BOOKS BY I S S HO3PKINS Arrow Head Light $1-25 Blue Badge Boys I>2 5 Floy Lindsley i.oo Good Times Girls 1.50 Harry Fenimore's Princi- ples i .00 Judge Havisham's Will 1.25 Ready and Willing 1.25 Ruthie's Venture i.oo Tall Chestnuts of Van Dyke i .50 Up to the Mark i.oo 'THE CHAIN WILL HOLD." Page 13. FRONTISPIECE;. Judge HaYis tian/s Will, BY MISS I. T. HOPKINS, AUTHOR OF "BLUE-BADGE BOYS," "THE TALL CHESTNUT! OF VANDYKE," - ARROW HEAD LIGHT," ETC. AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK CITY. COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. CHAPTER I. The Havisham Place ................. 7 CHAPTER II. The Dandelion Link ............. 16 CHAPTER III. Holding On ~ 25 CHAPTER IV. The Postman's Ring ................. 33 CHAPTER V. Vivian 41 CHAPTER VI. A Grind at the Mill 49 CHAPTER VII. The Judge's Promise ................ 56 CHAPTER VIII. Thorns in the Pillow 64 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. A Broken Bow 74 CHAPTER X. The Mysterious Words 85 CHAPTER XI. The " Last Will " 94 CHAPTER XII. The Battle Begun 101 CHAPTER XIII. Vivian's Return ; 107 CHAPTER XIV. Who Shall be Right? 113 CHAPTER XV. The Right Key 119 CHAPTER XVI. Keeping Up the Fight 124 CHAPTER XVII. Is there a Chance? 136 CHAPTER XVIII. What is the Matter with the Will? 147 CHAPTER XIX. No More Havisham House ____..__ 155 CHAPTER XX. Off to the Country Seat. 163 CHAPTER XXI. How do you Like It? -... 171 CONTENTS. 5 CHAPTER XXII. Shouldering Up . 180 CHAPTER XXIII. A Hundred Miles Below Level 187 CHAPTER XXIV. Hard Questions 194 CHAPTER XXV. The Thick of the Fight aoi CHAPTER XXVI. Battling for Lee._ 208 CHAPTER XXVII. Trouble for Cyp ... 220 CHAPTER XXVIII. Temptation, and a Score to Pay 226 CHAPTER XXIX. A Blow for Bent _ 234 CHAPTER XXX. Hand-to-Hand Fighting 241 CHAPTER XXXI. At the Last Moment . 250 CHAPTER XXXII. Hold? or Let Go? 262 CHAPTER XXXIII. Turned into Day 271 CHAPTER XXXIV. Reparation _. 279 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXV. Joy Cometh in the Morning :. ......... 291 CHAPTER XXXVI. All Right at Last 299 CHAPTER XXXVII. A White Day, and More to Follow 305 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL CHAPTER I. THE HAVISHAM PLACE. THE old "Havisham Place" seemed to be centre, focus, beginning, and end with the town and the people of Edinburgh Heights. If a stranger asked direction, the reply was sure to be, "Keep on till you reach the Havisham House, and then turn." If the young people wanted a rallying point, it was, "Meet by the Havisham Place ;' ' or if they came in glowing from a frosty walk, or dreamy from a moonlight one, they were almost sure to have been "as far as the Havi- sham House and back.'* The town had doubled and trebled since the Havisham House was young, but the growth had stretched so evenly about it that its relative posi- tion did not seem changed, while the pride of the Edinburghers increased as one touch of modern improvement after another added charm to the solid respectability it always had. The short sloping lawn was a faultless carpet of green, a 8 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. bit of conservatory sheltered itself in a cornei against a wing, and the pillars of the broad, rounded piazza, had just been connected by a simple design of arches that broke the view of river and hills into separate bits of landscape, set as in picture-frames. Altogether the house had quite as much of to-day as of yesterday about it ; and as for its owners, Bentley, or "Bent," the old butler, was the only member of the household who could claim the dignity of years. "Mr. Thorpe," as he still persisted in calling Judge Havisham, the master of the house, though perhaps on the wa- ning side of middle life, was in the full strength and vigor of it still, and never thought of himself as a day older than twenty years ago ; while it was only since "Mr. Wynthrop's" sixteenth birthday that Bent had laid a cover for him at ceremonious dinners; and as for "Mr. Cyp," Bent still gave him a chair a trifle higher than the other two. Ceremonious or every-day as the dinner might be, the laying of the table was a grave and important form in the old butler's eyes, and he had an unfailing habit of going backward a few steps, taking a slow, critical look at his work, and returning for some slight change in the posi- tion of a piece of silver or glass. Then he* would retreat again, and come as quietly back for an- other improving touch. THE HAVISHAM PLACE. 9 But even after criticism could be defied, some- thing seemed unsatisfactory still to Bent, and a deprecating shake of the head was very apt to say so as he cast his last lingering look. "There's no balance nor consistency nor considerate effect to a three-sided table,'* he would murmur as he vanished through the door. "No, nor Providence either, in this case; for it can never be of His pleasure that Miss Vivian shouldn't stay with her father, and two boys of an age like that! It was quite right she should marry, no doubt ; but it 's well enough known she 's free to live where she chooses, for all that. The old home isn't gay enough for her, they say; but can't she bring what she likes with her and make it so? There's no restriction upon any wish of hers, the land knows, while Mr. Thorpe lives. No, no ; there 's another reason than that, another reason and a worse one, more 's the pity ! though I hope there 's no eye but mine keen-sighted enough to make it out" Bent had but one confidant in all these half- whispered reflections the inside of his butler's pantry; and it was receiving them for the twen- tieth time one soft spring afternoon as the judge's quick, firm step was heard nearing the dining- room door. Bent started. It was an old servant's right to be interested, but to criticise was quite another thing; and how could he be sure which u Mr. io JUDGE HAVISHAM'S Thorpe" might consider him to be about if he happened to overhear ? But no; the step was only passing, not com- ing in, and the pantry door was only open a crack. It was impossible the judge should have heard. He was at the threshold of the front door now, lingering a moment, and then out upon the hard old porch. Bent drew a sigh of relief ; Mr. Thorpe was only going to his favorite piazza- chair to read. "Not that it is in nature," Bent began again, but silently this time, as he gave his silver tray a polish it did not need; " not that it is in nature for a man to feel those he loves best gone against, and never let his tongue say so to himself ; but when he's done that he's been far enough, and walls have ears, if the old saying is true." Whoever might be u gone against," however, Bent's master did not seem to be troubling him- self about the fact as he luxuriated in the first touch of summer, in spite of the book before his eyes. It was a knotty question in law he was working at, but its cobwebs could not keep off the delicious air, the breath of flowers, or the song of an oriole building in the swing of an elm bough on the lawn. The book was laid down, now and then, on the judge's knee, and his hand passed hastily through his handsome hair. These first spring days always did bring back the very same old THE HAVISHAM PLACE. feeling he had when he was d boy ! And what was the use of being anything but a boy, after all ? He had a great mind to let some other law- yer take this case, and What was Cyp doing down there in the grass? if grass it Could be called, shaven and shorn like that. What times he could remember in the yard-high rank grass of the old mowing lot, where ground-sparrow eggs and strawberries were found side by side ! The book went down at last with a toss; he would know what that youngster was after out there. "Cyp!" A head, with a straw hat pushed back and a pair of eager eyes, popped up. "What are you hunting there, you young ras- cal ? If it 's a diamond mine, why don't you call me to go shares?" A gay laugh was the answer, and a hand held up a bunch of violets, blue as the sky. "Just these, that's all. It's to hang a May basket on Mab's door. When Bent goes home he '11 find it, don't you see?" The whole figure was up now, and coming towards Judge Havisham's seat, the tiny basket in one hand and the flowers in the other; but there was some perplexity after all; that waS plain; Cyp's step was hesitating, and there was a wrinkle of heavy thought between his yes. "I can't you see, I can't tell what I can hang it with," he said, in divisions, as he mounted 12 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S one after another of the piazza, steps. "I can get plenty of strings, but Mab is too good for a string." "Too good for a string?" laughed the judge. "You're a cavalier worth having, Cyprian. How would a chain of gold meet your views? There it grows; not on our side of the street, but on the other, where that marauding old lawn- mower of Waite's can't reach. Take yourself over there and bring back a handful, and you have the thing." Cyp's eyes flew across the street to a bit of roadside banked with great dandelion heads, yel- low as the sun, and in another instant he had fol- lowed with a flying step. ' ' It does n' t take that youngster long to catch an idea," said "Mr. Thorpe," as he watched him go. "Heigho ! I wish I could get hold of one for myself and settle that case," and he glanced reluctantly at his book where it lay. But no; it might lie there. Cyp was back again now, and the dandelion chain should come next. "Now, sir," said the judge, as the links went together and the chain grew, "the same misera- ble question that tries every man's work is going to level at this. Will it hold? It's an unpleas- ant question, true enough, but you'll have to stand it. Hang it on your own door-knob and see what you 've got." There was a moment of suspense, breathless THE HAVISHAM PLACE. 13 on Cyp's part, as the Havisham door-handle had the weight of Mab's basket slowly and cautiously left upon it by an excited little hand. The chain stretched, the links lengthened, the position of the whole was changed, but it held! Cyp drew back the hand that had kept guard under it, ready to save a fall, with a cry of delight 11 It will ! It will ! And it 's the little one that 's doing it, too, after all !" and he pointed to the smallest link of the chain. Slenderest stem of all, least in circumference by half, it lay against the polished brass of the old knob just where the sharpest strain seemed to come. Its curve was doubled into a sharp corner at one point, but it never flinched. "Bravo!" said the judge. "Sticks like a brave fellow, doesn't it? Now take yourself off. You make a youngster of me, instead of the poor drudge I am;" and he took up his book with a wry face that always delighted Cyp. At this moment the clatter of hoofs was heard, and a finely groomed horse, with a rider firm in his seat, came whirling into the yard. u There ! there comes the boy that is half way between us. He has nothing to do, I'll warrant Take him for your mate. Idling is bad business for an unlucky fellow like me. ' ' A man stepped from the stable at the sound of the horse's feet, and Wynthrop threw him the rein. "Blackwing will need a good rubbing, 14 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. Waite; I've given him a great run," he said as he sprang to the ground. "Yes, sir," answered Waite respectfully, and Wynt turned to enter the house. Waite looked after him silently a moment as he went, his dark, almost olive-skinned face shaded by his riding-cap and his black eyes cast quietly upon the ground. Then Waite gave a little shake of his head. "It passes me," he ejaculated mentally; "a young gentleman with all that one has in him, and the quiet way he has with it all. It 's there, though, we all know, and folks will find it out some day the rest of it, I mean." He faced about to lead the horse away, and so missed seeing that Wynt's eyes lifted just in time to catch a glimpse of the group on the piazza, and that he turned instantly in that direction and went up the steps with a spring. "Yes!" shouted Cyp, dragging him towards the door. "See; it's the little one that's doing it, I tell you, the smallest one of all !" "The little one is doing it, eh? How is that?" asked Wynt absently, his thoughts not yet finding the situation altogether clear. "I don't know. I suppose it thought it would hold on tighter the harder things pulled," answered Cyp, excitement still shining out of his eyes. Wynt laughed pleasantly, but a low, quiet THE HAVISHAM PLACE. 15 laugh that just changed the expression of his handsome mouth, and that Waite would have felt gave emphasis to his reflections of a moment ago. u Not much thinking done in dandelion stems, I reckon, Cyp," he said, as he pushed back his riding-cap, freeing his thick dark hair. "I say, Uncle Thorpe, isn't there?" contest- ed Cyp; and Judge Havisham turned from his book. "Eh? What is it?" he asked absently. "Take yourself off, as I told you. Ask Wynt, there; he's first-rate authority. Argue your case before him." Wynt drew Cyp gently away, got him to the opposite corner of the porch, and threw him into a hammock that swung under a curtain of vines. "I say it did! it does!" began Cyp again gleefully, striking a defensive attitude as well as he could and preparing for sport. " It thought it would hold on tighter the harder things pulled. Isn't that a good way?" But before Wynt could answer Bent's full dignity stood in the door. When " dinner was ready" was the moment for Bent to feel that he had brought the fuH importance of his day to the front i6 CHAPTER II. THE DANDELION LINK. BENT'S eye, trained to see and consider every inch of his territory in the Havisham House, caught sight of his door-knob instantly, first with a look of alarm for his precious brass, and then with an instant's gleam of understanding towards the two boys, as his equally quick ear caught Cyp's words and the ownership of chain and basket was explained. But the gleam vanished and Bent was sustain- ing the dignity of the moment again. "Dinner is served, if you please, Mr. Thorpe, Mr. Wynt, Mr. Cyp," and with a grave bow he was withdrawing as noiselessly as he came, but Cyp began scrambling out of his net. "I say, Bent, look out for your own door- handle when you go home to-night Mab's door- handle, I mean. Don't forget it or we'll come to grief." No one would have suspected from Bent's face that he had any thought beyond the service he was doing as he gravely passed one course after another, serving each faultlessly and forgetting no possible wish or want. But the words he had caught from Cyp seemed to echo with a strangtf THE DANDELION LINK. 17 persistency in his mind, and a good many thoughts followed in their train. "'Hold on tighter the harder things pull!' That wasn't a bad thing Mr. Cyp happened to say." And then would follow another reflection as his eyes rested first on one and then on another of the group he served. "I hope Mr. Thorpe will do the same if there comes any working upon him before long. Miss Vivian will be sure to be coming home, with the weather going on like this. There '11 be some fine company or other she'll want to show the old place to in June. And I didn't like the way the wind blew the last time she was here. Straws showed it! Straws showed it!" And so on, till Bent took an unnecessary turn into the china-closet to shake himself up. Thoughts that must be kept secret seemed like treason, and he would rather re- serve them for a time when he need not mask his face. The meal was over at last a late dinner always at the Havisham House, as the judge did not like his day's work broken in upon at an ear- lier hour and Cyp left the table in haste. " Where now, youngster?" asked his uncle, as he went flying from the piazza steps. "Do n't you know your day and dinner come to an end to- gether?" "Oh, only to Mab's with this," answered Cyp, bringing his basket into sight; and his uncle Jade* BTtobun- Will. 2 l8 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. turned away satisfied; a run to Mab's and back need hardly take two minutes? time. The Havisham Place, though in front covered only by the lawn, at the foot of which Cyp had crossed the street to his dandelion bank, in the rear sloped gently away over a much longer stretch. The carriage drive that entered at the front rounded the house and curved down the slope, passing a pet little grove with its fish-pond, and emerging on a narrow street that crossed the place at its rear. On each side of the driveway, but a trifle removed from it and really fronting the street, stood a little lodge or cottage, simple but tasteful, and graceful with flowers and vines. One of these had been built for u Nurse Barbie," and a life lease of it had been given her when, after fostering every child in the family for more than one generation, her services were needed no more. The other should properly have been Waite's, but as he had u no belongings," to use his own expression, Bent's invalid daughter had been installed in it and Bent privileged to call it home as far as his duties would allow. Cyp had made the distance often in a minute's time, but he was slower to-night, with the safety of chain and basket to consider. They were brought all right to the door at last, and Cyp tested his work again with noiseless and nervous hands. Yes, the " little one " and all the rest were true as steel once more. What would Mab say ! THE DANDELION LINK. 19 An hour later Cyp's day was done indeed, and Bent, making his last pilgrimage about the house, saw him curled up against the sofa cushion, too sound asleep even for dreams. Bent nodded imperceptibly to himself. There was a specimen, now, of the very things he had talked too much about to the pantry door that afternoon. What did two men know about taking care of a child like that? If Miss Vivian were here now (as she might be), she would know that a bed was the only thing for him at this time of night Or if even Barbie were about The Lord had chosen to take Mrs. Thorpe to himself the saddest day the Havisham House had ever seen but he left Miss Vivian. He left one, in his pity, that knew well how to make a home if she would. Bent went noiselessly out The last shade was drawn, the last gas jet regulated, and the last key turned, so far as they came under his care; there were a few little matters yet to delay him in the dining-room, and then he would be off to Mab. Wynt and his uncle looked comfortable enough, certainly, and not altogether objects of pity, as Bent closed the door. Wynt was buried in a book that apparently delighted him and Judge Havisham was as evidently ready for a rest His opinion was made up as to that troublesome case at last. There was no hobgoblin in it for him any more. 2o JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. His glance fixed itself upon Wynt as, with elbow on the table, his finely shaped head rested on his hand and his dark grave face, forgetful of everything near, bent over his book. "Wynt," he exclaimed suddenly, "do you know, I like you better than any boy I ever knew !" Wynt started and looked up, his dark eyes be- wildered for a moment with the suddenness of the recall, and then in another instant a smile and a look of pleasure answered, though the quiet of his manner still remained. "Do you, uncle? I thought better of your judgment, but it is all the luckier for me." "Now don't give yourself any trouble about my judgment, young man. I 've seen a good deal of everything, boys included, in my day; Cyp, there, is all right in his way, just the pet for the old house; a good deal like one of these spring days a luxury for just now and a promise of bet- ter things by-and-by. But I tell you I like that quiet way of yours that doesn't stir till the time comes, but is ready for it with the grip of a lion when it does." Wynt laughed. ' ' The grip of a lion's nephew, I rather think, if there's any grip about it at all." "Not a bit of it You 've got your own way, and that's half the reason I like it, good as it is. It was one of the best days the old house ever THE DANDELION LINK. 21 marked when you and Cyp came into it. I gave up Vivian to that fine-enough fellow she fancied, on the promise I should be richer instead of poorer by the move. They would make their home to- gether in the old nest, they said. But they seem to spread wings everywhere else instead, and I should be a lonely old fellow enough, if it were not for you." "Do you think Vivian likes it?" asked Wynt, his face impenetrably quiet again and his eyes returning to his book. His uncle started and looked keenly at him with a quick glance. " Vivian? Do I think she likes what?" Wynt hesitated, and then, "Our being here," he answered gravely, lifting his eyes for a mo- ment to his uncle's face. The judge half rose excitedly, and then con- trolled himself to a quietness almost equalling Wynt's. "Why shouldn't she like it? She never knew your mother, it is true. Wyut, your mother the only sister I ever had was the pet of my whole soul. When I was young I was way ahead of her in years; there was twice the dis- tance between us that there is between you and Cyp; but I cherished her all the more for that. She was the golden light of the house to me, and she seldom left it till she went out as Vivian did two years ago. It lost her then, but my heart held on to her just the same. I always dreamed 22 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. and dreamed 1 should have her back some day; but I never saw her again. The climate where they took her and kpt her the climate that gave you that berry-colored skin of yours faded her like a flower, and the very day after I let Vivian go my dream vanished. * The Lord had led her feet to a new home, fairer than our thoughts could conceive,' the letter said. I hope so, but there has been an aching void in the old one ever since. And it's not for us to judge of the Lord's reasons, but I never thought a man had a right to keep such a girl in a heathenish climate like that! What was a little money- making to her comfort and life?" Dark as Wynt's skin might be, a flush crept quickly up under it and his eyes shone. The sound of his mother's name always brought that; he could not speak it at all himself yet, although two years had gone by; but his father! Why should his father's faults or follies be brought up against him now? "I beg your pardon, Wynt," said the judge suddenly. "It's all past and gone now and he is gone with it; one month from the first news brought the second, and another two months brought you and Cyp, and let us be happy to- gether. But I want you to understand about all this. I want you to know how much you and Cyp are to me, and why it is so. And I want you to know what your footing is in this house. THE DANDELION LINK. 23 It is your mother's share of it; and whatever hap- pens to me we can't tell what that may be or how soon it may come, remember, young as I feel I want you to know that whatever I might have given her I give to you. There is no beam or rafter in the old house that she should not have called home, and as long as you and Cyp want it here it is. There, that is the end of that. Why don't you take that young rascal off to his bed? He'll grow old before his time, hanging about here at such hours." Wynt rose and went to him. "Cyp!'* he said; but there was no answer. "Cyp!" Not a quiver in the long eyelashes, and the hand that had dropped over the side of the lounge hung as motionless as before. "That's a way to sleep, now!" said the judge, coming towards him. "You and I are past that, Wynt. Here, let me have him." For an instant he stooped over him with a long, slow look. Yes, it was his sister's face again, girl as she had been and boy as this little fellow was. Then he lifted him quickly and was gone with him, over the polished stairs, past the square landing with the old clock, and on to the hall above. " Here he is, then," he said, as he passed him over to Wynt. "Take care of him now, and bless you, boy!" 24 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. He turned and was half way down again be- fore Wynt could answer, but Wynt's pulses were throbbing with all that he had said. Half, a quarter, of that would have been almost more than he could bear. He clasped Cyp for a moment with a quick, strong pressure. "I'll hold on to you tighter the harder things pull," he said, and then drop- ping him gently to his feet, "Here, youngster, it's rough, I know, but you'll have to wake up now.'* HOLDING ON. 25 CHAPTER III. HOLDING ON. MEANTIME Cyp's basket, hanging for Mab, had nearly come to grief. The owner of a heavier, quicker step than Bent's had approached the door, knocked, and in response to Mab's " Come in," was just about to put a grip on the door-knob that would have left little of violets or chain, when through the twilight the visitor caught sight of them just in time. Something was there. What was it ? The new-comer hesi- tated, gave it a close look, and then detaching it as carefully as a big brawny hand could, carried it inside. Mab knew who was coming and her face was shining. It was a pretty face, even when quiet, with its soft brown eyes and patient look, but it was more than pretty when it lighted up like that "Oh, it's you, Jem. Come in. I'm so glad. But what's that you're bringing me? What 's in your hand ?" "It's naught of my bringing," answered Jem; "except as I was near bringing it to an end. If it had once felt the clamp of my hand on it, that would have been its last It was wait- ing on the door-handle; that's all I know." a6 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. "Oh, it's that little Cyp. Violets! Let me have them, Jem, please. He heard me saying how I longed for them, and that I could n't hunt for them as I used." Jem's large Saxon face did not look pleased. He pushed back his cap hesitatingly, as his hands were free, till a curl or two of tawny hair ap- peared, then pulled it off and sat down. "I don't know why you mightn't have told me, if you wanted violets," he said. "I suppose I might have brought them to you as well as another, if you'd said the word." " But, Jem, it was only a happening that they were spoken of, you know." "I don't know about happenings; I've noth- ing to do with them that I know of; only, Mab, there seem so many of them of late. I begin to think you don't care for me as you used." The light was gone out of Mab's face now, and a half-frightened, half- wounded look took its place. "Jem ! You ought n't to jest with me like that. The very sound of the words hurts me, though there isn't meaning in them, of course." "And why shouldn't there be meaning in them? There's been meaning enough in mine when I asked you more than once if you meant to marry me or not. I'm tired of this way of going on." Mab's great brown eyes fixed on him as if they almost uttered a cry. "Tired of it?" she ex- HOLDING ON. 2 7 claimed. " You are tired of it ! Oh, I was afraid it would come to that at last! I felt a deadly fear of it in my heart sometimes, but I tried to drive it away; I wouldn't have it there." "Better put an end to it then. If you care for me, there 's one proof of it you can give." There was silence a moment, and Mab's face, that had flushed so prettily when he came in, turned deadly pale and her mouth quivered. "Jem, " she said at last, in a low, quiet tone, " did you come here to quarrel with me?" "No, Mab," answered Jem, his own face flushing this time, "I want no quarrelling; but it does begin to seem as if you're trifling with me, and I 'm not a man to like that If you care for me, why don't you prove it, as other girls do to men they love? I know you 're not strong, but I reckon I can work for two." Mab pressed her hand to her heart Jem's words seemed to have driven a pain through it like a stab. If she cared for him ! If he cared for her, how could he understand so little in all this time of what the Lord had laid upon her to bear? Jem waited in silence for his answer, and seemed determined to wait. She must give it to him, and she gathered herself up. "Jem," she said slowly, bringing all her strength to bear, "I never meant to trifle with you, but perhaps I've done it without k'lowinof it, after all. What kind of a wife should I make 28 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. for any man till the Lord sends some help to lift me up from where I am ? How many times a day do you think I am out of this chair ? Only once or twice for a few steps. What do you think my hands can do but this bit of lace-work that you see me at? There 's not a thing done in this house but what Barbie comes over and puts her hand to, out of pure love; and your wife must keep your home for you and keep it bright. I can bear the pain, I can, though it seems as if it would eat my life out sometimes; but it's the uselessness that is bitterer than I can tell ! Still, I 've hoped and hoped the L,ord had a help com- ing for me, as I said. But it seems no nearer, and perhaps I shall have to see that he means to keep me as I am. I 've shut my eyes against it so far, for your sake and mine, but if it 's true, Jem, I don't wonder you're tired, I wont ask you to wait any more." Jem twisted his cap uncomfortably. "But you do ask me all the same. You wont put an end to it, at least." A quick cry half escaped Mab, and then her woman's soul rose up. "I ze////put an end to it, then, Jem," she said, "for I believe that is what you are trying to make me do. To your part of the waiting, I mean. My part may be many a long day and year to come yet." There was a step on the gravel of the carriage- drive outside. Bent was coming. Jem rose hesi- HOLDING ON. 29 tatingly. "We can't say anything more now, Mab," he said. "But" "No, nor anything different, Jem. It's said for ever, I 'm afraid." In another moment Jem was gone, and Bent had come in in his place. Jem almost stumbled over him as he stopped at the door, remembering Cyp's charge about what he was to look for there. "What, are you going, man?" Bent asked. "Mab's been looking for you, and it's early yet" Jem gave some indistinct answer and pushed out into the starlight, crunching over the few steps of driveway between the house and the nar- row street, and then his footsteps came rapidly back, fainter and fainter, and then lost by a sud- den turn. "Why, what's taken him so early?" began Bent "And I was to find something on the door-knob that Mr. Cyp " But he stopped sud- denly as he looked at Mab. Her face was white and her brown eyes were fixed on his face appeal- ingly, while Cyp's violets, their chain crushed by Jem's heavy touch, lay in her lap spilled and for- gotten. Bent stood silent as he looked from her to them and back again. " She looks like some poor wounded thing," he said to himself excitedly. " Has that Jem " 30 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. But he might as well have spoken. Mab read his thoughts. "No, father, Jem never meant it. He has a good heart, I'm sure, but he can't understand. But it's harder than ever to-night. It never was so bitter before. If I should let go !" What was she saying? What did it all mean? He Could not get hold of it yet. " If you were to let go what, Mab?" "Oh, my Lord's dear hand, my Lord's dear hand! You don't know, you can't think, for I 've never let you know, what it is to me to be prisoner here. My life's young yet, father. It's not as if I were old." " I 'd sit there for you, daughter, God knows," said Bent with a little moan. "Don't," pleaded Mab; "don't say such a thing. I only meant that sometimes it all would go over me, bitter and hard, if I didn't reach up and get hold of my Lord's hand. I reach up for it, and I seem to hold it, you don't know how close ! I can almost lay my face against it, and I feel as strong as anybody then, and as contented and as rich. It seems as if his heart was right beside it, so pitying and true, and they both were ready to heal me, if it was only the thing to do. But there's once in a while a cloud comes up, and there seems such a dragging to make me let go, to make me think he isn't there, after all, or he doesn't care, or why does he let things go as HOLDING ON. 31 they are? It kills me to have it so and I know- it's a cruel lie; but it comes once in a while, and to-night is one of the times. It never was so bad as to-night, I think. " Bent looked at her helplessly. "It's a time when she needs a woman by," he said to him- self. If her mother had not died ! If Barbie would come in ! If she were but the little thing he used to hold when she wanted comforting ! "Oh, my little Mab !" he cried, holding out his hands as if he would have taken her. Then he went up to her and lifted Cyp's dan- delion chain. Some of the links were crushed and broken, and some were loosened here and there, but not one had given way. " There 'sonly one thing we can do, as I see, Mab," he said. "It's as Mr. Cyp said about these things here this afternoon. I didn't alto- gether take what he was saying, but it was somehow that they were 'holding on tighter the harder things pulled.' We must do it, Mab. The Hand is there, and we can't let go. It 's all gone with us if we do." Mab' s eyes were "holding" him now, but a sudden new light was gleaming in them. " Did he say that? Did little Cyp say that? Oh, I wonder if it was a message for me! Oh, I will hold on ; I will, indeed ! It is the Hand that held the very cross for us. How could I ever think it would draw away from me !" 32 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. When Mab was asleep that night Bent stole in and looked at her. There was a quiet peace in her face, her cheek rested upon one slender hand, and close beside it, dropped from the pillow, lay a cluster of Cyp's violets, blue and sweet. Bent stood still a moment, then turned and went as softly out again. " Yes, she'll 'hold on,'" he said. "It was like part of her soul, almost, to lose Jem out of her prisoned little life ; more to her than her old father can ever be he might have been if he would. But the Hand that held on to the very cross for us isn't likely to miss when it portions out. And he '11 never let her go, that 's sure." But as he sat down a different look came over his face. "What kind of a soul could a man have in him though, lover or friend, to be hard to a girl like Mab ! She tries to defend him and say he wasn't hard, but I am afraid. If he was, she's better without him than with him, and I hope he '11 never cross her path nor mine." THE POSTMAN'S RING. 33 CHAPTER IV. THE POSTMAN'S RING. THE "three-sided table" was faultless as ever next morning, and its occupants had never seemed gayer or in better mood. "Parlor napping hasn't spoiled those eyes of yours yet, Cyp," said Judge Havisham, "but look out for yourself next time ! You wont get floated up stairs at my expense if you try it too often, I promise you in advance. Bent, hand me Nevermind, there's the postman's ring; see what he has for us this time, first" Bent went, and returning laid the letters beside "Mr. Thorpe's" plate. As he did so he recognized the clear, elegant hand-writing upon the upper one, and some of yesterday's thoughts flashed back into his mind. "Ha !" exclaimed the judge, as he broke the seal and ran his eye over the first page, "com- ing, is she ? Going to take pity on us, and see how the old home looks in June. What do you say to that, boys? Vivian ! Hardly ten weeks she has spent in the house in the two years you've been in it Well, we wont refuse her. How many gay folks will she bring in her train ? I wonder," as he read on. "Coming alone, is 34 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. she? Well, the rest will be following soon enough; you may risk that" He put the letter in his pocket and opene4 the morning paper, but that did not seem to engross his thoughts as usual, in spite of double- headed columns and foreign news. His eye ran over one paragraph after another disconnectedly, but the letter seemed to stand before them all. And that strange question Wynt had asked last night ^did he think Vivian liked it? What could be the boy's idea ? What could have put such a thought into his head ? To tell the truth, though and the judge gave his paper an impa- tient shake, turned it over and back again he could remember a quick suspicion of that kind having floated into his mind once or twice when Vivian was last at home. But yet how could it be? How should it? It couldn't, of course, and yet there were trifles that might be inter- preted as pointing that way. Vivian never seemed to look upon them as at home ; there was always some remark dropped as to " this visit of the boys," or the time when u the boys would be away at school." And why had she not kept her promise and her husband's that they would stay by him in the old house ? Of course she must have her gay little trips away, but, on one pretext or another, there had been nothing else. " You can't miss me much, papa," she would THE POSTMAN'S RING. 35 say in her graceful way, "while these little guests of yours are here;" or, "The old home wont be lonely till the boys are fairly launched. School-life is what makes men of them, of course, and it 's a long work. You '11 have time enough to grow tired of me after that. ' ' "As if I wanted to send them away to school!" he repeated half indignantly. "There are schools enough here, except for a four years' college course. I want them just where they are. ' * But was it possible Vivian did not? How could they in any way interfere with her? Ab- surd ! A mere notion of that sensitive Wynt's. High notions and sensitive ones together; there's where he was like his mother again. He hoped this visit of Vivian's would bring her and the boys together better. They needed to understand each other, that was all. He walked down to his office with a quicker step than usual, and found work ready for him, as it always was: clients waiting to consult, papers, claims, knotty questions, pleas to prepare. He met every one with the frank, interested manner that won so many friends, listened courteously and closely, or turned to his desk when alone without a moment's loss of time. But, in spite of it all, his partner's keen eye glanced at him now and then as he wondered what there was out- side of work that was stirring up the judge to-day. Suddenly the judge's revolving-chair turned 36^ JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. round and he faced the other with a quick, earnest look. "Wilkie," he exclaimed, "I want you to look out for those boys of mine if anything hap- pens to me. They'll have to have a guardian, and you are the man I want. I 've been meaning to ask you, ought to have done so before, for I 've asked you already, in fact, in my will I 'd rather trust you than any other man. Will you do it for me?" There was no answer for a moment, and then, "A heavy trust, is it, judge?" asked Mr. Wilkie with a quiet dryness in his tone. " Yes; two such boys are a heavy trust for any one; but as for money, they've very little of that; I can't imagine what that father of theirs was doing all those years. However, that doesn't matter. I can make that up to them, and have done so. Now will you do this other thing for me?" " I never refused you anything yet, Havisham, I believe." " All right then, and thank you. Now here," rising and going to his safe, ' ' here are the papers showing the little the youngsters have; it was all I could find to gather up for them east or west; and here is my will. So now my mind is settled, thanks to you, and I'll go and get my lunch. I '11 outlive you yet ten years, I dare say; I never felt better in my life. But I don't like a thing like that hanging at loose ends." THE POSTMAN'S RIXG. 37 Meantime there had come a tap at the door where Cyp's basket had hung the night before, and a tall, stately figure, erect as a forest tree, had come in. It was Barbie with Mab's little break- fast-tray in her hand. Not too early, for she knew Mab would not like that; but when the right moment came not a morning had ever known her fail, or the tray fail to bring something dainty and hot, since Mab moved into the house. Mab was ready for her. She was sure to have pulled herself over to her chair by some means, by this time; but something in her face caught Bar- bie's notice, and she stood a moment, stately and still, against the door while her great brilliant eyes fixed themselves on Mab. Barbie was called "old" because the gene- rations she had nursed in the Havisham family were grown out of her reach; but that seemed to be all. Her pulse was as quick and her step as elastic and firm as on the day she first entered the Havisham House, brought from a West Indian island, with just tinge enough of its blood to "give her a right to her head-handkerchief," as she used to say as she wound it about her head. There was a dignity in the folds with which that "head-handkerchief," or turban, went on that made the Havisham children whisper that Barbie "had a queen's blood in her veins;" but they had to take it out in whispering; they could never get deeper than that 38 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. She went slowly over to the table now, set the tray in its place, and seated herself on a low chair before Mab. "You might just as well tell me, child," she said quietly, her eyes still fixed upon Mab. Mab gave her a little smile that she thought would cover everything. "The pain is a little sharp to-day, Barbie. I seemed to get a wrench, like, last night." "And whom did you get it from?" asked Barbie, without changing her gaze. Mab struggled and tried to resist it, but in an- other moment her arms were flung around Barbie and a sharp little cry broke out. " O Bab ! Bab ! I thought I should always have had Jem, at least. I ought to have known better, but I thought I should get well at last. Didn't you think I would get well at last, Barbie dear?" Barbie's lips were sealed. What did it all mean ? No, she did not feel as sure as she would like that Mab would ever be well. There was many a long year of sitting in that chair before her, Barbie feared. But had Jem turned his back on her for that? " A day never seemed long to me when I was looking for him in at night, ' ' Mab went on. ' ' My life's not like others', and he was so much to come into it, you know. He shall not stay a day, though, not a day, if he tires of it !" and Mab' s eyes shone suddenly. "But he need not THE POSTMAN'S RING. 39 have tired, if it could have been granted me to get well." Barbie felt her blood glow to her finger ends for a moment and then cool again. Had Jem been rough to Mab when he saw what every one else had seen so long? No, she would not believe it But Mab's blind little dream was over, that was plain. She took Mab's slender hands from round her neck and held them in her own dark, tapering ones, then lifted the oval chin till she looked into the girl's face. u Mab, child, it's a hard thing to sit as a captive," she said; " it 's a hard thing for a captive to see the day grow dark; but if your own Lord's voice says through the darkness, * Sit as a captive,' what then?" "I'll do it, Barbie!" and then, as a quick light sprang into the face Barbie held, " Did you hear what I got from Cyp yesterday, and what he said about holding on tighter the harder things pull?" Barbie rose and stood with her full height erect as she looked slowly down at Mab. ' ' Did Mr. Cyp say that? A child like that? He couldn't have said more if all these old eyes have lived to see had been painted for him. There have been strange times and dark times in the Havisham House, mixed in with the blessed ones, as the years have passed, and just that very thing is all that's brought us through yes, hold- 4o JUDGE HAVISHAM'S ing on to what we could see and what we couldn't see, lambie, both alike. We could al- ways see what was the right, and we couldn't always see the loving-kindness of the Lord right there, tender and true, but the only way was to hold on to both of them strong." Barbie sat down by Mab and stroked her hand gently. " Lambie," she said, "I never said it to any soul before, but it was the not holding on, it was letting go, that brought some of the heavi- est troubles the old house has ever seen. That '11 never happen again, thank the good Lord, while Mr. Thorpe lives; but it sometimes lies mighty heavy on my heart what may come after that "But you just hold on tight, lambie. The Lord's hand's there just the same the darkest night, and just longing for the moment to spread sunshine again. As to holding on to the right, you' 1 II never have any trouble about that, but there 's others that may some others in the house that may." And Barbie shook her head with a troubled look, that was gone again, however, al- most as soon as it came. Nothing could go wrong while Mr. Thorpe lived, and why should not that be for twenty good years to come ? VIVIAN. 41 CHAPTER V. VIVIAN. THERE was an unusual sense of stir and ex- citement in the Havisham House as the day went on. It was always in order, always ready with whatever comfort or luxury a visitor could ask; but for " Miss Vivian " no one seemed to feel that his or her department was quite perfect enough. Her own old room, that she had used since a child, looking out into the great linden-tree, must be freshened and "made up," as Burnham, the housekeeper, said. Bent was re-polishing every- thing that shone before, and Waite was bringing in great bunches from his flower beds a mass of doffodils here, and hyacinths, violets, everything that the season allowed, finding place somewhere, until fragrance told tales at every turn. "Miss Vivian always sure to bring her per- fumes with her, but she wont need 'em here," said Barbie, who could not be satisfied till she had taken one look over the house herself. Burnham was all very well in her way, but she hadn't known Miss Vivian's ways and fancies ever since she was born. "/shall get apple-blossoms," said Cyp, whirl- ing round Wynt in a wild state. u I know she '11 42 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S like 'em best. She'll find a pile of 'em in her room. I say, Wynt, don't you call it awfully splendid for Cousin Vivian to come ?' ' Wynt laid down his book, seized Cyp in a gy- ration, and laid him "alongside" on the sofa where he sat "I say, don't you?" repeated Cyp, as Wynt only looked down at him without reply. . Why couldn't he answer? Vivian was a bright, beautiful thing to have about and always kind. He did n' t know what made him feel that he wanted to keep his arm round Cyp, somehow, ever since he had heard the news. But Cyp was giving his sleeve a tug, and he became conscious that his uncle's eye was wan- dering from his paper with little glances, as if he were waiting to catch what he would say. "It will make gay times for us, Cyp; but don't let her hear you say 'awfully' too many times, not if you take my advice. And as for apple-blossoms, why don't you get them, then? Don't you know she'll be here in half an hour?" Cyp was off like a rocket, and Wynt took up his book; but he felt, rather than saw, that his uncle's eye turned to. him once or twice still. "Oh y what ought I to have said?" he thought "It is Vivian's home; it '3 not purs. It's she who is to find us here, and not for two little inter- lopers like us to receive her. And I hope she VIVIAN. 43 wont mind it much that she does find us, for Cyp's sake. For my part, I 'd quite as lieve not be found, if the truth were told. I hate being in any one's house who has never said I was wel- come. I'd willingly slip off. Only for that reason though. It is fascinating to have her here." Bent's almost noiseless step was at the door then. "If you please, Mr. Thorpe, the carriage is ready to meet Mrs. Adriance at the train. Shall Waite drive you? he would like to know." "Let me drive!" exclaimed Wynt, springing up eagerly. "I'd like to bring Cousin Vivian home." "Come along then," said his uncle, with a pleased look. "It's time we were off." And in another moment the horses were curvetting out of the yard. Any young fellow might have been proud to "bring Vivian home," and more than one of Wynt's mates envied him as the carriage, with its party complete, whirled from the train. "There's been beauty enough, dear knows, in the old house," Barbie used to say, "but this child got almost too much. It seems they all 'queathed her what they 'd done with when they laid it down. But they all together hadn't that graciousness like a princess that sweeps every one away. We all think we 're getting a favor when we're doing one for her; and as for the judge, I 44 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. hope she '11 never ask him anything he ought not to give." But neither asking nor granting favors seemed to be in any one's mind just now as Vivian leaned gracefully towards Wynt. u What a man you are grown to be, Wynt!" she said. "Papa, do you remember how you used to caution me against ' naughty pride ' ? What do you expect when you sweep me into town with such a young cousin as this handling the reins? You'll have to find some way of taking me down afterward. And where is that charming little Cyp? Ah, I see!' You did not mean to let me have every- thing, after all." u Oh, he's occupied. Some mischief in your room, I think. He 's not the scrap of a youngster you left, Vivian. He 's chasing hard after Wynt. You '11 have two full-grown young men here to walk out with you before long. But where 's that husband of yours?" "Oh, not very far behind. He will follow on, certainly; I'll not be cruel to him very long. But what do you think I had the hardihood to tell him, papa dear? That comes of all your early instructions about not concealing the truth. I told him I wanted you all to myself for Ifcittle while!" And she laid her hand with a half-play- ful, half-caressing gesture upon the judge's arm. "All to myself! Do you think, papa, you can give me some of those dear old walks and talks VIVIAN. 45 we used to have? just we two? I miss them so. It will make me fancy myself a girl again." A strange mingled expression came into Judge Havisham's face. "Miss them?" How he had missed them! But were the boys But before he had time to answer Vivian had turned to Wynt with her charming grace. "And you too, Wynt! You will take me out some- times, will you not? How proud I shall be. And Cyp Oh, there the little fellow is. What a little prince!" as a face, very much mixed up in a bough of apple-blossoms, peeped anxiously from a window at the sound of the wheels. He was overtaken in his work. If he had but one half-minute more! He hurried on, his fingers trembling with haste, but there was time enough. Vivian had her greetings to give every one and everything as she came in. " Ah, the dear old home! Lovelier than ever, papa!" And then there was Bent, and Burnham, and even Barbie was in the background. Miss Vivian never had entered the old house yet that she had not stood by with her respects. And by that time Cyp was flying down. Wynt smiled quietly to himself as Vivian put her arm round the boy and drew him, for a mo- ment, to her side. He could almost see Cyp's heart stand still. 46 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. "Ah, old fellow," he thought, "I believe everybody's right and you've got to be an artist by-and-by; you do think such a heap of good looks in people or things. If she were as homely as Burnham, now! Well, I like to look at her as well as you do; but I shall take mighty good care to keep you out of the way whenever uncle is in the house. You can do your admiring when there is no one else about." And he kept to his word. There was less company than usual at the house the next few days. " You know I 'm just here for a quiet visit, papa," Vivian said once or twice in an incidental way; and there were only a few callers and one unceremonious dinner for some gentlemen of the bar. At these times Wynt gave up watching; Cyp might be on the piazza, on the lawn, in the library, or wherever else it was proper for him to appear; but at others there was a most unusual number of engrossing plans an excursion or a long walk or a lesson in riding Blackwing, and for the evening a book with such an exciting point in it somewhere that Cyp got lost in the dining-room corner where he always huddled up to read. For a few days this would not be noticed, Wynt thought, but he was not sure how long it would work. "You youngsters are mightily occupied," his uncle said at last, with one of those sudden swift glances that were his way when a thing began to VIVIAN. 47 flash upon him ; but he was almost as much occu- pied himself. These "walks and talks" of Viv- ian's absorbed most of his free time, and he al- most gave himself up to the fancy that old days had returned again. Bent saw everything, as an old servant will and must, whether he wishes it or not. "Forty years of caring for the people in a house makes you know them pretty well," he said to Barbie, as he found her with Mab one night; "and Mr. Thorpe's step hasn't been so light and quick for many a day; not since those wedding bells rang that lost us Miss Vivian out of the house." "Wont she stay this time, don't you think?" asked Mab with a sort of pleading in her brown eyes. "She wont have the heart to go away again after this, father, should you say?" Bent only shook his head. He would not say so, certainly, to Mab; but there were a great many things he did not say to her. "Many a secret of the Havisham House conies to old Bent, willy-nilly," he used to say, "but it comes to stay. It walks in without knocking, but it finds the door locked when it wants to get out" Miss Vivian would go, he was sure, when she had stayed long enough for her purpose, whatever that might be. Bent had never known her do anything without a purpose yet, or fail to carry one out when once taken up. As for "having 45 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. the heart," did not even Mab, who believed every one to be as good as herself, know that "heart" did not seem to come very often into Miss Vivian's plans? However, so long as Mr. Thorpe was enjoying so much, Bent was happy. Troubles might as well lie by, if there were any, for a few days. 49 CHAPTER VI. A GRIND AT THE MILL. DOWN in tb heart of the town ran a broad street in which the principal business of Edin- burgh Heights was done. Not an attractive street altogether, though some rather fine build- ings with handsome fronts had grown up among the older and dingier ones. One of these gave up its second floor to the law office of Havisham and Wilkie, while the first floor was taken by the warehouse of Brainerd and Gray. This was a handsome establishment with a general air of get- ting a little in advance of style in the Heights. Its rooms were separated only by pillars and arches, its windows made a fine display, and there seemed always a good deal going on inside; enough, certainly, to keep a well-satisfied, rather important look among the salesmen moving about. Wynt was passing it one afternoon with rather an abstracted look. His uncle had called Cyp to "pile in," as he and Vivian drove out of the yard, and had whirled him off between them, leaving Wynt berating himself that he had not taken more care. He knew the carriage was or- dered for that drive. Why couldn't he have kept Cyp out of the way ? Jv'.tt IUT!ihm'i Will. 1 50 JUDGE HAVISHAL: '^ WILL. " However, perhaps I 'm wrong. He may not be a nuisance for once in a way. Vivian gave him a smile, at least, that set him up sky-high, and it 's no use worrying anyway. Oh, it 's you, eh?" as he heard his name called and was over- taken by Lee Brainerd, who had just come out of the store. "I suppose so," answered Lee, "but I don't feel quite sure. I do n't believe you 'd know who you were yourself, if you got shut up in that old mill." "Aren't you liking it any better, then? I thought you 'd concluded to be a business man with a will." Lee gave a suppressed little exclamation that seemed to convey a good deal. "'Concluding' means finding that you can't help yourself some- times, as I suppose you have found out. You know it was a heavy grind on me always to work at anything but books. I would have worked at those if they 'd let me. But there was no chance. I 'm to have an interest in the old prison at twen- ty-one, and be full partner at twenty-five, and I thought I could fight through till that time if I took the bit square in my teeth. But the more I see of it the more I find it 's all the same thing. Partner or youngest clerk, it 's grind, grind, at the same old wheel." u I thought partners lived in office easy- chairs," answered Wynt laughingly, really trou- A GRIND AT THE MILL. 5! bled at the cloud upon Lee's face; but Lee's tones were even more bitter as he replied, "And what then? You're simply writing down how many easy-chairs and rugs you have sold to somebody else. Bah! I tell you, Wynt, twenty-one years old will never see me there. I'll be driven out if I can't get out any other way. I always have meant to behave myself, but I believe I '11 give it up. If people wont let you live, anyway, you may as well '' "Look here!" interrupted Wyiit, passing his arm through Lee's, "what's the use of talking a lot of stuff that you don't mean? A man that's a man can ' live ' if they put him down in a coal mine, I suppose, and you and I want to be men together by-and-by, you know. I'm sorry it goes so hard just now, but I'll tell you a thing Cyp got off the other day. He says, ' Hold on tighter the harder things pull.' " The frown between Lee's brows seemed to loosen a little. "Cyp? What does a young rascal like him know about holding on ? He 's got nothing to do with it yet" "Not much, but his day '11 come. He just made a hit, that's all. Not a very bad one either, eh?" Lee's brow contracted again. ' ' Do n' t preach, Wynt. It 's easy work, but lazy as I am, I don't like it. I should like to see you try what 'pull- ing' means at a place like Brainerd and Gray's." 52 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. "Perhaps you will some day," answered Wynt so quietly that Lee looked suddenly into his face; but he could not read it and they walked on. "Come up to the house," Wynt said pres- ently; " take a canter with Black wing, and he '11 toss the blues out of you and bring you back all right" "No, thank you. It's no use pretending to be some one else for half an hour and then com- ing back to the old grind. I '11 stick where I am. There conies Jem Dent, our porter. I believe he's found life isn't worth having in the store as well as I. He used to be a merry sort of fel- low. What do you suppose is making him look so black ? I 've noticed him for a week." " He does look rather down," said Wynt after they passed; Jem had only given a quick nod to to the two without lifting his eyes. " You can't very well call him black, though, with that yel- low hair of his. I wonder what it is." And his thoughts ran across to Mab's cottage by the gate. No; Mab was certainly all right He had seen her at the window twice within a week. " Come, Lee," he repeated; "come up to the house. I 'm all alone there for an hour." " No. The truth is, I'm out on an errand for the store. I've a dozen minds to forget it, though. Forgetfulness is a good quality to cultivate if you want to work yourself out of a place." A GRIND AT THE MILL. 53 Wynt went home with a troubled feeling that he could not shake off, though he tried to per- suade himself that it was unnecessary after all. " He can't mean it," he said to himself. "It must be just a mood he has got into to-day, when he likes to hear himself talk. I do n't wonder it does seem ( a mill ' once in a while, but he knows as well as I do that ' holding on ' does make a man of a fellow in the end. He 's all right, though, I am sure; he must be. But I don't like that look he had to-day. I wish they would let him off, but I suppose they can't see it. He 's the only one in the whole family who does not like a store, and very likely they think it's a freak." He turned into the yard abstractedly ; he would take Blackwing himself, he thought, and he had nearly reached the stable door before he saw that the carriage had returned and the horses were in their stalls again. " Waite," he said, "have my uncle and Mrs. Adrian ce come in so soon?" 1 ' Yes, sir. Mrs. Adriance changed her mind and did not care to go far to-day." Wynt bit his lips. Had Cyp spoiled the drive ? He must see where he was now, at least, and he went quickly into the house. There was no one in the library; could they be in the drawing-room? No; and he stepped towards a door leading from that room to the 54 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S piazza. The door opened close upon a sheltered nook, screened from the rest of the piazza by vines, and voices from behind the screen fell upon his ear. His uncle's sounded earnest and almost excited, while Vivian's answered in those same smooth, daintily modulated tones that were part of her fascination at all times. "I say, as I've said before, I do not agree with you, Vivian. Why do you worry me about it?" " Dear papa, if there is any subject that worries you, let us never mention it again. But think what Rugby has done for English boys. You surely feel that there is no such soil as school life to make a thorough, manly " Wynt had turned and was half across the drawing-room again, on his escape, before he could leave the rest of the sentence behind. Through the library and the dining-room door he passed. Yes, there was Cyp in his old corner, and deep in that book again ! Wynt went over to him, got him out with a quick little lift, and sat down with him in his arms. "So that is the way you go driving, is it, young man?" Cyp laughed; but something in Wynt's face caught his notice, and he put his hand quickly up against it. " Your face is hot as fire ! What 's the matter with it?" he said. A GRIND AT THE MILL. 55 Wynt took his hand down and held it quietly. "Tell me where you went, Cyp." "Oh, only out to the Giant's Fall. Vivian was tired, she said. I say, though, Wynt, isn't she fine ! She had her arm round me all the way." 56 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S CHAPTER VII. THE JUDGE'S PROMISE. THE conversation Wynt had so hurriedly left was turned, almost instantly afterwards, by Vivian's skilful tact. There was only one more velvety sentence that might drop an additional weight, and she glided off into a running series of sketches of her last two months among the Alps. " And if I come home in the fall to stay, dear papa, as it will be so lovely to do, there will be a good many friends, you know, at different times, and do you really think so much petting and distraction is good for boys ? They are such dear fellows. Every one would have to notice them, you know." That evening Bent served the dinner with the feeling that a shadow had fallen somewhere, wherever that might be. Vivian and Cyp were in the best of spirits, and with a merry banter going on between them that kept Cyp in sup- pressed but continual glee. Wynt was silent much of the time, but that was too much his way to notice. It was Mr. Thorpe who did not seem like himself. The old butler ventured one or two quiet THE JUDGE'S PROMISE. 57 glances into his face, but he hardly needed even those; it was " in the air." He stole one at Vivian as she sat, looking never handsomer, in her graceful evening dress, her color fresh and her eyes sparkling at Cyp. Her "fatigue" of the afternoon seemed to have vanished away. "She's done it though," said Bent silently to himself. "She's laid a touch somewhere that 's just clouded in the special bright time she 'd been making Mr. Thorpe for a week. I said she had a plan. I said she never came home this quiet way without one, and she 's been feeling its way along till she 's touched a tender spot. I know ! I have n't kissed her in her babyhood, and carried her in my arms many a day after, and watched her every day since, without knowing her as well as I love her, and I love her well. But she never wanted anything yet that she didn't get it, in all those years." Another week passed, and Bent's reflections only deepened and strengthened. The week following was to bring Mr. Adriance and a gay troop, and why wasn't "Mr. Thorpe" making the most of this? To every one's eye but Bent's, and perhaps to Wynt's, he was doing so ; but even \Vynt felt that there was a pressure some- where something troubled his uncle. Some- thing was certainly weighing, that had shaded 58 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. off that light-hearted delight of Vivian's first week at home. " Yes; I could n't keep Tom off any longer," Vivian was saying, with her well-bred little half- laugh. "He'll be sweeping in the moment my two weeks are up, and bringing a few friends, dear papa. You are always so kind; I don't feel the least hesitation in taxing hospitality here." And as the day approached Bent found him- self wishing it would make haste. u I 'd rather see Mr. Thorpe whirled out of his quiet and peace, as he will be, than to see that look he don't mean any one to see getting stronger and deeper in his face. And I'd rather the house had been left in its loneliness a hundred times. Well, whatever it is, I hope he'll forget it when Miss Vivian and her troop are gone. I never knew trouble seem to lie long on the threshold with Mr. Thorpe." The next day, now, was to bring the " troop," as Bent called the expected visitors. Burnham had been overflowing with importance, and room after room had been left in immaculate "spick and span" by her hands, till even Barbie and Vivian were satisfied. Bent had got out his extra silver and table linen, and even his extreme ima- gination could see no finishing touch wanting in his own sphere when evening came. So if the judge and Miss Vivian would only THE JUDGE'S PROMISE. 59 coiae in from the walk slie had asked him to take, Bent would go home to Mab. Mab needed all the heartening she could get, poor child, since Jem's visits had dropped off. He grew almost impatient. Miss Vivian was having one last talk with Mr. Thorpe, he was sure; but still it was late to be out, in the damp- ness of an evening like this. Then suddenly he was glad of it, after all. There was the gas in the east parlor. Miss Vivian always liked to find it lighted when she came in, and it had gone "clean out of mind" to-night. He seized his torch and went with his usual noiseless step into the forgotten room. The judge's private study opened from it, a heavy Eastern drapery, that Vivian had brought him from abroad, curtaining it off. As he passed this he started as a low, smoothly modulated voice fell upon his ear. "And so, dear papa, wont you yield to my judgment for this once? Wont you promise me this one thing ? You surely could trust me, when I know your wishes so well." Bent turned to flee, as Wynt had done a few days before, but he could not get out of hearing before the answer came. "Very well, Vivian, I promise, if you cannot be happy otherwise. And now let us not mention the subject again while you stay. Let me have 60 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. your visit in. peace. When you are gone I will" That was the last word Bent caught. He was safe across the hall and in his dining-room, with the door closed fast behind him, before any more could have been spoken. He got his hat and went down the steps of the little back porch leading to the carriage drive. He could not go to Mab yet; she would surely see trouble in his face. Where could he go? He walked back and forth little distances on the driveway hurriedly, and then got under the shadow of a giant old willow and leaned against the trunk; then out again, and over to the rail- ing of the little fish-pond, farther on. u I 'm sure it means trouble," he said over and over to himself with a little moan. ' ' Not that I can think, or would think, what it may be, but it's there. Mr. Thorpe never refused her any- thing yet, nor can't; but he'd never have kept her pleading if he hadn't felt there was trouble in what she asked. And who is there left to feel trouble in the family now but Mr. Wynt and Mr. Cyp? Yet it can't be he would let even her bring anything on them !" Bent took a little stone that lay on the railing and plashed it down into the pond below. Then he walked over to the old willow again and then restlessly back to the rail. Somehow he did not THE JUDGE'S PROMISE. 6 1 feel ready for Mab yet. Picture after picture of past days in the old house rose before his eyes bright, joyous ones among them, but the dark ones seemed to stand foremost to-night. " And scarcely ever one of them," he went on, "scarcely ever one of them need have come ex- cept when it pleased the Lord to send the still messenger in if some one had n't failed of ' hold- ing on,' as Mr. Cyp might say, to the right and the true. I may be mistaken I know I'm a foolish old man but it weighs on me that Mr. Thorpe has let go something to-night. I'm afraid he hasn't been \holding on tighter the harder things pull.' But no," and he brought himself up with an indignant little shake; "it would be the first time in his life you ever knew it of him, would n't it ? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Bent!" He gave his hat a determined little push back- ward, till a stray lock or two of his fine silver hair made its way out. There had been enough of this, he thought; and he started for the cottage with a quick step. Mab looked up with a bright smile. "You 're late, father dear," she said. "But I suppose you've had fine doings to get ready for at the house. ' ' Bent glanced into her face with a quick look. There was a clear light shining in it that he could not mistake. " S/ie J s all right!" he said hastily 62 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. to himself. "She's not one there's need to be worrying about any more, at least. She's got her Lord's hand again, that 's clear, faster and faster every day." " Yes, child," he answered, "fine doings and high doings, we may be pretty sure. We do n't see Mr. Torn Adriance bring a company into a house with less. But we're ready for them, and they can be young but once. I don't forget that. I like them to take all they can." "Father," said Mab again suddenly, "who do you think I had in here to-day?" Bent looked at her quickly. Was it possible Jem could that be what was keeping her up? " It 's not some one that has put that bright look in your face, eh?" he asked. Mab blushed crimson. "No, father, no!" she said hastily. "Not if you mean some one who wont come any more. If I've got any bright look, it's because I'm 'holding on' bet- ter again. What a queer thing that was for Mr. Cyp to have said ! We '11 all be repeating it after him, I believe." " I don't know what we could repeat better. But who is it that was in ? You have n't told me yet." " It was Miss Vivian." " Miss Vivian ?" asked Bent hastily. "Yes; why not?" "Oh, no reason at all," he answered, covering THE JUDGE'S PROMISE. 63 his little start as well as he could. "And what did she have to say ?' ' U I can't tell you more than I ever can. I never know what she has said when she's gone, though I listen while she's here as if I had a spell. She brought me this bit of a soft shawl to throw round me; see, it 's like a net." And Mab held up the filmy pink thing. "And I can copy the stitch and knit more. My needles are just longing for something new. But she did say one thing, father, that came across me as strange. She spoke of Mr. Wynt and Mr. Cyp, and how fine they were, and that Mr. Thorpe was enjoying their visit here so much. It doesn't concern me, I know, but I always took the idea they were made at home in Havisham House." Bent did not try to cover his start this time. He sprang up and looked excitedly at Mab. " Now the contrary of that can't be said by any- body. They are at home in the house, if I ever understood Mr. Thorpe's meaning about anything yet," he said. 64 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S CHAPTER VIIL THORNS IN THE PILI/5W. THE "gay doings" Mab had talked of began in good earnest the next day. There was a quiet elegance about it all, of course, for Vivian could not do a thing in any other way; but a merry, light-hearted set of people rode and walked and chatted and filled the house in one way and another, and for the time every shadow seemed to vanish away. If anything had weighed on the judge, it was, to all appearance, thrown aside and forgotten. He was the handsome, dignified host, but good company for the youngest, for all that And there was no more hiding away of Cyp; he was called here and there by every one, " spoiled alto- gether," Vivian said, shaking a jewelled finger at him playfully; and Mr. Adriance had taken an extraordinary liking to Wynt and wanted him in everything. 4 'Really, Tom," Vivian laughed, "for a but- terfly, time-wasting fellow like you, that silent, dark boy is a strange fancy, it seems to me. If I find you shaded down anywhere at the end of the month, I shall know where the benefit came in." " Do n't concern yourself about me, ' ' answered THORNS IN THE PILLOW. 65 Tom. "The boy has stuff in him that I like. Wynt ! Where are you, there ? I want you to help me throw my new trout-fly over at the fall. We'll be back in good time for dinner, if we can get off at once." Judge Havisham stood on the porch and watched them off with more satisfaction than he allowed to show itself in his face. "I didn't think Tom would cotton so to Wynt," he said almost elatedly to himself. "I knew every one would like the youngsters, both of them; I was safe about that. But I should have said Cyp was the one Adriance was likely to pick up like this. He couldn't please me better, though. I hope they'll be more like brothers than cousins some day." But four summer weeks do not take long for flight. Almost before any one consented to say so they were drawing to a close, and plans for the next move must be made and spoken of. The guests were to scatter in different directions, and Vivian must see Norway. That had been left out by unlucky circumstances last year, and there was just time now. " Only a summer trip, papa," she said gayly. " You '11 hardly know I am gone. Autumn will steal a march on us, and then " and she turned, as she had a way of doing when almost out of a room, putting her face back again, full of smiles "then, papa, if you tempt me very much, who Jd< tUrtilwm'i Will. 66 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILI,. knows but I may come and settle down upon you for ever more !" There was no "hardly knowing," however, when she was really gone. The house seemed empty and echoing, and Judge Havisham was glad to leave it and get away down town to his office and his work. Bent watched him quietly when he came back and as one day and another passed. "It's no use!" he said. "Whatever thorn Miss Vivian put in his pillow is worrying him again. If he pushed it away for a while, it is back again, sharper than ever, if my old eyes don't mistake." Whether they did or not, they were the only ones that suspected any unpleasant weight upon Judge Havisham' s mind. He was abstracted and preoccupied at times, it was true, but no one could be otherwise with the amount of work he was carrying at the office, and of late not unfre- quently bringing home. This "bringing home " Wynt noticed instantly as something entirely new, and too much, he felt sure. His uncle had always depended upon free life and rest when he came into the house. "Is this going to last very long?" he asked quietly one evening, as his uncle came into the library with a package of papers in his hand. " Is what going to last?" and the judge looked quickly at Wynt, whose dark eyelashes had hardly THORNS IN THE PILLOW. 67 lifted while asking the question, as he sat over his own book. Wynt made a little gesture towards the papers. "You always teach me that when a day's work is done it should be done, and a man should be making himself over for the next." Judge Havisham laughed. "I do seem to be going against my own doctrine; but it's good teaching, for all that. I am overworking a little just now, perhaps, but I don't see any way out. It wont last long though, and I 'm pretty tough, you know. And I keep out of the study, don't you see? I do it, as well as I can, out here, where you young rattlebrains are. That keeps me fresh." Wynt had noticed it, and that he and Cyp were always called for, since Vivian left, if out of the way when his uncle came in. Cyp revelled in the fact, and the evening work he thought best of all. "I'm not hurried off up stairs after dinner then," he confided to Mab as he stopped under her window one day. " I 'hang around ' awfully late, don't you know, and uncle stops every now and then for a rest, and we have such times! They 're droll, no end." As for the " not lasting long," however, there seemed some mistake about that, and the impres- sion went over the house, and even out to the cot- tages, that "Mr. Thorpe " was carrying too much. 68 JUDGE HAVISHAM' WILL. It was plain enough how it happened, though; any one could see that. One of the prominent lawyers in town had retired, and there were two large estates to be settled by the Havisham firm, and Mr. Wilkie was ill. " They say that most of Mr. Wilkie' s practice comes over to him," Bent said one evening to Barbie and Mab. "And they say Mr. Wilkie wont be out for a month; and how it's all to be doubled with Mr. Thorpe's share passes me to see. We all know there's not a lawyer in the county with the clients that come to him." Barbie, erect and turbaned, fixed her great brilliant eyes upon Bent "Then he ought to say no," she said suddenly. "We don't want a bent bow breaking in the old house. I have seen that once, and enough." Bent did not answer. He had seen it with her, and "enough" also, when the judge's father had broken down in middle life from trying to carry his own affairs and a scapegrace brother's at the same time. That was one of the bitterest times the old house had ever seen. "I don't get sight of the young gentlemen once, these days, to half a dozen times in the past," Barbie said, with a quick change of the subject in hand. "No; Mr. Thorpe keeps them with him every moment when he's in the house, since Miss Viv- ian left; and he's not had a horse out without THEN HE OUGHT TO SAY NO." Page 68. THORNS IN THE PILLOW. 69 one or both of them any more. If there 's one thing on earth he takes pleasure in, it 's the hav- ing them about. ' ' Meanwhile Wynt had found his thoughts turning so often to Lee Brainerd and his mood of the other day that, in spite of the many distrac- tions at home, he had looked into the store more than once in business hours, hoping to satisfy himself that " Lee was all right." "He never could have meant all that non- sense, of course," he repeated to himself. "Lee's got too much man in him to flunk at a little 'grind,' as he calls it He's just where he doesn't like to be just now, it's true, but half the fellows in college, where he does want to be, could say the same thing, I suppose." The first visit did not give him much satisfac- tion. Lee was busy for part of the time, and for the remainder, though cordial and friendly, said what little he did say in a half-sneering, sarcastic way not at all his own. "If you wont talk, I wish you were busier," Wynt laughed at last; u for I came in to see what you really do here. I want to see if it 's so very bad." Lee started and faced about "Look here!" he said, with a little sidewise movement of his head towards a distant part of the room, "do you see that fellow over there? That 's Warnock, our managing clerk, and what I have to do is prin- 70 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. cipally to submit to him. How would you like to be under a man like that?" " Could tell you better if I had the pleasure of knowing him," replied Wynt, determined not to be put down. " It 's a loss ! Now what do you think of this ? I took hold of a country customer to-day and did my best on him for an hour; got him just worked up to where he was ready for a big bill of goods, just going to say the word, when in slipped War- nock, bowing and smiling, slid me off to one side, picked up the customer where he was, sold him the bill I had worked up, and quietly sent his own check into the office with it. That puts it to his credit as salesman, you know, and leaves me with only one or two odd pieces of work to show for the day." "That was pretty bad. Can't you get even with him again?" Lee gave a sarcastic little laugh. "It's the uneven part of the thing that goes so hard. How- ever, I can get beyond them all if I can't get up with them. They do n't want any poor salesmen in here or any that they hear tales of from out- side. Do you understand ? I can take things by the lazy handle through the day and find more ways of making up for it in the evening than they like." "Lee," exclaimed Wynt, "what are you talking about? You do n't mean you would " THORNS IN THE PILLOW. 71 "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. It's not so very bad when you come to try it I had a gay time last night with a set of fellows that you would never know. I've got a horrid headache for it this morning, it is true. ' ' Wynt fixed his eyes on him with a bewildered look. Lee must be "talking to hear himself talk." He knew him through and through, he thought. ' ' Now what is the use of all this non- sense, Lee? I '11 come in again when you 're 'at yourself.' Or get half an hour off and come along for a walk. That will take your headache off." Lee smiled and quietly took out a cigarette. "Will you smoke?" he asked. 1 ' No, and I wont believe you will either. What do you mean by all this humbuggery, Lee?" "I mean exactly what I say. I detest the store, and I '11 get out of it if I can. If I can't, I don't care what I do; that's all." "Lee Brainerd! You don't seem to remem- ber that I know you pretty well. You have just as high notions of the stuff a man is made of as I have." Lee smiled. " You do n't think having a gay time makes a man of a fellow?" "No, I don't; nor you either; not the kind of gay time you are talking about." "Well, now, I tell you there are lots of fellows that do. Perhaps they 're right and we 're wrong. 72 I can't quite see it myself yet, it's true; I suppose I'm not going to make a man, that's all. I've been slowly making up my mind to it for the last six months. I couldn't make one if I tried in this old mill, you see." "What's the reason you can't? Don't you know half the tall men in the world have worked their way to it through what they didn't like? That's what made the bone and sinew of them. How many of the fellows tied to the books you 're sighing for like digging over them, do you sup- pose? How do you suppose the Lord 'liked' helping in the carpenter's shop or having crowds of poor beggars wanting something all the time?" 1 'Oh, come!" exclaimed Lee; u if you get to talking about that!" 4 ' Why should n' 1 1 talk about it ? I would n' t if you did n't seem to forget it What do you suppose he did those things twenty or thirty years for, if it wasn't to show us how to be a prince and a man among men ? If he ' d said he * could n' t stand it' and left it, do you think we'd be wor- shipping him much to-day ? Now do n't say I 'm preaching, for it 's no such thing. I have n't any too much courage of my own, and if you ever see it giving out, just try to give me a lift; that 's all. Tell me to 'hold on tighter the harder things pull.' There's a customer after you. I'll leave you to 'do yourself proud. ' " THORNS IN THE PILLOW. 73 Wynt stopped under Mab's window as he passed it on his way into the grounds from the rear. It was Mab's way of "receiving," and it was hard to pass those brown eyes of hers without a word. Her days were pretty long at the best, as every one knew. "Are you where you like to be, Mab?" he asked with a sudden impulse, still thinking of Lee. Here was something, now, that might be called "shut up." Mab colored up for an instant, and then her eyes shone. "Where I like to be, Mr. Wynt? Yes, of all places in the world! I wouldn't move out of it to be as free as a bird." Wynt's eyes were dropped to a little pebble he was kicking. He could n't get over having blun- dered so to Mab. But Mab went on, with a pretty little half- laugh that just showed her pearly teeth. " Mind, I don't say I wouldn't be moved out of it, Mr. Wynt," she said. " If it should come my Lord's time my heart would spring out for joy. But so long as he keeps me here there's some blessed thing he's working out by it that I wouldn't miss for my life." "Then if you should 'be moved,' you'd be sure it was all right?" " Yes, sure, if I 'd bided my time." 74 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S CHAPTER IX. A BROKEN BOW. WYNT mounted the piazza steps and passed through a side door opening into a little hallway near the foot of the stairs. He would have been over them with a bound, but he suddenly found some one confronting him in the way. With the change from the summer glitter outside to the cool darkened hall, for an instant he could hardly see, and it seemed almost as if some statue had been moved out of place, so silent and motionless the figure stood. "Bent!" he exclaimed; "were you looking for me?" And then, feeling sure he was not, that he was only waiting for him to pass, he turned towards the stairs. But Bent started and stretched a hand across them. "Not yet, not quite yet, Mr. Wynt, if you please," he said; and at that instant a con- fused sound came to Wynt's ear, a heavy muffled trampling of feet overhead. Where was it? In his uncle's room? It certainly was. He felt his pulse stop, with one horrible feeling of standing still for ever, and then leap forward again, and he made a movement to pass Bent A BROKEN BOW. 75 u I beg you wont; not quite yet, Mr. Wynt !" pleaded Bent. "Dr. McPherson is there, and he'll have everything right. The rest will be down presently, and then " But in an instant Wynt had dashed his hand away and sprung past. "Remember, I'm his oldest son now, Bent," he said, and he was gone. Bent wrung his hands helplessly. "It's not a thing for young eyes to see," he said; " not for young eyes. A bent bow broken, as Bab would say. Old ones like mine are used to trouble, used to it, I say." And Bent wandered about the hall as if distracted. Would they never come down, all those men who had carried Mr. Thorpe up ? There might be an excuse then to go and see what was left for him to do. Mr. Cyp might be coming in, though. He must be on the lookout for him. He must n't slip by ! And then he paced the other way and began saying what an old blockhead he had been. Mr. Wynt must go up sooner or later. What differ- ence did it make? Of course he must go up. He was quite right. And Mr. Thorpe might have been wanting him, though he could not speak to say it. Who was going to know what he did want after this ? Meantime Wynt had reached the upper hall and was standing in his uncle's room. In the hall he met two or three men, he could not tell SOUTH BERKE1 PRESBYTERIAN 76 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. how many. He only knew that some of them he did not recognize, and that he did see Jem Dent, and that they all crowded against the baluster and stood respectfully waiting for him to pass. He felt that they tried not to look curiously at him, but that they did so after all. All this was only an instant's impression, something that he saw without seeing it, and he stepped quickly inside the room. Who had a right there if he had not? Why had they not sent for him before ? He met his uncle's eyes instantly, clear as he had seen them two hours before, and brightening with a quick look of welcome as Wynt came in. Then the judge held out his hand. Wynt took it quickly. He knew he wanted him there ! But why did he not speak ? Why did not Dr, McPherson speak ? "What is it ?" he exclaimed. " Has any one hurt you, uncle ? Are you hurt?" He felt his hand pressed more tightly, but still no reply. " I do not think he can speak to you, Wynt," said the doctor gently. "He was not able to walk home, and the power of speech seems affected also, more or less. We cannot tell exactly about it yet. We must wait for to-mor- row and hope to find him more like himself." Wynt flashed a look into the doctor's eyes. He knew it all now. The doctor need not tell A BROKEN BOW. 77 him. He knew even the very word the very name paralysis! And they would never find him " more like himself." What was the use of pre- tending that they would ? He covered his uncle's hand with both of his and kissed it with a quick, passionate movement. Then he looked for the other one where it lay at his side and lifted that How strange it felt in his touch so unlike a thing of life! And the heavy arm seemed holding it back like a weight. That handsome hand that Wynt had been so proud of, a hand that had always expressed so much; and now what a strange, passive outline it had ! Thank heaven, it was the right hand that was free. If the doctor should by any possibility be right, if part of this horrible thing should disappear, he would have that at least. These thoughts passed in a flash, and what was his uncle trying to signal to him ? The doctor knew. He was turning towards the table. He had lived these things through so many times. ' ' Have you pencil and paper here ?' ' he said. "He wants to use them; he wants to say something to you, I think." Wynt turned instantly to a small desk at the other side of the room and brought them. The doctor drew a memorandum book from his pocket, laid the paper upon it, and held them quietly under Judge Havisham's hand. 78 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. Wynt watched so eagerly. The hold of the pencil was strong; surely there was something left yet. The doctor handed him the paper and he read, "Don't worry, Wynt. We'll get over this." Wynt handed it to the doctor. "All right!" he said cheerily. " Now, then, quiet is the only way to it. You and I must go, and I am going to send Barbie up for a while till I get some one in who has a stronger lift than she." And he got Wynt out at the door. Bar- bie stood like a statue a little way from it. He made her a signal and she went noiselessly in. "Now, doctor," Wynt said, turning at the foot of the stairs, " tell me the truth." "I'd tell it to you if I knew it, Wynt. We can't say positively about these things always, you know. But I '11 tell you this. Your uncle believes what he said to you. That is plain in his face. He remembers that two hours ago he had never felt better in his life, or thought so, at least, though actually he must have been over- done. He has been working very hard, and By the way, has anything been troubling him of late, anything especially pressing on him, so far as you know?" Wynt shook his head. Bent turned and walked away with a little gesture that no one saw. "Well, we cannot tell. These things have causes out of sight, many times, and I 'm sorry A BROKEN BOW. 79 to say they 're in the family once or twice here. Now there are only two medicines to use : quiet and good hope. I will give orders that when- ever he asks for you you are to be called ; but don't stay over five minutes in the room. And while you 're there let him think you feel as he does, if you can. Take the ground that all will come out right Don't say much, but just have that air, you know. It will be hard for you, my boy; but it's a hard time altogether for the old house. I 'm sorry, though, to have you get the touch of it. You're young to begin." The doctor hesitated and looked at Wynt as if he hated to leave him, but in another moment he was gone. Wynt stood as if he were turned to stone, the doctor's words clear as arrows in his mind at one moment, and at the next repeating themselves in a confused, dreamy way. " Begin "? Did the doctor think this was the beginning with him? And his memory flashed back in an instant to the first touch of sudden terror, two years and a half ago. But now ! It seemed to him he could not breathe. A weight lay upon him everywhere. Then he lifted his own hand and looked at it How strange it seemed that he could move it ! Why could not his uncle move his ? Then he raised his eyes and caught sight of 8o JUDGE HAVISHAM'S Bent, leaning against a doorway at the end of 1.1.2 hall, his face pitifully white, his hands clasped and dropped hopelessly before him. Wynt started and went over to him. How heavy his feet felt as he lifted them ! "Bent, old fellow!" he said, laying a hand on his shoulder, t " do n't ! We must take cour- age. It may not be so bad. See what Mr. Thorpe wrote for me himself. He can write, Bent, don't you see? He says he shall get over it To-morrow, perhaps, it will not seem so bad. ' ' But when he had got away from Bent he turned and was gone in an instant Anywhere, somewhere, to be alone ! His uncle's little study that was the best place. He drew the curtain behind him and leaned against the wall, as Bent had done. That easy-chair of his uncle's he could not have sat down in it ! But what difference did sitting or standing make? He wondered if the heavy, icy feeling he had would be anywise different if he really were turning to stone. Then he found himself repeat- ing in a dull sort of agony, "No. It will not be better to-morrow. No. He will not ' get over ' it. No. It will not be better. The doctor thinks it will not, really. I could see that It never does get well, a thing like that No; to-morrow will be the same. Or worse?" A BROKEN BOW. 8l That he could not bear, and he broke out into a sudden cry. "Oh, I knew I loved him, but I did not know he was the world itself to me ! It seems as if there would be nothing left. Every inch of him, body, soul, and mind, has seemed so glorious to me. No, he cannot die ! There are so many people who would never be missed out of the world." How long he stood there he never knew. He wished he need never move. He heard the orioles out in the elm-tree again. Were they going to build another nest ? No, that could not be their way. Then different things began trooping through his mind, and at last Mab's words of an hour ago. Was it only an hour ? "There's some blessed thing my Lord is working out by it that I would not miss for my life." "Oh, I know it ! I know it ! And I would not miss it for mine. And I shall always have Him, best of all, whatever is taken away. I do n't forget that; I did n't forget it But I can't think everything at once. I don't know what it is;" and he passed his hand over his forehead. It seemed as if what did the doctor say he wanted him to do? Suddenly a sound broke through the hush of the house. It came whirring up from the drive- way outside, a clear trilling little cry, half whistle Judte Harltbuo'l Will. 6 82 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. and half song, that Cyp had established as his signal when he came into the grounds. Wynt started. Cyp was coming. He must see to him; Cyp must be told. And he would be looking for both of them. How sure his uncle had been to drop whatever he was doing and step out to the piazza, when he heard that sound. He liked to see Cyp coming in. Wynt went quickly through the rooms; Cyp was just at the piazza steps, coming up with the little swagger that he always got on when his spirits were particularly high. "Oh, halloa!" he said. " Where's uncle? I've had the jolliest old time over at the fall. The Wilkies took me. I want to tell him about it, because, don't you remember, he said " "Come and tell me about it, Cyp," Wynt said, getting him into the house and over towards the sofa where his evening nap had scandalized Bent "Yes, but that isn't the point," persisted Cyp, with a little air. " Uncle and I had a dis- agreement, don't you know, about the big boul- der out there. And we had hammers, Dr. Thad Wilkie and I, and we know now !" "Do you? That's good; but you'd better take up with me, Cyp. I don't think you can tell uncle to-day. Not before to-morrow, at the best." Cyp started, and lifting his face, shot one of A BROKEN BOW. 83 his keen, concentrated looks into Wynt's. He never hurried with them, and this one was hard to meet just now. "What is the matter with him?" he said at last suddenly. "And what is the matter with you?" as his eyes still measured and penetrated Wynt's face. " He is not well," answered Wynt, command- ing himself as well as he could under such fire. "We can't tell why he should not be, he was so well a little while ago. But Dr. McPherson says he must keep very quiet now. We must not go to him now unless we are called. So you had better tell me about the boulder, Cyp. We must be the best company we can for each other to- night." Still Cyp's eyes had not stirred. He put up a hand suddenly and felt Wynt's face, as he had done the other day; then dropped the hand, and next another swift little question was struck at Wynt and almost threw him off his guard. " I say, Wynt, will he ever get well?" Why should Cyp ask him that ? He had only said his uncle was ill and was to be left alone. ' ' Why, of course, I hope so, Cyp. Why should he not? People almost always do. It seems strange for him, because he is always so strong and gay, but every one is ill sometimes, you know. We must try not to disturb him; that is all we can do." Cyp put a hand on each of Wynt's shoulders, 84 JUDGE HAvisHA^rs WILL. bringing their eyes still nearer together, and pulled him with an imperative little touch. " Tell me !" he said. " You might just as well." Wynt gave way suddenly. Somehow Cyp seemed almost as old as he at that moment Why should they not share a little, after all ? He caught Cyp in his arms and pressed him convulsively. " Oh, Cyp ! Cyp ! I do n't know. How can we know ? But he is too dear and glo- rious and young to die. And how could we ever let him go?" THE MYSTERIOUS WORDS. 85 CHAPTER X. THE MYSTERIOUS WORDS. BUT the next day brought very little change, and the next dragged along in the same slow, dreary way. Dreary outside of the judge's room, but inside, in spite of the silence and the helpless lying still, no one could help feeling that the judge was only waiting quietly a few days till this thing should pass off. He had Wynt or Cyp up every few hours, and always wrote a few words cheerfully, Cyp watching the process with eyes turning swiftly between his uncle's hand and his face as he wrote. What was it all? What could it all mean? He could see no change any- where except in that poor left hand, and that was almost always out of sight Outside telegrams had been flying and mes- sages coming in from every direction. The doc- tor kept away all offers of coming of friends; ha would rather keep his patient just as he was, with a strong man nurse and otherwise only household faces about him. As for Vivian, two weeks would scarcely bring her, but telegrams were sent her daily, following her movements as closely as possible until she should take her steamer direct for home. 86 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S Bent was kept busy warding off inquirers from the door, or rather opening it noiselessly to meet them before they could be heard. The Wil- kies got Cyp off when they could, but he would not leave Wynt without coaxing and pretext To Wynt the days were heaviest "I guess I'm finding out how it seems to Mab to sit alone and bear things," he said at last, and he sprang up and, hardly knowing that he did so, made his way down to her window. She was there, and saw him long before he reached it Indeed, something made him feel she had been watching for him. " Oh, I know ! I know just how it must be, Mr. Wynt so long and slow the hours are moving by. But don't let yourself feel that you're left to it all atone! You never are, Mr. Wynt, never. I found that out long ago, and you do n't know how you can live on it if you once feel sure. There 's One your heart can talk to all the time. And He hears so much quicker and more than any one else. And he says so many things back. Don't you know it, Mr. Wynt?" "Yes, Mab, I should have gone wild if I had n't. But even He used to feel that he wanted to see a friend about sometimes, you know." " Indeed He did, and I know it all for you, Mr. Wynt Do you think it will be long till Miss Vivian can get across?" Wynt smiled a little bitterly to himself at this THE MYSTERIOUS WORDS. 87 suggestion of help and comfort, though he an- swered Mab quietly about the time. Vivian ! She would come in sweet and charm- ing and graceful and bring her strange beauty with her, but He could not define to himself the feelings that rose in confusion at even the sound of her name. Had she made his uncle happy when she was at home last? Would she want to find him and Cyp there when she came? At the same moment Dr. McPherson was talking with Mr. Wilkie, to whom he spoke con- fidentially, as to no one else, about the judge. "The only real hope I feel in the case is," he said, " the quiet expectation of the judge himself. Strange, too, very, for he knows enough about such things. He seems to have no other thought but of being all right again soon ; has not had, at least, until to-day. I suppose the thought of some possibility must have entered his mind, for he had a slightly troubled look at one time and wrote me that he wished to make a change in his will. I put him off, for I did n't dare risk it, and I wanted to see you first If I knew those boys were provided for, I'd never let him make the effort for any minor point If they're not, I de- clare I believe I 'd run the chance. I thought perhaps you would know, Wilkie." "They are. They must be, at least, for he spoke of it to me, positively, not two months ago. It seemed something very much on his mind. 88 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. He even showed me the very place where his will was to be found; it is lying in his safe to- day, I do n't doubt." "Then I think I'll see what to-morrow brings. If he should seem a little stronger But I don't know. If he could dictate it would be a different thing, but this writing business, in his state; it's too great a strain." The next morning Dr. McPherson did not make his visit quite as early as before. An im- perative call in another direction delayed him, and an hour later than his previous time of com- ing he had not appeared. Wynt was standing at the library window, half vacantly, half impatiently watching for him. He had a dreary feeling that the doctor could not do any good up stairs, and yet he clung to him as the only hope; and down stairs it was such a break in the day, such a big, cheery help, to have him come in. It always seemed, at least, as if everything was lifted along. He started as he heard his name spoken be- hind him. Was that Bent? How strange his voice sounded ! He turned and looked at him. "What is it, Bent?" "Would you please come up stairs, Mr. Wynt?" What could make Bent look so? "Is he worse?" he asked, leaving the window hastily. THE MYSTERIOUS WORDS. 89 " Barbie said it seemed as if a sudden worry seized him, as if he was terrified at something, and he called for you." Wynt was out of the door almost before Bent had ceased speaking, and in another instant was at the threshold of the sick-room. His uncle's eyes met him. They had been fixed on the door with an expression of eager haste which only intensified as he saw Wynt. Wynt stepped instantly to him. " What is it, dear uncle? What can I do for you?" And he held the writing-tablet to the judge's hand. He wrote hurriedly, but with an effort that Wynt had not noticed before. Only a few words, and then the pencil seemed to hesitate. He turned his eyes to Wynt appealingly, as if he al- most thought he might do it for him. Then he made a renewed effort, there were two or three more words, and then Wynt never could remember what came then. He knew that beside Barbie and the nurse Bent was suddenly there, and in a moment more the doctor had come; that the doctor put his ear to his uncle's heart and said, "Yes," and then turned to Wynt and grasped his hand tightly. "My boy, he is gone !" he said. And then somehow, Wynt never remembered how, the doctor had got over the stairs with him and they were in the library together. He remembered that the doctor had turned 90 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. away from him for an instant, as if lie could not speak. He and Judge Havisham had been close friends from boyhood. Wynt knew that very well. "Wynt, my man," he said, "this is hard for all of us. The finest fellow this old town ever saw, by a hundred fold ! But what will you do ? How are you going to hold up?" Wynt looked at him. u I?" he repeated me- chanically. "Oh, I shall have to hold on hold on the tighter the harder things pull." But the next moment he caught himself again. What was he thinking of, bringing Cyp's little saying up just now ? How was the doctor to un- derstand ? "I don't know, doctor," he went on has- tily. "You wont expect me to know just yet. I'm glad you think he was fine. You knew him better than most people. But no one can ever know him as we did, Cyp and I. Poor little Cyp!" "Where is he?" asked the doctor. "I don't know. I must look for him.'* And then suddenly he gave way. He had been looking steadily at the doctor, with the quiet natural to his dark face intensified; but he threw himself down now, with his head buried in his arms, upon his uncle's table, with a moan that went to the doctor's heart. "See here, Wynt," he said after a moment, THE MYSTERIOUS WORDS. 91 "what are we going to do? I can't leave you two here alone. Will you come to my house ? or whom will you let me send to you?" Wynt raised his head quickly. " Oh, no one. No one, please. And, you are very kind, but we could not go away from here. He always wanted us here, you know. We must stay with him. That is to say," with a little shudder and then a thought of Vivian, "as long as we can. Where we shall go then I don't know; but I must fight Cyp's way in the world for him somewhere." "You'll not have that to do, I trust You will find your uncle has taken care of that, I think." "I don't know," answered Wynt wearily. He could not seem to think of things any more, just now; and he had never thought of that But the doctor's words reminded him, he did not know how, of the bit of paper he held crumpled in his hand. He had caught it from under his uncle's, without an instant to read it, just as that dreadful confusion came, and he did uot even know he had been holding it all this time. He looked down at it now, and the doc- tor's eyes followed his. "What have you there?" he asked. " He sent for me, he wanted to speak to me, just before you came. This is it I did not know it was here." He opened it and they read it together. 93 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. U I do not wish my last will carried out I revoke " then came the gap the hesitation had made, and then, uncertainly written, " promise to," and that was all. "Oh, that was what he wanted ! That was what troubled him!" exclaimed Wynt. "Bent said he had a frightened look, but I knew he had nothing to fear. Do you think " 1 ' Yes, Wynt, I do. He had wished strongly to do something of this kind, I know, but had thought he would recover. I think he suddenly became conscious that he should not, and was terrified lest it was too late." "Oh, I am so glad, so thankful! It would have been so dreadful to do anything as he did not wish." The doctor looked at him a moment silently. a But, Wynt, there is no signature to this. And it specifies nothing. It would not hold in law." Wynt sprang up excitedly. "But it would hold in right ! It would hold in honor ! Who has a right to do what he told me with his last breath he did not wish done?" The doctor rose to go. "Very well, Wynt. Ask Mr. Wilkie about it. He will be able to advise. Keep it carefully till you see him. That will be very soon, I don't doubt." "The boy doesn't know what he is talking about," he said to himself, as he drove away. "That 'last will,' as I understand, provides THE MYSTERIOUS WORDS. 93 handsomely for him and Cyp. Knock it away, and where are they ? I'm sorry the judge got as far as that, since he got no farther, and sorry the boy happens to have hold of it. He talks as if he would make fight for it. There 's not one in ten thousand that would, after the truth is known; but I'm not sure about him. He's got a deal of stuff in his make-up." Meantime Wynt was pressing the paper in question passionately against his brown cheek. "'Keep it carefully^' the doctor said! Oh, uncle ! uncle I how little any one knows how I love you 1" 94 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. CHAPTER XI. THE "LAST WILL." THE next two days went by as such days always must the same hush in the house, the same shaded rooms, the same heavy passing of the hours, the same slow, bitter realizing of what could not seem true at first. Cyp's^rst wild little agony of grief had been pitiful to see; he could scarcely be got away from Wynt, and clung to him sometimes with an actual grasp, as if he would never let him go. "Oh, what can we do? What can we do? Wynt, what can we do?" was one of his cries as he followed him across the room the next day. Wynt could hardly move that he was not close at his side. Wynt turned and got his arms round him again. "I don't know what we can do, Cyp, except to * hold on,' " he said. "But what is there left to hold on to? I didn't think he would leave us. I know he meant to stick by us. He told me once he did." "We can hold on to the right, Cyp, and to the good and the true. We can always find those to 'stick by.' And we can " He hesitated a moment, and his thoughts THE " LAST WILL.'* 95 flashed again to that " climate" which Judge Havisham had so detested, feeling that his one half-worshipped sister had faded away under its power. To Wynt every memory of it was luxu- rious, with its warmth, its languor, and its flowers, but, above all, his mother's invalid room, exqui- site and wonderful as it seemed to him. All the rest of the life seemed to be shaped outward from that; and one of the most vivid parts of it was the teaching, as real as the fruits and flowers, that it was all with and to and from the most loved Master, who was never far away. Cyp was so much younger, but he was given his share in it, as well as could be, too; yet never when they were together. These things were always for some choice moment with her when no one. else was by. And it was not his uncle's way to speak of them, and so, beyond hearing Cyp say his prayers But what if it did seem strange? Why shouldn't he talk to Cyp about their Lord, the one only love they had to fasten to now ? So he went on quickly. " And we can hold on to our Elder Brother, Cyp, our own Lord Christ You know how close he used to hold sorrowful people when he was here, and it 's just the same now. We needn't trouble ourselves about everything we don't see. He knows all about it, and it's all right'* Cyp was silent a moment, and then broke out 96 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL, vehemently, "I shouldn't think we did 'see/ I can't understand anything, and it seems as if there was nothing left." " There's a whole life left, Cyp. Did you * understand ' everything when we got on board the ship because uncle sent for us to come here ? We had never seen him and had no idea what we were coming to, and we thought we were leaving everything behind. But he knew. He had made his plans, and all the tossing about we had, that stormy time at sea, was just bringing us to him and the happy times he had ready for us." Cyp was silent again. u But now," he said at last, drawing himself together with a convulsive little pull. " But now we have lost him," finished Wynt " But we can never lose our Christ. He is the Shepherd, you know, that never leaves us. Don't you think it would have hurt uncle if we had been afraid when he was planning for us ? We mustn't hurt our Lord." "But but we loved him so! I say, Wynt, I say, we loved him so !" U I know we did. It's bitter, bitter, Cyp. But we must love our Christ all the more, for comfort. We must hold on tighter yet Now I am going into the study to look for some papers Mr. Wilkie wants me to find. He is well enough to work again, you know, and there is something uncle had not finished, and the people can't wait THE LAST WILL." 97 Come along with me, and then we '11 find Waite and send the papers off. I 'm afraid Mr. Wilkie will think I have been slow." Mr. Wilkie was not thinking of the papers at all. He was talking with Dr. McPherson again. "I'm glad those people are coming this noon," he said. "Lewyn Havisham, the judge's nephew, you know, and his wife, and two or three more. I'm most glad of Mrs. Lewyn. They need some woman about ; needed one enough when the judge was alive. I hope she '11 stay till Mrs. Adriance gets here. I '11 make her if I can. That Wynt 's a strange fellow, though. I tried to get them down here last night it 's all wrong for them to be there alone, of course but I couldn't make him budge. Then I tried to stay there; but he said they had Barbara and Bent and they were all right, and I really thought the boy would rather be left as he was. I stayed as late as I could and came off." " Did he say anything to you about a paper he has?" "A paper? No. What is it? Do you know?" "Something the judge put his last strength into to write. A few words about his will." "His will!" And Mr. Wilkie started with surprise and interest. "Yes. He wished some change made, it seems. As I told you, he had intimated as much Jadfe lUrlihun-i Will. J 98 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S to me the day before. I am almost sorry now But no. He could not have done it It would not have answered to let him try." " But this paper. Was the change specified? Was there a signature?" "He 'did not wish his last will carried out,' if that is specifying a change. But there was no signature. He did not even succeed in finishing what he had to say." "His last will? That must be the one, of course, that he was talking of to me the other day, the one providing for the boys. It's not possible he thought of throwing them over at the last." "I should not think so. Not if he was him- self, certainly. But in those cases the mind is well, you're very uncertain about it at least Wynt will keep quiet about it, however, for a day or two, till till such matters ought to come up; and I 've told him you would consult with him then." "When all is over, of course. I tell you, Me- Pherson, the town never saw such a funeral as that will be. Every man, woman, and child, pretty nearly, will be on those grounds, if they can't get into the house. There's not a soul that didn't love him, and precious few that he had not done some kindness to." And so it proved. Wynt and Cyp saw noth- ing, knew nothing of it, except a confused sense THE "LAST WILL." 99 of many people as they went to their carriage; and as they returned to it they had an instant's glimpse of a long line stretching away. But the very grass of the lawn looked trampled the next day, from the many feet that had stood there, pressing as close to the house as they could come. And the next day came what was almost harder yet: the vague desolate feeling that things must go on somehow, and the strain of seeming to keep up, with all the time that feeling that it was only a seeming, as if they were only acting a part. Mrs. L/ewyn carried out Mr. Wilkie's hope, and quietly established herself, without even ask- ing a yea or a nay. "I simply shall not leave those boys till Vivian comes in at the door," she said in her straightforward way. "It's not the thing to be done. I sha' n't worry them. I '11 leave them to themselves whenever it is best, but they 're not to be here alone, poor souls." And even Wynt and Cyp, though they would have been in great trouble if she had asked how they would like it, found that they did like it very much. She was a comfortable, motherly little body, not so very much older than Vivian; of course not with her beauty, but pretty for all that; and she went fluttering about in a way that made things seem cheerful wherever she came in. IOO JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. She got the windows open, books strewed about, and the flowers on the dining-table again. She stole Cyp off for drives, and got down Vivi- an's old easel and went to work upon one bit of painting after another, which fascinated Cyp and kept him watching her for hours at a time. And Wynt found, too, that the corner where she kept her " dabbling," as she called it, was the pleasantest one where he could take his book. He was reading, after a fashion, it is true, but it was pleasant to watch the colors going in, if only as he turned the pages, and to lend half an ear to Mrs. Lewyn's bright little flutter of talk and Cyp's eager criticisms and comments upon her work. THE BATTLE BEGUN. IOI CHAPTER XII. THE BATTLE BEGUN. BUT that paper, with those last few words upon it, Wynt found constantly in his mind. What could the doctor have meant by the hesi- tation he seemed to show? Certainly the words were plain enough. Would any one dare go against them because they were so hurried, with that last little bit of strength? He would speak to Mr. Wilkie. That was, of course, the thing to do; he would have known that without Dr. Mc- Pherson's help. Mr. Wilkie did not keep him waiting for the opportunity long. He brought his buggy and insisted on Wynt's driving him a little way. He talked on indifferent subjects for a time, and Wynt hesitated. Would Mr. Wilkie think he was pressing the matter forward in undue haste if he spoke of it now ? But Mr. Wilkie in another moment had quietly opened the subject himself. "Wynt," he said, " McPherson tells me that your uncle's last words were spoken or written to you. You must take great satisfaction in that fact And almost the last words he spoke to me in the office, before I iO2 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S was ill, were about you, you and Cyp. His heart seemed very much set upon you and upon your welfare in the future. Now as to this paper that the doctor tells me of. Does it refer to any of his affairs? Is it anything you are willing to show to me?" " More than willing. I have been wishing to show it to you all this time." " Have you it with you ?" "No; but I can repeat it to you, word for word." And he did so. Mr. Wilkie listened attentively and with a face from which Wynt could make nothing at all. " Ah !" he said merely, and drove on for a mo- ment silently. "Now, Wynt," he began, turning for an in- stant to fasten a curtain of the buggy and then seeming to bring his attention back again, u that will I suppose to be one of which he spoke to me not long since. It is in his safe at the office, where he once showed it me, and where I found it again on looking for it yesterday. Ordinarily it should have been opened before this time, but I feel that, if you do not object, I should like to have it wait until Mrs. Adriance returns. There seems no one else, unless Mr. L,ewyn Havisham, to raise any objection, and I do not think he will." "I?" asked Wynt in surprise. "Why should I object ? It is not a thing I have anything to do with, I suppose." . THE BATTLE BEGUN. 103 Mr. Wilkie was silent a moment. "Well, probably as a minor you have not But when we do open the will, what are we going to do ? If no later one should be found, which I cannot think possible, this is the ' last will ' to which your uncle referred. There it is, signed, sealed, and witnessed, as I do not doubt Now do you think the Judge of Probate would feel that he could set this aside in consideration of these few words, unsigned and incomplete ?' ' u Why not?" asked Wynt, turning towards Mr. Wilkie with a show of excitement most un- usual for him. "Those few words were my uncle's will, that he almost seemed to stay a mo- ment longer to write. No one shall ever go against them if I have any power to resist" If the judge could have stayed another mo- ment and signed them in time for witnesses! Mr. Wilkie thought. "The boy seems to have a good deal of fight in him," he went on to himself; "but does he know whose interest he is fighting against ? The will at the office undoubtedly provides for him and for Cyp. If it were set aside, no substitute being made, Vivian, as the only direct heir, in- herits everything. I '11 do some hard fighting myself before I '11 allow that or believe the judge meant it, either. He must have been out of his mind." "Wynt," he began quietly, "I have my own io4 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. reasons for thinking your uncle did not make himself quite clear. He had told the doctor be- fore that he wanted to ' make some changes ' with regard to his will. Probably they were slight ones; while in his haste, and with his mind cloud- ing rapidly, he did not express himself exactly as he would." "His mind was as clear as mine is at this moment! If you could have seen his eyes you would know." " Very well, Wynt. Probably you are right. But I think the matter had better rest until Mrs. Adriance's return." "Mr. Wilkie," and Wynt was turning to him now with his own quiet look, "if it can possibly be arranged, I would rather Mrs. Adriance did not find me Cyp and me in the house when she returns." It was Mr. Wilkie' s turn now to start "What do you say? What is it about not being in the house?" " I say I would rather not I do not think it was agreeable to her to find us there when it was my uncle's. It is hers now, I suppose." The answer to this was a slow, long-drawn "Whew!" from Mr. Wilkie. "You are not speaking on the spur of the moment, Wynt? You must be. A mere passing idea; put it out of your head." Wynt colored, but answered quietly, "It THE BATTLE BEGUN. 105 would be a pretty slow 'spur,' Mr. Wilkie, that it took her two last visits to plant. And it has gone too deep now for 'putting it out.' I don't know to whom I am responsible now, but I sup- pose it is some one; and whoever it is, I wish he would allow me to go. I wish it were you, Mr. Wilkie. Can it not be you ?" "Since you ask me, Wynt, Judge Havisham told me he wished I would take the guardianship, though it is hardly arranged yet" "Then I will ask you." "And then I shall have to say no. You do n't want to do anything, Wynt, that would open family secrets, by even a hint, to the eyes of the world outside. I am sorry you've got this feel- ing, and I hope it is a mistake. I'll have a talk with you about it soon. But whatever the fact may be, you had better put pride in your pocket a few weeks than let strangers pick up crumbs at the door. And now we have talked business enough for one day. Let us turn round here by the cascade and enjoy ourselves. ' ' The subject was dropped instantly, but long after Mr. Wilkie reached home he found his mind recurring to it and trying to make one point or another form a clew to the real meaning of the judge's unsigned words. " If the boy is right," he went on, "and he 's got a pretty level head of his own, if he 's right, and Vivian doesn't want them in the house, she io6 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. doesn't want them in the business anywhere, I'll take my risk. Now that 'promise' that he was trying, to write about may have been a promise that he wanted made to him, or it may have meant a promise he had made some one else. That will provides for the boys. If she doesn't want them provided for or doesn't like the way in which it is done, she may have got a promise out of her father that he would make a change. A promise was a sacred thing with the judge. He would keep it if it took his last breath, as this almost seemed to do." Mr. Wilkie walked back and forth in his room, sat down, tried to do some work, and then rose and walked about again. "I'm half inclined to think I've hit it," he began once more. "It seems rather a hard con- clusion for Vivian; but the truth is, I never did feel quite sure of her. There is a velvet touch that has something sharp behind it; and I don't believe there's much heart under that beauty of hers. Well, we've just got to wait for her lady- ship to appear. But if she undertakes to fight these boys, she '11 find she 's got me to tackle, at least" VIVIAN'S RETURN. 107 CHAPTER XIII. VIVIAN'S RETURN. THE most impatiently waited for come at last, and the carriage was ordered to meet Vivian at the train before another ten days had passed. Wynt put Waite and Cyp on the front seat and got in behind them himself. His face was still and no one could have read anything but a little overstraining of his usual quiet in it, but it was only by the greatest tension of self-control that he kept his composure. It seemed to him, at one moment, that his heart had turned to stone with the dead, dazing weight that settled there, and at the next that he should fly to the ends of the earth rather than do this thing that he had to do. So few weeks ago, such a few short weeks, and clear as yesterday stood that day when he had driven his uncle to meet Vivian just every inch of the same ground that was to be gone over again. How radiant his uncle's face was, that handsome, manly face! They waited a few moments for the train. Would it never come and get this thing over with? Yes, there was the shriek of the whistle. It io8 JUDGE HA vis HAM'S WILL. was coming now, thundering in over the track. There was the drawing-room car, and there yes, it must be could it be that tall figure swathed in black, could that be Vivian ? Yes, and she had recognized him. Mr. Adri- ance was behind her, and she was holding out her hand to Wynt with that same peculiar grace. He would have known her in India if he had seen her hold out that hand! Then, to his amazement, she what was she doing? She had stooped and kissed him. She had never done that to any one but Cyp before. "My dear Wynt !" was all she said; and then Mr. Adriance gave him a quick grasp, and they got out of the crowd as hastily as possible and found Waite holding the carriage-door. The drive to the house was alike to all of them, inasmuch as there was the same crowd of memories rushing in and the same covered effort to avoid speaking of what was uppermost in their thoughts. Beyond or beneath that one subject there was room for each to have a little wonder- ment that they kept instinctively to themselves; and Wynt, while asking with real interest the ordinary questions about the voyage, had time to read some changes in his cousin's face. It was brilliant still; it could not help being that But the vivacity was gone; it was quiet and shaded ; was it really sorrowful ? The next moment he was abusing himself for VIVIAN'S RETURN. having asked the question. Certainly it was. Vivian had lost what had been everything to her from the time she had been of Cyp's age until, at least, two years ago. But there was another look that he was sure he did not mistake. As if Vivian's home-coming were as much because of a new life to be entered upon as lest it should not look well to the world if she stayed away. And of course it must be so. As Judge Havisham's heir it must be. There was nothing for Wynt, or any one else, to criti- cise in that And just for one flash he caught a look fixed upon himself that he was sure he did not mis- take. Only one flash, that betrayed for half an instant the wondering whether and then it was gone without really finishing itself. It was not often that Vivian let her graceful external veil slip away as far as that "Yes, Wynt," she was saying, u we were so very glad to get in yesterday. It looked at one time as if we should not, and another day's delay would have been so very trying. We were just able to get the early train to-day. Tom dear, suppose you bring Cyp over here with us. We have more room, I am sure." ''I did not feel like driving to-day," said Wynt hurriedly, feeling that the carriage was too full with Waite; and the next moment he would have given anything if he had not said it no JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. But what else could he have done ? It would have been worse to say he did not like to leave Cyp at home alone. " Oh, but I want him with us," answered Vivian. "Tom, don't you think he has grown since we went away ?' ' Mr. Adriance, meanwhile, had been having his own thoughts about the boys.] "If any one were to ask me," he said to himself, as he gave Cyp a lift and put him at Vivian's side; "if any one were to ask me, I should say these two youngsters were the best inheritance out of the whole thing. They belong to us now, I sup- pose." Bent met them at the^door, and Barbie stood behind. Bent's face might have been a study again, if any one had looked closely into it. The first time he had ever opened the door to receive his young mistress when "Mr. Thorpe" had] not brought her in ! And the first time he had ever done it with any feeling which he wished to keep out of sight ! That last visit, two months ago, had left recol- lections that were like thorns in the old butler's heart just now. One among them was of the troubled look on the judge's face; and another was of those few words about the "promise" that he had so unwillingly caught "I think two things, Mab," he had said more than once, as they sat together in the summer VIVIAN'S RETURN. Ill .wilight, sometimes silently thinking of the great grief, sometimes talking it over and over, for what relief that could bring; " I think two things; may the Lord pity us more that they're true! I think part of the trouble that has come to the old house need not have come; and I think we shall see more of it before it's all past" But Vivian only lifted her eyes for an instant to Bent's face and to Barbie's, passing from one to the other with a kindly greeting. u This has been very hard for you all," she said. "Are you pretty well, Bent? Barbie, are you pretty well?" Then she turned to go into the library, but she faltered suddenly. u Wynt !" she exclaimed, turning swiftly towards him with a little gesture, "is it true? Are all the rooms quite empty? Tom, how can I go in there ?" u Come to your own room then, will you not? It will be easier for you there, and you need rest before dinner comes on." "No, I think wait for me a moment, then. 1 must come in here first" She stepped in and passed slowly through the room, then out to the little nook in the piazza, then back to the door of the judge's private study, drawing the curtain back a little way and glan- cing in. Then she turned to her husband again. " Oh, take me away, Tom ! I will go up now. These 112 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. rooms are desolate. Wynt, you wont mind if I go up a little while?" "I must go out," said Wynt; "I promised Mr. Wilkie to let him know when you arrived. I will take Cyp down there, and be back before dinner comes in." WHO SHALL BE RIGHT? 113 CHAPTER XIV. WHO SHALL BE RIGHT? MR. WILKIE had not recurred, as he had promised, to the question of Wynt's leaving the house. "It will have to come up," he said to him- self, "for he's a youngster that knows his own mind and is not apt to alter it But I think I '11 put him off till Mrs. Adriance gets fairly home. With this great change in circumstan- ces, any little manner of hers that has troubled him will very likely change also. Trouble is apt to draw people together, and I hope she'll take to petting the boys and make Wynt all right again." But he saw, the moment Wynt came in, that there was not much encouragement as yet The quiet reserve in his manner as he spoke of " Mrs. Adriance" did not look as if much ice had been melted yet " So she has arrived," he said. " I am very glad of that; it is better to get things settled. Then, Wynt, I will come up to-morrow. It is late to-night, of course; I will come to-morrow morning and bring the will. Will you be kind enough to tell her that her father left some mat- Jndf BcTtobun'i WllL 8 114 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S ters in my charge, and, if convenient, I will see her at that time?" "I will tell her, certainly." " And be there yourself, Wynt Mrs. Lewyn, I understand, left this morning. Well, it's just as well. Now then, Wynt, as to that last paper of your uncle's; I may as well tell you frankly that, hard as it may seem, we shall not be able to regard that in settling the estate." Wynt colored violently. "Do you mean to say that my uncle's will, his very last wish, is not to be called his will?" " We will call it so, Wynt, you and I, in our hearts, but have you a little time to spare ?' ' "A little, but I left Cyp with Lee Brainerd down below. I can't stay long." "That will do. Those last words of your uncle's, then, you and I would consider sacredly if we could. But we cannot prove, to the law, that they really were his will. If accepted they would annul and set aside the will now lying in the safe, signed, sealed, and witnessed." "Of course. That is just what he wished them to do." "Apparently. But, unfortunately, the law cannot accept any expression of a testator's wish or will that is not signed by himself, and by a certain number of witnesses as well." "But I know, and Barbie and the nurse know, that he wrote it" WHO SHALL BE RIGHT? 115 u Do they? Could they testify upon oath that that particular piece of paper is the one they saw him write ? You can ; but can they ? How do they know it is not something substi- tuted for it?" Wynt's eyes flashed. "They don't, Wynt, and they can't. They would believe you against fire and water; but they can't testify to what they only believe, and that fact the law has to recognize. Don't you see that, in any number of cases, an unsigned paper may be presented by persons who cannot be believed? The law cannot distinguish be- tween them and those who can. It must simply put on the strongest guard legislation can invent, and let things go at that." " And do a bitter wrong!" " In very rare and peculiar cases it is possible; but a general law, I suppose, must take its chance of that" "But what has the law got to do with it?" Wynt broke out excitedly. " You say you would consider his last expression of his wishes sacred, if you could. They are sacred, and I will never consider them in any other way. No one can have any right to ask me to." Mr. Wilkie was silent a moment "Wynt," he said quietly then, "there is one more point to be considered. Suppose time to have been suffi- cient for your uncle to have signed that paper, n6 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. incoherent and incomplete as it was, and for wit- nesses, as was equally necessary, to have added their names. If any claimant were disposed to contest it, do you not see how easily it might be assumed that his mind was weakened by the approaching change, that it was incapable of acting rationally and as in health?" "It would not be true. They might say it, but it is not true. As I told you before, you would know it if you had only been there. But I understand all you say. I see that if the will he did not wish carried out gives everything to his worst enemy or to his best friend, I cannot help it. But I will never agree to it. I loved him too much, and he trusted me too much, to do such a wrong ; for a wrong is a wrong always, and always will be, whatever the law may say. And he taught me, and his whole life taught me, and my Lord's life taught me, to hate a wrong. How can you expect me to do such a thing as that?" Mr. Wilkie met his eyes with another little inward exclamation. u Upon my word, I did n't know the boy would hold quite so hard. He 's got the Havisham stuff of two or three genera- tions in him. I'd like to try touching him on just one point, though. I don't believe he'll stir, but he '11 be one out of a big host if he wont." "I think you are hardly 'expected to do' WHO SHALL BE RIGHT? 117 anything in the case, Wynt," he said quietly, but watching him keenly as he spoke. " The matter will settle itself, in spite of any objection or regret on your part or mine. And it may be better for you that it is so. To set the will aside would give Vivian everything, as she is the only direct heir. But carried out, it may make generous provision for you and Cyp." "We would never accept it!" cried Wynt, springing up. " What do you think of us, Mr, Wilkie ? If the will does make such provision, that 's undoubtedly the very point he wanted changed. Else why should he have sent for me? He sent for me, you know. It was I that he tried to tell. He would have explained it if he could have gone on. But I am glad it is to be all done with to-morrow, and then I hope you wont object to our going away very soon." "And where would you go, Wynt?" "I don't know. It will have to be some- where where I can go to work, as it would have been if I had never come here at all. We are not beggars. There is something belonging to us, I believe; but I know it will take work besides to keep us both. I will give Mrs. Adriance your message, Mr. Wilkie, and I must bid you good-by now." Mr. Wilkie looked after him as he closed the door with a very unreserved little "Whew!" shaping his lips. "What am I going to do with Il8 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S a boy like that ?" lie said. u He 's going to have a fortune thrown at him, undoubtedly, and he wants to throw it back again, for an idea that he 's got ! If he were sure of his ground it would be different, but it's more than three-quarters surmise what the judge meant It 's worth all the fortunes in the universe, though, a moral backbone like that. I wish that boy belonged to me. I can't do anything with him, though, till I'm fully appointed guardian, and then I'll try to make him hear reason. " It 's an unlucky mess the judge got us into, though, trying to do a thing too late. Why in the name of sense did n't a man like him alter his will in time if he wanted to do it at all ? It wasn't like him, not like him in the least. I do n't believe he had the thing at heart, whatever it was, even if he had it in mind; and I wish I knew whom he made that promise to." THE RIGHT KEY. 119 CHAPTER XV THE RIGHT KEY. VIVIAN was more than willing to see Mr. Wilkie, and he felt that he should be equally glad to bring matters to a conclusion, so far as his own responsibility was concerned. The busi- ness seemed a trifle awkward, somehow, taken just as things stood. Vivian met him, however, with so much of her own peculiar manner that he was scarcely seated before he found the old fascination return- ing and shaming him for having had even a half suspicion that she could do anything else but charm. "So extremely kind of you, Mr. Wilkie, to let our affairs burden you in any way," she was say- ing. "But it does not surprise me. So true a friend of dear papa's while he was with us would not fail us now, I was quite sure." And the word "now" carried so much mean- ing as she spoke it, uttered hesitatingly, and yet with a half-faltering dwelling upon it when it came. Judge Havisham's will was short, and it was soon read. It made his daughter, Vivian Havi- i2o JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. sham Adriance, sole heiress of his estates, beyond certain provisions for his two nephews, Wynthrop and Cyprian DeKay Havisham, and p. few minor legacies to the other relatives and to old servants of the house. The house was to be maintained as at present, and considered as the home of the two nephews, in fair and equal share with his daughter Vivian, until the younger of the two should have com- pleted his educational pursuits. The expenses of a college course were to be met from the estate, if such a course should be chosen by either or both in preference to a business career, and each was to receive at his majority a sum to be held in trust until that time by the guardian whom the will proceeded to appoint. Short as it was, and occupied as Mr. Wilkie appeared to be in reading it, he found opportunity to catch some changes in Vivian's face. Through the first few paragraphs a restrained gleam of satis- faction, almost of triumph, as if something desired and aimed at had been successfully brought to pass; then, as the provision for the nephews was made specific, there was for one instant an un- conscious betrayal of intense feeling of a very dif- ferent kind. It was covered almost as quickly again, but neither expression had been too tran- sient for Mr. Wilkie' s well-trained eye. "I believe I had the right key after all," he exclaimed mentally; but in another instant he THE RIGHT KEY. 121 had brought his mind again to close holding of the work in hand. That miserable paper ! That, and the inevit- able discussion it would bring, must come up. Wynt knew that it must, and had stipulated that he might disappear as soon as the will was read. He had said all he had to say to Mr. Wil- kie. He could not endure hearing it all over again. "Another paper has come into my hands, Mrs. Adriance, and one which I feel it my duty to present just now, as it expresses a wish on your father's part to change, if not to annul, the will just read." "To change it? To annul it?" exclaimed Vivian, lifting her eyes to his with a swift flash and then dropping them to the floor. " Ah ! You were expecting it," was Mr. Wil- kie's reply mentally, but he went quietly on to his account of Wynt's last interview with his uncle. Vivian's color came and went with a swiftness that showed intense effort at self-control; for once the graceful woman found it hard to keep her secrets to herself; but she looked at the lawyer with only her usual quiet earnestness at last. "And this paper that means so much it has no signature, you say ? But it was given to dear Wynt ? Poor boy, it was hard for him, but for- tunate for us. We hardly need a signature, if it came through Wynt's hands direct" 122 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. Mr. Wilkie himself almost needed an instant, this time, to disguise thought. What did a speech like that mean from a woman who knew as much as Vivian did of life ? "We do not need it to satisfy our own cre- dence, Mrs. Adriance, but unfortunately, both sig- nature and witnesses being wanting, the will that would otherwise be set aside must stand." Once more there was a flash in Vivian's eyes. u And you call that right? Surely your interest in my cousins, warm as it is, would not lead you to call that right, true to my father? I cannot doubt it had been his full intention to replace the will you have read by a new one. In fact he in- timated such intention to me before I left. I sup- posed " "You forget, Vivian," interrupted Mr. Adri- ance, "that in this case Mr. Wilkie is only at* liberty to consider what Judge Havisham had, or had not, legally arranged; he is speaking of noth- ing farther than that" " You are quite right, Tom. I seemed to for- get for the moment. Papa's poor half-expressed wish seems so dear." "If it could be allowed to govern us," said Mr. Wilkie quietly, as he took his hat to leave, "it would simply leave everything in your hands and trust the boys to you." Vivian hesitated. " It would have been a great satisfaction to be so trusted," she said. THE RIGHT KEY. 123 "And I think it was his wish. I think he felt he had made some mistakes, especially in regard to keeping them so much at home." "Now," said Mr. Wilkie to himself as he walked back to his office, "I think I have got pretty nearly her whole secret out of that charm- ing Vivian. Her father 'intimated' to her, she says; 'promised,' I think she means; and that is the very promise that unlucky piece of paper tries to grapple with. She wanted everything left, 4 trusted, ' in her hands, and she did not want the boys in the house, and she got a promise from him that it should be so. That promise he had delayed fulfilling, and was trying to do it for honor's sake when too late. The fact that it was too late upsets her plans. "Well, a woman like that is past my under- standing. Why can't she give two such boys a welcome in that house? But she doesn't want them there, that is plain. Wynt is right, and upon my word, I begin to feel with the fellow when he vows he wont stay. It makes me hot! A mistake to keep boys at home, indeed ! If they were packed off to boarding-school, to be ruined, it would leaves the house clear for her gay visitors, of course, and they 'd be no trouble to any one." 124 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S CHAPTER XVI. KEEPING UP THE FIGHT. WHEN Wynt left the room lie walked quietly out of the house, down the driveway, past the fish-pond, and past Mab's door, towards Barbie's, on the side of the drive. Mab nodded to him as he passed her window. How bright and sweet her face was ! It cheered him, and he gratefully answered the look it gave him. It seemed full of things it would like to say, and he could guess what some of them were. On the whole, he couldn't lose them all; and he stepped back and reached a hand in at the win- dow. Mab met it with one of her smiles. " How brave you are looking, Mr. Wynt," she said. " I knew you wouldn't fail. I knew you'd 'hold on tighter the harder things pull.' " Wynt looked at her in surprise. "Where did you get that?" he asked. u Oh, I heard of it roundabout from Mr. Cyp. Did you hear it too?" "Yes, I heard it, but I did not think it had got as far as this. As to being brave, Mab, I don't know. I feel determined to-day, if you call that brave." KEEPING UP THE FIGHT. 125 "Of course I do, if you 're determined on the right, and I 'm sure you are." Wynt's eyes flashed. " Yes, Mab, it is right. Mr. Wilkie does not think so, but he'll change his mind some day. And I can't determine on the wrong, whatever he thinks !" Mab looked a little anxiously at him. Mr. Wilkie was a wise man, she thought "Well, Mr. Wynt," she said, "I'm sure you're 'holding on,' at least, or you'd never keep up as you do not if you hadn't fast hold of the Hand that's out of sight not when ' things pull ' as they do now." "No, I couldn't, Mab. Though sometimes it seems as though I didn't know what I think or feel." "You do all the same though, Mr. Wynt," said Mab hastily, as he turned to go. "It's no wonder it seems so just now; but it wont last. You '11 get the Hand in yours, plainer and plainer, and then there's such rest; when we once feel it is holding us and shaping out everything, we go over the worst places like floating; and we can't stumble or faint, least of all when we know he 's marked it all out for us in love, the path leading to the very best." She nodded again, and he felt a touch of her bright little courage going along with him as he went. "It is good to speak to somebody, after all," he said. " I 've had no one but Cyp all the SOUTH PRESBV , ER1AN i26 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. time; no one that's known what it all is, I inerai. As for Bent, poor fellow, it seems as if he can't speak uncle's name. The only time he tried it, with me, he gave out and cried as if he were no other than Cyp." He went over to Barbie's door. It was open and she was sitting just inside, framed by the scarlet trumpet-vine that ran over it. Her head was erect and turbaned as always, but the gay colored headkerchief was exchanged for one of spotless white, and that Wynt had never seen before, until these last two weeks, except when Communion Sunday came. " Must always wear white, the nearer we get to heaven," she had said to Cyp, when he asked her about it one day; he was the only person who had ever dared break her stately silence as to what it meant. And now no one asked whether it were worn as mourning for "Mr. Thorpe," or whether his going had made heaven seem nearer to Barbie and more real than earth. Her hands were busy with her knitting, and her needles flashed with a swiftness that had al- ways seemed miraculous to the boys; but her great brilliant eyes seemed to have forgotten them and everything else that was near. They were looking out into the clear summer light and did not seem to see even what was there. They saw Wynt, though, the moment he came in sight, and Barbie rose instantly and stood. KEEPING UP THE FIGHT. 127 u y es | s k e exc i a i m ed with a little gesture as if she would have stretched out both hands to him, " I was sure the time would come. I have n't wondered that it didn't come sooner, but I knew it would come, when you 'd step into Barbie's door and say she could either comfort or help." Wynt smiled and sprang up the door-step in his old way, half wondering at himself as he did so, and feeling that it somehow came from having stopped with Mab. u You can help me, Barbie," he said as he sat down on the little porch bench. "But don't stand there on ceremony like that; I sha' n't stay two minutes if you do; and I want to talk to you. I 've needed some one to talk to, I believe." Barbie looked at him, and it seemed as if her soul would melt in her eyes. Back flew her thoughts to the day when the house had seemed desolate because his young mother had gone out of it a bride; and now here was her boy, left to carry its name, desolate and alone ! "Some one to talk to? Yes, for even our Lord needed that It's no way for you to be living, Mr. Wynt, and it wont last The Lord knows too well about young hearts like yours. He says, 'Come ye apart into the wilderness,' once in a while; but he don't keep 'em there long; just long enough, Mr. Wynt, to teach some secret or give some precious gift Then he'll be leading you out again richer than ever before." 128 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S "Richer, Barbie! Do you think I can be 'richer' when my uncle is gone?'* And then his heart smote him for saying it as soon as the words were formed. He felt so stripped and desolate with that great, honored love gone out of his life; that was why he had said it And yet did he not at the same time feel that something made him richer too ? A strange new strength had come to him, a feeling of uplifting, that he could not understand. It seemed to place him where everything was new, everything changed. Life seemed so different emptied, in one sense, but also so full of meaning it had never had before, so linked in with the other one out of sight; such a short step out of one into the other; they could not be far apart And that was not all. How could he say he knew that the Elder Brother in his pity had come close to him and made His love and friendship so strangely real ? And yet it seemed to him that he knew it " Yes, I say richer, Mr. Wynt. Not the way those would reckon that don't know; but He knows, and you '11 find it out some day. He 's got his plan about it all, and he don't mistake. He can fill up cups as well as empty them. And don't I long to see 'em just poured out on your head ! It seems all the love I have for the whole Havisham House has got to come round to you and Mr. Cyp. How is Mr. Cyp?" KEEPING UP THE FIGHT. 129 " He 's well. Has n't he been looking in here to-day ?" Barbie shook her head. "No, nor yester- day." "I must try and shake him up. He sticks around wherever I am too much the last two weeks. Mr. Adriance will give him a stir now though. But, Barbie, I want to talk to you. Are you willing I should tell you something you must never tell?" Barbie fixed her eyes upon him till it seemed as if they might almost save him the trouble of telling, and then smiled. u just as much and as many as you like, Mr. Wynt. Do you think Havisham secrets can trouble me? I've carried 'em here, full," and she laid her graceful brown hand across her heart, " too many a year." "Well, then, Barbie, I don't think the house is the place any longer for Cyp and me." Barbie looked at him slowly again and gave a stately nod. u Sometimes, Mr. Wynt, the Hav- ishams tell me secrets that have told themselves to me before." "Did you think that before, Bab? Then you'll be on my side. But the reasons? You cannot know those." Barbie's eyes were still fixed quietly on his. "There's too much Havisham blood in your veins to stay where there's no welcome, Mr. Wynt." 130 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. Wynt started. "Oh, how could you know that ? I can guess, though. You know us all so well. I wonder if Bent has found it out too. But I could do it, Barbie, and I should have to, if it were right. But it 's not, more than other things they want me to do. We have read the will to- day, Barbie, a will that he made I don't know when. We were to stay there, Cyp and I, and have something given us besides a big pile, it seems to me; I don't know whether Vivian could spare it; and the rest was hers. But he changed his mind about all that, or some of it. When you called me, you know, that is what he was trying to say. He wanted to take it back. But because he hadn't time to do it 'legally,' Barbie, they are not going to listen; they say the old way must * stand.' It's all right for them, of course, Mr. Wilkie and the rest, but it would never be right for me. They cannot help it; I understand just how it is. But when he called me and took his last little bit of strength to tell me he wanted things changed, do you think I can go right on, as far as my part goes?" "No, Mr. Wynt,'" said Barbie slowly, "I don't see how you can. But he did not have time to say what he did want you to do, and he surely had some good wish. Mr. Wilkie " " He had time to say what he did not want," interrupted Wynt " How can Mr. Wilkie make wrong right? Perhaps he would have left Viv- KEEPING UP THE FIGHT. 131 ia:i to decide. Do you think then we should have stayed in the house? Now listen, Barbie. If I go out of the house, I go to work. There is some money that they say they must keep for me till by-and-by, but I will let by-and-by take care of itself. If things look different to me when I am twenty-one, all right. If they don't, I don't see what any one but myself will have to say about it. So now, Barbie, this is what I want Of course I can't earn much, and there's only a very little belonging to Cyp and me. So we can't go and live in state anywhere, even if we wish ; and state would be pretty lonely off among strangers too. We must go where it will cost just what we can afford to pay. I have thought of such a place, just one, where I want to go. Is my thought another secret that tells itself to you?" It had not, but it did so in an instant now. Barbie's cottage was like a bird-box from the out-, side; but appearances are deceitful sometimes. It was all dainty, tasteful, and neat as wax; that even the outside might suggest. But there was space in it too, and her own room being below, a really charming one had always stood vacant above. This, when the two boys arrived, Judge Havisham had fitted up suitably, and whenever there was an overflow at the house they were slipped quietly into it for a few days. A great' frolic Cyp considered it always, and he counted 132 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. the arrivals eagerly, if ever a crowd seemed im- minent. One more, two more, coming, and they were off to their "country seat," as Cyp had named it from the first. "The room is all ready for you, Mr. Wynt," Barbie said. Wynt laughed. "Oh, Barbie, there's no use in telling you anything. But that makes me all right; only, you understand, you are to take us to board. It will be a heap more trouble than let- ting us shy up stairs for a night." The next thing was to see Mr. Wilkie, and Wynt ran up his stairs quickly. He must have got back to his office long ago. Mr. Wilkie could not tell, for a moment, whether he was glad to see him come or not. u I hate to have a tussle with the boy," he said to himself; "but I may as well have it and be done." But Wynt did not give him much choice as to delay. "Can I speak to you a moment about those things you read to us to-day ?' ' he said. ' ' I was not to go to college if I chose business in- stead?" "No." "And the money you hold in trust till I am twenty-one?" "Yes." "Then those things are disposed of. Now as to staying in the house. If the will stands, it is KEEPING UP THE FIGHT. 133 to be considered as our home. That does not seem to me to insist, necessarily, upon our stay- ing in it. People do not always stay in their houses, do they? I think Vivian has not" Mr. Wilkie would have liked to smile, but he saw it was better not Wynt was too serious. "Your logic is pretty good, Wynt," he said. "You'd better come in here with me and study law." "I don't see that there is any provision for that. I shall have to go where I can work things out for Cyp and myself. Do you object to this?" "I think I do." "Then, may I ask, are you yet appointed as our guardian?" "No; I have waited till the will should be read." "Then I shall go to the Judge of Probate and ask him to appoint some one else. If my uncle had changed his will he might have changed that part of it with the rest." This time Mr. Wilkie gave way entirely. He threw himself back in his chair and laughed heart- ily. "Wynt, my boy," he said, "look out for yourself. You may get some one worse than I, by a long shot Better stick to an old friend, and I'll do all I can for you. But if you go out, where are you going? What are you going to do?" "I'm going to work, and I'm going to the 134 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. room my uncle furnished for us in the cottage by the gate. Barbie will look out for us there." Mr. Wilkie gave a long slow whistle. "See here, WynL As nearly as we can guess at it, your uncle's last wish was to put everything into Vivian's hands, trusting her to provide for you. With your view of things, why don't you let her do it? Why do you want to go to work ?" 1 ( Do you suppose she would do it, when you take away from the estate all that money you are going to keep for us?" Mr. Wilkie could not help smiling again. "I '11 make a special pleader of you yet, Wynt," he said. u But take yourself off now, and give me a little time to sum up. Don't go to the Judge of Probate and repudiate me for a day or so, and I '11 make up my mind. Remember, as I told you, haste does not look well in these things. You will not suffer by waiting that length of time. And some one has got to settle the matter with Vivian, recollect. You 'd better be think- ing what you '11 say to her." When Wynt had gone Mr. Wilkie tried to give his attention to other matters; but it seemed difficult, and he pushed his papers away at last and began to pace the office with rather a quick step. "Upon my word," he thought, " the judge has put me in an awkward sort of place. I don't know what to do with the boy. If it were a KEEPING UP THE FIGHT. 135 mere stickling about a question of 'right' that his conscience seems to have taken up, I should tell him that the only 'right' for him at present was to yield to his guardian till he should become of age. " But that does n't seem to be the whole of it. If I keep him there, I'm afraid it will be torture to a high-spirited fellow like him. Things wouldn't be very pleasant; they couldn't be. And if Vivian just turned about and took herself off nine-tenths of the year, as very likely she would, what kind of a way would that be for two boys to live ? U I declare I don't see why, in the name of common sense, the boy hasn't got about the right of it. I'd rather he'd study, but he can't do that unless he carries out the whole thing. And he can't go off to college and leave Cyp there. It 's about as broad as it is long, every way. I don't wonder the judge wanted to alter that will. "There's this about it; it never hurts a boy to go to work. Perhaps if I let him try it a year or two things will work themselves round into better shape. Barbie's is the safest place for the youngsters, if they go out at all; and if Vivian does not like the looks of a Havisham living at the street gate, why, I wont say I should n't enjoy that" 136 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. CHAPTER XVII. IS THERE A CHANCE? WYNT went down stairs and stopped before Brainerd and Gray's, glancing in as well as lie could through the closed door. Was Lee there ? he wondered. He wished he could catch him at liberty a little while. He had seen him but once during the last two weeks and more, and then Lee had been so sobered by the shock of what had happened, and so full of sympathy that he wished he had courage to express, that Wynt did not get much idea of how Lee was going on him- self. But he could not forget the last day he saw him in the store. The thought of it had hung about him and worried him, even through the bitterness and perplexities of his own days. "Lee must have got over all that miserable nonsense by this time," he thought "There's too much stuff in him." But he could not quite persuade himself and felt anxious still. Yes, Lee was in sight, near the farther end of the store, and seemed to have no customer in hand. He was apparently putting things in order after some sales, but it looked more like pushing and kicking things about to Wynt IS THERE A CHANCE? 137 Wynt opened the door and went in. Lee did not see him until he had come quite near. Then he started, and his face flushed with first a quick look of welcome and then one of embarrassment that almost covered the other. He was so glad to see Wynt ! But what was he to say to him? It seemed to him no one had ever had such a terrible grief as Wynt's. He had stammered out a few words about it when they met last. Was it time now to speak of it or time to let it alone ? If Wynt read the look, however, he ignored it, and Lee found himself deciding suddenly on the u letting alone. " "How are you, old fellow?" Wynt was say- ing. "I got sight of you through the door, and I thought it would do me good to look in. Can't you come off for a walk ?" "Couldn't do it," said Lee. "That one I had with you the other day was extra luck. I 'm the only salesman in for half an hour, and I have all this plaguey lot of carpets to roll up. There 's no hurry about them, though;" and Wynt caught a peculiar look, as Lee gave one of them a push with his foot; "I don't interest myself greatly in them this particular time, and there '11 be nobody in. The day has been dead dull all the way through, and it generally finishes as it begins. Come, let 's find a seat" "All right, if you say so. But I'd like just 138 JUDGE HAVISHAM'S WILL. as well to see the carpets rolled up. Or I believe I'd like to lend a hand myself. Can't you let me try? I 'd like to see why it is not ' interest- ing' work." Lee's face blazed, but he controlled himself. " Wynt is n't the fellow to fire your own troubles at just now," he thought; but he made an invol- untary little gesture to put Wynt aside. " You do n't touch them !" he said. u Come ; here 's a seat." They moved off and chatted a few moments about indifferent things. Lee's face cleared a good deal, but Wynt, watching it by glances, did not feel satisfied. "There's something gone that used to be there, and something there that I don't like, though I can't tell what it is. What's got hold of the fellow that he can't work over by this time?" "Now, Lee," he said at last, fixing his eyes on him with his old quiet look, " tell me what 's the matter with those carpets over there." The "something" that Wynt did not like darkened suddenly in Lee's face; but he turned it full upon Wynt. "See here," he said, "I think I mentioned to you what a pleasant sort of master Warnock here is to take orders from. Not that you know what it is to take orders from anybody, but how do you suppose I like this? It 's been a dull day, IS THERE A CHANCE? 139 as I told you; not a thing to do, as will happen once in a while. I could see it troubled him greatly that I wasn't breaking my back, but he found enough to keep me out of mischief, making up errands and all that, till an hour ago. I was tired by that time, and glad of the chance to look out of the window five minutes or so. But there happened to be a mirror pretty near it you see it over there and I got a view of Warnock that he thought was behind my back. He slipped into the carpet section and gave one roll after another a push with his foot and sent them flying. Then he stirred them up a little, enough to look as if a customer had had them while I was out, and then he called me: 'Brainerd! come and roll these carpets up;' and he sauntered off with that horrid smile of his and got his newspaper. He 's over there pretending to read it yet" Wynt was on the point of laughing, for the story had its droll side certainly; but he knew it would not do. "That was a 'hard grind,' l