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Un des symboles suivants apparattra sur la dernidre image de . aque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols ^^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrato the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s A des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtra reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 A partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, at de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. 1 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 B At GEO THE FARRINGDONS By ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER Author of ''Concerning Isabel Camaby,- «A Double Thread." Cupid'. Garden," - Vene. Win or Otherwi.e," etc^jM^M •»• J« Jl Jt ji ji TORONTO GEORGE N. MORANG & COMPANY, LIMITED 1900 'b\nf' 1979 •r^'?^^'^l^^tt^Vii'''^^V>' -' Canada. 9 ■■•> DEDICATION ,#or all «ttch rcabcre ae habt chanccb to be «ithcr in ^frehirr or in Jlrcabs. i tDrite this. book, that tach mafi'«mUe anb saj, "©nee on a time i, aleo. padsrb that hiaB." k CONTENTS #, CHAP. I- TjrF. OSIERFIELD . ". CHRISIOPHER "I. MRS. UATESOn's il.A-PARTY IV. SCHOOL-DAYS V. THE MOAT HOUSi: . VI. WHIT MONDAY Vn. BROADER VIEWS Vin. GREATER THAN OUR ,„.,,Krs IX. FELICIA FINDS HAI'PINESS X. CHANOKS XI. MISS FARRlXGDON's WILL XII. "the DAUGHTERS OF PHILIP- XIII. CECIL FARQUHAR . PAGE 9 20 57 75 94 116 138 156 185 209 227 242 viii < MAP. Contents XIV. ON THE RIVER XV. LITTLE WILLIE XVL THIS SIDE OF THE HILLS XVII. GEORGE FARRINGDON'S SON . PACE . 282 • 312 The Farringdons CHAPTER I THE OSIERFIELD They herded not with soulless swine, Nor let strange snares their path environ : Their only pitfall was a mine — Their pigs were made of iron. IN the middle of Sedgehill, which is in the middle of Mershire, which is in the middle oi England, there lies a narrow ridge of high table-land, dividing, as by a straight line, the collieries and ironworks of the great coal district from the green and pleasant scenery of the western Midlands. Along the summit of this ridge runs the High Street of the bleak little town of Sedgehill; so that the houses on the east side of this street see nothing through their back windows save the huge slag-mounds and blazing furnaces and tall chimneys of the weird and terrible, yet withal fascinating. Black Country ; while the houses on the west side of the street have sunny gardens and fruitful orchards, sloping down towards a fertile land of woods and streams and meadows, bounded in the far distance by the Clee Hills and the Wrekin, and in the farthest distance of all by the blue Welsh mountains. 9 lO XTbe jfardttdbond In the dark valley lying to the immediate east of Sedgehill stood the Osierfield Works, the largest ironvrv^rks in Mershire in the good old days when Mershire made iron for half the world. The owners of these works were the Farringdons, and had been so for several generations. So it came to pass that the Farringdons were the royal family of Sedgehill; and the Osierfield Works was the circle wherein the inhabitants of that place lived and moved. It was as natural for everybody born in Sedgehill eventually to work at the Osierfield, as it was for him eventually to grew into a man and to take unto himself a wife. The home of the Farringdons was called the Willows, and was separated by a carriage-drive of half a mile from the town. Its lodge stood in the High Street, on the western side ; and the drive wandered through a fine old wood, and across an undulating park, till it stopped in front of a large square house built of grey stone. It was a handsome house inside, with wondenul oak staircases and Adams chimney-pieces ; and there was an air of great stateliness about it, and of very little luxury. For the Farringdons were a hardy race, whose time was taken up by the making of iron and the saving of souls ; and they regarded sofas and easy-chairs in very much the same light as they regaided theatres and strong drink, thereby proving that their cpines were as strong as their consciences were stern. Moreover, the Farringdons v/ere of "the people called Methodists " ; consequently Methodism was the established religion of Sedgehill, possessing there that prestige which is the inalienable attribute of all state churches. In the eyes of Sedgehill it was as necessary to salvation to pray at the chapel as to work at the Osierfield ; and the majority of the inhabitants would as soon have thought of worshipping at any other sanctuary, as of worshipping at the beacon, a Ubc ^eierfielb II i pillar which still marks the highest point of the highest table-land in England. At the time when this story begins, the joint ownership of the Osierfield and the Willows was vested in the two Miss Farringdons, the daughters and co-heiresses of John Farringdon. John Farringdon and his brother William had been partners, and had arranged between themselves that William's only child, George, should marry John's eldest daughter, Maria, and so consolidate the brothers' fortunes and their interest in the works. But the gods — and George — saw otherwise. George was a handsome, weak boy, who objected equally to work and to Methodism ; and as his father cared for nothing beyond those sources of interest, and had no patience for any one who did, the two did not always see eye to eye. Perhaps if Maria had been more unbending, things might have turned out differently ; but Methodism in its severest aspects was not more severe than Maria Farringdon. She was a thorough gentlewoman, and extremely clever ; but tenderness was not counted among her excellencies. George would have been fond of almost any woman who was pretty enough to be loved and not clever enough to be feared ; but his cousin Maria was beyond even his powers of falling in love, although, to do him justice, these powers were by no means limited. The end of it was that George offended his father past forgiveness by running away to Australia rather than marry Maria, and there disappeared. Years afterwards a rumour reached his people that he had married and died out there, leaving a widow and an only son ; but this rumour had not been verified, as by that time his father and uncle were dead, and his cousins were reigning in his stead; and it was hardly to be expected that the proud Miss Farringdon would take much trouble concerning the woman whom her weak-kneed kinsman had preferred to herself. ta tTbe jfarvingbonB William Farringdon left all his property a.id his share in the works to his niece Maria, as some reparation for the insult which his disinherited son had offered to her ; John lefc his large fortune between his two daughter:., as he never had a son ; so Maria and Anne Farringdon lived at the Willows, and carried on the Osierfield with the help of Richard Smallwood, who had been the general manager of the collieries and ironworks belonging to the firm in their father's time, and knew as much about iron (and most other things) as he did. Maria was a good woman of business, and she and Richard between them made money as fast as it had been made in the days of William and John Farringdon. Anne, on the contrary, was a meek and gentle soul, who had no power of governing but a perfect genius for obedience, and who was always engaged on the Hescu- lean task of squaring the sternest dogmas with the most indulgent practices. Even in the early days of this history the Miss Farringdons were what is called " getting on " ; but the Willows was, nevertheless, not without a youthful element in it. Close upon a dozen years ago the two sisters had adopted the orphaned child of a second cousin, whose young widow had died in giving birth to a posthumous daughter; and now Elisal)eth Farringdon was the light of the good ladies' eyes, though they would have considered it harmful to her soul to let her have an inkling of this fact. She was not a pretty little girl, which was a source of much sorrow of heart to her ; and she was a distinctly clever little girl, of which she was utterly unconscious, it being an integral part of Miss Farringdon's system of education to imbue the young with an overpowering sense of their own inferiority and unworthiness. During the first decade of her existence Elisabeth used frequ^^ntly and earnestly to pray that her hair might become golden and her eyes Ube ^sierfielb X3 brown ; but as on this score the heavens remained as brass, and her hair continued dark brown and her eyes blue-grey, she changed her tactics, and confined her heroine-worship to ladies of this particular style of colouring ; which showed that, even at the age of ten, Elisabeth had her full share of adaptability. One day, when walking with Miss Farringdon to chapel, Elisabeth exclaimed, d propos of nothing but he: own meditations, " Oh ! Cousin Maria, I do wish I was pretty ! " Most people would have been too much afraid of the lady of the Willows to express so frivolous a desire in her august hearing ; but Elisabeth was never afraid of anybody, and that, perhaps, was one of the reasons why her severe kinswoman loved her so well. " That is a vain wish, my child. lavour is deceitful and beauty is vain ; and the Lord looketh on the heart and not on the outward appearance." " But I wasn't thinking of the Lord," replied Elisabeth : " I was thinking of other people ; and they love you much more if you are pretty than if you aren't." " That is not so," said Miss Farringdon — and she believed she was :.;)eaking the truth ; " if you serve God and do your duty to your neighbour, you will find plenty of people ready to love you ; and especially if you carry yourself well and never stoop." Like many another elect lady. Cousin Maria regarded beauty of face as a vanity, but beauty of figure as a virtue ; and to this doctrine Elisabeth owed the fact that her back always sloped in the opposite direction to the backs of the majority of people. But it would have surprised Miss Farringdon to learn how little real effect her strict Methodist training had upon Elisabeth ; fortunately, however, few elder people ever do learn how little effect their training has upon the young committed to their charge ; if it were so, life would be too u Ubc f arrinobons hard for the generation that has passed the hill-top. Elisa- beth's was one of those happy, pantheistic natures that possess the gift of finding God everywhere and in everything. She early caught the Methodist habit of self-analysis and introspection, but in her it did not develop — as it does in rnore naturally religious souls — into an almost morbid conscientiousness and self-depreciation ; she merely found an artistic and intellectual pleasure in taking the machinery of her soul to pieces and seeing how it worked. In those days— and, in fact, in all succeeding ones — Elisabeth lived in a world of imagination. There was not a nook in the garden of the Willows which was not peopled by creatures of her fancy. At this particular time she was greatly fascinated by the subject of heathen mythology, as Get forth in MangnaWs Questions, and had devoted herself to the service of Pallas Athene, having learned that that goddess was (like herself) not surpassingly beautiful, and was, moreover, handicapped by the possession of grey eyes. Miss Farringdon would have been horrified had she known that a portion of the wood was set apart by Elisabeth as " Athene's Grove," and that the contents of the waste-paper basket were daily begged from the servants by the devotee, and offered up, by the aid of real matches, on the shrine of the goddess. " Have you noticed, sister," Miss Anne remarked on one occasion, " how much more thoughtful dear Elisabeth is growing ? " Miss Anne's life was one long advertisement of other people's virtues. " She used to be somewhat careless in letting the fires go out, and so giving the servants the trouble to relight them ; but now she is always going round the rooms to see if more coal is required, without my ever having to remind her." " It is so, and I rejoice. Carelessness in domestic matters is a grave fault in a young girl, and I am pleased that Ube ^sierfiielb 15 Elisabeth has outgrown her habit of wool-gathering, and of letting the fire go out under her very nose without noticing it. It is a source of thanksgiving to me that the child is so much more thoughtful and considerate in this matter than she used to be." Miss Farringdon's thanksgiving, however, would have been less fervent had she known that, for the time being, her protkgie had assumed the role of a Vestal virgin, and that Elisabeth's care of the fires that winter was not fulfilment of a duty but part of a game. This, however, was Elisabeth's way y she frequently received credit for performing a duty when she was really only taking part in a performance ; which merely meant that she possessed the artist's power of looking at duty through the haze of idealism, and of seeing that, altnough it was good, 't might also be made picturesque. Elisabeth was well versec in The PilgrurHs Progress and The Fairchild Family. The spiritual vicissitudes of Lucy, Emily, and Henry Fairchild were to her a drama of never- failing interest ; while each besetment of the Crosbie house- hold — which was as carefully preserved for its particular owner as if sin were a species of ground game — never failed to thiill her with enjoyable disgust. She knew a great portion of the Methodist hymn-book by heart, and pondered long over the interesting preface to that work, wondering much what "doggerel" and *' botches " could be — she inclined to the supposition that the former were animals and the latter were diseases; but even her vivid imagination failed to form a satisfactory representation of such queer kiitle-cattle as " feeble expletives." Every Sunday she gloated over the frontispiece of John Wesley, in his gown and bands and white ringlets, feeling that, though poor as a picture, it was very superior to the letterpress ; the worst illustrations being better than the best poetry, as everybody under thirteen must know. But Elisabeth's library was not i6 XTbe jfarringboud confined to the volumes above mentioned; she regularly perused with interest two little periodicals, called respectively Early Days and The Juvenile Offering. The former treated of youthful saints at home ; and its white paper cover was adorned by the picture of a shepherd, comfortably if peculiarly attired in a frock coat and top hat — presumably to portray that it was Sunday. The latter magazine devoted itself to histories dealing with youthful saints abroad ; and its cover was decorated with a representation of young black persons apparently engaged in some religious exercise. In this picture the frock coats and top hats were conspicuous by their absence. There were two pictures in the breakfast-room at the Willows which occupied an important place in Elisabeth's childish imaginings. The first hung over the mantelpiece, and was called The Centenary Meeting. It represented a chapel full of men in suffocating cravats, turning their backs upon the platform and looking at the public instead — a more effective if less realistic attitude than the ordinary one of sitting the right way about ; because — as Elisabeth reasoned, and reasoned rightly — if these gentlemen had not happened to be behind before when their portraits were taken, nobody would ever have known whose portraits they were. It was a source of great family pride to her that her grand- father appeared in this galaxy of Methodist worth ; but the hero of the piece, in her eyes, was one gentleman who had managed to swarm up a pillar and there screw himself " to the sticking-place " ; and how he had done it Elisabeth never could conceive. The second picture hung over the door, and was a counterfeit presentment of John Wesley's escape from the burning rectory at Epworth. In those days Elisabeth was so small and the picture hung so high that she could not Bee it very distinctly \ but it appeared to her that the boy '■4 Ube ^sierfiel^ t7 Is a the Iwas not (boy I Wesley (whom she confused in her own mind with the infant Samuel) was flying out of an attic window by means of flowing white wings, while a horse was suspended in mid- air ready to carry him straight to heaven. Every Sunday she accompanied her cousins to East Lane Chapel, at the other end of Sedgehill, and here she saw strange visions and dreamed strange dreams. The dis- tinguishing feature of this sanctuary was a sort of reredos in oils, in memory of a dead and gone Farringdon, which depicted a gigantic urn, surrounded by a forest of cypress, through the shades whereof flitted " young-eyed cherubins " with dirty wings and bilious complexions, these last- mentioned blemishes being, it is but fair to add, the fault of the atmosphere and not of the artist. For years Elisabeth firmly believed that this altar-piece was a trust- worthy representation of heaven ; and she felt, therefore, a pleasant, proprietary interest in it, as the view of an estate to which she would one day succeed. There was also a stained-glass window in East L^ne Chapel, given by the widow of a leading official. Tne baptismal name of the deceased had been Jacob ; and the window showed forth Jacob's Dream, as a delicate compli- ment to the departed. Elisabeth delighted in this window, it was so realistic. The patriarch lay asleep, with his head en a little white tombstone at the foot of a solid oak stair- case, which was covered with a red carpet neatly fastened down by brass rods ; while up and down this staircase strolled fair-haired angels in long white nightgowns and purple wings. Not of course then, but in after years, Elisabeth learned to understand that this window was a type and an explanation of the power of earl^ Methodism, the strength whereof lay in its marvellous capacity of adapting religion to the needs and uses of everyday life, and of bringing the infinite into i8 Xlbe jf arrina^ons the region of the homely and commonplace. We, with our added culture and our maturer artistic perceptions, may smile at a Jacob's Ladder formed according to the domestic architecture of the first half of the nineteenth century ; but the people to whom the other world was so near and so real that they perceived nothing incongruous in an ordinary stair-carpet which was being trodden by the feet of angels, had grasped a truth which on one side touched the Divine, even though on the other it came perilously near to the grotesque. And He, Who taught them as by parables, never misunderstood — as did certain of His followers — their reverent irreverence; but, understanding it, saw that it was good. The great day in East Lane Chapel was the Sunday School anniversary ; and in Elisabeth's childish eyes this was a feast compared with which Christmas and Easter sank to the level of black-letter days. On these festivals the Sunday School scholars sat all together in those parts of the gallery adjacent to the organ, the girls wearing white frocks and blue neckerchiefs, and the boys black suits and blue ties. The pews were strewn with white hymn-sheets, which lay all over the chapel like snow in Salmon, and which contained special spiritual songs more stirring in their character than the contents of the hymn-book ; these the Sunday School children sang by themselves, while the congregation sat swaying to and fro to the tune. And Elisabeth's soul was uplifted within her as she listened to the children's voices; for she felt that mystical hush which — let us hope — comes to us all at some time cic other, when we hide our faces in our mantles and feel that a Presence is pass.ng by ; and is passing by so near to us that we have on^y to stretch out our hands in order to touch It. At sundry times and in divers manners does that wonderful sense of a Personal Touch come to men Uhc Qsictficlb 19 whereof we see Him c ^ , ^^^^^ ^' ^^^' end be made perfectly whole. «''™'"' '''='" [| CUMMER II CHRISTOPHER And when perchance of all perfection You've seen an end, Your thoughts may turn in my direction To find a friend. THERE are two things which are absolutely necessary to the well-being of the normal feminine mind — namely, one romantic attachment and one comfortable friendship. Elisabeth was perfectly normal and extremely feminine ; and consequently she provided herself early with these two aids to happiness. In those days the object of her romantic attachment was her cousin Anne. Anne Farringdon was one of those graceful, elegant women who appear so much deeper than they really are. All her life she had been inspiring devotion which she was utterly unable to fathom ; and this was still the case with regard to herself and her adoring little worshipper. People always wondered why Anne Farringdon had never married ; and explained the mystery to their own satisfaction by conjecturing that she had had a disappointment in her youth, and had been incapable of loving twice. It never struck them — which was actually the case — that she had 20 Cbddtopber 31 been incapable of loving once; and that her single blessedness was due to no unforgotten love-story, but to the unromantic fact that among her score of lovers she had never found a man for whom she seriously cared. In a delicate and ladylike fashion she had flirted outrageously in her time; but she had always broken hearts so gently, and put away the [)ieces so daintily, that the owners of these hearts had never dreamed of resenting the damage she had wrought. She had refused them with such a world of pathos in her beautiful eyes — the Farringdon grey- blue eyes, with thick black brows and long black lashes — that the poor souls had never doubted her sympathy and comprehension ; nor had they the slightest idea that she was totally ignorant of the depth of the love which she had inspired, or the bitterness of the pain which she had caused. All the romance of Elisabeth's nature — and there was a great deal of it — was lavished upon Anne Farringdon. If Anne smiled, Elisabeth's sky was cloudless ; if Anne sighed, Elisabeth's sky grew grey. The mere sound of Anne's voice vibrated through the child's whole being ; and every trifle connected with her cousin became a sacred relic in Elisabeth's eyes. Like every Methodist child, Elizabeth was well versed in her Bible ; but, unlike most Methodist children, she regarded it more as a poetical than an ethical work. When she was only twelve, the sixty-eighth Psalm thrilled her as with the sound of a trumpet ; and she was completely carried away by the glorious imagery of the Book of Isaiah, even when she did not in the least understand its meaning. But her favourite book was the Book of Ruth ; for was not Ruth's devotion to Naomi the exact counterpart of hers to Cousin Anne? And she used to make up long stories in her own mind about how Cousin •s tlbe fatrind^ons Anne should, by some means, lose all her friends and all her money, and be driven out of Sedgehill and away from the Osierfield Works ; and then how Elisabeth would say, " Entreat me not to leave thee," and would follow Cousin Anne to the ends of the earth. People sometimes smile at the adoration of a young girl for a woman, and there is no doubt but that the feeling savours slightly of school-days and bread-and-butter ; but there is also no doubt that a girl who has once felt it has learnt what real love is, and that is no small item in the lesson-book of life. But Elisabeth had her comfortable friendship as well as her romantic attachment; and the partner in that friendship was Christopher Thornley, the nephew of Richard Smallwood. In the days of his youth, when his father was still manager of the Osierfield Works, Richard had a very pretty sister ; but as Emily Smallwood was pretty, so was she also vain, and the strict atmosphere of her home life did not recommend itself to her taste. After many quarrels with her stern old father (her mother having died when she was a baby), Emily left home, and took a situation in London, as governess in the house of some wealthy peopk with no pretensions to religion. For this her father never forgave her ; he called it " consorting with children of Belial." In time she wrote to tell Richard that she was going to be married, and that she wished to cut off entirely all communication with her old home. After that, Richard lost sight of her for many years ; but some time after his father's death he received a letter from Emily, begging him to come to her at once, as she was dying. He complied with her request, and found his once beautiful sister in great poverty in a London lodging-house. She told him that she had endured great sorrow, having lost her Cbrtdtopber #3 husband and her five eldest children. Her husband had never been unkind to her, she said, but he was one of the n«'^n who lack the power either to make or to keep money ; and when he found he was foredoomed to failure in everything at which he tried his hand, he had not the spirit to continue the fight against Fate, but turned his face to the wall and died. She had still one child left, a fair-haired boy of about two years old, called Christopher ; to her brother's care she confided this boy, and then she also turned her face to the wall and died. This happened a year or so before the Miss Farringdons adopted Elisabeth ; so that when that young lady appeared upon the scene, and subsequently grew up sufficiently to require a playfellow, she found Christopher Thornley ready to hand. He lived with his bachelor uncle in a square red house on the east side of Sedgehill High Street, exactly opposite to the Farringdons' lodge. It was one of those big, bald houses with unblinking windows, that stare at you as if they had not any eyebrows or eye- lashes ; and there was not even a strip of greenery between it and the High Street. So to prevent the passers-by from looking in and the occupants from looking out, the lower half of each front window was covered with a sort of black crape mask, which put even the sunbeams into half-mourning. Unlike Elisabeth, Christopher had a passion for righteousness and for honour, but no power of artistic perception. His standard was whether things were right or wrong, honourable or dishonourable ; hers was whether they were beautiful or ugly, pleasant or unpleasant. Consequently the two moved along parallel lines ; and she moved a great deal more quickly than he did. Christopher had deep convictions, but was very shy of expressing them ; Elisabeth's convictions were not particularly deep, hut I 24 Ube jfatrlnatJons such as they were all the world was welcome to them as far as she was concerned. As the children grew older, one thing used much to puzzle and perplex Christopher. Elisabeth did not seem to care about being good nearly as much as he cared : he was always trying to do right, and she only tried when she thought about it ; nevertheless, when she did give her attention to the matter, she had much more comforting and beautiful thoughts than he had, which appeared rather hard. He was not yet old enough to know that this difference between them arose from no unequal division of Divine favour, but was simply and solely a question of temperament. But though he did not understand, he did not complain ; for he had been brought up under the shadow of the Osierfield Works, and in the fear and love of the Farringdons; and Elisabeth, whatever her shortcomings, was a princess of the blood. Christopher was a day-boy at the Grammar School at Silverhampton, a fine old town some three miles to the north of Sedgehill ; and there and back he walked every day, wet or fine, and there he learnt to be a scholar ?nd a gentleman, and sundry other important things. " Do you hear that noise ? " said Elisabeth, one afternoon in the holidays, when she was twelve and Christopher fifteen; "that's Mrs. Bateson's pig being killed." " Hear it ? — rather," replied Christopher, standing still in the wood to listen. " Let's go and see it," Elisabeth suggested. Christopher looked shocked. " Well, you are a horrid girl ! Nothing would induce me to go, or to let you go either; but I'm surprised at your being so horrid as to wish for such a thing." " It isn't really horridness," Elisabeth explained meekly ; " it is mterest. I'm so frightfully interested in things ; Cbristopbec 25 still rid |go to jy; IS : and I want to see everything, just to know what it looks like." " Well, I call it horrid. And, what's more, if you saw it, it would make you feel ill." " No ; it wouldn't." •'Then it ought to," said Christopher, who, with true masculine dulness of perception, confounded weakness of nerve with tenderness of heart. Elisabeth sighed. " Nothing makes me feel ill," she replied apologetically ; " not even an accident or an after- meeting." Christopher could not help indulging in a certain amount of envious admiration for an organism that could pass unmoved through such physical and spiritual crises as these ; but he was not going to let Elisaljeth see that he admired her. He considered it " unmanly " to admire girls. " Well, you are a queer little thing ! " he said. "Of course, I don't want to go if you think it would i)e horrid of me ; but I thought we might pretend it was the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, and find it most awfully exciting." " How you do go on about Mary Queen of Scots ! Not long ago you were always bothering about heathen goddesses, and now you have no thought for anything but Mary." " Oh ! but I'm still immensely interested in goddesses, Chris; and I do wish, when you are doing Latin and Greek at school, you'd find out what colour Pallas Athene's hair was. Couldn't you ? " "No; I couldn't." " But you might ask one of the masters. They'd be sure to know." Christopher laughed the laugh of the scornful. " I say, 26 TTbe 3farrin0&on9 you are a duffer to suppose that clever men like school- masters bother their heads about sach rot as the colour of a woman's hair." "Of course, I know they wouldn't about a woman's," Elisabeth hastened to justify herself; "but I thought perhaps they might about a goddess's." "It is the same thing. You've no idea what tremen- dously clever chaps schoolmasters are — much too clever to take any interest in girls* and women's concerns. Besides, they are too old for that, too — they are generally quite thirty." lilisabeth was silent for a moment ; and Christopher whistled as he looked across the green valley to the sun- set, without in the least knowing how beautiful it was. But Elisabeth knew, for she possessed an innate knowledge of many things which he would have to learn by experience. But even she did not yet understand that because the sun- set was beautiful she felt a sudden hunger and thirst after righteousness. " Chris, do you think it is wicked of people to fall in love ? " she asked suddenly. " Not exactly wicked ; more silly, I should say," replied Chris generously. " Because if it is wicked, I shall give up reading tales about it." This was a tremendous and unnatural sacrifice to principle on the part of Elisabeth. Christopher turned upon her sharply. " You don't read talcs that Miss Farringdon hasn't said you may read, do you ? " " Yes ; lots. But I never read tales that she has said I mustn't read." " You oughtn't to read any tale till you have asked her first if you may." Elisabeth's face fell. " I never thought of doing such a I i Cbri0topbet 17 do thing as asking her first. Oh ! Chris, you don't really think I ought to, do you ? Because she'd be sure to say no." p "That is exactly why you ought to ask." Christopher's sense of honour was one of his strong points. M Then Elisabeth lost her temper. *' That is you all over ! You are the most tiresome boy to have anything to do with ! You are always bothering about things being wrong, till you make them wrong. Now I hardly ever think of it ; but I can't go on doing things after you've said they are wrong, because that would be wrong of me, don't you see ? And yet it wasn't a bit wrong of me before I knew. I hate you!" " I say, Betty, I'm awfully sorry to have riled you ; but you asked me." * I didn't ask you whether I need ask Cousin Maria, stupid ! You know I didn't. I asked you whether it was wrong to fall in love, and then you went and dragged Cousin Maria in. I wish I'd never asked you anything ; I wish I'd never spoken to you ; I wish I'd got somebody else to play with, and then I'd never speak to you again as long as I live." "^ Of course it was unwise of Christoplier to condemn a weakness to which Elisabeth was prone, and to condone g one to which she was not ; but no man has learnt wisdom ,;i' :it fifteen, and but few at fifty. % ** You are the most disagreeable boy I have ever met, ^ and I wish I could think of something to do to annoy you ! I know what I'll do ; I'll go by myself and see Mrs. Bateson's pig, just to show you now I hate you." And Elisabeth flew off in the direction of Mrs. Hateson's cottage, with the truly feminine intention of [)unishing the male being who had dared to disapprove of her, by making him disapprove of her still more. Her programme, however, 28 Ube jfarrtiiQ^ons was frustrated ; for Mrs. Bateson herself intervened between Elisabeth and her unholy desires, and entertained the latter with a plate of delicious bread-and-dripping instead. Finally that young lady returned to her home in a more magnanimous frame of mind ; and fell asleep that night wondering if the whole male sex were as stupid as the particular specimen with which she had to do — a problem which has puzzled older female brains than hers. But poor Christopher was very unhappy. It was agony to him when his conscience pulled him one way and Elisabeth pulled him the other; and yet this form of torture was constantly occurring to him. He could not bear to do what he knew was wrong, and he could not bear to vex Elisabeth ; yet Elisabeth's wishes and his own ideas of right were by no means always synonymous. His only comfort was the knowledge that his sovereign's anger was, as a rule, short-lived, and that he himself was indispensable to that sovereign's happiness. This was true; but he did not then realize that it was in his office as admiring and sympathizing audience, and not in his person as Christopher Thornley, that he was necessary to Elisabeth. A fuller revelation was vouchsafed to him later. The next morning Elisabeth was herself again, and was quite ready to enjoy Christopher's society and to excuse his scruples. She knew that self of hers whtn she said that she wished she had somebody else to play with, in order that she might withdraw the light of her presence from her offending henchman. Thus to punish Christopher, until she had found some one to take his place, was a course of action which would not have occurred to her. Elisabeth's pride would never stand in the way of her pleasure ; Chris- topher's, on the contrary, might. It was a remarkable fact that after Christopher had reproved Elisabeth for some iault — which happened neither infrequently nor unneces- 4 Cbdstopber 29 I i sarily — he was always repentant and she forgiving ; yet nine times out of ten he had been in the right and she in the wrong. But Ehsabeth's was one of those exceptionally generous natures which can pardon the reproofs and condone the virtues of their friends ; and she bore no malice, even when Christopher had been more obviously rig^t than usual. But she was already enough of a woman to adapt to her own requirements his penitence for right- doing; and on this occasion she took advantage of his chastened demeanour to induce him to assist her in erect- ing a nevv shrine to Athene in the wood — which meant that she gave all the directions and he did all the work. " You are doing it beautifully, Chris — j^ou really are ! " she exclaimed with delight. " We shall be able to have a sj)lendid sacrifice this afternoon. I've got some feathers to offer up from the fowl cook is plucking ; and they make a much better sacrifice than waste paper." "Why?" Christopher was too shy in those days to put the fact into words ; nevertheless, the fact remained that Elisabeth interested him profoundly. She was so original, so unex- pected, that she was continually providing him with fresh food for thought. Although he was cleverer at lessons than she was, she was by far the cleverer at play ; and though he had the finer character, hers was the stronger personality. It was because Elisabeth was so much to him that he now and then worried her easy-going conscience with his strictures ; for, to do him justice, the boy was no prig, and would never have dreamed of preaching to any- body except her. But it must be remembered that Christopher had never heard of such things as spiritual evolutions and streams of tendency : to him right or wrong meant heaven or hell — neither more nor less ; and he was overpowered by a burning anxiety that Elisabeth should 30 Ube jfavdng^ons eventually go to heaven, partly for her own sake, and partly (since human love is stronger than dogmas and doctrines) because a heaven, uncheered by the presence of Elisabeth, seemed a somewhat dreary place wherein to spend one's eternity. " Why do feathers make a better sacrifice than paper ? " repeated Christopher, Elisal)eth being so much absorbed in his work that she had not answered his question. " Oh ! because they smell ; and it seems so much more like a real sacrifice, somehow, if it smells." " I see. What ideas you do get into your head ! " But Elisabeth's volatile thoughts had flown off in another direction. " You really have got awfully nice-coloured hair," she remarked, Chris having taken his cap off for the sake of coolness, as he was heated with his toil. " 1 do wish I had light hair like yours. Angels, and goddesses, and princesses, and people of that kind always have golden hair; but only bad fairies and cruel stepmothers have nasty dark hair like mine. I think it is horrid to have dark hair." " I don't : I like dark hair best ; and I don't think yours is half bad." Christopher never overstated a case; but then one had the comfort of knowing t!iat he always meant what he said, and frequently a good deal more. " Don't you really, Chris? I think it is hideous," replied Elisabeth, taking one of her elf-locks between her fingers and examining it as if it were a sample of material ; " it is like that ugly brown seaweed which shows which way the wind blows — no, I mean that shows whether it is going to rain or not." " Never mind ; I've seen lots of people with uglier hair than yours." Chris really could be of great consolation when he tried. " Aren't the trees lovely when they have got all their 4 Cbristopber 31 leir leaves off? " said Elisabeth, her thoughts wandering again. " I believe I like them better now than I do in summer. Now they are like the things you wish for, and in the summer they are like the things you get ; and the things you get are never half as nice as the things you wish for." This was too subtle for Christopher. " I like them best with the leaves on; but anyhow they are nicer to look at than the chimneys that we see from our house. You can't think how gloomy it is for your rooms to look out on nothing but smoke and chimneys and furnaces. When you go to bed at night it's all red, and when you get up in the morning it's all black." " I should like to live in a house like that. I love the I smoke and the chimneys and the furnaces — they are all so big and strong and full of life ; and they make you think." "What on earth do they make you think about ? " Elisabeth's grey eyes grew dreamy. "They make me think that the Black Country is a wilderness that we are all travelling through ; and over it there is always the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, to tell us which way to go. I make up tales to myself about the people in the wilderness ; and how they watch the pillar, and how it keeps them from idling in their work, or selling bad iron, or doing anything that is horrid or mean, because it is a sign to them that God is with them, just as it used to be to the Children of Israel." Christopher looked up from his work. Here was the oltl problem : Elisabeth did not think about religion half as «uuch as he did, and yet the helpful and beautiful thoughts m came io her and not to him. Still, it was comforting to know that the smoke and the glare, which he had hated, could convey such a message ; and he made up his mind not to hate them any more. " And then I pretend that the people come out of the m 32 XTbc jfarriiiobons wilderness and go to live in the country over there," Elisa- beth continued, pointing to the distant hills ; " and I make up lovely tales about that country, and all the beautiful things there. That is what is so nice about hills : you always think there are such wonderful places on the other side of them." For some minutes Christopher worked silently, and Elisabeth watched him. Then the latter said suddenly, — " Isn't it funny that you never hate people in a morning, however much you may have hated them the night before?" " Don't you ? " Rapid changes of sentiment were beyond Christopher's comprehension. He was by no means a variable person. " Oh ! no. Last night I hated you, and made up a story in my own mind that another really nice boy came to play with me instead of you. And I said nice things to him, and horrid things to you ; he and I played in the wood, and you had to do lessons all by yourself at school, and had nobody to play with. But when I woke up this morning I didn't care about the pretending boy any more, and I wanted you." Christopher looked pleased; but it was not his way to express his pleasure in words. "And so, I suppose, you came to look for me," he said. " Not the first thing. Somehow it always makes you like a person better when you have hated them for a bit, so I liked you awfully when I woke this morning and remembered you. When you really are fond of a person) you always want to do something to please them ; so I went and told Cousin Maria that I'd read a lot of books in the library without thinking whether I ought to or not , but that now I wanted her to say what I might read and what I mightn't." H I li Cbristopbec 33 ut I t This was a course of action that Christopher could thoroughly understand and appreciate. " Was she angry ? " he asked. " Not a bit. That is the best of Cousin Maria — she never scolds you unless you really deserve it ; and she is very sharp at finding out whether you deserve it or not. She said that there were a lot of books in the library that weren't suitable for a little girl to read ; but that it wasn't naughty of me to have read what I chose, since nobody had told me not to. And then she said it was good of me to have told her, for she should never have found it out if I hadn't." "And so it was," remarked Christopher approvingly. " No ; it wasn't — and I told her it wasn't. I told her that the g ^odness was yours, because it was you that made me tell. I should never have thought of it by myself." ** I say, you are a regular brick ! " Elisabeth looked puzzled. '* I don't see anything brickish in saying that ; it was the truth. It was you that made me tell, you know ; and it wasn't fair for me to be praised for your goodness." " You really are awfully straight, for a girl," said Christopher, with admiration ; " you couldn't be straighter if you were a boy." This was high praise, and Elisabeth's pale little face glowed with delight. She loved to be commended. ** It was really very good of you to speak to Miss Farringdon about the books," continued Christopher ; " for I know you'll hate having to ask permission before you read a tale." " I didn't do it out of goodness," said Elisabeth thought- fully — " I did it to please you ; and pleasing a person you are fond of isn't goodness. I wonder if grown-up people get to be as fond of religion as they are of one another. I 34 Ubc jfarrin^bons expect they do; and then they do good things just for the sake of doing good." "Of course they do," replied Christopher, who was always at sea when Elisabeth became metaphysical. " I suppose," she continued seriously, " that if I were really good, religion ought to be the same to me as Cousin Anne is." " The same as Cousin Anne is ! What do you mean ? " " I mean that if I were really good, religion would give me the same sort of feelings as Cousin Anne does." " What sort of feelings ? " " Oh ! they are lovely feelings," Elisabeth answered— " too lovely to explain. Everything is a treat if Cousin Anne is there. When she speaks, it's just like music tricklmg down your back ; and when you do something that you don't like to please her, you feel that you do like it." " Well, you are a rum little thing ! I should think nobody ever thought of all the queer things that you think of." "Oh! I expect everybody does," retorted Elisabeth, who was far too healthy-minded to consider herself peculiar. After another pause, she inquired: "Do you like me Chris ? " ' " Rather ! What a foolish question to ask," Christopher replied, with a blush, for he was always shy of talking about his feelings ; and the more he felt the shyer he became. But Elisabeth was not shy, and had no sympathy with anybody who was. " How much do you like me ? " she continued. "A lot." " But I want to know exactly how much." " Then you can't. Nobody can tell how much they like anybody. You do ask silly questions I " Cbrtstopber 35 " Yes ; they can. I can tell how much I like everybody " Elisabeth persisted. "How?" "I have a sort of thermometer in my mind, just like the b,g thermometer in the hall; and I measure how much I like people by that." " How much do you like your Cousin Anne ? " he asked. " Ninety-six degrees," replied Elisabeth promptly. " And your Cousin Maria ? " " Sixty." " And Mrs. Bateson ? " *| Fifty-four." Elisabeth always knew her own mind. "I say, how— how— how much do you like me ?" asked Christopher, with some hesitation. "Sixty-two," answered Elisabeth, with no hesitation at all And Christopher felt a funny, cold feeling round his loyal heart. He grew to know the feeling well in after years, and to wonder how Elisabeth could understand so much and yet understand so little; but at present he was too young to understand himselt ^,f: CHAPTER III MRS. BATESON'S TEA-PARTY The best of piggie when he dies Is not " interred with his bones,'* But, in the ibrm of porcine pies, Blesses a world that heard his cries Yet heeded not those dying groans. COUSIN MARIA, please may I go to tea at Mrs. Bateson's with Christopher?" said Elisabeth one day, opening the library door a little, and endeavouring to squeeze her small person through as narrow an aperture as possible, as is the custom with children. She never called her playmate " Chris " in speaking to Miss Farringdon ; for this latter regarded it as actually sinful to address people by any abbreviation of their baptismal names, just as she con- sidered it positively immoral to partake of any nourishment between meals. " Mrs. Bateson has killed her pig, and there will be pork-pies for tea." Miss Farringdon looked over her spectacles at the restless little figure. " Yes, my child ; I see no reason why you should not. Kezia Bateson is a God-fearing woman, and her husband has worked at the Osierfield for forty years. I have the greatest respect for Caleb Bateson; he is a worthy man and a good Methodist, as his father was before him." 36 /iDrs. :iSatedon'0 Xi:ea>»ipatts 37 " He is a very ignorant man : he says Penny-lope." " Says what, Elisabeth ? " " Penny-lope. I was showing him a book the other day about Penelope — the woman with the web, you know — and he called her Penny-lope. I didn't like to correct him, but 1 said Penelope afterwards as often and as loud as I could." " That was very ill-bred of you. Come here, Elisabeth." The child came and stood by the old lady's chair, and began playing with a bunch of seals that were suspended by a gold chain from Miss Farringdon's waist. It was one of Elisabeth's little tricks that her fingers were never idle when she was talking. " What are the two chief ends at which every woman should aim, my child ? " "To be first a Christian and then a gentlewoman," quoted Elisabeth glibly. " And how does a true gentlewoman show her good breeding ? " " By never doing or saying anything that could make any one else feel uncomfortable," Elisabeth quoted again. " Then do you think that to display your own knowledge by showing up another person's ignorance would make that person feel comfortable, Elisabeth ? " " No, Cousin Maria." " Knowledge is not good breeding, remember ; it is a far less important matter. A true gentlewoman may be ignorant ; but a true gentlewoman will never be incon- siderate." Elisabeth hung her head. " I see." " If you keep your thoughts fixed upon the people to whom you are talking, and never upon yourself, you will always have good manners, my child. Endeavour to interest and not to impress them." 38 Ube 3farrtnG&ons "You mean I must talk about their things and not about mine?" "More than that. Make the most of any common ground between yourself and them ; make the least of any difference between yourself and them ; and, above all, keep strenuously out of sight any real or fancied superiority you may possess over them. I always think that Saint Paul's saying, ' To the weak became I as weak,' was the perfection of good manners." "I don't think I quite understand." Miss Farringdon spoke in parables. " Then listen to this story. There was once a private soldier who raised himself from the ranks and won a commission. He was naturally very nervous the first night he dined at the officers' mess, as he had never dined with gentlemen before, and he was afraid of making some mistake. It happened that the wine was served while the soup was yet on the table, and with the wine the ice. The poor man did not know wha*- the ice was for, so took a lump and put it in his soup." Elisabeth laugned. "The younger officers began to giggle, as you are doing," Miss Farringdon continued ; " but the colonel, to whom the ice was handed next, took a lump and put it in his soup also; and then the young officers did not want to laugh any more. The colonel was a perfect gentleman." " It seems to me," said Elisabeth thoughtfully, " that you've got to be good before you can be polite." "Politeness appears to be what goodness really is," re- plied Miss Farringdon, " and is an attitude rather than an action. Fine breeding is not the mere learning of any code of manners, any -.lOre than gracefulness is the mere learning of any kind of physical exercise. The gentleman apparently, as the Christian really, looks not on his own /IDrs. JBateson's Uea*lparti? 39 things, but on the things of others ; and the selfish person is always both unchristian and ill-bred." Elisabeth gazed wistfully up into Miss Farringdon's face. " I should like to be a real gentlewoman, Cousin Maria ; do you think I ever shall be ? " " I think it quite possible, if you bear all these maxims in mind, and if you carry yourself properly and never stoop. I cannot approve of the careless manners of the young people of to-day, who loll upon easy-chairs in the presence of their elders, and who slouch into a room with constrained familiarity and awkward ease," replied Miss Farringdon, who had never sat in an easy-chair in her life, and whose back was still as straight as an arrow. So in the afternoon of that day Christopher and Elisabeth attended Mrs. Bateson's tea-party. The Batesons lived in a clean little cottage on the west side of High Street, and enjoyed a large garden to the rereward. It was a singular fact that whereas all their windows looked upon nothing more interesting than the smokier side of the bleak and narrow street, their pigsties commanded a view such as can rarely be surpassed for beauty and extent in England. But Mrs. Bateson called her front view " lively " and her back view " dull," and congratulated herself daily upon the aspect and the prospect of her dwelling-place. The good lady's ideas as to what constitutes beauty in furniture were by no means behind her opinions as to what is effective in scenery. Her kitchen was paved with bright red tiles, which made one feel as if one v;ere walking across a coral reef, and was flanked on one side with a black oak dresser of unnumbered years, covered with a brave array of blue-and-white pottery. An artist would have revelled in this kitchen, with its delicious effects in red and blue; but Mrs. Bateson accounted it as nothing. Her pride was centred in her 40 Ubc 3farrinGt)ons parlour and its mural decorations, which consisted princi- pally of a large and varied assortment of funeral -cards, neatly framed and glazed. In addition to these there was a collection of family portraits in daguerreotype, including an interesting representation of Mrs. Bateson's parents sitting side by side in two straight-backed chairs, with their whole family twining round them — a sort of Swiss Family Laocoon ; and a picture of Mr. Bateson — in the attitude of Juliet and the attire of a local preacher — leaning over a balcony, which was overgrown with a semi tropical luxuriance of artificial ivy, and which was obviously too frail to support him. But the masterpiece in Mrs. Bateson's art-gallery was a soul-stirring illustration of the death of the revered John Wesley. This picture was divided into two compartments : the first represented the room at Wesley's house in City Road, with the assembled survivors of the great man's family weeping round his bed ; and the second depicted the departing saint flying across Bunhill Fields' burying- ground in his wig and gown and bands, supported on either side by a stalwart angel. As Elisabeth had surmised, the entertainment on this occasion was pork-pie ; and Mrs. Hankey, a near neighbour, had also been bidden to share the feast. So the tea-party was a party of four, the respective husbands of the two ladies not yet having returned from their duties at the Osierfield. " I hope that you'll all make yourselves welcome," said the hostess, after they had sat down at the festive board : " Master Christopher, my dear, will you kindly ask a blessing ? " Christopher asked a blessing as kindly as he could, and Mrs. Bateson continued, — "Well, to be sure, it is a pleasure to see you looking so tall and strong, Master Christopher, after all your /IDrs, J5ateson'9 Uea*iparts 41 schooling. Fm not in favour of much schooling myself, as I think it hinders young folks from growing, and puts them off their vittles ; but you give the contradiction to that notion, doesn't he, Mrs. Hankey ? " Mrs. Hankey shook her head. It was her rule in life never to look on the bright side of things ; she considered that to do so was what she called "tempting Providence." Her theory appeared to be that as long as Providence saw you were miserable, that Power was comfortable concerning you and let you alone; but if Providence discovered you could bear more sorrow than you were then bearing, you were at once supplied with that little more. Naturally, therefore, her object was to convince Providence that her cup of misery was full. But Mrs. Hankey had her innocent enjoyments, in spite of the sternness of her creed. If she took light things seriously, she took serious things lightly ; so she was not without her compensations. For instance, a Sunday evening's discourse on future punishment and the like, with illustrations, was an unfailing source of pure and healthful pleasure to htr; while a funeral sermon — when the chapel was hung with black, and the bereaved family sat in state in their new mourning, and the choir sang Vital Spark as an anthem — filled her soul with joy. So when Mrs. Bateson commented with such unseemly cheerfulness upon Christopher's encouraging api)earance, it was but consistent of Mrs. Hankey to shake her head. "You can never tell," she replied — "never; often them that looks the best feels the worst ; and many's the time I've seen folks look the very picture of health just before they was took with a mortal illness," " Ay, that's so," agreed the hostess ; " but I think Master Christopher's looks are the right sort ; such a nice colour as he's got, too ! " "That comes from him being so fair complcxioned — it's ^^1 4« Zbc jfatdttdbona no sign of health," persisted Mrs. Hankey; "in fact, I mistrust those fair complexions, especially in lads of his age. Why, he ought to be as brown as a berry, instead of pink and white like a girl." " It would look hideous to have a brown lace with such yellow hair as mine," said Christopher, who naturally re- sented being compared to a girl. " Master Christopher, don't call anything that the Lord has made, hideous. We must all be as He has formed us, however that may be," replied Mrs. Hankey reprovingly ; " and it is not our place to pass remarks upon what He has done for the best." " But the Lord didn't make him with a brown face and yellow hair; that's just the point," interrupted Elisabeth, who regarded the bullying of Christopher as her own prerogative, and allowed no one else to indulge in that sport unpunished. " No, my love ; that's true enough," Mrs. Bateson said soothingly — "a truer word than that never was spoken. But I wish you could borrow some of Master Christopher's roses — I do, indeed. For my part, I like to see little girls with a bit of colour in their cheeks : it looks more cheerful- like, as you might say ; and looks go a long way with some folks, though a meek and quiet spirit is better, taking it all round." " Now Miss Elisabeth does look delicate, and no mistake," assented Mrs. Hankey ; " she grows toe fast for her strength, I'll be bound ; and her poor mother died young, you know, so it is in the family." Christopher looked at Elisabeth with the quick sympathy of a sensitive nature. H'e thought it would frighten her to hear Mrs. Hankey talk in that way, and he felt that he hated Mrs. Hankey for frightening Elisabeth. But Elisabeth was made after a different pattern, and was /©re. JBatesotVs XTca^iparty 43 not in the least upset by Mrs. Hankey's gloomy forebodings. She was essentially dramatic ; and, unconsciously, her first object was to attract notice. She would have preferred to do this by means of unsurpassed beauty or unequalled talent ; but, failing these aids to distinction, an early death- bed was an advertisement not to be despised. In her mind's eye she saw a touching account of her short life in Early Days, winding up with a heart-rending description of its premature close ; and her mind's eye gloated over the sight. The hostess gazed at her critically. "She is pale, Mrs. Hankey, there's no doubt of that ; but pale folks are often the healthiest, though they mayn't be the handsomest. And she is wiry, is Miss Elisabeth, though she may be thin. But is your tea to your taste, or will you take a little more cream in it ? " " It is quite right, thank you, Mrs. Bateson ; and the pork-pie is just beautiful. What a light hand for pastry you always have ! I'm sure I've said over and over again that I don't know your equal either for making pastry or for engaging in prayer." Mrs. Bateson, as was natural, looked pleased. " I doubt if I ever made a better batch of pies than this. When they were all ready for baking, Bateson says to me, ' Kezia,' he says, ' them pies is a regular picture — all so smooth and even-like, you can't tell which from t'other.' ' Bateson,' said I, * I've done my best with them ; and if only the Lord will be with them in the oven, they'll be the best batch of pies this side Jordan.' " " And so they are," said Elisabeth ; " they are perfectly lovely." " I'm glad you fancy them, my love ; take some more, dearie, it'll do you good." " No, thanks ; I'd rather have a wig now." And Elisabeth j i 1.1 I' 44 XTbc jfarringbons helped herself to one of the three-cornered cakes, called " wigs," which are peculiar to Mershire. " You always are fortunate in your pigs," Mrs. Hankey remarked ; " such fine hams and such beautiful roaded bacon I never see anywhere equal to yours. It'll be a sad day for you, Mrs. Bateson, when swine fever comes into the district. I know no one as'll feel it more." " Now you must tell us all about your niece's wedding, Mrs. Hankey," Mrs. Bateson said — " her that was married last week. My word alive, but your sister is wonderful fortunate in settling her daughters ! That's what I call a well-brought-up family, and no mistake. Five daughters, and each one found peace and a pious husband before she was five-and-twenty." '* The one before last married a Churchman," said Mrs. Hankey apologetically, as if the union thus referred to were somewhat morganatic in its character, and therefore no subject for pride or congratulation. " Well, to be sure ! Still, he may make her a good husband." " He may or he may not ; you never can tell. It seems to me that husbands are like new boots — you can't tell where they're going to pijich you till it's too late to change 'em. And as for creaking, why, the boots that are quietest in the shop are just the ones that fairly disgrace you when you come into chapel late on a Sunday morning, and think to slip in quietly during the first prayer ; and it is pretty much the same with husbands — those that are the meekest in the wooing are the most masterful to live with." " What was the name of the Churchman your niece married ? " asked Mrs. Bateson. " I forget." " Wir ins — Tom Wilkins. He isn't a bad fellow in some respects — he is steady and sober, and never keeps back a farthing of his wages for himself; but his views are something /B^l:^. JSateson'd XCca^lparts 45 dreadful. I cannot stand them at any price, and so I'm for ever telling his wife." " Dear me ! That's sad news, Mrs. Hankey." " Would you believe it, he don't hold with the good old Methodist habit of telling out loud what the Lord has done for your soul ? He says religion shouid be acted up to and not talked about j but, for my part, I can't abide such closeness." " Nor I," agreed Mrs. Bateson warmly ; " I don't approve of treating the Lord like a poor relation, as some folks seem to do. They'll go to His House and they'll give Him their money ; but they're fairly ashamed of mentioning His Name in decent company." " Just so ; and that's Tom Wilkins to the life. He's a good husband and a regular church-goer ; but as for the word that edifieth, you might as well look for it from a naked savage as from him. Many a time have I said to his wife, * Tom may be a kind husband in the time of prosperity, as I make no doubt he is — there's plenty of that sort in the world ; but you wait till the days of adversity come, and I doubt that then you'll be wishing you'd not have been in such a hurry to get married, but had waited till you had got a good Methodist ! ' And so she will, I'll be bound ; and the sooner she knows it the better." Mrs. Bateson sighed at the glootiiy prospect opening out before young Mrs. Wilkins ; then she asked, — "How did the last daughter's wedding go off? She married a Methodist, surely ? " " She did, Mrs. Bateson ; and a better match no mother could wish for her daughter, not even a duchess born ; he's a chapel-steward and a master-painter, and has six men under him. There he is, driving to work and carrying his own ladders in his own cart, like a lord, as you may say, by day ; and there he is on a Thursday evening, letting and rsf 46 XTbe jfarrindbons re-letting the pews and sittings after service, like a real gentleman. As I said to my sister, I only hope he may be spared to make Susan a good husband ; but when a man is a chapel-steward at thirty-four, and drives hu own cart, you begin to think that he is too good for this world, and that he is almost ripe for a better one." " You do indeed ; there's no denying that." " But the wedding was beautiful : I never saw its equal — never ; and as for the prayer that the minister offered up at the end of the service, I only wish you'd been there to hear it, Mrs. Bateson, it was so interesting and instructive. Such a lot of information in it about love and marriage and the like as I'd never heard before ; and when he referred to the bridegroom's first wife, and drew a picture of how she'd be waiting to welcome them both, when the time came, on the further shore — upon my word, there wasn't a dry eye in the chapel ! " And Mrs. Hankey wiped hers at the mere remembrance of the scene. " But what did Susan say ? " asked Elisabeth, with great interest. " I expect she didn't want another wife to welcome them on the further shore." " Oh ! Miss Elisabeth, whac a naughty, selfish little girl you are 1 " exclaimed Susan's aunt, much shocked. " What would Miss Farringdon think if she heard you ? Why, you don't suppose, surely, that when folks get to heaven they'll be so greedy and grasping that they'll want to keep every- thing to themselves, do you ? My niece is a good girl and a member of Society, and she was as pleased as anybody at the minister's beautiful prayer." Elisabeth was silent, but unconvinced. " How is your sister herself ? " inquired Mrs. Bateson. " I expect she's a bit upset now that the fuss is all over, and she hasn't a daughter left to bless herself with." Mrs. Hankey sighed cheerfully. "Well, she did seem /©rs. 3Bateson'6 Uca*lparti? 47 rather low-spirited when all the mess was cleared up, and Susan had gone off to her own home ; but I says to her, 'Never mind, Sarah, and don't you worry yourself; now that the weddings are over, the funerals will soon begin.' You see, you must cheer folks up a bit, Mrs. Bateson, when they're feeling out of sorts." " You must indeed," agreed the lady of the house, feeling that her guest had hit upon a happy vein of consolation ; " it is dull without daughters when you've once got accustomed to 'em, daughters being a sight more com- fortable and convenient than sons, to my mind.'' " Well, you see, daughters you can teach to know their- selves, and sons you can't. Though even daughters can never rest till they've got married, more's the pity ! If they knowed as much about men as I do, they'd be thanking the Lord that He'd created them single, instead of for ever fidgetting to change the state to which they were born." " Well, I holds with folks getting married," argued Mrs. Bateson ; " it gives 'em something to think about between Sunday's sermon and Thursday's baking ; and if folks have nothing to think about, they think about mischief." "That's true, especially if they happen to be men." " Why do men think about mischief more than women do ? " asked Elisabeth, who always felt hankerings after the why and wherefore of things. " Because, my dear, the Lord made 'em so, and it is not for us to complain," replied Mrs. Hankey, in a tone which implied that, had the role of Creator been allotted to her the idiosyncrasies of the male sex would have been much less marked than they are at present. " They've no sense, men haven't ; that's what is the matter with them." " You never spoke a truer word, Mrs. Hankey," agreed her hostess ; " the very best of them don't properly know (h^ dilTerf nee between their souls and their stomachs ; and 48 XTbe jfarriud^ond I they fancy that they are a-wrestling with their doubts, when really it is their dinners that are a-wrestling with them. Now take Bateson hisself, and a kinder husband or a better Methodist never drew breath ; yet so sure as he touches a bit of pork, he begins to worry hisself about the doctrine of Election till there's no living with him." " That's a man all over, to the very life," said Mrs. Hankey sympathetically ; " and he never has the sense to see what's wrong with him, I'll be bound." " Not he — he wouldn't be a man if he had. And then he'll sit in the front parlour and engage in prayer for hours at a time, till I says to him, 'Bateson,' says I, 'I'd be ashamed to go troubling the Lord with a prayer, when a pinch o' carbonate o' soda would set things straight again.' " " And quite right, Mrs. Bateson ; it's often a wonder to me that the Lord has patience with men, seeing that their own wives haven't." " And to me, too. Now Bateson has been going on like this for thirty years or more; yet if there's roast pork on the table, and I say a word to put him off it, he's that hurt as never was. Why, I'm only too glad to see him enjoymg his food if no harm comes of it ; but it's dreary work 5;eeing your husband in the Slough of Despond, especially when it's your business to drag him out again, and most especially when you particularly warned him against going in." Mrs. Hankey groaned. " The Bible says true when it tells us that men are born to give trouble as the sparks fly upwards ; and it is a funny Providence, to my mind, as ordains for women to be so bothered with 'em. At my niece's wedding, as we were just speaking about, * Susan,' I says, * I wish you happiness ; and I only hope you won't live to regret your marriage as I have done mine.' For my part, I can't see what girls want with husbands at all ; they are far better without them." /IDrd. JSatcdoiVd IIea<*part)? 49 " Not they, Mrs. Hankey," replied Mrs. Bateson warmly ; •' any sort of a husband is better than none, to my mind. Life is made up of noughts and crosses ; and the folks that get the crosses are better off than those that get the noughts, though that husbands are crosses I can't pretend to deny ; but I haven't patience with single women, I haven't — they have nothing to occupy their minds, and so they get to talking about their health and such-like fal-lals." "Saint Paul didn't hold with you," said Mrs. Hankey, with reproach in her tone ; ** he thought that the unmarried women minded the things of the Lord better than the married ones." "Saint Paul didn't know much about the subject, and how could he be expected to, being only a bachelor himself, poor soul? But if he'd had a wife, she'd soon have told him what the unmarried women were thinking about; and it wouldn't have been about the Lord, I'll be bound. Now take Jemima Stubbs; does she mind the things of the Lord more than you and I do, Mrs. Hankey, I should like to know?" " I can't say ; it is not for us to judge." " Not she ! Why, she's always worrying about that poor little brother of hers, what's lame. I often wish that the Lord would think on him and take him, for he's a sore burden on Jemima, he is. If you're a woman you are bound to work for some man or another, and to see to his food and to bear with his tantrums ; and, for my part, I'd rather do it for a husband than for a father or a brother. There's more credit in it, as you might say." "There's something in that, maybe." "And after all, in spite of the botheration he gives, there's something very cheerful in having a man about the house. They keep you alive, do men. The last time ■!iil I so Zbc f arrin^^on^ I saw Jemima Stubbs she was as low as low could be. * Jemima,' I says, * you are out of spirits.' * Mrs. Bateson,* says she, * I am that. I wish I was either in love or in the cemetery, and I don't much mind which.' " "Did she cry?" asked Elisabeth, who was always absorbingly interested in any one who was in trouble. With her, to pity was to love ; and it was difficult for her ever to love where she did not pity. Christopher did not understand this, and was careful not to appeal to Elisabeth's sympathy for fear of depressing her. Herein, both as boy and man, he made a great mistake. It was not as easy to depress Elisabeth as it was to depress him; and, moreover, it was sometimes good for her to be depressed. But he did unto her as he would she should do unto him ; and, when all is said and done, it is diffi- cult to find a more satisfactory rule of conduct than this. " Cry, lovey ?" said Mrs. Bateson ; " I should just think she did — fit to break her heart." Thereupon Jemima Stubbs became a heroine of romance in Elisabeth's eyes, and a new interest in her life. " 1 shall go and see her to-morrow," she said, " and take her something nice for her little brother. What do you think he would like, Mrs. Bateson ? " " Bless the child, she is one of the Good Shepherd's own lambs ! " exclaimed Mrs. Bateson, with tears in her eyes. Mrs. Hankey sighed. " It is the sweetest flowers that are the readiest for transplanting to the Better Land," she said; and once again Christopher hated her. But Elisabeth was engrossed in the matter in hand. " What would he like ? " she persisted — " £. new toy, or a book, or jam and cake ? " " I should think a book, lovey ; he's fair set on books, is Johnnie Stubbs ; and if you'd read a bit to him yourself, it would be a fine treat for the lad." I fJbvs, JSateson'd Xi;ea>>part^ 5X Elisabeth's eyes danced with joy. " I'll go the first thing to-morrow morning, and read him my favourite chapters out of The Fairchild Family ; and then I'll teach him some nice games to play all by himself." " That's a dear young lady ! " exclaimed Mrs. Bateson, in an ecstasy of admiration. " Do you think Jemima will cry when I go ? " "No, lovey; she wouldn't so far forget herself as to bother the gentry with her troubles, surely." " But I shouldn't be bothered ; I should be too sorry for her. I always am frightfully interested in people who are unhappy — much more interested than in people who are happy; and I always love cv'erybody when I've seen them cry. It is so easy to be happy, and so dull. But why doesn't Jemima fall in love if she wants to?" " There now ! " cried Mrs. Bateson, in a sort of stage aside, to an imaginary audience. " What a clever child she is ! I'm sure I don't know, dearie." " It is a pity that she hasn't got a Cousin Anne," said Elisabeth, her voice trembling with sympathy. "When you've got a Cousin Anne, it makes everything so lovely." " And so it does, dearie — so it does," agreed Mrs. Bateson, who did not in the least understand what Elisabeth meant. On the way home, after the tea-party was over, Christopher remarked, — " Old Mother Bateson isn't a bad sort ; but I can't stand Mother Hankey." " Why not ? " "She says such horrid things." He had not yet for- given Mrs. Hankey for her gloomy prophecies respecting Elisabeth. " Not horrid, Chris. She is rather stupid sometimes, 5a XCbe jfarringDons and doesn't know when things are funny; but she never means to be really horrid, I am sure." '* Well, I think she is an old cat," persisted Christopher. " The only thing I don't like about her is her gloves," added Eh'sabcth thoughtfully ; " they are so old they smell of biscuit. Isn't it funny that old gloves always smell of biscuit. I wonder why ? " " I think they do," agreed Christopher ; " but nobody except you would ever have thought of saying it. You have a knack of saying what everybody else is thinking; and that is whai makes you so amusmg." " I'm. glad you think I'm amusing ; but 1 can't see much funniness in just saying what is true." " Well, I can't explain why it is funny ; but you really are simply killing sometimes," said Christoptier graciously. The next day, and on many succeeding ones, Elisabeth duly visited Jemima Stubbs and the invalid boy, although Christopher entreated her not to worry herself about them, and offered to go in her place. But he failed to understand that Elisabeth was goaded by no depressing sense of duty, as he would have been in sunilar circumstances ; she went because pity was a passion with her, and therefore she was always absorbingly interested in any one whom she pitied. Strength and success and suchlike attributes never appealed to Elisabeth, possibly because she herself was strong and possessed all the qualities of the successful person ; but weakness and failure were all-powerful in enlisting her sympathy and interest and, through these, her love. As Christopher grew older he dreamed dreams of how in the future he should raise himself from being only the nephew of Miss Farringdon's manager to a position of wealth and importance ; and how he should finally bring all his glories and honours and lay them at Elisabeth's feet. His eyes were not opened to sec that Elisabeth would probably turn /IDrs. 3Bate5on*3 tCea^ftart^ 53 I with careless laughter from all such honours thus manu- factured into her pavement ; but if he came to her bent and bruised and broken-hearted, crushed with failure instead of crowned with success, her heart would never send him empty away, but would go out to him with a passionate longing to make up to him for all that he had missed in life. A few days after Mrs. Batcson's tea-party he said to Elisabeth, for about the twentieth time, — " I say, I wish you wouldn't tire yourself with going to read to that Stubbs brat." "Tire myself? what rubbish! nothiiv^ can tire me. I never felt tired in my life ; but I sh. mldn't mind it just once, to see what it feels like." "It feels distinctly unpleasant, I can tell you. But I really do wish you'd take more care of yourself, or else you'll get ill, or have headaches or something — you will indeed." " No, I shan't ; I never had a headache. That's another of the things that I don't know what they feel like ; and yet I want to know what everything feels like — even disagree- able things." "You'll know fast enough, I'm afraid," replied Chris- topher ; " but even if it doesn't tire you, you would enjoy playing in the garden more than reading to Johnnie Stubbs — you know you would ; and I can go and read to the little chap, if you are set on his being read to." " But you would much rather play in the garden than read to him ; and especially as it is your holidays, and your own reading-time will soon begin." " Oh ! / don't matter. Never bother your head about me\ remember I'm all right as long as you are ; and that as long as you're jolly, I'm bound to have a good time. But it riles me to see you worrying and overdoing yourself." 54 trbe 3farrtnat)on^ " You don't understand, Chris ; you really are awfully stupid about understanding things. I don't go to see Jemima and Johnnie because I hate going, and yet think I ought ; I go because I am so sorry for them both that my sorriness makes me like to go." But Christopher did not understand, and Elisabeth could not make him do so. The iron of duty had entered into his childish soul ; and, unconsciously, he was always trying to come between it and Elisabeth, and to save her from the burden of obligation which lay so heavily upon his spirit. He was a religious boy, but his religion was of too stern a cast to bring much joy to him ; and he was passionately anxious that Elisabeth should not be distressed in like manner. His desire was that she should have sufficient religion to ensure heaven, but not enough to spoil eartn — a not uncommon desire on behalf of their dear ones among poor, ignorant human beings, whose lov'. for then: neighbour will surely atone in some measure Toi th - in- justice towards God. " You see," Elisabeth continued, " there is nothing that makes you so fond of people as being sorry for them. The people that are strong and happy don't want your fondness, so it is no use giving it to them. It is the weak, unhappy people that want you to love them, and so it is the weak, unhappy people that you love." " But I don't," replied Christopher, who was always inclined to argue a point; "when I like people, I should like them just the same a. ' they went about yelling Te Deums at the top of their voices ; and when I don't like them, it wouldn't make me like them to see ihem dressed from head to foot in sackcloth and ashes " " Oh ! that's a stupid way of liking, I think." " It may be stupid, but it's my way." " Don't you like me better when I cry than when I ^r0. JSateson*s tCea^ipatt^ 55 ^' laugh ? " asked Elisabeth, who never could resist a personal application. " Good gracious, no ! I always like you the same ; but rd much rather you laughed than cried — it is so much jollier for you ; in fact, it makes me wretched to see you cry." " It always vexes me," Elisabeth said thoughtfully, " to read about tournaments, because I think it was so horrid of the Queen of Beauty to give the prize to the knight who won." Christopher laughed with masculine scorn. ' What non- sense ! Who else could she have given it to ? " " Why, to the knight who lost, of course. I often make up a tale to myself that I am the Queen of Beauty at a tournament ; and when the victorious knight rides up to me with his visor raised, I just laugh at him, and say, ' You can have the fame and the glory and the cheers of the crowd ; that's quite enough for you ! ' And then I go down from my dais, right into the arena where the unhorsed knight is lying wounded, and take off his helmet, and lay his head on my lap, and say, ' You sliall have the prize, because you have got nothing else ! ' So then that knight becomes my knight, and always wears my colours ; and that makes up to him for having been beaten at the tournament, don't you see ? " " It would have been a rotten sort of tournament that was carried on in that fashion ; and your prize would have been no better than a booby-prize," persisted Chri^tc^pher. "How silly you are! I'm gUid I'm not a boy; I wouldn't have been as stupid as a boy for anythinjj ! " " Don't be so cross ! You must see that the knight who wins is the best knight ; fellows that are beaten are not up to much." " Well, they are the sort I like best ; and if you had any 'r 56 TOe iramnoj»on0 removeTl"';':'''", ^l'"' "'°" ^""^"PO" Elisabeth ChTol f i f '"' °'^™'^^'' countenance fron, Christopher, and dashed off in a royal rage weaker"sex""h„!'' "^''"^°'!'' "'« ""reasonableness of the ™1es ofl; """"^*^ " P'"'"^°PhicalIy as one of the rules of the game; and Chris played games far too well to have anyihmg but contempt for any one who rebeUed busmess. he held, not to argue about the rules, but to play the game according to them, and ■, , win; or if tha" wal out of h,s power, to lose pluckily and neve co^pl^n '1 I I ii. 4i K CHAPTER IV SCHOOL. D^ YS Up to eighteen we fight with fears, And deal with problems grave and weighty. And s„,„e our smiles and weep our tears. ^' Just as we do in after years From eighteen up to eighty. gracefully as she had riLn .K ^'''8.''^^^ »"' "f "fe as sternness of herprnletouH°"' "'k'™'"'"« "^»' *"= pn>c.ice; and Js X i; 'St fh' 'T""^ "'"^^^ it was the leniencv nf h. '''"^P"^^'' at the discovery that the sternnessThLt'dpr'" ""'^^ '"'"' ^"^'^^^^ The former bC Lf 1:1 ^^ rrf! '^'r'^''' the latter, because sh^ hZ ? ^ "^^^'^^ '^^" ^'^ sorrow, but Eh "hl^K "'"^"""^ '^^ '^"^'^ «^ bearing burrow, out Elisabeth mourned with all th^ Ur. i misery of youth. ^ hopeless "It is no use trying to make me interested in things," f I i sS ftbc jfavrluabond she sobbed in response to Christopher's clumsy though well-meant attempts to divert her. " I shall never be interested in anything again — never. Everything is different now that Cousin Anne is gone away." " Not quite everything," said Christopher gently. "Yes; everything. Why, the very trees don't look the same as they used to look, and the view isn't a bit what it used to be when she was here. All the ordinary things seem queer and altered, just as they do when you see them in a dream." " Poor little girl ! " " And now it doesn't seem worth while for anything to look pretty. I used to love the sunsets, but now I hate them. What is the good of their being so beautiful and filling the sky with red and gold, if she isn't here to see them ? And what is the good of trying to be good and clever if she isn't here to be pleased with me ? Oh dear ! oh dear! Nothing will ever be any good any more." Christopher laid an awkward hand upon Elisabeth's dark hair, and began stroking it the wrong way. " I say, I wish you wouldn't fret so ; it's more than I can stand to see you so wretched. Isn't there anything that I can do to make it up to you, somehow ? " " No ; nothing. Nothing will ever comfort me any more ; and how could a great, stupid boy like you make up to me for having lost her?" moaned poor little Elisabeth, with the selfishness of absorbing grief. " Well, anyway, I am as fond of you as she was, for nobody could be fonder of anybody than I am of you." "That doesn't help. I don't miss her so because she loved me, but because I loved her ; and I shall never, never love any one else as much as long as I live." "Oh yes, you will, I expect," replied Christopher, who even then knew Elisabeth better than she knew herself. ScbooU2)ai?d 50 I "No — I shan't; and I should hate myself if I did." Elisabeth fretted so terriljly after her Cousin Anne that she grew paler and thinner than ever ; and Miss Farringdon was afraid that the girl would make herself really ill, in spite of her wiry constitution. After much consultation with many friends, she decided to send Elisabeth to school, for it was plain that she was losing her vitality through lack of an interest in life ; and school — whatever it may or may not supply — invariably affords an unfailing amount of new interests. So Elisabeth went to Fox How — a well- known girls' school not a hundred miles from London — so called in memory of Dr. Arnold, according to wVose principles the school was founded and carried on- It would be futile to attempt to relate the history of Elisabeth Farringdon without telling in some measure what her school-days did for her ; and it would be equally futile to endeavour to convey to the uninitiated any idea of what that particular school meant — and still means — to all its daughters. When Elisabeth had left her girlhood far behind her, the mere mention of the name. Fox How, never failed to send thrills all through her, as God save the Queen and Homey szveet Home iiave a knack of doing ; and for any one to have ever been a pupil at Fox How, was always a sure and certain passport to Elisabeth's interest and friendliness. The school was an old, square, white house, standing in a walled garden ; and those walls enclosed all the multifarious interests and pleasures and loves and rivalries and heart-searchings and soul -awakenings which go to make up the feminine life from twelve to eighteen, and which are very much the same in their essence, if not in their form, as those which go to make up the feminine life from eighteen to eighty. In addition to these, the walls enclosed two lawns and an archery-ground, a field, I ;1 60 TLbc fattim^om 1'! 'M ; a pond overgrown with water-lilies, a high mound covered with grass and trees, and a kitchen-garden filled with all manner of herbs and pleasant fruits — in short, it was a wonderful and extensive garden, such as one sees now and then in some old-fashioned suburb, but which people have neither the time nor the spac^ to lay out nowa- days. It also contained a long, straight walk, running its whole length and shaded by impenetrable greenery, where Elisabeth used to walk up and down, pretending that she was a nun; and some delightful swings and see-saws, much patronised by the said Elisabeth, which gave her a similar physical thrill to that produced in later years by the mention of her old school. The gracious personality which ruled over Fox How in the days of Elisabeth, had mastered the rarely acquired fact that the word educate is derived from educo^ I draw out, and not (as is generally supposed) from addo, I give to; so the pupils there were trained to train themselves, and learnt how to learn — a far better equipment for life and its lessons than any ready-made cloak of superficial knowledge, which covers all individualities and fits none. There was no cramming or forcing at Fox How ; the object of the school was not to teach girls how to be scholars, but rather how to be themselves — that is to say, the best selves which they were capable of becoming. High character i~thcr than high scholarship was the end of education there ; and good breeding counted for more than correct knowledge. Not that learning was neglected, for Elisabeth and her schoolfellows worked at their books for eight good hours every day ; but it did not form the first item on the programme of life. And who can deny that the system of Fox How was the correct system of education, at any rate, as far as girls are concerned? Unless a woman has to earn her living by I ' ScbooUBays 61 teaching, what does it matter to her how much hydrogen there is in a drop of rain-water, or in what year Hannibal crossed the Alps ? But it will matter to her infinitely, for the remainder of her mortal existence, whether she is one of those graceful, sympathetic beings, whose pathway is paved by the love of Man and the friendship of Woman ; or one of that much-to-be-blamcd, if somewhat-to-be-piiied, sisterhood, who are unloved oecause they are unlovely, and unlovely because they are unloved. It is not good for man, woman, or child to be alone ; and the companionship of girls of her own age did much towards deepening and broadening Elisabeth's character. The easy give-and-take of perfect equality was beneficial to her, as it is to everybody. She did not forget her Cousin Anne — the art of forgetting was never properly acquired by Elisabeth ; but new friendships and new interests sprang up out of the grave of the old one, and changed its resting-place from a cemetery into a garden. Elisabeth Farringdon could not be happy — could not exist, in fact — without some absorbing affection and interest in life. There are certain women to whom " the trivial round " and " the common task " are all-sufiicing ; who ask nothing more of life than that they shall always have a dinner to order or a drawing- room to dust, and to whom the delinquencies of the cook supply a drama of never-failing attraction and a subject of never-ending conversation ; but Elisabeth was made of other material ; vital interests and strong attachments were indispensable to her well-being. The death of Anne Farringdon had left a cruel blank in the young life whicli was none too full of human interest to begin with ; but this blank was to a great measure filled up by Elisabeth's adoration for the beloved personage who ruled over Fox How, and by her devoted friendship for Felicia Herbert. In after years she often smiled tenderly when she recalled i :i 62 Ubc 3farrlnfl^ons I' I- \ti Vi\ '■ the absolute worship which the girls at Fox How offered to their " Dear Lady," as they called her, and of which the " Dear Lady " herself was supremely unconscious. It was a feeling of loyalty stronger than any ever excited by crowned heads (unless, perhaps, by the Pope himself), as she represented to their girlish minds the embodiment of all that was right, as well as of all that was mighty — and represented it so perfectly, that through all their lives her pupils never dissociated herself from the righteousness which she taught and upheld and practised. And this attitude was wholly good for girls born in a century when it was the fashion to sneer at hero-worship and to scoff at authority ; when the word obedience in the marriage service was accused of redundancy, and the custom of speaking evil of dignities was mistaken for self-respect. As for Felicia Herbert, she became for a time the very mainspring of Elisabeth's life. She was a beautiful girl, with fair hair and clear-cut features ; and Elisabeth adored her with the adoration that is freely given, as a rule, to the girl who has beauty by the girl who has not. She was, moreover, gifted with a sweet and calm placidity, which was very restful to Elisabeth's volatile spirit ; and the latter consequently greeted her with that passionate and thrilling friendship which is so satisfying to the immature female soul, but which is never again expeneiiced by the woman who has once been taught by a man the nature of real love. Felicia was much more religious than Elisabeth, and much more prone to take serious views of life. The training of Fox How made for seriousness, and m that respect Felicia entered into the spirit of the place more profoundly than Elisabeth was capable of doing; for Elisabeth was always tender rather than serious, and broad rather than deep. " I shall never go to balls when I leave school," said Felicia to her friend one day of their last term at Fox How, ScbooUDass 63 as the two were sitting in the arbour at the end of the long walk. " I don't think it is right to go to balls." " Why not ? There can be no harm in enjoying oneself, and I don't believe that God ever thinks there is." " Not in enjoying oneself in a certain way ; but the line between religious people and worldly people ought to be clearly marked. I think that dancing is a regularly worldly amusement, and that good people should openly show their disapproval of it by not joining in it." **But God wants us to enjoy ourselves," Elisabeth persisted. "And He wouldn't really love us if He didn't." " God wants us to do what is right, and it doesn't matter whether we enjoy ourselves or not." " But it does ; it matters awfully. We can't really be good unless we are happy." Felicia shook her head. " We can't really be happy unless we are good ; and if we are good we shall ' love not the world,' but shall stand apart from it." " But I must love the world ; I can't help loving the world, it is so grand and beautiful and funny. I love the whole of it : all the trees and the fields, and the towns and the cities, and the prim old people and the dear little children. I love the places— the old places because I have known them so long, and the new places because I have never seen them before ; and I love the people best of all. I adore people, Felicia ; don't you ? " " No ; I don't think that I do. Of course I like the people that I like ; but the others seem to me dreadfully uninteresting." '* But they are not ; they are all frightfully interesting when once you get to know them, and see what they really are made of inside. Outsides may seem dull ; but insides are always engrossing. That's why I always love people \\\ i 64 XTbe f arrin^^on^ .•,■' I when once I've seen them cry, because when they cry they are themselves, and not any make-ups." " How queer to hke people because you have seen them cry!" " Well, I do. I'd do anything for a person that I had seen cry ; I would really." Felicia opened her large hazel eyes still wider. " What a strange idea ! It seems to me that you think too much about feelings and not enough about principles." " But thinking about feelings makes you think about principles; feelings are the only things that ever make me think about principles at all." After a few minutes' silence Elisabeth asked suddenly, — '* What do you mean io do with your life when you leave here and take it up ? " " I don't know. I suppose I sl«all fall in love and get married. Most girls do. And I hope ii will be with a clergyman, for I do so love pnrisl work." " I don't think I want to get married," said Elisabeth slowly, "not even to a clergyman " " How queer of you ! Why not ? " " Because I want to paint pictures and to become a great artist. I feel there is such a lot in me that I want to say, and that I must say ; and I can only say it by means of pictures. It would be dreadful to die before you had delivered the message that you had been sent into the world to deliver, don't you think ? " " It would be more dreadful to die before you had U and one man to whom you would be everything, and wno would be everything to you," replied Felicia. "Oh I I mean to fall in love, because everybody does, and I hate to be behindhand with things ; but I shall do it just as an experience, to make me paint better pictures. I read in a book the other day that you must fall in love before I ScbooUWa^B 65 you can become a true artist ; so I mean to do so. But it won't be as important to me as my art," said Elisabeth, who was as yet young enough to be exlrcnuly wise. " Still, it must be lovely to know there is one person in the world to whom you can tell all your thoughts, and who will understand them, and be interested in them." *' It must be far lovelier to know that you have the power to tell all your thoughts to the whole world, and that the world will understand them and be interested in them," Elisabeth persisted. " I don't think so. I should like to fall in love with a man who was so much better than I, that I could lean on him and learn from him in everything ; and I should like to feel that whatever goodness or cleverness there was in me was all owing to him, and that I was nothing by myself, but everything with him." " I shouldn't. I should like to feel that I was so good and clever that I was helping the man to be better and cleverer even than he was before." " I should like all my happiness and all my interest to centre in that one particular man," said Felicia ; " and to feel that he was a fairy prince, and that I was a poor beggar- maid, who possessed nothing but his love." " Oh ! I shouldn't. I would rather feel that I was a young princess, and that he was a warrior, worn-out and wounded in the battle of life; but that my love would comfort and cheer him after all the tiresome wars that he'd gone through. And as for whether he'd lost or won in the wars, I shouldn't care a rap, as long as I was sure that he couldn't be happy without me." " You and I never think alike about things," said P\'licia sadly. " You old darling ! What does it matter, as long as we agree in being fond of each other?" S J n ,1 I'l F 66 Ubc ifarrinG^ons At eighteen Elisabeth said farewell to P'ox How with many tears, and came back to live at the Willows with Miss Farringdon. While she had been at school, Chris- topher had been first in Germany and then in America, learning how to make iron, so that they had never met during Elisabeth's holidays ; therefore, when he beheld her trans- formed from a little girl into a full-blown young lady, he straightway fell in love with her. He was, however, sensible enough not to mention the circumstance, even to Elisabeth nerself, as he realized, as well as anybody, that the nephew of Richard Smallwood would not be considered a fitting mate for a daughter of the house of Farringdon ; but the fact that he did not mention the circumstance in no way prevented him from dwelling upon it in his own mind, and deriving much pleasurable pain and much painful pleasure therefrom. In short, he dwelt upon it so exclusively and so persistently that it went near to breaking his heart ; but that was not until his heart was older, and therefore more capable of being broken past mending again. Miss Farringdon and the people of Sedgehill were alike delighted to have Elisabeth among them once more ; she was a girl with a strong personality ; and people with strong personalities have a knack of making themselves mif.-ed when they go away. "It's nice, and so it is, to have Miss Elisabeth back again," remarked Mrs. Bateson to Mrs. Hankey ; "and it makes it so much cheerfuller for Miss Farringdon, too." " Maybe it'll only make it the harder for Miss Farringdon when the time comes for Miss Elisabeth to be removed by death or by marriage ; and which'll be the best for her— poor young lady !— the Lord must decide, for I'm sure I couldn't pass an opinion, only having tried one, and that nothing to boast of." " I wonder if Miss Farringdon will leave her her fortune," ScbooUS)a^6 67 said Mrs. Bateson, who, in common with the rest of her class, was consumed with an absorbing curiosity as to all testamentary dispo . iions. " She may, and she may not ; there's no prophesying about wills. I'm pleased to say I can generally foretell when folks is going to die, having done a good bit of sick- nursing in my time afore I married Hankey ; but as to fore telling how tlicy're going to leave their money, I can no more do it than the babe unborn ; nor nobody can, as ever I heard tell on." " That's so, Mrs. Hankey. Wills seem to me to have been invented by the devil for the special upsetting of the corpse's memory. Why, some of the peaceablest folks as I've ever known — folks as wouldn't liave scared a lady-cow in iheir lifetime — have left wills as have sent all their relations to the right-about, ready to bite one another's noses off. Bateson often says to me, ' Kezia,' he says, ' call no man honest till his will's read.' And I'll be bound he's in the right. Still, it would be hard to see Miss Elisabeth begging her bread after the way she's been brought up, and Miss Farringdon would never have the conscience to let her do it." " Folks leave their consciences behind with their bodies," said Mrs. Hankey; *'and I've lived long enough to be surprised at nothing where wills are concerned." "That is quite true," replied Mrs. l^>ateson. *' Now take Miss Anne, for instance : she seemed so set on Miss Elisabeth that you'd have thought she'd have left her a trifle ; but not she ! All she had went to her sister, Miss Maria, who'd got quite enough already. Miss Anne was as sweet and gentle a lady as you'd wish to see ; but her will was as hard as the nether millstone." "There's nothing like a death for showing up what a f miily is made of." !li m 68 Ubc ffavtUxQbom • There isn't. Now Mr. William Farringdon's will was a very cruel one, according to my ideas, leaving everyihin- to his niece and nothing to his son. True, Mr. Georg- was but a barber's block with no work in him, and I'm the last to defend that ; and then he didn't want to marry his cousin, M,ss Maria, for which I shouldn't blame him so much ; If a man can't choose his own wife and his own newspaper, what can he choose ?-certainly not his own victuals, for he isn't fit. But if folks only leave their money to them that have followed their advice in everytiiing, most wills would be nothing but a blank sheet of paper." ' "And if they were, it wouldn't be a bad thing, Mrs Bateson ; there would be less sorrow on some sides, and less crape on others, and far less unpleasantness all round For my part, I doubt if Miss Farringdon will leave her fortune to Miss Elisabeth, and her only a cousin's einld ; for when all is said and done, cousins are but elastic relaMons as you may say. The well-to-do ones are like sisters and brothers, and the poor ones don't seem to be no connection at all." " Well, let's hope that Miss Elisabeth will marry, and have a husband to work for her when Miss Farringdon is dead and gone." "Husbands are as uncertain as wills, Mrs. Bateson, and more sure to give offence to them that trust in them ; besides, I doubt if Miss Elisabeth is handsome enough to get a husband. The gentry think a powerful lot of looks in choosing a wife." Mrs. Bateson took up the cudgels on Elisabeth's behalf. " She mayn't be exactly handsome— I don't pretend as she IS ; but she has a wonderful way of dressing herself, and looking for all the world like a fashion-plate ; and some men have a keen eye for clothes." "I think nothing of fine clothes myself. Saint Peter Scbool«Dai?s 69 warns us against braiding of hair and putting on of a^^parel ; and when all's said and done it don't go as far as a good complexion, and we don't need any apostle to tell us that - we can cee it for ourselves." " And as for cleverness, there ain't her like in all Mershire," continued Mrs. Bateson. " Bless you ! cleverness never yet helped a woman in getting a husband, r»nd never will; though if she's got enough of it, it may keep her from ever having one. I don't hold with cleverness in a woman myself; it has always ended in mischief, from the time when the woman ate a l)it of the Tree of Knowledge, and there was such a to-do about it." " I wish she'd marry Mr. Christopher ; he worships the very ground she waiks on, and she couldn't find a better man if she swept out all the corners of the earth looking for one." " Well, at any rate, she knows all about him ; that is some- thing. I always say that men are the same as kittens — you should take 'em straight from their mothers, or else not take 'om at all ; for, if you don't, you never know what bad habits they may have formed or what queer tricks they will be up to." " Maybe the manager's ne[)hew ain't altogether the sort of husband you'd expect for a Farringdon," said Mrs. Bateson thoughtfully ; " I don't deny that. But he's wonder- ful fond of her, Mr. Christopher is; and there's nothing like love for smoothing things over when the oven ain't properly heated, and the meat is done to a cinder on one side and all raw on the other. You find that out when you're married." " You find a good many things out when you're married, Mrs. Bateson, and one is that this world is a wilderness of care. But as for love, I don't rightly know much about it, since Hankey would always rather have had my sister ,i\ \ m i ^ w^ 70 XTbe jfardnobons ii I Sarah than me, and only put up with me when she gave him the pass-by, being set on marrying one of the family. I'm sure, for my part, I wish Sarah had had him; though I've no call to say so, her always having been a good sister to me." " Well, love's a fine thing ; take my word for it. It keeps the men from grumbling when nothing else will ; except, of course, the grace of God," added Mrs. Bateson piously, *' though even that don't always seem to have much effect, when things go wrong with their dinners." "That's because they haven't enough of it ; they haven't much grace in their hearts, as a rule, haven't men, even the best of them ; and the best of them don't often come my way. But as for Miss Elisabeth, she isn't a regular Farringdon, as you may say— not the real daughter of the works ; and so she shouldn't take too much upon herself, expecting dukes and ironmasters and the like to come begging to her on their bended knees. She is only Miss Farringdon's adoi)ted daughter, at best ; and I don't hold with adopted children, I don't; I think it is better and more natural to be born of your own parents, like most folk are." " So do I," agreed Mrs. Bateson ; " I'd never have adopted a child myself. I should always have been expect- ing to see its parents' faults coming out in it— so different from the peace you have with your own flesh and blood." Mrs. Hankey groaned. " Your own flesh and blood may take after their father ; you never can tell." "So they may, Mrs. Hankey— so they may; but, as the Scripture says, it is our duty to whip the old man out of them." "just so. And that's another thing against adopted children— you'd hesitate about punishing them enough ; I don't fancy as you'd ever feel the same pleasure in whipping ScbooUDaps n 'em as you do in whipping your own. You'd feel you ought to be polite-like, as if they was sort of visitors." " My children always took after my side of the house, I'm tliankful to say," said Mrs. B.iteson ; " so I hadn't much trouble with them." " I wish I could say as much ; I do, indeed. But the Lord saw fit to try me by making my son Peter the very moral of his father; as like as two peas they are. And when you find one poor woman with such a double portion, you are tempted to doubt the workings of Providence." Mrs. Bateson looked sympathetic. " That's bad for you, Mrs. Hankey ! " " It is so ; but I take up my cross and don't complain. You know what a feeble creature Hankey is — never doing the right thing ; and, when he does, doing it at the wrong time ; well, Peter is just such another. Only the other day he was travelling by rail, and what must he do but get an attack of the toothache ? Those helpless sort of folks are always having the toothache, if you notice." " So they are." •' Peter's toothache was so bad that he must needs take a dose of some sleeping-stuff or other — I forget the name — and fell so sound asleep that he never woke at the station, but was put away with the carriage into a siding. Fast asleep he was, with his handkerchief over his face to keep the sun off, and never heard the train shunted, nor nothing." " Well, to be sure ! Them sleeping-draughts are wonder- ful soothing, as I've heard tell, but I never took one on 'em. The Lord giveth His beloved sleep, and His givings are enough for them as are in health ; but them as arc in pain want something a bit stronger, doubtless." " So it appears," agreed Mrs. Hankey. '• Well, there lay Peter fast asleep in the siding, with his handkenhief over 1 m m m 4\i 72 TOe J'arrtngCona his face. And one of the porters happens to come by and sees h,m, and jumps to the conclusion that ther"s been a murder m the train, and that our Peter is the corpse So offhe goes ,0 the station-master and tells him as ihere's a murdered body in one of the carriages in the siding and the station-master's as put out as never was " Mrs. Baleson's eyes and mouth opened wide in amazP ment and interest. " Wl,at a tale, to be sure ' " "And then," added Peter's mother, growing more dra,„at,c as the story proceeded, " the sta ion master ZZ for the pohce. and the police sends for the crowner so 1 everymmg shall be decent and in order ; and they J;,!, i„ a .solemn procession -with two porters carrying a shutter '-^ to the carriage where Peter lip« nU ,. j , "" it was a funeral." ' "' «'""'' ''"'^ ™« •''' '' ;• I never heard tell of such a thing in my life-never ■ '■ Ihen the station-master opens the door with one of then, state keys which always take such a long time to open a door wh,ch you could open with your own hands Ta trice— you know 'em by sight." .ilr h^T"" "°'^''"^- °' """"^ '^' '"'<='v them by Sight ; who does not ? ' kercWef nff^h ')" "Tu' ^ '"'^'"^ '» '^'<« '^^ hand- kerchief off the face of the body, it being the perquisite of a rownersoto do," Mrs. Hankey continued, \h L ma erna regret of a mother whose son has been within an mch of fame, and missed it; "and just picture to o "self the vexation of them all, when it was no murdered corps .olatrf" '"' °"'^ °" '"" «■'"> - --^ Of Z "Well I never! They must have been put about • as you would have been yourself, Mrs. Hankey, if youTfoind so little after expecting so much." " m course I should ; it wasn't in flesh and blood not to Scbool*Das0 n be, and station-master and crowner are but mortal, like the rest of us. I assure you, when I first heard the story, I pitied them from the bottom of my heart." " And what became of Peter in the midst of it all, Mrs. Hankcy ? " " Oh ! it woke him up with a vengeance ; and, of course, it flustered him a good deal, when he rightly saw how matters stood, to have to make his excuses to all them grand gentlemen for not being a murdered corpse. But as I says to him afterwards, he'd no one but himself to blame ; first for being so troublesome as to have the toothache, and then for being so presumptuous as to try and cure it. And his father is just the same ; if you take your eye off him for a minute he is bound to be in some mischief or another." " There's no denying that husbands is troublesome, Mrs. Hankey, and sons is worse ; but all the same I stand up for 'em both, and I wish Miss Elisabeth had got one of the one and half a dozen of the other. Mark my words, she'll never do better, taking him all round, than Master Christopher." Mrs. Hankey sighed. " I only hope she'll find it out before it is too late, and he is either laid in an early grave or else married to a handsomer woman, as the case may be, and both ways out of her reach. But I doubt it. She was a dark baby, if you remember, was Miss Elisabeth ; and I never trust them as has been dark babies, and never shall." "And how is Peter's nothache now?" inquired Mrs. Bateson, who was a mort tender-hearted matron than Peter's mother. *' Oh ! it's no better ; and I know no one more aggrava- ting than folks who keep sayin' they are no better when you ask 'em how they are. It always seems so ungrateful. Only this morning I asked our Peter how his tooth was, and he says, * No better, mother ; it was so bad in the night 4 M. i I)* It r 74 Hbe jfairi 110^)0110 that I fairly wished I was dead.' ' Don't go wishing that ' says I ; 'for if you was dead you'd have far worse pain, and .t ud last for ever and ever.' I really spoke quite sharp to him, I was that sick of his grumbling; but it didn't seem to do him no good." "Speaking sharp seldom does do much good," Mrs r.aieson rcuKirked sapiently, "except to them as spJaks." ' 1. CHAPTER V THE MOAT HOUSE You thought you knew me in and out, And yet you never knew That all I ever thought about Was you. SEDGEHILL High Street is nothing but a part of the great high road which leads from Silverhampton to Studley and Slipton and the other towns of the Black Country; but it calls itself SedgehiU High Street as it passes through the place, and so identifies itself with its environ- ment, after the manner of caterpillars and polar bears and other similarly wise and adaptable beings. At the point where this road adopts the pseudonym of the High Street, close by SedgehiU Church, a lane branches off from it at right angles, and runs down a steep slope until it comes to a place where it evidently experiences a difference of opinion as to which is the better course to pursue— an experience not confined to lanes. But in this respect lanes are happier than men and women, in that they are able to pursue both courses, and so learn for themselves which is the wiser one, as is the case with this particular lane. One course leads headlong down another steep hill— so steep that unwary travellers usually descend from their carriages to 75 \ »'f m 1 76 Ubc ifarrinfl^on9 walk up or down it, and thus are enabled to ensure relief to their horses and a chill to themselves at the same time ; for it is hot work walking up or dov.-n that sunny precipice, and the cold winds of Mershire await one with equal gusto at the top and at the bottom. At the foot of the hill stretches a breezy common, wide enough to make one think " long, long thoughts " ; and if the traveller looks backward when he has crossed this common, he will see Sedgehill Church, crowning and commanding the vast expanse, and pointing heavenward with its slender spire to remind him, and all other wayfaring men, that the beauty of this present world is only an earnest and a f jretaste of something infinitely fairer. The second course of the irrt lUte lane is less ad- venturous, and wanders peacefully through Badgering Woods, a dark and delightful spot, once mysterious enough to be a fitting hiding-place for the age-long slumbers of some sleeping princess. As a matter of fact, so it was ; the princess was black but comely, and her name was Coal. There she had slept for a century of centuries, until Prince Iron needed and sought and found her, and awakened her with the noise of his kisses. So now the wood is not asleep any more, but is filled with the tramping of the prince's men. The old people wring their hands and mourn that the former things are passing away, and that Mershire's youthful beauty will soon be forgotten ; but the young people laugh and are glad, because they know that life is greater than beauty, and that it is by her black coalfields, and not by her green woodlands, that Mershire will save her people from poverty, and will satisfy her poor with bread. When Elisabeth Farringdon was a girl, the princess was still asleep in the heart of the wood, and no prince had yet attempted to disturb her j and the lane passed through a ! I ! k trbe /iftoat Ibouse 77 forest of silence until it came to a dcur little brown stream, which, by means of a dam, was turned into a moat, en- circling one of the ;:iost ancient houses in England. The Moat House had been vacant for some time, as the owner was a delicate man who preferred to live abroad ; and great was the interest at Sedgehill when, a year or two after Elisabeth left school, it was reported that a stranger, Alan Tremaine by name, had taken the Moat House for the sake of the hunting, which was very good in that part of Mershire. So Alan settled there, and became one of the items which went to the making of Elisal:)eth's world. He was a small, slight man, interesting-looking rather than regularly handsome, of aljout five-and-twenty, who had devoted himself to the cultivation of his intellect and the suppression of his soul. Because his mother had been a religious woman, he reasoned that faidi was merely an amiable feminine weakness ; and because he himself was clever enough to make passable Latin verses, he argued that no Supernatural Being could have been clever enough to make him. " Have you seen the new man who has come to the Moat House ? " asked Elisabeth of Christopher. T!ie latter had now settled down permanently at the Osierfield, and was qualifying himself to take his uncle's place as general manager of the works, when that uncle should retire from the post. He was also qualifying himself to be Elisabeth's f iend instead of her lover — a far more difficult task. *• Yes ; I have seen him." '* What is he like ? I am dying tc know." "When I saw him he was exactly like a man riding on horseback ; but as he was obviously too well-dressed to be a beggar, I have no reason to believe that the direction /I m m '31 n i'' ill m If^ 78 XTbe 3farrinot)on0 in which he was riding was the one which beggars on horseback are proverbially expected to take." " How silly you are ! You know what I mean." " Perfectly. You mean that if you had seen a man riding by, at the rate of eight miles an hour, you would at once have formed an opinion as to all the workings of his mind and the meditations of his heart. But my impressions are of slower growth, and I am even dull enough to require some foundation for them." Christopher loved to tease Elisabeth. " I am awfully quick in reading character," remarked that young lady, with some pride. " You are. I never know which impresses me more — the rapidity with which you form opinions, or their inaccuracy when formed." " I'm not as stupid as you think." " Pardon me, I don't think you are at all stupid ; but I am always hoping that the experience of life will make you a little stupider." " Don't be a goose, but tell me all you know about Mr. Tremaine." "I don't know much about him, except that he is well-off, that he apparently rides about eleven stone, and that he is not what people call orthodox. By the way, I didn't discover his unorthodoxy by seeing him ride by, as you would have done ; I was told about it by some people who know him." " How very interesting ! " cried Elisabeth enthusiastically. "I wonder how unorthodox he is. Do you think he doesn't believe in anything ? " " In himself, I fancy. Even the baldest creed is usually self-embracing. But I believe he indulges in the not unfashionable luxury of doubts. You might attend to them, Elisabeth ; you are the sort of girl who would enjoy attending to doubts." r f n h i trbc /iDoat ibouse 79 " I suppose I really am too fond of arguing." "There you misjudge yourself. You are instructive rather than argumentative. Saying the same thing over and over again in different language is not arguing, you know ; I should rather call it preaching, if I were not afraid o( hurting your feelings." " You are a very rude boy ! But, anyway, I have taught you a lot of things ; you can't deny that." " I don't wish to deny it ; I am your eternal debtor. To tell the truth, I believe you have taiiglit me everything I know, that is worth knowing, e\ce[)t tlie things that you have tried to teach me. There, I must confess, you have signally failed." " What have I tried to teach you ? " " Heaps of things : that pleasure is more important than duty ; that we are sent into the wo:ld to enjoy ourselves ; that the worship of art is the only soul-satisfying form of faith ; that conscience is an exhausted force ; that feelings and emotions ought to be labelled and scheduled ; that lobster is digestible; that ^liss Herbert is the most attractive woman in the vrorld etcetera, etcetera." " And what have I lUght yo\. without trying ? " "Ah! that i-: a 1 iro.e ord. r • and it is remarkable that the things you !;? -c (aiiffhr me are just the things that you have never learnt yourself" " Then I couldn't have taught them." " But you did ; that is where your genius comes in." " I really am tremendously quick in judging character," repeated Elisabeth thoughtfully ; " if I met you for the first time I should know in five minutes that you were a man with plenty of head, and heaps of soul, and very little heart." "That would show wonderful penetration on your part." 11 1 I :;,ji , t 8o Zbc jfarrin^&on9 ) I "You may laugh, but I should. Of course, as it is, it is not particularly clover of me to understand you thoroughly; I liave known you so long." " Exactly ; it would only be distinctly careless of you if yov. did not." " Of course it would ; but I do. I could draw a map of your mina with my eyes shut, I know it so well." " I wish you would. I should value it even if it were drawn with your eyes open, though possibly in that case it might be less correct." " I will, if you will give me a pencil and a sheet of paper." Christopher produced a pencil, and tore a half-sheet off a note that he had in his pocket. The two were walking through the wood at the Willows at that moment, and Elisabeth straightway sat down upon a felled tree that happened to be lying there, and began to draw. The young man watched her with amusement. "An extensive outline," he remarked; "this is gratifying." " Oh yes ! you have plenty ot mind, such as it is ; nobody could deny that." " But why is the coast-line all irregular, with such a lot of bays and capes and headlands ? " " To show that you are an undecided person, and given to split hairs, and don't always know your own opinion. First you think you'll do a thing because it is nice; and then you think you won't do it because it is wrong ; and in the end you drop between two stools, like Mahomet's coffin." " I see. And please what are the mountain-ranges that you are drawing now ? " " These," replied Elisabeth, covering her map with herring- bones, "are your scruples. Tike all other mountain-'"inges they hinder commerce, make pleasure difficult, and render i M Zbc /iDoat Ibouse 8i life generally rather uphill work. Don't I sound exactly as if I was taking a geography class ? " '* Or conducting an Inquisition," added Christopher. " I thought an Inquisition was a Spanish thing that hurt." " So certain ignorant people say ; but it was originally invented, I believe, to eradicate error and to maintain truth." "I am going on with my geography class, so don't interrupt. The rivers in this map, which are marked by a few faint lines, are narrow and shallow ; they are only found near the coast, and never cross the interior of the country at all. These represent your feelings." " Very ingenious of you ! And what is that enormous blotch right in the middle of the country, which looks like London and its environs ? " " That is your conscience ; its outlying suburbs cover nearly the whole country, you will perceive. You will also notice that there are no seaports on the coast of my map ; that shows that you are self-contained, and that you neither send exports to, nor receive imports from, the hearts and minds of other people.' " Whatever are those queer little castellated things round the coast that you are drawing now ? " "Those are floating icebergs, to show that it is a cold country. There, my map is finished," concluded Elisabeth, half closing her eyes and contemplating her handiwork through her eyelashes ; " and I consider it a most successful sketch," *' It is certainly clever." " And true, too." Christopher's eyes twinkled. " Give it me," he said, stretching out his hand ; '* but sign it with your name first. Not there," he added hastily, as Elisabeth began I ^;l 82 XTbe 3farrin0&on5 writing a capital E in one corner; "right acros^ the middle." Elisabeth looked up in surprise. " Right across the map itself, do you mean ? " "Yes." " But it is such a long name that it will cover the whole country." " I know that." " It will spoil it." "I shouldn't be surprised; nevertheless, I always am in favour of realism." "I don't know where the realism comes in; but I am such an obliging person that I will do what you want," said Elisabeth, writing her name right across the half-sheet of paper, in her usual dashing style. " Thank you," said Christopher, taking the paper from her ; and he smiled to himself as he saw that the name " Elisabeth Farringdon " covered the whole of the imaginary continent from east to west. Elisabeth naturally did not know that this was the only true image in her allegory ; she was as yet far too clever to perceive obvious things. As Chris said, it was not when her eyes were open thai she was most correct. "I have seen Mr. Tremaine," said Elisabeth to him, a day or two after thio. " Cousin Maria left her card upon him, and he returned her call yesterday and found us at home. I think he is perfectly delightful." "You do, do you ? I knew you would." " Why ? " " Because, like the Athenians, you live to see or to hear some new thing," '* It wasn't his newness that made me like him ; I liked him because he was so interesting. I do adore interesting people ! I hadn't known him five minutes before he began n Ube /Coat t)ouse •* to talk about really deep things ; and then I felt I had known him for ages, he was so very understanding." " Indeed," Christopher said drily. " By the time we had finished tea he understood me better than you do after all these years. I wonder if I shall get to like him better than I like you?" " I wonder, too." And he really did, with an amount of curiosity that was positively painful. " Of course," remarked Elisabeth thoughtfully, " I shall always like you, because we have been friends so long, and you are overgrown with the lichen of old memories and associations. But you are not very interesting in the abstract, you see ; you are nice and good, but you have not heart enough to be really thrilling." "Still, even if I had a heart, it is possible I might not ahvays wear it on my sleeve for Miss Elisabeth Farringdoii to peck at." " Oh ! yes, you would ; you couldn't help it. If you tried to hide it I should see through your disguises. I have X rays in my eyes." " Have you ? They must be a great convenience." " Well, at any rate, they keep me from making mistakes," Elisabeth confessed. "That is fortunate for you. It is a mistake to make mistakes." " I remember our dear Lady at Fox How once saying," continued the girl, "that nothing is so good for keeping women from making mistakes as a sense of humour." " I wonder if she was right ? " " She was always right ; and in that as in everything else. Have you never noticed that it is not the women with a sense of humour who make fools of themselves ? They know better than to call a thing romantic which is really ridiculous," III 1 84 XTbe jfarringC)on0 " Possibly ; but they are sometimes in danger of calling a thing ridiculous which is really romantic ; and that also is a mistake." " I suppose it is. I wonder which is worse— to think ridiculous things romantic, or romantic things ridiculous? It is rather an interesting point. Which do you think ? " "I don't know. I never thought about it." "You never do think about things that really matter," exclaimed Elisabeth, with reproof in her voice ; " that is what makes you so uninteresting to talk to. The fact is you are so wrapped up in that tiresome old business that you never have time to attend to the deeper thmgs and the hidden meanings of life, but are growing into a regular money-grubber." "Perhaps so; but you will have the justice to admit it isn't my own money that I am grubbing," replied Christopher, who had only reconciled himself to giving up all his youthful ambitions and becoming sub-manager of the Osierfield by the thought that he might thereby in some roundabout way serve Elisabeth. Like other young men he had dreamed his dreams, and prospected wonderful roads to success which his feet were destined never to tread ; and at first he had asked something more of life than the Osierfield was capable of offering him. But finally he had submitted contentedly to the inevitable, because— in spite of all his hopes and ambitions— his boyish love for Elisabeth held him fast; and now his manly love for Elisabeth held him faster still. But even the chains which love has riveted are capable of gaiiing us sometimes; and although we would not break them, even if we could, we grumble at them occasionally— that is to say, if we are merely human, as is the case with no many of us. "It is a great pity," Elisabeth went on, "tiia. you T Ube /iDoat Ibousc 8s i deliberately narrow yourself down to such a small world and such petty interests. It is bad enough for old people to be practical and sensible and commonplace and all that ; but for a man as young as you are it is simply disgusting. I cannot understand you, because you really are clever and ought to know better ; but although I am your greatest friend, you never talk to me about anything except the merest frivolities." Christopher bowed his head to the storm and was still — he was one of the people who early learn the power of silence ; but Elisabeth, having once mounted her high horse, dug her spurs into her steed and rode on to victory. In those days she was so dreadfully sure of herself that she felt competent to teach anybody anything. " You laugh at me as long as I am funny and I amuse you; but the minute I begin to talk about serious sul)jects — such as feelings and sentiments and emotions — you lose your interest at once, and turn everything into a joke. The truth is, you have so persistently suppressed your higher self that it is dying of inanition ; you'll soon have no higher self left at all. If people don't use their hearts they don't have any, like the Kentucky fish that can't see in the dark because they are blind, don't you know ? Now you should take a leaf out of Mr. Tremaine's book. The first minute I saw him I knew that he was the sort of man that cultivated his higher self ; he was interested in just the things that interest me." The preacher paused for breath, and looked up to sec whether her sermon was being '* blessed " to her hearer ; then suddenly her voice changed, — " What is the matter, Chris ? " "N ihing. Why?" "Because you look so awfully white, I was talking so m vi 86 Ube jfartittdbona fast that I didn't notice it ; but I expect it is the heat. Do sit down on the grass and rest a bit ; it is quite dry ; and I'll fan you with a big dock leaf.'* " I'm all right," replied Christopher, trying to laugh, and succeeding but indifferently. "But I'm sure you are not, you are so pale; you look just as you looked the day that I tumbled off the rick— do you remember it? — and you took me into Mrs. Bateson's to have my head bound up. She said you'd got a touch of the sun, and I'm afraid you've got one now." " Yes, I remember it well enough ; but I'm all right now, Betty. Don't worry about me." " But I do worry when you're ill ; I always did. Don't you remem.ber that when you had measles and I wasn't allowed to see you, I cried myself to sleep for three nights running, because I thought you were going to die, and that everything would be vile without you ? And then I had a prayer-meeting about you in Mrs. Bateson's parlour, and I wrote the hymns for it myself The Batesons wept over them and considered them inspired, and foretold that I should die early in consequence." And Elisabeth laughed at the remembrance of her fame. Christopher laughed too. " That was hard on you ! I admit that verse-writing is a crime in a woman, but I should hardly call it a capital offence. Still, I should liko to have heard the hymns. You were great at writing poetry as well as at painting pictures in those days." " Wasn't I ? And I used to be so proud when you said that my poems and my pictures weren't ' half bad ' ! " " No wondf:r ; that was high praise from me. But can't you recall those hymns ? " The hymnist puckered her forehead. " I can remember the beginning of the opening one," she said; "it was a tlbe /iDoat Ibouse 87 six-line-eights, and we sang it to a tune called Stella \ it began thus : How can we sing like little birds, And hop about among the boughs? How can we gambol with the herds, Or chew the cud among the cows? How can we pop with all the weasels Now Christopher has got the measles?" " Bravo ! " exclaimed the subject of the hymn. " You are a born hymn-writer, Elisabeth. The shades of Charles Wesley and Dr. Watts bow to your obvious superiority." " Well at any rate, I don't believe they ever did better at fourteen ; and it shows how anxious I was about you even then when you were ill. I am just the same now— quite as fond of you as I was then ; and you are of me, too, aren't you ? " " Quite." Which was perfectly true. " Then that's all right," said Elisabeth contentedly ; " and, you see, it is because I am so fond of you that I tell you of your faults. I think you are so good that I want you to be quite perfect." " I see." The missionary spirit is an admirable thing ; but a man rarely does it full justice when it is displayed— towards himself— by the object of his devotion. " If I wasn't so fond of you I shouldn't try to improve you." " Of course not ; and if you were a little fonder of me you wouldn't want to improve me. I perfectly understand." " Dear old Chris ! You really are extremely nice in some ways ; and if you had only a little more heart you would be adorable. And I don't believe you are naturally unfeeling, do you ? " " No — I do not ; but I sometimes wish I were." •1 \ i u^ 1.1 88 Ubc jfarditQ^ons "Don't say that. It is only that you haven't developed that side of you sufficiently ; I feel sure the heart is there, but it is dormant. So now you will talk more about feelings, won't you ? " " I won't promise that. It is rather stupid to talk about things that one doesn't understand; I am sure this is correct, for I have often heard you say so." " But talking to me about your feelings might help you to understand them, don't you see ? " " Or might help you." " Oh ! I don't want any help ; feelings are among the few things that I can understand without any assistance. But you are sure you are all right, Chris, and haven't got a headache or anything?" And the anxious expression returned to Elisabeth's face. '* My head is very well, thank you." *• You don't feel any pain ? " " In my head ? distinctly not." " You are quite well, you are certain ? " "Perfectly certain and quite well. What a fidget you are! Apparently you attach as much importance to rosy cheeks as Mother Hankey does." " A pale face and dark hair are in her eyes the infallible signs of a depraved nature," laughed Elisabeth; "and I have both." •• Yet you fly at me for having one, and that only for a short time. Considering your own short-comings, you should be more charitable." Elisabeth laughed again as she patted his artii in a sisterly tashion. " Nice old boy ! I am awfully glad you are all right. It would make me miserable if anything went really wrong with you, Chris." " Then nothing shall go really wrong with mv, and you ^Jiall not be miserable," said Chiialnpliei stoutly ; '• and, XTbe /©oat Ibouse therefore, it is fortunate that I don't possess much heart — things generally go wrong with the people who have hearts, you know, and not with the people who have not ; so we perceive how wise was the poet in remarking that whatever is is made after the best possible pattern, or words to that effect." With which consoling remark he took leave of his liege-lady. The friendship between Alan Tremaine and Elisabeth Farringdon grew apace during the next twelve months. His mind was of the metaphysical and speculative order, which is interesting to all women ; and hers was of the volatile and vivacious type which is attractive to some men. They discussed everything under the sun, and some things above it ; they read the same books and compared notes afterwards; they went out sketching together, and instructed each other in the ways of art ; and they carefully examined the foundations of each other's beliefs, and endeavoured respectively to strengthen and undermine the same. Gradually they fell into the habit of wondering every morning whether or not they should meet during the coming day ; and of congratulating themselves nearly every evening that they had succeeded in so meeting. As for Christopher, he was extremely and increasingly unhappy, and, it must be admitted, extremely and in- creasingly cross in consequence. The fact that he had not the slightest right to control Elisabeth's actions, in no way prevented him from highly disapproving of them ; and the fact that he was too proud to express this disap[)roval in words, in no way prevented him from displaying it in manner. Elisabeth was wonderfully amiable with him, considering how very cross he was ; but are we not all amiable with people towards whom we — in our inner con- sciousness — know that we are behaving badly? " I cannot make out what you can see in that conceited I! \i) ' i\ V '^ M •a • i^ 90 Ubc jfarrinaOons ass I " he said to her, when Alan Tremaine had been living at the Moat House for something over a year. " Perhaps not ; making things out never is your strong point," replied Elisabeth suavely. " But he is such an ass ! I'm sure the other evening, when he trotted out his views on the Higher Criticism for your benefit, he made me feel positively ill." "I found it very interesting; and if, as you say, he did it for my benefit, he certainly succeeded in his aim." Ther. were limits to the patience of Elisabeth. " Well, how women can listen to bosh of that kind I cannot imagine ! What can it matter to you what he dis- believes or why he disbelieves it ? And it is beastly cheek of him to suppose that it can." " But he is right in supposing it, and it does matter to me. I like to know how old-fashioned truths accord or do not accord with modern phases of thought." "Modern phases of nonsense, you mean! Well, the old-fashioned truths are good enough for me, and I'll stick to them, if you please, in spite of Mr. Tremaine's overwhelming arguments ; and I should advise you to stick to them, too." " Oh ! Chris, I wish you wouldn't be so disagreeable." And Elisabeth sighed. "It is so difficult to talk to you when you are like this." "I'm not disagreeable," replied Christopher mendaciously ; "only I cannot let you be taken in by a stuck-up fool without trying to open your eyes; I shouldn't be your friend if I could." And he actually believed that this was the case. He forgot that it is not the trick of friendship, but of love, to make "a corner" in affection, and to monopolize the whole stock of the commodity. "You see." Elisabeth explained, "I am so fr'ghtfully modern, and yet I have been brought up in such a dread- Ubc /ftoat Ibouse 9« fully old-fashioned way. It was all very well for the last generation to accept revealed truth without understanding it, but it won't do for us," " Why not ? " " Oh ! because we are young and modern.** "So were they at one time, and we shall not be so for long." Elisabeth sighed again. " How difficult you are ! Of course, the sort of religion that did for Cousin Maria and Mr. Smallwood won't do for Mr. Tremaine and me. Can't you see that ? " " I am sorry to say I can't." "Their religion had no connection with their intellects." " Still, it changed their hearts, which I have heard is no unimportant operation." "They accepted what they were told without trying to understand it," Elisabeth continued, " which is not, after all, a high form of faith." " Indeed. I should have imagined that it was the highest." " But can't you see that to accept blindly what you are told, is not half so great as to sift it all, and to separate the chaff from the wheat, and to find the kernel of truth in the husk of tradition ? " Elisabeth had not talked to Alan Tremaine for over a year without learning his tricks of thought and even of expression. " Don't you think that it is better to believe a little with thvj whole intellect than a great deal apart from it ? " Christopher looked obstinate. " I can't and don't." " Have you no respect for * honest doubt ' ? " " Honest bosh ! " Elisabeth's face flushed. " You really are too rude for anything." Christopher was penitent at once; he could not bear ! ! :(i; il ,i; " IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) fe {./ /(_ ^ A % •^\^4t^ y. <- ^ but only of the woman. It strikes me that Master Alan Tremaine knows precious little about the matter." " I think he knows a great deal. He said that love was the discovery of the one woman whereof all other women were but types. That really was a sweet thing to say ! " " My dear Betty, you know no more about the matter than he does. Falling in love doesn't merely mean that a man has found a woman who is dearer to him than all other women, but that he has found a woman who is dearer to him than himself." Elisabeth changed her ground. " I admit that he isn't what you might call orthodox," she said — " not the sort of man who would clothe himself in the rubric, lied on with I Ube /l>oat Douse 93 red tape; but though he may not be a Christian, as we count Christianity, he believes with all his heart in an overruling Power which makes for righteousness." " That is very generous of him," retorted Christopher ; " still, I cannot for the life of me see that the possession of three or four thousand a year, without the trouble of earning it, gives a man the right to patronize the Almighty." " You are frightfully narrow, Chris." " I know I am, and I am thankful for it. I had rather be as narrow as a plumbing-line than indulge in the sickly latitudinarianism that such men as Tremaine nickname breadth." " Oh ! I am tired of arguing with you ; you are too stupid for anything." " But you haven't been arguing — you have only been quoting Tremaine verbatim ; and that that m.ay be tiring I can well believe." " Well, you can call it what you like ; but by any other name it will irritate you just as much, because you have such a horrid temper. Your religion may be very orthodox, but I cannot say much for its improving qualities ; it is the crossest, nastiest, narrowest, disagreeablest sort of religion that I ever came across." And Elisabeth walked away in high dudgeon, leaving Christopher very angry with himself for having been dis- agreeable, and still angrier with Tremaine for having been the reverse. }•;> Vi I- ! ¥u ( CHAPTER VI IVHIT MONDAY Light shadows— hardly seen as such- Crept softly o'er the summer laud In mute caresses, like the touch Of some familiar hand. (( I WANT to give your work-people a treat," said Tremaine to Elisabeth, in the early summer. " It is very nice of you ; but this goes without saying, as you are always planning and doing something nice. I shall be very glad for our people to have a little pleasure, as at present the annual tea-meeting at East Lane Chapel seems to be their one and only dissipation ; and although tea-meetings may be very well in their way, they hardly seem to fulfil one's ideal of human joy." " Ah I you have touched upon a point to which I was coming," said Alan earnestly ; " it is wonderful how often our minds jump together ! Not only am I anxious to give the Osierfield people something more enjoyable than a tea- meeting— I also wish to eliminate the tea-meeting spirit from their idea of enjoyment." " How do you mean ? " It was noteworthy that while Elisabeth was always ready to teach Christopher, she was equally willing to karn from Alan. 84 I Mbit /l^on^al? 95 " I mean that I want to show people that pleasure and religion have nothing to do with each other. It always seems to me such a mistake that the pleasures of the poor — the innocent pleasures, of course — are generally inseparable from religious institutions. If they attend a tea-party, they open it with prayer ; if they are taken for a country drive, they sing hymns by the way." " Oh ! but I think they do this because they like it, and not because they are made to do it," said Elisabeth eagerly. " Not a bit of it ; they do it because they are accustomed to do it, and they feel that it is expected of them. Religion is as much a part of their dissipation as evening dress is of ours, and just as much a purely conventional part ; and I want to teach them to dissociate the two ideas in their own minds." " I doubt if you will succeed, Mr. Tremaine." " Yes, I shall ; I invariably succeed. I have never failed in anything yet, and I never mean to fail. And I do so want to make the poor people enjoy themselves thoroughly. Of course, it is a good thitig to have one's pills always hidden in jam ; but it must be a miserable thing to belong to a section of society where one's jam is invariably full of pills." Elisabeth smiled, but did not speak ; Alan was the one person of her acquaintance to whom she would rather listen than talk. " It is a morbid and unhealthy habit," he went on, " to introduce religion into everything, in the way that English people are so fond of doing. It decreases their pleasures by casting its shadow over purely human and natural joys ; and it increases their sorrow and want i)y teaching them to lean upon some hypothetical Power, instead of trying to do the b?§t that they can for themselves. Also it enervates their I; 'I '! Ill :M im r 96 ZTbe jfarrtn^^on9 reasoning faculties ; for nothing is so detrimental to one's intellectual strength as the habit of believing things which one knows to be impossible." " Then don't you believe in religion of any kind ? " " Most certainly I do — in many religions. I believe in the religion of art and of science and of humanity, and countless more ; in fact, the only religion I do not believe in is Christianity, because that spoils all the rest by condemn- ing art as fleshly, science as untrue, and humanity as sinful. I want to brmg the old Pantheism to life again, and to teach our people to worship beauty as the Greeks worshipped it of old ; and I want you to help me." Elisabeth gasped as Elisha might have gasped when Elijah's mantle fell upon him. " I should love to make people happy," she raid ; " there seems to be so much happiness in the world and so few that find it." " The Greeks found it ; therefore, why should not the English ? I mean to teach them to find it, and I shall begin with your work-people on Whit Monday." " What shall you do ? " asked the girl, with intense interest. " It is no good taking away old lamps until you are prepared to offer new ones in their place ; therefore I shall not take away the consolations (so called) of religion until I have shown the people a more excellent way. I shall first show them nature, and then art— nature to arouse their highest instincts, end art to express the same ; and I am convinced that after they have once been brought face to face with the beautiful thus embodied, the old faiths will lose the power to move them." When Whit Monday came round, the throbbing heart of the Osierfield stopped beating, as it was obliged to stop on a bank-holiday J and the workmen, with their wives and sweethearts, were taken by Alan Tremaine in large brakes to '' Mbtr /l^on^al^ 97 Pembruge Castle, which the owner had kindly thrown open to them, at Alan's request, for the occasion. It was a long drive and a wonderfully beautiful one, for the year was at its best. All the trees had put on their new summer dresses, and never a pair of them were of the same shade. The hedges were covered with a wreath of white may-blossom, and seemed like interminable drifts of that snow in summer which is as good news from a far country j and the roads were bordered by the feathery hemlock, which covered the face of the land as with a bridal veil. " Isn't the world a beautiful place ? " said Elisabeth, with a sigh of content, to Alan, who was driving her in his mail- phaeton. " I do hope all the people will see and understand how beautiful it is." " They cannot help seeing and understanding ; beauty such as this is its own interpreter. Surely such a glimpse of nature as we are now enjoying, does people more good than a hundred prayer-meetings in a stuffy chapel." "Beauty shdes into one's soul on a day like this, just as something — I forget what — slid into the soul of the 'Ancient Mariner'; doesn't it?" " Of course it does ; and you will find that these people — now that they are brought face to face with it — will be just as ready to worship abstract beauty as ever the Greeks were. The fault has not been with the poor for not having worshipped beauty, but with the rich for not having shown them sufficient beauty to worship. The rich have tried to choke them off" with religion instead, because it came cheaper and was less troul)lesome to producf^." " Then do you think that the love of beauty will elevate these people more and make them happier than Christianity has done ? " " Most assuredly I do. Had our climate been sunnier 7 rH .i. .1 m 98 tlbe f attin^^ons and the fight for existence less bitter, I believe that Chris- tianity would have died out in England years ago ; but the worship of sorrow will always have its attractions for the sorrowful ; and the doctrine of renunciation will never be without its charm for those unfortunate ones to whom poverty and disease have stood sponsors, and have re- nounced all life's good things in their name before ever they saw the light. Man makes his god in his own image ; and thus it comes to pass that while the strong and joyous Greek adored Zeus on Olympus, the anaemic and neurotic Englishman worships Christ on Calvary. Do you tell me that if people were happy they would bow down before a stricken and crucified God ? Not they. And I want to make them so happy that they shall cease to have any desire for a suffering Deity." " Well, you have made them happy enough for to- day, at any rate," said Elisabeth, as she looked up at him with gratitude and admiration. " I saw them all when they were starting, and there wasn't one face among them that hadn't joy written on every feature in capital letters." " Then in that case they won't be troubling their minds to-day about their religion ; they will save it for the gloomy days, as we save narcotics for times of pain. You may depend upon that." " I'm not so sure : their religion is more of a reality to them than you think," Elisabeth replied. While Alan was thus enjoying himself in his own fajhion, his guests were enjoying themselves in theirs ; and as they drove through summer's fairy-land, they, too, talked by the way. " Eh I but the may-blossom's a pretty sight," exclaimed Caleb Bateson, as the hU wagonettes rolled along the country roads. " I never saw it finer than it is this year — not in all A XIQlbit /l>ont)ai? 99 the years I've lived in Mershire ; ana Mershire's the land for may-blossom." " It do look pretty," agreed his wife. *' I only wish Lucy Ellen was here to see it; she was always the one for may-blossom. Why, when she was ever such a little girl she'd come home carrying branches of it bigger than herself, till she looked like nothing but a walking .naypole." " Poor thing ! " said Mrs. Hankey, who happened to be driving in the same vehicle as the Batesons, " she'll be feel- ing sad and homesick to see it all again, I'll be bound." Lucy Ellen's motlicr laughed contentedly. " Folks haven't time to feel liomesick when they've got a husband tc look after ; he soon takes the place of m:iy-blossom, bless you ! " " You're in luck to see all your children married and settled before the Lord has been pleased to take you," remarked Mrs. Hankey, with envy in her voice. "Well, I'm glad for the two lads to have somebody to look after them, I'm bound to say ; I feel now as they've some one to air their shirts when I'm not there, for you never can trust a man to look after himself — never. Men have no sense to know what is good for *em and what is bad for 'em, poor things ' But Lucy Ellen is a different thing. Of course I'm pleased for her to have a home of her own, and such nice furniture as she's got, too, and in such a good circuit ; but when your daughter is married you don't see her as often as you want to, and it is no good pretending as you do." " That's true," agreed Caleb Bateson, with a big sigh ; "and I never cease to miss iny little lass." " She ain't no little lass now, Mr. Bateson," argued Mrs. Hankey ; " Lucy Ellen must be forty, if she's a day." " So she be, Mrs. Hankey — so she be ; but she is my little lass to me, all the same, and always will be. The children never grow up to them as loves 'em. They are always our ' ■ !l ? ■&.\\ m xoo XLbe j^arctna^on0 children, just as we are always the Lord's children ; and we never leave off a-screening and a-sheltering o' them, any more than He ever leaves off a-screening and a-sheltering of us." " I'm glad to hear as Lucy Ellen has married into a good circuit. Unless the Lord build the house we know how they labour in vain that build it; and the Lord can't do much unless He has a good minister to help Him. I don't deny as He may work through local preachers ; but I like a regular superintendent myself, with one jr more ministers under him." " Oh ! Lucy Ellen lives in one of the best circuits in the Connexion," said Mrs. Bateson proudly ; " they have an ex- president as superintendent, and three ministers under him, and a supernumerary as well. They never hear the same preacher more than once a month ; it's something grand ! " " Eh ! it's a fine place is Craychester," added Caleb ; " they held Conference there two years ago." " It must be a grand thing to live in a place where they hold Conference," remarked Mrs. Hankey. " It is indeed," agreed Mrs. Bateson ; " Lucy Ellen said it seemed for all the world like heave i, to see so many ministers about, all in their black coats and white neck- cloths. And then such preaching as they heard ! It isn't ofien young folks enjoy such privileges, and so I told her." " When all's said and done, there's nothing like a good sermon for giving folks real pleasure. Nothing in this world comes up to it, and I doubt if there'll be anything much better in the next," said Caleb ; " I don't see as how there can be." His friends all agreed with him, and continued, for the rest of the drive, to discuss the respective merits of various discourses they had been privileged to hear. It was a glorious day. The sky was blue, with just Mbit /Dongas 101 enough white clouds flitting about to show how blue the blue part really was ; and the varying shadows kept passing, like the caress of some unseen yet ever protecting Hand, over the green nearnesses and the violet distances of a country whose foundations seemed to be of emerald and amethyst, and its walls and gateways of pearl. The larLje company from the Osierfield drove across the bree/y common at the foot of Sedgehill Ridge, and then plunged into a network of lanes which led them, by sweet and mysterious ways, to the great highway from the Midlands to the coast of the western sea. On they went, past the little hamlet where the Danes and the Saxons fought a great fight more than a thousand years ago, and which is still called by a strange Saxon name, meaning " the burying-place of the slain " ; and the little hamlet smiled in the summer sunshine, as if with kindly memories of those old warriors whose warfare had been accomplished so many centuries ago, and who lie together, beneath the white blossom, in the arms of the great peacemaker called Death, waiting for the resurrection morning which that blossom is sent to foretell. On, between man's walls of grey stone, till they came to God's walls of red sandstone ; and then up a steep hill to another common, where the sweet-scented gorse made a golden pavement, and where there suddenly burst upon their sight a view so wide and so wonderful that those who look upon it with the seeing eye and the understanding heart catch glimpses of the King in His beauty through the fairness of the land that is very far off. On past the mossy stone, like an overgrown and illiterate milestone, which marks the boundary between Mershire and Salopshire ; and then through a typical English village, noteworthy because the rites of May-day, with May-queen and May-pole to boot, are still celebrated there exactly as they were celebrated some three hundred years ago. At last they came to a m t-ii ill \r In. I ! I02 Xlbc jfarrtng^ond picturesque wall and gateway, built of the red stone which belongs to that part of the country, and which has a trick of growing so much redder at evening-time that it looks as if the cold stone were blushing with pleasure at being kissed good-night by the sun ; and then through a wood sloping on the left side down to a little stream, which was so busy talking to itself about its own concerns that it had not time to leap and sparkle for the amusement of passers-by ; until they drew up in front of a quaint old castle, built of the same stone as the outer walls and gateway. The family were away from home, so the whole of the castle was at the disposal of Alan and his party, and they had permission to go wherever they liked. The state-rooms were in front of the building and led out of each other, so that when all the doors were open any one could see right from one end of the castle to the other. Dinner was to be served in the large saloon at the back, built over what was once the courtyard ; and while his servants were laying the tables with the cold viands which they had brought with them, Alan took his guests through the state-rooms to see the pictures, and endeavoured to carry out his plan of educating them by pointing out to them some of the finer works of art. " This," he said, stopping in front of a portrait, " is a picture of Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu, who was born here, painted by one of the first portrait-painters of her day. I want you to look at her hands, and to notice how ex- quisitely they are painted. Also I wish to cull your attention to the expression of her face. You know that it is the duty of art to interpret nature — that is to say, to show to ordinary people those hidden beauties and underlying meanings of common things which they would never be able to find out for themselves; and I think that in the J 1,1 Mbit /l^on^a^ 103 expression on this woman's face the artist has shown forth, in a most wonderful way, the dissatisfaction and bitterness of her heart. As you look at her face you seem to see right into her soul, and to understand how she was fore- doomed by nature and temperament to ask too much of life and to receive too little." " Well, to be sure ! " remarked Mrs. Bateson, in an under- tone, to her lord and master ; " she is a bit like our superintendent's wife, only not so stout. And what a gown she has got on ! I should say that satin is worth five-and-six a yard if it is worth a penny. And I call it a sin and a shame to have a dirty green parrot sitting on your shoulder when you're wearing satin like that. If she'd had any sense she'd have fed the animals before she put her best gown on." " I never could abide parrots," joined in Mrs. Hankey ; " they smell so." "And as for her looking dissatisfied and all that," con- tinued Mrs. Bateson, " I for one can't see it. But if she did, it was all a pack of rubbish. What had she to grumble at, I should like to know, with a satin gown o. at five-and- six a yard ? " By this time Alan had moved on to another picture. " This represents an unhappy marriage," he explained. " At first sight you see nothing but two well-dressed people sitting at table; but as you look into the picture you perceive the misery in the woman's face and the cruelty in the man's, and you realize all that they mean." "Well, I see nothing more at second sight," whispered Mrs. Hankey ; " except that the table-cloth might have been cleaner. There's another of your grumbling fine ladies ! Now for sure she'd nothing to grumble at, sitting so grand at table with a glass of she: r) -wine to drink." "The husband looks a ciinuuik.oiuu.s chap," remarked Caleb. IS i1ig T-M il p 104 ICbe 3farring&ons |1 i: \v\ " Poor thing ! it's his liver," said Mrs. Bateson, taking up the cudgels as usual on behalf of the bilious and oppressed. " You can see from his complexion that he is out of order, and that all that rich dinner will do him no good. It was his wife's duty to see that he had something plain to eat, with none of them sauces and fal-lals, instead of playing the fine lady and making troubles out of nothing. I've no patience with her ! " " Still, he do look as if he'd a temper," persisted Mr. Bateson. " And if he do, Caleb, what of that ? It a man in his own house hasn't the right to show a bit of temper, I should like to know who has ? I've no patience with the women that will get married and have a man of their ov/n ; and then cry their eyes out because the man isn't an old woman. If they want meekness and obedience, let 'em remain single and ket-p lapdogs and canaries ; and leave the husbands for those as can manage 'em and enjoy 'em, for there ain't enough to go round as it is." And Mrs. Bateson waxed quite indignant. Here Tremaine took up his parable. '' This weird figure, clothed in skins, and feeding upon nothing more satisfying than locusts and wild honey, is a type of all those who are set apart for the difficult and unsatisfactory lot of heralds and forerunners. They see the good time coming, and make ready the way for it, knowing all the while that its fuller light and wider freedom are not for them ; they lead their fellows to the very borders of the promised land, conscious that their own graves are already dug in the wilderness. No great social or political movement has ever been carried on without their aid; and they have never reaped the benefits of those reforms which they lived and died to compass. Perhaps there are no sadder sights on the page of history than those solitary figures, of all nations ■c-1 Mbit /l^on^al? loS and all times, who have foretold the coming of the dawn and yet died before it was yet day." " Did you ever ? " exclaimed Mrs. Bateson sotto voce ; "a grown man like that, and not to know John the Baptist when he sees him ! Forerunners and heralds indeed ! Why, it's John the Baptist as large as life, and those as don't recognize him ought to be ashamed of theirselves." " Lucy Ellen would have known who it was when she was three years old," said Caleb proudly. " And so she ought j I'd have slapped her if she hadn't, and richly she'd have deserved it." " It's a comfort as Mr. Tremaine's mother is in her grave," remarked Mrs. Hankey, not a whit behind the others as regards shocked sensibilities ; " this would have been a sad day for her if she had been alive." "And it would!" agreed Mrs. Bateson warmly. " I know if one of my children hadn't known John the Baptist by sight, I should have been that ashamed I should never have held up my head again in this world — never ! " Mr. Bateson endeavoured to take a charitable view of the situation. " I expect as the poor lad's schooling was neglected through having lost his parents; and there's some things as you never seem to master at all except you master 'em when you're young — the Books of the Bible being one of them." " My lads could say the Books of the Bible through, with- out stopping to take breath, when they were six, and Lucy Ellen when she was five and a half." " Well, then, Kezia, you should be all the more ready to take pity on them poor orphans as haven't had the advantages as our children have had." •' So I am, Caleb ; and if it had been one of the minor prophets I shouldn't have said a word — I can't always tell \\ ( J :■ :f 1 ^ 1 m ill io6 Ube jfarrinG&on5 Jonah myself unless there's a whale somewhere at the back ; but John the Baptist ! " When the inspection of the pictures had been accom- plished, the company sat down to dinner in the large saloon ; and Alan was slightly disconcerted when they opened the proceedings by singing, at the top of their voices, " Be present at our table, Lord." Elisabeth, on seeing the expression of his face, sorely wanted to laugh ; but she stifled this desire, as she had learned by experience that humour was not one of Alan's strong points. Now Christopher could generally see when a thing was funny, even when the joke was at his own expense ; but Alan took life more seriously, which — as Elisabeth assured herself — showed what a much more earnest man than Christopher he was, in spite of his less orthodox opinions. So she made up her mind that she would not catch Christopher's eye on the present occasion, as she usually did when anything amused her, because it was cruel to laugh at the frustration of poor Alan's high-flown plans ; and then naturally she looked straight at the spot where Chris was presiding over a table, and returned his smile of perfect comprehension. It was one of Elisabeth's peculiarities that she invariably did the thing which she had definitely made up her mind not to do. After dinner the party broke up and wandered about, in small detachments, over the park and through the woods and by the mere, until it was tea-time. Alan spent most of his afternoon in explaining to Elisabeth the more ex- cellent ways whereby the poor may be enabled to share the pleasures of the rich ; and Christopher spent most of his in carrying Johnnie Stubbs to the mere and taking him for a row, and so helping the crippled youth to forget for a short time that he was not as other men are, and thai it was out of pity that he, who never worked, mbit /l^on^ap 107 had been permitted to take the holiday which he could not earn. After tea Alan and Elisabeth were standing on the steps leading from the saloon to the garden. " What a magnificent fellow that is ! " exclaimed Alan, pointing to the huge figure of Caleb Bateson, who was talking to Jemima Stubbs on the far side of the lawn. Caleb certainly justified this admiration, for he was a fine specimen of a Mershire puddler — and there is no finer rare of men to be found anywhere than the puddlers of Mershire. Elisabeth's eyes twinkled. "That is one of your anaemic and neurotic Christians," she remarked demurely. Displeasure settled on Alan's brow ; he greatly objected to Elisabeth's habit of making fun of things, and had tried his best to cure her of it. To a great extent he had succeeded (for the time being) ; but even yet the cloven foot of Elisabeth's levity now and then showed itself, much to his regret. "Exceptions do not disprove rules," he replied coldly. " Moreover, Bateson is probably religious rather from the force of coh'ention than of conviction." Tremaine never failed to enjoy his own rounded sentences, and this one pleased him so much that it almost succeeded in dispelling the cloud which Elisabeth's ill timed gibe had created. " He is a class-leader and a local preacher," she added. "Those terms convey no meaning to my mind." "Don't they? Well, they mean that Caleb not only loyally supports the government of Providence, but is prepared to take office under it," Elisabeth explained. Alan never quarrelled with people; he always reproved them. *' You make a great mistake — and an extremely feminine one — Miss Farringdon, in invariably deducing I :f l§ \^i 11 . '» y f 1 08 TTbe jfarring^on9 i! U\\ 'm I general rules from individual instances. Believe me, this is a most illogical form of reasoning, and leads to erroneous, and sometimes dangerous, conclusions." Elisabeth tossed her head ; she did not like to be repr'^ved, even by Alan Tremaine. " My conclusions are nearly always correct, anyhow," she retorted ; " and if you get to the right place, I don't see that it matters how you go there. I never bother my head about the 'rolHng stock' or the 'permanent way' ot my intuitions; 1 know they'll bring me to the right conclusion, and 1 leave them to work out their Bradshaw for themselves." In the meantime Jemima Stubbs was pouring out a recital of her grievances into the ever-sympathetic ear of Caleb Bateson. " You don't seem to be enjoying yourself, my lass," he had said in his cheery voice, laying a big hand in tender caress upon the girl's narrow shoulders. "And how should I, Mr. Bateson, not having a beau nor nobody to talk to ? " she replied in her quavermg treble. " What with havin* first mother to nurse when 1 was a little gell, and then havin' Johnnie to look after, I've never had time to make myself look pretty and to get a beau, like other gells. And now I'm too old for that sort of thing, and yet I've never had my chance, as you may say." " Poor lass ! It's a hard life as you've had, and no mistake." "That it is, Mr. Bateson. Men wants gells as look pretty and make 'em laugh ; they don't care for the dull, dowdy ones, such as me ; and yet how can a gell be light- hearted and gay, I should like to know, when it's work, work, work, all the day, and nurse, nurse, nurse, all the night ? Yet the men don't make no allowance for that — not they. They just see as a gell is plain and stupid, and mbit /l^on^ai? 109 then they has nothing more to do with her, and she can go to Jericho for all they cares." "You've had a hard time of it, my lass," repeated Bateson, in his full, deep voice. " Right you are, Mr. Bateson ; and it's made my hair grey, and my face all wrinkles, and my hands a sight o' roughness and ugliness, till I'm a regular old woman and a fright at that. And I'm but thirty-five now, though no one 'ud believe it to look at me." "Thirty-five, are you? Bain't you more than that, Jemima, for surely you look more ? " " I know I does, but I ain't ; and lots o' women — them as has had easy times and their way made smooth for them — look little more than gells when they are thirty-five ; and the men run after 'em as fa t as if they was only twenty. But I'm an old woman, I au ,, and I've never had time to be a young one, and I've never had a beau nor nothing." "It seems now, Jemima, as if the Lord was dealing a bit hard with you; but never you fret yourself; He'll explain it all and make it all up to you in His own good time." " I only hope He may, Mr. Bateson." " My lass, do you remember how Saint Paul said, * From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus ' ? Now it seems to me that all the grey hairs and the wrinkles and the roughness that come to us when we are working for others and doing our duty, are nothing more nor less than the marks of the Lord Jesus." " That's a comfortin' view of the matter, I don't deny." " There are lots o' men in this world, Jemima, and still more women, who grow old before their time working for other people; and I take it that when folks talk o' their I ■: iji iii r ■PIW" f no XTbe jfarrtna^one wrinkles, the Lord says, 'My Name shall be in their foreheads ' ; and when folks talk o' their grey hairs. He says, * They shall walk with Me in white : for they are worthy.' And why do we mark the things that belong to us ? Why, so as we can know 'em again and can claim 'em as our own afore the whole world. And that's just why the Lord marks us : so as all the world shall know as we are His, and so as no man shall ever pluck us out of His Hand." Jemima looked gratefully up at the kindly prophet who was trying to comfort her. " Law ! Mr. Bateson, that's a consolin' way of looking at things, and I only hope as you're right. But all the same, I'd have liked to have had a beau of my own just for onst, like other gells. I dessay it's very wicked o' me to feel like this, and it's enough to make the Lord angry with me ; but it don't seem to me as there's anything in religion that quite makes up for never havin' had a beau o' your own." " The Lord won't be angry with you, my lass ; don't you fear. He made women and He understands 'em, and He ain't the one to blame *em for being as He Himself made 'em. Remember the Book says, 'as one whom his mother comforteth ' ; and I hold that means as He understands women and their troubles better than the kindest father ever could. And He won't let His children give up things for His sake without paying them back some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold ; and don't you ever get thinking that He will." " As Jemima says, yours is a comfortable doctrine, Bateson, but I am afraid you have no real foundation for your consoling belief," exclaimed Alan Tremaine, coming up and interrupting the conversation. " Eh 1 but I have, sir, saving your presence ; I know in Whom I have believed ; and what a man has once known Mbit /Donba)? Ill for certain, he can never not know again as long as he lives." " But Christianity is a myth, a fable. You may imagine and pretend that it is true, but you cannot know that it is." " But I do know, sir, begging your pardon, as well as I know you are standing here and the sun is shining over yonder." Alan smiled rather scornfully : how credulous were the lower classes, he thought in his pride of intellectual superiority. " I do not understand how you can know a thing that has never been proved," he said. The giant turned and looked on his fragile frame with eyes full of a great pity. " You do not understand, you say, sir : that's just it ; and I am too foolish and ignorant to be able to explain things rightly to a gentleman like you ; but the Lord will explain it to you when He thinks fit. You are young yet, sir, and the way stretches long before you, and the mysteries of God are hidden from your eyes. But when you have loved and cherished a woman as your own flesh, and when you have had little children clinging round your knees, you'll understand rightly enough then without needing any man to teach you." "My good man, do you suppose a wife and children would teach me more than the collected wisdom of the ages ? " "A sight more, Mr. Tremaine — a sight more. Folks don't learn the best things from books, sir. Why, when the Lord Himself wrote the law on tables of stone, they got broken ; but when He writes it on the fleshly tables of our hearts, it lives for ever. And His Handwriting is the love we bear for our fellow-creatures, and — through them — for Him ; at least, so if jeems to me." "That is pure imagination and sentiment, Bateson. Very pretty and poetic, no doubt ; but it won't hold water." It I m r f issmsmm :fi ^ 113 Xlbe jfatringbons ii ' Li; Ii.! B,i Caleb smiled indulgently. " Wait till you've got a little lass of your own, like my Lucy Ellen, sir. Not that you'll ever have one quite as good as her, bless her ! for her equal never has been seen in this world, and never will. But when you've got a little lass of your own, and know as you'd be tortured to death quite cheerful-like just to save her a minute's pain, you'll laugh at all the nonsense that's written in books, and feel you know a sight better than all of 'em put together." " I don't quite see why." " Well, you see, sir, it's like this. When the dove came back to the ark with the olive leaf in her mouth, Noah didn't begin sayin' how wonderful it was for a leaf to have grown out of nothing all of a sudden, as some folks are so fond of saying. Not he ; he'd too much sense. He says to his sons, * Look here : a leaf here means a tree somewhere, and the sooner we make for that tree the better ! ' And so it is with us. When we feel that all at onst there's some- body that matters more to us than ourselves, we know that this wonderful feelin' hasn't sprung out of the selfishness that filled our hearts before, but is just a leaf off a great Tree which is a shadow and resting-place for the whole world." Tremaine looked thoughtful ; Caleb's childlike faith and extensive vocabulary were alike puzzles to him. He did not understand that in homes —however simple — where the Bible is studied until it becomes as household words, the children are accustomed to a ' well of English undefiled * ; and so, unconsciously, mould their style upon and borrow their expressions from the Book which, even when taken only from a literary standpoint, is the finest Book ever read by man. After a minute's silence he said : " I have been wondering whether it really is any pleasure to the poor to see the TKIlbtt /l^on^al? "3 homes of the rich, or whether it only makes them dissatisfied. Now, what do you think, Bateson ? " " Well, sir, if it makes 'em dissatisfied it didn't ought to." " Perhaps not. Still, I have a good deal of sympathy with socialism myself; and I know I «hould feel it very hard if I were poor, while other men, not a whit better and probably worse than myself, were rich." "And so it would be hard, sir, if this was the end of everything, and it was all haphazard, as it were; so hard that no sensible man could see it without going clean off his head altogether. But when you rightly understand as it's all the Master's doing, and that He knows what He's about a sight better than we could teach Him, it makes a wonderful difference. Whether we're rich or poor, happy or sorrowful, is His business and He can attend to that ; but whether we serve Him rightly in the place where He has put us, is our business, and it'll take us all our time to look after it without trying to do His work as well." Tremaine merely smiled, and Bateson went on, — " You see, sir, there's work in the world of all kinds for all sorts ; and whether they be lords and ladies, or just poor folks like we, they've got to do the work that the Lord has set them to do, and not to go hankering after each other's. Why, Mr. Tremaine, if at our place the puddlers wanted to do the work of the shinglers, and the shinglers wanted to do the work of the rollers, and the rollers wanted to do the work of the masters, the Osierfield wouldn't be for long the biggest ironworks in Mershire. Not it ! You have to use your common sense in religion as in everything else." " You think that religion is the only thing to make people contented and happy ? So do I j but I don't think that the religion to do this effectually is Christianity." 8 1 l ! ■(! :i i:: I'i » \^s Rt m 114 Ube f atrind^ons I " No more do I, sir ; that's where you make a mistake, begging your pardon; you go confusing principles with persons. It isn't my love for my wife that lights the fire and cooks the dinner and makes my little home like heaven to me — it's my wife herself ; it wasn't my children's faith in their daddy that fed 'em and clothed 'em when they were too little to work for themselves — it was me myself ; and it isn't the religion of Christ that keeps us straight in this world and makes us ready for the next — it is Christ Him- self." Thus the rich man and the poor man talked together, moving along parallel lines, neither understanding, and each looking down upon the other — Alan with the scornful pity of the scholar who has delved in the dust of dreary negatives which generations of doubters have gradually heaped up; and Caleb with the pitiful scorn of one who has been into the sanctuarv of God, and so learned to understand the end of these men. Late that night, when all the merrymakers had gone to their homes, Tremaine sat smoking in the moonlight on the terrace of the Moat House. " It is strange," he said to himself, " what a hold the Christian myth has taken upon the minds of the English people, and especially of the working classes. I can see how its pathos might appeal to those whose health was spoiled and whose physique was stunted by poverty and misery ; but it puzzles me to find a magnificent giant such as Bateson, a man too strong to have nerves and too healthy to have delusions, as thoroughly imbued with its traditions as any one. I fail to understand the secret of its power." At that very moment Caleb was closing the day, as was his custom, with family prayer, and his prayer ran thus, — "We beseech Thee, O Lord, look kindly upon the stranger who has this day shown such favour unto Thy Mbit mont>n^ 1,5 servants; pay back all that he has given us sevenfold into h^ bosom He is very young, Lord, and very ignorant and very fool.sh; his eyes are holden so that he cannot fr!l TH^'T'^?' ""^ '^^^ "'"^^' ^"' ^' ^' "«t very far from Thy Kingdom. Lead him, Heavenly Father, in the way that he should go; open his eyes that he may behold the hidden things of Thy Law; look upon him and love him, as Thou d.dst aforetime another young man who had great possessions. Lord, tell him that this earth is only Thy footstool ; show him that the beauty he sees all around him IS the hem of Thy garment; and teach him that the wisdom of this world is but foolishness with Thee. And this we beg, O Lord, for Christ's sake. Amen." Thus Caleb prayed, and Alan could not hear him, and could not have understood him even if he had heard. But there was One who heard, and understood. m r I ill < iU m I w^ ^^^mm CHAPTER VII BROADER VIEWS M He proved that Man is nothing more Than educated sod ; Forgetting that the schoolmen's lore Is foolishness with God. " THvO you know what I mean to do as soon as Cousin I J Maria will let me ? " Elisabeth asked of Chris- topher, as the two were walking together — as they walked not unfrequently — in Badgering Woods. " No ; please tell me." " I mean to go up to the Slade School, and study there, and learn to be a great artist." "It is sometimes a difificult lesson to learn to be great." *' Nevertheless, I mean to learn it." The possibility of failure never occurred to Elisabeth. " There is so much I want to teach the world, and I feel I can only do it through my pictures ; and I want to begin at once, for fear I shouldn't get it all in before I die. There is plenty of time, of course ; I'm only twenty-one now, so that gives me forty-nine years at the least; but forty-nine years will be none too much in which to teach the world all that I want to teach it." 3Broaber tDicw6 117 " And what time shall you reserve for learning all that the world has to teach you ? " " I ne 'er thought of that. I'm afraid I shan't have much time for leaining." " Then I am afraid you won't do much good by teaching." Elisabeth laughed in all the arrogance of youth. " Yes, I shall ; the things you teach best are the things you know, and not the things you have learnt." " I am not so sure of that." " Surely genius does greater things than culture.* " I grant you that culture without genius does no great things ; neither, I think, does genius without culture. Un- trained genius is a terrible waste of power. So many people seem to think that if they have a spark of genius they can do without culture ; while really it is because they have a spark of genius that they ought to be, and are worthy to be, cultivated to the highest point." "Well, anyway— culture or no culture— I mean to set the Thames on fire some day." "You do, do you? Well, it is a laudable and not uncommon ambition." " Yes, I do ; and you mustn't look so doubtful on the subject, as it isn't pretty manners." " Did I look doubtful ? I'm very sorry." " Horribly so. I know exactly what you will do, you are so shockingly matter-of-fact. First you will prove to a demonstration that it is utterly impossible for such an inferior being as a woman to set the Thames on fire at all. Then — when I've done it and London is illuminated — you will write to the papers to show that the * flash-point ' of the river is decidedly too low, or else such an unlooked-for catastrophe could never have occurred. Then you will get the Government to take the matter up, and to bring a charge of arson against the New Woman. And, finally, 1^ '■: •.3] I: i ■!?1!SM ii8 Ubc jfarrtnobons .,'•! you will have notices put up all along the banks from Goring to Greenwich, * Ladies are requested not to bring inflammatory articles near the river ; the right of setting the Thames on fire is now — as formerly — reserved specially for men.* And then you will try to set it on fiie yourself." "A most characteristic programme, I must confess. But now tell me ; when you have set your Thames on fire, and covered yourself with laurels, and generally turned the world upside down, sha'n't you extend to some humble and devoted beggarman the butt -end of your sceptre ? You might find it a little dull alone in your glory, as you are bjch a sociable person." " Well, if I do, of course I shall let some nice man share it with me." " I see. You will stoop from your solitary splendour and say to the devoted beggarman, * Allow me to offer you the post of King Consort ; it is a mere sinecure, and confers only the semblance and not the reality of power ; but I hope you will accept it, as I have nothing better to give you, and if you are submissive and obedient I will make you as comfortable as I can under the circumstances.* " " Good gracious ! I hope I am too wise ever to talk to a man in that way. No, no, Chris ; I shall find some nice man, who has seen through me all the time and who hasn't been taken in by me, as the world has ; and I shall say to him, * By the way, here is a small fire and a few laurel leaves ; please warm your hands at the one and wear the others in your button-hole.' That is the proper way in which a woman should treat fame — merely as a decoration for the man whom she has chosen." " O noble judge ! O excellent young woman ! " exclaimed Christopher. ' But what are some of the wonderful things which you are so anxious to teach ? " X5toa^et IDtewd 119 Elisabeth's mood changed at once, and her face grew serious. " I want to teach people that they were sent into the world to be happy, and not to be miserable ; and that there is no virtue in turning their backs to the sunshine and clioosing to v/alk in the shade. I want to teach people that the world is beautiful, and that it is only a superficial view which finds it common and unclean. I want to teach people that human nature is good and not evil, and that life is a glorious battlefield and not a sordid struggle. In short, I want to teach people the dignity of themselves ; and there is no grander lesson." " Except, perhaps, the unworthiness ot themselves," suggested Christopher. " No, no, Chris ; you are wrong to be so hard and cynical. Can't you understand how I am longing to help the men and women I see around me, who are dying for want of joy and beauty in their lives ? It is the old struggle between Hellenism and Hebraism — between happiness and righteous- ness. We are sorely in need, here in England to-day, of the Greek spirit of Pantheism, which found God in life and art and nature, as well as in sorrow and renunciation and death." " But it is in sorrow and renunciation and death that we need Him ; and you, who have always had everything you want, cannot understand this : no more could the Pagans and the Royalists ; but the early Christians and the persecuted Puritans could." " Puritanism has much to answer for in England," said Elisabeth ; ** we have to thank Puritanism for teaching men that only by hurting themselves can they please their Maker, and that God has given them tastes and hopes and desires merely in order to mortify the same. And it is all false — utterly false. The God of the Pagan is surely a more merciful Being than the God of the Puritan." f , I ; ^i:lil r. -TiT-n-iTTi'ri — I ' 120 XCbe f arr(na^ons " A more indulgent Being, perhaps, but not necessarily a more merciful one, Elisabeth. I disagree with the Puritans on many points, but I cannot help admitting that their conception of God was a fine one, even though it erred on the side of severity. The Pagan converted the Godhead into flesh, remember ; but the Puritan exalted manhood into God." " Still, I never could bear the Puritans," Elisabeth went on ; " they turned the England of Queen Elizabeth — the most glorious England the world has ever known — into one enormous Nonconformist Conscience ; and England has never been perfectly normal since. Besides, they dis- covered that nature, and art, and human affection, which are really revelations of God, were actually sins against Him. As I said before, I can never forgive the Puritans for eradicating the beauty from holiness, and for giving man the spirit of heaviness in place of the garment of praise." " I wonder if Paganism helped you much when you were poor and ill and unhappy, and things in general had gone wrong with you. I daresay it was very nice for the cheerful, prosperous people ; but how about those who had never got what they wanted out of life, and were never likely to get it?" Christopher, like other people, looked at most matters from his own individual standpoint ; and his own individual standpoint was not at all a comfortable spot just then. " The Greeks suffered and died as did the Jews and the Christians,'- replied Elisabeth, "yet they were a joyous and lighthearted race. It is not sorrow that saddens the world, but rather modern Christianity's idealization of sorrow. I do not believe we should be half as miserable as we are, if we did not believe that there is virtue in misery, and that by disowning our mercies and discarding our > I JSroaber IDiews 121 blessings we are currying favour in the eyes of the Being, Who, nevertheless, has showered those mercies and those blessings upon us." Thus had Alan Tremaine's influence gradually unmoored Elisabeth from the old faiths in which she had been brought up ; and he had done it so gradually that the girl was quite unconscious of how far she had drifted from her former anchorage. He was too well-bred ever to be blatant in his unbelief ; but subtly and with infinite tact he endeavoured to prove that to adapt ancient revelations to modern re- quirements was merely putting new wine into old bottles and mending old garments with new cloth ; and Elisabeth was as yet too young and inexperienced to see any fallacy in his carefully prepared arguments. She had nobody to help her to resist him, poor child : and she was dazzled with the consciousness of intellectual power which his attitude of mind appeared to take for granted. Miss Farringdon was cast in too stern a mould to have any sympathy or patience with the blind gropings of an undisciplined young soul ; and Christopher — who generally understood and sympathized with all Elisabeth's difficulties and phases — was so jealous of her obvious attachment to Tremaine, and so unhappy on account of it, that for the time being the faithful friend was entirely swallowed up in the irate lover, sighing like one of the Osierfield furnaces. Of course this was very unfair and tiresome of him — nobody could deny that ; but it is sometimes trying to the amiability of even the best of men to realize that the purely mundane and undeserved accident of lack of money can shut them off entirely from ever attaining to the best kind of happiness whereof their natures are capable — and especially when they know that their natures are capable of attain- ing and appreciating a very high standard of happiness indeed. It may not be right to be unsociable because :M 1 ■ ii i m '. ml 122 trbe jfatcingbond \ \i> one is unhappy, but it is very human and most particularly masculine ; and Christopher just then was both miserable and a man. There was much about Alan that was very attractive to Elisabeth : he possessed a certain subtlety of thought and an almost feminine quickness of perception which appealed powerfully to her imagination. Imagination was Elisabeth's weak, as well as her strong, point. She was incapable of seeing people as they really were ; but erected a purely imaginary edifice of character on the foundations of such attributes as her rapid intuition either rightly or wrongly perceived them to possess. As a rule, she thought better of her friends than they deserved — or, at any rate, she recognized in them that ideal which they were capable of attaining, but whereto they sometimes failed to attain. Life is apt to be a little hard on the women of Elisabeth's type, who idealize their fellows until the latter lose all semblance of reality ; for experience, with its inevitable disillusionment, cannot fail to put their ideal lovers "^nd friends far from them, and to hide their etherealized acquaintances out of their sight; and to give instead to the fond, trusting souls, half-hearted lovers, semi-sincere friends, and acquaintances who care for them only as the world can care. Poor imaginative women — who dreamed that you had found a perfect knight and a faithful friend, and then discovered that these were only an ordinary selfish man and woman after all — life has many more such surprises in store for you ; und the surprises will shock you less and hurt you more as the years roll on ! But though life will have its surprises for you, death perchance will have none ; for when the secrets of all hearts are opened, and all thwarted desires are made known, it may be that the ordinary selfish man and woman 3Btoa^cr IDtcwB 123 will stand forth as the perfect knight and faithful friend that God intended them, and you believed them, and they tried yet failed to be; and you will be satisfied at last when you see your beloved ones wake up after His likeness, and will smile as you say to them, "So it was really you after all." Although Tremaine might be lacking in his duty towards God, he fulfilled (in the spirit if not in the letter) his duty towards his neighbour ; and Elisabeth was fairly dazzled by his many schemes for making life easier and happier to the people who dwelt in the darkness of the Black Country. It was while he was thus figuring as her ideal hero, that Elisabeth went to stay with Felicia Herbert, near a manufacturing town in Yorkshire. Felicia had been once or twice to the Willows, and was well acquainted with the physical and biographical characteristics of the place ; and she cherished a profound admiration both for Miss Farringdon and Christopher Thornley. Tremaine she had never met — he had been abroad each time that she had visited Sedgehill — but she disapproved most heartily of his influence upon Elisabeth, and of his views as set forth by that young lady. Felicia had been brought up along extremely strict lines, and in a spirit of comfortable intolerance of all forms of religion not absolutely identical with her own ; consequently, a man with no form of religion at all was to her a very terrible monster indeed. On the Sundays of her early youth she had perused a story treating of an Unbeliever (always spelt with a capital U), and the punishments that were meted out to the daughter of light who was unequally yoked with him ; and she was imbued with a strong conviction that these same punishments were destined to fall upon Elisabeth's head, should Elisabeth incline favourably to the (at present) I I >j fr 1 'la 'I'll 1 ■1 1 124 Ube jfarrin^^on^ .ii ': ) 'I I hypothetical suit of the master of the Moat House. Thus it happened that when Elisabeth came to the Herberts', full of girlish admiration for Alan Tremaine, Felicia did her best to ripen that admiration into love by abusing Alan in and out of season, and by endeavouring to prove that an attachment to him would be a soul-destroyer of the most irreparable completeness. " It is no use talking to me about his goodness," she said ; " nobody is good who isn't a Christian." " But he is good," persisted Elisabeth — " most tremen- dously good. The poor people simply adore him, he does such a lot for them ; and he couldn't have lovelier thoughts and higher ideals if he were a girl instead of a man. There must be different ways of goodness, Felicia." " There are not different ways of goodness ; mamma says there are not, and it is very wicked to believe that there are. I am afraid you are not half as religious as you were at Fox How." " Yes, I am ; but I have learnt that true religion is a state of mind rather than a code of dogmas." Felicia looked uncomfortable. " I wish you wouldn't talk like that; I am sure mamma wouldn't like it — she cannot bear anything that borders on the profane." "I am not bordering on the profane; I am only saying what I uphold is true. I cannot take things for granted as you do ; I have to think them out for myself ; and I have come to the conclusion that what a man is is of far more importance than what a man believes." " But you ought not to think things like that, Elisabeth ; it isn't right to do so." " I can't help thinking it. I am an independent being with a mind of my own, and I must make up that mind according to what I see going on around me. What on earth is the good of having an intellect, if you submit that JSroaDer IDlews 125 intellect to the will of another? I wonder how you can take your ideas all ready-made from your mother," exclaimed Elisabeth, who just then was taking all hers ready-made from Alan Tremaine. " Well, I cannot argue. I am not clever enough ; and, besides, mamma doesn't like us to argue upon religious subjects — she says it is unsettling ; so I will only say that I know you are wrong, and then we will let the matter drop and talk about Christopher. How is he ? " " Oh, he is all right, only very horrid. To tell you the truth, I am beginning to dislike Christopher." " Elisabeth ! " Felicia's Madonna-like face became quite sorrowful. " Well, I am ; and so would you, if he was as stand-off to you as he is to me. I can't think what is wrong with him; but whatever I do, and however nice I try to be to him, the North Pole is warm and neighbourly compared with him. I'm sick of him and his unsociable ways ! " " But you and he used to be such friends." " I know that ; and I would be friends now if he would let me. But how can you be friends with a man who is as reserved as the Great Pyramid and as uncommunicative as the Sphinx, and who sticks up iron palings all round himself, like a specimen tree in the park, so that nobody can get near him ? If a man wants a girl to like him he should be nice to her, and not require an introduction every time they meet." Felicia sighed : her sweet, placid nature was apt to be overpowered by Elisabeth's rapid changes of front. "But he used to be so fond of you," she expostulated feebly. Elisabeth shrugged her shoulders. " Oh, I suppose he likes me r w, in his cold, self-satisfied way : it isn't that. i 'I •I n •? I 126 Ube jfarrtnfibons ' I lii n What I complain of is that he doesn't admire me enough, and I do so love to be admired." " Do you mean he doesn't think you are pretty ? " Felicia always had to have things fully explained to her ; excess of imagination could never lead her astray, whatever it might do to her friend." " Of course not ; I don't see how he could, considering that I'm not : women don't expect men to admire them for things that they don't possess," replied Elisabeth, who had still much to learn. " What I mean is he doesn't realize how clever I am — he despises me just as he used to despise me when I was a little girl and he was a big boy — and that is awfully riling when you know you are clever." " Is it ? I would much rather a man liked me than thought I was cle'er." " I wouldn't ; anybody can like you, but it takes a clever person to appreciate cleverness. I have studied myself thoroughly, and I have come to the conclusion that I need appreciation far more than affection : I'm made hke that." " I don't understand you. I'o me affection is everything, and I cannot live without it. If people are really fond of me, they can think me as stupid as they like." Elisabeth's face grew thoughtful; she was always interested in the analysis of herself and her friends. " How different we two are ! I couldn't forgive a person for thinking me stupid, even if I knew that person adored me. To me no amount of affection would make up for the lack of apprecia- tion. I want to be understood as well as liked, and that is where Christopher and I come across each other; he never understands me in the least. Now that is why Mr. Tremaine and I get on so well together ; he understands and appreciates me so thoroughly." Felicia's pretty mouth fell into stern lines of dis- ,1 i JBroaDet IDiews 127 approval. " I am sure I should hate Mr. Tremaine if I knew him," she said. " Oh ! no, you wouldn't — you simply couldn't, Felicia, he is so delightful. And, what is more, he is so frightfully interesting : whatever he says and does, he always makes you think about him. Now, however fond you were of Chris — and he really is very good and kind in some ways — you could never think about him; it would be such dreadfully uninteresting thinking, if you did." " I don't know about that ; Christopher is very comfort- able and homelike, somehow," replied Felicia. "So are rice-puddings and flannel petticoats, but you don't occupy your most exalted moments in meditating upon them." " Do you know, Elisabeth, I sometimes think that Christopher is in love with you." Unlike Elisabeth, Felicia never saw what did not exist, and therefore was able sometimes to perceive what did. " Good gracious, what an idea ! He'd simply roar with laughter at the mere thought of such a thing ! Why, Christopher isn't capable of falling in love with any- body ; he hasn't got it in him, he is so frightfully matter- of-fact." Felicia looked dubious. " Then don't you think he will aver marry ? " " Oh ! yes, he'll marry fast enough — a sweet, domestic woman, who plays the piano and does crochet-work ; and he will talk to her about the price of iron and the integrity of the empire, and will think that he is making love, and she will think so too. And they will both of them go down to their graves without ever finding out that the life is more than meat or the body than raiment." Elisabeth was very hard on Christopher just then, and nothing that Felicia could say succeeded in softening her. il, J m m ,i > 128 Ube farring^ons Women are apt to be hard when they are quite young — and sometimes even later. Felicia Herbert was the eldest of a large family. Her parents, though well-to-do, were not rich ; and it was the dream of Mrs. Herbert's life that her daughter's beauty should bring about a great match. She was a good woman according to her lights, and a most excellent wife and mother ; but if she had a weakness — and who (except, of course, oneself) is without one ? — that weakness was social ambition. " You will understand, my dear," she said confidentially to Elisabeth, " that it would be the greatest comfort to Mr. Herbert and myself to see Felicia married to a God- fearing man ; and, of course, if he kept his own carriage as well, we should be all the better satisfied." " I don't think that money really makes people happy," replied Elisabeth, strong in the unworldliness of those who have never known what it is to do without anything that money can buy. " Of course not, my dear — of course not ; nothing but religion can bring true happiness. Whenever I am tempted to be anxious about my children's future, I always check myself by saying, * The Lord will provide ' ; though I cannot sometimes help hoping that the provision will be an ample one as far as Felicia is concerned, because she is so extremely nice-looking." *' She is perfectly lovely ! " exclaimed Elisabeth enthu- siastically ; "and she gets lovelier and lovelier every time I see her. If I were to change places with all the rich men in the world, I should never do anything but keep on marrying Felicia." " Still, she could only marry one of you, my dear. But, between ourselves, I just want to ask you a few questions about a Mr. Thornley whom Felicia met at your house. I fancied she was a wee bit interested in him." 3Broat)cr IDlewe 129 i " Interested in Chris ! Oh ! she couldn't possibly be. No girl could be interested in Christopher in that way." " Why not, my dear ? Is he so unusually plain ? " " Oh ! no ; he is very good-looking ; but he has a good head for figures and a poor eye for faces. In short, he is a sensible man, and girls don't fall in love with sensible men." " I think you are mistaken there ; I do indeed. I have known many instances of women becoming sincerely attached to sensible men." *' You don't know how overpcweringly sensible Chris- topher IS. He IS so wise that he never makes a joke unless it has some pomt in it." " There is no harm in that, my dear. I never see the point of a joke myself, I admit ; but I like to know that there is one." " And when he goes for a walk with a girl, he never talks nonsense to her," continued Elisabeth, " but treats her exactly as if she were his maiden aunt." " But why should he talk nonsense to her ? It is a great waste of time to talk nonsense ; I am not sure that it is not even a sin. Is Mr. Thornley well off? " " No. His uncle, Mr. Smallwood, is the general manager of our works ; and Christopher has only his salary as sub- manager, and what his uncle may leave him. His mother was Mr. Smallwood's sister, and married a ne'er-do-weel who left her penniless ; at least, that is to say, if he ever had a mother — which I sometimes doubt, as he understands women so little." " Still, I think we can take that for granted," said Mrs. Herbert, smiling with pride at having seen Elisabeth's little joke, and feeling quite a wit herself in consequence. One of the secrets of Elisabeth's popularity was that she had a knack of impressing the people with whom she talked, ill i i3 r^ 1^0 XLbc f arrin^^on^ ■|:, X, not so much with a sense of her cleverness as with a sense of their own. She not only talked well herself, she made other people talk well also — a far more ex- cellent gift. " So," she went on, " if his uncle hadn't adopted him, I suppose Chris would have starved to death when he was a child ; and that would have been extremely unpleasant for him, poor boy ! " " Ah ! that would have been terrible, my dear I " ex- claimed Mrs. Herbert, so full of pity for Christopher that she was willing to give him anything short of her firstborn. She was really a kind-hearted woman. Elisabeth looked out of the window at the group of stunted shrubs with black-edged leaves, which entitled Felicia's home to be called Wood Glen. "There is one thing to be said in favour of starvation," she said solemnly, " it would keep one from getting stout, and stoutness is the cruellest curse of all. I'd rather be dead than stout any day." " My dear child, you are talking nonsense. What would be the advantage of being thin if you were not alive ? " " When you come to that, what would be the advantage of being alive if you weren't thin ? " retorted Elisabeth. "The two cases are not parallcJ, my dear; you see you couldn't be thin without being alive, but you could be alive without being thin." " It is possible ; I have come across such cases myself, but I devoutly trust mine may never be one of them. As the hymn says, I shall always be 'content to fill a little space.'" " Ah ! but I think the hymn doesn't mean it quite in that sense. I believe the hymn refers rather to the greatness of one's attainments and possessions than to one's personal bulk." I ■ ,1 !, I " 3Broa^er IDicws 131 Elisabeth opened her eyes wide with an expression of childlike simplicity. " Do you really think so ? " " I do, my dear. You know one must not take poetry too literally ; verse writers are allowed what is termed 'poetic license,* and are rarely, if ever, quite accurate in their state- ments. I suppose it would be too difficult for anybody to get both the truth and the rhyme to fit in, and so the truth has to be somewhat adapted. But about Mr. Thornley, my love ; you don't think that he and Felicia are at all interested in one another ? " " Good gracious, no ! I'm sure they are not. It they had been, I should have spotted it and talked about it ages ago." " I hope you are not given to talk about such things, even if you do perceive them," said Mrs. Herbert, with reproof in her tone ; " talking scandal is a sad habit." " But it isn't scandal to say that a man is in love with a woman — in fact, it is the very opposite. It is much worse scandal never to talk about a woman in that way, because that means that you think she is either too old or too ugly to have a lover, and that is the worst scandal of all. I always feel immensely tickled when I hear women pluming themselves on the fact that they never are talked about ; and I long to say to them, * There is nothing to be proud of in that, my dears; it only means that the world is tacitly calling you stupid old frights.' Why, I'd rather people found fault with me than did not talk about me at all." " Then I am afraid you are not * content to fill a little space,' " said Mrs. Herbert severely. "To tell you the truth I don't think I am," replied Elisabeth, with engaging frankness ; "conceit is my besetting sin and I know it. Not stately, scornful, dignified pride, but downright, inflated, perky, pufifed-up conceit. I have u in ■■S i J vm- 132 Ubc jfarrtna^ons 1 '* L. (■: often remarked upon it to Christopher, and he has alvvays agreed with me." " But, my dear, the consciousness of a fault is surely one step towards its cure." '* Not it," replied Elisabeth, shaking her head ; " I've always known I am conceited, yet I get conceiteder and conceiteder every year. Bless you ! I don't want to * fill a little space,' and I particularly don't want * a heart at leisure from itself; I think that is such a dull, old-maidish sort of thing to have — I wouldn't have one for anything. People who have hearts at leisure from themselves always want to understudy Providence, you will notice." Mrs. Herbert looked shocked. " My dear, what do you mean ? " " I mean that really good people, who have no interests of their own, are too fond of playing the part of Providence to other people. That their motives are excellent I admit ; they are not a bit selhsh, and they interfere with you for your own good ; but tb jy successfully accomplish as much incurable mischief in half an hour, as it would take half a dozen professional mischief-makers at least a year to finish off satisfactorily. If they cannot mind their own business it doesn't follow that Providence can't either, don't you see ? » Whereupon Felicia entered the room, and the conversation w&. abruptly closed ; but not before Mrs. Herbert had decided that if Providence had selected her daughter as the consoler of Ch-istopher's sorrows. Providence must be gently and patiently reasoned with until another and more su' able comforter was substituted. She did not, of course, put the matter to herself thus barely ; but this was what her decision practically amounted to. But although people might not be talking, as Mrs. Herbert imagined, about Christopher and Felicia, the ill 1 i. ! J5roa^cr IDiews ^33 tongues of Sedgehiil were all agog on the subject of the evident attachment between Elisabeth Farringdon and the master of the Moat House. " I'm afeared as our Miss Elisabeth is keeping company with that Mr. Tremaine ; I am indeed," Mrs. Bateson confided to her crony, Mrs. Hankey. Mrs. Hankey, as was her wont, groaned both in spirit and in person. " So I've heard tell, more's the pity ! Miss Elisabeth is no favourite of mine, as you know, being so dark-complexioned as a child, and I never could abide dark babies. I haven't much to be thankful for, I'm sure, for the Lord has tried me sore, giving me Hankey as a husband, and such a poor appetite as I never enjoy a meal from one year's end to another ; but one thing I can boast of, and that is my babies were all fair, with as clear a skin as you could want to see. Still, I don't wish the young lady no harm, it not being Christian to do so ; and it is sad at her age to be tied to a husband from which there is no outlet but the grave." " I don't hold with you there, Mrs. Hankey ; it is dull work for the women who have nobody to order 'em about and find fault with 'en». Why, where's the good of taking the trouble to do a thing well, if there's no man to blame you for it afterwards ? But what I want to see is Miss Elisabeth married to Master Christopher, them two being made for one another, as you might say." " He has a new heart and a nice fresh colour, has Master Christopher ; which is more than his own mother — supposing she was alive — could say for Mr. Tremaine." " That is so, Mrs. Hankey. I'm afeared there 'sn't much religion about him. He don't even go to church on a Sunday, let alone chapel ; though he is wonderful charitable to the poor, I must admit." I .i 1 :i li!: m m r?^ 134 Ubc jfatrinaDons 1; . Mrs. Hankey pursed up her mouth. " And what are works without faith, I should like to know ! " " Quite true — quite true ; but maybe the Lord ain't quite as hard on us as we are on one another, and makes allow- ances for our bringing-up and such." " Maybe," replied Mrs. Hankey, in a tone which implied that she hoped her friend was mistaken. " You see," continued Mrs. Bateson, " there's nothing helps you to understand the ways of the Lord like having children of your own. Why, afore I was married, I was for whipping every child that was contrairy till it got good again ; but after my Lucy Ellen 'vas born, I found that her contrairiness made me sorry for her instead of angry with her, and I knowed as the poor little thing was feeling poorly or else she'd never have been like that. So instead of punishing her, I just comtorted her ; and the more contradictious she got, the more I knowed as she wanted comfort. And I don't doubt but the Lord knows that the more we kick against Him the more we need Him ; and that He makes allowance accordingly." " You seem to have comfortable thoughts about things ; I only hope as you are not encouraging false hopes and crying peace where there is no peace," remarked Mrs. Hankey severely. But Mrs. Bateson was not affrighted. " Don't you know how ashamed you feel when folks think better of you than you deserve? I remember years ago, when Caleb came a-courting me, I was minded once to throw him over, because he was full solemn to take a young maid's fancy. And when I was debating within myself whether I'd throw linn ovei or no, he says to me, ' Kezia, my lass,' he says, • I'm not afeared as ye'll give me the slip, for all your saucy ways : olhei folks may think you're a bit flirty, but 1 know you better than they do, and I trust you with all m J5roa^er IDicws 135 my heart.' Do you think I could have disappointed him after that, Mrs. Hankey ? Not for the whole world. But I was that ashamed as never was, for even having thought of such a thing. And if we poor sinful souls feel like that, do you think the Lord is the One to disappoint folks for thinking better of Him than He deserves ? Not He, Mrs. Hankey ; I know Him better than that." " I only wish I could see things in such a cheerful light as you do." " It was only after my first baby was born that I began to understand the Lord's ways a bit. It's wonderful how caring for other folks seems to bring you nearer to Him — nearer even than class meetings and special services, though I wouldn't for the world say a word against the means of grace." This doctrine was too high for Mrs. Hankey ; she could not attain to it, so she wisely took refuge in a side issue. " It was fortunate for you your eldest being a girl ; if the Lord had thought fit to give me ?. daughter instead of three sons, things might have been jetter with me," she said, contentedly moving the burden of personal responsibility from her own shoulders to her Maker's. " Don't say that, Mrs. Hankey. Daughters may be more useful in the house, I must confess, and less mischievous all round ; but they can't work as hard for their living as the sons can, when you ain't there to look after them." " You don't Know what it is to live in a house full of nothing but men, with not a soul to speak to about all the queer tricks they're at ; many a time I feel like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island among a lot of savages." "And I don't blame you," agreed Mrs. IJateson sym- pathetically ; " for my part I don't know what I should have done when Caleb and the boys were troublesome if I couldn't have passed remarks on their behaviour to Lucy "I I m mi. ^ i \A ill 136 XTbe f atrtn^^on9 Ellen ; I missed her something terrible when first she was married for that simple reason. You see, it takes another woman to understand how queer a man is." " It does, Mrs. Bateson ; you never spoke a truer word. And then think what it must be on your death-bed to have the room full of stupid men, tumbling over one another and upsetting the medicine-bottles and putting everything in its wrong place. Many a time have I wished for a daughter, if it was but to close my eyes ; but the Lord has seen fit to withhold His blessings from me, and it is not for me to complain : His ways not being as our ways, but often quite the reverse." " That is so ; and I wish as He'd seen fit to mate Miss Elisabeth with Master Christopher, instead of letting her keep company with that Mr. Tremaine." Mrs. Hankey shook her head ominously. " Mr. Tremaine is one that has religious doubts." " Ah ! that's liver," said Mrs. Bateson, her voice softening with pity ; " that comes from eating French kickshaws, and having no mother to see that he takes a dose of soda and nitre now and then to keep his system cool. Poor young man ! " " I hear as he goes so far as to deny the existence of a God," continued Mrs. Hankey. " All liver ! " repeated Mrs. Bateson ; " it often takes men like that ; when they begin to doubt the inspiration of the Scriptures you know they will be all che better for a dose of dandelion tea ; but when they go on to deny the existence of a God, there's nothing for it but camomile. And I don't believe as the Lord takes their doubts any more seriously than their wives take 'em. He knows as well as we do that the poor things need pity more than blame, and dosing more than converting ; for He gave 'em their livers, and we only have to bear with them and \ 3Broa&er Diews 137 return thanks to Him for having made ours of a different pattern." " And what do the women as have doubts need, I should like to know ? " " A husband and children is the best cure for them. Why, when a woman has a husband and children to look after, and washes at home, she has no time, bless you ! to be teaching the Lord His business ; she has enough to do minding her own." hi 'I i J mu I ii CHAPTER VIII GREATER THAN OUR HEARTS The world is weary of new tracks of thought That lead to nought — Sick of quack remedies prescribed in vain For mortal pain : \Gt Still above them all one Figure stands With outstretched Hands. COUSIN Maria, do you like Alan Tremaine?" asked Elisabeth, not long after her return from Yorkshire. " Like him, my dear? I neither like nor dislike persons with whom I have as little in common as I have with Mr. Tremaine. But he strikes me as a young man of parts, and his manners are admirable." " I wasn't thinking about his manners, I was thinking about his views," said the girl, walking across the room and looking through the window at the valley smiling in the light of the summer morning; "don't you think they are very broad and enlightened ? " "I daresay they are. Young persons of superior mtelligence are frequently dazzled by their own brilliance at first, and consider that they were sent into the world specially to confute the law and the prophets. As they grow older hey learn better. Elisabeth began playing with the blind-cord. " I think he is awfully clever," she remarked. 138 1 Oreater Uban ^ur l^eartd 139 (« My dear, how often must I beg you not to use that word awfully y except in its correct sense ? Remember that we hold the English tongue in trust — it belongs to the nation and not to us — and we have no more right to profane England's language by the introduction of coined words and slang expressions, than we have to disendow her institutions or to pollute her rivers." " All right ; I'll try not to forget again. But you really do think Alan is clever, don't you ? " " He is undoubtedly intelligent, and possesses the knack of appearing even more intelligent than he is ; but at present he has not learned his own limitations." "You mean that he isn't clever enough to know that he isn't cleverer," suggested Elisabeth. '* Well, my dear, I should never have put it in that way, but that approximately expresses my ideas about our young friend." " And he is aw — I mean frightfully well off." Miss Farringdon looked sternly at the speaker. " Never again let me hear you refer to the income of persons about whom you are speaking, Elisabeth j it is a form of ill- breeding which I cannot for a moment tolerate in my house. That money is a convenience to the possessor of it, I do not attempt to deny ; but that the presence or the absence of it should be counted as a matter of any moment (except to the man himself), presupposes a standpoint of such vulgari'.y that it is impossible for me to discuss it. And even the man himself should never talk about it ; he should merely silently recognize the fact, and regulate his plan of life accordingly." " Still, I have heard quite nice people sometimes say that they cannot afford things," argued Elisabeth. " I do not deny that ; even quite nice people make mistakes sometimes, and well-mannered persons are not u ■A n t 'i !!.: j ' f< 140 Ube jfartiu^^on6 invariably well-mannered. Your quite nice people would have been still nicer had they realized that to talk about one's poverty — though not so bad as talking about one's wealth — is only one degree better ; and that perfect gentle- people would refer neither to the one nor to the other." " I see." Elisabeth's tone was subdued. " I once knew a woman," continued Miss Farringdon, " who, by that accident of wealth, which is of no interest to anybody but the possessor, was enabled to keep a butler and two footmen; but in speaking of her household to a friend, who was less richly endowed with worldly goods than herself, she referred to these three functionaries as 'my parloHrmaid,' for fear of appearing to be conscious of her own superiority in this respect. Now this woman, though kind-hearted, was distinctly vulgar." " But you have always taught me that it is good manners to keep out of sight any point on which you have the advantage over the people you are talking to," Elisabeth persisted. " You have told me hundreds of times that I must never show off my knowledge after other people have displayed their ignorance ; and that I must not even be obtrusively polite after they huve been obviously rude. Those are your very words. Cousin Maria : you see I can give chapter and verse." " And I meant what I said, my dear. Wider knowledge and higher breeding are signs of actual superiority, and therefore should never be flaunted. The vulgarity in the woman I am speaking about lay in imagining that there is any superiority in having more money than another person : there is not. To hide the difference proved that she thought there was a difference, and this proved that her standpoint was an essentially plebeian one. There was no difference at all, save one of convenience ; the same sort of difference there is between people who have hot water laid on all over ,; iMi Greater Uban 0ur IbcavtB 141 their houses and those who have to carry it upstairs. And who would be so trivial and commonplace as to talk about that?" Elisabeth, seeing that her cousin was in the right, wisely changed the subject. "The Bishop of Merchester is preaching at S. Peter's Church, in Silverhampton, on S. Peter's Day, and I have asked Alan Tremaine to drive me over in his dog-cart to hear him." Although she had strayed from the old paths of dogma and doctrine, Elisabeth could not eradicate the inborn Methodist nature which hungers and thirsts after righteousness as set forth in sermons. "I should like to hear him too, my dear," said Miss Farringdon, who also had been born a Methodist. " Then will you come ? In that case we can have our own carriage, and I needn't bother Alan," said Elisabeth, with disappointment written in capital letters all over her expressive face. "On which day is it, and at what hour ? " "To-morrow evening at half-past six," replied the girl, knowing that this was the hour of the evening sacrifice at East Lane Chapel, and trusting to the power of habit and early association to avert the addition of that third which would render two no longer any company for each other. Her trust was not misplaced. " It is our week-evening service, my dear, with the prayer-meeting after. Did you forget ? " Elisabeth endeavoured to simulate the sudden awakening of a dormant memory. " So it is ! " " I see no reason why you should not go into Silverhamp- ton to hear the Bishop," said Miss Farringdon kindly. " I like young people to learn the faith once delivered to the saints, from all sorts and conditions of teachers ; but I shall feel it my duty to be in my accustomed place." 4 m m w 'il •:| ;1 ; * HI If i )i 142 Ube jfarring^otls Hi: So it came to pass, one never-to-be-forgotten summer afternoon, that Alan Tremaine drove Elisabeth Farringdon into Silverhampton to hear the Bishop of Merchester preach. As soon as she was safely tucked up in the dog-cart, with no way of escape, Elisabeth saw a look in Alan's eyes which told her that he meant to make love to her ; so with that old, old feminine instinct, which made the prehistoric woman take to her heels when the prehistoric man began to run after her, this daughter of the nineteenth century took refuge in an armour of flippancy, which is the best shield yet invented for resisting Cupid's darts. It was a glorious afternoon — one of those afternoons which advertize to all the world how excellent was the lotus-eaters' method of dividing time ; and although the woods had exchanged the fresh variety of spring for the dark green sameness of summer, the fields were gay with haymakers, and the world still seemed full of joyous and abundant life. " Let's go the country way," Elisabeth had said at starting ; " and then we can come back by the town." So the two drove by Badgering Woods, and across the wide com- mon ; and as they went they saw and feli that the world was very good. Elisabeth was highly sensitive to the influences of nature, and, left to herself, wo'ild have leaned towards sentiment on such an afternoon as this; but she had seen that look in Alan's eyes, and that was enough for her. "Do you know," began Tremaine, getting to work, "that I have been doing nothing lately but thinking about you ? And I have come to the conclusion that what appeals so much to me is your strength. The sweetness which attracts some men has no charm for me ; I am one of the men who above all things admire and reverence a ^'1 : Greater XLbait ^ur f^earts 143 strong woman, though I know that the sweet and clinging woman is to some the ideal of feminine perfection. But different men, of course, admire different types." "Exactly; there is a Latin proverb, something about tots and sentences, which embodies that idea," suggested Elisabeth, with a nervous, girlish laugh. Alan did not smile ; he made it a rule never to encourage flippancy in women. " It is hardly kind of you to laugh at me when I am speaking seriously," he said, " and it would serve you right if I turned my horse's head round and refused to let you hear your Bishop. But I will not punish you this time ; I will heap coals of fire on your head by driving on." " Oh ! don't begin heaping coals of fire on people's head, Mr. Tremaine ; it is a dangerous habit, and those who indulge in it always get their fingers burnt in the end — ^just as they do when they play with edged tools, or do something (I forget what) with their own petard." There was a moment's silence, and then Alan said, — " It makes me very unhappy when you are in a mood like this ; I do not understand it, and it seems to raise up an impassable barrier between us." " Please don't be unhappy about a little thing like that ; wait till you break a front tooth, or lose your collar-stud, or have some other real trouble to cry over. But now you are making a trouble out of nothing, and I have no patience with people who make troubles out of nothing ; it seems to me like getting one's boots spoiled by a watering-cart when it is dry weather ; and that is a thing which makes me most frightfully angry." " Do many things make you angry, I wonder ? " " Some things and some people." " Tell me what sort of people make a woman of your type angry." ii 1 '■: ;i H rfe m 144 Xlbe f ardngDond Elisabeth fell into the trap ; she could never resist the opportunity of discussing herself from an outside point of view. If Alan had said you^ she would have snubbed him at once ; but the well-chosen words, a woman of your type, completely carried hei away. She was not an egotist ; she was only intensely mterested in herself as the single specimen of humanity which she was able to study exhaustively. " I think the people who make me angry are the un- responsive people,", she replied thoughtfully ; " the people who do not put their mmds into the same key as mine when I am talking to them. Don't you know the sort? When you discuss a thing from one standpoint they persist in discussing it from another ; and as soon as you try to see it from their point of view, they fly off to a third. It isn't so much that they differ from you — that you would not mind ; there is a certain harmony in difference which is more effective than Its unison of perfect agreement — but they sing the same tune in another key, and the discords are excruciating. Then the people who argue make me angry ; those who argue about trifles, 1 mean." " Ah ! All you women are alike in that ; you love dis- cussion, and hate argument. The cause of which is that you decide things by instinct rather than by reason, and that therefore — although you know you are right — you cannot possibly prove it." "Then," Elisabeth continued, "I get very angry with the people who will bother about non-essentials ; who, when you have got hold of the vital centre of a question, stray off to side issues. They are first-cousins of the people who talk in different keys." " I should have said they were the same." "Well, perhaps they are; I believe you are right. Christopher Thornley is one of that sort; when you are I Greater ZTbau Our 'IFDcarts ^45 discussing one side of a thing witli him, you'll find him playing bo-peep with you round the other ; and you never can get him into the right mood at the right time. He makes me simply furious sometimes. Do you know, I think if I were a dog I should often bite Christopher ? He makes me angry in a biting kind of way." Alan smiled faiiitly at this ; jokes at Christopher's expense were naturally more humorous than jokes at his own. "And what other sorts of people make you angry ? " he asked. " I'm afraid the people who make me angriest of all are the people who won't do what I tell them. They really madden me." And Elisabeth beg.in to laiigli. " I've got a horribly strong will, you see, and if people go against it, I want them to be sent to the dentist's every morning, and to the phot'.graphtr's every afternoon, for the rest of their lives. Now Christopher is one of the worst of those ; I can't make him do what I want just because I want it; he always wishes to know why I want it, and that is so silly and tiresome of him, because nine times out of ten I don't know myself." " Very trying ! " " Christopher certainly has the knack of making me angrier than nnybody else I ever met," said Elisabeth thoughtfully. "I v. onder why it is ? I suppose it must be because I have known him for so long. I can't see any other reason. I am generally such an easy-going, good-tempered girl ; but when Christopher begins to argue and dictate and contradict, the Furies simply aren't in it with me." " The excellent Thornley certainly has his limitations." Elisabeth's eyes flashed. She did not mind finding fault with Christopher herself ; in fact, she found such fault- finding absolutely necessary to her well-being ; but she 10 m hi m 146 '3:be ifartino^ons ^ii! \ resented any attempt on the part of another to usurp this, her peculiar prerogative. " lie is very good, all the same," she said, " and extremely clever ; and he is my greatest friend." But Alan was bored by Christopher as a subject of conversation, so he changed him for Elisabeth's self ** How loyal you are ! " he exclaimed with admiration ; "it is indeed a patent of nobility to be counted among your friends." The girl, having just been guilty of disloyalty, was naturally delighted at this compliment. "You always understand and appreciate me," she said gratefully, un- conscious of the fact that it was Alan's lack of under- standing and appreciation which had aroused her gratituJe just then. Perfect comprehension — untempered by perfect love — would be a terrible thing ; mercifully for us poor mortals it does not exist. Alan went on : " Lecause I possess this patent of nobility, 1 am going to presume upon my privileges and ask you to help me in my life-work; and my life-work, as you know, is to ameliorate the condition of the poor, and to carry to some extent the burdens which they are bound to bear." Elisabeth looked up at him, her ^ce full of interest ; no appeal to her pity was ever made in vain. If people expected her to admire them, they were frequently dis- appointed ; if they wished her to fear them, their wish was absolutely denied ; but if they only wanted her to be sorry for thcn\ they were abundantly satisfied, sympathy being the keynote of her character She was too fastidious often to admiie ; she was too strong ever to fear ; but her tenderness was unfailing towards those who had once appealed to her pily, and whose weakness had for once allowed itself to rest upon her strength. Therefore Alan's Orcatcc Xlban ®uu IfDcarts 147 desire to help the poor and to make them happier, struck the dominant chord in her nature ; but unfortunately when she raised her eyes, full of sympathetic sympathy, to his, she encountered that look in the latter which had frightened her at the beginning of the excursion ; so she again clothed herself in her garment of flippancy, and hardened her heart as the nether millstone. In blissful unconsciousness Alan continued, — " Society is just now passing through a transition stage. The interests of capital and labour are at war with each other ; the rich and the poor are as two armies made ready for battle, and the question is, what can we do to bridge over the gulf between the classes, and to induce them each to work for, instead of against, the other? It is these transition stages which have proved the most difficult epochs in the world's history." " I hate transition stages and revolutions, they are so unsettling. It seems to me they are just like the day when your room is cleaned ; and that is the most un- comfortable day in the whole week. Don't you know it? You go upstairs in the accustomed way, fearing nothing ; but when you open the door you find the air dark with dust and the floor with tea-leaves, and nothing looking as it ought to look. Prone on its face on the bed, covered with a windin"d grew into a true wcnan-a woman with no sir,allness or eatrne^s tn her nature, but with certain feminine we kn ses wlr,ch made her all the more lovable to those peoolethn .m er.ood her and all the more incongruous I'd r' a to those who d,d not. Christopher, too, rested in an oasis of h PPjness just then. He was an adept in the study of E^-abeth and he knew perfectly well' what had Jed ^le h d kept l„m cou,pletely in the dark on the subiect But (,lu,s.„p,,cr was always ready to dance to E.is"b ht mn., except when it happened to be on red-hou'on i:rrau,r if'i'^'^i:,^ °"^' '- ^"^■^■■- -^ ^' -- '-V Christopher Thornley was one of those people whose ■lit' fclicia 3fiu^s Hxippinesa 157 temperament and surroundings are at war with each other. Such people are not few in this world, though they them- selves are fiec^ucntly quite unaware of the fiict ; nevertheless, there is always an element of tragedy in their lot. By nature he was romantic and passionate and chivalrous, en- dowed with an enthusiastic admiration for beauty and an ardent longing for all forms of joyousness ; and he had been trained in a school of thought where all merely human joys and attractions are counted as unimportant if not sinful, and where wisdom and righteousness are held to be the two only ends of life. Perhaps in a former existence -or in the person of some remote ancestor — Christopher had been a knightly and devoted cavalier, ready to lay down his life for Church and king, and in the meantime spending his days in writing odes to his mistress' eyebrow ; and now he had been born into a strict Puritan atmosphere, where principles rather than persons commanded men's loyalty, and where romance was held to be a temptation of the flush if not a snare of the devil. He possessed a great capacity for happiness, and for enjoyment of all kinds ; consequently the dull routine of business was more distasteful to him than to a man of coarser fibre and less fastidious tastes. Christopher was one of the people who are specially fitted by nature to ap[)reciate to the full all the refinements and acces.sories of wealth and culture; therefore his position at the Osicrfield was more trying to him than it would have been to nine men out of every ten. When spring returned, Alan Tremaine came with it to the Moat House ; and at the same time Felicia Herbert arrived on a visit to the Willows. Alan had enough of the woman in his nature to decide that — Elisabeth not being meant for him — Elisabetli was not worth the having ; but, although she had not filled his life so completely as to make it unendurable without her, she i^ m "' -1 :i it m '. :i| 158 Zbc dfacriuat)ons 1 -i, 1 i t 'f ! 1 ■: 1 i- *♦' had occupied his thoughts sufficiently to make feminine society and sympathy thenceforth a necessity of his being. So it came to pass that when he met Felicia and saw that she was fair, he straightway elected her to the office which Elisabeth had created and then declined to fill ; and because human nature — and especially young human nature — is stronger even than early training or old associations, Felicia fell in love with him in return, in spite of (possibly because of) her former violent prejudice against him. To expect a person to be a monster and then to find he is a man, has very much the same effect as expecting a person to be a man and finding him a fair^ prince ; we accord him our admiration for being so much better than our fancy painted him, and we crave his forgiveness for having allowed it to paint him in such false colours. Then we long to make some reparation to him for our unjust judgment ; and — if v,e happen to be women — this reparation frequently takes tiie form of ordering his dinner for the rest of his dining days, and of giving him the right to ;;'ay our dressmakers' hi\h until such time as we cease to be trouljied with them. Consequently that particular year the spring seemed to have come specially for the benefit of Alan and Felicia. For them the woods were carpeted with daffodils, and the meadows were decked in living green ; for them the mountains and hills broke forth into singing and the trees of the field clapped their hands. IMost men and women have known one spring-time such as this in their livci, whereof all the other spring-times were but images and types ; and, maybe, even that one spring-time was bui an image and a type of the great New Year's Day which shall be Time's to-morrow. P>ut while these two were wandering together in fairyland, ElisabcM-!. felt distinctly left out in the cold. Felicia was her friend — Alau had been her lover ; and now they had drifted jfcUcla jfliiDs 1l3appiuc93 159 off into a strange new country, and had shut the door in her face. There was no place for her in this fairyland of theirs ; they did not want her any longer ; and although she was too large-hearted for petty jealousies, she could not stifle that pang of soreness with which most of us are acquainted, when our fellow-travellers slip off by pairs into Eden, and leave us to walk alone upon the dusty highway. Elisabeth could no more help flirting than some people can help stammering. It was a pity, no doubt ; but it would have been absurd to blame hjr for it. She had not the slightest intention of breaking anybody's heart ; she did not take herself seriously enough to imagine such a contingency possible ; but the desire to charm was so strong within her tnat she could not resist it ; and she took as much trouble to win the admiration of women as of men. Therefore, Alan and Felicia having done with her, for the time being, she turned her attention to Christopher ; and although he fully comprehended the cause, he none the less enjoyed the effect. He cherished no illusions concerning Elisabeth, for the which he was perhaps to be pitied ; since from love which is founded upon an illusion, there may be an awaken- ing ; but for love which sees its objects as they are, and still goes on loving them, there is no conceivable cure either in this world or in the world to come " I'm not jealous by nature, and I think it is horrid to be dog-in-the-mangerish," she remarked to him one sunny afternoon, when Alan and Felicia had gone off together to Badgering Woods and left her all alone, until Ciiristopher happened to drop in about tea-time. He had a way of appearing upon the scene when Elisabeth needed him, and of effacing himself when she did not. He also had a way of smoothing down all the little faults and trials and difficulties which beset her path, and of making for her the rough places plain. "But I can't help feeling it is i :' 'i' 'f ■i.i: IS i* 'fl rl m i6o Zbc f'avtnno^ous ' ft. ii i;, I rather dull when ;i rnan who has been in love with you suddenly begins to be in love with another girl." " I can imagine that the situation has its drawbacks." ** Not that there is any reason why he shouldn't, when you haven't been in love with him yourself." " Not the slightest. Even I, wliom you consider an epitome of al' that is stiff-necked and strait-laced, can see no harm in ihat. It seems to me a thing that a man might do on a Sunday afternoon without in any way jeopardizing his claim to universal respect." *' Still it is dull for the wonjan ; you must see that." " I saw it the moment I came in ; nevertheless I am not prepared to state that the dulness of the woman is a consummation so devoutly to be prayed against. And, besides, it isn't at all dull for the other woman — the new- woman — you know." " And of course the other woman has to be considered." " I suppose she has," Christopher replied ; " but I can't for the life of me see why," hi added under his breath. " Let's go into the garden," Elisal)eth said, rising from her chair ; "nobody is in but me, and it is so stuffy to stay in the house now we have finished tea. Cousin Mar i is busy succouring the poor, and " " And Miss Herbert is equally busy consoling the rich. Is that it ? " '* That is about what it comes to." So they went into the garden where they had played as children, and sat down upon the rustic seat where they had sat together scores of times ; and Elisabeih thought about the great mystery of love, and Christopher thought about the length of Ehsabeth's eyelashes. "Do you think that Alan is in love with Felicia?" the girl asked at last. i ■4 m\ Jfelicia fin^s llDappiness i6i " Appearances favour the supposition," replied Chris- topher. " You once said ' , wasn't capable of loving any woman." " I know I did ; but that didn't in the least mean that he wasn't capable uf loving Miss Herbert." " She is very attractive ; even you like her better than you like me," Eli^;abeth remarked, looking at him through the very eyelashes about which he was thinking. *' I wonder at it, but nevertheless you do." " One never can explain these things. At least I never can, though you seem to possess strange gifts of divination. I remember that you once expounded to me that either affinity or infinity was at the root of these matters — I forget which." " Sl'e is certainly good-looking," Elisabeth went on. " She is ; her dearest friend couldn't deny that." " And she has sweet manners." " Distinctly sweet. She is the sort of girl that people call restful." "And a lovely temper." Christopher still refused to be drawii. " So I conclude. I have never ruflled it — nor tried to riiflle it — nor even desired to ruffle it." " Do you like ruffling people's tunipers ?" "Some peoi)le's tempers, extremely." " What sort of people's ? " "I don't know. 1 never schedule people into 'sorts,' as you do. '.riie people I care about cannot be counted by 'sorts': there is one made of each, and then the mould is broken." "You do like Felicia better than me, don't you?" Elisabeth asked, after a moment's silence. " So you say, and as you arc a s[)i.eialist in these matters 11 ( '■ li i ti !|:.^^ f I 62 Ubc favvim^om ■ p : 1. I I I think it wise to take your statements on faith witiiout attempting to dispute them." " Chris, you are a goose ! " " I know that — far better than you do." And Christopher sighed. " But I like you all the same." "That is highly satisfactory." " I believe I always liked you better than Alan," Elisabeth continued, "only his way of talking about things dazzled me somehow. But after a time I found out that he alwnys said more than he meant, while you always mean more than you say." " Oh ! Tremaine isn't half a bad fellow : his talk is, as you say, a little high-flown; but he takes himself in more than he takes in other people, and he really means well." Christopher could afford to be magnanimous towards Alf.n, now that Elisabeth was the reverse. " I remember that day at Pembruge Castle, while he was talking to me al)out the troubles of the poor you were rowing Johnnie Slubbs about on the mere. That was just the difference between you and him." " Oh ! there wasn't much in that," re[)lied Christopher ; •* if you had been kind to me that day, and had let me talk to you, I am afraid that poor Johnnie Stubbs would have had to remain on dry land. I merely took the advice of the great man who said, * If you cannot do what you like, do good.' But I'd rather have done what I liked, all the same." "That is just like you, Chris! You never own up to your good points." " Yes, I do ; but I don't own u[) to my good points that exist solely in your imagination." "You reckon up your virtues just as Cousin Map.a reckons uf) her luggage on a journey ; slu- always says siie IfcUcia 5finC>£5 IF^appiucss 16? nd has so many packa^^es, and so many that don't count, your virtues seem to be added up in the scime style." Cluistopher was too shy to enjoy talking about himself; nevertheles.., he was immensely pleased when Elisabeth was pleased with him. " Let us wander back to our muttons," he said, "which, Uciiig intL'r()retcd, means Miss Herbert and Tremaine. ^\'hat sort ot people are the Herberts, by the way ? Is Mrs. Hcrbcit a lady ?" Elisabeth thought tor a moment. " She is the sort of person who pronounces the ' t ' in often." "I know 'jxaetly ; I believe 'genteel' is the most correct atljcctive for tluit type. Is she good-looking? " " Very ; she was the i)encil sketch for Felicia." " About how old ? " *' It is difficult to tell. She is one of the women who are sixty in the sun and thirty in the shade, like the thermometjr in spring. I should think she is really an easy fivc-and-forty, accelerated by limited means and an exacting conscience. She is always bothering about sins and draughts and things of that kind. I believe she thinks that everything you do will either make your soul too hot or your body too cold." (( You are severe on the excellent lady." "I try not to be, be ause I think she is really good in her way ; but her religion is such a dfcadfully fussy kind of rcliuion, it makes me aiiLfr ,y. It seems to caricature the whole thing. She ap[)cars to think that Christianity is a sort of menu of moral fa;uy-dishes, w'lich one is bound to swallow in a certain prescribed order." " I'oor dear woman I " '* When people like Mrs. Herbert talk about religion," Elisabeth went on, "it is as bad as reducing the number of the fixed stars to i)ounds, shillings, and [)once ; just as it is when [)eople talk about love who know nothing at all about it." i i| ill 'I'M i «1 ■'')■ 1; : f i ■■' Hi It f ■,|! 164 XTbe jfarriuG^ons Christopher manfully repressed a smile. " Still, I have known quite intelligent persons do that. They make mistakes, 1 admit, hut they don't know that they do ; and sc their ignorance is of the brand which the poet describes as bliss." "People who have never been in love should never talk about it," Elisabeth sagely remarked. " l>ut, on the other hand, those who have been, as a rule, can't ; so who is to conduct authorized conversations on this most interesting and instructive subject ? " " The people who have been through it, and so know all about it," replied Elisabeth. "Allow me to point out that your wisdom for once is at fault. In the first place, I doubt if the man who is suffering from a specific disease, is the suitable person to read a paper on the same before the College of Surgeons; and, in the second, I should say — for the sake of argument — that the man who has been through eternity and come out whole at the other end, knows as much about what eternity really means as — well, as you do. But tell me more about Mrs. Herbert and her peculiarities." " She is always bothering about what she calls the ' correct thing.' She has no peace in her life on account of her anxiety as to the etiquette of this world and the next— first to know it and then to be guided by it. I am sure that she wishes that the Bible had been written on the principle of that dreadful little book called £)o?it, which gives you a list of the solecisms you should avoid; she would have understood it so much better than the present system." *' But you would call Miss Herbert a lady, wouldn't you ?" Christopher asked. '* Oh ! yes ; a perfect lady. She is even well-bred when she talks about her love affairs; and if a woman is a lady when !.'lie talks about her love affairs, she will ! j Ifeltcia jfin^s IFDappincss 165 be a lady in any circumstances. It is the most crucial test out." " Yes ; I should have called Miss Herbert a perfect lady myself." " That is the effect of Fox How ; it always turned out ladies, whatever else it failed in." " But I thought you maintained that it failed in nothing ! " "No more it did; but I threw that in as a sop to what's-his-name, because you are so horribly argumentative." Christopher was amused. Elisabeth was a perfect chef in the preparing of such sops, as he was well aware ; and although he laughed at himself for doing it (knowing that her present graciousness to him merely meant that she was dull, and wanted somebody to play with, and he was better than nobody), he made these sops the principal articles of his heart's diet, and cared for no other fare. "What is Mr. Herbert like?" he inquired. "Oh ! he is a good man in his way, but a back-boneless, sweet-syruppy kind of a Christian ; one of the sort that seems to regard the Almighty as a blindly indulgent and easily-hoodwinked Father, and Satan himself as nothing worse than a rather crusty old bachelor uncle. You know the type." " Perfectly ; they always drawl, and use the adjective * dear ' in and out of season. I quite think that among themselves they talk of ' the dear devil.' And yet ' dear ' is really quite a nice word, if only people like that hadn't spoiled it." *' You shouldn't let people spoil things for you in that way. That is one ot your greatest faults, Christopher; whenever you have seen a funny side to anything you never see any other. You liave too much humour and too little tenderness ; that's what's the matter with you." " Permit me to propose a sincere vote of thanks to you Hi \\ m:^ : ( n ? f 1 ffl I iP 166 tTbe jfairinobons ) i 14 for your exhaustive and gratuitous spiritual diagnosis. To cure my faults is my duty— to discover them, your delight." " Well, I'm right ; and you'll find it out some day, although you make fun of me now." " I say, how will Mrs. Herbert fit in Treniaine's re- ligious views — or rather absence of religious views — with her code of the next world's etiquette?" asked Christopher, wisely changing the subject. " Oh ! she'll simply decline to see them. Although, as I told you, she is driven about entirely by her conscience, it is a well-harnessed conscience and always wears blinkers. It shies a good deal at gnats, I own ; but it can run in double-harness with a camel, if worldly considerations render such a course desirable. It is like a horse we once had, which always shied violently at every '^uddle, but went past a steam-ri^Uer without turning a hair." " * By my troth, niece, thou wi!t never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue,' " quoted Christopher. " I don't want to be too severe, but Mrs. Herbert does make me so mad. AVhen people put religious things in a horrid light, it makes you feel as if they were telling unkind and untrue tales about your dearest friends." " What does the good woman say that makes ' my lady Tongue ' so furious ? " " Well, she is always saying one must give up this and give up that, and deny oneself here and deny oneself there, foi the sake of religion ; and I don't believe that religion means that sort of giving up at all. Of course, God is pleased when we do what He wishes us to do, because He knows it is the best for us ; but I don't believe He wants us to do things when we hate doing them, just to please Him." " Perhaps not. Still, if one does a thing one doesn't like doing, to please another person, one often ends by enjoying \ jfelicia .1fin^5 ll^appiness 167 the doing of the thing. And even if one never enjoys it, the thing has still to be done." " Well, if you were awfully fond of anybody, should you want them to spend their time with you, and do what you were doing, when you knew all the time that they didn't like being with you, but were dying to be with some one else ? " " Certainly not." Christopher might not know much about theology, but he knew exactly how people felt when they were, as Elisabeth said, " awfiilly fond of anybody." " Of course you wouldn't/' the girl went on ; " you would wish the people you loved to be happy with you, and to want to be with you as much as you wanted to be with them ; and if they didn't really care to be with you, you wouldn't thank them for unsellishness in the matter. So if an ordinary man like you doesn't care for mere unselfish- ness from the people you are really fond of, do you think that what isn't good enough for you is good enough for God?" " No, But I still might want the people I was fond of to be unselfish, not for my own sake but for theirs. The more. one loves a person, the more one wishes that person to be worthy of love ; and though we don't love people l)ecause they are perfect, we want them to be perfect because we love them, don't you see ? " " You aren't a very good instance, Chris, because, you see, you are rather a reserved, cold-hearled person, and not at all affectionate ; bu* still you are fond of people in your own way." " Vcs ; I am fund of one or two peo[)le — but in my own way, as you say," Christopher rcphcd quietly. " And even you under>tvuul that forced and artificial devotion isn't worth having." " Yes ; c\ en I understand as much as that." V m m iim'M II m'l a If If i i It .S '1 1 A 1 68 TIbe jfarring^oiie'. il " So you will see that unselfishness and renunciation and things of that sort are only second-best things after all, and that there is nothing of the kind between people who really love each other, because their two wills are merged in one, and each finds his own happiness in the happiness of the other. And I don't believe that God wants us to give up our wills to His in a 'Thy way not mine' kind of way ; I believe He wants the same mind to be in us that was in Christ Jesus, so that He and we shall be wishing for the saiii3 things." " Wise Elisabeth, I believe that you are right." " And you'll see how right I am, when you really care very much for somebody yourself. I don't mean in the jolly, comfortable way in which you care fov Mr. Smallwood and Cousin Maria and me. That's a very nice friendly sort of caring, I admit, and keeps the world warm and homelike, just as having a fire in the room keeps the room v/arm and homelike ; but it doesn't teach one much." Christopher smiled sadly. " Doesn't it ? I should have thought that it taught one a good deal." " Oh 1 but not as much as a lovely, romantic attachment would teach one — not as much as Alan and Felicia are teaching each other now." " Don't you think so ? " " Of course I don't. Why, you've never taught me any- thing, Chris, though we've always been fond of each other in the comfortable, easy fashion." " Then the fault has been in me, for you have taught me a great many things, Elisabeth." " Because I've taken the trouble to do so. But the worst of it is that by the time I've taught you anything, I have changed my mind about it myself, and find I've been teaching you all wrong. And it is a bother to begin to imteach you." i 1 i ', l. 1 • 1 . jfclicia jfiu^s Ibappiucss 169 " I wonder why. I don't think I should find it at all a bother to unteach you certain things." "And it is a greater bother still to tench you all over again, and teach you different,'' Elisabeth added, without attending to the last remark. "Thank you, I think I won't trespass on your forbear- ance to that extent. Some lessons are so hard to master that life would be unbearable if one had to learn them twice." Christopher spoke somewhat bitterly. Elisabeth attended then. " What a funny thing to say ! But I know what it is — you've got a headache ; I can see it in your face, and that makes you take things so con- trariwise." " Possibly." " Poor old boy ! Docs it hurt ? " " Pretty considerably." " And have you had it long ? " " Yes," replied Christopher with truth, and he added to himself, "ever since I can remember, and it isn't in my head at all." Elisabeth stroked his sleeve affectionately. " I am so sorry." Christopher winced ; it was v;hcn Elisabeth was afTection- ate that he found his enforced silence most hard to bear. 1 low he could have made her love him if he had tried, he thought ; and how could he find the heart to make her love him as long as he and she were alike dependent upon Miss Farringdon's bounty, and they had neither anything of their own ? He rejoiced that Alan Tremaine had failed to win her love ; but he scorned him as a fool for not having succeeded in doing so when he had the chance. Had Christopher been master of the Moat House he felt he would have managed things differently; for the most modest of men cherish a profound contempt for the man who i. mm •'.■if V lyo ZIbe jfavrino^ons i:! cannot succeed in making a woman love him when he sets about it. ** By Jove ! " he said to himself, looking into the grey eyes that were so full of sympathy just then, "what an ass the man was to talk to such a woman as this about art and philosophy and hijh-folutin' of that sort ! If I had only the means to make her happy, I would talk to her about herself and me until she was tired of the subject — and that wouldn't be this side Doomsday. And she thinks that I am cold-hearted!" But what he said to IC'isabcth was, *' There isn't naich the matter with my head — nothing for you to worry about, I can assure you. Let us talk about something more interesting tlian my unworthy self — Tremaine, for instance." " I used to believe in Alan," Elisabeth confessed; "but I don't so much now. I wo "lucr if that is because he has left off making love to mc, or because I have seen that his ideas are so much in advance of his actions." " He never did make love to me, so I always had an inkling of the truth that his sentiments were a little over his own head. As a matter of fact, I believe I mentioned this conviction to you more than once; but you invariably treated it with the scorn that it doubdess deserved." " And yet you were right. It seems to me that you are always right, Chris." "No — not always ; but more often than you are, perhaps," replied Christopher, in rather a husky voice, but with a very kindly smile. " I am older, you sec, for one thing ; and I have had a harder time of it for another, and some of the idealism has been knocked out of me." " But the nice thing about you is that though you always know when I am wrong or foolish, you never seem to desp'si me for it." jfcUcia 3fiu^5 l^appiucse 171 m t)espise her? Christopher laughed at the word; and yet women were supi)osed to have such keen perceptions ! ** I don't care whethc you are wise or foohsh," he said, "as long as you are you. That is all that matters to me." ** And you really think I am nice ? " "I don't see how you could well be nicer." " Oh ! you don't kr.ow what I could do if I tried. You underrate my powers ; you always did. But you are a very restful person, Chris ; when my mind gets tired with worrying over things and trying to understand them, I find it a perfect holiday to talk to you. You seem to take things as they are." " Well, I have to, you see ; and what must be, must." "Simple natures like yours are very soothing to complex natures like mine. When I've lived my life and worn my- self out with trying to got the utmost I can out of everything, I shall spend the first three thousand years of eternity sitting quite still upon a fixed star without speaking, with my legs dangling into space, and looking at you. It will be such a nice rest, before beginning life over again." " Say two thousand years ; you'd never be able to sit still without speaking for more than two thousand years at the outside. By that time you'd have pulled yourself together, and be wanting to set about teaching the angels a thing or two. I know your ways." " I should enjoy that," laughed Elisabeth. "So would the angels, if they were anything like me." Elisabeth laughed a ain, and looked through the trees to the fields beyond. Friends were much more comfortable than lovers, she said to herself; Alan in his palmiest days had never been half so soothing to her as Chri topher was now. She wondered why poets and people of that kind made so much of love and so little of friendship, since the latter was obviously the more lasting and satisfactory of the two. 'A 'JtM J! 111 fl 172 XTbe 3fari1not)on0 1 ' ?! 1 • . l{ I [l Somehow the mere presence of Christopher had quite cured the sore fedin^ that Alan and Fehcia had left behind them when they started for their walk without even asking her to go with them ; and she was once more sure of the fact that she was necessary to somebody — a certainty without which Elisabeth could not live. So her imagination took heart of grace again, and began drawing plans for extensive castles in Spain, and arranging social campaigns wherein she herself should be crowned with triumph. She decided that half the delight of winning life's prizes and meeting its fairy princes would be the telling Christopher all about them afterwards : for her belief in his exhaustless sympathy was boundless. " A penny for your thoughts," he said, after she had been silent for some moments. " I was looking at Mrs. Bateson feeding her fowls," said Elisabeth evasively ; " and, I say, have you ever noticed that hens are just like tea-pots, and cocks like coffee-pots ? Look at them now ! It seems as if an army of breakfast- services had suddenly come to life, a la Galatea, and were pouring libations at Mrs. Bateson's feet." " It does look rather like that, I admit. But here are Miss Herbert and Tremaine returning from their walk ; let's go and meet them." And Elisabeth went to meet the lovers with no longer any little cobwebs of jealousy hiding in the dark corners of her heart, Christopher's hand having swept them all away ; he had a wonderful power of exterminating the little foxes which would otherwise have spoiled Elisabeth's vines ; and again she said to herself how much better a thing was friendship than love, since Alan had always expected her to be interested in his concerns, while Christopher, on the contrary, was always interested in hers. It was not long after this that Elisabeth was told by Felicia of the latter's engage iicnt to Alan Tremaine ; and jfclicia 3fiu^3 Hxipptnc^s 173 Elisabeth was amazed at the rapidity with which Felicia had assimilated her lover's views on all subjects. Elisabeth had expected that her friend would finally sacrifice her opinions on the altar of her feelings : she was already old enough to be prepared for that ; but she had anticipated a fierce warfare in tht: soul of Felicia between the directly opposing principles of this young lady's mother and lover. To Elisabeth's surprise, this civil war never took place. Felicia accepted Alan's doubts as unquestioningly as she had formerly accepted Mrs. Herbert's beliefs ; and as she loved the former more devotedly than she had ever loved the latter, she was more devout and fervid in her agnosticism than she had ever been in her faith. She had believed, because her mother ordered her to believe ; she doubted, because Alan desired her to doubt ; her belief and unbelief being equally the outcome of her affections rather than of her convictions. Mrs. Herbert likewise looked lenienUy upon Alan's want of orthodoxy, and at this Elisabeth was not surprised. Possibly there are not many of us who do not —in the private and confidential dep*:',:.-, ot our evil hearts — regard earth in the hand as wo- '<. nvrr' .'lan heaven in the bush, so to speak : at any rate, Felicia's !• jther was not one of the bright exceptions; a'.-' -fr)m .t _ urely commercial point of view — a saving faith does not go so far as a spending income, and it is no use pretending that it does. So Mrs. Herbert smiled upon her daughter's engagement ; but com[)romised with that accommodating conscience of hers by always speaking of her prospective son-in-law as " poor Alan," just as if she really believed, as she professed she did, that the death of the body and the death of the soul are con- ditions equally to be deplored. "You see, my dear," she said to Elisabeth, who came to btay at Wood Glen for Felicia's marriage, which took place i'-.M ' ■!'■■ ! |1: ^i1, ' 1 174 XLbc jfarri!iot)ou3 l! i liH in the- early summer, *' it is such a comfort to Mr. Herbert and myself to know that our dear child is so comfortably provided for. And then —although I cannot altOL^ether countenance his opinions — poor Alan has such a good heart" i^lisabeth, remembering that she had once boon fascinated by the mast.r of the Moat House, was merciful. " He is an extremely interesting man to talk to," she said ; " he has thought out so many things." " He has, my love. And if we are tempted to rebuke him too severely for his non-acceptance of revealed truth, v.'e must remember that he was deprived comparatively early in life of both his parents, and so ought rather to be pitied than bk'med," agreed Mrs. Herbert, who would cheerfu'ly have poured out all the vials of the Book of Revelation ui)on any impecunious doubter who had dared to add tne mortal sin of poverty to the venial one of unbelief. "And he is really very philanthropic," IClisabeth ccu- tmued ; " he has done no end of tb.ings for the work-peo[.le at the Osic'.lield. It is a pity that his faith is second-rate, considering that his works are first-class." "Ah ! my dear, we must judge not, lest in turn we too should be judged. Who are we, that we should say who is or who is not of the elect ? It is often those who seem to be the farthest from the Kingdom that are in truth the nearest to it." Mrs. Herbert had dismissed a kitchen-maid, only the week before, for declining to attend her Bible-class, and walking out with a young man instead. " Still, I am sorry that Alan has all those i[ueer viewr," I'Llisabeth persisted ; '* he really would be a splendid sort jf person if he were only a Christian ; and it seems such a pity that — with all his learning — he hasn't learnt the one thirty that really matters." '* My love, T an^ ashamed to find you so censorious ; it 's I i li] ,fcUcia jfiiiDs iDappincss 175 -, ') a sad fault, especially in the young. I \vould advise you to turn to the Thirteenth of First Cornithians, and see for yourself how exocUent a gift is charity — the greatest of all, according to our dear Saint Paul." Elisabedi sighed. She had long ago become accjuainted with Mrs. Herbert's custom of keeping religion as a thing apart, and of treating it from an " in-another-cleparlment-if- you-please " point of view ; and she felt that Tremaine's open agnosticism was almost better — and certainly more sincere— than this. But Mrs. Herbert was utterly unconscious of any secret fiiult on her own part, and continued to purr con- tentedly to herself. "Felicia, dear child! will certainly take an excellent position. She will be in county society, the very thing which I have always desired for her ; and she will enter it, not on sufferance, but as one of themselves. I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to Mr. Herbert and myself to think of our beloved daughter as a regular county lady ; it quite makes up for all the litUe self-denials that we suffered in order to give her a good education and to render her fit to take her place in society. I shouldn't be surprised if she were even presented at Court." And the mother's cup of hap[)iness ran over at the mere thought of such honour and glory. Felicia, too, was radiantly hap[)y. In the fust [)lace, she was very much in love ; in the second, her world was praising her for doing well to Iierself. " I cannot think how a clever man like Alan ever fell in love widi such a stupid cieature as me,'" she said to Elisabeth, not long before the wedding. "Can't you? \\'ell, 1 can. I don'r w(jn ler at any man's filling in love with you, darling, you are so dear and pretty .111(1 altogether adorable." " Uut then Alan is so diffeu-iit from other men." , i hi rs' I r \i T lit 176 Ubc iViUditCibous Elisaljcth was too well-mannered to smile at this ; but she made a note of it to report to Chri.slopher afterwards. She knew that he would iiiidevstand how funny it was. " I am sim[)ly ama/x'd at my own happiness," Felicia continued ; " and I am so dreadfully afraid that he will be disappointed in me when he (';ets to know me better, and will find out thai I am not half good enough for him — which I am not." " What nonsense ! Why, there isn't a man living that would really be good enough for you, Felicia." " Elisabeth ! When I hear Alan talking, I wonder how he can put up with silly little me at all. You see, I never was clever — not even as c;e\'cr as you are ; and you, of coui.se, aren't a millionth [lait ;is clever as Alan. And then he has such grand thoughts, too ; he is always wanting to help other people, and to make them hai)pi'. r. 1 feel that as long as I live I never can be half grateful enough to him for the honour he has done me in wanting me for his wife." ElisabeUi shrugged her shouMcrs ; the honours tliat have Ijeen within our reach are never quite so wonderful as those that have not. So Alan and Felicia nvrc married with much rejoicing and ringing of bells; and EhVabeth found it very pleasant to have her old schoolfellow ^,ettled at the Moat House. h\ fact, so thoroughly did .^he throw herself into the interests of Felicia's new home, that she ceased to feel her need of Christopher, and consecpiently neglected him somewhat. It was only when others failed her, that he was nl a prenn"um ; when she found she could do without him, she did. As for him, he loyally refrained from blaming l^lisiljeth, even in his heart, and cursed l-ate instead ; which really was unftiir of him, considering that in this maUer FIi>abeth, and not Fate, was entirely to blame. J]ut Chrislnpher was always ready to tind excuses for J'2Iisabeth, whatever she lui^ht do j fclicia ifinbs IfDappincss / < and this, it must l)e confessed, required no mean order of ingenuity just then. EHsabeth was as yet young enough to think lightly of the gifts that were bestowed u[)on her freely and with no trou'ile on her part, such as bread and air and sunshine and the like; it was reserved for her to loarn later that the things one takes for granted are the best thing lif • has to offer. It must also be remembered, for her justiluMtion, that ChristO[ilicr liad never told her that he loved her '' more than reason"; and it is difficult for women to believe that any man loves them until he has told them so. just as it is difficult for them to believe that a train is going direct to the place appointed to it in Ih-aJs/iaw, until they have been verbally assured upon the point by two guards, six porters, and a news[)a[)er boy. NeverLlicless, Elisabeth's ignorance — though [lerhaps excusable, considering her sex — was any- thing but bliss to poor Christopher; and her good-natured carelessness hurt him none the less for her not knowing that it hurt him. When Felicia had been married about three months, her mother came to stay with her at the Moat House ; and Elisabeth smiled to herself — and to Christopher — as she pictured the worthy woman's delight in her daughter's new surrounchngs. " She'll extol all Felicia's belongings as exhaustively as if she were the J)Ciiii/iiiU',''\l\'\sii\)\ji\\ said, " and she'll enumer- ate them as carefully as if she were sending them to the wash. You'll find there won't be a single one omitted — not even the second foo'nan or the soft walLr cistern. Mrs. Herbert is one who battens on details, and she never spares her iiearers a single item.'' " It is distinctly naughty of you," Christopher replied, with the smile that was always ready for T^lisabeth's feeblest sallies, "to diaw the good soul out for the express I |i (11 ;.!• If' 1 r 178 XTbe jfaiTiuQDor.s ,■1 '' ; purpose of laughing at her. I am ashamed of you, Miss Farringdon." " Draw her out, my dear boy ! You don't know what you are talking about. The most elementary knowledge of Mrs. Herbert would teach you that she requires nothing in the sha[)e of drawing out. You have but to mention the word ' dinner,' and the secret sins of her cook are retailed to you in chronological order ; you have but to whisper the word 'clothes,' and the iniquities of her dressmaker's bill are laid bare before your eses. Should the conversation glance upon Mr. Hcrberi, his complete biography becomes your own possession ; and should the passing thought of child- hood ajipear above her mental horizon, she tells you all about her own children as graphically as if she were editing a new edition of The Fillars of the House. And yet you talk of drawing her out ! I am afraid you have no per- ceptions, ChristO[)her." " Possibly not ; everybody doesn't have perceptions. I am frequently struck with clever people's lack of them." "Well, I'm off," replied Elisabeth, whipping up her pony, "to hear Mrs. Herbert's ouli)ourings on Felicia's happiness ; when I come back I expect I shall be able to write another poem on * How does the water come down at Lodore * — witii a difference." And Christ()i)her — who had met her in the High Street — smiled after the retreating figure in sheer delight at her. How fresh and bright and spontaneous she was, he thought, and how charmingly ignorant of the things which she prided herself upon understanding so profcjundly ! He laughed aloud as he recalled how wxy wise Elisabeth considered herself. And then he wondered if life would teach her to be less sure of her own buoyant strength, and less certain of her ultimate success in everything she undertook; Trd. il it did, he felt that he should have an ugly account to ^cit. ■ jfelicia finbs ibappiiiesB 179 with life. He was willing for Fate to knock him about as much and as hardly as she pleased, provided she would let Elisabeth alone, and allow the girl to go on believing in herself and enjoying herself as she was so abundantly capable of doing. By this time Christopher was enough of a philosophci to think that it did not really matter much in the long run whether he were happy or unhappy ; but he was not yet able to regard the thought of Elisabeth's unhnpi)iness as anythi.ig but a catastrophe of the most insupportable magnitude ; which showed that he had not yet sufficient philosophy to go round. When Elisabetli arrived at the Moat House she found Mrs. Herbert alone, Felicia having gone out driving with her husband ; and, to Elisabeth's surprise, there was no sign of the jubilation which she had antici[)atod. On the contrary, Mrs. Flerbert was subdued and tired-looking. " I am so gild to see you, my dear," she said, kissing Elisabeth ; " it is lonely in this big house all by myself." " It is always rather lonely to be in state," Elisabeth replied, returning her salute. " I wonder if kings find it lonely all by themselves in pleasures and palaces. I expect they do, but they put up with the loneliness for the sake of the statelincss ; and you could hardly find a statelier house than this to be lonely in, if you tried." *'Yes; it is a beautiful place," agreed Mrs. Herbert listlessly. Elisabeth wondered what was wrong, but she did not ask ; she knew that Mrs. Herbert would confide in her very soon. People very rarely were reserved with IClisabeth ; she was often amazed at the rapidity with whi: j>.i I r. ] :11 i8o Zlbe jfan1uoC)ons !il '* Don't the woods look lovely ? " she said cheerfully, pretending not to notice anything. "I can't help seeing that the trees are beautiful with their gilt leaves, but it goes against my principles to own it, because I do so hate the autumn. I wish we could change our four seasons for two s[jrings and two summers. I am so hai)[)y in the sunmier, and still happier in the si)ring looking forward to it ; but I am wretched in the winter because I am cold, and still wretcheder in the autumn thinking that I'm going to be even colder." " Yes ; the woods are pretty — very pretty indeed." " I am so glad you have come while the leaves are still on. I wanted you to see F'jlicia's home at its very best ; and, at its best, it is a home of which any woman might be proud." Mrs. Herbert's lip trembled. '*It is indeed a most beautiful home, and I am sure Felicia has everything to make her hap[)y." " And she is ha[)py, Mrs. Herbert ; I don't think I ever saw anybody so perfectly hajjpy as Felicia is now. Fm afraid I could never be quite as satisfied with any impossible ideal of a husband as she is with Alan ; I should want to quarrel with him just for the fun of the thing, and to find out his faults for the pleasure of correcting them. A mar: as faultless as Alan — I mean as faultless as Felicia considers Alan — would bore me ; but he suits her down to the ground." But even then Mrs. Herbert did not smile; instead of that her light blue eyes filled with tears. " Oh ! my dear," ^he said, with a sob in her voice, " I'elicia is ashamed of me." For all her high spirits, Elisabeth generally recognized tragedy when she met it face to face ; and she knew that she was meeting it now. So she spoke very gently, — • i \ jfeltcia 3fin^3 U3appiuc5S i8r "My clear Mrs. Herbert, wiinl ever do yr)U mean ? I am sure you are not very strcjng, aivi so yo':r nerves are out of joint, and make you im:v^ine thin_';s." " No, my love ; it is no im igination on my part. I only wish it were. Who can know Felicia as well as her mother knows her — her mother who has worshi()[)cd her and toiled for her ever since she was a little baby? And I, who can read her through and through, feci that she is asJiamed of me." And the tears overflowed, and rolled down Mrs. Herbert's faded cheeks. Elisabeth's heart swelled with an immense [lity, for her (|uick insight toU her that Mrs. Herbert wa-. not mistaken ; but all she said was, — "I think you are making mounluins out of molehills. Lots of girls lose their heads a bit when first t!icy arc married, and seem to regrad marriage as a special invention and prerogative of their own, which entitles them to give themselves airs (id lil'ituin ; but they soon grow out of it." Mrs. Herbert shook her head sorrowfully ; her tongue was loosed and she spake [)lain. "Oh! it isn't like that with Felicia ; I should lliink nothinu^ of that. I remember when first I was married I thought that no unmarried woman knew anything, and that no married woman knew anything but myself; but, as you say, I soon giew out of it. N\"hy, I was quite ready, after I had been married a cou[)le of months, to teaeli my dcNir mother all aljout housekeeping ; and llncly she laughed at me ft)r it. l]ut Felicia doesn't trouble to teach me anything ; she thinks it isn't worth while." " Oh I I cannot believe that T'elicia is like that. You must be mistaken." " Mist^iken in niy o.«n child, whom I carried in my arms as a little baby? No, my dear; there are some things about which mothers can never be mistaken, God help i P 1 iiii m I d i 1 '% l82 XThe jfanino^ous (!( them ! Do you think I did not understand when the carriage came round to-day to take her and Alan to return Lady Patch ingham's visit, and FeHcia said, ' Mamma won't go with us to-dny, Alan dear, because the wind is in the cast, and it ahvays gives her a cold to drive in an open carriage when the wind is in the east ' ? Oh I I saw plain enough that she didn't want me to go with them to Lady Patchingham's ; but I only thanked her and said I would rather stay indoors, as it would be safer for me. When they had started I went out and looked at the weathercock for myself; it pointed south-west." And the big tears rolled down faster than ever. Elisabeth did not know what to say ; so she wisely said nothing, but took Mrs. Herbert's hand in hers and stroked it. " Perhaps, my dear, I did wrong in allowing Felicia to marry a man who is not a true believer ; and this is my punishment." " Oh ! no, no, Mrs. Herbert ; I don't believe that God ever punishes for the Fake of punishing, iie has to train us, and the training hurts sometimrs ; but when it does, I think He minds even more tb.an we do." " Well, my love, I cannot say ; it is not for us to inquire into the counsels of the Almighty. P)Ut I did it for the best ; I did, indeed. I did so want Felicia to be happy." " I am sure you did." "You see, all my life I had taken an mfcrior position socially, and the iron of it had entered into my soul. I daresay it was sinful of me, but 1 used to mind so dreadfully when my husband and I were ahvays asked to second-rate parties, and introduced to second-rate people ; and I longed and prayed that my darling Felicia should be sjiared the misery ami the humiliation whii h 1 liml hud In undergo, You won't understand it, Elisabi.lii. People in n good position never do ; but to be allriiiuli I3 snubbed and jfelicia jfiii&s Ifjappiucss 183 patronized all one's life, as I have been, makes social intercourse one long-drawn-out agony to a scnsiiive woman. So I prayed — how I prayed ! — that my beautiful daughter should never suffer as I had suffered." Elisabeth's eyes tilled with tears ; and Mrs. Herbert, encouraged by her unspoken sympathy, proceeded, — " Grand people are so cruel, my dear. I daresay they don't mean to be ; but they are. And though I had borne it for myself, I felt I could not bear it for Felicia. I thought it would kill me to see fine ladies overlook her as they had so often overlooked me. So when Alan wanted to marry her, and make her into a fine lady herself, I was overwhelmed with joy : and I f<.lt I no longer minded what I had gone through, now that I knew no one would ever dare to be rude to my beautiful daughter. Now I see I was wrong to set earthly blessings before spiritual ones; but I think you understand how I felt, Elisabeth." " Yes, I understand ; and God understands too." " Then you don't think He is punishing me, my dear ? " "Xo; I thin.k He is training Felicia — and perhaps you too, clear Mrs. Herbert." " Oh ! I wish I could think so. P>ut you don't know what Felicia has been to her father and me. She was such a beautiful baby that the people in the street used to sto[) the nurse to ask whose child she was ; and when she grew older she never gave us a moment's trouble or anxiety. Then we pinched and pared in order to be able to afford to send her to Fox How; and when her education was finished there wasn't a more perfect lady in the land than our Felicia. Oh ! I was [jroud of her, I can tell you. And now she is ashamed of me, her own mother ! I cannot help seeing that this is God's punishment to me for letting her marry an unbeliever." And Mrs. Herbert covered her face with her hands and burst into bitter sobs. a !i J^ ' f 111 ill ( li. If r ti^ 184 I i' tibe ifarrimjboits arms. \ y poor dc.r, jou are doing Hh„ an i,y-ustico° you are, ,„ ecd. I a„, .,,-e „., „„•„,, ,,,„ ,„,^^ ,^ ""j do that I.el,c,a ,s st.ll so ignorant and foolish, and He is tramtng her m His own way. liut He isn't doin, "t to pumsl, you, dear; believe me. He isn't. ^Vhy, evt-n the ordu ary hu„,an beings .ho are fond of „, .Ji ,Z u faults and not to ptmish .hen,," she continued, as the men,ory of Christopher's unfailing patience Mth h r sudden, came m.o her mind, and she recalled how ofte he had hurt hn„, and how readily he had always for,^ 1 her; they are sorry when we do wrong, hut they are ven sorr,er when we suffer for it. And do ytu thmk God love t,s less than they do, and i., qtneker to punish and slower t" So does the love of the brother whou, we have seen, help u tn some measure to un.ler.s.and the love of the God :Lr.trr""'-^^^-^--^^'-^^-<>»-'>ehrother ! M li, ( ': V I 'I M! I I. ii i ' Sf'? ?.'i-,fl CHAPTKR X CHANGES M Wliy did you take all I said for certain \Vlien I so gleefully threw tlie glove ? Couldn't you see that I made a curtain Out of my laughter to liide my love ? Y dear," said Miss Farringdon, when Elisabeth came down one morning to breakfast, " there is sad news to-day." Miss Farringdon was never late in a morning. She regarded early rising as a virtue on a par with faith and charity; while to appear at the breakfast-table after the breakfast itself had already appeared thereon, was, in her eyes, as the sin of witchcraft. "What is the matter?" asked Elisabeth, somewhat breathlessly. She had run downstairs at full speed in order to enter the dining-room before the dishes, comi)leting her toilette as she fled ; and she had only beaten the bacon by a neck. " Richard Smalhvood has had a paralytic stroke. Chris- topher sent up word the first thing this morning." " Oh ! I am so sorry. Mr. Sinalhvood is such a dear old man, and used to be so kind to Christopher and me when we were little." '85 1 ■; ; ! S i¥ 1 '0 m i|; 1 ^%^ ^>. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT.3) V .v^ <^. iL^ 1.0 I.I I 2.8 |2.5 12.2 ij£ 1^ lUIJ' 1.8 1 1.25 III , .4 ,.6 -^ 6" ► ^ >m / # ,^^ i^,;> ^ ^.c^^ V ^ Photographic Sciences Corporation s 4 \, h iV '^ 4 % <*. ^ 23 WIST MAIN STRUT WIBSTIR.N.Y. MSaO (71a) 872-4303 '^ f J ■ - ,- «i^4fr ^ • 'W 186 Zbc Jfal'rino^ons " I am very sorry, too, Elisabeth. I have known Richard Smalhvood all my life, and he was a valued friend of my dear father, as well as being his right hand in all matters of business. Both my father ;md uncle thought very highly of Richard's oi)inion, and considered that they owed much of their commercial success to his advice and assistance." " Poor Christopher ! I wonder if he will mind much." " Of course he will mind, my dear. What a strange child you arc, and what peculiar things you say ! Mr. Smalhvood is Christopher's only living relation, and when anything happens to him Christopher will be entirely alone in the world. It is sad for any one to be quite alone ; and especially for young people, who have a natural craving for companionship and symtvathy." Miss Farringdon sighed. She had spent most of her life in the wilderness and on the mountain-tops, and she knew how cold was the climate and how dreary the prospect there. Elisabeth's eyes filled with tears, and her heart swelled with a strange new feeling she had never felt before. For the first time in her life Christopher (unconsciously on his part) made a direct appeal to her pity, and her heart responded to the appeal. Ins perspective, from her point of view, was suddenly changed ; he was no longer the kindly, easy-going comrade with whom she had laughed and quarrelled and made it up again ever since she could remember, und with whom she was on a footing of such familiar intimacy ; instead, he had become a man standing in the shadow of a great s* rrow, wluise solitary grief com- manded her resi)ect and at the same lime claimed her tenderness. All thr.jugh breakfast, and the prayers which followed, Elisabeth's thoughts ran on this new Christopher, who was so much more interesting and yet so much farther off than the old one. She wondered how he would look and what he would say when next she saw him ; and she 1 1 Cbanocs 187 longed to see him again, and yet felt frightened at the thought of doing so. At prayers that morning Miss Farringdon read the lament of David over Saul and Jonathan ; and while the words of undying palh.os sounded in her cars, Elisabeth wondered whether Christopher would mourn as David did if his uncle were to die, and whether he would let her comfort him. When prayers were over, Miss Farringdon bade l-'Jisabeth accompany her to Mr. Smallwood's ; and all the way there the girl's heart was beating so fast that it almost choked her, with mingled fear of and tenrlcrncss for this new Christopher who had taken the i)lace of her old playmate. As they sat waiting for him in the oak-panelled dining-room, a fresh wave of pity swept over F^lisabeth as she reali/.ed for the first time — though she had sat there over and over again — what a cheerless home this was in which to spend one's childhood and youth ; and how pliickily Christopher had always made the best of things, and had never con- fessed — even to her — what a dreary lot was his. 'i'hen he came downstairs ; and, as she heard his familiar footstep crossing the hall, her heart beat faster than ever and there was a mist before her eyes ; but when he entered the room and shook hands, first with Miss Farringdon and then with her, she was quite surprised to see that he I>)oked very much as he always looked, only his face was [lale and his eyes heavy for want of sleep ; and his smile was as kind as ever as it lighted upon her. " It is very good of you to come to me so quickly," he said, addressing Miss Farringdon but looking at Elisabeth. ** Not at all, Chrislo[)her,'' replied Miss Maria; "those who have friends must show thi'mselves friendly, and your uncle has certainly proved himseT of the sort that sticki.tli closer than a brother. No son could have done more for my father --no l)rother could have done more for me —than It ! i §} if ^ i it 188 XTbc tfarnuo^ons ! he has clone; and thcrofoio his aflliction is my afniclion, and his loss my loss."' " You are very kind." And Christopher's voice shook a little. Elisabeth did not speak. She was struggh'ng with a feeling of uncontrollable shyness which completely tied her usually fluent tongue. " Is he very ill ? " Miss Farringdon asked. " Ves," Christopher replied, "I'm afraid it's a bad job altogether. 'The doctor thinks he will last only a few days ; but if he li^es he will never regain the use of his speech or of his brain ; and I don't know that life under such con- ditions is a b(K)n to be desired." " I do not think it is. Vet we poor mortals long to keep our beloved ones with us, even thOiigh it is but the semblance of their former selves that remain." Chrisloiiher did not answer. There suddenly rushed over him the memory of all that his uncle had been to him, and of how that uncle still treated him as a little child ; and with it came the consciousness that, when his uncle was gone, nobody would ever treat him as a little child any more. Life is somewhat dreary when the time comes for us to i)c grown-up to everybody ; so Christopher look', d (and did not see) out of the window, instead of speaking. ** Of course," Miss Farringdon continued, " you will take his place, should he be — as I fear is inevitable — unable to resume work at the Osierfield ; and I have such a high o[)inion of you, Christo[)her, that I have no doubt you will do your uncle's work as well as he has done it, and there could not be higher [)raise. Nevertheless, it saddens me to know that another of the ('kl landmarks has been swept away, and that now 1 only am left of what used to be the Osierfield forty years ago. 'I'he work may be done as well f Cbauocs 1R9 by the new hands and brains as by the old ones ; but after one has cir>ssed the summit of the mountain and begun to go do'vnhiU, it is sorry work exchangin.; old l.unps for new. The now lamps may give brighter light, pcrci-ancc, but their light is too strong for tired old eyes ; and wo grow homesick for the things to which we are accustomed." And Miss Farringdon took off her spectacles and wiped them. There was silence for a few seconds, while Christopher manfully struggled with his feelings and Miss Maria decorously gave vent to hers. Christopher was vexed wiili himself for so nearly breaking down before I^li^.abeth, and throwing the shadow of his sorrow across the sunshine of her path. He did not know diat the mother heart in her was yearning over him with a tenderness almost too powerful to be resisted, and that his weakness was constraining her as his streiigth had never done. He was ri'.lher surprised that she did not speak to him ; but with the patient simplicity of a strong man he accepted her behaviour without questioning it. Her mere i)resence in the room somehow changed everything, and made him feel that no world which contained Elisabeth could ever be an entirely sorrowful world. Of course he knew nothing about the new Christopher which had suddenly arisen above Elisabeth's horizon ; he was far too masculine to understand that his own pathos could be {juthetic, or his own suffering drajiiatic. It is only women — or men who have much of the woman in their composition — who can say, "Here I and sorrow sit ; This is my throne ; let kings cume bow to it." The thoroughly manly man is incapable of seeing the picturestiue effect of his own misery. So Christopher nulled himself together, and tried to talk ■ ll fr m fi:^ I! '\\ 190 Xlbc 3fariinoC>ou3 of trivial things; and Miss Farringcon, having walked through the dark valley herself, knew the comfort of the commonplace therein, and fell in vviih his mood, discussing nurses and lomcdies and domestic arrangements and the like. Elisabeth, however, was distinctly disappointed in Christopher, because he could bring himself down to dwell upon these trifling matters when the Angel of Death had crossed the lintel of his doorway only last night, and was still hovering round with overshadowing wings. It was just like him, she said to herself, to give his attention to surface details, and to miss the deeper thing. She had yet to learn that it was because he felt so much, and not because he felt so little, that Christopher found it hard to utter the inir.ost thoughts of his heart. But when Miss Farringdon had made every possible arrangement for Mr. Smallwood's comfort, and they rose to leave, Elisabeth's heart smote her for her passing impatience ; so she lingered behind after her cousin had left the room, and, slipping her hand into Christopher's, she whis[)ered, — " Chris, dear, I'm so dreadfully sorry ! " It was a poor little speech lor the usually eloquent Elisabeth to make ; in cold blood she herself would have been ashamed of it ; but Christopher was quite content. For a second he forgot that he had decided not to let Elisabeth know that he loved her until he was in a position to marry her, and he very nearly took her in his strong arms and kissed her there and then ; but before he had time to do this, his good angel (or perhaps his bad one, for it is often difficult to ascertain how one's two guardian spirits divide their work) reminded him that it was his duty to leave Elisabeth free to live her own life, un- hampered by the knowledge of a love which might possibly find no fulfihnent in this world where money is considered 111 »"-^ f Cbauocs lyi the one thing needful ; so he merely returned the pressure of her hand, and said in a queer, strained sort of voice, — "Tiianks awfully, dear. It isn't half so rough on a fellow when he knows you are sorry." And Elisabeth also was content. Contrary to the doctor's expectations, Richard Smnllwood did not die ; he had lost all power of thought or speech and never regained them, but lived on for years a living corpse; and the burden of his illness lay heavily on Christopher's young shoulders, Life was specially dark to poor Christo[)her just then. His uncle's utter break-down effectually closed the door on all chances of escape from the drudgery of the Osierfieid to a higher and wider sphere ; for, until now, iie had continued to hope against hope that he might induce that uncle to start him in some other walk of life, where the winning of Elisabeth would enter into the region of practical politics. But now all chance of this was over ; Richard Snialhvood was beyond the reach of the entreaties and arguments which hitherto he had so firmly resisted. There was nothing left for Christopher to do but to step into his uncle's shoes, and try to make the best of his life as general manager of the Osierfieid, handicapped still furtJK^r by the charge of that uncle, which made it imi)ossible for him to dream of bringing home a wife to the big old house in the High Street. There was only one drop ot sweetness in the bitterness of hi? cup — one ray of light in the darkness of his outlook ; and that was the consciousness that he could still go on seeing and loving and serving l'',lisabeth, although he might never be able to tell her he was doing so. He hoped that she would understand ; but here he was too sanguine ; Elisabeth was as yet incapal.>le of comprehending any emotion until she had seen il reduced to a prescription. »l i' il I fi ii ^ $ 11)2 Ube ifaniuot)ons i 'i So Christopher lived on in the gloomy house, and looked after his uncle as tenderly as ii mother looks after a sick child. To all intents and purpose^ Richard was a child a^j,:iin ; he could not speak or think, hut he still loved his ne[)lie\v, the only one of his own flesh and blootl ; and he smiled like a child every time that Christopher came into his room, and cried like a child every time that Christopher went away, Elisabeth was very sorry for Christoi)her at first, and very tender towards him ; hut after a time the coldness, which he felt it his duty to show towards her in the changed state of affairs, had its natural effect, and she decided that it was foolish to waste her sympathy upon any one who obviously needed and valued it so little. Moreover, she had not forgotten that strange, new feeling wliich disturbed her heart the morning after Mr. Smallwood was taken ill ; and she experienced, half unconsciously, a thoroughly feminine resentment against the man who had called into being such an emotion, and then appaienily had found no use for it. So Elisabeth in her heart of hearts was at war with Christopher— that slumbering, smouldeiing sort of warfare which is ready to break out into fire and battle at the slightest provocation ; and this state of affairs did not tend to make life any the easier for him. He felt he could cheerfully ha\ ^ borne it all if only Elisabeth had been kind and had understood ; but Elisabeth did not understand him in the least, and was consequently unkind — far more unkind than she, in her careless, light-hearted philosophy, dreamed. She, too, had her disappointments to bear just then. The artist-soul in her had grown up, and was crying out for expression ; and she vainly prayed her cousin to let her go to the Slade Sr':jol, and there learn to develop the power that was in her. But Miss Farrjngdon belonged to the II! Cbanocs '93 generation which regarded art purely as a recreation —such as fancy-work, croquet, and the hke— and she considered that young women should he trained for the more serious things of life ; by which she meant the ordering of suitable dinners for the rich and the manufacturing of seeuiiy garments for the poor. So Elisabeth had to endure the agony which none but an ?.rtist can know — the a^^ony of being dumb when one has an angel-whispcred secret to tell forth — of being bound hand and foot when one has a God-sent mess:ige to write upon the wall. Now and then Miss Maria took her young cousin up to town for a few weeks, and thus Elisabeth came to have a bowing acquaintanceship with London; but of London as an ever-fascinating, never wiaryiiig friend she knew nothing. There are [)eop]e who tell us that " London is delightful in the season," and that " the country is very pretty in the summer," and we smile at them as a man would smile at those who said that his inoiher was "a pleasant i)erson," or his heart's dearest *' a charming girl." 'Ihose who know- London and the country, as London and the country deserve to be known, do not talk in this way, for they have learnt that there is no end to the wonder or the interest or the mystery of either. The year fol'o'.ving Richard Smalhvood's breakdown, a new interest came iiUo Elisabeth's life. A soti and heir was born at the Moat IIous.' ; and ^^li^abeth was one of the women whcj are predestined to the worshi[) of babies. Very tightly did the liny fuigers twiui- themselves round her somewhat em[)ty heart ; for Elisabeth was meant to love much, and at [)resent her su[')i)ly of the article was greatly in excess of the demand made upon it. So she poured the sur- plus — which no one else seemed to iieed -upon ilu' intK^cent head of Felicia's l)al)y ; and she found th,u the baijy never misjudged her nor disappointed her, as older peojjle seemed I Ml '94 Z\K JfavnlUJ^on3 so apt to do. One of her most devout fellow-worshippers was Mrs. Herbert, who derived comfort from the fact that little Willie was not ashamed of her as little Willie's mother was ; so — like many a disapi)ointed woman before them— both Mrs. Herbert and I^lisabcth discovered the healing power which lies m the touch of a baby's hand. Felicia loved the child, too, in her way ; but she was of the type of woman to whom the husband is always dearer than the children. But Alan's cup wis filled to overflowing, and he loved his son as he loved his own scul. One of Chnstoi)her's expedients lor hiding the meditations of his heart from Elisabeth's curious eyes, was the discussion with her of what people call ''general subjects"; and this tried her temper to the utmost. She regarded it as a sign of superficiality to talk ot superficial things ; and she havdly ever went in to dinner with a man without arriving at the discussion of abstract love and th2 second entree simul- taneously. It had never yet dawned upon her that as a rule It is because one has not experienced a leeling that one is able to describe it ; she reasoned in the contrary direction, and came to the conclusion that those persons have no hearts at all whose sleeves are unadorned with the same. Therefore it was intolerable to her when Christopher — who had played with her as a child, and had once very nearly made her grow up into a woman — talked to her about the contents of the newspapers. " 1 never look at the papers," she answered crossly one day, in reply to some unexceptionable and uninteresting comment of his upon such history as was just then in the raw material ; " I hate them." "Why do you hate them?" Christopher was surprised at her vehemence. " Because there is cholera in the South of France, and 1 nevei look at the papers when there is cholera about, it Cbanocs •95 frightens me so." Elisabeth had all the pity of a thoroughly healthy person for the suffering that could not touch her, and the unreasoning terror of a thoroughly healthy person for the suffering which could. " Hut there is nothing to frighten you in that," said Christ:)[)her, in his most comforting lone; " France is such a beastly dirty hole that they are bound to have diseases going on there, such as could never trouble clean, local- boarded, old England. And then it's so far away, too. I'd never worry about that, if I were you." "Wouldn't you?" Elisabeth was at war with him, but she was not insensible to the consolation he never failed to afford her when things went wrong. "Good gracious, no! England is so well looked after, with county councils and such, that even if an epidemic came here they'd stamp it out like one o'clock. Don't frighten yourself with bogeys, Elisabeth, there's a good girl!" " I feel just the same about newspapers now thai I used to feel about Lalhi Rookh^'' said Elisabeth confidentially. Christ()[)her was puzzled. " I'm afraid I don't see quite the connection, but I have no doubt it is there." " In Cousin Maria's copy of [.alia Rookli there is a most awful picture of the I'cilcd Pfoplict of Klifrassan; and when I was little I went nearly nu.d with terror of that picture. I used to go and look at it when nobody was about, and it frightened me more and more every time." "Why on earth didn't you tell me about it?" " I don't know. I fell I woul In'i icll an)body for worlds, but must keep it a giiasliy secret. Sometimes I used to hide the book, and try to forget where I'd hidden it. But I never could for/,et, and in ihe end I always went and found it, and peeped at the picture and nearly died of \ 4 WW njG TL\K jfardnGt)on3 terror. The mere outside of the book had a horrible fascination for me. I used to look at it all the time I was in the drawing-room, and then pretend I wasrf t looking at it ; yet if the housemaid had moved it an inch in dusting the table where it lay, I always knew." "Poor little silly child! If only you'd have told me, I'd have asked Miss Farringdon to put it away where you couldn't get at it." " But I couldn't have told you, Chris — I couldn't have told anybody. There seemed to be some terrible bond between that drc idful book and me which I was bound to keep secret. Of course it doesn't friglUen me any longer, though I shall always hate it ; but the newspapers frighten me just in the same way when there are horrible things in them." *' Why, Betty, I am ashamed of you ! And such a clever girl as you, too, to be taken in by the romancing of penny- a-liners ' They always make the worst of things in news- papers in order to sell them." "Oh ! then you think things aren't as bad as newspapers say?" " Nothing like ; but they must write something for people to read, and the more sensational it is the better people like it." Elisabeth was comforted ; and she never knew that Christopher did not leave the house that day without asking Miss Farringdon if, for a few weeks, the daily paper might be delivered at the works and sent up to the Willows afterwards, as he wanted to see the trade-reports the first thing in the morning. This was done ; and sometimes Christoplier remembered to send the papers on to the house, and sometimes he did not. On these latter occasions Miss Farringdon severely reproved him, and told him that he would never be as capable a man as his uncle had been. CbaudCd T97 if he did not endeavour to cultivate his memory ; whereat Chris was inwardly tickled, but was outwardly very penitent and apologetic, promising to try to be less forgetful in future. And he kept his word ; for not once — while the epidemic in the South of France lasted — did he forget to forget to send the newspapers up to the Willows when there was anything in it calculated to alarm the most timid reader. "Cousin Maria," said Elisabeth, a few days after this, " I hear that Coulson's circus is coming to Burlingliam, and I want to go and see it." Miss Farringdon looked up over the tops of her gold- rimmed spectacles. *' Do you, my dear ? Well, I see no reason why you should not. I have been brought up to disapprove of theatres, and I always shall disapprove of them ; but I confess I have never seen any harm in going to a circus." It is always interesting to note where people draw the line between right and wrong in dealing with forms of amusement; and it is doubtful whether .wo separate line.'- are ever quite identical in their curves. "Christopher could take me," Elisabeth continued; "and if he couldn't, Fm sure Alan would." " I should prefer you to go with Christopher, my dear ; he is more thougiitful and dependable than Alan Tremaine. I always feel perfectly happy about you when you have Christopher to take care of you." Elisabeth laughed her cousin to scorn. She did not want anybody to take care of !icr, she thought ; she was perfectly able to take care of herself. But Miss Farringdon belonged to a time when single women of forty were supposed to require careful supervision ; and Elisabeth was but four-and twenty. Christopher, when consulted, fell into the arrangement 'SBf II 198 Ube 3farviuoboiii3 "= li 1 1 1 1 1 I ! 1 1 with alucri^^v ; an 1 it was arranged for him to take Rlisriheth over to Biirhivjhani on the one clay that Coiilson's circus was on exhibition there. RHsai)et.h looked forward to the treat Hke a child ; for she was by nature extremely fond of pleasure, and by circumstance little accustomed to it. Great then was her disappointment when the morning of the day arrived, to receive a short note from Christopher .saying Ihat he was extremely sorry to inconvenience her, but that his business engagements made it impossil.Oe for him to take her to Burlingham that day ; and adding various apologies and hopes that she would not be too angry with him. She had so few treats that her disappointment at losing one was '•eally acute for the moment ; but what hurt her far more than the disappointment was the consciousness that Chris had obeyed the calls of business rather than her behest — had thought less of her pleasure than of the claims of the Osierfield. All Elisabeth's pride (or was it her vanity?) rose up in arms at the slight which Christopher had thus put upon her ; and she felt angrier with him than she had ever felt with anybody in her life before. She began to pour out the vials of her wrath in the presence of Miss Farringdon ; but that good lady was so mAich pleased to find a young man who cared more for business than for pleasure, or even for a young woman, that she accorded Elisabeth but scant sympathy. So Elisabeth possessed her wounded soul in extreme impatience, until such time as the offender himself should appear upon the scene, ready to receive those vials which had been specially prepared for his destruction. He duly appeared about tea-time, and found Elisabeth consuming the smoke of her anger in the garden. " I hope you are not very angry with me," he began in a humble tone, sitting down beside her on the old rustic seat j •* but I found myself obliged to disappoint you as If! Cbanocs 199 soon as I got to the works this morning ; and I am sure you know me well enough to understand that it wasn'*" my fault, and that I couldn't help myself." " I don't know you well enough for anything of the kind,"' replied Elisabeth, flashing a pair of very bright eyes upon his disconifiled face ; " but I know you well enough to understand that you are just a mass of selfishness and horridness, and that you care for nothing but just what interests and pleases yourself." Christopher was startled. " Elisabeth, you don't mean that ; you know you don't." "Yes ; I do. I mean that I have always hated you, and that I hate you more than ever to-day. It was just like you to care more for the business tlian you did for me, and never to mind about my disappointment as long as that nasty old ironworks was satisfied. I tell you I hate you, and I hate the works, and I hate everything connected with you." Christopher looked utterly astonished. He had no idea, he said to himself, that Elisabeth cared so much about going to Coulson's circus ; i;nd he could not see anything in the frustration of a day's excursion to account for such a storm of indignation as this. He did not realize that it was the rage of a monarch whose kingdom was in a state of rebellion, and whose dominion seemed in danger of slipping away altogether. Elisal)cth might not untlcrstand Christopher ; but Christopher was not always guiltless of misunderstanding Elisabeth. "And it was just like you," Elisabeth went on, "not to let me know till the last minute, when it was too late for anything to be done. If you had only had the considera- tion — I may say the mere civility — to send word last night that your royal highness could not be bothered with me and my affairs to-day, I could have arranged with AlanTrcmaine if , i '■' T '11 200 Ubc jfan1not)ons [I i lo t:ike mc. He is always able to turn his attention for a time from his own pleasure to other people's." " liut I thought I told you that it was not until I got to the works this morning that I discovered it would he impossible for me to take you to Burlingham to-day." "Then you ought to have found it out sooner. " Hang it all ! I really cannot find out things before they occur. Clever as I am, I am not quite clever enough for that. If I were, I should soon make my own fortutie by telling other people theirs." But Elisabeth was too ajigry to be fli[)pant. " The fad is you care for nothing but yourscli" and your horrid old business. I always told you how it would be." "You did. For whatever laults you may have to blame yourself, over-indulgence towards mine will never be one of them. You can make your conscience quite clear on that score." Christopher was as determined to treat the quarrel lightly as Elisabeth was to deal with it on serious grounds. " You have growii into a regular, commonplace, money- grubbing, business man, with no thoughts for anything higher than making iron and money and vulgar things like that." "And making you angry — that is a source of distinct pleasure to me. You liave no idea how charming you are when you are — well, for the sake of euphony we will say slightly ruffled, Miss Elisabeth Farringdni." Elisabeth stamped her foot. " I wish to goodness you'd be serious sometimes ! Frivolity is positively loathsome in a man." "Then I repent it in dust and ashes, and shall rely upon your more sedate and serious mind to correct this tendency in me. Besides, as you generally blame me for erring in the opposite direction, it is a relief to find you smiting me on the oll'.er cheek as a change. It keeps up my mental circulation better." ; n Cbauocs 20 i " You are l)oth too frivolous and too serious." Christopher was unwise enough to laugh. " My dear child, I seem to make what is called ' a corner ' in vices ; but even I cannot reconcile the conflicting ones." Then Elisabeth's an;;cr settled down into the quiet stage. " If you think it gentlemanly to disa[)point a lady and then insult her, pray go on doing so; I can only say that I don't." " What on earth do you mean, Elisabeth ? Do you really believe that I meant to vex you ? " The laughter had entirely died out of Christopher's face, and his voice was hoarse. " I don't know what you meant, and I am afraid I don't much mind. All 1 know is that you did disap[)oint me and did insult me, and that is enough for me. The purity of your motives is not my concern ; I merely resent the impertinence of your behaviour." Christopher rose from his seat ; he was serious enough now. " You are unjust to me, Elisabeth, but I cannot and will not attempt to justify myself. Good afternoon." ^or a second the misery on his face penetrated the thunder-clouds of Elisabeth's indignation. " Won't you have some tea before you go?" she asked. It seemed brutal — even to her outraged feelings— to send so old a friend empty away. Christopher's smile was very bitter as he answered : "No, thank you. I am afraid, after the things you have said to me, I shoulJ hardly be able graciously to accept hospitality at your hands ; and rather than accept it ungraci(>usly, I will not accept it at all." And he turned on liis heel and left her. As she watched his retreating figure, one s[iasm of remorse shot through Elisabeth's heart ; but it was s[)cedily stifled by the recollection that, for the first time in her life, Christopher N l{ 20.'? Zbc ffarrtnotJons I* I had failed her, and had shown her pLiinly that there were, in his eyes, more important matters than Miss Elisabeth Farringdon and her wiiims and fancies. And what woman, worthy of the name, could extend mercy to a man who had openly disi)layed so flagrant a want of taste and discernment as this? Certainly not Elisabeth, nor any other fashioned after her pattern. She felt that she had as much right to be angry as had the prophet, when Alniigiity Wisdom saw fit to save the great city in which he was not particularly interested, and to destroy the gourd in which he was. And so, probably, she had. For several days after this she kept clear of Christopher, nursing her anger in her heart ; and he was so hurt and sore from the lashing which her tongue had given him, that he felt no inclination to come within the radius of that tongue's bitterness again. But one day, when Elisabeth was sitting on the floor of the Moat House drawing-room, playing with the baby and discussing new gowns with Felicia between times, Alan came in and remarked, — ** It was wise of you to give up your excursion to Coulson's circus last wi'ck, Elisabeth ; as it has turned out it was chiefly a scare, and the case was greatly exaggerated ; but it might have made you feel uncomfortable if you had gone. I suppose you saw the notice of the outbreak in that morning's paper, and so gave it up at the last moment." Elisabeth ceased from her free translation of the baby's gurglings and her laudable endeavours suitably to reply to the same, and gave her whole attention to the baby's father. *' I don't know what you mean. What scare and what outbreak are you ta'.kng about? " " Didn't you see," replied Alan, *' that there was an out- break of cholera at Coulson's circus, and a frightful scare all through Burlingham in consequence ? Of course the news- h I Cbanoes 20: papers greatly exaggerated the danger, an>l so increased the scare ; and I don't know that I blame tiicni for that. I am not sure that the sensational way in which the press announces possible dangers to the ccmnumity is not a safeguard for the community at large. To be alive to a danger is nine times out of ten to avf)id a danger ; and it is f;ir better to be more frightened tlian hurt than to be more hurt than frightened — certainly for communities if not for individuals." *' But tell me about it. I never saw any account in the papers ; and I'm glad I didn't, for it would have frightened me out of my wits." " It broke out among a troupe of acrobats who had just come straight from the South of France, and evidently brought the infectic 'i with them. They were at once isolated, and such prompt and ellicient measures were taken to prevent the spread of the disease, that there have been no more cases, either in the circus or in the town. Now, I should imagine, all danger of its spreading is practically over; but, of course, it made everybody in the neiglibourhood, and everybody who had been to the circus, very ner>'ousand uncomfortable for a few days. The local authorities, however, omitted no possible precuUion which should assist them in stamping out the epidemic, should those few cases have started an epidemic — which was, of course, possible, though hardly likely." And then Alan proceeded to expound his views on the matter of sanitary authorities in general and of those of Burlingham in [)arlicular, to which Felicia listened with absorbing attention and F^lisabeth did not listen at all. Soon after this she took her leave ; and all along the homeward walk through Badgering Woods she was conscious of feeling ashamed of herself-— a very rare sensation with in i ! I > •M 1 1 ) IE 204 tlbe 3farvi!lG^ons ■ i ' r i Elisabeth, and by no means an agreeable one. She was by nature so relf- reliant and so irresponsible (hat she seldom regretted anything tliat she had done ; if she had acted wisely, all was well ; and if she had not acted wisely, it was over and done with, and what was the use of bothering any more about it ? This was her usual point of view, and it proved as a rule a most comfortable one. But now she could not fail to see that she had been in the wrong — hopelessly and flagrantly in the wrong — and that she had behaved abominably to Christopher into the bargain. She had to climb down, as other ruling powers have had to climb down before now; and the ac, of climbing down is neither a becoming nor an exhilarating form of exercise to ruling powers. But at the back of her humble contrition there was a feeling of gladness in the knowledge that Christopher had not really failed her after all, and that her kingdom was still her own as it had been in her childish days ; and there was also a nobler feeling of higher joy in the consciousness that — quite apart from his attitude towards her — Christopher was still the Christopher that she had always in her inmost soul believed him to be ; that she was not wrong in the idea she had formed of him long ago. It is very human to be glad on our own account when people are as fond of us as we expected them to be ; but it is divine to be glad, solely for their sakes, when they act up to their own ideals, quite apart from us. And there was a touch of divinity in Elisabeth's gladness just then, though the rest of her was extremely human — and feminine at that. On her way home she encountered Caleb Bateson going back to work after dinner, and she told him to ask Mr. Thornley to come up to the Willows that afternoon, as she wanted to see him. She preferred to send a verbal message, as by so doing she postponed for a few hours that climbing- down process which she so much disliked ; although it is It I ' Cbanocs 205 frequently easier to climb down by means of one's pen than by means of one's tongue. Christopher felt no pleasure in receiving her message. He was not angry with her, although he marvdletl at the unreasonableness and injustice of a sex that thitiks more of a day's pleasure than a life's devotion ; he did not know that it was over the life's devotion and not the day's pleasure that Elisabeth had fought so hard that day ; but his encounter with her had strangely tired him, and taken the zest out of his life, and he had no appetite for any more of such disastrous ar.d inglorious warfare. But he obeyed her mandate all the same, having learnt the important political lesson that the fact of a ( 'lovernmenl's being in the wrong is no excuse for not obeying the orders of that Government ; and he waited for her in the drawing- room at the Willows, looking out towards the sunset and wondering how hard upon him I^lisabclh was going to be. And his thoughts were so full of her that he did not hear her come into the room, until slie clarsped both her hands round his arm and looked up into his gloomy tace, saying, — " Oh ! Chris, I'm so dreadfully ashamed of myself." The clouds were dispelled at once, and Christopher smiled as he had not smiled for a week. " Never mind," he said, patting the hands that were on his arm ; ** it's all right." But Elisabeth, having set out ui)on the descent, was prepared to climb down handsomely. " It isn't all right ; it's all wrong. I was simply fiendish to you, and I shall never forgive myself — never." *' Oh I yes ; you will. And for goodness' sake don't worry over it. T'M glad you have found out ilial I wasn't quite the selfish brute that I seemed; and that's the end of th^ piatter." ^' pear me ! no ; it isn't. It is only the beginning, I ■ HI * ! ':}? 4 I ii Ml 206 TLbc jfaiTiuot'Ous I, HiS i) ' want to tell you how dreadfully sorry I am, and to ask you to forgive me." " I've nothing to forgive." " Yes, you have ; lots." And Elisabeth was nearer the mark than Christopher. " I haven't. Of course you were angry with me when I seemed so disagreeable and unkind ; any girl would have been," replied Chris, forgetting how very unreasonable her anger had seemed only five minutes ago. But five minutes can make such a difference — sometimes. Elisabeth cheerfully caught at this straw of comfort ; she was always ready to take a lenient view of her own short- comings. If Christopher had been wise he would not have encouraged such leniency ; but who is wise and in love at the same time ? " Of course it did seem rather unkind of you," she admitted ; " }ou see, I thought you had thrown me over just for the sake of some tuesome business arrangement, and that you didn't care about me and my disappointment a bit." A little quiver crept into Christopher's voice. " I think you might have known me better than that. ' " Yes, I might ; in fact, I ought to have done," agreed Elisabeth with some truth. " But why didn't you tell me the real reason ? " ** Because I thought it might worry and frighten you. Not that there really was anything to be frightened about,'' Christopher hastened to add; "but you might have imagined things, and been upset ] you have such a tremen- dous imagination, you knov»r." ** I'm afraid I have ; and it sometimes imagines vain things at your expense, Chris dear." " How did you find me out ? " Chris asked. '* Alan told me about the cholera scare at Burlingham, :\\u\ I guessed the rest." Cbauocs 207 "Then Alan was an ass. What business had he to go frightening you, I should like to know, with a lot of fiction that is just trumped up to sell the papers ? " " But, Chris, I want you to understand how sorry I am that I was so vile to you. I really was vile, wasn't I?" Elisabeth was the type of woma for whom the confessional will always have itj; fascinations. "You were distinctly hard on me, I must confess; but you needn't worry about that now." "And you quite forgive me?" " As 1 said before, I've nothing to forgive. You were perfectly right to be annoyed with a man who appeared to be so careless and inconsiderate ; but I'm glad you've found out that I wasn't quite as selfish as you thought." Elisabeth stroked his coat sleeve affectionately. " You are not selfish at all, Chris; you're simply the nicest, thoughtfullest, most unselfish person in the world ; and I'm utterly wretched because I was so unkind to you." " Don't be wretched, there's a dear ! Your wretchedness is the one thing I can't and won't stand ; so please leave off at once." To Christopher lemorse for wrong done would always be an agony ; he had yet to learn that to some tempera- ments, whereof Elisabeth's was one, it partook of the nature of a luxury — the sort of luxury which tcm[)ts one to pay half a guinea to be allowed to swell up one's eyes and redden one's nose over imaginary woes in a London theatre. " Did you mind very much when I was so cross ? " Elisabeth asked thoughtfully. Christopher was torn between a loyal wish to do homage to his idol, and a laudable desire to save that idol pain. "Of course I minded pretty considerably; but why bother about that now ? '' 5 > ■ ^8i < I r h 11 ; ^tl 20.) Ube jfarniio^on& r I ' " Because it interests me immensely. I often think that your only fault is that )0U don't mind things enough ; and so, naturally, I want to find out how great your minding capacity is." " I see. Your powers of scientific research are indeed remarkable ; but did it never strike you that even vivi- section might be carried too far — too far for the comfort of the vivisected, I mean ; not for the enjoyment of the vivisector ? " " It is awfully good for people to feel things," persisted Elisabeth. "Is it? Well, I suppose it is good — in fa'^t, necessary — for some poor beggars to have their arms or logs cut off; but you can't expect me to be consumed with envy of the same ? " " Please tell me how much you mi ided," Elisabeth coaxed. " I can't tell you ; and I wouldn't if I could. If I were a rabbit that had been cut into li\ing pieces to satisfy the scientific yearnings of a learned professor, do you think I would leave behind me — for my executors to publish and make large fortunes thereby— confidential letters and private diaries accurately describing all the tortures I had endured, for the recreation of the reading public in general and the said professor in particular ? Not I." " I should. I should leave a full, true, and particular account of all that I had suffered, and exactly how much it hurt. It would interest the professor most tremendously." Christopher shook his head. " O'a de.ir ! no ; it wouldn't." " Why not ? " " Because I should have knocked his brains out long before that for having dared to hurt yvju at all." I ClIAITER XI M/SS r.iRR/NGDO.VS JVILL Time spools on his relentless track, And, thout^h we liog on i)en(!c(l knees, No piopliLi'.-, hand lor us pui., |,.ick 'I lie >iia'o\v ten detrrees. C DURING the following winter Miss Farringdon gave unmistakable signs of that process known as " breaking-up." She had fought a good fight for many years, and the time was fast coming for her to lay down her arms and receive her reward. Elisabeth, with her usual light-heartedncss, did not see the Shadow stealing nearer day by day; but Christopher was more accustomed to shadows than she was-his path had Iain chieHy among them-auhew to be her trustees and executors. 'J'he trustees were required to ascertain whether George Farringdon had left any son, and wl.eiher that son was still alive; but if, at the expiration of ten years from the death of the testator, I T /IDiss jfarriiujCiou's xatii 21 I no such son could be discovered, the whole of Miss Firringdon's estate was to become the absolute property of I'lisabeth. As, since the making of this will, R: :hard had lost his faculties, the whole responsibility of finding the lost heir and of looking after the temporary heiress devolved upon Christopher's shoulders. " And how is Mr. Eatcson to-day ? " asked Mrs. Hankey of Mr. Bateson's better-half, one Sunday morning not long after Miss Farringdon's death. " Thank you, Mrs. Hankey, he is but middling, I'm sorry to say — very middling — very middling indeed." " That's a bad hearing. But I'm net surprised : I felt sure as something was wrong when I didn't see him in chapel this morning. I says to myself, when the first hymn was given out and him not there, ' Eh dear ! ' I says, ' I'm afraid there's trouble in store for Mrs. Bateson.* It seemed so strange to see you all alone in the [)ew, that for a minute or two it quite gave me the creeps. ^Vhat's amiss with him?" ** Rheumatism in the legs. He could hardly get out of bed this morning he was so stiff." " Eh dear ! that's a bad thing — and particularly at his time of life. I lost a beautiful hen only yesterday from rheumatism in the legs ; one of the best sitters 1 ever had. You remember her?— the speckled one that I got from Tetleigh, four years ago come Michaelmas. But diat's the way in this world ; the most missed are the first taken." " I wonder if that's Miss Elisabeth there," said Mrs. Bateson, catching sight of a daik-robed figure in the distance. ** I notice she's taken to go to church regular now Miss Farringdon isn't here to look after her. How true it is, * When the cat's away the mice will play 1 ' " Worship, according to the methods of that branch of the Church Militant established in these kingdoms, was i i: V* mr'- 212 Zbc jfarrino^ous It \i < ■I I 'I ■i J I 1 li j 1 L L regarded l)y Mrs. Batcson as a form of rccr* alion — harm- less, undouhtcdly, but still recreation. Mrs. Ilankcy shook her liead. " No— th.it isn't her ; she can't be out of church yet. They don't go in till eleven." And she shook her head disa[)i)rovingly. " J'^leven's too late, to my thinking," agreed Mrs. l>iiteson. "So it is; yoa ne\er spoke a truer word, Mrs. J'atcson. Half-past ten is the Lord's tune- or so it used to b ' when 1 was a girl.'' " And a very good time, too! (lives you the chance of getting home and seeing to the diiuier i>ropcrly after cha[)el. At least, that is to say, if the minister leaves off when he's finished, which is n^ore than you can say of all of them ; if he doesn't, there s a bit of a scrnnmage to get the dinner cooked in tinv,' even now, unless you go out before the last hymn. And 1 iicver hold with that somehow; it seems like skim[)ing the Lord's material, as you may say." " So it does. It looks as if the (ares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches had choked the good seed in a body's heart." '' In which case it looks what it is not," said Mrs. iiateson ; " for nine times out of ten it means nothing worse than wanting to cook the potatoes, so as the master sha'n't hove no cause for grumbling, and to boil the rice so as it sha'n't swell in the chdlrcn's insides. 15ut that's the way with things; folks luver tarn out to be as bad as you thought they were when you get to know tiieir whys and their wherefores , and many a poor soul, as is i)ut down as woildl}', is really only anxious to make things [)leasant for the master and the children." "Miss I'Uisabeth's mourning is handsome, I don't deny," said Mrs. Hankey, reverting to a more interesting subject than false judgments in the abstract ; " but she don't look well in it — those pale folks neve r do justice to good mourn .vj}M ny," Lirn m:>s Jfaln^it}^oil't5 lUill 13 ing, in my opinion. It scins ali.visi a pity to waste it on them."' "0!i ! I don't hoM with you thcr'.'. I think I never saw anyl)(jd)- look more t^cntee-l than Miss l^lisahetli does now, bless aer I And the jet trimmin;^ cm her Sunday frock rs somethin:; beautiful" " I'.h ! tliere's nothin;,^ hke a b^t of jet for settin;_,f off rrai)e and bringing the full meaiiing out of it, as you may say,"' replied Mrs. Ilanke}', in UKjllilied tones. "I don't think as you can do full justice to crape till you put some jet again' it. It's wonderful how a bit of good mouining hel[)s folks to bear their sorrows ; and for sure they want it in a world so full of care as this." "They do; there's no doubt .''bout that, but I can't help wishing as Miss I'>lisibilh had got some bugles (jn that best dress of hers ; th>:ie's nothing rpiitc comes up to bugles, in my mind.'' "There ain't ; they give such a ruu.h, as one may say, being so rich-looking. IJut for my i)art I think Miss Elisabeth has been a bit short with the crape, consi:!ering that Miss Farringdon was father and mother atid wh.it-not to her. Now supi)osing she'd had a crape mantle with a handsome bugle fringe for Sundays ; that's what I should have called l>aying i)ro[)er res[)i'ct to the de[)arted ; instead of a short jacket with ordinary btaid on it, that you might wear for a great-uncle as hadn't left you a [)enny." "Well, Mrs. Ilankey, folks may do what they like with their own, and it's not for such as us to sit in judgment on our betters; but I don't think as .Miss I'.uringdon's will gave her any claim to a crapj mantle with a bugle fringe' ; I don't indeed." "Well, to be sure, bir, you do si)eak strong on the subject ! " "And I feel strong, too." replied .Mrs. Hateson, wuxiUjj i I 'II i1 h'M i ?r4 Z\K jfanino^ons f more indignant. " There's dear Miss Elisal)elh has been h'ke an own daiigiiter to Miss l-'arringdon ever since she was a baby ; and yet Miss Farringdon leaves her fortune over Miss IChsabeth's head to some good-for-nothing young man that nobody kntjws .for certain ever was born. I've no patience with such ways ! " ** It does soeni a bit hard on Miss Elisaljeth, I must admit, her being Miss Farringdon's adopted child. Buc, as I've said before, there's nothing like a will for making a thorough to-do." " It's having been engaged to Mr. George all them years ago that set her up to it. It's wonderful how folks oftt.n turn to their old lovers when it comes to will time." Mrs. Hankey looked incredulous. " Well, that beats me, I'm fain to confess. I know if the Lord had seen fit to stoj) me from keeping com[);iny with Mankc^y, not a brass farthing would he ever have had from me. I'd sooner have left my savings to charity." " Don't say that, Mrs. Hankey ; it always seems so lonely to leave money to charity, as if you was nothing better than a foundling. But how did you enjoy the sermon this morning ? " " I thought tliat part about the punishment of the wicked was something beautiful. But, to tell you the truth, I've lost all pleasure in Mr. Sneyd's discourses since I heard as he wished to introduce the reading of the Commandments into East Fane Chai)el. What's the good of fine preaching, if a minister's private life isn't up to his sermon, I should like to know ? " Mrs. 15;iteson, however, had broad views on some matters. " I don't see much harm in reading the Commandments,"' she said. Mrs. Hankey looked shocked at her friend's laxity. "Ii is the thin end of the wedge, Mrs. Bateson, and you ought 'ii) i ling, to know it. Mark my words, it's foiins and ceremonies such as tliis th:U tempts our young folks away from the chapels to the churches, like Miss Elisabeth and Master Christopher there. They didn't read no Commandments in our chapjl as long as Miss Farringdoii was alive ; I should have liked to see the minister as would have dared to suggest such a thing. She wouldn't s^and Ritualism, poor Miss Farringdon woultln't." " Here we are at home," said Mrs. Batcsjii, stop[)ing tu her own door ; " I must go in and see how the master's getting on." *' And I hope you'll find him better, Mrs. Dateson, I only hope so ; but you never know how things arc going to turn out when folks begin to sicken — especially at Mr. Pjateson's age. And he hasn't been looking himself for a long time. I says to Hankey only a few weeks ago, * Hankey,' says I, ' it seems to me as if the Lord was thinking on Mr. Bateson ; I hope I may be mistaken, but that's how it appears to mc.' And so it did." On the afternoon of that very Sunday Christopher took Elisabeth for a walk in Badgering Woods. The winter was departing, and a faint pink flush on the bare trees heralded the coming of spring ; and Elisabeth, being made of material which is warranted not to fret for long, bogan to feel that life was not altogether dark, a:id that it was just possibl.; she might— at the end of many years — actually enjoy things again. Further, Christo[)her suited her [)erfectly — how perfectly she did not know as yet — and she spent much time with him just then. Those of us who have ever guessed the acrostics in a weekly [)aper, have learnt that someliiiies we find a solution to one of the lights, and -ay, " This will do, if nothing better turns up before post-time on Monday "; and at other times we chance upon an answer which we know at once, without ^ h i 2 I 6 ITbe ifanino^ons I. '1 further research, to be indisputably the right one. It is so with other ihini/s than acrostics : there are friends whom we feel will do very well for us if nobody — or until somebody — better turns up ; and there are others whom we know to be just the right peo[)le for the particular needs of our souls at that time. They are the right answers to the questions which have been perplexing us — the correct solutions to the problems over which we have been puz/Jing our brains. So it was with Elisabeth : Christopher was the correct answer to life's current acrostic ; and as long as she was with Christopher she was content. " Don't you get very tired of people who have never found the fourth dimension ? " she asked him, as they sat upon a stile in Badgering Woods. " What do you mean by the fourth dimension ? There are length and breadth and thickness, and what comes next ? " Christopher was pleased to find Elis.ibeth facing life's abstract problems again ; it proved that she wa:^- no longer overpowered by its concrete ones. " I don't know what its name is," she replied, looking dreamily through the leafless trees ; " perhai)s eternity would do as well as any other. But I mean the dimension which comes after length and breadth and thickness, and beyond them, and all round them, and which makes them seem quite different, and much less important." " I think I know what you are driving at. You mean a new way of looking at things and of measuring them — a way which makes things which ordinary people call small, large ; and things which ordinary people call large, small." " Yes. Peoi)le who have never been in the fourth dimen- sion bore me, do you know ? I daresay it would bore squares to talk to straight lines, and cubes to talk to squares ; there would be so man things the one would understand h /Iftiss Ifarnuo^ou's mm 21 and the other wouldn't. The h"ne wouldn't know what the square meant l)y the word dcr.'ss, and the square wouldn't know what the cube meant by the word (r/>,)7.\' ; and in the same way the three-dimension people don't know what we are talking about when we use sucli words as /v/z^w;/ and art and /ore." "They think we are talking about going regularly to church, and supjwrting picture-galleries, and making brilliant matches," suggested Christopher. "Yes; that's exactly what they do think; and it makes talking to them so difficult, and so dull." " When you use the word /la/^/^i/iess they imagine you are referring to an income of four or five thousand a year; and by success they mean the permission to stand in the back- water of a fashionable London evening party, looking at the mighty and noble, and pretending afterwards that you have spoken to the same." " They don't speak our language or think our thouLrhts," Elisabeth said ; " and the music of their whole lives is of a different order from that of the lives of the fourth- dimension people." "Distinctly so; all the difference between a Sonata of Beethoven and a song out of a [)antomime." "I haven't much patience with the three-dimension people ; have you ? " asked Elisabeth. " No— I'm afraid not ; but I've a good deal of pity for them. They miss so much. I always foncy that i)e()[)Ie who call pictures pretty, and mu-ic sweet, must have a dreary time of it all round. IJut we\l better be getting on, don't you think? It is rather chilly sitting out-of-doors, and I don't want you to catch cold. You don't feel cold, do you ? " And Christo[)her's fiicc grew quite anxious. (( Not at all." You don't seem to me to hav »' irii d e enough furbelows and >! ! iS XL\K favnucbotii? "I things round your neck to kecj) you warm,'' continued he ; " lot me tie it ii[) tiij,hter, sonv.'how." And while he turned up the fur (dollar of her coat nnd hooked the hij'host hook and eye, I'.hsaheth thought how- nice it was to be pcltetl and taken care of; and, as she v.alked homewards by Christopher's side, she felt hke a good little girl again. Even reigning monarchs now and then like to have their ermine tucked round them, and to be patted on their crowns by a protecting hand. As the weeks rolled on and the spring drew nearer, Elisa- beth gradually took up the thread of hiuiian interest again. Fortunately for her she was very busy with plans for the benefit of the workpeople at the Osierfiel 1. She started a dispensary ; she opened an institute ; she inaugurated courses of lectures and entertainments for keeping the young men out of the public-houses in the evenings ; she gave to the Wesleyan Conference a House of Rest — a sweet litile home, looking over the fields towards the sunset — where tired ministers might come and live at case for a time to regain health and strength ; and in Sedgehill Church she put up a beautiful east window to the memory of Maria Farringdon, and for a sign-post to all such pilgrims as were in need of one, as the east window in S. Peter's had once been a sign-post to herself, showing her the way to Zion. In all these undertakings Christopher was her right hand ; and while L^lisabeth plaiuu^d and paid for them, he carefully carried them out-i!-,e hnrdest part of the business, and the least effective one. When Elisabeth had set afoot all these improvements for the benefit of her workpeople, she turned her attention to the improving of herself; and she informed Christopher that she had decided to go up to Eonclon, and fulfil the desire of her heart by studying art at the Slade School. " l^ut you cannot live by yourself in London," Christopher I'l 'i /IDiss 3far^ncl^on'5 mm 219 objected; "you are ail riuht here, liccauso you have the 'I'remaines and other peirple to look after you ; hut in town you would be terribly lonely ; and, besides, I don't approve of girls living in l.-ondon by themselves." " I sha'n"t be by myself. There is a house where some of the Slade pupils live together, and I shall go tb.erc for every term, and come dov.n here for the vacation. It will be just like going back to school a j;ain. I shall adore it ! " Christopher did no' hke the idja at all. "Are you sure you will be conifortable, and that they will take proper care of you ? " "Of course they will. Grace Cobham will be there at the same time— an old schoolfellow to whom I used to be devoted at Fox How — a'ld s!ie aiid I will chum toLrether. I haven't seen her for ages, as she has been scouring Europe with her family; but nov/ she has settled down in England, and is going in for art." Christopher still looked doubtful. " It would make me miserable to think that you weren't properly hjoked after and taken care of, Elisabeth."' " Well, I sliall be. And if I'm not, I shall still have you to fall back upon." "But you won't have me to fall ba^k upon ; that is just the point. If you wouUl, I shoukhi't worry about you so much ; but it cuts me to the heart to leave you among strangers. Still, the Tremaines will be here, and I shall ask them to look after you ; and I daresay they will do so all right, though not as eftleiently as I should." Elisabeth grew rather pale ; that there would ever come a day when Christopher would not be there to fall back upon was a contingency which until now had never occurred to her. " What ever are you ta'king about, Chris ? Why sha'n't you be here when I go up to the Slade ? " " Because I am going to Australia." I ;li,' lit i '11 220 Zhc jfarilno^ous i^ 1^,1 1 ^ ^v^ "To Australia? What on carlh for?" It seemed to Elisabeth as if the earth beneath her feet had suddenly decided to reverse ils custom uy revolution, and to trans- pose its poles. "To see if I can find George Farringdon's son, of course." *' I thought he had been advertized for in both English and Australian papers, and had failed to answer the advertisements." "So he has." "Then why bother any more about him?" suggested Elisabeth. " Because I must. If advertisement fails, I must see what personal search will do." Elisabetn's lip trembled ; she felt that a hemisphere uninhabited by Christ()i)her would be a very dreary hemisphere indeed. " Oh ! Chris dear, you needn't go yourself," she coaxed ; " I simply cannot spare you, and that's the long and the short of it." Christopher hardened his heart. He had seen the (piiver of Elisabeth's lip, and it had almost proved too strong for him. "Hang it all ! I must go ; there is nothing else to be done." Elisabeth's eyes filled with tears. " Please don't, Chris. It is horrid of you to want to go and leave me when I'm so lonely and haven't got anybody in the world but you ! " " I don't want to go, Betty ; I hate the mere idea of going. I'd give a thousand pounds, if I could, to stop away. But I can't see that I have any alternative. Miss Farringdon left it to me, as her trustee, to find her heir and give up the property to him ; and, as a man of honour, I don't see how I can leave any stone unturned until I have fulfilled the charge which she laid upon me." /II>i53 3fa^^i^(3^ou'3 Mill 221 "Oh! Chris, don't go. I can't spare y(3u." And Elisabeth stretched out two pleachn- hands towards him. Ciiristopher turned away from her. " I say, I^ctty, {)Ii-ase don't cry," and his voice shook; "it makes it so much harder for me ; and it is hard enou-h as it is— confoundedly hard ! " ^ "Then why do it?" " Because I must.'' " I don't see that ; it is pure Quixotism." " I wish to goodness 7 could think tliat ; hut I can't. It appears to me a question about which there could not be two opinions." The tears dried on Elisabeth's lashes. The old feeling of being at war with Christopher, which had laid dormant fo'? so long, now woke up again in her heart, and inclined her to defy rather than to plead. If he cared for duty more than for her, he did not care for her much, she said to herself; and she was far too proud a woman ever to care for a man- even in the way of friendship— who obviously did not care for her. Still, she condescended to further argument. ^ "If you really liked me and were my friend," she said, " not only wouldn't you wish to go away and leave me, but you would want me to have the money, instead of rushing all over the world in order to give it to some tiresome young man you'd never heard of six months ago." "Don't you understand that it is just because I like you and am your friend, that I can't bear you to profit by anything which has a shade of dishonour connected with it ? If I cared for you less I should be less particular." " That's nonsense ! But your conscience and your sense of honour always were bugbears, Christoi)her, and always will be. They bored me as a child, and they bore me noA'." it. 222 Xlbe 3fan1UG&ou3 ! ' i Christopher winced ; the nightmare of his life had been the terror of borin^^, Ehsabeth, for he was wise enough to know that a woman may love a man with whom she is angry, but never one by whom she is bored. "It is just Hke you," Elisabeth continued, tossing her head, '* to be so busy saving your own soul and laying up for yourself a nice little nest-egg in heaven, that you haven't time to consider other people and their interests and feelings." " I think you do me an injustice," replied Christopher quietly. He was puzzled to find Elisabeth so bitter af^ainst him on a mere question of money, as she was usually a most unworldly young person ; again he did not understand that she was not really fighting over the matter at issue, but over the fact that he had put something before his friend- ship for her. Once she had quarrelled with him because he seemed to think uiore of his business than of her ; now she was quarrelling with him because he thought more of his duty than of her; for the truth that he could not have loved her so much had he not loved honour more, had not as yet been revealed to Elisabeth. "I don't want to be money-grubbing," she went on, "or to cling on to things to which I have no right ; though, of course, it will be rather poor fun for me to have to give up all this," and she waved her hand in a sweep, supposed to include the Willows and the Osierfield and all that appertained thereto, "and to drudge along at the rate of five hundred a year, with yesterday's dinner and last year's dress warmed up again to feed and clothe me. But I ask you to consider whether the workpeople at tlie Osieifield aren't happier under my regime, than under the rule of some good-for-nothing young man, who will probably spend all his income upon himself, and go to the dogs as his father did before him." /lOiss ifaciino^oirs ICliU Christopher was cut to the quick ; Elisabeth had hit the nail on the head. After all, it was not his own interests that he felt bound to sacrifice to the claims of honour, but hers ; and it was this consideration that made him feel the sacrifice almost beyond his power. He knew that it was his duty to do everything he could to fulfil the conditions of Miss r"arrin^d(jn's will ; he also knew that he was com- pelled to do this at Elisabeth's expense and not at his own ; and the twofold knowledge well-ni^h broke his heart. His misery was augmented by his perception of how completely Elisabeth misunderstood him, and of ho.v liltle of the truth all those years of silent devotion had conveyed to her mind; and his face was white with pain as he answered, — '* There is no need for you to say such things as that to me, Elisabeth ; you know as well as I do that I would give my life to save you from sorrow and to ensure your happi- ness ; but I cannot be guilty of a sliabby trick even for this. Can't you see that the very fact that I tare for you so much, makes it all the more impossible for me to do any- thing shady in your name ? " " Bosh ! " rudely exclaimed Elisabeth. " As for the workpeople," he went on, ignoring her inter- ruption, " of course no one will ever do as much for them as you are doing. But that isn't the question. The fact that one man would make a better use of money than another wouldn't justify me in robbing I'cter to increase Paul's munificence. Now would it ? '' " That's perfectly different. It is all right for you to go on advertising for that Farringdon man in agony columns, and I shouldn't be so silly as to make a fuss about giving up the money if he appeared. You know that well enougli. But it does seem to me to be over-conscientious and hyper- disagreeable on your part to go off to Australia — just when J am so lonely and want you so mucl) — in search au-3l3tcr5 of iTIMlip" 229 less painful because of the righteous motive inducing it. And so Christopher Thornley learnt by bitter experience, when, after many days, he returned from a fruitless search for the missing heir, to find the countenance of Elisabeth utterly changed towards him. She was quite civil to him — quite polite ; she never attempted to argue or quarrel with him as she had done in the old days, and she listened patiently to all the details of his doings in Australia ; but with gracious coldness she quietly put him outside the orbit of her life, and showed him plainly that he was now nothing more to her than her trustee and the general manager of her works. It was hard on Christopher — cruelly hard ; yet he had no alternative but to accept the position which Elisabeth, in the blindness of her heart, assigned to him. Sometimes he felt the burden of his lot was almost more than he could bear ; not because of its heaviness, as he was a brave man and a patient one, but because of the utter absence of any joy in his life. Men and women can endure much sorrow if they have much joy as well ; u is when sorrow comes and there is no love to lighten it, that the Hand of God lies heavy upon them ; and It lay heavy upon Christopher's soul just then. Sometimes, when he felt weary unto death of the dreary routine of work and the still drearier routine of his uncle's sick-room, he recalled with a bitter smile how Elisabeth used to say that the smoke of the furnaces was really a pillar of cloud to show how God was watching over the people at the Osierfield as He watched over them in the wilderness. Because she had forgotten to be gracious to him, he concluded that God had forgotten to be gracious to him also — a not uncommon error of human wisdom ; but though his heart was wounded and his days darkened by her injustice towards him, he never blamed her, even in his inmost thoughts. He was absolutely loyal to Elisal)cth. Iff \-i\\ 2.^0 XTbe 3fan1nc}t)ons if One grim consol\tion he had — and that was the con- viction that he had not won, and never could have won, Eh'sabcth's love ; and that, therefore, poverty or riches were matters of no moment to him. Had he felt that temporal circumstances were the only bar between him and happiness, his position as her paid manager would have been unendurable ; but now she had taught him that it was he himself, and not any difference in their respective social positions, which really stood between herself and him ; and, that being so, nothing else had any power to hurt him. Wealth, unshared by Elisabeth, wc.ild have been no better than want, he said to himself; success, uncrowned by her, would have been equivalent to failure. When Christopher was in Australia he succeeded in tracing George Farringdon as far as Broken Hill, and there he found poor George's grave. He learned that George had left a widow and one son, who went away immedi- ately after George's death ; but no one could give him any further information as to what had subsequently become of these two. And he was obliged at last to abandon the search and return to England, without discovering what had happened to the widow and child. Some years after his nephew's fruitless journey to Australia Richard Smallwood died ; and though the old man had been nothing but a burden during the last few years of his life, Christopher missed him sorely wh^n he was gone. It was something even to have a childish old man to love him, and smile at his coming ; now there was nobody belonging to him, and he was utterly alone. But the years which had proved so dark to Christopher, had been full of brightness and interest to Elisabeth. She had fulfilled her intention of studying at the Slade School, and she had succeeded in her work beyond her wildest expectations. She was already recognized as an artist III! '"dbc Bauobtcvs of Ipbilip" 2M of no mean order. Now and t!ien she came down to the Willows, bringing Grace Cobham with her; and the; young women filled the house with company. Now and then they two went abroad together, and saii-lied their souls with the beauty of the art of other lands. But princi[)ally they lived in London, for the passion to be near the centre of things had come upon Elisabeth ; and when once that comes upon any one, London is the I)Iace in which to live. People wondered that Elisabeth did not marry, and blamed her behind her back for not making suitable hay while it was as yet summer with her. But the artist-woman never marries for the sake of being married — or rather for the sake of not being unmarried — as so many of her more ordinary sisters do ; her art S'lpplies her with that necessary interest in life, without which most women become either invalids or shrews, and— unless she happens to meet the right man— she can manage very well without him. George Farringdon's son had never turned up, in spite of all the efforts to discover him ; and by this time Elisabeth had settled down into the belief that the AVillows and the Osierfield were permanently hcis. She hatl long ago for- given Christopher Un- setting her and her interests aside, and going off in SL'areh of the lost heir— at least she believed that slie had ; but lh..re was always an under- current of bitterness in lier thoughts of him, which proved that the wound he had then djalt her had left a scar. Several men had wanted to marry Elisabeth, but they had not succeeded in winning her. She enj(jyed flirting with them, and she rejoiced in their admiration ; but when they offered her their love, she was frigluened and ran away. Consequently the world called her cold ; and as the years rolled on and no one touched her heart, she began to believe that the world was ri'ht. 'J ■& r]t 232 Zbc 3fari1not)on3 i'l " There are three great things in life," Grace Cobham said to her one day, "art and love and religion. They really are all part of the same thing, and none of them is perfected wiihout the others. Vou have got two, Elisa])eth ; but you have somehow missed the third, and without it you will never attain to your highest possibilities. You are a good woman, and you are a true artist ; but, until you fall in love, your religion and your art will both lack something, and will fall short of perfection." " I'm afraid I'm not a falling-in-love sort of person," replied Elisabeth meekly ; " I'm cxtrcm- ly sorry, but such is the case." *' It is a pity ! But you may fall in love yet." " It's too late, I fear. You see I am over thirty ; and if I haven't done it by now, I expect I never shall do it. It is tiresome to have missed it, I admit ; and especially as you think it would make me paint better pictures." *' Well, I do. Y'ou paint so well now that it is a pity you don't paint still better. I do not believe that any artist does his or her best work until his or her nature is fully developed ; and no woman's nature is fully developed until she has been in love." " I have never been in love ; I don't even know what it is like inside," said Elisabeth sadly ; " and I dreadfully want to know, because — looked at from the outside— it seems interesting." Grace gazed at her thoughtfully. " I wonder if it is that you are too cold to fall in love, or whether it only is that the right person hasn't appeared. " I don't know. I wish I did. What do you think it fr>"ls like?" " I know what it feels like- and that is like nothing else this side heaven." "It seems funny to get worked up in that sort of way 1 r.ii t c "ZTbc Bauobtcrs of pbtUp" 233 over an ordinary man— turning him into a revival-service or a national anthem, or something equally thrilling and inspiring! Still, I'd do it if I could, just from pure curiosity. I should really enjoy it. I've seen stupid girls light up like a turnip with a candle inside, simply because some plain young man did the inevita'ule, and came up into the drawing room after dinner; and I've seen clever women go to pieces like a linen button at the wash, simply because some ignorant man did the inevitable, and preferred a more foolish and better-looking woman to themselves." " Have you really never been in love, Elisabeth ? " Elisabeth pondered for a moment. " No ; I've sometimes thought I was, but I've always known I wasn't." " I wonder at that ; because you are very affectionate." "That is quite true; but no one has ever seemed to want as much as I had to give," said Elisabeth, the smile dying out of her eyes; "I do so long to be necessary to somebody— to feel that it is in my power to make somebody perfectly happy; but nobody has ever asked enough of me." " You could have made the men happy who wanted to marry you," suggested Grace. "No; I could have made them comfortable, and that's not the same thing." As Elisabeth sat alone in her own room that night, she thought about what Grace had said, and wondered if she were really too cold ever to experience that common yet wonderful miracle which turns earth into heaven for most people once in their lives. She had received much love and still more admiration in her time ; but she had never been allowed to give what she had to give, and she was essentially of the type of woman to whom it is more blessed to give than to receive. She had never craved to be loved, as some women crave : she had only asked to be allowed to l|(:f ii i 234 ^be jfan1no^ous w love as much as she was capable of loving, and the permis- sion had been denied her. As she looked back over her past life, she saw that it had always been the same. She had given the adoration of her childhood to Anne Farringdon, and Anne had not wanted it ; she had given the devotion of her girlhood to Felicia, and Felicia had not wanted it; she had given the truest friendship of her womanhood to Christopher, and Christopher had not wanted it. As for the men who had loved her, she had known perfectly well that she was not essential to them ; had she been, she would have married them ; but they could be happy without her — and they were. For Crace she had the warmest sense of comradeship ; but Grace's life was so full on its own account, that Elisabeth could only be one of many interests to her. Elisabeth was so strong and so tender, that she could have given much to any one to whom she was absolutely necessary ; but she felt she could give of her best to no man who desired it only as a luxury — it was too good for that. ** It seems rather a wnstc of torce," she said to herself, with a whimsical smile. " I feel like Niagara, spending its strength on empty si)lashings, when it might be turn- ing thousands of electric engines and lighting millions of electric lights, if only its power were turned in the right direction and properly stored. I could be so much to anybody who really needed me — I feel I could ; but nobody seems to need me, so it's no use bollicring. Any- way, I have my art, and that more than satisfies me ; and I will spend my life in giving forth my strength to the world at large, in the shape of pictures which shall help the world to be better and happier. At least I hope so." And with this reflection Elisabeth endeavoured to console herself for the non-appearance of that fairy prince, who, in her childish dreams, had always been ii Ubc Bauobtcr^ of ^biii^ '■35 \\oundtd in the tournament of life, and had turned to her for comfort. The years which had passed so drearily for Christopher, had cast th( ir shadows also over the lives of Alan and Felicia Tivinaine. When Willie was a bahy, his nurse accidentally let him fall; and the injury he then received was so great, that as he grew elder he was never able to walk properly, but had to punt himself about with a little crutch. This was a terrible blow to Alan; and became all the greater as time went on, and Felicia had no other children to share his devotion. I-'eiicia, too, felt it sorely ; but she fretted more over the sorrow it was to her husband than on her own account. There was a great friendship between Willie and Elisabeth. Weakness of any kind always appealed to her, and he, [)Oor child ! was weak indeed. So when Elisabeth was at the Willows and Willie at the Moat House, the two spent much time together. He never wearied of hearing about the things that she had pretended when she was a little girl; and she never wearied of telling him about them. "And so the people, who lived among the smoke and the furnaces, followed the pillar of cloud till it led them to the country on the other side of the hills," said Willie one day, as he and Elisabeth were sitting on the rustic seat in the Willows' garden. " I remember ; but tell me, what did they find in the country over there?" And he pointed with his thin little finger to the blue hills beyond the green valley. "They found everything that they wanted," replied Elisabeth. "Not the things that other people thought would be good for them, you know ; but just the dear. foolish, themselv impossible things that they had wanted for es. i m '< it And did the things make them happy 236 XLbc jfarnnobons "Perfectly happy — much happier than the wise, desirable, sensible things could have made them." " I suppose they could all walk without crutches," suggested Willie. " Of course they could ; and they could understand everything without being told." " And the other people loved them very much, and were very kind to them, weren't they ? " " Perhaps ; but what made them so happy was that they loved the other people and were kind to them. As long as they lived here in the smoke and din and bustle, everybody was so busy looking after his own concerns that nobody could be bothered with their love. There wasn't room for it, or time for it. But in the country over the hills there was plenty of room and plenty of time ; in fact, there wasn't any room or any time for any- thing else." " What did they have to eat ? " Willie asked. " Everything that had beeii too rich for them when they were here." W^illie sighed. " It must have been a nice country," he said. " It was, dear ; the nicest country in the world. It was always summer there, too, and holiday time." " Didn't they have any lessons to leain ?" " No ; because they'd learnt them all." *' Did they have roads and railways ? " ** No ; only narrow green lanes, which led straight into fairyland. And the longer you walked in them the less tired you were." " Tell me a story about the country over there," said Willie, nestling up to Elisabeth; "and let there be a princess in it." She put her strong arm round him and held him close. It I n XLbc Wmabtcve ot ipbilip" 237 "Once upon a time," she began, "there was a princess, who lived among the smoke and the furnaces." " Was she very beautiful ? " " No ; but she ha[ipened to have a heart made of real gold. That was the only rare thing about her ; otherwise she was quite a common princess." " What did she do with the heart ? " asked Willie. "She wanted to give it to somebody; but the strange thing was that nobody would have it. Several people asked her for it before they knew it was made of real gold ; but when they found that cut, they began to make excuses. One said that he'd no place in his house for such a first- class article ; it would merely make the rest of the furniture look shabby, and he shouldn't refurnish in order to please anybody. Another said that he wasn't going to bother himself with looking after a real gold heart, when a silver- gilt one would serve his purpose just as we'l. And a third said that solid gold plate wasn't worth the trouble of cleaning and keeping in order, as it was sure to get scratched or bent in the process, the precious metals being too soft for everyday use." " It is difficult not to scratch when you're cleaning plate," Willie observed. " I sometimes help Simpkins, and there's only one spoon that he'll let me clean, for fear I should scratch ; and that's quite an old one that doesn't matter. So I have to clean it over and over again. But go on about the princess." " Well, then she offered her gold heart to a woman who seemed lonely and desolate ; but the woman only cared for the hearts of men, and threw back the i)rincess's in her face. And then somebody advised her to set it up for auction, to go to the highest bidder, as that was generally considered the correct thing to do with regard to well- regulated women's hearts ; but she didn't like that suggestion ■fs 'j B ■111 2^8 TLhc jfarrtUG^ous 1 • i" i i:' 1,' I i at all. At last the poor princess t^rew tired of offering her treasure to pc [de who didn't want it, and so she locked it up out of sight ; anut they are on the other ? " " Always ; and they are never hard or cold or unsym- pathetic. wSo the princess decided to leave the smoke and the furnaces, and to go to the country on the other side of the hills. She travelled down into the valley and ri