We shall have the doctor here long before that.”Rolph looked round, partly for help, partly to see who was to be the next man attacked, and then closed his eyes, and lay breathing heavily.“I wish you wouldn’t bring in those confounded—eh? Who’s there?” said Sir John. “Oh, you, my dear. No, you can’t do any good. Go and talk to Miss Alleyne. Fit of indigestion coming on the top of a lot of physical exertion—training and that sort of thing. He’ll be better soon.”Glynne, who had come to the door, closed it and went away, while Rolph uttered a groan.“I was saying,” continued Sir John, “I wish you wouldn’t bring those confounded things into the house. You will be poisoning us some day.”“What nonsense, Jack!” cried the major. “I tell you the fungi were perfectly good. You ate some of them yourself. How do you feel?”“Oh, I’m all right.”“So is Mr Alleyne; so are the girls; so am I. It is not the mushrooms, I’m sure. More likely your wine. We are all as well as can be.”“Attack you suddenly,” groaned Rolph, piteously.“Ah, well if it does,” said the major, “I won’t make such a fuss over it. Why, when we had the cholera among us at Darjeebad, the men did not make more trouble.”Rolph squeezed his eyes together very closely, and bit his lips, wishing mentally that a fit would seize the major, while he upbraided Fortune for playing him such a prank as this; and then he lay tolerably still, waiting for nearly half an hour, during which notes were compared by the others, one and all of whom declared that they never felt better. Glynne came twice to ask if she could be of any service, and to say that Lucy was eager to help; and then there were steps in the hall, and, directly after, Oldroyd was shown in, looking perfectly cool and business-like, in spite of his hurried scamper across the park.“Your man says that Captain Rolph has been poisoned by eating bad mushrooms,” said the young doctor. “Is this so?”“He has had some of the same dish as all the rest,” said Sir John; “and my brother declares they were perfectly safe.”“Humph!” ejaculated Oldroyd, who had seated himself by his patient, and was questioning and examining him.“Better get him to bed,” he said, after a pause; “and, while he is undressing, I will run home and get him something.”He started directly, and was back just as Rolph sank upon his pillow.“There, sir, drink that,” said Oldroyd, in a quiet decisive tone; and, after displaying a disposition to refuse, the young officer drank what was offered to him, and soon after sank into a heavy sleep.“I’ll come back about twelve, Sir John,” said the doctor. “I don’t think he will be any worse. In fact, I believe he’ll be all right in the morning.”“But what is it?” said Sir John, in a whisper. “If it is the mushrooms, why are we not all ill?”“Well, as far as I can make out,” said Oldroyd, “there is nothing the matter with him but a nervous fit, and an indication of too much stimulant. It seems to me that he has frightened himself into the belief that he has been poisoned. But I’ll come in again about twelve.”“No, no; pray stay, Mr Oldroyd,” cried Sir John. “Come down into the drawing-room, and have a cup of tea and a chat. You don’t think we need telegraph for further advice?”“Really, Sir John, I fail to see why you should,” said Oldroyd. “Your friend is certainly, as far as my knowledge goes, not seriously ill.”“Then come and sit down till you want to see him again,” said Sir John. “I’m very glad to know you, Mr Oldroyd. You do know my brother? Yes, and Mr Alleyne? That’s well. Now come and see Miss Day and her friend.—Oh, my dears,” cried the baronet, in his hearty tones, “here is Mr Oldroyd come to cheer you with the best of news. Mr Oldroyd, my daughter—Well, Morris, what is it?”“If you please. Sir John, cook says, Sir John, she’s very sorry that there should be any unpleasant feeling about the mushrooms; but she had an accident with the ones Major Day sent to be cooked, and those you had for dinner were Jones’s own growing in the pits.”“I could have sworn they had the regular mushroom flavour,” cried the major.“Then we needn’t fidget about our dinner,” said Sir John, laughing. “Doctor, you’re right. Morris, that will do.”Somehow from that minute the evening brightened very pleasantly at Brackley. Lucy thought it charming, and Glynne was an attentive listener to every astronomical word that fell from Alleyne’s lips. Twice over Oldroyd went up to see his patient, and each time came back with the information that he was sleeping heavily, and that there was not the slightest cause for alarm.After that, no one was uneasy, and Rolph was almost forgotten. Alleyne left with his sister about eleven, the two being sent home in the brougham. Glynne needed no persuasion to go to bed, and Oldroyd sat and smoked a cigar with the major and Sir John in the library till twelve, when he went and had another look at his patient.“Well,” said the baronet, on his return, “what news?”“Sleeping like a baby,” replied Oldroyd. “I think I’ll go now.”“Anybody sitting up for you, Mr Oldroyd?”“Oh, no.”“Then there’s no one to be uneasy about your absence?”“Certainly not.”“Then would you oblige me by stopping here to-night, in case you are wanted?”Oldroyd was perfectly willing to oblige, and he was shown to a spare bedroom, where he slept heartily till eight, and then rose and went to the patient, whom he found dressing for his morning walk, while his self-issued bulletin was that he was better.He would not believe the cook.

The dinner, with its pleasant surroundings of flowers and glittering plate and glass, with the finest and whitest of linen, was delightful to Lucy, though to her it was as if there was something wanting, in spite of her position as principal guest. This resulted in her receiving endless little attentions from Sir John; but more than once she felt quite irritated with her brother, who seemed to find no more pleasure in the carefully cooked viands than in the homely joints at The Firs. He ate a little of what was handed to him, almost mechanically, and drank sparingly of the baronet’s choice wines; but his mind was busy upon nothing else than the subject upon which Glynne was asking him questions.

The major had plenty to say to Lucy, but he kept noticing the increase of animation in Glynne. For she had been awakened from her ordinary, placid, dreamy state to an intense interest in the subject under discussion.

Major Day did not know why he did it, but three times as that dinner progressed, he laid down his knife and fork, thrust his hands beneath the table, and rubbed them softly.

“Muscles is out in the cold to-night,” he muttered. “He’ll have to go in training for exercising his patience. Bring him to his senses.”

Possibly it was very weak of the major, but he had fresh in his memory, several little pieces of bitter ridicule directed at him by the captain, respecting the botanical pursuit in which he engaged.

Now, it so happened that early in the day the major had been out for a long walk, and had come upon a magnificent cluster of a fungus that he had not yet tried for its edible qualities. It was the peculiar grey-brown, scaly-topped mushroom, called by botanistsAmanita Rubescens, and said to be of admirable culinary value.

“We’ll have a dish of these to-night,” thought the major, picking a fair quantity of the choicest specimens, which he took home and gave to the butler, with instructions to hand them to the cook for a dish in the second course.

Morris, the butler, put the basket down upon the hall table, and went to see to the drawing down of a window blind; and no sooner had he gone than Rolph, who had heard the order, came from the billiard-room into the hall to get his hat and stick preparatory to starting for a walk.

He was passing the major’s basket where it stood upon the hall table, when an idea flashed across his brain, and he stopped, glanced round, grinned, and then, as no one was near, took up the creel, walked swiftly across the hall out into the garden, dived into the plantation, ran rapidly down the long walk out of sight of the house, and turned into the pheasant preserve. Here, throwing out the major’s fungi, he looked sharply about and soon collected an equal quantity of the first specimens he encountered, and then turned back.

“A sarcastic old humbug,” he muttered; “let him have a dish of these, and if any of them disagree with him, it will be a lesson for the old wretch. He experimented upon me once with his confoundedboleti, as he called them; now, I’ll experimentalise upon him.”

As a rule such an act as this could not have been performed unseen, but fate favoured the captain upon this occasion, and he reached the hall without being noticed, replaced the creel upon the table from which he had taken it, and then went for a walk.

Now, it so happened that Morris, the butler, had crossed the hall since, but the creel not being where he had placed it, he did not recall his orders; but going to answer a bell half-an-hour afterwards, he caught sight of the basket, remembered what he had been told, and, on his return, took the fungi into the kitchen.

“Here, cook,” he said, “you’re to dress these for the second course.”

In due time cook, who was a very slow-moving, thoughtful woman, found herself by the basket which she opened, and then turned the fungi out upon a dish.

“Well,” she exclaimed, “of all the trash! Mrs Mason, do, for goodness’ sake, look at these.”

Glynne’s maid, who was performing some mystic kind of cooking on her own account, to wit, stirring up a saucepan full of thin blue starch with a tallow candle, turned and looked at the basket of fungi, and said,—

“Oh, the idea! What are they for?”

“To cook, because them star-gazing folks are coming. Morris says Miss Glynne’s always talking about finding the focus now.”

“But these things are poison.”

“Of course they are. I wouldn’t give them to a pig;” and with all the autocratic determination of a lady in her position, she took the dish, and threw its contents behind her big roasting fire. “There, that’s the place for them! Mary, go and tell Jones I want him.”

Jones was cook’s mortal enemy; and in the capacity of supplier of fruit and vegetables for kitchen use, he had daily skirmishes with the lady, whom he openly accused of spoiling his choice productions, and sending them to table unfit for use, while she retaliated by telling him often that he could not grow a bit of garden-stuff fit to be seen—that his potatoes were watery, his beetroot pink, his cauliflowers masses of caterpillars and slugs.

Under these circumstances, Jones tied the string of his blue serge apron a little more tightly, twisted the said serge into a tail, which he tucked round his waist, and leaving the forcing-house, where he was busy, set his teeth, pushed his hat down over his nose, and, quite prepared for a serious quarrel, walked heavily into the kitchen. But only to be disarmed, for there was a plate on the white table, containing a splendid wedge of raised pie, with a piece of bread, and a jug of ale beside a horn.

Jones looked at cook, and she nodded and smiled; she also condescended to put her lips first to the freshly-filled horn, and then folded her arms and leaned against the table, while the gardener ate his “snack,” feeling that after all, though she had her bit of temper, cook was really what he called “a good sort.”

“Ah,” he said at last, with a sigh, after a little current chat, “I must be off now. Let’s see; you’ve got in all you want for to-night?”

“Yes, everything,” said cook, smiling, “and I must get to work, too. You haven’t any mushrooms, I suppose?”

“Haven’t got any mushrooms?” said Jones, reproachfully. “Why, I’ve a bed just coming on.”

“Then I should like to make a dish to-day, and use a few in one of my sauces,” said cook; and half-an-hour later Jones returned with a basketful, which he deposited upon the table with a thrill of pride.

The presence of Moray Alleyne, and the way in which he was taken up, as the captain called it, by Glynne, so filled the mind of Rolph, that there was no room for anything else, and as the dinner went on, his annoyance so sharpened his appetite that he ate very heartily of the twoentréesand the joint. It was not until the second course was in progress that a dish was handed round, to which, after a telegraphic glance between the major and Lucy, that young lady helped herself. Glynne took some mechanically, to the major’s great delight, and, like Lucy, went on eating. Then the dish was handed to Rolph, who fixed his glass in his eye, and started slightly as he suddenly recalled the trick he had played in the hall.

“What’s this?” he said in an undertone to the butler.

“Sham pinions ho nateral, sir.”

“Humph! no. Take the dish to Mr Alleyne.”

The man took the dish round to the guest, who, talking the while to Glynne, helped himself liberally, and went on eating.

“Won’t you have some, Rolph?” said the major, helping himself in turn.

“I! No. Don’t care for such dishes.”

“Seems to be very good,” said the major. “Smells delicious, and everyone’s eating it.”

“Not the ladies?” whispered Rolph.

“Yes; they’re revelling.”

“Good heavens!” muttered Rolph; and he turned cold and damp, the perspiration standing upon his brow.

“Nothing worse in this world than prejudice,” said the major, taking a mouthful of the delicate dish.

“Ah, yes: superb. Jack, old fellow, try some of these fungi.”

“Get out!” said Sir John, sipping his wine.

“But, my dear boy, they are simply magnificent,” cried the major. “Here, take the dish to your master.”

The mushrooms were handed, and Sir John tried a little, recalled the dish, and had some more, while Rolph sat perfectly still, not daring to speak, though he saw everyone at the table partaking of the stew.

“What are these?” said Sir John. “They’re very good.”

“Agaricus Rubescens, my boy. Tons of them rot every year, because there is no one to pick them but Miss Lucy Alleyne and your humble servant here.”

“Well, don’t let’s have any more go rotten,” cried Sir John. “They’re delicious, eh, Mr Alleyne?”

“I beg your pardon,” said the visitor, looking up.

“These fungi,” said the host, “uncommonly good.”

“Yes, admirable,” said Alleyne, who had finished his, and had not the most remote recollection of their quality.

“I don’t believe he tasted them,” said Sir John to himself.

“These are the fungi, Morris, that I gave you to-day to take into the kitchen?” said the major.

“Yes, sir,” said Morris, and the major finished his with great gusto.

“Uncommonly delicious!” he said.

“Capital, Jem,” cried Sir John; “but I hope they won’t poison us.”

“Trust me for that. They’ve been well tested, and are perfectly wholesome. Splendid dish.”

“They’ll all be in agonies before long,” thought Rolph. “I hope poor Glynne won’t be very bad. A bit of an attack would serve her right, though, for going on like that with the star-gazer. Phew! how hot the room is.”

“I give you credit, Jem,” cried the host. “What do you say, Miss Alleyne? It’s of no use to ask these people; they are off on comets or something else.”

“Oh, I’m growing a confirmed fungus-eater, Sir John,” said Lucy. “I am Major Day’s disciple. I think them delicious.”

“You’re a very charming little lassie, and I like you immensely,” thought Sir John, gazing at Lucy curiously and thoughtfully; “but I hope Jem has too much common sense to be making a fool of himself over you. He likes you, I know, but fungus-hunting is one thing and wife-hunting another. No, I won’t think it of you. You wouldn’t lead him on, and he’s too full of sound sense.”

“I shall have to leave the table,” said Rolph to himself. “I never felt so uncomfortable in my life. Ought I to go and get a doctor here? D—n the toadstools! I only meant the major to taste them. Who’d ever have thought that they’d all go in for them. Phew! how hot the room is. Champagne.”

The butler filled up his glass, and Rolph, in his excitement, tossed it off, with the result that the next time Morris went round, he filled the captain’s glass again.

“The thought of it all makes me feel ill,” said Rolph to himself.

“I’ve got a splendid pupil in Miss Alleyne,” said the major, sipping his wine. “I’ve given Glynne up. She can’t tell an agaric from one of the polypori. Mr Alleyne, if you’re trying to teach her star-names, you may give it up as a bad job.”

“Don’t interrupt, uncle,” said Glynne, shaking her finger at him, playfully.

“How pale the poor girl looks,” thought Rolph, who was now in an agony of apprehension. “Phew! this room is warm!” and he gulped down his glass of wine.

“Jack,” said the major, “I couldn’t have believed those fungi would be so delicious; cook has won thecordon bleu. Here, Morris, you are sure these are the same fungi?”

“Certain, sir,” replied the butler. “I took them into the kitchen myself.”

“And were they all used?”

“I think so, sir; part for the ontries in the first course.”

“What!” roared Rolph, who had been horribly guilty over that dish; and he turned white as he clutched the seat of his chair.

“Salmy of poulay ho sham pinions, sir,” said Morris, politely; and he picked amenufrom the table and laid it before the captain, who refixed the glass in his eye and glared at the card.

“Do you mean to say that the hashed chicken and the other dish was made up with those con—those toadstools that were—were in that basket?”

“Yes, sir, the basket Major Day brought in, sir,” said Morris.

Sir John chuckled. The major burst into a regular roar.

“Are—are you sure, Morris?” gasped Rolph, turning a sickly yellow.

“Yes, sir; quite sure.”

“My dear fellow,” cried the major, wiping his eyes, “what is the matter?”

“I’ve—I’ve eaten a great many of them,” panted Rolph.

“Well, so we all have, and delicious they were. Why, hang it, man, they won’t poison you.”

“Don’t!” gasped Rolph, with a wild look in his eyes; and, clutching at the decanter, he poured a quantity of sherry into a tumbler and gulped it down.

“I say, Rob, are you ill?” said Sir John, kindly.

“Yes—no—I don’t know,” gasped the captain, gazing wildly from one to the other, in search of a fresh victim to the poison.

“Would you like to leave the table?” said Sir John. “Here, Morris, give Captain Rolph a liqueur of brandy.”

The butler hurriedly filled a wine glass, and the captain tossed it off as if it had been water, gazing dizzily round at the anxious faces at the table.

“Do you feel very bad, Robert?” said Glynne, rising and going round to his side to speak with great sympathy, as she softly laid her hand upon his broad shoulder.

“Horribly,” whispered the captain, who was fast losing his nerve. “Don’t you?”

“I? No. I am quite well.”

“It was those cursed toadstools,” cried Rolph, savagely.

“Nonsense, my dear sir,” said the major, firmly. “We have all eaten them, and they were delicious.”

“Give me your arm, some one,” groaned Rolph, rising from his chair; and the major caught him, and helped him from the room, Alleyne and Sir John following, after begging Lucy and Glynne to remain seated.

“Send for a doctor—quick—I’m poisoned,” said Rolph—“quick!”

“Here, send to the town,” cried Sir John. “Let a groom gallop over. No; there’s Mr Oldroyd in the village. Here, you, James, run across the park, you’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Telegraph—physician,” gasped Rolph.

“Poor fellow! He seems bad.”

“I think,” said Alleyne, quietly, “that a good deal of it is nervous dread.”

Rolph looked daggers at him, and then closed his eyes and groaned, as he lay back on a sofa in the library.

“Have—have you telegraphed—sent a telegram?” said Rolph, after lying back with his eyes closed for a few minutes.

“I have sent for Mr Oldroyd,” said Sir John, “and we will go by his advice. It would take a man half an hour to gallop to the station. We shall have the doctor here long before that.”

Rolph looked round, partly for help, partly to see who was to be the next man attacked, and then closed his eyes, and lay breathing heavily.

“I wish you wouldn’t bring in those confounded—eh? Who’s there?” said Sir John. “Oh, you, my dear. No, you can’t do any good. Go and talk to Miss Alleyne. Fit of indigestion coming on the top of a lot of physical exertion—training and that sort of thing. He’ll be better soon.”

Glynne, who had come to the door, closed it and went away, while Rolph uttered a groan.

“I was saying,” continued Sir John, “I wish you wouldn’t bring those confounded things into the house. You will be poisoning us some day.”

“What nonsense, Jack!” cried the major. “I tell you the fungi were perfectly good. You ate some of them yourself. How do you feel?”

“Oh, I’m all right.”

“So is Mr Alleyne; so are the girls; so am I. It is not the mushrooms, I’m sure. More likely your wine. We are all as well as can be.”

“Attack you suddenly,” groaned Rolph, piteously.

“Ah, well if it does,” said the major, “I won’t make such a fuss over it. Why, when we had the cholera among us at Darjeebad, the men did not make more trouble.”

Rolph squeezed his eyes together very closely, and bit his lips, wishing mentally that a fit would seize the major, while he upbraided Fortune for playing him such a prank as this; and then he lay tolerably still, waiting for nearly half an hour, during which notes were compared by the others, one and all of whom declared that they never felt better. Glynne came twice to ask if she could be of any service, and to say that Lucy was eager to help; and then there were steps in the hall, and, directly after, Oldroyd was shown in, looking perfectly cool and business-like, in spite of his hurried scamper across the park.

“Your man says that Captain Rolph has been poisoned by eating bad mushrooms,” said the young doctor. “Is this so?”

“He has had some of the same dish as all the rest,” said Sir John; “and my brother declares they were perfectly safe.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Oldroyd, who had seated himself by his patient, and was questioning and examining him.

“Better get him to bed,” he said, after a pause; “and, while he is undressing, I will run home and get him something.”

He started directly, and was back just as Rolph sank upon his pillow.

“There, sir, drink that,” said Oldroyd, in a quiet decisive tone; and, after displaying a disposition to refuse, the young officer drank what was offered to him, and soon after sank into a heavy sleep.

“I’ll come back about twelve, Sir John,” said the doctor. “I don’t think he will be any worse. In fact, I believe he’ll be all right in the morning.”

“But what is it?” said Sir John, in a whisper. “If it is the mushrooms, why are we not all ill?”

“Well, as far as I can make out,” said Oldroyd, “there is nothing the matter with him but a nervous fit, and an indication of too much stimulant. It seems to me that he has frightened himself into the belief that he has been poisoned. But I’ll come in again about twelve.”

“No, no; pray stay, Mr Oldroyd,” cried Sir John. “Come down into the drawing-room, and have a cup of tea and a chat. You don’t think we need telegraph for further advice?”

“Really, Sir John, I fail to see why you should,” said Oldroyd. “Your friend is certainly, as far as my knowledge goes, not seriously ill.”

“Then come and sit down till you want to see him again,” said Sir John. “I’m very glad to know you, Mr Oldroyd. You do know my brother? Yes, and Mr Alleyne? That’s well. Now come and see Miss Day and her friend.—Oh, my dears,” cried the baronet, in his hearty tones, “here is Mr Oldroyd come to cheer you with the best of news. Mr Oldroyd, my daughter—Well, Morris, what is it?”

“If you please. Sir John, cook says, Sir John, she’s very sorry that there should be any unpleasant feeling about the mushrooms; but she had an accident with the ones Major Day sent to be cooked, and those you had for dinner were Jones’s own growing in the pits.”

“I could have sworn they had the regular mushroom flavour,” cried the major.

“Then we needn’t fidget about our dinner,” said Sir John, laughing. “Doctor, you’re right. Morris, that will do.”

Somehow from that minute the evening brightened very pleasantly at Brackley. Lucy thought it charming, and Glynne was an attentive listener to every astronomical word that fell from Alleyne’s lips. Twice over Oldroyd went up to see his patient, and each time came back with the information that he was sleeping heavily, and that there was not the slightest cause for alarm.

After that, no one was uneasy, and Rolph was almost forgotten. Alleyne left with his sister about eleven, the two being sent home in the brougham. Glynne needed no persuasion to go to bed, and Oldroyd sat and smoked a cigar with the major and Sir John in the library till twelve, when he went and had another look at his patient.

“Well,” said the baronet, on his return, “what news?”

“Sleeping like a baby,” replied Oldroyd. “I think I’ll go now.”

“Anybody sitting up for you, Mr Oldroyd?”

“Oh, no.”

“Then there’s no one to be uneasy about your absence?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then would you oblige me by stopping here to-night, in case you are wanted?”

Oldroyd was perfectly willing to oblige, and he was shown to a spare bedroom, where he slept heartily till eight, and then rose and went to the patient, whom he found dressing for his morning walk, while his self-issued bulletin was that he was better.

He would not believe the cook.

Volume One—Chapter Fourteen.Terrestrial Trials.“I think it was very foolish of your brother to invite them, Lucy,” said Mrs Alleyne, austerely. “All these preparations are not made without money; and when they are made, we have the bitterness of feeling that what is luxury to us is to them contemptible and mean.”“Oh, but, mamma, you don’t know Glynne, or you would not talk like that. She is as simple in her tastes as can be, and thinks nothing of the luxury in which they live.”“She would think a great deal of it, my dear, if, by any misfortune in life, it should all pass from her.”“No, mamma, I don’t think she would,” said Lucy. “She is a strange girl.”“For my part,” said Mrs Alleyne, very sternly, “I don’t think we are doing wisely in keeping up this intimacy.”“Oh, mamma!”“I have said it. Look at the expense I have been put to in preparations. In the constant struggle which I go through day after day, paring and contriving to make our little income last out; any addition of this kind is a weariness and a care. Of what good, pray, is this visit but to satisfy the curiosity of a few heartless people?”“Oh, mamma, don’t say that. Glynne is the kindest and most amiable of girls, and nobody could be nicer to me than the major and Sir John.”“Of course they are nice to you—to my daughter,” said Mrs Alleyne, pulling up her mittens—a very dingy black pair that had lain by till they were specked with a few grey spots of mildew.“And the major thinks very highly of Moray.”“It is only natural that he should,” said Mrs Alleyne, haughtily. “But I repeat, I see no advantage of a social nature to be gained by this intimacy, even if we wished it.”“But you forget about Moray, mamma, dear.”“I forget nothing about your brother, Lucy. But pray, what do you mean by this allusion?”“His need of change. He has certainly been better lately.”“Decidedly not,” replied Mrs Alleyne, making a fresh effort to cover a very large and unpleasantly prominent vein that ran from the back of her hand above her wrist. “I have noticed that Moray is more quiet and thoughtful than ever.”“But Mr Oldroyd said yesterday, mamma, that he was better.”“Mr Oldroyd gave his opinion, my dear, but it was only the opinion of one man. Mr Oldroyd may be mistaken.”“But, mamma, he seems so clever, and to know so much about Moray’s case.”“Yes, my child—seems; but these young medical men often jump at conclusions, and are ready to take for granted that they understand matters which are completely sealed.”Lucy coloured slightly, and remained silent.“For my part,” continued Mrs Alleyne, “I do not feel at all easy respecting Moray’s state, and his health is too serious a thing to be trifled with.”Lucy’s colour deepened as Mrs Alleyne swept out of the room.“I’m sure he’s clever, and I’m sure he was quite right about Moray,” she said. “It’s a shame to say so, but I wish mamma would not be so prejudiced. She will not be, though, when she knows Glynne better.”There was a pause here, and Lucy sat looking very intently before her, the intent gaze in her face being precisely similar to that seen in her brother’s countenance when he was watching a far-off planet, and striving to learn from it something of its mysteries and ways.But Lucy was not studying some far-off planet, though her task was perhaps as hard, for she was trying to read the future, and to discover what there was in store for her brother and herself. She could not think of Moray being always engaged studying stars, nor of herself as continually at home with her mother leading that secluded life in the sombre brick mansion, finding it cheerless and dull in summer, cold and bleak in winter when the wind roared in the pine trees, till it was as if the sea were beating the shore hard by.“There is sure to be some change,” she said, brightening up. “I know it, but I hope it will not bring trouble.”No further allusions were made to the coming visit of the family from Brackley, but the next day and the next, to use Lucy’s words, mamma led her such a life that she wished—and yet she did not wish—that the visit was not coming off, so troublesome did the preparations grow.Mrs Alleyne was going about her blank, chilly house one morning, looking very much troubled; and now and then she stopped to wring her hands, but it was generally in a cupboard or in a drawer, when there was not the slightest likelihood of her being seen. Her forehead was deeply lined, and there was a peculiar drawing down about the corners of her lips that indicated care.It was the old story—money. She had been up to town only the week before to sell out a sum in Government Stock, to pay for an astronomical instrument her son required—a tremendously costly piece of mechanism, thus leaving herself poorer than ever; and now her idol had been putting her to fresh expense.“So thoughtless of him,” she moaned, with her face in the linen closet—“so foolish. He seems to have no idea whatever of the value of money, and I don’t know what I shall do.”But all the same there was the same glow of satisfaction in Mrs Alleyne’s breast that she used to feel when she had bought the idol a wooden horse, or a toy waggon full of sacks, or one of those instruments of torture upon wheels, which, when a child draws it across the floor, emits a series of wire-born notes of a most discordant kind.Mrs Alleyne turned over three or four clean tablecloths, opening them out and looking wistfully at darns and frayings, and places where the clothes pegs had torn away the hems when they had been hung out to dry. These she refolded with a sigh, and put back.“Oh, my boy, my boy, if you only thought a little more about this world as well as the other worlds!” she sighed, as she closed the door, and, with her brow growing more wrinkled, wrung her hands over the pantry sink.It was not that she had washed them, for the tap was dry, no water being ever pumped into the upper cistern, and the pantry was devoted to the reception of Mrs Alleyne’s meagre stores.There were cupboards here that held glass and china—good old china and glass; but in the one, there were marks of mendings and rivets, and in the other chips and, worse troubles, cracks, and odd glasses without feet, or whose feet were upon the next shelf.“I don’t know how we shall manage,” sighed Mrs Alleyne, wringing her hands once more. “It was very, very thoughtless of him. The knives are worst of all.”She unrolled a packet or two, which contained nothing but table knives that had once been remarkably good, but which had done their work in company with hard usage, and some of which had shed their ivory handles, while others were thin and double edged, others again being bent at the points, or worn down by cleaning until they were about two-thirds of their original length.“Dear me—dear me! how things do wear out!” sighed Mrs Alleyne; and, raising her eyes, she saw her face reflected in a little square glass hanging upon the wall—“even ourselves,” she added, sadly.Just then Lucy came in hurriedly.“Oh, mamma,” she cried, “I’m sure I don’t know what we shall do. The more I look up things, the worse they seem. It is dreadful; it is horrible. I shall blush for shame.”“And why, may I ask?” said Mrs Alleyne, sternly.“Because people will do nothing but spy out the poverty of the land. Moray has no sense at all, or he would never have been so foolish as to ask them.”“Your brother had his own good reasons for asking Sir John Day, his brother, and his daughter, and I beg that you will not speak in that disrespectful way of your brother’s plans.”“But you don’t see, mamma.”“I see everything, my child,” said Mrs Alleyne, stiffly.“But you don’t think how awkward it will be.”“Yes, I have thought of all that.”“But Moray never does. How are we to entertain people who are accustomed to live in luxury, and who have abundance of plate and china and glass, and servants to wait upon them? Oh, we shall look ridiculous.”“Lucy!”“I don’t care, mamma, I can’t help it. I’ve been working away to see if I could not get things in proper trim to do us justice, but it is horrible. Moray must write and tell them they are not to come.”“My son shall do nothing of the kind, Lucy, and I desire that you do the best you can, so that Moray may be content.”“But, mamma, we have no flowers, no fruit for dessert, no pretty glass and vases; and I know the dinner will be horrible.”“Moray asked the Days to come and see us, not our household arrangements, and we must give them some dinner before they go up into the observatory.”“Oh, very well, mamma,” said Lucy, “I have protested. You and Moray must have it your own way.”“Of course,” said Mrs Alleyne, composedly; “and I beg that you will find no more fault with your brother’s arrangements.”“No, mamma: I have done.”“I dare say Captain Rolph very often dines far worse at his mess than we shall dine to-morrow.”“But surely he is not coming, mamma,” cried Lucy in horror; “he will be jeering at everything.”“If he is so extremely ungentlemanly, it is no fault of ours. Yes, he is coming; and, by the way, I did not tell you, I have just asked Mr Oldroyd to join us.”“Mamma!” cried Lucy, turning scarlet.“Now don’t exclaim against that, my dear,” said Mrs Alleyne. “I am sure it will be almost a charity to have him here. He cannot be too grand for our simple ways.”Poor Lucy shrank away looking very thoughtful, and, resigning herself to fate, went busily about the house, working like a little slave, and arranging the place to the best advantage; but only to break down at last, with a piteous burst of tears, as she saw how miserable a result she had achieved, and compared her home with that of Glynne.Mrs Alleyne was not in much better spirits, indulging herself as she did in various wringings of the hands in closets and corners, but all in the most furtive way, as she too thought of the barrenness of the house.The next morning the preparations for the little dinner were in hurried progress, Lucy busily working with gloomy resignation, and the kitchen given over to the woman who had come to cook. Then the large covered cart from Brackley drew up to the gate, and upon Eliza going down, the man who drove helped her to unbar the great gates, and led his horse in and right round to the kitchen door.He was the bearer of a note for Mrs Alleyne, and while Eliza had taken it in, and the recipient was reading it, to afterwards hand it over to Lucy, Sir John’s man began unloading the cart in the most matter-of-fact way, and arranging things upon the kitchen dresser.“What does he say, that he begs your pardon, and knowing that we have no garden, would we accept a few trifles of flowers and a little fruit?”Mrs Alleyne frowned, and the shadow on her countenance deepened after Sir John’s man had departed with the cart, for the trifles sent over were a magnificent collection of cut flowers, with grapes, a pine, hot-house peaches, and nectarines and plums.Lucy coloured with pleasure, for all was most thoughtfully contrived. Even choice leaves in a neat bunch were included, ready for decorating the fruit in the dessert dishes. But directly after she could not help sharing her mother’s annoyance—it seemed so like looking upon them as poor.“It is almost an insult,” said Mrs Alleyne at last.Lucy looked up at her wistfully, with the cloud now crossing her own bright little face.“It is because we live in so humble a manner,” cried Mrs Alleyne, angrily. “It is cruel—a display of arrogance—because I choose to live quietly that Moray may proceed with his great discoveries in science.”Lucy gazed at her mother’s face, in which she could read the growing anger and mortification.“Oh, I wish Moray had not been so ready to invite them,” she said to herself.“The things shall go back,” exclaimed Mrs Alleyne at last.“Oh, mamma,” whispered Lucy, clinging to her and trying to calm her anger, “don’t—pray don’t say that. It is only a present of fruit and flowers, after all.”“You will not send the things back, mamma.”Mrs Alleyne was silent for a few moments, and then said huskily,—“No: they shall remain, but Moray must not know; and mind this, Lucy, when they come there is sure to be an offer for the man-servant to stop and wait. This must be declined.”“Oh, yes, mamma,” cried Lucy, excitedly, as she began to imagine Sir John’s footman being witness of the shifts made in re-washing plates, and forks, and spoons.“We must submit to the insult, I suppose. I cannot resent it for Moray’s sake. They are his guests, and must be treated with respect.”In due time Sir John and Glynne, with Rolph and the major, arrived, and were heartily welcomed by Moray, who seemed to have thrown off his quiet thoughtfulness of manner, and to be striving to set the visitors at their ease. So warm and hearty, too, were Sir John and the major, that Lucy brightened; and had Rolph taken another tone, and Mrs Alleyne been satisfied with doing all that lay in her power to make her visitors welcome, leaving the rest, all would have gone well. But, in face of the stern, calm dignity of mien which she displayed, it was impossible for Sir John to adopt his easy-going sociability. In fact, between them, Mrs Alleyne and Rolph spoiled the dinner.It was not by any means the greatest mistake that Mrs Alleyne had ever made in her life, but it was a serious one all the same, to attempt a regular society dinner in the face of so many difficulties. Poor woman: she felt that it was her duty to show Sir John that she was a lady, and understood the social amenities of life.The consequence was that, having attempted too much, all went wrong: Eliza got into the most horrible tangles, and half-a-dozen times over, Sir John wished they had had a good Southdown leg of mutton, vegetables, and a pudding, and nothing else.But he did not have his wish—for there was soup that was not good; soles that had become torn and tattered in the extraction from the frying-pan; veal cutlets, whose golden egging and crumbing had been in vain, for this coating had dissolved apparently into the sauce. The otherentréeemitted an odour which made the major hungry, being a curried chicken; but, alas! the rice was in the condition known by schoolboys as “mosh-posh.” Then came a sirloin of beef and a pair of boiled fowls, with an intervening tongue and white sauce—at least the sauce should have been white, and the chickens should have been young—while what kind of conscience the butcher possessed who defrauded Mrs Alleyne by sending her in that sirloin of beef, with the announcement that it was prime, it is impossible to say.The table looked bright and pretty with its fine white cloth, bright flowers and fruit, but the dinner itself was a series of miserable failures, through all of which Mrs Alleyne sat, stern, and with a fixed smile upon her countenance. Moray and Glynne were serenely unconscious, eating what was before them, but with their thoughts and conversation far away amongst the stars. Sir John and the major, with the most chivalrous courtesy, ignored everything, and kept up the heartiest of conversation; while Rolph, who was in a furious temper at having been obliged to come, fixed his glass in his eye and stolidly stared when he did not sneer.It was poor Lucy upon whom the burden of the dinner cares fell, and she suffered a martyrdom. Oldroyd saw that she was troubled, but did not fully realise the cause, while the poor girl shivered and shrank, and turned now hot, now cold, as she read Rolph’s contempt for the miserable fare.“Yes,” said the Major to himself, “it’s a mistake. She meant well, poor woman, but if she had given us a well-cooked steak how much better it would have been.”Mrs Alleyne, behind her mask of smiles, also noted how Rolph’s eye-glass was directed at the various dishes, and how his plate went away, time after time, with the viands scarcely tasted. She hated him with a bitter hatred, and felt full of rejoicing to see his annoyance with Glynne, whose calm, handsome face lit up and grew animated when Alleyne spoke to her, answering questions, questioning her in return, and telling her of his work during the past few days.The meal went on very slowly, and such success as attended it was due to Sir John and the major, the former devoting himself to his hostess, while the latter relieved poor little Lucy’s breast of some of its burden of trouble.“Ah,” he said once, out of sheer kindness, just after Rolph had laughed silently at a grievous mistake made by Eliza, who, in a violent perspiration with work and excitement, had dropped a dish in the second course, breaking it, and spreading a too tremulous cabinet pudding and its sauce upon the well—worn carpet. “Ah, a capital dinner, Miss Alleyne, only wanted one dish to have made it complete.”“How can you be so unkind, Major Day!” said Lucy, in a low, choking voice; “the poor girl is so unused to company, and she could not help it.”Major Day looked petrified. He had advanced his remark like a squadron to cover the rout of the cabinet pudding, and he was astounded by Lucy’s flank movement, as she took his remark to refer to the maid.“My dear child,” he stammered, “you mistake me.”Poor Lucy could not contain herself. The vexations of the whole dinner which had been gathering within her now burst forth; and though she spoke to him in an undertone, her face was crimson, and it was all she could do to keep from bursting into a flood of tears.“It is so unkind of you,” continued Lucy; “we are not used to having company. Moray did not think how difficult it would be for us to make proper preparations, and it is not our fault that everything is so bad.”“My dear child!” whispered the major again.“You need not have added to my misery by calling it a capital dinner, and alluding to the dish.”Fortunately Sir John was chatting loudly to Mrs Alleyne, Oldroyd was in a warm argument with Rolph on the subject of training, and Alleyne was holding Glynne’s attention by describing to her the theory that the stars were in all probability suns with planets revolving round them, as we do about our own giver of warmth and light. Hence, then, the major’s little interlude with Lucy was unnoticed, and Eliza was able to remove the evidences of the disaster with a dustpan and brush.“My dear Miss Alleyne, give me credit for being an officer and a gentleman,” said the major, quietly; “the dish I alluded to was one of some choice fungi, such as we discover for ourselves in the woods and fields. I meant nothing else—believe me.”Lucy darted a grateful look in his eyes, and followed it up with a smile, which sent a peculiar little sting into Oldroyd’s breast.“For,” the latter argued with himself, “elderly gentlemen do sometimes manage to exercise a great deal of influence over the susceptible hearts of maidens, and Major Day is a smart, attractive, old man.”His attention was, however, taken up directly by Rolph, who, in a half-haughty, condescending tone asked him if he had studied training from its medical and surgical side, nettling him by his manner, and putting him upon his mettle to demolish his adversary in argument.“Thank you, major,” whispered Lucy. “I might have known—I ought to have known better.”And then, with the ice broken between herself and her old botanical tutor and friend, she seemed to jump with girlish eagerness at the opportunity for lightening her burdened heart.“Everything has gone so dreadfully,” she whispered. “I have been sitting upon thorns ever since you all came. It has been heartbreaking, and I shall be so glad when it is all over, and you are gone.”“Tut—tut! you inhospitable little creature,” said the major. “For shame. I shall not. Why, surely my little pupil does not think we came over here for the sake of the dinner. Fie!—fie!—fie! Brother John, there, enjoys a crust of bread and cheese and a glass of ale better than anything; while I, an old campaigner, used, when I was on service, to think myself very lucky if I got a biscuit and a slice of melon, or a handful of dates, for a meal.”“But Sir John said you were so particular, and that was why he sent the fruit.”“My brother John is a gentleman,” said the major, smiling. “But there, there, let me see my little pupil smiling, and at her ease again. Why, we’ve come over this evening to feast upon stars and planets, when the proper time comes. I say, look at Glynne, how bright and eager she looks. She is not troubling herself about the dinner; nor your brother neither.”“Moray?” replied Lucy. “Oh, no; nothing troubles him. Poor fellow! If you gave him only some bran he would eat it and never say a word. It’s throwing nice things away to make them for him.”At last the dessert plates had been placed upon the table, and the fruit handed round by Eliza, who, in spite of several nods and frowns from Mrs Alleyne, insisted upon staying to the very last, by way of salving her conscience for the pudding lapse. Then she finally departed to look after the coffee; the ladies rose and left the room, and the gentlemen drew closer together to discuss their wine.Some cups of capital coffee were brought in, its quality being due to the fact that Lucy had slipped into the kitchen to make it herself; and after these had been enjoyed, Sir John drew attention to the object of their visit. Rolph yawned, and made up his mind to remain behind, to go into the garden and have a cigar, and Alleyne led the way into the drawing-room, Glynne rising directly to come and meet them, all eagerness to enjoy the promised inspection of the observatory.

“I think it was very foolish of your brother to invite them, Lucy,” said Mrs Alleyne, austerely. “All these preparations are not made without money; and when they are made, we have the bitterness of feeling that what is luxury to us is to them contemptible and mean.”

“Oh, but, mamma, you don’t know Glynne, or you would not talk like that. She is as simple in her tastes as can be, and thinks nothing of the luxury in which they live.”

“She would think a great deal of it, my dear, if, by any misfortune in life, it should all pass from her.”

“No, mamma, I don’t think she would,” said Lucy. “She is a strange girl.”

“For my part,” said Mrs Alleyne, very sternly, “I don’t think we are doing wisely in keeping up this intimacy.”

“Oh, mamma!”

“I have said it. Look at the expense I have been put to in preparations. In the constant struggle which I go through day after day, paring and contriving to make our little income last out; any addition of this kind is a weariness and a care. Of what good, pray, is this visit but to satisfy the curiosity of a few heartless people?”

“Oh, mamma, don’t say that. Glynne is the kindest and most amiable of girls, and nobody could be nicer to me than the major and Sir John.”

“Of course they are nice to you—to my daughter,” said Mrs Alleyne, pulling up her mittens—a very dingy black pair that had lain by till they were specked with a few grey spots of mildew.

“And the major thinks very highly of Moray.”

“It is only natural that he should,” said Mrs Alleyne, haughtily. “But I repeat, I see no advantage of a social nature to be gained by this intimacy, even if we wished it.”

“But you forget about Moray, mamma, dear.”

“I forget nothing about your brother, Lucy. But pray, what do you mean by this allusion?”

“His need of change. He has certainly been better lately.”

“Decidedly not,” replied Mrs Alleyne, making a fresh effort to cover a very large and unpleasantly prominent vein that ran from the back of her hand above her wrist. “I have noticed that Moray is more quiet and thoughtful than ever.”

“But Mr Oldroyd said yesterday, mamma, that he was better.”

“Mr Oldroyd gave his opinion, my dear, but it was only the opinion of one man. Mr Oldroyd may be mistaken.”

“But, mamma, he seems so clever, and to know so much about Moray’s case.”

“Yes, my child—seems; but these young medical men often jump at conclusions, and are ready to take for granted that they understand matters which are completely sealed.”

Lucy coloured slightly, and remained silent.

“For my part,” continued Mrs Alleyne, “I do not feel at all easy respecting Moray’s state, and his health is too serious a thing to be trifled with.”

Lucy’s colour deepened as Mrs Alleyne swept out of the room.

“I’m sure he’s clever, and I’m sure he was quite right about Moray,” she said. “It’s a shame to say so, but I wish mamma would not be so prejudiced. She will not be, though, when she knows Glynne better.”

There was a pause here, and Lucy sat looking very intently before her, the intent gaze in her face being precisely similar to that seen in her brother’s countenance when he was watching a far-off planet, and striving to learn from it something of its mysteries and ways.

But Lucy was not studying some far-off planet, though her task was perhaps as hard, for she was trying to read the future, and to discover what there was in store for her brother and herself. She could not think of Moray being always engaged studying stars, nor of herself as continually at home with her mother leading that secluded life in the sombre brick mansion, finding it cheerless and dull in summer, cold and bleak in winter when the wind roared in the pine trees, till it was as if the sea were beating the shore hard by.

“There is sure to be some change,” she said, brightening up. “I know it, but I hope it will not bring trouble.”

No further allusions were made to the coming visit of the family from Brackley, but the next day and the next, to use Lucy’s words, mamma led her such a life that she wished—and yet she did not wish—that the visit was not coming off, so troublesome did the preparations grow.

Mrs Alleyne was going about her blank, chilly house one morning, looking very much troubled; and now and then she stopped to wring her hands, but it was generally in a cupboard or in a drawer, when there was not the slightest likelihood of her being seen. Her forehead was deeply lined, and there was a peculiar drawing down about the corners of her lips that indicated care.

It was the old story—money. She had been up to town only the week before to sell out a sum in Government Stock, to pay for an astronomical instrument her son required—a tremendously costly piece of mechanism, thus leaving herself poorer than ever; and now her idol had been putting her to fresh expense.

“So thoughtless of him,” she moaned, with her face in the linen closet—“so foolish. He seems to have no idea whatever of the value of money, and I don’t know what I shall do.”

But all the same there was the same glow of satisfaction in Mrs Alleyne’s breast that she used to feel when she had bought the idol a wooden horse, or a toy waggon full of sacks, or one of those instruments of torture upon wheels, which, when a child draws it across the floor, emits a series of wire-born notes of a most discordant kind.

Mrs Alleyne turned over three or four clean tablecloths, opening them out and looking wistfully at darns and frayings, and places where the clothes pegs had torn away the hems when they had been hung out to dry. These she refolded with a sigh, and put back.

“Oh, my boy, my boy, if you only thought a little more about this world as well as the other worlds!” she sighed, as she closed the door, and, with her brow growing more wrinkled, wrung her hands over the pantry sink.

It was not that she had washed them, for the tap was dry, no water being ever pumped into the upper cistern, and the pantry was devoted to the reception of Mrs Alleyne’s meagre stores.

There were cupboards here that held glass and china—good old china and glass; but in the one, there were marks of mendings and rivets, and in the other chips and, worse troubles, cracks, and odd glasses without feet, or whose feet were upon the next shelf.

“I don’t know how we shall manage,” sighed Mrs Alleyne, wringing her hands once more. “It was very, very thoughtless of him. The knives are worst of all.”

She unrolled a packet or two, which contained nothing but table knives that had once been remarkably good, but which had done their work in company with hard usage, and some of which had shed their ivory handles, while others were thin and double edged, others again being bent at the points, or worn down by cleaning until they were about two-thirds of their original length.

“Dear me—dear me! how things do wear out!” sighed Mrs Alleyne; and, raising her eyes, she saw her face reflected in a little square glass hanging upon the wall—“even ourselves,” she added, sadly.

Just then Lucy came in hurriedly.

“Oh, mamma,” she cried, “I’m sure I don’t know what we shall do. The more I look up things, the worse they seem. It is dreadful; it is horrible. I shall blush for shame.”

“And why, may I ask?” said Mrs Alleyne, sternly.

“Because people will do nothing but spy out the poverty of the land. Moray has no sense at all, or he would never have been so foolish as to ask them.”

“Your brother had his own good reasons for asking Sir John Day, his brother, and his daughter, and I beg that you will not speak in that disrespectful way of your brother’s plans.”

“But you don’t see, mamma.”

“I see everything, my child,” said Mrs Alleyne, stiffly.

“But you don’t think how awkward it will be.”

“Yes, I have thought of all that.”

“But Moray never does. How are we to entertain people who are accustomed to live in luxury, and who have abundance of plate and china and glass, and servants to wait upon them? Oh, we shall look ridiculous.”

“Lucy!”

“I don’t care, mamma, I can’t help it. I’ve been working away to see if I could not get things in proper trim to do us justice, but it is horrible. Moray must write and tell them they are not to come.”

“My son shall do nothing of the kind, Lucy, and I desire that you do the best you can, so that Moray may be content.”

“But, mamma, we have no flowers, no fruit for dessert, no pretty glass and vases; and I know the dinner will be horrible.”

“Moray asked the Days to come and see us, not our household arrangements, and we must give them some dinner before they go up into the observatory.”

“Oh, very well, mamma,” said Lucy, “I have protested. You and Moray must have it your own way.”

“Of course,” said Mrs Alleyne, composedly; “and I beg that you will find no more fault with your brother’s arrangements.”

“No, mamma: I have done.”

“I dare say Captain Rolph very often dines far worse at his mess than we shall dine to-morrow.”

“But surely he is not coming, mamma,” cried Lucy in horror; “he will be jeering at everything.”

“If he is so extremely ungentlemanly, it is no fault of ours. Yes, he is coming; and, by the way, I did not tell you, I have just asked Mr Oldroyd to join us.”

“Mamma!” cried Lucy, turning scarlet.

“Now don’t exclaim against that, my dear,” said Mrs Alleyne. “I am sure it will be almost a charity to have him here. He cannot be too grand for our simple ways.”

Poor Lucy shrank away looking very thoughtful, and, resigning herself to fate, went busily about the house, working like a little slave, and arranging the place to the best advantage; but only to break down at last, with a piteous burst of tears, as she saw how miserable a result she had achieved, and compared her home with that of Glynne.

Mrs Alleyne was not in much better spirits, indulging herself as she did in various wringings of the hands in closets and corners, but all in the most furtive way, as she too thought of the barrenness of the house.

The next morning the preparations for the little dinner were in hurried progress, Lucy busily working with gloomy resignation, and the kitchen given over to the woman who had come to cook. Then the large covered cart from Brackley drew up to the gate, and upon Eliza going down, the man who drove helped her to unbar the great gates, and led his horse in and right round to the kitchen door.

He was the bearer of a note for Mrs Alleyne, and while Eliza had taken it in, and the recipient was reading it, to afterwards hand it over to Lucy, Sir John’s man began unloading the cart in the most matter-of-fact way, and arranging things upon the kitchen dresser.

“What does he say, that he begs your pardon, and knowing that we have no garden, would we accept a few trifles of flowers and a little fruit?”

Mrs Alleyne frowned, and the shadow on her countenance deepened after Sir John’s man had departed with the cart, for the trifles sent over were a magnificent collection of cut flowers, with grapes, a pine, hot-house peaches, and nectarines and plums.

Lucy coloured with pleasure, for all was most thoughtfully contrived. Even choice leaves in a neat bunch were included, ready for decorating the fruit in the dessert dishes. But directly after she could not help sharing her mother’s annoyance—it seemed so like looking upon them as poor.

“It is almost an insult,” said Mrs Alleyne at last.

Lucy looked up at her wistfully, with the cloud now crossing her own bright little face.

“It is because we live in so humble a manner,” cried Mrs Alleyne, angrily. “It is cruel—a display of arrogance—because I choose to live quietly that Moray may proceed with his great discoveries in science.”

Lucy gazed at her mother’s face, in which she could read the growing anger and mortification.

“Oh, I wish Moray had not been so ready to invite them,” she said to herself.

“The things shall go back,” exclaimed Mrs Alleyne at last.

“Oh, mamma,” whispered Lucy, clinging to her and trying to calm her anger, “don’t—pray don’t say that. It is only a present of fruit and flowers, after all.”

“You will not send the things back, mamma.”

Mrs Alleyne was silent for a few moments, and then said huskily,—

“No: they shall remain, but Moray must not know; and mind this, Lucy, when they come there is sure to be an offer for the man-servant to stop and wait. This must be declined.”

“Oh, yes, mamma,” cried Lucy, excitedly, as she began to imagine Sir John’s footman being witness of the shifts made in re-washing plates, and forks, and spoons.

“We must submit to the insult, I suppose. I cannot resent it for Moray’s sake. They are his guests, and must be treated with respect.”

In due time Sir John and Glynne, with Rolph and the major, arrived, and were heartily welcomed by Moray, who seemed to have thrown off his quiet thoughtfulness of manner, and to be striving to set the visitors at their ease. So warm and hearty, too, were Sir John and the major, that Lucy brightened; and had Rolph taken another tone, and Mrs Alleyne been satisfied with doing all that lay in her power to make her visitors welcome, leaving the rest, all would have gone well. But, in face of the stern, calm dignity of mien which she displayed, it was impossible for Sir John to adopt his easy-going sociability. In fact, between them, Mrs Alleyne and Rolph spoiled the dinner.

It was not by any means the greatest mistake that Mrs Alleyne had ever made in her life, but it was a serious one all the same, to attempt a regular society dinner in the face of so many difficulties. Poor woman: she felt that it was her duty to show Sir John that she was a lady, and understood the social amenities of life.

The consequence was that, having attempted too much, all went wrong: Eliza got into the most horrible tangles, and half-a-dozen times over, Sir John wished they had had a good Southdown leg of mutton, vegetables, and a pudding, and nothing else.

But he did not have his wish—for there was soup that was not good; soles that had become torn and tattered in the extraction from the frying-pan; veal cutlets, whose golden egging and crumbing had been in vain, for this coating had dissolved apparently into the sauce. The otherentréeemitted an odour which made the major hungry, being a curried chicken; but, alas! the rice was in the condition known by schoolboys as “mosh-posh.” Then came a sirloin of beef and a pair of boiled fowls, with an intervening tongue and white sauce—at least the sauce should have been white, and the chickens should have been young—while what kind of conscience the butcher possessed who defrauded Mrs Alleyne by sending her in that sirloin of beef, with the announcement that it was prime, it is impossible to say.

The table looked bright and pretty with its fine white cloth, bright flowers and fruit, but the dinner itself was a series of miserable failures, through all of which Mrs Alleyne sat, stern, and with a fixed smile upon her countenance. Moray and Glynne were serenely unconscious, eating what was before them, but with their thoughts and conversation far away amongst the stars. Sir John and the major, with the most chivalrous courtesy, ignored everything, and kept up the heartiest of conversation; while Rolph, who was in a furious temper at having been obliged to come, fixed his glass in his eye and stolidly stared when he did not sneer.

It was poor Lucy upon whom the burden of the dinner cares fell, and she suffered a martyrdom. Oldroyd saw that she was troubled, but did not fully realise the cause, while the poor girl shivered and shrank, and turned now hot, now cold, as she read Rolph’s contempt for the miserable fare.

“Yes,” said the Major to himself, “it’s a mistake. She meant well, poor woman, but if she had given us a well-cooked steak how much better it would have been.”

Mrs Alleyne, behind her mask of smiles, also noted how Rolph’s eye-glass was directed at the various dishes, and how his plate went away, time after time, with the viands scarcely tasted. She hated him with a bitter hatred, and felt full of rejoicing to see his annoyance with Glynne, whose calm, handsome face lit up and grew animated when Alleyne spoke to her, answering questions, questioning her in return, and telling her of his work during the past few days.

The meal went on very slowly, and such success as attended it was due to Sir John and the major, the former devoting himself to his hostess, while the latter relieved poor little Lucy’s breast of some of its burden of trouble.

“Ah,” he said once, out of sheer kindness, just after Rolph had laughed silently at a grievous mistake made by Eliza, who, in a violent perspiration with work and excitement, had dropped a dish in the second course, breaking it, and spreading a too tremulous cabinet pudding and its sauce upon the well—worn carpet. “Ah, a capital dinner, Miss Alleyne, only wanted one dish to have made it complete.”

“How can you be so unkind, Major Day!” said Lucy, in a low, choking voice; “the poor girl is so unused to company, and she could not help it.”

Major Day looked petrified. He had advanced his remark like a squadron to cover the rout of the cabinet pudding, and he was astounded by Lucy’s flank movement, as she took his remark to refer to the maid.

“My dear child,” he stammered, “you mistake me.”

Poor Lucy could not contain herself. The vexations of the whole dinner which had been gathering within her now burst forth; and though she spoke to him in an undertone, her face was crimson, and it was all she could do to keep from bursting into a flood of tears.

“It is so unkind of you,” continued Lucy; “we are not used to having company. Moray did not think how difficult it would be for us to make proper preparations, and it is not our fault that everything is so bad.”

“My dear child!” whispered the major again.

“You need not have added to my misery by calling it a capital dinner, and alluding to the dish.”

Fortunately Sir John was chatting loudly to Mrs Alleyne, Oldroyd was in a warm argument with Rolph on the subject of training, and Alleyne was holding Glynne’s attention by describing to her the theory that the stars were in all probability suns with planets revolving round them, as we do about our own giver of warmth and light. Hence, then, the major’s little interlude with Lucy was unnoticed, and Eliza was able to remove the evidences of the disaster with a dustpan and brush.

“My dear Miss Alleyne, give me credit for being an officer and a gentleman,” said the major, quietly; “the dish I alluded to was one of some choice fungi, such as we discover for ourselves in the woods and fields. I meant nothing else—believe me.”

Lucy darted a grateful look in his eyes, and followed it up with a smile, which sent a peculiar little sting into Oldroyd’s breast.

“For,” the latter argued with himself, “elderly gentlemen do sometimes manage to exercise a great deal of influence over the susceptible hearts of maidens, and Major Day is a smart, attractive, old man.”

His attention was, however, taken up directly by Rolph, who, in a half-haughty, condescending tone asked him if he had studied training from its medical and surgical side, nettling him by his manner, and putting him upon his mettle to demolish his adversary in argument.

“Thank you, major,” whispered Lucy. “I might have known—I ought to have known better.”

And then, with the ice broken between herself and her old botanical tutor and friend, she seemed to jump with girlish eagerness at the opportunity for lightening her burdened heart.

“Everything has gone so dreadfully,” she whispered. “I have been sitting upon thorns ever since you all came. It has been heartbreaking, and I shall be so glad when it is all over, and you are gone.”

“Tut—tut! you inhospitable little creature,” said the major. “For shame. I shall not. Why, surely my little pupil does not think we came over here for the sake of the dinner. Fie!—fie!—fie! Brother John, there, enjoys a crust of bread and cheese and a glass of ale better than anything; while I, an old campaigner, used, when I was on service, to think myself very lucky if I got a biscuit and a slice of melon, or a handful of dates, for a meal.”

“But Sir John said you were so particular, and that was why he sent the fruit.”

“My brother John is a gentleman,” said the major, smiling. “But there, there, let me see my little pupil smiling, and at her ease again. Why, we’ve come over this evening to feast upon stars and planets, when the proper time comes. I say, look at Glynne, how bright and eager she looks. She is not troubling herself about the dinner; nor your brother neither.”

“Moray?” replied Lucy. “Oh, no; nothing troubles him. Poor fellow! If you gave him only some bran he would eat it and never say a word. It’s throwing nice things away to make them for him.”

At last the dessert plates had been placed upon the table, and the fruit handed round by Eliza, who, in spite of several nods and frowns from Mrs Alleyne, insisted upon staying to the very last, by way of salving her conscience for the pudding lapse. Then she finally departed to look after the coffee; the ladies rose and left the room, and the gentlemen drew closer together to discuss their wine.

Some cups of capital coffee were brought in, its quality being due to the fact that Lucy had slipped into the kitchen to make it herself; and after these had been enjoyed, Sir John drew attention to the object of their visit. Rolph yawned, and made up his mind to remain behind, to go into the garden and have a cigar, and Alleyne led the way into the drawing-room, Glynne rising directly to come and meet them, all eagerness to enjoy the promised inspection of the observatory.

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