MARGARET AND MARY. 
 
c? 
 
&rXS- &/ 
 
 (TJN^ 
 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. , 
 
 HER STOKY. 
 
 YES, I hate soldiers. 
 
 I can't help writing it it relieves my mind. All morn- 
 ing have we been driving about that horrid region into 
 which our beautiful, desolate moor has been transmogrified ; 
 round and round ; up and down ; in at the south camp and 
 out at the north camp ; directed hither and thither by 
 muddle-headed privates; stared at by puppyish young 
 officers ; choked with chimney-smoke ; jolted over roads 
 laid with ashes or no roads at all and pestered every 
 where with the sight of lounging, lazy, red groups that 
 color is becoming to me a perfect eye-sore ! What a treat 
 it is to get home and lock myself in my own room the 
 tiniest and safest nook in all Rockmount and spurt out 
 my wrath in the blackest of ink with the boldest of pens. 
 Bless you ! (query, who can I be blessing, for nobody will 
 ever read this), what does it matter? And after all, I re- 
 peat, it relieves my mind. 
 
 I do hate soldiers. I always did, from my youth up, till 
 the war in the East startled every body like a thunder-clap. 
 What a time it was this time two years ago ! How the 
 actual romance of each day, as set down in the newspapers, 
 made my old romances read like mere balderdash : how the 
 present, in its infinite piteousness, its tangible horror, 
 the awfulness of w r hat they called its "glory," casi 
 tame past altogether into shade ! Who read history 
 or novels, or poetry? Who read any thing but that fear- 
 ful "Times?'; 
 
 And now it is all gone by : we have peace again ; and 
 this 20th of September, 1856, I begin with my birthday a 
 new journal (capital one, too, with a first-rate lock and key, 
 saved out of my summer bonnet, which I didn't buy). 
 Nor need I spoil the day as once by crying over those, 
 who, t\vo years since, 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 "Went up 
 Red Alma's heights to glory." 
 
 Conscience, tender over dead heroes, feels not the small 
 est compunction in writing the angry initiatory line, when 
 she thinks of that odious camp which has been established 
 near us, for the education of the military mind, and the 
 hardening of the military body. Whence red-coats swarm 
 out over the pretty neighborhood like lady-birds over the 
 hop gardens harmless, it is true, yet for ever flying iu 
 one's face in the most unpleasant manner, making inroads 
 through one's parlor windows, and crawling over one's tea- 
 table. Wretched red insects! except that the act would 
 be murder, I often wish I could put half a dozen of them, 
 swords, epaulets, mustaches, and all, under the heel of my 
 shoe. , . 
 
 Perhaps this is obstinacy, or the love of contradiction. 
 Xo wonder. Do I hear of any thing but soldiers from 
 morning till night ? At visits or dinner-parties can I speak 
 to a soul and 'tis not much I do speak to any body but 
 that she (I use the pronoun advisedly) is sure to bring in 
 with her second sentence something about " the camp !" 
 
 I'm sick of the camp. Would that my sisters were ! 
 For Lisabel, young and handsome, there is some excuse, 
 but Penelope she ought to know bettor. 
 
 Papa is determined to go with us to the Grant ons' ball 
 to-night. I wish there were no necessity for it ; and have 
 jested as strongly as I could that we should stay at 
 ie. But what of that? Xobody minds me. Xobody 
 ever did that I ever remember. So poor papa is to be 
 dragged out from his cozy arm-chair, jogged and tumbled 
 across these wintery moors, and stuck up solemn in a cor- 
 ner of the drawing-room being kept carefully out of the 
 card-room because he happens to be a clergyman. And all 
 the while he will wear his politest and most immovable of 
 smiles, just as if he liked it. Oh, why can not people say 
 what they mean and do as they wish? Why must they 
 be tied and bound with horrible chains of etiquette even at 
 the age of seventy ! Why can not he say, " Girls" (no, of 
 course he would say "young ladies"), "I had far rather 
 stay at home ; go you and enjoy yourselves," or better still, 
 " go, two of you, but I want Dora ?" 
 
 Xo, he never will say that. He never did want any 
 of us much ; me less than any. I am neither eldest nor 
 youngest, neither Miss Johnston nor Miss Lisabel, only 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 7 
 
 Miss Dora Theodora " the gift of God," as my little bit 
 of Greek taught me. A gift what for and to whom? 
 I declare, since I was a baby, since I was a little solitary 
 ugly child, wondering if I,fcver had a mother like other 
 children, since even I have been a woman grown, I never 
 have been able to find out. 
 
 Well, I suppose it is no use to try to alter things. Papa 
 will go his own way, and the girls theirs. They think the 
 grand climax of existence is " society ;" he thinks the same, 
 at least for young women, properly introduced, escorted, 
 and protected there. So, as the three Misses Johnston 
 sweet, fluttering doves! have no other chaperon or pro- 
 tector, he makes a martyr of himself on the shrine of pater- 
 nal duty, alias respectability, and goes. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The girls here called me down to admire them. Yes, 
 they looked extremely well; Lisabel, majestic, slow, and 
 fair ; I doubt if any thing in this world would disturb the 
 equanimity of her sleepy blue eyes and soft - tempered 
 mouth a large, mild, beautiful animal, like a white Brah- 
 min cow. Very much admired is our Lisabel, and no 
 wonder. That w r hite barege will kill half the officers in the 
 camp. She was going to put on her pink one, but I sug- 
 gested how ill pink would look agains^ scarlet, and so, after 
 a series of titters, Miss Lisa took my advice. She is evi- 
 dently bent upon looking her best to-night. 
 
 Penelope, also : but I wish Penelope would not wear 
 such airy dresses, and such a quantity of artificial flowers, 
 while her curls are so thin and her cheeks so sharp. She 
 used to have very pretty hair ten years ago. I remember 
 being exceedingly shocked and fierce about a curl of hers 
 that I saw stolen in the summer-house, by Francis Charteris, 
 before we found out that they were engaged. 
 
 She rather expected him to-night, I fancy. Mrs. Granton 
 was sure to have invited him with us ; but, of course, he 
 has not come. He never did come, in my recollection, 
 when he said he would. 
 
 I ought to go and dress ; but I can do it in ten minutes, 
 and it is not worth while wasting more time. Those two 
 girls what a capital foil each makes to the other! little, 
 dark, lively not to say satirical ; large, amiable, and fair. 
 Papa ought to be proud of them I suppose he is. 
 
 Heigho ! 'Tis a good thing to be good-looking. And next 
 best, perhaps, is downright ugliness nice, interesting. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 attractive ugliness such- as I have seen in some women; 
 nay, I have somewhere read that ugly women have often 
 been loved best. 
 
 But to be just ordinary ; of ordinary height, ordinary 
 figure, and, oh me ! let me lift up my head from the desk 
 to the looking-glass, and take a good stare at an undeniably 
 ordinary face. 'Tis not pleasant. Well; I am as I was 
 made ; let me not undervalue myself, if only out of rever- 
 ence for Him who made me. 
 
 Surely Captain Treherne's voice below. Does that 
 young man expect to be taken to the ball in our fly? 
 Truly, he is making himself one of the family already. 
 And there is papa calling us. What will papa say ? 
 
 Why, he said nothing ; and Lisabel, as she swept slowly 
 down the staircase with a little silver lamp in her right 
 hand, likewise said nothing ; but she looked 
 
 " Every body is lovely to somebody," says the proverb. 
 Query, if somebody I could name should live to the age of 
 Methuselah, will she ever be lovely to any body ? 
 
 What nonsense ! Bravo ! thou. wert in the right of it, 
 jolly miller of Dee ! , 
 
 "I care for nobody, no, not I; 
 And nobody cares for me. " 
 
 So, let me lock up my desk and dress for the ball. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Really, not a bad ball ; even now when looked at in the 
 light of next day's quiet with the leaves stirring lazily in 
 the fir-tree by my window, and the broad sunshine bright- 
 ening the moorlands far away. 
 
 Not a bad ball, ef en to me, who usually am stoically con- 
 temptuous of such senseless amusements ; doubtless from 
 the mean motive that I like dancing, and am rarely asked 
 to dance ; that I am just five-and-twenty, and get no more 
 attention than if I were five-and-forty. Of course, I protest 
 continually that I don't care a pin for this fact (mem. mean 
 again). For I do care at the very bottom of my heart, I 
 do. Many a time have I leaned my head here good old 
 desk, you will tell no tales ! and cried, actually cried with 
 the pain of being neither pretty, agreeable, nor young. 
 
 Moralists say, it is in every woman's power to be in a 
 measure all three : that when she is not liked or admired 
 by some few at least it is a sign that she is neither like- 
 able nor admirable. Therefore, I suppose I am neither. 
 Probably very disagreeable. Penelope often says so, in 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 9 
 
 her sharp, and Lisabel in her lazy way. Lis would apply 
 the same expression to a gnat on her .wrist, or a dagger 
 pointed at her heart. A "thoroughly amiable woman!" 
 Now, I never was never shall be an amiable woman. 
 
 To return to the ball and really I would not mind re- 
 turning to it and having it all over again, which is more 
 than one can say of many hours of our lives, especially of 
 those which roll on rapidly as hours seem to roll after five- 
 and-twenty. It was exceedingly amusing. Large, well-lit 
 rooms, filled with well-dressed people ; we do not often make 
 such a goodly show in our country entertainments ; but 
 then the Grantons know every body, and invite every 
 body. Nobody would do that but dear old Mrs. Granton, 
 and " my Colin," who, if he has not three pennyworth of 
 brains, has the kindest heart and the heaviest purse in the 
 /whole neighborhood. 
 
 I am sure Mrs. Granton must have felt proud of her 
 handsome suite of rooms, quite a perambulatory parterre, 
 boasting all the hues of the rainbow, subdued by the proper 
 complement of inevitable black. By-and-by, as the evening 
 advanced, dot after dot of the adored scarlet made its ap- 
 pearance round the doors, and circulating gradually round 
 the room, completed the coloring of the scene. 
 
 They were most effective when viewed at a distance 
 these scarlet dots. Some of them were very young and 
 very small; wore their short hair regulation cut ex- 
 ceedingly straight, and did not seem quite comfortable in 
 their clothes. 
 
 "Militia, of course," I overheard a lady observe, who 
 apparently knew all about it. " None of our officers wear 
 uniform when they can avoid it." 
 
 But these young lads seemed uncommonly proud of 
 theirs, and strutted and sidled about the door, very valor- 
 ous and magnificent, until caught and dragged to their 
 destiny in the shape of some fair partner ; when they im- 
 mediately relapsed into shyness and awkwardness nay, I 
 might add stupidity ; but were they not the hopeful de- 
 fenders of their country, and did not their noble swords lie 
 idle at this moment on the safest resting-place Mrs. Gran- 
 ton's billiard-table ? 
 
 I watched the scene out of my corner in a state of 
 dreamy amusement; mingled with a vague curiosity as 
 to how long I should be left to sit solitary there, and 
 whether it would be very dull, if " with gazing fed" in- 
 
 A2 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 attractive ugliness such- as I have seen in some women; 
 nay, I have somewhere read that ugly women have often 
 been loved best. 
 
 But to be just ordinary; of ordinary height, ordinary 
 figure, and, oh me ! let me lift up my head from the desk 
 to the looking-glass, and take a good stare at an undeniably 
 ordinary face. 'Tis not pleasant. Well ; I am as I was 
 made ; let me not undervalue myself, if only out of rever- 
 ence for Him who made me. 
 
 Surely Captain Treherne's voice below. Does that 
 young man expect to be taken to the ball in our fly? 
 Truly, he is making himself one of the family already. 
 And there is papa calling us. What will papa say ? 
 
 Why, he said nothing ; and Lisabel, as she swept slowly 
 down the staircase with a little silver lamp in her right 
 hand, likewise said nothing; but she looked 
 
 " Every body is lovely to somebody," says the proverb. 
 Query, if somebody I could name should live to the age of 
 Methuselah, will she ever be lovely to any body ? 
 
 What nonsense ! Bravo ! thou, wert in the right of it, 
 jolly miller of Dee ! 
 
 "I care for nobody, no, not I; 
 And nobody cares for me." 
 
 So, let me lock up my desk and dress for the ball. 
 ******* 
 
 Really, not a bad ball ; even now when looked at in the 
 light of next day's quiet with the leaves stirring lazily in 
 the fir-tree by my window, and the broad sunshine bright- 
 ening the moorlands far away. 
 
 Not a bad ball, even to me, who usually am stoically con- 
 temptuous of such senseless amusements ; doubtless from 
 the mean motive that I like dancing, and am rarely asked 
 to dance ; that I am just five-and-twenty, and get no more 
 attention than if I were five-and-forty. Of course, I protest 
 continually that I don't care a pin for this fact (mem. mean 
 again). For I do care at the very bottom of my heart, I 
 do. Many a time have I leaned my head here good old 
 desk, you will tell no tales ! and cried, actually cried with 
 the pain of being neither pretty, agreeable, nor young. 
 
 Moralists say, it is in every woman's power to be in a 
 measure all three : that when she is not liked or admired 
 by some few at least it is a sign that she is neither like- 
 able nor admirable. Therefore, I suppose I am neither. 
 Probably very disagreeable. Penelope often says so, in 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 9 
 
 her sharp, and Lisabel in her lazy way. Lis would apply 
 the same expression to a gnat on her wrist, or a dagger 
 pointed at her heart. A u thoroughly amiable woman !" 
 Now, I never was never shall be an amiable woman. 
 
 To return to the ball and really I would not mind re- 
 turning to it and having it all over again, which is more 
 than one can say of many hours of our lives, especially of 
 those which roll on rapidly as hours seem to roll after five- 
 and-twenty. It was exceedingly amusing. Large, well-lit 
 rooms, filled with well-dressed people ; we do not often make 
 such a goodly show in our country entertainments; but 
 then the Grantons know every body, and invite every 
 body. Nobody would do that but dear old Mrs. Granton, 
 and " my Colin," who, if he has not three pennyworth of 
 brains, has the kindest heart and the heaviest purse in the 
 /whole neighborhood. 
 
 I am sure Mrs. Granton must have felt proud of her 
 handsome suite of rooms, quite a perambulatory parterre, 
 boasting all the hues of the rainbow, subdued by the proper 
 complement of inevitable black. By-and-by, as the evening 
 advanced, dot after dot of the adored scarlet made its ap- 
 pearance round the doors, and circulating gradually round 
 the room, completed the coloring of the scene. 
 
 They were most effective when viewed at a distance 
 these scarlet dots. Some of them were very young and 
 very small; wore their short hair regulation cut ex- 
 ceedingly straight, and did not seem quite comfortable in 
 their clothes. 
 
 "Militia, of course," I overheard a lady observe, who 
 apparently knew all about it. " None of our officers wear 
 uniform when they can avoid it." 
 
 But these young lads seemed uncommonly proud of 
 theirs, and strutted and sidled about the door, very valor- 
 ous and magnificent, until caught and dragged to their 
 destiny in the shape of some fair partner ; when they im- 
 mediately relapsed into shyness and awkwardness nay, I 
 might add stupidity ; but were they not the hopeful de- 
 fenders of their country, and did not their noble swords lie 
 idle at this moment on the safest resting-place Mrs. Gran- 
 ton's billiard-table ? 
 
 I watched the scene out of my corner in a state of 
 dreamy amusement; mingled with a vague curiosity as 
 to how long I should be left to sit solitary there, and 
 whether it would be very dull, if " with gazing fed" in- 
 
 A 2 
 
10 A LIFE FOi: A LIFE. 
 
 eluding a trifle of supper I thus had to spend the entire 
 evening. 
 
 Mrs. Granton came bustling up. 
 
 " My dear girl are you not dancing ?" 
 
 "Apparently not," said I, laughing, and trying to catch 
 her, and make room for her. Vain attempt ! Mrs. Granton 
 never will sit down while there is any thing that she thinks 
 can be done for any body. In a moment she would have 
 been buzzing all round the room like an amiable bee in 
 search of some unfortunate youth upon whom to inflict me 
 as a partner but not even my desire of dancing would al- 
 low me to sink so low as that. 
 
 For safety I ran after, and attacked the good old lady 
 on one of her weak points. Luckily she caught the bait, 
 and we were soon safely landed on the great blanket, beef, 
 and anti-beer distribution question, now shaking our parish 
 to its very foundations. I am ashamed to say, though the 
 rector's daughter, it is very little I know about our parish. 
 And though at first I rather repented of my ruse, seeing 
 that Mrs. Granton' s deafness made both her remarks and 
 my answers most unpleasantly public, gradually I became 
 NO interested in what she was telling me, that we must have 
 kept on talking for nearly twenty minutes, when some one 
 culled the old lady away. 
 
 " Sorry to leave you, Miss Dora, but I. leave you in good 
 company," she said, nodding and smiling to some people 
 behind the sofa, with whom she probably thought I was 
 acquainted; but I was not, nor had the slightest ambition 
 for that honor. Strangers at a ball have rarely any thing 
 to say worth saying or hearing. So I never turned my 
 head, and let Mrs. Granton trot away. 
 
 My mind and eyes followed her with a half sigh, consid- 
 ering whether at sixty I shall have half the activity, or 
 cheerfulness, or kindness, of her dear old self. 
 
 Xo one broke in upon my meditations. Papa's white 
 head was visible in a distant doorway ; for the girls, they 
 had long since vanished in the whirligig. I caught at times 
 a glimpse of Penelope's rose-clouds of tarletan, her pale 
 face, and ever smiling white teeth, that contrast ill with 
 her restless black eyes ; it is always rather painful to me to 
 watch my eldest sister at parties. And now and then Miss 
 Lisabel came floating, moon-like, through the room, almost 
 obscuring young, slender Captain Treherne, who yet ap- 
 peared quite content in his occultation. He also renr:<.d 
 
A LIFE FOIi A LIFE. 11 
 
 to be of my opinion that scarlet and white were the best 
 mixture of colors, for I did not see him make the slightest 
 attempt to dance with any lady but Lisabel. 
 
 Several people, I noticed, looked at them and smiled ; 
 and one lady whispered something about "poor clergy- 
 man's daughter" and " Sir William Treherne." 
 
 I felt hot to my very temples. Oh, if we were all in 
 Paradise, or a nunnery, or some place where there was 
 neither thinking nor making of marriages ! 
 
 I determined to catch Lisa when the waltz was done. 
 She waltzes well, even gracefully, for a tall woman but I 
 wished, I wished my wish was cut short by a collision 
 which made me start up with an idea of rushing to the 
 rescue ; however, the next moment Treherne and she had 
 recovered their balance and were spinning on again. Of 
 course I sat down immediately. 
 
 But my looks must be terrible tell-tales, since some one 
 behind me said, as plain as if in answer to my thoughts, 
 
 " Pray be satisfied ; the lady could not have been in the 
 least hurt." 
 
 I was surprised; for, though the voice was polite, even* 
 kind, people do not, at least in our country society, address 
 a lady without an introduction. I answered civilly, of 
 course, but it must have been with some stiffness of man- 
 ner, for the gentleman said, 
 
 " Pardon me ; I concluded it was your sister who slip- 
 ped, and that you were uneasy about her," bowed, and im- 
 mediately moved away. 
 
 I felt uncomfortable ; uncertain whether to take any more 
 notice of him or not ; wondering who it was that had used 
 the unwonted liberty of speaking to me a stranger and 
 whether it would have been committing myself in any way 
 to venture more than a bow or a " Thank you." 
 
 At last common-sense settled the matter. 
 
 "Dora Johnston," thought I, "do not be a simpleton. 
 Do you consider yourself so much better than your fellow- 
 creatures that you hesitate at returning a civil answer to a 
 civil remark meant kindly too because you, forsooth, 
 like the French gentleman who was entreated to save an- 
 other gentleman from drowning ' should have been most 
 happy, but have never been introduced.' What ! girl, is 
 this your scorn of conventionality your grand habit of 
 thinking and judging for yourself your noble independ- 
 ence of all the follies of society ? Fie ! fie .!" 
 
1*2 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 To punish myself for my cowardice, I determined to turn 
 round and look at the gentleman. 
 
 The punishment was not severe. He had a good face, 
 brown and dark ; a thin, spare, wiry figure ; an air some- 
 what formal. His eyes were grave, yet not without a 
 lurking spirit of humor, which seemed to have clearly pen- 
 etrated and been rather amused by my foolish embarrass- 
 ment and ridiculous indecision. This vexed me for the 
 moment ; then I smiled we both smiled, and began to 
 talk. 
 
 Of course, it would have been different had he been a 
 young man, but he was not. I should think he w r as nearly 
 forty. 
 
 At this moment Mrs. Granton came up, with her usual 
 pleased look when she thinks other people are pleased with 
 one another, and said, in that friendly manner that makes 
 every body else feel friendly together also, 
 
 " A partner, I see. That's right, Miss Dora, You shall 
 have a quadrille in a minute, Doctor." 
 
 Doctor ! I felt relieved. He might have been w T orse 
 perhaps, from his beard, even a camp officer. 
 
 " Our friend takes things too much for granted," he said, 
 smiling. " I believe I must introduce myself. My name is 
 Urquhart." 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Here the quadrille began to form, and I to button my 
 gloves not discontentedly. He said, 
 
 " I fear I am assuming a right on false pretenses, for I 
 never danced in my life. You do, I see. I must not de- 
 tain you from another partner." And, once again, my un- 
 known friend, who seemed to have such extreme penetra- 
 tion into my motives and intentions, moved aside. 
 
 Of course I got no partner I never do. When the doc- 
 tor reappeared, I was unfeignedly glad to see him. He took 
 no notice whatever of my humiliating state of solitude, but 
 sat down in one of the dancers' vacated places, and re- 
 sumed the thread of our conversation as if it had never been 
 broken. 
 
 Often, in a crowd, two people not much interested there- 
 in, fall upon subjects perfectly extraneous, which at once 
 make them feel interested in these and in each other. Thus, 
 it seems quite odd this morning to think of the multiplicity 
 of heterogeneous topics which Dr. Urquhart discussed last 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFJ$. 13 
 
 night. I gained from him much, various information. He 
 must have been a great traveler, and observer too ; and for 
 me, I marvel now to recollect how freely I spoke my mind 
 on many things which I usually keep to myself, partly from 
 shyness, partly because nobody here at home cares one 
 straw about them. Among others came the universal theme 
 the war. 
 
 I said, I thought the three much-laughed-at Quakers, who 
 went to advise peace to the Czar Nicholas, were much near- 
 er the truth than many of their mockers. War seemed to 
 me so utterly opposed to Christianity that I did not see 
 how any Christian man could ever become a soldier. 
 
 At this, Dr. Urquhart leaned his elbow on the arm of the 
 sofa, and looked me steadily in the face. 
 
 "Do you mean that a Christian man is not to defend his 
 own life or liberty, or that of others, under any circum- 
 stances ? or is he to wear a red coat peacefully while peace 
 lasts, and at his first battle throw down his musket, shoulder 
 his Testament, and walk away ?" 
 
 These words, though of a freer tone than I was used to, 
 were not spoken in any irreverence. They puzzled me. I 
 felt as if I had been playing the oracle upon a subject where- 
 on I had not the least ground to form an opinion at all. 
 Yet I would not yield. 
 
 " Dr. Urquhart, if you recollect, I said ' become a soldier.' 
 How, being already a soldier, a Christian man should act, I 
 am not wise enough to judge. But I do think, other pro- 
 fessions being open, for him to choose voluntarily the pro- 
 fession of arms, and to receive wages for taking away life, 
 is at best a monstrous anomaly. Nay, however it may be 
 glossed over and refined away, surely, in face of the plain 
 command, ' Thou shalt not kill? military glory seems little 
 better than a picturesque form of murder." 
 
 I spoke strongly more strongly perhaps than a young 
 woman, whose opinions are more instincts and emotions 
 than matured principles, ought to speak. If so, Dr. Urqu- 
 hart gave me a fitting rebuke by his total silence. 
 
 Nor did he for some time, even so much as look at me, 
 but bent his head down till I could only catch the fore- 
 shortened profile of forehead, nose, and curly beard. Cer- 
 tainly, though a mustache is mean, puppyish, intolerable, 
 and whiskers not much better, there is something fine and 
 manly in a regular Oriental beard. 
 
 Dr. Urquhart spoke at last. 
 
14 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 " So, as I overheard you say to Mrs. Granton, you ' hate 
 soldiers.' ' Hate' is a strong word for a Christian woman." 
 
 My own weapons turned upon me. 
 
 " Yes, I hate soldiers because my principles, instincts, ob- 
 servations, confirm me in the justice of my dislike. In peace, 
 they are idle, useless, extravagant, cumberers of the coun- 
 try the mere butterflies of society. In war you know 
 what they are." 
 
 "Do I?" with a slight smile. 
 
 I grew more angry. 
 
 " In truth had I ever had a spark of military ardor, it 
 would have been quenched within the last year. I nevei 
 see a thing we'll not say a man with a red coat on, who 
 does not make himself thoroughly contempt '' 
 
 The word stuck in the middle. For lo ! there passed 
 slowly by my sister Lisabel ; leaning on the arm of Captain 
 Treherne, looking as I never saw Lisabel look before. It 
 suddenly rushed across me what might happen perhaps 
 had happened. Suppose, in thus rashly venting my preju- 
 dices, I should be tacitly condemning my what an odd 
 idea! my brother-in-law? Pride, if no better feeling, 
 caused me to hesitate. 
 
 Dr. Urquhart said, quietly enough, " I should tell you > 
 indeed, I ought to have told you before that I am myself 
 in the army." 
 
 I am sure I looked as I felt like a downright fool. 
 This comes, I thought, of speaking one's mind, especially 
 to strangers. Oh ! should I ever learn to hold my tongue, 
 or gabble pretty harmless nonsense as other girls ? Why 
 should I have talked seriously to this man at all ? I knew 
 nothing of him, and had no business to be interested in 
 him, or even to have listened to him my sister would say 
 until he had been " properly introduced ;" until I knew 
 where he lived, and who were his father and mother, and 
 what was his profession, and how much income he had a 
 year. 
 
 Still, I did feel interested, and could not help it. Some- 
 thing it seemed that I was bound to say : I wished it to be 
 civil if possible. 
 
 " But you are Dr. Urquhart. An army-surgeon is scarce, 
 ly like a soldier ; his business is to save life rather than to 
 destroy it. Surely you never could have killed any body?" 
 
 The moment I had put the question I saw how childish 
 and uncalled for in fact, how actually impertinent it was, 
 
A LIFE FOll A LIFE. 15 
 
 Covered with confusion, I drew back, and looked another 
 way. It was the greatest relief imaginable when just then 
 Lisabel saw me, and came up with Captain Treherne, all 
 smiles, to say, was it not the pleasantest party imaginable ! 
 and who had I been dancing with ? 
 
 " Nobody." 
 
 " Nay, I saw you myself talking to some strange gentle- 
 man. Who was he ? A rather odd-looking person, and " 
 
 " Hush, please. It was a Dr. Urquhart.". 
 
 " Urquhart of ours ?" cried young Treherne. " Why, he 
 told me he should not come, or should not stay ten minutes 
 if he came. Much too solid for this kind of thing eh, you 
 see ? Yet a capital fellows The best fellow in all the world. 
 Where is he?" 
 
 But the "best fellow in all the world" had entirely dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 I enjoyed the rest of the evening extremely that is, pret- 
 ty well. Not altogether, now I come to think of it, for 
 though I danced to my heart's content, Captain Treherne 
 seeming eager to bring up his whole regiment, successive- 
 ly, for my patronage and Penelope's (N.B. not Lisabel's), 
 whenever I caught a distant glimpse of Dr. 'Urquhart's 
 brown beard, conscience stung me for my folly and want 
 of tact. Dear me ! What a thing it is that one can so sel- 
 dom utter an honest opinion without offending somebody. 
 
 Was he really offended ? He must have seen that I did 
 not mean any harm ; nor does he look like one of those 
 touchy people who are always wincing as if they trod on 
 the tails of imaginary adders. Yet he made no attempt to 
 come and talk to me again ; for which I was sorry ; partly 
 because I would have liked to make him some amends, and 
 partly because he seemed the only man present worth talk- 
 ing to. 
 
 I do wonder more and more what my sisters can find in 
 the young men they dance and chatter with. To me they 
 are inane, conceited, absolutely unendurable. Yet there 
 may be good in some of them. May ? Nay, there must 
 be good in every human being. Alas, me ! Well might 
 Dr. Urquhart say last night that there are no judgments so 
 harsh as those of the erring, the inexperienced, and the 
 young. 
 
 I ought to add that, when we were wearily waiting for 
 our fly to draw up to the hall door, Dr. Urquhart suddenly 
 appeared. Papa had Penelope on his arm ; Lisabel 
 
16 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 whispering with Captain Treherne. Yes, depend -upon it, 
 that young man will be my brother-in-law. I stood by my- 
 self in the doorway, looking out on the pitch-dark night 
 when some one behind me said, 
 
 " Pray stand within shelter. You young ladies are never 
 half careful enough of your health. Allow me." 
 
 And with a grave professional air, my medical friend 
 wrapped me closely up in my shawl. 
 
 " A plaid, I see. That is sensible. There is nothing for 
 warmth like a good plaid," he said, with a smile, which, 
 even had it not been for his name, and a slight strengthen- 
 ing and broadening of his English, scarcely amounting to 
 an accent, would have pretty well showed what part of the 
 kingdom Dr. Urquhart came from. I was going, in my 
 bl untn ess, to put the direct question, but felt as if I had 
 committed myself quite enough for one night. 
 
 Just then was shouted out "Mr. Johnson's," (oh dear ! 
 shall we ever get the aristocratic t into our plebeian name ?) 
 " Mr. Johnson's carriage," and I was hurried into the fly. 
 Not by the doctor, though ; he stood like a bear on the 
 doorstep, and never attempted to stir. 
 
 That's all. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 Hospital Memoranda, Sept. 21 st. Private William Car- 
 ter, set. 24 ; admitted a week to-day. Gastric fever ty- 
 phoid form slight delirium bad case. Asked me to write 
 to his mother ; did not say where. Mem. : to inquire 
 among his division if any thing is known about his friends. 
 
 Corporal Thomas Hardman, set. 50 Delirium tremens 
 mending. Knew him in the Crimea, when he was a per- 
 fectly sober fellow, with constitution of iron. " Trench 
 work did it," he says, " and last winter's idleness." Mem. : 
 to send for him after his discharge from hospital, and see 
 what can be done ; also to see that decent body, his wife, 
 after my rounds to-morrow. 
 
 M. U. Max Urquhart Max Urquhart, M.D., M.R.C.S. 
 
 Who keeps scribbling his name up and down this paper 
 like a silly school-boy, just for want of something to do. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. If 
 
 Something to do ! never for these twenty years and more 
 have I been so totally without occupation. 
 
 What a place this camp is ! Worse than ours in the 
 Crimea, by far. To-day especially. Rain pouring, wind 
 howling, mud ankle-deep ; nothing on earth for me to be, 
 to do, or to suffer, except yes ! there is something to suf- 
 fer Treherne's eternal flute. 
 
 Faith, I must be very hard up for occupation when I 
 thus continue this journal of my cases into a personal diary 
 of the worst patient I have to deal with the most thank- 
 less, unsatisfactory, and unkindly. Physician, heal thyself! 
 But how ? 
 
 I shall tear out this page or stay, I'll keep it as a re- 
 markable literary and psychological fact and go on with 
 
 my article on Gunshot Wounds. 
 
 * ****** 
 
 In the which, two hours after, I find I have written ex- 
 actly ten lines. 
 
 These must be the sort of circumstances under which 
 people commit journals. For some do and heartily as I 
 have always contemned the proceeding, as we are prone to 
 contemn peculiarities and idiosyncrasies quite foreign to 
 our own, I begin to-day dimly to understand the state of 
 mind in which such a thing might be possible. 
 
 " Diary of a Physician" shall I call it ? Did not some 
 one write a book with that title ? I picked it up on ship- 
 board a story-book or some such thing but I scarcely 
 ever read what is called " light literature." I have never 
 had time. Besides, all fictions grow tame compared to the 
 realities of daily life, the horrible episodes of crime, the 
 pitiful bits of hopeless misery that I meet with in my pro- 
 fession. Talk of romance ! 
 
 Was I ever romantic? Once, perhaps. Or at least I 
 might have been. 
 
 My profession, truly there is nothing like it for me. 
 Therein I find incessant work, interest, hope. Daily do I 
 thank heaven that I had courage to seize on it and go 
 through with it, in order according to the phrase I heard 
 used last night " to save life instead of destroying it." 
 
 Poor little girl she meant nothing she had no idea 
 what she was saying. 
 
 Is it that which makes me so unsettled to-day ? 
 
 Perhaps it would be wiser never to go into society. A 
 , hospital ward is fhr more natural to me than a ball-room. 
 
18 A LIFE FOR Ax LIFE. 
 
 There, is work to be done, pain to be alleviated, evil of all 
 kinds to be met and overcome here, nothing but pleasure, 
 nothing to do but to enjoy. 
 
 Yet some people can enjoy, and actually do so ; I am 
 sure that girl did. Several times during the evening she 
 looked quite happy. I do not often see people looking 
 happy. 
 
 Is suffering, then, our normal and natural state ? Is to 
 exist synonymous with to endure? Can this be the law 
 of a beneficent Providence ? or are such results allowed to 
 happen in certain exceptional cases, utterly irremediable 
 and irretrievable, like 
 
 What am I writing? What am I daring to write? 
 
 Physician, heal thyself. And surely that is one of a 
 physician's first duties. A disease struck inward the 
 merest .tyro knows how fatal is treatment which results in 
 that. It may be I have gone on the wrong track altogether, 
 at least since my return to England. 
 
 The present only is a man's possession ; the past is gone 
 out of his hand, wholly, irrevocably. He may suffer from 
 it, learn from it in degree, perhaps, expiate it; but to 
 brood over it is utter madness. 
 
 Xow, I have had many cases of insanity, both physical 
 and moral, so to speak. I call moral insanity that kind of 
 disease which is superinduced on comparatively healthy 
 minds by dwelling incessantly on one idea; the sort of 
 disease which you find in women who have fallen into 
 melancholy from love-disappointments ; or in men for over- 
 weening ambition, hatred, or egotism which latter, carried 
 to a high pitch, invariably becomes a kind of insanity. All 
 these forms of monomania, as distinguished from physical 
 mania, disease of the structure of the brain, I have studied 
 with considerable interest and corresponding success. My 
 secret was simple enough ; one which Nature herself often 
 trie's and rarely fails in the law of substitution ; the slow 
 eradication of any fixed idea, by supplying others, under 
 the influence of which the original idea is, at all events 
 temporarily, laid to sleep. 
 
 Why can not I try this plan ? Why not do for myself 
 what I have so many times prescribed and done for others ? 
 
 It was with some notion of the kind that I went to this 
 ball, after getting a vague sort of curiosity in Treherne's 
 anonymous beauty, about whom he has so long been raving 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 19 
 
 to me, boy-like. Ay, with all his folly, the lad is an honest 
 lad. I should not like him to come to any harm. 
 
 The tall one must have been the lady, and the smaller, 
 the plainer, though the pleasanter to my mind, was no 
 doubt her sister. And, of course, the name of both was 
 Johnson. 
 
 What a name to startle a man so to cause him to stand 
 like a fool at that hall door, with his heart dead still, and 
 ::11 his nerves quivering ! To make him now, in the mere 
 writing of it, pause and compel himself into common sense 
 by rational argument by meeting the thing, be it chimeri- 
 cal or not, face to face, as a man ought to do. Yet as cow- 
 ardly, in as base a paroxysm of terror, as if likewise face to 
 face, in my hut corner, stood 
 
 Here I stopped. Shortly afterward I w^as summoned to 
 the hospital where I have been ever since. William Carter 
 is dead. He will not want his mother now. What, a small 
 matter life or death seems when one comes to think of it. 
 What an easy exchange ! 
 
 Is it I who am writing thus, and on the same leaf which, 
 closed up in haste when I was fetched to the hospital, I 
 have just had such an anxious search for, that it might be 
 instantly burned? Yet I find there is nothing in it that 
 I need have feared ; nothing that could in any way have 
 signified to any body, unless, perhaps, the writing of that 
 one name. 
 
 Shall I never get over this absurd folly this absolute 
 monomania ! when there are hundreds of the same name 
 to be met with every day ; when, after all, it is not exactly 
 the name ! 
 
 Yet this is what it cost me. Let me write it down, that 
 the confession in plain English of such utter insanity may 
 in degree have the same effect as when I have sat down and 
 desired a patient to recount to me, one by one, each and all 
 of his delusions, in order that, in the mere telling of them, 
 they might perhaps vanish. 
 
 I went away from that hall door at once. Never asking, 
 nor do I think for my life I could ask the simple question 
 that would have set all doubt at rest. I walked across 
 country, up and down, along road or woodland, I hardly 
 knew whither, for miles, following the moon-rise. She 
 seemed to rise just as she did nineteen years ago nineteen 
 years, ten months, all but two days my arithmetic is cor- 
 rect, no fear! She lifted herself like a ghost over those 
 
20 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 long level waves of moor, till she sat, blood-reel, upon the 
 horizon, with a stare which there was nothing to break, 
 nothing to hide from nothing between her and me but 
 the plain and the sky just as it was that night. 
 
 What am I writing? Is the old horror coming back 
 again ? It can not. It must be kept at bay. . 
 
 A knock ah ! I see ; it is the sergeant of poor Carter's 
 company. I must return to daily work, and labor is life 
 to me. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 Sept. 30ZA. Not a case to set down to-day. This high 
 moorland is your best sanatorium. My "occupation's 
 gone." 
 
 I have every satisfaction in that fact, or in the cause of 
 it ; which, cynics might say, a member of my profession 
 would easily manage to prevent, were he a city physician 
 instead of a regimental surgeon. Still, idleness is insup- 
 portable to me. I have tried going about among the few 
 villages hard by, but their worst disease is one to which 
 this said regimental surgeon, with nothing but his pay, can 
 apply but small remedy poverty. 
 
 To-day I have paced the long, straight lines of the camp ; 
 from the hospital to the bridge, and back again to the hos- 
 pital ; have tried to take a vivid interest in the loungers, 
 the foot-ball players, and the wretched awkward squad 
 turned out in never-ending parade. With each hour of the 
 quiet autumn afternoon I have watched the sentinel mount 
 the little stockaded hillock, and startle the camp with the 
 old familiar boom of the great Sebastopol bell. Then, I 
 have shut my hut door, taken to my books, and studied till 
 my head warned me to stop. 
 
 The evening post but only business letters. I rarely 
 have any other. I have no one to write to me no one to 
 write to. 
 
 Sometimes I have been driven to wish I had ; some one 
 friend with whom it would be possible to talk in pen and 
 ink, on other matters than business. Yet, cui bono ? to no 
 friend should I or could I let out my real self: the only 
 thing in the letter that was truly and absolutely me would 
 be the great grim signature : " Max Urquhart." 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 21 
 
 Were it otherwise were there any human being to 
 whom I could lay open my whole heart, trust with my 
 whole history ; but no, that were utterly impossible now. 
 
 jTo more of this. 
 
 No more until the end. That end, which at once solves 
 all difficulties, every year brings nearer. Nearly forty, and 
 a doctor's life is usually shorter than most men's. I shall 
 be an old man soon, even if there come none of those sud- 
 den chances against which I have of course provided. 
 
 The end. How and in what manner it is to be done, I am 
 not yet clear. But it shall be done, before my death or after. 
 
 " Max Urquhart, M.D." 
 
 I go on signing my name mechanically with those two 
 business-like letters after it, and thinking how odd it would 
 be to sign it in any other fashion. How strange did any 
 one care to look at my signature, in any way except thus, 
 with the two professional letters after it a commonplace 
 signature of business. Equally strange, perhaps, that such 
 n, thought as this last should ever have entered my head, or 
 that I should have taken the trouble, and yielded to the 
 weakness of writing it down. It all springs from idleness 
 sheer idleness; the very same cause that makes Tre- 
 erne, whom I have known do duty cheerily for twenty-four 
 ours in the trenches, lounge, smoke, yawn, and play the 
 (lute. There it has stopped. I heard the postman rap- 
 ing at his hut door the young simpleton has got a letter. 
 
 Suppose, just to pass away the time, I, Max Urquhart, 
 reduced to this lowest ebb of inanity by a paternal govern- 
 ment, which has stranded my regiment here, high and dry, 
 
 it as dreary as Noah on Ararat were to enliven my 
 
 litude, drive away blue devils, by manufacturing for my- 
 \ If an imaginary correspondent ? So be it. 
 
 To begin then at once in the received epistolary form 
 
 " My dear" 
 
 My dear what? "Sir?" No not for this once. I 
 
 inted a change. " Madam ?" that is formal. Shall I in- 
 
 nt a name ? 
 
 When I think of it, how strange it would feel to me 
 
 be writing " my dear" before any Christian name. Or- 
 
 aned early, my only brother long dead, drifting about 
 
 >m land to land till I have almost forgotten my own, 
 
 lich has quite forgotten me I had not considered it be- 
 : *e, but really I do not believe there is a human being liv- 
 
 l whom I have a right to call by his or her Christian 
 
83 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 name, or who would ever think of calling me by mine. 
 " Max" I have not heard the sound of it for years. 
 
 Dear, a pleasant adjective my, a pronoun of possession, 
 implying that the being spoken of is one's very own one's 
 sole, sacred, personal property, as with natural selfishness 
 one would wish to hold the thing most precious. My dear 
 a satisfactory total. I rather object to " dearest" as a 
 word implying comparison, and therefore never to be used 
 where comparison should not and could not exist. Wit- 
 ness, " dearest mother," or " dearest wife," as if a man had 
 a plurality of mothers and wives, out of whom he chose the 
 one he loved best. And, as a general rule, I dislike all lit 
 tra expressions of aifection set down in ink. I once knew 
 an honest gentleman blessed with one of the tenderest 
 hearts that ever man had, and which in all his life was only 
 given to one woman ; he, his wife told me, had never, even 
 in their courtship days, written to her otherwise than as 
 " My dear Anne," ending merely with " Yours faithfully," 
 or "yours truly." Faithful true what could he write, 
 or she desire more ? 
 
 If my pen wanders to lovers and sweethearts, and mor- 
 alizes over simple sentences in this maundering way, blame 
 not me, dear imaginary correspondent, to whom no name 
 shall be given at all but blame my friend as friends go 
 in this world Captain Augustus Treherne. Because, hap- 
 pily, that young fellow's life was saved at Balaclava, does he 
 intend to invest me with the responsibility of it, with all 
 its scrapes and foUies, now and forevermore ? Is my clean, 
 sober hut to be fumigated with tobacco and poisoned witli 
 brandy and water, that; a love-sick youth may unburden 
 himself of his sentimental tale ? Heaven knows why I list- 
 en to it! Probably because telling me keeps the lad out 
 of mischief ; also because he is honest, though an ass, and I 
 always had a greater leaning to fools than to knaves. But 
 let me not pretend reasons which make me out more gen- 
 erous than I really am, for the fellow and his love-affair 
 bore me exceedingly sometimes, and would be quite unen- 
 durable any where but in this dull camp. I do it for a cer- 
 tain abstract pleasure which I have always taken in dissect- 
 ing character, constituting myself an amateur demonstrator 
 of spiritual anatomy. 
 
 An amusing study is, not only the swain, but the god- 
 dess. For I found her out, spelled her over satisfactorily, 
 even in that one evening. Treherne little guessed it -he 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 23 
 
 took care never to introduce me he does not even men- 
 tion her name, or suspect I know it. Vast precautions 
 against nothing ! Does he fear lest Mentor should put in 
 a claim to his Eucharis ? You know better, dear Imagin- 
 ary Correspondent. 
 
 Even were I among the list of " marrying men," this 
 adorable she would never be my choice ; would never at- 
 tract me for an instant. Little as I know about women, I 
 know enough to feel certain that there is a very small re- 
 siduum of depth, feeling, or originality in that large hand- 
 some physique of hers. Yet she looks good-natured, good- 
 tempered ; almost as much so as Treherne himself. 
 
 " Speak o' the de'il," there he comes. Far away down 
 the lines I can catch his eternal " Donna e Mobile" how 
 I detest that song ! No doubt he has been taking to the 
 post his answer to one of those abominably-scented notes 
 that he always drops out of his waistcoat by the merest 
 accident, and glances round to see if I am looking, which I 
 never am. What a young puppy it is ! Yet it hangs aft- 
 er one kindly, like a puppy ; after me too, who am not the 
 pleasantest fellow in the world ; and, as it is but young, it 
 may mend if it falls into no worse company than the pres- 
 ent. 
 
 I have known what it is to be without a friend when one 
 is very inexperienced, reckless, and young. 
 
 Evening. 
 " To what base uses may we come at last." 
 
 > It seems perfectly ridiculous to see the use- this memo- 
 randum-book has come to. Cases forsooth ! The few pages 
 of them may as well be torn out in favor of the new speci- 
 mens of moral disease which I am driven to study* For 
 instance : 
 
 No. 1. Better omit that. 
 
 No. 2. Augustus Treherne, set. 22, intermittent fever, 
 verging upon yellow fever occasionally, as to-day. Pulse 
 very high, tongue rather foul, especially in speaking of Mr. 
 Colin Granton. Countenance pale, inclining to livid. A 
 bad case altogether. 
 
 Patient enters, whistling like a steam-engine, as furious 
 and as shrill, with a corresponding puff of smoke. I point 
 to the obnoxious vapor. 
 
 " Beg pardon, Doctor, I always forget. What a tyrant 
 you are !" 
 
 " Very likely ; but there is one thing I never will allow 
 
24 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 smoking in my hut. I did not, yon know, even in the 
 Crimea." 
 
 The lad sat down, sighing like a furnace. 
 
 " Heigho, Doctor, I wish I were you." 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 "You always seem so uncommonly comfortable; never 
 want a cigar or any thing to quiet nerves and keep you in 
 good-humor. You never get into a scrape of any sort; 
 have neither a mother to lecture you nor an old governor 
 to bully you." 
 
 " Stop there." 
 
 " I will, then ; you need not take me up so sharp. He's 
 .1 trump after all. You know that, so I don't mind a word 
 or two against him. Just read there." 
 
 He threw over one of Sir William's ultra-prosy moral 
 essays, w r hich no doubt the worthy old gentleman flatters 
 himself are, in another line, the very copy of Lord Chester- 
 licld's letters to his son. I might have smiled at it had I 
 been alone, or laughed at it were I young enough to sympa- 
 thize with the modern system of transposing into " the gov- 
 ernor" the ancient reverend name of " father." 
 
 " You see what an opinion he has of you. 'Pon my life, 
 if I were not the meekest fellow imaginable, always ready 
 to be led by a straw into Virtue's ways, I should have cut 
 your acquaintance long ago. ' Invariably follow the advice 
 of Doctor Urquhart' 'I wish, my dear son, that your 
 character more resembled that of your friend Doctor Ur- 
 quhart. I should be more concerned about your many fol- 
 lies were you not in the same regiment as Doctor Urqu- 
 hart. Doctor Urquhart is one of the wisest men I ever 
 knew,' and so on, and so on. What say you ?" 
 
 I said nothing; and I now write down this, as I shall 
 write -any thing of the kind which enters into the plain re- 
 lation of facts or conversations which daily occur. God 
 knows how vain such words are to me at the best of times 
 mere sounding brass and tinkling cymbal as the like 
 must be to most men well acquainted with themselves. 
 At some times, and under certain states of mind, they be- 
 come to my ear the most refined and exquisite torture that 
 my bitterest enemy could desire to inflict. There is no 
 need, therefore, to apologize for them. Apologize to whom, 
 indeed ? Having resolved to write this, it were folly to 
 make it an imperfect statement. A journal should be fresh, 
 complete, and correct the man's entire life, or nothing ; 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 25 
 
 since, if he sets it down at all, it must necessarily be for his 
 own sole benefit ; it w^ould be the most contemptible form 
 of egotistic humbug to arrange and modify it, as if it were 
 meant for the eye of any other person. 
 
 Dear, unknown, imaginary eye which never was and 
 never will be yet, which I like to fancy shining somewhere 
 in the clouds, out of Jupiter, Venus, or the Georgium Sidus, 
 upon this solitary me the foregoing sentence bears no ref- 
 erence to you. 
 
 " Treherne," I said, " whatever good opinion your father 
 is pleased to hold as to my wisdom, I certainly do not share 
 in one juvenile folly that, being a very well-meaning fel- 
 low on the whole, I take the greatest pains to make myself 
 out a scamp." 
 
 The youth colored. 
 
 " That's me, of course." 
 
 " Wear the cap if it feels comfortable. And now, will 
 you have some tea ?" 
 
 " Any thing ; I feel as thirsty as when you found me 
 dragging myself to the brink of the Tchernaya. Hey, Doc- 
 tor, it would have saved me a deal of bother if you had 
 never found me at all, except that it would vex the old gov- 
 ernor to end the name and have the property all going to 
 the dogs that is, to Cousin Charteris, who would not care 
 how soon I was dead and buried." 
 
 " Were dead and buried, if you please." 
 
 " Confound it, to stop a man about his grammar when he 
 is in my state of mind ! Kept from his cigar too ! Doctor, 
 you never were in love, or a smoker." 
 
 " How do you know ?" 
 
 " Because you never could have given up the one or the 
 other ; a fellow can't ; 'tis an impossibility." 
 
 " Is it ? I once smoked six cigars a day for two years." 
 
 " Eh ! what ? And you never let that out before ? You 
 are so close. Possibly the other fact will peep out in time. 
 Mrs. Urquhart and half a dozen brats may be living in some 
 out-of-the-way nook Cornwall, or Jersey, or the centre of 
 Salisbury Plain. Why, w T hat? nay, I beg your pardon, 
 Doctor." 
 
 What a horrible thing it is that by no physical effort, add- 
 ed to years of mental self-control, can I so harden my nerves 
 that certain words, names, suggestions, shall not startle me 
 - make me quiver as under the knife. Doubtless Treherne 
 will henceforth retain, so far as his easy mind can retain 
 
 B 
 
26 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 any thing, the idea that I have a wife and family hidden 
 somewhere. Ludicrous idea! if it were not connected 
 with other ideas, from which, however, this one will serve 
 to turn his mind. 
 
 To explain it away was of course impossible. I had only 
 power to slip from the subject with a laugh, and bring him 
 back to the tobacco question. 
 
 " Yes ; I smoked six cigars a day for at least two years." 
 
 4 And gave it up ? Wonderful !" 
 
 " Not very, when a man has a will of his own, and a few 
 strong reasons to back it." 
 
 " Out with them not that they will benefit me, how- 
 > ver I'm quite incorrigible." 
 
 u Doubtless. First, I was a poor medical student, and 
 : ix cigars per diem cost fourteen shillings a week thirty- 
 one pounds eight shillings a year. A good sum to give 
 for an artificial want enough to have fed and clothed a 
 child." 
 
 " You're weak on the point of brats, Urquhart. Do you 
 remember the little Russ we picked up in the cellar at Se- 
 bastopol ? I do believe you'd have adopted and brought 
 it home with you if it had not died." 
 
 Should I ? But, as Treherne said, it died. 
 
 " Secondly, thirty-one pounds eight shillings per annum 
 was a good deal to give for a purely selfish enjoyment, an- 
 noying to almost every body except the smoker, and at the 
 time of smoking especially when with the said smoker it 
 is sure to grow from a mere accidental enjoyment into an 
 irresistible necessity a habit to which he becomes the 
 most utter slave. Now, a man is only half a man who al- 
 lows himself to become a slave of any habit whatsoever." 
 
 " Bravo, Doctor ! all this should go into the Lancet" 
 
 " No, for it does not touch the question on the medical 
 side, but the general and practical one namely, that to 
 create an unnecessary luxury, which is a nuisance to every 
 body else, and to himself of very doubtful benefit, is ex- 
 cuse me the very silliest thing a young man can do. A 
 thing which, from my own experience, I'll not aid and 
 abet any young man in doing. There, lecture's over 
 kettle boiled unless you prefer tobacco and the open 
 air." 
 
 He did not ; and we sat down, " four feet upon a fender," 
 as the proverb says. 
 
 " Heigho ! but the proverb doesn't mean four feet in 
 
A XIFE FOE A LIFE. 27 
 
 men's boots," said Treherne, dolefully. "I wish I was 
 dead and buried." 
 
 I suggested that the light mustache he curled so fondly, 
 the elegant hair, and the aristocratic outline of phiz, would 
 look exceedingly well in a coffin. 
 
 " Faugh ! how unpleasant you are." 
 
 And I myself repented the speech ; for it ill becomes a 
 man under any provocation to make a jest of death. But 
 that this young fellow, so full of life, with every attraction 
 that it can offer health, wealth, kindred, friends should 
 sit croaking there, with such a used-up, lack-a-daisical air, 
 truly it irritated me. 
 
 u What's the matter, that you wish to rid the world of 
 your valuable presence ? Has the young lady expressed a 
 similar desire ?" 
 
 " She ? hang her ! I won't think any more about her," 
 said the lad, sullenly. And then out poured the grand de. 
 spair, the unendurable climax of mortal woe. " She canter* 
 ed through the north camp this afternoon with Granton, 
 Colin Granton, and upon Granton's own brown mare." 
 
 " Ha ! horrible vision ! And you ? you 
 
 ' Watched them go : one horse was blind ; 
 The tails of both hung down behind. 
 Their shoes were on their feet.' " 
 
 "Doctor!" 
 
 I stopped there seemed more reality in his feelings than 
 I had been aware of; and it is scarcely right to make a 
 mock of even the fire-and-smoke, dust-and-ashes passion of 
 a boy. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; not knowing the affair had gone so 
 far. Still, it isn't worth being dead and buried for." 
 
 " What business has she to go riding with that big clod- 
 hopping lout? And what right has he to lend her his 
 brown mare ?" chafed Treherne, with a great deal more 
 which I did not much attend to. At last, weary of play 
 ing Friar Lawrence to such a very uninteresting Romeo, 1 
 hinted that if he disapproved of the young lady's behavior 
 he ottght to appeal to her own good sense, to her father, or 
 somebody or, since women understand one another best, 
 get Lady Augusta Treherne to do it. 
 
 a My mother ! She never even heard of her. Why, you 
 speak as seriously as if I were actually intending to marry 
 her." 
 
 Here I could not help rousing myself a trifle. 
 
A LIFE FOE, A LIFE. 
 
 u Excuse me ; it never struck me that a gentleman could 
 discuss a young lady among his acquaintance, make a pub- 
 lic show of his admiration for her, interfere with her pro- 
 ceedings or her conduct toward any other gentleman, and 
 not intend to marry her. Suppose we choose another sub- 
 ject of conversation." 
 
 Treherne grew hot to the ears, but he took the hint mul 
 spared me his sentimental maunderings. 
 
 We had afterward some interesting conversation about 
 a few cases of mine in the neighborhood, not on the regular 
 list of regimental patients, which have lately been to me a 
 curious study. If I were inclined to quit the army, I be- 
 lieve the branch of my profession which I should take up 
 would be that of sanitary reform the study of health 
 rather than of disease, of prevention rather than cure. It 
 often seems to me that we of the healing art have begun 
 at the wrong end, that the energy we devote to the allevia- 
 tion of irremediable disease would be better spent in the 
 study and practice of means to preserve health. 
 
 Thus, I tried to explain to Treherne, who will have plen- 
 ty of money and influence, and whom, therefore, it is worth 
 while taking pains to inoculate with a few useful facts and 
 ideas, that one half of our mortality in the Crimea was 
 owing, not to the accidents of war, but to the results of 
 zymotic diseases, all of which might have been prevented 
 f)y common sense and common knowledge of the laws of 
 health, as the statistics of our sanitary commission have 
 abundantly proved. 
 
 And, as I told him, it saddens me, almost as much as 
 doing my duty on a battle-field, or at Scutari, or Renkioi, 
 to take these amateur rounds in safe England, among what 
 poets and politicians call the noble British peasantry, and 
 see the frightful sacrifice of life and worse than life from 
 causes perfectly remediable. 
 
 Take, for instance, these cases, as set down in my note- 
 book. 
 
 Amos Fell, 40, or thereabouts, down with fever for ten 
 days ; wife and five sons ; occupy one room of a cottage on 
 the Moor, which holds two other families ; says, would be 
 glad to live in a better place, but can not get it ; landlord 
 will not allow more cottages to be built. Would build 
 himself a peat hut, but doubts if that would be permitted ; 
 $o just goes on as well as he can. 
 
 Peck family, fever also, living at the filthiest end of the 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 20 
 
 village ; themselves about the dirtiest in it ; with a stream 
 rushing by fresh enough to wash and cleanse a whole 
 town. 
 
 Widow Haynes, rheumatism, from field-work, and living 
 in a damp room with earthen floor, half underground ; de- 
 cent woman, gets half a crown a week from the parish ; but 
 will not be able to earn any thing for months ; and w r hat is 
 to become of all the children ? 
 
 Treherne settled that question, and one or two more; 
 poor fellow, his purse is as open as his heart just now ; but 
 among his other luxuries he may as well taste the luxury 
 of giving. 'Tis good for him ; he will be Sir Augustus 
 one of these days. Is his goddess aware of that fact, I 
 wonder ? 
 
 What! is cynicism growing to-be one of my vices? and 
 against a woman too ? One of whom I absolutely know 
 nothing, except watching her for a few moments at a ball. 
 She seems to be one of the usual sort of officers' belles in 
 country quarters. Yet there may be something good in 
 her. There was, I feel sure, in that large-eyed sister of 
 hers. But let me not judge I have never had any oppor- 
 tunity of understanding women. 
 
 This subject was not revived, till, the tobacco-hunger 
 proving too strong for him, my friend Romeo began to 
 fidget, and finally rose. 
 
 " I say, Doctor, you won't tell the governor it would 
 put him in an awful fume ?" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " Oh ! about Miss , you know. I've been a great 
 
 ass, I suppose, but when a girl is so civil to one a fine girl, 
 too you saw her, did you not, dancing with me ? Now, 
 isn't she an uncommonly fine girl ?" 
 
 I assented. 
 
 " And that Grant on should get her, confound him ! a great 
 logger-headed country clown." 
 
 " Who is an honest man and will make her a kind hus- 
 band. Any other honest man who does not mean to offer 
 himself as her husband, had much better avoid her acquaint- 
 ance." 
 
 Treherne colored again : I saw he understood me, though 
 he turned it off with a laugh. 
 
 " You're preaching matrimony, Doctor, surely. What an 
 idea ! to tie myself up at my age. I shan't do the ungen- 
 tlemanly thing either. So good-niglit, old fellow." 
 
30 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 He lounged out, with that lazy, self-satisfied air which is 
 misnamed aristocratic. Yet I have seen many a one of 
 these conceited, effeminate-looking, drawing-room darlings, 
 a curled and scented modern. Alcibiades fight like Al- 
 cibiades; and die as no Greek ever could die like a 
 Briton. 
 
 . " Ungentlemanly" what a word it is with most men, 
 especially in the military profession. Gentlemanly the 
 root and apex of ah 1 honor. Ungentlemanly the lowest 
 term of degradation. Such is our code of morals hi the 
 army ; and, more or less, probably every where. 
 
 An officer I knew, who, for all I ever heard or noticed, 
 was himself as true a gentleman as ever breathed ; polished, 
 kindly, manly, and brave, gave me once, in an argument on 
 dueling, his definition of the word. " A gentleman" one 
 who never does any thing he is ashamed of, or that would 
 compromise his honor. 
 
 "Worldly honor, this colonel must have meant, for he con- 
 sidered it would have been compromised by a man's refus- 
 ing to accept a challenge. That " honor" surely was a little 
 loNver thing than virtue ; a little less pure than the Christian- 
 ity which all of us profess, and so few believe. Yet there 
 was something at once touching and heroic about it, and in 
 the way this man of the world upheld it. The best of our 
 British chivalry as chivalry goes is made up of materials 
 such as these. 
 
 But is there not a higher morality a diviner honor ? 
 And if so, who is he that can find it ? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 'Tis over the weary dinner-party. I can lock myself in. 
 here, take off my dress, pull down my hair, clasp my two 
 bare arms one on each shoulder such a comfortable atti- 
 tude ! and stare into the fire. 
 
 There is something peculiar about our fires. Most likely 
 the quantity of fir-wood we use for this region gives them 
 that curious aromatic smell. How I love fir-trees of any 
 sort in any season of the year! How I used to delight 
 myself in our pine-woods, strolling in and out among the 
 boles of the trees, so straight, strong, and unchangeable 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 31 
 
 grave in summer, and green in winter ! How I have stood 
 listening to the wind in their tops, and looking for the fir- 
 cones, wonderful treasures ! which they had dropped on 
 the soft, dry, mossy ground. "What glorious fun it was to 
 fill my pinafore or in more dignified days my black silk 
 apron with fir-cones; to heap a surreptitious store of them 
 in a corner of the school-room, and burn them, one by one, 
 on the top of the fire. How they did blaze ! 
 
 I think I should almost like to go hunting for fir-cones 
 now. It would be a great deal more amusing than dinner- 
 parties. 
 
 Why did we give this dinner, which cost so much time, 
 trouble, and money, and was so very dull ? At least I 
 thought so. Why should we always be obliged to have a 
 dinner-party when Francis is here ? As if he could not ex- 
 ist a week at Rockmount without other people's company 
 than ours! It used not to be so. When I was a child, I 
 remember he never wanted to go any where, or have any 
 body coming here. After study was over (and papa did 
 not keep him very close either), he cared for nothing ex- 
 cept to saunter about with Penelope. What a nuisance 
 those two used to be to us younger ones ; always sending 
 us out of the room on some pretense, or taking us long 
 walks and losing us, and then cruelest of all keeping us 
 waiting indefinitely for dinner. Always making so much 
 of one another, and taking no notice of us ; having little 
 squabbles with one another, and then snubbing us. The 
 great bore of our lives was that love-affair of Francis and 
 Penelope ; and the only consolation we had, Lisabel and I, 
 was to plan the wedding, she to settle the bridesmaids' 
 dresses, and I thinking how grand it would be when all is 
 over, and I took the head of the table, the warm place in 
 the room, permanently, as Miss Johnston. 
 
 Poor Penelope ! She is Miss Johnston still, and likely to 
 be, for all that I can see. I should not wonder if, after all, 
 it happened in ours as in many families, that the youngest 
 is married first. 
 
 Lisabel vexed me much to-day ; more than usual. Peo- 
 ple will surely begin to talk about her ; not that I care a 
 pin for any gossip, but it's wrong, wrong. A girl can't 
 like two gentlemen so equally that she treats them exactly 
 in the same manner unless it chances to be the manner of 
 benevolent indifference. But Lisabel's is not that. Every 
 day I watch her, and say to myself, " She's surely fond of 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 that young man;" which always happens to be the young 
 man nearest to her, whether Captain Treherne, or "my 
 Colin," as his mother calls him. What a lot of " beaux" 
 our Lisa has had ever since she was fourteen, yet not one 
 fci lover" that ever I heard of as of course I should, together 
 with her half-dozen very particular friends. No one can 
 accuse Lis of being of a secretive disposition. 
 
 What, am I growing ill-natured, and to my own sister ? 
 a good-tempered, harmless girl, w r ho makes herself agreea- 
 ble to every body, and whom every body likes a vast deal 
 better than they do me. 
 
 Sometimes, sitting over this fire, with the fir-twigs crack- 
 ling and the turpentine blazing it may be an odd taste, but 
 I have a real pleasure in the smell of turpentine I take my- 
 self into serious, sad consideration. 
 
 Theodora Johnston, aged twenty-five; medium looks, 
 medium talents, medium temper ; in every way the essence 
 of mediocrity. This is what I have gradually discovered 
 myself to be; I did not think so always. 
 
 Theodora Johnston, aged fifteen. What a different crea- 
 ture that was. I can bring it back now, w T ith its long curls 
 and its hhort frocks by Penelope's orders preserved as 
 late as possible running wild over the moors, or hiding 
 itself in the garden with a book; or curling up in a corner 
 of this attic, then unfurnished, with a pencil and the back 
 of a letter, writing its silly poetry. Thinking, planning, 
 dreaming, looking forward to such a wonderful, impossible 
 life ; quite satisfied of itself and all it was to do therein, 
 since 
 
 The world was all before it where to choose : 
 Reason its guard, and Trovidence its guide. 
 
 And what has it done ? Nothing. What is it now ? 
 The aforesaid Theodora Johnston, aged twenty-five. 
 
 Moralists tell us, self-examination is a great virtue, an in- 
 dispensable duty. I don't believe it. Generally, it is ut- 
 terly useless, hopeless, and unprofitable. Much of it springs 
 from the very egotism it pretends to cure. There are not 
 more conceited hypocrites on earth than many of your 
 " miserable sinners." 
 
 If I can not think of something or somebody better than 
 my self I will just give up thinking altogether: will pass en- 
 tirely to the uppermost of my two lives, which I have now 
 made to tally so successfully that they seem of one mate- 
 rial : like our girls' new cloaks, which every body imagines 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 33 
 
 sober gray, till a lifting of the arms shows the other side 
 of the cloth to be scarlet. 
 
 That reminds me in what a blaze of scarlet Captain Tre- 
 herne appeared at our modest dinner-table. He was en- 
 gaged to a full-dress party at the camp, he said, and must 
 leave immediately after dinner which he didn't. Was his 
 company much missed, I wonder ? Two here could well 
 have spared it ; and these were Colin Granton and Francis 
 Charteris. 
 
 How odd that until to-night Captain Treherne should 
 have had no notion that his cousin was engaged to our Pe- 
 nelope, or even visited at Rockmount. Odd, too, that other 
 people never told him. But it is such an old affair, and we 
 were not likely to make the solemn communication our- 
 selves ; besides, we never knew much about the youth, ex- 
 cept that he was one of Francis's fine relations. Yet, to 
 think that Francis all these years should never have even 
 hinted to these said fine relations that he was engaged to 
 our Penelope. 
 
 If I were Penelope but I have no business to judge other 
 people. I never was in love, they say. 
 
 To see the meeting between these two was quite dra- 
 matic, and as funny as a farce. Francis sitting on the sofa 
 by Penelope, talking to Mrs. Granton and her friend Miss 
 Emery, and doing a little bit of lazy love-making between 
 whiles ; when enters, late and hurried, Captain Treherne. 
 He walks straight up to papa, specially attentive ; then bows 
 to Lisabel, specially distant and unattentive (I thought, 
 though, at sight of her he grew as hot as if his regimental 
 collar were choking him) ; then hastens to pay his respects 
 to Miss Johnston, when lo ! he beholds Mr. Francis Char- 
 teris. 
 
 " Charteris ! what the what a very unexpected pleas- 
 ure !" 
 
 Francis shook hands in what we call his usual fascinating 
 manner. 
 
 " Miss Johnston !" in his surprise Captain Treherne had 
 quite forgotten her " I really beg your pardon. I had not 
 the slightest idea you were acquainted with my cousin." 
 Nor did the youth seem particularly pleased with the dis- 
 covery. 
 
 Penelope glanced sharply at Francis, and then said 
 
 How did she manage to say it so sharply and composed- 
 
 iy! - 
 
34 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " Oh yes, we have known Mr. Charteris for a good many 
 years. Can you find room for your cousin on the sofa, Fran- 
 cis ?" 
 
 At the "Francis," Captain Treherne stared, and made 
 some remarks in an abstract and abstracted manner. At 
 length, when he had placed himself right between Francis 
 and Penelope and was actually going to take Penelope down 
 to dinner, a light seemed to break upon him. He laughed 
 gave way to his cousin and condescended to bestow his 
 scarlet elbow upon me ; saying, as we went across the hall : 
 
 " I'm afraid I was near making a blunder there. But 
 who would have thought it ?" 
 
 " I beg your pardon ?" 
 
 " About those, there. I knew your sister was engaged 
 to somebody but Charteris ! Who would have thought of 
 Charteris going to be married ? What a ridiculous idea." 
 
 I said, that the fact had ceased to appear so to me, hav- 
 ing been aware of it for the last ten years. 
 
 " Ten years ! You don't say so !" And then his slow 
 perception catching the extreme incivility of this great as- 
 tonishment my scarlet friend offered lame congratulations, 
 fell to his dinner, and conversed no more. 
 
 Perhaps he forgot the matter altogether for Lisabel sat 
 opposite, beside Colin Granton and what between love 
 and hate my cavalier's attention was very much distracted. 
 Truly, Lisabel and her unfortunate swains reminded me of 
 a passage in "Thomson's Seasons" describing two young 
 bulls lighting in a meadow : 
 
 "While the fair heifer balmy-breathing near, 
 Stands kindling up their rage." 
 
 I blush to set it down. I blush almost to have such a 
 thought, and concerning my own sister ; yet it is so, and I 
 have seen the like often and often. Surely it must be 
 wrong ; such sacred things as women's beauty and women's 
 love were not made to set men mad at one another like 
 brute beasts. Surely the woman could help it if she chose. 
 Men may be jealous, and cross, and wretched ; but they do 
 not absolutely hate one another on a woman's account un- 
 less she has been in some degree to blame. While free, 
 and showing no preference, no one can well fight about her, 
 for all have an equal chance : when she has a preference, 
 though she might not openly show it toward its object, she 
 Certainly would never think of showing it toward any body 
 -else. At least, that is my theory. 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 35 
 
 However, I am taking the thing too seriously, and it is 
 no affair of mine. I have given up interfering long ago. 
 Lisabel must " gang her am gate," as they say in Scotland. 
 By-the-by, Captain Tr eh erne asked me if we came from 
 Scotland, or were of the celebrated clan Johnstone? 
 
 Time was when, in spite of the additional , we all grum- 
 bled at our plebeian name, hoping earnestly to change it 
 for something more aristocratic, and oh, how proud we 
 were of Charteris ! How fine to put into the village post 
 letters addressed "Francis Charteris, Esq.," and to speak 
 of our brother-in-law elect as having " an office under gov- 
 ernment !" We firmly believed that office under govern- 
 ment would end in the premiership and a peerage. 
 
 It has not, though. Francis still says he can not afford 
 to marry. I was asking Penelope yesterday if she knew 
 what papa and his first wife, not our own mamma, married 
 upon ? Much less income, I believe, than what Francis has 
 now. But my sister said I did not understand : " The cases 
 were widely different." Probably. 
 
 She is very fond of Francis. Last week, preparing for 
 him, she looked quite a different woman ; quite young and 
 rosy again ; and though it did not last, though after he was 
 really come, she grew sharp and cross often, to us, never to 
 him, of course, she much enjoys his being here. They do 
 not make so much fuss over one another as they did ten 
 years ago, which indeed would be ridiculous in lovers over 
 thirty. Still, I should hardly like my lover, at any age, to 
 sit reading a novel half the evening, and spend the other 
 half in the sweet company of his cigar. Not that he need 
 be always hankering after me, and " paying me attention." 
 I should hate that. For what is the good of people being 
 fond of one another, if they can't be content simply in one 
 another's company, or, without it even, in one another's 
 love? letting each go on their own several ways and do 
 their several work in the best manner they can. Good 
 sooth ! I should be the most convenient and least trouble- 
 some sweetheart that ever a young man was blessed with ; 
 for I am sure I should sit all evening quite happy he at 
 one end of the room, and I at the other, if only I knew he 
 was happy, and caught now and then a look and a smile 
 provided the look and the smile were my own personal 
 property, nobody else's. 
 
 What nonsense am I writing ? And not a word about the 
 dinner-party. Has it left so little impression on my mind ? 
 
30 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 No wonder ! It was just the usual thing. Papa as host, 
 grave, clerical, and slightly wearying of it all. Penelope 
 hostess. Francis playing " friend of the family," as hand- 
 some and well-dressed as ever what an exquisitely em- 
 broidered shirt-front, and what an aerial cambric kerchief! 
 which must have taken him half an hour to tie ! Lisabel 
 but I have told about her ; and myself. Every body else 
 looking as every body hereabouts always does at dinner- 
 parties ex uno disce omnes to muster a bit of the Latin 
 for which, in old times, Francis used to call me " a juvenile 
 prig." 
 
 \Vas there, in the whole evening, any thing worth re- 
 membering? Yes, thanks to his fit of jealousy, I did get a 
 little sensible conversation out of Captain Treherne. He 
 looked so dull, so annoyed, that I felt sorry for the youth, 
 and tried to make him talk ; so, lighting on the first subject 
 at hand, asked him if he had seen his friend, Doctor Urqu- 
 hart, lately? 
 
 " Eh, who ? I beg your pardon." 
 
 His eyes had wandered where Lisabel, with one of her 
 white elbows on the table, sat coquetting with a bunch of 
 grapes, listening with downcast eyes to " my Colin." 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart, whom I met at the Cedars last week. 
 You said he was a friend of yours." 
 
 " So he is the best I ever had," and it was refreshing 
 to see how the young fellow brightened up. " He saved 
 my life. But for him I should assuredly be lying with a 
 cross over my head, inside that melancholy stone wall round 
 the top of Cathcart's Hill." 
 
 " You mean the cemetery there. What sort of a place 
 is it?" 
 
 " Just as I described the bare top of a hill, with a wall 
 round it, and stones of various sorts, crosses, monuments, 
 and so on. All our officers were buried there." 
 
 "And the men?" 
 
 " Oh, any where. It didn't matter." 
 
 It did not, I thought ; but not exactly from Captain Tre- 
 herne's point of view. However, he was scarcely the man 
 with whom to have started an abstract argument. I might, 
 had he been Doctor Urquhart. 
 
 " Was Doctor Urquhart in the Crimea the whole time ?" 
 
 " To be sure. He went through all the campaign, from 
 Varna to Sebastopol ; at first unattached, and then was ap- 
 pointed to our regiment. Well for me thc n vt ! What a three 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 37 
 
 months I had after Inkerman ! Shall I ever forget the day 
 I first crawled out and sat on the benches in front of the 
 hospital on Balaclava Heights, looking down on the Black 
 Sea?" 
 
 I had never seen him serious before. My heart inclined 
 even to Captain Treherne. 
 
 " Was he ever hurt Doctor Urquhart, I mean ?" 
 
 " Once or twice, slightly, while looking after his wound- 
 ed on the field. But he made no fuss about it, and always 
 got well directly. You see, he is such an extremely tem- 
 perate man in all things such a quiet temper has himself 
 in such thorough control, that he has twice the chance of 
 keeping in health that most men have, especially our fel- 
 lows there, who, he declares, died quite as much of eating, 
 drinking, and smoking as they did of Russian bullets." 
 
 " Your friend must be a remarkable man." 
 
 " He's a a brick ! Excuse the word ; in ladies' socivij 
 I ought not to use it." 
 
 " If you ought to use it at all, you may do so in ladies" 
 society." 
 
 The youth looked puzzled. 
 
 " Well, then, Miss Dora, he really is a downright brick, 
 since you feftow what that means though an odd sort of 
 fellow too ; a tough customer to deal with ; never lets go 
 the rein ; holds one in as tight as if he were one's father. 
 I say, Charteris, did you ever hear the governor speak of 
 Doctor Urquhart, ot ours ?" 
 
 If Sir William had named such a person, Mr. Charteris 
 had, unfortunately, quite forgotten it. Stay he fancied 
 he had heard the name at his club, but it was really impos- 
 sible to remember all the names one knew, or the men. 
 
 " You wouldn't have forgotten that man in a hurry, Miss 
 Dora, I assure you. He's worth a dozen of but I beg 
 your pardon." 
 
 If it was for the look which he cast upon his cousin, I 
 was not implacable. Francis always annoys me when he 
 assumes that languid manner. For some things, I prefer 
 Captain Treherne's open silliness nothing being in his 
 head, nothing can come out of it to the lazy supercilious- 
 ness of Francis Charteris, who, we know, has a great deal 
 more in him than he ever condescends to let out, at least 
 for our benefit. I should like to see if he behaves any bet' 
 ter at his aforesaid club, or at Lady This's and the Countess 
 of That's, of whom I henrd him speak to Miss Emery. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 I was thinking thus, vaguely contrasting his smooth, 
 handsome face with that sharp one of Penelope's how 
 much faster she grows old than he does, though they are 
 exactly of an age ! when the ladies rose. 
 
 Captain Treherne and Colin rushed to open the door 
 Francis did not take that trouble and Lisabel, passing, 
 smiled equally on both her adorers. Colin made some stu- 
 pid compliments ; and the other, silent, looked her full in 
 the face. If any man so dared to look at me, I would like 
 to grind him to powder. 
 
 Oh, I'm sick of love and lovers or the mockery of them 
 sick to the core of my heart ! 
 
 In the drawing-room I curled myself up in a corner be- 
 side Mrs. Granton, whom it is always pleasant to talk to. 
 AVe revived the great blanket, beef, and anti-beer question, 
 in v 1 ' id she had found an unexpected ally. 
 
 , ho argues, even more strongly than your father 
 ir as I was telling Mr. Johnston to-day at 
 dinner, #nd wishing they were acquainted argues against 
 the beer." 
 
 This was a question whether or not our poor people 
 should have beer with their Christmas dinner. Papa, who 
 holds strong opinions against the use of intoxicating drinks, 
 and never tastes them himself, being every year rather in ill 
 odor on the subject, I asked who was this valuable ally. 
 
 " None of our neighbors, you may be sure. A gentleman 
 from the camp you may have met him at my house a 
 Doctor Urquhart." 
 
 I could not help smiling, and said it was curious how I 
 was perpetually hearing of Doctor Urquhart. 
 
 " Even in our quiet neighborhood such a man is sure to 
 be talked about. Not in society, perhaps it was quite a 
 marvel for Colin to get him to our ball- but because he 
 does so many things while we humdrum folk are only 
 thinking about them." 
 
 I asked, what sort of things ? In his profession ? 
 
 " Chiefly, but he makes professional business include so 
 much. Imagine his coming to Colin as ground-landlord of 
 Bourne hamlet, to beg him to see to the clearing of the vil- 
 lage pool, or writing to the lord of the manor, saying that 
 twenty new cottages built on the moor would do more 
 moral good than the new county reformatory. He is one 
 of the few men who are not ashamed to say what they 
 think, and makes people listen to it, too, as they rarely do 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 39 
 
 to those not long settled in the neighborhood, and about 
 whom they know little or nothing." 
 
 I asked if nothing were known about Doctor Urquhart ? 
 Had he any relations ? Was he married ?- 
 
 " Oh, no, surely not married. I never inquired, but took 
 it for granted. However, probably my son knows. Shall 
 I find out, and speak a good word for you, Miss Dora ?" 
 
 " No, thank you," said I, laughing. " You know I hate 
 soldiers." 
 
 'Tis Mrs. Granton's only fault her annoying jests after 
 this fashion. Otherwise, I would have liked to have asked 
 a few more questions about Doctor Urquhart. I wonder 
 if I shall ever meet him again ? The regiments rarely stay 
 long at the camp, so that it is not probable. 
 
 I went over to where my sisters and Miss Emery were 
 sitting over the fire. Miss Emery was talking very fast, 
 and Penelope listening with a slightly scornful lip she pro- 
 tests that ladies, middle-aged ladies particularly, are such 
 very stupid company. Lisabel wore her good-natured 
 smile, always the same to every body. 
 
 " I was quite pleased," Miss Emery was saying, " to no- 
 tice how cordially Captain Treherne and Mr. Charteris met : 
 I always understood there was a sort of a a coolness, in 
 short. Very natural. As his nephew, and next heir, after 
 the captain, Sir William might have done more than he did 
 for Mr. Charteris. So people said, at least. He has a splen- 
 did property, and only that one son. You have been to 
 Treherne Court, Miss Johnston ?" 
 
 Penelope abruptly answered, " ~No ;" and Lisabel added 
 amiably, that we seldom went from home papa liked to 
 have us at Rockmount all the year round. 
 
 I said willfully, wickedly, may be, lest Miss Emery's long 
 tongue should carry back to London what w^as by implica- 
 tion not true that we did not even know where Treherne 
 Court was, and that we had only met Captain Treherne ac- 
 cidentally among the camp-officers who visited at the Ce- 
 dars. 
 
 Lis pinched me ; Penelope looked annoyed. Was it a 
 highly virtuous act thus to have vexed both my sisters ? 
 Alack, I feel myself growing more unamiable every day. 
 9 What will be the end of it ? 
 
 " First come, first served," must have been Lisabel's mot- 
 to for the evening, since, Captain Treherne reappearing, 
 scarlet beat plain black clear out of the field. I was again 
 
40 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 obliged to follow, as Charity, pouring the oil and wine of 
 my agreeable conversation into the wounds made by my 
 sister's bright eyes, and receiving as gratitude such an 
 amount of information on turnips, moorlands, and the true 
 art of sheep-feeding, as will make me look with respect and 
 hesitation on every leg of mutton that comes to our table 
 for the next six months. 
 
 " Oh, Colin, dear Colin, my Colin, my dear, 
 Who wont the wild mountains to trace without fear, 
 Oh, where are thy flocks that so swiftly rebound, 
 And fly o'er the heath without touching the ground ?" 
 
 A remarkable fact in natural history, which much im- 
 pressed me in my childhood. What is the rest ? 
 
 "Where the birch-tree hangs weeping o'er fountain so clear, 
 At noon I shall meet him, my Colin, my dear." 
 
 What a shame to laugh at Mrs. Grant of Laggan's nice 
 old song at the pretty Highland tune which ere now I 
 have hummed over the moor for miles ! Since, when we 
 were children, I myself was in love with Colin ! a love 
 which found vent in much petting of his mother, and in shy 
 presents to himself of nuts and blackberries ; until, stung 
 by indifference, my affection 
 
 "Shrunk 
 Into itself, and was missing ever after." 
 
 Do we forget our childish loves ? I think not. The ob- 
 jects change, of course, but the feeling, w^hen it has been 
 true and unselfish keeps its character still, and is always 
 pleasant to remember. It was very silly, no doubt, but I 
 question if now I could love any body in a fonder, humbler, 
 faithfuler way than I adored that great, merry, good-natured 
 schoolboy. And though I know he has not an ounce of 
 brains, is the exact opposite of any body I could fall in love 
 with now still, to this day, I look kindly on the round, 
 rosy face of " Colin, my dear." 
 
 I wonder if he ever will marry our Lisa. As far as I no- 
 tice, people do not often marry their childish companions ; 
 they much prefer strangers. Possibly from mere novelty 
 and variety, or else from the fact that as kin are sometimes 
 " less than kind," so one's familiar associates are often the 
 farthest from one's sympathies, interests, or heart. 
 
 With this highly moral and amiable sentiment a fit con- 
 clusion for a social evening, I will lock my desk. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Lucky I did ! What if Lisabel had found me writing at 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 41 
 
 one in the morning ! How she would have teased me 
 even under the circumstances of last night, which seem to 
 have affected her mighty little, considering. 
 
 I heard her at my door, from without, grumble at it be- 
 ing bolted. She came in and sat down by my fire. Quite 
 a picture, in a blue flannel dressing-gown, with her light 
 hair dropping down in two wavy streams, and her eyes as 
 bright as if it were any hour rather than 1.30 a.m., as I 
 showed her by my watch. 
 
 " Nonsense ! I shall not go to bed yet. I want to talk a 
 bit, Dora ; you ought to feel flattered by my coming to tell 
 you first of any body. Guess now what has happened ?" 
 
 Nothing ill, certainly for she held her head up, laughing 
 a little, looking very handsome and pleased. 
 
 " You will never guess, for you never believed it would 
 come to pass, but it has. Treherne proposed to me to- 
 night." 
 
 "The news quite took my breath away, and then I ques- 
 tioned its accuracy. " He has only been giving you a few 
 more of his silly speeches ; he means nothing. Why don't 
 you put a stop to it all ?" 
 
 Lisabel was not vexed she never is she only laughed. 
 
 " I tell you, Dora, it is perfectly true. You may believe 
 or not, I don't care ; but he really did it." 
 
 " How, when, and where, pray?" 
 
 " In the conservatory, beside the biggest orange-tree, a 
 few minutes before he left." 
 
 I said, since she was so very matter-of-fact, perhaps she 
 would have no objection to tell me the precise words in 
 which he "did it." 
 
 " Oh dear, no, not the smallest objection. "We were jok- 
 ing about a bit of orange-blossom Colin had given me, and 
 Treherne wanted me to throw away ; but I said c No, I 
 liked the scent, and meant to wear a wreath of natural or- 
 ange-flowers when I was married.' Upon which he grew 
 quite furious, and said it would drive him mad if I ever 
 mai-ried any man but him. Then he got hold of my hand, 
 and the usual thing, you know." She blushed a little. 
 " It ended by my telling him he had better speak to papa, 
 and he said he should to-morrow. That's all." 
 
 "All!" 
 
 " Well ?" said Lisabel, expectantly. 
 
 It certainly was a singular way in which to receive one's 
 sister's announcement of her intended marriage ; but, for 
 
 LvERSiTY J 
 
42 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 worlds, I could not have spoken a syllable. I felt a weight 
 on my chest ; a sense of hot indignation which settled down 
 into inconceivable melancholy. 
 
 Was this, indeed, all ? A silly flirtation ; a young lad's 
 passion ; a young girl's cool business-like reception of the 
 same ; the formal " speaking to papa," and the thing was 
 over ! Was that love ? 
 
 " Haven't you a word to say, Dora ? I had better have 
 told Penelope ; but she was tired, and scolded me out of 
 her room. Besides, she might not exactly like this, for 
 some reasons. It's rather hard ; such an important thing to 
 happen, and not a soul to congratulate one upon it." 
 
 I asked why might Penelope dislike it ? 
 
 "Can't you see? Captain Treherne roving about the 
 world, and Captain Treherne married and settled at home, 
 might make a considerable difference to Francis's prospects. 
 No, I don't mean any thing mean or murderous you need 
 not look so shocked it is merely my practical way of re- 
 garding things. But what harm ? If I did not have Tre- 
 herne, some one else would, and it would be none the bet- 
 ter for Francis and Penelope." 
 
 " You are very prudent and far-sighted ; such an idea 
 would never have entered my mind." 
 
 " I dare say not. Just give me that brush, will you, 
 child ?" 
 
 She proceeded methodically to damp her long hair, and 
 plait it up in those countless tails which gave Miss Lisabel 
 Johnston's locks such a beautiful wave. Passing the glass, 
 she looked into it, .smiled, sighed. 
 
 " Poor fellow. I do believe he is very fond of me." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " Oh, I like him like him excessively. If I didn't, what 
 should I marry him for ?" 
 
 "What, indeed?" 
 
 " There is one objection papa may have : his being youn- 
 ger than I, I forget how much, but it is very little. How 
 surprised papa will be when he gets the letter to-morrow." 
 
 " Does Sir William know ?" 
 
 " Xot yet ; but that will be soon settled, he tells me. 
 He can persuade his mother, and she his father. Besides, 
 they can have no possible objection to me." 
 
 She looked again in the mirror as she said this. Yes, 
 that " me" was not a daughter-in-law likely to be objected 
 to, even at the Treherne court. 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 43 
 
 " I hope it will not vex Penelope," she continued. " It 
 may be all the better for her, since, when I am married, I 
 shall have so much influence. We may make the old gen- 
 tleman do something handsome for Francis, and get a richer 
 living for papa, if he will consent to leave Rockniount. 
 And I'd find a nice husband for you, eh, Dora ?" 
 
 " Thank you, I don't want one. I hate the very men- 
 tion of the thing. I wish, instead of marrying, we could 
 all be dead and buried." 
 
 And, whether from weariness, or excitement, or a sud- 
 den, unutterable pang at seeing my sister, my playfellow, 
 my handsome Lisa, sitting there, talking as she talked, and 
 acting as she acted, I could bear up no longer. I burst out 
 sobbing. 
 
 She was very much astonished, and somewhat touched, 
 I suppose, for she cried too a little, and we kissed one an- 
 other several times, which we are not much in the habit of 
 doing. Till, suddenly, I recollected Treherne, the orange- 
 tree, and " the usual thing." Her lips seemed to burn me. 
 
 " Oh, Lisa, I wish you wouldn't. I do wish you wouldn't." 
 
 " Wouldn't what ? Don't you want me to be engaged 
 and married, child ?" 
 
 " Not in that way." 
 
 " In what way, then ?" 
 
 I could not tell. I did not know. 
 
 " After the fashion of Francis and Penelope, perhaps ? 
 Falling in love like a couple of babies, before they knew 
 their own minds, and then being tied together, and keep- 
 ing the thing on in a stupid, meaningless, tiresome way, till 
 she is growing into an elderly woman, and he No, thank 
 you, I have seen quite enough of early loves and .long en- 
 gagements. I always meant to have somebody. whom I 
 could marry at once, and be done with it." 
 
 There was a half-truth in w^hat she said, though I could 
 not then find the other half to fit into it, and prove that 
 her satisfactory circle of reasoning was partly formed of 
 absolute, untenable falsehood, for false I am sure it was. 
 Though I can not argue it, can hardly understand it, I feel 
 it. There must be a truth somewhere. Love can not be 
 all a lie. 
 
 My sister and I talked a few minutes longer, and then 
 she rose, and said she must go to bed. 
 
 " Will you not wish me happiness ? 'Tis very unkind 
 of you." * 
 
44 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 I told her outright that I did not think as she thought 
 on these matters, but that she had made her choice, and I 
 hoped it would be a happy one. 
 
 "I am sure of it. Now go to bed, and don't cry any 
 more, there's a good girl, for there really is nothing to cry 
 nbout. You shall have the very prettiest bridesmaid's 
 dress I can aiford, and Treherne Court will be such a nice 
 house for. you to visit at. Good-night, Dora." 
 
 Strange, altogether strange ! 
 
 And writing it all d<^wn this morning I feel it stranger 
 than ever still. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 I WILL set down, if only to get rid of them a few inci- 
 dents of this day. . 
 
 Trivial they are, ludicrously so, to any one but me ; yet 
 they have left me sitting with my head in my hands, stupid 
 and idle, starting, each hour, at the boom of the bell we 
 took at Sebastopol starting and shivering like a nervous 
 child. 
 
 Strange ! there, in the Crimea, in the midst of danger, 
 hardship, and misery of all kinds, I was at peace, even hap- 
 py ; happier than for many years. I seemed to have lived 
 down, and nearly obliterated from thought, that one day, 
 one hour, one moment, which was but a moment. Can it, 
 ought it, to weigh against a whole existence ? or, as some 
 religionists would tell us, against an eternity ? Yet what 
 is time, what is eternity ? Nay, rather, what is man, meas- 
 uring himself, his atom of good or ill, either done or suf- 
 fered, against God ? 
 
 These are vain speculations, which I have gone over and 
 over again, till every link in the chain of reasoning is pain- 
 fully familiar. I .had better give it up, and turn to ordinary 
 things. Dear imaginary correspondent, shall I tell you the 
 story of my day ? 
 
 It began peacefully. I always rest on a Sunday, if I can. 
 I believe, even had Heaven not hallowed one day in the 
 seven Saturday or Sunday matters not, let .Jews and 
 Christians battle it out there would still be needful a day 
 of rest ; and that day would still be a blessed day. In- 
 stinct, old habit, and later conviction always incline me to 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 45 
 
 "keep the sabbath;" not, indeed, after the strict fashion 
 of my forefathers, but as a happy, cheerful, holy time, a 
 resting-place between week and week, in which to enjoy 
 specially all righteous pleasures and earthly repose, and to 
 look forward to that rest which, we are told, " remain eth 
 for the people of God." The people of God ; no other peo- 
 ple ever do rest, even in this world. 
 
 Treherne passed my hut soon after breakfast, and popped 
 his head in, not over welcomely, I confess, for I was giving 
 myself the rare treat of a bit of unprofessional reading. I 
 had not seen him for two or three days, not since we ap- 
 pointed to go together to the general's dinner, and he nev- 
 er appeared till the evening. 
 
 " I say, Doctor, will you go to church ?" 
 
 Now I do usually attend our airy military chapel, all 
 doors and windows, open to every kind of air, except airs 
 from heaven, of which, I am afraid, our chaplain does not 
 bring with him a large quantity. He leaves us to fatten 
 upon Hebrew roots, without throwing us a crumb of Chris- 
 tianity ; prefers Moses and the prophets to the New Testa- 
 ment ; no wonder, as some few doctrines there, " Do unto 
 others as you would they should do unto you," " He that 
 taketh the sword shall perish by the sword," etc., would 
 sound particularly odd in a military chapel, especially with 
 his elucidation of them, for he is the very poorest preacher 
 I ever heard. Yet a worthy man, a most sincere man ; did 
 a world of good out in the Crimea; used to spend hours 
 daily in teaching our men to read and write, got personal- 
 ly acquainted with every fellow in the regiment, knew all 
 their private histories, wrote their letters home, sought 
 them out in the battle-field and in the hospital, read to 
 them, cheered them, comforted them, and closed their eyes. 
 There was not an officer in the regiment more deservedly 
 beloved than our chaplain. He is an admirable fellow 
 every where but in the pulpit. 
 
 Nevertheless, I attend his chapel, as I have always been 
 in the habit of attending some Christian worship some- 
 where, because it is the simplest way of showing that I am 
 not ashamed of my Master before men. 
 
 Therefore I would not smile at Treherne's astonishing 
 fit of piety, but simply assented, at which he evidently was 
 disappointed. 
 
 " You see, I'm turning respectable, and going to church.' 
 I wonder such an exceedingly respectable and religious 
 
46 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 fellow as you, Urquhart, has not tried to make me go 
 sooner." 
 
 " If you go against your will and because it's respectable, 
 you had better stop away." 
 
 "Thank you; but suppose I have my own reasons for 
 going ?" 
 
 He is not a deep fellow; there is no deceit in the lad. 
 All his faults are uppermost, which makes them bearable. 
 
 " Come, out with it. Better make a clean 'breast to me. 
 It will not be the first time." 
 
 "Well, then ahem!" twisting his sash and looking 
 down with most extraordinary modesty, "the fact is, she 
 wished it." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " The lady you know of. In truth, I may as well tell 
 you, for I want you to speak up for me to her father, and 
 also to break it to my governor. I've taken your .advice, 
 and been, and gone, and done for myself." 
 
 " Married !" for his manner was so queer that I should 
 not have wondered at even that catastrophe. 
 
 " Not quite, but next door to it. Popped, and been ac- 
 cepted. Yes, since Friday I've been an engaged man, Doc- 
 tor." 
 
 Behind his foolishness was some natural feeling, mixed 
 with a rather comical awe of his own position. 
 
 For me, I was a good deal surprised ; yet he might have 
 come to a worse end. To a rich young fellow of twenty- 
 one, the world is full of many more dangerous pitfalls than 
 matrimony. So I expressed myself in the customary con- 
 
 fratulatious, adding that I concluded the lady was the one 
 had seen. 
 
 Treherne nodded. 
 
 " Sir William knows it ?" 
 
 " Not yet. Didn't I tell you I wanted you to break it 
 to him ? Though he will consent, of course. Her father 
 is quite respectable a clergyman, you are aware ; and she 
 is such a handsome girl would do credit to any man's 
 taste. Also, she likes me a trifle !" 
 
 And he pulled his mustache with a satisfied recognition 
 of his great felicity. 
 
 I saw no reason to question it, such as it was. He was 
 a well-looking fellow, likely to please women ; and this one, 
 though there was not much in her, appeared kindly and 
 agreeable. The other sister, whom I talked with, was 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 47 
 
 something more. They were, no doubt, a perfectly unob- 
 jectionable family ; nor did I think that Sir William, who 
 was anxious for his son to marry early, would refuse con- 
 sent to any creditable choice. But, decidedly, he ought to 
 be told at once ought indeed to have been consulted be- 
 forehand. I said so. 
 
 "Can't help that. It happened unexpectedly. I had, 
 when I entered Rockmount, no more idea of such a thing 
 than than your cat, Doctor. Upon my soul 'tis the fact ! 
 Well, well, marriage is a man's fate. He can no more help 
 himself in the matter than a stone can help rolling down a 
 hill. All's over, and I'm glad of it. So, will you write, 
 and tell my father ?" 
 
 " Certainly not. Do it yourself, and you had better do 
 it now. ' No tune like the present,' always." 
 
 I pushed toward him pens, ink, and paper ; and return- 
 ed to my book again ; but it was not quite absorbing ; and 
 occasional glimpses of Treherne's troubled and puzzled face 
 amused me, as well as made me thoughtful. 
 
 It was natural that, having been in some slight way con- 
 cerned in it, this matter, foreign as it was to the general tenor 
 of my busy life, should interest me a little. Though I view- 
 ed it, not from the younger, but from the elder side. I 
 myself never knew either father or mother; they died 
 when I was a child ; but I think, whether or not we pos- 
 sess it in youth, we rarely come to my time of life without 
 having a strong instinctive feeling of the rights of parents, 
 being worthy parents. Rights, of course modified in their 
 extent by the higher claims of the Father of all ; but sec- 
 ond to none other, except, perhaps, those which He ha? 
 himself made superior the rights of husband and wife. 
 
 I felt, when I came to consider it, exceedingly sorry that 
 Treherne had made a proposal of marriage without con- 
 sulting his father. But it was no concern of mine. Even 
 his " taking my advice," was, he knew well, his own exag- 
 geration of an abstract remark which I could not but make ; 
 otherwise, I had not med'dled in his courting, which, in my 
 opinion, no third party has a right to do. 
 
 So I washed my hands of the whole affair, except con- 
 senting to Treherne's earnest request that I would go with 
 him, this morning, to the little village church of which the 
 young lady's father was the clergyman, and be ititro- 
 duced. 
 
 "A tough old gentleman too ; as sharp as a needle, as 
 
48 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 hard as a rock walking into his study, yesterday morn- 
 ing, was no joke, I assure you." 
 
 " But you said he had consented ?" 
 
 " Ah ! yes, all's right. That is, it will be when I hear 
 from the governor." -' 
 
 All this while, by a curious amatory eccentricity, he had 
 never mentioned the lady's name. Nor had I asked, be- 
 cause I knew it. Also, because that surname, common as 
 it is, is still extremely painful to me, either to utter or to 
 hear. 
 
 We came late into church, and sat by the door. It was 
 a pleasant September forenoon ; there was sunshine with- 
 in, and sunshine outside, far away across the moors. I had 
 never been to this village before ; it seemed a pretty one. 
 and the church old and picturesque. The congregatior 
 consisted almost entirely of poor people, except one family, 
 which I concluded to be the clergyman's. He was in the 
 reading-desk. 
 
 " That's her father," whispered Treherne. 
 
 " Oh, indeed." But I did not look at him for a minute 
 or so ; I could not. Such moments will come, despite of 
 reasoning, belief, conviction, when I see a person bearing 
 any name resembling that name. 
 
 At last I lifted up my head to observe him. 
 
 A calm, hard, regular face ; well-shaped features ; high, 
 narrow forehead, aquiline nose a totally different type 
 from one which I so well remember that any accidental 
 likeness thereto impresses me as startlingly and vividly as. 
 I have heard, men of tenacious, fervent memory will have 
 impressed on them, through life, as their favorite type of 
 beauty, the countenance of their first love. 
 
 I could sit down now, at ease, and listen to this gentle- 
 man's reading of the prayers. His reading was what might 
 have been expected from his face classical, accurate, intel- 
 ligent, gentlemanly. And the congregation listened with 
 respect as to a clever exposition of things quite beyond 
 their comprehension. Except the gabble-gabble of the Sun- 
 day-school, and the clerk's loud " A-a-men !" the minister 
 had the service entirely to himself. 
 
 A beautiful service ; as I, though at heart a Presbyterian, 
 still must avow ; especially when heard as I have heard it 
 at sea, in hospital, at the camp. Not this camp, but ours 
 in the Crimea, where, all through the prayers, guns kept 
 booming, and shells kept flying, sometimes within a short 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 49 
 
 distance of the chapel itself. I mind of one Sunday, little 
 more than a year ago, for it must have been on the ninth 
 of September, when I stopped on my way from Balaclava 
 hospital, to hear service read in the open air, on a hill-side. 
 It was a cloudy day, I remember ; below, brown with long 
 drought, stretched the Balaclava plains ; opposite, gray and 
 still, rose the high mountains on the other side of the Tcher- 
 naya ; while far away to the right, toward our camp, one 
 could just trace the white tents of the Highland regiments ; 
 and to the left, hidden by the Col de Balaclava, a dull, per- 
 petual rumble, and clouds of smoke hanging in the air, 
 showed where, six miles off, was being enacted the fall of 
 Sebastopol though at the time we did not know it ; this 
 little congregation, mustered just outside a hospital tent, 
 where, I remember, not a stone's throw from where we, 
 the living, knelt, lay a row of those straight, still, formless 
 forms, the more awful because from familiarity they had 
 ceased to be felt as such each sewn tip in the blanket, its 
 only coffin, waiting for burial waiting also, we believe and 
 hope, for the resurrection from the dead. 
 
 What a sermon our chaplain might have preached ! what 
 words I, or any man, could surely have found to say at such 
 a time, on such a spot ! Yet what we did hear were the 
 merest platitudes so utterly trivial and out of place, that 
 I do not now recall a single sentence. Strange that people 
 good Christian men, as I knew that man to be should go 
 on droning out " words, words, words," when bodies and 
 souls perish in thousands round them ; or splitting theolog- 
 ical hairs to poor fellows, who, except in an oath, are igno- 
 rant even of the Divine Name ; or thundering anathemas 
 at them for going down to the pit of perdition without even 
 so much as pointing out to them the bright but narrow 
 way. 
 
 I was sitting thus, absorbed in the heavy thoughts that 
 often come to me when thus quiet in church, hearing some 
 man, who is supposed to be one of the Church's teachers, 
 delivering the message of the Church's Great Head, when, 
 looking up, I saw two eyes fixed on me. 
 
 It- was one of the clergyman's three daughters ; the 
 youngest, probably, for her seat was in the most uncom- 
 fortable corner of the pew, apparently the same I had talk- 
 ed with at Mrs. Granton's, though I was not sure ladies 
 look so different in their bonnets. Hers was close, I no- 
 ticed, and decently covering the head, not dropping off on 
 
 C 
 
50 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 her shoulders like those I see ladies wearing, which will as- 
 suredly multiply ophthalmic cases, with all sorts of head 
 and face complaints, as the winter winds come on. Such 
 exposure must be very painful, too, these blinding sunny 
 days. How can women stand the torments they have to 
 undergo in matters of dress ? If I had any womankind be- 
 longing to me pshaw ! what an idle speculation. 
 
 Those two eyes, steadfastly inquiring, with a touch of 
 compassion in them, startled me. Many a pair of eager 
 eyes have I had to meet, but it was always their own fate, or 
 that of some one dear to them, which they were anxious to 
 learn ; they never sought to know any thing of me or mine, 
 Now these did. 
 
 I am nervously sensitive of even kindly scrutiny. Invol- 
 untarily I moved so that one of the pillars came between 
 me and those eyes. When we stood up to sing she kept 
 them steadily upon her hymn-book, nor did they wandei 
 again during church-time, either toward me or in any other 
 direction. 
 
 The face being just opposite in the line of the pulpit, I 
 could not help seeing it during the whole of the discourse, 
 which was, as I expected, classical, belabored^ elegant, and 
 interesting, after the pattern of the preacher's countenance- 
 
 His daughter is not like him. In repose, her features ar* 
 ordinary ; nor did they for one moment recall to me thf* 
 flashing, youthful face, full of action and energy, which had 
 amused me that night at the Cedars. Some faces catch the 
 reflection of the moment so vividly that you never see them 
 twice alike. Others, solidly and composedly handsome^ 
 scarcely vary at all, and I think it is of these last that one 
 would soonest weary. Irregular features have generally 
 most character. The Venus di Medici would have made a 
 very stupid fireside companion, nor would I venture to en- 
 ter for Oxford honors a son who had the profile of the 
 Apollo Belvidere. 
 
 Treherne is evidently of a different opinion. He sat beam' 
 ing out admiration upon that large, fair, statuesque woman r 
 who had turned so that her pure Greek profile was distinct- 
 ly visible against the red cloth of the high pew. She might 
 have known what a pretty picture she was making. She 
 will please Sir William, who admires beauty, and she seems 
 refined enough even for Lady Augusta Treherne. I thought 
 to myself the lad might have gone farther and fared worse. 
 His marriage was sure to have been one of pure accident: 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 51 
 
 he is not a young man either to have had the decision to 
 choose, or the firmness to win and keep. 
 
 Service ended, he asked me what I thought of her, and I 
 said much as I have written here. He appeared satisfied. 
 
 "You must stay and be introduced to the family; the 
 father remains in church. I shall walk home with them. 
 Ah ! she sees us." 
 
 The lad was all eagerness and excitement. He must be 
 considerably in earnest. 
 
 " Now, Doctor, come nay, pray do." 
 
 For I hesitated. 
 
 Hesitation was too late, however ; the introduction took 
 place ; Treherne hurried it over ; though I listened acutely, 
 I could not be certain of the name. It seemed to be, as I 
 already believed, Johnson. 
 
 Treherne's beauty met him, all smiles, and he marched 
 off by her side in a most determined manner, the eldest sis- 
 ter following and joining the pair, doubtless to the displeas- 
 ure of one or both. She, whom I did not remember seeing 
 before, is a little sharp-speaking woman, pretty, but faded- 
 looking, with very black eyes. 
 
 The other sister, left behind, fell in with me. We walk- 
 ed side by side through the church-yard, and into the road. 
 As I held the wicket-gate open for her to pass, she looked 
 up, smiled, and said, 
 
 " I suppose you do not remember me, Doctor Urquhart ?" 
 
 I replied, " Yes, I did ;" that she was the young lady who 
 " hated soldiers." 
 
 She blushed extremely, glanced at Treherne, and said, 
 not without dignity, 
 
 " It would be a pity to remember all the foolish things I 
 have uttered, especially on that evening." 
 
 " I was not aware they were foolish ; the impression left 
 on me was that we had had a very pleasant conversation, 
 which included far more sensible topics than are usually 
 discussed at balls." 
 
 " You do not often go to balls ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Do you dislike them ?" 
 
 " Not always." 
 
 " Do you think they are Wrong ?" 
 
 I smiled at her cross-questioning, which had something 
 fresh and unsophisticated about it, like the inquisitiveness 
 of a child. 
 
52 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 " Really, I have never very deeply considered the ques- 
 tion ; my going, or not going, is purely a matter of indi- 
 vidual choice. I went to the Cedars that night because 
 Mrs. Granton was so kind as to wish it, and I was only too 
 happy to please her. I like her extremely, and owe her 
 much." 
 
 " She is a very good woman," was the earnest answer. 
 " And Colin has the kindest heart in the world." 
 
 I assented, though amused at the superlatives in which 
 very young people delight ; but, in this case, not so far 
 away from truth as ordinarily happens. 
 
 " You know Colin Granton have you seen him lately 
 yesterday, I mean ? Did Captain Treherne see him yester- 
 day?" 
 
 The anxiety with which the question was put reminded 
 me of something Treherne had mentioned, which implied 
 his rivalry with Granton ; perhaps this kind-hearted damsel 
 thought there would be a single-handed combat on our pa- 
 rade-ground, between the accepted and rejected swains. I 
 allayed her fears by observing that, to my certain knowl- 
 edge Mr. Granton had gone up to London on Saturday 
 morning, and wojjd not return till Tuesday. Then, our 
 eyes meeting, we jjboth looked conscious ; but, of course, 
 neither the young lady nor myself made any allusion to 
 present circumstances. 
 
 I said, generally, that Granton was a fine young fellow, 
 not over sentimental, nor likely to feel any thing very deep- 
 ly ; but gifted with great good sense, sufficient to make an 
 admirable country squire, and one of the best landlords in 
 the county, if only he could be brought to feel the import- 
 ance of his position. 
 
 " How do you mean ?" 
 
 " His responsibility, as a man of fortune, to make the 
 most of his wealth." 
 
 " But how ? what is there for him to do ?" 
 
 " Plenty, if he could only be got to do it." 
 
 " Could you not get him to do it ?" with another look of 
 the eager eyes. 
 
 " I ? I know so very little of the young man." 
 
 " But you have so much influence, I hear, over every 
 body. That is, Mrs. Granton says. We have known the 
 Grantons ever since I was a child." 
 
 From her blush, which seemed incessantly to come, sud- 
 den and sensitive as a child's, I imagined that time was not 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 53 
 
 so very long ago, until she said something about "my youn- 
 gest sister," which proved I had been mistaken in her age. 
 
 It was easier to talk to a young girl sitting forlorn by 
 herself in a ball-room, than to a grown-up lady, walking in 
 broad daylight, accompanied by two other ladies, who, 
 though clergymen's daughters, are as stylish fashionables 
 as ever irritated my sober vision. She did not, I must con- 
 fess ; she seemed to be the plain one of the family : unno- 
 ticed one might almost guess, neglected. Nor was there 
 any flightiness or coquettishness in her manner, which, 
 though abrupt and original, was quiet even to demureness. 
 
 Pursuing my hobby of anatomizing character, I studied 
 her a good deal during the pauses of conversation, of which 
 there were not a few. Compared with Treherne, whom I 
 heard in advance, laughing and talking with his usual light- 
 heartedness, she must have found me uncommonly sombro 
 and dull. 
 
 Yet it was pleasant to be strolling leisurely along, one's 
 feet dropping softly down through rustling dead leaves into 
 the dry, sandy mould which is peculiar to this neighbor' 
 hood : you may walk in it, ankle-deep, for miles, across 
 moors and under pine- woods, without soiling a shoe. Pleas- 
 ant to see the sunshine striking the boughs of the trees, 
 and lying in broad, bright rifts on the ground here and 
 there, wherever there was an opening in the dense green 
 tops of those fine Scotch firs, the like of which I have never 
 beheld out of my own country, nor there, since I was quite 
 a boy. Also, the absence of other forest trees, the high ele- 
 vation, the wide spaces of moorland, and the sandy soil, 
 give to the atmosphere here a rarity and freshness which 
 exhilarates, mentally and bodily, in no small degree. 
 
 I thank God I have never lost my love of nature ; never 
 ceased to feel an almost boyish thrill of delight in the mere 
 sunshine and fresh air. 
 
 For miles I could have walked on, thus luxuriating, with- 
 out wishing to disturb my enjoyment by a word, but it 
 was necessary to converse a little, so I made the valuable 
 and original remark " that this neighborhood would be very 
 pretty in the spring." 
 
 My companion replied with a vivacity of indignation most 
 unlike a grown young lady and exceedingly like a child : 
 
 " Pretty ? It is beautiful ! You can never have seen it, 
 I am sure." 
 
 I said, " My regiment did not come home till May ; I had, 
 spent this spring in the Crimea." 
 
54 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " Ah ! the spring flowers there, I have heard, are remark- 
 ably beautiful, much more so than ours." 
 
 " Yes ;" and as she seemed fond of flowers, I told her of 
 the great abundance which in the peaceful spring that fol- 
 lowed the war, we had noticed, carpeting with a mass of 
 color those dreary plains ; the large Crimean snow-drops, 
 the jonquils, and blue hyacinths, growing in myriads about 
 Balaclava and on the banks of the Tchernaya ; while on ev- 
 ery rocky dingle, and dipping into every tiny brook, hung 
 bushes of the delicate yellow jasmine. 
 
 " How lovely ! But I would not exchange England for 
 it. You should see how the primroses grow all among that 
 bank, and a little beyond, outside the wood, is a hedge-side, 
 which will be one mass of blue-bells." 
 
 " I shall look for them. I have often found blue-bells till 
 the end of October." 
 
 " Nonsense !" What a laugh it was, with such a merry 
 ring. " I beg your pardon, Doctor Urquhart, but, really, 
 blue-bells in October ! Who ever heard of such a thing ?" 
 
 " I assure you I have found them myself, in sheltered 
 places, both the larger and smaller species ; the one that 
 grows from a single stem, and that which produces two or 
 three bells from the same stalk the campanula shall I 
 give you its botanical name ?" 
 
 " Oh, I know what you mean hare-bell." 
 
 " Blue-bell ; the real blue-bell of Scotland. What you 
 call blue-bells are wild hyacinths." 
 
 She shook her head with a pretty persistence. 
 
 " No, no ; I have always called them blue-bells, and I al- 
 ways shall. Many a scolding have I got about them when 
 I used, on cold March days, to steal a basket and a kitchen 
 knife, to dig them up before the buds were formed, so as 
 to transplant them safely in time to flower in my garden. 
 Many's the knife I broke over that vain quest. Do you 
 know how difficult it is to get at the bulb of a blue-bell ?" 
 
 " Wild hyacinth, if you please." 
 
 "Blue-bell," she laughingly persisted. "I have some- 
 times picked out a fine one, growing in some easy, soft 
 mould, and undermined him, and worked round him, ten 
 inches deep, fancying I had got to the root of him at last, 
 when slip went the knife, and all was over. Many a time 
 I have sat with the cut-off" stalk in my hand', the long, white, 
 slender stalk, ending in two delicate green leaves, with a 
 tiny bud between you know it ; and actually cried, not 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 55 
 
 only for vexation over lost labor, but because it seemed 
 such a pity to have destroyed what one never could make 
 alive again." 
 
 She said that, looking right into my face with her inno- 
 cent eyes. 
 
 This girl, from her habit of speaking exactly as she 
 thinks, and whether from her solitary country rearing, or 
 her innate simplicity of character, thinking at once more 
 naturally and originally than most women, will, doubtless, 
 often say things like these. 
 
 An idea once or twice this morning had flitted across 
 my mind, whether it would not be better for me to break 
 through my hermit ways, and allow myself to pay occa- 
 sional visits among happy households, or the occasional so- 
 ciety of good and cultivated women ; now it altogether 
 vanished. It would be a thing impossible. 
 
 This young lady must have very quick perceptions, and 
 an accurate memory of trivial things, for scarcely had she 
 uttered the last words when all her face was dyed crimson 
 and red, as if she thought she had hurt or oifended me. I 
 judged it best to answer her thoughts out plain. 
 
 " I agree with you that to kill wantonly, even a flower, 
 is an evil deed. But you need not have minded saying 
 that to me, even after our argument at the Cedars. 1 am 
 not in your sense a soldier, a professed man-slayer ; my vo- 
 cation is rather the other way. Yet even for the former I 
 could find arguments of defense." 
 
 " You mean there are higher things than mere life, and 
 greater things than taking it away ? So I have been think- 
 ing myself lately. You set me thinking, for the which I 
 am glad to own myself your debtor." 
 
 I had not a word of answer to this acknowledgment, at 
 once frank and dignified. She went on : 
 
 " If I said foolish or rude things that night, you must re- 
 member how apt one is to judge from personal experience, 
 and I have never seen any fair specimen of the army. Ex- 
 cept," and her manner prevented all questioning of what 
 duty elevated into a truth, " except, of course, Captain Tre- 
 herne." 
 
 He caught his name. 
 
 " Eh, good people. Saying nothing bad of me, I hope ? 
 Anyhow, I leave my character in the hands of my friend 
 Urquhart. He rates me soundly to my face, which is the 
 best proof of his not speaking ill of me behind my back." 
 
50 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " So that is Doctor Urquhart's idea of friendship ! bitter 
 outside and sweet at the core. What does he make of 
 love, pray ? All sweet and no bitter ?" 
 " Or all bitter and no sweet ?" 
 
 These speeches came from the two other sisters, the lat- 
 t IT from the eldest ; their flippancy needed no reply, and I 
 gave none. The second sister was silent, which I thought 
 showed better taste, under the circumstances. 
 
 For a few minutes longer we sauntered on, leaving the 
 wood and passing into the sunshine, which felt soft and 
 warm as spring. Then there happened I have been slow 
 in coming to it one of those accidents, trivial to all but 
 me, which, whenever occurring, seem to dash the peaceful 
 present out of my grasp, and throw me back years years, 
 to the time when I had neither present nor future, but 
 dragged on life, I scarcely know how, with every faculty 
 tightly bound up in an inexorable, intolerable past. 
 
 She was carrying her prayer-book, or Bible I think it 
 was, though English people oftener carry to church pray- 
 er-books than Bibles, and seem to reverence them quite as 
 much, or more. I had noticed it as being not one of those 
 velvet tilings, with gilt crosses, that ladies delight in, but 
 ]>l:uii-bound, the edges slightly soiled as if with continual 
 USL*. Passing through a gate, she dropped it ; I stooped to 
 pick it up, and there, on the fly leaf,- 1 saw written : 
 " Theodora Johnston" "Johnston" 
 Let me consider what followed, for my memory is not 
 clear. 
 
 I believe I walked with her to her own door, that there 
 was a gathering and talking, which ended in Treherne's 
 entering with the ladies, promising to overtake me before 
 I reached the camp. That the gate closed upon them, and 
 I heard their lively voices inside the garden wall while I 
 walked rapidly down the road and back into the fir wood. 
 That, gaining its shadow and shelter, I sat down on a felled 
 tree to collect myself. 
 
 Johnson her name is not, but Johnston. Spelled precisely 
 the same as I remember noticing on his handkerchief, John- 
 ston, without the final e. 
 
 Yet, granting that identity, it is still a not uncommon 
 name; there are whole families, whole clans of Johnstons 
 along the Scottish border, and plenty of English Johnstons, 
 and Johnstones likewise. 
 
 Am I fighting with shadows, and torturing myself in 
 vain ? God m-ant it ! 
 
A LIFE FOll A LIFE. 57 
 
 Still, after this discovery, it is vitally necessary to learn 
 more. I have sat up till midnight waiting Treherne's re- 
 turn. He did not overtake me I never expected he would, 
 or desired it. I came back, when I did come back, another 
 way. His hut, next to mine, is still silent and unoccupied. 
 
 So is the whole camp at this hour. Refreshing myself 
 a few minutes since by standing bare-headed at my hut 
 door, I saw nothing but the stars overhead, and the long 
 lines of lamps below ; heard nothing but the" sigh of the 
 moorland wind, and the tramp of the sentries relieving 
 guard. 
 
 I must wait a little longer ; to sleep would be impossi- 
 ble, till I have tried to find out as much as I can. 
 
 What if it should be that the worst ? which might in- 
 evitably produce or leave me no reason longer to defer 
 
 the end. 
 
 ******** 
 
 ' Here it seemed, as if with long pondering, my faculties 
 became torpid. I fell into a sort of dream, which being 
 broken by a face looking in at me through the window, a 
 sickness of perfectly childish terror came over me. For 
 an instant only, and then I had put away my writing ma- 
 terials, and unbolted the door. 
 
 Treherne came in, laughing violently. " Why, Doctor, 
 did you take me for a ghost ?" 
 
 " You might have been. You know what happened last 
 week to those poor young fellows coming home from a 
 dinner-party in a dog-cart." 
 
 " By George I do !" The thought of this accident, which 
 had greatly shocked the whole camp, sobered him at once. 
 " To be knocked over in action is one thing, but to die with 
 one's head under a carriage- wheel ugh ! Doctor, did ye 
 really think something of the sort had befallen me ? Thank 
 you ; I had no idea you cared so much for a harum-scarum 
 fellow like me." 
 
 He could not be left believing an untruth ; so I said my 
 startled looks were not on his account ; the fact was, I had 
 been writing closely for some hours, and was nervous, 
 rather. 
 
 The notion of my having " nerves" afforded him consid- 
 erable amusement. " But that is just what Dora persisted 
 good sort of creature, isn't she ? the one you walked with 
 from church. I told her you were as strong as iron and as 
 hard as a rock, and she said she didn't believe it that 
 C 2 
 
&S A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 yours was one of the most sensitive faces she had ever 
 seen." 
 
 " I am very much obliged to Miss Theodora* ; I really 
 was not aware of it myself." 
 
 " Nor I either, faith ! but women are so sharp-sighted. 
 Ah ! Doctor, you don't know half their ways." 
 
 I concluded he had staid at Rockrnount ; had he spent a 
 pleasant day ? 
 
 ^ " Pleasant ? ecstatic. Now acknowledge, isn't she a glo- 
 rious girl? Such a mouth such an eye such an arm! 
 Altogether a magnificent creature. Don't you think so ? 
 Speak out I shan't be jealous." 
 
 I said, with truth, she was an extremely handsome young 
 woman. 
 
 " Handsome ? Divine. But she's as lofty as a queen 
 won't allow any nonsense I didn't get a kiss the whole 
 day. She will have it we are not even engaged till I hear 
 from the governor ; and I can't get a letter till Tuesday, 
 at soonest. Doctor, it's maddening. If all is not settled 
 iii a week, and that angel mine within six more as she 
 says she will be, parents consenting I do believe it will 
 drive me mad." 
 
 " Having her, or losing ?" 
 
 " Either. She puts me nearly out of my senses." 
 
 " Sit down, then, and put yourself into them again for 
 a few minutes, at least." 
 
 For I perceived the young fellow was warm with some- 
 thing besides love. He had been solacing himself with wine 
 and cigars in the mess-room. Intemperance was not one 
 of his failings, nor was he more than a little excited now 
 not by any means what men consider " overtaken," or, to 
 use the honester and uglier word, " drunk." Yet, as he 
 stood there, lolling against the door, with hot cheeks and 
 watery eyes, talking and laughing louder than 'usual, and dif- 
 fusing an atmosphere both nicotian and alcoholic, I thought 
 it was as well, on the whole, that his divinity did not see 
 her too human young adorer. I have often pitied women, 
 mothers, wives, sisters. If they could see some of us men 
 as we often see one another ! 
 
 Treherne talked rapturously of the family at Rockmount 
 the father and the three young ladies. 
 
 I asked if there were no mother. 
 
 " Xo. Died, I believe, when my Lisabel was a baby. 
 Li<nbel isn't it a pretty name ? Lisabel Treherne, better 
 still bents Lisnbel Johnston hollow." 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 59 
 
 This seemed an opportunity for questions which must be 
 put; safer put them now than when Treherne was in a 
 soberer and more observant mood. 
 
 " Johnston is a border name. Are they Scotch ?" 
 " Not to my knowledge I never inquired. Will, if you 
 wish, Doctor. You canny Scots always hang together 
 ha ! ha ! But I say, did you ever see three nicer girls ? 
 Shouldn't you like one of them for yourself?" 
 
 " Thank you I am not a marrying man ; but you will 
 find them a pleasant family, apparently. Are there any 
 more sisters ?" 
 
 " No quite enough too." 
 
 "Nor brothers ?"*" 
 
 " Not the ghost of one !" 
 
 "Perhaps" was it I, or some mocking imp speaking 
 through my lips " perhaps only the ghost of one. None 
 now living, probably ?" 
 
 " None at all that I ever heard of. So much the better ; 
 I shall have her more to myself. Heigho ! it's an age till 
 Tuesday." 
 
 " You'd better go to your bed, and shorten the time by 
 ten hours." 
 
 " So I will. Night, night, old fellow, as they teach little 
 brats to say on disappearing from dessert. 'Pon my life, I 
 see myself the venerated head of a household and pillar of 
 the state already. You'll be quite proud of my exceeding 
 respectability." 
 
 He put his head in again, two minutes after, with a nod 
 and a wink. 
 
 " I say, think better of it. Try for Miss Dora the sec- 
 ond. Charteris one, me the other, and you the third. What 
 a jolly lot of brothers-in-law. Do think better of it." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, and go to your bed." 
 
 It was not possible to go to mine, till I had arranged my 
 thoughts. 
 
 What he stated must be correct. If otherwise, it is next 
 to impossible that, in his position of intimacy, he should 
 not have heard it. Families do not, I suppose, so easily 
 forget, even to the very name. There must have been only 
 these three daughters. 
 
 I may lay me down in peace. Thou who seest not as 
 man sees, wilt Thou make it peace, even for me ? 
 
GO A LIFE FOll A 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HER STOKY. 
 
 " Gone to be married ? gone to swear a peace? 
 Shall Lewis have Blanche, and Blanche those provinces ?" 
 
 Which means, " shall Treheme have Lisa, and Lisa Tre- 
 herne Court ?" 
 
 Yes, it is to be : I suppose it must be. Though not lit- 
 erally " gone to be married," they are certainly " going." 
 
 For seven days the balance hung doubtful. I do not 
 know exactly what turned the scale ; sometimes a strong 
 suspicion strikes me that it was Doctor Urquhart ; but I 
 have given up cogitating on the subject. When one is ut- 
 terly powerless a mere iota in a house when, whatever 
 one might desire, one's opinion has not a straw's weight 
 with any body, what is the good of vexing one's self in 
 
 vain 
 
 I shall content myself with giving a straightforward, 
 succinct account of the week ; this week which I can not 
 deny, has made a vital difference in our family. Though 
 outwardly all went on as usual our quiet, monotonous life 
 unbroken by a single " event" breakfast, dinner, tea, and 
 sleep coming round in ordinary rotation ; still the change 
 is made. What a long time it seems since Sunday week ! 
 
 That day, after the tumult of Saturday, when I fairly 
 shut myself up to escape out of the way of both suitors, 
 the coming and the going one sure that neither of my 
 sisters would particularly want me that Sunday was not 
 :i happy one. The only pleasant bit in it was the walk 
 home from church; when, Penelope mounting guard over 
 the lovers, I thought it no more than right to be civil to 
 Dr. Urquhart. In so doing, I resolutely smothered down 
 my annoyance at their joining us, and at the young gentle- 
 man's taking so much upon himself already, forsooth ; lest 
 Captain Treherne's friend should discover that I was not 
 in the most amiable mood possible with regard to this mar- 
 riage. And in so valorously "putting myself into my 
 pocket" the bad self which had been uppermost all day 
 somehow it slipped away, as my pin-cushions and pencil- 
 cases are wont to do slid down to the earth and vanished. 
 
A LIFE FOll A LIFE. 61 
 
 I enjoyed the walk. I like talking. to Dr. Urquhart, for 
 he seems honest. He makes one feel as if there were some 
 solid good somewhere in the world, if only one could find 
 it ; instead of wandering among mere shams of it, pretenses 
 of heroism, simulations of virtue, selfish abortions of benev- 
 olence. It seems to me, at times, as if this present world 
 were not unlike that place in Hades is it Dante's or Vir- 
 gil's making? where trees, beasts, ghosts, and all, are 
 equally shadowy and unsubstantial. That Sunday morn- 
 ing, which happened to be a specially lovely one, was one 
 of the few days lately when things about me have seemed 
 tangible and real. Including myself, who not seldom ap- 
 pear to myself as the biggest sham of all. 
 
 Dr. Urquhart left us at the gate: would not come in, 
 though Penelope invited him. Indeed, he went away rath- 
 er abruptly, I should say rudely but that he is not the sort 
 of man to be easily suspected of discourtesy Captain Tre- 
 herne declared his secession was not surprising, as he had 
 a perfect horror of ladies' society. In which case, why did he 
 not avoid mine ? I am sure he need not have had it unless 
 he chose ; nor did he behave as if in a state of great mar- 
 tyrdom. Also, a lover of flowers is not likely to be a wom- 
 an-hater, or a bad man, either ; and those must be bad men 
 who have an unqualified " horror" of women. I shall take 
 the liberty, until farther evidence, of doubting Captain Tre- 
 herne no novelty! The difficulty is to find any man in 
 whom you can believe. 
 
 We spent Sunday afternoon chiefly in the garden, Lisabel 
 and her lover strolling about together, as Penelope and 
 Francis used to do. 
 
 Penelope sat with me some time, on the terrace before 
 the* drawing-room windows ; then bidding me stay where 
 I was, and keep a look-out after those two, lest they should 
 get too sentimental, she went indoors, and I saw her after- 
 ward, 'through the parlor-window, writing probably one 
 of those long letters which Francis gets every Monday 
 morning. What on earth can she find to say ? 
 
 The lecture against sentimentalism was needless. Noth- 
 ing of that in Lisabel. Her courtship will be of the most 
 matter-of-fact kind. Every time they passed me, she was 
 talking or laughing. Not a soft or serious look has there 
 been on her face since Friday night; or, rather, Sunday 
 morning, when my sobbing made her shed a few tears. 
 She did not afterward not even when she told what has 
 occurred to papa and Penelope. 
 
62 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 Penelope bore it well if there was any thing to bear, 
 and perhaps there was to her. It might be trying to 
 have her youngest sister married first, and to a young man 
 but for whom Francis would himself long'ago have been in 
 a position to marry. He told us, on Saturday, the whole 
 story : how, as a boy, he was meant for his uncle's heir, but 
 late in life Sir William married. There was a coldness 
 afterward, till Mrs. Charteris died, when her brother got 
 Francis this government situation, from which we hoped so 
 much, but which still continues, he says, " a mere pittance." 
 It is certainly rather hard for Francis. He had a long talk 
 with papa, before he left, ending, as usual, in nothing. 
 
 After he went away, Penelope did not appear till tea- 
 time, and was " as cross as two sticks," to use a childish 
 expression, all evening. If these are lover's visits, I hearti- 
 ly wish Francis would keep away. 
 
 She was not in much better humor on Sunday, especially 
 when, coming hastily into the parlor with a message from 
 Lisabel, I gave her a start for she was sitting, not writ- 
 ing, but leaning over her desk, with her fingers pressed 
 upon her eyes. It startled me, too, to see her ; we have 
 grown so used to this affair, and Penelope is so sharp-tem- 
 pered, that we never seem to suspect her of feeling any 
 thing. I was foolish enough to apologize for interrupting, 
 and to attempt to kiss her, which irritated her so that we 
 had almost a quarrel. I left the room, put on my bonnet, 
 and went off to evening-church God forgive me ! for no 
 better purpose than to get rid of home. 
 
 I wonder, do sisters ever love one another ? Not after 
 our fashion, out of mere habit and long familiarity, also a 
 certain pride, which, however we differ among ourselves, 
 would make us, I believe, defend one another warhily 
 against strangers, but out of voluntary sympathy and affec- 
 tion. Do families ever live in open-hearted union, feeling 
 that blood is blood, closer than acquaintance, friendship, or 
 any tie in the world, except marriage ? That is, it ought 
 to be. Perhaps it may so happen once in a century, as 
 true love does, or there would not be so much romancing 
 about both. 
 
 Thus I meditated, as, rather sick and sorry at heart, I re- 
 turned from church, tramping through the dark lanes after 
 papa, who marched ahead, crunching the sand and dead 
 leaves in his usual solid, solitary way, now and then calling 
 oiit to me : 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 63 
 
 "Keep close behind me. What a pity you came to 
 church to-night." 
 
 It was foolish, but I think I could have cried. 
 
 At home, we found my sisters waiting tea. Captain Tre- 
 herne was gone. They never mentioned to papa that he 
 had been at Rockmount to-day. 
 
 On Monday, he did not make his appearance. I asked 
 Lisabel if she had expected him ? 
 
 " What for? I don't wish the young man to be always 
 tied to my apron-strings." 
 
 " But he might naturally want to see you." 
 
 " Let him want then. My dear little simpleton, it will 
 do him good. The less he has of me, the more he will 
 value me." 
 
 I observed that that was an odd doctrine with which to 
 begin married life, but she laughed at me, and said the cases 
 were altogether different. 
 
 Nevertheless, when Tuesday also passed, and no word 
 from her adorer, Lisabel looked a little less easy. Not un- 
 happy, our Lis was never seen unhappy since she was born, 
 but just a little what we women call "fidgety 5" a state of 
 mind, the result of which generally affects other people 
 rather than ourselves. In short, the mood for which, as 
 children, we are whipped and sent to bed as "naughty;" 
 as young women, petted, and pitied for " low spirits ;" as 
 elderly people, humored on account of " nerves." 
 
 On Wednesday morning when the post came, and brought 
 no letter, Lisabel declared she would stay in-doors no lon- 
 ger, but would go out for a drive. 
 
 " To the camp, as usual ?" said Penelope. 
 
 Lisa laughed, and protested she should drive wherever 
 she liked. 
 
 " Girls, will you come or not ?" 
 
 Penelope declined, shortly. I said, I would go any where 
 except to the camp, which I thought decidedly objection- 
 able under the circumstances. 
 
 " Dora, don't be silly. But do just as you like. I can 
 call at the Cedars for Miss Emery." 
 
 " And Colin too, who will be exceedingly happy to go 
 with you," suggested Penelope. 
 
 But the sneer was wasted. Lisabel laughed again, 
 smoothed her collar at the glass, and left the parlor, look 
 ing as contented as ever. 
 
 Ere she went out, radiant in her new hat and feathers, 
 
6* A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 her blue cloth jacket, and her dainty little driving-gloves 
 (won in a bet with Captain Treherne), she put her head in 
 at my door, where I was working at German, and trying 
 to forget all these follies and annoyances. 
 
 " You'll not go, then ?" 
 
 I shook iny bead, and asked when she intended to be 
 back? 
 
 " Probably at lunch : or I may stay dinner at the Cedars. 
 Just as it happens. Good-by." 
 
 " Lisabel," I cried, catching her by the shoulders, " what 
 are you going to do ?" 
 
 " I told you. Oh, take care of my feather ! I shall drive 
 over to the Cedars." 
 
 ' Any farther ? To the camp ?" 
 
 ' It depends entirely upon circumstances." 
 
 ' Suppose you should meet him ?" 
 
 ' Captain Treherne ? I shall bow politely, and drive on." 
 
 ' And what if he comes here in your absence ?" 
 
 ' My compliments and regrets that unavoidable engage- 
 ments deprived me of the pleasure of seeing him." 
 
 "Lisabel, I don't believe you have a bit of heart in you." 
 
 " Oh, yes I have ; .quite as much as is convenient." 
 
 Mine was full, and she saw it. She patted me on the 
 shoulder good-naturedly. 
 
 " If there ever was a dear little dolt, its name is Theo- 
 
 dora Johnston. Why, child, at the worst, what harm am I 
 
 doing ? Merely showing a young fellow, who, I must say, 
 
 is behaving rather badly, that I am not breaking my heart 
 
 about him, nor mean to do it." 
 
 " But I thought you liked him ?" 
 
 "So I do ; but not in your sentimental sort of way. I 
 am a practical person. I told him, exactly as papa told 
 him, that if he came with his father's consent I would be 
 engaged to him at once, and marry him "as soon as he liked. 
 Otherwise, let him go ! That's all. Don't fret, child ; I 
 am quite able to take care of myself." 
 
 Truly she was ! But I thought, if I were a man, I cer- 
 tainly should not trouble myself to go crazy after a wom- 
 an, if men ever do such a thing. 
 
 Scarcely was my sister gone, than I had the opportunity 
 of considering that latter possibility. I was called down 
 stairs to Captain Treherne. Never did I see an unfortunate 
 youth in such a state of mind. 
 
 What passed between us I can not set down clearly ; it 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. G5 
 
 was on his side so incoherent, on mine so awkward and un- 
 comfortable. I gathered that he had just had a letter from 
 his father, refusing consent, or, at least, insisting on the de- 
 lay of the marriage, which his friend, Dr. Urquhart, also 
 advised. Exceedingly obliged to that gentleman for his 
 polite interference in our family affairs, thought I. 
 
 The poor lover seemed so much in earnest that I pitied 
 him. Missing Lisabel, he had asked to see me, in order to 
 know where she was gone. 
 
 I told him to the Cedars. He turned as white as a 
 sheet. 
 
 "Serves me right, serves me right, for my confounded 
 folly and cowardice. I never will take any body's advice 
 again. What did she think of my keeping away so long ? 
 Did she despise hate me ?" 
 
 I said my sister had not confided to me any such opinion 
 of him. 
 
 " She shall not meet Granton, that fool, that knave, that 
 Could I overtake her before she reaches the Cedars ?" 
 
 I informed him of a short cut across the moor, and he 
 was out of the house in two minutes, before Penelope came 
 into the drawing-room. , 
 
 Penelope said I had done exceedingly wrong that to 
 send him after our Lisa, and allow her to be seen driving 
 with him about the country, was the height of indecorum 
 that I had no sense of family dignity, or prudence, or 
 propriety, was not a woman at all, but a mere sentimental 
 book-worm. 
 
 I answered, I was glad of it, if to be a woman was to re- 
 semble the woman I knew best. 
 
 A bitter, wicked speech, bitterly repented of when ut- 
 tered. Penelope has a sharp tongue, though she does not 
 know it ; but when she rouses mine, I do know it, therefore 
 am the more guilty. Many an unkind or sarcastic word 
 that women drop, as carelessly as a minute seed, often fruc- 
 tifies into a whole gardenful of noisome weeds, sprung up, 
 they have forgotten how, but the weeds are there. Yet 
 still I can not always command my tongue. Even, some- 
 times, when I do, the effort makes me think all the more 
 angrily of Penelope. 
 
 It was not now in an angry, but a humbled spirit, that 
 when Penelope was gone to her district visiting she does 
 far more in the parish than either Lis or I I went out 
 alone, as usual, upon the moor. 
 
60 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 My moorlands looked dreary ; the heather is fading from 
 purple to brown; the autumn days are coming on fast. 
 That afternoon they had that leaden uniformity which al- 
 ways weighs me down. I felt weary, hopeless longed for 
 some change in my duh 1 life ; wished I were a boy, a man 
 - any thing, so that I might be something do something. 
 
 Thus thinking, so deeply that I noticed little, some one 
 overtook and passed me. It is so rare to meet any one 
 above the rank of a laborer hereabout, that I looked round 
 and saw it was Doctor Urquhart. He recognized me, ap- 
 parently ; mechanically I bowed, so did he, and went on. 
 
 This broke the chain of my thoughts ; they wandered to 
 my sister, Captain Treherne, and this Doctor Urquhart, with 
 whom, now I came to think of it I had not done so in 
 the instant of his passing I felt justly displeased. What 
 right had he to meddle with my sister's affairs to give his 
 sage advice to his obedient young friend, who was foolish 
 enough to ask it ? Would I marry a man who went con- 
 sulting his near, dear, and particular friends as to whether 
 they were pleased to consider me a suitable wife for him ? 
 Never! Let him out of his own will love me, choose me, 
 and win me, or leave me alone. 
 
 So, perhaps, the blame lay more at Mr. Treherne's door 
 than his friend's, whom I could not call either a bad man or 
 a designing man, his countenance forbade it. Surely I had 
 been unjust to him. 
 
 He might have known this, and wished to give me a 
 chance of penitence, for I shortly saw his figure reappearing 
 over the slope of the road, returning toward me. Should I 
 go back ? But that would seem too pointed, and we should 
 only exchange another formal bow. 
 
 I was mistaken. He stopped, bade me " good-morning," 
 made some remarks about the weather, and then abruptly 
 told me that he had taken the liberty of turning back be- 
 cause he wanted to speak to me. 
 
 I thought, whatever will Penelope say ! This escapade 
 will be more "improper" than Lisabel's, though my friend 
 is patriarchal in his age and preternatural in his gravity. 
 But the mischievous spirit, together with a little uncomfort- 
 able surprise, went out of me when I looked at Doctor Ur- 
 quhart. In spite of himself, his whole manner was so ex- 
 ceedingly nervous that I became quite myself, if only out 
 of compassion. 
 
 " May I presume on our acquaintance enough to ask you 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 67 
 
 a question simple enough, but of great moment to me. Is 
 Captain Treherne at your house ?" 
 ' No." 
 
 6 Has he been there to-day ?" 
 'Yes." 
 
 c I see you think me extremely impertinent." 
 6 Not impertinent, but more inquisitive than I consider 
 justifiable in a stranger. I really can not engage to answer 
 any more questions concerning my family or acquaintance." 
 
 " Certainly not. I beg your pardon. I will wish you 
 good-morning." 
 
 " Good-morning." 
 
 But he lingered. 
 
 " You are too candid yourself not to permit candor in 
 me. May I, in excuse, state my reasons for thus interrupt' 
 ing you." 
 
 I assented. 
 
 " You are aware that I know, and have known all along, 
 the present relations of my friend Treherne with your fam- 
 ily?" 
 
 " I had rather not discuss that subject, Doctor Urquhart." 
 
 " No ; but it will account for my asking questions about 
 Captain Treherne. He left me this morning in a state of 
 the greatest excitement. And at his age, with his tempera- 
 ment, there is no knowing to what a young man may not 
 be driven." 
 
 " At present, I believe, to nothing worse than the Cedars, 
 with my sister as his charioteer." 
 
 " You are satirical." 
 
 " I am exceedingly obliged to you." 
 
 Doctor Urquhart regarded me with a sort of benignant 
 smile, as if I were a naughty child, whose naughtiness part- 
 ly grieved and partly amused him. 
 
 "If, in warrant of my age and my profession, you will 
 allow me a few words of serious conversation with you, I, 
 in my turn, shall be exceedingly obliged." 
 
 " You are welcome." 
 
 " Even if I speak about your sister and Captain Tre- 
 herne?" 
 
 There he roused me. 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart, I do not see that you have the slight- 
 est right to interfere about my sister and Captain Treherne. 
 He may choose to make you his confidant I shall not ; and 
 I think very meanly of any man who brings a third person, 
 
68 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 either as umpire or go-between, betwixt himself and trie 
 woman he professes to love." 
 
 Doctor Urquhart looked at me again fixedly, with that 
 curious, half-melancholy smile, before he spoke. 
 
 " At least, let me beg of you to believe one thing I am 
 not that go-between." 
 
 He was so very gentle with me in my wrath, that, per- 
 force, I could not be angry. I turned homeward, and he 
 turned with me ; but I was determined not to give him an- 
 other syllable. 
 
 Nevertheless, he spoke. 
 
 " Since we have said thus much, may I be allowed one 
 word more ? This matter has begun to give me extreme 
 uneasiness. It is doing Treherne much harm. He is an 
 only son, the son of his father's old age ; on him much hope 
 rests. He is very young I never knew him to be serious 
 in any thing before. He is serious in his attachment I 
 mean in his ardent desire to marry your sister." 
 
 " You think so ? We are deeply indebted to him." 
 
 " My dear young lady, when we are talking on a matter 
 so important, and which concerns you so nearly, it is a pity 
 to reply in that tone." 
 
 To be reproved in this way by a man and a stranger ! I 
 was so astonished that it made me dumb. He continued : 
 
 " You are aware that, for the present, Sir William's con- 
 sent has been refused ?" 
 
 " I am aware of it." 
 
 " And indignant, probably. Yet there are two sides to 
 this subject. It is rather trying to an old man, when his 
 son writes suddenly and insists upon bringing home a 
 daughter-in-law, however charming, in six weeks ; natural, 
 too, that the father should urge ' Take time to consider, 
 my dear boy.' " 
 
 " Very natural." 
 
 " Nay, should he go farther, and wish some information 
 respecting the lady who is to become one of his family 
 desire to know her family, in order to judge more of one 
 on whom are to depend his son's happiness and his house 
 and honor, you would not think him unjust or tyrannical ?" 
 
 " Of course not. We," I said, with some pride, alas ! 
 more pride than truth, " we should exact the same." 
 
 " I know Sir William well, and he trusts me. You will, 
 perhaps, understand how this trust and the the flexible 
 character of his son, make me feel painfully responsible. 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 69 
 
 Also, I know what youth is when thwarted. If that young 
 fellow should go wrong, it would be to me you can not 
 conceive how painful it would be to me." 
 
 His hands nervously working one over the other, the sor- 
 rowful expression of his eyes, indicated sufficient emotion 
 to make me extremely grieved for this good-hearted man. 
 I am sure he is good-hearted. 
 
 I said I could not, of course, feel the same interest that he 
 did in Captain Treherne, but that I wished the young man 
 well. 
 
 " Can you tell me one thing ; is your sister really attach- 
 ed to him ?" 
 
 This sudden question, which I had so many times asked 
 of myself ought I to reply to it ? Could I ? Only by a 
 prevarication. 
 
 " Mr. Treherne is the best person from whom to obtain 
 that information." 
 
 And I began to walk quicker, as a hint that this very odd 
 conversation had lasted quite long enough. 
 
 " I shall not detain you two minutes," my companion 
 said, hastily. " It is a strange confidence to put in you, and 
 yet I feel I may. Sir William wrote to me privately to-day. 
 On my answer to his inquiries, his consent will mainly de- 
 pend." 
 
 " What does he want to know ? If we are respectable ; 
 if we have any money ; if we have been decently educated ; 
 so that our connection shall not disgrace his family ?" 
 
 "You are almost justified in being angry; but I said 
 nothing of the kind. His questions only referred to the 
 personal worth of the lady, and her personal attachment to 
 his son." 
 
 " My poor Lisa ! That she should have her character 
 asked for like a housemaid ! That she should be admitted 
 into a grand family, condescendingly, on sufferance !" 
 
 " You quite mistake," said Doctor Urquhart, earnestly. 
 " You are so angry, that you will not listen to what I say. 
 Sir William is wealthy enough to be indifferent to money. 
 Birth and position he might desire, and his son has already 
 satisfied him upon yours ; that your father is a clergyman, 
 and that you come of an old English family." 
 
 " We do not ; we come of nothing and nobody. My 
 grandfather was a farmer; he wrote his name Johnson, 
 plain, plebeian Johnson. We are, by right, no Johnstons 
 at all." 
 
7O A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 The awful announcement had not the effect I anticipated. 
 True, Doctor Urquhart started a little, and walked on si- 
 lently for some minutes, but when he turned his face round 
 it w^as quite beaming. 
 
 "If I did tell this to Sir William, he is too honorable a 
 man not to value honor and honesty in any family, whether 
 plebeian, as you call it, or not. Pardon me this long intru- 
 sion, with all my other offenses. Will you shake hands?" 
 
 We did so quite friendly, and parted. 
 
 I found Lisabel at home. By some chance, she had miss- 
 ed the Grantons, and Captain Tr eh erne had missed her ; I 
 know not of which accident I was the most glad. 
 
 Frankly and plainly, as seemed to me best, I told her of 
 my meeting Doctor Urquhart, and of all that had passed 
 between us ; saving only the fact of Sir William's letter to 
 him, which, as he said it was " in confidence," I felt I was 
 not justified in communicating even to my sister. 
 
 She took every thing very easily laughed at Mr. Tre- 
 herne's woes, called him " poor fellow," was sure all would 
 come right in time, and w r ent up stairs to dress for dinner. 
 
 On Thursday she got a letter from him which she gave 
 me to read very passionate and full of nonsense. I won- 
 der any man can write such rubbish, or any woman care 
 to read it still more to show it. It gave no information 
 on facts only implored her to see him ; which, in a neat 
 little note, also given for my perusal, Lisabel declined. 
 
 On Friday evening, just after the lamp was lit and we 
 were all sitting round the tea-table, who should send in his 
 card with a message begging a few minutes' conversation 
 tfdth Mr. Johnston, but Doctor Urquhart? " Max Urqu- 
 hart, M.D.," as his card said. How odd he should be called 
 "Max." 
 
 Papa, roused from his nap, desired the visitor to be shown 
 in, and with some difficulty I made him understand that this 
 was the gentleman Mrs. Granton had spoken of also as 
 Penelope added ill-naturedly, " the particular friend of Cap- 
 tain Treherne." 
 
 This for, though he has said nothing, I am sure he has 
 understood what has been going on made papa stand up 
 rather frigidly when Doctor Urquhart entered the parlor. 
 He did so hesitatingly, as if, coming out of the dark night, 
 the blaze of our lamp confused him. I noticed he put his 
 hand to shade his eyes. 
 
 "Doctor Urquhart, I believe? Mrs. Grant on's friend, 
 and Captain Treherne's?" 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 71 
 
 " The same." 
 
 " Will you be seated ?" 
 
 He took a chair opposite ; and he and papa scanned one 
 another closely. I caught, in Doctor Urquhart's face, that 
 peculiar uneasy expression about the mouth. What a com- 
 fort a beard must be to a nervous person ! 
 
 A' few common-place remarks passed, and then our vis- 
 itor asked if he might speak with papa alone. He was the 
 bearer of a message a letter in short from Sir William 
 Treherne, of Treherne Court. 
 
 Papa said, stiffly he had not the honor of that gentle- 
 man's acquaintance. 
 
 " Sir William hopes, nevertheless, to have the honor of 
 making yours." 
 
 Lisabel pinched me under the table ; Penelope gazed 
 steadily into the tea-pot ; papa rose and walked solemnly 
 into his study Doctor TJrquhart following. 
 
 It was as Lisa cleverly expressed it, " all right." All 
 parties concerned had given full consent to the marriage. 
 
 Captain Treherne came the day following to Rockmount, 
 in a state of exuberant felicity, the overplus of which he 
 vented in kissing Penelope and me, and requesting us to 
 call him " Augustus." I &m afraid I could willingly have 
 dispensed with either ceremony. 
 
 Doctor TJrquhart we have not seen again, he was not at 
 church yesterday. Papa intends to invite him to dinner 
 shortly. He says he likes him very much. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 HOSPITAL work, rather heavy this week, with other thing's 
 of lesser moment, have stopped this my correspondence with 
 an " airy nothing ;" however, the blank will not be missed- 
 naught concerning Max Urquhart Avould be missed by any 
 body. 
 
 Pardon, fond and faithful Nobody, for whose benefit I 
 write, and for whose good opinion I am naturally anxious. 
 I believe two or three people would miss me, rny advice 
 and conversation, in the hospital. 
 
 By-the-by, Thomas Hardman, to my extreme satisfaction, 
 seems really reforming. His wife told me he has not taken 
 
^2 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 a drop too much since he came out of the hospital. Sho 
 says " this illness was the saving of him, since, if he had 
 been flogged, or discharged for drunkenness, he would have 
 been a drunkard all his days." So far, so good. 
 
 I was writing about being missed, literally, by Nobody. 
 And, truly, this seems fair enough ; for is there any body I 
 should miss ? Have I missed, or been relieved by the lost 
 company of my young friend who has so long haunted my 
 hut, but who, now, at an amazing expense in carriage-hire, 
 horse-flesh, and shoe-leather, manages to spend every avail 
 able minute at a much more lively abode, as Rockmount 
 probably is, for he seems *to find a charm in the very walls 
 which inclose his jewel. 
 
 For my part, I prefer the casket to the gem. Rockmount 
 must be a pleasant house to live in ; I thought so the first 
 night, when, by Sir William's earnest desire, I took upon 
 myself the part of "father" to that willful lad, and paid the 
 preliminary. visit to the lady's father, Mr. Johnston. 
 
 Johnson it is, properly, as I learned from that impetuous 
 young daughter of his, when, meeting her on the moor, the 
 idea suddenly struck me to gain from her some knowledge 
 that might guide my conduct in the very, anxious position 
 wherein I was placed. Johnson, only Johnson. Poor child ! 
 had she known the load she lifted off me by those few im- 
 petuous words, which accident only w^on ; for Treherne's 
 matter had for once driven out of my mind all other thoughts, 
 or doubts, or fears, which may now henceforward be com- 
 pletely set aside. 
 
 I must, of course, take no notice of her frank communi- 
 cation, but continue to call them " Johnston." Families 
 which " come from nothing and nobody" the foolish las- 
 sie ! as if we did not all come alike from Father Adam 
 are very tenacious on these points ; which may have their 
 value to families. Unto isolated individuals they seem ri- 
 diculous. To me, for instance, of what benefit is it to bear 
 an ancient name, bequeathed by ancestors whom I owe 
 nothing besides, and which I shall leave to no descendants ? 
 1, who have no abiding place on the whole earth, and to 
 whom, as I read in a review extract yesterday, " My home 
 is any room where I can draw a bolt across the door." 
 
 Speaking of home, I revert to my first glimpse of the in- 
 terior of Rockmount, that rainy night, when weary with 
 my day and night journey, and struck more than ever with 
 the empty dreariness of Treherne Court, and the restless- 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 73 
 
 ness of its poor gouty old master, able to enjoy so little out 
 of all his splendors, I suddenly entered this snug little 
 " home." The fire, the tea-table, the neatly-dressed daugh- 
 ters, looking quite different from decked-out beauties, or 
 hospital slatterns, which are the two phases in which I most 
 often see the sex. Certainly, to one who has been much 
 abroad, there is a great charm in the sweet looks of a thor- 
 ough English woman by her own fireside. 
 
 This picture fixed itself in my mind, distinct as a photo- 
 graph ; for truly it was printed in light. The warm, bright 
 parlor, with a delicate-tinted paper, a flowered carpet, and 
 amber curtains, which I noticed because one of the daugh- 
 ters was in the act of drawing them to screen the draught 
 from her father's arm-chair. The old man he must be 
 seventy, nearly standing on the hearth-rug, met me cold- 
 ly enough, which was not surprising, prior to our conver- 
 sation. The three ladies I have before named. 
 
 Of these, the future Mrs. Treherne is by far the hand- 
 somest ; but I still prefer the countenance of my earliest 
 acquaintance, Miss Theodora a pretty name. Neither she 
 nor her sisters gave me more than a formal bow ; shaking 
 hands is evidently not their custom with strangers. I should 
 have thought of that two days before. 
 
 Mr. Johnston took me into his study. It is an antique 
 room, with dogs for the fire-place, and a settle on either 
 side the hearth ; many books or papers about, and a large, 
 neatly-arranged library on shelves. 
 
 I noticed these things because, as I say, my long absence 
 from England caused them to attract me more than they 
 might have done a person accustomed to English domestic 
 life. That old man, gliding peacefully down hill in the arms 
 of his three daughters, was a sight pleasant enough. There 
 must be many compensations in old age in such an old age 
 as this. 
 
 Mr. Johnston I am learning to write the name without 
 hesitation is not a man of many words. His character 
 appears to me of that type which I have generally found 
 associated with those specially delicate and regular fea- 
 tures ; shrinking from any thing painful or distasteful, put- 
 ting it aside, forgetting it, if possible, but any how trying 
 to get rid of it. Thus, when I had delivered Sir William 
 Treherne's most cordial and gentlemanly letter, and ex- 
 plained his thorough consent to the marriage, the lady's fa- 
 ther took it much more indifferently than I had expected, 
 
 D 
 
74 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 He said, " that he had never interfered with his daugh- 
 ters' choice in such matters, nor should he now ; he had no 
 objection to see them settled ; they would have no protector 
 when he was gone." And here he paused. 
 
 I answered, it was a very natural parental desire, and I 
 trusted Captain Treherne would prove a good brother to 
 the Misses Johnston, as well as a good son to himself. 
 
 " Yes yes," he said, hastily, and then asked me a few 
 questions as to Treherne's prospects, temper, and moral 
 character, which I was glad to be able to answer as I did. 
 " Harum-scarum," as I call him, few young men of fortune 
 can boast a more stainless life, and so I told Mr. Johnston. 
 He seemed satisfied, and ended our interview by saying, 
 " that he should be happy to see the young gentleman to- 
 morrow." 
 
 So I departed, declining his invitation to re-enter the 
 drawing-room, for it seemed that, at the present crisis in 
 their family history, there was an indelicacy in any stran- 
 gers breaking in upon that happy circle. Otherwise, I 
 would have liked well another peep at the pretty home- 
 picture, which in walking to the camp through a pelting 
 rain, flitted before my eyes again and again. 
 
 Treherne was waiting in my hut. He looked up, fevered 
 with anxiety. 
 
 " Where the devil have you been gone to, Doctor ? No- 
 body has known any thing about you for the last two days. 
 And I wanted you to write to the governor, and " 
 
 " I have seen the ' governor,' as you will persist in calling 
 the best of fathers " 
 
 " Seen him !" 
 
 "And the Rockmount father too. Go in and win, my 
 boy ; the coast's all clear. Mind you ask me to the wed- 
 ding." 
 
 Truly there is a certain satisfaction in having had a hand 
 in making young folks happy. The sight does not happen 
 often enough to afford my smiling even at the demonstra- 
 tions of that poor lad on this memorable evening. 
 
 Since then, I have left him to his own devices, and fol- 
 lowed mine, which have little to do with happy people. 
 Once or twice, I have had business with Mr. Granton, who 
 does not seem to suffer acutely at Miss Lisabel's marriage. 
 He need not cause a care, even to that tender-hearted dam- 
 sel, who besought me so pitifully to take him in hand. And 
 so, I trust the whole Rockmount family are happy, and ful- 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 75 
 
 filling their destiny in the which, little as I thought it, when 
 I stood watching the solitary girl in the sofa corner, Max 
 Urquhart has been made more an instrument than he ever 
 dreamed of, or than they are likely ever to be aware. 
 
 The matter was beginning to fade out of my memory, as 
 one of the many episodes which are always occurring to 
 create passing interests in a doctor's life, when I received 
 an invitation to dine at Rockmount. 
 
 I dislike accepting casual invitations. Primarily, on prin- 
 ciple the bread-and-salt doctrine of the East, which con- 
 siders hospitality neither as a business nor an amusement, 
 but as a sacred rite, entailing permanent responsibility to 
 both host and guest. When I sit by a man's fireside, or 
 (Treherne loquitur) " put my feet under his mahogany," I 
 feel bound not merely to give him back the same quantity 
 and quality of meat and drink, but to regard myself as 
 henceforth his friend and guest, under obligations closer 
 and more binding than one would submit to from the world 
 in general. It is, therefore, incumbent on me to be very 
 choice in those with whom I put myself under such bonds 
 and obligations. 
 
 My secondary reasons are so purely personal, that they 
 will not bear enlarging upon. Most people of solitary life, 
 and conscious of many peculiarities, take small pleasure in 
 general society ; otherwise to go out into the world, to rub 
 up one's intellect, enlarge one's social sympathies, enjoy the 
 mingling of wit, learning, beauty, and even folly, would be 
 a pleasant thing like sitting to watch a pyrotechnic dis- 
 play, knowing all the while that when it was ended one 
 could come back to see one's heart in the perennial warmth 
 of one's own fireside. If not better stay away : for one 
 is inclined to turn cynical, and perceive nothing but the 
 smell of the gunpowder, the wrecks of the Catherine-wheels, 
 and the empty shells of,the Roman candles. 
 
 The Rockmount invitation was rather friendly than form- 
 al, and it came from an old man. The feeble handwriting, 
 the all but illegible signature, weighed with me, in spite of 
 myself. I had no definite reason to refuse this politeness, 
 which is not likely to extend beyond an occasional dinner- 
 party, of the sort given hereabouts periodically, to middle- 
 aged respectable neighbors in which category may be 
 supposed to come Max Urquhart, M.D. I accepted the 
 courtesy and invitation. 
 
 Yet let me confess to thee, compassionate unknown, the 
 
76 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 ridiculous hesitation with which I walked up to this friend- 
 ly door, from which I should certainly have walked away 
 again, but for my dislike to break any engagement, how- 
 ever trivial, or even a promise made only to myself. Let 
 me own the morbid dread with which I contemplated four 
 mortal hours to be spent in the society of a dozen friendly 
 people, made doubly sociable by the influence of a good 
 dinner and the best of wines. 
 
 But the alarm was needless, as a little common sense, 
 had I exercised it, w r ould soon have proved. 
 
 In the drawing-room, lit with the warm duskiness of fire- 
 light, sat the three ladies. The eldest received me politely : 
 the youngest apologetically. 
 
 " We are only ourselves, you see ; w T e understand you 
 dislike dinner-parties, so we invited nobody." 
 
 "We never do give dinner-parties more than once or 
 twice a year." 
 
 It was the second daughter who made that last remark. 
 I thought whether it was for my sake or her ow r n, that one 
 young lady had taken the trouble to give me a false impres- 
 sion, and the other to remove it. And how very indiffer- 
 ent I was to both attempts ! Surely, women hold trifles of 
 more moment than we men c<an afford to do. 
 
 Curious enough to me was the thoroughly feminine at- 
 mosphere of the dainty little drawing-room, set out, not 
 with costly splendors, like Treherne Court, but pretty home- 
 made ornaments, and, above all, with plenty of flowers. 
 My olfactories are acute; certain rooms always possess to 
 me certain associated scents through which, at whatever 
 distance of time I revisit them, the pristine impression sur- 
 vives ; sometimes pleasant, sometimes horribly painful. 
 That pretty parlor will, I fancy, always carry to me the 
 scent of orange-flowers. It came through the door of a lit- 
 tle green-house, from a tree there, the finest specimen I had 
 yet seen in England, and I rose to examine it. There fol- 
 lowed me the second daughter, Miss Theodora. 
 
 In the minute picture w T hich I have been making of my 
 evening at Rockmount, I ought not to omit this young girl, 
 or young woman, for she appears both by turns ; indeed, 
 she has the most variable exterior of any person I ever met. 
 I recall her successively ; the first time of meeting, quite 
 childlike in her looks and ways ; the second, sedate and 
 womanly, save in her little obstinacy about the blue-bells ; 
 the third, dignified, indignant, pertinaciously reserved ; but 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 77 
 
 this night I saw her in an entirely new character, neither 
 childish nor woman-like, but altogether gentle and girlish 
 a thorough English girl. 
 
 Her dress, of some soft, dark color, which fell in folds, 
 and did not rustle or spread ; her hair, which was twisted 
 at the back, without any bows or laces, such as I see ladies 
 wear, and brought down, smooth and soft, over the fore- 
 head, formed a sufficient contrast to her sisters to make me 
 notice her ; besides, it was a style more according to my 
 own taste. I hate to see a woman all flounces and filligigs, 
 or with her hair torn up by the roots like a Chinese Man- 
 darin. Hair curved over the brow like a Saxon arch, un- 
 der the doorway of which two modest intelligent eyes stand 
 sentinel, vouching for the worth of what is within grant 
 these, and the rest of the features may be any thing you 
 choose, if not absolutely ugly. The only peculiarity about 
 these was a squareness of chin, and closeness of mouth, in- 
 dicating more strength than sweetness of disposition, until 
 the young lady smiled. 
 
 Writing this, I am smiling myself to reflect how little 
 people would give me credit fJMLgo much observation ; but 
 a liking to study character is, perhaps, of all others, the 
 hobby most useful to a medical man. 
 
 I have left my object of remark all this while standing 
 by her orange-tree, and contemplating a large caterpillar 
 slowly crawling over one of its leaves. I recommended her 
 to get Treherne to smoke in her conservatory, which would 
 remove the insects from her flowers. 
 
 " They are not mine, I rarely pay them the least atten- 
 tion." 
 
 I thought she was fond of flowers. 
 
 "Yes, but wild flowers, not tame, like these of Penelope's. 
 I only patronize those she throws away as being not ' good.' 
 Can you imagine mother Nature making a ' bad' flower ?" 
 
 I said, I concluded Miss Johnston was a scientific horti, 
 culturist. 
 
 " Indeed she is. I never knew a girl so learned about 
 flowers, well-educated, genteel, green-house flowers, as our 
 Penelope." 
 
 " Our" Penelope. There must be a pleasure in these 
 family possessive pronouns. 
 
 I had the honor of taking in to dinner this lady, who is 
 very sprightly, and nothing at all Odyssean about her. 
 During a lack of conversation, for Treherne, of course, de- 
 
78 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 voted himself to his ladye-love, and Mr. Johnston is the 
 most silent of hosts, I ventured to remark that this was the 
 first tame I had ever met a lady with that old Greek name. 
 
 "Penelope!" cried Treherne. u 'Pon my life I forget 
 who was Penelope. Do tell us, Dora. That young lady 
 knows every thing, Doctor ; a regular blue-stocking ; at 
 first she quite frightened me, I declare." 
 
 Captain Treherne seems to be making himself uncom- 
 monly familiar with his future sisters-in-law. This one did 
 not exactly relish it, to judge by her look. She has a will 
 of her own, and a temper, too, " that young lady." It is 
 as well Treherne did not happen to set his affections upon 
 her. 
 
 Poor youth! he never knows when to stop. 
 
 " Ha ! I have it now, Miss Dora. Penelope was in the 
 Odyssey that book of engravings you were showing my 
 cousin Charteris and me that Friday night. And how I 
 laughed at what Charteris said that he thought the good 
 lady was very much over-rated, and Ulysses in the right of 
 it to ride away again, when, coming back after ten years, 
 he found her a prudish, p^m-singing, spinning old woman. 
 Halloo ! have I put my foot into it, Lisabel ?" 
 
 It seemed so, by the constrained silence of the whole 
 party. Miss Johnston turned scarlet and then white, but 
 immediately said to me, Laughingly : 
 
 " Mr. Charteris is an excellent classic ; he w^as papa's pu- 
 pil for some years. Have you ever met him ?" 
 
 I had not, but I had often heard of him in certain circles 
 of our camp society, as well as from Sir William Treherne/ 
 And I now suddenly recollected that, in talking over his 
 son's marriage, the latter had expressed some surprise at 
 the news Treherne had given that this gay bachelor about 
 town, whose society he had always been chary of cultivat- 
 ing for fear of harm to " the boy," had been engaged for 
 some time to a member of the Johnston family. This was, 
 of course, Miss Johnston Penelope. 
 
 I would have let the subject drop, but Miss Lisabel re- 
 vived it. 
 
 " So you have heard a deal about Francis ? No wonder ! 
 is he not a charming person ? and very much thought 
 of in London society ? Do tell us all you heard about him." 
 
 Treherne gave me a look. 
 
 " Oh ! you'll never get any thing out of the Doctor. He 
 knows every body, and every body tells him every thing, 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 79 
 
 but there it ends. He is a perfect tomb a sarcophagus 
 of silence, as a fellow once called him." 
 
 Miss Lisabel held up her hands, and vowed she was real- 
 ly afraid of me. Miss Johnston said, sharply, " She liked 
 candid people ; a sarcophagus of silence implied a ' body' 
 inside." At which all laughed, except the second sister, 
 who said, with some warmth, " She thought there were few 
 qualities more rare and valuable than the power of keeping 
 a secret/' 
 
 " Of course Dora thinks so. Doctor, my sister there, is 
 the most secretive little mouse that ever was born. Red- 
 hot pincers could not force from her what she did not choose 
 to tell, about herself or other people." 
 
 I well believe that. One sometimes finds that combina- 
 tion of natural frankness and exceeding reticence, when ret- 
 icence is necessary. 
 
 The " mouse" had justified her name by being silent near- 
 ly all dinner-time, though it was not the silence of either 
 sullennesS or abstraction. But when she was afterward ac- 
 cused of delighting in a secret, " running away with it, and 
 hiding it in her hole, like a bit of cheese," she looked up, 
 and said, emphatically, 
 
 " That is a mistake, Lisabel." 
 
 " A fib, you mean. Augustus, do you know, my sisters 
 call me a dreadful story-teller," smiling at him, as if she 
 thought it the best joke in the world. 
 
 " I said a mistake, and meant nothing more." 
 
 " Do tell us, child, what you really meant, if it is possible 
 to get it out of you," observed the eldest sister ; and the 
 poor " mouse," thus driven into a corner, looked round the 
 table with those bright eyes of hers. 
 
 " Lisabel mistakes ; I do not delight in secrets. I think 
 people ought not to have any, but to be of one mind in a 
 house." (She studies her Bible, then, for the phrase came 
 out as naturally as one quotes habitual phrases, scarcely 
 conscious whence one has learned them.) " Those who real- 
 ly care for one another are much happier when they tell 
 one another every thing ; there is nothing so dangerous as 
 a secret. Better never have one, but, having it, if one ought 
 to keep it at all, one ought to keep it to the death." 
 
 She looked quite accidentally, I do believe but still 
 she looked at me. Why is it, that this girl should be the 
 instrument of giving me continual stabs of pain ? Yet there 
 if a charm in them. They take away a little of the feeling 
 
VO A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 of isolation the contrast between the inside and outside 
 of the sarcophagus. Many true words are spoken in jest, 
 They dart, like a thread of light, even to " the Body" with- 
 in. Corruption has its laws. I marvel in what length of 
 time might a sunbeam, penetrating there, find nothing worse 
 than harmless dust ? 
 
 But I will pass into ordinary life again. Common sense 
 teaches a man in my circumstances that this is the best 
 thing for him. What business has he to set himself up as 
 a Simon Stylites on a solitary column of woe ? as if misery 
 constituted saintship. There is no arrogance like the hy- 
 pocrisy of humility. 
 
 When Treherne had joined the ladies, Mr. Johnston and 
 myself started some very interesting conversation, apropos 
 of Mrs. Granton and her doings in the parish, when I found 
 that he has the feeling, very rare among country gentlemen 
 of his age and generation an exceeding aversion for strong 
 drinks. He discountenances Father Mathew and the pledge 
 as popish, a crotchet not surprising in an old Tory, whose 
 opinions, never wide, all run in one groove, as it were, but 
 he advocates temperance, even to teetotalism. 
 
 I tried to draw the line of moderation, and argued that, 
 because some men, determined on making beasts of them- 
 selves, required to be treated like beasts, by compulsion 
 only, that was no reason why the remainder should not have 
 free-will, man's glorious privilege, to prove their manhood 
 by the choice of good or evil. 
 
 " Like Adam and Adam fell." 
 
 " Like a greater than Adam ; trusting in Whom we need 
 never fall." 
 
 The old man did not reply, but he looked much excited. 
 The subject seemed to rouse in him something beyond the 
 m.3re disgust of an educated gentleman at w^hat offended 
 his refined tastes. Had not certain other reasons made that 
 solution improbable, I could have imagined it the shudder 
 of one too familiar with the vice he now abhorred ; that he 
 spoke about drunkenness with the terrified fierceness of one 
 who had himself been a drunkard. 
 
 As we sat talking across the table, philosophically, ab- 
 stractedly, yet with a perceptible undertone of reserve 1 
 heard it in his voice ; I felt it in my own or listening si- 
 lently to the equinoctial gale, which rattled the window, 
 made the candles flicker, almost caused the wine to shake 
 in the untouched decanters as T have heard table-rapping 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 81 
 
 II " 
 
 tales, of wine beginning to shake -when there was " a spirit 
 present" the thought struck me more than once if either 
 of us two men could lift the curtain from one another's past, 
 what would be found there? 
 
 He proceeded to close our conversation by saying, 
 
 " You will understand now, Doctor Urquhart, and I wish 
 to name it as a sort of apology for my former close question- 
 ing, my extreme horror of drunkenness and my satisfaction 
 at finding that Mr. Treherne has no propensity in this di- 
 rection." 
 
 I answered, " Certainly not ; that, with all the temptations 
 of a mess-table, to take much wine was, with him, a thing 
 exceedingly rare." 
 
 " Rare ! I thought you said he never drank at all ?" 
 
 " I told you he was no drunkard, nor at all in the habit 
 of drinking." 
 
 "Habits grow, we know not how," cried the old man, 
 irritably. " Does he take it every day ?" 
 
 " I suppose so. Most military men do." 
 
 Mr. Johnston turned sharp upon me. 
 
 " I must have no modifications, Doctor Urquhart. Can 
 you declare positively that you never saw Captain Treherne 
 the worse for liquor ?" 
 
 To answer this question directly was impossible, I tried 
 to remove the impression I had unhappily given, and which 
 the old man had taken up so unexpectedly and fiercely, by 
 enlarging on the brave manner in which Treherne had with- 
 stood many a lure to evil ways. 
 
 " You can not deceive me, sir. I must have the truth." 
 
 I was on the point of telling him to seek it from Treherne 
 himself, when, remembering the irritation of the old man, 
 and the hot-headed imprudence of the young one, I thought 
 it would be safer to bear the brunt myself. I informed Mr. 
 Johnston of the two only instances when I had seen Tre- 
 herne not himself. Once after twenty-four hours in the 
 trenches, when unlimited brandy could hardly keep life in 
 our poor fellows, and again when Miss Lisabel herself must 
 be his excuse. 
 
 " Lisabel ? Do not name her, sir ; I would rather see a 
 daughter of mine in her grave than the wife of a drunkard." 
 
 " Which, allow me to assert, Captain Treherne is not, 
 and is never likely to be." 
 
 Mr. Johnston shook his head incredulously. I became 
 more and more convinced about the justice of my conject- 
 
 D2 
 
82 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 ure about his past life, which delicacy forbade me to in- 
 quire into, or to use as any argument against his harshness 
 now. I began to feel seriously uneasy. 
 
 " Mr. Johnston," I said, " would you for this accidental 
 error " 
 
 I paused, seeing at the door a young lady's face, Miss 
 Theodora's. 
 
 " Papa, tea is waiting." 
 
 " Let it wait then ; shut the door. Well, sir ?" 
 
 I repeated, would he, for an accidental error, condemn 
 the young man entirely ? 
 
 " He has condemned himself; he has taken the first step, 
 and his downward course will be swift and sudden. There 
 is no stopping it, sir," and he struck his hand on the table. 
 " If I had a son, and he liked wine, as a child does, perhaps 
 a pretty little boy, sitting at table and drinking healths 
 at birthdays ; or a schoolboy, proud to do what he sees his 
 father doing I would take his glass from him, and fill it 
 with poison deadly poison that he might kill himself at 
 once, rather than grow up to his friends' curse and his own 
 damnation a drunkard" 
 
 I urged, after a minute's pause, that Treherne was nei- 
 ther a child nor a boy ; that he had passed through the 
 early perils of youth, and succumbed to none ; that there 
 was little fear he would ever become a drunkard. 
 
 " He may." 
 
 " Please God he never shall ! Even if he had yielded to 
 temptation ; if, even in your sense and mine, Mr. Johnston, 
 the young man had once been ' drunk,' would you for that 
 brand him as a hopeless drunkard ? I think not I trust 
 not." 
 
 And, strongly excited myself, I pleaded for the lad as if 
 I had been pleading for my own life, but in vain. 
 
 It was getting late, and I was in momentary dread of 
 another summons to the drawing-room. 
 
 In cases like these there comes a time when, be our op- 
 ponents younger or older, inferior or superior to ourselves, 
 we feel we must assert what we believe to be right, " tak- 
 ing the upper hand," as it is called that is, using the power 
 which the few have in guiding the many. Call it influence, 
 decision, will one who possesses it rarely gets through 
 half a lifetime without discovering the fact, and what a 
 weighty and solemn edft it is. 
 
 I said to Mr. Johnston, very respectfully, yet resolutely, 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 83 
 
 that, in so serious a matter, of which I myself was the un- 
 happy cause, I must request him, as a personal favor, to 
 postpone his decision for to-night. 
 
 "And," I continued, "forgive 'my urging that, both as a 
 father and a clergyman, you are bound to be careful how 
 you decide. By one fatal word you may destroy your 
 daughter's happiness for life." 
 
 I saw him start ; I struck bolder. 
 
 " Also, as Captain Treherne's friend, let me remind you 
 that he has a future too. It is a dangerous thing for a 
 young man's future when heas thwarted in his first love. 
 What if he should go all wrong, and you had to answer to 
 Sir William Treherne for the ruin of his only son ?" 
 
 I was not prepared for the eifect of my words. 
 
 " His only son God forgive me ! is he his only son ?" 
 
 Mr. Johnston turned from me ; his hands shook violently ; 
 his whole countenance changed. In it there was as much 
 remorse and anguish as if he, in his youth, had been some 
 old man's only and perhaps erring son. 
 
 I could pity him if he were one of those who suffer to 
 their life's end for the evil deeds of their youth. I abstain- 
 ed from any farther remarks, and he made none. At last, 
 as he expressed some wish to be left alone, I rose. 
 
 " Doctor," he said, in a tremulous voice, " I will thank 
 you not to name this conversation to my family. For the 
 subject of it, we'll pass it over this once." 
 
 I thanked him, and earnestly begged forgiveness for any 
 warmth I had shown in the argument. 
 
 " Oh yes, oh yes ! Did I not say we would pass it over ?" 
 
 He sank wearily back in his arm-chair, but I felt the point 
 was gained. 
 
 In course of the evening, when Treherne and Miss Lisa- 
 bel, in happy ignorance of all the peril their bliss had gone 
 through, were making believe to play chess in the corner, 
 and Miss Johnston was reading the newspaper to her father, 
 I slipped away to the green-house, where I stood examin- 
 ing some orchids, and thinking how curious it was that I, 
 a perfect stranger, should be so mixed up with the private 
 affairs of this family. 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart." 
 
 Soft as the whisper was, it made me start. I apologized 
 for not having seen Miss Theodora enter, and began admir- 
 ing the orchidaceous plants. 
 
 " Yes, very pretty. But I wanted to ask you, what were 
 you and papa talking about ?" 
 
84 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 " Your father wished me not to mention it.". 
 
 "But I heard part of it, I could not help hearing, and I 
 guessed the rest. Tell me only one thing. Is Mr. Treherne 
 still to marry our Lisa ?" 
 
 " I believe so. There was a difficulty, but Mr. Johnston 
 said he w^ould ' pass it over.' " 
 
 " Poor papa," was all she replied. " Poor papa." 
 
 I expressed my exceeding regret at what had happened. 
 
 " No, never mind, you could not help it ; I understand 
 exactly how it was. But the storm will blow over ; papa 
 is rather peculiar. Don't tell Mr. Treherne." 
 
 She stood meditative a good while, and then said, 
 
 " I think you are right about Captain Treherne ; I begin 
 to like him myself a little. That is No, I will not make 
 pretenses. I did not like him at all until lately." 
 
 I told her I knew that. 
 
 " How ? Did I show it ? Do I show-what I feel ?" 
 
 " Tolerably," said I, smiling. " But you do like him 
 now?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Another pause of consideration and then a second decisive 
 " yes." 
 
 " I like him," she went on, " because he is good-natured 
 nnd sincere. Besides, he suits Lisabel, and people are so 
 different, that it would be ridiculous to expect to choose 
 one's sister's husband after the pattern of one's own. The 
 two would probably not agree in any single particular." 
 
 " Indeed," said I, amused at her frankness. " For in- 
 stance ?" 
 
 " Well, for instance, Lisa likes talking, and I silence, or 
 being talked to, and even that in moderation. Hark!" 
 
 We listened a minute to Treherne's hearty laugh and in- 
 cessant chitter-chatter. 
 
 " Now, my sister enjoys that, she says it amuses her ; I 
 am sure it would drive me crazy in a week." 
 
 I could sympathize a little in this sentiment. 
 
 " But," with sudden seriousness, " I beg you to under- 
 stand, Doctor Urquhart, that I am not speaking against 
 Captain Treherne. As I told you, I like him ; I am quite 
 satisfied with him, as a brother-in-law. Only he is not ex- 
 actly the sort of person one would choose to spend a week 
 with in the Eddystone Lighthouse." 
 
 I asked if that was her test for all her friends ? since few 
 could stand it. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 85 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Possibly not. When one comes to reflect there are 
 very few whose company one can tolerate so well as one's 
 own." 
 
 " Which is itself not always agreeable." 
 
 " No, but the less evil of the two. I don't believe there 
 is a creature living whose society I could endure, without 
 intermission, for a month, a week, or even two days. No. 
 Emphatically no." 
 
 She must then, though a member of a family, live a good 
 deal alone a fact I had already begun to suspect. 
 
 " Therefore, as I try to make Lisa feel being the elder, 
 I have a right to preach, you know what an awful thing 
 marriage must be, even viewed as mere companionship. 
 Putting aside love, honor, obedience, and all that sort of 
 thing, to undertake the burden of any one person's constant 
 presence and conversation for the term of one's natural life ! 
 the idea is frightful !" 
 
 " Very, if you do put aside love, honor, ' and all that sort 
 of thing.'" 
 
 She looked up, as if she thought I was laughing at her. 
 
 " Am I talking very foolishly ? I am afraid I do some- 
 times." 
 
 " Not at all," I said, " it was pleasant to hear her talk." 
 Which unlucky remark of mine had the effect of wholly 
 silencing her. 
 
 But, silent, it was something to watch her moving about 
 the drawing-room, or sitting still over her work. I like to 
 see a woman sewing ; it gives her an air of peaceful home- 
 likeness, the nearest approach to which, in us men, who are 
 either always sullenly busy or lazily idle, is the ungainly 
 lounge with our feet on the fender. Mr. Johnston must be 
 happy in his daughters, particularly in this one. He can 
 scarcely have regretted that he has had no sons. 
 
 It seems natural, seeing how much too well acquainted 
 we are with our sex, its weaknesses and wickednesses, that 
 most men should long for, and make much of daughters. 
 Certainly, to have in one's old age a bright girlish face to 
 look at, a lively original girlish tongue to freshen one's 
 mind with new ideas, must be a pleasant thing. Whatever 
 may have been the sorrows of his past life, Mr. Johnston is 
 a fortunate man now. 
 
 With regard to Treherne, I had the satisfaction of per- 
 ceiving that, as Miss Theodora had prophesied, the old 
 
86 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 man's anger had blown over. His manner indicated not 
 merely forgiveness, but a degree of kindly interest in that 
 light-hearted youth, who was brimming over with fun and 
 contentment. 
 
 I had an opportunity of satisfying myself on this point, 
 in another quarter, while waiting in the hall for Treherne's 
 protracted adieu in the dining-room ; when Miss Theodora, 
 passing me, stopped to interchange a word with me. 
 
 ' Shall you tell your friend what occurred to-night ? 
 with papa, I mean." 
 
 I replied, I was not sure but perhaps I should. It might 
 act as a warning. 
 
 " Do you think he needs a warning ?" 
 
 " I do not. I believe Treherne is as likely to turn out a 
 good man, especially with a good wife to help him, as any 
 young fellow of my acquaintance ; and I sincerely hope that 
 you, as well as your father, will think no worse of him for 
 any thing that is past. An old man has had time to forget, 
 and a girl is never likely to understand, the exceeding tempt- 
 ations which every young man has to fight through, more 
 especially a young man of fortune, and in the army." 
 
 " Ah ! yes," she sighed, " that is too true. Papa must 
 have felt it. Papa wished this to be kept secret between 
 himself and you ?" 
 
 " I understood him so." 
 
 u Then keep it. Do not tell Mr. Treherne. And have 
 no fear that I shall be too hard upon him. It would be sad, 
 indeed, for all of us, who do wrong every day, if every error 
 of youth were to be regarded as unpardonable." 
 
 God bless her good heart, and the kindly hand she held 
 out to me ; which for the second time I dared to take in 
 mine. Ay, even in mine. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 I DO not feel inclined for sleep, and there is a large round 
 moon looking in at my window. My foolish old moon, what 
 a time it is since you and I had a quiet serious look at one 
 another. What curious things you used to say to me, and 
 what confidences I used to make in you, at this very win- 
 dow, leaning my elbow in this very spot. That was when 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 87 
 
 I was a child, and fond of Colin " Colin, my dear." How 
 ridiculous it seems now, and what a laugh it would raise 
 against me if any body had known it. Yet what an inno- 
 cent, simple, devoted child-love it was ! I hardly think any 
 after-love, supposing I should ever feel one, will be, in its 
 way, more tender or more true. 
 
 Moon have you forgotten me ? Am I becoming a mid- 
 dle-aged person; and is a new and younger generation 
 growing up to have confidences with you as I used to 
 have ? Or is it I who have forsaken you ? Most likely. 
 You have done me a deal of harm and good, too in my 
 time. Yet you seem friendly and mild to-night. I will 
 forgive you, my poor old moon. 
 
 It has been a pleasant day. My head aches a little, with 
 the unusual excitement query, of pleasure ? Is pleasant- 
 ness so very rare, then ? No : I am weary with the exer- 
 tion of having to make myself agreeable ; for Penelope is 
 full of housekeeping cares, and a few sad thoughts, too, 
 may be, concerning the wedding ; so that she takes little 
 trouble to entertain visitors. And Lisabel is "in love," 
 you know, moon. 
 
 You would not think it, though, except from the license 
 she takes to be lazy when Augustus is here, and up to the 
 eyes in business when he is away. I never thought a 
 wedding was such a " piece of work," as the old women 
 say; such a time of incessant bustle, worry, and confusion. 
 I only saw the " love" side of it, Lisabel avers, and laughs 
 at me when I wonder at her for wearing herself out from 
 morning till night in consultation over her trousseau, and 
 how we shall possibly manage to accommodate the eight- 
 and-forty particular friends who must be asked to the 
 breakfast. 
 
 Happily, they are only the bride's friends. Sir William 
 and Lady Augusta Treherne can not come, and Augustus 
 does not care a straw for asking any body. He says he 
 only wants his Lisa. His Lisa unfortunately requires a 
 few trifles more to constitute her bridal happiness ; a 
 wreath, *a veil, a breakfast, and six bridesmaids in Indian 
 muslin. Rather cold, for autumn, but which she says she 
 can not give up on any account, since a wedding-day comes 
 but once, and she has been looking forward to hers ever 
 since she was born. 
 
 A wedding-day! Probably there are few of us who 
 have not speculated on it a little, as the day which, of 11 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 others, is the most decisive in a woman's life. I am not 
 ashamed to confess having occasionally thought of mine. 
 A foolish dream that comes and goes with one's teens; 
 imagined paradise of utterly impossible joy, to be shared 
 with some paragon of equally impossible perfection I 
 could sit and laugh at it now, if the laughter were not bit- 
 terer than tears. 
 
 There, after writing this, I went and pulled down my 
 hair, and tied it under my chin to prevent cold oh ! most 
 prudent five-and-twenty leaned my elbow on the window- 
 sill, in the old attitude of fifteen, staring up at the moon 
 and out across the fir-woods for a long time. Returning, 
 I have relit my candle, and taken once more to my desk, 
 and I say again, O inquisitive moon, that this has been a 
 pleasant day. 
 
 It was one of our quiet Rockmount Sundays, which 
 Doctor Urquhart says he enjoys so much. Poor Lisabel's 
 last Sunday but one. She will be married to-morrow week. 
 We had our indispensable lover to dinner, and Doctor 
 Urquhart also. Papa told me to ask him as we were 
 coming out of the church. In spite of the distance, he 
 often attends our church now, at which papa seems grati- 
 fied. 
 
 I delivered the message, which was not received with as 
 much warmth as I thought it ought to have been, consid- 
 ering that it came from an elderly gentleman, who does 
 not often pay a younger man than himself the compliment 
 of liking his society. I was turning away, saying I con- 
 cluded he had some better engagement, when Doctor Ur- 
 quhart replied quickly 
 
 " No, indeed. That were impossible." 
 
 " Will you come then ? Pray don't, if you dislike it." 
 
 For I was vexed at a certain hesitation and uneasiness in 
 his manner, which implied this ; when I had been so glad 
 to bring him the invitation and had taken the trouble to 
 cross half the church-yard after him, in order to deliver it ; 
 which I certainly would not have done for a person whom 
 every body liked. 
 
 N.B. This may be one of the involuntary reasons for 
 my liking Doctor Urquhart ; that papa and I myself are 
 the only two persons of our family who unite in that opin- 
 ion. Lisabel makes fun of him; Penelope is scarcely civil 
 to him ; but that is because Francis, coming down last week 
 fo* a da3 r , took a violent aversion to him. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 89 
 
 I heard the girls laughing within a stone's throw of 
 where we stood. 
 
 "Pray please yourself, Doctor Urquhart; come, or not 
 come ; but I can't wait." 
 
 He looked at me with an amused air yes, I certainly 
 have the honor of amusing him, as a child or a kitten 
 would then said, 
 
 " He would be happy to join us." 
 
 I was ashamed of myself for being thus pettish with a 
 parson so much older and wiser than I, and who ought to 
 be excused so heartily for any peculiarities he has; yet he 
 vexed me. He does vex me very much, sometimes. I can 
 not understand why; it is quite a new feeling to be so 
 irritated with any body. Either it is his manner, which is 
 rather variable, sometimes cheerful and friendly, and then 
 again restless and cold ; or an uncomfortable sensation of 
 being under control, which I never yet had, even toward 
 my own father. Once, when I w^as contesting something 
 w^ith him, Augustus noticed it, and said, laughing 
 
 " Oh, the Doctor makes every body do what he likes : 
 you'd better give in at once. I always do." 
 
 But I can not, and I will not. 
 
 To feel vexed with a person, to know they have the 
 power of vexing you that a chance word or look can 
 touch you to the quick, make you feel all over in a state 
 of irritation, as if all the world went wrong, and you were 
 ready to do any thing cross, or sullen, or childishly naughty 
 until another chance word or look happens to set you 
 right again this is an extremely uncomfortable state of 
 things. 
 
 I must guard against it. I must not allow my temper to 
 get way. Sensitive it is, I am aware, quick to feel sore, 
 and to take offense ; but I am not a thoroughly ill-tempered 
 woman. Doctor Urquhart does not think so : he told me 
 he did not. One day, when I had been very cross with 
 him, he said " I had done him no harm ; that I often did 
 him good." 
 
 Me to do good to Doctor Urquhart ! What an extra- 
 ordinary thing ! 
 
 I like to do people good to do it my own self, too a 
 mean pleasure, perhaps, yet it is a pleasure, and I was 
 pleased with this saying of Doctor Urquhart's. If I could 
 but believe it ! I do believe it sometimes. I know that I can 
 make him smile, let him look ever so grave; that something 
 
90 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 in me and my ways interests and amuses him in an inglo* 
 rious, kittenish fashion, as I said ; yet, still, I draw him 
 out of himself, I make him merry, I bring light into his 
 face, till one could hardly believe it was the same face that 
 I first saw at the Cedars ; and it is pleasant to me to think 
 that, by some odd sympathy or other, I am pleasant to 
 him, as I am to few alas ! to very few. 
 
 I know when people dislike me know it keenly, pain- 
 fully; I know, too, with a sort of stolid patience, when 
 they are simply indifferent to me. Doubtless, in both 
 cases, they have every reason ; I blame nobody, not even 
 myself, I only state a fact. But with such people I can no 
 more be my natural self, than I can run about barefooted 
 and bareheaded in our north winds or moorland snows. 
 But if a little sunshine comes, my heart warms to it, basks 
 in it, dances under it, like the silliest young lamb that ever 
 frisked in a cowslip meadow, rejoicing in the May. 
 
 I am not, and never pretend to be, a humble person. I 
 feel there is that in me which is worth something, but a 
 return for which I have never yet received. Give me its 
 fair equivalent, its full and honest price, and oh, if I could 
 expend it every mite, how boundlessly rich I should grow ! 
 
 This last sentence means nothing; nor do I quite under- 
 stand it myself. Writing a journal is a safety-valve for 
 much folly, yet I am by no means sure that I ought to 
 have written the last page. 
 
 However, no more of this ; let me tell the story of my 
 day. 
 
 Walking from church, Doctor Urquhart told me that 
 Augustus had asked him to be best-man at the wedding. 
 
 I said I knew it, and wished he would consent. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Though the abrupt question surprised me, I answered, 
 of course, the truth ; that if the best-man were not himself, 
 it would be one of the camp officers, and I hated " 
 
 " Soldiers ?" 
 
 I told him it was not kind to be always throwing in my 
 teeth that unfortunate speech, that he ought not to tease 
 me so. 
 
 " Do I tease you ? I was not aware of it." 
 
 " Very likely not, and I am a great simpleton for allow- 
 ing myself to be teased with such trifles ; but Doctor Urqu- 
 hart can not expect me to be as wise as himself, he is a great 
 deal older than I." 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 91 
 
 " Tell me, then," he continued, in that kind tone which 
 always makes me feel something like a little pet donkey I 
 once had, which, if I called it across the field, would come 
 and lay its head on my hand not that, donkey as I am, I 
 incline to trouble Doctor Urquhart in that way, " tell me 
 what it is you do hate?" 
 
 " I hate to have to entertain strangers." 
 
 " Then you do not consider me a stranger ?" 
 
 "No; a friend." 
 
 I may say that, for, short as our acquaintance dates, I 
 have seen more of Doctor Urquhart, and seem to know him 
 better than any man in the whole course of my life. He 
 did not refuse the title I gave him, and I -think he was 
 gratified, though he said only, 
 
 " You are very kind, and I thank you." 
 
 Presently I recurred to the subject of discussion, and 
 wished him to promise what Augustus, and Lisabel, and we 
 all desired. 
 
 He paused a moment, then said, decisively, 
 
 " I will come." 
 
 "That is right. I know we can always depend upon 
 Doctor Urquhart's promises." 
 
 Was my gladness over-bold ? Would he misconstrue 
 it ? No ; he is too clear-sighted, too humble-minded, too 
 wise. With him I have always the feeling that I need 
 take no trouble over what I do or say, except that it should 
 be true and sincere. Whatever it is, he will judge it fairly. 
 And if he did not, why should I care ? 
 
 Yes, I should care. I like him I like him very much. 
 It would be a comfort to me to have him for a friend, one 
 of my very own. In some degree he treats me as such ; 
 to-day, for instance, he told me more about himself than he 
 ever did to any one of us. It came out accidentally. I can 
 not endure a man who, at first acquaintance, indulges you 
 with his autobiography in full. Such a one must be either 
 a puppy or an idiot. 
 
 Ah ! there I am again at my harsh judgments, which 
 Doctor Urquhart has so tacitly reproved. This good man, 
 who has seen more of the world and its wickedness than I 
 am ever likely to see, is yet the most charitable man I ever 
 knew. To return. 
 
 Before we reached Rockmount the sky had clouded 
 over, and in an hour it was a thoroughly wet afternoon. 
 Penelope went up stairs to write her Sunday letter, and 
 
92 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Augustus and Lisabel gave broad hints that they wished 
 the drawing-room all to themselves. Perforce, Doctor 
 Urquhart and I had to entertain ourselves. 
 
 I took him into the green-house, where he lectured to 
 me on the orchidacea and vegetation of the tropics gen- 
 erally, to his own content, doubtless, and partially to mine. 
 I like to hear his talking, so wise, yet so simple; a fresh- 
 ness almost boyish seems to linger in his nature still, and 
 he has the thoroughly boyish peculiarity of taking pleasure 
 in little things. He spent half an hour in reviving a big 
 brown bee which had grown torpid with cold, and there 
 was in his eyes a kindness, as over a human creature, when 
 he gave into my charge his " little patient," whom I prom- 
 ised to befriend. (There he is, poor old fellow, fast asleep 
 on a flower-pot, till the first bright morning I can turn him 
 out.) 
 
 u I am afraid, though, he will soon get into trouble again, 
 and not find so kind a friend," said I to Doctor Urquhart. 
 " He will intoxicate himself in the nearest flower-cup, and 
 seek repentance and restoration too late." 
 
 " I hope not," said the doctor, sadly and gravely. 
 
 I said I was sorry for having made a jest upon his favor- 
 ite doctrine, of repentance and restoration of sinners; which 
 he seemed always both to preach and to practice. 
 
 " Do I ? Perhaps. Do you not think it is very much 
 needed in this world ?" 
 
 I said I had not lived long enough in the world to find 
 out. 
 
 " I forgot how young you were." 
 
 He had once, in his direct way, asked my age, and I had 
 told him, much disposed likewise to return the question, 
 but was afraid. Sometimes I feel quite at home with him, 
 as if I could say any thing to him, and then again he makes 
 me, not actually afraid thank goodness, I never was afraid 
 of any man yet, and hope I never shall be but shy and 
 quiet. I suppose it is because he is so very good ; because 
 in his presence my little follies and wickednesses hide their 
 heads. I cease perplexing myself about them, or about 
 myself at all, and only think not of him so much as of 
 something higher and better than either him or me. Sure- 
 ly this can not be wrong. 
 
 The bee question settled, we sat down, silent, listening 
 to the rain pattering on the glass roof of the green-house. 
 It was rather a dreary day. I began thinking of LisabePs 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 93 
 
 leaving more than was good for me ; and with that pene- 
 trative kindness which I have often noticed in him, Doctor 
 Urquhart turned my sad thoughts away by various inform- 
 ation about Treherne Court, and the new relations of our 
 Lisa not many. I said, " happily, she would have neither 
 brother nor sister-in-law." 
 
 " Happily ! You can not be in earnest ?" 
 
 I half wished I had not been, and yet I could not but 
 speak my mind that brothers or sisters, in law or in blood, 
 were often any thing but a blessing. 
 
 " I must emphatically differ from you there. I think it 
 is, with few exceptional cases, the greatest misfortune to 
 be an only child. Few are so naturally good, or reared 
 under such favorable circumstances, that such a position 
 does not do them harm. A lonely childhood and youth 
 may make a great man, a good man, but it rarely makes a 
 happy man. Better all the tussles and troubles of family 
 life, where the angles of character are rubbed off, and its 
 inclinations to morbidness, sensitiveness, and egotism knock- 
 ed down. I think it is a great wonder to see Treherne 
 such a good fellow as he is, considering he has been an only 
 child." 
 
 " You speak as if you knew what that was yourself." 
 
 " No ; we were orphans, but I had one brother." 
 
 This was the first time Doctor Urquhart had reverted to 
 any of his relatives, or to his early life. My curiosity was 
 strong. I risked a question : was this brother older or youn- 
 ger than he ? 
 
 " Older." 
 
 "And his name?" 
 
 "Dallas." 
 
 " Dallas Urquhart what a nice name." 
 
 " It is common in the family. There was a Dallas Urqu- 
 hart, younger brother to a Sir John Urquhart, who, in the 
 religious troubles, seceded to Episcopacy. He was in love 
 with a minister's sister a Presbyterian. She died broken- 
 hearted, and in despair at her reproaches, Dallas threw him- 
 self down a precipice, where his whitened bones were not 
 found till many years after. Is not that a romantic his- 
 tory?" 
 
 I said romantic and painful histories were common 
 enough ; there had been some even in our matter-of-fact 
 family. But he was not so inquisitive as I ; nor should I 
 have told him farther ; we never speak on this subject if 
 
94 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 we can help it. Even the Grantons our intimate friends 
 ever since we came to live at Rockmount have never been 
 made acquainted with it. And Penelope said there was no 
 need to tell Augustus, as it could not affect him, or any per- 
 son now living, and, for the sake of the family, the sad story 
 was better forgotten. I think so too. 
 
 With a sigh, I could not help observing to Doctor Urqu- 
 hart that it must be a very happy thing to have a brother 
 a good brother. 
 
 " Yes. Mine was the best that any one ever had. He 
 was a minister of the Kirk that is, he would have been, 
 but he died." 
 
 44 In Scotland?" 
 
 " No at Pan, in the Pyrenees." 
 
 " Were you with him ?" 
 
 " I was not." 
 
 This seemed a remembrance so acutely painful, that short- 
 ly afterward I tried to change the subject by asking a ques- 
 tion or two about himself and especially what I had long 
 wanted to find out how he came by that eccentric Chris- 
 tian name. 
 
 " Is it eccentric ? I really never knew or thought after 
 whom I was called." 
 
 I suggested, Max Piccolomini. 
 
 "Who was he, pray? My unprofessional reading has 
 been small. I am ashamed to say I never heard of Max 
 Piccolomini." 
 
 Amused by this naive confession of ignorance, I offered 
 jestingly to give him a course of polite literature, and begin 
 with that grandest of German dramas, Schiller's Wallen- 
 stein. 
 
 " Not in German, if you please ; I don't know a dozen 
 words of the language." 
 
 " Why, Doctor Urquhart, I must be a great deal cleverer 
 than you." 
 
 I had said this out of utter incredulity at the ludicrous 
 idea ; but, to my surprise, he took it seriously. 
 
 " You are right. I know I am a coarse, uneducated per- 
 son ; the life of an army surgeon allows few opportunities 
 of refinement, and, like many another boy, I threw away my 
 chances when I had them." 
 
 "At school?" 
 
 " College, rather." 
 
 " Where did you go to college ?" 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 95 
 
 "At St. Andrew's." 
 
 .The interrogative mood being on me, I thought I would 
 venture a question which had been often on my mind to 
 ask namely, what made him choose to be a doctor, which 
 always seemed to me the most painful and arduous of pro- 
 fessions. 
 
 He was so slow in answering, that I began to fear it was 
 one of my too blunt queries, and apologized. 
 
 " I will tell you, if you desire it. My motive was not un 
 like one you once suggested to save life instead of de~ 
 stroying it; also, because I wished to have my own life 
 always in my hand* I can not justly consider it mine. It 
 is owed" 
 
 To heaven, I conclude he meant, by the solemnity of his 
 manner. Yet, are not all lives owed ? And, if so, my early 
 dream of perfect bliss, namely, for two people to spend their 
 lives together in a sort of domestic Pitcairn's Island, cra- 
 dled in a spiritual Pacific Ocean, with nothing to do but to 
 love one another must be a delusion, or worse. I am be- 
 ginning to be glad I never found it. We are not the birds 
 and butterflies, but the laborers of the earthly vineyard. To 
 discover one's right work, and do it, must be the grand se- 
 cret of life. With or without love, I wonder ? With it, I 
 should imagine. But Doctor Urquhart, in his plan of exist- 
 ence, never seems to think of such an insignificant necessity. 
 
 Yet let me not speak lightly. I like him I honor him. 
 Had I been his dead brother, or a sister which he never 
 had I would have helped rather than have hindered him, 
 in his self-sacrificing career. I would have scorned to put 
 in my poor claim over him or his existence. It would have 
 seemed like taking for daily uses the gold of the sanctuary. 
 
 And here, pondering over all I have heard of him and 
 seen hi him, the self-denial, the heroism, the religious purity 
 of his daily life which has roused in even the light heart 
 of Augustus Treherne an attachment approaching to posi- 
 tive devotion, that all the jesting ofLisabel is powerless to 
 shake, I call to mind one incident of this day which startled, 
 shocked me ; concerning which even now I can scarcely 
 credit the evidence of my own ears. 
 
 We had all gathered round the fire waiting papa's return 
 from the second service ; Penelope, Lisabel, Augustus, Doc- 
 tor Urquhart, and I ; the rain had cleared off, and there 
 was only a soft drip, drip, on the glass of the green-house 
 outside. We were very peaceful and comfortable ; it felt 
 
06 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 almost like a family circle which indeed it was with one 
 exception. The new member of our family seemed to make 
 himself very much at ease sat beside his Lisa, and held 
 her hand under cover of her apron at which I thought I 
 saw Doctor Urquhart smile. Why should he ? It was 
 quite natural. 
 
 Penelope was less restless than usual, owing, may be, to 
 her long letter and the prospect of seeing Francis in a week ; 
 he comes to the marriage, of course. Poor fellow ! what a 
 pity we can not have two weddings instead of one ; it is 
 rather hard for him to be only a wedding guest, and Penel- 
 ope only a bridesmaid. But I am ceasing to laugh at even 
 Francis and Penelope. 
 
 I myself, in my own little low chair in its right angle on 
 the hearth-rug, felt perfectly happy. Is it the contrast be- 
 tween it and the life of solitude of which I have only lately 
 had any knowledge, that makes my own home life so much 
 sweeter than it used to be ? 
 
 The gentlemen began talking together about the differ- 
 ence between this quiet scene and that of November last 
 year, when, Sebastopol taken, the army was making up its 
 mind to winter in idleness, as merrily as it could. And 
 then Doctor Urquhart reverted to the former winter, the 
 terrible time, until its miseries reached and touched the 
 English heart at home. -And yet, as Doctor Urquhart said, 
 such misery seems often to evoke the noblest half of man's 
 nature. Many an anecdote, proving this, he told about 
 " his poor fellows," as he called them ; tales of heroism, pa- 
 tient endurance, unselfishness, and generosity such as, in 
 the mysterious agency of Providence, are always developed 
 by that great purifier as well as avenger, war. 
 
 Listening, my cheek burned to think I had ever said I 
 hated soldiers. It is a solemn question, too momentous for 
 human wisdom to decide upon, and, probably, never meant 
 to tie decided in this world the justice of carnage, the ne- 
 cessity of war. But thus far I am convinced and intend, 
 the first opportunity, to express my thanks to Doctor Ur- 
 quhart for having taught me the lesson that to set one's 
 self in fierce aversion against any class, as a class, is both 
 foolish and wicked. We should " hate" nobody. The 
 Christian warfare is never against sinners, but against sin. 
 
 Speaking of the statistics of mortality in the army, Doc- 
 tor Urquhart surprised us by stating how small a percent- 
 age bless me, I am beginning to talk like a blue-book 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 97 
 
 results from death in battle and from wounds. And, strange I 
 as it may appear, the mortality in a campaign, with all its 
 fatal chances, is less than in barracks at home. He has long 
 suspected this, from the accounts of the men, and having 
 lately, from clear data, ascertained its accuracy, intends urg- 
 ing it at the Horse Guards, or failing there, in the public 
 press, that the causes may be inquired into and remedied. 
 ft will be at some personal risk Government never likes 
 being meddled with ; but he seems the sort of man who, 
 having once got an idea into his head, would pursue it to 
 the death and very right too. If I had been a man I 
 would have done exactly the same. 
 
 All this while I have never told that thing. It came 
 out, as well as I can remember, thus : 
 
 Doctor Urquhart was saying that the average mortality 
 of soldiers in barracks was higher than that of any corre- 
 sponding class of working men. He attributes this to want 
 of space, cleanliness, fresh air, and good food. 
 
 "Also to another cause, which you always find flourish- 
 ing under such circumstances drink. It is in a barracks 
 just as in the courts and alleys of a large city wherever 
 you find people huddled together in foul air, ill smells, and 
 general wretchedness they drink. They can not help it, it 
 seems a natural necessity." 
 
 " There, we have the doctor on his hobby. Gee-up, Doc- 
 tor !" cried Augustus. I wonder his friend stands his non- 
 sense so good-humoredly. 
 
 " You know it is true, though, Treherne," and he went i 
 on speaking to me. " In the Crimea, the great curse of 
 our army was drink. Drink killed more of us than the 
 Russians did. You should have seen what I have seen 
 the officer maddening himself with Champagne at the mess- 
 table the private stealing out to a rum-store to booze se- 
 cretly over his grog. The thing was obliged to be winked 
 at, it was so common." 
 
 " In hospital, too," observed Captain Treherne, gradually 
 listening. " Don't you remember telling me there was not 
 a week passed that you had not cases of death solely from 
 drinking?" 
 
 " And, even then, I could not stop it, nor keep the liquor 
 outside the wards. I have come in and found drunken or- 
 derlies carousing with drunken patients ; nay, more than 
 once I have taken the brandy-bottle from under a dead 
 man's pillow." 
 
 E 
 
98 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 " Ay, I remember," said Augustus, looking grave. 
 
 Lisabel, who never likes his attention diverted from her 
 charming self, cried saucily : 
 
 " All very fine talking, Doctor, but you shall not make 
 me a teetotaller, nor Augustus neither, I hope." 
 
 u I have not the slightest intention of the kind, I assuVe 
 you ; nor does there seem any necessity. Though, for those 
 who have not the power to resist intoxication, it is much 
 safer never to touch stimulants." 
 
 " Do you not touch them ?" 
 
 " I have not done so for many years." 
 
 " Because you are afraid ? Well, I dare say you were 
 no better once than your neighbors." 
 
 " Lisabel !" I whispered, for I saw Doctor Urquhart wince 
 under her rude words ; but there is no stopping that girl's 
 tongue. 
 
 " Now confess, Doctor, just for fun. Papa is not here, 
 and we'll tell no tales out of school were you ever in your 
 life, to use your own ugly word, drunk?" 
 
 " Once." " 
 
 Writing this, I can hardly believe he said it, and yet he 
 did, in a quiet, low voice, as if the confession was forced 
 from him as a sort of voluntary expiation. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart drunk ! What a frightful idea ! Un- 
 der what circumstances could it possibly have happened ? 
 One thing I would stake my life upon it never happened 
 but that once. 
 
 I have been thinking, how horrible it must be to see 
 any body one cared for drunk : the honest eyes dull and 
 meaningless ; the wise lips jabbering foolishness ; the whole 
 face and figure, instead of being what one likes to look at, 
 takes pleasure to see in the same room, even growing 
 ugly, irrational, disgusting more like a beast than a man. 
 
 Yet some women have to bear it, have to speak kindly 
 to their husbands, hide their brutishness, and keep them 
 from making worse fools of themselves than they can help. 
 I have seen it done, not merely by working-men's wives r 
 but lady-wives in drawing-rooms. I think, if I were mar- 
 ried, and I saw my husband the least overcome by wine, 
 not "drunk," may be, but just excited, silly, otherwise 
 than his natural self, it would nearly drive me wild. Less 
 on my own account than his. To see him sink not for a 
 great crime, but a contemptible, cowardly bit of sensual- 
 ism from the height where my love had placed him ; to 
 
 I 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. #9 
 
 have to take care of him, to -pity him; ay, and I might 
 pity him, but I think the full glory and passion of my love 
 would die out, then and there, forever. 
 
 Let me not think of this, but go on relating what oc- 
 curred to-day. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart's abrupt confession, which seemed to 
 surprise Augustus as much as any body, threw an awk- 
 wardness over us all; we slipped out of the subject, and 
 plunged into the never-ending theme the wedding and its 
 arrangements. Here I found out that Doctor Urquhart 
 had, at first, refused, point-blank, his friend's request that 
 he would be best-man, but, on my entreating him this morn- 
 ing, had changed his mind. I was glad, and expressed my 
 gladness warmly. I would not like Doctor Urquhart to 
 suppose we thought the worse of him for what he had con- 
 fessed, or rather had been forced into confessing. It was 
 very wrong of Lisabel. But she really seemed sorry, and 
 paid him special attention in consultations about what she 
 thinks the important affairs of Monday week. I was al- 
 most cross at the exemplary patience with which he ex- 
 amined the orange-tree, and pronounced that the buds 
 would open in time, he thought : that if not, he would try, 
 as in duty bound, to procure some. He also heroically 
 consented to his other duty, of returning thanks for " the 
 bridesmaids," for we are to have healths drunk, speeches 
 made, and all the rest of it. Mercy on us ! how will papa 
 ever stand it ! 
 
 These family events have always their painful side. I 
 am sure papa will feel it. I only trust that no chance ob- 
 servations will strike home, and hurt him. This fear 
 haunted me so much, that I took an opportunity of sug- 
 gesting to Doctor Urquhart that all the speeches had bet- 
 ter be as short as possible. 
 
 " Mine shall be, I promise. Were you afraid of it ?" 
 asked he, smiling ; it was just before the horses were 
 brought up, and we were all standing out in the moonlight 
 < for shame, moon, leading us to catch cold just before our 
 wedding, and very thoughtless of the doctor to allow it, 
 too. I could see by his smile that he was now quite him- 
 self again which was a relief. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! I shall expect you to make the grandest 
 speech that ever was heard. But, seriously, these sort of 
 speeches are always trying, and will be so especially to 
 
100 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " I understand. We must take care : you are a tnought- 
 ful little lady." He sometimes has called me " Little Lady," 
 instead of "Miss Theodora." "Yes, your father will feel 
 acutely this first break in the family." 
 
 I said I did not mean that exactly, as it was not the 
 case. And, for the first time, it struck me as sad, that one 
 whom I never knew, whom I scarcely ever think of, should 
 be lost from among us, so lost as not to be even named. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart asked me why I looked so grave ? At 
 first I said I had rather not tell him, and then I felt as if 
 at that moment, standing quietly talking in the lovely night, 
 after such a happy day, it were a comfort, almost a neces- 
 sity, to tell him any thing, every thing. 
 
 " I was thinking of some one belonging td me whom no- 
 body knows of, whom we never speak about. Hush, don't 
 let them hear." 
 
 " Who was it ? But I beg your pardon, do not tell me 
 unless you like." 
 
 From his tone he thought, I know he thought Oh, 
 what a ridiculous, impossible thing ! Then I was determ- 
 ined to tell. 
 
 " It was one who was papa's favorite among us all." 
 
 "A sister?" 
 
 " Xo, a brother." 
 
 I had not time to say any more, for they were just start- 
 ing, nor am I satisfied that I was right in saying so much. 
 But the confidence is safe with him, and he will never refer 
 to it ; he will feel, as we do, that a subject so painful is 
 best avoided, even among ourselves on the whole I am 
 glad he knows. 
 
 Coming indoors, the girls made me very angry by their 
 jests, but the anger has somehow evaporated now. What 
 does it matter? As I told Lisabel, friends do not grow 
 on every hedge, though lovers may, and when one finds a 
 good man one ought to value him, nor be ashamed of it 
 either. 
 
 No, no, my sweet moon, setting so quickly behind that 
 belt of firs, I will like him if I choose, as I like every thing 
 true and noble wherever I find it in this world. 
 
 Moon, it is a good world, a happy world, and grows 
 happier the longer one lives in it. So I will just watch 
 your silver ladyship a nice "little lady" you are too 
 slipping away from it with that satisfied farewell smile, and 
 then I shall go to bed. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 101 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 IT is a fortnight since I wrote a line here. 
 
 Last Sunday week I made a discovery in truth, two 
 discoveries after which I lost myself, as it were, for many 
 days. 
 
 It will be advisable not to see any more of that family. 
 Not that I have any proof that they are the family the 
 name itself, Johnson, and their acknowledged plebeian ori- 
 gin, is sufficient evidence to the contrary. But, if they had 
 been ! 
 
 The mere supposition, coming, instinctively, that Sunday 
 night, before reason argued it down, was enough to cause 
 me twelve such hours as would be purchased dearly with 
 twelve years of life even a life full of such happiness as, I 
 then learned, is possible for a man. But not for me. Never 
 for me ! 
 
 This phase of the subject is, however, so exclusively my 
 own, that even here I will pass it over. It will be con- 
 quered by-and-by being discovered in time. 
 
 I went to the marriage having promised. She said, 
 Doctor Urquhart never breaks his promises. ISTo. There 
 is one promise nay, vow kept unflinchingly for twenty 
 years ; could it be broken now ? It never could. Before 
 it is too late I will take steps to teach myself that it never 
 shall. 
 
 I only joined the marriage party during the ceremony. 
 They excused me the breakfast, speeches, etc. Treherne 
 knew I was not well. Also, she said I looked " over- 
 worked," and there was a kind of softness in her eye, the 
 pity that all women have, and so readily show. 
 
 She looked the very picture of a white fairy, or a wood- 
 nymph or an angel, sliding down on a sunshiny cloud to a 
 man asleep. He wakes and it is all gone. 
 
 While the register was being signed and they wished 
 me to be one of the attesting witnesses an idea came into 
 my mind. 
 
 The family must have settled at Rockmount for many 
 years. Probably, the grandfather, the farmer who wrote 
 
102 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 himself, plebeianly, "Johnson," was buried here. Or 
 if he were dead whether it was so or not, I had no clew 
 here, probably, would be registered the interment of 
 that brother to whom allusion had been made as " papa's 
 favorite," but in such a manner, and with such evident dis- 
 tress, that to make farther inquiry about him was impossi- 
 ble. Besides, I must have no more private talk with her 
 with the one of the Misses Johnston whom I know best. 
 
 This brother I have calculated his possible age, com* 
 pared with theirs. Even were he the eldest of them, he 
 could not now be much above thirty if alive. T/iat per- 
 son would now be at least fifty. 
 
 Still, at once and forever to root up any such morbid, 
 unutterable fancies, I thought it would be as well to turn 
 over the register-books, as, without suspicion, it was this 
 day easy to do. On my way home I stopped at the church 
 and, helped by the half-stupid sexton and bell-ringer, 
 went over the village records of, he declared, the last 
 twenty years and more. In none of them was once named 
 the family of Johnston. 
 
 No proof, therefore, of my cause of dread not an atom, 
 not a straw. All evidence hitherto going directly counter 
 to a supposition the horror of which would surpass all 
 horrible coincidences that fate could work out for a man's 
 punishment. Let me put it aside. 
 
 The other thing God help me ! I believe I shall also 
 be able to put aside being entirely my own affair and I 
 myself being the only sufferer. 
 
 Now Treherne is married and away, there will be no 
 necessity to visit at Rockmount any more. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 WHAT a change a marriage makes ; what a blank it 
 leaves in a house ! Ours has been very dull since poor 
 Lisa went away. 
 
 I know not why I call her " poor Lisa." She seems the 
 gayest of the gay, and the happiest of the happy ; two 
 characters which, by the w^ay, are not always identical. 
 Her letters from Paris are full of enjoyment. Augustus 
 takes her every where, and introduces her to every body. 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 103 
 
 She was the "belle mariee" of a ball at the British Em- 
 bassy, and has been presented to my old aversion, though 
 he is really turning out a creditable individual in some 
 things ; "never too late to mend," even for a Louis Napo- 
 leon. Of course, Lisabel now thinks him " the most charm- 
 ing man in the world," except Augustus. 
 
 Strange that she should take delight in such dissipations. 
 She not three weeks married. How very little she must have 
 of her husband's society. Now, I should think the pleas- 
 antest way of spending a honeymoon w^ould be to get out 
 of every body's way, and have a little peace and quiet, 
 rambling about at liberty, and looking at pretty places to- 
 gether. But tastes differ ; that is not Lisabel's fancy, nor 
 was hers the sort of marriage likely to make such a honey- 
 moon desirable. She used" to say she should get tired of 
 the angel Gabriel if she had him all to herself for four 
 mortal weeks. Possibly ; I remember once making a sim- 
 ilar remark. 
 
 But surely that dread and weariness of two people, in 
 being left to one another's sole society, must apply chiefly 
 to cases of association for mere amusement or convenience ; 
 not to those who voluntarily bind their lives together, " for 
 better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in 
 health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part." How 
 solemn the words are ! They thrilled me all through on 
 the morning of Lisabel's marriage. 
 
 I have never set down here any thing about that day. I 
 suppose it resembled most other w T edding-days came and 
 went like a dream, and not a very happy dream either. 
 There seemed a cloud over us all. 
 
 One of the reasons was, Francis did not come. At the 
 last minute he sent an apology, which was not behaving 
 well, I thought. Nor did the excuse seem a valid one. 
 But it might have been a painful day to him, and Francis 
 is one of those sort of people very pleasant, and not ill- 
 meaning people either who like to escape pain, if possible. 
 Still, he might have considered that it w T as not likely to be 
 the happiest of days to Penelope herself, nor made more so 
 by his absence, which she bore in perfect silence ; and no- 
 body, except Augustus, who observed, laughingly, that it 
 was "just like Cousin Charteris," ventured any comment 
 on the subject. 
 
 I do not join Mrs. Granton and our Lisa in their tirades 
 against long engagements. I do not see why, when people 
 
104 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 are really fond of one another, and can not possibly be 
 ried, they should not live contentedly betrothed for an in- 
 definite time. It is certainly better than living wholly apart, 
 forlorn and hopeless, neither having toward the other any 
 open right, or claim, or duty. But, then, every betrothal 
 should resemble marriage itself, in its perfect confidence, 
 patience, and unexacting tenderness. Also, it ought never 
 to be made so public or allowed to be so cruelly talked over 
 as this engagement of Penelope's. 
 
 "Well, Francis did not appear, and every body left earlier 
 than we had expected. On the marriage evening we were 
 quite alone, and the day after Rockmount was its dull self 
 again, except the want of poor Lisa. 
 
 . I still call her so ; I can not help it. "We never discover 
 the value of things till we have lost them. Out of every 
 corner I miss our Lisa : her light laugh that used to seem 
 heartless, yet w r as the merriest sound in the house ; her tall, 
 handsome figure sailing in and about the rooms ; her imper- 
 turbable good temper, which I often tried ; her careless, un- 
 tidy ways, that used forever to aggravate Penelope, down 
 to her very follies and flirtations, carried on to the last in 
 spite of Augustus. 
 
 My poor Lisa ! The putting away of her music from the 
 piano, her books from the shelf, and her clothes from the 
 drawers, cost me as sharp an agony as I ever had in my 
 lite. I was not half good enough to her when I had her. 
 If I had her again how different it should be. Ah ! that is 
 what we always say, as the great shadow Time keeps ad- 
 vancing and advancing, yet we always let it slip by, and we 
 can not make it go back for a single hour. 
 
 Mrs. Granton and Colin came to tea to-night. Their com- 
 pany w^as a relief; our evenings are* often very dull. "Wo 
 sit all three together, but none has much sympathy witt 
 what the other is doing or thinking ; as not seldom hap- 
 pens in families, we each live in a distinct world of our own, 
 never intruded on, save when we have collectively to en- 
 tertain visitors. Papa asked Doctor Urquhart to dinner 
 twice, but received an apology both times, which rather of- 
 fended him, and he says he shall not invite him again until 
 he has called. He ought to call, for an old man likes atten- 
 tion, and is justified in exacting it. 
 
 To-night, while Mrs. Granton gossiped with papa and 
 Penelope, Colin talked to me. He bears Lisabel's marriage 
 far better than I expected, probably because he has got 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 105 
 
 something to do. He told me a long story about a row of 
 laborers' cottages, which Doctor Urquhart advised him to 
 build at the corner of the moor, each with its bit of land, 
 convertible into a potato-field or a garden. There Colin 
 busies himself from morning till night, superintending, plan- 
 ning, building, draining, " working like a horse," he pro- 
 tests, " and never enjoyed any thing more in his life." He 
 says he has seen a great deal of Doctor Urquhart lately, 
 and had great assistance from him in the matter of these 
 cottages. 
 
 Then can he be so exceedingly occupied as not to have 
 an hour or two for a visit ? Shame on me for the suspi- 
 cion ! The idea that Doctor Urquhart would, even in a 
 polite excuse, state a thing which was not true ! 
 
 Colin is much improved. He is beginning to suspect 
 that Colin Granton, Esq., owner of a free estate, and twen- 
 ty-seven years old, has got something to do besides lounge 
 about, shoot rabbits, and play billiards. He opened up to 
 my sympathy a long series of schemes about these cottages ; 
 how he meant to instigate industry, cleanliness, and, indeed, 
 all the cardinal virtues, by means of cottagers' prizes for 
 tidy houses, well-kept gardens, and the best brought-up 
 and largest families. He will never be clever, poor Colin ! 
 but may be a most useful character in the county, and he 
 has the kindest heart in the world. By the way, he told 
 me in his ultra-simple fashion that somebody had informed 
 him one of the Rockmount young ladies said so ! I felt 
 myself grow hot to the ears, which exceedingly astonished 
 Colin. 
 
 Altogether, a not unpleasant evening ; but oh, moon ! 
 whom I saw; making cross-panes on the carpet when I came 
 in it was not like the evenings a month ago, when Lisabel 
 ,was at home. 
 
 I think women as well as men, require something to do. 
 I wish I had it ; it would do me as much good as it has 
 done Colin. I am beginning to fear I lead a wretchedly 
 iidle life ; all young ladies at home do, it seems, except, per- 
 haps, the eldest sister, if she chances to be such a woman 
 as our Penelope. Why can not I help our Penelope ? Mrs. 
 Granton took it for granted that I do ; that I shall be the 
 greatest comfort and assistance to Miss Johnston, now Miss 
 Lisabel is gone. 
 
 I am not 'the least in the world ! which I was tempted to 
 explain, only mere friends can never understand the ins and 
 
 E2 
 
106 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 outs of a family. If I offered to assist her in the house, 
 how Penelope would stare ! or even in her schools and par- 
 ish, but that I can not do. Teaching is to me perfectly in- 
 tolerable. The moment I have to face two dozen pairs of 
 round eyes every particle of sense takes flight, and I be- 
 come the veriest of cowards, ready to sink through the 
 floor. The same, too, in district visiting. What business \ 
 have I, because I happen to be the clergyman's daughter, 
 to go lifting the latch and poking about poor people's 
 houses, obliging them to drop me courtesies, and receive 
 civilly my tracts and advice, which they neither read nor 
 follow, and might be none the better for it if they did ? 
 
 Yet this may be only my sophistries for not doing what 
 I so heartily dislike. Others do it, and successfully ; take 
 by storm the poor folks' hearts, and what is better, their 
 confidence; never enter without a welcome, and depart 
 without a blessing ; as, for instance, Doctor Urquhart. 
 Mrs. Granton was telling about his doings among the poor 
 families down with fever and ague, near the camp at Moor- 
 edge. 
 
 Why can not I do the same good ? not so much, of 
 course, but just a little. Why can not somebody show me 
 how to do it ? 
 
 N"o, I am not worthy. My quarter century of life has 
 been of no more use to myself or any human creature than 
 that fly's which my fire has stirred up to a foolish buzzing 
 in the window-curtain before it drops and dies. I might 
 drop down and die in the same manner, leaving no better 
 memorial. 
 
 There ! I hear Penelope in her room fidgeting about her 
 drawers, and scolding the housemaid. She is always tak- 
 ing juvenile, incompetent housemaids out of her village 
 school, teaching and lecturing them for a twelvemonth, and 
 then grumbling because they leave her. Yet, this is doing 
 good ; sometimes they come back and thank her for hav- 
 ing made capital servants of them ; and very seldom indeed 
 does such a case happen as pretty, silly Lydia Cartwright's, 
 who went up to London and never came back any more. 
 
 My dear sister Penelope, who, except in company, hard- 
 ly has a civil word for any body, Francis excepted Penel- 
 ope, who has managed the establishment ever since she was 
 a girl of sixteen has kept the house comfortable, and main- 
 tained the credit of the family to the world without truly, 
 with all your little tempers, sneers, and crabbednesses, you 
 are \vo tli M dozen of vour sister Theodora. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 107 
 
 I wonder if Doctor Urquhart thinks so. He looked at 
 her closely, more than once, when we were speaking about 
 Francis. He and she would have many meeting points of 
 interest, if they only knew it, and talked much together. 
 She is not very sweet to him, but that would not matter ; 
 he only values people for what they are, and not for the 
 manner in which they behave to himself. Perhaps, if they 
 were better acquainted, Penelope might prove a better 
 friend for him than the " little lady." 
 
 " Little lady !" That is just such a name as one would 
 give to an idle, useless, butterfly creature, of no value but 
 as an amusement, a plaything of leisure hours, in time of 
 business or care to be altogether set aside and forgotten. 
 
 Does he think me that f If he does why, let him. 
 
 A fine proof of how dull Rockmount is, and how little I 
 have to write about, when I go on scribbling such triviali- 
 ties as these. If no better subjects can be found, I shall 
 give up my journal. Meantime, I intend next week to be- 
 gin a serious course of study, in history, Latin, and Ger- 
 man. For the latter, instead of desultory reading, I shall 
 try written translations, probably from my favorite Wal- 
 lenstein. To think that any body should have been igno- 
 rant even of the name of Max Piccolomini ! He always 
 was my ideal of a hero faithful, trustful, brave, and infin- 
 itely loving, yet able to renounce love itself for the sake of 
 conscience. And then once a week I shall have a long let- 
 ter to write to Lisabel I, who never had a regular corre- 
 spondence in my life. It will be almost as good as Penel- 
 ope's with Francis Charteris. 
 
 At last I hear Penelope dismiss her maiden, bolt the door, 
 and settle for the night. When, for a wonder, she finds 
 herself alone and quiet, with nothing to do, and nobody to 
 lecture, I wonder what Penelope thinks about ? Is it Fran- 
 cis? Do people in their position always think about one 
 another the last thing ? Probably. When all the day's 
 cares and pleasures are ended, and the rest of the world 
 shut out, the heart would naturally turn to the only one in 
 whom, next to Heaven, is its real rest, its best comfort, 
 closer than either friend, or brother, or sister less another 
 person than half itself. 
 
 No sentiment ! Go to bed, Theodora. 
 
108 A LIFE FOIl A LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HIS STOKY. 
 
 I HAD almost given up writing here. Is it wise to begin 
 again ? Yet, to-day, in the silent hut, with the east wind 
 howling outside almost as fiercely as it used to howl last 
 winter over the steppes of the Caucasus, one must do some- 
 thing, if only to kill time. 
 
 Usually, I have little need for that resource ; this barrack 
 business engrosses every leisure hour. 
 
 The cominander-in-chief has at length promised a com- 
 mission of inquiry, if sufficient data can be supplied to him 
 to warrant it. I have, therefore, been collecting evidence 
 from every barrack in the United Kingdom, and visiting 
 personally all within a day or two days' leave from the 
 camp. The most important were those of the metropolis. 
 
 It is needless here to recur to details of which my head 
 lias been full all the week, till a seventh day's rest and 
 change of ideas become almost priceless. Unprofessional 
 men can not understand this; young Granton could not 
 when coming down from town with me last night ; he was 
 lamenting that he should not get at his cottage-building, 
 which he keeps up, in defiance of winter weather, till Mon- 
 day morning. 
 
 Mr. Granton indulged me with much conversation about 
 some friends of his, which inclines me to believe that " the 
 kindest heart in the world" has not suffered an incurable 
 blow, and is already proceeding to seek consolation else- 
 where. It may be so. The young are pleasant to the 
 young ; the happy delight in the happy. 
 
 To return to my poor fellows ; my country bumpkins and 
 starving mechanics, caught by the thirteenpence a day, and 
 after all the expensive drilling that is to make them proper 
 food for powder, herded together like beasts in a stall, till, 
 except under strong coercion, the beast nature is apt to get 
 uppermost, and no wonder. I must not think of rest till I 
 have left no stone unturned for the furtherance of this 
 scheme concerning my poor fellows. 
 
 And yet, the older one grows, the more keenly one feels 
 how little power an individual man has for good, whatever 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 109 
 
 he may have for evil. At least, this is the suggestion of a 
 morbid spirit, after aiming at every thing and doing almost 
 nothing, which seemed the brief catalogue of my week's 
 labor last night. 
 
 People are so slow to join in any reformatory schemes. 
 They will talk enough of the need for it, but they will not 
 act ; it is too much trouble. Most men are engrossed in 
 their own private concerns, business, amusements, or am- 
 bitions. It is incredible, the difficulty I had in hunting up 
 some who were the most active agents of good in the Crim- 
 ea ; and of these, how few could be convinced that there 
 was any thing needed to be done at home ! 
 
 At the Horse Guards, where my face must be as familiar 
 as that of the clock on the quadrangle to those gentleman- 
 ly young clerks, no attention was wanting but that of fur- 
 thering my business. However, the time was not altogether 
 wasted, as in various talks with former companions, whom 
 I there by chance waylaid, ideas were thrown out that may 
 be brought to bear in different quarters. And, as always 
 happens, from some of the very last quarters where any 
 thing was to be expected, the warmest interest and assist- 
 ance came. 
 
 Likewise and this forms the bright spot in a season not 
 particularly pleasant during my brief stay in London, the 
 iirst for many years, more than one familiar face has come 
 across me out of far back times, with a welcome and re- 
 membrance, the warmth and heartiness of which both sur- 
 prised and cheered me. 
 
 Among those I met on Thursday was an old colonel, 
 under whom I went out on my first voyage as assistant- 
 surgeon, twelve years ago. He stopped me in the Mall, 
 addressing me by name ; I had almost forgotten his, till 
 his cordial greeting brought it to my mind. Then we fell 
 to upon many mutual questions and reminiscences. 
 
 He said that he should have known me any where, though 
 I was altered a good deal in some respects. 
 
 "All for the bettter, though, my boy beg pardon, Doc- 
 tor but you were such a slip of a lad then. Thought we 
 should have had to throw you overboard before the voy- 
 age was half over, but you cheated us all, you see ; and, 
 'pon my life, hard as you must have been at it since then, 
 you look as if you had many years more of work in you 
 yet." 
 
 I told him I hoped so, which I do, for some things ; and 
 
110 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 then, in answer to his friendly questions, I entered into the 
 business which had brought me to London. 
 
 The good colonel was brimful of interest. He has a 
 warm heart, plenty of money, and thinks that money can 
 do every thing. I had the greatest difficulty in persuading 
 him that his check-book would not avail me with the corn- 
 man der-in-chief, or the honorable British officers, whom I 
 hoped to stir up to some little sympathy with the men 
 they commanded. 
 
 " But can't I help you at all ? can't my son neither ? 
 you remember Tommy, w T ho used to dance the sailor's 
 hornpipe on the deck. Such a dandy young fellow ; got 
 him. a place under government ; capital berth, easy hours 
 eleven till four, and regular work ; the whole Times to read 
 through daily. Ha ! ha ! you understand, eh ?" 
 
 I laughed too, for it was a pretty accurate description 
 of what I had this week seen in government offices ; in- 
 deed, in public offices of all kinds, where the labor is so 
 largely subdivided as to be in the responsible hands of very 
 few, and the work and the pay generally follow in an op- 
 posite ratio of progression. In the present instance, from 
 what I remember of him, no doubt such a situation would 
 exactly suit Master Tommy Turton. 
 
 His father and I strolled up and down the shiny half- 
 dried pavement till the street lamps were lighted, and the 
 club windows began to brighten and glow. 
 
 "You'll dine with me, of course not at the United 
 Service it's my day with Tom at his club, the New Uni- 
 versal capital club, too. No apologies we'll quarter 
 ourselves upon Tommy; he will be delighted. He's ex- 
 tremely proud of his club ; the young rogue costs me it's 
 impossible to say what Tom costs me per annum over and 
 above his pay. Yet he is a good lad, too as lads go 
 holds up his head among all the young fellows of the club, 
 and keeps the very best of company." 
 
 So went on the worthy old father with more, which I 
 forget. I had been on my feet all day, and was what 
 women call " tired," when they delight to wheel out arm- 
 chairs and push warmed slippers under wet feet at least 
 so I have seen done. 
 
 London club-life was new to me ; nor was I aware that 
 in this England, this "home" words which abroad we 
 learn to think synonymous and invest with an inexpressi- 
 ble charm so large a proportion of the middle classes as- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. Ill 
 
 sume by choice the sort of life which, on foreign sendee, 
 we put up with of necessity ; the easy, selfish life into which 
 a male community is prone to fall. The time-honored United 
 Service I was acquainted with, but the New Universal was 
 quite a dazzle of brilliant plate, a palace of upholstery. Tom 
 had not come in, but his father showed me over his domains 
 with considerable pride. 
 
 " Yes, this is how we live he at his club, and I at mine. 
 We have two tidy bedrooms, somewhere or other, hard 
 by, and that's all. A very jolly life, I assure you, if one 
 hasn't the gout or the blues ; we have kept it ever since 
 the poor mother died and Henrietta married. I sometimes 
 tell Tom he ought to settle ; but he says it would be slow, 
 and he can't aiford it. Halloo ! here's the boy." 
 
 Tom a "boy" six feet high, good-looking, and well- 
 dressed, after the exact pattern of a few dozen more, whom 
 we had met strolling arm-in-arm down Pall-Mall greeted 
 me with great civility, and said he remembered me per- 
 fectly, though my unfortunately quick ears detected him 
 asking his father, aside, " where on earth he had picked up 
 that old fogie?" 
 
 We dined well, and a good dinner is not a bad thing. 
 As a man gets old he may be allowed some cheer in fact, 
 he needs it. Whether, at twenty -four, he requires to dine 
 on five courses and half a dozen kinds of wine, is another 
 question. But Master Tom was my host, so silence ! Per- 
 haps I am becoming " an old fogie." 
 
 After dinner the colonel opened out warmly upon my 
 business, which his son evidently considered a bore. 
 
 " He really did not understand the matter ; it w^as not 
 in his department of public business ; the governor always 
 thought they must know every thing that was going on, 
 when, in truth, they knew nothing at all. He should be 
 most happy, but had not the least notion what he could do 
 for Doctor Urquhart." 
 
 Doctor Urquhart labored to make the young gentleman 
 understand that he really did not want him to do any thing, 
 to which Tom listened with that philosophical laissez-faire, 
 kept just within the bounds of politeness, that we of an 
 elder generation are prone to find fault with. At last an 
 idea struck him. 
 
 "Why, father, there's Charteris knows every thing 
 and every body would be just the man for you. There 
 he is." 
 
112 A LIFI: rou A LIFE. 
 
 And he pointed eagerly to a gentleman, who, six tables 
 off, lounged over his wine and newspaper. 
 
 That morning, as I stood talking in an ante-room, at the 
 Horse Guards, "this gentleman had caught my notice, lean- 
 ing over one of the clerks, and enlivening their dullness by 
 making a caricature. Now my phiz was quite at their 
 service, but it seemed scarcely fair for any but that king 
 of caricature, " Punch," to make free with the honest, 
 weather-beaten features of the noble old veteran who was 
 talking with me. 
 
 So I just intervened not involuntarily between the 
 caricaturist and my may I honor myself by calling him 
 my friend ? The good old w T arrior might not deny it. For 
 Mr. Charteris, he apparently did not wish to own my ac- 
 quaintance, nor had 1 any desire to resume his. We pass- 
 ed without recognition, as I would willingly have done 
 now, had not Colonel Turton seized upon the name. 
 
 "Tom's right. Charteris is the very man. Has enor- 
 mous influence, and capital connections, though between 
 you and me, Doctor, calls himself as poor as a church- 
 mouse." 
 
 " Five hundred a year," said Tom, grimly. " Wish I'd 
 as much ! Still, he's a nice fellow, and jolly good com- 
 pany. Here, w r aiter, take my compliments to Mr. Char- 
 teris, and will he do us the honor of joining us?" 
 
 Mr. Charteris came. 
 
 He appeared surprised at sight of me, but w r e both went 
 through the ceremony of introduction without mentioning 
 that it was not for the first time. And during the whole 
 conversation, which lasted until the dinner sounds ceased, 
 and the long, bright, splendid dining-room was all but de- 
 serted, w r e neither of us once adverted to the little parlor 
 where, for a brief five minutes, Mr. Charteris and myself 
 had met, some weeks before. 
 
 I had scarcely noticed him then ; now I did. He bore 
 out Tom's encomium and the colonel's. He is a highly in- 
 telligent, agreeable person, apparently educated to the ut- 
 most point of classical refinement. The sort of man who 
 would please most women, and who, being intimate in a 
 family of sisters, would with them involuntarily become 
 their standard of all that is admirable in our sex. 
 
 In Mr. Charteris was much really to be admired : a grace 
 bordering on what in one sex we call sweetness, in the other 
 effeminacy. Talent, too, not original or remarkable, but in- 
 
A LIFE FOPw A LIFE. 113 
 
 dicating an evenly-cultivated, elegant mind. Rather narrow, 
 it might be all about him was narrow, regular ; nothing in 
 the slightest degree eccentric, or diverging from the ordi- 
 nary, being apparently possible to him. A pleasure-loving 
 temperament, disinclined for active energy in any direction 
 this completed my impression of Mr. Francis Charteris. 
 
 Though he gave me no information ; indeed, he seemed 
 like my young friend Tom to make a point of knowing as 
 little, and taking as slight interest as possible in the state 
 machinery of which he formed a part he contributed very 
 considerably to the enjoyment of the evening. It was he 
 who suggested our adjournment to the theatre. 
 
 " Unless Doctor Urquhart objects. But I dare say we 
 can find a house where the performance trenches on none 
 of the ten commandments, about which, I am aware, he is 
 rather particular." 
 
 "Oh," cried Tom, " c Thou shalt not steal' from the 
 French; and 'Thou shalt do no murder' on the queen's 
 English, are the only commandments indispensable on the 
 stage. Come away, father." 
 
 " You're a sad dog," said the father, shaking his fist at 
 him, with a delighted grin, which reminded me of hornpipe- 
 days. 
 
 But the sad dog knew where to find the best bones to 
 pick, and by no means dry, either. Now, though I am not 
 a book-man, I love my Shakspeare well enough not to like 
 him acted his grand old flesh and blood digged up and 
 served out to this modern taste as a painted, powdered, 
 dressed-up skeleton. But this night I saw him "in his 
 habit as he lived," presented " in very form and fashion of 
 the time." There was a good deal of show, certainly, it 
 being a pageant play, but you felt show was natural ; that 
 just in such a way the bells must have rung, and the peo- 
 ple shouted, for the living Bolingbroke. The acting, too, 
 was natural ; and to me, a plain man, accustomed to hold 
 women sacred, and to believe that a woman's arms should 
 be kept solely for the man who loves her, I own it was a 
 satisfaction, when the stage queen clung to the stage King 
 Richard, in that pitiful parting, where, 
 
 "Bad men, ye violate 
 
 A twofold marriage, 'twixt my crown and me, 
 And then between me and my married wife," 
 
 it was a satisfaction, I say, to know that it was her own 
 husband the actress was kissing. 
 
114 A LIFE FOR A LI1 E. 
 
 This play, which Tom and the colonel voted " slow," 
 gave me two hours of the keenest, most utterly oblivious 
 enjoyment ; a desideratum not easily attainable. 
 
 Mr. Charteris considered it fine in its way ; but, after all, 
 there was nothing like the Opera, 
 
 "Oh, Charteris is opera-mad," said Tom. "Every sub- 
 scription-night, there he is, wedged in the crowd at the 
 horrid little passage leading out of the Hay market among 
 a knot of his cronies, who don't mind making martyrs of 
 themselves for a bit of tootle-te-tooing, a kick-up, and a 
 twirl. Well, I'm not fond of music." 
 
 " I am," said Mr. Charteris, dryly. 
 
 "And of looking at pretty women, too, eh, my dear 
 fellow?" 
 
 Certainly." 
 
 And here he diverged to a passing criticism on the pret- 
 ty women in the boxes round us : who were not few. I 
 observed them, also for I notice women's faces more than 
 I w*s wont but none were satisfactory, even to the eye. 
 They all seemed over-conscious of themselves and their 
 looks, e\cept one small creature, in curls, and a red mantle, 
 about the age of the poor wounded Russ, who might have 
 been my own little adopted girl, by this time, if she had 
 not died. 
 
 I wish, sometimes, she had not died. My life would have 
 been less lonely, could I have adopted that child. 
 
 There may be more beauty I have heard there is in 
 the upper class of Englishwomen than in any race of 
 women on the globe. But a step lower in rank, less 
 smoothly cosmopolitan, more provincially and honestly 
 Saxon; reserved, yet frank; simple, yet gay; would be 
 the Englishwoman of one's heart. The man who dare 
 open his eyes, fearlessly, to the beauties of such a one 
 seek her in her virtuous middle-class home, ask her of a 
 proud father and mother, and then win her, and take her 
 joyfully, to sit by his happy hearth, a wife, matron, 
 mother 
 
 I forget how that sentence was to have ended ; however, 
 it is of little consequence. It was caused partly by reflec- 
 tion on this club-life, and another darker side of it, of which 
 I caught some glimpse when I was in London. 
 
 We finished the evening at the theatre pleasantly. In 
 the sort of atmosphere we were in, harmless enough, but 
 glaring, unquiet, and unhome-like, I was scarcely surprised 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 115 
 
 that Mr. Charteris did not once name the friends at whose 
 house I first met him; indeed, he seemed to avoid the 
 slightest approach to the subject. Only once, as we were 
 pushing together, side by side, into the cool night air, he 
 asked me, in a low, hurried tone, if I had been to Rock- 
 mount lately ? He had heard I was present at the mar- 
 riage. 
 
 I believe I made some remark about his absence being 
 much regretted that day. 
 
 " Yes yes. Shall you be there soon ?" The question 
 was put with an anxiety which my answer in the negative 
 evidently relieved. 
 
 " Oh, then, I need send no message. I thought you 
 were very intimate. A charming family a very charming 
 family." 
 
 His eyes were wandering to some ladies of fashion who 
 had recognized him whom he put into their carriage witjaf 
 that polite assiduity which seems an instinct with him, 
 in the crowd we lost sight of Mr. Charteris. 
 
 Twice afterward I saw him; once driving in the park, 
 with two ladies in a coroneted equipage ; and agahl, walk- 
 ing in the dusk of the afternoon down Kensington Road. 
 This time he started, gave me the slightest recognition 
 possible, and walked on faster than ever. He need not 
 have feared : I had no wish or intention of resuming our 
 acquaintance. The more I hear of him, the more increases 
 my surprise nay, even not unmixed with anxiety at his 
 
 position in the family at Rockmount. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Here I was suddenly called out to a bad accident case^ 
 some miles across the country ; whence I have only re- 
 turned in time for bed. 
 
 It was impossible to do any thing for the poor fellow ; 
 one of Grant on' s laborers, who knew me by sight. I 
 could only wait till all was over, and the widow a little 
 composed. 
 
 At her urgent request, I sent a note to Rockmount, hard 
 by, begging Miss Johnston would let her know if there 
 had been heard any thing of Lydia a daughter, once in 
 service with the Johnstons, afterward in London now 
 as the poor old mother mournfully expressed it " gone 
 wrong." 
 
 To my surprise, Miss Johnston answered the message in 
 person, and a most painful conversation ensued. She is a 
 
11G A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 good woman no doubt of that ; but she is, as Treherne 
 once said of her father, " as sharp as a needle and as hard 
 as a rock." 
 
 It being already dark, of course I saw her safe back to 
 her own gate. She informed me that the family were all 
 quite well, which was the sole conversation that passed 
 between us, except concerning the poor dead laborer, 
 James Cartwright, and his family, of whom, save Lydia, 
 she spoke compassionately, saying they had gone through 
 much trouble. 
 
 Walking along by her side, and trying to find a cause 
 for the exceeding bitterness and harshness she had evi- 
 denced, it struck me that this lady was herself not ignorant 
 of trouble. 
 
 I left her at the gate under the bush of ivy. Through 
 the bars I could see, right across the wet garden, the light 
 streaming from the hall door. 
 
 Now to bed, and to sleep, if this head will allow ; it 
 has been rather unmanageable lately, necessitating careful 
 watching, as will be the case till there is nothing here but 
 an empty skull. 
 
 If only I could bring this barrack matter to a satisfac- 
 tory start, from which good results might reasonably be 
 expected, I would at once go abroad. Any where it is , 
 all the same. A rumor is afloat that we may soon get the 
 route for the East, or China ; which I could be well content 
 with, as my next move. 
 
 Far away far away; with thousands of miles of tossing 
 sea between me and this old England ; far away out of all 
 sight or remembrance. So best. 
 
 Next time I call on Widow Cartwright shall be after 
 dark, when, without the slightest chance of meeting any 
 one, it will be easy to take a few steps farther up the vil- 
 lage. There is a cranny in one place in the wall, whence 
 I know one can get a very good view of the parlor win- 
 dow, where they never close the shutters till quite bed- 
 time. 
 
 And, before our regiment leaves, it will be right I should 
 call to omit this would hardly be civil, after all the hos- 
 pitality I have received. So I will call some wet day, 
 when they are not likely to be out when, probably, the 
 younger sister will be sitting at her books up stairs in the 
 attic, which she told me she makes her study, and gets 
 out of the way of visitors. Perhaps she will not take the 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 117 
 
 trouble to come down. Not even for a shake of the hand 
 and a good-by good-by forever. 
 
 Oh, mother! unknown mother who must have surely 
 loved my father ; well enough, too, to leave all friends, and 
 follow him, a poor lieutenant of a marching regiment, up 
 and down the world if I had but died when you brought 
 me into this same troublesome world, how much it would 
 have saved! 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 JUST finished my long letter to Lisabel, and lingered 
 over the direction, " Mrs. Treherne, Treherne Court." 
 
 How strange to think of our Lisa as mistress there. 
 Which she is in fact, for Lady Treherne, a mild, elderly 
 lady, is wholly engrossed in tending Sir William, who is 
 very infirm. The old people's rule seems merely nominal 
 it is Lisabel and Augustus who reign. Their domain is 
 a perfect palace and what a queen Miss Lis must look 
 therein! How well she will maintain her position, and 
 enjoy it too. In her case, are no poetical sufferings from 
 haughty parents, delighted to crush a poor daughter-in- 
 law 
 
 " With- the burden of an honor 
 Unto which she was not born." 
 
 Already they both like her and are proud of her, which io 
 not surprising. I thought I had never seen a more beau- 
 tiful creature than my sister Lisa when, on her way to 
 Treherne Court, she came home for a day. 
 
 Home ! I forget, it is not her home now. How strange 
 this must have been to her, if she thought about it. Pos- 
 sibly she did not, being never given to sentiment. And, 
 though with us she was not the least altered, it was amus- 
 ing to see how, to every body else, she appeared quite the 
 married lady ; even with Mrs. Granton, who, happening to 
 call that day, was delighted to see her, and seems not to 
 cherish the smallest resentment in the matter of " my Col- 
 in." Very generous for it is not the good old lady's first 
 disappointment she has been going a wooing for her son 
 ever since he was one-and-twenty, and has not found a 
 daughter-in-law yet. 
 
118 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Colin, too, conducted himself with the utmost sangfroid $ 
 and when Augustus, who is beaming with benevolence to 
 the whole human race, invited him to escort his mother, 
 Penelope, and me, on our first visit to Treherne Court, he 
 accepted the invitation as if it were the pleasantest in the 
 world. Truly, if women's hearts are as impressionable as 
 wax, men's are as tough as gutta-percha. Talk of break- 
 ing them faugh ! 
 
 I hope it indicates no barbarity on my part if I confess 
 that it would have raised my opinion of him, and his sex 
 in general, to have seen Colin for a month or so, at least, 
 wholesomely miserable. 
 
 Lisabel behaved uncommonly well with regard to him, 
 and, indeed, in every way. She was as bright as a May 
 morning, and full of the good qualities of her Augustus, 
 whom she really likes very much alter her fashion. She 
 will doubtless be among the many wives who become ex- 
 tremely attached to their husbands after marriage. To my 
 benighted mind, it has always seemed advisable to have a 
 slight preference before that ceremony. 
 
 She told me, with a shudder that was altogether natural 
 and undisguised, how glad she was that they had been 
 married at once, and that Augustus had sold out, for there 
 is a chance of the regiment's being soon ordered on for- 
 eign service. I had not heard of this before. It was some 
 surprise. 
 
 Lisabel was very affectionate to me the whole day, and, 
 in going away, said she hoped I did not miss her much, 
 and that I should get a good husband of my own soon ; I 
 did not know what a comfort it was. 
 
 " Somebody to belong to you to care for you to pet 
 you your own personal property, in short who can't get 
 rid of you, even when you're old and ugly. Yes, I'm glad 
 I married poor dear Augustus. And, child, I hope to see 
 you married also. A good little thing like you woulc) 
 make a capital wife to somebody. Why, simpleton, I de- 
 clare she's crying !" 
 
 It must have been the over-excitement of this day ; but 
 I felt as if, had I not cried, my temples and throat would 
 have burst with a choking pain, that lasted long after Lisa- 
 bel was gone. 
 
 They did not altogether stay more than four hours. 
 Augustus talked of riding over to the camp, to see his 
 friend, Doctor Urquhart, whom he has heard nothing of 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 119 
 
 since the wedding-day ; but Lisabel persuaded him against 
 it. Men's friendship with one another is worth little, 
 apparently. 
 
 Penelope here said she could answer for Doctor TJrqu- 
 hart's being in the land of the living, as she had met him 
 a week before at Cartwright's cottage, the day the poor 
 old man was killed. Why did she not tell me of this ? 
 But then she has taken such a prejudice against him, and 
 exults so over what she calls his " rude behavior to the 
 family." 
 
 It always seemed to me very foolish to be forever de- 
 fending those whose character is itself a sufficient defense. 
 If a false word is spoken of a friend, one must of course 
 deny it, disprove it. But to be incessantly battling with 
 personal prejudice or animosity, I would scorn it ! Ay, as 
 utterly as I would scorn defending myself under similar 
 attacks. I think, in every lesser affection that is worth the 
 name, the same truth holds good which I remember being 
 struck with in a play, the only play I ever saw acted. The 
 heroine is told by her sister, 
 
 " Kathcrine, 
 You love this man defend him." 
 
 She answers : 
 
 u 5Tou have said, 
 
 I love him. That's my defense. I'll not 
 Assert, in words, the truth on which I've cast 
 The stake of life. I love him, and am silent." 
 
 At least, I think the passage ran thus, for I cut it out of 
 a newspaper afterward, and long remembered it. What 
 an age it seems since the night of that play, to which Fran- 
 cis took us. And what a strange, dim dream has become 
 ; 'ie impression it left; something like that I always have 
 
 v reading of Thekla and Max of love so true and strong 
 so perfect in its holy strength, that neither parting, grief, 
 nor death have any power over it. Love which makes 
 you feel that once to have possessed, must be bliss unut- 
 terable, unalienable better than all happiness or prosperity 
 that this world could give better than any thing, in the 
 world or out of it, except the love of God. 
 
 I sometimes think of this Katherine in this play, when 
 she refuses to let her lover barter his conscience for his life, 
 but when the test comes, says to him herself, "No die!" 
 Also of that scene in Wallenstein, when Thekla bids her 
 lover be faithful to his honor and his country, not to her 
 
120 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 when, just for one minute, he holds her tight, tight in his 
 arms Max, I mean. Death afterward could not have 
 been so very hard. 
 
 I am beginning to give up strange, perhaps, that it 
 phould have lasted so long my belief in the possible hap- 
 piness of life. Apparently, people were never meant to be . 
 happy. Small flashes of pleasantness come and go ; or it 
 may be that in some few lives are ecstatic moments, such 
 as this I have been thinking of, and then it is all over. 
 But many people go plodding along to old age, in a dull, 
 straight road, with little sorrow and no joy. Is my life to 
 be such as this ? Probably. Then the question arises, 
 what am I to do with it ? 
 
 It sometimes crosses my mind what Doctor Urquhart 
 said, about his life being "owed." All our lives are, in 
 one sense : to ourselves, to our fellow-creatures, or to God ; 
 or, is there some point of union which includes all three ? 
 If I only could find it out ! 
 
 Perhaps, according to Colin Granton's lately learned doc- 
 trine I know whence learned it is the having something 
 to do. Something to be, your fine preachers of self-culture 
 would suggest ; but self-culture is often no better than 
 idealized egotism : people sick of themselves want some, 
 thing to do. 
 
 Yesterday, driving with papa along the edges of the 
 camp, where we never go now, I caught sight of the slope 
 where the hospital is, and could even distinguish the poor 
 fellows sitting in the sun, or lounging about in their blue 
 hospital clothes. It made me think of Smyrna and Scutari. 
 
 No ; while there is so much misery and sin in the world, 
 a man has no right to lull himself to sleep in a paradise of 
 self-improvement and self-enjoyment; in which there is but 
 one supreme Adam, one perfect specimen of humanity, 
 namely himself. He ought to go out and work fight, if 
 it must be, wherever duty calls him. Kay, even a woman 
 has hardly any right, in these days, to sit still and dream. 
 The life of action is nobler than the life of thought. 
 
 So I keep reasoning with myself. If I could only find a 
 good and adequate reason for some things which perplex 
 me sorely, about myself and other people, it would be a 
 great comfort. 
 
 To-day, among a heap of notes which papa gave me to 
 make candle-lighters of, I found this note, which I kept, 
 the handwriting being peculiar and I have a few crotchets 
 about handwriting. 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 121 
 
 "DEAR SIR, Press of business, and other unforeseen 
 circumstances, with which I am fettered, make it impossi- 
 ble for me to accept any invitations at present. I hope you 
 will believe that I can never forget the hospitalities of Rock- 
 mount, and that I am ever most gratefully 
 " Your faithful servant, 
 
 " MAX URQUHART." 
 
 Can he, then, mean our acquaintance to cease ? Should 
 we be a hinderance in his busy, useful life such a frivol- 
 ous family as ours ? It may be so. Yet I fear papa will 
 be hurt. 
 
 This afternoon, though it was Sunday, I could not stay 
 in the house or garden, but went out, far upon the moor, 
 and walked till I was weary. Then I sat me down upon a 
 heather-bush, all in a heap, my arms clasped round my 
 knees, trying to think out this hard question what is to 
 become of me ; what am I to do with my life ? It lies before 
 me, apparently as bleak, barren, and monotonous as these 
 miles of moorland stretching on and on in dull undula- 
 tions, or .dead flats, till a range of low hills ends all ! Yet, 
 sometimes, this wild region has looked quite different. I 
 remember describing it once how beautiful it was, how 
 breezy and open, with the ever-changing tints of the moor, 
 the ever-shifting and yet always steadfast arch of the sky. 
 To-day I found it all colorless, blank, and cold ; its monot- 
 ony almost frightened me. I could do nothing but crouch 
 on my heather-bush and cry. 
 
 Tears do one good occasionally. When I dried mine, 
 the hot weight on the top of my head seemed lighter. If 
 there had been any body to lay a cool hand there, and say, 
 " Poor child, never mind !" it might have gone away. But 
 there was no one : Lisa was the only one who ever " pet- 
 ted" me. 
 
 I thought I would go home and write a long letter to 
 Lisa. 
 
 Just as I was rising from my heather-bush my favorite 
 haunt, being as round as a mushroom, as soft as a velvet 
 cushion, and hidden by two great furze-bushes from the 
 road I heard footsteps approaching. Having no mind to 
 be discovered in that gipsy plight, I crouched down again. 
 
 People's footsteps are so different, it is often easy to rec- 
 ognize them. This step, I think I should have known any 
 where quick, regular, determined ; rather hasty, as if no 
 
 F 
 
122 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 time could be lost ; as if it would never " let the grass 
 grow under it," as the proverb says. Crouching lower yet, 
 I listened ; I heard him stop, and speak to an old woman, 
 who had been coming up the road toward the village. No 
 words were distinguishable, but the voice, I could not have 
 mistaken it it is not like our English voices. 
 
 How strange it is, listening to footsteps or voices, when 
 the owners do not know you are near them. Something 
 like being a ghost, and able to watch them perhaps watch 
 over them without feeling it unnatural or wrong. 
 
 He stood talking I ought to explain, Doctor Urquhart 
 stood talking for several minutes. The other voice, by 
 its querulousness, I guessed to be poor Mrs. Cartwright's ; 
 but it softened by degrees, and then I heard distinctly her 
 earnest " thank'ee, Doctor God bless'ee, sir," as he walk- 
 ed away, and vanished over the slope of the hill. She look- 
 ed after him a minute, and then, turning, toddled on her 
 way. 
 
 When I overtook her, which was not for some time, she 
 told me the whole story of her troubles, and how good 
 Doctor Urquhart has been. Also, the whole story about 
 her poor daughter at least as much as is known about it. 
 Mrs. Cartwright thinks she is still somewhere in London, 
 and Doctor Urquhart has promised to find her out, if he 
 can. I don't understand much about these sort of dread- 
 ful things Penelope never thought it right to tell us : but 
 I can see that what Doctor Urquhart has said has given 
 great comfort to the mother of unfortunate Lydia. 
 
 " Miss," said the old woman, with the tears running 
 down, " the doctor's been an angel of goodness to me, and 
 there's many a one in these parts as can say the same 
 though he be only a stranger, here to-day and gone to-mor- 
 row, as one may say. Eh, dear, it'll be an ill day for many 
 a poor body when he goes." 
 
 I am glad I saw him glad I heard all this. Somehow, 
 hearing of things like this makes one feel quieter. 
 
 It does not much matter after all it does not indeed! 
 I never wanted any body to think about me, to care for 
 me, half as much as somebody to look up to to be satis- 
 fied in to honor and reverence. I can do that still ! 
 
 Like a fool, I have been crying again, till I ought, prop- 
 erly, to tear this leaf out, and begin afresh. No, I will not. 
 Nobody will ever see it, and it does no harm to any human 
 being. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 123 
 
 " God bless him !" the old woman said. I might say 
 something of the like sort too ; for he did me a deal of 
 good ; he was very kind to me. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 PAPA and Penelope are out to dinner. I myself was out 
 yesterday, and did not return till they were gone ; so I sit 
 up for them; and, meantime, shall amuse myself with writ- 
 ing here. 
 
 "The last date was Sunday, and now it is only Tuesday, 
 but much seems to have happened between. And yet noth- 
 ing really has happened but two quiet days at the Cedars, 
 and one gay evening or people would call it gay. 
 
 It has been the talk of the neighborhood for weeks, this 
 amateur concert at the camp. We got our invitation, of 
 course ; the such and such regiments (I forget which ; at 
 least, I forget one) presenting their compliments to the 
 Reverend William Henry and the Misses Johnston, and re- 
 questing their company. But papa shook his head, and 
 Penelope was indifferent. Then I gave up all thoughts of 
 going, if I ever had any. 
 
 The surprise was almost pleasant 'when Mrs. Granton, 
 coming in, declared she would take me herself, as it was 
 quite necessary I should have a little gayety to keep me 
 from moping after Lisabel. Papa consented, and I ^vent. 
 
 Driving along over the moors was pleasant, too, even 
 though it snowed a little. I found myself laughing back 
 at Colin, who sat on the box, occasionally turning to shake 
 the white flakes off him, like a great Polar bear. His kind- 
 ly, hearty face was quite refreshing to behold. 
 
 I have a habit of growing attached to places, independ- 
 ently of the persons connected with them. Thus., I can not 
 imagine any time when it would not be an enjoyment to 
 drive up to the hall door of the Cedars, sweeping round in 
 the wide curve that Colin is so proud of making his car- 
 riage wheels describe ; to look back up the familiar hill- 
 side, where the winter sun is shining on that slope of trees ; 
 then run into the house, through the billiard-room, and out 
 again by the dining-room windows, on to the broad terrace. 
 There, tf there is any sunshine, you will be sure to get it ; 
 
124 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 any wind, it will blow in your face ; any bit of color or 
 landscape beauty, you will catch it on this green lawn ; the 
 grand old cedars, the distant fir-woods, lying in a still mass 
 of dark-blue shadow, or standing up, one by one, cut out 
 sharply against the brilliant w r est. Whether it is any me- 
 teorological peculiarity I know not ; but it seems to me as 
 if, whatever the day has been, there is always a fair sunset 
 at the Cedars. 
 
 I love the place. If I went away for years if I never 
 saw it again I should always love it and remember it ; 
 Mrs. Granton too, for she seems an integral part of the pic- 
 ture. Her small, elderly figure trotting in and out of the 
 rooms ; her clear loud voice she is a little deaf along the 
 up-stair passages ; her perpetual activity I think she is 
 never quiet but when she is asleep ; above all, her unvary- 
 ing goodness and cheerfulness. Truly the Cedars would 
 not be the Cedars without my dear old lady ! 
 
 I don't think she ever knew how fond I was of her, even 
 as a little girl. Nobody could help it ; never any body had 
 to do with Mrs. Granton without becoming fond of her. 
 She is almost the only person living of whom I never heard 
 any one speak an unkind word, because she herself never 
 speaks an ill word of any human being. Every one she 
 knows is "the kindest creature," "the nicest creature," 
 " the cleverest creature" I do believe if you presented to 
 her Diabolus himself, she would only call him "poor crea- 
 ture ;" would suggest that his temper must have been ag- 
 gravated by the unpleasant place he had to live in, and 
 set about some plan for improving his complexion, and con- 
 cealing his horns and tail. 
 
 At dinner, I took my favorite seat, where, seen through 
 this greatest of the three windows, a cedar, with its " broad, 
 green layers of shade," is intersected by a beech, still faint- 
 ly yellow, as I have seen it, autumn after autumn, from the 
 same spot. It seemed just like old times. I felt happy, as 
 if something pleasant were about to happen, and said as 
 much. 
 
 Mrs. Granton looked delighted. 
 
 " I am sure, my dear, I hope so ; and I trust we shall see 
 you here very often indeed. Only think, you have never 
 been since the night of the bah 1 . What a deal has hap- 
 pened between now and then." 
 
 I had already been thinking the same. 
 
 It must be curious to any one who, like our Lisa, had 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 125 
 
 married a stranger and not an old acquaintance, to analyze 
 afterward the first impressions of a first meeting, most like- 
 ly brought about by the merest chance. Curious to try 
 and recall the face you then viewed critically, carelessly, or 
 with the most absolute indifference how it gradually al- 
 tered and altered, till only by a special effort can memory 
 reproduce the pristine image, and trace the process by 
 which it has become what it is now a face by itself, its 
 peculiarities pleasant, its plainnesses sacred, and its beauties 
 beautiful above all faces in the world. 
 
 In the course of the afternoon Colin was turned out, that 
 is corporeally, for his mother talked about him the whole 
 time of his absence, a natural weakness, rather honorable 
 than pardonable. She has been very long a widow, and 
 never had any child but Colin. 
 
 During our gossip, she asked me if we had seen Doctor 
 Urquhart lately, and I said no. 
 
 " Ah ! that is just like him. Such an odd creature. He 
 will keep away for days and weeks, and then turn up as 
 unexpectedly as he did here yesterday. By-the-by, he in- 
 quired after you, if you were better. Colin had told him 
 you were ill." 
 
 I testified my extreme surprise and denial of this. 
 
 " Oh, but you looked ill. You were just like a ghost the 
 day Mrs. Treherne was at Rockmount my son noticed it. 
 Nay, you need not flush up so angrily ; it was only my 
 Colin's anxiety about you he was always fond of his old 
 play-fellow." 
 
 I smiled, and said his old play-fellow was very much 
 obliged to him. 
 
 So this business is not so engrossing but that Doctor 
 Urquhart can find time to pay visits somewhere. And he 
 had been inquiring for me. Still he might have made the 
 inquiry at our own door. Ought people, even if they do 
 lead a busy life, to forget ordinary courtesy accepting hos- 
 pitality, and neglecting it cultivating acquaintance, and 
 then dropping it ? I think not ; all the respect in the world 
 can not make one put aside one's common-sense judgment 
 of another's actions. Perhaps the very respect makes one 
 more tenacious that no single action should be even ques- 
 tionable. I did think then, and even to-day I have thought 
 sometimes, that Doctor Urquhart lias been somewhat in 
 the wrong toward us at Rockmount. But as to acknowl- 
 edging it to any one of them at home never. 
 
126 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Mrs. Grant on discussed him a little, and spoke gratefully 
 of Colin's obligations to him, and what a loss it would be 
 for Colin when the regiment left the camp. 
 
 " How fortunate that your brother-in-law sold out when 
 he did. He cmild not well have done so now, when there 
 is a report of their being ordered on active service shortly. 
 Colin says we are likely to have war again, but I do hope 
 not." 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 And just then Colin came to fetch me to the green-houses, 
 to choose a camellia for my hair. 
 
 Likely to have war again ! When Mrs. Granton left me 
 to dress, I sat over my bedroom fire, thinking I hardly 
 know what. All sorts of visions went flitting through my 
 mind of scenes I have heard talked about, in hospital, in 
 battle, on the battle-field afterward. Especially one, which 
 Augustus has often described, when he woke up, stiff and 
 cold, on the moonlight plain, from under his dead horse, 
 and saw Doctor Urquhart standing over him. 
 
 Colin whistling through the corridor, Mrs. Grant on' s 
 lively " Are you ready, my dear ?" made me conscious that 
 this would not do. 
 
 I stood up, and dressed myself in the silver-gray silk I 
 wore at the ball ; tried to stick the red camellia in my hair, 
 but the buds all broke off under my fingers, and I had to 
 go down without it. It was all the same. I did not much 
 care. However, Colin insisted on going with ajantern to 
 hunt for another flower, and his mother took a world of 
 pains to fasten it in, and make me look " pretty " 
 
 They were so kind it was wicked not to try and enjoy 
 one's self. 
 
 Driving along in the sharp, clear twilight, till we caught 
 sight of the long lines of lamps which made the camp so 
 picturesque at nighttime, I found that compelling one's 
 self to be gay sometimes makes one so. 
 
 We committed all sorts of blunders in the dark came 
 across a sentry, who challenged us, and, nobody thinking 
 of giving the password, had actualjy leveled his gun, and 
 was proceeding in the gravest manner to do his duty and 
 fire upon us, when our coachman shrieked, and Colin 
 jumped out, which he had to do a dozen times, tramping 
 the snow with his thin boots, to his mother's great uneasi- 
 ness, and laughing all the time before we discovered the 
 goal of our hopes the concert-room. Almost any one else 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 127 
 
 would have grown cross, but this good mother and son 
 have the gayest spirits and the best tempers imaginable. 
 The present the present is, after all, the only thing cer- 
 tain. I began to feel as cheery as they. 
 
 Giving up our ticket to the most gentlemanly of ser- 
 geants, we entered the concert-room. Such a blaze of 
 scarlet, such a stirring of pretty heads between, such a 
 murmur of merry chat. For the first minute, coming out 
 of the dark, it dazzled me. I grew sick and could see 
 nothing ; but when we were quietly seated I looked round. 
 
 There were many of our neighbors and acquaintances 
 whom I knew by sight or to bow to and that was all. I 
 could see every corner of the room still that was all. 
 
 The audience seemed in a state of exuberant enjoyment, 
 especially if they had a bit of scarlet beside them, which 
 nearly every one had, except ourselves. 
 
 " You'll be quite ashamed of poor Colin, in his plain black, 
 Dora, my dear ?" 
 
 Not very likely, as I told her, with my heart warmly 
 grateful to Colin, who had been so attentive, thoughtful, 
 and kind. 
 
 Altogether a gay and pretty scene. Grave persons might 
 possibly eschew it or condemn it ; but no ! a large liberal 
 spirit judges all things liberally, and would never see evil 
 in any thing but sin. 
 
 I sat enjoying all I could. But more than once ghastly 
 imaginations intruded, picturing these young officers other- 
 where than here, with their merry mustached faces pressed 
 upon the reddened grass, their goodly limbs lopped and 
 mangled ; or, worse, themselves, their kindly, lightsome 
 selves, changed into what soldiers are, must be, in battle 
 fiends rather than men, bound to execute that slaughter 
 which is the absolute necessity of war. To be the slain or 
 the slayer which is most horrible ? To think of a familiar 
 hand brother's or husband's dropping down powerless, 
 nothing but clay; or of clasping, kissing it, returned with 
 red blood upon it the blood of some one else's husband or 
 brother ! 
 
 To have gone on pondering thus would have been dan- 
 gerous. Happily, I stopped myself before all self-control 
 was gone. 
 
 The first singer was a slim youth, who, facing the foot- 
 lights with an air of fierce determination, and probably 
 more inward cowardice than he would have felt toward a 
 
128 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 regiment of Russians, gave us, in a rather uncertain tenor, 
 his resolution to "love no more," which was vehemently 
 applauded and vanished. Next came " The Chough and 
 Crow," executed very independently, none of the vocalists 
 being agreed as to their " opening day." Afterward, the 
 first soprano, a professional, informed us with shrill ex- 
 pression, that " Oh, yes, she must have something to 
 love ;" which I am sure I hope she had, poor body ! There 
 was a duet, of some sort, and then the primo tenor e came 
 on for an Italian song. 
 
 Poor youth ! a fourth-rate opera-singer might have done 
 it better ; but 'tis mean to criticise ; he did his best ; and, 
 when, after a grand roulade, he popped down, with all his 
 heart and lungs, upon the last note, there arose a cordial 
 English cheer, to which he responded with an awkward 
 duck of the head, and a delighted smile ; very unprofes- 
 sional, but altogether pleasant and natural. 
 
 The evening was now half over. Mrs. Gran ton thought 
 I was looking tired, and Colin wrapped my feet up in his 
 fur coat, for it was very cold. They were afraid I was not 
 enjoying myself, so I bent my whole appreciative faculties 
 to the comical-faced young officer who skipped forward, 
 hugging his violin, which he played with such total self- 
 oblrvious enjoyment that he was the least nervous and the 
 most successful of all the amateurs ; the timid young officer 
 witli the splendid bass voice, who was always losing his 
 place and putting his companions out ; and the solemn 
 young officer who marched up to the piano-forte as though 
 it were a redan, and pounded away at a heavy sonata as if 
 feeling that England expected him to do his duty ; which 
 he did, and was deliberately retreating, when, in that free- 
 and-easy way with which audience and stage intermingled, 
 some one called him : 
 
 " Ansdell, you're wanted !" 
 
 " Who wants me ?" 
 
 " Urquhart." At least I was almost sure that was the 
 name. 
 
 There was a good deal more of singing and playing; 
 then " God save the Queen," with a full chorus and mili- 
 tary band. That grand old tune is always exciting ; it was 
 so, especially, here to-night. 
 
 Likely to have war. If so, a year hence, where might 
 be all these gay young fellows, whispering and flirting with 
 pretty girls, walked about the room by proud mothers fin--! 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 129 
 
 sisters ? I never thought of it, never understood it, till 
 now I who used to ridicule and despise soldiers ! These 
 mothers these sisters ! they might not have felt it for 
 themselves, but my heart felt bursting. I could hardly stand. 
 
 We were some time in getting out to the door through 
 the long line of epaulets and swords, the owners of which 
 I beg their pardon, but can not help saying it were not 
 too civil ; until a voice behind cried : 
 
 " Do make way there how do you expect those ladies 
 to push past you ?" 
 
 And a courteous helping hand was held out to Mrs. 
 Granton, as any gentleman ought to any lady especially 
 an old lady. 
 
 " Doctor, is that you ? What a scramble this is ! Now, 
 will you assist my young friend here ?" 
 
 Then and not till then, I am positive he recognized 
 me. 
 
 Something has happened to him something has altered 
 him very much. I felt certain of that on the very first 
 glimpse I caught of his face. It shocked me so that I never 
 said u how d'ye do?" I never even put out my hand. 
 Oh, that I had ! 
 
 He scarcely spoke, and we lost him in the crowd almost 
 immediately. 
 
 There was a great confusion of carriages. Colin ran 
 hither and thither, but could not find ours. Some minutes 
 after, we were still out in the bitter night ; Mrs. Granton 
 talking to somebody, I standing by myself. I felt very 
 desolate and cold. 
 
 " How long have you had that cough ?" 
 
 I knew who it was, and turned round. We shook 
 hands. 
 
 " You had no business out here on such a night. Why 
 did you come ?" 
 
 Somehow, the sharpness did not offend me, though it 
 was rare in Doctor Urquhart, who is usually extremely 
 gentle in his way of speech. 
 
 I told him my cough was nothing it was indeed as 
 much nervousness as cold, though, of course, I did not 
 confess that and then another fit came on, leaving me all 
 shaking and trembling. 
 
 " You ought not to have come : is there nobody to take 
 better care of you, child ? No don't speak. You must 
 submit, if you please." 
 
 F 2 
 
130 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 He took off a plaid he had about him, and wrapped me 
 up in it, close and warm. I resisted a little, and then 
 yielded. 
 
 " You must !" 
 
 What could one do but yield ? Protesting again, I was 
 bidden to " hold my tongue." 
 
 " Never mind me ! I am used to all weathers ; I'm not a 
 little delicate creature like you." 
 
 I said, laughing, I was a great deal stronger than he had 
 any notion of but as he had begun our acquaintance by 
 taking professional care of me, he might just as well con- 
 tinue it ; and it certainly w T as a little colder here than it 
 was that night at the Cedars. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Here Colin came up, to say " we had better walk on to 
 meet the carriage, rather than wait for it." He and Doc- 
 tor Urquhart exchanged a few words, then he took his 
 mother on one arm good Colin, he never neglects his old 
 mother and. offered me the other. 
 
 " Let me take care of Miss Theodora," said Doctor Urqu- 
 hart, rather decidedly. " Will you come ?" 
 
 I am sure he meant me to come. I hope it was not 
 rude to Colin, but I could not help coming I could not 
 help taking his arm. It was such a long time since we had 
 met. 
 
 But I held ray tongue, as I had been bidden ; indeed, 
 nothing came into my head to say. Doctor Urquhart 
 made only one observation, and that not particularly strik- 
 ing: 
 
 " What sort of shoes have you got on ?" 
 
 "Thick ones." 
 
 " That is right. You ought not to trifle with your 
 health." 
 
 Why should one be afraid of speaking the truth right 
 out, when a word would often save so much of misunder- 
 standing, doubt, and pain? Why should one shrink from 
 being the first to say that word when there is no wrong in 
 it, when in all one's heart there is not a feeling that one 
 need be ashamed of either before any human being, or, I 
 hope, before God ? 
 
 I determined to speak out. 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart, why have you never been to see us 
 since the wedding? It has grieved papa." 
 
 My candor must have surprised him; I felt him start. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 131 
 
 When he replied, it was in that peculiar nervous tone I 
 know so well, which always seems to take away my nerv- 
 ousness, and makes me feel that for the moment I am the 
 stronger of the two. 
 
 " I am very sorry. I would not on any account grieve 
 your papa." 
 
 " Will you come, then, some day this week ?" 
 
 " Thank you, but I can not promise." 
 
 A possibility struck me. 
 
 " Papa is rather peculiar. He vexes people sometimes, 
 when they are not thoroughly acquainted with him. Has 
 he vexed you in any way ?" 
 
 " I assure you, no." 
 
 After a little hesitation, determined to get at the truth, 
 I asked, 
 
 " Have I vexed you ?" 
 
 " You ! What an idea !" 
 
 It did seem at this moment preposterous, almost absurd. 
 I could have laughed at it. I believe I did laugh. Oh, 
 when one has been angry or grieved with a friend, and all 
 of a sudden the cloud clears off one fiardly knows how or 
 why, but it certainly is gone, perhaps never existed but in 
 imagination what an infinite relief it is ! How cheerful 
 one feels, and yet humbled ; ashamed, yet inexpressibly 
 content. So glad, so satisfied to have only one's self to 
 blame. 
 
 I asked Doctor Urquhart what he had been doing all 
 this while ? that I understood he had been a good deal 
 engaged ; was it about the barrack business and his memo- 
 rial ? 
 
 " Partly," he said, expressing some surprise at my re- 
 membering it. 
 
 Perhaps I ought not to have referred to it. And yet 
 that is not a fair code of friendship. When a friend tells 
 you his affairs, he makes them yours, and you have a right 
 to ask about them afterward. I longed to ask longed to 
 know all and every thing ; for by every carriage lamp we 
 passed I saw that his face was not as it used to "be that 
 there was on it a settled shadow of pain, anxiety, almost 
 anguish. 
 
 I have only known Doctor Urquhart three months, yet 
 in those three months I have seen him every week, often 
 twice and thrice a week, and, owing to the preoccupation 
 of the rest of the family, almost all his society has devolved 
 
132 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 on me. He and I have often and often sat talking, or, in 
 "' playing decorum" to Augustus and Lisabel, walked up 
 and down the garden together for hours at a time. Also, 
 from my brother-in-law, always most open and enthusiastic 
 on the subject, I have heard about Doctor Urquhart nearly 
 every thing that could be told. 
 
 All this will account for my feeling toward him after so 
 short an intimacy as people usually feel, I suppose, after a 
 friendship of years. 
 
 As I have said, something must have happened to make 
 such a change in him. It touched me to the quick. Why 
 not at least ask the question, which I should have asked in 
 a minute of any body else, so simple and natural was it 
 
 tc Have you been quite well since we saw you ?" 
 
 " Yes No, not exactly. Why do you ask ?" 
 
 " Because I thought you looked as if you had been ill." 
 
 " Thank you, no ; but I have had a great deal of anx- 
 ious business on hand." 
 
 More than that he did not say, nor had I a right to ask. 
 No right! What was I, to be wanting rights to feel 
 that in some sense I deserved them that if I had them I 
 should know how to use them ; for it is next to impossible 
 to be so sorry about one's friends without having also some 
 little power to do them good, if they would only give you 
 leave. 
 
 All this while Colin and his mother were running hither 
 and thither in search of the carriage, which had disappear- 
 ed again. As we stood, a blast of moorland wind almost 
 took my breath away. Doctor Urquhart turned, and 
 wrapped me up closer. 
 
 " What must be done ? You will get your death of 
 cold, and I can not shelter you. Oh ! if I could." 
 
 Then I took courage. There was only a minute more, 
 perhaps, and the new^s of threatened war darted through 
 my memory like an arrow perhaps the last minute we 
 might ever be together in all our lives. My life I did not 
 recollect it just then ; but his, busy indeed, yet so wander- 
 ing, solitary, and homeless he once told me that ours was 
 the only family hearth he had been familiar at for twenty 
 years. No, I am sure it was not wrong either to think 
 what I thought or to say it. 
 
 "Doctor Urquhart, I wish you would come to Rock- 
 mount. It would do you good, and papa good, and all of 
 us; for we are rather dull now Lisabel is gone. Do come." 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 133 
 
 I waited for an answer, but none was given. No excuse, 
 or apology, or even polite acknowledgment. Politeness! 
 that would have been the sharpest unkindness of all. 
 
 Then they overtook us, and the chance was over. 
 
 Colin advanced to my side, but Doctor Urquhart put me 
 in the carriage himself, and as Colin was restoring the 
 plaid, said, rather irritably, 
 
 " No, no ; let her wrap herself in it going home." 
 
 Not another word passed between us, except that, as I 
 remembered afterward, just before they came up, he had 
 said, " Good-by," hastily adding to it, " God bless you." 
 
 Some people's words people who usually express very 
 little rest in one's mind strangely. Why should he say 
 " God bless you ?" Why did he call me " child ?" 
 
 I sent back his plaid by Colin next morning, with a mes- 
 sage of thanks, and that " it had kept me very warm." I 
 wonder if I shall ever see Doctor Urquhart again ? 
 
 And yet it is not the seeing one's friends, the having 
 them within reach, the hearing of and from them, w r hich 
 makes them ours many a one has all that, and yet has 
 nothing. It is the believing in them, the depending on 
 them, assured that they are true and good to the core, and 
 therefore could not but be good and true toward every 
 body else, ourselves included ; ay, whether we deserve it or 
 not. It is not our deserts which are in question; it is 
 their goodness, which, once settled, the rest follows as a 
 matter of course. They w r ould be untrue to themselves if 
 they were insincere or untrue to us. I have half a dozen 
 friends, living within half a dozen miles, whom I feel farther 
 off from than I should from Doctor Urquhart if he lived at 
 the Antipodes. 
 
 He never uses words lightly. He never would have 
 said " God bless you !" if he had not specially wished God 
 to bless me poor me ! a foolish, ignorant, thoughtless 
 child. 
 
 Only a child not a bit better nor wiser than a child ; 
 full of all kinds of childish naughtinesses, angers, petu- 
 lances, doubts oh, if I knew he was at this minute sitting 
 in our parlor, and I could run down and sit beside him, tell 
 him all the hard things I have been thinking of him of late, 
 and beg his pardon, asking him to be a faithful friend to 
 me, and help me to grow into a better woman than I am 
 ever likely to become what an unutterable comfort it 
 would be ! 
 
134 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 A word or two more about my pleasant morning at the 
 Cedars, and then I must close my desk and see that the 
 study-fire is all right; papa likes a good fire when he 
 comes home. 
 
 There they are! what a loud ring! it made me jump 
 from my chair. This must be finished to-morrow, when 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 I ENDED the last page with " I shall write no more here." 
 It used to be my pride never to have broken a promise nor 
 changed a resolution. Pride! What have I got to do 
 with pride ? 
 
 . And resolutions, forsooth ! What, are we omnipotent 
 and omniscient, that against all changes of circumstances, 
 feelings, or events we should set up our paltry resolutions, 
 urge them and hold to them, in spite of reason and convic- 
 tion, with a tenacity that we suppose heroic, god-like, yet 
 which may be merely the blind obstinacy of a brute ? 
 
 I will never make a resolution again. I will never again 
 say to myself, " You, Max Urqulitrt, in order to keep up 
 that character for virtue, honor, and steadfastness, which 
 heaven only knows whether or no you deserve, ought to do 
 so and so ; and, come what will, you must do it." Out upon 
 me and my doings ! Was I singled out to be the scape- 
 goat of the world ? 
 
 It is my intention here regularly to set down, for certain 
 reasons which I may or may not afterward allude to, cer- 
 tain events which have happened w4lhout any act of mine, 
 almost without any volition, if a man can be so led on by 
 force of circumstances, that there seems only one course 
 of conduct open to him to pursue. Whither these circum- 
 stances may lead, I am at this moment as utterly ignorant 
 as on the day I was born, and almost as powerless. I make 
 no determinations, attempt no previsions, follow no set line 
 of conduct ; doing only from day to day what is expected 
 of me, and leaving all the rest to is it? it must be to 
 God. 
 
 The sole thing in which I may be said to exercise any 
 absolute volition is in writing down what I mean to write 
 here ; the only record that will exist of the veritable me 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 135 
 
 Max Urquhart as lie might have been known, not to peo- 
 ple in general, but to any one who looked into his deep- 
 est heart, and was his friend, his beloved, his very own. 
 
 The form of Imaginary Correspondent I henceforward 
 throw aside. I am perfectly aware to whom and for whom 
 I write, yet who, in all human probability, will never read 
 a single line. 
 
 Once, an officer in the Crimea, believing himself dying, 
 gave me a packet of letters to burn. He had written them, 
 year by year, under every change of fortune, to a friend he 
 had, to whom he occasionally wrote other letters not like 
 these ; which were never sent, nor meant to be sent, during 
 his lifetime, though sometimes I fancy he dreamed of giv- 
 ing them, and of their being read, smiling, by two together. 
 He was mistaken. Circumstances which happen not rare- 
 ly to dreamers like him, made it unnecessary, nay, impossi- 
 ble for them to be, delivered at all. He bade me burn them 
 at once in case he died. In doing so there started out 
 of the embers, clear and plain, the name. But the fire and 
 I told no tales ; I took the poker and buried it. Poor fel- 
 low ! He did not die, and I meet him still, but we have 
 never referred to those burned letters. . 
 
 These letters of mine I also may one day burn. In the 
 mean time, there shall%e no name or superscription on 
 them, no beginning or ending, nor, if I can avoid it, any 
 thing which could particularize the person to whom they 
 are written. To all others they will take the form of a 
 mere statement, nothing more. 
 
 To begin. I was sitting about eleven at night over the 
 fire in my hut. I had been busy all day, and had had little 
 rest the night before. 
 
 It was not my intewKon to attend our camp concert, but 
 I was in a manner compelled to do so. Ill news from home 
 reached poor young Ansdell of ours, and his colonel sent 
 me to break it to him. I then had to wait about, in order 
 to see the goocj colonel as he came out of the concert-room. 
 It was, therefore, purely by accident that I met those 
 friends whom I afterward did not leave for several minutes. 
 
 The reason of this delay in their company may be told. 
 It was a sudden agony about the uncertainty of life young 
 life, fresh and hopeful as pretty Laura AnsdelPs, whom I 
 had chanced to see riding through the North Camp not 
 two weeks ago and now she was dead. Accustomed as 
 I am to almost every form of mortality, I had never faced 
 
13G * A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 the grim fear exactly in this shape before. It put me out 
 of myself for a little time. 
 
 I did not go near Granton the following day, but received 
 from him a message and my plaid. She the lady to whom 
 I had lent it was " quite well." No more ; how could I 
 possibly expect any more ? 
 
 I was, as I say, sitting over my hut fire, with the strangest 
 medley in my mind rosy Laura Ansdell, now galloping 
 across the moor, now lying still and colorless in her coffin"; 
 and another face about the same age, though I suppose it 
 would not be considered nearly as pretty, with the scarlet 
 hood drawn over it, pallid with cold, yet with such a soft 
 light in the eyes, such a trembling sweetness about the 
 mouth ! She must be a very happy-minded creature. I 
 hardly ever saw her, or was w r ith her any length of time, 
 that she did not look the picture of content and repose. 
 She always puts me in mind of Dallas's pet song when we 
 were boys " Jessie, the Flower o' Dunblane." 
 
 " She's modest as ony, and blithe as she's bonnie, 
 
 And guileless simplicity marks her its ain, 
 . And far be the villain, divested o' feelin', 
 
 Wha'd blight in its bud the sweet Flower o' Dunblane." 
 
 I say amen to that. 
 
 It was to return for the third time to simple narrative 
 somewhere about eleven o'clock when a man on horse- 
 back stopped at my hut door. I thought it might be a 
 summons to the Ansdells, but it was .riot. It was the 
 groom from Rockmount bringing me a letter. 
 
 Her .letter her little letter ! I ought to burn it, but, as 
 yet, I can not, and where it is kept it will be quite safe. 
 For reasons I shall copy it here. 
 
 " DEAK SIE, My father has met with a severe accident. 
 Doctor Black is from home, and there is no other doctor in 
 the neighborhood upon w^hom we can depend. Will you 
 pardon the liberty I am taking and come to us at once? 
 Yours truly, THEODORA JOHNSTON." 
 
 There it lies, brief and plain ; a firm heart guided the 
 shaking hand. Few things show character in a woman 
 more than her handwriting; this, when steady, must be 
 remarkably neat, delicate, and clear. I did well to put it 
 by ; I may never get another line. 
 
 In speaking to Jack, I learned that his master and onfc 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 137 
 
 of the young ladies had been out to dinner ; that master 
 had insisted on driving home himself, probably from Jack's 
 incompetence, but he was sober enough now, poor lad ! 
 that, coming through the fir wood, one of the wheels got 
 fixed in a deep rut, and the phaeton was overturned. 
 I asked, was any one hurt besides Mr. Johnston ? 
 
 'Miss Johnston was, a little." 
 
 'Which Miss Johnston?" 
 
 ' Miss Penelope, sir." 
 
 ' No one else ?" 
 
 ' No, sir." 
 
 I had evidence enough of all this before, but just then, 
 at that instant, it went out of my mind in a sudden oppres- 
 sion of fear. The facts of the case gained, I called Jack in 
 to the fire, and went into my bedroom to settle with my- 
 self Avhat was best to be done. 
 
 Indecision as to the matter of going or not going was, 
 of course, impossible ; but it was a sudden and startling 
 position to be placed in. True, I could avoid it by plead- 
 ing hospital business, and sending the assistant surgeon of 
 our regiment, who is an exceedingly clever young man, but 
 not a young man whom women would like in a sick-house, 
 in the midst of great distress or danger. And in that dis- 
 tress and danger she had called upon me, trusted me. 
 
 I determined to go. The cost, whatever it might be, 
 would be purely personal, and in that brief minute I count- 
 ed it all. I state this, because I wish to make clear that no 
 secondary motive, dream, or desire prompted me to act as 
 I have done. 
 
 On questioning Jack more closely, I found that Mr. John- 
 ston had fallen, they believed, on a stone ; that he had been 
 picked up senseless, and had never spoken since. This in- 
 dicated at once on what a thread of chance the case hung. 
 The case simply that and no more ; as to treat it at all I 
 must so consider it. I have saved lives, by God's blessing 
 this, then, must be regarded merely as one other life to 
 be saved, if, through His mercy, it were granted me to do 
 it. 
 
 I unlocked my desk and put her letter in the secret draw- 
 er ; wrote a line to our assistant-surgeon, with hospital or- 
 ders, in case I should be absent part of the next day ; took 
 out any instruments I might want ; then, with a glance 
 round my room, and an involuntary wondering as to how 
 and when I might return to it, I mounted Jack's horse and 
 
138 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 rode off to Rockmount. The whole had not occupied fif- 
 teen minutes, for I remember looking at my watch, which 
 stood at a quarter past eleven. 
 
 Hard riding makes thinking impossible ; and, indeed, my 
 whole mind was bent upon not missing my road in the dark- 
 ness. A detour of a mile or two, one lost half-hour, might, 
 humanly speaking, have cost the old man's life ; for in simi- 
 lar cases it is generally a question of time. 
 
 It is said our profession is that which, of all others, most 
 inclines a man to materialism. I never found it so. The 
 first time I ever was brought close to death but that train 
 of thought must be stopped. Since, death and I have walk- 
 ed so long together, that the mere vital principle, common 
 to all living creatures, "the life of a beast which goeth 
 downward," as the Bible has it, I never think of confound- 
 ing with "the soul of a man which goeth upward." Quite 
 distinct from the life, dwelling in blood or breath, or at that 
 "vital point" which has been lately (discovered, showing 
 that in a spot the size of a pin's head resides the principle 
 of mortality quite distinct, I say, from this something, 
 which perishes or vanishes so mysteriously from the dead 
 friends we bury, the corpses we anatomize, seems to me the 
 spirit, the ghost ; which, being able to conceive of and as- 
 pire to, must necessarily return to, the one Holy Ghost, the 
 one Eternal Spirit, Himself once manifest in flesh, this very 
 flesh of ours. 
 
 And it seemed, on that strange, wild night, just such an- 
 other winter's night as I remember, years and years ago 
 as if this distinction between the life and the soul grew 
 clearer to me than ever before ; as if, pardoning all that 
 had happened to its mortal part, a ghost, which, were such 
 visitations allowed, though I do not believe they are, might 
 be supposed often to visit me, followed my ghost, harmless- 
 ly, nay, pitifully, I 
 
 "Being a thing immortal as itself," 
 the whole way between the camp and Rockmount. 
 
 I dismounted under the ivy-bush which overhangs the 
 garden gate, which gate had been left open, so I was able 
 to go at once up to the hall door, where the fanlight flick- 
 ered on the white stone floor ; the old' man's stick was in 
 the corner, and the young ladies' hats hung "rip on the 
 branching stag's horns. 
 
 For the moment I half believed myself dreaming, and 
 that I should wake, as I have often done, after half an hour's 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 13& 
 
 rest, with the salt morning breeze blowing on me, in the 
 outside gallery of Scutari Hospital, start up, take my lamp, 
 and go round my wards. 
 
 But minutes were precious. I rang the bell, and almost 
 immediately a figure slid down the staircase and opened the 
 door. I might not have thought it flesh and blood, but for 
 the touch of its little cold hand. 
 
 " Ah ! it is you, at last ; I was sure you would come." 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 Perhaps she thought me cold, " professional," as if she 
 had looked for a friend, and found only the doctor. Per- 
 haps nay, it must be so she never thought of me at all 
 except as the " doctor." 
 
 " Where is your father ?" 
 
 " Up stairs ; we carried him at once to his room. Will 
 you come?" 
 
 So I followed I seemed to have nothing to do but to 
 follow that light figure, with the voice so low, the manner 
 so quiet quieter than I ever expected to see hers, or any 
 woman's, under such an emergency. I ? what did I ever 
 know of woman, except that a woman bore me ? It is an 
 odd fancy, but I have never thought so much about my moth- 
 er as within the last few months. And sometimes, turning 
 over the sole relics I have of hers, a ribbon or two and a 
 curl of hair, and calling to mind the few things Dallas re- 
 membered about her, I have imagined my mother, in her 
 youth, must have been something like this young girl. 
 
 She entered the bedroom first. 
 
 "You may come in now. You will not startle him; I 
 think he knows nobody." 
 
 I sat down beside my patient. He lay just as he had 
 been brought in from the road, with a blanket and counter- 
 pane thrown over him, breathing heavily, but quite uncon- 
 scious. 
 
 " The light, please. Can you hold it for me ? Is your 
 hand steady ?" And I held it a moment to judge. That 
 weakness cost me too much; I took care not to risk it 
 again. 
 
 When I finished my examination and looked up, Miss 
 Theodora was still standing by me. Her eyes only asked 
 the question which, thank God, I could answer as I did. 
 
 " Yes it is a more hopeful case than I expected." 
 
 At this shadow of hope for it was only a shadow the 
 deadly quiet in which she had kept herself was stirred. 
 
140 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 She began to tremble exceedingly. I took the candle from 
 her, and gave her a chair. 
 
 "Never mind me. It is only for a minute," she said. 
 One or two deep, hard sighs came, and then she recovered 
 herself. " Now, what is to be done ?" 
 
 I told her I would do all that was necessary, if she would 
 bring me various things I mentioned. 
 
 " Can I help you ? There is no one else. Penelope has 
 hurt her foot, and can not move, and the servants are mere 
 girls. Shall I stay ? If there is any operation, I am not 
 afraid." 
 
 For I had unguardedly taken out of my pocket the case 
 of instruments, which, after all, would not be needed. I told 
 her so, adding that I had rather she left me alone with my 
 patient. 
 
 " Very well. You will take care of him ? You will not 
 hurt him poor papa !" 
 
 Not very likely. If he and I could have changed places 
 he assuming my strength and life, I lying on that bed, 
 with death before me, under such a look as his child left 
 him with I think I should at that moment have done it. 
 
 When I had laid the old man comfortable in his bed, I 
 sat with his wrist under my fingers, counting, beat by beat, 
 the slow pulse, which was one of my slender hopes for his 
 recovery. As the hand dropped over my knee, powerless, 
 almost, as a dead hand, it recalled, I know not how or why, 
 the helpless drop of that, the first dead hand I ever saw. 
 Happily the fancy lasted only a moment ; in seasons like 
 this, w^hen I am deeply occupied in the practice of my pro- 
 fession, all such phantasms are laid. And the present case 
 was urgent enough to concentrate all my thoughts and fac- 
 ulties. 
 
 I had just made up my mind concerning it when a gentle 
 knock came to the door, and on my answering, she walked 
 in ; glided rather, for she had taken off her silk gown, and 
 put on something soft and dark, which did not rustle. In 
 her face, white as it was, there was a quiet preparedness, 
 more touching than any wildness of grief a quality which 
 few women possess, but which heaven never seems to give 
 except to women, compelling us men, as it were, to our 
 knees, in recognition of something diviner than any thing 
 we have, or are, or were ever meant to be. I mention this, 
 lest it might be thought of me, as is often thought of doc- 
 tors, that I did not feel. 
 
A LIFE FOE, A LIFE. 141 
 
 She asked me no questions, but stood silently beside me, 
 with her eyes fixed on her father. His just opened, as they 
 had done several times before, wandered vacantly over the 
 bed-curtains, and closed again, with a moan. 
 
 She looked at me, frightened the poor child. 
 
 I explained to her that this moaning was no additional 
 cause of alarm, rather the contrary ; that her father might 
 lie in his present state for hours days. 
 
 " And can you do nothing for him ?" 
 
 If I could at any cost which mortal man could pay ! 
 
 Motioning her to the farthest corner of the room, I there, 
 as is my habit, when the friends of the patient seem capa- 
 ble of listening and comprehending, gave her my opinion 
 about the course of treatment I intended to adopt, and my 
 reasons for the same. In this case, of all others, I wished 
 not to leave the relatives in the dark, lest they might after- 
 ward blame me for doing nothing ; when, in truth, to do 
 nothing was the only chance, I told her my belief that it 
 would be safest to maintain perfect silence and repose, and 
 leave benignant Nature to work in her own mysterious way 
 Nature, whom the longer one lives, the more one trusts 
 in as the only true physician. 
 
 "Therefore," I said, " will you understand that, however 
 little I do, I am acting as I believe to be best ? Will you 
 trust me ?" 
 
 She looked up searchingly, and then said, " Yes." After 
 a few moments she asked me how long I could stay ? if I 
 were obliged to return to the camp immediately ? 
 
 I told her " No ; that I did not intend to return till morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " Ah ! that is well. Shall I order a room to be prepared 
 for you?" 
 
 " Thank you, but I prefer sitting up." 
 
 " You are very kind. You will be a great comfort." 
 
 I, " a great comfort !" I " kind !" 
 
 My thoughts must needs return into their right channel. 
 I believe the next thing she said was something about my 
 going to see " Penelope :" at least I found myself with my 
 hand on the door, all but touching hers, as she was show- 
 ing me how to open it. 
 
 " There : the second room to the left. Shall I go with 
 you ? No ! I will stay here, then, till you return." 
 
 So, after she had closed the door, I remained alone in the 
 dim passage for a few moments. It was well. No man 
 can be his own master at all times. 
 
142 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Miss Johnston was a good deal more hurt tnan she had 
 confessed. As she lay on the bed, still in her gay dress, 
 with artificial flowers in her hair her face, pallid and drawn 
 with pain, looked almost like that of an old woman. She 
 seemed annoyed at my coming she dislikes me, I know : 
 but anxiety about her father, and her own suffering, kept 
 her aversion within bounds. She listened to my medical 
 report from the next room, and submitted to my orders 
 concerning herself, until she learned that at least a week's 
 confinement, to rest her foot, would be necessary. Then 
 she rebelled. 
 
 " That is impossible. I must be up and about. There is 
 nobody to do any thing but me." 
 
 "Your sister?" 
 
 " Lisabel is married. Oh, you meant Dora ? We never 
 expect any useful thing from Dora." 
 
 This speech did not surprise me. It merely confirmed a 
 good deal which I had already noticed in this family. Also, 
 it might in degree be true. I think, so far from being blind 
 to them, I see clearer than most people every fault she has. 
 
 Neither contradicting nor arguing, I repeated to Miss 
 Johnston the imperative necessity for her attending to my 
 orders : adding that I had known more than one case of a 
 person being made a cripple for life by neglecting such an 
 injury as hers. 
 
 "A cripple for life!" She started her color came and 
 went her eye wandered to the chair beside her, on which 
 was her little writing-case ; I conclude that in the intervals 
 of her pain she had been trying to send these ill news, or 
 to apply for help to some one. 
 
 " You will be lame for life," I repeated, " unless you take 
 care." 
 
 "Shall I, now?" 
 
 " No ; with reasonable caution, I trust you will do well." 
 
 "That is enough. Do not trouble yourself any more 
 about me. Pray go back to my father." 
 
 She turned from me and closed her eyes. There was 
 nothing more to be done with Miss Penelope. Calling a 
 servant who stood by, I gave my last orders concerning 
 her, and departed. A strange person this elder sister. 
 What differences of character exist in families ! 
 
 There was no change in my other patient. As I stood 
 looking at him, his daughter glided round to my side. We 
 exchanged a glance only she seemed quite to understand 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 143 
 
 that talking was inadmissible. Then she stood by me, 
 silently gazing. 
 
 " You are sure there is no change ?" 
 
 " None." 
 
 " Lisa ought she not to know ? I never sent a telegraph 
 message ; will you tell me how to do it ?" 
 
 Her quiet assumption of duty her thoughtful, methodic- 
 al arrangements ; surely the sister was wrong that is, as 
 I knew well, any great necessity would soon prove her to 
 be wrong about Miss Theodora. 
 
 I said there was no need to telegraph until morning, 
 when, as I rode back to the camp, I would do it myself. 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 No objection or apology ; only that soft " thank you" 
 taking all things calmly and naturally, as a man would like 
 to see a woman take the gift of his life, if necessary. No, 
 not life ; that is owed but any or all of its few pleasures 
 would be cheerfully laid down for such another "thank 
 you." 
 
 While I was considering what should be done for the 
 night, there came a rustling and chattering outside in the 
 passage. Miss Johnston had sent a servant to sit up with 
 her father. She came knocking at the door-handle, rat- 
 tling the candlestick, and tramping across the floor like a 
 regiment of soldiers so that my patient moaned, and put 
 up his hand to his head. 
 
 I said sharply enough, no doubt that I must have quiet. 
 A loud voice, a door slammed to, even a heavy step across 
 the floor, and I would not answer for the consequences. If 
 Mr. Johnston were meant to recover, there must be no one 
 in his room but the doctor and the nurse. 
 
 " I understand Susan, come away." 
 
 There was a brief conference outside ; then Miss Theo- 
 dora re-entered alone, bolted the door, and was again at 
 my side. 
 
 " Will that do?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The clock struck two while we were standing there. 1 
 stole a glance at her white, composed face. 
 
 " Can you sit up, do you think?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 Without more ado for I was just then too much occu- 
 pied with a passing change in my patient the matter was- 
 decided. When I next looked for her she had slipped 
 
144 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 round the foot of the bed, and taken her place behind the 
 curtain on the other side. There we both sat, hour a fin- 
 hour, in total silence. 
 
 I tell every thing, you see, just as minutely as I remem- 
 ber it and shall remember it long after every circum- 
 stance, trivial or great, has faded out of every memory, 
 except mine. If these letters are ever read by other than 
 myself, words and incidents long forgotten may revive: 
 that when I die, as in the course of nature I shall do, long 
 before younger persons, it may be seen that it is not youth 
 alone which can receive impressions vividly and retain them 
 strongly. 
 
 I could not see her I could only see the face on the pil- 
 low, where a dim light fell; just enough to show me the 
 slightest change, did any come. But, closely as I watch- 
 ed, none did come. Not even a twitch or quiver broke 
 that blank expression of repose which was neither life nor 
 death. 
 
 I thought several times that it would settle into death 
 before morning. And then ? 
 
 Where was all my boasted skill, my belief in my own 
 powers of saving life? Why, sitting here, trusted and 
 looked up to, depended upon as the sole human stay my 
 countenance examined, as I felt it was, even as if it were 
 the index and arbiter of fate I, watching, as I never 
 watched before by any sick-bed, this breath which trem- 
 bled in the balance, felt myself as ignorant and useless 
 as a child. Nay, I was " as a dead man before Thee," O 
 Thou humbler of pride ! 
 
 Crying to myself thus Job's cry I thought of another 
 Hebrew, who sought "not unto the Lord,"but unto the 
 physicians ;" and died. It came into my mind, May there 
 not be, even in these days, such a thing as " seeking the 
 Lord?'; 
 
 I believe there is : I know there is. 
 
 The candle went out. I had sat with my eyes shut, and 
 had not noticed it till I heard her steal across the room 
 trying to get a light. Afraid to trust my own heavy step 
 hers seemed as soft as snow I contrived to pull the 
 window-blind aside, so that a pale white streak fell across 
 the hearth where she was kneeling the cheerless hearth, 
 for I had not dared to risk the noise of keeping tip a fire. 
 
 She looked up, and shivered. 
 
 "Is that light morning?" 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 145 
 
 " Yes. Are you cold ?" 
 
 " A little." 
 
 " It is always cold at daybreak. Go and get a shawl." 
 
 She took no notice, but put the candle in its place and 
 came over to me. 
 
 " How do you think he is ?" 
 
 " No worse." 
 
 A sigh, patient, but hopeless. I took an opportunity of 
 examining her closely, to judge how long her self-control 
 was likely to last ; or whether, after this great shock and 
 weary night-watch, her physical strength would fail. So 
 looking, I noticed a few blood-drops trickling over her fore- 
 head, oozing from under her hair : 
 
 " What is this ?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! I struck myself as we were lifting papa 
 from the carriage. I thought it had ceased bleeding." 
 
 " Let me look at it a moment. There I shall not hurt 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, no ! I am not afraid." 
 
 I cut the hair from round the place, and plastered it up. 
 It hardly took a minute ; was the smallest of surgical oper- 
 ations ; yet she trembled. I saw her strength was begin- 
 ning to yield ; and she might need it all. 
 
 " Now, you must go and lie down for an hour." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " You must." 
 
 There might have been something harsh in the words 
 I did not quite know what I was saying for she looked 
 surprised. 
 
 " I mean you ought ; which is enough argument with a 
 
 firl like you. If you do not rest, you will never be able to 
 eep up for another twelve hours, during which your father 
 may need you. He does not need vou now." 
 
 " And you?" 
 
 " I had much rather be alone." Which was most true. 
 
 So she left me ; but, ten minutes after, I heard again the 
 light step at the door. 
 
 " I have brought you this" (some biscuits and a glass of 
 milk). " I know you never take wine." 
 
 Wine ! Oh, Heaven ! no ! Would that, years ago, the 
 first drop had burnt my lips been as gall to my tongue 
 proved to me not drink, but poison as the poor old man 
 now lying there once wished it might have happened to 
 any son of his. Well might my father, my young, happy 
 
 G 
 
146 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 father, who married my mother, and, loving and loved, spent 
 with her the brief years of their youth well, indeed, might 
 my father have wished it for me ! 
 
 So there I sat, after the food she brought me had been 
 swallowed down somehow for it would have hurt her to 
 come back and find it untouched. Thus watching, hope 
 lessened by degrees, sank into mere conjectures as to the 
 manner in which the watch would end. Possibly, in this 
 state of half-consciousness, the breath would quietly pass 
 away, without struggle or pain; which would be easiest 
 for them all. % 
 
 I laid my plans, in that case, either to be of any use to 
 the family if I could, by remaining until the Trehernes ar- 
 rived, or to leave immediately all was over. Circumstances, 
 and their apparent wish, must be my only guide. After- 
 ward there would be no difficulty ; the less they saw of any 
 one who had been associated with such a painful time, the 
 better. Better for all of them. 
 
 The clock below struck what hour I did not count, but 
 it felt like morning. It was must be I must make it 
 morning. 
 
 I went to the window to refresh my eyes with the soft 
 white dawn, which, as I opened the blind, stole into the 
 room, making the candle burn yellow and dim. The night 
 was over and gone. Across the moorland, and up on {He 
 far hills, it was already morning. 
 
 A thought struck me, suggesting one more chance. Ex- 
 tinguishing the candle, I drew aside all the curtains, so as 
 to throw the daylight in a full stream across the foot of the 
 bed; and by the side of it with the patient's hand be- 
 tween mine, and my eyes fixed steadily on his face I sat 
 down. 
 
 His eyes opened, not in the old blank way, but with an 
 expression in them that I never expected to see again. 
 They turned instinctively to the light ; then, with a slow, 
 wandering, but perfectly rational look, toward me. Feebly 
 the old man smiled. 
 
 That minute was worth dying for; or, rather, having 
 lived for all these twenty years. 
 
 The rest which I have to tell must be told another time. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 147 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 I HAVE not been able to continue this. Every day has 
 been full of business, and every night I have spent at Rock- 
 mount for the last three weeks. 
 
 Such was, I solemnly aver from no fixed intention : I 
 meant only to go as an ordinary doctor in order, if possi- 
 ble to save the life that was valuable in itself, and most 
 precious to some few ; afterward, whichever way the case 
 terminated, to take my leave, like any other medical at- 
 tendant : receiving thanks or fee. Yes, if they offered it, I 
 determined to take a fee ; in order to show, both to them 
 and myself, that I was only the doctor the paid physician. 
 But this last wound has been spared me, and I only name 
 it now in proof that nothing has happened as I expected or 
 intended. 
 
 I remember Dallas, in reading to me the sermons he used 
 to write for practice preparing for the sacred duties which, 
 to him, never came had one upon the text, " Thy will be 
 done ;" where, in words more beautiful than I dare try to 
 repeat in mine, he explained how good it was for us that 
 things so seldom fell out according to our short-sighted 
 plannings ; how many a man had lived to bless God that 
 his own petty will had not been done ; that nothing had 
 happened to him according as he expected or intended. 
 
 Do you know, you to whom I write, how much it means, 
 my thus naming to you Dallas whose name, since he died, 
 has never but once passed my lips ? 
 
 I think you would have liked my brother Dallas. He 
 was not at all like me I took after my father, people said, 
 and he after our mother. He had soft, English features, 
 and smooth, fine, dark hair. He was smaller than I, though 
 so much the elder. The very last Christmas we had at St. 
 Andrew's, I mind lifting him up and carrying him several 
 yards in play, laughing atlhim for being as thin and light 
 as a lady. We were merry-hearted fellows, and had many 
 a joke, the two of us, when we were together. Strange to 
 think that I am a man nigh upon forty, and that he has been 
 dead twenty years. 
 
148 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 It is you, little as you guess it, who have made me think 
 upon these my dead my father, mother, and Dallas, whom 
 I have never dared to think of until now. Let me con- 
 tinue. 
 
 Mr. Johnston's has been a difficult case more so in its 
 secondary stages than at first. I explained this to his 
 daughter the second daughter the only one whom I 
 found of much assistance ; Miss Johnston being extremely 
 nervous and irritable, and Mrs. Treherne, who I trusted 
 would have taken her share in the nursing, proving more 
 of a hinderance than a help. She could not be made to 
 comprehend why, when her father was out of danger, she 
 should not rush in and out of the sick-room continually, 
 with her chattering voice, and her noisy silk dresses ; and 
 she was offended because, when Mr. Charteris, having come 
 for a day from London, was admitted, quiet, scared, and 
 shocked, to spend a few minutes by the old man's bedside, 
 her Augustus, full of lively rattle and rude animal spirits, 
 was carefully kept out of the room. 
 
 "You plan it all between you," she said, one day, half 
 sulkily, to her sister and myself. " You play into one an- 
 other's hands as if you had lived together all your lives. 
 Confess, Doctor confess, Miss Nurse, you would keep me 
 too out of papa's room, if you could." 
 
 I certainly would. Though an excellent person, kind- 
 hearted and good-tempered to a degree, Mrs. Treherne con- 
 trived to try my temper more than I would like to say for 
 two intolerable days. 
 
 The third, I resolved on a little conversation with Miss 
 Theodora, who, having sat up till my watch began at two, 
 now came in to me, while I was taking breakfast, to receive 
 my orders for the day. These were simple enough : quiet, 
 silence, and, except old Mrs. Cartwright, whom I had sent 
 for, only one person to be allowed in my patient's room. 
 
 " Ah ! yes, I am glad of that. Just hearken !" 
 
 Doors slamming ; footsteps on the stairs ; Mrs. Treherne 
 calling out to her husband not to smoke in the hall. " That 
 is how it is all day, when you are away. What can I do ? 
 Help me, please, help me !" 
 
 An entreaty almost childish in its earnestness. Now and 
 then, through all this time, she has seemed, in her behavior 
 toward me, less like a woman than a trusting, dependent 
 child. 
 
 I sent for Treherne and his wife, and told them that the 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 149 
 
 present was a matter of life and death, in which there could 
 be no standing upon ceremony ; that in this house, where 
 no legitimate rule existed, and all were young and inexpe- 
 rienced, I, as the physician, must have authority, which au- 
 thority must be obeyed. If they wished, I would resign 
 the case altogether ; but I soon saw that was not desired. 
 They promised obedience ; and I repeated the medical or- 
 ders, adding that, during my absence, only one person, the 
 person I chose, should be left in charge of my patient. 
 
 " Very well, Doctor," said Mrs. Treherne : " and that is " 
 
 " Miss Theodora." 
 
 " Theodora ! oh, nonsense ! She never nursed any body. 
 She never was fit for any thing." 
 
 " She is fit for all I require, and her father wishes for her 
 also ; therefore, if you please, will you at once go up to 
 him, Miss Theodora?" 
 
 She had stood patient and impassive till I spoke, then the 
 color rushed into her face and the tears into her eyes. She 
 left the room immediately. 
 
 But, as I went, she was lying in wait for me at the door. 
 " Thank you thank you so much ! But do you really think 
 I shall make a good, careful nurse for dear papa ?" 
 
 I told her " Certainly ; better than any one else here ; 
 better, indeed, than any one I knew." 
 
 It was good to see her look of happy surprise. 
 
 " Do you really think that ? Nobody ever thought so 
 well of me before. I will try ah ! won't I try ? to de- 
 serve your good opinion." 
 
 Ignorant, simple heart. 
 
 Most people have some other person, real or imaginary, 
 who is more " comfortable" to them than any one else to 
 whom, in trouble, the thoughts always fly first ; who, in 
 sickness, would be chosen to smooth the weary pillow, and 
 holding whose hand they would like to die. Now it would 
 be quite easy, quite happy to die in a certain chamber I 
 know, shadowy and still, with a carpet of a green leafy pat- 
 tern, and bunches of fuchsias papering the Avails. And, 
 about the room, a little figure moving ; slender, noiseless, 
 busy, and sweet ; in a brown dress, soft to touch, and mak- 
 ing no sound, with a white collar fastened by a little color- 
 ed bow above it ; the delicate throat and small head like a 
 deer's ; and the eyes something like a deer's eyes also, which 
 turn round large and quiet, to look you right in the face- 
 as they did then. 
 
150 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 I wonder, if any accident or illness were to happen to me 
 here, while staying in the camp something that would 
 make it certain I had only a few days or hours to live 
 and I happened to have sufficient consciousness and will to 
 say w r hat I wished done, whom I desired to see, in those 
 few last hours, when the longing of a dying man could 
 injure nobody Enough ! this is the merest folly. To 
 live, not to die, is likely to be my portion. I accept it; 
 blame me not. 
 
 Day after day has gone on in the same round my ride 
 to Rockmount after dusk, tea there, and my evening sleep 
 in "the doctor's room." There, at midnight, Treherne 
 wakes me. I dress, and return to that quiet chamber, 
 wher e the little figure rises from beside the bed with a 
 smile and a whisper, " Not at all tired, thank you." A few 
 words more, and I give it my candle, bid it " good-night," 
 and take its place, sitting down in the same arm-chair, and 
 leaning my head back against the same cushion, which still 
 keeps the indentation, soft and warm ; and so I watch by 
 the old man till morning. 
 
 This is how it has regularly been. 
 
 Until lately, night was the patient's most trying time. 
 He used to lie moaning, or watching the shadows of the 
 firelight on the curtains. Sometimes, when I gave him food 
 or medicine, turning upon me with a wild stare, as if he 
 hardly knew me, or thought I was some one else. Or he 
 would question me vaguely as to where was Dora? and 
 would I take care that she had a good long sleep poor 
 Dora ! 
 
 Dora Theodora " the gift of God" it is good to have 
 names with meanings to themj though people so seldom re- 
 semble their names. Her father seems beginning to feel 
 that she is not unlike hers. 
 
 " She is a good girl, Doctor," he said one evening, w r hen, 
 after having safely borne moving from bed to his arm-chair, 
 I pronounced my patient convalescent, and his daughter 
 was sent to take tea and spend the evening down stairs, 
 " she is a very good girl. Perhaps I have never thought 
 of my daughters." 
 
 I answered vaguely, daughters were a great blessing 
 often more so than sons. 
 
 " You are right, sir," he said suddenly, after a few min- 
 utes' pause. " You were never married, I believe ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 151 
 
 " If you do marry, never long for a son. Never build your 
 hopes on him, trusting he will keep up your name, and be 
 the stay of your old age. I had one boy, sir ; he was more 
 to me than all my daughters." 
 
 A desperate question was I prompted to ask I could 
 not withhold it, though the old man's agitated countenance 
 showed that it must be one passing question only. 
 
 "Is your son living?" 
 
 " No. He died young." 
 
 This, then, must be the secret simple and plain enough. 
 He was " a boy" he died " young," perhaps about eighteen 
 or nineteen the age when boys are most prone to run wild. 
 This lad must have done so ; putting all the circumstances 
 together, the conclusion was obvious, that in some way or 
 other he had, before his death, or in his death, caused his 
 father great grief and shame. 
 
 I could well imagine it ; fancy drew the whole picture, 
 filling it up pertinaciously, line by line. A man of Mr. 
 Johnston's character, marrying late in life as he must have 
 done, to be seventy w T hen his youngest child w r as not much 
 over twenty would be a dangerous father for any impet- 
 uous, headstrong boy. A motherless boy too ; Mrs. John- 
 ston died early. It was easy to understand how strife would 
 rise between the son and father ; a father no longer young, 
 with all his habits and peculiarities formed ; sensitive, over- 
 exacting; rigidly good, yet of somewhat narrow-minded 
 virtue ; scrupulously kind, yet not tender ; alive to the 
 lightest fault, yet seldom warming into sympathy or praise. 
 The sort of man w T ho compels respect, and whom, being 
 one's self blameless, one might even love ; but, having com- 
 mitted any error, one's first impulse would be to fly from 
 him to the very end of the earth. 
 
 Such, no doubt, had been the case with that poor boy, 
 who "died young." Out of England, no doubt, or surely 
 they would have brought him home, and buried him under 
 the shadow of his father's church, and his memory would 
 have left some trace in the family, the village, or the neigh- 
 borhood. As it was, it seemed blotted out as if he had 
 never existed. No one knew about him no one spoke 
 about him, not even the sisters, his playmates. So she 
 the second sister had said. It w^as a tacit hint for me 
 also to keep silence otherwise I would have liked to ask 
 her more about him this poor fallen boy. I know how 
 suddenly, how involuntarily, as it seems, a wretched boy 
 can fall into pome perdition never afterward retrieved. 
 
liili A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Thinking thus sitting by the bedroom fire, with Mr. 
 Johnston asleep opposite poor old man, it must have been 
 his boy's case, and not his own, which has made him so 
 sensitive about only sons I suddenly called to mind how, 
 in the absorbing anxiety of the last three weeks that day 
 the anniversary had slipped by, and I had not even 
 recollected it. It could be forgotten then ? was this a warn- 
 ing that I might let it pass, if it would, into oblivion and 
 yield like any other man, to pleasant duties, and social ties, 
 the warmth of which stole into me, body and soul, like this 
 blessed household fire. It could not last but while it did 
 last, why not share it ; why persist in sitting outside in the 
 cold? 
 
 You will not understand this. There are some things I 
 can not explain, till the last letter, if ever I should come to 
 write it. Then you will know. 
 
 Tea over, Miss Theodora came to see after u our patient," 
 as she called him, asking if he had behaved well, and done 
 nothing he ought not to have done ? 
 
 I told her, that was an amount of perfection scarcely to 
 bo exacted from any mortal creature ; at which she laughed, 
 and re j /. . jd, she was sure I said this with an air of depreca- 
 tion, as if afraid such perfection might be required of me. 
 
 Often her little hand carries an invisible sword. I try 
 to hide the wounds, but the last hour's meditation made 
 them sharper than ordinary. For once, she saw it. She 
 CM mo and knelt by the fire, not far from me, thoughtfully. 
 Then, suddenly turning round, said, 
 
 " If ever I say a rude thing to you, forgive it. I wish I 
 were only half as good as you." 
 
 The tone, so earnest, yet so utterly simple a child might 
 have said the same, looking into one's face with the same 
 frank eyes. God forgive me ! God pity me ! 
 
 I rose and went to the bedside to speak to her father, 
 who just then woke and called for " Dora." 
 
 If in nothing else, this illness has been a blessing; draw- 
 ing closer together the father and daughter. She must 
 have been thinking so, when to-day she said to me: 
 
 " It is strange how many mouthfuls of absolute happiness 
 one sometimes tastes in the midst of trouble " adding I 
 can see her attitude as she talked, standing with eyes cast 
 down, mouth sweet and smiling, and fingers playing with 
 her apron-tassels a trick she has " that she now felt as 
 if she should never be afraid of trouble any more." 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 153 
 
 That also is comprehensible. Any thing which calls out 
 the dormant energies of the character must do a woman 
 good. With some women, to be good and to be happy is 
 one and the same thing. 
 
 She is changed, too, I can see. Pale as she looks, there 
 is a softness in her manner and a sweet composure in her 
 face, different from the restlessness I once noticed there 
 the fitful irritability, or morbid pain, perceptible at times, 
 though she tried hard to disguise both. And succeeded 
 doubtless ; in all eyes but mine. 
 
 She is more cheerful, too, than she ever used to be ; not 
 restlessly lively, like her eldest sister, but seeming to carry 
 about in her heart a well-spring of content, which bubbles 
 out refreshingly upon every thing and every body about 
 her. It is especially welcome in the sick-room, where, she 
 knows, our chief aim is to keep the mind at ease, and the 
 feeble brain in absolute rest. I could smile, remembering 
 the hours we have spent patient, doctor, and nurse in 
 the most puerile amusements, and altogether delicious non- 
 sense, since Mr. Johnston became convalescent. 
 
 All this is over now. I knew it was. I sat by the fire, 
 watching her play off her loving jests upon her father, and 
 prattle with him childish-like, about all that was going on 
 down stairs. 
 
 " You little quiz !" he cried at last. " Doctor, this girl is 
 growing I can't say witty but absolutely mischievous." 
 
 I said, talents long dormant sometimes appeared. We 
 might yet discover in Miss Theodora Johnston the most 
 brilliant wit of her day. 
 
 " Dr. Urquhart, it's a shame ! How can you laugh at me 
 so ? But I don't care. You are all the better for having 
 somebody to laugh at. You know you are." 
 
 I did know it only too well, and my eyes might have 
 betrayed it, for hers sank. She colored a little, sat down 
 to her work, and sewed on silently, thoughtfully, for a good 
 while. 
 
 ' What was in her mind ? Was it pity ? Did she fancy 
 she had hurt me touched unwittingly one of my many 
 sores ? She knows I have had a hard life, with few pleas- 
 ures in it ; she would gladly give me some ; she is sorry 
 for me. 
 
 Most people's compassion is worse than their indifference ; 
 but hers given out of the fullness of the pure, tender, un, 
 suspicious heart I can bear it. I can be grateful for' it. 
 
 G 2 
 
154 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 On this first evening that broke the uniformity of the 
 sick-room, we thought it better, she and I, considering the 
 peculiarities of the rest of the family, which she seems to 
 take for granted I am aware of, and can make allowance 
 for that none of them should be admitted this night. A 
 prohibition not likely to afflict them much. 
 
 " And pray, Miss Dora, how do you mean to entertain 
 the doctor and me ?" 
 
 " I mean to give you a large dose of my brilliant conver- 
 sation, and, lest it become too exciting, to season it with a 
 little reading, out of something that neither of you take 
 the smallest interest in, and will be able to go to sleep over 
 properly. Poetry most likely." 
 
 "Some of yours?" 
 
 She colored deeply. " Hush, papa, I thought you had 
 forgotten you said it was ' nonsense,' you know." 
 
 " Very likely it was. But I mean to give it another 
 reading some day. Never mind nobody heard." 
 
 So she writes poetry. I always knew she was very 
 clever, besides being well-educated. Talented women 
 modern Corinnes my impression of them was rather re- 
 pulsive. But she that soft, shy girl, with her gay sim- 
 plicity, her meek, household ways 
 
 I said, if Miss Theodora were going to read, perhaps she 
 might remember she had once promised to improve my 
 mind with a course of German literature. There was a 
 book about a gentleman of my own name Max Max 
 something or other 
 
 " Piccolomini. You have not forgotten him ! What a 
 memory you have for little things." 
 
 She thought so ! I said, if she considered a poor doctor, 
 accustomed to deal more with bodies than souls, could 
 comprehend the sort of books she seemed so fond of, I 
 would like to hear about Max Piccolomini. 
 
 " Certainly. Only" 
 
 " You think I could not understand it." 
 
 " I never thought any such thing," she cried out in her 
 old abrupt way, and went out of the room immediately. 
 
 The book she fetched was a little dainty one. Perhaps 
 it had been a gift. I asked to look at it. 
 
 " Can you read German ?" 
 
 " Not a line." For my few words of conversational for- 
 eign tongues have been learned orally, the better to com- 
 municate with stray patients in hospitals. I told her so. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 155 
 
 " I am very ignorant, as you must have long since found 
 out, Miss Theodora." 
 
 She said nothing, but began to read. At first translating 
 line by line ; then saying a written translation would be less 
 trouble, she fetched one. It was in her handwriting 
 probably her own doing. 
 
 No doubt every one, except such an unlearned ass as 
 myself, is familiar with the story historical, I believe she 
 said how a young soldier, Max Piccolomini, fell in love 
 with the daughter of his general, Wallenstein, who, head- 
 ing an insurrection, wished the youth to join in, promising 
 him the girl's hand. There is one scene where the father 
 tempts, and brings the daughter to tempt him, by hope of 
 this bliss, to turn rebel ; but the young man is firm the 
 girl, too, when he appeals to her, bids him keep to his duty, 
 and renounce his love. It is a case such as may have hap- 
 pened might happen in these days were modern men 
 and women capable of such attachments. Something of 
 the sort of love upon which Dallas used to theorize when 
 we were boys, always winding up with his favorite verse 
 how strange that it should come back to my mind now 
 "I could not love thec, dear, so much, 
 Loved I not honor more." 
 
 Max odd enough the name sounded, and she hesitated 
 over it at first with a half laughing apology, then, forget- 
 ting all but her book, it came out naturally and sweetly 
 oh, so sweetly sometimes Max died. How, I do not 
 clearly remember, but I know he died, and never married 
 the girl he loved ; that the time when he held her in his 
 arms, and kissed her before her father and them all, was 
 the last time they ever saw one another. 
 
 She read, sometimes hurriedly and almost inaudibly, and 
 then just like the people who were speaking, as if quite 
 forgetting herself in them. I do not think she even recog- 
 nized that there was a listener in the room. Perhaps she 
 thought, because I sat so still, that I did not hear or feel ; 
 that I, Max Urquhart, have altogether forgotten what it is 
 to be young and to love. 
 
 When she ceased, Mr. Johnston was soundly asleep ; we 
 both sat silent. I stretched out my hand for the written 
 pages, to go over some of the sentences again ; she went 
 on reading the German volume to herself. Her face was 
 turned away, but I could see the curve of her cheek, and 
 the smooth, spiral twist of her hair behind I suppose, if 
 
156 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 untwisted, it would reach down to her knees. This Ger- 
 man girl, Thekla, might have had just such hair ; this boy 
 this Max might have been allowed sometimes to touch 
 
 it reverently to kiss it. 
 
 ******* 
 
 I was interrupted here. A case at the hospital ; James 
 McDermot fever-ward cut his throat in a tit of delirium. 
 There must have been great neglect in the nurse or orderly, 
 perhaps in more than they. These night absences this 
 preoccupation though I have tried earnestly to fulfill all 
 my duties ; yet, as I walked back, the ghastly figure of the 
 dead man was ever before me. Have I not a morbid con- 
 science, which revels in self-accusation ? Suppose there 
 was one who knew me as I knew myself could show my- 
 self unto myself, and say, " Poor soul, 'tis nothing. Forget 
 thyself. Think of another thy other self of me." 
 
 Why recount this, one of the countless painful incidents 
 that are always recurring to our profession ? Because, 
 having begun, I must tell you all that happens to me, as a 
 man would, coming home after Ids clay's labor to his let 
 me write down the word steadily his wife. His wife 
 nearer to him than any mortal thing bone of his bone and 
 ilesh of his flesh; his rest, comfort, and delight whom, 
 more than almost any man, a doctor requires, seeing that 
 on the dark side of human life his path must continually 
 lie. 
 
 Sometimes, though, bright bits come across us such as 
 when the heavy heart is relieved, or the shadow of death 
 lifted from off a dwelling ; moments when the doctor, 
 much to his own conscious humiliation, is apt to be re- 
 garded as an angel of deliverance ; seasons when he is glad 
 to linger a little amid the glow of happiness he has been 
 instrumental in bringing before he turns out again into the 
 shadows of his appointed way. 
 
 And such will always be tins, which I may consider the 
 last of my nights at Rockmount. They would not hear of 
 my leaving, though it was needless to sit up. And when 
 I had seen Mr. Johnston safe and snug for the night, they 
 insisted on my joining the merry supper-table, where, re- 
 lieved now from all care, the family assembled. The family 
 included, of course, Mr. Charteris. I was the only stranger. 
 
 They did not treat me as a stranger you know that. 
 Sometimes falling, as the little party naturally did, into 
 two, and two, and two, it seemed as if the whole world 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 157 
 
 were conspiring to wrap me in the maddest of delusions 
 as if I always had sat, and were meant to sit familiarly, 
 brotherly, at that family table ; as if my old solitude were 
 quite over and gone, and that I should never be alone any 
 more. And, over all, was the atmosphere of that German 
 love-tale, which came up curiously to the surface, and 
 caused a conversation, which, in some parts of it, seems 
 the strangest thing of all that strange evening. 
 
 It w r as Mrs. Treherne who originated it. She asked her 
 sister what had we been doing that we were so exceedingly 
 quiet up stairs ? 
 
 " Reading papa wished it." And being farther ques- 
 tioned, Miss Theodora told what had been read. 
 
 Mrs. Treherne burst out laughing immoderately. 
 
 It would hardly be expected of such well-bred and amia- 
 ble ladies, but I have often seen the eldest and youngest 
 sisters annoy her the second one in some feminine way 
 men w r ould never think of doing it, or guess how it is 
 done sufficient to call the angry blood to her cheeks, and 
 cause her whole manner to change from gentleness into 
 defiance. It was so now. 
 
 " I do not see any thing so very ridiculous in my reading 
 to papa out of any book I choose." 
 
 I explained that I myself had begged for this one. 
 
 " Oh, and I'm sure she was delighted to oblige you." 
 
 " I was," she said, boldly ; " and I consider that any 
 thing, small or great, which either I, or you, or Penelope 
 can do to oblige Doctor Urquhart, we ought to be happy 
 and thankful to do for the remainder of our lives." 
 
 Mrs. Treherne was silenced. And here Mr. Charteris 
 breaking .the uncomfortable pause good-naturedly began 
 a disquisition on the play in question. He bore, for some 
 time, the chief part in a literary and critical conversation, 
 of which I did not hear or follow much. Then the ladies 
 took up the story in its moral and personal phase, and 
 talked it over pretty well. 
 
 The youngest sister was voluble against it. She hated 
 doleful books ; she liked a pleasant ending, where the peo- 
 ple were all married cheerfully and comfortably. 
 
 It was suggested, from my side of the table, that this 
 play had not an uncomfortable ending, though the lovers 
 both died. 
 
 "What an odd notion of comfort Dora has," said Mr. 
 Charteris. 
 
158 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," added Mrs. Treherne ; " for if they hadn't 
 died, were they not supposed never to meet again ? My 
 dear child, how do you intend to make your lover happy? 
 By bidding him an eternal farewell, allowing him to get 
 killed, and then dying on his tomb ?" 
 
 Every body laughed. Treherne said he was thankful his 
 Lisa was not of her sister's mind. 
 
 " Ay, Gus, dear, well you may ! Suppose I had come 
 and said to you, like Dora's heroine, ' My dear boy, we are 
 very fond of one another, but we can't ever be married. 
 It's of no consequence. Never mind. Give me a kiss, 
 and good-by' what would you have done, eh, Augustus ?" 
 
 " Hanged myself," replied Augustus, forcibly. 
 
 " If you did not think better of it while searching for a 
 cord," dryly observed Mr. Charteris. (I have for various 
 reasons noticed this gentleman rather closely of late.) 
 " Dora's theories about love are pretty enough ; but too 
 much on the gossamer style. Poor human nature requires 
 a little warmer clothing than these ' sky robes of iris woof,' 
 which are not ' warranted to wear.' " 
 
 As he spoke, I saw Miss Johnston's black eyes dart over 
 to his face in keen observation, but he did not see them. 
 Immediately afterward she said : 
 
 " Francis is quite right. Dora's heroics do her no good 
 nor any body ; because such characters do not exist, and 
 never did. Max and Thekla, for instance, are a pair of lov- 
 ers utterly impossible in this world." 
 
 " True," said Mr. Charteris, " even as Romeo and Juliet 
 are impossible, Shakspeare himself owns, 
 
 " 'These violent delights have violent ends.' 
 
 Had Juliet lived, she would probably not by force, but in 
 the most legal, genteel, and satisfactory way, have been 
 c married to the County ;' or, supposing she had got off safe 
 to Mantua, obtained parental forgiveness, and returned to 
 set up house-keeping as Mrs. R. Montague, depend upon it 
 she and Romeo would have wearied of one another in a 
 year, quarreled, parted, and she might, after all, have con- 
 soled herself with Paris, who seems a sweet-spoken, pretty- 
 behaved young gentleman throughout. Do you not think 
 so, Doctor Urquhart ? that is, if you are a reader of Shak- 
 speare." 
 
 Which he apparently thought I was not. I answered, 
 what has often struck me about this play, "that Shak- 
 speare only meant it as a tale of boy and girl passion. 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 159 
 
 Whether it would have lasted, or grown out of passion 
 into love one need not speculate, any more than the poet 
 does. Enough, that, while it lasts, it is a true and beauti- 
 ful picture of youthful love that is, youth's ideal of love , 
 though the love of maturer life is often a far deeper, high- 
 er, and better thing." 
 
 Here Mrs. Treherne, bursting into one of her hearty 
 laughs, accused her sister of having " turned Doctor Ur- 
 quhart poetical." 
 
 It is painful to appear a fool, even when a lively young 
 woman is trying to make you do so. I sat, cruelly con- 
 scious how little I have to say how like an awkward, 
 dull clod I often feel in the society of young and clever 
 people, when I heard her speaking from the other end of 
 the table I mean Miss Theodora. 
 
 " Lisabel, you are talking of what you do not understand. 
 You never did, and never will understand my Max and 
 Thekla, any more than Francis there, though he once 
 thought it so fine, when 'he was teaching Penelope Ger- 
 man, a few years ago." 
 
 " Dora, your excitement is unlady-like." 
 
 "I do not care," she answered, turning upon her elder 
 sister with flashing eyes. " To sit by quietly and hear such 
 doctrines, is worse than unlady-like unwoman-like ! You 
 two girls may think what you please on the matter ; but I 
 know what I have always thought and think still." 
 
 " Pray will you indulge us with your creed ?" cried Mr. 
 Charteris. 
 
 She hesitated her cheeks burned like fire but still she 
 spoke out bravely. 
 
 " I believe, spite of all you say, that there is, not only in 
 books, but in the world, such a thing as love ; unselfish, 
 faithful, and true, like that of my Thekla and my Max. I 
 beljeve that such a love a right love teaches people to 
 think of the right first, and themselves afterward ; and, 
 therefore, if necessary, they could bear to part for any 
 number of years or even forever." 
 
 " Bless us all ; I wouldn't give two farthings for a man 
 who would not do any thing do wrong even for my 
 sake." 
 
 "And I, Lisabel, should esteem a man a selfish coward, 
 whom I might pity, but I don't think I could ever love 
 him again, if in any way he did wrong for mine." 
 
 From my corner, whither I had gone and sat down a 
 
160 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 little out of the circle, I saw this young face flashing, full 
 of a new expression. Dallas, when he talked sometimes, 
 used to have just such a light in his eyes just such a glo- 
 ry streaming from all his features ; but then he was a boy, 
 and this was a woman. Ay, one felt her womanhood, the 
 I'.ission and power of it, with all its capabilities for either 
 blessing or maddening, in the very core of one's beinft. 
 
 The others chatted a little more, and then I heard her 
 speaking again. 
 
 " Yes, Lisabel, you are quite right ; I do not think it of 
 so very much importance, whether people who are very 
 deeply attached, ever live to be married or not. In one 
 sense they are married already, and nothing can come be- 
 tween them, so long as they love one another." 
 
 This seemed an excellent joke to the Trehernes, and 
 drew a remark or two from Mr. Charteris, to which she 
 refused to reply. 
 
 " No ; you put me in a passion, and forced me to speak ; 
 but I have done now. I shall not argue the point any 
 more." 
 
 Her voice trembled, and her little hands nervously 
 clutched and plaited the table-cloth; but she sat in her 
 place, never moving features or eyes. Gradually the bum- 
 ing in her cheeks faded, and she grew excessively pale; 
 lait no one seemed to notice her. They were too full of 
 themselves. 
 
 I had time to learn the picture by heart, every line ; this 
 little figure sitting by the table, bent head, drooping shoul- 
 ders, and loose white sleeves shading the two hands, which 
 were crushed so tightly together, that when she stirred I 
 saw the finger-marks of one imprinted on the other. What 
 could she have been thinking of? 
 
 "Miss Dora, please." 
 
 It was only a servant, saying her father wished to speak 
 to her before he went to sleep. 
 
 " Say I am coming." She rose quickly, but turned be- 
 fore she reached the door. " I may not see you again be- 
 fore you go. Good-night, Doctor TJrquhart." 
 
 We have said good-night, and shaken hands, every night 
 for three weeks. I know I have done my duty ; no linger- 
 ing, tender clasping what I had no right to clasp ; a mere 
 good-night, and shake of the hand. But, to-night ? 
 
 I did not say a word I did not look at her. Yet the 
 touch of that little cold, passive hand has never left mine 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 16i 
 
 since. If I lay my hand clown here, on this table, it seems 
 to creep into it and nestle there ; if I let it go, it comes 
 back again ; if I crush my fingers down upon it, though 
 there is nothing, I feel it still feel it through every nerve 
 and pulse, in heart, soul, body, and brain. 
 
 This is the merest hallucination, like some of the spectral 
 illusions I have been subject to at times ; the same which 
 made Coleridge once say " he had seen too many ghosts to 
 b'alieve in them." 
 
 Let me gather up my faculties. 
 
 I am sitting in my hut. There is no fire no one ever 
 thinks of lighting a fire for me, of course, unless I specially 
 order it. The room is chill, warning me that winter is nigh 
 at hand ; disorderly no one ever touches my goods and 
 chattels, and I have been too much from home lately to in- 
 stitute any arrangement myself. All solitary, too ; even 
 my cat, who used to be the one living thing lingering about 
 me, marching daintily over my books, or stealing up, purr- 
 ing, to lay her head upon my knee, even my cat, weary of 
 my long absence, has disappeared to my next-door neigh- 
 bor. I am quite alone. 
 
 Well, such is the natural position of a man without near 
 kindred, who has reached my years and has not married. 
 lie has no right to expect aught else to the end of his days. 
 
 I rode home from Kockmount two hours ago, leaving a 
 still lively group sitting around the fire in the parlor Miss 
 Johnston on her sofa, with Mr. Chart eris beside her ; Tre- 
 herne sitting opposite, with his arm round his wife's 
 waist. 
 
 And up stairs, I know how things will look the shad- 
 owy bed-chamber, the little white china lamp on the table, 
 and one curtain half-looped back, so that the old man may 
 just catch a glimpse of the bending figure, reading to him 
 the Evening Psalms ; or else she will, by this time, have 
 said " Good-night, papa," and gone away to the upper part 
 of the house, of which I know nothing, and have never 
 seen. Therefore I can only fancy her, as I one night hap- 
 pened to see, going up stairs, candle in hand, softly, step by 
 step, as saintly souls slip away into paradise, and we below, 
 though we would cling to the hem of their garments, crush 
 our lips in the very print of their feet, can neither hold 
 them, nor dare beseech them to stay. 
 
 Oh, if I were only dead, that you might have this letter 
 might know, feel, comprehend all these things. 
 
1G2 A LIFE FOR A LlivE. 
 
 I have been cc doing wrong." I owe it to myself, to more 
 than myself, not to yield to weak lamentations or unmanly 
 bursts of phrensy against an inevitable fate. 
 
 Is it inevitable ? 
 
 Before beginning to write to-night, for two hours I sat 
 arguing with myself this question ; viewing the circum- 
 stances of both parties, for such a question necessarily in- 
 cludes both, with a calmness which I believe even I can at- 
 tain, when the matter involves not myself alone. I have 
 come to the conclusion that it is inevitable. 
 
 When you reach these my years, when you have experi- 
 enced all those changes which you now dream over and 
 theorize upon in your innocent, unconscious heart, you will 
 also see that my judgment was right. 
 
 To seek and sue a woman's yet unwon love implies the 
 telling her, when won, the whole previous history of her 
 lover ; concealing nothing, fair or foul, which does not com- 
 promise any other than himself. This confidence she has 
 a right to, and the man who withholds it is either a cow- 
 ard in himself, or doubts the woman of his choice, as, should 
 he so doubt his wife, woe to him and to her ! To carry 
 into the sanctuary of a true wife's breast some accursed 
 thing which must be forever hidden in his own, has always 
 seemed to me one of the blackest treasons against both 
 honor and love of which a man could be capable. 
 
 Could I tell my wife, or the woman whom I would fain 
 teach to love me, my whole history ? And if I did, would 
 it not close the door of her heart eternally against me ? or, 
 supposing it was too late for that, and she already loved 
 me, would it not make her, for my sake, miserable for life ? 
 I believe it would. 
 
 On this account, even, things are inevitable. 
 
 There is another reason; whether it comes second or 
 first, in my arguments with myself, I do not know. When 
 a man has vowed a vow, dare he break it ? There is a cer- 
 tain vow of mine, which, did I marry, must be broken. 
 
 No man in his senses, or possessing the commonest feel- 
 ings of justice and tenderness, would give his name to a 
 beloved woman, with the possibility of children to inherit 
 it, and then bring upon each and all of them the end, which 
 I have all my life resolutely contemplated as a thing neces- 
 sary to be done, either immediately before my death, or 
 after it. 
 
 Therefore, also, it is inevitable. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 163 
 
 That word inevitable always calms me. It is the will 
 of God. If He had meant otherwise, He would have found 
 out a way perhaps by sending me some good woman to 
 love me, as men are loved sometimes, but not such men as I. 
 There is no fear or hope, which shall I say ? of any one 
 ever loving me. 
 
 Sleep, child ! You are fast asleep by this hour, I am 
 sure ; you once said you always fall asleep the instant your 
 head touches the pillow. Blessed pillow ! precious, tender, 
 lovely head ! 
 
 " Good-night." Sleep well, happy, ignorant child. 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 " FINISHED to-morrow." What a lifetime seems to have 
 elapsed since I wrote that line ! 
 
 A month and four days ago, I sat here, waiting for papa 
 and Penelope to come home from their dinner party. Try- 
 ing to be cheerful wondering why I was not so ; yet with 
 my heart as heavy as lead all the time. 
 
 I think it will never be quite so heavy any more. Nev- 
 er weighed down by imaginary wrongs and ideal woes. 
 It has known real anguish and been taught wisdom. 
 
 We have been very nearly losing our beloved father. 
 Humanly speaking, we should have lost him but for Doc- 
 tor Urquhart, to whose great skill and unremitting care, 
 Doctor Black himself confessed yesterday, papa has, under 
 God, owed his life. 
 
 It is impossible for me to write down here the particu- 
 lars of dear papa's accident and the illness which followed, 
 every day of which seems at once so vivid and so unreal. 
 I shall never forget it while I live, and yet, even now, am 
 afraid to recall it ; though at the time 1 seemed afraid of 
 nothing strong enough for every thing. I felt or it now 
 appears as though I must have done so as I did on one 
 sunshiny afternoon at a picnic about a dozen years ago, 
 when I, following Colin Granton, walked round the top of 
 a circular rock, on a ledge two feet wide, a sloping ledge 
 of short slippery grass ; where, if we had slipped, it was 
 about ninety perpendicular feet to fall. 
 
 I shudder to think of that feat even now ; and telling it 
 
1G4 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 to Doctor Urquhart in illustration of what I am here men- 
 tioning, namely, the quiet unconsciousness with which one 
 sometimes passes through exceeding great danger, he too 
 shuddered, turned deadly white. I never saw a strong 
 man lose color so suddenly and completely as he does at 
 times. 
 
 Can he be really strong? Those nights of watching 
 must have told upon his health, which is so valuable ; doubly 
 valuable to one in his profession. We must try to make 
 him take care of himself, and allow us Rockmount gener- 
 ally to take care of him. Though, since his night-watch- 
 ings ceased, he has not given us much opportunity, having 
 only paid his due medical visit once a day, ana scarcely, 
 staid ten minutes afterward ; until to-day, when, by papa's' 
 express desire, Augustus drove over and fetched him to 
 dinner. 
 
 It is pleasant to be able to write down here how very much 
 better I like my brother-in-law. His thorough goodness of 
 nature, his kindly cheering ways, and his unaffected, if rath- 
 er obstreperous love for his wife, which is reflected, as it 
 should be, upon every creature belonging to her make it 
 impossible not to like him. I am heartily glad he has sold 
 out, so that even if war breaks out again, there will be no 
 chance of his being ordered off on foreign service ; though 
 in that case he declares he should feel himself in honor 
 bound to volunteer. But Lisabel only laughs ; she knows 
 better. 
 
 Still, I trust there may be no occasion. War, viewed in 
 the abstract, is sufficiently terrible ; but when it comes 
 home, when one's self and one's own are bound up in the 
 chances of it, the case is altogether changed. Some mis- 
 fortunes contemplated as personal possibilities seem more 
 than human nature could bear. How the mothers, sisters, 
 wives, have borne them all through this war is 
 
 My head turned dizzy here, and I was obliged to leave 
 off writing and lie down. I have not felt very strong late- 
 ly that is, not bodily strong. In my heart I have thor- 
 oughly calm, happy, and thankful as God knows we have 
 all need to be, since he has spared our dear father, never 
 loved so dearly as now. But physically I am rather tired 
 and weak, as if I would fain rest my head somewhere and 
 be taken care of, if there were any body to do it, which 
 there is not. Since I can remember, nobody ever took 
 care of me. 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 165 
 
 While writing this last line old Mrs. Cartwright came up 
 to bring me some arrow-root with wine in it for my supper, 
 entreating me to go to bed " like a good child." She said 
 "the doctor" told her to look after me; but she should 
 have done it herself, anyhow. She is a good old body ; 
 I wish we could find out any thing about her poor lost 
 daughter. 
 
 What was I writing about ? Oh, the history of to-day, 
 where I take up the thread of my journal, leaving the 
 whole interval between a blank. I could not write about 
 it if I would. 
 
 I did not go to church with them this morning, feeling 
 
 i sure I could not walk so far, and some one ought to stay 
 
 w^ith papa. So the girls went, and Doctor Urquhart also, 
 
 at which papa seemed just a little disappointed, he having 
 
 counted on a long morning's chat. 
 
 I never knew papa attach himself to any man before, or 
 take such exceeding delight in any one's company. He 
 said the other day, when Augustus annoyed him about 
 some trifle or other, that " he wished he might have chosen 
 his own son-in-law ; Lisabel had far better have married 
 Doctor Urquhart." 
 
 Our Lisabel and Doctor Urquhart! I could not help 
 laughing. Day and night fire and water would have best 
 described their union. 
 
 Penelope now, though she has abused him so much but 
 that was Francis's fault would have suited him a deal 
 better. They are more friendly than they used to be ; in- 
 deed, he is on good terms with all Rockmount. We feel, 
 every one of us, I trust, that our obligations to him are of 
 a kind of which we never can acquit ourselves while we live. 
 
 This great grief has been in many ways, like most afflic- 
 tions, u a blessing in disguise." It has drawn us all to- 
 gether, as nothing but trouble ever does, as I did not think 
 any thing ever would, so queer a family are we. But we 
 are improving. We do not now shut ourselves up in our 
 rooms, hiding each in her hole like a selfish bear until feed- 
 ing time we assemble in the parlor w T e sit and talk round 
 papa's study-chair. There, this morning after church, wo 
 held a convocation and confabulation before papa came 
 down. 
 
 And, strange to say almost the first time such a thing 
 ever happened in ours, though a clergyman's family we 
 talked about the church and the sermon. 
 
166 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 It was preached by the young man whom papa has been 
 obliged to take as curate, and who, Penelope said, she 
 feared would never suit, if he took such eccentric texts 
 and preached such out-of-the-way sermons as the one this 
 morning. I asked what it was about, and was answered, 
 " the cities of refuge." , 
 
 I fear I do not know my Bible the historic portion of 
 it so well as I might ; for I scandalized Penelope exceed, 
 ingly by inquiring what Tfere " the cities of refuge." She 
 declared any child in her school would have been better 
 acquainted with the Old Testament, and I had it at my 
 tongue's end to say that a good many of her children 
 seemed far too glibly anfl irreverently acquainted with the 
 Old Testament ; for I on,ofc overheard a knot of them doing 
 the little drama of ElijahyLthe mocking children, and the 
 bears in the wood, to the confusion of our poor bald-headed 
 organist, and their own uproarious delight, especially the 
 two boys who enacted the bears. But 'tis wicked to tease 
 our good Penelope ; at least, I think it wicked now. 
 
 So I said nothing; but after the sermon had been well 
 talked over as " extraordinary," " unheard of in our church," 
 " such a mixing of politics and religion, and bringing up 
 every-day subjects into the pulpit" for it seems he had al- 
 luded to some question of capital punishment, which now 
 fills the newspapers I took an opportunity of asking Doc- 
 tor Urquhart what the sermon really had been about. I 
 can often speak to him of things which I never should 
 dream of discussing with my sisters, or even papa ; for, 
 whatever the subject is, he will always listen, answer, ex- 
 plain either laughing away my follies, or talking to me 
 seriously and kindly. 
 
 This time, though, he was not so p^rtient; asked me, 
 abruptly, " Why I wanted to know ?" 
 
 " About the sermon ? From harmless curiosity ; or, 
 rather" for I would not wish him to think that in any 
 religious matter I was guided by no higher motive than 
 curiosity " because I doubt Penelope's judgment of the 
 curate. She is rather harsh sometimes." 
 
 "Is she?" 
 
 "Will you find for me" and I took out of my pocket 
 my little Bible, which I had been reading in the garden 
 " about the cities of refuge ? that is, unless you dislike to 
 talk on the subject." 
 
 " Who I what made you suppose so ?" 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 167 
 
 I replied candidly, his own manner, while they were 
 arguing it. 
 
 " You must not mind my manners it is not kind it is 
 not friendly." And then he begged my pardon, saying he 
 knew he often spoke more rudely to me than to any one else, 
 
 If he does it harms me not. He must have so manj- 
 causes of anxiety and irritation, which escape by expres- 
 sion. I wish he would express them a little more, indeed. 
 One could bear to be really scolded if it did him any good ; 
 but, of course, I should have let the theological question 
 slip by, had he not, some minutes after, referred to it him- 
 self. We were standing outside the window ; there was 
 no one within hearing ; indeed, he rarely talks very seri- 
 ously unless he and I happen to be alone. 
 
 " Did you think as they do your sisters, I mean that 
 the Mosaic law is still our law an eye for an eye a tooth 
 for a tooth a life for a life and so on ?" 
 
 I said I did not quite understand him. 
 
 " It was the subject of the sermon. "Whether he who 
 takes life forfeits his own. The law of Moses enacted this. 
 Even the chance murderer, the man guilty of manslaughter, 
 as we should term it now, was not safe out of the bounds 
 of the three cities of refuge. The avenger of blood ' finding 
 him' might ' slay him.' " 
 
 I asked what he thought was meant by " the avenger of 
 blood ?" Was it divine or human retribution ? 
 
 "I can not tell. How should I know? Why do yoi* 
 question me ?" 
 
 I might have said, Because I liked to talk to him, and 
 hear him talk ; because, in many a perplexed subject over 
 which I had been w r earying myself, his opinion had guided 
 me and set me ri^M. I did hint something of the kind, 
 but he seemed not to hear or heed it, and continued : 
 
 " Do you think, with the minister of this morning, that, 
 except in very rare cases, we we, Christians, have no right, 
 to exact a life for a life ? Or do you believe, on religious 
 as well as rational grounds, that every man-slayer ought 
 inevitably to be hanged ?" 
 
 I have often puzzled over that question, which Doctor 
 TJrquhart evidently felt as much as I did. Truly, many a 
 time have I turned sick at the hangings which I have had 
 to read to papa in the newspapers ; have wakened at seven 
 in the morning, and counted, minute by minute, some 
 wretched convict's last hour, till the whole scene grew so 
 
168 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 vivid that the execution seemed more of a murder than th<f 
 original crime of which it was the expiation. But still, to 
 say that there ought to be no capital punishments ! I could 
 not tell. I only repeated, softly, words that came into my 
 mind at that instant. 
 
 "I?or we know that no murderer hath eternal life in 
 him." 
 
 " But if he were not a willful murderer ? if life were 
 taken let us suppose such a case in violent passion, or 
 under circumstances which made the man not himself; if 
 his crime were repented of and atoned for in every possible 
 way the lost life repurchased by his own not by dying, 
 but by the long torment of living ?" 
 
 " Yes," I said, " I could well imagine a convict's exist- 
 ence, or that of one convicted in his own conscience a 
 duelist, for instance far more terrible than death upon the 
 scaffold." 
 
 " You are right ; I have seen such cases." 
 
 No doubt he has, since, as an officer once told me, the 
 army still holds dueling to be the necessary defense of a 
 gentleman's " honor." The recollections aroused were ap- 
 parently very sore so much so that I suggested our chang- 
 ing the subject, which seemed both painful and unprofit- 
 able. 
 
 " Not quite. Besides, would you quit a truth because it 
 happened to be painful ? That is not like you." 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 After a few minutes' silence, he continued : " This is a 
 question I have thought over deeply. I have my own 
 opinion concerning it, and I know that of most men ; but I 
 should like to hear a woman's a Christian woman's. Tell 
 me, do you believe the avenger of blood walks through the 
 Christian world as through the land of Israel, requiring 
 retribution ; that for blood-shedding, as for all other crimes, 
 there is in this world, whatever there may be in another, 
 expiation, but no pardon ? Think well, answer slowly, for 
 it is a momentous question." 
 
 " I know that the one question of our times." 
 
 Doctor Urquhart bent his head without replying. He 
 hardly could speak ; I never saw him so terribly in earnest. 
 His agitation roused me from the natural shyness I have in 
 lifting up my own voice and setting forth my own girlish 
 opinion on topics of which every one has a right to think, 
 but very few to speak. 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 169 
 
 " I believe that in the Almighty's gradual teaching of 
 His creatures, a Diviner than Moses brought to us a higher 
 law, in which the sole expiation required is penitence with 
 obedience: '-Repent ye? i G-o and sin no more.' It ap- 
 pears to me, so far as I can judge and read here" my Bi- 
 ble was still in my hand "that throughout the New, and in 
 many parts of the Old Testament, runs one clear doctrine, 
 namely, that any sin, however great, being repented of and 
 forsaken, is by God, and ought to be by man, altogether 
 pardoned, blotted out, and done away." 
 
 " God bless you !" 
 
 For the second time he said to me those words said 
 them twice over, and left me. Rather abruptly ; but he is 
 sometimes abrupt when thinking deeply of any thing. 
 
 Thus ended our little talk ; yet it left a pleasant impres- 
 sion. True, the subject was strange enough; my sisters 
 might have been shocked at it ; and at my freedom in ask- 
 ing and giving opinions. But oh ! the blessing it is to have 
 a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject ; 
 with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish 
 thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort 
 the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person 
 having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but 
 pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain 
 together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift 
 them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath 
 of kindness blow the rest away. 
 
 Somebody must have done a good deal of the winnowing 
 business this afternoon ; for in the course of it I gave him 
 as much nonsense as any reasonable man could stand even 
 such an ultra-reasonable man as Doctor Urquhart. Papa 
 said once, that she was " taking too great liberty of speech 
 with our good friend, the doctor that foolish little Dora ;" 
 but foolish little Dora knows well enough what she is 
 about when to be silly and when to be wise. She be- 
 lieves in her heart that there are some people to whom it 
 does great good to be dragged down from their heights 
 of wisdom, and forced to talk and smile, until the cloud 
 wears off, and the smile becomes permanent grows into a 
 sunshine that warms every one else all through. Oh, if he 
 had had a happy life if Dallas had lived this Dallas, whom 
 I often think about, and seem to know quite well what a 
 cheerful, blithe nature his would have been ! 
 
 Just before tea, when papa was taking his sleep, Doctor 
 H 
 
170 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 Urquhart proposed that we should all go for a walk. Pe- 
 nelope excused herself; besides, she thinks it wrong to walk 
 out on a Sunday ; but Lisabel and Augustus were very glad 
 to go. So was I, having never been beyond the garden since 
 papa's illness. 
 
 If I try to remember all the trivial incidents of to-day, at 
 full length, it is because it has been such an exceedingly 
 happy day ; to preserve which from the chances of this mor- 
 tal life, " the sundry and manifold changes of this world," 
 as the prayer says, I here write down the account of it. 
 
 How vague, how incompatible with the humdrum tenor 
 of our quiet days at Rockmount that collect used to sound ! 
 
 "That amid the sundry and manifold changes of this 
 world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys 
 are to be found, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen" 
 Now, as if newly understanding it, I also repeat, "Amen." 
 
 We started, Lisabel, Augustus, Doctor Urquhart, and I. 
 We went through the village, down the moorland road, to 
 the ponds, which Augustus wanted to examine, with a view 
 to wild-duck shooting, next, or, rather, I might say, this 
 winter, for Christmas is coming close upon us, though tho 
 weather is still so mild. 
 
 Lisa and her husband walked on first, and quickly left us 
 far behind ; for, not having been out for so long, except the 
 daily stroll round the garden, which Doctor Urquhart had 
 insisted upon, the fresh air seemed to turn me dizzy. I 
 managed to stumble on through the village, keeping up 
 talk, too, for Doctor Urquhart hardly said any thing, until 
 we came out upon the open moor, bright, breezy, sunshiny. 
 Then I felt a choking a longing to cry out or sob my 
 head swam round and round. 
 
 " Are you wearied ? you look as if you were." " Will 
 you like to take my arm ?" " Sit down sit down on this 
 stone my child !" 
 
 I heard these sentences distinctly, one after the other, 
 but could not answer. I felt iny bonnet-strings untied, and 
 the wind blowing on my face then all grew light again, 
 and I looked round. 
 
 " Do not be frightened ; you will be well in a minute or 
 two. I only wonder that you have kept up so bravely, 
 and are so strong." 
 
 This I heard too in a cheerful, kind voice and soon 
 after I became quite myself, but ready to cry with vexation, 
 or something, I don't know what/ 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 171 
 
 " You will not tell any body ?" I entreated. 
 
 " No, not any body," said he, smiling, " if turning faint 
 was such a crime. Now, you can walk ? Only not alone, 
 jiist at present, if you please." 
 
 I do not marvel at the almost unlimited power which, 
 Augustus says, Doctor Urquhart has over his patients. A 
 true physician not only of bodies, but souls. 
 
 We walked on, I holding his arm. For a moment, I was 
 half afraid of Lisabel's laugh, and the silly etiquette of our 
 neighborhood, which holds that if a lady and gentleman 
 walk arm-in-arm they must be going to be married. Then 
 I forgot both, and only thought what a comfort it was in 
 one's weakness to have an arm to lean on, and one that you 
 knew, you felt, was not unwilling to have you resting there. 
 
 I have never said, but I will say it here, that I know Doc- 
 tor Urquhart likes me better than any other of my fam- 
 ily ; better, perhaps, than any friend he has, for he has not 
 many. He is a man of great kindliness of nature, but few 
 personal attachments. I have heard him say, " that though 
 he liked a great many people, only one or two were abso- 
 lutely necessary to him." Dallas might have been, had he 
 lived. He told me, one day, there was a certain look in me 
 which occasionally reminded him of Dallas. It is by these 
 little things that I guess he likes me at least enough to 
 make me feel, when with him, that rest and content that I 
 never feel with those who do not care for me. 
 
 I made him laugh, and he made me laugh, several times, 
 about trifles that, now I call them to mind, were not funny 
 at all. Yet " it takes a wise man to make a fool, and none 
 but a fool is always wise." 
 
 With which sapient saying we consoled ourselves, stand- 
 ing at the edge of the larger pool, w r atching the other 
 couple strolling along, doubtless very busy over the wild- 
 duck affair. 
 
 " Your sister and Treherne seem to suit one another re- 
 markably well. I doubted once if they would." 
 
 " So did I. It ought to be a warning to us against hasty 
 judgments. % Especially here." 
 
 Mischief prompted the latter suggestion, for Doctor Ur- 
 quhart must have recollected, as w r ell as I did, the last and 
 only time he and I had walked across this moorland road, 
 when we had such a serious quarrel, and I was more pas- 
 sionate and rude to him than I ever was to anybody out 
 of my own family. I hope he has forgiven me. Yet he 
 was a little wrong too. 
 
172 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " Yes, especially here," he repeated, smiling so I have 
 no doubt he did remember. 
 
 Just then, Lisabel's laugh, and her husband's with it, 
 rang distinctly across the pool. 
 
 " They seem very happy, those two." 
 
 I said, I felt sure they were, and that it was a blessed 
 thing to find, the older one grew, how much of happiness 
 there is in life. 
 
 " Do you think so ?" 
 
 " Do you not think so ?" 
 
 " I do ; but not in your sense exactly. Remember, Miss 
 Theodora, people see life in a different aspect at twenty-five 
 and at " 
 
 "Forty. I know that." 
 
 " That I am forty ? Which I am not quite, by-the-by. 
 No doubt it seems to you a most awful age." 
 
 I said, it was perhaps for a woman, but for a man no more 
 than the prime of life, with many years before him in which 
 both to work and enjoy. 
 
 " Yes, for work is enjoyment, the only enjoyment that 
 ever satisfies." 
 
 He stood gazing across the moorland, my moorland, 
 which put on its best smile for us to-day. Ay, though 
 the heather was brown, and the furze-bushes had lost their 
 gold. But so long as there is free air, sunshine, and sky, 
 the beauty can never vanish from my beloved moor. I 
 wondered how any one could look at it and not enjoy it ; 
 could stand here as we stood and not be satisfied. 
 
 Perhaps in some slight way I hinted this, at least, so far 
 as concerned myself, to whom every thing seemed so deli- 
 cious, after this month of sorrow. 
 
 " Ah ! yes, I understand," said Doctor Urquhart, " and 
 so it should be with me also. So it is, I trust. This is a 
 lovely day, lovely to its very close, you see." 
 
 For the sun was sinking westward, and the clouds rob- 
 ing themselves for one of those infinitely varied autumn 
 sunsets, of the glory of which no human eye can ever tire. 
 
 " You never saw a tropical sunset ? I have, many. I 
 wonder if I shall ever see another." 
 
 After a little hesitation, I asked if he thought it likely ? 
 Pid he wish to go abroad again ? 
 
 " For some reasons, yes !" Then speaking forcibly : " Do 
 not think me morbid ; of all things, morbid, cowardly sen- 
 timentality is my abhorrence but I am not naturally a 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 173 
 
 cheerful-minded man. That is, I believe I was, but circuit 
 stances have been stronger than nature ; and it now costs 
 me an effort to attain what I think every man ought to 
 have, if he is not absolutely a wicked man." 
 
 " You mean an even, happy temper, which tries to make 
 the best of all things, as I am sure you do." 
 
 " An idle life," he went on, unheeding, " is of all things 
 the very worst for me. Unless I have as much work as 
 ever I can do, I am never happy." 
 
 This was comprehensible in degree. Though one thing 
 surprised and pained me, that even Doctor Urquhart was 
 not " happy." Is any body happy ? 
 
 " Do not misunderstand me." (I had not spoken, but he 
 often guesses my thoughts in a way that makes me thank- 
 ful I have nothing to hide.) " There are as many degrees 
 of happiness as of goodness, and the perfection of either is 
 impossible. But I have my share. Yes, truly, I have my 
 share." 
 
 "Of both?" 
 
 "Don't don't!" 
 
 Nor ought I to have jested when he was in such heavy 
 earnest. 
 
 And then for some time we were so still, that I remem- 
 ber hearing a large bee, deluded by the mild weather, come 
 swinging and singing over the moor, and stop at the last, 
 the very last, blue-bell I dared not call it a hare-bell with 
 Doctor Urquhart by of the year, for his honey-supper. 
 While he was eating it, I picked one of the flower-stalks, 
 and stroked it softly over his great brown back and wings* 
 
 " What a child you are still !" 
 
 (But for once Doctor Urquhart was mistaken.) 
 
 " How quiet every thing is here !" he added. 
 
 " Yes, that wavy purple line always reminded me of the 
 hills in the ' Happy Valley' of Prince Rasselas. Beyond 
 them lies the world." 
 
 " If you knew what ' the world' is, as you must one day. 
 But I hope you will only see the best half of it. I hope 
 you will have a happy life." 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 "This picture; the moorland, hills, and lake your pond 
 is as wide and bright as a lake will always put me in 
 mind of Rasselas. But one can not live forever in our 
 4 Happy Valley,' nor in our lazy camp either. I often wish 
 I had more work to do." 
 
174 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " How and where ?" 
 
 As soon as I had put it I blushed at the intrusiveness of 
 this question. In all he tells me of his affairs I listen, but 
 never dare to inquire, aware that I have no right to ask of 
 him more than he chooses to reveal. 
 
 Right or not, he was not offended ; he replied to me fully 
 and long ; talking more as if I had been a man and his con- 
 fidential friend, than only a simple girl, who has in this at 
 least some sense, that she feels she can understand him. 
 
 It appears, that in peace-time, the duties of a regimental 
 surgeon are almost nothing, except in circumstances where 
 they become as hopeless as they are heavy; such as the 
 cases of unhealthy barracks, and other avoidable causes of 
 mortality, which Doctor Urquhart and Augustus discussed, 
 and which he has since occasionally referred to, when talk- 
 ing to papa and me. He told me with what anxiety he had 
 tried to set on foot reforms in these matters ; how all his 
 plans had been frustrated, by the tardiness of government ; 
 and how he was hopeless of ever attaining his end. Indeed 
 he showed me an official letter, received that morning, fi- 
 nally dismissing the question. 
 
 " You see, Miss Theodora, 
 
 " 'To mend the world's a, vast design,' 
 too vast for my poor powers." 
 
 " Are you discouraged ?" 
 
 " No. But I suspect I began at the wrong end ; that I 
 attempted too much, and gave myself credit for more influ- 
 ence than I possessed. It does not do to depend upon other 
 people ; much safer is that amount of work that a man can 
 do with his own two hands and head. I should be far 
 freer, and therefore more useful, if I left the army altogeth- 
 er, and set up practice on my own account." 
 
 " That is, if you settled somewhere as a consulting phy- 
 sician, like Doctor Black ?" 
 
 " No," he smiled " not exactly like Doctor Black. Mine 
 would be a much humbler position. You know I have no 
 income except my pay." 
 
 I confessed that I had never given a thought to his in- 
 come, and, again smiling, he answered " No, he was sure 
 of that." 
 
 He then went on to explain that he believed moral and 
 physical evil to be so bound up together, that it was idle to 
 attack one without trying to cure the other. He thought, 
 better than all building of jails and reformatories, or even 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 175 
 
 of churches since the Word can be spread abroad without 
 need of bricks or mortar would be the establishing of sani- 
 tary improvements in our great towns, and trying to teach 
 the poor, not how to be taken care of in work-houses, pris- 
 ons, and hospitals, but how to take care of themselves in 
 their own homes. And then, in answer to my questions, 
 he told me many things about the life, say rather existence, 
 of the working classes in most large towns, which made me 
 turn sick at heart ; marveling how, with all things going 
 on around me, I could ever sit dreamily gazing over my 
 moorland, and playing childish tricks with bees ! 
 
 Yes, something ought to be done. I was glad, I was 
 proud, that it had come into his mind to do it. Better far 
 to labor thus in his own country than to follow an idle 
 regiment into foreign parts, or even a fighting regiment 
 into the terrible campaign. I said so. 
 
 " Ah ! you ' hate soldiers' still." 
 
 I did not answer, but met his eyes ; I know mine were 
 full I know my lips were quivering. Horribly painful it 
 was to be jested with just then. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart said gravely, " I was not in earnest ; 
 I beg your pardon." 
 
 We then returned to the discussion of his plans and in- 
 tentions. I asked him how he meant to begin his labors ? 
 
 " From a very simple starting-point. ' The doctor' has, 
 of all persons, the greatest influence among the poor if 
 only he cares to use it. AS a commencement, and also be- 
 cause I must earn salt to my porridge, you know my best 
 course would be to obtain the situation of surgeon to some 
 dispensary, work-house, hospital, or even jail. Thence, I 
 could widen my field of work at pleasure, so far as time 
 and money were forthcoming." 
 
 " If some one could only give you a fortune now !" 
 
 " I do not believe in fortunes. A man's best wealth con- 
 sists of his personal labors, personal life. ' Silver and gold 
 have I none ;' but wherever I am, I can give myself, my 
 labors, and my life." 
 
 I said something about that being a great gift many 
 men would call it a great sacrifice. 
 
 " Less to me than to most men since, as you know, I 
 have no relatives ; nor is it likely I shall ever marry." 
 
 I believed so. Not constantly, but at intervals. Some- 
 thing in his manner and mode of thought fixed the convic- 
 tion in my mind, from our earliest acquaintance. 
 
17G A I JFK FOIl A LIFE. 
 
 Of course, I merely made some silent assent to this con- 
 fidence. What was there to say ? Perhaps he expected 
 something for as we turned to walk home, the sun having 
 set, he remained a long time silent. But I could not speak. 
 In truth, nothing came into my head to say. 
 
 At that I lifted my eyes from the ground, and saw the 
 mist beginning to rise over my moorland my gray, soft, 
 dreamy moorland. Ay, dreamy it was, and belonging only 
 to dreams. But the world beyond the struggling, suffering, 
 sinning world of which he had told me that was a reality. 
 
 I said to my friend who walked beside me, feeling keenly 
 that he was my friend, and that I had a right to look up 
 into his good noble face, wherein all his life was written as 
 clearly as on a book thinking too what a comfort and priv- 
 ilege it was to have, more than any one else had, the read, 
 ing of that book I said to Doctor Urquhart my old hes 
 itation having somehow altogether vanished that I wished 
 to know all he could possibly tell me of his plans and proj- 
 ects : that I liked to listen to them, and would fain do 
 more than listen help. 
 
 Pie thfinked me. "Listening is helping. I hope you 
 will not refuse sometimes to help me in that way it is a 
 irreat comfort to me. But the labor I hope for is exclu- 
 sively a man's ; if any woman could give aid you could, for 
 you are the bravest woman I ever knew." 
 
 " And do you think I never can help you ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 So our walk ended. 
 
 I say " -ended," because, though there was a great deal of 
 laughing with Augustus and Lisabel who had pushed one 
 another ankle-deep into the pond, and behaved exactly like 
 a couple of school-children out on a holiday, and though, 
 they hurrying home, Doctor Urquhart and I afterward fol- 
 lowed leisurely, walking slowly together along the moor- 
 land road we did not renew our conversation. We 
 scarcely exchanged more than a few words ; though, walk- 
 ing arm-in-arm we did not feel that is, I did not feel 
 either apart, or unfriendly, or sad. 
 
 There is more in life than mere happiness even as there 
 are more things in the world than mere marrying and giv- 
 ing in marriage. If, from circumstances, he has taken that 
 resolution, he is perfectly justified in having done so ; and 
 in keeping to it. I would do exactly the same. The 
 character of a man who marries himself to a cause, or a 
 
A LIFE FOll A LIFE. 177 
 
 duty, has always been a sort of ideal of mine like my Max 
 Max and Thekla. But they were lovers betrothed lov- 
 ers ; free to say " I love you," w r ith eyes and lips ; just 
 once, for a day or two a little hour or two. Would this 
 have made parting less bitter or more ? I can not tell ; I 
 do not know. I shall never know aught about these things. 
 So I will not think of them. 
 
 When we came home Doctor Urquhart and myself I 
 left him at the door, and went up into my own room. 
 
 In the parlor I found Colin Granton come to tea ; he had 
 missed me at church, he said, and was afraid I had made 
 myself ill so walked over to Rockmount to see. It was 
 very kind though, while acknowledging it, he seemed half 
 ashamed of the kindness. 
 
 He and Augustus, now on the best of terms, kept us 
 alive all the evening with their talking and laughing. They 
 planned all sorts of excursions hunting, shooting, and 
 what not to take place during the grand Christmas gath- 
 ering which is to be at Treherne Court. Doctor Urquhart 
 one of the invited guests listened to all with a look of 
 amused content. 
 
 Yes he is content. More than once, as I caught his 
 eye following me about the room, we exchanged a smile 
 friendly, even affectionate. Ay, he does like me. If I 
 were a little younger if I were a little girl in curls, I 
 should say he is " fond" of me. " Fond of" what an idle 
 phrase! such as one would use toward a dog, or cat, or 
 bird. What a difference between that and the holy words, 
 "I love!" not as silly young folks say, I am "in love" 
 but "Hove;" with all my reason, will, and strength ; with 
 all the tenderness of my heart ; all the reverence of my soul. 
 
 Be quiet, heart ; be silent, soul ! I have, as I said be- 
 fore, naught to do with these things. 
 
 The evening passed pleasantly and calmly enough, all 
 parties seeming to enjoy themselves ; even poor Colin 
 coming out his brilliantest and best, and making himself 
 fquite at home. Though he got into a little disgrace before 
 going away, by saying something which irritated papa ; and 
 which made me glad that the little conversation this morn- 
 ing between Doctor Urquhart and myself had not been in 
 family conclave, but private. 
 
 ^ Colin was speaking of the sermon, and how " shocked" 
 his mother had been at its pleading against capital punish- 
 ment. 
 
 II 2 
 
178 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " Against capital punishment, did you say ?" .cried papa. 
 "Did my curate bring this disgraceful subject into my 
 pulpit in order to speak against the law of the land the 
 law of God ? Girls, why did you not tell me ? Dora, re- 
 mind me I must see the young man to-morrow." 
 
 I was mortally afraid this would end in the poor young 
 man's summary dismissal; for papa never allows any 
 " new-fangled notions" in his curates they must think and 
 preach as he does or quit. I pleaded a little for this one, 
 who had a brother and sister dependent on him, lodging in 
 the village ; and, as far as I dared and could, I pleaded for 
 his sermon. Colin tried to aid me honest fellow ; back- - 
 ing my words, every one, with the most eager assevera- 
 tions ; well meant, though they did not exactly assist the 
 argument. 
 
 " Dora," cried papa, in utmost astonishment, " what do 
 you mean?" 
 
 "Miss Dora's quite right: she always is," said Colin, 
 stoutly. " I don't think any body ever ought to be hanged. 
 Least of all a poor fellow who, like" (he mentioned the 
 name, but I forget it it was the case that has been so 
 much in the newspapers) "killed another fellow out of 
 jealousy or in a passion or being drunk which was it ? 
 I say, Urquhart Treherne won't you bear me out ?" 
 
 " In what ?" asked Augustus, laughing. 
 
 " That many a man has felt inclined sometimes to com- 
 mit murder : I have myself, before now ha ! ha ! and many 
 a poor devil is kicked out of the world dancing upon noth- 
 ing, who isn't a bit worse, may be better, than a great 
 many young scoundrels who die unhung. That's truth, 
 Mr. Johnston, though I say it." 
 
 " Sir," said papa, turning white with anger, " you are at 
 perfect liberty to say exactly what you please provided it 
 is not in my presence. ~No one, before me, shall so insult 
 my cloth, and blaspheme my Maker, as to deny His law 
 set down here" (dropping his hand over our great family 
 Bible, which he allows no one but himself to touch ; be- 
 cause, as we know, there is the fly-leaf, pasted down, not to 
 be read by any one, nor written on again during poor 
 papa's lifetime). " God's law is blood for blood. ' Whoso 
 'sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed? 
 That law, sir, my Church believes has never been never 
 will be annulled. And, though your maudlin, loose char- 
 ity may sympathize with hanged murderers, uphold duel- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 179 
 
 ists, and exalt into heroes cowardly man-slayers, I say that 
 I will no more have in my house the defenders of such, 
 than I would, under any pretext, grasp in mine the hand 
 of a man who had taken the life of another." 
 
 To see papa so excited alarmed us all. Colin, greatly 
 distressed, begged his pardon and retracted every thing 
 but the mischief was done. Though we anticipate no se- 
 rious results indeed he has now been for some hours 
 calmly asleep in his bed still he was made much worse 
 by this unfortunate dispute. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart staid, at our earnest wish, till mid- 
 night, though he did not go into papa's room. When I 
 asked him what was to be done in case of papa's head suf- 
 fering for this excitement if we should send to the camp 
 for him he said, " IsTo, he would rather we sent for Doc- 
 tor Black." 
 
 Yet he was anxious, I know ; for after Colin left he sat 
 by himself in the study, saying he had a letter to write and 
 post, but would come up stairs to papa if we sent for him. 
 And when, satisfied that the danger was past, and papa 
 asleep, he prepared to leave, I never, in all the time of our 
 acquaintance, saw him looking so exceedingly pale and 
 weary. 
 
 I wanted him to take something wine or food ; *or, at 
 least, to have one of our ponies saddled that he might ride 
 instead of walking home, but he would not. 
 
 We were standing at the hall only he and I the oth- 
 ers having gone to bed. He took both my hands, and 
 looked long and steadily in my face as he said good-by.. 
 
 " Keep up your heart. I do not think any harm will 
 come to your father." 
 
 " I hope not. Dear, dear papa it would indeed be ter- 
 rible." 
 
 " It w^ould. Nothing must be allowed to grieve him in 
 any way as long as he lives." 
 
 " No." 
 
 Doctor Urquhart was not more explicit than this ; but I 
 am sure he wished me to understand that in any of those 
 points discussed to-day, wherein he and I agreed, and both 
 differed from my father, it was our duty henceforth, as 
 much as possible, to preserve a respectful silence. And I 
 thanked him in my heart and with my eyes too, I know T - 
 for this, and for his forbearance in not having contradicted 
 papa, even when most violent and unjust. 
 
180 A LIFK FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " When shall you be coining again, Doctor Urquhart ?" 
 
 " Some day some day." 
 
 " Do not let it be very long first. Good-by." 
 
 " Good-by." 
 
 And here befell a thing so strange, so unexpected, that, 
 if I think of it, it seems as if I must have been dreaming ; 
 as if, while all the rest of the events of to-day, which I have 
 so quietly written down, were perfectly natural, real, and 
 probable this alone was something unreal, impossible to 
 tell hardly right to tell. 
 
 And yet, oh me ! it is not wrong, though it makes my 
 cheek burn and my hand tremble this poor little hand. 
 
 I thought he had gone, and was standing on the door- 
 step, preparing to lock up, when Doctor tlrquhart came 
 back again along the walk. It was he, though in manner 
 and voice so unlike himself, that even now I can hardly be- 
 lieve the whole is not a delusion. 
 
 " For God's sake for pity's sake do not utterly forget 
 me, Theodora." 
 
 And then then 
 
 He said once that every man ought to hold every woman 
 sacred ; that, if not of her own kindred, he had no right, 
 (.'xcept as the merest salutation, even to press her hand, un- 
 less unless he loved her. 
 
 Then why- 
 No, I ought not to write it, and I will not. It is if it is 
 any thing something sacred between him and me ; some- 
 thing in which no one else has any part ; which may not 
 be told to any one, except in my prayers. 
 
 My heart is so full. I will close this and say my prayers. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 Treherne Court. 
 
 WHERE, after another month's pause, I resume my jour- 
 nal. 
 
 Papa and I have been here a week. At the last moment 
 Penelope declined going, saying that some one ought to 
 keep house at Rockmount. I wished to do so, but she 
 would not allow me. 
 
 This is a fine place, and papa enjoys it extremely. The 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 181 
 
 enforced change, the complete upsetting of his former soli, 
 tary ways, first by Lisabel's marriage, and then by his own 
 illness, seem to have made him quite young again. Before 
 we left, Doctor Black pronounced him entirely recovered ; 
 that he might reasonably look forward to a healthy, green 
 old age. God grant it ! For, altered as he is in so many 
 ways, by some imperceptible influence ; having wider in- 
 terests is it wrong to write affections ? than he has had 
 for the last twenty years, he will enjoy life far more than 
 ever before. Ah me ! how can any body really enjoy life 
 without having others to make happy, and to draw happi- 
 ness from. 
 
 Dr. Black wished, as a matter of professional etiquette, 
 that papa should once again consult Doctor Urquhart about 
 his taking this long northern journey ; but, on sending to 
 the camp, we found he was " absent on leave," and had 
 been for some time. Papa was disappointed and a little 
 annoyed. It was strange, rather ; but might have been 
 sudden and important business connected with the plans 
 of which* he told me, and which I did not feel quite justi- 
 fied in communicating farther, till he informs papa himself. 
 
 I had a week of that restless laziness, which I suppose 
 most people unaccustomed to leave home experience for 
 the first few days of a visit ; not unpleasant laziness neither, 
 for there was the Christmas week to anticipate and plan 
 for, and every nook in this beautiful place to investigate, 
 as its own possessors scarcely care to do, but which I and 
 other visitors shall so intensely enjoy. Now I am trying 
 to feel settled. In this octagon room, which Lisabel such 
 a thoughtful, kindly hostess as Lisa makes ! has specially 
 appropriated mine, I take up my rest. It is the wee'est 
 room attainable in this great, wide, wandering mansion, 
 where I still at times feel as strange as a bird in a crystal 
 palace; such birds as, in the Aladdin Palace of 1851, we 
 used to see flying about the tops of these gigantic, motion- 
 less trees, caught under the glass, and cheated by those 
 green, windless, unstirred leaves into planning a natural wild- 
 wood nest. Poor little things ! To have once dreamed of 
 a nest, and then never to be able to find or build it, must 
 be a sore thing. 
 
 This grand "show" house has no pretensions to the 
 character of "nest," or "home." To use the word in it 
 seems half ridiculous, or pathetic ; though Lisa does not 
 find it so. Stately and easv, our o^irl moves through these 
 
182 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 magnificent rooms, and enjoys her position as if she were 
 born to it. She shows good taste and good feeling, too 
 treats meek, prosy, washed-out Lady Augustus Treherne, 
 and little, fussy, infirm Sir William, whose brown scratch- 
 wi and gold spectacles rarely appear out of his own room, 
 with unfailing respect and consideration. They are might- 
 ily proud of her, as they need to be. Truly, the best thing 
 this their patrician blood could do was to ally itself with 
 our plebeian line. 
 
 But thank goodness that Lisa, not I, was the victim of 
 the union! To me, this great house, so carefully swept 
 and garnished, sometimes feels like a beautiful body with- 
 out a soul ; I should dread a demon's entering and possess- 
 ing it, compelling me to all sorts of wild and wicked deeds, 
 in order to break the suave harmony of things. For in- 
 stance, the three drawing-rooms, en suite, where Lis and I 
 spend our mornings, amid a labyrinth of costly lumber 
 sofas, tables, and chairs, with our choice of five fires to 
 warm at, glowing in steel and gilded grates, and glittering 
 with pointed china tiles ; having eleven mirrors, large and 
 small, wherein to catch at all points views of our sweet 
 selves in this splendid wilderness, I should, did trouble 
 seize me, roam, ra<*e, or ramp about like any wild animal. 
 The oppression of it would be intolerable. Better, a thou- 
 sand times, my little room at Rockmount, with its little 
 window, in at which the branches wave I can see them 
 as I lie in bed, my own dear little bed, beside which I flung 
 myself down the night before I left it, and prayed that my 
 coming back might be as happy as my going. 
 
 This is the first time since then that I have suffered my- 
 self to cry. When people feel happy causelessly, it is said 
 to be a sign that the joy can not last, that there is sorrow 
 coming. So, on the other hand, it may be a good omen to 
 feel one's heart aching without cause. Yet a tear or two 
 seems to relieve it and do it good. Enough now. 
 
 I was about to describe Treherne Court. Had any of 
 us seen it before the wedding, ill-natured people might 
 have said that Miss Lisabel Johnston married the Court 
 and not the master so magnificent is it. Estate extend- 
 ing goodness knows where ; park with deer ; avenue two 
 miles long ; plantations sloping to the river one of the 
 " principal rivers of England," as we used to learn in Pin- 
 nock's Geography the broad, quiet, and yet fast-running 
 Dee. How lovely it must look in summer, with those great 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 183 
 
 trees dipping greenly into it, and those meadows dotted 
 with lazy cows. ^^? <f ^ 
 
 There are gardens, too, and an iron bridge, and statues, 
 and a lawn with a sun-dial, though not half so pretty as that 
 one at the Cedars; and a quadrangular stable, almost as 
 grand as the house, and which Augustus thinks of quite as 
 much importance. He has made Lisa a first-rate horse- 
 woman, and they used to go careering half over the coun- 
 try, until lately. Certainly, those two have the most thor- 
 ough enjoyment of life, fresh, young, animal life and spirits, 
 that it is possible to conceive. Their whole existence, pres- 
 ent and future, seems to be one blaze of sunshine. 
 
 I broke off here to write to Penelope. I wish Penelope 
 were with us. She will find her Christmas very dull with- 
 out us all ; and, consequently, without Francis ; though he 
 could not have come to Rockmount under any circum- 
 stances, he said. " Important business." This " business," 
 alack, is often hard to brook. Well ! 
 
 " Men must work, and women must weep." 
 
 No, they ought not to weep ; they are cowards if they do. 
 They ought to cheer and encourage the men, never to be- 
 moan and blame them. Yet I wish I wish Penelope 
 could get a sight of Francis this Christmas time. It is 
 such a holy time, when hearts seem u knit together in 
 love" when one would like to have all one's best-beloved 
 about one. And she loves Francis has loved him for so 
 long. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart said to me once, the only time he ever 
 referred to the matter for he is too delicate to gossip 
 about family love affairs ; " that he wished sincerely my 
 sister and Mr. Charteris had been married it would have 
 been the best thing which could have happened to him 
 and to her, if she loved him." I smiled ; little doubt about 
 that " if." In truth, though I once thought differently, it 
 is one of the chief foundations of the esteem and sympathy 
 which I take shame to myself for not having hitherto given 
 to my elder sister. I shall do better, please God, in time 
 to come ; better in every way. 
 
 And to begin : In order to shake off a certain half-fretful 
 dreaminess that creeps over me, it may be partly in conse- 
 quence of the breaking up of home habits, and the sudden 
 plunge into a life so totally new, I mean to write regularly 
 at my journal, to put down every thing that happens from 
 
184 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 this time ; so that it may be a complete history of this visit 
 at Treherne Court, if at a future time, I or any one should 
 ever read it. Will any one ever do so ? Will any one ever 
 have the right? No; rights enforced are ugly things. 
 Will any one ever come and say to me, " Dora," or " The- 
 odora" I think I like my full name best " I should like 
 to read your journal?" 
 
 Let me sec : to-night is Sunday ; I seem always to choose 
 Sunday for these entries, because we usually retire early, 
 and it is such a peaceful family-day at Rockmount ; which 
 indeed is the case here. We only went to church once, 
 and dined as usual at seven, so that I had a long afternoon's 
 wander about the grounds ; first with papa, and then by 
 myself. I hope it was a truly Sunday walk; that I was 
 content and thankful, as I ought to be. 
 
 So endeth Sunday. Let us see what Monday will bring. 
 
 Monday. It brought an installment of visitors ; the first 
 for our Christmas week. 
 
 At church-time a fly drove up to the door, and who should 
 leap out of it, with the brightest faces in the world, but 
 Colin Granton and his mother. I was so surprised startled 
 indeed, for I happened to be standing at the hall door when 
 the fly appeared that I hardly could find tw T o words to 
 say to either. Only my eyes might have shown I trust 
 they did that, after the first minute, I was very glad to 
 see them. 
 
 I tucked the dear old lady under my arm, and marched 
 her through all the servants into the dining-room, leaving 
 Colin to take care of himself, a duty of which the young 
 man is quite capable. Then I had a grand hunt after papa 
 and Lisa ; finally waylaying the shy Lady Augusta, and 
 begging to introduce to her my dear old friend. Every 
 friend's face is so welcome when one is away from home. 
 
 After lunch, the gentlemen adjourned to the stables j 
 while Mrs. Treherne escorted her guest in hospitable state 
 through the long corridors to her room, and I was glad to 
 see the very best bedroom of all was assigned to the old 
 lady. Lisa bless the girl ! looked just a little bit proud 
 of her beautiful house, and not unnatural either. A wife 
 has a right to be proud of all the good things her husband's 
 love endows her with ; only they might be better things 
 than houses and lands, clothes and furniture. When Lisa 
 has said sometimes, "My dear, I am the happiest girl in 
 the world. Don't you envy me?" my heart has never 
 found the least difficulty in reply] nor. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 185 
 
 Yet she is happy. There is a look of contented matron- 
 hood growing in her face day by day, far sweeter than any 
 thing her girlhood could boast. She is very fond of her 
 husband too. It was charming to see the bright blush with 
 which she started up from Mrs. Granton's fireside, the in- 
 stant Augustus was heard calling outside, " Lis ! Lis ! Mrs. 
 Treherne ! Where's Mrs. Treherne !" 
 
 " Run away to your husband, my dear. I see he can't 
 do without you. How well she looks and how happy she 
 seems !" added the old lady, who has apparently forgotten 
 the slight to " my Colin." 
 
 By the way, I do not suppose Colin ever actually pro- 
 posed to our Lisa ; only it was a sort of received notion in 
 our family that he would. If he had, his mother never 
 would have brought him here to be a daily witness of Mrs. 
 Treherne's beauty and contentment ; which he bears with 
 a stoicism most remarkable in a young man who has ever 
 been in love with her. Do men so easily forget? Some, 
 perhaps ; not all. It is oftentimes honorable and generbus 
 to conquer an unfortunate love ; but there is something dis- 
 creditable in totally ignoring and forgetting it. I doubt, I 
 should rather despise a man who despised his first love, 
 even for me. 
 
 Let me see : where did I leave myself? Oh, sitting by 
 Mrs. Granton's fire ; or helping her to take off her things 
 a sinecure office, for her " things" no other word befits 
 them are popped off and on with the ease and untidiness 
 of fifteen, instead of the preciseness of sixty-five : order 
 and regularity being omitted by Providence in the manu- 
 facture of this dear old lady. Also listening which is no 
 sinecure ; for she always has plenty to say about every 
 thing and every body, except herself. 
 
 I may never have said it in so many words, but I love 
 Mrs. Granton. Every line in her nice old withered face is 
 pleasant to me ; every creak of her quick footstep ; every 
 angular fold in her everlasting black silk gown a very 
 shabby gown often, for she does not care how she dresses. 
 She is by no means one of your picturesque, ancient gen- 
 tlewomen, looking as if they had just stepped out of a gilt- 
 frameshe is only a little, active, bright old lady. As a 
 girl, she might have been pretty I am not sure, though 
 she still has a delicate expressive mouth, and soft grav 
 eyes ; but I am very sure that she often looks beautiful 
 now. 
 
ISO A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 And why ? for, guessing what all the grand people at 
 dinner to-night will think of her and myself, I can not help 
 smiling at this application of the word. Because she has 
 one of the most beautiful natures that can adorn an old 
 woman or a young one, either : all loving-kindness, ener- 
 gy, cheerfulness. Because age has failed to sour .her ; af- 
 fliction to harden her heart. Of all people I know, she is 
 the quickest to praise, the slowest to judge, the gentlest to 
 condemn. A living homily on the text which, specifying 
 the trinity of Christian virtues, names " these three but 
 the greatest of these is charity." 
 
 Long familiarity made me unmindful of these qualities in 
 her, till, taught by the observations of others, and by my 
 own comparison of the people I meet out in the world, 
 which may be supposed to mean Treherne Court, with my 
 good old friend. 
 
 " Have you much company, then ?" asked she, while I 
 was trying to persuade her to let me twist into a little more 
 form the shapeless " bob" of her dear old gray hair, and 
 put her cap not quite so much on one side. "And do you 
 enjoy it, my dear? Have you seen any body you liked 
 very much ?" 
 
 " None that I liked better than myself, be sure. How 
 should I?" 
 
 A true saying, though she did not understand its under- 
 meaning. I have set more value on myself of late, and 
 taken pains to be pleasant to every one. It would not do 
 to have people saying, "What a disagreeable girl is that 
 Theodora Johnston! I wonder how any body can like 
 her ?" Has Mrs. Granton an idea that any body nay, let 
 it come out ! that any body does like me ? 
 
 Her eyes were very sharp, and her questions keen, as I 
 entertained her with our doings at Treherne Court, and the 
 acquaintances we had made a large number from county 
 nobility to clerical dignitaries and gay young officers from 
 Whitchester, which seems made up entirely of barracks and 
 cathedral. But she gave me no news in return, except that 
 Colin found the Cedars so dull that he had never rested till 
 he had got his mother away here, which fact did not ex- 
 tremely interest me. He was always a restless youth, but I 
 trusted his late occupations had inclined him to home-quiet- 
 ness. Can his interest in them have ended ? or is there no 
 friend at hand to keep him steadily to his work ? 
 
 We sat so long gossiping that Lisabel, ready for dinner, 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 187 
 
 with Treherne diamonds blazing on her white neck and 
 arms, called us to order, and sent me away to dress. As I 
 left I heard her say Augustus had sent her to ask if Mrs. 
 Granton had seen Doctor Urquhart lately ? 
 
 " Oh yes ; Colin saw him a few days since. He is quite 
 well and very busy." 
 
 "And where is he? Will he be here this week? Au- 
 gustus wants to know." 
 
 " I have not the slightest idea. He did not say a word 
 about it." 
 
 Lisabel inquired no farther, but began showing her velvet 
 dress and her beautiful point-lace ruffles, Lady Treherne's 
 present a far more interesting subject. Yerily, gratitude 
 is not the most lasting of human emotions in young women 
 who have homes, and husbands, and every thing they can 
 desire. 
 
 Quite well and very busy, though not too busy to write 
 to Colin Granton. I am glad. I have sometimes thought 
 he might be ill. 
 
 The dinner-party was the largest since we have been 
 here. Two long rows of faces, in not one of whom I took 
 the slightest interest save Mrs. Granton's and Colin's. I 
 tried to sit next the former, and the latter to sit next to 
 me ; but both designs failed, and we fell among strangers, 
 which is sometimes as bad as falling among thieves. I did 
 not enjoy my evening as much as I expected ; but I hope I 
 behaved well ; that, as Mrs. Treherne's sister, I tried to be 
 attentive and courteous to the people, that no one need 
 have been ashamed of poor Theodora. 
 
 And it was some comfort when, by the merest chance, I 
 overheard Mrs. Granton say to Lisabel "that she never 
 saw a girl so much improved as Miss Dora." 
 
 Improved ! Yes, I ought to be. There was room for it. 
 Oh, that I may go on improving, growing better and better 
 every day ! Too good I can not be. 
 
 " Quite well and very busy." Again runs in my head 
 that sweet, sad ditty : 
 
 * ' Men must work, and women must weep, 
 For there's little to earn and many to keep." 
 
 Oh! to think of any one's ever working for me! 
 
 Tuesday. Nothing at all happened. No letters, no 
 news. Colin drove out his mother and me toward the 
 Welsh hills, which I had expressed a wish to see ; and, 
 after lunch, asked if I would go with him to the river-side 
 
188 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 in search of a boat, for he thought we may still have a row, 
 though it is December, the weather being so mild. He re- 
 membered how I used to like his pulling Lisabel and me 
 up and down the ponds in the moorland we won't say 
 how many years ago. I think Colin also is "improved." 
 He is so exceedingly attentive and kind. 
 
 Wednesday. A real event happened to-day quite a 
 surprise. Let me make the most of it, for this journal 
 seems very uninteresting. 
 
 I was standing, " flattening my nose," as children say, 
 against the great iron gates of the avenue, peering through 
 them at the two lines of bare trees, planted three deep, and 
 the broad gravel-drive, straight as an arrow, narrowing in 
 perspective almost to a point ; the lodge plainly visible at 
 the end of the two miles, which seems no distance at all ; 
 but when you have to walk it, it's " awfu' lang," as says 
 the old Scotch gardener, who is my very particular friend, 
 and my informant on all subjects, animal, vegetable, and 
 historical, pertaining to Treherne Court. And, looking at 
 it from these gates, the road does seem " awfu' lang," like 
 life. I was thinking so when some one touched me, and 
 said, " Dora." 
 
 Francis startled me so ; I am sure I must have blushed 
 as much as if I had been Penelope that is, as Penelope 
 used to blush in former days. The next minute I thought 
 of her, and felt alarmed. 
 
 " Oh, Francis, nothing is the matter nothing has hap- 
 pened to Penelope ?" 
 
 " You silly girl, what should happen ? I do not know 
 any thing about Rockmount ; was not aware but that you 
 were all at home till I saw you here, and knew by the sen- 
 timental attitude it could be nobody but Dora. Tell me, 
 when did you come ?" 
 
 " When did you come ? I understood it was impossible 
 for you to leave London." 
 
 " I had business with my uncle, Sir William. Besides, 
 if Penelope is here " 
 
 " You must know quite well, Francis, that Penelope is 
 not here." 
 
 I never scruple to speak my mind to Francis Charteris. 
 We do not much like one another, and are both aware of 
 it. His soft, silken politeness often strikes me as insincere, 
 and my " want of refinement," as he terms it, may be quite 
 as distasteful to him. We do not suit, and were we ever 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 189 
 
 so fond of one another, this incompatibility would be ap- 
 parent. People may like and respect one another extreme- 
 ly, yet not suit, even as two good tunes are not always 
 capable of being harmonized. I once heard an ingenious 
 performer try to play at once " The Last Rose of Summer" 
 and " Garry Owen." The result resembled many a con- 
 versation between Francis and me. 
 
 This promised to be one of them ; so, as a preventive 
 measure, I suggested luncheon-time. 
 
 " Oh, thank you, I am not hungry ; I lunched at Bir- 
 mingham." 
 
 Still, it might have struck Francis that other people had 
 not. 
 
 We crossed the gardens toward the river, under the 
 great Portugal laurels, which he stood to admire. 
 
 " I have watched their growth ever since I was a boy. 
 You know, Dora, once this place was to have been mine." 
 
 " It would have given you a vast deal of trouble, and 
 you don't like trouble. You will enjoy it much more as a 
 visitor." 
 
 Francis made no reply, and when I asked the reason of 
 his sudden change of plans, and if Penelope were acquaint- 
 ed with it, he seemed vexed. 
 
 " Of course Penelope knows ; I wrote to-day, and told 
 her my purpose in coming here was to see Sir William. 
 Can not a man pay his respects to his uncle without being 
 questioned and suspected ?" 
 
 " I never suspected you, Francis until now, when you 
 look as if you were afraid I should. What is the matter ? 
 Do tell me." 
 
 For, truly, I felt alarmed. He was so extremely nervous 
 and irritable, and his sensitive features, which he can not 
 keep from telling tales, betrayed so much inward discom- 
 fiture, that I dreaded some ill, threatening him or Penelope. 
 If one, of course, both. 
 
 "Do tell me, Francis. Forgive my rudeness. We are 
 almost brother and sister." 
 
 " Which tie is supposed to excuse any rudeness. But 
 really I have nothing to tell except that your ladyship is 
 growing blunter than ever, under the instruction, no doubt, 
 of your friend, Doctor TJrquhart. Pray, is he here ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Is he expected ?" 
 
 " You had better ask Captain Treherne." 
 
190 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " Pshaw ! What do men care for one another ? I thought 
 a young lady was the likeliest person to take an interest in 
 the proceedings of a young I beg his pardon a middle- 
 aged gentleman." 
 
 If Francis thought either to irritate or confuse me, he 
 was disappointed. A month ago it might have been. Not 
 now. But probably and I have since felt sure of it he 
 was merely pursuing his own ends without heeding me. 
 
 "Now, Dora, seriously, I want to know something of 
 Doctor Urquhart's proceedings, and where a letter might 
 reach him. Do find out for me, there's a good girl." 
 
 And he put his arm round me, in the elder-brotherly ca- 
 ressing manner which he sometimes adopted with Lisa and 
 me, and which I never used to mind. Now, I felt as if I 
 could not endure it, and slipped away. 
 
 " I don't see, Francis, why you should not ask such a 
 simple question yourself. It is no business of mine." 
 
 "Then you really know nothing of Doctor Urquhart's 
 whereabouts lately ? He has not been to Rockmount ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Nor written ?" 
 
 "I believe not. Why do you want to know? Have 
 you been quarreling with him ?" 
 
 For, aware they two were not over fond of one another, 
 a sudden idea so ridiculously romantic that I laughed at 
 it the next minute made me, for one second, turn quite 
 sick and cold. 
 
 " Quarreling, my dear child young lady, I mean am I 
 ever so silly, so ungentlemanly, as to quarrel with any 
 body? I assure you not. There is the Dee! What a 
 beautiful view this is !" 
 
 He began to expatiate on its beauties, with that delicate 
 appreciative taste which he has in such perfection, and in 
 the expression of which he never fails. Under such cir- 
 cumstances, when he really seems pleased not languidly, 
 but actively, and tries to please others, I grant all Francis's 
 claims as a charming companion for an hour's walk. For 
 life ah ! that is a different matter ! When with him, I 
 often think of Beatrices answer when Don Pedro asks if 
 she will have him as a husband ? " Nb^ my lord, unless 1 
 might have another for working-days. Your Grace is too 
 costly to wear every day" 
 
 Love fit for constant wear and tear, able to sink safely 
 down 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 191 
 
 "to the level of every day's 
 Most quiet need ; by sun and candlelight." 
 
 must be a rare thing, and precious as rare. 
 
 " I think I never saw such a Christmas-eve. Look, Dora, 
 the sky is blue as June. How sharp and clear the reflec- 
 tion of those branches in the river. Heigho ! this is a love- 
 ly place. What a difference it would have made to me if 
 Sir William had never married, and I had been heir to Tre- 
 herne Court." 
 
 "N"o difference to you in yourself," said I, stoutly. 
 "Penelope would not have loved you one whit the more, 
 only you would have been married a little sooner, which 
 might have been the better for both parties." 
 
 " Heaven knows yes," muttered he, in such anguish of 
 regret, that I felt sorry for him. Then, suddenly: "Do 
 you think your sister is tired of waiting? Would she 
 wish the our engagement broken ?" 
 
 " Not at all. Indeed, I meant not to vex you. Penelope 
 wishes no such thing. 
 
 " If she did," and he looked more vexed still, " it would 
 be quite natural." 
 
 " No," I cried, in some indignation, " it would not be 
 quite natural. Do you suppose we women are in such a 
 frightful hurry to be married, that love promised and sure, 
 such as Penelope has or ought to have is not sufficient 
 to make us happy for any number of years ? If you doubt 
 it, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You don't know 
 women ; least of all such as my sister Penelope." 
 
 " Ay, she has been a good, faithful girl," said he, again 
 sighing. " Poor Penelope." 
 
 And then he recurred to the beautiful scenery, which I, 
 feeling that extreme want of topics of conversation which 
 always appals me in tete-a-tetes with Francis Charteris 
 gladly accepted. It lasted till we re-entered the house, 
 and, not unwillingly, parted company. 
 
 After luncheon being unable to find any body in this 
 great, wide house I sat in my own room awhile ; till, find- 
 ing if was not good to be lazy and dreaming, I went to 
 Mrs. Granton's and listened to her pleasant gossip about 
 people with whom she had been mixed up during her long 
 life. Who have every one this remarkable characteristic, 
 that they are all the very best people that ever lived. 
 The burden of her talk is, of course " my Colin," whom 
 she makes out to be the most angelic babe, the sweetest 
 
192 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 schoolboy, the noblest youth, and the most perfect man 
 upon this poor earth. One can not smile at the fond old 
 mother. Besides, I am fond of Colin myself. Was he not 
 my first love ? 
 
 Hush ! let me not, even in jest, profane that holy word. 
 
 I sat with Mrs. Granton a long time sometimes hearing, 
 sometimes not ; probably saying " yes," and " no," and " cer- 
 tainly," to many things which now I have not the least 
 idea of. My thoughts wandered lulled by the wind, 
 which began to rise into a regular Christmas blast. 
 
 Yes, to-night was Christmas-eve, and all the Christmas 
 guests were now gathering in country-houses. Ours, too ; 
 there were rings at the resonant door-bell, and feet passing 
 up and down the corridor. I like to recall just for a mo- 
 ment's delusion the sensations of that hour, between the 
 lights, resting by Mrs. Granton's fire, lazy, warm, content. 
 The only drawback to my content was the thought of Pe- 
 nelope, poor girl, all alone at Rockmount, and expecting 
 nobody. 
 
 At the dressing-bell, I slipped through the long, half- 
 dark staircases to my room. As it was to be a large party 
 at dinner, I thought I would put on my new dress Au- 
 gustus's present; black velvet; " horridly old-womanish" 
 Lisa had protested. Yet it looked well I stood before 
 the glass and admired myself in it ; just a little. I was so 
 glad to look well. 
 
 Foolish vanity only lasting a minute. Yet that minute 
 was pleasant. Lisabel, who came into my room, with her 
 husband following her to the very door, must tave real 
 pleasure in her splendors. I told her so. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, child ! Why I am as vexed and cross as 
 possible. So many disappointments to-night. People with 
 colds, and rheumatism, and dead relatives." 
 
 44 Oh, Lisa!" 
 
 " Well, but is it not annoying ? Every body wanted 
 does not come ; those not wanted, do. For instance : Doc- 
 tor Urquhart, who always keeps both papa and Sir William 
 in the best of humors, is not here. And Francis, who fidg- 
 ets them both to death, and who I was so thankful was not 
 coming he is just come. You stupid girl, you seem not 
 the least bit sorry ; you are thinking of something else the 
 whole time." 
 
 I said I was sorry, and was not thinking of any thing 
 else. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 193 
 
 "Augustus wanted to see him particularly ; but I forgot, 
 you don't know however, you will soon, child. Still, isn't 
 it a downright shame of Doctor Urquhart neither to come 
 nor send ?" 
 
 I suggested something might have happened. 
 
 "A railway accident. Dear me, I never thought of 
 that," 
 
 " Nor I." Heaven knows, no ! 
 
 I had SL time-table, and searched through it for the last 
 train stopping at Whitchester, then counted how long it 
 would take to drive to Treherne Court, and looked at my 
 watch. No, he could not be here to-night. 
 
 " And if there had been any accident, there was time for 
 us to have heard of it," said Lisa, and she took up her fan 
 and gloves to go down stairs. " So, child, we must make 
 the best we can of your friend's behavior. Are you ready 
 for dinner ?" 
 
 " In two minutes." 
 
 I shut the door after my sister, and stood still before the 
 glass, fastening a brooch, or something. 
 
 Mine, my friend. He was that. Whenever they were 
 vexed with him, all the family usually called him so. 
 
 It was very strange his not coming having premised 
 Augustus, for some reason which I did not know of. Also, 
 there was another reason which they did not know of 
 he had promised me. He once said to me, positively, that 
 this, the first Christmas he hat kept in England for many 
 years, should be kept with us, with me. 
 
 Now, a promise is a promise. I myself would keep one 
 at all costs that involved no wrong to any one else. He is 
 of the sdme mind. Then something must have happened. 
 
 For a moment I had been angry, though scarcely with 
 him ; wherever he was he would be doing his duty. Yet, 
 why should he be always doing his duty to every one ex- 
 cept me ? Had I no right ? I, to whom even Lisa, who 
 knew nothing, called him my friend ? 
 
 Yes, mine ! Of a sudden I seemed to feel all that the 
 word meant, and to take all the burden of it. It quieted 
 me. 
 
 I went down stairs. There were the usual two lines of 
 dinner-table faces, the usual murmur of dinner-table talk, 
 but all was dim and uncertain, like a picture, or the sound 
 of people chattering very far off. Colin beside me kept 
 talking about how well I looked in my new gown how he 
 
194 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 would like to see me dressed as fine as a queen and how 
 he hoped we should spend many a Christmas as merry as 
 this till something seemed tempting me to start up and 
 scream. 
 
 At dessert, the butler brought in a large letter to Sir 
 William. It was a telegraph message I recognized the 
 look of the thing; w^e had several during papa's illness. 
 Easy to sit still now. I seemed to know quite well what 
 was coming, but the only clear thought was still " mine 
 mine /" 
 
 Sir William read, folded up the message, and passed it 
 on to Augustus, then rose. 
 
 " Friends, fill your glasses. I have just had good news ; 
 not unexpected, but still good news. Ladies and gentle- 
 men, I have the honor to give you the health of my neph- 
 ew, Francis Charteris, Esquire, Governor elect of ." 
 
 In the cheering, confusion, and congratulation that fol- 
 lowed, Lisa passed the telegram to me, and I saw it was 
 from " Max Urquhart, London." 
 
 As soon as we got into a corner by ourselves, my sister 
 burst out with the whole mystery. 
 
 "Thank goodness it's over; I never x kept a secret be- 
 fore, and Augustus was so frightened lest I should tell, and 
 then what would Doctor Urquhart have said? It's Doc- 
 tor Urquhart's planning, and he was to have brought the 
 food news to-day ; and I'm very sorry I abused him, for he 
 as been working like ahojlfce for Francis's interest, and 
 did you ever see a young fellow take a piece of good for- 
 tune so coolly ? a lovely West Indian island, with govern- 
 ment house, and salary large enough to make Penelope a 
 most magnificent governo^BRfe, yet he is no more. thank- 
 ful for it I declare I am asRamed of Francis Charteris." 
 
 She went on a good deal more in this fashion, but I had 
 nothing to say I felt so strange a*d confused till at last 
 I leaned my head on her shoulder, and cried softly, which 
 brought me into great opprobrium, and subjected me to the 
 accusation of always weeping when there was the least 
 prospect of a marriage in the family. 
 
 Marriage! just at that moment there jjjight not have 
 been such a thing as marriage in the world. I never 
 thought of it. I only thought of life a life still kept safe, 
 laboring busily to make every body happy, true to itself 
 and to its promises, forgetting nothing and no one, kind to 
 the thankful and unthankful alike. Compared to it, my 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 195 
 
 own insignificant life, with its small hopes and petty pains, 
 all crumbled down into nothingness. 
 
 " Well, are you glad, Dora?" 
 
 Ay, I was ; very glad very content. 
 
 Papa came in soon, and he and I walked up and down, 
 arm-in-arm, talking the matter over, till, seeing Francis sit- 
 ting alone in a recess, w r e went up to him, and papa again 
 wished him all happiness. He merely said " Thank you," 
 and muttered something about "wishing to explain by- 
 and-by." 
 
 " Which means, I suppose, that I am shortly to be left 
 with only one girl to take care of me eh ! Francis," said 
 papa, smiling. 
 
 a Sir I did not mean I," he actually stammered. "I 
 hope, Mr. Johnston, you understand that this appointment is 
 not yet accepted indeed, I am uncertain if I shall accept it." 
 
 Papa looked exceedingly surprised ; and, remembering 
 some of Francis's sayings to me this morning, I was rather 
 more than surprised indignant. But no remark was 
 made, and just then Augustus called the whole party to go 
 down into the -great kitchen and see the Christmas mum- 
 mers or guizers, as they are called in that county. 
 
 We looked at them for a long half hour, and then every 
 body, great and small, got into the full whirl of Christmas 
 merriment. Colin, in particular, grew so lively that he 
 wanted to lead me under the mistletoe; but when I de- 
 clined, first gayly, and then seriously, he desisted, saying he 
 w r ould not offend me for the world.* Nevertheless, he and 
 one or two more kissed Lisabel. How could she endure 
 it? when I I now sometimes feel jealous over even a 
 strange touch of this my hand. 
 
 The revels ended early, and, as I sit writing, the house is 
 all still. I have just drawn up my blind and looked out. 
 The wind has sunk; snow is falling. I like snow on a 
 Christmas morning. 
 
 Already^ it is Christmas morning. Whom have I unto 
 whom to wish those good wishes which always lie nearest 
 to one's heart ? My own family, of course ; papa and Lisa, 
 and PenelogHj^r away. Poor, dear Penelope ! May she 
 find hersetfa Sy woman this time next year. Are these 
 all? They were;" last Christmas. But I am richer now- 
 richer, it often seems to me, than any body in the whole 
 world. 
 
 Good-night ! a merry no, for " often in mirth the heart 
 is sad" -a happy Christmas and a good new year ! 
 
196 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 HIS STOKY. 
 
 Dec.Slst, 1856. 
 
 THE merry-making of my neighbors in the flat above 
 probably Scotch or Irish, both of which greatly abound in 
 this town is a sad counteraction of work to-night. But 
 why grumble, when I am one of the few people who pre- 
 tend to work at all on so merry a night, which used to be 
 such a treat to us boys ? The sounds overhead put me in 
 mind of that old festival of Hogmanay, which, for a good 
 many things, would be " more honored in the breach than 
 the observance." 
 
 This Liverpool is an awful town for drinking. Other 
 towns may be as bad ; statistics prove it ; but I know no 
 place Avhere intoxication is so open and shameless. Not 
 only in by-streets and foul courts, where one expects to see 
 it, but every where. I never take a short railway journey 
 in the after part of the day but I am liable to meet at least 
 ,one drunken "gentleman" snoozing in his first-class car- 
 riage ; or, hi the second class, two or three drunken " men' 1 
 singing, swearing, or pushed stupidly about by pale-faced 
 wives. The sadness of -the thing is, that the wives do not 
 seem to mind it that every body takes it as a matter of 
 course. The " gentleman," often gray-haired, is but " mer- 
 ry," as he is accustomed to be every night of his life; the 
 poor man has only " had a drop or two," as all his com- 
 rades are in the habit of taking whenever they get the 
 chance ; they see no disgrace in it, so they laugh at him a 
 bit, and humor him, and are quite ready to stand up for 
 him against all in-comers who may object to an intoxicated 
 fellow-passenger. They don't, nor do the women belong- 
 ing to them, who are well used to tolerate drunken sweet- 
 hearts, and lead about and pacify drunken husbands. It 
 makes me sick at heart sometimes to see^ig^ent, pretty 
 girl sit tittering at a foul-mouthed beast opposite ; or a 
 tidy young mother, with two or three bomiy children, try- 
 ing to coax home, without harm to himself or them, some 
 brutish husband, who does not know his right hand from 
 his left, so utterly stupid is he with drink. ' To-night, but 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 197 
 
 for my chance-hand at a railway station, such a family- 
 party as this might have reached home fatherless and no 
 great misfortune, one Slight suppose. Yet the wife had 
 not even looked sad had only scolded and laughed at 
 him. 
 
 In this, as in most cases of reform, it is the woman who 
 must make the first step. There are two great sins of 
 men : drunkenness in the lower classes ; a still worse form 
 of vice in the higher, which I believe w^omen might help 
 to stop, if they tried. Would to God I could cry to ev- 
 ery young working woman, " Never encourage a drunken 
 sweet-heart !" and to every young lady thinking of mar- 
 riage, " Beware ! better die than live to give children to a 
 loose-principled, unchaste father." 
 
 These are strong words dare I leave them for eyes that 
 may, years hence, read this page? Ay, for by then, they 
 will they must, in the natural course of things, have gain- 
 ed at least a tithe of my own bitter knowledge of the world. 
 God preserve them from all knowledge beyond what is act- 
 ually necessary. When I think of any suffering coming to 
 them, any sight of sin or avoidable sorrow troubling those 
 dear eyes, it almost drives me mad. If, for instance, you 
 were to marry any man like some men I have known, and 
 who indeed form the majority of our sex, and he were un- 
 kind to you, or wronged you in the smallest degree, I think 
 I could murd 
 
 Hush, not that word ! 
 
 You see how my mind keeps wandering purposelessly, 
 having nothing to communicate. I had indeed, for some 
 time, avoided writing here at all. And I have been, and 
 am, necessarily occupied, laying the ground-work of that 
 new plan of life which I explained to you. 
 
 Its whole bearing you did not see, nor did I intend you 
 should ; though your own words originated it ; lit it with 
 a ray of hope so exquisite that I could follow on cheerfully 
 for indefinite years. 
 
 It only lasted an hour or two ; and then your father's 
 words though, God be praised, they were not yours 
 plunged me into darkness again ; a darkness out of which 
 I had never crept, had I been still the morbid coward I was 
 a year ago. 
 
 As it was, you little guessed all the thoughts you shut in 
 with me behind the study door, till your light foot came 
 back to it that night. Nor that in the interval I had had 
 
198 A LIFE FOIl A LIFE. 
 
 strength to weigh all circumstances, and formed a definite 
 deliberate plan, firm as I believe my heart to be since I 
 knew you. 
 
 I have resolved, in consequence of some words of yours, 
 to change my whole scheme of life. That is, I will at some 
 future day, near or far, circumstances must decide submit 
 to you every event of my history, and then ask you, dis- 
 passionately, as a friend, to decide if I shall still live on, 
 according to my purpose, in prospect of the end, or, shak- 
 ing off the burden of it, shall trust in God's mercy, consider 
 all things past and gone, and myself at liberty, like any 
 other, to love, and woo, and marry. 
 
 Afterward, according to your decision, may or may not 
 follow that other question the very hope and suspense of 
 which is like passing into a new life, through the gate of 
 death. 
 
 Your father said distinctly but I will not repeat it. It 
 is enough to make me dread to win my best blessing, lest 
 I might also win her father's curse. To evoke that curse, 
 knowingly to sow dissension between a man and his own 
 daughter, is an awful thing. I dare not do it. During his 
 lifetime I must wait. 
 
 So, for the present, farewell, innocent child ! for no child 
 can be more innocent and happy than you. 
 
 But you will not always be a child. If you do not mar- 
 ry and you seem of an opposite mind to your sisters in 
 that particular you will, years hence, be a w r oman, no 
 longer young, perhaps little sought after, for you are not 
 beautiful to most eyes, nor from your peculiar temperament 
 do you please many people. By then, you may have known 
 care and sorrow will be an orphan and alone. I should 
 despise myself for reckoning up these possibilities, did I 
 not know that in so far as any human hand can shield you 
 from trouble, you shall be shielded, that while poor life 
 lasts, you never shall be left desolate. 
 
 I have given up entirely my intention of quitting En- 
 gland. Even if I am not able to get sight of you from 
 year's end to year's end, if I have to stretch out and dimin- 
 ish to the slenderest link w r hich will remain unbroken my 
 acquaintance with your family, I must keep within reach 
 of you. Nothing must happen to you or any one belong- 
 ing to you, without my informing myself of it. And though 
 you may forget : I say not you will, but you may I am 
 none the less resolved that you shall never lose me, while 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 199 
 
 a man can protect a woman, a friend sustain and comfort a 
 friend. 
 
 You will probably set down to mere friendship one in- 
 sane outburst of mine. Wrong, I confess ; but to see you 
 starring in the lamplight, looking after me into the dark, 
 with a face so tender, mild, and sweet, and to know I should 
 not look at that face again for so long, it nearly maddened 
 me. But you were calm you would not understand. 
 
 It will never do for me to see you often, or to live in 
 your neighborhood, and therefore it was best to take im- 
 mediate steps for the change I contemplate, and of which I 
 told you. Accordingly, the very next day, I applied for 
 leave of absence. The colonel was just riding over to call 
 at Rockmount, so I sent a message to your father. I shrank 
 from writing to him : to you it was of course impossible. 
 In this, as in many a future instance, I can only trust to 
 that good heart which knows me not wholly alas ! will 
 it ever know me wholly ? but better than any other human 
 being does, or ever will. I believe it will judge me chari- 
 tably, patiently, faithfully ; for is it not itself the truest, 
 simplest, faithfulest heart ? 
 
 Let me here say one word. I believe there is no love in 
 it; nothing that need make a man hesitate lest his own 
 happiness should not be the only sacrifice. Sympathy, 
 affection, you have for me ; but I do not think you ever 
 knew what love was. Any one worthy of you may yet 
 have free opportunity of winning you of making you 
 happy. And if I saw you happy, thoroughly and right- 
 eously happy, I could endure it. 
 
 I will tell you my plans. 
 
 I am trying for the appointment of surgeon to a jail near 
 this town. I hope to obtain it : for it will open a wide 
 field of work to me the salt of life: and it is only fifty 
 miles from Treherne Court, where you will visit, and where, 
 from time to time, I may be able to meet you. 
 
 You see this my hope, dim as it is in the future, and 
 vague enough as to present comfort does not make me 
 weaker but stronger for the ordinary concerns of life ; 
 therefore I believe it to be a holy hope, and one that I dare 
 carry along with me in all my worldly doings and plan- 
 nings. Believe one fact for my nature has sufficient unity 
 of purpose never to do things by halves that no single 
 plan, or act, or thought, is without reference to you. 
 
 Shall I tell you my ways and means, as calculated to- 
 night, the last night of the year? 
 
200 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Selling out of the army will supply me with a good sum. 
 Which I mean to put by, letting the interest, accumulate, 
 as a provision for accidental illness, or old age, if I live to 
 be old : or for do you guess ? 
 
 My salary will be about 300 a year. Now, half of that 
 ought to suffice a man of my moderate habits. Many a 
 poor clerk, educated and obliged to appear as a gentleman, 
 lias no larger income, and contrives to marry upon it, too, 
 if love seizes hold of him while still in the venturesome 
 stage of existence. 
 
 We men are strange animals : at twenty, ready to rush 
 into matrimony on any prospects whatever, or none at all ; 
 at thirty, having thought better of it, rejoice in our escape ; 
 but after forty, when the shadows begin to fall, when the 
 outer world darkens, and the fireside feels comfortless and 
 lone, then we sit and ponder I mean, most men. Mine is 
 nn individual and special case, not germane to the subject. 
 
 With all deference to young Tom Turton, his friend Mr. 
 Charteris, and others of the set which I have lately been 
 among in London, the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds 
 a year seems to me sufficient to maintain in as much com- 
 fort as Li good for him, and in all the necessary outward 
 decencies of middle-class life, a man without any expensive 
 habits or relations dependent on him, and who has neither 
 wife nor child. 
 
 Neither wife nor child ! As 1 write them, the words 
 smite hard. 
 
 To have no wife, no child! Never to seek what the 
 idlest, most drunken loon of a mechanic may get for the 
 asking ; never to experience the joy which I saw on a poor 
 fellow's face only yesterday ; when, in the same room with 
 one dead lad, and another sickening, the wife brought into 
 the world a third, a living child, and the ragged, starved 
 father cried out, " Lord be thankit !" that it was a living 
 child. 
 
 Lord, Thy ways are equal : it is ours only which are 
 unequal. Forbid it Thou that I should have given Thee 
 of that which cost me nothing. 
 
 Yet, on this night this last night of a year so moment- 
 ous let me break silence, and cry, Thou alone wilt hear. 
 
 1 want her I crave her ; my very heart and soul are 
 hungry for her ! Not as a brief possession, like gathering 
 a flower and wearying of it, or throwing it away. I want 
 her for always to have her morning, noon, and night ; day 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 201 
 
 after day, and year after year ; happy or sorrowful, good 
 or faulty, young or old only mine, mine ! I feel some- 
 times as if, found thus late, all eternity could not give me 
 enough of her. It is not the body she inhabits though, 
 from head to foot, my love is all fair, fair as daylight and 
 pure as snow it is herself I want, ever close at hand to be 
 the better self of this me, who have tried vainly all these 
 years to stand alone, to live and endure alone ! Folly ! 
 proud folly ! such is not a natural state of things ; God 
 himself said, " It is not good for man to be alone." 
 
 I think I never shall be so solitary as I have been. That 
 good heart, pure and unselfish as I never saw woman's be- 
 fore, will always incline kindly to as much of mine as I dare 
 show ; those sweet, honest eyes will never be less trustful 
 than now unless I gave them cause to doubt mo. Her 
 friendship, like her character, is steadfast as a rock. 
 
 But oh ! if she loved me ! If I were one of those poor 
 clerks at a hundred a year ; if we had only meat, raiment, 
 and a roof to cover us, and she loved me ! If I were, as I 
 might have been, a young doctor, toiling day and night, 
 with barely time for food and sleep ; but with a home to 
 come to, and her to love me ! If we sat in this room, bare 
 and mean as it is, with this scanty supper between us, ask- 
 ing God's blessing upon it, while her han^. in mine and her 
 lips on my forehead told me, "Max, I love you !" 
 
 God forgive me if I murmur ! I am not young ; my life 
 is slipping away my life, which is owed. Oh ! that 1 
 might live long enough to teach her to say, " Max, I love 
 
 you 
 
 f" 
 
 Enough. The last minutes of this year this blessed 
 year ! shall not be wasted in moans. 
 
 Already the streets are growing quiet. People do not 
 seem to keep this festival here as we do, north of the Tweed ; 
 they think more of Christmas. Most likely she will have 
 forgotten all about the day, and be peacefully sleeping the 
 old year out and the new year in this little English girl. 
 ,Well, I am awake, and that will do for both. 
 
 My letter to Treherne could you have seen it ? I sup- 
 pose you did. It made no excuses for not coming at 
 Christmas, because I intended to come and see you to-mor- 
 row. I mean to wish you a happy New Year on this, the 
 first since I knew you, since I was aware of there being 
 such a little creature existing in the world. 
 
 Also, I mean to come and see you every New Year, if 
 I 2 
 
202 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 possible ; the word possible implying, so far as my own 
 will can control circumstances. I desire to see you ; it is 
 life to me to see you, and see you I will. Not often, for I 
 dare not, but as often as I dare. And for I have faith in 
 anniversaries always on the anniversary of the day I first 
 saw you, and on New Year's Day. 
 
 One two three ; I waited for the clock to cease strik- 
 ing, and now all the bells are ringing from every church 
 tower. Is this an English custom? I must ask you -to- 
 morrow, that is, to-day, for it is morning it is the New 
 Year. 
 
 My day-dawn, my gift of God, my little English girl, a 
 happy New Year. MAX URQUHART. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 NEW YEAR'S MORNING. So this long-anticipated festi- 
 val week is ended, and the old year gone. Poor old year ! 
 "He gave me a friend and a true, true love, 
 And the New Year will take them away." 
 
 Ah ! no, no, no. 
 
 Things are strange. The utmost I can say of them is 
 that they seem very strange. One would suppose, if one 
 liked a friend, and there existed no reasonable cause for not 
 'showing it, why one would show it just a little? That, 
 with only forty miles between a half hour's railway ride 
 not to run over and shake hands ; to write a letter and 
 not to mention one's name therein, was, at least, strange. 
 Such a small thing, even under any pressure of business 
 just a line written, an hour spared. Talk of want of time ! 
 Why, if I were a man I would make time, I would 
 
 Simpleton ! what would you do, indeed, when your plain- 
 est duty you do not do just to wait and trust. 
 
 Yet I do trust. Once believing in people, I believe in 
 them always, against all evidence except their own ay, 
 and should to the very last " until death us do part." 
 
 Those words have set me right again, showing me that I 
 am not afraid, either for myself or any other, even of that 
 change. As I have read somewhere, all pure love of every 
 kind partakes in this of the nature of the love divine, "nei- 
 ther life nor death, nor things present nor things to come, 
 
A LIFE FOU A LIFE. 203 
 
 nor height nor depth, nor any other creature," are able to 
 separate or annihilate it. One feels that or if one does 
 not feel it, it is not true love, is worth nothing, and had 
 better be let go. 
 
 I write idly, perhaps from having been somewhat tired 
 this week. Let me tell my troubles ; it is only to this pa- 
 per. Troubles, indeed, they scarcely deserve to be called, 
 had they not happened in this festive week, when every 
 one expected to be so uncommonly happy. 
 
 First, there was Francis's matter, which ought to have 
 been a great joy, and yet has seemed to weigh us down 
 like a great care ; perhaps because the individual most 
 concerned took it as such, never once looking pleased, nor 
 giving a hearty " thank you" to a single congratulation. 
 Also, instead of coming to talk over his happy prospects 
 with papa and me, he has avoided us pertinaciously. When- 
 ever we lighted upon him, it was sure to be by accident, 
 and he slipped away as soon as he could, to do the polite 
 to Treherne cousins, or to play interminably at billiards, 
 which he considered " the most fascinating game in the 
 world." 
 
 I hate it. What can be the charm of prowling for hours 
 round and round a green-baize table, trying to knock so 
 many red and white balls into so many holes, I never could 
 discover, and told him so. He laughed, and said it was 
 only my ignorance ; but Colin, who stood by, blushed up 
 to the eyes, and almost immediately left oif playing. Who 
 would have supposed the lad so sensitive ? 
 
 I am beginning to understand the interest taken by a 
 friend of theirs and mine in these two young men, Augustus 
 Treherne and Colin Granton. Though neither ^particularly 
 clever, they have both two qualities sufficiently rare in all 
 men to make one thankful to find them in any upright- 
 ness of character and unselfishness of disposition. By-the- 
 by, I never knew but one thoroughly unselfish man in all 
 my life, and that was 
 
 Well, and it was not Francis Charteris, of -whom I am 
 now speaking. The aforesaid little interchange of civility 
 passed between him and me on the Saturday after Christ- 
 mas-day, when I had been searching for him with a letter 
 from Penelope. (There was in the post-bag another letter, 
 addressed to Sir William, which made me feel sure we 
 should have no more guests to-day, nor, consequently, till 
 Monday. Indeed, the letter, which, after some difficulty, I 
 
204 A LIFE FOU A LIFE. 
 
 obtained in the shape of cigar-lighters, made no mention 
 of any such possibility at all ; but, then, it had been a 
 promise.) 
 
 Francis put my sister's note into his pocket, and went on 
 with the game so earnestly that when Augustus came be- 
 hind and caught hold of him, he started as if he had been 
 collared by a policeman. 
 
 " My dear fellow, beg pardon, but the governor wants 
 to know if you have written that letter ?" 
 
 Lisa had told me what it was the letter of acceptance 
 of the appointment offered him, which ought to have been 
 sent immediately. 
 
 Francis looked annoyed. " Plenty of time. My compli- 
 ments to Sir William, and I'll think about it." 
 
 " Cool !" muttered Augustus. " 'Tis your look out, Char- 
 teris, not mine only, one way or other, your answer must 
 go to-day, for my father has heard from " 
 
 Here he reined up, as he himself would say ; but having 
 seen the handwriting in the post-bag, I guessed who was 
 meant. 
 
 " Heard from whom, did you say ? Some of the officious 
 persons who are always so obliging as to keep my uncle 
 informed of my affairs ?" 
 
 " Nonsense that is one of your crotchets. You have 
 no warmer friend than my father, if only you wouldn't rub 
 him up the wrong way. Come along and have done with 
 it ; otherwise you know him of old the old gentleman 
 will get uncommon savage." 
 
 " Though I have the honor of knowing Sir William Tre- 
 herne of old, I really can not be accountable for his becom- 
 ing c uncommon savage,' " said Francis, haughtily. " Mr. 
 Granton, will you be marker this game ?" 
 
 " Upon my word, he is the coolest customer ! By George, 
 Charteris, if you wanted Penelope as much as I did my 
 wife" 
 
 "Excuse me," returned Francis. "jThave never men- 
 tioned Miss Johnston's name." 
 
 Certainly Augustus goes awkwardly to work with his 
 cousin, who has good points if you know how to take hold 
 of them. To use my brother-in-law's own phrase, Francis 
 too gets "rubbed up the wrong way," especially when 
 something has annoyed him. I saw him afterward stand 
 by a window of the library, reading Penelope's letter, with 
 an expression of such perplexity and pain thr.t T ?hou!d have 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 205 
 
 en alarmed, had not hers to me been so cheerful. They 
 .in not have been quarreling, for then she is never cheer- 
 ful. No wonder. Silences, or slight clouds of doubt be- 
 tween friends are hard enough to bear : a real quarrel, and 
 between lovers, must be heart-breaking. With all Francis's 
 peculiarities, I trust it will never come to that. 
 
 Yet something must have been amiss, for there he stood, 
 looking out vacantly on the Italian garden, with the dreary 
 statues half clad in snow on Antinous, almost seeming to 
 shiver under any thing but an Egyptian sky ; and a white- 
 limbed Egeria pouring out of her urn a stream of icicles. 
 Of my presence he was scarcely conscious, I do believe, un- 
 til I ventured to speak. 
 
 " Francis, do you see how near it is to post-time ?" 
 
 Again a start, which with difficulty he concealed. "Et 
 tu Brute ? You also among my tormentors ? I quit the 
 field." 
 
 And the room : whence he was just escaping, had not 
 his uncle's wheeled-chair filled up the door- way. 
 
 " Just in search of you" cried the querulous voice, which 
 Francis declares goes through his nervous system like a gal' 
 vanic shock. " Have you written that letter ?" 
 
 " My dear Sir William " 
 
 "Have you written that letter?" 
 
 " No, si;-, but" 
 
 " Can't wait for ' buts 1 I know your ways. There's pen 
 and ink and I mean to wait here till the letter is done." 
 
 I thought Francis would have been indignant. And with 
 reason : Sir William, spite of his good blood, is certainly a 
 degree short of a gentleman ; but old habit may have force 
 with his nephew, who, without more remonstrance, quietly 
 sat down to write. 
 
 A long half hour, only broken by the rustle of Sir Wil- 
 liam's Times, and Lady Augusta's short cough she was 
 more nervous than usual, and whispered me that she hoped 
 Mr. Charteris would not offend his uncle, for the gout was 
 threatening. An involuntary feeling of suspense oppressed 
 even me ; until, slipping across the room, I saw that a few 
 stray scribblings was the only writing on Francis's sheet 
 of paper. 
 
 That intolerable procrastination of his ! he would let ev- 
 ery thing slip his credit, his happiness and not his alone. 
 And, the more people irritated him, the worse he was. I 
 thought, in despair, I would try my hand at, this ineorrigi- 
 
306 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 ble young man, who makes me often feel as if, clever and 
 pleasing as he is, he were not half good enough for our Pe- 
 nelope. 
 
 " Francis !" I held out my watch with a warning whis- 
 per. He caught at it with great relief, and closed the let- 
 ter-case. 
 
 " Too late for to-day ; I'll do it to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow will indeed be too late ; Augustus said so 
 distinctly. The appointment will be given to some one 
 else and then " 
 
 "And then, you acute, logical, business-like young lady ?" 
 
 There was no time for ultra-delicacy. "And then you 
 may not be able to marry Penelope for ten more years." 
 
 " Penelope will be exceedingly obliged to you for sug- 
 gesting the possibility, and taking me to task for it in this 
 way such a child as you ?" 
 
 Am I a child? but it mattered not to him how old I 
 seem to have grown. Nor did his satirical tone vex me 
 as it once might have done. 
 
 " Forgive me," I said ; " I did not mean to take you to 
 task. But it is not your own happiness alone which is at 
 stake, and Penelope is my sister." 
 
 Strange to say, he was not offended. Perhaps, if Penel- 
 ope had spoken her mind to him, instead of everlastingly 
 adoring him, he might have been the better for it. 
 
 Francis sighed, and made another scribble on his paper 
 "Do you think, you who seem to be well acquainted 
 with your sister's mind, that Penelope would be exceed- 
 ingly unhappy if if I were to decline this appointment ?" 
 
 " Decline oh ! you're jesting." 
 
 " Not at all. The governorship looks far finer than it is. 
 A hot climate and I detest warm weather ; no society 
 and I should lose all my London enjoyments give up all 
 my friends and acquaintance." 
 
 " So would Penelope." 
 
 " So would Penelope, as you say. But " 
 
 " But women count that as nothing they are used to it. 
 Easy for them to renounce home and country, kindred and 
 friends, and follow a man to the ends of the earth. Quite 
 natural, and they ought to be exceedingly obliged to him 
 for taking them." 
 
 He looked at me ; then begged me not to fly into a pas- 
 sion, as somebody might hear. 
 
 I said he might trust me for that ; I would rather not, 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 207 
 
 for his sake for all our sakes, that any body did hear 
 and then the thought of Penelope's gay letter suddenly 
 choked me. 
 
 " Don't cry, Dora I never could bear to see a girl cry. 
 I am very sorry. Heaven help me ! was there ever such 
 an unfortunate fellow born? but it is all circumstances ; I 
 have been the sport of circumstances during my whole life. 
 .No, you need not contradict. What the devil do you tor- 
 ment me for ?" 
 
 I have thought since, how great must have been the 
 dormant irritation and excitement which could have forced 
 that ugly word out of the elegant lips of Francis Charteris. 
 And, the smile being off it, I saw a face haggard and sallow 
 with anxiety. 
 
 I told him, as gently as I could, that the only thing want- 
 ed of him was to make up his mind, either way. If he saw 
 good reasons for declining why, decline Penelope would 
 be content. 
 
 " Do as you think best only do it and let my sister 
 know. There are two things which you men, the best of 
 you, count for naught ; but which are the two things which 
 almost break a woman's heart one is, when you keep se- 
 crets from her ; the other when you hesitate and hesitate, 
 and never know your own minds. Pray, Francis don't 
 do so with Penelope. She is very fond of you." 
 
 " I know that. Poor Penelope !" He dropped his head 
 with something very like a groan. 
 
 Much shocked, to see that what ought to have been his 
 comfort seemed to be his worst pain, I forgot all about the 
 letter in my anxiety lest any thing should be seriously 
 amiss between them ; and my great concern roused him. 
 
 " Nonsense, child. Nothing is amiss. Very likely I 
 shall be Governor of after all, and your sister govern- 
 or's lady, if she chooses. Hush ! not a word ; Sir William 
 is calling. Yes, sir, nearly ready. There, Dora, you can 
 swear the letter is begun." And he hastily wrote the date 
 Treherne Court. 
 
 Even then, though, I doubt if he would have finished it, 
 save for the merest accident, which shows what trifles ap- 
 parently cause important results, especially with characters 
 so impressible and variable as Francis. 
 
 Sir William opening some letters, called me to look at 
 one with a name written on the corner. 
 
 " Is that meant for my nephew ? His correspondent 
 
208 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 writes an atrocious hand, and can not spell, either. c Mr. 
 F. Chatters' the commonest tradesman might have had 
 the decency to put ' Francis Charteris, Esquire.' Perhaps 
 it is not for him, but for one of the servants." 
 
 It was not ; for Francis, looking rather confused, claimed 
 it as from his tailor ; and then, under his uncle's keen eyes, 
 turned scarlet. These two must have had some sharp en- 
 counters in former days, since, even now, their power of 
 provoking one another is grievous to see. Heartily vexed 
 for Francis, I took up the ugly letter to give to him, but 
 Sir William interfered. 
 
 " No, thank you, young lady. Tradesmen's bills can al- 
 ways wait. Mr. Francis shall have his letter when he has 
 written his own." 
 
 Rude as his behavior was, Francis bore with it. I was 
 called out of the library, but half and hour afterward I 
 learned that the letter was written a letter of acceptance. 
 
 So I conclude his hesitation w^as all talk or else his bet- 
 ter self sees that a good and loving wife, in any nook of the 
 world, outweighs a host of grand London acquaintance, 
 miscalled " friends." 
 
 Dear old Mrs. Granton beamed with delight at the idea 
 of another marriage at Rockmount. 
 
 " Only," said she, " what will become of your poor papa, 
 when he has lost all his daughters ?" 
 
 I reminded her that Francis did not intend marrying 
 more than one of us, and the other was likely to be a fix- 
 ture for many years. 
 
 " Not so sure of that, my dear ; but it is very pretty of 
 you to say so. We'll see ; something will be thought of 
 for your good papa when the time comes." 
 
 What could she mean ! But I was afterward convinced 
 that only my imagination suspected her of meaning any 
 thing beyond her usual old-lady ish eagerness in getting 
 young people " settled." 
 
 Sunday was another long day they seem O long and 
 still, spite of all the gayety with which these country cous- 
 ins fill Treherne Court, which is often so oppressive to me, 
 and affects me with such a strange sensation of nervous ir- 
 ritation, that when Colin and his mother, who take a special 
 charge of me, have hunted me out of stray corners, their 
 affectionate kindness has made me feel like to cry. 
 
 Now, I did not mean to write about myself I have been 
 trying desperately to fill my mind with other people's af- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. . 209 
 
 fairs but it will out. I am not myself I know. All 
 Sunday, a formal and dreary day at Treherne Court, I do 
 think a dozen gentle words would have made me cry like a 
 baby. I did cry once, but it was when nobody saw me, in 
 the firelight, by Mrs. Grantors arm-chair. 
 
 " What is ailing with you, my dear ?" she had been say- 
 ing. " You are not near so lively as you were a week ago. 
 Has any body been vexing my Dora ?" 
 
 Which, of course, Dora at once denied, and tried to be 
 as blithe as a lark all the evening. 
 
 No, not vexed, that would be impossible but just a lit- 
 tle hurt. If I could only talk about some things that puzzle 
 me talk in a cursory way, or mention names carelessly, like 
 other names, or ask a question or two that might throw a 
 light on circumstances not clear, then they would be easier 
 to bear. But I dare not trust my tongue, or my cheeks, so 
 all goes inward -I keep pondering and w T ondering till my 
 brain is bewildered, and my whole heart sore. People 
 should not can not that is, good people can not say 
 things they do not mean ; it would not be kind or gener- 
 ous ; it would not be right in short ; and as good people 
 usually act rightly, or what they believe to be right, that 
 doubt falls to the ground. 
 
 Has there risen up somebody better than I ? with fewer 
 faults and nobler virtues ? God knows I have small need 
 to be proud. Yet I am myself this Theodora Johnston 
 as I was from the first, no better and no worse honest 
 and true if nothing else, and he knew it. Nobody ever 
 knew me so thoroughly faults and all. 
 
 We women must be constituted differently from men. 
 A word said, a line written, and we are happy ; omitted, 
 our hearts ache ache as if for a great misfortune. Man 
 can not feel it, or guess at it if they did, the most care- 
 less of them would be slow to wound us so. 
 
 There's Penelope, now, waiting alone at Rockmount. 
 Augustus wanted to go post haste and fetch her here, but 
 Francis objected. He had to return to London immediate- 
 ly, he said ; and yet here he is still. How can men make 
 themselves so content abroad, while the women are wear- 
 ing their hearts out at home ? 
 
 I am bitter naughty I know I am. I was even cross 
 to Colin to-day, when he wanted me to take a walk with 
 him, and then persisted in staying beside me indoors. 
 Colin likes me Colin is kind to me Colin would walk 
 
210 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 twenty miles for an hour of his old playmate's company- 
 he told me so. And yet I was cross with him. 
 
 Oh, I am wicked, wicked! But my heart is so sore. 
 One look into eyes I knew one clasp of a steadfast, kindly 
 hand, and I would be all right again. Merry, happy, brave, 
 afraid of nothing and nobody, not even of myself; it can 
 not be so bad a self if it is worth being cared for. I can't 
 see to write. There now, there now as one would say to 
 a child in a passion cry your heart out ; it will do you 
 good, Theodora. 
 
 After that, I should have courage to tell the last thing 
 which this evening put a climax to my ill-humors, arid in 
 some sense cleared them off, thunder-storm fashion. An 
 incident so unexpected, a story so ridiculous, so cowardly, 
 that, had Francis been less to me than my expected brother- 
 in-law, I declare I would have cut his acquaintance forever 
 and ever, and never spoken to him again. 
 
 I was sitting in a corner of the billiard-room, which, 
 when the players are busy, is as quiet, unobserved a nook 
 as any in the house. I had a book, but read little, being 
 stopped by the eternal click-clack of the billiard-balls. There 
 were only three in the room Francis, Augustus, and Colin 
 Gran ton, who came up and asked my leave to play just one 
 game. My leave ? How amusing ! I told him he might 
 play on till midsummer, for all I cared. 
 
 They were soon absorbed in their game, and their talk 
 between whiles went in and out of my head as vaguely as 
 the book itself had done, till something caught my atten- 
 tion. 
 
 " I say, Charteris, you know Tom Turton ? He was the 
 cleverest fellow at a cannon. It was refreshing only to 
 watch him hold the cue so long as his hand was steady, 
 and even after he got a little ' screwed.' He was a wild 
 one, rather. What has become of him ?" 
 
 " I can not say. Doctor Urquhart might, in whose com- 
 pany I last met him." 
 
 Augustus stared. 
 
 " Well, that is a good joke. Doctor Urquhart with Torn 
 Turton ! I was nothing to boast of myself before I mar- 
 ried ; but Tom Turton !" 
 
 " They seemed intimate enough ; dined, and went to the 
 theatre together, and finished the evening I really forget 
 where. Your friend the doctor made himself uncommonly 
 agreeable." 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 211 
 
 " Urquhart and Tom Turton," Augustus kept repeating, 
 quite unable to get over his surprise at such a juxtaposi- 
 tion, from which I conclude that Mr. Turton, whose name 
 I never heard before, was one of the not too creditable as- 
 sociates of my brother-in-law in his bachelor days. When, 
 some one calling, he went out, Colin took up the theme, be- 
 ing also familiar with this notorious person, it appeared. 
 
 "Very odd, Doctor Urquhart's hunting in couples with 
 Tom Turton. However, I hope he may do him good 
 there was room for it." 
 
 "In Tom, of course, your doctor being one of those 
 China patterns of humanity, in which it is vain to find a 
 flaw, and whose mission it is to go about as patent cement- 
 ers of all cracked and unworthy vessels." 
 
 " Eh ?" said Colin, opening his good, stupid eyes. 
 
 " Query whether your humdrum Scotch doctor is one 
 whit better than his neighbors ? (Score that as twenty, 
 Granton.) I once heard he had a wife and six children 
 living in the shade, near some cathedral town, Canterbury 
 or Salisbury." 
 
 " What !" and Colin's eyes almost started out of his head 
 with astonishment. 
 
 I laugh now I could have laughed then, the minute 
 after, to recollect what a " stound" it gave us both, Colin 
 and me, this utterly improbable and ridiculous tale, which 
 Francis so coolly promulgated. 
 
 "I don't believe it," said Colin, doggedly bless his 
 honest heart! "Beg your pardon, Charteris, but there 
 must be some mistake. I don't believe it." 
 
 " As you will it is a matter of very little consequence. 
 Your game now." 
 
 " I won't believe it," persisted Colin, who, once getting 
 a thing into his head, keeps it there. " Doctor Urquhart 
 isn't the sort of man to do it. If he had married ever so 
 low a woman, he would have made the best of her. He'd 
 never take a wife and keep her in the back-ground. Six 
 young ones too and he so fond of children." 
 
 Francis laughed. 
 
 And all this while I sat quiet in my chair. 
 
 " Children are sometimes inconvenient even to a gentle- 
 man of your friend's parental propensities. Perhaps we 
 know such things do occur, and can't be helped sometimes 
 perhaps the tale is all true, except that he omitted the 
 marriage ceremony." 
 
212 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " Charteris, that girl's sitting there." 
 
 It was this hurried whisper of Colin's, and a certain tone 
 of Francis's, which made me guess at the meaning which, 
 when I clearly caught it for 1 am not a child exactly, and 
 Lydia Cartwright's story has lately made me sorrowfully 
 Vise sen t me burning hot all over, and then so cold. 
 
 "That girl." Yes, she was but a girl. Perhaps she 
 ought to have crept blushing away, or pretended not to 
 have heard a syllable of these men's talk. But, girl as she 
 was, she scorned to be such a hypocrite such a coward. 
 What ! sit still to hear a friend sneered at and his character 
 impeached ? While one the only one at hand to do it 
 durst not so much as say, "The tale is false prove it." 
 And why ? Because she happened to be a woman ! Out 
 upon it! I should despise the womanhood that skulked 
 behind such rags of miscalled modesty as these. 
 
 " Mr. Granton," I said, as steadily and coolly as I could, 
 " your caution comes too late. If you gentlemen wished 
 to talk about any thing I should not hear, you ought to 
 have gone into another room. I have heard every word 
 you uttered." 
 
 " I'm sorry for it," said Colin, bluntly. 
 
 Francis proposed carelessly " to drop the subject." 
 What! take away a man's good name behind his back, 
 and then merely " drop the subject?" Suppose the listener 
 had been other than I, and had believed; or Colin had 
 been a less honest fellow than he is, and he had believed, 
 and we had both gone and promulgated the story, with a 
 few elegant improvements of our own, where would it have 
 ended ? These are the things that destroy character foul 
 tales, that grow up in darkness, and, before a man can seize 
 hold of them, root them up, and drag them to light, homes 
 are poisoned, reputation gone. 
 
 Such thoughts came in a crowd upon me. I hardly 
 knew till then how much I cared for him I mean his 
 honor, his stainless name, all that helps to make his life 
 valuable and noble. And he absent, too, unable to defend 
 himself. I was right to do as I did ; I take shame to my- 
 .self even for this long preamble, lest it might look like an 
 apology. 
 
 " Francis," I said, holding fast by the billiard-table, and 
 trying to smother down the heat of my face, and the beat 
 at my heart, which nearly choked me, " if you please, you 
 have no right to say such things, and then drop the sub- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 213 
 
 ject. You are quite mistaken; Doctor Urquhart was nev- 
 er married ; he told papa so. Who told you that he had a 
 wife and six children living at Salisbury ?" 
 
 " My dear girl, I do not vouch for any such fact ; I mere- 
 ly ' tell the tale, as it was told to me.' " 
 
 " By whom ? Remember the name, if you can. Any 
 one who repeated it, ought to be able to give full confirma- 
 tion." 
 
 " Faith, I almost forget what the story was." 
 
 " You said, he had a wife and six children, living near 
 Salisbury. Or," and I looked Francis direct in the face, 
 " a woman who was not his wife, but who ought to have 
 been." 
 
 He must have been ashamed of himself, I think ; for he 
 turned away and began striking irritably at the balls. 
 
 " I must say, Dora, these are extraordinary questions to 
 put. Young ladies ought to know nothing about such 
 things ; what possible concern is this of yours ?" 
 
 I did not shrink ; or I am sure he could not have seen 
 me do so. u lt is my concern, as much as it is Colin's 
 there ; or that of any honest stander-by. Francis, I think 
 that to take away a man's character behind his back, as 
 you have been doing, is as bad as murdering him." 
 
 " She's right," cried Colin ; " upon my soul, she is ! Dora 
 Miss Dora, if Charteris will only give me the scoundrel's 
 name that told him this, I'll hunt him down and unearth 
 him, wherever he is. Come, my dear fellow, try and re- 
 member. Who was he ?" 
 
 " I think," observed Francis, after a pause, " his name 
 was Augustus Treherne." 
 
 Colin started but I only said, " Very well, I shall go 
 and ask him." 
 
 And just then it chanced that papa and Augustus were 
 seen passing the window. I was well-nigh doing great 
 mischief by forgetting, for the moment, how that the name 
 of the place was Salisbury. It would never have done to 
 hurt papa even by the mention of Salisbury, so I let him 
 go by. I then called in my brother-in-law, and at once, 
 without an instant's delay, put the question. 
 
 He utterly and instantly denied having said any such 
 thing. But afterward, just in time to prevent a serious 
 fracas between him and Francis, he suddenly burst out 
 laughing violently. 
 
 "I have it, and if it isn't one of the best jokes going! 
 
214 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 
 
 Once, when I was chaffing Urquhart about marrying, I told 
 him he ' looked as savage as if he had a wife and six chil 
 dren hidden somewhere on Salisbury Plain.' And I dare 
 say, afterward, I told some fellow at the camp, w T ho told 
 somebody else, and so it got round." 
 
 "And that was all?" 
 
 " Upon my word of honor, Dora, that was all." 
 
 Mr. Charteris said he was exceedingly happy to hear it. 
 They all seemed to consider it a capital joke, and in the 
 midst of their mirth I slipped out. 
 
 But the thing ended, my courage gave way; Oh the 
 wickedness of this world and of the men in it ! Oh! if there 
 were any human being to speak to, to trust, to lean upon ! 
 I laid my head in my hands and cried ; oh, if he could know 
 
 how bitterly I have cried. 
 
 ******* 
 
 New Year's night. 
 
 Feeling wakeful, I will just put down the remaining oc- 
 currences of this New Year's Day. 
 
 When I was writing' the last line, Lisa knocked at the 
 door. 
 
 " Dora, Doctor Urquhart is in the library ; make haste, 
 if you care to see him ; he says he can only stop half an 
 hour." 
 
 So, after a minute, I shut and locked my desk. Only 
 half an hour ! 
 
 I have the credit of " flying into a passion," as Francis 
 says, about things that vex and annoy me. Things that 
 w r ound, that stab to the heart, affect me quite differently. 
 Then I merely say " yes," or " no," or " of course," and go 
 about quietly, as if nothing were amiss. Probably, did 
 there come any mortal blow, I should be like one of those 
 poor soldiers one hears of, who, being shot, will stand up 
 as if unhurt, or even fight on for a minute or so, then sud- 
 denly drop dow T n dead. 
 
 I fastened my neck-ribbon, smoothed my hair, and de- 
 scended. I know I should have entered the library all 
 proper, and put out my hand. Ah! he should not he 
 ought not, that night this very same right hand. 
 
 I mean to say, I should have met Doctor Urquhart exactly 
 as usual, had I not, just in the corridor, entering from the 
 garden, come upon him and Colin Granton in close talk. 
 
 " How do you do ?" and " It is a very cold morning." 
 Then they passed on. I have since thought that their hat to 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 215 
 
 was Colin's doing. He looked confused, as if it were a con- 
 fidential conversation I had interrupted, which very prob- 
 ably it was. I hope, not the incident of the morning, for 
 that would vex Doctor Urquhart so : and blunt as Colin is, 
 his kind heart teaches him tact, oftentimes. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart staid out his half hour punctually, and 
 over the luncheon-table there was plenty of general conver- 
 sation. He also took an opportunity to put to me, in my 
 character of nurse, various questions about papa's health, 
 and desired me, still in the same general half-medical tone, 
 to be careful of my own, as Treherne Court was a much 
 colder place than Rockmount, and we were likely to have 
 a severe winter. I said it would not much signify, as we 
 did not purpose remaining more than a week longer ; to 
 which he merely answered, " Oh, indeed !" 
 
 We had no more conversation, except that, on taking 
 leave, having resisted all the Trehernes' entreaties to re- 
 main, he wished me " a happy New Year." 
 
 " I may not see you again for some time to come ; if not, 
 good-by; good-by!" 
 
 Twice over, good-by ; and that was all. 
 
 A happy New Year. So now the Christmas time is over 
 and gone, and to-morrow, January 2d, 1857, will be like all 
 other days in all other years. If I ever thought or expect- 
 ed otherwise, I was mistaken. 
 
 One thing made me feel deeply and solemnly glad of Doc- 
 tor Urquhart's visit to-day. It was, that if ever Francis, 
 or any one else, was inclined to give a moment's credence 
 to that atrocious lie, his whole appearance and demeanor 
 were its instantaneous contradiction. Whether Colin had 
 told any thing I could not discover ; he looked grave, and 
 somewhat anxious, but his manner was composed and at 
 ease the air of a man whose life, if not above sorrow, was 
 wholly above suspicion; whose heart was steadfast, and 
 whose conscience free. 
 
 " A thoroughly good man, if ever there was one," said 
 papa, emphatically, when he had gone away. 
 
 " Yes," Augustus answered, looking at Francis and then 
 at me. " As honest and upright a man as God ever made." 
 
 Therefore, no matter even though I was mistaken. 
 
216 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 I CONTINUE these letters, having hitherto been made 
 aware of no reason why they should cease. If that reason 
 comes, they shall cease at once and forever ; and these now 
 existing be burnt immediately, by my own hand, as I did 
 those of my sick friend in the Crimea. Be satisfied of 
 that. 
 
 You will learn to-morrow morning what, had an oppor- 
 tunity offered, I meant to have told you on New Year's 
 Day my appointment as surgeon to the jail, where I shall 
 shortly enter upon my duties. The other portion of them, 
 my private practice in the neighborhood, I mean to com- 
 mence as soon as ever I can afterward. 
 
 Thus, you see, my " Ishmaelitish wanderings" as you once 
 called them, are ended. I have a fixed position in one 
 place. I begin to look on this broad river with an eye of 
 interest, and am teaching myself to grow familiar with its 
 miles of docks, forests of shipping, and its two busy, ever- 
 growing tow r ns along either shore, even as one becomes ac- 
 customed to the natural features of the place, wherever it 
 be, that we call " home." 
 
 If not home, this is at least my probable sphere of labor 
 for many years to come ; I shall try to take root here, and 
 make the best of every thing. 
 
 The information that will reach you to-morrow comes 
 necessarily through Treherne. He will get it at the break- 
 fast-table, pass it on to his wife, who will make her lively 
 comments on it, and then it will be almost sure to go on to 
 you. You will, in degree, understand, what they will not, 
 why I should give up my position as regimental surgeon to 
 establish myself here. For all else, it is of little moment 
 what my friends think, as I am settled in my own mind 
 strengthened by certain good words of yours ; that soft, 
 still, autumn day, with the haze over the moorland, and the 
 sun setting in the ripples of the pool. 
 
 You will have discovered by this time a fact of which, 
 so far as I could judge, you were a week since entirely ig- 
 norant that you have a suitor for vour hand. He himself 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 217 
 
 informed me of his intentions with regard to you asking 
 my advice and good wishes. What could I do ? 
 
 I will tell you, being unwilling that in the smallest de- 
 gree a nature so candid and true as yours could suppose 
 me guilty of double-dealing. I said " that I believed you 
 would make the best of wives to any man you loved, and 
 that I hoped when you did marry it would be under those 
 circumstances. Whether he himself were that man, it rest- 
 ed with your suitor alone to discover and decide."' He 
 confessed honestly that on this point he was as ignorant as 
 myself, but declared that he should " do his best." Which 
 implies that while I have been occupied in this jail business 
 he has had daily, hourly access to your sweet company, 
 with every opportunity in his favor money, youth, consent 
 of friends he said you have been his mother's choice for 
 years with, best of all, an honest heart, which vows that, 
 except a passing " smite" or two, it has been yours since 
 you were children together. That such an honest heart 
 should not have its fair chance with you, God forbid. 
 
 Though I will tell you the truth ; I did not believe he 
 had any chance. Nothing in you has ever given me the 
 slightest indication of it. Your sudden blush when you 
 met him surprised me ; also your exclamation I was not 
 aware you were in the habit of calling him by his Christian 
 name. But that you love this young man, I do not believe. 
 
 Some women can be persuaded into love, but you are 
 not of that sort, so far as I can judge. Time will show. 
 You are entirely and absolutely free. 
 
 Pardon me but, after the first surprise of this commu- 
 nication, I rejoiced that you were thus free. Even were 1 
 other than I am young, handsome, with a large income 
 and every thing favorable, you should still, at this crisis, be 
 left exactly as you are, free to elect your own fate, as every 
 woman ought to do. I may be proud, but, w r ere I seeking 
 a wife, the only love that ever would satisfy me, would be 
 that which was given spontaneously and unsought ; de- 
 pendent on nothing I gave, but on what I was. If you 
 choose this suitor, my faith in you w r ill convince me that 
 your feeling was such for him, and I shall be able to say, 
 " Be happy, and God bless you." 
 
 Thus far, I trust, I have written with the steadiness of 
 one who, in either case, has no right to be even surprised 
 who has nothing whatever to claim, and who accordingly 
 claims nothing. 
 
 K 
 
218 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 Treherne will of course answer and I shall find his let- 
 ter at the camp when I return, which will be the day after 
 to-morrow. It may bring me as, indeed, I have expected 
 day by day, being so much the friend of both parties def- 
 inite tidings. 
 
 Let me stop writing here. My ghosts of old have been 
 haunting me every day this week; is it because my good 
 angel is vanishing vanishing far away ? Let me recall < 
 your words, which nothing ever can obliterate from my 
 memory and which, in any case, I shall bless you for as 
 long as I live. 
 
 " I believe that every sin, however great, being repented 
 of, and forsaken, is by God, and ought to be by men, alto- 
 gether forgiven, blotted out and done away." 
 
 A truth which I hope never to forget, but to set forth 
 Continually I shall have plenty of opportunity, as a jail-sur- 
 geon. Ay, I shall probably live and die as a poor jail-sur- 
 geon. 
 
 And you ? 
 
 "The children of Alice call Bartrum father. " 
 
 This line of Elia's has been running in my head all day 
 a very quiet, patient, pathetically sentimental line. But 
 Charles Lamb was only a gentle dreamer or he wrote it 
 when he was old. 
 
 Understand, I do not believe you love this young man. 
 If you do marry him ! But if, not loving him, you marry 
 him I had rather you died. Oh, child, child, with your 
 eyes so like my mother and Dallas I had rather, ten thou- 
 sand times, that you died. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 HER STOEY. 
 
 PENELOPE has brought me my desk to pass away the 
 long day during her absence in London whither she has 
 gone up with Mrs. Granton to buy the first installment of 
 her wedding-clothes. She looked very sorry that I could 
 not accompany her. She is exceedingly kind more so than 
 ever in her life before, though I have given her a deal of 
 trouble, and seem to be giving more every day. 
 
 I have had " fever-and-agur," as the poor folk hereabouts 
 call it caught, probably, in those long walks over the moor- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 219 
 
 lands, which I indulged in after our return from the north 
 supposing they would do me good. But the illness has 
 done me more ; so it comes to the same thing in the end. 
 
 I could be quite happy now, I believe, were those about 
 me happy too ; and, above all, were Penelope less anxious 
 on my account, so as to have no cloud on her own pros- 
 pects. She is to be married in April, and they will sail 
 in May ; I must contrive to get well long before then, if 
 possible. Francis has been very little down here ; being 
 fully occupied in official arrangements ; but Penelope only 
 laughs, and says he is better out of the way during this 
 busy time. She is so happy, she can afford to jest. Mrs. 
 Granton takes my place in assisting her, which is good for 
 the dear old lady too. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Granton ! it cut me to the heart at first to see 
 how puzzled she was at the strange freak which took Colin 
 off to the Mediterranean only puzzled, never cross how 
 could she be cross at any thing " my Colin" does ? he is al- 
 ways right, of course. Pie was really right this time, though 
 it made her unhappy for a while ; but she would have been 
 more so, had she known all. Now, she only wonders a lit- 
 tle ; looks at me with a sort of half-pitying curiosity ; is 
 specially kind to me ; brings me every letter of her son's 
 to read thank heaven, they are already very cheerful let- 
 ters and treats me altogether as if she thought I were 
 breaking my heart for her Colin, and that Colin had not yet 
 discovered what was good for himself concerning me, but 
 would in time. It is of little consequence so as she is con- 
 tent an-d discovers nothing. 
 
 Poor Colin ! I can only reward him by loving his old 
 mother for his sake. 
 
 After a long pause, writing being somewhat fatiguing, I 
 have thought it best to take this opportunity of setting 
 down a circumstance which befell me since I last wrote in 
 my journal. It was at first not my intention to mention it 
 here at all, but on second thoughts I do so, lest, should any 
 thing happen to prevent my destroying this journal during 
 my lifetime, there might be no opportunity, through the 
 omission of it, for any misconstructions as to Colin's conduct 
 or mine. I am weak enough to feel that, not even after I 
 was dead, would I like it to be supposed I had given any 
 encouragement to Colin Granton, or cared for him in any 
 other way than as I shall always care for him, and as he 
 well deserves. 
 
220 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 It is a most painful thing to confess, and one for which 
 I still take some blame to myself, for not having seen and 
 prevented it, but the day before we left Treherne Court 
 Colin Granton made me an offer of marriage. 
 
 When I state that this was unforeseen, I do not mean r,p 
 to the actual moment of its befalling me. They say wom- 
 en instinctively find out when a man is in love with them, 
 BO long as they themselves are indifferent to him; but I 
 did not, probably because my mind was so full of other 
 things. Until the last week of our visit, such a possibility 
 never entered my mind. I mention this to explain my not 
 having prevented what every girl ought to prevent if she 
 can the final declaration, which it must -be such a cruel 
 mortification to any man to make, and be denied. 
 
 This was how it happened. After the new year came 
 in, our gayeties and late hours, following the cares of papa's 
 illness, were too much for me, or else this fever was com- 
 ing on. I felt not ill exactly but not myself, and Mrs. 
 Granton saw it. She petted me like a 'mother, and was al- 
 ways telling me to regard her as such, which I innocently 
 promised ; when she would look at me earnestly, and say, 
 often with tears in her eyes, that " she was sure I would 
 never be unkind to the old lady," and that " she should get 
 the best of daughters." 
 
 Yet still I had not the least suspicion. No, nor when 
 Colin was continually about me, watching me, waiting upon 
 me, sometimes almost irritating me, and then again touch- 
 ing me inexpressibly with hjs unfailing kindness, did I sus- 
 pect any thing for long. At last, I did. 
 
 There is no need to relate what trifles first opened my 
 eyes, nor the wretchedness of the two intermediate days 
 between my dreading and being sure of it. 
 
 I suppose it must always be a very terrible thing to any 
 woman, the discovery that some one whom she likes heart- 
 ily, and only likes, loves her. Of course, in every possible 
 way that it could be done, without wounding him or be- 
 traying him to other people, I avoided Colin ; but it was 
 dreadful notwithstanding. The sight of his honest, happy 
 face was sadder to me than the saddest face in the world ; 
 yet, when it clouded over, my heart ached. And then his 
 mother, with her caresses and praises, made me feel the 
 most conscience-stricken wretch that ever breathed. 
 
 Thus things w^ent on. I shall set down no incidents, 
 though bitterly I remember them all. At last it came to 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 221 
 
 an end. I sh'all relate this, that there may be no doubt left 
 as to what passed between us Colin and me. 
 
 We were standing in the corridor, his mother having 
 just quitted us to settle with papa about to-morrow's jour- 
 ney, desiring us to wait for her till she returned. Colin 
 suggested waiting in the library, but I preferred the corri- 
 dor, where continually there were persons coming and go- 
 ing. I thought, if I never gave him any opportunity of 
 saying any thing, he might understand what I so earnestly 
 wished to save him from being plainly told. So we stood 
 looking out of the hall windows. I can see the view this 
 minute, the large, level circle of snow, with the sun-dial in 
 the centre, and beyond, the great avenue gates, with the 
 avenue itself, two black lines, and a white one between, 
 lessening and fading away in the mist of a January after- 
 noon. 
 
 " How soon the day is closing in our last day here !" 
 
 I said this without thinking. The next minute I would 
 have given any thing to recall it ; for Colin answered some- 
 thing I hardly remember what but the manner, the tone, 
 there was no mistaking. I suppose the saying is true ; no 
 woman with a heart in her bosom can mistake for long to- 
 gether when a man really loves her. I felt it was coming ; 
 perhaps better let it come, and then it would be over, and 
 there would be an end of it. 
 
 So I just stood still, with my eyes on the snow and my 
 hands locked tight together, for Colin had tried to take 
 one of them. He was trembling much, and so I am sure 
 was I. He said only half a dozen words, when I begged 
 him to stop, " unless he wished to break my heart." And, 
 seeing him turn pale as death and lean against the wall, I 
 did indeed feel as if my heart were breaking. 
 
 For a moment the thought came let me confess it how 
 cruel things were, as they were ; how happy had they been 
 otherwise, and I could have made him happy this good, 
 honest soul that loved me, his dear old mother, and every 
 one belonging to us ; also, whether anyhow I ought not 
 to try. No ; that was not possible. I can understand 
 women's renouncing love, or dying of it, or learning to live 
 without it ; but marrying without it, either for " spite," or 
 for money, necessity, pity, or persuasion, is to me utterly 
 incomprehensible. Nay, the self-devoted heroines of the 
 IZmilia Wi/ndham school seem creatures so weak that, if 
 not compassionating, one would simply despise them. Out 
 
223 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 of duty or gratitude it might be possible to work, live, or 
 even die for a person, but never to marry him. 
 
 So, when Colin, recovering, tried to take my hand again, 
 I shrunk into myself, and became my right self at once ; 
 for which, lest tried overmuch, and liking him as I do, some 
 chance emotion might have led him momentarily astray, I 
 most earnestly thank God. 
 
 And then I had to look him in the eyes and tell him the 
 plain, truth. 
 
 " Colin, I do not love you ; I never shall be able to love 
 you, and so it would be wicked even to think of this. You 
 must give it all up, and let us go back to our old ways." 
 
 "Dora?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed, it is true. You must believe it." 
 
 For a long time the only words he said were : 
 
 a I knew it knew I was not half good enough for you." 
 
 It being nearly dark, no one came by until we heard 
 his mother's step, and her cheerful " Where's my Colin ?" 
 loud enough, as if she meant poor dear ! in fond pre- 
 caution, to give us notice of her coming. Instinctively we 
 hid from her in the library. She looked in at the door, but 
 did not, or would not see us, and went trotting away down 
 the corridor. Oh, what a wretch I felt ! 
 
 When she had departed, I was stealing away, but Colin 
 caught my dress. 
 
 "One word just one. Did you never care for me 
 never the least bit in all the world ?" 
 
 " Yes," I answered, feeling no more ashamed of telling 
 this, or any thing, than one would be in a dying confession. 
 " Yes, Colin, I was once very fond of you, when I was 
 about eleven years old." 
 
 " And never afterward ?" 
 
 " No as my saying this proves. Never afterward, and 
 never should by any possible chance in the sort of way 
 you wish." 
 
 " That is enough I understand," he said, with a sort of 
 sorrowful dignity quite new in Colin Granton. " I was 
 only good enough for you when you were a child, and we 
 are not children now. We never shall be children any 
 more." 
 
 " No no." And the thought of that old time came upon 
 me like a flood the winter games at the Cedars the 
 blackberrying and bilberry ing upon the sunshiny summer 
 moors the grief when he went to school, and the joy when 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 223 
 
 he came home again the love that was so innocent, so 
 painless. And he had loved me ever since me, not Lisa- 
 bel ; though, for a time he tried flirting with her, he owned, 
 just to find out whether or not I cared for him. I hid my 
 face and sobbed. 
 
 And then I had need to recover self-control ; it is such 
 an awful thing to see a man weep. 
 
 I stood by Colin till we were both calmer ; trusting all 
 was safe over, and, had passed without the one question I 
 most dreaded. But it came. 
 
 " Dora, why do you not care for me ? Is there tell me 
 or not, as you like is there any one else ?" 
 
 Conscience ! let me be as just to myself as I would be to 
 another in my place. 
 
 Once, I wrote that I had been " mistaken," as I have 
 been in some things, but not in all. Could I have honestly 
 said so, taking all blame on myself and freeing all others 
 from every thing save mere kindness to a poor girl who 
 was foolish enough, but very honest and true, and wholly 
 ignorant of where things were tending, till too late if I 
 could have done this, I believe I should then and there 
 have confessed the whole truth to Colin Granton. But, as 
 things are, it was impossible. 
 
 Therefore I said, and started to notice how literally my 
 words imitated other words, the secondary meaning of 
 which had struck me differently from their first, " that it 
 was not likely I should ever be married." 
 
 Colin asked no more. 
 
 The dressing-bell rang, and I again tried to get away ; 
 but he whispered, " Stop one minute my mother what 
 mn I to tell my mother ?" 
 
 " How much does she know ?" 
 
 " Nothing. But she guesses, poor dear and I was al- 
 ways going to tell her outright ; but somehow I couldn't. 
 But now, as you will tell your father and sisters, and " 
 
 " No, Colin ; I shall not tell any human being." 
 
 And I was thankful that if I could not return his love, I 
 could at least save his pride, and his mother's tender heart, 
 
 " Tell her nothing ; go home and be brave for her sake. 
 Let her see that her boy is not unhappy. Let her feel that 
 not a girl in the land is more precious to him than his old 
 mother." 
 
 " That's true !" he said with a hard breath. " I won't 
 break her dear old heart. I'll hold my tongue and bear it. 
 I will, Dora." 
 
1>24 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " I know you will," and I held out my hand. Surely, 
 that clasp wronged no one ; for it was hardly like a lover's 
 only my old playmate Colin, my dear. 
 
 We then agreed that, if his mother asked any questions, 
 he should simply tell her that he had changed his mind 
 concerning me ; and that otherwise the matter should be 
 buried with him and me, now and always " except" and 
 he seemed about to tell me something, but stopped, saying 
 it was of no matter it was all as one now. I asked no 
 farther, only desiring to get away. 
 
 Then, with another long, sorrowful, silent clasp of the 
 hand, Colin and I parted. 
 
 A long parting it has proved ; for he kept aloof from me 
 at dinner, and instead of traveling home with us, went 
 round another way. A week or two afterward he called 
 at Rockmount, to tell us he had bought a yacht, and was 
 going a cruise to the Mediterranean. I, being out on the 
 moor, did not see him ; he left next day, telling his mother 
 to " wish good-by for him to his playmate Dora." 
 
 Poor Colin ! God bless him and keep him safe, so that 
 I may feel I only wounded his heart, but did his soul no 
 harm, i meant it not ! And when he comes back to his 
 old mother, perhaps bringing her home a fair daughter-in- 
 law, as no doubt he will one day, I shall be happy enough 
 to smile at all the misery of that time at Treherne Court 
 jinxl afterward, and at all the tender compassion which has 
 been wasted upon me by good Mrs. Granton, because " my 
 Colin" changed his mind, and went away without marrying 
 his playmate Dora. Only " Dora." I am glad he never 
 called me by my full name. There is but one person who 
 over called me- " Theodora." 
 
 I read in a book the other day this extract : 
 
 " People do not sufficiently remember that in every rela- 
 tion of life as in the closest one of all, they ought to take 
 one another ' for better, for worse.' That, granting the tie 
 of friendship, gratitude, or esteem be strong enough to 
 have existed at all, it ought, either actively or passively, to 
 e&ist forever. And seeing we can, at best, know our 
 neighbor, companion or friend, as little as, alas ! we often 
 find he knoweth of us, it behooveth us to treat him with 
 the most patient fidelity, the tenderest forbearance ; grant- 
 ing to all his words and actions that we do not understand, 
 the utmost limit of faith which common sense and Chris- 
 tian justice will allow. Xay, these failing, is there not still 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 225 
 
 left Christian charity ? which, being past ' believing' and 
 ' hoping,' still ' endureth all things.' " 
 
 I hear the carriage wheels. 
 
 * * * # # # * 
 
 They will not let me go down stairs at all to-day. 
 
 I have been lying looking at the fire, alone, for Francis 
 returned with Mrs. Granton and Penelope yesterday. They 
 have gone a long walk across the moors. I watched them 
 strolling arm-in-arm Darby and Joan fashion till their 
 two small black figures vanished over the hilly road, which 
 always used to remind me of the Sleeping Beauty and her 
 Prince : 
 
 "And on her lover's arm she leant, 
 
 And round her waist she felt it fold, 
 And far across the hills they went, 
 To that new world which is the old." 
 
 They must be very happy Francis and Penelope. 
 
 I wonder how soon I shall be well. This fever and ague 
 lasts sometimes for months ; I remember Doctor TJrquhart's 
 once saying so. 
 
 Here, following my plan of keeping this journal accurate 
 and complete, I ought to put down something which oc- 
 curred yesterday, and which concerns Doctor TJrquhart. 
 
 Driving through the camp, my sister Penelope saw him, 
 and papa stopped the carriage and waited for him. He 
 could not pass them by, as Francis declared he seemed in- 
 tending to do, with a mere salutation, but staid and spoke. 
 The conversation was not told me, for, on mentioning it, a 
 few sharp words took place between papa and Penelope. 
 She protested against his taking so much trouble in culti- 
 vating the society of a man, who, she said, was evidently, 
 out of his own profession, " a perfect boor." 
 
 Papa replied more warmly than I had at all expected. 
 
 "You will oblige me, Penelope, by allowing your father 
 to have a will of his own in this as in most other matters, 
 even if you do suppose him capable of choosing for his as- 
 sociate and friend c a perfect boor.' And were that accusa- 
 tion as true as it is false, I trust he would never forget that 
 a debt of gratitude, such as he owes to Doctor Urquhart, 
 once incurred, is seldom to be repaid, and never to be ob- 
 literated." 
 
 So the discourse ended. Penelope left my room, and 
 papa took a chair by me. I tried to talk to him, but we 
 soon both fell into silence. Once or twice, when I thought 
 
 K2 
 
2 '2(3 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 he was reading the newspaper, I found him looking at me, 
 but he made no remark. 
 
 Papa and I have had much less of each other's company 
 lately, though w r e have never lost the pleasant footing on 
 which we learned to be during his illness. I wonder if, 
 now that he is quite well, he has any recollection of the 
 long, long hours, nights and day s, with only daylight or 
 candlelight to mark the difference between them, when he 
 lay motionless in his bed, watched and nursed by us two. 
 
 I was thinking thus, when he asked a question, the ab- 
 rupt coincidence of which with my silent thoughts startled 
 me out of any answer than a simple " No, papa." 
 
 "My dear, have you ever had any letter from Doctor 
 Urquhart?" 
 
 Plow could he possibly imagine such a thing? Could 
 Mrs. Granton, or Penelope, who is quick-sighted in some 
 things, have led papa to think to suppose something, the 
 bare idea of which turned me sick with fear. Me, they 
 might blame as they liked ; it would not harm me ; but a 
 word, a suggestion of blame to any other person, would 
 drive me wild, furious. So I called up all my strength. 
 
 " You know, papa, Doctor Urquhart could have nothing 
 to write to me about. Any message for me he would have 
 put in a letter to you." 
 
 " Certainly. I merely inquired, considering him so much 
 a friend of the family, and aware that you had seen more 
 of him, and liked him better than your sisters did. But 
 if he had written to you, you would, of course, have told 
 me?" 
 
 " Of course, papa." 
 
 I did not say another word than this. 
 
 Papa went on, smoothing his newspaper, and looking di- 
 rect at the fire : 
 
 " I have not been altogether satisfied with Doctor Ur- 
 quhart of late, much as I esteem him. He does not appear 
 sufficiently to value what I may say it without conceit 
 from an old man to a younger one, is always of some worth. 
 Yesterday, when I invited him here, he declined again, and 
 a little too too decidedly." 
 
 Seeing an answer waited for, I said, " Yes, papa." 
 
 " I am sorry, having such great respect for him, and such 
 pleasure in his society." Papa paused. "When a man 
 desires to win or retain his footing in a family, he usually 
 takes some pains to secure it. If he does not, the natural 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 227 
 
 conclusion is that he does not desire it." Another pause. 
 " Whenever Doctor Urquhart chooses to come here, he 
 will always be welcome most welcome; but I can not 
 again invite him to Rockmount." 
 
 " No, papa." 
 
 This was all. He then took up his Times, and read it 
 through. I lay quiet, quiet all the evening quiet until I 
 went to bed. To-day I find in the same old book before 
 quoted : 
 
 "The true theory of friendship is this Once a friend, 
 always a friend. But, answerest thou, doth not every 
 day's practice give the lie to that doctrine ? Many, if not 
 most friendships, be like a glove, that, however w r ell fitting 
 at first, doth by constant use wax loose and ungainly, if it 
 doth not quite wear out. And others, not put off and on, 
 but close to a man as his own skin and flesh, are yet liable 
 to become diseased ; he may have to lose them, and live on 
 without them, as after the lopping off of a limb, or the 
 blinding of an eye. And likewise, there be friendships 
 which a man groweth out of, naturally and blamelessly, 
 even as out of his child-clothes ; the which, though no 
 longer suitable for his needs, he keepeth religiously, unfor- 
 gotten and undestroyed, and often visiteth with a kindly 
 tenderness, though he knoweth they can cover and warm 
 him no more. All these instances do clearly prove that a 
 friend is not always a friend." 
 
 " c Yea,' quoth Fidelis, c he is. Not in himself, may be, 
 but unto thee. The future and the present are thine and 
 his ; the past is beyond ye both an unalienable possession, 
 a bond never disannulled. Ye may let it slip, of natural 
 disuse; throw it aside as worn-out and foul; cut it off, 
 cover it up, and bury it ; but it hath been, and, therefore, 
 in one sense forever must be. Transmutation is the law of 
 all mortal things ; but, so far as we know, there is not, and 
 will not be until the great day of the second death in the 
 whole universe any such thing as annihilation.' 
 
 " And so take heed. Deceive not thyself, saying that 
 because a thing is not, it never was. Respect thyself- 
 thine old self as well as thy new. Be faithful to thyself, 
 and to all that ever was thine. Thy friend is always thy 
 friend. Not to have or to hold, to love or rejoice in, but 
 to remember. 
 
 " And if it befall thee, as befalleth most, that in course 
 of time nothing will remain for thee, except to remember, 
 
228 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 be not afraid ! Hold fast that which was thine it is thine 
 forever, Deny it not despise it not ; respect its secrets 
 be silent over its wrongs. And, so kept, it shall never 
 lie like a dead thing in thy heart, corrupting and breeding 
 corruption there, as dead things do. Bury it, and go thy 
 way. It may chance that, one day, long hence, thou shalt 
 come suddenly upon the grave of it and behold ! it is 
 dewy-green !" 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 THAT face that poor little white, patient face ! How 
 she is changed ! 
 
 I wish to write down how it was I chanced to see you, 
 though chance is hardly the right word. I would have 
 seen you, even if I had waited all day and all night, like a 
 thief, outside your garden-wall. If I could have seen you 
 without your seeing me (as actually occurred) all the bet- 
 ter ; but in any case I would have seen you. So far as re- 
 lates to you, the will of Heaven only is strong enough to 
 alter this resolute " I will," of mine. 
 
 You had no idea I was so near you. You did not seem 
 to be thinking of any body or any thing in particular, but 
 came to your bedroom window, and stood there a minute, 
 looking wistfully across the moorlands, the still, absorbed, 
 hopeless look of a person who has had some heavy loss, or 
 resigned something very dear to the heart Dallas's look, 
 almost, as I remember it when he quietly told me that in- 
 stead of preaching his first sermon he must go aw r ay at 
 once abroad, or give up hope of ever living to preach at all. 
 Child, if you should slip away and leave me as Dallas did! 
 
 You must have had a severe illness, and yet, if so, surely 
 I should have heard of it, or your father and sister should 
 have mentioned it when I met them. But no mere bodily 
 illness could account for that expression it is of the mind. 
 You have been suffering mentally also. Can it be out of 
 pity for that young man, who, I hear, has left England ? 
 Wherefore, is not difficult to guess, nor did I ever expect 
 otherwise, knowing him and you. Poor fellow ! But he 
 was honest, and rich, and your friends would approve him. 
 Have they been urging you on his behalf? Have vo". 1 ?^1 
 
A LIFE FOJR A LIFJE. 229 
 
 family feuds to withstand ? Is it that which has made you 
 waste away, and turn so still and pale ? You would just 
 do that ; you would never yield, but only break your heart 
 quietly, and say nothing about it. I know you. Nobody 
 knows you half so well. Coward that I was, not to have 
 taken care of you ! I might have done it easily, as the 
 friend of the family the doctor a grim fellow of forty. 
 There was no fear for any body save myself. Yes, I have 
 been a coward. My child my gentle, tender, childlike 
 child they have been breaking your heart, and I have 
 stood aloof and let them do it. 
 
 You had a cough in autumn, and your eyes are apt to 
 get that bright, limpid look, dilated pupils, with a dark 
 shade under the lower eyelid, which is supposed to indicate 
 the consumptive tendency. Myself, I diifer ; believing it 
 in you, as in many others, merely to indicate that which for 
 want of a clearer term we call the nervous temperament ; 
 exquisitely sensitive, and liable to slight derangements, yet 
 healthy and strong at the core. I see no trace of disease 
 in you, no reason why, even fragile as you are, you should 
 not live to be an old woman. That is, if treated as you 
 ought to be, judiciously, tenderly ; watched over, cared for, 
 given a peaceful, cheerful life with plenty of love in it. 
 Plenty of anxieties also, may be ; no one could shield you 
 from these but the love would counterbalance all, and you 
 would feel that you should feel it I could make you feel it. 
 
 I must find out whether you have been ill, and, if so, 
 who has been attending you. Doctor Black, probably. 
 You disliked him, had almost a terror of him, I know. Yet 
 they would of course have placed you in his hands, my lit- 
 tle tender thing, my dove, my flower. It makes me mad. 
 
 Forgive ! Forgive also that word " my," though in one 
 sense you are even now mine. No one understands you 
 as I do, or loves you. Not selfishly either. Most solemn- 
 ly do I here protest, that could I now find myself your fa- 
 ther or your brother, through the natural tie of blood, which 
 forever prevents any other, I would rejoice in it, rather than 
 part with you, rather than that you should slip away like 
 Dallas, and bless my eyes no more. 
 
 You see now what you are to me, that a mere apparition 
 of your little face at a window could move me thus. 
 
 I must go to work now. To-morrow I shall have found 
 
 out all about you. 
 
 # # # $ * # * 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 I wish you to know how the discovery was made ; since, 
 be assured, I have ever guarded against the remotest possi- 
 bility of friends or strangers finding out my secret, or gos- 
 siping neighbors coupling my name with yours. 
 
 Therefore, instead of going to Mrs. Granton, I paid a 
 visit to Widow Cartwright, to whom I had news to give 
 concerning her daughter. And here, lest at any time evil 
 or careless tongues should bring you a garbled statement, 
 let me just name all I have had to do with this matter of 
 Lydia Cartwright, of which your sister once spoke as my 
 " impertinent interference." 
 
 Widow Cartwright, in her trouble, begged me to try and 
 learn something about her child, who had disappeared from 
 the family where, by Miss Johnston's recommendation, she 
 went as parlor-maid, and in spite of various inquiries set on 
 foot by Mr. Charteris and others, had, to your sister's great 
 regret, never more been heard of. She was believed not 
 to be dead, for she once or twice sent money to her moth- 
 er ; and lately she was seen in a private box at the theatre 
 by a person named Turton, who recognized her, having oft- 
 en dined at the house where she was servant. This in- 
 formation was what I had to give to her mother. 
 
 I would not have mentioned such a story to you, but 
 that long ere you read these letters, if ever you do read 
 them, you will have learned that such sad and terrible facts 
 do exist, and that even the purest woman dare not ignore 
 them. Also, who knows but in the infinite chances of 
 life you may have opportunities of doing in other cases 
 what I would fain have done, and one day entreated your 
 sister to do to use every effort for the redemption of this 
 girl, who, from all I hear, must have been unusually pretty, 
 affectionate, and simple-minded. 
 
 Her poor old mother being a little comforted, I learned 
 tidings of you. Three weeks of fever and ague, or some- 
 thing like it, nobody quite knew what ; they, your family, 
 had no notion till lately that there was any thing ailing 
 you. 
 
 No, they never would. They would let you go on in 
 your silent, patient way, sick or well, happy or sorry, till 
 you suddenly sunk, and then they would turn round aston- 
 ished : " Really, why did she not say she was ill ? Who 
 would have guessed there was any thing the matter with 
 her?" 
 
 And I I, who knew every change in your little face 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 231 
 
 every mood in that strange, quaint, variable spirit I have 
 let you slip, and been afraid to take care of you. Coward ! 
 
 I proceeded at once to Rockmount, but learned from the 
 gardener that your father and sister were out, and " Miss 
 Dora was ill in her room." So I waited, hung about the 
 road for an hour or more, till at last it struck me to seek 
 for information at the Cedars. 
 
 Mrs. Granton w^as glad to see me. She told me all about 
 her son's departure gentle heart! you have kept his se- 
 cret and, asking if I had seen you lately, poured out in a 
 stream all her anxieties concerning you. 
 
 So something must be done for you something sudden 
 and determined. They may all think what they like act 
 as they choose, and so shall I. 
 
 I advised Mrs. Granton to fetch you at once to the Ce- 
 dars, by persuasion if she could ; if not, by compulsion 
 bringing you there as if for a drive, and keeping you. She 
 has a will, that good old lady, w^hen she sees fit to use it, 
 and she has considerable influence with your father. She 
 said she thought she could persuade him to let her have 
 you, and nurse you. 
 
 " And if the poor child herself is obstinate she has been 
 rather variable of temper lately I may say that you order- 
 ed me to bring her here ? She has a great respect for your 
 opinion. I may tell her I acted by your desire ?" 
 
 I considered a moment, and then said she might. 
 
 We arranged every thing as seemed best for your re- 
 moval a serious undertaking for an invalid. You an in- 
 valid, my bright-eyed, light-footed, moorland girl ! 
 
 I do not think Mrs. Granton had a shadow of suspicion. 
 She thanked me continually in her warm-hearted fashion 
 for my "great kindness." Kindness! She also begged 
 me to call immediately, as her friend, lest I might have any 
 professional scruples of etiquette about interfering with 
 Doctor Black. 
 
 Scruples I cast them all to the winds. Come what will, 
 I must see you must assure myself that there is no dan- 
 ger that all is done for you which gives you a fair chance 
 of recovery. 
 
 If not if with the clear vision that I know I can use 011 
 occasion, I see you fading from me, I shall snatch at you. 
 I will have you ; be it only for a day or an hour, I will 
 have you, I say on my heart, in my arms. My love, my 
 darling, my wife that ought to have been you could not 
 
232 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 die out of my arms. I will make you live I will make 
 you love me. I will have you for my wife yet. I will 
 God's will be done ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXHI. 
 
 HEE STOKY. 
 
 I AM at home again. I sit by my bedroom fire in a new 
 easy-chair. Oh, such care am I taken of now ! I cast my 
 eyes over the white waves of moorland : 
 
 "Moor and pleasance looking equal in one snow." 
 Let me see, how does that verse begin? 
 
 "God be with thce, my beloved, God be with thec, 
 As alone thou goest forth 
 With thy face unto the north, 
 Moor and pleasance looking equal in one snow ; 
 While I follow, vainly follow, 
 With the farewell and the hollow, 
 But can not reach thee so." 
 
 Ah! but I can I can. Can reach any where to the 
 north or the south over the land or across the sea, to the 
 world's end. Yea, beyond there if need be even into the 
 Bother unknown world. 
 
 Since I last wrote here, in this room, things have befallen 
 me sudden and strange. And yet so natural do they seem 
 that I almost forget I was ever otherwise than I am now. 
 I, Theodora Johnston, the same, yet not the same. I, just 
 as I was, to be thought worthy of being what I am, and 
 what I hope some one day to be God willing. My heart 
 is full ; how shall I write about these things, which never 
 could be spoken about ? which only to think of makes me 
 feel as if I could but lay my head down in a wonder-strick- 
 en silence, that all should thus have happened unto me, this 
 unworthy me. 
 
 It is not likely I shall keep this journal much longer, but, 
 until closing it finally, it shall go on as usual. Perhaps it 
 may be pleasant to read over some day when I am old 
 when we are old. 
 
 One morning, I forget how long after the last date here, 
 Mrs. Granton surprised me and every body by insisting 
 that the only thing for me was change of air, and that I 
 should go back at once with her to be nursed at the Cedars. 
 There was an invalid-carriage at the gate, with cushions, 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 233 
 
 mats, and furs ; there was papa waiting to help me down 
 stairs, and Penelope with my trunk packed ; in short, I 
 was taken by storm, and had only to submit. They all said 
 it was the surest way of recovering, and must be tried. 
 
 Now I wished to get well, and fast too ; it was neces- 
 sary I should for several reasons. 
 
 First, there was Penelope's marriage, with the after re- 
 sponsibility of my being the only daughter now left to. 
 keep the house and take care of papa. 
 
 Secondly, Lisabel wrote that before autumn she should 
 want me for a new duty and new tie, which, though we 
 never spoke of it to one another, we all thought of with 
 softened hearts even papa, whom, Penelope told me, she 
 had seen brushing the dust off our old rocking-horse in an 
 absent sort of way, and stop in his walk to watch Thomas, 
 the gardener, tossing his grandson. Poor, dear papa ! 
 
 I had a third reason. Sometimes I feared, by words 
 Penelope dropped, that she and my father had laid their 
 heads together concerning me and my weak health, and 
 imagined things which were not true. No ; I repeat," they 
 were not true. I was ill of fever and ague, that was all ; I 
 should have recovered in time. If I were not quite happy, 
 I should have recovered from that also in time. I should 
 not have broken my heart. No one ought who has still 
 another good heart to believe in ; no one need who has 
 neither done wrong nor been wronged. So it seemed 
 necessary or I fancied it so, thinking over all things dur- 
 ing the long, wakeful nights that, not for my own sake 
 alone, I should rouse myself, and try to get well as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 Therefore I made no objections to what, on some ac- 
 counts, was to me an excessively painful thing a visit to 
 the Cedars. 
 
 Pain or no pain, it was to be, and it was done. I lay in 
 a dream of exhaustion, which felt like peace, in the little 
 sitting-room, which looked on the familiar view the lawn, 
 the sun-dial, the boundary of evergreen bushes, and, farther 
 off, the long, narrow valley, belted by fir-topped hills stand- 
 ing out sharp against the western sky. 
 
 Mrs. Granton bustled in and out, and did every thing for 
 me as tenderly as if she had been my mother. 
 
 When we are sick and weak, to find comfort ; when we 
 are sor> &t l-.-irt, to be surrounded by love; when, at five- 
 and-t\v< c world looks blank and dreary, to see it 
 
234 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 looking bright and sunshiny at sixty this does one good. 
 If I said I loved Mrs. Granton, it but weakly expressed 
 what I owed and now owe her more than she is ever 
 likely to know. 
 
 I had been a day and a night at the Cedars without see- 
 ing any one except the dear old lady, who watched me 
 incessantly, and administered perpetual doses of " kitchen 
 physic," promising me faithfully that, if I continued im- 
 proving, the odious face of Doctor Black should never 
 cross the threshold of the Cedars. 
 
 " But for all that, it would be more satisfactory to me if 
 you would consent to see a medical friend of mine, my 
 dear." 
 
 Sickness sharpens our senses, making nothing seem sud- 
 den or unnatural. I knew as well as if she had told me 
 who it was she wanted me to see who it was even now 
 at the parlor door. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart came in, and sat down beside my sofa. 
 I do not remember any thing that was said or done by any 
 of us, except that I felt him sitting there, and heard him in 
 his familiar voice talking to Mrs. Granton about the pleas- 
 ant view from this low window, and the sunshiny morning, 
 and the blackbird that was solemnly hopping about under 
 the sun-dial. 
 
 I will not deny it why should I ? the mere tone of his 
 voice, the mere smile of his eyes filled my whole soul with 
 peace. I neither knew how he had come nor why. I did 
 not want to know ; I only knew he was there, and in his 
 presence I was like a child who has been very forlorn and 
 is now taken care of very hungry and is satisfied. 
 
 Some one calling Mrs. Granton out of the room, he 
 suddenly turned and asked me, " how long I had been ill." 
 
 I answered briefly, then said, in reply to farther ques- 
 tions, that I believed it was fever and ague, caught in the 
 moorland cottages, but that I was fast recovering ; indeed, 
 I was almost well again now. 
 
 " Are you ? Give me your hand." He felt my pulse, 
 counting it by his watch. It did not beat much like a 
 convalescent's then, I know. " I see Mrs. Granton in the 
 garden ; I must have a little talk with her about you." 
 
 He went out of the room abruptly, and soon after I saw 
 them walking together up and down the terrace. Dr. Ur- 
 quhart only came to me again to bid me good-by. 
 
 But after that we saw him every day for a week. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 235 
 
 He used to appear at uncertain hours, sometimes fore- 
 noon, sometimes evening, but faithfully, if ever so late, he 
 came. I had not been aware he was thus intimate at the 
 Cedars, and one day, when Mrs. Grant on was speaking 
 about him, I happened to say so. 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " Yes, certainly, his coming here daily is a new thing, 
 though I was always glad to see him, he was so kind to 
 my Colin. But, in truth, my dear, if I must let out the 
 secret, he now comes to see you" 
 
 " Me !" I was glad of the dim light we sat in, and hor- 
 ribly ashamed of myself when the old lady continued, mat- 
 ter-of-fact and grave. 
 
 "Yes, you, by my special desire, though he consented 
 Willingly to attend you, for he takes a most kindly interest 
 in you. He was afraid of your being left to Doctor Black, 
 whom in his heart I believe he considers an old humbug ; 
 so he planned your being brought here to be petted and 
 taken care of. And I am sure he himself has taken care 
 of you in every possible way that could be done without 
 your finding it out. You are not offended, my dear ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I can't think how we shall manage about his fees ; still 
 it would have been wrong to have refused his kindness 
 so well-meant and so delicately given. I am sure he has 
 the gentlest ways and the tenderest heart of any man I ever 
 knew. Don't you think so ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 But, for all that, after the first week, I did not progress 
 so fast as they two expected also papa and Penelope, who 
 came over to see me, and seemed equally satisfied with 
 Doctor Urquhart's " kindness." Perhaps this very " kind- 
 ness," as I, like the rest, now believed it, made things a 
 little more trying for me. Or else the disease the fever 
 and ague had taken a firmer hold on me than any body 
 knew. Some days I felt as if health were a long way off, 
 in fact, not visible at all in this mortal life ; and the possi- 
 bility seemed sometimes easy to bear, sometimes hard. I 
 had many changes of mood and temper, very sore to strug- 
 gle against ; for all of which now I humbly crave forgive- 
 ness of my dear and kind friends, who were so patient with 
 me, and of Him, the most merciful of all. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart came daily, as I have said. We had 
 often very long talks together, sometimes with Mrs. Gran- 
 
236 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 ton, sometimes alone. He told me of all his doings and 
 plans, and gradually brought me out of the narrow sick- 
 room world into which I was falling, toward the current 
 of outward life his own active life, with its large aims, 
 duties, and cares. The interest of it roused me ; the power 
 and beauty of it strengthened me. All the dreams of my 
 youth, together with one I had dreamed that evening by 
 the moorland pool, came back again. I sometimes longed 
 for life, that I might live as he did ; in any manner, any 
 where, at any sacrifice, so that it was a life in some way 
 resembling and not unworthy of his own. This sort of life 
 equally solitary, equally painful, devoted more to duty 
 than to joy was, heaven knows, all I then thought possi- 
 ble. And I still think with it, and with my thorough 
 reverence and trust in him, and his sole, special, unfailing 
 affection for me, I could have been content all my days. 
 
 My spirit was brave enough, but sometimes my heart 
 was weak. When we have been accustomed to rest on 
 any other to find each day the tie become more familiar, 
 more necessary, belonging to daily life, and daily want to 
 feel the house empty, as it were, till there comes the ring 
 at the door or the step in the hall and to be aware that 
 all this can not last, that it must come to an end, and one 
 must go back to the old, old life, shut up in one's self, with 
 no arm to lean on, no smile to brighten and guide one, no 
 voice to say, " You are right, do it," or " There I think 
 you are wrong" then one grows frightened. 
 
 When I thought of his going to Liverpool, my courage 
 broke down. I would hide my head in my pillow of nights, 
 and say to myself, " Theodora, you are a coward ; will not 
 the good God make you strong enough by yourself, even 
 for any sort of life He requires of you ? Leave all in His 
 hands." So I tried to do ; believing that, from any feeling 
 that was holy and innocent, He would not allow me to suf- 
 fer more than I could bear, or more than is good for all of 
 us to suffer at times. 
 
 (I did not mean to write thus ;' I meant only to tell my 
 outward story ; but such as is written, let it be I am not 
 ashamed of it.) 
 
 Thus things went on, and I did not get stronger. 
 
 One Saturday afternoon Mrs. Granton went a'long drive, 
 to see some family in whom Doctor Urquhart had made 
 her take an interest ; if, indeed, there was need to do more 
 than mention any one's being in trouble, in the dear worn- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 237 
 
 Jin's hearing, in order to unseal a whole torrent of benevo- 
 lence. The people's name was Ansdell ; they were stran- 
 gers, belonging to the camp ; there was a daughter dying 
 of consumption. 
 
 It was one of my dark days, and I lay thinking how much 
 useless sentiment is wasted upon the young who die ; how 
 much vain regret at their being so early removed from the 
 enjoyments they share, and the good they are doing, when 
 they often do no good, and have little joy to lose. Take, 
 for instance, Mrs. Granton and me : if Death hesitated be- 
 tween us, I know which he had better choose : the one who 
 ,had least pleasure in living, and who would be easiest 
 spared who, from either error or fate, or some inherent 
 faults which become almost equal to a fate, had lived twen- 
 ty-five years without being of the smallest use to any body ; 
 and to whom the best that could happen would apparently 
 be to be caught up in the arms of the Great Reaper, and 
 sown afresh in a new world, to begin again. 
 
 Let me confess all this because it explains the mood 
 which I afterward betrayed ; and because it caused me to 
 find out that I was not the only person into whose mind 
 such wild and wicked thoughts have come, to be reasoned 
 down, battled down, prayed down. 
 
 I was in the large drawing-room, supposed to be lying 
 peacefully on the sofa, but in reality cowering down .all in 
 a heap, within the small circle of the firelight. Beyond, it 
 was very dark so dark that the shadows would have fright- 
 ened me, were there not too many spectres close at hand ; 
 sad or evil spirits, such as come about us all in our dark 
 days. Still, the silence was so ghostly that when the door 
 opened I slightly screamed. 
 
 " Do not be afraid. It is only I." 
 
 I was shaken hands with ; and I apologized for having 
 been so startled. Doctor TJrquhart said it was he who 
 ought to apologize, but he had knocked, and I did not an- 
 swer, and he had walked in, being " anxious." Then he 
 spoke about other things, and I soon became myself, and 
 sat listening, with my eyes closed, till, suddenly seeing him, 
 I saw him looking at me. 
 
 " You have been worse to-day." 
 
 " It w^as my bad day." 
 
 " I wish I could see you really better." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 My eyes closed again all things seemed dim and far off, 
 
238 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 as if my life were floating away, and I had no care to seize 
 hold of it easier to let it go. 
 
 " My patient does not do me much credit. When do 
 you intend to honor me by recovering, Miss Theodora ?" 
 
 " I don't know ; it does not much matter." It wearied 
 me to answer even him. 
 
 He rose, walked up and down the room several times, 
 and returned to his place. 
 
 " Miss Theodora, I wish to say a few words to you se- 
 riously, about your health. I should like to see you better 
 very much better than now before I go away." 
 
 " Possibly you may." 
 
 " In any case, you will have to take great care to be 
 taken great care of for months to come. Your health is 
 very delicate. Are you aware of that ?" 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " You must listen " 
 
 The tone roused me. 
 
 " If you please, you must listen to what I am saying. 
 It is useless telling any one else, but I tell you, that if you 
 do not take care of yourself you will die." 
 
 I looked up. No one but he would have said such a 
 thing to me if he said it, it must be true. 
 
 " Do you know that it is wrong to die to let yourself 
 carelessly slip out of God's world, in which he put you to 
 do good work there ?" 
 
 " I have no work to do." 
 
 " None of us can say that. You ought not you shall 
 not. I will not allow it." 
 
 His words struck me. There was truth in them the 
 truth, the faith of my first youth, though both had faded in 
 after years till I knew him. And this was why I clung 
 to this friend of mine, because amid all the shams and false- 
 nesses around me, and even in myself in him I ever found, 
 clearly acknowledged, and bravely outspoken the truth. 
 Why should he not help me now ? 
 
 Humbly I asked him " if he were angry with me." 
 
 " Not angry, but grieved ; you little'know how deeply." 
 
 Was it for my dying, or my wickedly wishing to die ? 
 I knew not ; but that he was strongly affected, more even 
 than he liked me to see, I did see, and it lifted the stone 
 from my heart. 
 
 " I know I have been very wicked. If any one would 
 thoroughly scold me if I could only tell any body " 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 239 
 
 " Why can not you tell me ?" 
 
 So I told him, as far as I could, all the dark thoughts that 
 had been troubling me this day; I laid upon him all my 
 burdens ; I confessed to him all my sins ; and when I end- 
 ed, not without agitation, for I had never spoken so plainly 
 of myself to any creature before, Doctor tlrquhart talked 
 to me long and gently upon the things wherein he consid- 
 ered me wrong in myself and in my home ; and of other 
 things where he thought I was only "foolish," or "mis- 
 taken." Then he spoke of the manifold duties I had in 
 life ; of the glory and beauty of living ; of the peace attain- 
 able, even in this world, by a life which, if ever so sad and 
 difficult, has done the best it could with the materials grant- 
 ed to it has walked, so far as it could see, in its appointed 
 course, and left the rewarding and the brightening of it 
 solely in the hands of Him who gave it; who never gives 
 any thing in vain. 
 
 This was his " sermon" as, smiling, I afterward called 
 it, though all was said very simply, and as tenderly as if he 
 had been talking with a child. At the end of it, I looked 
 at him by a sudden blaze of the fire ; and it seemed as if, 
 mortal man as he was, with faults enough doubtless and 
 some of them I already knew, though there is no necessity 
 to publish them here I " saw his face as it had been the 
 face of an angel." And I thanked God, who sent him to 
 me who sent us each to one another. 
 
 For what should Doctor Urquhart reply when I asked 
 him how he came to learn all these good things, but also 
 smiling : 
 
 " Some of them I learned from you." 
 
 " Me ?" I said, in amazement. 
 
 " Yes ; perhaps I may tell you how it was some day, but 
 not now." He spoke hurriedly, and immediately began 
 talking to me about, and informing me as he had now got 
 a habit of doing exactly how his affairs stood. Now, they 
 were nearly wound up ; and it became needful he should 
 leave the camp, and begin his new duties by a certain day. 
 
 After a little more talk, he fixed or rather, we fixed, for 
 he asked me to decide that day; briefly, as if it had been 
 like any other day in the year ; and quietly as if it had not 
 involved the total ending for the present, with an indefin- 
 ite future, of all this what shall I call it ? between him and 
 me, which, to one, at least, had become as natural and nec- 
 essary as daily bread. 
 
240 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 Thinking now of that two or three minutes of silenco 
 which followed I could be very sorry for myself far 
 more so than then ; for then I hardly felt it at all. 
 
 Doctor Urquhart rose, and said he must go he could 
 not wait longer for Mrs. Granton. 
 
 "Thursday week is the day, then," he added, "after 
 which I shah 1 not see you again for many months." 
 
 " I suppose not." 
 
 "I can not write to you. I wish I could; but such a 
 correspondence would not be possible, would not be right." 
 
 I think I said mechanically, " No." 
 
 I was standing by the mantle-piece, steadying myself 
 with one hand, the other dropping down. Doctor Urqu- 
 hart touched it for a second. 
 
 " It is the very thinnest hand I ever saw ! You will re- 
 member," he then said, " in case this should be our last 
 chance of talking together you will remember all we have 
 been saying ? You will do all you can to recover perfect 
 health, so as to be happy and useful ? You will never think 
 despondingly of your life ; there is many a life much hard- 
 er than yours ; you will have patience, and faith, and hope, 
 as a girl ought to have, who is so precious to many ! Will 
 v r ou promise ?" 
 
 "I will." 
 
 " Good-by, then." 
 
 " Good-by." 
 
 Whether he took my hands, or I gave them, I do not 
 know ; but I felt them held tight against his breast, and 
 him looking at me as if he could not part with me, or as if, 
 before we .parted, he was compelled to tell me something. 
 But when I looked up at him we seemed of a sudden to 
 understand every thing without need of telling. He only 
 said four words " Is this my wife ?" And I said " Yes." 
 
 Then he kissed me. 
 
 Once I used to like reading and hearing all about love 
 and lovers, what they said and how they looked, and how 
 happy they were in one another. Now, it seems as if these 
 things ought never to be read or told by any mortal tongue 
 or pen. ^ 
 
 When Max went away I sat where I was, almost without 
 stirring, for a whole hour, until Mrs. Granton came in and 
 gave me the history of her drive, and all about Lucy Ans- 
 dell, who had died that afternoon. Poor girl poor girl ' 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 241 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 Between the locked leaves of my journal, I keep 
 the first letter I ever had from Max. 
 
 It came early in the morning, the morning after that 
 evening which will always seem to us two, I think, some- 
 thing like what we read of, that " the evening and the morn- 
 ing were the first day." It was, indeed, like the first day 
 of a new world. 
 
 When the letter came I was still fast asleep, for I had 
 not gone and lain awake all night, which, under the circum- 
 stances (as I told Max), it was a young lady's duty to have 
 done ; I only laid my head down with a feeling of ineffable 
 rest rest in heaven's kindness, which had brought all 
 things to this end and rest in his love, from which nothing 
 now could ever thrust me, and in the thought of which I 
 went to sleep, as safe as a tired child ; knowing I should 
 be safe for all my life long with him my Max my hus- 
 band. 
 
 " Lover" was a word that did not seem to suit him, grave 
 as he was, and so much older than I. I never expected 
 from him any thing like the behavior of a lover ; indeed, 
 should hardly like to see him in that character ; it would 
 not look natural. But from the hour he said, " Is this my 
 wife ?" I have ever and only thought of him as " my hus- 
 band." 
 
 My dear Max ! Here is his letter which lay before my 
 eyes in the dim dawn ; it did not come by post he must 
 have left it himself; and the maid brought it in, no doubt 
 thinking it a professional epistle. And I take great credit 
 to myself for the composed matter-of-fact way in which I 
 said " it was all right, and there was no answer," put down 
 my letter, and made believe to go to sleep again. 
 
 Let me laugh it is not wrong ; and I laugh still as much 
 as ever I can ; it is good for me and good for Max. He 
 says scarcely any thing in the world does him so much good 
 as to see me merry. 
 
 It felt very strange at first to open his letter and see my 
 name written in his hand. 
 
 L 
 
242 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Saturday night. 
 
 MY DEAR THEODORA, I do not say " dearest," because 
 there is no one to put in comparison with you ; you .are to 
 me the one woman in the world. 
 
 My dear Theodora let me write it over again to assure 
 myself that it maybe written at all, which, perhaps, it ought 
 not to be till you have read this letter. 
 
 Last night I left you so soon, or it seemed soon, and we 
 said so little, that I never told you some things which you 
 ought to have been made aware of at once ; even before 
 you were allowed to answer that question of mine. For- 
 give me. In my own defense let me say, that when I vis- 
 ited you yesterday I meant only to have the sight of you-^ 
 the comfort of your society all I hoped or intended to win 
 for years to come. But I was shaken out of all self-control 
 first, by the terror of losing you, and then by a look in 
 your sweet eyes. You know ! It was to be, and it was. 
 Theodora gift of God ! may He bless you for showing, 
 just for that one moment, what there was in your heart to- 
 ward me. 
 
 My feelings toward you you can guess a little ; the rest 
 you must believe in. I can not write about them. 
 
 The object of this letter is to tell you something which 
 you ought to be told before I see you again. 
 
 You may remember my once saying it was not likely I 
 should ever marry. Such, indeed, was long my determina- 
 tion, and the reason was this. "When I was a mere boy 
 just before Dallas died there happened to me an event 
 so awful, both in itself and its . results, that it changed my 
 whole character, darkened my life, turned me from a lively, 
 careless, high-spirited lad, into a morbid and miserable man, 
 whose very existence was a burden to him for years. And 
 though gradually, thank God ! I recovered from this state, 
 so as not to have an altogether useless life, still I never was 
 myself again, never knew happiness till I knew you. You 
 came to me as unforeseen a blessing as if you had fallen 
 from the clouds : first you interested, then you cheered me, 
 then, in various ways, you brought light into my darkness, 
 hope to my despair. And then I loved you. 
 
 The same cause, which I can not now fully explain, be- 
 cause I must first take a journey, but you shall know every 
 thing within a week or ten days the same cause which 
 has oppressed my whole life prevented me from daring to 
 win you, I always believed that a man circumstanced as I 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 was had no right ever to think of marriage. Some words 
 of yours led me of late to change this opinion. I resolved, 
 at some future time, to lay my whole history before you 
 as to a mere friend to ask you the question whether or 
 not, under the circumstances, I was justified in seeking any 
 w^oman for my wife ; and, on your answer, to decide either 
 to try and make you love me, or only to love you, as I 
 should have loved, and shall forever. 
 
 "What I then meant to tell you is still to be told. I do 
 not dread the revelation as I once did : all things seem dif- 
 ferent to me. 
 
 I am hardly the same man that I was twelve hours ago. 
 Twelve hours ago I had never told you what you are to 
 me never had you in my arms never read the love in 
 your dear eyes oh, child, do not ever be afraid or ashamed 
 of letting me see you love me, unworthy as I am. If you 
 had not loved me, I should have drifted away into perdition 
 I mean, I might have lost myself altogether so far as re- 
 gards this world. 
 
 That is not likely now. You will save me, and I shall 
 be so happy that I shall be able to make you happy. "YVe 
 will never be two again only one. Already you feel like 
 a part of me, and it seems as natural to write to you thus 
 as if you had been mine for years. Mine ! Some day you 
 will find out all that is sealed up in the heart of a man 
 of my age and of my disposition when the seal is once 
 broken. 
 
 Since, until I have taken my journey, I can not speak to 
 your father, it seems right that my next visit to you should 
 be only that of a friend. Whether, after having read this 
 letter, which at once confesses so much and so little, you 
 think me worthy even of that title, your first look will de- 
 cide. I shall find out, without need of your saying one 
 word. 
 
 I shall probably come on Monday, and then not again ; 
 to meet you only as a friend, used to be sufficiently hard ; 
 to meet you with this uncertainty overhanging me would 
 be all but impossible. Besides, honor to your father com- 
 pels this absence and silence until my explanations are 
 made. 
 
 WHl you forgive me ? Will you trust me ? I think you 
 will. 
 
 I hope you have minded my " orders," rested all even- 
 ing and retired early? I hope on Monday I may see a 
 
244 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 rose on your cheeks a tiny, delicate, winter-rose. That 
 poor, little, thin cheek, it grieves my heart. You must get 
 strong. 
 
 If by your manner you show that this letter has changed 
 your opinion of me, that you desire yesterday to be alto- 
 gether forgotten, I shall understand it and obey. 
 
 Remember, whatever happens, whether you are ever my 
 own or not, that you are the only woman I ever wished for 
 my wife the only one I shall ever marry. Yours, 
 
 MAX UKQTJHAIIT. 
 
 I read his letter many times over. 
 
 Then I rose and dressed myself carefully, as if it had been 
 my marriage morning. He loved me ; I was the only woman 
 he had ever wished for his wife. It was, in truth, my mar- 
 riage morning. 
 
 Coming down stairs, Mrs. Granton met me, all delight at 
 my having risen so soon. 
 
 " Such an advance ! We must be sure and tell Doctor 
 Urquhart. By-the-by, did he not leave a note or message 
 early this morning ?" 
 
 " Yes ; he will probably call on Monday." 
 
 She looked surprised that I did not produce the note, 
 but made no remark. And I, two days before, should have 
 been scarlet and tongue-tied, but now things were quite 
 altered. I was his chosen, his wife ; there was neither hy- 
 pocrisy nor deceit in keeping a secret between him and 
 me. We belonged to one another, and the rest of the 
 world had nothing to do with us. 
 
 Nevertheless, my heart felt running over with tenderness 
 toward the dear old lady, as it did toward my father and 
 my sisters, and every thing belonging to me in this wide 
 world. When Mrs. Granton went to church, I sat for a 
 long time in the west parlor, reading the Bible all alone 
 at least, as much alone as I ever can be in this world again, 
 after knowing that Max loves me. 
 
 It being such an exceedingly mild and warm day won- 
 derful for the first day of February an idea came into my 
 head, which was, indeed, strictly according to " orders," 
 only I never yet had had the courage to obey. Now I 
 thought I would. It would please him so, and Mrs. Gran- 
 ton too. 
 
 So I put on my out-door gear, and actually walked, all 
 by myself, to the hill-top, a hundred yards or more. There 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 245 
 
 I sat down on the familiar bench, and looked round on the 
 well-known view. Ah me ! for how many years, and un- 
 der how many various circumstances, have I come and sat 
 on that bench, and looked at that view ! 
 
 It was very beautiful to-day, though almost deathlike in 
 its supernatural sunshiny calm, such as one only sees in 
 these accidental fine days which come in early winter, or 
 sometimes as a kind of spectral antitype of spring. Such 
 utter stillness every where. The sole thing that seemed 
 alive or moving in the whole landscape was a wreath of 
 gray smoke springing from some invisible cottage behind 
 the fir wood, and curling away upward till it lost itself in 
 the opal air. Hill, moorland, wood, and sky lay still as a 
 picture, and fair as the Land of Beulah, the Celestial Coun- 
 try. It would hardly have been strange to see spirits 
 walking there, or to have turned and found sitting on the 
 bench beside me my mother and my half brother, Harry, 
 who died so long ago, and whose faces in that Country I 
 shall first recognize. 
 
 My mother. Never till now did I feel the want of her. 
 It seems only her only a mother to whom I could tell, 
 " Max loves me I am going to be Max's wife." 
 
 And Harry poor Harry, whom also I scarcely knew 
 whose life was so wretched, and whose death so awful ; he 
 might have been a better man if he had only known my 
 Max. I am forgetting, though, how old he would have 
 been now ; and how Max must have been a mere boy 
 when my brother died. 
 
 I do not often think of Harry. It would be hardly nat- 
 ural that I should ; all happened so long ago that his mem- 
 ory has never been more than a passing shadow across the 
 family lives. But to-day, when every one of my own flesh 
 and blood seemed to grow nearer to me, I thought of him 
 more than once ; tried to recall the circumstances of his 
 dreadful end ; and then to think of him only as a glorified, 
 purified spirit, walking upon the hills of Beulah. Perhaps 
 now looking down upon me, " baby" that was, whom he 
 was once reported, in one of his desperate visits home, to 
 have snatched out of the cradle and kissed ; knowing air 
 that had lately happened to me, and wishing me a happy 
 life with my dear Max. 
 
 I took out Max's letter, and read it over again in the 
 sunshine and open air. 
 
 Ofy, the happiness of knowing that one can make arv- 
 
246 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 other happy entirely happy ! Oh, how good I ought to 
 grow ! 
 
 For the events which have caused him so much pain, and 
 which he has yet to tell papa and me they did not weigh 
 much on my mind. Probably there is no family in which 
 there is not some such painful revelation to be made ; we 
 also have to tell him about poor Harry. But these things 
 are purely accidental and external. His fear that I should 
 " change my opinion of him" made me emile. " Max," I 
 said, out loud, addressing myself to the neighboring heath- 
 er-bush, which might be considered a delicate compliment 
 to the land where he was born, " Oh, Max, what nonsense 
 you do talk ! While you are you, and I am myself, you 
 and I are one." 
 
 Descending the hill-top, I pressed all these my happy 
 thoughts deep down into my heart, covered them up, and 
 went back in the world again. 
 
 Mrs. Granton and I spent a quiet day ; the quieter, that 
 I afterward paid for my feats on the hill-top by hours of 
 extreme exhaustion. It was my own folly, I told her, and 
 tried to laugh at it, saying I should be better to-morrow. 
 
 But many a time the thought came, what if I should not 
 be better to-morrow, nor any to-morrow ? What if, after 
 all, I should have to go away and leave him with no one to 
 make him happy? And then I learned how precious life 
 had grown, and tasted, in degree, what is meant by " the 
 bitterness of death." 
 
 But it did not last. And by this I know that our love 
 is holy : that I can now think of either his departure or my 
 own without either terror or despair. I know that even 
 death itself can never part Max and me. 
 
 Monday came. I was really better, and went about the 
 house with Mrs. Granton all the forenoon. She asked me 
 what time Doctor Urquhart had said he should be here; 
 with various other questions about him. All of which I 
 answered without confusion or hesitation ; it seemed as if 
 I had now belonged to him for a long time. But when, at 
 last, his ring came to the hall door, all the blood rushed to 
 my heart, and back again into my face and Mrs. Granton 
 saw it. 
 
 What was I to do ? to try and " throw dust" into those 
 keen, kind eyes, to teh 1 or act a falsehood, as if I were 
 ashamed of myself or him ? I could not. So I simply sat 
 gilent, and let her think what she chose. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 247 
 
 Whatever she thought, the good old lady said nothing. 
 She sighed ah ! it went to my conscience, that sigh and 
 yet I have done no wrong either to her or Colin ; then, 
 making some excuse, she slipped out of the room, and the 
 four walls only beheld Max and me when we met. 
 
 After we had shaken hands, we sat down in silence. 
 Then I asked him what he had been doing with himself all 
 yesterday, and he told me he had spent it with the poor 
 Ansdells. 
 
 " They wished it, and I thought it was best to go." 
 
 " Yes, I am very glad you went." 
 
 Doctor Urquhart (of course I shall go on calling him 
 " Doctor Urquhart," to people in general ; nobody but me 
 has any business with his Christian name), Doctor Urquhart 
 looked at me and smiled ; then he began telling me about 
 these friends of his ; and how broken-hearted the old moth- 
 er was, having lost both daughters in a few months did I 
 remember the night of the camp concert, and young Ans- 
 dell who sung there ? 
 
 I remembered some young man being called for, as Doc- 
 tor Urquhart wanted him. 
 
 " Yes I had to summon him home ; his eldest sister had 
 suddenly died. Only a cold and fever such as you your- 
 self might have caught that night you thoughtless girl. 
 You little knew how angry you made me." 
 
 "Did I? Something was amiss with you I did not 
 know what but I saw it in your looks." 
 
 " Could you read my looks even then, little lady?" 
 
 It was idle to deny it and why should I, when it made 
 him happy ? Radiantly happy his face was now the sharp 
 lines softened, the wrinkles smoothed out. He looked ten 
 years younger ; ah ! I am glad I am only a girl still ; in 
 time I shall actually make him young. 
 
 Here, the hall bell sounded and though visitors are 
 never admitted to this special little parlor, still Max turned 
 restless, and said he must go. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He hesitated then said hastily, 
 
 " I will tell you the truth ; I am happier out of your 
 sight than in it, just at present." 
 
 I made no answer. 
 
 "To-night, I mean to start on that journey I told you 
 of." Which was to him a very painful one, I perceived. 
 
 " Go, then, and get it over. You will come back to me 
 soon." 
 
048 A LIFE FOR A 
 
 " God grant it." He was very much agitated. 
 
 The only woman he had ever wished for his wife. This, 
 I was. And I felt like a wife. Talk of Penelope's long 
 courtship Lisabel's marriage it was I that was, in heart 
 and soul, the real wife; ay, though Max and I were never 
 more to one another than now ; though I lived as Theo- 
 dora Johnston to the end of my days. 
 
 So I took courage and since it was not allowed me to 
 comfort him hi any other way, I just stole my hand inside 
 his, which clasped instantly and tightly round it. That 
 was all, and that was enough. Thus we sat side by side, 
 when the door opened and in walked papa. 
 
 How strangely the comic and the serious are mixed up 
 together, in life, and even in one's own nature. While 
 writing this, I have gone off into a hearty fit of laughter at 
 the recollection of papa's face when he saw us sitting there. 
 
 Though at the time it was no laughing matter. For a 
 moment he was dumb ,with astonishment, then he said se- 
 verely, 
 
 "Doctor Urquhart, I suppose I must conclude indeed, 
 I can only conclude one thing. But.^you might have 
 spoken to me before addressing yourself to my daughter." 
 
 Max did not answer immediately when he did his voice 
 absolutely made me start. 
 
 " Sir, I have been very wrong but I will make amends 
 you shah 1 know all. Only first as my excuse," here he 
 spoke out passionately, and told papa all that I was to him, 
 all that we were to one another. 
 
 Poor papa, it must have reminded him of his own young 
 days I have heard he was very fond of his first wife, 
 Harry's mother for when I hung about his neck, mine 
 were not the only tears. He held out his hand to Max. 
 
 " Doctor, I forgive you ; and there is not a man alive on 
 whom I would so gladly bestow this little girl as gpu." 
 
 And he're Max tried me as I suppose people xiot yet 
 quite familiar will be sure to try one another at first. 
 Without saying a word, or even accepting papa's hand, he 
 walked straight out of the room. 
 
 It was not right even if he were ever so much un- 
 nerved ; why should he be too proud to show it ? and it 
 might have seriously offended papa. I softened matters as 
 well as I could, by explaining that he had not wished to 
 ask me of papa till a week hence, when he should be able 
 fully to enter into his circumstances. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 249 
 
 " My dear," papa interrupted, " go and tell him he may 
 communicate them at whatever time he chooses. When 
 such a man as Doctor Urquhart honestly comes and asks 
 me for my daughter, you may be sure the very last thing 
 I should ask him would be about his circumstances." 
 
 With my heart brimful at papa's kindness, I went to ex- 
 plain this to Max. I found him alone in the library, stand- 
 ing motionless at the window. I touched him, with some 
 silly coquettish speech about how he could think of letting 
 me run after him in this fashion. He turned round. 
 
 " Oh, Max, what is the matter ? Oh, Max !" I could no 
 more. 
 
 " My child !" He soothed me by calling me by that and 
 several other fond names, but all these things are between 
 him and me alone. "Now, good-by. I must bid you 
 good-by at once." 
 
 I tried to make him understand there was no necessity 
 that papa desired to hear nothing, only wished him to 
 stay with us till evening. That indeed, looking as wretch- 
 ed as he did, I could not and would not let him go. But 
 in vain. 
 
 " I can not stay. I can not be a hypocrite. Do not ask 
 it. Let me go oh ! my child, let me go." 
 
 And he might have gone being very obstinate, and not 
 in the least able to see what is good for him or for me 
 either had it not fortunately happened that, overpowered 
 with the excitement of the last ten minutes, my small 
 strength gave way. I felt myself falling tried to save 
 myself by catching hold of Max's arm, and fell. When I 
 awoke, I was lying on the sofa, with papa and Mrs. Gran- 
 ton beside me. 
 
 Also Max though I did not at first see him. He had 
 taken his rights, or they had been tacitly yielded to him ; 
 I do no~ know how it was, but my head was on my be- 
 trothed husband's breast. 
 
 So he staid. Nobody asked any questions and he him- 
 self explained nothing. He only sat by me, all afternoon, 
 taking care of me, watching me with his eyes of love the 
 love that is to last me my whole life. I know it will. 
 
 Therefore, in the evening, it was I who was the first to 
 say, " Now, Max, you must go." 
 
 " You are quite better ?" 
 
 " Yes, and it is almost dark it will be very dark across 
 the moors. You must go." 
 
 L 2 
 
250 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 He rose, and shook hands mechanically with papa and 
 Mrs. Gran ton. He was going to do the same by me, but 
 I loosed my hands and clasped them round his neck. I did 
 not care for what any body might say or think ; he was 
 mine and I was his they were all welcome to know it. 
 And I wished him to know and feel that, through every 
 thing, and in spite of every thing, I his own loved him 
 and would love him to the last. 
 
 So he went away. 
 
 That is more than a week ago, and I have had no letter ; 
 but he did not say he would write. He would rather 
 come, I think. Thus, any moment I may hear his ring at 
 the door. 
 
 They papa and Penelope think I take things quietly. 
 Penelope, indeed, hardly believes I care for him at all. 
 But they do not know ; oh, Max, they do not know ! You 
 know, or you will know, some day. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 MY dear Theodora, I trust you may never read this let- 
 ter, which, as a preventive measure, I am about to write; 
 I trust we may burn it together, and that I may tell you 
 its contents at accidental times, after the one principal fact 
 has been communicated. 
 
 I mean to communicate it face to face, by word of mouth. 
 It will not seem so awful then ; and I shall see the expres- 
 sion of your countenance on first hearing it. That will 
 guide me as to my own conduct, and as to the manner in 
 which it had best be broken to your father. I have hope 
 at times, that, even after such a communication, his regard 
 for me will not altogether fail ; and it may be that his pres- 
 ent opinions will not be invincible. He may suggest some 
 atonement, some probation, however long or painful I care 
 not, so that it ends in his giving me you. 
 
 But first I ought to furnish him with full information 
 about things into which I have never yet dared to inquire. 
 I shall do so to-morrow. Much, therefore, depends upon 
 to-morrow. Such a crisis almost unnerves me ; add to that 
 the very sight of this place ; and I went by chance to the 
 flame inn, the White Hart, Salisbury. When you have 
 read this letter through, you will not wonder that this is 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 251 
 
 a terrible night for me. I never would have revisited this 
 town, but in the hope of learning every particular, so as to 
 tell you and your father the truth and the whole truth. 
 
 He will assuredly pity me. The thought of his own 
 boy, your brother, whom you once mentioned, and who 
 Mr. Johnston informed me " died young" after some great 
 dereliction this thought may make him deal gently with 
 me. Whether he will ever forgive me, or receive me into 
 his family, remains doubtful. It is with the fear of this, or 
 any other possibility which I can not now foresee, that I 
 write this letter, in order that, whatever happens, my Theo- 
 dora may be acquainted with my whole history. 
 
 My Theodora! Some day, when she comes to read a 
 few pages which I seal up to-night, marking them with 
 her name, and " To be delivered to her after my death," 
 she will understand how I have loved her. Otherwise, it 
 never could have been found out, even by her for I am 
 not a demonstrative man. Only my wife would have 
 known it. 
 
 In case this letter,, and those other letters, do reach you, 
 they will then be your last mementos of me. Read them 
 and burn them ; they are solely meant for you. 
 
 Should all go well, so that they become needless, we will, 
 as I said, burn them together, read or unread, as you choose. 
 You shall do it with your own hand, sitting by me, at our 
 own fireside. Our fireside. The thought of it the ter- 
 ror of losing it, makes me almost powerless to write on. 
 Will you ever find out how I love you, my love my love ! 
 
 I begin by reminding you that I have been long aware 
 your name is not properly Johnston. You told me your- 
 self that the t had been inserted of late years. That you 
 are not an aristocratic, but a plebeian family. My thankful- 
 ness at learning this, you will understand afterward. 
 
 That cathedral clock how it has startled me ! Striking 
 twelve with the same tongue as it did twenty years ago. 
 Were I superstitious, I might fancy I heard in the coffee- 
 room below the clink of glasses, the tune of "Glorious 
 Apollo," and the " Bravo" of that uproarious Voice. 
 
 The town is hardly the least altered. Except that I 
 came in by railway instead of by coach, it might be the 
 very same Salisbury on that very same winter's night the 
 quaint, quiet English town that I stood looking at from 
 this same window its streets shining with rain, and its 
 lights glimmering here and there through the general 
 
I'.-)-' A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 gloom. How I stared, boy-like, till lie came behind and 
 slapped me on the shoulder. But I have a few things to 
 tell you before I tell you the history o%hat night. Let me 
 delay it as long as I can. 
 
 You know about my father and mother, and how they 
 both died when Dallas and I were children. We had no 
 near kindred ; we had to take care of ourselves or, rath- 
 er, he took care of me ; he was almost as good as a father 
 to me, from the time he was twelve years old. 
 
 Let me say a word or two more about my brother Dal- 
 las. If ever there was a perfect character on this earth, 
 he was one. Every creature who knew him thought the 
 same. I doubt not the memory of him still lingers in those 
 old cloisters of St. Mary and St. Salvador, where he spent 
 eight years studying for the ministry. I feel sure there 
 is not a lad who was at college with him gray-headed lads 
 they would be now, grave professors, or sober ministers of 
 the Kirk, with country manses, wives, and families not one 
 of them but would say as I say> if you spoke to him of Dai- 
 las Urquhart. 
 
 Being five years my elder, he had almost ended his cur- 
 riculum when I began mine ; besides, we were at different 
 colleges ; but we went through some sessions together ; a 
 time on which I look back with peculiar tenderness, as I 
 think all boys do who have studied at St. Andrew's. You 
 English do not altogether know us Scotch. I have seen 
 hard-headed, possibly hard-hearted men, grim divines, stern 
 military officers, and selfish Anglo-Indian valetudinarians, 
 melt to the softness of a boy, as they talked of their boyish 
 days at St. Andrew's. 
 
 You never saw the place, my little lady ? You would 
 like it, I know. To me, who have not seen it these twenty 
 years, it still seems like a city in a dream. I could lead 
 you, hand-in-hand, through every one of its quiet old streets, 
 where you so seldom hear the noise of either carriage or 
 cart ; could point out the notable historical corners, and tell 
 you which professor lived in this house and which in that ; 
 could take you along the Links, to the scene of our cele- 
 brated golfing-match, calling over the names of the princi- 
 pal players, including his who won it a fine fellow he was 
 too ! What became of him, I wonder ? 
 
 Also, I could show you the exact spot where you get 
 the finest view of the Abbey and St. Regulus' Tower, and 
 then away back to our lodgings Dallas's and mine nlong 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 2-53 
 
 the Scores, where, of moonlight nights, the elder and more 
 sentimental of the cdlege lads would be caught strolling 
 with their sweetheart!^ bonnie lassies too they were at St. 
 Andrew's or we beheld them in all the glamour of our 
 teens, and fine havers we talked to them along those 
 Scores, to the sound of the sea below. I can hear it now. 
 What a roar it used to come in with, on stormy nights, 
 against those rocks beyond the Castle, where a lad and his 
 tiitor were once both drowned ! 
 
 I am forgetting myself, and all I had to tell you. It is a 
 long time since I have spoken of those old days. 
 
 Theodora, I should like you some time to go and see St. 
 Andrew's. Go there, in any case, and take a look at the 
 old place. You will likely find, in St. Mary's Cloisters, on 
 the third arch to the right hand as you enter, my initials 
 and Dallas's ; and if you ask, some old janitor or librarian 
 may still remember " the two Urquharts" that is, if you 
 like to name us. But, go if you can. Faithful heart ! 1 
 know you will always care for any thing that concerned 
 me. 
 
 All the happy days of my life were spent at St. Andrew's. 
 They lasted until Dallas fell ill, and had to go abroad at 
 once. I was to follow, and stay with him the winter, 
 missing thereby one session, for he did not like to part 
 with me. Perhaps he foresaw his end, which I, boy-like, 
 never thought of, for I was accustomed to his being always 
 delicate ; perhaps he knew what a lad of nineteen might 
 turn out, left to himself. 
 
 I was " left to myself," in our Scotch interpretation of 
 the phrase ; which, no doubt, originated in the stern Pres- 
 byterian belief of what human nature is, abandoned by 
 God. "Left to himself." Many a poor wretch's more 
 wretched parents know what that means. 
 
 How it came about I do not call to mind, but I found 
 myself in London, my own master, spending money like 
 dross ; and spending what was worse, my time, my con- 
 science, my innocence. How low I fell God knows, for I 
 hardly know myself! Things which happened afterward 
 made me oblivious even of this time. While it lasted, I 
 never once wrote to Dallas. 
 
 A letter from him, giving no special reason for my join- 
 ing him, but urging me to come, and quickly, made me 
 recoil conscience-stricken from the Gehenna into which I 
 was falling. You will find the letter the last I had from 
 
L o4 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 him, in this packet : read it, and burn it with mine. Of 
 course, no one has ever seen it, or will ever see it, except 
 yourself. 
 
 I started from London immediately, in great restlessness 
 and anguish of mind ; for though I had been no worse 
 than my neighbors, or so bad as many of them I knew 
 what Dallas w^as and how his pure life, sanctified, though 
 I guessed it not, by the shadow of coming death, would 
 look beside this evil life of mine. I was very miserable ; 
 and a lad not used to misery is then in the quicksands of 
 temptation. He is grateful to any one who will save him 
 from himself give him a narcotic and let his torment 
 sleep. 
 
 I mention this only as a fact, not an extenuation. Though, 
 in some degree, Max Urquhart the man has long since 
 learned to pity Max Urquhart the boy. 
 
 Here I paused, to read this over, and see if I have said 
 all I wished therein. The narrative seems clear. You will 
 perceive I try as much as I can to make it a mere history 
 as if of another person, and thus far I think I have done so. 
 The rest I now proceed to tell you, as circumstantially and 
 calmly as I can. 
 
 But first, before you learn any more about me, let me 
 bid you remember how I loved you, how you permitted 
 me to love you how you have been mine, heart and eyes 
 and tender lips, you know you were mine. You can not 
 alter that. If I were the veriest wretch alive, you once 
 sa\v in me something worth loving, and you did love me. 
 Not after the fashion of those lads and lassies who went 
 courting along the Scores at St. Andrew's but solemnly 
 deeply as those love who expect one day to be husband 
 and wife, Remember we were to have been married, 
 Theodora. 
 
 I found my quickest route to Pan was by Southampton 
 to Havre. But in the dusk of the morning I mistook the 
 coach ; my luggage went direct, and I found myself, having 
 traveled some hours, on the road not to Southampton, 
 but to Salisbury. This was told me after some jocularity, 
 at what he thought a vastly amusing piece of " greenness" 
 on my part, by the coachman. That Is, the gentleman who 
 drove the coach. 
 
 He soon took care to let me know he was a gentleman 
 and that, like many young men of rank and fashion at that 
 time, he was acting Jehu only " for a spree." He talkod 
 
A LIFE FOR A fft?. 255 
 
 \\ >? 
 
 so large, I should have taken him far a nobleman, or a bar- 
 onet at least had he not accidentally told me his name ; 
 though he explained that it was not as humble as it seemed, 
 and expatiated much upon the antiquity, wealth, and aris- 
 tocratic connections of his " family." 
 
 His conversation, though loud and coarse, was amusing, 
 and he patronized me extremely. 
 
 I w^ould rather not say a word more than is necessary 
 concerning this person ; he is dead. As before stated, I 
 never knew any thing of him excepting his name, which 
 you shall have by-and-by, but I guessed that his life had 
 not been a creditable one. He looked about thirty, or a 
 little older. 
 
 When the coach stopped at the very inn where I am 
 now writing, the White Hart, Salisbury he insisted on 
 my stopping too, as it was a bitter cold night, and the 
 moon would not rise till two in the morning. He said 
 that, I mind well. 
 
 Finally he let the coach go on without us, and I heard 
 him laying a bet to drive across Salisbury Plain in a gig or 
 dog-cart, and meet it again on the road to Devizes by day- 
 break next morning. The landlord laughed, and advised 
 him to give up such a mad " neck-or-nothing" freak ; but 
 he swore, and said he always went at every thing " neck- 
 or-nothing." 
 
 I can remember to this day nearly every word he ut- 
 tered, and his manner of saying it. Under any circum- 
 stances this might have been the case, for he attracted me, 
 bad as I felt him to be, with his bold, devil-may-care jollity, 
 mixed with a certain English frankness not unpleasant. 
 He was a small, dark man, hollow-eyed and dissipated 
 looking. His face no, better not call up his face. 
 
 I was persuaded to stay and drink with this man and 
 one or two others, regular topers, as I soon found he was. 
 He appeared poor too ; the drinking was to be at my ex- 
 pense. I was very proud to have the honor of entertain- 
 ing such a clever and agreeable gentleman. 
 
 Once, watching him and listening to his conversation, 
 sudden doubts seized me of what Dallas would think of 
 my new acquaintance, and what he would say, or look he 
 seldom reproved aloud were he to walk in and find me in 
 the present company. And supper being done, I tried to 
 get away, but this man held me by the shoulders, mocking 
 me, and setting the rest on to mock me as a " milksop." 
 
^>56 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 The good angel fled. From that moment, I believe, the 
 devil entered both into him and me. 
 
 I got drunk. It was for the first time in my life, though 
 more than once lately I had been " merry," but stopped at 
 that stage. This time I stopped at nothing. My blood 
 was at boiling heat, with just enough of conscience left to 
 make me snatch at any means to deaden it. 
 
 Of the details of that orgie, or of those who joined in it, 
 except this one person, I have, as was likely, no distinct 
 recollection. They were habitual drinkers ; none of them 
 had any pity for me, and I I was utterly " left to myself," 
 as I have said. A raw, shy, Scotch lad, I soon became the 
 butt of the company. 
 
 The last tiling I remember is their trying to force me to 
 tell my name, which hitherto I had not done, first from nat- 
 ural reserve among strangers, and then from an instinctive 
 feeling that I was not in the most creditable of society, 
 and therefore the less I said about myself the better. All 
 I had told was, that I was on my way to France to join my 
 brother, who was ill. They could not get any more out 
 of me than that. A few taunts, which some English peo- 
 ple are rather too ready to use against us Scotch, made me 
 savage as well as sullen. I might have deserved it, or not 
 I can not tell but the end was, they turned me out 
 the obstinate, drunken, infuriated lad into the street. 
 
 I staggered through the dark, silent town into a lane, 
 and fell asleep on the road-side. 
 
 The next thing I call to mind is being awakened by the 
 cut of a whip across my shoulders, and seeing a man stand- 
 ing over me. I flew at his throat like a wild creature, lor 
 it was he the " gentleman" who had made me drunk and 
 mocked me, and whom I seemed then and there to hate 
 with a fury of hatred that would last to my dying clay. 
 Through it all came the thought of Dallas, sick and solita- 
 ry, half way toward whom I ought to have traveled by 
 now. 
 
 How he the man soothed me I do not know, but 
 think it was by offering to take me toward Dallas. He 
 had a horse and gig standing by, and said if I would 
 mount he would drive me to the coast, whence I could take 
 boat to France. At least, that is the vague impression my 
 mind retains of what passed between us. He helped me 
 up beside him and I dozed off to sleep again. 
 
 My next wakening was in the middle of a desolate plain. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 257 
 
 I rubbed my eyes, but saw nothing except stars and sky, 
 and this black, black plain, which seemed to have no end. 
 
 He pulled up, and told me to " tumble out," which I did 
 mechanically. On the other side of the gig was something 
 tall and dark, which I took at first for a half-way inn, but 
 perceived it was only a huge stone a circle of stones. 
 
 "Halloo! what's this?" 
 
 " Stonehenge comfortable lodging for man and beast . 
 so you're all right. Good-by, young fellow ; you're such 
 dull company that I mean to leave you here till morn- 
 ing.'^ 
 
 This was what he said to me, laughing uproariously. At 
 first I thought he was in jest, and laughed too ; then, being 
 sleepy and maudlin, I remonstrated; lastly, I got half- 
 frightened, for when I tried to mount he pushed me down. 
 I was so helpless and he so strong ; from this solitary place, 
 miles and miles from any human dwelling, how should I 
 get on to Dallas ? Dallas, who, stupefied as I was, still re- 
 mained my prominent thought. 
 
 I begged, as if I had been begging for my life, that he 
 would keep his promise, and take me on my way toward 
 my brother. 
 
 " To the devil with your brother !" and he whipped his 
 horse on. 
 
 The devil was in me, as I said. I sprang at him, my 
 strength doubled and trebled with rage, and catching him 
 unawares, dragged him from the gig, and threw him vio- 
 lently on the ground. His hedd struck against one of the 
 great stones and and 
 
 Now, you see how it was. I murdered him. He must 
 have died easily instantaneously; he never moaned nor 
 stirred once, but, for all that, it was murder. 
 
 Not with intent, God knows. So little idea had I he 
 was dead, that I shook him as he lay, told him to " get up 
 and fight it out ;" oh, my God ! my God ! 
 
 Thus I have told it, the secret, which until now has nev- 
 er been written or spoken to any human being. I was 
 then nineteen I am now nine-and-thirty ; twenty years. 
 Theodora, have pity ; only think of carrying such a secret 
 the blood of a man, on one's conscience for twenty years ! 
 
 If, instead of my telling you all this, as I may do in a few 
 days, you should have to read it here, it will by then have 
 become an old tale. Still, pity me. 
 
 To continue, for it is getting far on into the night. 
 
258 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 The first few minutes after I discovered what I had done, 
 you will not expect me to speak of. 
 
 I was perfectly sober now. I had tried every means in 
 my power to revive him ; and then to ascertain for certain 
 that he was dead ; I forgot to tell you I had already begun 
 my classes in medicine, so I knew a good deal. I sat with 
 his head on my knee, fully aw^are that I had killed him ; 
 that I had taken the life of a man, and that his blood would 
 be upon me forever and ever. 
 
 Nothing short of the great condemnation of the last 
 judgment-day could parallel that horror of despair ; under 
 it my reason seemed to give way. I was seized with the 
 delusion that, bad and cruel man as he was, lie was only 
 shamming to terrify me. I held him up in my arms, so 
 that the light of the gig-lamps fell full on his face. 
 
 It was a dead face not frightful to look at, beautiful 
 rather, as the muscles slowly settled but dead, quite dead. 
 I laid him down again, still resting his head against my 
 knee, till he gradually stiffened and grew cold. 
 
 This was just at moonrise ; he had said the moon would 
 rise at two o'clock, and so' she did, and struck her first ar- 
 rowy ray across the plain upon his face that still face with 
 its half-open mouth and eyes. 
 
 I had not been afraid of him hitherto ; now I was. It 
 was no longer a man, but a corpse, and I was the murderer. 
 
 The sight of the moon rising, is my last recollection of 
 this night. Probably, the fit of insanity, which lasted for 
 many months after, at that instant came on, and under its 
 influence I must have fled, leaving him where he lay, with 
 the gig standing by, and the horse quietly feeding beside 
 the great stones ; but I do not recollect any thing. Doubt- 
 less, I had all the cunning of madness, for I contrived to 
 gain the coast and get over to France ; but how, or when, 
 I have not the slightest remembrance to this day. 
 
 As I have told you, I never saw Dallas again. When I 
 reached Pau, he was dead and buried. The particulars of 
 his death were explained to me months afterward by the 
 good cure, who, Catholic as he was, had learned to love 
 Dallas like a son, and who watched over me for his sake, 
 during the long melancholy mania which, as he thought, 
 resulted from the shock of my brother's death. 
 - Some day I should like you, if possible, to see the spot 
 where Dallas is buried the church-yard of Bilheres near 
 Pau ; but his grave is not within the church-yard, as, he 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 259 
 
 being a Protestant, the authorities would not allow it. 
 You will find it just outside the hedge the head-stone 
 placed in the hedge though the little mound is by this 
 time level with the meadow outside. You -know, we Pres- 
 byterians have not your English feeling about "conse- 
 crated" ground; we believe that "the whole earth is the 
 Lord's," and no human consecration can make it holier than 
 it is, both for the worship of the living, and the interment 
 of the dead. Therefore, it does not shock me that the cat- 
 tle feed, and the grass grows tall, over Dallas's body. But 
 I should like the head-stone preserved as it is ; for yearly, 
 in different quarters of the globe, I have received letters 
 from the old cure and his successor, concerning it. You 
 are much younger than I, Theodora ; after my death I leave 
 this charge to you. You will fulfill it for my sake, I know. 
 
 Must I Tell you any more? Yes, for now comes what 
 some might say was a crime as heavy as the first one. I 
 do not attempt to extenuate it. I can only say that it has 
 been expiated such as it was by twenty miserable years, 
 and that the last expiation is even yet not come. Your fa- 
 ther once said, and his words dashed from me the -first hope 
 which ever entered my mind concerning yon, that he never 
 would clasp the hand of a man who had taken the life of 
 another. What would he say to a man who had taken a 
 life, and concealed the fact for twenty years. I am that 
 man. 
 
 How it came about, I will tell you. 
 
 For a twelvemonth after that night, I was, you will re- 
 member, not myself; in truth, a maniac, though a quiet and 
 harmless one. My insanity was of the sullen and taciturn 
 kind, so that I betrayed nothing, if indeed I had any re- 
 membrance of what had happened, which I believe I had 
 not. The first dawn of recollection came through reading 
 in an English newspaper, which the old cure brought to 
 amuse me, an account of a man who was hanged for mur- 
 der. I read it line by line the trial the verdict the lat- 
 ter days of the criminal who was a young lad like me 
 and the last day of all, when he was hanged. 
 
 By degrees, first misty as a dream, then ghastly clear, 
 impressed on my mind with a tenacity and minuteness all 
 but miraculous, considering the long blank which followed 
 came out the events of that night. I became conscious 
 that I too had killed a man, that if any eye had seen the 
 act I should have been taken, tried, and hanged for murder. 
 
200 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Young as I was, and ignorant of English criminal law, I 
 had sufficient common sense to arrive at the conclusion, 
 that, as things stood, there was not a fragment of evidence 
 against me individually, nor, indeed, any clear evidence to 
 show that the man was murdered at all. It was now a 
 year ago he must have long since been found and buried 
 probably with little inquiry ; they would conclude he had 
 been killed accidentally, through his own careless, drunken 
 driving. But if I once confessed and delivered myself up 
 to justice, I myself alone knew, and no evidence could ever 
 prove, that it was not a case of willful murder. I should 
 be hanged hanged by the neck till I was dead and my 
 name, our name, Dallas's and mine blasted forevermore. 
 
 The weeks that elapsed after my first recovery of reason 
 were such that, when I hear preachers thunder about the 
 literal " worm that dieth not, and fire that is never quench- 
 ed," I could almost smile. Sufficient are the torments of 
 a spiritual hell. 
 
 Sometimes, out of its depths, I felt as if Satan himself had 
 entered my soul, to rouse me into atheistic rebellion. I, a 
 boy not twenty yet, with all my future before me, to lose 
 it through a moment's fury against a man who must have 
 been depraved to the core, a man against whom I had no 
 personal grudge, of whom I knew nothing but his name. 
 Yet I must surrender my life for his be tried, condemned, 
 publicly disgraced finally die the death of a dog. I had 
 never been a coward yet night after night I woke, bathed 
 in a cold sweat of terror, feeling the rope round my neck, 
 and seeing the forty thousand upturned faces as in the 
 newspaper account of the poor wretch who was hanged. 
 
 Remember, I plead nothing. I know there are those 
 who would say that the most dishonorable wretch alive 
 was this same man of honor this Max Urquhart, who car- 
 ries such a fair reputation ; that the only thing I should 
 have done was to go back to England, surrender myself 
 to justice, and take all the consequences of this one act of 
 drunkenness and ungovernable passion. However, I did it 
 not. But my sin as every sin must be sure has found 
 me out. 
 
 Theodora, it is hardly eight hours since your innocent 
 arms were round my neck, and your kisses on my mouth 
 and now ! Well, it will be over soon. However I have 
 lived, I shah 1 not die a hypocrite. 
 
 I do not attempt to retrace the course of reasoning by 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 261 
 
 which I persuaded myself to act as I did. I was only a 
 boy ; this long sleep of the mind had re-established my bod- 
 ily health life and youth were strong within me ; also the 
 hope of honor, the dread of shame. Yet sometimes con- 
 science struggled so fiercely with all these, that I was half 
 tempted to a medium course, the coward's last escape 
 suicide. 
 
 You must remember, religion was wanting in me and 
 Dallas was dead. Nay, I had for the time already forgot- 
 ten him. 
 
 One day, when, driven distracted with my doubts, I had 
 almost made up my mind to end them in the one sharp, 
 easy way I have spoken of, while putting my brother's pa- 
 pers in order, I found his Bible. Underneath his name he 
 had written and the date was that of the last day of his 
 life my name. I looked at it, as we look at a handwriting 
 long familiar, till of a sudden we remember that the hand 
 is cold, that no earthly power can ever reproduce of this 
 known writing a single line. Child, did you ever know 
 no, you never could have known that total desolation, 
 that helpless craving for the dead who return no more ? 
 
 After I grew calmer, I did the only thing which seemed 
 to bring me a little nearer to Dallas I read in his Bible. 
 The chapter I opened at was so remarkable, that at first I 
 recoiled as if it had been my brother he who, being now 
 a spirit, might, for all I could tell, have a spirit's knowledge 
 of all things speaking to me out of the invisible world. 
 The chapter was Ezekiel xvii., and among other verses 
 were these : 
 
 "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he 
 hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save 
 his soul alive. 
 
 "Because he considereth and turneth away from all his transgressions 
 that he hath committed, he shall surely live ; he shall not die 
 
 "For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the 
 Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves and live ye." 
 
 I turned and lived. I resolved to give a life my own 
 for the life which I had taken ; to devote it wholly to the 
 saving of other lives ; and at its close, when I had built up 
 a good name, and shown openly that after any crime a man 
 might recover himself, repent, and atone, I meant to pay 
 the full price of the sin of my youth, and openly to ac- 
 knowledge before the world. How far I was right or 
 wrong in this decision I can not tell perhaps no human 
 
262 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 judgment ever can tell. I simply state what I then resolved, 
 and have never swerved from till I saw you. 
 
 Of necessity, with this ultimate confession ever before 
 me, all the pleasures of life, and all its closest ties friend- 
 ship, love, marriage were not to be thought of. I set 
 them aside as impossible. To nie, life could never be en- 
 joyment, but simply atonement. 
 
 My subsequent history you are acquainted with how, 
 after the needful term of medical study in Britain (I chose 
 Dublin as being the place where I was utterly a stranger, 
 and remained there till my four years ended), I went as an 
 army surgeon half over the ^orld. The first time I ever 
 set foot in England again was not many weeks before I 
 saw, in the ball-room of the Cedars, that little sweet face 
 of yours. The same face in which, two days ago, I read 
 the look of love which stirs a man's heart to the very core. 
 In a moment it obliterated the resolutions, conflicts, suffer- 
 ings, of twenty years and restored me to a man's right and 
 privilege of loving, wooing, marrying. Shall we ever be 
 married ? 
 
 By the time you read this, if ever you do read it, that 
 question will have been answered. It can do you no harm 
 if for one little minute I think of you as my wife ; no longer 
 friend, child, mistress, but my wife. 
 
 Think of all that would have been implied by that name. 
 Think of coming home, and of all that home would have 
 been however humble to me who never had a home in 
 my whole life. Think of all I would have tried to make it 
 to you. Think of sitting by my fireside, knowing that you 
 were the only one required to make it happy and bright ; 
 that, good, and pleasant, and dear as many others might 
 be the only absolute necessity to each of us was one an- 
 other. 
 
 Then the years that would have followed, in which we 
 never had to say good-by in which our two hearts would 
 daily lie open, clear and plain, never to have a doubt or a 
 secret any more. 
 
 Then if we should not always be only two ! think of 
 
 you as my wife the mother of my children 
 
 ******* 
 
 I was unable to conclude this last night. Now I only 
 add a line before going into the town to gain information 
 about about this person ; by whom his body was found, 
 and where buried; with that intent I have already been 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 263 
 
 searching the cathedral burying-ground, but there are no 
 signs of graves there all is smooth green turf, with the 
 dew upon it, glittering like a sheet of diamonds in the 
 bright spring morning. 
 
 It reminded me of you, this being your hour for rising, 
 you early bird you little methodical girl. You may at 
 this moment be out on the terrace, looking up to the hill- 
 top, or down toward your favorite cedar-trees, with that 
 sunshiny spring morning face of yours. 
 
 Pray for me, my love, my wife, my Theodora. 
 
 ******* 
 
 I have found his grave at last. 
 
 "In memory of Henry Johnston, only son of the Reverend 
 William Henry Johnston, of Hockmount, Surrey, who met 
 his death by an accident near this town, and was buried here. 
 Born May 19, 1806. Died November 19, 1836." 
 
 Farewell, Theodora. 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 HER STOKY. 
 
 MANY, many weeks months, indeed, have gone by sine* 
 I opened this my journal. Can I bear the sight of it evep 
 now ? Yes, I think I can. 
 
 I have been, sitting ever so long at the open window, i 
 my old attitude, elbow on the sill, only with a difference 
 that seems to come natural now when no one is by. It \$ 
 such a comfort to sit with my lips on my ring. I asked 
 him to give me a ring, and he did so. Oh, Max! Max! 
 Max! 
 
 Great and miserable changes have befallen us, and no^V 
 Max and I are not going to be married. Penelope's map 
 riage also has been temporarily postponed for the same 
 reason, though I implored her not to tell it to Francis, mv 
 less he should make very particular inquiries, or be exceed- 
 ingly angry at the delay. He was not. Nor did we judge 
 it well to inform Lisabel. Therefore, papa, Penelope, and I 
 keep our own secret. 
 
 Now that it is over, the agony of it smothered up, and 
 all at Rockmount goes on as heretofore, I sometimes won- 
 der do strangers or inmates Mrs. Granton, for instance 
 suspect any thing ? Or is ours, awful as it seems, no spe- 
 
284 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 cial and peculiar lot ? Many another family may have its 
 own lamentable secret, the burden of which each member 
 has to bear, and carry in society a cheerful countenance, 
 even as this of mine. 
 
 Mrs. Granton said yesterday mine was " a cheerful coun- 
 tenance." If so, I am glad. Two things only could really 
 have broken my heart his ceasing to love me, and his 
 changing so in himself, not in his circumstances, that I 
 could no longer worthily love him. By " him" I mean, of 
 course, Max Max Urquhart, my betrothed husband, whom 
 henceforward I can never regard in any other light. 
 
 How blue the hills are how bright the moors ! So they 
 ought to be, for it is near midsummer. By this day fort- 
 night Penelope's marriage-day we shall have plenty of 
 roses. All the better; I would not like it to be a dull 
 wedding, though so quiet ; oply the Trehernes and Mrs. 
 Granton as guests, and me for the solitary bridesmaid. 
 
 " Your last appearance, I hope, Dora, in that capacity," 
 laughed the dear old lady. " c Thrice a bridesmaid, ne'er 
 a bride,' which couldn't be thought of, you know. "No 
 need to speak I guess why your wedding isn't talked 
 about the old story, man's pride and woman's patience. 
 Never mind. Nobody know r s any thing but me, and I 
 shall keep a quiet tongue in the matter. Least said is 
 soonest mended. . All will come right soon, when the doc- 
 tor is a little better off in the world." 
 
 I let her suppose so. It is of little moment what she or 
 any body thinks, so that it is nothing ill of him. 
 
 " Thrice a bridesmaid, never a bride." Even so. Yet, 
 would I change lots with our bride Penelope or any other- 
 bride ? No. 
 
 Now that my mind has settled to its usual level has 
 had time to view things calmly to satisfy itself that noth- 
 ing could have been done different from what has been 
 done, I may at last be able to detail these events. For 
 both Max's sake and my own, it seems best to do it, unless 
 I could make up my mind to destroy my whole journal. 
 An unfinished record is worse than none. During our life- 
 times we shall both preserve our secret; but many a 
 chance brings dark things to ?ight, and I have my Max's 
 honor to guard as well as my own. 
 
 This afternoon, papa being out driving, and Penelope gone 
 to town to seek for a maid, whom the governor's lady will 
 require to take out with her they sail a month hence I 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 265 
 
 shall seize the opportunity to write down what has befallen 
 Max and me. 
 
 My own poor Max ! But my lips are on his ring ; this 
 hand is as safely kept for him as when he first held it in 
 his breast. 
 
 Let me turn back a page and see where it was I left off 
 
 writing my journal. 
 
 ****** # 
 
 I did so, and it was more than I could bear at the time. 
 I have had to take another day for this relation, and even 
 now it is bitter enough to recall the feelings with which I 
 put my pen by, so long ago, waiting for Max to come in 
 " at any minute." 
 
 I waited ten days ; not unhappily, though the last two 
 were somewhat anxious, but it was simply lest any thing 
 might have gone wrong with him or his affairs. As for 
 his neglecting or " treating me ill," as Penelope suggested, 
 such a thought never entered my head. How could he 
 treat me ill ? he loved me. 
 
 The tenth day, which was the end of the term he had 
 named for his journey, I, of course, fully expected him. I 
 knew if by any human power it could be managed, I should 
 see him ; he never would break his word. I rested on his 
 love as surely as in waking from that long sick swoon I 
 had rested on his breast. I knew he would be tender over 
 me, and not let me suffer one more hour*s suspense or pain 
 than he could possibly avoid. 
 
 It may here seem strange that I had never asked Max 
 where he was going, nor any thing of the business he was 
 going upon. Well, that was his secret, the last secret that 
 was ever to be between us ; so I chose not to interfere with 
 it, but to wait his time. Also, I did not fret much about 
 it, whatever it was. He loved me. People who have been 
 hungry for love, and never had it all their lives, can under- 
 stand the utterly satisfied contentment of this one feeling 
 Max loved me. 
 
 At dusk, after staying in all day, I went out, partly be- 
 cause Penelope wished it, and partly for health's sake. I 
 never lost a chance of getting strong now. My sister and 
 I walked along silently, each thinking of her own affairs, 
 when, at a turn in the road/jvhich led, not from the camp, 
 but from the moorlands, she cried out, " I do believe there 
 is Doctor Urquhart." 
 
 If he had not heard his name, I think he would have 
 
266 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 passed us without knowing us. And the face that mel, 
 mine, when he looked up I never shall forget it to my dy- 
 ing day. 
 
 It made me shrink back for a minute, and then I said : 
 
 " Oh, Max ! have you been ill ?" 
 
 " I do not know. Yes possibly." 
 
 " When did you come back ?" 
 
 " I forget oh ! four days ago." 
 
 " Were you coming to Rockmount ?" 
 
 " Rockmount ? oh, no !" He shuddered, and dropped 
 my hand. 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart seems in a very uncertain frame of 
 mind," said Penelope, severely, from the other side of the 
 road. "We had better leave him. -Come, Dora." 
 
 She carried me off almost forcibly. She was exceeding- 
 ly displeased. Four days, and never to have come or 
 written ! She said it was slighting me and insulting the 
 family. 
 
 " A man, too, of whose antecedents and connections we 
 knew nothing. Pie may be a mere adventurer a penni- 
 less Scotch adventurer. Francis always said he was." 
 
 " Francis is " But I could not stay to speak of him, 
 or to reply to Penelope's bitter words. All I thought was 
 how to get back to Max, and entreat him to tell me what 
 had happened. He would tell me. He loved me. So, 
 without any feeling of " proper pride," as Penelope called 
 it, I writhed myself out of her grasp, ran back to Doctor 
 Urquhart, and took possession of his arm my arm which 
 I had a right to. 
 
 " Is that you, Theodora ?" 
 
 " Yes, it is I." And then I said I wanted him to go 
 home with me and tell me w^hat had happened. 
 
 " Better not ; better go home with your sister." 
 
 " I had rather stay here. I mean to stay here." 
 
 He stopped, took both my hands, and forced a smile : 
 " You are the determined little lady you always were ; but 
 you do not know what you are saying. You had better 
 go and leave me." 
 
 I was sure then some great misery was approaching us. 
 I tried to read it in his face. " Do you " did he still love 
 me, I was about to ask, but there was no need. So my 
 answer, too, was brief and plain. 
 
 " I never will leave you as long as I live." 
 
 Then I ran back to Penelope, and told her I should walk 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 267 
 
 home with Doctor Urquhart ; he had something to say to 
 me. She tried anger and authority. Both failed. If we 
 had been summer lovers it might have been different, but 
 now in his trouble I seemed to feel Max's right to me and 
 my love, as I had never done before. Penelope might have 
 lectured for everlasting, and I should only have listened, 
 and then gone back to Max's side, as I did. 
 
 His arm pressed mine close ; he did not say a second 
 time, " Leave me." 
 
 " Now, Max, I want to hear." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " You know there is something, and we shall never be 
 quite happy till it is told. Say it outright ; whatever it is, 
 I shall not mind." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Is it something very terrible ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Something that might come between and part us ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 I trembled, though not much, having so strong a belief 
 in the impossibility of parting. Yet there must have been 
 an expression I hardly intended in the cry, " Oh, Max, tell 
 me," for he again stopped suddenly, and seemed to forget 
 himself in looking at and thinking of me. 
 
 " Stay, Theodora you have something to tell me first. 
 Are you better ? Have you been growing stronger daily ? 
 You are sure ?" 
 
 " Quite sure. Now tell me." 
 
 He tried to speak once or twice, vainly. At last he said, 
 
 " I I wrote you a letter." 
 
 " I never got it." 
 
 " No ; I did not mean you should until my death. But 
 my mind has changed. You shall have it now. I have 
 carried it about with me, on the chance of meeting you, 
 these four days. I wanted to give it to you and to look 
 at you. Oh, my child, my child." 
 
 After a little while, he gave me the letter, begging me 
 not to open it till I was alone at night.. 
 
 " And if it should shock you break your heart ?" 
 
 " Nothing will break my heart." 
 
 " You are right, it is too pure and good. God will not 
 suffer it to be broken. Now, good-by." 
 
 For we had reached the gate of Rockmount. It had 
 never struck me before that I had to bid him adieu here. 
 
268 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 that he did not mean to go in with me to dinner; and 
 when he refused, I felt it very much. His only answer 
 was, for the second time, " that I did not know what I was 
 saying." 
 
 It was now nearly dark, and so misty that I could hard- 
 ly breathe. Doctor Urquhart insisted on my going in im- 
 mediately, tied my veil close under my chin, and then 
 hastily untied it. 
 
 " Love, do you love me ?" 
 
 He has told me afterward, he forgot then, for the time 
 being, every circumstance that was likely to part us ; every 
 thing in the whole world but me. And I trust I was not 
 the only one who felt that it is those alone who, loving as 
 we did, are every thing to one another who have most 
 strength to part. 
 
 When I came indoors the first person I met was papa, 
 looking quite bright and pleased ; and his first question was, 
 
 " Where is Doctor Urquhart ? Penelope said Doctor 
 Urquhart was coming here." 
 
 I hardly know what was done during that evening, or 
 whether they blamed Max or not. All my care was how 
 best to keep his secret, and literally to obey him concern- 
 ing it. 
 
 Of course,'! never named his letter, nor made any at- 
 tempt to read it till I had bidden good-night to them all, 
 and smiled at Penelope's grumbling over my long candles 
 and my large fire, " as if I meant to sit up all night." Yes, 
 I had taken all these precautions in a quiet, solemn kind 
 of way, for I did not know what was before me, and I 
 must not fall ill if I could help. I was Max's own person- 
 al property. 
 
 How cross she was that night, poor Penelope ! It was 
 the last time she ever scolded me. 
 
 For some things, Penelope has felt this more than any 
 one could, except papa, for she is the only one of us who 
 has a clear recollection of Harry. 
 
 Now his name is written and I can tell it the awful se- 
 cret I learned from Max's letter, which no one except me 
 must ever read. 
 
 My Max killed Harry. Not intentionally when he was 
 out of himself and hardly accountable for what he did ; in 
 a passion of boyish fury, roused by great cruelty and 
 wrong ; but he killed him. My brother's death, which 
 we believed to be accidental, was by Max's hand. 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 269 
 
 I write this down calmly now, but it was awful at the 
 time. I think I must have read on mechanically, expecting 
 something sad, and about Harry likewise ; I soon guessed 
 that bad man at Salisbury must have been poor Harry, 
 but I never guessed any thing near the truth till I came to 
 the words " I murdered him." 
 
 To suppose one feels a great blow acutely^ at the instant 
 is a mistake it stuns rather than wounds ; especially when 
 it comes in a letter, read in quiet and alone, as I read Max's 
 letter that night. And as I remember afterward seeing 
 in some book, and thinking how true it was it is strange 
 how soon a great misery grows familiar. Waking up 
 from the first few minutes of total bewilderment, I seemed 
 to have been aware all these twenty years that my Max 
 killed Harry. 
 
 O Harry, my brother, whom I never knew no more 
 than any stranger in the street, and the faint memory of 
 whom was mixed with an indefinite something of wicked- 
 ness, anguish, and disgrace to us all, if I felt not as I ought, 
 then or afterward, forgive me. If, though your sister, I 
 thought less of you dead than of my living Max my poor, 
 poor Max, who had borne this awful burden for twenty 
 years Harry, forgive me ! 
 
 Well, I knew it as an absolute fact and certainty - 
 though as one often feels with great personal misfortunes, 
 at first I could not realize it. Gradually I became fully 
 conscious what an overwhelming horror it was, and what a 
 fearful retributive justice had fallen upon papa and us all. 
 
 For there were some things I had not myself known till 
 this spring, when Penelope, in the fullness of her heart at 
 leaving us, talked to me a good deal of old childish days, 
 and especially about Harry. 
 
 He was a spoiled child. His father never said him nay 
 in any thing never, from the time when he sat at table in 
 his own ornamental chair, and drank Champagne out of 
 his own particular glass, lisping toasts that were the great 
 amusement of every body. He never knew what contradic- 
 tion was, till, at nineteen, he fell in love, and wanted to get 
 married, and would have succeeded, for they eloped (as I 
 believe papa and Harry's mother had done), but papa had 
 prevented them in time. The girl, some village lass, but 
 she might have had a heart nevertheless, broke it, and died. 
 Then Harry went all wrong. 
 
 Penelope remembers how, at times, a shabby, dissipated 
 
-TO A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 man used to meet us children out walking, and kiss us and 
 the nursery-maids all round, saying he was our brother 
 Harry. Also, how he used to lie in wait for papa coming 
 out of church, follow him into his library, where, after fear- 
 ful scenes of quarreling, Harry would go away jauntily, 
 laughing to us, and bowing to mamma, who always show- 
 ed him out and shut the door upon him with a face as 
 white as a sheet. 
 
 My sister also remembers papa's being suddenly called 
 away from home for a day or two, and, on his return, our 
 being all put into mourning, and told that it was for broth- 
 er Harry, whom we must never speak of any more. And 
 once, when she was saying her geography lesson, and want- 
 ed to go and ask papa some questions about Stonehenge and 
 Salisbury, mamma stopped her, saying she must take care 
 never to mention these places to papa, for that poor Harry 
 she called him so now had died miserably by an acci- 
 dent, and been buried at Salisbury. 
 
 She died the same year, and soon afterward we came to 
 Rockmount, living handsomely upon grandfather's money, 
 and proud that we had already begun to call ourselves 
 Johnston. Oh me, what wicked falsehoods poor Harry 
 told about his " family." Him we never again named ; 
 not one of our neighbors here ever knew that we had a 
 brother. 
 
 The first shock over, hour after hour of that long night 
 I sat trying by any means to recall him to mind, my fa- 
 ther's son, my own flesh and blood at least by the half- 
 blood to pity him, to feel as I ought concerning his death, 
 and the one who caused it. But do as I would, my thoughts 
 went back to Max as they might have done, even had he 
 not been my own Max, out of deep compassion for one who, 
 not being a premeditated and hardened criminal, had suf- 
 fered for twenty years the penalty of this single crime. 
 
 It was such, I knew. I did not attempt to palliate it, or 
 justify him. Though poor Harry was worthless, and Max 
 is what he is that did not alter the question. I believe, 
 even then, I did not disguise from myself the truth that 
 my Max had committed, not a fault, but an actual crime. 
 But I called him my Max still. It was the only word that 
 saved me, or I might, as he feared, have " broken my heart." 
 
 The whole history of that dreadful night, there is no need 
 I should tell to any human being ; even Max himself will 
 never know it. God knows it, and that is enough. By 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 271 
 
 ray own strength, I never should have kept my life or rea- 
 son till the morning. 
 
 But it was necessary, and it was better far that I should 
 have gone through this anguish alone, guided by no outer 
 influence, and sustained only by that Strength which always 
 comes in seasons like these. 
 
 I seem, while stretching on the rack of those long night 
 hours, to have been led by some supernatural instinct into 
 the utmost depths of human and divine justice, human and 
 divine love in search of the right. At last I saw it, clung 
 to it, and have found it my rock of hope ever since. 
 
 When the house below began to stir, I put out my can- 
 dle, and stood watching the dawn creep over the gray 
 moorlands, just as on the morning when we sat up all night 
 with my father Max and I. How fond my father was of 
 him my poor, poor father ! 
 
 The horrible conflict and confusion of mind came back. 
 I felt as if right and wrong were inextricably mixed to- 
 gether, laying me under a sort of moral paralysis, out of 
 which the only escape was madness. Then out of the deeps 
 I cried unto Thee, O Thou whose infinite justice includes 
 also infinite forgiveness ; and Thou heardst me. 
 
 " When the wicked man turneth away from his wicked- 
 ness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is law- 
 ful and right, he shall save his soid alive" 
 
 I remembered these words : and unto Thee I trusted my 
 Max's soul. 
 
 It was daylight now, and the little birds began waking 
 up, one by one, until they broke into a perfect chorus of 
 chirping and singing. I thought, was ever grief like this 
 of mine? Yes one grief would have been worse if, this 
 sunny summer morning, I knew he had ceased to love me, 
 and I to believe in him if I had lost him never, either in 
 this world or the next, to find him more. 
 
 After a little, I thought if I could only go to sleep, though 
 but for half an hour, it would be well. So I undressed and 
 laid myself down, with Max's letter tight hidden in my 
 hands. 
 
 Sleep came ; but it ended in dreadful dreams, out of 
 which I awoke, screaming, to see Penelope standing by my 
 bedside, with my breakfast. 
 
 Now, I had already laid my plans to tell my father all. 
 For he must be told. No other alternative presented it- 
 self to me as possible nor, 1 knew, would it to Max. 
 
A LIFE FOll A LIFE. 
 
 When two people are thoroughly one, each guesses in- 
 stinctively the other's mind; in most things, always in all 
 Lrreat things, for one faith and love includes also one sense 
 of right. I was as sure as I was of my existence that Max 
 meant my father to be told. Not even to make me happy 
 would he have deceived me and not even that we might 
 be married, would he consent that we should deceive my 
 lather. 
 
 Thus, that my father must be told, and that I must tell 
 him, was a matter settled and clear but I never considered 
 about how far must be explained to any one else, till I saw 
 Penelope stand there with her familiar household face, half 
 cross, half alarmed. 
 
 " Why, child, what on earth is the matter ? Here are 
 you, staring as if you were out of your senses and there 
 is Doctor Urquhart, who has been haunting the place like 
 a ghost ever since daylight. I declare, I'll send for him 
 and give him a piece of my mind." 
 
 " Don't, don't," I gasped, and all the horror returned 
 vivid as daylight makes any new anguish. Penelope 
 soothed me with the motherliness that had come over 
 her since I was ill, and the gentleness that had grown up 
 in her since she had been happy, and Francis loving. My 
 miserable heart yearned to her, a woman like myself a 
 good woman, too, though I did not appreciate her once, 
 when I was young and foolish, and had never known care, 
 as she had. How it came out I can not tell I have never 
 regretted it nor did Max, for I think it saved my heart 
 iVoni breaking but I then and there told my sister Penel- 
 ope our dreadful story. 
 
 I see her still, sitting on the bed, listening with blanched 
 face, gazing, not at me, but at the opposite wall. She 
 made no outcry of grief or horror against Max. She took 
 all in a subdued, quiet way, which I had not expected 
 would have been Penelope's way of bearing a great grief. 
 She hardly said any thing, till I cried with a bitter cry : 
 
 " Now I want Max. Let me rise and go down, for I 
 must see Max." 
 
 Then we two women looked at one another pitifully, and 
 my sister my happy sister, who was to be married in a 
 fortnight took me in her arms, sobbing, 
 
 " Oh, Dora my poor, poor child." 
 
 All this seems years upon years ago, and I can relate it 
 calmly enough till I call to mind that sob of Penelope's. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 273 
 
 Well, what happened next ? I remember Penelope came 
 in when I was dressing, and told me, in her ordinary man- 
 ner, that papa wished her to drive with him to the Cedars 
 this morning. 
 
 "Shall I go, Dora?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Perhaps you will see him in our absence." 
 
 " I intend so." 
 
 She turned, then came back and kissed me. I suppose 
 she thought this meeting between Max and me would be 
 an eternal farewell. 
 
 The carriage had scarcely driven off, when I received a 
 message that Doctor Urquhart was in the parlor. 
 
 Harry Harry, twenty years dead my own brother 
 killed by my husband! Let me acknowledge. Had I 
 known this before he was my betrothed husband, chosen 
 open-eyed, with all my judgment, my conscience, and my 
 soul, loved, not merely because he loved me, but because I 
 loved him, honored him, and trusted him, so that even 
 marriage could scarcely make us more entirely one than 
 we were already had I been aware of this before, I might 
 not, indeed I think I never should have loved him. Nature 
 would have instinctively prevented me. But now it was 
 too late. I loved him, and I could not unlove him ; nature 
 herself forbade the sacrifice. It would have been like tear- 
 ing my heart out of my bosom ; lie was half myself, and, 
 maimed of him, I should never have been my right self 
 afterward. Nor would he. Two living lives to be blasted 
 for one that was taken unwittingly twenty years ago ! 
 Could it ought it to be so ? 
 
 The rest of the world are free to be their own judges in 
 the matter, but God and my conscience are mine. 
 
 I went down stairs steadfastly, with my mind all clear. 
 Even to the last minute, with my hand on the parlor door, 
 my heart where all throbs of happy love seemed to have 
 been long, long forgotten my still heart prayed. 
 
 Max was standing by the fire ; he turned round. He 
 and the whole sunshiny room swam before my eyes for an 
 instant then I called up my strength and touched him. 
 He was trembling all over. 
 
 " Max, sit down." He sat down. 
 
 I knelt by him. I clasped his hands close, but still he 
 sat as if he had been a stone. At last he muttered, 
 
 " I wanted to see you just once more, to know how you 
 M 2 
 
274 A LIFE FOR A 3,1 FK. 
 
 bore it to be sure I had not killed you also oh, it is hor- 
 rible! horrible!" 
 
 I said it was horrible, but that we would be able to bear 
 it. 
 
 "We?" 
 
 " Yes we." 
 
 " You can not mean that ?" 
 
 " I do. I have thought it all over, and I do." 
 
 Holding me at arm's length, his eyes questioned my in- 
 most soul. 
 
 "Tell me the truth. It is not pity not merely pity, 
 Theodora ?" 
 
 u All ! no, no." 
 
 Without another word the first crisis was passed every 
 tiling which made our misery a divided misery. He opened 
 his arms and took me once more into my own place, where 
 alone I ever really rested, or wish to rest until I die. 
 
 Max had been very ill, he told me, for days, and now 
 seemed both in body and mind as feeble as a child. For 
 me, my childishness or girlishness, with its ignorance and 
 weakness, was gone forevermore. 
 
 I have thought since that in all women's deepest loves, 
 be they ever so full of reverence, there enters sometimes 
 much of the motherly element, even as on this day I felt 
 as if I were somehow or other in charge of Max, and a 
 great deal older than he. I fetched a glass of water and 
 made him drink it bathed his poor temples and wiped 
 them with my handkerchief persuaded him to lean back 
 quietly and not speak another word for ever so long. But 
 more than once, and while his head lay on my shoulder, I 
 thought of his mother my mother who might have been 
 and how, though she had left him so many years, she must, 
 if she knew of all he had suffered, be glad to know there 
 was at last one woman who would, did heaven permit, 
 watch over him through life with the double love of both 
 wife and mother, and who, in any case, would be faithful 
 to him till death. 
 
 Faithful till death. Yes, I here renewed that vow, and 
 had Harry himself come and stood before me I should 
 have done the same. Look you, any one who, after my 
 death, may read this, there are two kinds of love : one, 
 eager only to get its desire, careless of all risks and costs, 
 in defiance almost of heaven and earth; the other, which 
 in its most desperate longing has strength to say, "If it be 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 275 
 
 right and for our good if it be according to the will of 
 God." This only, I think, is the true and consecrated love, 
 which therefore is able to be faithful till death. 
 
 Max and I never once spoke about whether or not we 
 should be married ; we left all that in Higher hands. We 
 only felt we should always l^e true to one another, arid 
 that, being what we were, and loving as we did, God him- 
 self could not will that any human will or human justice 
 should put us asunder. 
 
 This being clear, we set ourselves to meet what was be- 
 fore us. I told him poor Harry's history, so far as I knew 
 it myself; afterward we began to consider how best the 
 truth could be broken to my father. 
 
 And here let me confess something which Max has long 
 forgiven, but which I can yet hardly forgive myself. Max 
 said, " And when your father is told, he shall decide what 
 next is to be." 
 
 " How do you mean ?" I cried. 
 
 " If he requires atonement he must have it, even at the 
 hands of the law." 
 
 Then, for the first time, it struck me that, though Max 
 was safe so long as he made no confession, for the peculiar 
 circumstances of Harry's death left no other evidence 
 against him, still, this confession once public (and it was, 
 for had I not told Penelope?), his reputation, liberty, life 
 itself were in the hands of my sister and my father. A 
 horror as of death fell upon me. I clung to him who was 
 my all in this world, dearer to me than father, mother, 
 brother, or sister; and I urged that we should both, then 
 and there, fly escape together any where, to the very ends 
 of the earth, out of reach of justice and my father. 
 
 I must have been almost beside myself before I thought 
 of such a thing. I hardly knew all it implied, until Max 
 gravely put me from him. 
 
 " It can not be you who says this. Not Theodora." 
 
 And suddenly, as unconnected and even incongruous 
 things will flash across one in times like these, I called to 
 mind the scene in my favorite play, when, the alternative 
 being life or honor, the woman says to her lover, " jVo, die!" 
 Little I dreamed of ever having to say to my Max almost 
 the same words. 
 
 I said them, kneeling by him, and imploring his pardon 
 for having wished him to do such a thing even for his safe- 
 ty and my happiness. 
 
2/6 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 " We could not have been happy, child," he said, smooth- 
 Ing my hair, with a sad, fond smile. " You do not know 
 what it is to have a secret weighing like lead upon your 
 soul. Mine feels lighter now than it has done for years. 
 Let us decide ; what hour to-night shall I come here and 
 tell your father?" 
 
 Saying this, Max turned white to the very lips, but still 
 he comforted me. 
 
 " Do not be afraid, my child. I am not afraid. Nothing 
 can be worse than what has been to me. I was a coward 
 once, but then I was only a boy, hardly able to distinguish 
 right from wrong. Now I see that it would have been 
 better to have told the whole truth at once, and taken all 
 the punishment. It might not have been death, or if it 
 were, I could but have died." 
 
 "Max, Max!" 
 
 " Hush !" and |ie closed my lips so that they could not 
 moan. " The truth is better than life, better even than a 
 good name. When your father knows the truth, all else 
 will be clear. I shall abide by his decision, whatever it be ; 
 lie has a right to it. Theodora," his voice faltered, " make 
 him understand some day that if I had married you he nev- 
 er should have wanted a son your poor father." 
 
 These were almost the last words Max said on this, the 
 last hour that we were together by ourselves. For min- 
 utes and minutes he held me in his arms silently ; and I 
 shut my eyes, and felt, as if in a dream, the sunshine and 
 the flower-scents, and the loud singing of the two canaries 
 in Penelope's green-house. Then, with one kiss, he put me 
 down softly from my place and left me alone. 
 
 I have been alone ever since; God only knows how 
 alone. 
 
 The rest I can not tell to-day. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 HIS STOKY. 
 
 THIS is the last, probably, of those " letters never sent," 
 which may reach you one day ; when or how we know not. 
 All that is is best. / 
 
 You say you think it advisable that there should be an 
 accurate written record of all that passed between your 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 277 
 
 family and myself on the final day of parting, in order that 
 no farther conduct of mine may be misconstrued or mis- 
 judged. Be it so. My good name is worth preserving ; 
 for it must never be any disgrace to you that Max Urqu- 
 hart loved you. 
 
 Since this record is to be minute and literal, perhaps it 
 will be better I should give it impersonally, as a statement 
 rather than a letter. 
 
 On February 9th, 1857, I went to Rockmount to see 
 Theodora Johnston, for the first time after she was aware 
 that I had, long ago, taken the life of her half-brother, Hen- 
 ry Johnston, not intentionally, but in a fit of drunken rage. 
 I came, simply to look at her dear face once more, and to 
 ask her in what way her father would best bear the shock 
 of this confession of mine, before I took the second step of 
 surrendering myself to justice, or of making atonement in 
 any other way that Mr. Johnston might choose. To him 
 and his family my life was owed, and I left them to dispose 
 of it or of me in any manner they thought best. 
 
 With these intentions I went to Theodora. I knew her 
 well. I felt sure she would pity me, that she would not 
 refuse me her forgiveness before our eternal separation; 
 that though the blood upon my hands was half her own, 
 she would not judge me the less justly, or mercifully, or 
 Christianly. As to a Christian woman, I came to her as 
 I had come once before, in a question of conscience ; also, 
 as to the woman who had been my friend, with all the 
 rights and honors of that name, before she became to me 
 any thing more and dearer. And I was thankful that the 
 lesser tie had been included in the greater, so that both 
 need not be entirely swept away and disannulled. 
 
 I found not only my friend, upon whom, above all others, 
 I could depend, but my own, my love, the woman above 
 all women who was mine ; who, loving me before this blow 
 fell, clung to me still, and, believing that God Himself had 
 joined us together, suffered nothing to put us asunder. 
 
 How she made me comprehend this I shall not relate, as 
 it concerns ourselves alone. When, at last, I knelt by her 
 and kissed her blessed hands my saint ! and yet all wom- 
 an, and all my own I felt that my sin was covered, that 
 the All-merciful had had mercy upon me. That while all 
 these years I had followed miserably my own method of 
 atonement, denying myself all life's joys, and cloaking my- 
 self with every possible ray of righteousness I could find, 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFK. 
 
 He had suddenly led me by another way, sending me this 
 fluid's love, first to comfort and then to smite me, that, be- 
 ing utterly bruised, broken, and humbled, I might be made 
 whole, 
 
 Now, for the first time, I felt like a man to whom there 
 is :i possibility of being made whole. Her father might 
 hunt me to death, the law might lay hold on me, the fair 
 reputation under which I had shielded myself might be torn 
 and scattered to the winds ; but for all that I was safe, I 
 was myself, the true Max Urquhart, a grievous sinner ; yet 
 no longer unforgiven or hopeless. 
 
 " I came not to call the righteous, but SINNERS to repent- 
 
 That line struck home. Oh ! that I could strike it home 
 to every miserable heart as it went to mine. Oh ! that I 
 could carry into the uttermost corners of the earth the mes- 
 sage, the gospel which Dallas believed in, the only one 
 which has power enough for the redemption of this sor- 
 rowful world the gospel of the forgiveness and remission 
 of sins. 
 
 AVhile she talked to me this my saint, Theodora Dal- 
 las himself might have spoken, apostle -like, through her 
 lips. She said, when I listened in wonder to the clearness 
 of some of her arguments, that she hardly knew how they 
 had come into her mind, they seemed to come of them- 
 s ; but they were there, and she was sure they were 
 true. She was sure, she added, reverently, that, if the 
 Christ of Nazareth were to pass by Rockmount door this 
 day, the only word he would say unto me, after all I had 
 don, would be, " Thy sins are forgiven thee rise up and 
 walk." 
 
 And I did so. I went out of the house an altered man. 
 My burden of years had been lifted off me forever and ever. 
 I understood something of what is meant by being " born 
 again." I could dimly guess at what they must have felt 
 who sat at the Divine feet, clothed and in their right mind, 
 or who, across the sunny plains of Galilee, leaped, and walk- 
 ed, and ran, praising God. 
 
 I crossed the moorland, walking erect, with eyes fixed 
 on the blue sky, my heart tender and young as a child's. I 
 even stopped, childlike, to pluck a stray primrose under a 
 tree in a lane, which had peeped out, as if it wished to in- 
 vestigate how soon spring would come. It seemed to me 
 so pretty I might never have seen a primrose since I was 
 n boy. 
 
A LIFE FOE, A LIFE. 2 79 
 
 Let me relate the entire truth she wishes it. Strange 
 as it may appear, though hour by hour brought nearer the 
 time when I had fixed to be at Rockmount, to confess unto 
 a father that I had been the slayer of his only son still 
 that day was not an unhappy day. I spent it chiefly out 
 of doors on the moorlands, near a wayside public-house, 
 w T here I had lodged some nights, drinking in large draughts 
 of the beauty of this external world, and feeling even outer 
 life sweet, though nothing to that renewed life which I now 
 should never lose again. Never even if I had to go next 
 day to prison and trial, and stand before the world a con- 
 victed homicide. Nay, I believe I could have mounted the 
 scaffold amid those gaping thousands that were once my 
 terror, and die peacefully in spite of them, feeling no longer 
 either guilty or afraid. 
 
 So much for myself, which will explain a good deal that 
 followed in the interview which I have now to relate. 
 
 Theodora had wished to save me by herself explaining 
 all to her father ; but I would not allow this, and at length 
 she yielded. However, things fell out differently from both 
 our intentions : he learned it first from his daughter Penel- 
 ope. The moment I entered his study I was certain Mr. 
 Johnston knew. 
 
 Let no sinner, however healed, deceive himself that his 
 wound will never smart again. He is not instantly made a 
 new man of, whole and sound ; he must grow gradually, 
 even through many a returning pang, into health and cure. 
 If any one thinks I could stand in the presence of that old 
 man without an anguish sharp as death, which made me for 
 the moment wish I had never been born, he is mistaken. 
 
 But alleviations came. The first was to see the old man 
 sitting there alive and well, though evidently fully aware 
 of the truth, and having been so for some time, for his coun- 
 tenance was composed, his tea was placed beside him on 
 the table, and there was an open Bible before him, in which 
 he had been reading. His voice, too, had nothing unnat- 
 ural or alarming in it, as, without looking at me, he bade 
 the maid-servant " give Doctor Urquhart a chair, and say, 
 if any one interrupted, that we were particularly engaged." 
 So the door was shut upon us, leaving us face to face. 
 
 But it was not long before he raised his eyes to him. It 
 is enough, once in a lifetime, to have borne such a look. 
 
 u Mr. Johnston" but he shut his ears. 
 
 " Do not speak," he said ; " what you have come to tell 
 
280 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 me I know already. My daughter told me this morning. 
 And, I have been trying ever since to find out what my 
 Church says to the shedder of blood ; what she would teach 
 a father to say to the murderer of his child. My Harry, 
 my only son ! And you murdered him !" 
 
 Let the words which followed be sacred. If in some de- 
 gree they were unjust, and overstepped the truth, let me 
 not dare to murmur. I believe the curses he heaped upon 
 me in his own words and those of the Holy Book, will not 
 come, for its other and diviner words, which his daughter 
 taught me, stand as a shield between me and him. "l re- 
 peated them to myself in my silence, and so I was able to 
 endure. 
 
 When he paused and commanded me to speak, I answer- 
 ed only a few words, namely, that I was here to offer my 
 life for his son's life; that he might do with me what he 
 would. 
 
 " Which means that I should give you up to justice, have 
 you tried, condemned, executed. You, Doctor Urquhart, 
 whom the world thinks so well of. I might live to see you 
 hanged." 
 
 His eyes glared, his whole frame was convulsed. I en- 
 treated him to calm himself, for his, own health's sake, and 
 the sake of his children. 
 
 " Yes > I will. Old as I am, this shall not kill me. I will 
 live to exact retribution. My boy, my poor, murdered Har- 
 ry murdered murdered." " 
 
 He kept repeating and dwelling on the word, till at length 
 I said: 
 
 " If you know the whole truth, you must be aware that 
 I had no intention to murder him." 
 
 " What, you extenuate ? You wish to escape ? But you 
 shall not. I will have you arrested now, in this very house." 
 
 " Be it so, then." 
 
 And I sat down. 
 
 So, the end had come. Life, and all its hopes, all its 
 work, were over forme. I saw, as in a second of time, ev- 
 ery thing that was coining the trial, the conviction, the 
 iii' \vspaper clatter over my name, my ill deeds exaggerated, 
 my good deeds pointed at with the finger of scorn, which 
 perhaps was the keenest agony of all save one. 
 
 "Theodora!" 
 
 Whether I uttered her name, or only thought it, I can 
 not tell. However, it brought her. I felt she was in the 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 281 
 
 room, though she stood by her sister's side, and did not ap- 
 proach me. 
 
 Again, I repeat, let no man say that sin does not bring 
 its wages, which must be paid. Whosoever doubts it, I 
 would he could sit as I sat, watching the faces of father 
 and daughters, and thinking of the dead face which lay 
 against my knee, that midnight, on Salisbury plain. 
 
 " Children," I heard Mr. Johnston saying, " I have sent 
 for you to be my witnesses in what I am about to do. 
 Not out of personal revenge -which were unbecoming a 
 clergyman but because God and man exact retribution for 
 blood. There is the man who murdered Hany. Though 
 he were the best friend I- ever had, though I esteemed him 
 ever so much which I did still, discovering this, I must 
 have retribution. 
 
 " How, father ?" Not her voice, but her sister's. 
 
 Let me do full justice to Penelope Johnston. Though 
 it was she who told my secret to her father, she did it out 
 of no malice. As I afterward learned, chance led their con- 
 versation into such a channel that she could only escape 
 botraying the truth by a direct lie. And with all her harsh- 
 iiosses, the prominent feature of her character is its truth- 
 fulness, or rather its abhorrence of falsehood. Nay, her 
 fierce scorn of any kind of duplicity is such, that she con- 
 founds the crime with the criminal, and, once deceived, nev- 
 er can forgive as in the matter of Lydia Cartwright, my 
 acquaintance with which gave me this insight into Miss 
 Johnston's peculiarity. 
 
 Thus, though it fell to her lot to betray my confession, I 
 doubt not she did so with most literal accuracy; acting 
 toward me neither as a friend nor foe, but simply as a re- 
 later of facts. Nor was there any personal enmity toward 
 me in her question to her father. 
 
 It startled him a little. 
 
 " How, did you say ? By the law, I conclude. There is 
 no other way." 
 
 " And if so, what will be the result? I mean what will 
 be done to him ?" 
 
 " I can not tell how should I ?" 
 
 " Perhaps I can, for I have thought over and studied the 
 question all day," answered Miss Johnston, still ity the same 
 cold, clear, impartial voice. " He will be tried, of course. 
 I find from your ' Taylor on Evidence,' father, that a man 
 can be tried and convicted, solely on his own confession. 
 
28:2 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 But in this case, there being no corroborating proof, and 
 all having happened so long ago, it will scarcely prove a 
 capital crime. I believe no jury would give a stronger ver- 
 dict than manslaughter. He will be imprisoned, or trans- 
 ported beyond seas ; where, with his good character, he 
 will soon work his liberty, and start afresh in another coun- 
 try, in spite of us. This, I think, is the common-sense view 
 of the matter." 
 
 Astonished as Mr. Johnston looked, he made no reply. 
 
 His daughter continued : 
 
 " And for this you and we shall have the credit of hav- 
 ing had arrested in our own house a man who threw himself 
 on our mercy ; who, though he concealed, never denied his 
 guilt; who never deceived us in any way. The moment 
 he discovered the whole truth, dreadful as it was, he never 
 shirked it, nor hid it from us, but told us outright, risking 
 all the consequences. A man, too, against whom, in his 
 whole life, we can prove but this one crime." 
 
 " What, do you take his part ?" 
 
 " Xo," she said; "I wish he had died before he set foot 
 in this house for I remember Harry. But I see also that, 
 after all this lapse of years, Harry is not the only person 
 whom we ought to remember." 
 
 " I remember nothing but the words of this Book," cried 
 the old man, letting his hand drop heavily upon it. " ' Who- 
 so sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed' 
 What have you to say for yourself, murderer ?" 
 
 All this time, faithful to her promise to me, she had not 
 interfered she, my love, who loved me; but when she 
 heard him call me that, she shivered all over, and looked to- 
 ward me. A pitiful, entreating look, but, thank God, there 
 was no doubt in it not the shadow of change. It nerved 
 me to reply what I will here record, by her desire and for 
 her sake. 
 
 " Mr. Johnston, I have this to say. It is written, ' Who- 
 so hateth his brother is a murderer,' and in that sense I am 
 one for I did hate him at the time but I never meant to 
 kill him ; and the moment afterward I would have given 
 my life for his. If now my death could restore him to you, 
 alive again, how willingly I would die." 
 
 " Die, and face your Maker ? an unpardoned man-slayer, 
 a lost soul ?" 
 
 " Whether I live or die," said I, humbly, " I trust my 
 isoul is not lost. I have been very guilty; but I believe in 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 283 
 
 One who brought to every sinner on earth the gospel of 
 repentance and remission of sins." 
 
 At this, burst out the anathema not merely of the fa- 
 ther, but the clergyman who mingled the Jewish doctrine 
 of retributive vengeance during this life with the Christian 
 belief of rewards and punishments after death, and con- 
 founded the Mosaic gehenna with the Calvinistic hell. I 
 will not record all this it w T as very terrible : but he only 
 spoke as he believed, and as many earnest Christians do 
 believe. I think, in all humility, that the Master Himself 
 preached a different gospel. 
 
 I saw it shining out of her eyes my angel of peace and 
 pardon. O Thou from whom all love comes, was it iinpious 
 if the love of this Thy creature toward one so wretched 
 should come to me like an assurance of Thine ? 
 
 At length her father ceased speaking, took up a pen, and 
 began hastily writing. Miss Johnston went and looked 
 over his shotilder. 
 
 " Papa, if that is a warrant you are making out, better 
 think twice about it, for, as a magistrate, you can not re- 
 tract. Should you send Doctor Urquhart to trial, you 
 must be prepared for the whole truth to come out. He 
 must tell it, or if he calls Dora and me as witnesses she 
 having already his written confession in full ice must." 
 
 " You must tell what ?" 
 
 "The provocation Doctor Urquhart received; how Har- 
 ry enticed him a lad of nineteen to drink, made him mad, 
 and taunted him. Every thing will be made public ; how 
 Harry was so degraded that from the hour of his death we 
 were thankful to forget that he had ever existed ; how he 
 died as he had lived, a boaster, a coward, sponging upon 
 any one from whom he could get money, using his talents 
 only to his shame, devoid of one spark of honesty, honor, 
 and generosity. It is shocking to have to say this of one's 
 own brother ;" but, father, you know it is the truth, and as 
 such it must be told." 
 
 Amazed I listened to her this eldest sister, who I knew 
 disliked me. 
 
 Her father seemed equally surprised, until at length her 
 arguments apparently struck him with uneasiness. 
 
 " Have you any motive in arguing thus ?" said he, hur- 
 riedly and not without agitation : " why do you do it, Pe- 
 nelope?" 
 
 " A little on my own account, though the* great scandal 
 
284 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 and publicity will not much affect Francis and me 5 we shall 
 soon be out of England ; but for the family's sake for 
 Harry's sake when all his wickednesses and our miseries 
 have been safely covered up these twenty years consider, 
 father !" 
 
 She stung him deeper than she knew. I had guessed it 
 before, when I was almost a stranger to him, but now the 
 whole history of that old man's life was betrayed in one 
 groan which burst from the very depth of the father's soul. 
 
 " Eli, the priest of the Lord his sons made themselves 
 vile, and he restrained them not ; therefore they died in one 
 day, both of them. It was the will of the Lord." 
 
 The respectful silence which ensued no one dared to 
 break. 
 
 lie broke it himself at last, pointing to the door: "Go, 
 murderer, or man-slayer, or whatever you are! you must 
 go free. Moreover, I must have your promise no, your 
 oatli that the secret you have kept so long you will now 
 keep forever." 
 
 " Sir," I said, but he stopped me fiercely. 
 
 " No hesitations no explanations I will have none, and 
 
 five none. As you said, your life is mine, to do with it as 
 choose. Better you should go unpunished than that I 
 and mine should be disgraced. Obey me. Promise." 
 
 I did. 
 
 Tims, in another and still stranger way, my resolutions 
 were broken, my fate was decided for me, and I have to 
 keep this secret unconfessed to the end. 
 
 u Xow go. Put half the earth between us, if you can 
 only go." 
 
 Again I turned to obey. Blind obedience seemed the 
 only duty left me. I might even have quitted the house 
 with a feeling of total irresponsibility and indifference to 
 all things, had it not been for a low cry which I heard as 
 in a dream. 
 
 So did her father. " Dora I had forgotten there was 
 some sort of fancy between you and Dora. Daughter, bid 
 him farewell, and let him go." 
 
 Then she said my love said, in her own soft, distinct 
 voice " No, papa, I never mean to bid him farewell that 
 is, finally never as long as I live." 
 
 Her father and sister were both so astounded that at 
 first they did not interrupt her, but let her speak on. 
 
 4C I belonged to Max before all this happened. If it had 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 285 
 
 happened a year hence, when I was his wife, it would not 
 have broken our marriage. It ought not now. When 
 any two people are to one another what we are, they are 
 as good as married ; and they have no right to part, no 
 more than man and wife have, unless either grows wicked, 
 or both change. I never mean to part from Max Urqu- 
 hart," 
 
 She spoke meekly, standing with hands folded and head 
 drooping, but as still and steadfast as a rock. My darling 
 my darling ! 
 
 Steadfast ! She had need to be. What she bore dui> 
 ing the next few minutes she would not wish me to repeat, 
 I feel sure. She knows it, and so do I. She knows also 
 that every stab with which I then saw her wounded for 
 my sake is counted in my heart as a debt, to be paid one 
 clay, if between those w T ho love there can be any debts at 
 all. She says not. Yet, if ever she is my wife People 
 talk of dying for a woman's sake but to live live for her 
 with the whole of one's being to work for her, to sustain 
 and cheer her, to fill her daily existence with tenderness 
 and care if ever she is my wife, she will find out what I 
 mean. 
 
 After saying all he could well say, Mr. Johnston asked 
 her how she dared think of me me, laden with her broth- 
 er's blood and her father's curse. 
 
 She turned deadly pale, but never faltered. " The curse 
 causeless shall not come," she said, "for the blood' upon 
 his hand whether it were Harry's or a stranger's makes 
 no difference it is washed out. He has repented long ago. 
 If God has forgiven him and helped him to be what he is, 
 and lead the life he has led all these years, why should I 
 not forgive him ? And if I forgive, why not love him ? 
 And if I love him, why break my promise, and refuse to 
 marry him ?" 
 
 " Do you mean, then, to marry him ?" said her sister. 
 
 " Some day if he wishes it yes !" 
 
 From this time, I myself hardly remember what passed; 
 I can only see her standing there, her sweet face white as 
 death, making no moan, and answering nothing to any ac- 
 cusations that were heaped upon her, except when she was 
 commanded to give me up, entirely and forever and ever. 
 
 " I can not, father. I have no right to do it. I belong 
 to him ; he is my husband." 
 
 At last, Miss Johnston said to me rather gently than 
 
286 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 not, for her: "I think, Doctor TJrquhart, you had better 
 go." 
 
 My love looked toward me, and afterward at her poor 
 lather ; she too said, " Yes, Max, go." 
 
 And then they wanted her to promise she would never 
 B0G me, nor write to me; but she refused. 
 
 " Father, I will not marry him for ever so long, if you 
 choose but I can not forsake him. I must write to him. 
 1 am his very own, and he has only me. Oh, papa, think 
 of yourself and my mother." And she sobbed at his knees. 
 
 lie must have thought of Harry's mother, not hers, for 
 this exclamation only hardened him. 
 
 Then Theodora rose, and gave me her little hand. "It 
 can hold firm, you will find. You have my promise. But 
 whether or no, it would have been all the same. No love 
 is worth having that could not, with or without a promise, 
 keep true till death. You may trust me. Now, good-by. 
 Good-by, my Max." 
 
 With that one clasp of the hand, that one look into her 
 
 fond faithful eyes, we parted. I have never seen her since. 
 * * # # * 
 
 This statement, which is as accurate as I can make it, 
 except in the case of those voluntary omissions which I be- 
 lieve- you yourself would have desired, I here seal up, to be 
 delivered to you with those other letters in case I should 
 die while you are still Theodora Johnston. 
 
 I have also made my will, leaving you all my effects, and 
 appointing you my sole executrix ; putting you, in short, 
 in exactly the same position as if you had been my wife. 
 This is best, in order that by no chance should the secret 
 ooze out through any guesses of any person not connected 
 with your family; also because I think it is what you 
 would wish yourself. You said truly, I have only you. 
 
 Another word, which I do not name in my ordinary let- 
 ters, lest I might grieve you by what may prove to be only 
 a fancy of mine. 
 
 Sometimes, in the hard work of this my life here, I begin 
 to feel that I am no longer a young man, and that the re- 
 action after the great strain, mental and bodily, of the last 
 few months, has left me not so strong as I used to be. Not 
 that I think I am about to die, far from it. I have a good 
 constitution, which has worn well yet, and may wear on for 
 some time, though not forever, ai>d I am nearly fifteen 
 years older than you. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 287 
 
 It is very possible that before any change can come, I 
 may leave you, never a wife, and yet a widow. Possible, 
 among the numerous fatalities of life, that ^ve may never 
 be married never even see one another again. 
 
 Sometimes, when I see two young people married and 
 happy, taking it all as a matter of course, scarcely even 
 recognizing it as happiness just like Mr. and Mrs. Tre- 
 herne, who hunted me out lately, and insisted on my visit- 
 ing them I think of you and me, and it seems very bitter, 
 and I look on the future with less faith than fear. It might 
 not be so if I could see you now and then but oftentimes 
 this absence feels like death. 
 
 Theodora, if I should die before we are married, with- 
 out any chance of writing down my last words, take them 
 here. 
 
 No, they will not come. I can but crush my lips upon 
 this paper -only thy name, not thee, and call thee " my 
 love, my love !" Remember, I loved thee all my soul was 
 full of the love of thee. It made life happy, earth beauti- 
 ful, and Heaven nearer. It was with me day and night, in 
 Avork or rest as much a part of me as the hand I write 
 with, or the breath I draw. I never thought of myself, 
 but of" us." I never prayed but I prayed for two. Love, 
 my love, so many miles away O my God, why not grant 
 me a little happiness before I die ! 
 
 Yet, as once I wrote before, and as she says always in 
 all things, Thy will be clone. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 Friday night. 
 
 MY DEAR MAX, You have had your Dominical letter, 
 as you call it, so regularly, that you must know all our do- 
 ings at Rockmount almost as well as ourselves. If I write 
 foolishly, and tell you all sorts of trivial things, perhaps 
 some of them twice over, it is just because there is nothing 
 else to tell. But, trivial or not, I have a feeling that you 
 like to hear it you care for every thing that concerns me. 
 
 So, first, in obedience to orders, I am quite well, even 
 though my handwriting is " not so pretty as it used to be." 
 Do not fancy the hand shakes, or is nervous or uncertain. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Not a bit of it. I am never nervous, nor weak either 
 now. Sometimes, perhaps, being only woman after all, I 
 feel things a little more keenly than I ought to feel ; and 
 then, not being good at concealment, at least not with you, 
 tliis fact peeps out in my letters. For the home-life has its 
 cares, and I feel very weary sometimes and then, I have 
 not you to rest upon visibly, that is though in my heart 
 I do always. But I am quite well, Max, and quite content. 
 Do not doubt it. He who has led us through this furnace 
 of affliction, will lead us safely to the end. 
 
 You will be glad to hear that papa is every day less and 
 less cold to me poor papa ! Last Sunday he even walked 
 home from church with me, talking about general subjects, 
 like his old self, almost. Penelope has been always good 
 and kind. 
 
 You ask if they ever name you ? No. 
 
 Life at Rockmount moves slowly, even in the midst of 
 marriage preparations. Penelope is getting a large store 
 of wedding presents. Mrs. Grant on brought a beautiful 
 one last night from her son Colin. 
 
 I was glad you had that long friendly letter from Colin 
 Granton glad also that, his mother having let out the 
 secret about you and me, he was generous enough to tell 
 you himself that other secret, which I never told. Well, 
 your guess was right ; it was so. But I could not help it ; 
 I did not know it. For me how could any girl, feeling as 
 I then did toward you, feel any thing toward any other 
 man but the merest kindliness ? That is all : we will nev- 
 er say another word about it ; except that I wish you al- 
 ways to be specially kind to Colin, and to do him good 
 whenever you can he was very good to me. 
 
 Life at Rockmount, as I said, is dull. I rise sometimes, 
 go through the day, and go to bed at night, w r ondering 
 what I have been doing during all these hours. And I do 
 not always sleep soundly though so tired. Perhaps it is 
 partly the idea of Penelope's going away so soon; far 
 away, across the sea, with no one to love her and take care 
 of her, save Francis. 
 
 Understand, this is not with any pitying of my sister for 
 what is a natural and even a happy lot, which no woman 
 need complain of; but simply because Francis is Francis 
 accustomed to think only of himself, and for himself. It 
 may be different when he is married. 
 
 He vras staying with UP here n week ; during which I 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 289 
 
 noticed him more closely than in his former fly-away visits. 
 When one lives in^the house with a person a dull house, 
 too, like ours, how wonderfully odds and ends of character 
 " crop out," as the geologists say. Do you remember the 
 weeks when you were almost continually in our house? 
 Francis had what we used then to call ;c the doctor's 
 room." He was pleasant and agreeable enough, when it 
 pleased him to be so ; but, for all that, I used to say to 
 myself, twenty times a day, " My dear Max !" 
 
 This merely implies that by a happy dispensation of 
 Providence, I, Theodora Johnston, have not the least de- 
 sire to appropriate my sister's husband, or, indeed, either 
 of my sisters' husbands. 
 
 By-the-by in a letter from Augustus to papa, which 
 reached me through Penelope, he names his visit to you. 
 I am glad glad he should show you such honor and affec- 
 tion, and that they all should see it. Do not give up the 
 Trehernes; go there sometimes for my sake. There is 
 no reason why you should not. Papa knows it ; he also 
 knows I write to you but he never says a word one way 
 or other. We must wait wait and hope or rather trust. 
 As you say, the difference between young and older people 
 is, the one hopes, the other trusts. 
 
 I seem, from your description, to have a clear idea of the 
 jail, and the long, barren, breezy flat amid which it lies, 
 with the sea in the distance. I often sit and think of the 
 view outside, and of the dreary inside, where you spend so 
 many hours; the corridors, the exercise yards, and the 
 cells ; also your own two rooms, which you say are almost 
 as silent and solitary, except when you come in and find 
 my letter waiting you. I wish it was me ! pardon gram- 
 mar but I wish it was me this living me. Would you 
 be glad to see me ? Ah ! I know. 
 
 Look! I am not going to write about ourselves it. is 
 not good for us. We know it all ; we know our hearts 
 are nigh breaking sometimes mine is. But it shall not. 
 We will live and wait. 
 
 What was I telling you about? oL, Francis. Well, 
 Francis spent a whole week at Rockmount, by papa's 
 special desire, that they might discuss business arrange- 
 ments, and that he might see a little more of his intended 
 son-in-law than lie has done of late years. Business was 
 soon dispatched papa gives none of us any money during 
 his lifetime ; what will come to us afterward we have never 
 
 1ST ' 
 
290 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 thought of inquiring. Francis did, though which some- 
 what hurt Penelope but he accounted for it by his being 
 so " poor." A relative phrase ; why, I should think 500 a 
 year, certain, a mine of riches and all to be spent upon 
 himself. But, as he says, a single man has so many inevi- 
 table expenses, especially when he lives in society, and is 
 the nephew of Sir William Treherne, of Treherne Court. 
 All "circumstances!" Poor Francis; whatever goes 
 wrong he is sure to put between himself and blame the 
 shield of" circumstances." Now, if I were a man, I would 
 fight the world bare-fronted, anyhow. One would but be 
 killed at last. 
 
 Is it wrong of me to write to you so freely about Fran- 
 cis ? I hope not. All mine are yours, and yours mine ; 
 you know their faults and virtues as well as I do, and will 
 judge them equally, as we ought to judge those who, what- 
 ever they are, are permanently our own. I have tried 
 hard, this time, to make a real brother of Francis Charteris ; 
 and he is, for many things, exceedingly likable nay, lov- 
 able. I see, sometimes, clearly enough, the strange charm 
 which has made Penelope so fond of him all these years. 
 Whether, besides loving him, she can trust him can look 
 on his face and feel that he would not deceive her for the 
 world can believe every line he writes, and every word 
 he utters, and know that whatever he does, he will do 
 simply from his sense of right, no meaner motive interfer- 
 ing oh, Max, I would give much to be certain Penelope 
 had this sort of love for her future husband ! 
 
 Well, they have chosen their lot, and must make the 
 best of one another. Every body must, you know. 
 
 Heigho ! what a homily I am giving you, instead of this 
 week's history, as usual from Saturday to Saturday. 
 
 The first few days there really was nothing to tell. 
 Francis and Penelope took walks together, paid visits, or 
 sat in the parlor talking not banishing me, however, as 
 they used to do when they were young. On Wednesday, 
 Francis went up to London for the day, and brought back 
 that important article, the wedding-ring. He tried it on at 
 supper-time, with a diamond keeper, which he said would 
 be just the thing for " the governor's lady." 
 
 " Say wife at once," grumbled I, and complained of the 
 modern fashion of slurring over that word, the dearest and 
 sacred est in the language. 
 
 "Wife, then," whispered Francis, holding the ring on 
 my sister's finger, and kissing it. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 291 
 
 Tears started to Penelope's eyes ; in her agitation she 
 looked almost like a girl again, I thought ; so infinicely 
 happy. But Francis, never happy, muttered bitterly so _ne 
 regret for the past, some wish that they had been married 
 years ago. Why were they not ? It was partly his fault, 
 I am sure. 
 
 The day after this lie left, not to return till he comes 
 to take her away finally. In the mean while he will 
 have enough to* do, paying his adieux to his grand 
 friends, and his bills to his tradespeople, prior to closing 
 his bachelor establishment forever and aye how glad he 
 must be ! 
 
 He seemed glad, as if with a sense of relief that all was 
 settled, and no room left for hesitation. It costs Francis 
 such a world of trouble to make up his own mind which 
 trouble Penelope will save him for the future. He took 
 leave of her with great tenderness, calling her " his good, 
 faithful girl," and vowing which one would think was 
 quite unnecessary under the circumstances to be faithful 
 to her all the days of his life. 
 
 That night, when she came into my room, Penelope sat a 
 long time on my bed talking ; chiefly of old days, when she 
 and Francis were boy and girl together how handsome he 
 was, and how clever till she seemed almost to forget the* 
 long interval between. Well, they are both of an age 
 time runs equally Avith each ; she is at least no more altered 
 than he. 
 
 Here, I ought to tell you something, referring to that 
 which, as we agreed, w r e are best not speaking of, even be- 
 tween ourselves. It is all over and done cover it over, 
 and let it heal. 
 
 My dear Max, Penelope confesses a thing for which I am 
 very sorry ., but it can not be helped now. 
 
 I told you they never name you here. "Not usually, but 
 she did that night. Just as she was leaving me, she ex- 
 claimed, suddenly : 
 
 " Dora, I have broken my promise Francis knows about 
 Doctor Tjrquhart." 
 
 "What!" I cried. 
 
 "Don't be terrified not the whole. Merely that he 
 wanted to marry you, but that papa found out he had done 
 something wrong in his youth, and so forbade you to think 
 of him." 
 
 I asked her, was she sure no more had escaped her? 
 
292 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Not that I feared much: Penelope is literally accurate, and 
 scrupulously straightforward in all her words and ways. 
 But still, Francis being a little less so than she, might have 
 questioned her. 
 
 " So he did, and I refused point-blank to tell him, saying 
 it would be a breach of trust. He was very angry; jeal- 
 ous, I think," and she smiled, " till I informed him that it 
 was not my own secret all my o\yn secrets I had invaria- 
 bly told him, as he me. At which, he said, 'Yes, of course,' 
 and the matter ended. Are you annoyed ? Do you doubt 
 Francis's honor ?" 
 
 " No. For all that, I have felt anxious, and I can not 
 choose but tell Max ; partly because he has a right to all 
 my anxieties, and, also, that he may guard against any pos- 
 sibility of harm. None is likely to come though ; we will 
 not be afraid." 
 
 Augustus, in his letter, says how highly he hears you 
 spoken of in Liverpool already ; how your duties at the 
 jail are the least of your work, and that whatever you do, 
 or wherever you go, you leave a good influence behind you. 
 These were his very words. I was proud, though I knew 
 it all before. 
 
 He says you are looking thin, as if you w r ere overworked. 
 Max, my Max, take care. Give all due energy to the work 
 you have to do, but remember me likewise; remember 
 what is mine. I think, perhaps you take too long walks 
 between the town and the jail, and that may be the pris 
 oners themselves get far better and more regular meals 
 than the doctor does. See to this, if you please, Doctor 
 tlrquhart. 
 
 Tell me more about those poor prisoners, in whom you 
 take so strong an interest your spiritual as w r ell as medical 
 hospital. And give me a clearer notion of your doings in 
 the town, your practice and schemes, your gratis patients, 
 dispensaries and so on. Also, Augustus said you were em- 
 ployed in drawing up reports and statistics about reforma- 
 tories, and on the general question now so much discussed : 
 What is to be done with our criminal classes ? How busy 
 you must be ! Can not I help you ? Send me your MSS. 
 to copy. Give me some w r ork to do. 
 
 Max, do you remember our talk by the pond-side, when 
 the sun was setting, and the hills looked so still, and soft, 
 and blue? I was there the other day, and thought it all 
 over. Yes, I could have been happy, even in the solitary 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 293 
 
 life we both then looked forward to, but it is better to be- 
 long to you as I do now. 
 
 God bless you and keep you safe ! Yours, 
 
 THEODOEA. 
 
 p.g. I leave a blank page to fill up after Penelope and I 
 come home. We are going into town together early to- 
 morrow, to inquire about the character of the lady's maid 
 that is to be taken abroad, but we shall be back long be- 
 fore post-time. However, I have written all this over- 
 night to make sure. 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 P.S. You will have missed your Sunday letter to-day, 
 which vexes me sore. But it is the first time you have 
 ever looked for a letter and " wanted" it, and I trust it will 
 be the last. Ah ! now I understand a little of what Penel- 
 ope must have felt, looking day after day for Francis's let- 
 ters, which never came ; how every morning before post- 
 time she would go about the house as blithe as a lark, and 
 afterward turn cross and disagreeable, and her face would 
 settle into the sharp, hard-set expression, w r hich made her 
 look so old even then. Poor Penelope ! if she could have 
 trusted him the while, it might have been otherwise men' s 
 ways and lives are so different from women's but it is this 
 love without perfect trust which has been the sting of Pe- 
 nelope's existence. 
 
 I try to remember this when she makes me feel angry 
 with her, as she did on Saturday. It Avas through her fault 
 you missed your Sunday letter. 
 
 You know I always post them myself in the town ; our 
 village post-office would soon set all the neighbors chatter- 
 ing about you and me ; and, besides, it is pleasant to walk 
 through the quiet lanes we both know well with Max's let- 
 ter in my hand, and think that it will be in his hand to- 
 morrow. For this I generally choose the time when papa 
 rests before dinner, with one or other of us reading to him ; 
 and Penelope has hitherto, without saying any thing, always 
 taken my place and set me free on a Saturday a kindness 
 I felt more than I expressed many a time. But to-day she 
 was unkind shut herself up in her room the instant we 
 returned from town ; then papa called me and detained me 
 till after post-time. 
 
 So you lost your letter ; a small thing, you will say, and 
 this was a foolish girl to vex herself so much about it, es- 
 
204 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 pecially as she can make it longer and more interesting by 
 details of our adventures in town yesterday. 
 
 It was not altogether a pleasant day, for something hap- 
 pened about the servant which I am sure annoyed Penel- 
 ope ; nay, she being overtired and overexerted already, this 
 new vexation, whatever it was, made her quite ill for the 
 time, though she would not allow it, and, when I ventured 
 to question, bade me, sharply, " let her alone." You know 
 Penelope's ways, and may have seen them reflected in me 
 sometimes. I am afraid, Max, that, however good we may 
 be (of course !), we are not exactly what would be termed 
 " an amiable family." 
 
 We were amiable when we started, however: my sister 
 and I went up to town quite merrily. I am merry some- 
 times, in spite of all things. You see, to have every one 
 that belongs to one happy and prosperous is a great element 
 in one's personal content. Other people's troubles weigh 
 heavily, because we never know exactly how they will bear 
 them, and because, at best, we can only sit by and watch 
 them suffer, so little help being possible after all. But our 
 own troubles we can always bear. 
 
 You will understand all I mean by " our own." I am 
 often very sad for you, Max ; but never afraid for you, 
 never in doubt about you, not for an instant. There is no 
 sting, even in my saddest thought, concerning you. I trust 
 you ; I feel certain that whatever you do you will do right 
 that all you have to endure w r ill be borne nobly and 
 bravely. Thus I may grieve over your griefs, but never 
 over you. My love of you, like my faith in you, is above 
 all grieving. Forgive this long digression ; to-day is Sun- 
 day, the best day in all the week, and my day for thinking 
 most of you. 
 
 To return. Penelope and I were both merry as we 
 started by the very earliest train in the soft May morning, 
 we had so much business to get through. You can't un_ 
 derstand it, of course, so I omit it, only confiding to you 
 our last crowning achievement the dress. It is white 
 moire antique / Doctor Urquhart has not the slightest idea 
 what that is, but no matter ; and it has lace flounces half a 
 yard deep, and it is altogether a most splendid affair. But 
 the governor's lady I beg my own pardon the governor's 
 wife must be magnificent, you know. 
 
 It was the mantua-maker, a great West-end personage 
 employed by the grand family to whom, by Francis's ad< 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 295 
 
 vice, Lydia Cartwright was sent some years ago (by-the-by, 
 I met Mrs. Cartwright to-day, who asked after you, and 
 sent her duty, and wished you would know that she had 
 heard from Lydia) this mantua-maker it was who recom- 
 mended the lady's maid, Sarah Enfield, who had once been 
 a workwoman of her own. We saw the person, who seem- 
 ed a decent young woman, but delicate-looking ; said her 
 health was injured by the long hours of millinery-work, and 
 that she should have died, she thought, if a friend of hers, 
 a kind young woman, had not taken her in and helped her. 
 She was lodging with this friend now. 
 
 On the whole, Sarah Enfield sufficiently pleased us to 
 make my sister decide on engaging her, if only Francis 
 could see her first. We sent a message to his lodgings, 
 and were considerably surprised to have the answer that 
 he was not at home, and had not been for three weeks ; 
 indeed, he hardly ever was at home. After some annoy- 
 ance, Penelope resolved to make her decision without him. 
 
 Hardly ever at home ! What a lively life Francis must 
 lead ! I wonder he does not grow weary of it. Once he 
 half owned he was, but added, " that he must float with the 
 stream it was too late now he could not stop himself." 
 Penelope will, though. 
 
 As we drove through the Park to the address Sarah En- 
 field had given us Somewhere about Kensington Penel- 
 ope wishing to see the girl once again and engage her 
 my sister observed, in answer to my remark, that Francis 
 must have many invitations, 
 
 " Of course he has. It shows how much he is liked and 
 respected. It will be the same abroad. We shall gather 
 round us the very best society in the island. Still he will 
 find it a great change from London." 
 
 I wonder is she at all afraid of it, or suspects that he once 
 was ? that he shrank from being thrown altogether upon 
 his wife's society, like the Frenchman who declined marry- 
 ing a lady he had long visited because " where should he 
 spend his evenings ?" Oh, me ! what a heart-breaking 
 thing to feel that one's husband needed somewhere to spend 
 his evenings. 
 
 We drove past Holland Park ; what a bonnie place it is 
 (as you would say) ; how full the trees were of green leaves 
 and birds. I don't know where we went next I hardly 
 know any thing of London, thank goodness ! but it was a 
 pretty, quiet neighborhood, where we had the greatest dif- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 tioulty in finding the house we wanted, and, at last, had re- 
 course to the post-office. 
 
 The post-mistress, who was rather grim "knew the 
 place, that is, the name of the party as lived there, which 
 was ah 1 she cared to know. She called herself Mrs. Chay- 
 tor, or Chater, or something like it," which we decided 
 must be Sarah Enfield's charitable friend, and accordingly 
 drove thither. 
 
 It was a small house, a mere cottage, set in a pleasant 
 little garden, through the palings of which I saw walking 
 about a young woman with a child in her arms. She had 
 on a straw hat with a deep lace fall that hid her face, but 
 her figure was very graceful, and she was extremely well 
 dressed. Nevertheless, she looked not exactly "the lady." 
 Also, hearing the gate bell, she called out, " Arriet," in no 
 la-ly's voice. 
 
 Penelope glanced at her and then sharply at me. 
 
 " I wonder " she began, but stopped told me to re- 
 main in the carriage while she went in, and she would fetch 
 in-. 1 if she wanted me. 
 
 But she did not. Indeed, she hardly staid two minutes. 
 I saw tiu young woman run hastily in-doors, leaving her 
 <':iil(l such a pretty boy ! screaming after his " mammy" 
 and Penelope came back, her face the color of scarlet. 
 
 - What ? Is it a mistake ?" I asked. 
 
 %i Xo yes," and she gave the order to drive on. 
 
 Again I inquired if any thing were the matter, and was 
 answered, " Nothing nothing that I could understand." 
 After which she sat with her veil down, cogitating, till all 
 of a sudden she sprang up as if some one had given her a 
 stab at her heart. I was quite terrified, but she again told 
 me it was nothing, and bade me "let her alone ;" which, as 
 you know, is the only thing one can do with my sister Pe- 
 nelope. 
 
 But at the railway station we met some people we knew, 
 and she was forced to talk ; so that by the time we reached 
 Rockrnount she seemed to have got over her annoyance, 
 whatever it was, concerning Sarah Enfield, and was herself 
 again. That is, herself in one of those moods when, wheth- 
 er her ailment be mental or physical, the sole chance of its 
 passing away is, as she says, " to leave her alone." 
 
 I do not say this is not trying doubly so now, when, 
 just as she is leaving, I seem to understand my sister bet- 
 ter and love her more than ever I did in my life. But I 
 
A LIFE FOIl A LIFE. 297 
 
 have learned at last not to break my heart over the pecul- 
 iarities of those I care for, but try to bear with them as 
 they must with mine, of which I have no lack, goodness 
 knows ! 
 
 I saw a letter to Francis in the post-bag this morning, 
 so I hope she has relieved her mind by giving him the ex- 
 planation which she refused to me. It must have been 
 some deception practiced on her by this Sarah Enfield, and 
 Penelope never forgives the smallest deceit. 
 
 She was either too much tired or too much annoyed to 
 appear again yesterday, so papa and I spent the afternoon 
 and evening alone. But she went to church with us as 
 usual to-day, looking pale and tired, the ill mood "the 
 little black dog on her shoulder," as we used to call it 
 not having quite vanished. 
 
 Also, I noticed an absent expression in her eyes, and her 
 voice in the responses was less regular than usual. Perhaps 
 she was thinking this would almost be her last Sunday of 
 sitting in the old pew, and looking up to papa's white hair, 
 and her heart being fuller, her lips were more silent than 
 usual. 
 
 You will not mind my writing so much about my sister 
 Penelope ? You like me to talk to you of what is about 
 me and uppermost in my thoughts, which is herself at pre- 
 sent. She has been very good to me, and Max loves every 
 one whom I love, and every one \vho loves me. 
 
 I shall have your letter to-morrow morning. Good-night ! 
 
 THEODORA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 MY DEAR THEODORA, This is a line extra, written on 
 receipt of yours, which was most welcome. I feared some- 
 thing had gone wrong with my little methodical girl. 
 
 Do not keep strictly to your Dominical letter just now ; 
 write any day that you can. Tell me every thing that is 
 happening to you you must, and ought. Nothing must 
 occur to you or yours that I do not know. You are mine. 
 
 Your last letter I do not answer in detail till the next 
 shall come ; not exactly from press of business I would 
 make time if I had it not but from various other reasons, 
 which you shall have by-and-by. 
 
 N 2 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Give me, if you remember it, the address of the person 
 with whom Sarah Enfield is lodging. I suspect she is a 
 Avoman of whom, by the desire of her nearest relative, I 
 have been in search for some time. But, should you 
 have forgotten, do not trouble your sister about this. I 
 will find all I wish to learn in some other way. Never 
 apologize or hesitate at writing to me about your family 
 all that is yours is mine. Keep your heart up about your 
 sister Penelope ; she is a good woman, and all that befalls 
 her will be for her good. Love her, and be patient with 
 her continually. All your love for her and the rest takes 
 nothing from what is mine, but adds thereto. 
 
 Let me hear soon what is passing at Rockmount. I can 
 not come to you and help you would I could ! My love ! 
 my love ! MAX URQUHART. 
 
 There is little or nothing to say of myself this week, and 
 what there was you heard yesterday. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 MY DEAR MAX, I write this in the middle of the night ; 
 there has been no chance for me during the day, nor, in- 
 deed, at all until now. To-night, for the first time, Penel- 
 ope has fallen asleep. I have taken the opportunity of 
 stealing into the next room, to comfort and you. 
 
 My dear Max ! Oh, if you knew ! oh, if I could but 
 come to you for one minute's rest, one minute's love. 
 There, I will not cry any more. It is much to be able to 
 write to you, and blessed, infinitely blessed to know you 
 are what you arc. 
 
 Max, I have been weak, wicked of late ; afraid of ab- 
 sence, which tries me so, because I am not strong, and can 
 not stand up by myself as I used to do ; afraid of death, 
 which might tear you from me, or me from you, leaving 
 the other to go mourning upon earth forever. Now I feel 
 that absence'is nothing, death itself nothing, compared to 
 one loss that which has befallen my sister Penelope. 
 
 You may have heard of it, even in these few days ill 
 news spreads fast. Tell me what you hear; for we wish 
 to save my sister as much as we can. To our friends gen- 
 erally, I have merely written that, "from unforeseen differ- 
 ences," the marriage is broken off. Mr. Charteris may 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 299 
 
 give what reasons he likes at Treherne Court. We will 
 not try to injure him with his uncle. 
 
 I have just crept in to look at Penelope ; she is asleep 
 still, and has never stirred. She looks so old like a wom- 
 an of fifty, almost. No wonder. Think ten years all 
 her youth to be crushed out at once. I wonder, will it kill 
 her ? It would me. 
 
 I wanted to ask you do you think, medically, there is 
 any present danger in her state ? She lies quiet enough ; 
 taking little notice of me or any body with her eyes shut 
 during the daytime, and open, wide-staring, all night long. 
 What ought I to do with her ? There is only me, you 
 know. If you fear any thing, send me a telegram at once. 
 Do not wait to write. 
 
 But, that you may the better judge her state, I ought 
 just to give you full particulars, beginning where my last 
 letter ended. 
 
 That " little black dog on her shoulder," which I spoke 
 of so lightly ! God forgive me ! also for leaving her the 
 whole of that Sunday afternoon with her door locked, and 
 the room as still as death ; yet never once knocking to ask, 
 " Penelope, how are you ?" 
 
 On Sunday night, the curate came to supper, and papa 
 sent me to summon her ; she came down stairs, took her 
 place at table, and conversed. I did not notice her much, 
 except that she moved about in a stupid, stunned-like fash- 
 ion, which caused papa to remark more than once, "Penel- 
 ope, I think you are half asleep." She never answered. 
 
 Another night, and the half of another day, she imibi, 
 have spent in the same manner. And I let her do it with- 
 out inquiry ! Shall I ever forgive myself? 
 
 In the afternoon of Monday, I was sitting at work, busy 
 finishing her embroidered marriage handkerchief, alone in 
 the sunshiny parlor, thinking of my letter, which you would 
 have received at last ; also thinking it was rather wicked 
 of my happy sister to sulk for two whole days, because of a 
 small disappointment about a servant if such it were. I 
 had almost determined to shake her out of her ridiculous 
 reserve, by asking boldly what was the matter, and giving 
 her a thorough scolding if I dared ; when the door opened, 
 and in walked Francis Charteris. 
 
 Heartily glad to see him, in the hope his coming might 
 set Penelope right again, I jumped up and shook hands 
 cordially. Nor till afterward did I remember how much 
 this seemed to surprise and relieve him. 
 
300 A LIFE FOK A LIFK. 
 
 " Oh, then, all is right !" said he. " I feared from Penel- 
 ope's letter, that she was a little annoyed with me. Noth- 
 ing new that, you know." 
 
 " Something did annoy her, I suspect," and I was about 
 to blurt out as much as I knew or guessed of the foolish 
 mystery about Sarah Enfield, but some instinct stopped 
 me. " You and Penelope had better settle your own af- 
 fairs," said I, laughing. " I'll go and fetch her." 
 
 " Thank you." He threw himself down on the velvet 
 arm-chair his favorite lounge in our house for the last ten 
 years. His handsome profile turned up against the light, 
 his fingers lazily tapping the arm of the chair, a trick he 
 had from his boyhood this is my last impression of Fran- 
 cis as our Francis Charteris. 
 
 I had to call outside Penelope's door three times, "Fran- 
 cis is here." "Francis is waiting." "Francis wants to 
 speak to you," before she answered or appeared ; and then, 
 without taking the slightest notice of me, she walked slow- 
 ly down stairs, holding by the wall as she went. 
 
 So, I thought, it is Francis who has vexed her after all, 
 and determined to leave them to fight it out and make it 
 up again this, which would be the last of their many lov- 
 ers' quarrels. Ah ! it was. 
 
 Half an hour afterward, papa sent for me to the study, 
 
 and there I saw Francis Charteris standing exactly where 
 
 once stood you see, I am not afraid of remembering 
 
 yself, or of reminding you. No, my Max ! Our griefs 
 
 lothing, nothing! 
 
 Penelope was also present, standing by my father, who 
 looking round at us with a troubled, bewildered air : 
 
 u Dora, what is all this? Your sister comes here and 
 tells me she will not marry Francis. Francis rushes in aft- 
 er her, and says, I hardly can make out what. Children, 
 why do you vex me so ? Wny can not you leave an old 
 man in peace?" 
 
 Penelope answered, " Father, you shall be left in peace, 
 if you will only confirm what I have said to that that gen- 
 tleman, and send him out of my sight." 
 
 Francis laughed "To be called back again presently. 
 You know you will do it, as soon as you have come to your 
 right senses, Penelope. You will never disgrace us in the 
 eyes of the world set every body gossiping about our af- 
 fairs, for such a trifle." 
 
 Mv sister made him no nnrwer. There was less even 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 30 \ 
 
 of anger than contempt utter, measureless contempt in 
 the way she just lifted up her eyes and looked at him 
 looked him over from head to heel,' and turned again to 
 her father. 
 
 "Papa, make him understand I can not that I wish 
 all this ended ; I wish never to see his face again." 
 
 " Why ?" said papa, in great perplexity. 
 
 " He knows why." 
 
 Papa and I both turned to Francis, whose careless man- 
 ner changed a little ; he grew red and uncomfortable. " She 
 may tell if she chooses ; I lay no embargo of silence upon 
 her. I have made all the explanations possible, and if she 
 will not receive them, I can not help it. The thing is done, 
 and can not be undone. I have begged her pardon and 
 made all sorts of promises for the future no man can do 
 more." 
 
 He said this sullenly, and yet as if he wished to make 
 friends with her, but Penelope seemed scarcely even to 
 hear. 
 
 "Papa," she repeated, still in the same stony voice, "I 
 wish you would end this scene ; it is killing me. Tell him, 
 will you, that I have burned all his letters, every one. In- 
 sist on his returning mine. His presents are all tied up in 
 a parcel in my room, except this ; will you give it back to 
 him?" 
 
 She took off her ring, a small common turquoise which 
 Francis had given her when he was young and poor, and 
 laid it on the table. Francis snatched it up, handled it a 
 minute, and then threw it violently into the nre. 
 
 " Bear witness, Mr. Johnston, and you too, Dora, that it 
 is Penelope, not I, who breaks our engagement. I would 
 have fulfilled it honorably I would have married her." 
 
 "Would you?" cried Penelope with flashing eyes, "no 
 not that last degradation no !" 
 
 " I would have married her," Francis continued, " and 
 made her a good husband too. Her reason for refusing me 
 is puerile perfectly puerile. No woman of sense, who 
 knows any thing of the world, would urge it for a moment. 
 Xor man either, unless he was your favorite who I be- 
 lieve is at the bottom of this, who, for all you know, may 
 be doing exactly as I have done Doctor Urquhart." 
 
 Papa started and said hastily, " Confine yourself to the 
 subject on hand, Francis. Of what is this that my daugh- 
 ter accuses you? Tell me, and let me judge." 
 
,502 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Francis hesitated, and then said, " Send away these girls, 
 and you shall hear." 
 
 Suddenly it flashed upon me what it was. How the in- 
 tuition came, how little things, before unnoticed, seemed to 
 rise and put themselves together, including Saturday's story 
 and the shudder that ran through Penelope from head 
 to foot, when on Sunday morning old Mrs. Cartwright 
 courtesied to her at the church-door all this I can not ac- 
 count for, but I seemed to know as well as if I had been 
 told every thing. I need not explain, for evidently you 
 know it also, and it is so dreadful, so unspeakably dreadful. 
 
 Oh, Max, for the first minute or so, I felt as if the whole 
 world were crumbling from under my feet as I could 
 trust nobody believe in nobody until I remembered you. 
 My dear Max, my own dear Max ! Ah ! wretched Penel- 
 ope. 
 
 I took her hand as she stood, but she twisted it out of 
 mine again. I listened mechanically to Francis, as he 
 again began rapidly and eagerly to exculpate himself to 
 my father. 
 
 "She may tell you all, if she likes. I have done no 
 worse than hundreds do in my position, and under my un- 
 fortunate circumstances, and the world forgives them, and 
 women to. How could I help it ? I was too poor to 
 marry. And before I married I meant to do every one 
 justice I meant " 
 
 Penelope covered her ears. Her face was so ghastly, 
 that papa himself said, " I think, Francis, explanations are 
 idle. You had better defer them and go." 
 
 " I will take you at your word," he replied haughtily. 
 " If you or she think better of it, or of me, I shall be at 
 any time ready to fulfill my engagement honorably, as a 
 gentleman should. Good-by ; will you not shake hands 
 with me, Penelope ?" 
 
 He walked up to her, trying apparently to carry things 
 off with a high air, but he was not strong enough, or hard- 
 ened enough. At sight of my sister sitting there, for she 
 had sunk down at last, with a face like a corpse, only it 
 had not the peace of the dead, Francis trembled. 
 
 " Forgive me, if I have done you any harm. It was all 
 the result of circumstances. Perhaps, if you had been a 
 little less rigid had scolded me less and studied me more 
 But you could not help your nature, nor I mine. Good-by, 
 Penelope." 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 303 
 
 She sat, impassive ; even when, with a sort of involuntary 
 tenderness, he seized and kissed her hand ; but the instant 
 he was gone fairly gone with the door shut upon him 
 and his horse clattering down the road I heard it plainly 
 Penelope started up with a cry of " Francis Francis !" 
 Oh, the anguish of it ! I can hear it now. 
 
 But it was not this Francis she called after I was sure 
 of that I saw it in her eyes. It was the Francis of ten 
 years ago the Francis she had loved now as utterly 
 dead and buried as if she had seen the stone laid over him, 
 and his body left to sleep in the grave. 
 
 Dead and buried dead and buried. Do you know, I 
 sometimes wish it were so ; that she had been left, peace- 
 fully widowed knowing his soul was safe with God. I 
 thought, when papa and I papa, who that night kissed 
 me, for the first time since one night you know sat by 
 Penelope's bed, watching her " If Francis had only died !" 
 
 After she was quiet, and I had persuaded papa to go to 
 rest, he sent for me and desired me to read a psalm, as I 
 used to do when he was ill you remember.? When it 
 was ended, he asked me, had I any idea what Francis had 
 done that Penelope could not pardon ? 
 
 I told him, difficult and painful as it was to do it, all I 
 suspected indeed, felt sure of. For was it not the truth ? 
 the only answer I could give. For the same reason I write 
 of these terrible things to you without any false delicacy 
 they are the truth, and they must be told. 
 
 Papa lay for some time, thinking deeply. At last he 
 said, 
 
 " My dear, you are no longer a child, and I may speak 
 to you plainly. I am an old man, and your mother is dead. 
 I wish she were with us now she might help us ; for she 
 was a good woman, Dora. Do you think take time to 
 consider the question that your sister is acting right ?" 
 
 I said, " Quite right." 
 
 "Yet, I thought you held that doctrine, 'the greater the 
 sinner the greater the saint ;' and believed every crime a 
 man can commit may be repented, atoned, and pardoned?" 
 
 "Yes, father; but Francis has never either repented or 
 atoned." 
 
 No ; and therefore I feel certain my sister is right. Ay, 
 even putting aside the other fact, that the discoveiy of his 
 long years of deception must have so withered up her love 
 scorched it at the root, as with a stroke of lightning 
 
304 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 that even if she pitied him, she must also despise. Fancy 
 despising one's husband! 
 
 Besides, she is not the only one wronged. Sometimes, 
 even sitting by my sister's bedside, I see the vision of that 
 pretty young creature she was so pretty and innocent 
 when she first came to live at Rockmount with her boy 
 in her arms ; and my heart feels like to burst with indig- 
 nation and shame, and a kind of shuddering horror at the 
 wickedness of the world yet with a strange feeling of 
 unutterable pity lying at the depth of all. 
 
 Max, tell me what you think you who are so much the 
 wiser of us two ; but I think that, even if she wished it 
 still, my sister ought not to marry Francis Charteris. 
 
 Ah me ! papa said truly I was no longer a child. I feel 
 hardly even a girl, but quite an old woman familiar with 
 all sorts of sad and wicked things, as if the freshness and 
 innocence had gone out of life, and were nowhere to be 
 found. Except when I turn to you, and lean my poor sick 
 heart against you, as I do now. Max, comfort me ! 
 
 You will, I know, write immediately you receive this. 
 If you could have come but that is impossible. 
 
 Augustus you will probably see, if you have not done so 
 already for he already lo.oks upon you as the friend of the 
 family, though in no other light as yet; which is best. 
 Papa wrote to Sir William, I believe ; he said he consid- 
 ered some explanation a duty, on his daughter's account ; 
 1 art her than this, he wishes the matter kept quiet. Not to 
 disgrace Francis, I thought ; but papa told me one half the 
 world would hardly consider it any disgrace at all. Can 
 this be so ? Is it indeed such a wicked, wicked world ? 
 
 Here my letter was stopped by hearing a sort of cry 
 in Penelope's room. I ran in, and found her sitting up in 
 her bed, her eyes starting, and every limb convulsed. See- 
 ing me, she cried out, 
 
 " Bring a light ; I was dreaming. But it's not true. 
 Where is Francis ?" 
 
 I made no reply, and she slowly sank down in her bed 
 again. Recollection had come. 
 
 "I should not have gone to sleep. Why did you let 
 me ? Or why can not you put me to sleep forever, and 
 ever, and ever, and ever ?" repeating the word many times. 
 " Dora," and my sister fixed her piteous eyes on my face, 
 " I should be so glad to die. Why won't you kill me ?" 
 
 I burst into tears. 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 305 
 
 Max, you will understand the total helplessness one feels 
 in the presence of an irremediable grief like this ; how con- 
 solation seems cruel, and reasoning vain. " Miserable com- 
 forters are ye all," said Job to his three friends ; and a mis- 
 erable comforter I felt to this my sister, whom it had pleased 
 the Almighty to smite so sore, until I remembered that He 
 who smites can heal. 
 
 I lay down outside the bed, put my arm over her, and 
 remained thus for a long time, not saying a single word 
 that is, not with my lips. And since our weakness is often 
 our best strength, and when we wholly relinquish a thing, 
 it is given back to us many a time in double measure, so, 
 possibly, those helpless tears of mine did Penelope more 
 good than the wisest of words. 
 
 She lay watching me saying more than once, 
 
 " I did not know you cared so much for me, Dora." 
 
 It then came into my mind, that as wrecked people cling 
 to the smallest spar, if, instead of her conviction that in los- 
 ing Francis she had lost her all, I could by any means make 
 Penelope feel that there were others to cling to, others who 
 loved her dearly, and whom she ought to try and live for 
 still it might save her. So, acting on the impulse, I told 
 my sister how good I thought her, and how wicked I my- 
 self had been for not long since discovering her goodness. 
 How, when at last I learned to appreciate her, and to un- 
 derstand what a sorely-tried life hers had been, there came 
 not only respect, but love. Thorough sisterly love, such as 
 people do not necessarily feel even for their own flesh and 
 blood, but never, I doubt, except to them. (Save that, in 
 some inexplicable way, fondly reflected, I have something 
 of the same sort of love for your brother Dallas.) 
 
 Afterward, she lying still and listening, I tried to make 
 my sister understand what I had myself felt when she came 
 to my bedside and comforted me that morning, months ago, 
 when I was so wretched ; how no wretchedness of loss can 
 be altogether unendurable, so long as it does not strike at 
 the household peace, but leaves the sufferer a little love to 
 rest upon at home. 
 
 And at length I persuaded her to promise that, since it 
 made both papa and me so very miserable to see her thus 
 -and papa was an old man, too ; we might not have him 
 with us many years she would, for our sakes, try to rouse 
 herself, and see if life were not tolerable for a little longer. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, closing her heavy eyes, and fold- 
 
306 A LIFE FOR A LI IE. 
 
 ing her hands in a pitiful kind of patience, very strange in 
 our quick, irritable Penelope. " Yes -just a little longer. 
 Still, I think I shall soon die. I believe it will kill me.'"' 
 
 I did not contradict her, but I called to mind your words, 
 that, Penelope being a good woman, all would happen to 
 her for good. Also, it is usually not the good people who 
 are killed by grief; while others take it as God's vengeance, 
 or as the work of blind chance, they receive it humbly as 
 God's chastisement, live on, and endure. I do not think my 
 sister will die whatever she may think or desire just now. 
 Besides we have only to deal with the present, for how can 
 we look forward a single day ? How little we expected all 
 this only a week ago ! 
 
 It seems strange that Francis could have deceived us for 
 so long : years, it must have been ; but we have lived so 
 retired, and were such a simple family for many things. 
 How far Penelope thinks we know papa and I I can not 
 guess ; she is totally silent on the subject of Francis. Ex- 
 cept in that one outcry, when she was still only half awake, 
 she has never mentioned his name. 
 
 There was one thing more I wanted to tell you, Max ; 
 you know I tell you every thing. 
 
 Just as I was leaving my sister, she, noticing I was not 
 undressed, asked me if I had been sitting up all night, and 
 reproached me for doing so. 
 
 I said " I was not weary that I had been quietly occu- 
 pying myself in the next room." 
 
 " Reading ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " What were you doing ?" with sharp suspicion. 
 
 I answered, without disguise, 
 
 " I was writing to Max." 
 
 " Max who ? Oh, I had forgotten his name." 
 
 She turned from me, and lay with her face to the wall 
 then said, 
 
 " Do you believe in him ?" 
 
 " Yes, I do." 
 
 " You had better not. You will live to repent it. Child, 
 mark my words. There may be good women one or two, 
 perhaps but there is not a single good man in the whole 
 world." 
 
 My heart rose to my lips, but deeds speak louder than 
 words. I did not attempt to defend you. Besides, no won- 
 der she should think thus. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 307 
 
 Again she said, " Dora, tell Doctor Urquhart he was in- 
 nocent comparatively, and that I say so. He only killed 
 Harry's body, but those who deceive us are the death 
 of one's soul. Nay," and by her expression I felt sure it 
 was not herself and her own wrongs my sister was think- 
 ing of " there are those who destroy both body and soul." 
 
 I made no answer ; I only covered her up, kissed her, 
 and left her, knowing that in one sense I did not leave her 
 either forsaken or alone. 
 
 And now I must leave you, too, Max, being very weary 
 in body, though my mind is comforted and refreshed 
 ay, ever since I began this letter. So many of your good 
 words have come back to me while I wrote words which 
 you have let fall at odd times, long ago, even when we were 
 I mere acquaintances. You did not think I should remem- 
 ber them ? I do, every one. 
 
 This is a great blow, no doubt. The hand of Providence 
 has been heavy upon us and our house lately. But I think 
 we shall be able to bear it. One always has courage to 
 bear a sorrow which shows its naked face, free from sus- 
 pense or concealment ; stands visibly in the midst of the 
 home, and has to be met and lived down patiently by every 
 member therein. 
 
 You once said that we often live to see the reason of af- 
 fliction ; how all the events of life hang so wonderfully to- 
 gether, that afterward we can frequently trace the chain 
 of events, and see in humble faith and awe that out of each 
 one has been evolved the other, and that every thing, bad 
 and good, must necessarily have happened exactly as it did. 
 Thus I begin to see you will not be hurt, Max? how 
 well it was, on soire accounts, that we were not married 
 that I should still be living at home with my sister ; and 
 that, after all she knows, and she only, of what has hap- 
 pened to me this year, she can not reject any comfort I 
 may be able to offer her on the ground that I myself know 
 nothing of sorrow. 
 
 As for me personally, do not fear; I have you. You 
 once feared that a great anguish would break my heart, 
 but it did not. Nothing in this world will ever do that 
 while I have you. 
 
 Max, kiss me in thought, I mean as friends kiss friends 
 who are starting on a long and painful journey, of which 
 they see no end, yet are not afraid. Nor am I. Good-by, 
 my Max. Yours, only and always, 
 
 THEODORA JOHNSTON, 
 
303 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 ins STORY. 
 
 MY DEAR THEODORA, You will have received my let- 
 ters regularly, nor am I much surprised that they have not 
 been answered. I have heard, from time to time, in other 
 ways, all particulars of your sister's illness and of you. 
 Mrs. Granton says you keep up well, but I know that, could 
 I see it now, it would be the same little pale face which 
 used to come stealing to me from your father's bedside 
 last year. 
 
 If I ask you to write, my love, believe it is from no doubt 
 of you, or jealousy of any of your home-duties, but because 
 I am wearying for a sight of your handwriting, and an as- 
 surance from yourself that you are not failing in health, the 
 only thing in which I have any fear of your failing. 
 
 To answer a passage in your last, which I have hitherto 
 let be, there was so much besides to write to you about 
 the passage concerning friends parting from friends. At 
 iirst I interpreted it that in your sadness of spirit and hope- 
 c>ss of the future you wished me to sink back into my 
 old place, and be only your friend. It was then no time to 
 argue the point, nor would it have made any difference in 
 my letters either way ; but now let me say two words con- 
 cerning it. 
 
 My child, when a man loves a woman, before he tries to 
 win her he will have, if he loves unselfishly and generously, 
 many a doubt concerning both her and himself. In fact, as 
 I once read somewhere, " When a man truly loves a woman, 
 he would not marry her upon any account unless he was 
 quite certain he was the best person she could possibly 
 marry." But as soon as she loves him, and he knows it, and 
 is certain that, however unworthy he may be, or however 
 many faults she may possess I never told you you were 
 an angel, did I, little lady ? they have cast their lot to- 
 gether, chosen one another, as your church says, "For 
 better for worse" then the face of things is entirely 
 changed. He has his rights, close and strong as no other 
 human being can have with regard to her she has her- 
 self given them to him ; and if he has any manliness in 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 309 
 
 him he never will let them go, but hold her fast forever 
 and ever. 
 
 My dear Theodora, I have not the slightest intention of 
 again subsiding into your friend. I am your lover and 
 your betrothed husband. I will wait for you any number 
 of years, till you have fulfilled all your duties, and no earth- 
 ly rights have power to separate us longer. But, in the 
 mean time, I hold fast to my rights. Every thing that 
 lover or future husband can be to you, I must be. And 
 when I see you, for I am determined to see you at inter- 
 vals, do not suppose that it will be a friend's kiss if there 
 be such a thing that But I have said enough it is not 
 easy for me to express myself on this wise. 
 
 My love, this letter is partly to consult you on a matter 
 which is somewhat on my mind. With any but you I 
 might hesitate ; but I know your mind almost as I know 
 my own, and can speak to you as I hope I always shall 
 frankly and freely as a husband would to his wife. 
 
 About your sister Penelope and her great sorrow I have 
 already written fully. Of her ultimate recovery, mentally 
 as well as bodily, I have little doubt: she has in her the 
 foundations of all endurance a true, upright nature and a 
 religious mind. The first blow over, a certain little girl 
 whom I know will be to her a saving angel ; as she has 
 been to others I could name. Fear not, therefore " Fear 
 God, and have no other fear:" you will bring your sister 
 safe to land. 
 
 But, you are aware, Penelope is not the only person who 
 has been shipwrecked. 
 
 I should not intrude this side of the subject at present, 
 did I not feel it to be in some degree a duty, and one that, 
 from certain information that has reached me, will not bea? 
 deferring. The more so because my occupation here ties 
 my own hands so much. You and I do not live for our- 
 selves, you know nor indeed wholly for one another. I 
 want you to help me, Theodora. 
 
 In my last I informed you how the story of Lydia Cart- 
 wright came to my knowledge, and how, beside her father's 
 coffin, I was entreated by her old mother to find her out, 
 and bring her home if possible. I had then no idea who 
 the " gentleman" was ; but afterward was led to suspect it 
 might be a friend of Mr. Charteris. To assure myself, I 
 one day put some questions to him point-blank, I believe, 
 for I abhor diplomacy, nor had I any suspicion of him per- 
 
310 A LIFE FOIl A LIFE. 
 
 sonally. In the answer, he gave me a point-blank and in- 
 sulting denial of any knowledge on the subject. 
 
 When the whole truth came out, I was in doubt what to 
 do consistent with my promise to the poor girl's mother. 
 Finally, I made inquiries ; but heard that the Kensington 
 cottage had been sold up, and the inmates removed. I 
 then got the address of Sarah Enfield that is, I commis- 
 sioned my old friend, Mrs. Ansdell, to get it, and sent it to 
 ."Mrs. Cartwright, without either advice or explanation, ex- 
 cept that it was that of a person who knew Lydia. Are 
 you aware that Lydia lias more than once written to her 
 mother, sometimes inclosing money, saying she >vas well 
 and happy, but nothing more? 
 
 I this morning heard that the old woman, immediately 
 on receiving my letter, shut up her cottage, leaving the key 
 with a neighbor, and disappeared. But she may come 
 back, and not alone ; I hope most earnestly, it will not be 
 alone. And therefore I write, partly to prepare you for 
 this chance, that you may contrive to keep your sister from 
 any unnecessary pain, and also from another reason. 
 
 You may not know it and it is a hard thing to have to 
 enlighten my innocent love, but your father is quite right ; 
 Lyclia's story is by no means rare, nor is it regarded in the 
 world as we view it. There are very few especially 
 among the set to which Mr. Charteris belonged who 
 either profess or practice the Christian doctrine that our 
 bodies also are the temples of the Holy Spirit that a 
 man's life should be as pure as a woman's, otherwise no 
 woman, however she may pity, can, or ought to respect 
 him, or to marry him. This, it appears to me, is the 
 Christian principle of love and marriage the only one by 
 which the one can be made sacred and the other " honor- 
 able to all." I have tried, invariably, in every way to set 
 this forth ; nor do I hesitate to write of it to my wife that 
 will be whom it is my blessing to have united with me in 
 every work which my conscience once compelled as atone- 
 ment and my heart now offers in humblest thanksgiving. 
 
 But enough of myself. 
 
 While this principle of total purity being essential for 
 both man and woman can not be too sternly upheld, there 
 is another side to the subject, analagous to one of which 
 you and I have often spoken. You will find it in the 
 seventh chapter of Luke and eighth of John : written, I 
 conclude, to be not only read, but acted up to by all 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 311 
 
 Christians who desire to have in them " the mind of 
 Christ." 
 
 Now, my child, you see what I mean how the saving 
 command, " Go and sin no more" applies to this sin also. 
 
 You know much more of what Lydia Cartwright used 
 to be than I do ; but it takes long for any one error to 
 corrupt the entire character ; and her remembrance of her 
 mother, as well as her charity to Sarah Enfield, imply that 
 there must be much good left in the girl still. She is 
 young. Nor have I heard of her ever falling lower than 
 this once. But she may fall ; since, from what I know of 
 Mr. Charteris's present circumstances, she must now, with 
 her child, be left completely destitute. It is not the first 
 similar case, by many, that I have had to do with ; but my 
 love never can have met with the like before. Is she 
 afraid ? does she hesitate to hold out her pure right hand 
 to a poor creature who never can be an innocent girl again ; 
 who also, from the over severity of Rockmount, may have 
 aen let slip a little too readily, and so gone wrong? 
 
 If you do hesitate, say so ; it will not be unnatural nor 
 ir prising. If you do not, this is what I want ; being my- 
 S3lf so placed that, though I feel the thing ought to be 
 done, there seems no way of doing it, except through you. 
 Should the Cartwrights reappear in the village, persuade 
 your father not altogether to set his face against them, or 
 have them expelled the neighborhood. They must leave 
 it is essential for your sister that they should ; but the 
 old woman is very poor. Do not have them driven away 
 in such a manner as will place no alternative between sin 
 and starvation. Besides, there is the child how a man 
 can ever desert his own child ! but I will not enter into 
 that part of the subject. This is a strange u love" letter; 
 but I write it without hesitation my love will understand. 
 
 You will like to hear something of me ; but there is 
 little to tell. The life of a jail surgeon is not unlike that 
 of a horse in a mill ; and, for some things, nearly as hope- 
 less ; best fitted, perhaps, for the old and the blind. I have 
 to shut my eyes to so much that I can not remedy, and 
 take patiently so much, to fight against which would Ibe 
 like knocking down the Pyramids of Egypt with one's 
 head as a battering-ram, that sometimes my courage fails. 
 
 This great prison is, you know, a model of its kind, on 
 the solitary, sanitary, and moral improvement system ; ex- 
 cellent, no doubt, compared with that which preceded it 
 
312 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 The prisoners are numerous, and as soon aa any of them 
 iri-t out they take the greatest pains to get in again ; such 
 are the comforts of jail life contrasted with that outside. 
 Yet they seem to me often like a herd of brute beasts, 
 fed and stalled by rule in a manner best to preserve their 
 health, and keep them from injuring their neighbors ; their 
 bodies well looked after, but their souls they might 
 scarcely have any! They are simply Nos. 1, 2, 3, and so 
 on, with nothing of human individuality or responsibility 
 about them. Even their faces grow to the same pattern, 
 dull, fat, clean, and stolid. During the exercising hour I 
 sometimes stand and watch them, each pacing his small 
 bricked circle, and rarely catch one countenance which has 
 a ray of expression or intelligence. 
 
 Good as many of its results are, I have my doubts as to 
 this solitary system ; but they are expressed on paper in 
 the MS. you asked for, my kind little lady ! so I will not 
 repeat them here. 
 
 Yet it will be a change of thought from your sister's 
 sick-room for you to think of me in mine not a sick-room 
 though, thank God ! This is a most healthy region : the 
 sea- wind sweeps round the prison walls, and shakes the 
 roses in the governor's garden till one can hardly believe 
 it is so dreary a place inside. Dreary enough sometimes 
 to make one believe in that reformer w r ho offered to con- 
 vert some depraved region into a perfect Utopia, provided 
 the males above the age of fourteen were all summarily 
 hange<L 
 
 Do you smile, my love, at this compliment to your sex at 
 the expense of mine ? Yet I see wretches here who I can 
 not hardly believe share the same. common womanhood as 
 my Theodora. Think over carefully what I asked you 
 about Lydia Cartwright ; it is seldom suddenly, but step 
 by step, that this degradation comes. And at every step 
 there is hope ; at least, such is my experience. 
 
 Do not suppose, from this description, that I am dis- 
 heartened at my work here ; besides rules and regulation^, 
 there is still much room for personal influence, especially in 
 hospital. When a man is sick or dying, unconsciously his 
 heart is humanized he thinks of God. From this simple 
 cause, my calling has a great advantage over all others ; 
 and it is much to have physical agencies on one's side, as I 
 do not get them in the streets and towns. To-day, looking 
 up from a clean, tidy, airy cell, whero the occupant had at 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 313 
 
 least a chance of learning to read if he chose, and seeing 
 through the window the patch of bright blue sky, fresh 
 and pure as ever sky was, I thought of two lines you once 
 repeated to me out of your dear head, so full of poetry : 
 
 ' ' God's in His Heaven ; 
 
 All's right with the world." 
 
 Yesterday I had a holiday. I took the railway to Tre- 
 herne Court, wishing to learn something of Rockmount. 
 You said it was your desire I should visit your brother-in- 
 law and sister sometimes. 
 
 They seemed very happy so much as to be quite inde- 
 pendent of visitors, but they received me warmly, and I 
 gained tidings of you. They escorted me back as far as 
 the park gates, where I left them standing, talking and 
 laughing together, a very picture of youth and fortune and 
 handsome looks; a picture suited to the place, with its 
 grand ancestral trees branched down to the ground; its 
 green slopes, and its herds of deer racing about while the 
 turrets of the magnificent house which they call "home" 
 shone whitely in the distance. 
 
 You see I am taking a leaf out of your book, growing 
 poetical and descriptive ; but this brief contrast to my daily 
 life made the impression particularly strong. 
 
 You need have no anxiety for your youngest sister ; she 
 looked in excellent health and spirits. The late sad events 
 do not seem to have affected her. She merely observed, 
 " She was glad it was over, she never liked Francis much. 
 Penelope must come to Treherne Court for change, and no 
 doubt she would soon make a far better marriage." Her 
 husband said, " He and his father had been both grieved 
 and annoyed indeed, Sir William had quite disowned his 
 nephew such ungentlemanly conduct was a disgrace to 
 the family." And then Treherne spoke about his own 
 happiness how his father and Lady Augusta perfectly 
 adored his wife, and how the hope and pride of the family 
 were centred in her, with more to the same purport. Tru- 
 ly this young couple have their cup brimming over with 
 life and its joys. 
 
 My love, good-by ; which means only " God be with 
 thee !" nor in any way implies " farewell." Write soon. 
 Your words are, as the Good Book expresses it, " sweeter 
 than honey and the honey-comb" to me unworthy. 
 
 MAX UKQUHAET. 
 O 
 
314 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 I should add, though you would almost take it for grant- 
 ed, that, in all you do concerning Mrs. Cartwright or her 
 daughter, I wish you to do nothing without your father's 
 knowledge and consent. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 ANOTHER bright, dazzlingly bright, summer morning, on 
 which I begin writing to my dear Max. This seems the 
 longest-lasting, loveliest summer I ever knew outside the 
 house. Within all goes on much in the same way, which 
 you know. 
 
 My moors are all growing purple, Max ; I never remem- 
 ber the heather so rich and abundant ; I wish you could 
 see it. Sometimes I want you so ! If you had given me 
 up, or were to do so now from hopelessness, pride, or any 
 other reason, what would become of me ? Max, hold me 
 fast. Do not let me go. 
 
 You never do. I can see how you carry me in your 
 heart continually, and how you are forever considering how 
 you can help me and mine, and if it were not become so 
 natural to feel this, so sweet to depend upon you and ac- 
 cept every thing from you without even saying "thank 
 you," I might begin to express " gratitude ;" but the word 
 would make you smile. 
 
 I amused you once, I remember, by an indignant dis- 
 claimer of obligations between such as ourselves; how 
 every thing given and received ought to be free as air, 
 and how you ought to take me as readily if I were heiress 
 to ten thousand a year, as I would you if you were the ./, 
 Duke of Northumberland. No, Max ; those are not thejp ffM 
 sort of things that give me toward you the feeling of 
 " gratitude ;" it is the goodness, the thoughtfulness, the 
 tender love and care. I don't mean to insult your sex by 
 saying no man ever loved like you, but few men love in 
 that special way which alone could have satisfied a restless, 
 irritable girl like me, who finds in you perfect trust and 
 perfect rest. 
 
 If not allowed to be grateful on my own account, I may 
 be in behalf of my sister Penelope. 
 
 After thus long following out your orders, medical and 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 315 
 
 mental, I begin to notice a slight change in Penelope. She 
 no longer lies in bed late, on the plea that it shortens the 
 day, nor is she so difficult to persuade in going out. Far- 
 ther than the garden she will not stir, but there I get her 
 to creep up and down for a little while daily. Lately she 
 has begun to notice her flowers, especially a white moss- 
 rose which she took great pride in, and which never flow- 
 ered until this summer. Yesterday its first bud opened ; 
 she stopped and examined it. 
 
 " Somebody has been mindful of this ; who was it ?" 
 
 I said, the gardener and myself together. 
 
 " Thank you." She called John, showed him what a good 
 bloom it was, and consulted how they should manage to 
 get the plant to flower again next year. She can then look 
 forward to " next year." 
 
 You say that, as " while there is life there is hope," with 
 the body, so, while one ray of hope is discernible, the soul 
 is alive. To save souls alive that is your special calling. 
 It seems as if you yourself had been led through deep 
 waters of despair in order that you might personally un- 
 derstand how those feel who are drowning, and therefore 
 know best how to help them. And lately you have in this 
 way done more than you know of. Shall I tell you ? You 
 will not be displeased. 
 
 Max, hitherto nobody but me has seen a line of your let- 
 ters. I could not bear it. I am as jealous over them as 
 any old miser ; it has vexed me even to see a stray hand 
 fingering them before they reach mine ; yet this week I 
 actually read out loud two pages of one of them to Penel- 
 ope. This was how it came about. 
 
 I was sitting by her sofa, supposing her asleep. I had 
 been very miserable that morning tried much in several 
 ways, and I took out your letter to comfort me. It told 
 me of so many miseries, to which my own are nothing, and 
 among which you live continually, yet are always so patient 
 and tender over mine. I said to myself, " how good he is !" 
 and two large tears came with a great splash upon the pa^ 
 per before I was aware. Very foolish, you know, but I 
 could not help it. And, wiping my eyes, I saw Penelope's 
 wide open, watching me. 
 
 " Has Doctor Urquhart been writing any thing to wound 
 you?" said she, slowly and bitterly. 
 
 I eagerly disclaimed this. 
 
 "Is he ill?" 
 
316 A LIFE FOIl A LIFE. 
 
 " Oh no, thank God !" 
 
 " Why then were you crying?" 
 
 Why, indeed ? But what could I say, except the truth, 
 that they were not tears of pain, but because you were so 
 good and I was so proud of you ? I forgot what arrows 
 these words must have been into my sister's heart. No 
 wonder she spoke as she did spoke out fiercely, and yet 
 with a certain solemnity. 
 
 "Dora Johnston, you will reap what you sow, and I 
 shall not pity you. Make to yourself an idol, and God will 
 strike it down. 'TTiou shalt have none other gods but me? 
 Remember Who says that, and tremble." 
 
 I should have trembled, Max, had I not remembered. I 
 said to my sister, as gently as I could, "that I made no 
 idols ; that I knew all your faults, and you mine, and we 
 loved one another in spite of them, but we did not worship 
 one another only. God. That, if it were His will we 
 should part, I believed we could part. And " here I 
 could not say any more for tears. 
 
 Penelope looked sorry. 
 
 "I remember you preaching that doctrine once, child, 
 but " she started up violently " Can't you give me some- 
 thing to amuse me ? Read me a bit of that that nonsense. 
 ( )f all amusing things in this world, there is nothing like a 
 love-letter. But don't believe them, Dora," she grasped 
 my hand hard " they are every one of them lies." 
 
 I said that I could not judge, never having received a 
 "love-letter" in all my life, and hoped earnestly I never 
 might. 
 
 "No love-letters? What does he write to you about, 
 then?" 
 
 I told her in a general way. I would not see her half- 
 satirical, half-incredulous smile. It did not last very long. 
 Soon, though she turned away and shut her eyes, I felt sure 
 she was both listening and thinking. 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart can not have an easy or pleasant life," 
 she observed, " but he does not deserve it. No man does." 
 
 " Or woman either," said I, as gently as I could. 
 
 Penelope bade me hold my tongue ; preaching was my 
 father's business, not mine, that is if reasoning were of any 
 avail. 
 
 I asked, did she think it was not ? 
 
 "I think nothing about nothing. I want to smother 
 thought. Child, can't you talk a little ? Or stay, read me 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 317 
 
 some of Doctor TJrquhart's letters ; they are not love-let- 
 ters, so you can have no objection." 
 
 It went hard, Max, indeed it did! till I considered 
 perhaps, to hear of people more miserable than herself, 
 more wicked than Francis, might not do harm but good to 
 my poor Penelope. 
 
 So I was brave enough to take out my letter and read 
 from it (with reservations now and then, of course), about 
 your daily work and the people concerned therein ; all that 
 interests me so much, and makes me feel happier and proud- 
 er than any mere "love-letter" written to or about myself. 
 Penelope was interested too, both in the jail and the hos- 
 pital matters. They touched that practical, benevolent, 
 energetic half of her, which till lately has made her papa's 
 right hand in the parish. I saw her large black eyes bright- 
 ening up, till an unfortunate name, upon which I fell una- 
 wares, changed all. 
 
 Max, I am sure she had heard of Tom Turton. Francis 
 knew him. When I stopped with some excuse, she bade 
 me go on, so I was obliged to finish the miserable history. 
 She then asked : 
 
 " Is Turton dead?" 
 
 I said " No," and referred to the postscript where you 
 say that both yourself and his poor old ruined father hope 
 Tom Turton may yet live to amend his ways. 
 
 Penelope muttered : 
 
 " He never will. Better he died." 
 
 I said Dr. Urquhart did not think so. 
 
 She shook her head impatiently, exclaiming she was tired, 
 and wished to hear no more, and so fell into one of her 
 long, sullen silences, which sometimes last for hours. 
 
 I wonder whether, among the many cruel things she 
 must lie thinking about, she ever thinks, as I do often, what 
 has become of Francis ? 
 
 Sometimes, puzzling over how best to deal with her, I 
 have tried to imagine myself in her place, and consider what 
 would have been my own feelings toward Francis now. 
 The sharpest and most prominent would be the ever-abiding 
 sense of his degradation he who was so dear united to 
 the constant terror of his sinking lower and lower to any 
 depth of crime or shame. To think of him as a bad man, 
 a sinner against heaven, would be tenfold worse than any 
 sin or cruelty against me. 
 
 Therefore, whether or not her love for him has died out, 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 I can not help thinking there nmst be times when Penelope 
 would give any thing for tidings of Francis Charteris. I 
 wish you would find out whether he has left England, and 
 then perhaps in some way or other I may let Penelope un- 
 derstand that he is safe away possibly to begin a new and 
 better life, in a new world. 
 
 A new and better life. This phrase Penelope might 
 call it our " cant," yet what we solemnly believe in is sure- 
 ly not cant brings me to something I have to tell you this 
 week. For some reasons I am glad it did not occur until 
 this week, that I might have time for consideration. 
 
 Max, if you remember, when you made to me that re- 
 quest about Lydia Cartwright, I merely answered " that I 
 would endeavor to do as you wished," as, indeed, I always 
 would, feeling that my duty to you, even in the matter of 
 " obedience," has already begun. I mean to obey, you see, 
 but would rather do it with my heart, as well as my con- 
 science. So, hardly knowing what to say to you, I just 
 said this, and no more. 
 
 My life has been so still, so safely shut up from the out* 
 side world, that there are many subjects I have never even 
 thought about, and this was one. After the first great 
 shock concerning Francis, I put it aside, hoping to forget 
 it. When you revived it, I was at first startled ; then I 
 tried to ponder it over carefully, so as to come to a right 
 judgment and be enabled to act in every way as became 
 not only myself, Theodora Johnston, but let me not be 
 ashamed to say it Theodora, Max Urquhart's wife. 
 
 By-and-by all became clear to me. My dear Max, I do 
 not hesitate; I am not afraid. I have been only waiting 
 opportunity, which at length came. 
 
 Last Sunday I overheard my class Penelope's that was, 
 you know whispering something among themselves, and 
 trying to hide it from me. When I put the question di- 
 rect, the answer was : 
 
 "Please, Miss, Mrs. Cartwright and Lydia have come 
 home." 
 
 I felt myself grow hot as fire I do now in telling you. 
 Only it must be borne it must be told. 
 
 Also, another thing, which one of the bigger girls let out, 
 with many titters, and never a blush, they had brought a 
 child with them. 
 
 Oh, Max, the horror of shame and repulsion, and then 
 the perfect anguish of pity that came over me ! These 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 319 
 
 girls of our parish Lydia was one of them ; if they had 
 been taught better ; if I had tried to teach them, instead 
 of all these years studying or dreaming, thinking wholly 
 of myself and caring not a straw about my fellow-creatures. 
 Oh, Max, would that my life had been more like yours ! 
 
 It shall be henceforth. Going home through the village, 
 with the sun shining on the cottages, of whose inmates I 
 know no more than of the New Zealand savages on the 
 group of ragged girls who were growing up at our very 
 door, no one knows how, and no one cares I made a vow 
 to myself. I that have been so blessed I that am so hap- 
 py yes, Max, happy! I will work with all my strength 
 while it is day. You will help me. And you will never 
 love me the less for any thing I feel or do. 
 
 I was going that very afternoon to walk direct to Mrs. 
 Cart Wright's, when I remembered your charge, that noth- 
 ing should be attempted without my father's knowledge 
 and consent. 
 
 I took the opportunity when he and I were sitting alone 
 together Penelope gone to bed. He was saying she look- 
 ed better. He thought she might begin visiting in the 
 district soon, if she were properly persuaded. At least, 
 she might take a stroll round the village. He should ask 
 her to-morrow. 
 
 " Don't papa. Oh, pray don't !" and then I was obliged 
 to tell him the reason why. I had to put it very plainly 
 before he understood ; he forgets things now sometimes. 
 
 "Starving, did you say? Mrs. Cartwright, Lydia, and 
 the child? What child?" 
 
 "Francis's." 
 
 Then he comprehended, and, oh, Max, had I been the girl 
 I was a few months ago, I should have sunk to the earth 
 with the shame he said I ought to feel at even alluding to 
 such things. But I would not stop to consider this, or to 
 defend myself; the matter concerned not me, but Lydia. 
 I asked papa if he did not remember Lydia ? 
 
 She came to us, Max, when she was only fourteen, though, 
 being well-grown and handsome, she looked older ; a pleas- 
 ant, willing, affectionate creature, only she had " no head," 
 or it was half-turned by the admiration her beauty gained, 
 not merely among her own class, but all our visitors. I 
 remember Francis saying once oh, how angry Penelope 
 was about it that Lydia was so naturally elegant she could 
 be made n lady in no time, if a man liked to take her, edu- 
 
,T'JO A LIF1-: FOK A LIFE. 
 
 cate, and marry her. Would be had done it ! spite of all 
 broken vows to Penelope. I think my sister herself might 
 have forgiven him, if he had only honestly fallen in love with 
 poor Lydia and married her. 
 
 These things I tried to recall to papa's mind, but he an- 
 grily bade me be silent. 
 
 " I can not," I said, " because, if we had taken better 
 care of the girl, this might never have happened. When I 
 think of her her pleasant ways about the house --how she 
 used to go singing over her work of mornings, poor inno- 
 cent young thing, oh, papa ! papa !" 
 
 " Dora," he said, eying me closely, " what change has 
 come over you of late?" 
 
 I said I did not know, unless it was that which must 
 come over people who have been very unhappy the wish 
 to save other people as much unhappiness as they can. 
 
 " Explain yourself. I do not understand." 
 
 When he did, he said abruptly, 
 
 " Stop. It w r as well you waited to consult with me. If 
 your own delicacy does not teach you better, I must. My 
 daughter the daughter of the clergyman of the parish 
 can not possibly be allowed to interfere with these profli- 
 
 My heart sunk like lead. 
 
 " But you, papa ? They arc here ; you, as the rector, 
 must do something. What shall you do?" 
 
 I Fe thought a little. 
 
 " I shall forbid them the church and the sacrament, omit 
 them from my charities, and take every lawful means to get 
 them out of the neighborhood. This, for my family's sake 
 and the parish's, that they may carry their corruption else- 
 where." 
 
 " But they may not be wholly corrupt. And the child 
 that innocent, unfortunate child !" 
 
 "Silence, Dora. It is written '-The seed of evil-doers 
 slidll never be renowned. The sinless must suffer w r ith the 
 guilty ; there is no hope for either." 
 
 " Oh, pnpa," I cried, in an agony, " Christ did not say so. 
 He said, ' Go, and sin no more.' " 
 
 Was I wrong ? If I was, I suffered for it. What fol- 
 lowed was very hard to bear. 
 
 Max, if ever I am yours, altogether in your power, I won- 
 der will you ever give me those sort of bitter, cruel words ? 
 Words which people, living under the same roof, think noth- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 321 
 
 ing of using, mean nothing by them, yet they cut sharp like 
 swords. The flesh closes up after them, but oh, they bleed 
 they bleed ! Dear Max, reprove me as you will, how- 
 ever much, but let it be in love, not in anger or sarcasm. 
 Sometimes people drop carelessly, by quiet firesides, and 
 with a good-night kiss following, as papa gave to me, words 
 which leave a scar for years. 
 
 Next day I was just about to write and ask you to find 
 some other plan for helping the Cartwrights, since we nei- 
 ther of us would choose to persist in one duty at the ex- 
 pense of another, when papa called me to take a walk with 
 him. 
 
 Is it not strange the way in which good angels seem to 
 take up the thread of our dropped hopes and endeavors 
 and wind them up for us, we see not how, till it is all done ? 
 Never was I more surprised than when papa, stopping to 
 lean on my arm, and catch the warm, pleasant wind that 
 came over the moors, said suddenly : 
 
 " Dora, what could possess you to talk to me as you did 
 last night ? And why, if you had any definite scheme in 
 your head, did you relinquish it so easily?" 
 
 " Papa, you forbade it." 
 
 44 So, even when differing from your father, you consider 
 it right to obey him ?" 
 
 " Yes except " 
 
 " Say it out, child." 
 
 46 Except in the case of any duty which I felt to be not 
 less sacred than the one I owe to my father." 
 
 He made no reply. 
 
 Walking on, we passed Mrs. Cartwright's cottage. It 
 was quiet and silent, the door open, but the window-shut- 
 ter half closed, and there was no smoke from the chimney. 
 I saw papa turn round and look. At last he said, " What 
 did you mean by telling me they were ' starving ?' " 
 
 I answered the direct, entire truth. I was bold, for it 
 was your mind as well as my own I was speaking out, and 
 I knew it was right. I pleaded chiefly for the child it 
 was easiest to think of it, the little creature I had seen 
 laughing and crowing in the garden at Kensington. It 
 seemed such a dreadful thing for that helpless baby to die 
 of want, or live to turn out a reprobate. 
 
 " Think, papa," I cried, " if that poor little soul had been 
 our own flesh and blood if you were Francis's father, and 
 this had been your grandchild !" 
 
 O 2 
 
S22 A LIFE FOK A I. in-:. 
 
 To my sorrow, I had forgotten for the time a part of 
 poor Harry's story the beginning of it ; you shall know 
 it some day it is all passed now. But papa remembered 
 it. He faltered as he walked at last he sat down on a 
 tree by the road-side and said, " he must go home." 
 
 Yet still, either by accident or design, he took the way 
 by the lane where is Mrs. Cartwright's cottage. At the 
 gate of it a little ragged urchin was poking a rosy face 
 through the bars ; and, seeing papa, this small fellow gave 
 a shout of delight, tottered out, and caught hold of his coat, 
 railing him "Daddy." He started I thought he would 
 have fallen, he trembled so: my poor old father. 
 
 When I lifted the little thing out of his way, I too start- 
 ed. It is strange always to see a face you know revived 
 in a child's lace ; in this instance it was shocking pitiful. 
 ,My lirst thought was, we never must let Penelope come 
 past this way. I was carrying the boy off I well knew 
 where, when papa called me. 
 
 " Stop. Not alone not without your father." 
 
 It was but a few steps, and we stood on the door-sill of 
 31 rs. Cartwright's cottage. The old woman snatched up 
 the child, and I helaYd her whisper something about " Run 
 Lyddy run away." 
 
 But Lydia, if that white, thin creature, huddled up in 
 the corner, were she, never attempted to move. 
 
 Papa walked up to her. 
 
 " Younsr woman, are you Lydia Cartwright, and is this 
 your child?" 
 
 "Have you been meddling with him? You'd better 
 not ! I say, Franky, what have they been doing to moth- 
 er's Franky?" 
 
 She caught at him, and hugged him close, as mothers do. 
 And when the boy, evidently both attracted and puzzled by 
 papa's height and gentlemanly clothes, tried to get back to 
 him, and again called him " Daddy," she said angrily, " No, 
 no, 'tis not your daddy. They're no friends o' yours. I 
 wish they were out of the place, Franky, boy." 
 
 " You wish us away. No wonder. Are you not ashamed 
 to look us in the face my daughter and me ?" 
 
 But papa might have said ever so much more, without 
 her heeding. The child having settled himself on her lap, 
 playing with the ragged counterpane that wrapped her in- 
 stead of a shawl, Lydia seemed to care for nothing. She 
 lay back with her eyes shut, still, and white. We may be 
 sure of our thine: she has preferred to starve. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 323 
 
 "Dunnot be too hard upon her, sir," begged the old 
 woman. " Dunnot, please, Miss Dora. She bean't a lady 
 like you, and he were such a fine coaxing young gentleman. , 
 It's he that's most to blame." 
 
 My father said sternly, " Has she left him, or been desert- 
 ed by him I mean Mr. Francis Charteris ?" 
 
 " Mother," screamed Lydia, " what's that? What have 
 they come for ? Do they know any thing about him ?" 
 
 She did not, then. 
 
 " Be quiet, my lass," said the mother, soothingly, but it 
 was of no use. 
 
 u Miss Dora," cried the girl, creeping to me, and speak- 
 ing in the same sort of childish, pitiful tone in which she 
 used to come and beg Lisabel and me to intercede for her 
 when she had annoyed Penelope, " do, Miss Dora, tell me. 
 I don't want to see him, I only want to hear. I've heard 
 nothing since he sent me a letter from prison, saying I was 
 to take my things and the baby's and go. I don't know 
 what's become of him, no more than the dead. And, miss, 
 he's that boy's father miss please " 
 
 She tried to go down to her knees, but fell prone on the 
 floor. 
 
 Max, who would have thought, the day before, that this 
 day I should have been sitting with Lydia Cartwright's 
 head on my lap, trying to bring her back to this miserable 
 life of hers ; that papa would have stood by and seen me 
 do it without a word of blame ! 
 
 "It's the hunger," cried the mother. "You see, she 
 isn't used to it now; he always kept her like a lady." 
 
 Papa turned and walked out of the cottage. I afterward 
 found out that he had bought the loaf at the baker's shop 
 down the village, and got the bottle of wine from his pri- 
 vate cupboard in the vestry. He returned with both one 
 in each pocket then, sitting down on the chair, cut the 
 bread and poured out the wine, and fed these three himself, 
 with his own hands. My dear father ! 
 
 Nor did he draw back when, as she recovered, the first 
 word that came to the wretched girl's lips was " Francis." 
 
 " Mother, beg them to tell me about him. I'll do him 
 no harm, indeed I won't, neither him nor them. Is he mar- 
 ried ? Or," with a sudden gasp, " is he dead ? I've thought 
 sometimes he must be, or he never would have left the child 
 and me. He was always fond of us, wasn't he, Franky ?" 
 
 I told her, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Charteris 
 
324 A LIFE FOK A JL1FK. 
 
 was still living, but what had become of him we could none 
 of us guess. We never saw him now. 
 
 Here, looking wistfully at me, Lydia seemed suddenly to 
 remember old times, to become conscious of what she used 
 to be, and what she was now. Also, in a vague sort of 
 way, of how guilty she had been toward her mistress and 
 our family. How long, or how deep the feeling was, I can 
 not judge, but she certainly did feel. She hung her head, 
 and tried to draw herself away from my arm. 
 
 " I'd rather not trouble you, Miss Dora, thank you." 
 
 I said it was no trouble, she had better lie still till she 
 felt stronger. 
 
 " You don't mean that. Not such as me." 
 
 I told her she must know she had done very wrong, but 
 if she was sorry for it, I was sorry for her, and we would 
 help her if we could to an honest livelihood. 
 
 " What, and the child too?" 
 
 I looked toward papa ; he answered distinctly, but stern- 
 ly : " Principally for the sake of the child." 
 
 Lydia began to sob. She attempted no exculpation 
 expressed no penitence just lay and sobbed, like a child. 
 She is hardly more, even yet only nineteen, I believe. So 
 we sat papa as silent as we, resting on his stick, with his 
 eyes fixed on the cottage floor, till Lydia turned to me 
 with a sort of fright. 
 
 u What would Miss Johnston say if she knew ?" 
 
 I wondered, indeed, what my sister would say. 
 
 And here, Max you will hardly credit it, nobody would, 
 if it were an incident in a book something occurred which, 
 even now, seems hardly possible as if I must have dream- 
 ed it all. 
 
 Through the open cottage door a lady walked right in, 
 looked at us all, including the child, who stopped in its 
 munching of bread to stare at her with wide-open blue eyes 
 Francis's eyes ; and that lady was my sister Penelope. 
 
 She walked in and walked out again, before we had our 
 wits about us sufficiently to speak to her, and when I rose 
 and ran after her, she had slipped away somehow, so that 
 I could not find her. How she came to take this notion 
 into her head, after being for weeks shut up indoors ; wheth- 
 er she had discovered that the Cartwrights had returned 
 and came here in anger, or else, prompted by some restless 
 instinct, to have another look at Francis's child none of 
 us can guess ; nor have we ever dared to inquire. 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 325 
 
 When \ve got home, she was lying-in her usual place on 
 the sofa, as if she wanted us not to notice that she had 
 been out at all. Still, by papa's desire, I spoke to her 
 frankly told her the circumstances of our visit to the two 
 women the destitution in which we found them ; and 
 how they should be got away from the village as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 She made no answer whatever, but lay absorbed, as it 
 were hardly moving, except an occasional nervous twitch, 
 all afternoon and evening, until I called her in to prayers, 
 which were shorter than usual papa being very tired. 
 He only read the collect, and repeated the Lord's Prayer, 
 in which, among the voices that followed his, I distinguished, 
 with surprise, Penelope's. It had a steadiness and sweet- 
 ness such as I never heard before. And when the serv- 
 ants being gone she went up to papa, and kissed him, 
 the change in her manner was something almost startling. 
 
 " Father, when shall you want me in the district again ?" 
 said she. 
 
 "My dear girl!" 
 
 " Because I am quite ready to go. I have been ill, and 
 it has made me unmindful of many things ; but I am better 
 now. Papa, I will try to be a good daughter to you. I 
 have nobody but you." 
 
 She spoke quietly and softly, bending her head upon his 
 gray hairs. He kissed and blessed her. She kissed me, 
 too, as she passed, and then went away to bed, without any 
 more explanation. 
 
 But from that time and it is now three .days ago Pe- 
 nelope has resumed her usual place in the household taken 
 tip all her old duties, and even her old pleasures ; for I saw' 
 her in her green-house this morning. When she called me, 
 in something of the former quick, imperative voice, to look 
 at an air-plant that was just coming into flower, I could not 
 see it for tears. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is in her a difference. 3sTot her seri- 
 ous, almost elderly-looking face, nor her manner, which has 
 lost its sharpness, and is so gentle sometimes that when she 
 gives her orders the servants actually stare but the mar- 
 velous composure which is evident in her whole demeanor; 
 the bearing of a person who, having gone through that 
 sharp agony which either kills or cures, is henceforth set- 
 tled in mind and circumstances, to feel no more any strong 
 emotion, but go through life placidly and patiently, with- 
 
326 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 out much farther change, to the end. The sort of women 
 that nuns are made of or Soeurs de la Charite ; or Prot- 
 estant lay -sisters, of whom every village has some ; and al- 
 most every family owns at least one. She will, to all ap- 
 pearance, be our one our elder sister, to be regarded with 
 reverence unspeakable, and be made as happy as we pos- 
 sibly can. Max, I am learning to think with hope and 
 without pain of the future of my sister Penelope. 
 
 One word more, and this long letter ends. 
 
 Yesterday, papa and I walking on the moor met Mrs. 
 Cartwright, and learned full particulars of Lydia. From 
 your direction, her mother found her out, in a sort of fever, 
 brought on by want. Of course, every thing had been 
 taken from the Kensington cottage, for Francis's debts. 
 She was turned out with only the clothes she wore. But 
 you know all this already, through Mrs. Ansdell. 
 
 Mrs. Cartwright is sure it Avas you who sent Mrs. Ans- 
 dell to them, and that the money they received week by 
 week in their worst distress came from you. She said so 
 to papa while we stood talking. 
 
 " For it was just like our doctor, sir as is kind to poor 
 and rich I'm sure he used to look at you, sir, as if he'd 
 do any thing in the world for you as many's the time I've 
 seed him a-sitting by your bedside when you was ill. If 
 there ever was a man living as did good to every poor soul 
 as came in his way, it be Doctor Urquhart." 
 
 Papa said nothing. 
 
 After *the old woman had gone, he asked if I had any 
 plans about Lydia Cartwright. 
 
 I had one, which we must consult about when she is bet- 
 ter whether she might not, with her good education, be 
 made one of the schoolmistresses that you say go from cell 
 to cell instructing the female prisoners in these model jails. 
 But I hesitated to start this project to papa, so told him I 
 must think the matter over. 
 
 " You are growing quite a thinking woman, Dora ; who 
 taught you who put it into your mind to act as you do? 
 you, who were such a thoughtless girl. Speak out, I want 
 to know." 
 
 I told him, naming the name of my dear Max, the first 
 time it has ever passed my lips in my father's hearing since 
 that day. It was received in silence. 
 
 Some time after, stopping suddenly, papa said to me, 
 "Dora, some day, I know you will go and marry Doctor 
 FVqnhart." 
 
A LIFE FOE, A LIFE. 327 
 
 What could I say ? Deny it deny Max my love and 
 my husband ? or tell my father what was not true ? Ei- 
 ther was impossible. 
 
 So we walked on, avoiding Conversation until we camo 
 to our own church-yard, where we went in and sat dn the 
 porch, sheltering from the noon heat, which papa feels more 
 than he used to do. When he took my arm to walk home, 
 his anger had vanished ; he spoke even with a sort of mel-- 
 ancholy. 
 
 " I don't know how it is, my dear, but the world is alter- 
 ing fast. People preach strange doctrines, and act in 
 strange ways, such as were never thought of when I was 
 young. It may be for good or for evil I shall find out by- 
 and-by* I was dreaming of your mother last night ; you 
 are growing very like her, child." Then suddenly, " Only 
 wait till I am dead, and you will be free, Theodora." 
 
 My heart felt bursting ; oh, Max, you do not mind me 
 telling you these things ? What should I do if I could not 
 'ims open my heart to you ? 
 
 Yet it is not altogether with grief or without hope that 
 I have thought over what then passed between papa and 
 me. He knows you knows, too, that neither you nor I 
 have ever deceived him in any thing. He was fond of joy 
 once ; I think sometimes he misses you still, in little things 
 wherein you used to pay him attention, less like a friend 
 than a son. 
 
 Now, Max, do not think I am grieving do not imagine 
 I have cause to grieve. They are as kind to me as ever 
 they can be. My home is as happy as any home could be 
 made, except one, which, whether we shall ever find or not,. 
 God knows. In quiet evenings such as this, w^hen, after ? 
 rainy day, it has just cleared up in time for ttye sun to go 
 down, and he is going down peacefully in amber glory 
 with the trees standing up so purple and still, and the moor- 
 lands lying bright, and the hills distinct, even to their very 
 last faint rim in such evenings as this, Max, when I wan/ 
 you and can not find you, but have to learn to sit still by 
 myself, as now, I learn to think also of the meeting which 
 has no farewell, of the rest that comes to all in time, of 
 the eternal home. We shall reach that some day. 
 
 Your faithful THEODOBA. 
 
S28 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 Treherne Court, Sunday night. 
 
 MY DEAR THEODORA, The answer to my telegram has 
 just arrived, and I find it is your sister whom we are to 
 expect, not you. I shall meet her myself by the night train, 
 Treherne being quite incapable ; indeed, he will hardly stir 
 from the corridor that leads to his wife's room. 
 
 You will have heard already that the heir so ardently 
 looked for has only lived a few hours. Lady Augusta's 
 letters, which she ^ave me to address, and I took care to 
 post myself, would have assured you of your sister's safety, 
 though it was long doubtful. It will comfort you to know 
 that she is in excellent care, both her medical attendants 
 being known to me professionally, and Lady Augusta be- 
 ing a real mother to her in tenderness and anxiety. 
 
 You will wonder how I came here. It was by accident 
 taking a Saturday holiday, which is advisable now and 
 then; and Treherne's mother detained me as being the 
 only person who had any control over her son. Poor fel- 
 low ! he was almost out of his mind. He never had any 
 t r< ml >le before, and he knows not how to bear it. He trem- 
 Hed in terror thus coming face to face with that messen- 
 ger of God who puts an end to all merely mortal joys ' 
 was paralyzed at the fear of losing his blessings, whicli, nu- 
 merous as they are, are all of this world. My love, whom 
 I thought to have seen to-night, but shall not see for how 
 1'iiiLT ? things are more equally balanced than we suppose. 
 
 You will be sorry about the little one. Treherne seems 
 indifferent, his whole thought being naturally his wife; but 
 Sir William is grievously disappointed. A son, too and 
 he had planned bonfires, and bell-ringings, and rejoicings 
 all over the estate. When he stood looking at the little 
 white lump of clay, which is the only occupant of the grand 
 nursery prepared for the heir of Treherne Court, I heard 
 the old man sigh as if for a great misfortune. 
 
 You will think it none, since your sister lives. Be quite 
 content about her which is easy for me to say, when I know 
 how long and anxious the davs will seem at Rockmount. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. . 329 
 
 It might have been better for some things if yon, rather 
 than Miss Johnston, had come to take charge of yonr sis- 
 ter during her recovery, but maybe all is well as it is. 
 To-morrow I shall leave this great house, with its many 
 happinesses, which have run so near a chance of being over- 
 thrown, and go back to my own solitary life, in which noth- 
 ing of personal interest ever visits me but Theodora's let- 
 ters. 
 
 There were two things I intended to tell you in my Sun- 
 day letter ; shall I say them still ? for the more things you 
 have to think about the better, and one of them was my 
 reason for suggesting your presence here rather than your 
 eldest sister's. (Do not imagine, though, your coming was 
 urged by me wholly for other people's sakes. The sight 
 of you just for a few hours one hour People talk of 
 water in the desert the thought of a green field to those 
 who have been months at sea well, that is what a glimpse 
 of your little face would be to me. But I can not get it, 
 and I must not moan.) 
 
 What was I writing about ? Oh ! to bid you tell Mrs. 
 Cartwright from me that her daughter is well in health, 
 and doing well. After her two months' probation here, 
 the governor, to whom alone I communicated her history 
 (names omitted), pronounces her quite fitted for the situa- 
 tion, and she will be appointed thereto. This is a great 
 satisfaction to me, as she was selected solely on my recom- 
 mendation, backed by Mrs. Ansdell's letter. Say also to 
 the old woman that I trust she receives regularly the 
 money her daughter sends her through me, which indeed 
 is the only time I ever see Lydia alone. But I meet her 
 often in the wards, as she goes from cell to cell teaching 
 the female prisoners ; and it is good to see her sweet, grave 
 looks, her decent dress and mien, and her inexpressible hu- 
 mility and gentleness toward every body. She puts me in 
 mind of words you know, which in another sense other 
 hearts than poor Lydia's might often feel that those love 
 most to whom most has been forgiven. Hinting this, 
 though not in reference to her, in a conversation with the 
 governor, he observed, rather coldly, " He had heard it said 
 Doctor Urquhart held peculiar opinions upon crime and 
 punishment that, in fact, he was a little too charitable." 
 
 I sighed, thinking that, of all men, Doctor Urquhart was 
 the one who had the most reason to be charitable, and the 
 governor fixed his eyes upon me somewhat unpleasantly. 
 
330 A LIFE FOK A LirE. 
 
 Any one running counter, as I do, to several popular prej- 
 udices, is sure not to be without enemies. I should be sor- 
 ry, though, to have displeased so honest a man, and one 
 who, widely as we differ in some things, is always safe to 
 deal with, from his possessing that rare quality, justice. 
 
 You see, I go on writing to you of my matters just as 1 
 should talk to you if you sat by my side now, with your 
 hand in mine and your head here. (So you found two 
 gray hairs in those long locks of yours last week. Never 
 mind, love. To me you will be always young.) 
 
 I write as I hope to talk to you one day. I never was 
 among those who believe that a man should keep all his 
 cares secret from his wife. If she is a true wife, she will 
 soon read them on his face, or the effect of them ; he had 
 better tell them out, and have them over. I have learned 
 many things since I found my Theodora ; among the rest 
 is, that when a man marries, or loves with the hope of mar- 
 rying, let him have been ever so reserved, his whole nature 
 opens out he becomes another creature, in degree toward 
 every body, but most of all to her he has chosen. How 
 altered I am you would smile to see, were my little lady to 
 compare these long letters with the brief, business-like pro- 
 ductions which have heretofore borne the signature " Max 
 Urquhart." 
 
 I prize my name a little. It has been honorable for a 
 number of years. My father was proud of it, and Dallas. 
 Do you like it ? Will you like it. when if No, let me 
 trust in Heaven, and say when you bear it ? 
 
 Those papers of mine which you saw mentioned in the 
 Times I am glad Mr. Johnston read them ; or, at least, 
 you suppose he did. I believe they are doing good, and 
 that my name is becoming pretty well known in connection 
 with them, especially in this town. A provincial reputa- 
 tion has its advantages ; it is more undoubted more com- 
 plete. In London a man may shirk and hide ; his nearest 
 acquaintance can scarcely know him thoroughly : but in the 
 provinces it is different. There, if he has a flaw in him, 
 either as to his antecedents, his character, or conduct, be 
 sure scandal will find it out, for she has every opportunity. 
 Also public opinion is at once stricter and more narrow- 
 minded in a place like this than in a great metropolis. I 
 am glad to be earning a good name here, in this honest, 
 hard-working, commercial district, where my fortunes are 
 apparently cr.st, and where, having been a " rolling stone" 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 331 
 
 all my life, I mean to settle and " gather moss" if I can 
 moss to make a little nest soft and warm for my love 
 knows who. 
 
 Writing this about the impossibility of keeping any thing 
 secret in a town like this reminds me of something which I 
 was in doubt about telling you or 'not ; finally I have de- 
 cided that I will tell you. Your sister being absent will 
 make things easier for you. You will not have need to 
 use any of those concealments which must be so painful in 
 a home. Nevertheless, I do think Miss Johnston ought to 
 be kept ignorant of the fact that I believe nay, am almost 
 certain -Mr. Francis Charteris is at this present time living 
 in Liverpool. 
 
 No winder that all my inquiries about him in London 
 failed. He has just been discharged from this very jail. 
 It is more than likely he was arrested for liabilities long 
 owing, or contracted after his last fruitless visit to his un- 
 cle, Sir William. I could easily find out, but hardly con- 
 sider it delicate to make inquiries, as I did not, you know, 
 after the debtor whom a turnkey here reported to have 
 said he knew me. Debtors are not criminals by law their 
 ward is justly held private. I never visit any of them un- 
 less they come into hospital. 
 
 Therefore my meeting with Mr. Charteris was purely ac- 
 cidental. Nor do I believe he recognized me I had step- 
 ped aside into the warder's room. The two other dis- 
 charged debtors passed through the entrance-gate, and 
 quitted the jail immediately ; but he lingered, desiring a 
 car to be sent for, and inquiring where one could get hand- 
 some and comfortable lodgings in this horrid Liverpool. 
 He hated a commercial town. 
 
 You will ask, woman-like, how he looked ? Ill and worn, 
 with something of the shabby, "poor gentleman" aspect, 
 with which we here are only too familiar. I overheard the 
 turnkey joking with the carman about taking him to " hand- 
 some rooms." Also, there was about him an ominous air 
 of what we in Scotland call the " down-draught ;" a term 
 the full meaning of which you probably do not understand 
 I trust you never may. 
 
 *" # # * * # * 
 
 You will see by its date how many days ago the first 
 part of this letter was written. I kept it back till the cruel 
 suspense of your sister's sudden relapse was ended think- 
 ing it a pity your mind should be burdened with any addi- 
 
332 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 tional care. You htfve had, in the mean time, the daily 
 bulletin from Treherne Court the daily line from me. 
 
 How are you, my child ? for you have forgotten to say. 
 Any roses out on your poor cheeks ? Look in the glass 
 and tell me. I must know, or I must come and see. Re- 
 member, your life is a part of mine now. 
 
 Mrs. Treherne is convalescent as you know. I saw her 
 <v.i Monday for the first time. She is changed, certainly ; 
 it will be long before she is any thing like the Lisabel 
 Johnston of my recollection, full of health and physical en- 
 joyment. But do not grieve. Sometimes, to have gone 
 near the gates of death, and returned, hallows the whole 
 future life. I thought, as I left her, lying contentedly on 
 her sofa, with her hand in her husband's, who sits watch- 
 ing as if truly she were given back to him from the grave, 
 that it may be good for those two to have been so nearly 
 parted. It may teach them, according to a line you once 
 repeated to me (you see, though I am not poetical, I re- 
 member all your bits of poetry), to 
 
 * ' hold every mortal joy 
 With a loose hand," 
 
 since nothing finite is safe, unless overshadowed by the be- 
 lief in and the glory of the Infinite. 
 
 My dearest my best of every earthly thing whom to 
 ba parted from temporarily, as now, often makes me feel 
 as if half myself were wanting whom to lose out of this 
 world would be a loss irremediable, and to leave behind in 
 it would be the sharpest sting of death better, I have 
 sometimes thought, of late better be you and I than Tre- 
 herne and Lisabel. 
 
 In all these letters I have scarcely mentioned Penelope 
 you see I am learning to name your sisters as if mine. 
 She, however, has treated me almost like a stranger in the 
 few times we happened to meet until last Monday. 
 
 I had left the happy group in the library Treherne, 
 tearing himself from his wife's sofa honest fellow ! to fol- 
 low me to the door where he wrung my hand, and said, 
 with a sob like a schoolboy, that he had never been so 
 happy in his life before, and he hoped he was thankful for 
 it. Your eldest sister, who sat in the window sewing 
 her figure put me somewhat in mind of you, little lady 
 bade me good-by she was going back to Rockmount in a 
 few days. 
 
 I quitted them, and walked alone across the park, where 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. ( 333 
 
 the chestnut-trees you remember them are beginning 
 not only to change, but to fall; thinking how fast the years 
 go, and how little there is in them of positive joy. Wrong, 
 this! and I know it; but, my love, I sin sorely at times. 
 I nearly forgot a small patient I have at the lodge gates, 
 who is slipping so gradually, but surely, poor wee man ! 
 into the world where he will be a child forever. After sit- 
 ting with him half an hour, I came out better. 
 
 A lady was waiting outside the lodge gates. When I 
 saw who it was, I meant to bow and pass on, but Miss 
 Johnston called me. From her face, I dreaded it was some 
 ill news about you. 
 
 Your sister is a good woman and a kind. 
 
 She said to me, when her explanations had set my mind 
 at ease, 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart, I believe you are a man to be trusted. 
 Dora trusts you. Dora once said you would be just, even 
 to your enemies." 
 
 I answered, I hoped it was something more than justice 
 that we owed, even to our enemies. 
 
 " That is not the question," she said, sharply ; " I spoke 
 only of justice. I would not do an injustice to the meanest 
 thing the vilest wretch that crawls." 
 
 "No." 
 
 She went on : 
 
 "I have not liked you, Doctor Urquhart ; nor do I know 
 if my feelings are altered now but I respect you. There- 
 fore, you are the only person of whom I can ask a favor. 
 It is a secret. Will you keep it so ?" 
 
 " Except from Theodora." 
 
 " You are right. Have no secrets from Theodora. For 
 her sake and your own for your whole life's peace never, 
 even in the lightest thing, deceive that poor child !" 
 
 Her voice sharpened, her black eyes glittered a moment, 
 and then she shrank back into her usual self. I see exactly 
 the sort of woman, which, as you say, she will grow into 
 sister Penelope aunt Penelope. Every one belonging to 
 her must try, henceforth, to spare her every possible pang. 
 
 After a few moments, I begged her to say what I could 
 do for her. 
 . " Read this letter, and tell me if you think it is true." 
 
 It was addressed to Sir William Treherne ; the last hum- 
 ble appeal of a broken-down man ; the signature, " Francis 
 Charteris." 
 
33-i A LIFE FOR A Lll K. 
 
 I tried my best to disguise the emotion which Miss John- 
 ston herself did not show, and returned the letter, merely 
 inquiring if Sir William had answered it. 
 
 u No ; he will not. He disbelieves the i'arts." 
 
 "Do you, also?" 
 
 " I can not say. The the writer was not always accu- 
 rate in his statements." 
 
 Women are, in some things, stronger and harder than 
 men. I doubt if any man could have spoken as steadily as 
 your sister did at this minute. While I explained to her, 
 as I thought it right to do, though with the manner of one 
 talking of a stranger to a stranger, the present position of 
 Mr. Charteris, she replied not a syllable. Only passing a 
 felled tree she suddenly sank down upon it, and sat motion- 
 
 " What is he to do?" she said, at la<t. 
 
 I replied that the Insolvent Court could free him from 
 his debts and grant him protection from farther imprison- 
 ment ; that though, thus sunk in circumstances, a govern- 
 ment situation was hardly to be hoped for, still there were 
 in Liverpool clerkships and mercantile opportunities, in 
 which any person so well educated as he might begin the 
 world airain, health permitting. 
 
 " His health was never good has it failed him?" 
 
 " I fear so." 
 
 Your sister turned away. She sat we both sat for 
 some time so still that a bright-eyed squirrel came and 
 peeped at us, stole a nut a few yards off, and scuttled away 
 with it to Mrs. Squirrel and the little ones up in a tall syca- 
 more hard by. 
 
 I begged Miss Johnston to let me see the address once 
 more, and I would pay a visit, friendly or medical, as the 
 might allow, to Mr. Charteris on my way home to- 
 night. 
 
 " Thank you, Doctor Urquhart." 
 
 I then rose and took leave, time being short. 
 
 " Stay, one word if you please. In that visit you will, 
 of course, say, if inquired, that you learned the address 
 from Treherne Court. You will name no other names ?" 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " But afterward you will write to me ?" 
 
 "I will." 
 
 We shook hands, and I left her sitting there on the dead 
 tree. I went on, wondering if any thing would result f Vein 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 335 
 
 this curious combination of accidents ; also, whether a 
 woman's love, if cut off at the root, even like this tree, 
 could be actually killed, so that nothing could revive it 
 again. What think you, Theodora ? 
 
 But this trick of moralizing caught from you shall not 
 be indulged. There is only time for the relation of bare 
 facts. 
 
 The train brought me to the opposite shore of our river, 
 not half a mile's walk from Mr. Charteris's lodgings. They 
 seemed " handsome lodgings," as he said ; a tall, new house, 
 one of the many which, only half built, or half inhabited, 
 make this Birkenhead such a dreary place. But it is im- 
 proving year by year. I sometimes think it may be quite 
 a busy and cheerful spot by the time I take a house here, 
 as I intend. You will like a hill-top and a view of the sea. 
 
 I asked for Mr. Charteris, and stumbled up the half- 
 lighted stairs into the wholly dark drawing-room. 
 
 " Who the devil's there ?" 
 
 He was in hiding, you must remember, as, indeed, I 
 ought to have done, and so taken the precaution first to 
 send up my name, but I was afraid of non-admittance. 
 
 When the gas was lit, his pale, unshaven, sallow counte- 
 nance, his state of apparent illness and weakness made me 
 cease to regret having gained entrance under any circum- 
 stances. Recognizing me, he muttered some apology. 
 
 "I was asleep; I usually do sleep after dinner." Then, 
 recovering his confused faculties, he asked with some 
 hauteur, " To what may I attribute the pleasure of seeing 
 Doctor Urquhart ? Are you, like myself, a mere bird of 
 passage, or a resident in Liverpool ?" 
 
 " I am a surgeon of jail." 
 
 " Indeed, I was not aware. A good appointment, I hope. 
 And what jail did you say ?" . 
 
 I named it again and left the subject. If he chose to 
 wrap himself in that thin cloak of deception, it was no 
 business of mine to tear it oif. Besides, one pities a ruined 
 man's most petty pride. 
 
 But it was an awkward position. You know how 
 haughty Mr. Charteris can be ; you know also that unlucky 
 peculiarity in me, call it Scotch shyness, cautiousness, or 
 what you please, my little English girl must cure if she? 
 can. Whether or not it w^as my fault, I soon felt that this 
 visit was turning out a complete failure. We conversed 
 in the ci vilest manner, though somewhat disjointedly, on 
 
336 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 politics, the climate and trade of Liverpool, etc. ; but of 
 .Mr. Charteris and his real condition I learned no more 
 than if I were meeting him at a London dinner-party, or a 
 supper with poor Tom Turton, who is dead, as you know. 
 Mr. Charteris did not, it seems, and his startled exclama- 
 tion at hearing the fact was the only natural expression 
 during my whole visit ; which, after a few rather broad 
 liints, I took the opportunity of a letter's being brought in 
 to terminate. 
 
 Not, however, with any intention on my side of its being 
 a final one. The figure of this wretched-looking invalid, 
 though he would not own to illness men seldom will 
 lying in the solitary, tireless lodging-house parlor, where 
 there was no indication of food, and a strong smell of opi- 
 um, followed me all the way to the jetty, suggesting plan 
 alter plan concerning him. 
 
 You can not think how pretty even our dull river looks 
 of a night, with its two longjines of lighted shores, and other 
 lights scattered between in all directions, every vessel's rig- 
 -iii-j: bearing one. And to-night, above all things, was a 
 large, bright moon, sailing up over innumerable white 
 clouds, into the clear, dark zenith, converting the town of 
 Liver] Mini into a fairy city, and the muddy Mersey into a 
 plea>:mt river, crossed by a pathway of silver, such as one 
 always looks at with a kind of hope that it would lead to 
 " some bright isle of rest." There was a song to that ef- 
 tlvt popular when Dallas and I were boys. 
 
 As the boat moved off, I settled myself to enjoy the 
 brief seven minutes of crossing thinking, if I had but the 
 little face by me looking up into the moonlight she is so 
 fond of, the little hand to keep warm in mine ! 
 
 And now, Theodora, I come to something which you 
 must use your own judgment about telling your sister Pe- 
 nelope. 
 
 Half way across, I was attracted by the peculiar manner 
 of a passenger, who had leaped on the boat just as we were 
 shoved off, and now stood still as a carved figure, staring 
 down into the foamy track of the paddle-wheels. He was 
 so absorbed that he did not notice rne, but I recognized him 
 at once, and an ugly suspicion entered my mind. 
 
 In my time I have had opportunities of witnessing, stage 
 by stage, that disease call it dyspepsia, hypochondriasis, 
 or what you will it has all names and all forms which is 
 peculiar to our present state of high civilization, where the 
 
A LIFE FOR, A LIFE. V$37 
 
 mind and the body seem cultivated into perpetual warfare 
 one with the other. This statt some people put poetical 
 names upon it but we doctors know that it is at least as 
 much physical as mental, and that many a poor misanthrope, 
 who loathes himself and the world, is merely an unfortu- 
 nate victim of stomach and nerves, whom rest, natural liv- 
 ing, and an easy mind would soon make a man again. But 
 that does not remove the pitifulness and danger of the case. 
 While the man is w T hat he is, he is little better than a mon- 
 omaniac. 
 
 If I had not seen him before, the expression of his coun- 
 tenance, as he stood looking down into the river, would 
 have been enough to convince me how necessary it was to 
 keep a strict watch over Mr. Charteris. 
 
 When the rush of passengers to the gangway made our 
 side of the boat nearly deserted, he sprang up to the steps 
 of the paddle-box, and there stood. 
 
 I once saw a man commit suicide. It was one of ours, 
 returning from the Crimea. He had been drinking hard, 
 and was put under restraint, for fear of delirium tremens ; 
 but when he was thought recovered, one day, at broad 
 noon, in sight of all hands, he suddenly jumped overboard. 
 I caught sight of his face as he did so it was exactly the 
 expression of Francis Charteris. 
 
 Perhaps, in any case, you had better never repeat the 
 whole of this to your sister. 
 
 Not till after a considerable struggle did I pull him down 
 to the safe deck once more. There he stood breathless. 
 
 "You were not surely going to drown yourself, Mr. 
 Charteris?" 
 
 "I was. And I will." 
 
 " Try, and I shall call the police to prevent your making 
 such an ass of yourself." 
 
 It was no time to choose words, and in this sort of dis- 
 ease the best preventive one can use, next to a firm, impera- 
 tive will, is ridicule. He answered nothing but gazed at 
 me in simple astonishment, while I took his arm and led 
 him out of the boat and across the. landing-stage. 
 
 " I beg your pardon for using such strong language, but a 
 man must be an ass indeed who contemplates such a thing ; 
 here, too, of ah 1 places. To be fished up out of this dirty 
 river, like a dead rat, for the entertainment of the crowd ; 
 to make a capital case at the magistrate's court to-morrow, 
 and a first-rate paragraph in the Liverpool Mercury ; At- 
 
T>8 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 tempted Suicide of a Gentleman.' Or, if you really suc- 
 ceeded, which I doubt, to be 'Found Drowned' a mere 
 luxlv, drifted ashore with cocoa-nut husks and cabbages at 
 Waterloo, or brought in as I once saw at these very stairs, 
 >;h- of the many poor fools who do this here yearly. They . 
 h;id licked him up eight miles higher up the river, and so 
 brought him down lashed- behind a rowing boat, floating 
 lace upward " 
 "Ah!" 
 
 I felt Charteris shudder. 
 
 You will, too, my love* so I will repeat no more of what 
 
 I said to him. But these ghastly pictures w r ere the strong- 
 
 LTunuMUs available with such a man. What was the 
 
 t talking to him of God, and life, and immortality? he 
 
 had told me he believed in none of these things. But ho 
 
 believed in death the Epicurean's view of it " to lie in 
 
 cold obstruction and to rot." I thought, and still think, 
 
 that it was best to use any lawful means to keep him from 
 
 repeating the attempt. Best to save the man first, and 
 
 preach to him afterward. 
 
 He and I walked up and down the streets of Liverpool 
 almost in silence, except when he darted into the first chem- 
 ist's shop he saw to procure opium. 
 
 " Don't hinder me," he said, imploringly, " it is the only 
 thing that keeps me alive." 
 
 Then I walked him about once more, till his pace flagged, 
 his limbs tottered, he became thoroughly passive and ex- 
 hausted. I called a car, and expressed my determination 
 to see him safe home. 
 
 " Home ! No, no, I must not go there." And the poor 
 fellow summoned all his faculties, in order to speak ration- 
 ally. "You see, a gentleman in my unpleasant circum- 
 stances in short, could you recommend any place a quiet, 
 out-of-the-way place, where where I could hide ?" 
 
 I had suspected things w^ere thus. And now, if I lost 
 sight of him even for twenty-four hours, he might be lost 
 permanently. He was in that critical state when the next 
 step, if it were not to a prison, might be into a lunatic 
 asylum. 
 
 It was not difficult to persuade him that the last place 
 where creditors would search for a debtor would be inside 
 a jail, nor to convey him, half stupefied as he was, into my 
 own rooms, and leave him fast asleep on my bed. 
 
 Yet, even now, I can not account for the influence I so soon 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 339 
 
 gained, and kept ; except that any person in his seven 
 senses always has power over another nearly out of them, 
 and to a sick man there is no autocrat like the doctor. 
 
 Now for his present condition. The day following, I re- 
 moved him to a country lodging, where an old woman 1 
 know will look after him. The place is humble enough, 
 but they are honest people. He may lie safe there till some 
 portion of health returns ; his rent, etc. my prudent little 
 lady will be sure to be asking after my " circumstances" 
 well, love, his rent for the next month, at least, I can easily 
 afford to pay. The present is provided for as to his fu- 
 ture, heaven only knows. 
 
 I wrote, according to promise, to your sister Penelope, 
 explaining where Mr. Charteris was, his state of health, and 
 the position of his affairs ; also, my advice, which he neither 
 assents to nor declines, that, as soon as his health will per- 
 mit, he should surrender himself in London, go through 
 the Insolvent Court, and start anew in life. A hard life, at 
 best, since, whatever situation he may obtain, it will take 
 years to free him from all his liabilities. 
 
 Miss Johnston's answer I received this morning. It was 
 merely an envelope containing a bank note of 20, Sir "Wil- 
 liam's gift, possibly ; I told her he had better be made 
 aware of his nephew's abject state or do you suppose it 
 is from herself? I thought beyond your quarterly allow- 
 ance, you had none of you much ready money ? If there 
 is any thing I ought to know before applying this sum to 
 the use of Mr. Charteris, you will, of course, tell me ? 
 
 I have been to see him this afternoon. It is a poor room 
 he lies in, but clean and quiet. He will not stir out of it ; it 
 was with difficulty I persuaded him to have the window 
 opened, so that we might enjoy the still autumn sunshine, 
 the church bells, and the little robin's song. Turning back 
 to the sickly drawn face, buried in the sofa-pillows, my 
 heart smote me with a heavy doubt as to what was to be 
 the end of Francis Charteris. 
 
 Yet I do not think he will die ; but he will be months, 
 years in recovering, even if he is ever his old self again 
 bodily, I mean ; whether his inner self is undergoing any 
 change, I have small means of judging. The best thing for 
 him, both mentally and physically, would be a fond, good 
 woman's constant care ; but that he can not have. 
 
 I need scarcely say I have taken every precaution thai, 
 he should never see nor hear any thing of Lydia, nor sha 
 
340 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 of him. He has never named her, nor any one ; past and 
 future seem alike swept out of his mind ; he only lives in 
 the miserable present, a helpless, hopeless, exacting invalid. 
 Not on any account would I have Lydia Cartwright see him 
 DOW. If I judge her countenance rightly, she is just the 
 girl to do exactly what you women are so prone to for- 
 give every thing, sacrifice every thing, and go back to the 
 old love. Ah ! Theodora, what am I that I should dare to 
 speak thus lightly of women's love, women's forgiveness ! 
 
 I am glad Mr. Johnston allows you occasionally to see 
 Mrs. Cartwright and the child, and that the little fellow is 
 so well cared for by his grandmother. If, with his father's 
 face, he inherits his father's temperament, the nervously 
 sensitive organization of a modern "gentleman," as op- 
 posed to the healthy animalism of a working man, life will 
 be an uphill road to that poor boy. 
 
 His mother's heart aches after him sorely at times, as I 
 can plainly perceive. Yesterday, I saw her stand watching 
 the line of female convicts those with infants as one aft- 
 er the other they filed out, each with her baby in her arms, 
 and passed into the exercising ground. Afterward, I watch- 
 ed her slip into one of the empty cells, fold up a child's cap 
 that had been left lying about, and look at it wistfully, as 
 if she almost envied the forlorn occupant of that dreary 
 nook, where, at least, the mother had her child with her 
 continually. Poor Lydia! she may have been a girl of 
 weak will, easily led astray, but I am convinced that the 
 only thing which led her astray must have been, and will 
 always be, her affections. 
 
 Perhaps, as the grandmother can not write, it would be 
 a comfort to Lydia if your next letter enabled me to give 
 to her a fuller account of the welfare of little Frank. I 
 wonder, does his father ever think of him, or of the poor 
 mother ? He was " always kind to them," you tell me she 
 declared ; possibly fond of them, so far as a selfish man can 
 be. But how can such a one as he understand what it 
 must be to be a father ! 
 
 My love, I must cease writing now. It is midnight, and 
 I have to take as much sleep as I can ; my work is very 
 hard just at present ; but happy work, because, through it, 
 I look forward to a future. 
 
 Your father's brief message of thanks for my telegram 
 about Mr. Treherne was kind. Will you acknowledge it 
 in the way you consider would be most pleasing that is, 
 least unpleasing, to him, from me ? 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 341 
 
 And now farewell farewell, my only darling. 
 
 MAX URQTJHART. 
 
 P.S. After the fashion of a lady's letter, though not, I 
 trust, with the most important fact therein. Though I re- 
 open my letter to inform you of it, lest you might learn it 
 in some other way, I consider it of very slight moment, and 
 only name it because these sort of small unpleasantnesses 
 have a habit of growing like snow-balls every yard they roll. 
 
 Our chaplain has just shown me in this morning's paper 
 a paragraph about myself, not complimentary, and decid- 
 edly ill-natured. It hardly took me by surprise ; I have of 
 late occasionally caught stray comments, not very flatter- 
 ing, on myself and my proceedings, but they troubled me 
 little. I know that a man in my position, with aims far 
 beyond his present circumstances, with opinions too obsti- 
 nate and manners too blunt to get these aims carried out, 
 as many do, by the aid of other and more influential peo- 
 ple, such a man must have enemies. 
 
 Be not afraid, love mine are few ; and be sure I have 
 given them no cause for animosity. True, I have contra- 
 dicted some, and not many men can stand contradiction 
 but I have wronged no man to my knowledge. My con- 
 science is clear. So they may spread what absurd reports 
 or innuendoes they will I shall live it all down. 
 
 My spirit seems to have had a douche-bath this morning, 
 cold, but salutary. This tangible annoyance will brace me 
 out of a little feeble-heartedness that has been growing 
 over me of late ; so be content, my Theodora. 
 
 I send you the newspaper paragraph. Read it, and 
 burn it. 
 
 Is Penelope come home ? I need scarcely observe, that 
 only herself and you are acquainted, or will be, with any 
 of the circumstances I have related with respect to Mr. 
 Charteris. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIY. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 A FOURTH Monday, and my letter has not come. Oh, 
 Max, Max ! You are not ill, I know ; for Augustus saw 
 you on Saturday. Why were you in such haste to slip 
 away from him ? He himself even noticed it. 
 
A LIFE FOP* A LIFE. 
 
 For me, had I not then heard of your well-being, I should 
 have disquieted myself sorely. Three weeks twenty-one \ 
 i lays it is a long time to go about as if there were a stone ) 
 lying in the corner of one's heart, or a thorn piercing it. / 
 One may not acknowledge this : one's reason, or better, ( 
 one's love, may often quite argue it down ; yet, it is there, j 
 This morning, when the little postman went whistling past 
 Rockmount gate, I turned almost sick with fear. 
 
 Understand me not with one sort of fear. Faithless- 
 ness or forgetfulness are well, with you they are simply 
 impossible ! But you are my Max ; any thing happening 
 to you happens to me ; nothing can hurt you without hurt- 
 ing me. Do you feel this as I do ? if so, surely, under any 
 circumstances, you would write. 
 
 Forgive ! I meant not to blame you ; we never ought to 
 blame what we can not understand. Besides, all this sus- 
 pense may end to-morrow. Max does not intend to wound 
 me ; Max loves me. 
 
 Just now, sitting quiet, I seemed to hear you saying, 
 c - My little lady," as distinctly as if you were close at hand, 
 and had called me. Yet it is a year since I have heard the 
 sound of your voice, or seen your face. 
 
 Augustus says, of late you have turned quite gray. 
 Nfever mind, Max ! I like silver locks. An old man I knew 
 used to say, " At the root of every gray hair is a cell of 
 wisdom/' How will you be able to bear with the foolish- 
 ness of this me ? Yet all the better for you. I know you 
 would soon be ten years younger looks and all if, after 
 your hard work, you had a home to come back to, and 
 and me. 
 
 See how conceited we grow ! See the demoralizing re- 
 sult of having been for a whole year loved and cared for ; 
 of knowing ourselves, for the first time in our lives, first 
 object to somebody ! 
 
 There now, I can laugh again ; and so I may begin and 
 write mjr letter. It shall not be a sad or complaining let- 
 ter, if I can help it. 
 
 Spring is coming on fast. I never . remember such a 
 March. Buds of chestnuts bursting, blackbirds singing, 
 primroses out in the lane, a cloud of snowy wind-flowers 
 gleaming through the trees of my favorite wood, concern- 
 ing which, you remember, we had our celebrated battle 
 about blue-bells and hyacinths. These are putting out their 
 leaves already; there will be such quantities this year. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 343 
 
 How I should like to show you my bank of ahem ! Hue- 
 bells ! 
 
 Mischievous still, you perceive. Obstinate, likewise ; al- 
 most as obstinate as you. 
 
 Augustus hints at some " unpleasant business" you have 
 been engaged in lately. I conclude some controversy, in 
 which you have to " hold your own" more firmly than us- 
 ual. Or new " enemies" business foes only, of course, 
 about which you told me I must not grieve ; you will live 
 down any passing animosity. It w r ill be all smooth sailing 
 by-and-by. But in the mean time, why not tell me ? I am 
 not a child and am to be your wife, Max. 
 
 Ah! now the thorn is out, the one little sting of pain. 
 It isn't this child you were fond of, this ignorant, foolish, 
 naughty child, it is your wife, whom you yourself chose, to 
 whom you yourself gave her place and her rights, who 
 comes to you with her heart full of love and says, "Max, 
 tell me !" ' 
 
 Now, no more of this, for I have much to tell you I tell 
 you every thing. 
 
 You know how quietly this winter has slipped away with 
 us at Rockmount ; how, from the time Penelope returned, 
 she and I seemed to begin our lives anew together, in one 
 sense beginning almost as little children, living entirely -in 
 the present ; content with each day's work and each day's 
 pleasure and it w^as wonderful how many small pleasures 
 we found never allowing ourselves either to dwell on the 
 future or revert to the past, except w T hen, by your desire, 
 I told my sister of Francis's having passed through the In- 
 solvent Court, and how you were hoping to obtain for him 
 a situation as corresponding clerk. . Poor Francis ! all his 
 grand German and Spanish to have sunk down to the 
 writing of a merchant's business letters, in a musty Liver- 
 pool office ! Will he ever bear it ? Well, except this time, 
 and once afterward, his name has . never been mentioned, 
 either by Penelope or me. 
 
 The second time happened thus I did not tell you then, 
 so I will now. When our Christmas bills came in our 
 private ones, my sister had no money to meet^them. I 
 soon guessed that as, from your letter, I hacl already 
 guessed where her half-yearly allowance had gone. I was 
 perplexed, for though she now confides to me nearly every 
 thing of her daily concerns, she has never told me that. 
 Yet she must have known I knew that you would be sure 
 to tell me. 
 
344 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 At last, one morning, as I was passing the door of her 
 room, she called me in. 
 
 She was standing before a chest of drawers, which, I had 
 noticed, she always kept locked. But to-day the top drawer 
 was open, and out of a small jewel-case that lay on it she 
 had taken a string of pearls. 
 
 " You remember this ?" 
 
 Ah ! yes. But Penelope looked steadily at it ; so, of 
 course, did I. 
 
 " Have you any idea, Dora, what it is worth, or how much 
 Sir William gave for it ?" 
 
 I knew : for Lisabel had told me herself, in the days when 
 we were all racking our brains to find out suitable marriage 
 presents for the governor's lady. 
 
 " Do you think it would be wrong, or that the Trehernes 
 \vould be annoyed if I sold it ?" 
 
 "Sold it!" ' 
 
 " I have no money and my bills must be paid. It is 
 not dishonest to sell what is one's own, though it may be 
 somewhat painful." 
 
 I could say nothing. The pain w r as keen even to me. 
 
 She t'un reminded me how Mrs. Granton had once ad- 
 mired these pearls, saying, when Colin married she should 
 like to give her daughter-in-law just such another necklace. 
 
 " If she would buy it now if you would not mind ask- 
 in o- her " 
 
 "No, no!" 
 
 "Thank you, Dora." 
 
 She replaced the necklace in its case, and gave it into my 
 hand. I was slipping out of the room when she said, 
 
 " One moment, child. There was something mof e I wish- 
 ed to say to you. Look here." 
 
 She unlocked drawer after drawer. There lay, carefully 
 arranged, all her wedding-clothes, even to the white silk 
 dress, the wreath, and veil. Every thing was put away in 
 Penelope's own tidy, over-particular fashion, wrapped in 
 silver paper, or smoothly folded, with sprigs of lavender 
 between. She must have done it leisurely and orderly, 
 after her peculiar habit, which made us, when she was only 
 a girl of seventeen, tease Penelope by calling her " old 
 maid !" 
 
 Even now, she paused more than once, to refold or re- 
 arrange something tenderly, as one would arrange the 
 clothes of a person who was dead then closed and locked 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 345 
 
 every drawer, putting the key, not on her household-bunch, 
 but in a corner of her desk. 
 
 " I should not like any thing touched in my lifetime, but, 
 should I die not that this is likely ; I believe I shall live 
 to be an old woman still, should I die, you will know 
 where these things are. Do with them exactly what you 
 think best. And if money is wanted for " She stopped, 
 and then, for the first time, I heard her pronounce his 
 name, distinctly and steadily, like any other name, "for 
 Francis Charteris, or any one belonging to him sell them. 
 You will promise ?" 
 
 I promised. 
 
 Mrs. Granton, dear soul ! asked no questions, but "took 
 the necklace, and gave me the money, which I brought to 
 my sister. She received it without a word. 
 
 After this, all went on as heretofore ; and though some- 
 times I have felt her eye upon me when I was opening 
 your letters, as if she fancied there might be something to 
 hear, still, since there never was any thing, I thought it 
 best to take no notice. But Max, I wished often, and 
 wish now, -that you would tell me if there is any special 
 reason why, for so many weeks, you have never mentioned 
 Francis ? 
 
 I was telling you about Penelope. She has fallen into 
 her old busy ways busier than ever, indeed. She looks 
 well too, "quite herself again," as Mrs. Granton whispered 
 to me, one morning when wonderful event I had per- 
 suaded my sister that we ought to drive over to lunch at 
 the Cedars, and admire all the preparations for the recep- 
 tion of Mrs. Colin, next month. 
 
 " I would not have liked to ask her," added the good old 
 lady ; " but, since she did come, I am glad. The sight of 
 my young folk's happiness will not pain her? She has 
 really got over her trouble, you think ?" 
 
 " Yes, yes," I said hastily, for Penelope was coming up 
 the green-house walk. Yet, when I observed her, it seem- 
 ed not herself but a new self such as is only born of sor- 
 row which smiled out of her poor thin face, made her move 
 softly, speak affectionately, and listen patiently to all the 
 countless details about "my Colin" and "my daughter 
 Emily" (bless the dear old lady, I hope she will find her a 
 real daughter). And though most of the way home we 
 were both more silent than usual, something in Penelope's 
 countenance made me, not sad or anxious, but inly awed, 
 
 P2 
 
340 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 marveling at its exceeding peace. A peace such as I could 
 have imagined in those who had brought all their earthly 
 possessions and laid them at the apostles' feet ; or holier 
 still, and therefore happier who had left all, taken up 
 their cross, and followed Him. Him who through His 
 life and death taught the perfection of all sacrifice, self- 
 sacrifice. 
 
 I may write thus, Max, may I not? It is like talking to 
 myself, talking to you. 
 
 It was on this very drive home that something happened, 
 which I am going to relate as literally as I can, for I think 
 you ought to know it. It will make you love my sister as 
 I love her, which is saying a good deal. 
 
 Watching her, I almost forgive, dear Max ! but I al- 
 most forgot my letter to you, safely written overnight, to 
 be posted on our way home from the Cedars ; till Penelope 
 thought of a village post-office we had just passed. 
 
 " Don't vex yourself, child," she said, "you shall cross 
 the moor again ; you will be quite in time : and I will drive 
 round, and meet you just beyond the ponds." 
 
 And, in my hurry, I utterly forgot that cottage you 
 know, which she has never yet been near, nor is aware who 
 live in it. Not till I had posted my letter, did I call to 
 mind that she would be passing Mrs. Cartwright's very 
 door ! 
 
 However, it was too late to alter plans, so I resolved not 
 to fret about it. And, somehow the spring feeling came 
 over me ; the smell of furze-blossoms, and of green leaves 
 budding; the vague sense as if some new blessing were 
 coming with the coming year. And, though i had not 
 Max with me, to admire my one stray violet that I found, 
 and listen to my lark the first, singing up in his white 
 cloud, still I thought of you, and I loved you ! With a 
 love that, I think, those only feel who have suffered, and 
 suffered together; a love that, though it may have known 
 a few pains, has never, thank God, known a single doubt. 
 And so you did not feel so far away. 
 
 Then I walked on as fast as I could to meet the pony- 
 carriage, which I saw crawling along the road round the 
 turn past the very cottage. My heart beat so ! But Pe- 
 nelope drove quietly on, looking straight before her. She 
 would have driven by in a minute, when, right across the 
 road, in front of the pony, after a dog or something, I saw 
 run a child. 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 347 
 
 How I got to the spot I hardly know ; how the child es- 
 caped I know still less ; it was almost a miracle. But there 
 stood Penelope, with the little fellow in her arms. He was 
 unhurt not even frightened. 
 
 I took him from her ; she was still too bewildered to ob- 
 serve him much ; besides, a child alters so in six months. 
 "He is all right, you see. Run away, little man." 
 
 " Stop ! there is his mother to be thought of," said Pe- 
 nelope ; " where does he live ? whose child is he ?" 
 
 Before I could answer the grandmother ran out, calling, 
 "Franky! Franky!" 
 
 It was all over. N^o concealment was possible. 
 
 I made my sister sit down by the road-side, and there, 
 with her head on my shoulder, she sat till her deadly pale- 
 ness passed away, and two tears slowly rose and rolled 
 down her cheeks ; but she said nothing. 
 
 Again I impressed upon her what a great comfort it was 
 that the boy had escaped without one scratch ; for there 
 he stood, having once more got away from his granny, star- 
 ing at us, finger in mouth, with intense curiosity and enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 " Off with you !" I cried more than once. But he kept 
 his ground ; and when I rose to put him away, my sister 
 held me. 
 
 Often I have noticed that in her harshest days Penelope 
 never disliked nor was disliked by children. She had a 
 sort of instinct for them. They rarely vexed her, as we, or 
 her servants, or her big scholars always unhappily contrived 
 to do. And she could always manage them, from the 
 squalling baby that she stopped to pat at a cottage door, 
 to the raggedest young scamp in the village, whom she 
 would pick up after a pitched battle, give a good scolding 
 to, then hear all his tribulations, dry his dirty face, and send 
 him away with a broad grin upon it, such as was upon 
 Franky's now. 
 
 He came nearer, and put his brown little paws upon Pe- 
 nelope's silk gown. 
 
 "The pony," she muttered ; "Dora, go and see after the 
 pony." 
 
 But when I was gone, and she thought herself unseen, I 
 saw her coax the little lad to her side, to her arms, hold 
 him there and kiss him ; oh ! Max, I can't write of it ; I 
 could not tell it to any body but you. 
 
 After keeping away as long as was practicable, I return- 
 
348 A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 ed, to find Franky gone, and my sister walking slowly up 
 and down ; her veil was down, but her voice and step had 
 their usual " old-maidish" quietness if I dared, without a 
 sob at the heart, even think that word concerning our Pe- 
 nelope ! 
 
 Leaving her to get into the carriage, I just ran into the 
 cottage to tell Mrs. Cartwright what had happened, and 
 assure her that the child had received no possible harm ; 
 when, whom should I see sitting over the fire but the last 
 person I ever expected to see in that place ! 
 
 Did you know it ? was it by your advice he came ? what 
 could be his motive in coming ? or was it done merely for 
 a whim just like Francis Chart eris. 
 * Any where else I believe I could not have recognized 
 him. Not from his shabbiness ; even in rags, Francis would 
 be something of the gentleman ; but from his utterly broken- 
 down appearance, his look of hopeless indifference, settled 
 discontent ; the air of a man who has tried all things and 
 found them vanity. 
 
 Seeing me, he instinctively set down the child, who clung 
 to his knees, screaming loudly to " Daddy." 
 
 Francis blushed violently, and then laughed. " The brat 
 owns me, you see ; he has not forgotten me ; likes me also 
 a little, which can not be said for most people. Heyday, 
 no getting rid -of him ? Come along, then, young man ; I 
 must e'en make the best of you." 
 
 Franky, nothing loth, clambered up, hugged him smoth- 
 eringly round the neck, and broke into his own triumphant 
 " Ha ! ha ! he !" His father turned and kissed him. 
 
 Then, somehow, I felt as if it were easier to speak to 
 Francis Charteris. Only a word or two inquiries about 
 his health, how long he had left Liverpool, and whether he 
 meant to return. 
 
 " Of course. Only a day's holiday. A horse in a mill 
 that is what I am now. Nothing for it but to grind on 
 to the end of the chapter eh, Franky, my boy !" 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! he !" screamed the child, with another de- 
 lighted hug. 
 
 " He seems fond of you," I said. 
 
 " Oh yes ; he always was." Francis sighed. I am sure 
 nature was tugging hard at the selfish pleasure-loving 
 heart. And pity I know it was not wrong, Max ! was 
 pulling sore at mine. 
 
 I said I had heard of his illness in the winter, and was 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 349 
 
 glad to find him so much recovered; how long had he 
 been about again? 
 
 "How long? Indeed, I forget. I am so apt to forget 
 tilings now. Except" he added bitterly "the clerk's 
 stool and the office window, with the spider-webs over it, 
 and the thirty shillings a week. That's my income, Dora 
 I beg your pardon, Miss Dora I forgot I was no longer 
 u gentleman, but a clerk at thirty shillings a week." 
 
 I said I did not see why that should make him less of a 
 gentleman ; and, broken down as he was sitting crouching 
 over the fire, with his sickly cheek pressed against that 
 rosy one I fancied I saw something of the man the hon- 
 est, true man flash across the forlorn aspect of poor Fran- 
 cis Charteris. 
 
 I would have liked to stay and talk with him, and said 
 so, but my sister was outside. 
 
 " Is she ? will she be coming in here ?" and he shrank 
 nervously into his corner. " I have been so ill, you know." 
 
 He need not be afraid, I told him ; w~e should have driven 
 off in two minutes. There was not the slightest chance of 
 their meeting; in all human probability he would never 
 meet her more. 
 
 " Never more !" 
 
 I had not thought to see him so much affected. 
 
 " You were right, Dora, I never did deserve Penelope, 
 yet there is something I should like to have said to her. 
 Stop, hold back the curtain ; she can not see me sitting 
 here?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 So, as she drove slowly past, Francis watched her. I 
 felt more than glad proud that he should see the face 
 which he had known blooming and young, and which 
 would never be either the one or the other again in this 
 world, and that he should see how peaceful and good it was. 
 
 " She is altered strangely." 
 
 I asked, in momentary fear, did he think her looking out 
 of health ? 
 
 " Oh no, it is not that ; I hardly know what it is ;" then, 
 as with a sudden impulse, " I must go and speak to Penel- 
 ope." 
 
 And before I could hinder him he was at the carriage 
 side. 
 
 No fear of a " scene." They met oh Max, can any two 
 people so meet who have been lovers for ten years ? 
 
350 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 It might have been that the emotion of the last few min- 
 utes left her in that state when no occurrence seemed un- 
 expected or strange, but Penelope, when she saw him, only 
 gave a slight start, and then looked at him straight in the 
 lace for a minute or so. 
 
 " I am sorry to see that you have been ill." 
 
 That one sentence must have struck him, as it did me, 
 with the fall conviction of how they met as Penelope 
 and Francis no more merely Miss Johnston and Mr. 
 Charteris. 
 
 " I have been ill," he said, at last, " almost at death's 
 door. I should have died, but for Doctor Urquhart and 
 one other person, whose name I discovered by accident. I 
 beg to thank her for her charity." 
 
 He blushed scarlet in pronouncing the word. My sister 
 tried to speak, but he stopped her. 
 
 " Needless to deny." 
 
 " I never deny what is true," said Penelope, gravely. " I 
 only did what I considered right, and what I would have 
 done for any person whom I had known so many years. 
 Nor would I have done it at all, but that your uncle re- 
 fused." 
 
 " I had rather owe it to you twenty times over !" he 
 cried. "Nay; you shall not be annoyed with gratitude; 
 1 came but to own my debt to say, if I live I will repay 
 it, if I die" 
 
 She looked keenly at him. " You will not die." 
 
 " Why not ? What have I to live for a ruined, disap- 
 pointed, disgraced man ? No, no ; my chance is over for 
 this world, and I do not care how soon I get out of it." 
 
 " I would rather hear of your living worthily in it." 
 
 " Too late too late !" 
 
 " Indeed, it is not too late." 
 
 Penelope's voice was very earnest, and had a slight fal- 
 ter that startled even me. No wonder it misled Francis 
 he who never had a particularly low opinion of himself, arid 
 who for so many years had been fully aware of a fact 
 which, I once heard Max say, ought always to make a man 
 humble rather than vain how deeply a fond woman had 
 loved him. 
 
 " How do you mean ?" he asked, eagerly. 
 
 " That you have no cause for all this despair. You are 
 a young man still ; your health may improve ; you are free 
 from debt, and have enough to live upon. Whatever dis- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 351 
 
 agreeables your position has, it is a beginning ; you may 
 rise. A long and prosperous career may lie before you 
 yet; I hope so." 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 Max, I trembled, for he looked at her as he used to look 
 when they were young. And it seems so hard to believe 
 that love ever can die out. I thought, what if this exceed- 
 ing calmness of my sister should be only the cloak which 
 pride puts on to hide intolerable pain ? But I was mis- 
 taken. And now I marvel, not that he, but that I, who 
 know my sister as a sister ought, could for an instant have 
 seen in those soft, sad eyes any thing beyond what her 
 words expressed the more plainly, as they were such ex- 
 tremely kind and gentle words. 
 
 Francis came closer, and said something in a low voice, 
 of which I only caught the last sentence, 
 
 " Penelope, will you trust me again ?" 
 
 I would have slipped away, but my sister detained me ; 
 tightly her fingers closed on mine, but she answered Fran- 
 cis composedly, 
 
 " I do not quite comprehend you." 
 
 " Will you forgive and forget ? Will you marry me ?" 
 
 " Francis !" I exclaimed indignantly, but Penelope put 
 her hand upon my mouth. 
 
 " That is right. Don't listen to Dora ; she always hated 
 me. Listen to me, Penelope, you shall make me any thing 
 you choose ; you would be the saving of me that is, if 
 you could put up with such a broken, sickly, ill-tempered 
 wretch." 
 
 "Poor Francis!" and she just touched him with her 
 hand. 
 
 He caught it and kept it. Then Penelope seemed to 
 wake up as out of a dream. 
 
 "You must not," she said hurriedly; "you must not 
 hold my hand." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because I do not love you any more." 
 
 It was so ; he could not doubt it. The vainest man alive 
 must, I think, have discerned at once that my sister spoke 
 out of neither caprice or revenge, but in simple sadness of 
 truth. Francis must have felt almost by instinct that, 
 whether broken or not, the heart so long his was his no 
 longer the love was gone. 
 
 Whether the mere knowledge of this made his own re- 
 
352 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 vive, or whether, finding himself in the old familiar places 
 this walk was a favorite walk of theirs the whole feel- 
 ing returned in a measure I can not tell ; I do not like to 
 judge. But I am certain that, for the time, Francis suffer- 
 ed acutely. 
 
 " Do you hate me, then ?" said he, at length. 
 
 " No ; on the contrary, I feel very kindly toward you. 
 There is nothing in the world I would not do for you." 
 
 " Except marry me ?" 
 
 "Even so." 
 
 " Well, well ; perhaps you are right. I, a poor clerk, 
 with neither health, nor income, nor prospects " 
 
 He stopped, and no wonder, before the rebuke of my sis- 
 ter's eyes. 
 
 " Francis, you know you are not speaking as you think. 
 You know I have given you my true reason, and my only 
 one. If we were engaged still, in outward form, I should 
 say exactly the same, for a broken promise is less wicked 
 than a deceitful vow. One should not marry one ought 
 not when one has ceased to love." 
 
 Francis made her no reply. The sense of all he had lost, 
 now that he had lost it, seemed to come upon him heavily, 
 overwhelmingly. His first words were the saddest and 
 humblest I ever heard from Francis Charteris. 
 
 " I deserve it all. No wonder you will never forgive 
 me." 
 
 Penelope smiled a very mournful smile. 
 
 "At your old habit of jumping at conclusions! Indeed, 
 I have forgiven you long ago. Perhaps, had I been less 
 faulty myself, I might have had more influence over you. 
 But all was as it was to be, I suppose ; and it is over now. 
 Do not let us revive it." 
 
 She sighed and sat silent for a few moments, looking ab- 
 sently across the moorland ; then, with a sort of wistful 
 tenderness the tenderness which, one clearly saw, forever 
 prevents and excludes love on Francis. 
 
 " I know not how it is, Francis, but you seem to me 
 Francis no longer quite another person. I can not tell 
 how the love has gone, but it is gone as completely as if 
 it had never existed. Sometimes I was afraid if I saw you 
 it might come back again ; but I have seen you, and it is 
 not there. It never can return again anymore." 
 
 "And so, from henceforth, I am no more to you than 
 anv stranger in the street ?" . 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 353 
 
 " I did not say that it would not be true. Nothing you 
 do will ever be indifferent to me. If you do wrong oh, 
 Francis, it hurts me so ! it will hurt me to the day of my 
 death. I care little for your being very prosperous or very 
 happy possibly no one is happy ; but I want you to be 
 good. We were young together, and I was very proud of 
 you ; let me be proud of you again as we grow old." 
 
 " And yet you will not marry me ?" 
 
 " No, for I do not love you ; and never could again, no 
 more than I could love another woman's husband. Fran- 
 cis," speaking almost in a whisper, " you know as well as 
 I do that there is one person, and only one, whom you 
 ought to marry." 
 
 He shrank back, and, for the second time the first being 
 when I found him with his boy in his arms Francis turn- 
 ed scarlet with honest shame. 
 
 " Is it you is it Penelope Johnston who can say this ?" 
 
 " It is Penelope Johnston." 
 
 " And you say it to me ?" 
 
 " To you." 
 
 " You think it would be right ?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 There were long pauses between each of these questions, 
 but my sister's answers were unhesitating. The grave de- 
 cision of them seemed to smite home home to the very 
 heart of Francis Charteris. When his confusion and sur- 
 prise abated, he stood with eyes cast down, deeply pon- 
 dering. 
 
 " Poor little soul !" he muttered. " So fond of me, too 
 fond and faithful. She would be faithful to me to the 
 end of my days." 
 
 " I believe she would," answered Penelope. 
 
 Here arose a piteous cry of " Daddy, daddy !" and little 
 Franky, bursting from the cottage, came and threw himself 
 in a perfect paroxysm of joy upon his father. Then I un- 
 derstood clearly how a good and religious woman like our 
 Penelope could not possibly have continued loving, or 
 thought of marrying, Francis Charteris, any more than if, 
 as she said, he had been another woman's husband. 
 
 " Dora, pray don't take the child away. Let him remain 
 with his father." 
 
 And from her tone, Francis himself must have felt if 
 farther confirmation were needed that now and hence^ 
 forth Penelope Johnston could never view him in any oth* 
 CM- liu'ht than ns Frankv's father. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 He submitted it always was a relief to Francis to have 
 things decided for him. Besides, he seemed really fond of 
 the boy. To see how patiently he let Franky clamber up 
 him, and finally mount on his shoulder, riding astride, and 
 making a bridle of his hair, gave one a kindly feeling nay, 
 a sort of respect for this poor sick man whom his child com- 
 forted, and who, however erring he had been, was now, nor 
 was ashamed to be, a father. 
 
 " You don't hate me, Franky ?" he said, with a sudden 
 kiss upon the fondling face. " You owe me no grudge, 
 though you might, poor little scamp ! You are not a bit 
 ashamed of me ; and, by God" (it was more a vow than 
 an oath) " I'll never be ashamed of you." 
 
 "I trust in God you never will," said Penelope, sol- 
 emnly. 
 
 And then, with that peculiar softness of voice, which I 
 now notice whenever she speaks of or to children, she said 
 a few words, the substance of which I remember Lisabel 
 and myself quizzing her for years ago, irritating her with 
 the old joke about old bachelors' wives and old maids' chil- 
 dren namely, that those who are childless, and know they 
 will die so, often see more clearly and feel more deeply than 
 parents themselves the heavy responsibilities of parent- 
 hood. 
 
 Not that she said this exactly, "but you could read it in 
 her eyes, as in a few simple words she praised Franky 's 
 beauty, hinted what a solemn thing it was to own such a 
 son, and, if properly brought up, what a comfort he might 
 grow. 
 
 Francis listened with a reverence that was beyond all 
 love, and a humility touching to see. I, too, silently ob- 
 serving them both., could not help hearkening even with a 
 sort of awe to every word that fell from the lips of my sis- 
 ter Penelope. All the while hearing, in a vague fashion, 
 the last evening song of my lark, as he went up merrily 
 into his cloud -just as I have watched him, or rather his 
 progenitors, numberless times, when, along this very road, 
 I used to lag behind Francis and Penelope, wondering what 
 on earth they were talking about, and how queer it was 
 that they never noticed any thing or any body except one 
 another. 
 
 Heigho ! how times change ! 
 
 But no sighing : I could not sigh ; I did not. My heart 
 was full, Max, but not with pain. For I am learning to 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 355 
 
 understand what you often said, what I suppose we shall 
 see clearly in the next life if not in this that the only per- 
 manent pain on earth is sin. And, looking in my sister's 
 dear face, I felt how Messed above all mere happiness, is 
 the peace of those who have suffered and overcome suffer- 
 ing, who have been sinned against and have forgiven. 
 
 After this, when Franky, tired out, dropped suddenly 
 asleep, as children do, his father and Penelope talked a 
 good while, she inquiring, in her sensible, practical way, 
 about his circumstances and prospects ; he answering, can- 
 didly and apparently truthfully, without any hesitation, an- 
 ger, or pride ; every now and then looking down, at the 
 least movement of the pretty, sleepy face ; while a soft ex- 
 pression, quite new in Francis Charteris, brightened his 
 own. There was even a degree of cheerfulness and hope 
 in his manner, as he said, in reply to some suggestion of 
 my sister's, " Then you think, as Doctor Urquhart did, that 
 my life is worth preserving that I may turn out not such 
 a bad man after all." 
 
 " How could a man be any thing but a good man, who 
 really felt what it is to be the father of a child ?" 
 
 Francis replied nothing, but he held his little son closer 
 to his breast. Who knows but that the pretty boy may 
 be heaven's messenger to save the father's sonl ? 
 
 You see, Max, I still like, in my old moralizing habit, to 
 "justify the ways of God to men," to try and perceive the 
 use of pain, the reason of punishment ; and to feel, not only 
 by faith, but experience, that, dark as are the ways of In- 
 finite Mercy, they are all safe ways. "All tilings icork to- 
 gether for good to them that love HIM." 
 
 And so, watching these two, talking so quietly and friend- 
 ly together, I thought how glad my Max would be; I re- 
 membered all my Max had done Penelope knows it now ; 
 I told her that night. And, sad and anxious as I am about 
 you and many things, there came over my heart one of 
 those sudden sunshiny refts of peace, when we feel that 
 whether or not all is happy, all is well. 
 
 Francis walked along by the pony-carriage for a quarter 
 of a mile or more. 
 
 " I must turn now. This little man ought to have been 
 in his bed an hour or more ; he always used to be. His 
 mother " Francis stopped " I beg your pardon." Then, 
 hugging the boy in a sudden passion of remorse, he said, 
 " Penelope, if you want your revenge, take this. You can 
 
356 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 not tell what a man feels, who, when the heyday of youth 
 is gone, longs for a home, a virtuous home, yet knows that 
 he never can offer or receive unblemished honor with his 
 wife never give his lawful name to his first-born." 
 
 This was the sole allusion made openly to what both 
 tacitly understood was to be, and which you, as well as 
 we, will agree is the best thing that can be, under the cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 And here I have to say to you, both from my sister and 
 myself, that if Francis desires to make Lydia Cartwright 
 his wife, and she is willing, tell them both that if she will 
 come direct from the jail to Bockmount, we will receive 
 her kindly, provide every thing suitable for her (since Fran- 
 cis must be very poor, and they will have to begin house- 
 keeping on the humblest scale), and take care that she is 
 married in comfort and credit. Also, say that former 
 things shall never be remembered against her, but that she 
 shall be treated henceforward with the respect due to 
 Francis's wife ; in some things, poor loving soul, a better 
 wife than he deserves. 
 
 So he left us. Whether in this world he and Penelope 
 will ever meet again, who knows ? He seemed to have a 
 foreboding that they never will, for, in parting, he asked, 
 hesitatingly, if she would shake hands ? 
 
 She did so, looking earnestly at him her first love, who, 
 had he been true to himself and to her, might have been 
 her love forever. Then I saw her eye wander down to the 
 little head w^hich nestled on his shoulder. 
 
 " Will you kiss my boy, Penelope ?" 
 
 My sister leaned over, and touched Franky's forehead 
 with her lips. 
 
 " God bless him ! God bless you all !" 
 
 These were her last words, and however long both may 
 live, I have a conviction that they will be her last words 
 to Francis Charteris. 
 
 He went back to the cottage; and through the rosy 
 spring twilight, with a strangely solemn feeling, as if we 
 - were entering upon a new spring in another world, Penel- 
 ope and I drove home. 
 
 And now, Max, I have told you all about these. About 
 myself 
 
 N"o, I'll not try to deceive you; God knows how true 
 my heart is, and how sharp and sore is this pain: 
 
 Dear Max, write to me ; if there is any trouble, I can 
 
A LIFE FOR A. LIFE. 357 
 
 bear it ; any wrong supposing Max could do me wrong 
 I'll forgive. I fear nothing, and nothing has power to 
 grieve me, so long as you hold me fast, as I -hold you. 
 
 Your faithful THEODORA. 
 
 P.S. A wonderful, wonderful thing it only happened 
 last night. It hardly feels real yet. 
 
 Max, last night, after I had done reading, papa mention- 
 ed your name of his own accord. 
 
 He said Penelope, in asking his leave, as we thought it 
 right to do before we sent that message to Lydia, had told 
 him the whole story about your goodness to Francis. He 
 then inquired abruptly how long it was since I had seen 
 Doctor Urquhart ? 
 
 I told him never since that day in the library, now a year 
 ago. 
 
 " And when do you expect to see him ?" 
 
 " I do not know." And all the bitterness of parting 
 the terrors lest life's infinite chances should make this part- 
 ing perpetual the murmurs that will rise, why hundreds 
 and thousands who care little for one another should be 
 always together, while we we oh, Max ! it ah 1 broke out 
 in a sob, " Papa, papa, how can I know ?" 
 
 My father looked at me as if he would read me through. 
 
 "You are a good girl, and an honorable. He is honor- 
 nble too. He would never persuade a child to disobey her 
 father." 
 
 " No, never." 
 
 " Tell him" and papa turned his head away, but he did 
 pwy it, I could not mistake, "tell Doctor Urquhart if he 
 likes to come over to Rockmount, for one day only, I shall 
 not see him, but you may." 
 
 Max, come. Only for one day of holiday rest. It would 
 do you good. There are green leaves in the garden, and 
 sunshine and larks in the moorland, and there is me. 
 Come! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXY. 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 MY DEAR THEODORA, I did not write, because I could 
 not. In some states of mind nothing seems possible to a 
 man but silence. Forgive me, my love, my comfort and joy. 
 
358 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 I have suffered much, but it is over now, at least the sus- 
 pense of it ; and I can tell you all, with the calmness that 
 I myself now feel. You are right; we love one another; 
 we need not be afraid of any tribulation. 
 
 Before entering on my affairs, let me answer your letter 
 all but its last word, " Come !" My other self, my better 
 conscience, will herself answer that. 
 
 The substance of what you tell me, I already know. 
 Francis Charteris came to me on Sunday week, and asked 
 for Lydia. They were married two days after I gave the 
 bride away. Since then I have drunk tea with them at his 
 lodging, which, poor as it is, has already the cheerful com- 
 fort of a home with a woman in it, and that woman a wife. 
 
 I left them Mr. Charteris sitting by the fire, with his 
 boy on his knee ; he seems passionately fond of the little 
 scapegrace, who is, as you said, his very picture. But more 
 than once I caught his eyes following Lydia with a wistful, 
 grateful tenderness. 
 
 "The most sensible practical girl imaginable," he said, 
 <luring her momentary absence from the room; "and she 
 knows all my ways, and is so patient with them. 'A poor 
 wench,' as Shakspeare hath it. ' A poor wench, sir, but 
 mine own.' " 
 
 For her, she busied herself about house matters, humble 
 and silent, except when her husband spoke to her, and then 
 her whole face brightened. Poor Lydia! None familiar 
 with her story are likely to see much of her again ; Mr. 
 Charteris seems to wish, and for very natural reasons, that 
 they should begin the world entirely afresh ; but we may 
 fairly believe one thing concerning 'her, as concerning an, 
 other poor sinner "Her sins, which were many, are for- 
 given, for she loved much" 
 
 After I returned from them, I found your letter. It made 
 me cease to feel what I have often felt of late, as if hope 
 were knocking at every door except mine. 
 
 I told you once never to be ashamed of showing me that 
 you loved me. Do not be ; such love is a woman's glory, 
 and a man's salvation. 
 
 Let me now say what is to be said about myself, begin- 
 ning at the beginning. 
 
 I mentioned to you once that I had here a good many 
 enemies, but that I should soon live them down ; which, for 
 some time I hoped and believed, and still believe that it 
 have been so under orclinarv circumstances. I have- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 359 
 
 ever held that truth is stronger than falsehood that an 
 honest man has but to sit still, let the storm blow over, and 
 bide his time. It does not shake this doctrine that things 
 have fallen out differently with me. 
 
 For some time I had seen the cloud gathering; caught 
 evil reports flying about ; noticed that, in society or in pub- 
 lic meetings, now and then an acquaintance gave me the 
 " cold shoulder." Also, what troubled me more, for it was - 
 a hinderance felt daily, my influence and authority in the 
 jail did not seem quite what they used to be. I met no 
 tangible affront, certainly, and all was tolerably smooth sail- 
 ing till I had to find fault, and then, as you know, a feather 
 will show which way the wind blows. 
 
 It was a new experience, for, at the worst of times, in 
 camp or hospital, my poor fellows always loved me I found 
 it hard. 
 
 More scurrilous newspaper paragraphs, the last and least 
 obnoxious of which I sent you lest you might hear of it in 
 some other way, followed those proceedings of mine con- 
 cerning reformatories. Two articles the titles, " Physi- 
 cian, heal thyself," and " Set a thief to catch a thief," will 
 give you an idea of their tenor went so far as to be action- 
 able libels. Several persons here, our chaplain especially, 
 urged me to take legal proceedings in defense of my char- 
 acter, but I declined. 
 
 One day, arguing the point, the chaplain pressed me for 
 my reasons, which I gave him, and will give you, for I have 
 since had only too much occasion to remember them liter- 
 ally. 
 
 I said I had always had an instinctive dislike and dread 
 of the law ; that a man was good for little if he could not 
 defend himself by any better weapons than the verdict of 
 an ignorant jury, and a specious, sometimes lying, barrister's 
 tongue. 
 
 The old clergyman, alarmed, " hoped I was not a duel- 
 ist," at which I only smiled. It never occurred to me to 
 take the trouble of denying any such ridiculous purpose. 
 I knew not how, when once the ball is set rolling against a 
 man, his lightest words are made to gather weight and 
 meaning, his very looks are brought in judgment upnon him. 
 
 It is the way of the world. 
 
 You see I can moralize, a sign that I am recovering my^ 
 self; I think, with the relief of telling all out to you. 
 
 " But," reasoned the chaplain, " when a man is innocent, 
 
360 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 why should he not declare it ? Why sit tamely under cal- 
 umny ? It is unwise, nay, unsafe. You are almost a stran- 
 ger here, and we in the provinces like to find out every 
 thing about every body. If I might suggest," and he apol- 
 ogized for what he called the friendly impertinence, " why 
 not be a little less modest, a little more free with your per- 
 sonal history, which must have been a remarkable one, and 
 let some friend, in a quiet, delicate way, see that the truth 
 is as widely disseminated as the slander ? If you will trust 
 me " 
 
 " I could not choose a better pleader," said I, gratefully; 
 " but it is impossible." 
 
 "How so ? A man like you can have nothing to dread 
 nothing to conceal." 
 
 I said again, all I could find words to say, 
 
 " It is impossible." 
 
 He urged no more, but I soon felt painfully certain that 
 some involuntary distrust lurked in the good man's mind, 
 and though he continued the same to me in all our business 
 relations, a cloud came over our private intercourse, which 
 was never removed. 
 
 About this time another incident occurred. You know 
 I have a little friend here, the governor's motherless daugh- 
 ter, a bonnie wee child whom I meet in the garden some- 
 times, where we water her flowers, and have long chats 
 about birds, beasts, and the wonders of foreign parts. I 
 even have given a present or two to this, my child-sweet- 
 heart. Are you jealous ? She has your eyes ! 
 
 Well, one day when I called Lucy, she came to me slow- 
 ly, with a shy, sad countenance ; and I found out after 
 some pains that her nurse had desired her not to play with 
 Doctor Urquhart again, because he was " naughty." 
 
 Doctor Urquhart smilingly inquired what he had done ? 
 
 The child hesitated. 
 
 " Nurse does not exactly know, but she says it is some- 
 thing very wicked as wicked as any thing done by the 
 bad people in here. But it isn't true tell Lucy it isn't 
 true?" 
 
 It was hard to put aside the little loving face, but I saw 
 the nurse coming. Not an ill-meaning body, but one whom 
 I knew for as arrant a gossip as any in the place. Her 
 comments on myself troubled me little ; I concluded it was 
 but the result of that newspaper tattle, against which I was 
 growing hardened ; nevertheless, I thought it best just to 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 3(51 
 
 
 
 say that I had heard with much surprise what she had 
 been telling Miss Lucy. 
 
 " Children and fools speak truth," said the woman sau- 
 cily. 
 
 " Then you ought to be the more careful that children 
 always hear the truth." And I insisted upon her repeat- 
 ing all the ridiculous tales she had been circulating about 
 me. 
 
 When, with difficulty, I got the facts out of her, they 
 were not what I expected, but these : Somebody in the 
 jail had told somebody else how Doctor Urquhart had 
 been in former days such an abandoned character, that still 
 his evil conscience always drove him among criminals; 
 made him haunt jails, prisons, reformatories, and take an 
 interest in every form of vice. Nay, people had heard me 
 say and truly they might ! apropos to a late hanging at 
 Kirkdale ; that I had sympathy even for a murderer. 
 
 I listened you will imagine how to all this. 
 
 For an instant I was overwhelmed ; I felt as if God had 
 forsaken me, as if His mercy were a delusion, His punish- 
 ments never-ending, His justice never satisfied. Despite 
 my promise to your father, I might in some fatal way have 
 betrayed myself, even on the spot, had I not heard the lit- 
 tle girl saying, with a sob, almost poor pet ! 
 
 "For shame, nurse! Doctor Urquhart isn't a wicked 
 man ; Lucy loves him." 
 
 And I remembered you. 
 
 " My child," I said in a whisper, " we are all wicked, but 
 we may all be forgiven ; I trust God has forgiven me ;" 
 and I walked away without another word. 
 
 But since then I have thought it best to avoid the gov- 
 ernor's garden ; and it has cost me more pain than you 
 would imagine the contriving always to pass at a dis- 
 tance, so as to get only a nod and a smile, which can not 
 harm her, from little Lucy. 
 
 About this time it might be two or three days after, 
 for out of work-hours I little noticed how time passed an 
 unpleasant circumstance occurred with Lucy's father. 
 
 I must have told you of him, for he is a remarkable man ; 
 young still, and well-looking, with manners like his features, 
 hard as iron, though delicate and polished as steel. He 
 seems born to be the ruler of criminals. Brutality, mean- 
 ness, or injustice would be impossible to him. Likewise, 
 another thing mercy. 
 
 Q 
 
309 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 It was on this point that he and I had our difference. 
 
 We met in the east ward, when he pointed out to me in 
 passing the announcement on the centre slate of " a boy to 
 be whipped." 
 
 It seems ridiculous, but the words sickened me. For I 
 knew the boy, knew also his offense ; and that such a pun- 
 ishment would be the first step toward converting a mere 
 headstrong lad, sent here for a street row, into a hardened 
 ruffian. I pleaded for him strongly. 
 
 The governor listened polite, but inflexible. 
 
 I went on speaking with unusual warmth ; you know my 
 horror of these floggings ; you know, too, my opinion on 
 the system of punishment, viewed as mere punishment, with 
 no ulterior aim at reformation. I believe it is only our 
 blinded human interpretation of things spiritual, which 
 transforms the immutable law that evil is its own avenger 
 and that the wrath of God against sin must be as everlast- 
 ing as His pity for sinners into the doctrine of eternal tor> 
 ment, the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is never 
 quenched. 
 
 The governor heard all I had to say ; thsn, politely al* 
 ways, regretted that it was impossible either to grant my 
 st, or release me from my duty. 
 
 " There is, however, one course which I may suggest to 
 Doctor Urquhart, considering his very peculiar opinions, 
 and his known sympathy with criminals. Do you not 
 think it might be more agreeable to you to resign ?" 
 
 The words were nothing ; but as he fixed on me that 
 keen eye, which, he boasts, can without need of judge or 
 jury detect a man's guilt or innocence, I felt convinced 
 that with him too my good name was gone. It was no 
 longer a battle with mere side-winds of slander 1 the storm 
 had begun. 
 
 I might have sunk like a coward, if there were only my- 
 self to be crushed under it. As it was, I looked the gov- 
 ernor in the face. 
 
 "Have you any special motivqpfor this suggestion?" 
 
 " I have stated it." 
 
 " Then allow me to state that, whatever my opinions 
 may be, so long as my services are useful here, I have not 
 the slightest wish or intention of resigning." 
 
 He bowed, and we parted. 
 
 The boy was flogged. I said to him, " Bear it ; better 
 confess" as he had done " confess and be punished now. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. CC3 
 
 It will then be over." And I hope, by the grateful look 
 of the poor young wretch, that w r ith the pain, the punish- 
 ment was over ; that my pity helped him to endure it, so 
 that it did not harden him, but, with a little help, he may 
 become an honest lad yet. 
 
 When I left him in his cell, I rather envied him. 
 
 It now became necessary to look to my own affairs, and 
 discover, if possible, all that report alleged against me 
 false or true as well as the originator of these statements. 
 Him I at last by the merest chance discovered. 
 
 My little lady, with her quick, warm feelings, must learn 
 to forgive, as I have long ago forgiven. It was Mr. Fran- 
 cis Charteris. 
 
 I believe still, it was less from malice premeditated, than 
 from a mere propensity for talking, and that looseness and 
 inaccuracy of speech which he always had that he, when 
 idling away his time in the debtors' ward of this jail, re- 
 peated, probably with extempore additions, what your sis- 
 ter Penelope once mentioned to him concerning me name- 
 ly, that I was once about to be married, when the lady's 
 father discovered a crime I had committed in my youth 
 whether dishonesty, dueling, seduction, or what, he could 
 not say but it was something absolutely unpardonable by 
 an honorable man, and the marriage was forbidden. On 
 this, all the reports against me had been grounded. 
 
 After hearing this story, which one of the turnkeys, 
 whose children were down with fever, told me while watch- 
 ing by their bedside, begging my pardon for doing it, hon- 
 est man ! I went and took a long walk down the Water- 
 loo shore, to calm myself, and consider my position. For 
 I knew it was in vain to struggle any more. I was ruined. 
 
 An innocent man might have fought on ; how any one, 
 with a clear conscience, is ever conquered by slander, or 
 afraid of it, I can not understand. With a clean heart, and 
 truth on his tongue, a man ought to be as bold as a lion, 
 I should have been ; but My love, you know. 
 
 This Waterloo shore has always been a favorite haunt 
 of mine. You once said, you should like to live by the 
 sea ; and I have never heard the ripple of the tide without 
 thinking of you never seen the little children playing 
 about and digging on the sands without thinking God 
 help me ! if one keeps silence, it is not because one does 
 not feel the knife. "Who would have thought the old 
 man had so much blood in him ?" 
 
364 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 Let me stop. I will not pain you, my love, more than I 
 can help. Besides, as I told you, the worst of my suiiei ing 
 is ended. 
 
 I believe I must have sat till nightfall among the sand- 
 hills by the shore. For years to come, if I live so long, I 
 shall see as clear and also as unreal as a painting that 
 level sea-line, along which moved the small white silent 
 ships, and steamers, with their humming paddle-wheels and 
 ,'hoir trailing thread of smoke, dropping one after the other 
 into what some one of your favorite poets, my child, calls 
 " the under world." There seemed a great weight on my 
 head a weariness all over me. I did not feel any thing 
 much, after the first half hour ; except a longing to see 
 your little face once again, and then, if it were God's will, 
 to lie down and die, somewhere near you, quietly, giving 
 no trouble to you or to any one any more. You will re- 
 member, I was not in my usual health, and had had extra 
 hard work, for some little time. 
 
 Well, my dear one, this is enough about myself, that day. 
 I went home and fell into harness as usual ; there was noth- 
 ing to be done but to wait till the storm burst, and I wish- 
 ed for many reasons to retain my situation at the jail as 
 long as possible. 
 
 But it was a difficult time : rising to each day's duty, 
 with total uncertainty of what might happen before night ; 
 and, duty done, struggling against a depression such as I 
 have not known for these many years. In the midst of it 
 came your dear letters cheerful, loving, contented un- 
 wontedly contented they seemed to be. I could not an- 
 swer them, for to have written in a false strain was impos- 
 sible, and to tell you every thing seemed equally so. I said 
 to myself, " Xo, poor child ! she will learn all soon enough. 
 Let her be happy while she can." 
 
 I was wrong ; I was unjust to you and to myself. From 
 the hour you gave me your love, I owed it to us both to 
 give you my full confidence, as much as if you were my 
 wife. I had no right to wound your dear heart by keeping 
 back from it any sorrows of mine. Forgive me, and for- 
 give something else, which I now see was crueler still. 
 Theodora, I wished many times that you were free ; that I 
 had never bound you to my hard lot, but kept silence and 
 left you to forget me to love some one else better than 
 me pardon, pardon ! 
 
 For I was once actually on the point of writing to you, 
 
A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 365 
 
 saying this, when I remembered something yon had said 
 long ago that whether or no we were ever married you 
 were glad we had been betrothed that so far we might 
 always be a help and comfort to one another. For, you 
 added, when I was blaming myself, and talking as men do 
 of " honor" and " pride" to have left you free when you 
 were not free, would have given you all the cares of love, 
 with neither its rights, nor duties, nor sweetnesses ; and 
 this might you did not say it would but it might have 
 broken your heart. 
 
 So in my bitter strait I trusted that pure heart, whose 
 instinct, I felt, was truer than all my wisdom. I did not 
 write the letter, but at the same time, as I have told you, 
 it was impossible to write any other, even a single line. 
 
 Your last letter came. Happily, it reached me the very 
 morning when the crisis which I had been for weeks ex- 
 pecting occurred. I had it in my pocket all the time I 
 stood in that room before those men. But I had best re- 
 late from the beginning. 
 
 You are aware that any complaints respecting the of- 
 ficers of this jail, or questions concerning its internal man- 
 agement, are laid before the visiting justices. Thus, aft- 
 er the governor's hint, on every board-day I prepared my- 
 self for a summons. At length it came, ostensibly for a 
 very trivial matter some relaxation of discipline which I 
 had ordered and been counteracted in. But my conduct 
 had never been called into question before, and I knew what 
 it implied. The very form of it " The governor's compli- 
 ments, and he requests Doctor Urquhart's attendance in 
 the board-room," instead of " Doctor, come up to my room 
 and talk the matter over" was sufficient indication of 
 what was impending. 
 
 I found present, besides the governor and chaplain, an un- 
 usual number of magistrates. These, who are not always 
 or necessarily gentlemen, stared at me as if I had been 
 some strange beast, all the time I was giving my brief evi- 
 dence about the breach of regulations complained of. It 
 was soon settled, for I had been careful to keep within the 
 letter of the law, and I made a motion to take leave, when 
 one of the justices requested me to " wait a bit they hadn't 
 done with me yet." 
 
 These sort of men, low-born not that that is any dis- 
 grace, but a glory, unless accompanied with a low nature 
 and " dressed in a little brief authority," one often meets 
 
3G6 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 with here ; I was well used to deal with them, and to their 
 dealings with the like of me a poor professional, whose 
 annual income was little more than they would expend care- 
 lessly upon one of their splendid "Teeds." But, until late- 
 ly, among my co-mates in office, I had been both friendly 
 and popular. Now they took their tone from the rest, arid 
 even the governor and the chaplain preserved toward me 
 a rigid silence. You do not know our old mess-phrase of 
 being " sent to Coventry." If you did you would under- 
 stand how those ten minutes that, according to my orders, 
 I sat aloof from the board while other business was pro- 
 ceeding were not the pleasantest possible. 
 
 Men among men grow hard, are liable to evil passions, 
 fits of pride, hatred, and revenge, that are probably unfa- 
 miliar to you sweet women. It was well I had your letter 
 in my pocket. Besides, there is something in coming to 
 the crisis of a great misfortune, which braces up a man's 
 nerves to meet it. So when the governor, turning round 
 in his always courteous tone, said the board requested a 
 few minutes' conversation with me, I could rise and stand 
 steady to meet whatever shape of hard fortune was before 
 me. 
 
 The governor, like most men of non-intrusive but iron 
 will, who have both temper and feelings perfectly under 
 control, has a very strong influence wherever he goes. It 
 ^ as he who opened and carried on with me what he polite- 
 ly termed a " little conversation." 
 
 " These difficulties," continued he, after referring to the 
 dismissed complaint of my straining the rules of the jail to 
 their utmost limit, from my "sympathy with criminals," 
 "these unpleasantnesses, Doctor Urquhart, will, I fear, be 
 always occurring. Have you reconsidered the hint I gave 
 to you some little time ago ?" 
 
 I answered that it was rarely my habit to take hints ; I 
 preferred having all things spoken right out. 
 
 " Such candor is creditable, though not always possible 
 or advisable. I should have been exceedingly glad if you 
 had saved me from what I feel to be my duty, however 
 painful namely, to repeat my private suggestion publicly." 
 
 " You mean that I should tender my resignation ?" 
 
 " Excuse my saying and the board agrees with me 
 that such a step seems desirable, for many reasons." 
 
 I waited, and then asked for those reasons. 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart must surely be aware of them." 
 
A LIFE tfOK A LIFE. 367 
 
 A man is not bound to rush madly into his ruin. I de- 
 termined to die fighting, at any rate. I said, addressing 
 the board, 
 
 " Gentlemen, I am not aware of having conducted my- 
 self in any manner that unfits me for being surgeon to this 
 jail. Any slight differences between the governor and my- 
 self are mere matters of opinion, which signify little so long 
 as neither trenches on the other's authority, and both are 
 amenable to the regulations of the establishment. If you 
 have any cause of complaint against me, state it, reprove 
 or dismiss me it is your right ; but no one has a right, 
 without just grounds, to request me to resign." 
 
 The governor, even through that handsome, impassive, 
 masked countenance of his, looked annoyed. For an in- 
 stant his hard manner dropped into the old friendliness, 
 even as w T hen, in the first few weeks after his wife's death, 
 he and I used to sit playing chess together of evenings, 
 with little Lucy between us. 
 
 " Doctor, why will you misapprehend me ? It is for your 
 own sake that I wish, before the matter is opened up far- 
 ther, you should resign your post." 
 
 After a moment's consideration, I requested him to ex- 
 plain himself more clearly. 
 
 One of the magistrates here cried out with a laugh : 
 " Come, come, Doctor, no shamming. You are the town's 
 talk." And another suggested that "Brown had better 
 mind his P's and Q's; there w^ere such things as actions 
 for libel." 
 
 I replied if the gentlemen referred to the scurrilous alle- 
 gations against me which had appeared in print, they might 
 speak without fear ; I had no intention of prosecuting for 
 libel. This silenced them a moment, and then the first 
 magistrate said, 
 
 " Give a dog a bad name and hang him; but surely, Doc- 
 tor, you can't be aware what a very bad name you have 
 somehow got in these parts, or you would have been more 
 eager to draw your neck out of the halter in time. Why, 
 bless my. soul, man alive, do you know what folk make you 
 out to be?" 
 
 " This discussion is growing foreign to the matter in 
 hand," interrupted the governor, who I felt had never tak- 
 en his sharp eyes off me. " The question is merely this : 
 that any officer in authority among criminals must of neces- 
 sity bear an unblemished character. Neither in the estab- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 lisliment nor out of it ought people to be able to say of 
 him that that " 
 
 "Say it out, sir." 
 
 " That there were circumstances in his former life which 
 would not bear inspection, and that merely accident drew 
 the line between himself and the convicts he was bent on 
 reforming." 
 
 " Hear, hear !" said a justice, who had long thwarted me 
 in my schemes ; having a conscientious objection to reform- 
 ing every body including himself. 
 
 "Nay," said the governor. "I did not give this as a 
 fact only a report. These reports have come to such a 
 height, that they must either be proved or denied. And 
 therefore I wished, before any public inquiry became nec- 
 essary ^unless, indeed, Doctor Urquhart will consent to 
 the explanatory self-defense which he definitely refused 
 Mr. Thorley " 
 
 And they both looked anxiously at me these two whom 
 I have always found honest, honorable men, and who were 
 once my friends, or at least friendly associates the chap- 
 lain and the governor. 
 
 Theodora, no one need ever dread lest the doctrine of 
 total forgiveness should make guilt no burden, and repent- 
 ance pleasant and easy. There are some consequences of 
 sin which must haunt a sinner to the day of his death. 
 
 It might have been one minute or ten that I stood mo- 
 tionless, feeling as if I could have given up life and all its 
 blessings without a pang to be able to face those men with 
 a clear conscience, and say, " It is all a lie ; I am innocent." 
 
 Then, for my salvation, came the thought it seemed 
 spoken into my ear, the voice half like Dallas's- half like 
 yours "If God hath forgiven thee, why be afraid of 
 men ?" And I said, humbly enough yet, I trust, without 
 any cringing or abjectness of fear that I wished, before 
 taking any farther step, to hear the whole of the state- 
 ments current against myself, and ho^ far they were 
 credited by the gentlemen before me. 
 
 The accusation, I was informed, stood thus : floating 
 rumors having accumulated into a substantive form terri- 
 bly near the truth ! that I had in my youth, either here 
 or abroad, committed some crime which rendered me 
 amenable to the laws of my country ; and though, by some 
 trick of law, I had escaped justice, the ban upon me was 
 such, that only by the wandering life which I myself had 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 3G9 
 
 owned to having led, could I escape the fury of public 
 opinion. The impression against me was now so strong, in 
 the jail and out of it, that the governor would not engage 
 even by his own authority to preserve mine unless I fur- 
 nished him with an immediate, explicit denial to this 
 charge. Which, he was pleased to say, if it had not been 
 so widely spread, so mysterious in its origin, and so oddly 
 corroborated by accidental admissions on my part, he 
 should have treated as simply ridiculous. 
 
 "And now," he added, apparently reassured by the 
 composure .with which I had listened, " I have only to ask 
 you to deny it, point-blank, before the board and myself." 
 
 I asked, what must I deny ? 
 
 " Why, if the accusations were not too ludicrous to ex- 
 press, just state that you are neither forger, burglar, nor 
 body-snatcher ; that you never either killed a man (unpro- 
 fessionally, of course, if we may be excused the joke) for 
 professional purposes, or shot him irregularly in a duel, or 
 waylaid him with pistols behind a hedge." 
 
 " Am I supposed to have committed all these crimes ?" 
 
 " Such is the gullibility of the public ; you really are," 
 said the governor, smiling. 
 
 On the indignant impulse of the moment, I denied them 
 each and all, upon my honor as a gentleman ; until, feeling 
 the old chaplain cordially grip my hand, I was roused into 
 a full consciousness of where and what I was, and what, 
 either by word or implication, I had been asserting. 
 
 Somebody said, " Give him air ; no wonder he feels it, 
 poor fellow !" And so, after a little, I gathered up my 
 faculties, and saw the board sitting waiting ; and the gov- 
 ernor with pen and ink before him. 
 
 "This painful business will soon be settled, Doctor," 
 said he, cheerfully. " Just answer a question or two, 
 which, as a matter of form, I will put in writing, and then, 
 if you will do me the honor to dine with me to-day, we can 
 consult how best to make the statement public ; without 
 of course compromising your dignity. To begin. You 
 hereby make declaration that you never were in jail ? nev- 
 er tried at any assizes? have never committed any act 
 which rendered you liable to prosecution under our crim- 
 inal law ?" 
 
 He ran the words off carelessly, and paused for my an- 
 swer. When none came, he looked up, his own penetra- 
 tive, suspicious look. 
 
 Q2 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 "Perhaps I did not express myself clearly." And lie 
 slightly changed the form of the sentence. " Now, what 
 shall I write, Doctor Urquhart ?" 
 
 If I could then and there have made full confession, and 
 gone out of that room an arrested prisoner, it would have 
 been, so far as regarded myself, a relief unutterable, a mer- 
 cy beyond all mercies. But I had to remember your father. 
 
 The governor laid down his pen. 
 
 "This looks, to say the least, rather strange." 
 
 " Doctor," cried one of the board, " you must be mad to 
 hold your tongue and let your character go to the dogs in 
 this way." 
 
 Alas ! I was not mad ; I saw all that was vanishing from 
 me inevitably, irredeemably my good name, my chance 
 of earning a livelihood, my sweet hope of a home and a 
 wife. And I might save every thing, and keep my promise 
 to your father also, by just one little lie. 
 
 Would you have had me utter it ? No, love ; I know 
 you would rather have had me die. 
 
 The sensation was like dying, for one minute, and then 
 it passed away. I looked steadily at my accusers ; for ac- 
 cusation, at all events strong suspicion, was in every coun- 
 tenance now ; and told them that though I had not perpe- 
 trated a single one of the atrocious crimes laid to my 
 charge, still the events of my life had been peculiar; and 
 circumstances left me no option but the course I had 
 hitherto pursued, namely, total silence. That if my good 
 character were strong enough to sustain me through it, I 
 would willingly retain my post at the jail, and weather the 
 storm as I best could. If this course were impossible 
 
 " It is impossible," said the governor, decisively. 
 
 "Then I have no alternative but to tender my resigna- 
 tion." 
 
 It was accepted at once. 
 
 I went out from the board-room a disgraced man, with a 
 stain upon my character which will last for life, and follow 
 me wherever I plant my foot. The honest Urquhart name, 
 which my father bore, and Dallas which I ought to have 
 given stainless to my wife, and left if I could leave noth- 
 ing else to my children ay, it was gone. Gone, forever 
 and ever. 
 
 I stole up into my own rooms, and laid myself down on 
 my bed, as motionless as if it had been my coffin. 
 
 Fear not, my love ; one sin was saved me, perhaps by 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 371 
 
 your letter of that morning. The wretchedest, most hope- 
 less, most guilty of men would never dare to pray for death 
 so long as he knew that a good woman loved him. 
 
 When daylight failed I bestirred myself, lit my lamp, 
 and began to make a few preparations and arrangements 
 about my rooms it being clear that, wherever I went, I 
 must quit this place as soon as possible. 
 
 My mind was almost made up as to the course I ought 
 to pursue ; and that of itself calmed me. I was soon able 
 to sit down, and begin this letter to you ; bui, got no Ihr- 
 ther than the first three words, which, often as I have writ- 
 ten them, look as new, strange, and precious as ever : " My 
 dear Theodora" Dear God knows how infinitely ! and 
 mine altogether and everlastingly mine. I felt this, even 
 now. In the resolution I had made, no doubts shook me 
 with respect to you ; for you would bid me to do exactly 
 what conscience urged ay, even if you differed from me. 
 You said once, with your arms round my neck, and your 
 sweet eyes looking up steadfastly in mine : " Max, what- 
 ever happens, always do what you think to be right, with- 
 out reference to me. I would love you all the better for 
 doing it, even if you broke my heart." 
 
 I was pondering thus, planning how best to tell you of 
 things so sore ; when there came a knock to my room door. 
 Expecting no one but a servant, I said " Come in," and did 
 not even look up for every creature in the jail must be fa- 
 miliar with my disgrace by this time. 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart, do I intrude ?" 
 
 It was the chaplain. 
 
 Theodora, if I have ever in my letters implied a word 
 against him for the narrowness and formality of his re- 
 ligious belief sometimes annoyed and was a hinderance to 
 me remember it not. Set down his name, the Reverend 
 James Thorley, on the list of those I wish to be kept al- 
 ways in your tender memory, as those whom I sincerely 
 honored, and who have been most kind to me of all my 
 friends. 
 
 The old man spoke with great hesitation, and when I 
 thanked him for coining, replied in the manner which I had 
 many a time heard him use in convict cells : 
 
 " I came, sir, because I felt it to be my duty." 
 
 " Mr. Thorley, whatever was your motive, I respect it, 
 and thank you." 
 
 And we remained silent both standing for he declined 
 
r.T- A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 
 
 my offer of a chair. Noticing my preparations, he said, 
 with some agitation, "Am I hindering your plans for de- 
 parture ? Are you afraid of the law ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 He seemed relieved ; then, after a long examining look 
 at me, quite broke down. 
 
 " O Doctor, Doctor, what a terrible thing this is ! who 
 would have believed it of you !" 
 
 It was very bitter, Theodora. 
 
 When he saw that I attempted neither answer nor de- 
 fense, the chaplain continued sternly: "I come here, sir, 
 not to pry into your secrets, but to fulfill my duty as a min- 
 ister of God ; to urge you to make confession, not unto me, 
 but unto Him whom you have offended, whose eye you can 
 not escape, and whose justice sooner or later will bring you 
 to punishment. But perhaps," seeing I bore with compos- 
 ure these and many similar arguments ; alas, they were 
 only too familiar ! " perhaps I am laboring under a strange 
 mistake? You do not look guilty, and I could as soon 
 have believed in my own son's being a criminal, as you. 
 For God\s sake break this reserve, and tell me all." 
 
 " It is not possible." 
 
 There was a long pause, and then the old man said, sigh- 
 ing : 
 
 " Well, I will urge no more. Your sin, whatever it be, 
 rests between you and the Judge of sinners. You say the 
 l;i\v has no hold over you?" 
 
 " I said I was not afraid of the law." 
 
 " Therefore it must have been a moral rather than a le- 
 gal crime, if crime it was." And again I had to bear that 
 v. -arching look, so dreadful because it was so eager and 
 kind. " On my soul, Doctor Urquhart, I believe you to be 
 entirely innocent." 
 
 " Sir," I cried out, and stopped ; then asked him " if he 
 did not believe it possible for a man to have sinned and yet 
 repented ?" 
 
 Mr. Thorley started back so greatly shocked that I per- 
 ceived at once what an implication I had made. But it 
 was too late now ; nor, perhaps, would I have had it other* 
 wise. 
 
 " As a clergyman I I ' He paused. " ''If a man 
 sin a sin which is not unto death ' You know the rest. 
 'And there is a sin which is unto death ; I do not soy 
 that he shall pray for it? But never that we shall iwt 
 prnv for it." 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 373 
 
 And falling down on his knees beside me, the old chap- 
 lain repeated in a broken voice : 
 
 " ' Hemember not the sins of my youth nor my trans- 
 gressions y according to thy mercy, think thou upon me, O 
 Lord, for thy goodness? Not ours, which is but filthy 
 rags ; for Thy goodness, through Jesus Christ, O Lord." 
 
 u Amen." 
 
 Mr. Thorley rose, took the chair I gave him, and we sat 
 silent. Presently he asked me if I had any plans ? Had I 
 considered what exceeding difficulty I should find in estab- 
 lishing myself any where professionally, after what hap- 
 pened this day ? 
 
 I said I was fully aware that so far as my fir 
 pects were concerned, I was a ruined man. 
 
 "And yet you take it so calmly?" 
 
 u Ay." 
 
 " Doctor," said he, after again watching me, " you must 
 either be innocent, or your error must have been caused by 
 strong temptation, and long ago retrieved. I will never 
 believe but that you are now as honorable and worthy a 
 man as any living." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 An uncontrollable weakness came over me ; Mr. Thorley, 
 too, was much affected. 
 
 " I'll tell you what it is, my dear fellow," said he, as he 
 wrung my hand, " you must start afresh in some other part 
 of the world. You are no older than my son-in-law was 
 when he married and went to Canada, in your own profes- 
 sion too. By the way, I have an idea." 
 
 The idea was worthy of this excellent man, and of his 
 behavior to me. He explained that his son-in-law, a phy- 
 sician in good practice, wanted a partner some one from 
 the Old Country, if possible. 
 
 " If you went out, with an introduction from me, he 
 would be sure to like you, and all might be settled in no time. 
 Besides, you Scotch hang together so my son-in-law is a 
 Fife man and did you not say you were born or educated 
 at St. Andrews ? The very thing !" 
 
 And he urged me to start by next Saturday's American 
 mail. 
 
 A sharp struggle went on within my mind. Mr. Thorley 
 evidently thought it sprang from another cause, and, with 
 much delicacy, gave me to understand that in the promised 
 introduction, he did not consider there was the slightest 
 
374 A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 
 
 necessity to state more than that I had been an army sur- 
 geon, and was his valued friend; that no reports against 
 me were likely to reach the far Canadian settlement, whith- 
 er I should carry, both to his son-in-law and the world at 
 large, a perfectly unknown and unblemished name. 
 
 If I had ever wavered, this decided me. The hope must 
 go. So I let it go, in all probability, forever. 
 
 Was I right ? I can hear you say, " Yes, Max." 
 
 In bidding the chaplain farewell, I tried to explain to him 
 
 that in this generous offer he had given to me more than 
 
 he guessed faith not only in heaven, but in mankind, and 
 
 strength to do without shrinking what I am bound to do 
 
 that there are other good Christians in this world 
 
 himself who dare believe that a man may sin and 
 
 'lit that the stigma even of an absolute crime is 
 
 not hopeless nor eternal. 
 
 His own opinion concerning my present conduct, or the 
 facts of my past history, I did not seek ; it was of little 
 moment ; he will shortly learn all. 
 
 My love, I have resolved, as the only thing possible to 
 my future peace, the one thing exacted by the laws of God 
 a:i I man to do what I ought to have done twenty years 
 ago to deliver myself up to justice. 
 
 Now I have told you ; but I can not tell you the infinite 
 calm which this resolution has brought to me. To be free ; 
 to lay down this living load of lies, which has hung about 
 1113 for twenty years ; to speak the whole truth before God 
 an 1 man confess all, and take my punishment my love, 
 my love, if you knew what the thought of this is to me, you 
 would neither tremble nor weep, but rather rejoice ! 
 
 My Theodora, I take you in my arms, I hold you to my 
 heart, and love you with a love that is dearer than life and 
 stronger than death, and I ask you to let me do this. 
 
 In the inclosed letter to your father, I have, after relating 
 all the circumstances of which I here inform you, implored 
 him to release me from a pledge which I ought never to 
 have given. Never, for it was putting the fear of man be- 
 fore the fear of God ; it was binding myself to an eternal 
 hypocrisy, an inward gnawing of shame, which paralyzed 
 my very soul. I must escape it ; you must try to release 
 me from it my love, who loves me better than herself, bet- 
 ter than myself, I mean this poor worthless self, battered 
 and old, which I have often thought was more fit to go 
 down into the Grave than live to be mv dear carl's husband. 
 
A LIFE Fdfc A^LIFE. 375 
 
 vT>f p 
 
 Forgive me if I wound you. By the intolerable agony of 
 this hour, I feel that the sacrifice is just and right. 
 
 You must help me, you must urge your father to set me 
 free. Tell him indeed I have told him that he need 
 dread no disgrace to the family, or to him who is no more. 
 I shall state nothing of Henry Johnston excepting his name, 
 and my own confession will be sufficient and sole evidence 
 against me. 
 
 As to the possible result of my trial, I have not overlook- 
 ed, it. It was just, if only for my dear love's sake, that I 
 should gain some idea of the chances against me. Little as 
 I understand of the law, and especially English law, it seems 
 to me very unlikely that the verdict will be willful murder, 
 nor shall I plead -guilty to that. God and my own con- 
 K science are witnesses that I did not commit murder, but un- 
 premeditated manslaughter. 
 
 The punishment for this is, I believe, sometimes trans- 
 portation, sometimes imprisonment for a long term of years. 
 If it were death which perhaps it might as well be to a 
 man of my age I must face it. The remainder of my days, 
 be they few or many, must be spent in peace. 
 
 If I do not hear within two days' post from Rockmount, 
 I shall conclude your father makes no opposition to my 
 determination, and go at once to surrender myself at Salis- 
 bury. You need not write ; it might compromise you ; it 
 would be almost a relief to me to hear nothing of or from 
 you until all was over. 
 
 And now, farewell ! My personal effects here I leave in 
 charge of the chaplain, with a sealed envelope, containing 
 the name and address of the friend to whom they are to be 
 sent in case of my death, or any other emergency. This is 
 yourself. In my will I have given you, as near as the law 
 allows, everj right that you would have had as my wife. 
 
 My wife-7 my wife in the sight of God, farewell ! that 
 is, until such time as I dare write again. Take good caro 
 of yourself; be patient, and have hope. In whatever he 
 commands he is too just a man to command an injustice 
 obey your father. 
 
 Forget me not but you never will. If I could have seen 
 you once more, have felt you close to my heart perhaps 
 it is better as it is. 
 
 Only a week's suspense for you, and it will be over. Let 
 us trust in God ; and farewell ! Remember how I loved 
 you, my child ! MAX UEQUHAET. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVL 
 
 HIS STORY. 
 
 MY DEAR THEODORA, By this time you will have known 
 all. Thank God, it is-over. My dear, dear love my own 
 faithful girl it is over ! 
 
 When I was brought back to prison to-night, I found 
 your letters ; but I had heard of you the day^before from 
 Colin Granton. Do not regret the chance which made Mr. 
 Johnston detain my letter to you, instead of forwarding it 
 at once to the Cedars. These sort of things never seem to 
 me as accidental; all was for good. In any case I could 
 not have done otherwise than I did ; but it would have 
 been painful to have done it in direct opposition to your 
 father. The only thing I regret is, that my poor child 
 should have had the shock of first seeing these hard tidings 
 of my surrender to the magistrate, and my public confes- 
 sion, in a newspaper. 
 
 Granton told me how you bore it. Tell him I shall re- 
 member gratefully all my life his goodness to you, and his 
 leaving his young wife whom he dearly loves, I can see 
 to come to me here. Nor was he my only friend ; do 
 not think I was either contemned or forsaken. Sir Wil- 
 liam Treherne and several others offered any amount of 
 bail for me ; but it was better I should remain in prison 
 during the few days between my committal and the assizes. 
 I needed quiet and solitude. 
 
 Therefore, my love, I dared not have seen you, even had 
 you immediately come to me. You have acted in all things 
 as my dear girl was sure to act wise, thoughtful, self-con- 
 trolled, and oh ! how infinitely loving. 
 
 I had to stop here for want of daylight ; but they have 
 now brought me my allowance of candle slender enough, 
 so I must make haste. I wish you to have this full ac- 
 count as soon as possible after the brief telegram which I 
 know Mr. Granton sent you the instant my trial was over. 
 A trial, however, it was not ; in my ignorance of law, I im- 
 agined much that never happened. What did happen I 
 will here set down. 
 
 You must not expect me to give many details ; my head 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 377 
 
 was rather confused, and my health has been a good deal 
 shaken, though do not take heed of any thing Granton may 
 tell you about me or my looks. I shall recover now. 
 
 Fortunately, the four days of imprisonment gave me 
 time to recover myself in a measure, and I. was able to 
 write out the statement I meant to read at my trial. I 
 preferred reading it, lest any physical weakness might 
 make- me confused or inaccurate. You see I took all ra- 
 tional precautions for my own safety. I was as just to 
 myself as I would have been to another man. This for 
 your sake, and also for the sake of those now dead, upon 
 whose fair name I have brought the first blot. 
 
 But I must not think of that it is too late. What best 
 becomes me is humility, and gratitude to God and man. 
 Had I known in my wretched youth, when, absorbed in 
 terror of human justice, I forgot justice divine had I but 
 known there were so many merciful hearts in this world! 
 
 After Colin Granton left me last night I slept quietly, for 
 I felt quiet and at rest. Oh, the peace of an unburdened 
 conscience, the freedom of a soul at ease, which, the whole 
 truth being told, has no longer any thing to dread, and is 
 prepared for every thing ! 
 
 I rose calm and refreshed, and could see through my 
 cell window that it was a lovely spring morning. I was 
 glad my Theodora did not know what particular day of 
 the assizes was fixed for my trial. It would make things 
 a little easier for her. 
 
 It was noon before the case came on : a. long time to 
 wait. 
 
 Do not suppose me braver than I was. When I found 
 myself standing in the prisoner's dock, the whole mass of 
 staring faces seemed to whirl round and round before my 
 eyes ; I felt sick and cold ; I had lost more strength than I 
 thought. Every thing present melted away into a sort of 
 dream through which I fancied I heard you speaking, but 
 could not distinguish any words except these, the soft, 
 still tenderness of which haunted me as freshly as if they 
 had been only iust uttered: "My dear Max! my dear 
 Max!" _ 
 
 By this I perceived that my mind was wandering, and 
 must be recalled ; so I forced myself to look round at the 
 judge, jury, witness-box, in the which was one person sit- 
 ting with his white head resting on his hand. I felt who 
 it was. 
 
373 JL LIFE FOB A LirE. 
 
 Did you know your father was subpoenaed here ? If so, 
 what a day this must have been for my poor child ! Think 
 not, though, that the sight of him added to my suffering. 
 I had no fear of him or of any thing now. Even public 
 shame was less terrible than I thought ; those scores of in- 
 quisitive eyes hardly stabbed so deep as in days past did 
 many a kind look of your father's, many a loving glance of 
 yours. 
 
 The formalities of the court began, but I scarcely listen- 
 ed to them. They seemed to me of little consequence. As 
 I said to Granton when he urged me to employ counsel, a 
 man who only wants to speak the truth can surely manage 
 to do it, in spite of the encumbrances of the law. 
 
 It came to an end the long, unintelligible indictment 
 and my first clear perception of my position was the judge's 
 question : 
 
 " How say you, prisoner at the bar, guilty or not guilty ?" 
 
 I pleaded "guilty," as a matter of course. The judge 
 asked several questions, and held a long discussion with 
 the counsel for the crown on what he termed " this very 
 remarkable case." The purport of it was, I believe, to as- 
 certain my sanity, and whether any corroboration of my 
 confession could be obtained. It could not. All possible 
 witnesses were long since dead, except your father. 
 
 He still kept his position, neither turning toward me nor 
 yet from me neither compassionate nor revengeful, but 
 sternly composed, as if his long sorrows had obtained their 
 solemn satisfaction ; and, even though the end was thus, he 
 felt relieved that it had come. As if he, like me, had learn- 
 ed to submit that our course should be shaped for us rath- 
 er than by us, being taught that even in this world's events 
 the God of Truth will be justified before men will prove 
 that those who, under any pretense, disguise or deny the 
 truth, live not unto Him, but unto the father of lies. 
 
 Is it not strange that then and there I should have been 
 calm enough to think of these things ? Ay, and should 
 calmly write of them now. But, as I have told you, in a 
 great crisis my mind always recovers its balance and be- 
 comes quiet. Besides, sickness makes us both clear-sighted 
 and far sighted wonderfully so, sometimes. 
 
 Do not suppose from this admission that my health is 
 gone or- going, but simply that I am, as I see in the look- 
 ing-glass, a somewhat older and feebler man than my dear 
 love remembers me a year a<io. But I must hasten on. 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 379 
 
 The plea of guilty being recorded, no trial was necessa- 
 ry; the judge had only to pass sentence. I was asked 
 whether, by counsel or otherwise, I wished to say any 
 thing in my own defense? And then I rose and told the 
 whole truth. 
 
 Do not grieve for me, Theodora. The truth is never 
 really terrible. What makes it so is the fear of man, and 
 that was over with me ; the torment of guilty shame, and 
 that was gone too. I have had many a moment of far 
 sharper anguish, more grinding humiliation than this, when 
 I stood up and publicly confessed the sin of my youth, with 
 the years of suffering which had followed dare I say, ex- 
 piated it ? 
 
 There is a sense in w r hich no sin ever can be expiated 
 except in One Blessed Way ; yet in so far as a man can 
 atone to man, I believed I had atoned for mine ; I had tried 
 to give a life for a life, morally speaking nay, I had given 
 it. But it was not enough ; it could not be. Nothing less 
 than the truth was required from me, and I here offered it. 
 Thus, in one short half hour, the burden of a lifetime was 
 laid down forever. 
 
 The judge he was not unmoved, so they told me after- 
 ward said he must take time to consider the sentence. 
 Had the prisoner any witnesses as to character ? 
 
 Several came forward. Among the rest, the good old 
 chaplain, who had traveled all night from Liverpool, in or- 
 der, he said, just to shake hands with me to-day which he 
 did, in open court God bless him ! 
 
 There was also Colonel Turton, with Colin Granton 
 who had never left me since daylight this morning but 
 they all held back when they saw rise and come forward, 
 as if with the intention of being sworn, your father. 
 
 Have no fear, my love, for his health. I watched him 
 closely all this day. He bore it well it will have no ill 
 result, I feel sure. From my observation of him, I should 
 say that a great and salutary change had come over him, 
 both body and mind, and that he is as likely to enjoy a 
 green old age -as any one I know. 
 
 When he spoke, his voice was as steady and clear as be- 
 fore his accident it used to be in the pulpit. 
 
 " My lords and gentlemen, I was subpoenaed to this trial. 
 "Not being called upon to give evidence, I wish to make a 
 statement upon oath." 
 
 There must have been a "sensation in the court," as 
 
.380 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 newspapers say, for I saw Grant on look anxiously at ine. 
 But I had no fears. Your father, whatever he had to say, 
 was sure to speak the truth, not a syllable more or less, and 
 the truth was all I wanted. 
 
 The judge here interfered, observing that, there being 
 no trial, he could receive no legal evidence against the 
 prisoner. 
 
 " Nor have I any such evidence to give : I was only for 
 justice. My lord, may I speak?" 
 
 Assent was given. 
 
 Your father's words were brief and formal ; but you will 
 imagine how they fell on one ear at least. 
 
 k - My name is William Henry Johnston, cierk, of Rock- 
 mount, Surrey. Henry Johnston, who died on the night 
 of November 19th, 1836, was my only son. I know the 
 prisoner at the bar. I knew him for some time before he 
 was aware whose father I was, or I had any suspicion that 
 my son came to his death in any other way than by acci- 
 dent." 
 
 " Was your first discovery of these painful facts by the 
 prisoner's present confession?" 
 
 " No, my lord." Your father hesitated, but only mo- 
 mentarily. " He told me the whole story himself, a year 
 ago, under circumstances that would have induced most 
 men to conceal it forever." 
 
 The judge inquired, " Why was not this confession made 
 public at once ?" 
 
 "Because I was afraid. I did not wish to make my 
 family history a by- word and a scandal. I exacted a prom- 
 ise that the secret should be kept inviolate. This promise 
 he has broken ; but I blame him not. It ought never to 
 have been made." 
 
 " Certainly not. It was thwarting the purposes of jus- 
 tice and of the law." 
 
 " My lord, I am an old man, and a clergyman ; I know 
 nothing about the law ; but I know it was a wrong act to 
 biijd any man's conscience to live a perpetual lie." 
 
 Your father was here asked if he had any thing more to 
 say. 
 
 " A word only. In the prisoner's confession, he has, out 
 of delicacy to me, omitted three facts, which weigh materi- 
 ally in extenuation of his crime. When he committed it 
 he was only nineteen, and my son was thirty. He was 
 drunk, and my son, who led an irregular life, had made him 
 
A LIFE FOK A LIFE. 381 
 
 so, and afterward taunted him more than a youth of nine- 
 teen was likely to bear. Such was his statement to me, 
 and, knowing his character and my son's, I have little doubt 
 of its perfect accuracy." 
 
 The judge looked up from his notes. " You seem, sir, 
 strange to say, to be not unfavorable toward the prisoner." 
 
 "I am just tow r ard the prisoner. I wish to be, even 
 though he has on his hands the blood of my only son." 
 
 After the pause which followed, the judge said : 
 
 " Mr. Johnston, the Court respects your feelings, and re- 
 grets to detain you longer or put you to any additional 
 pain. But it may materially aid the decision of this very 
 peculiar case if you will answer another question. You 
 are aware that, all other evidence being wanting, the pris- 
 oner can only be judged by his own confession. Do you 
 believe, on your oath, that this confession is true ?" 
 
 " I do. I am bound to say, from my intimate knowledge 
 of the prisoner, that I believe him to be now, whatever he 
 may have been in his youth, a man of sterling honor and 
 unblemished life ; one who would not tell a lie to save him- 
 self from the scaffold." 
 
 "The Court is satisfied." 
 
 But before he sat down your father turned, and, for the 
 first time that day, he and I were face to face. 
 
 " I am a clergyman, as I said, and I never was in a court 
 of justice before. Is it illegal for me to address a few 
 words to the prisoner ?" 
 
 Whether it was or not, nobody interrupted him. 
 
 " Doctor Urquhart," he said, speaking loud enough for 
 every one to hear, " what your sentence may be, I know 
 not, or whether you and I shall ever meet again until the 
 day of judgment. If not, I believe that if we are to be for- 
 given our debts according as we forgive our debtors, I 
 shall have to forgive you then. I prefer to do it now, 
 while we are in the flesh, and it may comfort your soul. I, 
 Henry Johnston's father, declare publicly that I believe 
 what you did was done in the heat of youth, and has ever 
 since been bitterly repented of. May God pardon you, 
 even- as I do this day." 
 
 I did not see your father afterward. He quitted the 
 court directly after sentence was given three months' im- 
 j prisonment the judge making a long speech previously ; 
 but I heard not a syllable. I heard nothing but your fa- 
 ther's words saw no one except himself, sitting there be' 
 
382 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 low me, with his hands crossed on his stick, and a stream 
 of sunshine falling across his white hairs Theodora Theo- 
 dora 
 
 I can not write ; it is impossible. 
 
 Granton got admission to me for a minute after I was 
 taken back to prison. He told me that the " hard labor" 
 was remitted ; that there had been application made for 
 commutation of the three months into one, but the judge 
 declined. If I wished, a new application should be made 
 to the Home Secretary. 
 
 No, my love, suffer him not to do it. Let nothing more 
 be done. I had rather abide my full term of punishment. 
 It is only too easy. 
 
 Do not grieve for me. Trust me, my child, many a peer 
 puts on his robes with a heavier heart than I put on this 
 felon's dress, which shocked Granton so much that he is 
 sure to tell you of it. Never mind it my clothes are not 
 me, are they, little lady ? Who was the man that wrote 
 
 " Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 
 Nor iron bars a cage ; 
 Minds innocent " 
 
 Am I innocent ? No ; but I am forgiven, as I believe, 
 before God and man. And are not all the glories of heav- 
 en preparing, not for sinners, but for pardoned souls ? 
 
 Therefore I am at peace. The first night of my impris- 
 onment is, for some things, as happy to me as that which I 
 have often imagined to myself w T hen I should bring you 
 home for the first time to my own fireside. 
 
 Not even that thought, and the rush of thoughts that 
 come with it, are able to shake me out of this feeling of un- 
 utterable rest so perfect that it seems strange to imagine 
 I shall ever go out of this cell to begin afresh the turmoil 
 of the world as strange as that the dead should wish to 
 return again to life and its cares. But this as God wills. 
 
 My love, good-night. Granton will give you any farther 
 particulars. Talk to him freely it will be his good heart's 
 best reward. His happy, busy life, which is now begun, 
 may have been made all the brighter for the momentary 
 cloud which taught him that Providence oftentimes blesses 
 us in better ways than by giving us exactly the thing we 
 desired. He told me when we parted, which was the only 
 allusion he made to the past, that, though Mrs. Colin was 
 " the dearest little woman in all the world," he should al- 
 ways adore, as " something between a saint and an angel," 
 Miss Dora- 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 383 
 
 Is she my saint and angel ? Perhaps if she were not 
 likewise the woman of my love. 
 
 What is she doing now, I wonder? Probably vanish- 
 ing, lamp in hand, as I have often watched her, up the stair 
 into her own wee room, where she shuts the door and re- 
 members me. 
 
 Yes, remember me, but not with pain. Believe me, that 
 I am happy that whatever now befalls me I shall always 
 be happy. 
 
 Tell your father-^- 
 
 No, tell him nothing. He surely knows all. Or he will 
 know it, when, this life having passed away like a vapor, 
 he and I stand together before the One God, who is also 
 the Redeemer of sinners. 
 
 Write to me, but do not come and see me. Hitherto 
 your name has been kept clear out of every thing ; it must 
 be still, at any sacrifice to both of us. I count on this from 
 you. You know, you once said laughing, you had already 
 taken in your heart the marriage vow of u obedience," if I 
 chose to exact it. 
 
 I never did, but I do now. Unless I send for you 
 which I solemnly promise to do if illness or any other cause 
 makes it necessary obey me, your husband ; do not come 
 and see me. 
 
 Three months will pass quickly. Then ? But let us not 
 look forward. 
 
 My love, good-night. MAX URQUHART. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 HER STORY. 
 
 MAX says I am to write an end to my journal, tie it up 
 with his letters and mine, fasten a stone to it, and drop it 
 over the ship's bulwarks into this blue, blue sea. That is, 
 either he threatened me or I him, I forget which, with such 
 a solemn termination ; but I doubt if we shall ever have 
 courage to do it. It would feel something like dropping a 
 little child into this " wild and wandering grave," as a poor 
 mother on board had to do yesterday. 
 
 " But I shall see him again," she sobbed, as I was help- 
 ing her to sew the little white body up in its hammock. 
 " The good God will take care of him, and let me find him 
 
384 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 again, oven out of the deep sea. I can not lose him ; 1 
 loved him so." 
 
 And thus, I believe, no perfect love, or the record of it, 
 in heart or in word, can ever be lost. So it is of small mat- 
 ter to Max and me whether this, our true love's history, 
 sinks down into the bottom of the ocean, to sleep there 
 as we almost expected we should do yesterday, there was 
 such a storm or is sealed up and preserved for the bene- 
 fit of of our great grandchildren. 
 
 Ah ! that poor mother and her dead child ! 
 
 Max here crept down into the berth to look for me, and 
 I returned with him and left him resting comfortably on 
 the quarter-deck, promising not to stir for a whole hour. 
 I have to take care of him still ; but, as I told him, the sea 
 winds are bringing some of its natural brownness back to 
 his dear old face, and I shall not consider him "interest- 
 ing" any more. 
 
 During the three months that Max was in prison I never 
 saw him. Indeed, we never once met from the day we 
 said good-by in my father's presence till the day that 
 But I will continue my story systematically. 
 
 All those three months Max was ill ; not dangerously 
 for he said so, and I could believe him. It would have 
 gone very hard with me if I could not have relied on him 
 in this, as in every thing. Nevertheless, it was a bitter 
 time, and now I almost wonder how I bore it now, when 
 I am ready and willing for every thing, except the one 
 thing, Avhich, thank God, I shall never have to bear again 
 separation. 
 
 The day before he came out of prison Max wrote to me 
 a long and serious letter. Hitherto both our letters had 
 been filled up with trivialities, such as might amuse him 
 and cheer me. We deferred all plans till he was better. 
 My private thoughts, if I had any, were not clear even 
 to myself until Max's letter. 
 
 It was a very sad letter. Three months' confinement in 
 one cell, with one hour's daily walk round a circle in a 
 walled yard prisoner's labor, for he took to making mats, 
 saying it amused him prisoner's rules and fare no won- 
 der that toward the 'end even his brave heart gave way. 
 
 He broke down utterly, otherwise he never would have 
 written to me as he did bidding me farewell me! At 
 first I was startled and shocked ; then I laid down the let- 
 ter and smiled a very sad sort of smile, of course, but still 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 385 
 
 it was a smile. The idea that Max and I could part, or 
 desire to do so, under any human circumstances, seemed 
 one of those amusingly impossible things that one would 
 never stop to argue in the least, either with one's self or 
 any other person. That we loved one another, and there- 
 fore some day should probably be married, but that any 
 how we belonged to one another till death, were facts at 
 once simple and natural, and immutable as that the sun 
 stood in the heavens or that the grass was green. 
 
 I wrote back to Max that night. 
 
 Not that I did it in any hurry or impulse of sudden feel- 
 ing. I took many hours to consider both what I should 
 say, and in what form I should put it. Also, I had doubts 
 whether it would not be best for him, if he accepted the 
 generous offer of Mr. Thorley's son-in-law, made with full 
 knowledge of all circumstances, to go first to America 
 alone. But, think how I would, my thoughts all returned 
 and settled in the same track, in which was written one 
 clear truth ; that, after God and the right which means 
 all claims of justice and conscience the first duty of any 
 two who love truly is toward one another. 
 
 I have thought since that if this truth were plainer seen 
 and more firmly held by those whom it concerns, many 
 false notions about honor, pride, self-respect, would slip off; 
 many uneasy doubts and divided duties would be set at 
 rest ; there would be less fear of the world and more of 
 God, the only righteous fear. People would believe more 
 simply in His ordinance, instituted " from the beginning" 
 not the mere outward ceremony of a wedding, but the 
 love which draws together man and woman until it makes 
 them complete in one another, in the mystical marriage 
 union, which, once perfect, should never be disannulled. 
 And if this union begins, as I think it does, from the very 
 hour each feels certain of the other's love surely, as I said 
 to Max to talk about giving one another up, whether 
 from poverty, delay, altered circumstances, or compulsion 
 of friends, any thing, in short, except changed love or lost 
 honor like poor Penelope and Francis was about as 
 foolish and wrong as attempting to annul a marriage. In- 
 deed, I have seen many a marriage that might have been 
 broken with far less unholiness than a real troth plight, 
 such as this of ours. 
 
 After a little more " preaching" (a bad habit that I fear 
 is growing upon me, save that Max merely laughs at it, or 
 
 R 
 
386 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 when lie does not laugh he actually listens!), I ended my 
 letter by the earnest advice that he should go and settle in 
 Canada, and go at once, but that he must remember he had 
 to take with him one trilling encumbrance me. 
 
 When the words were written, the deed done, I was a 
 little startled at myself. It looked so exceedingly like my 
 making him an offer of marriage ! But then good-by, 
 foolish doubt ! good-by, contemptible shame ! Those few 
 tears that burned my cheeks after the letter was gone were 
 the only tears of the sort that I ever shed that Max will 
 ever suffer me to shed. Max loves me ! 
 
 His letter in reply I shall not give not a line of it. It 
 was only /or me. 
 
 So that being settled, the next thing to consider was 
 how matters could be brought about, without delay either ; 
 for, with Max's letter, I got one from his good friend Mrs. 
 Ansdell, at whose house in London he had gone to lodge. 
 Her son had followed his two sisters they were a con- 
 sumptive family leaving her a poor old childless widow 
 now. She was very fond of my dear Max, which made her 
 quick-sighted concerning him, and so she wrote as she did, 
 delicately, but sufficiently plainly to me, who she said he 
 had told her was, in case of any sudden calamity, to be sent 
 for as " his nearest friend." 
 
 My dear Max ! Now, we smile at these sad forebod- 
 ings ; we believe we shall both live to see a good old age. 
 But if I had known that we should only be married a year, 
 a month, a week if I had been certain he would die in my 
 arms the very same day, I should still have done exactly 
 what I did. 
 
 In one sense, his illness made my path easier. He had 
 need of me vital, instant need, and no one else had. Also, 
 he was so weak that even his will had left him ; he could 
 neither reason nor resist. He just wrote, "You are my 
 conscience ; do as you will, only do right." And then, as 
 Mrs. Ansdell afterward told me, he lay for days and days, 
 calm, patient waiting, he says, for another angel than 
 Theodora. 
 
 Well, we smile now at these days, as I said ; thank God, 
 we can smile ; but it would not do to live them over again. 
 
 Max refused to let me come to see him at Mrs. Ansdell' s 
 until my father had been informed of all our plans. But 
 papa went on in his daily life, now so active and cheerful ; 
 he did not seem to remember any thing concerning Doctor 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 387 
 
 ITrquhart and me. For two whole days did I follow him 
 about, watching an opportunity, but it never came. The 
 first person who learned my secret was Penelope. 
 
 How many a time, in these strange summers to come, 
 shall I call to mind that soft English summer night, under 
 the honeysuckle bush Penelope and I sitting at our work; 
 she talking the while of Lisabel's new hope, and consider- 
 ing which of us two should best be spared to go and take 
 care of her in her trial. 
 
 " Or, indeed, papa might almost be left alone for a week 
 or two. He would hardly miss us, he is so well. I should 
 not wonder if, like grandfather, whom you don't remember, 
 Dora, he lived to be ninety years old." 
 
 " I hope he may I hope he may !" 
 
 And I burst out sobbing ; then, hanging about my sis- 
 ter's neck, I told her all. 
 
 " Oh !" I cried, for my tongue seemed unloosed, and I 
 was not afraid of speaking to her, nor even of hurting her 
 if now she could be hurt by the personal sorrows that 
 mine recalled to her mind. " Oh, Penelope, don't you 
 think it would be right? Papa does not want me no- 
 body wants me. Or if they did " 
 
 I stopped. Penelope said, meditatively, " A man shall 
 leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife." 
 
 "And equally a woman ought to cleave unto her hus- 
 band. I mean to ask my father's consent to my going 
 with Max to Canada." 
 
 " Ah 1 that's sudden, child." And by her start of pain 
 I felt how untruly I had spoken, and how keenly I must 
 have wounded my sister in saying, " Nobody wanted me" 
 at home. 
 
 Home, where I lived for nearly twenty-seven years, all 
 of which now seem such happy years. " God do so unto 
 me, and more also," as the old Hebrews used to say, if 
 ever I forget Rockmount, my peaceful maiden home ! 
 
 It looked so pretty that night, with the sunset coloring 
 its old walls, and its terrace walk, where papa was walking 
 to and fro, bareheaded, the rosy light falling like a glory 
 upon his long white hair. To think of him thus pacing 
 his garden, year after year, each year growing older and 
 feebler, and I never seeing him, perhaps never hearing from 
 him either not coming back at all, or returning after a 
 lapse of years to find nothing left to me but my father's 
 grave! 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 The conflict was very terrible ; nor would Max himself 
 have wished it less. They who do not love their own flesh 
 and blood, with whom they have lived ever since they were 
 born, how can they know what any love is ? 
 
 We heard papa call us : " Come in, you girls ! The sun 
 is down, and the dews are falling." 
 
 Penelope put her hand softly on my head. 
 
 "Hush, child, hush! Steal into your own room, and 
 quiet yourself. I will go and explain things to your father.", 
 
 I was sure she must have done it in the best and gentlest 
 way ; Penelope does every thing so wisely and gently now ; 
 but when she came to look for me, I knew, before she said 
 a word, that it had been done in vain. 
 
 " Dora, you must go yourself and reason with him. But 
 take heed what you say and what you do. There is hard- 
 ly a man on this earth for whom it is worth forsaking a 
 happy home and a good father." 
 
 And truly, if I had ever had the least doubt of Max, or 
 of our love for one another ; if I had not felt as it were al- 
 ready married to him, who had no tie in the whole wide 
 world but me, I never could have nerved myself to say 
 what I did say to my father. If, in the lightest word, it 
 was unjust, unloving, or undutiful, may God forgive me, 
 for I never meant it ! My heart was breaking almost ; but 
 I only wanted to hold fast to the right, as I saw it, and as, 
 so seeing it, I could not but act. 
 
 " So I understand you wish to leave your father ?" 
 
 "Papa! papa!" 
 
 "Do not argue the point. I thought that folly was all 
 over now. It must be over. Be a good girl, and forget 
 it. There!" 
 
 I suppose I must have turned very white, for I felt him 
 take hold of me, and press me into a chair beside him. 
 But it would not do to let my strength go. 
 
 " Papa, I want your consent to my marriage with Doc- 
 tor Urquhart. He would come and ask you himself, but 
 he is too ill. We have waited a long time, and suffered 
 much. He is not young, and I feel old quite old myself, 
 sometimes. Do not part us any more." 
 
 This was, as near as I can recollect, what I said said 
 very quietly and humbly, I know it was, for my father 
 seemed neither surprised nor angry ; but he sat there as 
 hard as a stone, repeating only, " It must be over." 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 389 
 
 He answered by one word : "Harry" 
 
 " No other reason?" 
 
 " None." 
 
 Then I dared to speak out plain, even to my father. 
 " Papa, you said publicly you had forgiven him for the 
 death of Harry." 
 
 " But I never said I should forget." 
 
 "Ay, there it is!" I cried out bitterly. "People say 
 they forgive, but they can not forget. It would go hard 
 with some of us if the just God dealt with us in like man- 
 ner." 
 
 " You are profane." 
 
 " No ; only I am not afraid to bring God's truth into all 
 the circumstances of life, and to judge them by it. I be- 
 lieve, if Christ came into the world to forgive sinners, we 
 ought to forgive them too." 
 
 Thus far I said, not thinking it just toward Max that I 
 should plead merely for pity to be shown to him or to me 
 who loved him, but because it was the right and the truth, 
 and as such, both for Max's honor and mine, I strove to 
 put it clearly before my father. And then I gave way, 
 pleading only as a daughter with her father, that he should 
 blot out the past, and not, for the sake of one long dead 
 and gone, break the heart of his living child. 
 
 " Harry would not wish it I am sure he would not. If 
 Harry has gone where he, too, may find mercy for his many 
 sins, I know that he has long ago forgiven my dear Max." 
 
 My father, muttering something about " strange theolo- 
 gy," sat thoughtful. It was some time before he spoke 
 again. 
 
 " There is one point of the subject you omit entirely. 
 What will the world say ? I, a clergyman, to sanction the 
 marriage of my daughter with the man who took the life 
 of my son ? It is not possible." 
 
 Then I grew bold : " So, it is not the law of God, or jus- 
 tice, or nature, that keeps us asunder, but the world? 
 Father, you have no right to part Max and me for fear of 
 the world." 
 
 When it was said, I repented myself of this. But it was 
 too late. All his former hardness returned as he said, 
 
 "I am aware that I have no legal right to forbid your 
 marriage. You are of age ; you may act, as you have all 
 along acted, in defiance of your father." 
 
 " Never in defiance, nor even in secret disobedience ;" 
 
390 A LIFE FOE A LIFE. 
 
 and I reminded him how all things had been carried on 
 open and plain from first to last ; how patiently we had 
 waited ; and how, if Max were well and prosperous, I might 
 still have said, u We will wait a little longer." Now 
 
 -Well, and now?" 
 
 I went down on my very knees, and with tears and sobs 
 besought my father to let me be Max's wife. 
 
 It was in vain. 
 
 " Good-night ; go to your bed, Dora, and weary me no 
 more." 
 
 I rose, certain now that the time was come when I must 
 choose between two duties between father and husband ; 
 the one to whom I owed existence, the other to whose in- 
 fluence I owed every thing that had made me a girl worth 
 living or worth loving. Such crises do come to poor souls ! 
 God guide them, for He only can. 
 
 " Good-night, father." My lips felt dry and stiff ; it was 
 scarcely my own voice that I heard. " I will wait ; there 
 are still a few days." 
 
 He turned suddenly upon me. "What are you plan- 
 ning ? Tell the truth." 
 
 " I meant to do so." And then, briefly for each word 
 came out with pain, as if it were a last breath I explained 
 that Doctor Urquhart would have to leave for Canada in 
 a month that, if we had gained my father's consent, Ave 
 intended to be married in three weeks, remain a week in 
 England, and then sail. 
 
 " And what if I do not give my consent ?" 
 
 I stopped a moment, and then strength came. 
 
 " I must be Max's wife still, (iod gave us to one anoth- 
 er, and God only shall put us asunder." 
 
 After that, I remember nothing till I found myself lying 
 in my own bed, with Penelope beside me. 
 
 No words can tell how good my sister Penelope was to 
 me in the three weeks that followed. She helped me in all 
 my marriage preparations, few and small, for I had little 
 or no money except what I might have asked papa for, and 
 I would not have done that not for worlds ! Max's wife 
 would have come to him almost as poor as Griseldis, had 
 not Penelope one day taken me to those locked-up drawers 
 of hers. 
 
 " Are you afraid of ill luck with these things ? No ? 
 Then choose whatever you want, and may you have health 
 and happiness to wear them, my dear." 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 391 
 
 And so, with a little more stitching for I had a sort of 
 superstition that I should like to be married in one new 
 white gown, which my sister and I made between us we 
 finished and packed the small wardrobe which was all the 
 marriage portion poor Theodora Johnston could bring to 
 her husband. 
 
 My father must have been well aware of our preparations, 
 for we did not attempt to hide them ; the household knew 
 only that Miss Dora was " going a journey," but he knew 
 better that she was going to leave him and her old home, 
 perhaps forevermore. Yet he said nothing. Sometimes I 
 caught him looking earnestly at me at the poor face which 
 I saw in the looking-glass growing daily more white and 
 heavy-eyed yet he said nothing. 
 
 Penelope told me when, hearing me fall, she had run into 
 the library that night, he bade her "take the child away, 
 and say she must not speak to him on this subject any 
 more." I obeyed. I behaved all through those three weeks 
 as if each" day had been like the innumerable other days 
 that I had sat at my father's table, walked and talked by 
 his side, if not the best loved, at least as well loved as any 
 of his daughters. But it was an ordeal such as even to re- 
 member gives one a shiver of pain, wondering how one bore 
 it. 
 
 During the daytime I was quiet enough, being so busy, 
 and, as I said, Penelope was very good to me ; but at night 
 I used to lie awake, seeing, with open eyes, strange figures 
 about the room especially my mother, or some one I fan- 
 ; cied was she. I would often talk to her, asking her if I 
 were acting right or wrong, and whether all that I did for 
 Max she would not have once done for my father ; then 
 rouse myself with a start, and a dread that my wits were 
 going, or that some heavy illness w r as approaching me, and 
 if so, what would become of Max. 
 
 At length arrived the last day the day before my mar- 
 riage. It was not to be here, of course, but in some Lon- 
 don church, near Mrs. Ansdell's, who was to meet me her- 
 self at the railway station early the same morning, and re- 
 main with me till I was Doctor Urquhart's wife. I could 
 have no other friend ; Penelope and I agreed that it was 
 best not to risk my father's displeasure by asking for her 
 to go to my marriage. So, without sister or father, or any 
 of my own kin, I was to start on my sad wedding morning 
 quite alone. 
 
A LIFE FOH A LIFE. 
 
 During the week I had taken an opportunity to drive 
 over to the Cedars, shake hands with Colin and his wife, 
 and give his dear old mother one long kiss, which she did 
 not know was a good-by. Otherwise I bade farewell to 
 no one. My last walk through the village was amid a del- 
 uge of August rain, in which my moorlands vanished, all 
 mist and gloom. A heavy, heavy night ; it will be long 
 before the weight of it is lifted off my remembrance. 
 
 And yet I knew I was doing right, and, if needed, would 
 do it all over again. Every human love has its sacrifices 
 and its anguishes as well as its joys the one great lovo 
 of life has often most of all. Therefore, let those beware 
 who enter upon it lightly, or selfishly, or without having 
 counted its full cost. 
 
 " I do not know if we shall be happy," said I to Penel- 
 ope, when she was cheering me with a future that may nev- 
 er come ; " I only know that Max and I have cast our lots 
 together, and that we shall love one another to the end." 
 
 And in that strong love armed, I lived otherwise, many 
 times that day, it would have seemed easier to have died. 
 
 When I went, as usual, to bid papa good-night, I could 
 hardly stand. He looked at me suspiciously. 
 
 " Good-night, my dear. By-the-by, Dora, I shall want 
 you to drive me to the Cedars to-morrow." 
 
 " I I Penelope will do it." And I fell on his breast 
 with a pitiful cry. "Only bid me good-by! Only say 
 4 God bless you,' just once, father." 
 
 He breathed hard. " I thought so. Is it to be to-mor- 
 row ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 I told him. 
 
 For a few minutes papa let me lie where I was, patting 
 my shoulder softly, as one does a sobbing child ; then, still 
 gently, he put me away from him. 
 
 " We had better end this, Dora ; I can not bear it. Kiss 
 me. Good-by." 
 
 " And not one blessing ? Papa, papa !" 
 
 My father rose, and laid his hand solemnly on my head : 
 " You have been a dutiful girl to me in all things save this, 
 and a good daughter makes a good wife. Farewell! 
 Wherever you go, God bless you !" 
 
 And as he closed the library door upon me I thought I 
 had taken my last look of my dear father. 
 
A LIFE FOB A LIFE. 393 
 
 It was only six o'clock in the morning when Penelope 
 took me to the station. Nobody saw us nobody knew. 
 The man at the railway stopped us, and talked to Penelope 
 for full two minutes about his wife's illness two whole 
 minutes out of our last five. 
 
 My sister would not bid me good-by, being determined, 
 she said, to see me again, either in London or Liverpool, 
 before we sailed. She had kept me up wonderfully, and 
 her last kiss was almost cheerful, or she made it seem so. 
 I can still see her very pale, for she had been up since 
 daylight, but otherwise quiet and tearless, pacing the soli- 
 tary platform our two long shadows gliding together be- 
 fore us in the early morning sun. And I see her, even to 
 the last minute, standing with her hand on the carriage 
 door smiling. 
 
 " Give Doctor Urquhart my love ; tell him I know he 
 will take care of you. And, child," turning round once 
 again with her " practical" look that I knew so well, " re- 
 member, I have written ' Miss Johnston' on your boxes. 
 Afterward, be sure that you alter the name. Good-by 
 nonsense, it is not really good-by." 
 
 Ay, but it was. For how many, many years ? 
 
 In that dark, gloomy London church, which a thundery 
 mist made darker and stiller, I first saw again my dear Max. 
 
 Mrs. Ansdell said, lest I should be startled and shocked, 
 that it was only the sight of me which overcame him that 
 he was really better. And so when, after the first few min- 
 utes, he asked rue, hesitatingly, " if I did not find him much 
 altered ?" I answered boldly, " No ; that I should soon get 
 accustomed to his gray hair ; besides, I never remembered 
 him either particularly handsome or particularly young ;" 
 at which he smiled ; and then I knew again my own Max! 
 and all things ceased to feel so mournfully strange. 
 
 We went into one of the far pews, and Max tried on my 
 ring. How his hands shook ! so much that all my trem- 
 bling passed away, and a great calm came over me. Yes, 
 I had done right. He had nobody but me. 
 
 So we sat side by side, neither of us speaking a word, 
 until the pew-opener came to say the clergyman was ready. 
 
 There were several other couples waiting to be married 
 at the same, time who had bridesmaids, and friends, and 
 fathers. vVe three walked up and took our places there 
 was no one to pay heed to us. I saw the verger whisper 
 something to Max, to which he answered "Yes," and the 
 
 R 2 
 
394 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 old man came and stood behind Mrs. Ansdell and me. A 
 few other folk were dotted about in the pews, but I only 
 noticed them as moving figures, and distinguished none. 
 
 The service began, which I indeed we both had last 
 heard at LisabeFs wedding, in our pretty church, all flower- 
 adorned, she looking so handsome and happy, with her sis- 
 ters near her, and her father to give her away. For a mo- 
 ment I felt very desolate; and hearing a pew door open 
 and a footstep come slowly up the aisle, I trembled with a 
 vague fear that something might happen, something which 
 even at the last moment might part Max and me. 
 
 But it did not ; I heard him repeat the solemn promises 
 how dare any one make them lightly, or break them aft- 
 erward ? to " love, comfort, honor, and keep me, in sick- 
 ness and in health, and, forsaking all other, keep me only 
 unto him, so long as we both should live" And 1 felt that 
 I also, out of the entire trust I had in him, and the great 
 love I bore him, could cheerfully forsake all other, father, 
 sisters, kindred, and friends, for him. They were very dear 
 to me, and would be always ; but he was part of myself 
 my husband. 
 
 And here let me relate a strange thing so unexpected 
 that Max and I shall always feel it as a special blessing from 
 heaven to crown all our pain and send us forth on our new 
 'life in peace and joy. When in the service came the ques- 
 tion, " Who giveth this woman, etc.," there was no answer, 
 and the silence went like a stab to my heart. The minister, 
 thinking there was some mistake, repeated it again : " Who 
 giveth this woman to be married to this man ?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 It was not a stranger's voice, but my dear father's. 
 # # ^# * * * * 
 
 My husband had asked me where I should best like to 
 go for our marriage journey. I said to St. Andrew's. Max 
 grew much better there. He seemed better from the very 
 hour when, papa having remained with us till our train 
 parted, we were for the first time left alone by our two 
 selves. An expression ungrammatical enough to be quite 
 .worthy, Max would say, of his little lady, but people who 
 are married will understand what it means. We did, I 
 think, as we sat still, my head on his shoulder and my hand 
 between both his, watching the fields, trees, hills, and dales 
 fly past like changing shadows, never talking at all, nor 
 thinking much, except the glad thought came in spite of all 
 
A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 395 
 
 the bitterness of these good-bys that there was one good- 
 by which never need be said again. We were married. 
 
 I was delighted with St. Andrew's. "We shall always 
 talk of our four days there, so dream-like at the time, yet 
 afterward become clear in remembrance down to the mi- 
 nutest particulars. The sweetness of them will last us 
 through many a working hour, many an hour of care 
 such as we know must come, in ours as in all human lives. 
 We are not afraid ; we are together. 
 
 Our last day in St. Andrew's was Sunday, and Max took 
 me to his own Presbyterian church, in which he and his 
 brother were brought up, and of which Dallas was to have 
 been a minister. From his many wanderings it so happen- 
 ed that my husband had not heard the Scotch service for 
 many years, and he was much affected by it. I too, when, 
 reading together the psalms at the end of his Bible, he show- 
 ed me, silently, the name written in it Dallas Urquhart. 
 
 The psalm I shall long remember it, with the tune it 
 was sung to which was strange to me, but Max knew it 
 well of old, and it had been a particular favorite with Dal- 
 las. Surely if spirit, freed from flesh, be every where, or, 
 if permitted, can go any where that it desires not very 
 far from us two, as we sat singing that Sunday, must have 
 been our brother Dallas. 
 
 " How lovely is thy dwelling-place, 
 
 O Lord of hosts, to me ! 
 The tabernacles of thy grace, 
 
 How pleasant, Lord, they be ! 
 My thirsty soul longs vehemently, 
 
 Yea, faints, thy courts to see ; 
 My very heart and flesh cry out, 
 
 O living God, for thee 
 
 Bless'd are they, in thy house who dwell, 
 
 Who ever give thee praise ; 
 Bless'd is the man whose strength thou art, 
 
 In whose heart are thy ways ; 
 Who, passing thorough Baca's vale, 
 
 Therein do dig up wells ; 
 Also the rain that falleth down 
 
 The pools with water fills. 
 Thus they from strength unwearied go 
 
 Still forward unto strength, 
 Until in Zion they appear 
 
 Before the Lord at length." 
 
 Amen ! So, when this life is ended, may we appear, even 
 there still together, my husband and I ! 
 
396 A LIFE FOR A LIFE. 
 
 Contrary to our plans, we did not see Rockmount again, 
 nor Penelope, nor my dear father. It was thought best 
 not, especially as in a lew years, at latest, we hope, God will- 
 ing, to visit them all again, or perhaps even to settle in En- 
 gland. 
 
 After a single day spent at Treherne Court, Augustus 
 went with us one sunshiny morning on board the American 
 strainer, which lay so peacefully in the middle of the Mer- 
 sey, just as if she were to lie there forever, instead of sail- 
 ing, and we with her, in one little half hour sailing far 
 away, far away, to a home we knew not, leaving the old 
 familiar faces and the old familiar land. 
 
 It seemed doubly precious now, and beautiful even thu 
 sandy flats, that Max had so often told me about, along the 
 Mersey shore. I saw him look thoughtfully toward them, 
 alter pointing out to me the places he knew, and where his | 
 former work had lain. 
 
 " That is all over now," he said, half sadly. " Nothing 
 has happened as I planned, or hoped, or " 
 
 " Or feared." 
 
 " No. My dear wife, no ! Yet all has been for good. 
 All is very good. I shall find new work in a new coun- 
 try." 
 
 "And I too?" 
 
 Max smiled. " Yes, she too. We'll work together, my 
 little lady !" 
 
 The half hour was soon over the few last words soon 
 said. But I did not at all realize that we were away till I 
 saw Augustus wave us good-by, and heard the sudden boom 
 of our farewell gun as the Europa slipped off her mail tend- 
 er, and went steaming seaward alone fast, oh ! so fast. 
 
 The sound of that gun, it must have nearly broken many I 
 a heart many a time ! I think it would have broken mine 
 had I not, standing, close-clasped, by my husband's side, 
 looked up in his dear face, and read, as he in mine, that to 
 us, thus together, every where was Home. ... 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 iiLi AA^ 
 
 
 iNk. ox 194 
 
 
 12Jun5 8 .7 
 
 L****: 
 
 
 _. ^ 
 
 
 mi \ f! 
 
 
 jViH^^ 1 
 
 
 
 
 - v i r flfl\ - * 
 
 
 - ^jn i 
 
 
 u\- '-^ 
 
 
 ~ 
 
 
 TfT 12 199B 
 
 
 
 
 ynu 2 7 1999 
 
 
 N0 6 wg 
 
 
 JUH 9 ZUW 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY