A FOB ONB INSTANT, ONB INSTANT ONLY, FORTtTNE FELT SURE, QtTITE StTRK, THAT IN SOME WAY OJ OIUKH SUB WAd VBBY OBAB TO KOUKUT ROY. * [^%e 22. | THE LAUREL BUSH. !^.-i ^n ®15-fa0l)ioneb £ovt ©torg. BY THE AUTHOR OF ''JOHN HALIFAX. GENTLEMAN," &c. %. 9 MONTREAL: DAWSON BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. T,' :v .^^ Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada in the Year 1876, by DAWSON BROTHERS, , In the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. LoTBLL Printing and Publishing Company, Printers. THE LAUREL BUSH. CHAPTER I. It was a very ugly bush indeed ; that is, 80 far as any thing in nature can be real- ly ugly. It was lopsided — having on the one hand a stunted stump or two, while on the other a huge heavy branch swept down to the gravel-walk. It had a crooked gnarl- ed trunk or stem, hollow enough to entice any weak-minded bird to build a nest there — only it was so near to the ground, and also to the garden gate. Besides, the own- ers of the garden, evidently of practical mind, had made use of it to place between a fork in its branches a sort of letter-box — not the government regulation one, for twen- ty years ago this had not been thought of, but a rough receptacle, where, the house be- ing a good way oflF, letters might be deposit- ed, instead of, as hitherto, in a hole in the trunk — near the foot of the tree, and under shelter of its mass of evergreen leaves. This letter-box, made by the boys of the family at the i)istigation and with the as- sistance of their tutor, had proved so attract- ive to some ei:ceodingly incautious spar- row that during the intervals of the post she had begun a nest there, which was found by the boys. Exceedingly wild boys they were, and a great trouble to their old grandmother, with whom they were staying the summer, and their young governess — "Misfortune," as they called her, her real name being MisH Williams— Fortune Will- iams. The nickname watt a little too near the truth, as a keener observer than mischiev- ous boys would have read in her quiet, some- times sad, face ; and it had been stopped rather severely by the tutor of the elder boys, a young man whom the grandmother had been forced to get, to " keep them in or- der." He was a Mr. Robert Eoy, once a stu- dent, now a teacher of the " humanities," from the neighboring town — I beg its par- don — city ; and a lovely old city it is ! — of St. Andrews. Thence he was in the habit of coming to them three and often four days in the week, teaching of mornings and walk- ing of afternoons. They had expected him this afternoon, but their grandmother had carried them off on some pleasure excursion ; and being a lady of inexact habits — one, too, to whom tutors were tutors and nothing more — she had merely said to Miss Williams, as the carriage drove away, "When Mr. Roy comes, tell him ho is not wanted till to- morrow." And so Miss Williams had waited at the gate, not wishing him to have the addition- al trouble of walking up to the house, for ehc knew every minute of his time was pre- cious. Tlie poor and the hard-working can understand and sympathize with one anoth- er. Only a tutor, and only a governess : Mrs. Dalziel drove away and neyer thought of them again. They were mere machines —servants to wh()m sho paid their wages, and Qu that they did itufficieut service to de- 13 THE LAUREL BUSH. serve these wages, she never interfered with tliem, nur, indeed, wasted a moment's consid- eration upon them or tlieir concuruu. CoTisoqueutly they were iu the somewhat rare and peculiar position of a young man and young woman (perhaps Mrs. Dalziel would have taken exception to the words "young lady and young gentleman") thrown together day after day, week after week — nay, it had now hecomo month after mouth —to all intents and purposes quite alono, except for the children. They taught to- gether, there heing hut one school -room; walked out together, for the two younger boys refused to be separated from their elder brothers; and, in short, spent two- thirds of their existence together, without let or hinderance, comment or observation, from any mortal soul. I do not wish tc make any mystery in this story. A young woman of twenty-five and a young man of thirty, both perfectly alone in the world — orphans, without broth- er or sister — having to earn their own brend, and earn it hardly, and oeing placed in cir- cumstances where they had every opportu- nity of intimate friendship, sympathy, what- ever you like to call it : who could doubt what would happen ? The more so, aa there was no one to suggest that it might hap- pen; no one to watch them or warn them, or waken them with worldly-minded hints; or else to rise up, after the fashion of so many wise parents and guardians and well- intentioned friends, and indignantly shut the stable door after the steed is stolen. No. That something which was so sure to happen had happened ; you might have seen it in their eyes, have heard it in the very tone of their voices, though they still talked in a very commonplace way, and still called each other " Miss Williams" and " Mr. Roy." In fact, their whole demeanor to one another was characterized by the grave and even formal decorum which was natural to very reserved people, just trem- bling on the verge of that discovery which will unlock the heart of each to the other, and annihilate reserve forever between the two whom Heaven has designed and meant to become one ; a completed exjistonce. If by any mischance this does not come about, each may load a very creditable and not unhappy life; but it will be a locked-np life, one to which no third person is ever likely to find the key. Whether such natures are to be envied or pitied is more than I can say ; but at least they are more to be respected than the peo- ple who wear their hearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at, and very often are all the prouder the more they are pecked at, and the more elegantly they bleed ; which waa not likely to be the case with either of these young folks, young aa they were. They were young, and youth is always in- teresting and even comely ; but beyond that there was nothing remarkable about either. He waa Scotch ; she English, or rather Welsh. She had the clear blue Welsh eye, the funny retromsi Welsh nose ; but with the prettiest little mouth underneath it — firm, close, and sweet ; full of sensitiveness, but a sensitive- ness that waa controlled and guided by that best possession to either man or woman, a^ good strong will. No one could doubt that the young governess had, what was a very useful thing to a governess, " a will of her own ;" but not a domineering or obnoxious will, which indeed is seldom will at all, but merely obstinacy. For the rest. Miss Williams waa a little woman, or gave the impression of being so, from her slight figure and delicate hands and feet. I doubt if any one would have called her pretty, until he or she had learn- ed to love her. For there are two distinct kinds of love, one in which the eye instructs the heart, and the other in which the heart informs and guides the eye. There have been men who, seeing an unknown beauti- ful face, have felt sure it implied the most beautiful soul in the world, pursued it, wor- shiped it, wooed and won it, found the fancy true, and loved the woman forever. Other men there are who would simply say, "I don't know if sach a one is handsome or not ; I only know she is herself — and mine." Both loves are good ; nay, it is difficult to say which is best. But the latter would be THE LAUREL BUSH. 13 the most likely to any one who became at- tached to Fortune Williams. Also, perhaps, to Robert Roy, thoagh no one expects good looks in his sex ; indeed, they are mostly rather objectionable. Wom- (m do not usually care for a very handsome man ; and men are prone to set him down as conceited. No one conld lay either charge to Mr. Roy. He was only an honest-looking Scotchman, tall and strong and manly. Not "red," in spite of his name, but dark-skinned and dark-haired ; in no way resembling his great namesake, Rob Roy Macgregor, as the boys sometimes called him behind his back — never to his face. Gentle as the young man was, there was something about him which effectually prevented any one's tak- ing the smallest liberty with him. Though he had been a teacher of boys ever since he was seventeen — and I have beard one of the fraternity confeos that it is almost impossi- ble to be a school-master for ten years with- out becoming a tyrant — still it was a pleas- ant and 8weet-<;empered face. Very far from a weak face, though : when Mr. Roy said a thing must be dime, every one of his boys knew it must be done, and there was no use saying any more about it. He had unquestionably that rare gift, the power of authority; though this did not necessarily imply self-control ; for some peo- ]>le can rule every body except themselves. But Robert Roy's clear, calm, rather sad eye, aud a certain patient expression about the mouth, implied that he too had had enough of the hard training of life to be able to gov- ern himself And that is more difScult to a man than to a woman. " All thy passions, matched with mine, Arc as moonlight unto enniight, and as water unto wine." A truth which even Fortune's tender heart did not fully take in, deep as was her sym- pathy for him; for his toilsome, lonely hfe, lived more in shadow than in sunshine, and with every temptation to the selfishness which is so apt to follow self-dopondeiice, aud the bitterness that to a proud spirit so often makes the sting of poverty. Yet he was neither selfish nor bitter ; only a little reserved, silent, and — except with children — rather grave. She stood watching him now, for she could see him a long way off across the lev- el Links, aud noticed that he stopped more than once to look at the golf-players. He was a capital golfer himself, but had never any time to play. Between his own studies and the teaching by which he earned the money to prosecute them, every hour was filled u]). So he turned his back on the pleasant pastime, which seems to have such au extraordinary fascination for those who pursue it, aud came on to his daily work, with that resolute deliberate step, bent on going direct to his point and turning aside for nothing. Fortune knew it well by this time ; had learned to distinguish it from all others in the world. There are some footsteps which, by a pardonable poetical license, we say " we should hear in our graves," and though this girl did not think of that, for death looked far off, and she was scarcely a poet- ical person, still, many a morning, when, sit- ting at her school-room window, she heard Mr. Roy coming steadily down the grav- el-walk, she was conscious of — something which people can not feel twice in a life- time. And now, when he approached with that kind smile of his, which brightened into double pleasure when he safv who was wait- ing for him, ghe was aware of a wild heart- beat, a sense of exceeding joy, and then of relief and rest. He was " comfortable" to her. She could express it in no other way. At sight of his face and at sound of his voice all worldly cares and troubles, of which she had a good many, seemed to fall off. To be with him was like having an arm to lean on, a light to walk by ; and she had walked alone so long. " Good-afternoon, Miss Williams." " Good-afternoon, Mr. Roy." They said no more than that, but the stti- pidest person in the world might have seen that they were glatl to meet, glad to bo to- gether. Though neither they nor any one else could have explained the mysterious 14 THE LAUREL BUSH. fact, the foundation of all love stories in books or in life — and which the present au- thor owns, after having written many books and seen a great deal of life, is to her also as great a mystery as ever — Why do certain people like to be together? What is the inexplicable attraction which makes them seek one another, suit one another, put up with one another's weaknesses, condone ouo another's faults (when neither are too great to lessen love), and to the lost day of life find a charm in one another's society which extends to no other human being I Happy love or lost love, a full world or an empty world, life with joy or life without it — that is all the dilTereuce. Which some people think very small, and that it does not mat- ter; and perhaps it does not — to many peo- ple. But it does to some, and I incline to pnt among that category Miss Williams and Mr. Roy. They stood by the laurel bush, having just shaken hands rather more hastily than they usually did; but the absence of the cliiklren, and the very unusual fact of their being quite alone, gave to both a certain shyness, and she had drawn her hand away, saying, with a slight blush: " Mrs. Dalziel desired me to meet j'ou and tell you that you might have a holiday to- day. She has taken the boys with her to Elie. I dare say you will not be sorry to gain an hour or two for yourself; though I aui sorry you should have the trouble of the walk for nothing." "For nothing f" — with the least shadow of a smile, not of annoyance, certainly. him), they were tutor and governess; but they were something else besides; some- thing which, the instant their chains were lifted off, made them feel free and young and strong, and comforted them with a com- fort unspeakable. "She bade mo apologize. No, I am afraid, if I tell the absolute truth, she did not bid me, but I do apologize." " What for, Miss Williams T" "For your having been brought out all this way just to go back again." " I do not mind it, I assure you." " And as for the lost lesson — " "The boys will not mourn over it, I dare say. In fact, their term with me is so soon comiug to an end that it does not signify much. They told me they are guiug back to England to school next week. Do you go back too t" "Not just yet — not till next Christmas. Mrs. Dalziel talks of wintering in London ; but she is so vague in her plans that I am never sure from one week to another what she will do." " And what are your plans f You always know what you intend to do." " Yes, I think so," answered Miss Williams, smiling. " One of the few things I remem- ber of my mother was hearing her say of me, that ' her little girl was a little girl who always knew her own mind.' I think I do. I may not be always able to carry it out, but I .think I know it." " Of course," said Mr. Roy, absently and somewhat vaguely, as he stood beside the laurel bush, pulling one of its shiny leaves " Indeed, I would have let you know if I : to pieces, and looking right ahead, across could, but she decided at the very last min- ' the sunshiny Links, the long shore of yellow ute ; and if I had proposed that a messen- ' sands, where the mermaids might well de- ger should have been sent to stop you, I am afraid — it would not have answered." " Of course not ;" and they interchanged an amused look — these fellow- victims to the well-known ways of the household — which, however, neither grumbled at ; it was mere- ly an outside thing, this treatment of both as mere tutor and governess. After all (as he sometimes sdid, when some special rude- ness — not to himself, but to her — vexed light to come and "take hands" — to the smooth, dazzling, far-away sea. No sea is more beautiful than that at St. Andrews. Its sleepy glitter seemed to have lulled Robert Roy into a sudden meditation, from which no word of his Qompaniou came to rouse him. In truth, she, never given much to talking, simply stood, as shc/often did, silently beside him, quite satisfied with the mere comfort of his presence. THE LAUREL BUSH. 15 I am afraid this Fortune WiUiamB will be considered a very weak-minded young wom- an. She was not a bit of a coquette, she had not the slightest wish to flirt with any man. Nor was she a proud beauty desirous to subjugate the other sex, and drag them triumphantly at her chariot wheels. She did not see the credit, ot the use, or the pleasuie of any such proceeding. She was a self-con tained, self-dependent woman. Thoroughly a woman ; not indifferent at all to woman- hood's Itest blessing; still, she could live without it if necessary, as she could have lived without any thing which it had pleased Ood to deny her. She was not a creature likely to die for love, or do wrong for love, which some people think the only test of love's strength, Instead of being its utmost weakness ; but that she was capable of love, for all her composure and quietness, capable of it, and ready for it, in its intensest, most passionate, and most enduring form, the God who made her knew, if no one else did. Her time would come; indeed, had come already. She had too much self-respect to lot him guess it, but I am afraid she was very fond of — or, if that is a foolish phrase, deeply attached to — Robert Roy. He had been so good to her, at once strong and ten- der, chivalrous, respectful, and kind; and she had no father, no brother, no other man at all to judge him by, except the accident- al men whom she had met in society, creat- ures on two legs who wore coats and trow- sers, who had been civil to her, as she to them, but who had never interested her in the smallest degree, perhaps because she knew so little of them. But no; it would have been just the samo bad oiie known theia a thousand years. She was not "a man's woman," that is, one of those women who feel interested in any thing in the shape of a man, and make men interested in them accordingly, for the root of much masculine affection is pure vanity. That celebrated Scotch song, , . " Come deaf, or come bl'nd, or come cripple, O come, ony ane o' them a* ! Par better be married to sometbing, Than no to be married ava," ? , was a rhyme that would never have touched the stony heart of Fortune Williams. And yet, let me own it once more, she waa very, very fond of Robert Roy. He had never spoken to her one word of love, actual love, no more than he spoke now, as they stood side by side, looking with the same eyes upon the same scene. I say the same eyes, for they were exceedingly alike in their tastes. There was no need ever to go into long explanations about this or that; a glance sufficed, or a word, to show each what the other enjoyed ; and both had the quiet conviction that they were enjoying it together. Now aa that sweet, still, sun- shiny view met their mutual gaze, they fell into no poetical raptures, but just stood and looked, taking it all in with exceeding pleas- ure, as they had done many and many a time, but never, it seemed, so perfectly as DOW. " \^at a lovely afternoon 1" she said at last. "Yes. It is a pity to waste it. Have yon any thing special to dof What did you mean to employ yourself with, now your birds are flown t" "Oh, I can always find something to do." " But need you find it ? We both work so hard. If we could only now and then have a little bit of pleasure !" He put it so simply, yet almost with a sigh. This poor girl's heart responded to it suddenly, wildly. She was only twenty- five, yet sometimes she felt quite old, or rather as if she had never been young. The constant teaching, teaching of rough boys, too — for she had had the whole four till Mr. Roy took the two elder off her hands — the necessity of grinding hard out of school hours to keep herself up in Latin, Euclid, and other branches which do not usually form part of a feminine education, only having a great natural love of work, she had taught herself — all these things com- bined to make her life a dull life, a hard life, till Robert Roy came into it. And sometimes even now the desperate craving to enjoy — not only to endure, but to eiyoy '■'Yr ■■(■ 16 THE LAUREL BUSH. — to take a little of the natural itloasurea of her a^e — came to the poor novenieHH very sorely, cHpuciuUy on tluys hikIi hh this, when all the outward world loolitnl bo gay, 80 idle, and she worked so hard. So did Robert Roy. Life was not easier to him than to herself; she knew that ; and when he said, half joking, as if ho wanted to feel his way, " Let us imitate our boys, and take a half holiday," she only laughed, but did not refuse. How could she refuse t There were the long smooth sands on sither side the Eden, stretching away into indefinite distance, with not a human being upon them to break their loneliness, or, if there was, he or she looked a mere dot, not human at all. Even if these two had been afraid of being seen walking together — which they hardly were, being too unimportant for any one to care whether they were friends or lovers, or what not — there was nobody to see them, except iu the character of two black dots on the yellow sands. "It is low water; suppose we go and look for sea-anemones. One of my pupils wants some, and I promised to try and iind one the first spare hour I had." " But wo shall not Iind anemones on the sands." " Shells, then, you practical woman ! We'll gather shells. It will be all the same to that poor invalid boy — and to me," added he, with that involuntary sigh which she had noticed more than once, and which had be- gun to strike on her ears not quite painful- ly. Sighs, when we are young, mean dif- ferently to what they do in after-years. " I don't care very much where I go, or what I do ; I only want — well, to be happy for an hour, if Providence will let me." "Why should not Providence let youf" said Fortune, gently. " Few people deserve it more." " You are kind to think so ; but you are always kind to every body." By this time they had left their position by the laurel bush, and were walking along side by side, according as he had suggested. This silent, instinctive acquiescence in what he wished done — it had happened once or twice before, startling her a little at her- self; for, as I havt< siiid, Miss Williams was not at all the kind of person to do every thing that every body asked her, without considering whether it waa right or wrong. She could obey, but it would depend entire- ly upon whom she had to obey, which, in- deed, makes the solo dittereuce between lov- ing disciples and slavish fools. It was a lovely day, one of those serene autumn days i)eculiiir to Scotland — I was going to say to St. Andrews; and any one who knows the ancient city will know ex- actly how it looks in the still, strongly spir- itualized light of such an afternoon, with the ruins, the castle, cathedral, and St. Reg- ulus's tower standing out sharply against the intensely blue sky, and on the other side — on both sides — the yellow sweep of sand curving away into distance, and melting into the sunshiny sea. Many a time, in their prescribed walks with their yonng tribe. Miss Williams and Mr. Roy had taken this stroll across the Links and round by the sands to the mouth of the Eden, leaving behind them a long and sinuous track of many footsteps, little and large; but now there were only two lines — " foot-prints on the sands of Time," as he jestingly called them, turning round and pointing to the marks of ihe dainty feet that walked so steadily and straightly beside his own. "They seem made to go together, those two tracks," said he. Why did he say it ? Was he the kind of man to talk thus without meaning itf If so, alas! she was not exactly the woman to be thus talked to. Nothing fell on her light- ly. Perhaps it was her misfortune, perhaps even her foult, but so it was. Robert Roy did not "make love;" not at all. Possibly he never could have done it in the ordinary way. Sweet things, polite things, were very difficult to him either to do or to say. Even the tenderness that was in him came out as if by accident ; but, oh ! how infinitely tender he could be ! Enough to make any one who loved him die easily. 8II£ WKNT ALONQ TU£ SUININO SANDS IM A OR£AM OF FEBFKCT CONTENT. [Page 17. .■,n •■*'»i: THE LAUREL BUSH. 17 quietly, flontentedly, if only jnst holding his band. ; " Thwe is an incident in Dickens's touch- ing Talc of 2'wo Cities, where a young man going innocent to the guillotine, and riding on the death-cart with a young girl whom he had never before seer, is able to sustain and comfort her, even to the last awful mo- ment, by the look of his face and the clasp of his hand. That man, I have often thought, must have been something not unlike Rob- ert Roy. 8nch men are rare, hut they do exist ; and it was Fortune's lot, or she believed 't was, to have found one. That was enough. She wont along the shining sands in a dream of perfect content, perfect happiness, think- ing — and was it strange or wrong that she should HO think t — that if it were God's will she rthould thus walk through life, the thorn- iest i)ath would seem smooth, the hardest road easy. She had no fear of life, if lived beside him; or of death — love is stronger than death ; at least this sort of love, of which only strong natures are capable, and out of which are made, not the lyrics^ per- haps, but the epics, the psalms, or the trage- dies of our mortal existence. I have explained thus much about these two friends — lovers that may be, or might have boon — because tbey never would have done it themselves. Neither was given to much speaking. Indeed, I fear their con- versation this day, if recorded, would have been of the most feeble kind — brief, frag- mentary, mere comments on the things about them, or abstract remarks not particularly clover or brilliant. They wore neither of them wbat you would call brilliant people ; yet they were happy, and the hours flew by like a few minutes, until they found them- selves back again beside the laurel bush at the gate, when Mr. Roy suddenly said : " Do not go in yet. I mean, need you go int It is scarcely paat sunset; the boys will not be homo for an hour yet ; they don't want you, and I — I want you so. In your English sense," ho added, with a laugh, refer- ring to one of their many arguments, scho- lastic or otherwise, wherein she had insisted B that to want meant, Anglkd, to wish or to crave, whereas in Scotland it was always used like the French manquer, to miss or to need. " Shall we begin that fight over again t" asked she, smiling ; for every thing, even fighting, seemed pleasant to-day. " No, I have no wish to fight ; I want to consult you seriously on a purely personal matter, if you would not mind taking that trouble." Fortune looked sorry. That was one of the bad things in him (the best men alive have their bad things), the pride which apes humility, the self-distrust which oft- en wounds another so keenly. Her answer was given with a grave and simple sincerity that ought to have been reproach enough. "Mr. Roy, 1 would not mind any amount of trouble if I could be of use to you ; you know that." " Forgive me ! Yes, I do know it. I be- lieve in you and your goodness to the very bottom of my heart." She tried to say, " Thank you," but her lips refused to utter a word. •It was so dif- ficult to go on talking like ordinary friends, when she knew, and he must know she knew, that one word more would make them — not friends at all — something infi- nitely better, closer, dearer ; but that word was his to speak, not hers. There are wom- en who will " help a man on" — propose to him, marry him indeed — while he is under the pleasing delusion that he does it all himself; but Fortune Williams was not one of these. Slie remained silent and passive, waiting for the next thing he should say. It came : something the shock of which she never forgot as long as she lived; and he said it with his eyes on her face, so that, if it killed her, she must keep quiet and com- posed, as she did. "You know the boys' lessons end next week. The week after I go — that is, I have almost decided to go — to India." "To India!" " Yes. For which, no doubt, yoa think me very changeable, having said so often that I meant to keep to a scholar's life, and IS- THE LATJREL BUSH. De a professor one day, perhaps, if by any means I could get salt to my porridge. Well, now I am not satisfied with salt to my porridge ; I wish to get rich." She did not say, "Why!" She thought she had not looked it; but he answered: "Never mind why. I do wish it, and I will be rich yet, if I can. Are you very much surprised f " • Surprised she certainly was; but she an- swered, honestly, " Indeed, you are the last person I should suspect of being worldly- minded." "Thank yon; that is kind. No, just; merely just. One ought to have faith in people ; it does one good. I am afraid my own deficiency is want of faith. It takes BO much to make me believe for a moment that any one cares for me." How hard it was to be silent — harder still to speak ! But she did speak. " I can understand that ; I have often felt the same. It is the natural consequence of a very lonely Ufa. If you and I had had fa- thers and mothers and brothers and sisters, we might hare been diflferent." "Perhaps so. But about India. For a long time — that is, for many weeks — I have been casting about in my mind how to change my way of life, to look out for something that would help me to earn money, and quickly, but there seemed no chance what- ever. Until suddenly one has opened." And then he explained how the father of one of his pupils, grateful for certain bene- fits, which Mr. Roy did not specify, and no- ticing certain business qualities in him — " which I suppose I have, though I ditin't know it," added he, with a smile — had oflfer- ed him a situation in a merchant's office at Calcutta: a position of great trust and re- sponsibility, for three years certain, with the option of then giving it up or continu- ing it. " And continuing meanR making a fortune. Even three years moans making something, with my 'stingy' habits. Only I must go at once. Nor is there any time left me for my decision ; it must be yes or no. Which shall it be r The sudden appeal — made, too, as if he thought it was nothing — that terrible yes or no, which to her made all the diflerence of living or only half living, of feeling the sun in or out of the world. What could she answer t Trembling violently, she yet an- swered, in a steady voice, " You must decide for yourself. A woman can not understand a man." " Nor a man a woman, thoroughly. There is only one thing which helps both to com- prehend one another " One thing ! she knew what it was. Surely so did he. But that strange distrustfulness of which he had spoken, or the hesitation which the strongest and bravest men have at times, came between. " Oh, the little more, and how much Hie! Oh, the little less, and what worlds away 1" If, instead of looking vaguely out upon the sea, he had looked into this poor girl's face; if, instead of keeping silence, he had only spoken one word! But he neither looked nor spoke, and the moment passed by. And there are moments which people would sometimes give a whole lifetime to recall and use differently; but in vain. " My engagement is only for three years," he resumed ; " and then, if alive, I mean to come back. Dead or alive, I was going to say, but you would not care to see my ghost, I presume i I beg your pardon : I ought not to make a joke of such serious things." " No, you ought not." She felt herself almost speechless, that in another minute she might burst into sobs. He saw it — at least he saw a very little of it, and misinterpreted the rest. " I have tired you. Take my arm. Yon will soon be at home now." Then, after a pause, " You will not be displeased at any thing I have said T We part friends t No, we do not part ; I shall see you every day for a week, and be able to tell yon all par- ticulars of my journey, if you care to hear." " Thank you, yes — I do care." They stood together, arm in arm. The dews were falling ; a sweet, soft, lilao haze had begun to creep over the sea — the sol- THE LAUREL BUSH. 19 emn, far-away sea that he was so soon to cross. Involuntarily she clung to his arm. So near, yet so apart! Why must it bet She could have borne his going away, if it was for his good, if he wished it ; and some- ' thing whispered to her that this sudden de- sire to get rich was not for himself alone. But, oh ! if he would only speak ! One word — one little word ! After that, any thing might come — the separation of life, the bit- terness of death. To the two hearts that had once opened each to each, in the full recognition of mutual love, there could nev- er more be any real parting. But that one word he did not say. He only took the little hand that lay on his arm, pressed it, and held it — years after, the feeling of that clasp was as fresh on her fingers as yesterday — then, hearing the foot of some accidental passer-by, he let it go, and did not take it agaiu. Just at this moment the sound of distant carriage wheels was heard. " That must be Mrs. Dalziel and the boys." " Then I had better go. Good-by." The day-dream was over. It had all come back again — ^the forlorn, dreary, hard-work- ing world. "Good-by, Mr. Roy." And they shook hands. "One word," he said, hastily. "I shall write to yon — you will allow mo t — and I shall see yon several times, a good many times, "before I go t" " I hope so." " Then, for the present, good-by. That means," he added, earnestly, " ' God be with you !' And I know He always will." In another minute Fortune found herself standing beside the laurel bush, alone, list- ening to the sound of Mr. Roy's footsteps down the road — listening, listening, as if, with the exceeding tension, her brain would burst. The carriage cami,- passed; it waa not Mrs. Dalziel's, after all. She thought he might discover this, and come back again ; so she waited a little — five minutes, ten — beside the laurel bush. But he did not come. No footstep, no voice ; nothing but the faint, far-away sound of the long waves washing in upon the sands. It was not the brain that felt like to burst now, but the heart. She clasped her hands above her head. It did not matter ; there was no creature to see or hear that appeal — was it to man or God t — that wild, broken sob, so contrary to her usual self-controlled and self-contained nature. And then she leaned her forehead against the gate, just where Robert Roy had accidentally laid his hand in opening it, and wept bitterly. ,,>% .y. ■*',> V CHAPTER II. The " every day" on which Mr Roy had i-eckoneti for seeing his friend, or whatso- ever else he considered Miss Williams to be, proved a failnre. Her youngest pupi) fell ill, and she was kept beside him, and away from the school-room, until the doctor could decide whether the illness was infec- tious or not. It turned out to be very tri- fling — a most trivial thing altogether, yet weighted with a pain most difficult to bear, a sense of fatality that almost overwhelmed one person at least. What the other felt she did not know. He came daily as usual ; she watched him come and go, and some- times he turned and they exchanged a greet- ing from the window. But boy ond th at, she had to take all passively. What could she, only a woman, do or say or plan 1 Nothing. Women's business is to sit down and endure. She had counted these days — Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Satqfday — as if they had been years. And now they were all gone, had fled like minutes, fled emptily away. A few fragmentary facts she had had to feed on, communicated by the boys in their rough talk. " Mr. Roy was rather cross to-day." "Not cross, Dick — only dull." " Mr. Roy aSked why David did not come in to lessons, and said he hoped he would be better by Saturday." " Mr. Roy said good-by to us all, and gave Ud tach something to remember him by when he was out in India. Did Miss Williams know he was going out to India V Oh, how joUy!" "Yes, and he sails next week, and the name of his ship is the Queen of the South, and he goes by Liverpool instead of South- ampton, because it costs less; and he leaves St. Andrews on Monday morning." " Are you sure he said Monday morning f " For that was Saturday night. " Certain, because he has to get his outfit stUl. Oh, what fim it must be !" And the boys went on, greatly excited, repeating every thing Mr. Roy had told them — for he had made them fond of him, even in those few months — expatiating with de- light on his future career, as a merchant or something, th'"/ did not quite know what; but no doubt it would be far nicer and more amusing than stopping at home and grind- ing forever over horrid books. Didn't Miss Williams think so 1 Miss Williams only smiled. She knew how aU his life he had loved " those horrid books," preferring them to pleasure, recre- ation, almost to daily bread; how he had lived on the hope that one day he — bom only a farmer's son — might do something, write something. " I also am of Arcadia." He might have done it or not — the genius may or may not have been there ; but the ambition certainly was. Could he have thrown it all aside t And why t Not for mere love of money; she knew him too well for that. He was a thorough bookworm, simple in all his tastes and hab- its — simple almost to penuriousnoss ; but it was a penuriousness bom of hard fortunes, and he never allowed it to affect any body but himself. Still, there was no doubt he did not care for money, or luxury, or world- ly position — any of the things that lessor men count large enough to work and strug' THE LAUREL BUSH. 91 gle and die for. To give np the pursuits he loved, deliberately to choose others, to change his whole^fe thus, and expatriate himself, as it were, for years — perhaps for always — why did he do ii/, or for whom f Was it for a woman T Was it for her t If ever, in those long empty days and wakeful nights, this last thought entered Fortune's mind, she stifled it as something which, once to have fully believed and then disbelieved, would have killed her. That she should have done the like for him — that or any thing else involving any amount of heroism or self-sacrifice — well, it was natural, right ; but that he should do it for her ? That he should change his whole purpose of life that ho might be able to marry quickly, iff shelter in his bosom a poor girl who was not able to fight the world as a man conld, the thing — not so very im- possible, aifh' all — seemed to her almost in- credible ! And yet (I am telling a mere love story, remember — a foolish, innocent love story, without apologizing for either the fol- ly or the innocence) sometimes she was so far " left to herself," as the Scotch say, that she did believe it : in the still twilights, in the wakeful nights, in the one solitary half hour of intense relief, when, all her boys be- ing safe in bed, she rushed out into the gar- den under the silent stars to sob, to moan, to speak out loud words which nobody could possibly hear. " He is going away, and I shall never see him again. And I love him — love him bet- ter than any thing in all this world. I couldn't help it — he couldn't help it. But, oh ! it's hard — hard !" And then, altogether breaking down, she would begin to cry like a child She miss- ed him so, even this week, after having for weeks and months been with him every day; but it was less like a girl missing her lover — who was, after all, not her lover — than a child mourning helplessly for the familiar voice, the guiding, helpful hand. With all the rest of the world Fortune Williams was an independent, energetic woman, self-con- tained, brave, and strong, as a solitary gov- erness had need to be; but beside RobeH Roy she felt like a child, and she cried for him like a child, "And with no language bat a cry." So the week ended and Sunday came, kept at Mrs. Dalziel's like the Scotch Sun- days of twenty years ago. No visitor ever entered the house, wherein all the meals were cold and the blinds drawn down, as if for a funeral. The family went to church for the entire day, St. Andrews being too far off for any return home " between ser- mons." Usually one servant was left in charge, turn and turn about ; but this Sun- day Mrs. Dalziel, having put the govenmss in the nurse's place beside the ailing child, thought shrewdly she might as well put her in the servant's place too, and let her take charge of the kitchen fire as well aa of little David. Being English, Miss Will- iams was not so exact about " ordinances" as a Scotchwoman would have been ; so Mrs. Dalziel had no hesitation in asking her to remain at home alone the whole day ia charge of her pupil. Thus faded, Fortune thought, her last hope of seeing Robert Roy again, either at church — where he usually sat in the Dalziol pew, by the old lady's request, to make the boys " behave" — or walking down the street, where ho sometimes took the two eldest to eat their " piece" at his lodgings. All was now ended ; yet on the hope — or dread — of this last Sunday she had hung, she now felt with what intensity, till it was gone. Fortune was the kind of woman who, were it given her to fight, could fight to the death, against fate or circumstances; but when her part was simply passive, she could also endure. Not, as some do, with angry grief or futile resistance, but with a quiet patience so complete that only a very quick eye would have found out she was sutfering at all. Little David did not, certainly. When, hour after hour, she sat by his sofa, inter- esting him as best she could in the dull " good" books which jlone were allowed of Sundays, and then iHissing into word-of- mouth stories — the beautiful Bible stories over which her own voice trembled while lewr THE LAUREL BUSH. bbe told them — Rath, with her piteona cry, " Whither thoa goest,! will go ; where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried ;" Jonathan, whose soul " clave to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him aa his own soul" — all those histories of passionate fidel- ity and agonized parting — for every sort of love is essentially the samo — how they went to her very heart ! * ■ , f Oh, the awful quietness of that Sunday, that Sabbath which was not rest, in which young scamp of six or seven, who had as many tricks a» a monkey or a magpie. In fact, in chattering and hiding things he was nearly as bad as a magpie, and the torment of his governess's life ; yet she was fond of him. "Why do you bid us good-by, Mr. Roy? Why don't you stay always with Miss Williams and me?" *• I wish to God I could," . >.." She heard that, heard it distinctly, though it was epoken beneath his breath ; and she the hours crawled on in sunshiny stillness, felt the look, turned for one moment upon neither voices nor steps nor sounds of any i her as she stood by the window. She never kind breaking the deat!i-like Inish of every forgot either — never, as long as she lived, thing. At length the boy fell asleep; and then Fortune seemed to wake up for the first time to the full consciousness of what was and what was about to be. All of a sudden she heard steps on the gravel below ; then the hall bell rang through the silent house. She knew who it was oven before she opened the door and saw him standing there.^ " May I come in ? They told me you were keeping house alone, and I said I should just walk over to ')id you and Davie good- by" Roy's maaner was grave and matter-of- fact — a little conritrajued, peril aps, but not piuch — and he k. ;ked so exceedingly pale and tired that, without tny hesitation, bhe took him into the school-room, where they were sitting, and gave him tbv arm-chair by Davie's sofa. Some words, some looks, can deceive, per- haps quite unconsciously, by being either more demonstrative than was meant, or the exaggeration of coldness to hide its oppo- site ; but sometimes a glance, a tone, be- trays, or rather reveals, the real truth in a manner that nothing afterward can ever falsify. For one instant, one instant only, Fortune felt sure, quite sure, that in some way OP other she was very dear to Robert Roy. If the next minute he had taken her into his arms, and said or looked the words which, to an earnest-minded, sincere man like him, constitute a pledge for life, never to be disannulled or denied, she could hard- ly have felt more completely his own. But he did not say them ; he said nothing at all; sat leaning his head on his hand^ with an expression so weary, 80 sad, that all the coaxing ways of little Davie could hard- "Yes, I own to being rather overdone; I ly win from him more than a faint siuilo. have had so much to arrange, for I must He looked so old, too, and he was but just leave here to-morrow, as I think you know.' thirty. Ouly thirty — only twenty-five ; and "The boys told me." yet these two were bearing, seemed to have " I thought they would. I should have boiiie for years, the burden of life, feeling done it myself, but every day I hoped to see all its hardships and none of its sweetnesses. you. It was this little fellow's fault, I sup- Would things ever change ? Would he have pose," patting Davie's head. " He seems the courage (it was his part, not hers) to quite well -now, and as jolly as possible. ; make them change, at least in one way, by Yon don't know what it is to say ' Good-by,' bringing about that heart-union which to David, my son." all pure and true natures is consolation for Mr. Roy, who always got on well with , every human woe ? children, had a trick of calling his younger I " I wonder," he said, sitting down and pupils " My son." taking David on his knee — " I wonder if it " Why do yon say 'Good-by* at all, then ?" is best to bear things one's self, or to let au- asked the child, a mischievous but winning ' other share the burden?" THE LAUREL BUSH. Easily — oh, how easily! — could Fortune 1 pace the room with David on his shoulder; hive answered this — have told him that, whether ho wished it or not, two did really bear his burdens, and perhaps the one who bore it secretly and sUently had not the lightest share. But she did not speak : it was not possible. " How shall I hoar of you, Miss Williams f" he said, after a long siJence. " You arc not likely to leave the Dalziel family!" " No," she answered ; " afid if I did, I could always be heard of, the Dalziels are so well known hereabouts. Still, a poor wander- ing governess easily drops out of people's memory." " And a poor wandering tutor too. Bnt I am not a tutor any more, and I hope I shall not bo poor long. Friends can not lose one another; such friends as you and I have been. I will take care we shall not do it, that is, if — But never mind that. You have been very good to me, and I have often bothered you very much, I fear. You wiU be almost glad to get rid of me." She might have turned upon him eyes swimming with tears — woman's tears — that engine of power which they say no mau can ever resist ; but I think, if so, a wom- an like Fortune would have scorned to use it. Those poor weary eyes, which could weep oceans alone under the stars, were perfectly dry now — dry, and fastened on the ground, as she replied, in a grave steady voice, " You do not really believe that, else you would never have said it." Her composure must have surprised him, for ho looked suddenly up, then begged her pardon. " I did not hurt you, surely I We must not part with the least shadow of un- kindness between us." "No." She oftered her hand, and he took it — gently, aflfectionately, but only affectionately. The one step beyond af- fection, which leads into another world, another life, he seemed dotermined not to pass. For at least half an hour ho sat there with David on his knee, or rising up restlessly to but apparently not desiring the child's ab- sence, rather wishing to keep )iim as a sort of barrier. Against what! — himself! And so miqute after minute slipped by; and Misa Williams, sitting in her place by the wia- dow, already saw, dotting the Links, group after gronp of the afternoon church-goera wandering quietly homo — so quietly, so hap- pily, fathers and mothers and children, com- panions and friends — for whom was no part- ing and no pain. Mr. Roy suddenly took out his watch. " I must go now ; I see I have spent all but my last, five minutes. Good-by, David, my lad ; you'll be a big man, maybe, when I see you again. Miss Williams" (standing before her with an expression on his face such as she ha^d never seen before), " before I go there was a question I had determined, to ask you — a purely ethical question which a friend of mine has been putting to me, and I could not answer ; that is, I could, from the man's side, the worldly side. A woman might think differently." "What is it!" " Simply this. K a man has not a half-' penny, ought he to ask a woman to share it? Rather an Irish way of putting the matter," with a laugh, not without bitter- ness, " but you understand. Ought he not to wait till he has at least something to offer besides himself! Is it not mean, selfish, cowardly, to bind a woman to all the chances or mischances of his lot, in- stead of fighting it out alone like a man f My friend thinks so, and I — I agree with him." " Then why did you ask me ?" The words, though low and clear, were cold and shar^) — sharp with almost unbear- able pain. Every atom of pride in her was roused. Whether he loved her and would not tell her so, or loved tome other woman and wished her to know it, it was all the same. He was evidently determined to go away free and leave her free ; and perhaps many sensible men pr women would say he Avas right in so doing. " I beg your pardon," ho said, almost horn- 84 THE LAUKEL BUSH. bly. " I onght not to have spoken of this at all. I onght just to have said 'Good- by,' and nothing more." And he took her hand. There was on it one ring, not very valu- able, but she always liked to wear it, as it had belonged to her mother. Robert Koy drew it oft*, and put it deliberately into his pocket. "Give me this; yon shall have it back again wuen I am dead, or you are married, whichever happens first. Do you under- stand!" Putting David aside (indeed, he seemed for the first time to forget the boy's pres- ence), he took her by the two hands and looked down into her face. Apparently he read something there, something which startled him, almost shocked him. " God forgive me !" he muttered, and Btood irresolute. Irresolution, alas ! too late ; for just then all the three Dalziel boys rushed into the house and the school-room, followed by their grandmother. The old lady looked a good deal surprised, perhaps a little displeased, from one to the other. Mr. Roy perceived it, and recovered him- self in an instant, lotting go Fortune's hands and placing himself in front of her, between her and Mrs. Dalziel. Long aft- erward she remembered that trivial act — remembered it with the tender gratitude of the protected toward the protector, if nothing more. " You see, I came, as I told you I should, if possible, to bid Miss Williams good-by, and wee Davie. They both kindly admit- ted me, and we have had half an hour's merry chat, have we not, Davie f Now, my man, good-by." He took up the little fel- low and kissed him, and then extended his hand. "Good-by, Miss Williams. I hope your little pupils will value you as you de- serve." Then, with a courteous and formal fare- well to the old lady, aud a most uproarious one from the boys, he went to the door, but turned round, saying to the eldest boy, distinctly and clearly — though she was at the farther end of the .'XMun, she heard, and was sure he meant her to hoar, every wonl : " By-the-bye, Archy, there is something I was about to explain to Miss Williams. Tell her I will write it. She is quite sure to have a letter from me to-morrow — no, on Tuesday morning." Aud so he went away, bravely and cheerily, the boys accompanying him to tiie gate, and shouting and waving their hats to hin: as he crossed the Links, until their grandmother reprovingly suggested that it was Sunday. "But Mr. Roy does not go oiF to In- dia every Sunday. Hurrah! I wish we were all going too. Three cheers for Mr. Roy." " Mr. Roy is a very fine fellow, and I hope he will do well," said Mrs. Dalziel, touched by their enthusiasm ; also by some old memories, for, like many St. Andrews folk, she was strongly linked with India, and had sent off one-half of her numerous fam- ily to live or die there. There was some- thing like a tear in her old eyes, though not for the young tutor; but it effectually kept her from either looking at or thinking of the governess. And she forgot them both immediately. They were merely the tutor and the governess. As for the boys, they chattered vehe- mently all tea-time about Mr. Roy, and their envy of the "jolly" life he was going to; then their minds turned to their own af- fairs, and there was silence. The kind of silence, most of us know it, when any one belonging to a household, or very familiar there, goes away on a long indefinite absence. At first there is little consciousness of absence at all ; wo are so constantly expecting the door to be opened for the customary presence that we scarce- ly even miss the known voice, or face, or hand. By-and-by, however, we do miss it, and there comes a general, loud, shallow lamentation, which soon cures itself, and implies an easy and comfortable forgetfnl- noss before long. Except with some, or possibly only one, who is, most likely, the THE LAUREL BUSH. 26 one who has never been heard to utter a word of regret, or seen to shed a singie tear. Miss Williams, now left sole mistress in the school-room, gave hor lessons as usual there that Monday morning, and walked with all the four boys on the Links ail after- noon. It was a very bright day, as beauti- ful as Sunday had been, and they communi Gated to her the interesting facts, learned at golfing that morning, that Mr. Roy and his portmanteau had been seen at Lenchars on the way to Burntisland, and that he would likely have a good crossing, as the sea was very calm. There had lately been some equinoctial gales, which had interested the boys amazingly, and they calculated with ingenious pertinacity whether such gales were likely to occur again when Mr. Roy was in the Bay of Biscay, and, if his ship were wrecked, what he would be supposed to do. They were quite sure he would con- duct himself with great heroism, perhaps escape on a single plank, or a raft made by his own hands, and they consulted Miss Williams, who of course was a peripatetic cyclopedia of all scholastic information, as to which port in France or Spain he was likely to be drifted to, supposing this ex- citing event did happen. She answered their questions with her usual ready kindliness. She felt like a per- son in a dream, yet a not unhappy dream, for she still heard the voice, still felt the clasp of the strong, tender, sustaining hands. And to-morrow would be Tuesday. Tuesday was a wet morning. The bright days were done. Soon after dawn Fortune had woke up and watched the sunrise, till a chill fog crept over the sea and blotted it out ; then gradually blotted out the land also, the Links, the town, every thing. A regular St. Andrews " haar ;" and St. An- drews people know what that is. Miss Williams had seen it once or twice before, but never so bad as this-^blighting, pene- trating, and so dense that you could hardly sen your hand befoi-e you. Hilt Fortune scarcely felt it. She said to Lersolf, " To-day is Tuesday," which meant nothing to any one else, every thing to her. For she knew the absol.te faithiblness, the careful accuracy, in great things and small, with which she had to do. If Robert Roy said, " I will write on such a day," he waa as sure to write as that the day would dawn ; that is, so far as his own will went ; and win, not circumstance, is the strongest agent in this world. Therefore she waited quietly for the post- man's horn. It sounded at last. " I'll go," cried Archy. " Just look at the haar ! I shall have to grope my way to the gate." He came back, after what seemed an al- most endless time, rubbing- his head and declaring he had nearly blinded himself by running right into the laurel bush. " I couldn't see for the fog. I only hope I've left none of the letters behind. No, no ; all right. Such a lot ! It's the Indian mail. There's for you, and you, boys." He dealt them out with a merry, careless hand. There was no letter for Miss Williams — a circumstance so usual that nobody noticed it or her, as she sat silent in her corner, while the children read noisily and gayly the let- ters from their far-away parents. Her letter — what had befallen it f Had he forgotten to write? But Robert Roy never forgot any thing. Nor did he delay any thing that he could possibly do at the time he promised. Ho was one of the very few people in this world who in small things as in great are absolutely reliable. It seemed so impossible to believe he had not written, when he said he would, that, as a last hope, she stole out with a plaid over her head and crept through the side walks of the garden, almost groping her way through the fog, and, like Archy, stum- bling over the low boughs of the laurel bush to the letter-box it held. Her trem- bling hands felt in every corner, but no let- ter was there. She went wearily back ; weary at heart, but patient still. A love like hers, selt'-ox- istent and sufficient to itself, is very patient, quite unlike the other and more common 26 THE LAUREL BUSH. form of tho {)a88ion ; not love, but a disoasod craving to bo loved, whicli creates a thou- sand imaginary misericH and wrongs. Sharp was her pain, poor girl ; but she was not an- gry, and after her first stab of disappoint- ment her courage rose. All was well with him ; he had been seen cheerily starting for Edinburgh; and her own temporary sulfer- iug was a comparatively small thing. It could uot last: the letter would come to- morrow. But it did not, nor tho next day, nor the next. On the fourth day her heart felt like to break. I think, of all pangs not mortal, few are worse than this small silent agony of wait- ing for the post ; letting all tho day's hope climax upon a single minute, which passes by, and the hope with it, and then comes another day of dumb endurance, if not de- spair. This even with ordinary letters upon which any thin|| of moment depends. With others, such aa this letter of Robert Roy's — let us not speak of it. Some may imagine, others may have known, a similar suspense. They will understand why, long years after- ward, Fortune Williams was beard to say, with a quiver of the lip that could have told its bitter tale, " No ; when I have a letter to write, I never put off writing it for a single day." As these days wore on — those cruel days, never remembered without a shiver of pain, and of Wonder that she could have lived through them at all — the whole fabric of reasons, arguments, excuses, that she had built up, tried so eagerly to build up,'for him and herself, gradually crumbled away. Had she altogether misapprehended the pur- port of his promised letter? Was it just fiome ordinary note, about her boys and their studies perhaps, which, after all, he had not thought it worth while to write ? Yet sure- ly it was worth while, if only to send a kind- ly and courteous farewell to a friend, after so close an intimacy and in face of so indef- inite a separation. A friend f Only a friend ? Words may deceive, eyes seldom can. And there had been love in his eyes. Not mere liking, but actual love. She had seen it, felt it, with that almost unerring instinct tliat women have, whether they return the love or not. In the latter case, they seldom doubt itj iu the former, they often do. " Couli^ I have been mistaken t" she thought, with a burning pang of shame. "Oh, why did he not speak— just one word f After that, I could have borne any thing." But he had not spoken, ho had not written. He had let himself drop out of her life as completely as a falling star drops out of the sky, a ship sinks down in mid-ocean, or — any other poetical simile, used under such circumstances by romantic people. Fortune Williams was not romantic ; at least, what romance was in her lay deep down, and came out in act rather than word. She neither wept nor raved nor cultivated any external signs of a breaking heart. A little paler she grew, a little quieter, but nobody observed this : indeed, it came to be one of her deepest causes of thankfulness that there was nobody to observe any thing — that she had no living soul belonging to her, neither father, mother, brother, nor sis- ter, to pity her or to blame him ; since to think him either blamablo or blamed would have been the sharpest torture she could have known. She was saved that and some few other things by being only a governess, instead of one of Fate's cherished darlings, nestled in a family home. She had no time to grieve, except in the dead of night, when " the rain was on tho roof." It so happened that, after the haar, there set in a season of continuous, sullen, depressing rain. But at night-time, and for the ten linutes between post hour and lesson hour — wbich she generally pass- ed in her own room — if her mother, who died when she was ten years old, could have seen her, she would have said, "My poor child!" Robert Roy had once involuntarily called her so, when by accident one of her rough boys hart her hand, and he himself bound it up, with thn iudesuribablu tenderness which THE LAUREL BUSH. Sff the atrong only know how to nhow or fool. Well she roniembered this; indeed, almost every thing ho had said or done came back to heart — Jiut they two, so alone in the world — and ever after belonged to one another, helping, comforting, and Htnuigtlioniiig one upon her now — vividly, oh we rocuU the another, even though it had been yours and words and looks of the dead — mingled with . years before they wore married t snch a hniigoring pain, such a cruel " miss" i " If only ho had loved mp, and told mo so I" of him, daily and hourly, hia companionship, , was her bitter cry. " I could have waited help, counsel, every thing she ha an atfiul, wuut tliroiigli lior boart. Ho wuti uoar- V thirty ; few lives are thus long without some Hort of love iu them. Perhups bo was already bouud to some other woman, and finding himself drifting into too pleasant intimacy with herself, wished to draw back in time. Such things bad happened, some- times almost blamelessly, though most mis- erably to all parties. But with him it was not likely to happen. He was too clear- sighted, strong, and honest. Ho would nev- er "drift" into any thing. What he did would be done with a calm deliberate will, incapable of the slightest deception either toward others or himself. Besides, he had at difibreut times told her the whole story of his life, and there was no love in it ; only work, hard work, poverty, courage, and en- durance, liku her own. "No, he could never have deceived me, neither me nor any one else," she often said to herself, almost joyfuUy, though the tears were running down. "Whatever it was, it was not that. I am glad — glad. I had far rather believe he never loved me than that he had been false to another woman for my sake. And I believe in him still ; I shall always believe in him. He is perfect- ly good, perfectly true. And so it does not much matter about me." I am afraid those young ladies who like plenty of lovers, who expect to be adored, and are vexed when they are not adored, and most nobly indignant when forsaken, will think very meanly of my poor Fortune Williams. They may console themselves by thinking she was not a young lady at all — only a woman. Such womeu are not too com- mon, but they exist occasionally. And they bear their cross and dree their weird ; but their lot, at any rate, only concerns them- selves, and has one advantage, that it in no way injures the happiness of other people. Humble as she was, she had her pride. If she wept, it was out of sight. If she wished herself dead, and a hai)py ghost, that -by any means she might get near him, know whex-e ho was, and what he was doing, these dreams came only when her work was done, her boys asleep. Day never tkitrayed the secrets of the night. Uhe set to work every morning at her daily labors with a dogged persistence, never allowing herself a min- ute's idleness wherein to sit down and mourn. And when, despite her will, she could not quite conquer the fits of nervous irritobility that camo ovor her at times — when the chil- dren's iunoceut voices used to pierce her like needles, and their incessant questions and perpetual company wore almost more than sho could bear — still, even thou, oil she did was to run away and hide herself for a lit- tle, coming back with a pleasant face and a smooth temper. Why should sho scold them, poor lambs T They wore all sho had to love, or that loved her. And they did love her, with all their boyish hearts. One day, however — tho day before they all left St. Andrews for England, tho two eld- er to go to school, and the younger ones to return with her to their maternal grand- mother to London — David said something which wounded her, vexed her, made hey almost thankful to be going away. She was standing by the laurel bush, which somehow had for her a strange fuaci- nation, and her hand was on the letter-box which the boys and Mr. Koy had made. There was a childish pleasure in touching it or any thing he had touched. " I hope grandmamma won't take away that box," said Archy. " She ought to keep it in memory of us and of Mr. Koy. How cleverly he made it! Wasn't he clever, now, Miss Williams V " Yes," she answered, and no more. " I've got a better letter-box than yours," said little Davie, mysteriously. "Shall I show it to you. Miss Williams T And per- haps," with a knowing look — the mischiev- ous lad! and yet he was more loving and lovable thon all tho rest, Mr. Roy's favorite, and hers — " perhaps you might even find a letter in it. Cook says she has seen you many a time watching for a letter from your sweetheart. Who is he t" " I have none. Tell cook she should not talk such nonsense to little boys," said the THE LAUREL BUSH. «> govcrnosR, gravely. Dot she felt hot from bead to foot, nnd turning, walked slowly in-doora. She did not go near the laurel buHh again. After that, she was almost glad to get away, among strango people and strange places, whore Robert Roy's name hud never been heard. The familiar places — hallow- ed as no other spot in this world /ooald ever bo — passed out of sight, and in another week her six months' happy life at St. An- drewB had vanished, " like a dream when one awaketh." Had she awaked f Or was her daily, ont- side life to bo henceforward the dream, and this the reality T 'I i: >^^ f'^'rlt^ :•■>.'• »- . '•• V. ■#i-'iA^.- :o>cx ,,r ■ t: ' '"• - r ■-■--;• -■ V, ,." <**; "" . J^ "''.■■■'v.. - , ■■•, 1,. ■'•»»'" '^V*",. -j ' vU?,' ■ *> ■ •'. ' A- < j • 1 CHAPTER m. What is a "wrecked" life! One which the waves of inexorable fate have beaten to pieces, or one that, like an unseaworthy ship, is ready to go down in any waters t What most destroy ust the things we might well blame ourselves fot; only we seldom do, our follies, blunders, errors, not count- ing actual sins 7 or the things for which we can blame nobody but Providence — if we dared — such as our losses and griefs, onr sicknesses of body and mind, all those af- flictions which we call " the visitation of God ?" Ay, and so they are, but not sent in wrath, or for ultimate evil. ' No amount of sorrow need make any human life harm- ful to man or unholy before God, as a dis- contented, unhappy life must needs be un- holy in the sight of Him who in the mys- terious economy of the luiiverse seems to have one absolute law — He wastes noth- ing. He modifies, transmutes, substitutes, re-applies material to new uses ; but appar- ently by Him nothing is ever really lost, nothing thrown away. Therefore I incline to believe, when I hear pouple talking of a "wrecked" existence, that whosoever is to blame, it is not Provi- dence. Nobody could have applied the term to Fortune Williams, looking at her as she sat in the drawing-room window of a house at Brighton, just where the gray of the Espla- nade meets the green of the Downs — a la- dies' boarding-school, where she had in her charge two pupils, left behind for the holi- days, while the mistress took a few weeks' repose. She sat watching the sea, which was very beautiful, as even the Brighton sea can b« sometimes. Her eyes were soft and calm ; her bands were folded on her black silk dress, her pretty little tender- looking hands, unringed, for she was still Miss Williams, still a governess. But even at thirty-five — and she had now reached that age, nay, passed it — she was not what you would call " old-maidish." Perhaps because the motherly instinct, nat- urally very strong in her, had developed more and more. She was one of those gov- ernesses — the only sort who ought ever to attempt to be governesses — who really love ahildren, ay, despite their naughtinesses and mischievousnesses and worrying ways ; who feel that, after all, these little ones are " of the kingdom of heaven," and that the task of educating them for that kingdom somehow often brings us nearer to it our- selves. Her heart, always tender to children, bad gone out to them more and more every year, especially after that fatal year when a man took it and broke it. No, not broke it, but threw it carelessly away, wounding it so sorely that it never could be quite itself again. But it was a true and warm and womanly heart still. She had never heard of him — Robert Roy — never once, in any way, since that Sunday afternoon when he said, " I will write to- morrow," and did not write, but let her drop from him altogether like a worthless thing. Cruel, somewhat, even to a mere acquaint- ance — but to her f Well, all was past and gone, and the tide of years had flowed over it. Whatever it was, a mistake, a misfortune, or a wrong, THE LAUREL BUSH. 31 nobody knew any thing about it. And the wound even was healed, in a sort of a way, and chiefly by the unconscious hands of these little " ministering angels," who were angels that never hurt her, except by blot- ting their copy-books or not learning their lessons. I know it may sound a ridiculous thing that a forlorn governess should be comfort- ed for a lost love by the love of children ; but it is true to nature. Women's lives have successive phases, each following the other in natural gradation — maidenhood, wifehood, motherhood : in not one of which, ordinarily, we regret the one before it, to which it is nevertheless impossible to go back. But Fortune's life had had none of these, excepting, perhaps, her one six months' dream of love and si)ring. That being over, she fell back upon autumn days . * and autumn pleasures — which are very real pleasures, after a'll. As she sat with the two little girls lean- ing against her lap — they were Indian chil- dren, unaccustomed to tenderness, and had already grown very fond of her — there was a look in her face, not at all like an ancient maiden or a governess, but almost motherly. You see the like in the faces of the Virgin Mary, as the old monks used to paint her, quaint, and not always lovely, but never common or coarse, and spiritualized by a look of mingled tenderness and sorrow into Bometl'ing beyond all beauty. Tliis woman's face had it, so that people who had known Miss Williams as a girl were astonished to find her, aa a middle- aged woman, grown " so good-looking." To which one of her pupils once answered, naively, " It is because she looks so good." But this was after ten years and more. Of the first half of thpse years the less that is said, the better. She did not live ; she merely endured life. Mon.^tony without, a constant aching within — a restless gnawing want, a perpetual expectation, half hope, half fear ; no human being could bear all this without being the worse for it, or the better. But the betterness came afterward, e not at first. -.^s,.!- Sometimes her craving to hear the small- est tidings of him, only if he were alive or dead, grew into such an agony that, had it not been for her entire helplessness in the matter, she might have tried some means of gaining information. But, from his sudden change of plans, she was ignorant even of the name of the ship he had sailed by, the firm he had gone to. She could do abso- lutely nothing, and learn nothing. Hera was something like the " Affliction of Mar- garet," that poem of Wordsworth's which, when her little pupils recited it — as they often did — made her ready to sob out loud from the pang of its piteous reality : " I look for gboBta, but none will force Their way to me : 'tie falsely said That there was ever intercourse Betwixt the living and ttie dead : Bbr surely then I should have sight Of him I wait for day and night With love and longings infinite." Still, in the depth of her heart she did not believe Robert Roy was dead ; for her fin- ger was still empty of that ring — her moth- er's ring — which he had drawn off, promis- ing its return " when he was dead or she was married." This implifd thfit he never meant to lose sight of htT. Nor, indeed, had he wished it, would it have been very difficult to find her, these ten years having been spent entirely in one place, an obscure village in the south of England, where she had lived as governess — first in the squire's family, then the rector's. From the Dalziel family, where, as she had said to Mr. Roy, she hoped to remain for years, she had drifted away almost im- mediately; within a few months. At Christ- mas old Mrs. Dalziel had suddenly died ; her son had returned home, sent his four boys to school in Germany, and gone back again to India. There was now, for the first time for half a century, not a single Dalziel left in St. Andrews. But though all ties were broken connect- ing her with the dear old city, her boys still wrote to her now and then, and she to them, with a persistency for which her conscience smote her sometimes, knowing it was not wholly for their sakes. But they had never THE LAUREL BUSH. been near her, and she had little expecta- tion of seeing any of them ever again, since by this time she had lived long enough to find out how easily people do drift asun- der, and lose all clew to one another, unless some strong firm will or unconquerable habit of fidelity exists on one side or the other. !' Since the Dalziels she had only lived in the two families before named, and had been lately driven from the last one by a catastrophe, if it may be called so, which Jiad been the bitterest drop in her cup since Khe time she left St. Andrews. The rector — a widower, and a feeble, gen- tle invalid, to whom naturally she had been kind and tender, regarding him with much the same sort of motherly feeling as she had regarded his children — suddenly asked her to become their mother in reality. It was a great shock and pang: almost a temptation ; for they all loved her, and ^wished to keep her. She would have been such a blessing, such a brightness, in that dreary home. And to a woman no longer young, who had seen her youth pass with- out any brightness in it, Grod knows what an allurement it is to feel she has still the power of brightening other lives. If For- tune had yielded — if she had said yes, and married the rector — it would have been hardly wonderful, scarcely blamable. Nor would it have been the first time that a good, conscientious, tender-hearted woman has married a man for pure tenderness. But she did not do it; not even when they clung around her — those forlorn, half- educated, but affectionate girls — entreating her to " marry papa, and make us all hap- py." She could not — how could she t She felt very kindly to him. He had her sin- cere respect, almost affection; but when she looked into her own heart, she found there was not in it one atom of love, never had been, for any man alive except Robert Roy. While he was unmarried, for her to marry would be impossible. And so she had the wisdom and courage to say to herself, and to them all, " This can not be ;'-' to put uflide the cup of attainable happiness, which might never liave proved real happiness, because founded on an in- sincerity. But the pain this cost was so great, the wrench of parting from her poor girls so cruel, that after it Miss Williams had a sharp illness, the first serious illness of her life. She struggled through it, quietly and alone, in one of those excellent "Governesses' Homes," where every body was very kind to her — some more than kind, affectionate. It was strange, she often thought, what an endless amount of affection followed her wherever she went. She was by no means one of those women who go about the world moaning that nobody loves them. Every body loved her, and she knew it — every body whose love was worth having — except Robert Roy. Still her mind never changed ; not even when, in the weakness of illness, there would come vague dreams of that peaceful rectory, with its quiet rooms and green garden ; of the gentle, kindly hearted father, and the two loving girls whom she could have made so happy, and perhaps won happiness her- self in the doing of it. "I am a great fool, some people would say," thought she, with a sad smile ; " per- haps rather worse. Perhaps I am acting ab- solutely v:rong in throwing away my chance of doing good. But I can not help it — I can not help it." So she kept to her resolution, writing the occasional notes she had promised to write to her poor forsaken girls, without saying a word of her illness ; and when she grew bet- ter, though not strong enough to undertake a new situation, finding her money slipping away — though, with her good salaries and small wants, she was not poor, and ha'l al- ready begun to lay up for a lonely old age — she accepted this temporary home at Miss Maclachlan's, at Brighton. Was it — so strange are the under- currents which guide one's outward life — was it because she had found a curious charm in the old lady's Scotch tongue, unheard for years t that the two little pupils were Indian chil- dren, and that the house was at the sea- THE LAUREL BUSH. Blue T — and sho had never seen the sea since she left St. Andrews. It wan like going back to the days of her youth to sit, as now, watching the sunshine glitter on the far-away ocean. The very smell of the sea-weed, the lap-lap of the lit- tle waves, brought back old recollections so vividly — old thoughts, some bitter, some sweet, but the sweetness generally over- coming the bitterness. "I have had all the joy that the world could bestow; I have lived— I have loved." So sings the poet, and truly. Though to this woman love had brought not joy, but sorrow, still she had loved, and it had been the main-stay and stronghold of her life, even though to outsiders it might have appeared little better than a delusion, a dream. Once, and by one only, her whole nature had been drawn out, her ideal of moral right entirely satisfied. And nothing had ever shattered this ideal. She clung to it, as we cling to the memory of our dead children, who are children forever. With a passionate fidelity she remember- ed all Robert Roy's goodness, his rare and noble qualities, resolutely shutting her eyes to what she might have judged severely, had it happened to another person — his to- tal, unexplained, and inexplicable desertion of herself. It was utterly irreconcilable with all she had ever known of him ; and ^eing powei^ess to unravel it, she left it, -ust as we havt> to leave many a mystery in heaven and ea?th, with the humble cry, " I can not understa:^d — I love." Sho loved him, that was all ; and some- times even yet, across that desert of despair, stretching before and behind her, came a wild hope, almost u conviction, that c\^ should meet him again, somewhere, some- how. This day, even, when, after an hour's delicious idleness, she roused herself to take her Mttle girls down to the beach, and sat on the shingle while they played, the sound and sights of th» sea brought old times so vividly back that sho could almost have fancied coming behind her tlie familiar step, the pleasant voice, as when Mr. Roy and his boys used to overtake her on the St. An- C drews shore— Robert Roy, a young man, with his life all before him, as was hera. Now she was middle-aged, and he — he must bo over forty by this time. How strange ! Stranger still that there had never oo* curred to her one possibility — that he " waa not," that God had taken him. But this her heart absolutely refused to accept. So long as he was in it, tl^ « world would never be quite empty to her. Afterward — But, as I said, there are Hr:i.4 things which can not be faced, an-I this was one of them. All else sy.9 had faced long ago. She did not grieve now. As she walked with her children, listening to their endless talk with that patient sympathy which made all chil- dren love her, and which she often found was a better help to their education than dozens of lessons, there was on her face that peaceful expression which is the greatest preservative of youth, the greatest antidote to change. And so it was no wonder that a tall lad, passing and repassing on the Espla- nade with another youth, looked at her more than once with groat curiosity, and at last advanced with hesitating politeness. " I beg your pardon, ma'am, if I mistake ; but you are so like a lady I once knew, and am now looking for. Are you Miss Williams f" "My name is Williams, certainly; and you" — something in the curly light hair, the mischievous twinkle of the eye, struck her — " you can not be, it is scarcely possi- ble— David Dalzielf" " But I am, though," cried the lad, shak- ing her hand as if he would shake it oft " And I call myself very clever to have re* mcmbored you, though I was such a little fellow when you left us, and I have only seen your photograph since. But you are not a bit altered — not one bit. And as I knew by your last letter to Archy that yoil were at Brighton, I thought I'd risk it and speak. Hurra! how very jolly!" He had grown a handsome lad, the pret- ty wee Davie, an honest -looking lad too, apparently, aa,. 8he, too, when she rose up and tried to walk, tried to feel that it was the same sea, the same shore, the same earth and sky, was a totally different woman. Something was lost, something never to be retrieved on this side the grave, but also something was found. " He is alive," she said to herself, with the same strange joy ; for now she knew where he was, and what had happened to Mm. The silence of all these years was broken, the dead had come to life again, aud the lost, in a sense, was found. -,. Fortune Williams rose up and walked, in more senses than one ; went round to fetch her little girls, as she had promised, from that newly opened delight of children, the Brighton Aquarium ; staid a little with them, admiring the fishes; aud when she reached home, and found David Dalziel in the drawing-room, met him aud thanked him for bringing her the newspaper. . "I suppose it was on account of that obituary notice of Mr. Roy's child," said she, cabnly naming the name now. "What a sad thing ! But still I am glad to know he is alive aud well. So will you be. Shall you write to him *" "Well, I don'i, know," answered the lad, carelessly crumpling up the newspaper and throwing it ou the lire. Miss Williams made a faint movement to snatch it ont, then dis' guised the gesture in some way, and silent- ly watched it burn. " 1 don't quite see the use of writing. He's a family man now, and must have forgotten all about his old friends. Don't you think so f " "Perhaps; only he was not the sort of persou easily to forget." She could defend him now; she coul«* speak of him, and did speak more than once afterward, when David referred to the mat ter. And then the lad quitted Brighton for Oxford, and she was left in her old loueli- ness. A loneliness which I will not speak of. She herself never referred to that time. After it, she roused herself to begin her life anew in a fresh home, to work hard, not only for daily bread but for that humble independence which she was determined to win before the dark hour when the most helpful become helpless, and the most inde- pendent are driven to fall a piteous burden into the charitable hands of friends or stran- gers — a thing to her so terrible that to save herself from the possibility of it, she who had never leaned upon any body, never had any body to lean on, became her one almost morbid desire. She had no dread of a solitary old age but an old age beholden to either public or private charity was to her intolerable ; and she had now few years left her to work in — a governess's life wears women out very fast. She determined to begin to work again immediately, laying by as much iis possible yearly against the days when she could work no more ; consulted Miss Maclachlan, who was most kind ; and then sought, aud was just about going to, another situation, with the highest salary she had yet earned, when an utterly unexpected change altered every thing. M-.'-'\' '''■'' ":'' ^',''^- • CHAPTER IV. The fly was already at the door, and Miss Williams, with her small luggage, would in five minntes have departed, followed hy the good wishes of all the hoiisehold, from Miss Maclachlan's school to her new situa- tion, when the postman passed and left a letter for her. " I will put it in my pocket and read it in the train," she said, with a slight change of color. For she recognized the handwrit- ing of that good man who had loved hur, and whom she could not love. "Better readmit now. No time like the present," ohserved Miss Maclachlan. Miso Williams did so. As soon as she was fairly started and alone in the fly, she open- ed it, with hands slightly trembling, for she was touched by the persistence of the good rector, and his faithfulness to her, a poor governess, when he might have married, as they said in his neighborhood, " any body," He would never marry any body now — he was dying. " I have come to feel how wrong I was," he wrote, " in ever trying to change our hap- py relations together. I have suffered for this — so have we all. But it is now too late for regret. My time has come. Do not grieve yourself by imagining it has come the faster through any decision of yours, but by slow, inevitable disease, which the doctors have only lately discovered. Nothing could have saved me. Be satisfied that there is no cause for you to give yourself one mo- ment's pain." (How she sobbed over those shaky lines, more even than over the news- paper lines which she had read that sun- shiny morning on the shore !) " Remember only that you made me very happy — me and all mine — for years; that I loved you, as even at my age a man can love ; as I shall love you to the end, which can not be very far off now. Would yon dislike coming to see me just once again f My girls will be so very glad, and nobody will remark it, for nobody knows any thing. Besides, what matter? I am dying. Come, if you can, within a wcek or so; they tell me I may last thus long. And I want to consult with you about my children. Therefore I will not say good-by now, only good-night, and God bless you." But it was good-by, after all. Though she did not wait the week ; indeed, she waited for nothing, considered nothing, except her gratitude to this good man — the only man who had loved her — and her affection for the two girls, who would soon be fatherless ; though she sent a telegram from Brighton to say she was coming, and arrived within tw«'uty-four hours, still — she came too late. When she reached the village she heard that his sufferings were all over; and a few yards from his garden wall, in the shade of the church-yard lime-tree, the old sexton was busy re-opening, after fourteen years, the family grave, where he was to be laid beside his wife the day after to-morrow. His two daughters, sitting alone together in the melancholy house, heard Miss Williams enter, and ran to meet her. W^ith a feeling of nearness and tenderness such as she had scarcely^ ever felt for any human being, she clasped them close, and let them weep their hearts out in her motherly arms. Thus the current of her whole life was » THE LAUREL BUSH. changed ; for frhen Mr. Moseley's will was opened, it wa say another word. Nor shall I say a word now of Fortune Williams, when she had read through and wholly taken in the contents of this letter. Life began for her again — life on a new ^ and yet on the old basis ; for it was still waiting, waiting — she seemed to bo among those whose lot it is to " stand and wait" all their days. But it was not now in that absolute darkness and silence which it used to be. She knew that in all human prob- ability Robert Roy was alive still some- where, and hope never could wholly die out of the world so long as he was in it. His career, too, if not prosperous in worldly things, had been one to make any heart that loved him content — content and proud. For if be had failed in his fortunes, was it not from doing what she would most have wished him to do — the right, at all costs f Nor had he quite forgotten her, since even so late as five years back he had been mak- ing inquiries about her. Also, he was then unmarried. But human nature is weak, and human hearts are so hungry sometimes. " Oh, if he had only loved me, and told me so!" she said, sometimes, as piteously oa fifteen years ago. But the tears which fol- ' lowed were not, as then, a storm of passion- ate despair — only a quiet, sorrowful rain. For what could she do ! Nothing. Now, as ever, her part seemed just to fold her hands and endure. If alive, he might be found some day ; but now she could not find him — oh, if she could ! Had she been the man and he the woman — nay, had she been still herself, a poor lonely governess, having to earn every crumb of her own bit- ter bread, yet knowing that he loved her, might not things have been different f Had she belonged to him, they would never have THK LAUREL BUSH. 41 lost one another. She would have sought him, OS Evangeline sought Gabriel, half the world over. And little did her two girls imagine, as they called her down stuirit that uight, se- cretly wondering what important business could make "Auntie" keep tea waiting fully five minutes, and set her after tea to read some of the " pretty poetry," especially Long- fellow's, which they had a fancy for — little did they think, those two happy creatures, listening to their middle-aged governess, who read so well that sometimes her voice actually faltered over the lines, how there was being transacted under their very eyes a story which in its " constant anguish of patience" was scarcely less pathetic than that of Acadia. For nearly a year after that letter came the little family of which Miss Williams was the head went on in its innocent quiet way, always planning,yet never making a change, until at last fate drove them to it. Neither Helen nor Jauetta were very healthy girls, and at last a London doctor gave as his absolute tiat that they mnst cease to live in their warm inland village, and migrate, for some years at any rate, to a bracing sea-side place. Whereupon David Dalziel, who had some- bow established himself as the one mascu- line adviser of the family, suggested St. An- drews. Bracing enough it was, at any rate : he remembered the winds used almost to cut his nose off. And it was such a nice place too, so pretty, with such excellent society. Ho was sure the young ladies would find it delightful. Did Miss Will- iams remember the walk hy the shore, and the golfing across the Links f " Quite as well as yon could have done, at the early age of seven," she suggested, smiling. "Why are you so very anxious we should go to live at St. Andrews f" The young fellow blushed all over his kindly eager face, and then frankly owned he had a motive. His grandmother's cot- tage, which she had left to him, the youn- gest and her pet always, was now unlet. He meant, perhaps, to go and live a \, it him- self when — when ho was of age and coold afford it; but in the mean time he was a poor solitary bachelor, and — and — " And you would like us to keep your nest warm fur yon till you can claim itt Yoa want OS for your tenants, eh, Davie f" "Just that You've bit it. Couldn't wish better. In fact, I have already written to my trustees to d|ive th> hardest bargain possible." . ^' Which was an ingenious modification of the truth, as she afterwaril found ; but evi- dently the lad had set hi? heart upon the thing. And she f At first she had shrunk back from the plan with a shiver almost of tear. It was like having to meet face to face something — some one — long dead. To walk among the old familiar places, to see the old famil- iar sea and shore, nay, to live in the v<»ry same house, haunted, as houses are soise- times, every room and every nook, with ghosts — yet with such innocent ghosts — Could she bear it T There are some people who have an act- ual terror of the past — who the momenc a thing ceases to be pleasurable fly from it, would willingly bury it out of sight forever. But others have no fear of cheir harmleaa dead — dead hopes, memories, loves — can bit by a grave-side, or look behind them at a dim spectral shape, without grief, without dread, only with tenderness. This woman could. After a long wakeful night, spent in very serious thought for every one's good, not excluding her own — since there is a certain point beyond which one has no right to for-> get one's self, and perpetual martyrs rarely make very pleasant heads of families — she said to her girls next morning that she thought David Dalziel's brilliant idea had a great deal of sense in it ; St. Andrews was a very nice place, and the cottage there would exactly suit their finances, while the tenure upon which he proposed they snould hold it (from term to term) would also f + in with their undecided future ; bnoann^, as ah knew, whenever Helen or Janett* married, each would just take her for*nne and go, leavii iss Williams with b^r "ttlo leg- 42 THE LAUREL BUSH. aoy, above want certainly, but not exactly a millionaire. These and other points she set before them in her practical foahion, Just aa if her heart did not leap — sometimes with pleasure, some- tiraes with pain — at the very thought of 8t. Andrews, and as if to see herself sit daily •ud hourly face to face with her old self, the ghost of her own youth, would be a quite easy thing. The girls were deligbted. They left all to Auntie, as was their habit to do. Bur- dens naturally fall upon the shoulders fitted for them, and which seem even to have a faculty for drawing them down there. Miss Williams's new duties had developed in her a whole range of new qualities, dormant during her governess life. Nobody knew better than she how to manage a house and guide a family. The girls soon felt that Auntie might have been a mother all her days, she was so thoroughly motherly, and they gave up every thing into her hands. So the whole matter was settled, David rejoicing exceedingly, and considering it "jolly fun," and quite like a bit out of a play, that his former governess should come buck as his tenant, and inhabit the old fa- miliar cottage. "And I'll take a run over to see you as soon as the long vacation begins, just to teach the young ladies golfing. Mr. Roy taught all us boys, you know; and we'll take that very walk he used to take us, across the Links and along the sands to the jbden. Wasn't it the river Eden, Miss Will- iams ir I am sure 1 remember it. I think I Ma very gooa at remembering." • V ery." t^iioer people were aiso "(^ooa at remem- Wnng." During the first few weeks after they settled down at St. Andrews the girls noticed that Auntie became excessively pale, and was sometimes quite " distrait" and be- wildered-looking, which was little wonder, considering all she had to do and to arrange. But she got better in time. The cottage was so sweet, the sea so fresh, the whole place so charming. Slowly Miss Williams's ordinary looks returned — ^the "good" looks which her girls so energetically protested she had now, if never before. They never allowed her to confess herself old by caps or shawls, or any of those pretty temporary hinderanoes to the march of Time. She re- sisted not ; she let them dress her as they pleased, in a reasonable way, for she felt they loved her ; and as to her age, why, »he knew it, and knew that nothing could alter it, so what did it matter T She smiled, and tried to look as nice and as young as she could for her girls' sake. I suppose there are such things as broken or breaking hearts, even at St. Andrews, but it is certainly not a likely place for them. They have little chance against the fresh, exhilarating air, strong as new wine; the wild sea waves, th3 soothing sands, giving with health of body wholesoiaeness of mind. By-and-by the busy world recovered its old face to Fortune Williams — not the world as she once dreamed of it, but the real world, as she had fought through it all those years. " I was ever a fighter, so one fight more I" as she read sometimes in the " pretty" poetry her girls were always asking for — read stead- ily, even when she came to the lost verse ia that passionate " Prospice :" "Till, vudden, the worst turns the beet to the brave, The black minute's at end: And the elements ra^e, the flend voices that rava Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become flrst a peace, then a joy, Then a light— then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul I I shall clasp thee again. And with God be the rest I" To that life to come, during all the burden and heat of the day (no, the afternoon, a time, faded, yet hot and busy still, which is often a very trying bit of woman's life) she now often began yearningly to look. To meet him again, even in old age, or with death between, was her only desire. Yet she did her dnty still, and enjoyed all she could, knowing that one by one the years were hurrying onward, and