LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 OF" 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October, 
 Accessions No. 5^/332 . Class No. ^ 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM 
 
 AND 
 
 THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN, 
 
 #y /A<? Author of 
 
 "TtfE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILY/' 
 " DIARY OF KITTY TREVYLYAN," &c. 
 
 UK 17 BE SI IT 
 
 New York: 
 
 DODD, 506 BROADWAY. 
 1866. 
 

 
 AUTH O R'S EDITION 
 
 . 
 
 NEW YORK ; 
 
 20 NORTH WILLIAM SI'. 
 
AUTHOR. 
 
 "The Author of the 'Schonberg-Cotta Family' 
 wishes it to be generally known among the readers of her 
 books in America, that the American Editions issued by 
 Mr. M. W. Dodd, of New York, alone have the Author's 
 sanction." 
 
ESITTJ] 
 
 WINIFRED BERTRAM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 one of the pleasantest outskirts of Lon- 
 don stood, or stands, a pleasant ram- 
 bling old house, built of red brick, toned 
 "by the rains and suns of a hundred and 
 fifty years to a quaint variety of tints. There were 
 bow-windows in it, and balconies, and verandahs, 
 and projections, and recesses, which threw all kinds 
 of irregular shadows, and made you feel attracted 
 at once to the old house which some of its owners 
 had evidently taken such pleasure in : which, in its 
 small way, had grown up, like an old Gothic church, 
 out of the tastes and needs of people who delighted 
 in it. Its eccentricities, moreover, were veiled by 
 climbing roses and jasmine and magnolias, inter- 
 weaving the balconies with intricate tracery, fes- 
 1* (6) 
 
6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 tooning the verandahs, clustering round the 
 windows. 
 
 In the drawing-room of this house one warm day 
 in August three people were collected Mrs. 
 O'Brien, its mistress ; her nephew Maurice Bertram, 
 a young clergyman ; and his little sister, Winifred. 
 A soft spell of repose, a kind of dreamy charm hung 
 about that room. No color, no form, no perfume 
 predominated in it. Nothing was old, so as to give 
 the slightest indication of coming to an end ; nothing 
 was new, so as to give the slightest clue to its hav- 
 ing had a beginning. 
 
 That carpet on which the foot sank noiselessly 
 as on the softest mossy turf, those soft draperies 
 and languishing chairs and sofas, those bronze stat- 
 uettes and quaint vases, what imagination could 
 ever dive so far as to trace them back to factories 
 and warehouses, to the hammering and screwing 
 and planing and stitching of working men and 
 women? No! they must have floated into their 
 places like the furniture of Aladdin's palace, like the 
 stones at the voice of Orpheus, at the call of a genie, 
 to the sound of fairy music. 
 
 Did not the breath of enchantment linger around 
 them still ? What else was that elegant aromatic 
 perfume which stole over your senses ? Why else 
 did every sound enter there softened and har- 
 monized, so that the voices from tile houses in the 
 valley below voices of eager women, and crying 
 babies, and shouting school-boys sounded there 
 soff, and dreamy as the hum of the bees about the 
 flowers outside ; just as the sorrows and crimes of 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. j 
 
 the world came to Mrs. O'Brien's heart, artistically 
 made musical and harmonious through the pages 
 of the novel she was reading. 
 
 There were three drawing-rooms, one within 
 another, like the recesses in an Indian cabinet, 
 each smaller and choicer than the last. 
 
 In the outer of these, Maurice Bertram sat writ- 
 ing by an open window, looking over the sloping 
 lawns and shrubberies of the house, and a rich land- 
 scape of meadow and woodland, to a distance of 
 blue hills. 
 
 A pleasant fresh breeze now and then breathed 
 in at this window. It was the only place in the 
 room which led your thoughts from the little en- 
 chanted world within to the world outside, and by 
 .the rapidity with which Maurice was writing, 
 and the clear steady light in his eyes when, from 
 time to time, he looked up, it was plain that the 
 drowsy spell of the place had not fallen upon him. 
 
 In the next room his little sister Winifred lay 
 curled up in the depths of an easy-chair, divided 
 between a story-book and a sleepy kitten. 
 
 In the innermost room Mrs. O'Brien was resting 
 on a sofa, languidly turning over the pages of a new 
 novel. 
 
 Winifred's interest in her book seemed to have 
 been becoming more and more feeble, until at length 
 she let it fall from her hand on the cushions among 
 which she herself sank back,, in an attitude of the 
 profoundest weariness. She was soon, however, as 
 weary of repose as she had been of reading, and her 
 half-closed eyes wandered dreamily from Maurice to 
 

 8 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 her aunt, as if looking for some one or something it 
 would be worth while to disturb, so as to extract a 
 little excitement. 
 
 At last she deposited pussy on the cushions, and 
 slipping from the chair wandered across the room 
 to Mrs. O'Brien, and, throwing herself on a rug by 
 the sofa, drew her aunt's arm around her. 
 
 After remaining quiet thus a few moments, she 
 suddenly looked up and said : 
 
 "Auntie, what did uncle mean by calling Mr. 
 Vernon blase yesterday ? I looked in the French 
 dictionary, and it said, * burnt up, consumed,' but 
 that must be a mistake. What did uncle mean ?" 
 
 "Little girls should not always want to know 
 what grown-up people mean," said Mrs. O'Brien, 
 rather bewildered by this sudden call on her facul- 
 ties, and anxious to prevent further precocious 
 researches into French dictionaries. "I suppose 
 your uncle meant that Mr. Vernon seemed rather 
 tired and discontented looked, indeed, as if he 
 had come to the end of everything, and cared for 
 nothing." 
 
 " I knew the dictionary was absurd," said Win- 
 nie, who looked on the dictionary in the light of a 
 natural enemy, without which she should have 
 learned French with as little difficulty as English. 
 " Well, auntie, if that is what blase means, that is 
 exactly what I am. I am tired of everything. I 
 have come to the end r of everything. I was at five 
 parties last week, and every one was duller than the 
 last. I knew beforehand just what would be said 
 and done. And now, this new story-book. It is 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 9 
 
 exactly like the last, only a little altered and done 
 up fresh, as Rosalie alters my wreaths and dresses. 
 I can't think, auntie, how people go on saying and 
 doing the same things all their lives long. It is 
 always round and round, the same over and over 
 again, and nothing in it. I think the world is dread- 
 fully small and old, aunt. If that is what blase 
 means, that must be just what Mr. Vernon and I 
 are. We've got to the end of everything, and don't 
 care for anything only, of course, auntie, it's 
 much worse for me than for him, because I'm so 
 much nearer the beginning." 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien laughed as she patted Winnie's 
 round fair cheek, and mentally compared it with 
 Mr. Yernon's sallow hollow face, and thought how 
 amused Mr. O'Brien would be with the child's 
 precocity. 
 
 But Maurice who had an inconvenient habit of 
 taking in whatever was going on, however busy 
 he seemed to be with something else, at this point 
 interposed, and said quietly, " Winnie, I think 
 your French dictionary was right." Winnie, thus 
 challenged to controversy, marched briskly to 
 Maurice, and planted herself on a footstool at his 
 feet. 
 
 " If," Maurice continued, " you had been given 
 a long twist of wax taper to light up your Christ- 
 mas tree for a whole evening, and you chose to 
 burn it up in a few minutes, whose fault would it be 
 that you had come to the end of everything, and 
 what right would you have to complain ?" 
 
 " It would be principally Rosalie's fault for giv- 
 
lo WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 ing it to me," said Winnie, perceiving the aim of 
 her brother's shafts much too plainly not to avoid 
 them. But I should nt>t think of complaining. I 
 should have enjoyed myself in my own way. And 
 I should lie down for the rest of the time, and go to 
 sleep. And that is just what I should like to do 
 altogether now ; and I dare say so would Mr. Ver- 
 non," she concluded, " only we can't, and that's the 
 unpleasant part of it. We've come to the end of 
 all the things, and we have to go on as if we 
 hadn't." 
 
 " Ah," rejoined Maurice, " I see you never heard 
 of the Contracting Chamber. It is rather strange, 
 considering how extensive your reading has been." 
 
 At first Winnie did not seem to heed, she played 
 with a rose, pulling it very elaborately to pieces, as 
 if she did not care for anything else. But as Mau- 
 rice was rising to go into the garden, her curiosity 
 got the better of her, and she vouchsafed to say : 
 
 " What is the Contracting Chamber, Maurice ? 
 I dare say it is only one of your Ragged School sto- 
 ries, and I always know what you're at in them 
 after the first few sentences." 
 
 " So do the ragged boys sometimes, I am afraid," 
 said Maurice laughing. " You see I am not so 
 clever as you and the ragged children. But that is 
 only natural since you have come so close to the 
 end of things, and they have come a little nearer 
 than you, 1 am afraid, while I have not come to the 
 end of one world yet, or of anything in it, to say 
 nothing of the five other worlds." 
 
 "Five other worlds!" said Winnie, "what are 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. \ i 
 
 they ? I hope they are not all the same as this. 
 But, Maurice, this once I will be your ragged class." 
 
 " At a time not very long ago," began Maurice, 
 " and in a country not very far off, there was a 
 palace built on very peculiar principles. Indeed, 
 some people said it was not built at all, but grew. 
 The queen of this palace was very amiable and 
 benevolent, and did what she could to make every 
 one around her happy. She expected that all her 
 courtiers should do the same. All her court-ladies, 
 therefore, while they were provided with the most 
 beautiful suites of apartments in the palace (the 
 furniture and situation of each being exactly suited 
 to the tastes of the occupants), were expected to 
 make these apartments in some way workrooms 
 for the good of their country. That country had 
 been sadly misgoverned by the preceding dynasty, 
 and there was a great deal in it to be set right. 
 
 "All the apartments of the cburt-ladies, there- 
 fore, were also offices for some work of charity. 
 The title of each was written on the door under 
 the name of the occupant, so that there could be no 
 mistake about it for applicants or inmates. One, 
 for instance, was the office for the blind, another 
 for the deaf and dumb, another for sick children " 
 
 "And another for Ragged Schools, no doubt," 
 interrupted Winnie. 
 
 " N"o doubt," said Maurice. " The singular thing, 
 however, about these apartments was that if the 
 possessor did not attend to the benevolent work 
 assigned to her, but used them only for herself and 
 her own pleasure, the whole suite gradually con- 
 
12 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 tracted until they became so narrow as slowly to 
 stifle the inmate, and finally to crush her into dust ; 
 when from beautiful homes they became narrow, 
 crumbling mausoleums." 
 
 " If many of. the ladies made a bad use of their 
 apartments, the palace must have had a very forlorn 
 look," observed Winnie. 
 
 " Not in the least," Maurice replied. " The 
 instant the unfaithful occupant had been crushed 
 and buried, the mausoleum also crumbled into dust, 
 and a new dwelling rose on the site." 
 
 " Very uncomfortable," said Winnie, "for the new 
 ladies to be living on the graves of the old ones." 
 
 "Not at all," said Maurice. "They knew no- 
 thing about it. Every one everywhere is always 
 living over graves of somebody or something, and 
 very few think of it." 
 
 " I think nothing of the amiability and benevo- 
 lence of that queen," resumed Winnie, with con- 
 siderable vehemence. "I think she was a hard- 
 hearted wretch." 
 
 "Not at all," said Maurice. "The queen had 
 nothing to do with it. The apartments, as I told 
 you, were self-acting. It was their nature to do as 
 they did. No one could help it. They contracted 
 in this way by the same kind of law which makes 
 the earth go round, and the tides ebb and flow." 
 
 " But," rejoined Winne, " those court-ladies must 
 have been exceedingly foolish. When they saw the 
 apartments contracting, if they did not like to do 
 their work, why did they not escape in time ?" 
 
 " They never did see the apartments contracting," 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. l ^ 
 
 said Maurice. " They saw their neighbors' apart- 
 ments contracting sometimes from the outside, but 
 never their own ; and for this reason : The rooms 
 were full of mirrors and paintings on glass, arranged 
 in such a way as to cause a strange optical delusion. 
 As window after window was slowly and silently 
 crushed out it was replaced by a mirror, which 
 made the wretched occupant think that, whatever 
 was happening outside, all was right within. The 
 world was growing narrower and narrower, she 
 thought, but inside all was spacious and beautiful 
 as ever. And so she went on admiring herself more 
 and more in the mirrors, as window after window 
 into the outer world vanished, until at last the 
 stifling air of the poor narrow chamber overpow- 
 ered her, and she fainted away and was crushed, 
 and never heard of more." 
 
 Winnie's eyes had been cast down, and her face 
 had been growing very grave and earnest during 
 the last part of Maurice's story. When he paused, 
 for a minute she said nothing, but looked wistfully 
 out through the window, until, glancing up, and 
 seeing Maurice's eyes fixed on her, she colored, and 
 said, laughing : 
 
 " That is a very dismal story, Maurice, and I 
 would rather hear nothing more about it. Auntie 
 says it is not of the least use to make one's self 
 miserable about miserable things that never hap- 
 pened after all." 
 
 " But suppose they did happen, and are happen- 
 ing," said Maurice, " and we could do something to 
 stop their happening any more." 
 2 
 
 
!4_ WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " There ! now I have caught you," she retorted. 
 " You have tried to cheat me with a story which is, 
 after all, only an allegory. And I hate allegories. 
 I can't think why people cannot be honest, and 
 speak out what they want to say at once." 
 
 Nevertheless Winnie could not get Maurice's 
 story out of her head. 
 
 It haunted her. She could not help wondering 
 if she had got into the Contracting Chamber. But 
 she would on no account betray this to Maurice. 
 She went with him that afternoon to the little gate 
 which led out of the rock garden, and took leave of 
 him in a light and easy manner, as if his words had 
 not made the slightest impression on her. Then 
 she returned to her favorite nook, the grotto in the 
 rock-garden, with the little spring bubbling up in 
 the middle of it and then oozing through a little 
 wilderness of ferns and mosses and cool large-leaved 
 plants to the stone basin in the centre of the garden, 
 with the stone-seat beside it. On that seat Winnie 
 placed herself, watching the little stream as it 
 trickled into the basin, and made little eddies and 
 bubbles, which rocked the water-lilies as they 
 floated, while the forget-me-nots swayed hither and 
 thither in the current of air, and wondering about 
 the Contracting Chamber, and whether any one had 
 ever got out of it. She was planning how to ob- 
 tain further information on the subject from Mau- 
 rice, without betraying too personal an interest in 
 it, when she was startled by a little feeble, childish 
 voice quite near her. 
 
 Listening attentively, she heard the words : 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. ^ 
 
 " Please give me a flower, lady. Please give me 
 a flower !" repeated in a monotonous, plaintive 
 strain, as if it were a kind of chant. 
 
 Climbing up on the seat and leaning over, Win- 
 nie saw at the garden-gate a little face peeping in. 
 
 Her first impulse was to run for safety to the 
 house. She had always been very seriously warned 
 about the wickedness of beggars, and their mys- 
 terious connection with wicked old women who de- 
 lighted to steal rich people's children, especially 
 naughty children, and make them miserable (partly 
 from the pleasure of it and partly as instruments of 
 divine vengeance) ; stories that, as Winnie's con- 
 science was never absolutely clear, left in her mind 
 a confused dread of beggars and of Providence. 
 
 There was something, however, in that little, 
 feeble childish voice which attracted her irresistibly. 
 So, after looking towards the house to see that there 
 were no signs of Mademoiselle Rosalie, and over the 
 gate out beyond the garden to assure herself that 
 no dangerous old woman was lurking near, Winnie 
 went to the gate and spoke to the child through 
 the bars. 
 
 " What do you want little girl ?" she said. 
 
 " Please give me a flower, lady," repeated the lit- 
 tle plaintive voice. " Please do give me a flower." 
 
 "Winnie's interest was aroused, and gathering 
 several scarlet geraniums and blue lobelias, she 
 gave them through the bars into the little eager 
 outstretched hand. 
 
 How thin the little hand was, how wan and wiz- 
 zened the little face *i- 
 
j6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 The flowers were eagerly clutched, hut "Winnie's 
 sense of politeness was sorely outraged hy not a 
 word of thanks "being returned. 
 
 Still further was she repelled when, after smelling 
 the flowers, the stranger held them back with a dis- 
 appointed air, and the petition began again, this 
 time more boldly than before : 
 
 "Please, lady, give me a flower. Them has no 
 smell. And it's for Dan poor brother Dan." 
 
 Winnie felt perplexed. The little girl had evi- 
 dently not at all good manners. But then neither 
 had she any bonnet nor shoes, which might be an 
 extenuating circumstance. When one has no shoes, 
 Winnie thought, one's manners perhaps necessarily 
 deteriorate; although, in the stories about chari- 
 table children, she was quite sure there was not one 
 instance of a gift being received in such a free and 
 easy way. The little children in the moral tales, 
 especially the French ones, always went into such 
 raptures at the beneficence of the charitable young 
 ladies, and with streaming eyes invoked every 
 blessing on their fair young heads. 
 
 However, she felt very sorry for the ragged 
 little girl, and she also felt anxious to know who 
 " Dan " was. 
 
 Accordingly, yielding to her kindly impulses, she 
 said, although with much dignity, that the little 
 beggar child might feel the great gulf between 
 good manners and none at all : 
 
 " You may come into the garden, little girl, and 
 choose for yourself; only you ought always to say, 
 thank you." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 17 
 
 The little girl stared in equal bewilderment at 
 the permission and the exhortation. 
 
 But when the gate was opened she did not hesi- 
 tate a moment what to choose. Paradise that the 
 garden was to her, she was nevertheless in no 
 way perplexed among its treasures. She walked 
 straight to a moss-rose bush, and gathered from it 
 one rose and one rose-bud. 
 
 "That is what Dan wanted," she said. "Dan 
 will be so pleased, lady. It will make him smile, 
 this will, and he hasn't smiled these days." 
 
 And though she did not say thank you, Winnie 
 concluded that was her way of expressing the 
 same, and modified her opinion as to her guest's 
 manners. 
 
 " What is your name ?" she asked. " And who 
 is Dan ?" 
 
 " Dan's my brother," was the reply, " and they 
 call me Fan, at least aunt does when she ain't 
 cross, and uncle does when he ain't been drinking, 
 and knows one of us from the t'other. And Dan 
 does always. Leastways he calls me little Fan, 
 and so used mother." 
 
 " Doesn't your mother call you Fan now ?" asked 
 Winnie ; " what does she call you then ?" 
 
 " She don't never call me," said Fan ; " she don't 
 never call neither Dan nor me now ; and Dan says 
 she never won't." 
 
 " Where is she gone then ?" asked Winnie, grow- 
 ing confidential. ** My mamma, too, is a long way 
 off in India." 
 
 "Mother ain't a long way off," said the child. 
 
1 8 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " They only took her down into the country. 
 'Twasn't far, they said. But she hasn't never 
 come back. Aunt said one day when she was 
 cross and beat me, and I was crying for mother, 
 that they'd been and put her in a box under 
 ground. But aunt don't mean half she says when 
 she's cross. Dan says she's in heaven, and he 
 says heaven ain't far off, for folks goes there all in 
 a minute. He learned the hymn about it at the 
 school. Dan did." 
 
 " Does Dan say hymns ?" Winnie asked. 
 
 " He sings one hymn," said the little girl. 
 
 " What hymn is that ?" said Winnie. 
 
 "About the children in heaven, and glory," 
 replied the child. " But I can't say it. I'm two- 
 years younger than Dan, come Christmas. And 
 I never went to school. I've got to mind aunt's 
 baby." 
 
 "Where -did Dan learn his hymn?" Winnie 
 asked. 
 
 "At the school at the end of our court," Fan 
 replied. 
 
 " Why did he not learn any more, Fan ?" 
 
 "He did learn more," said Fan; "he learned 
 Our Father chartneaven." 
 
 " What is that ?" said Winnie, bewildered. 
 
 "It's what Dan says mornings and evenings. 
 I don't rightly know what it means ; but it is 
 good words, Dan says, and it seems to make him 
 happy." 
 
 " Why does not Dan keep on going to the school, 
 if he likes it so much ?" Winnie resumed. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. Ip 
 
 " He couldn't go no more, since he broke his 
 leg," said Fan. 
 
 " Did Dan break his leg ?" Winnie exclaimed ; 
 " how dreadful ! How did he do that ?" . 
 
 " Going up the chimney with the sweeps' brush 
 for uncle," said the child. 
 
 " Was that long since ?" 
 
 "I don't know," Fan replied; "it seems very 
 long. And he don't get no better. The doctor 
 said he could walk, but he hasn't no strength. 
 There isn't always much to eat, and Dan can't 
 always eat what there is. Dan don't hardly ever 
 smile now," she continued; "only after he says 
 Pur Father or the hymn, and when the lady oppo- 
 site, who keeps the grocer's shop, brought him a 
 flower from the country. So I came out to look 
 for a flower like that all pink and curled up, and 
 wrapped up in bits of green, and smelling sweet. 
 And now," she concluded, "I must go home to 
 Dan. He'll be watching for me from his bed at 
 the garret window, and wondering what's come 
 to me." 
 
 By this time Winnie's heart was quite won to 
 the poor little girl with the sharp, thin face, and 
 she said : 
 
 " Take some more roses, little Fan. See, I will 
 gather them for you." 
 
 But Fan shook her head. 
 
 " Don't pick 'em, lady," she said, " they look so 
 happy like among the bits of green. It'll be nice 
 to think of 'em and tell Dan about 'em, and one 
 will make Dan smile as well as hundreds. Be- 
 
20 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 sides," she added, carefully concealing her treas- 
 ures in her little ragged apron, and lowering her 
 voice, " there's the boys in our court. If they see 
 them, they'll snatch 'em from me, and I can't hide 
 any more." 
 
 " Where is your court ?" asked Winnie, full of 
 projects. " Is it a long way off ?" 
 
 " It seemed pretty far," said the child, " for my 
 feet got sore ; and it was so long before I got away 
 from the houses. But I shall soon be back." 
 
 And as the little creature limped away, Winnie 
 saw that her little bare feet were blistered, and she 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh wait, little Fan ! Wait ! and I will run 
 and tell auntie. Or, if you must go, tell me ex- 
 actly where you live, that I may come and see you. 
 Where do you live ?" 
 
 " In our court," said the child. 
 
 " What is it called ?" asked Winnie. 
 
 " I don't know," said the little girl. " It's our 
 court where we always lived. The Ragged School 
 is at one end, and the other opens into the street 
 with the apple-stalls close to the church with the 
 large doors and the tall tower, where the people 
 who have good clothes go on Sundays." 
 
 Winnie was on the point of pressing for a more 
 minute direction, when a shrill voice echoed through 
 the garden, and thrilled through her with a vague 
 sense that she was doing something she ought not 
 to do. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Vini ! Mademoiselle Yini ! " 
 screamed Mademoiselle Rosalie, in the purest Paris- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 2 1 
 
 ian accent ; " what voyages your eccentric habits 
 cause me, what solicitudes, what fatigue !" Then 
 pausing, in horror, with uplifted hands, as she 
 beheld into what company Winnie had sunk, she 
 appealed to Heaven to witness the impossibility of 
 any human care ensuring the safety of that terrible 
 child. Then with slow, distinct utterance, hissing 
 out the words between her teeth, she chased " that 
 monster " little Fan from the garden. Whilst Fan 
 fled in speechless terror in one direction, Made- 
 moiselle Rosalie drew Winnie after her in the 
 other, in anything but speechless indignation, by 
 the threat of telling all to madame. 
 
 " Madame 1" she exclaimed, when she entered 
 Mrs. O'Brien's presence, "it is scarcely half an 
 hour since I miss mademoiselle. Distracted, I seek 
 her in every corner of your domain. At length I 
 catch a glimpse of her dress. I quicken my steps. 
 I arrive. Picture to yourself my feelings, madame, 
 I find her face to face with a child of the lowest 
 people, of the mob ; absolutely in the closest 
 approximation to a creature without boots, without 
 hat, with hair like a lioness', absolutely without 
 toilette ; a being from whom one might catch the 
 smallpox, the plague, anything to say nothing of 
 the morals of those people. Mademoiselle takes 
 the hand of this little wretch. She is on the point 
 of embracing her. For a moment I am crushed, 
 annihilated. Then, recovering myself, I cry, * Go, 
 little monster, little perfidious one, thus intruding 
 thyself into the bosom of families of distinction !' 
 * Come then,' I say to mademoiselle, ' my angel, 
 
22 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 come to my arms ! Together let us thank a merci- 
 ful Heaven, who rescues thee from such contamina- 
 tion.' Mademoiselle, however," she concluded, 
 pathetically waving her hands, " misunderstands 
 my intentions. She fails to appreciate my senti- 
 ments. She rejects my careses. She weeps, she is 
 enraged. She behaves in all respects like a young 
 person beside herself. Such rebuffs, madame, must 
 a sensitive heart too often experience." 
 
 And in truth Winnie, on this occasion, to all 
 appearance, justified mademoiselle's accusations far 
 more than her caresses. She called her an " ill- 
 natured, spiteful thing," with other strong Saxon 
 epithets, not at all worthy of a young lady who 
 was learning the purest Parisian, and was altogether 
 so excited and distressed that she could by no 
 means make Mrs. O'Brien understand as she desired 
 either the enormities of Rosalie or the excellences 
 of Fan. 
 
 " My dear child," said Mrs. O'Brien at length, 
 when Rosalie had abandoned the field, and Winnie 
 was endeavoring to sob out her explanations, " you 
 really must not agitate youself in this way. You 
 are too excitable, too sensitive. Control your feel- 
 ings, I entreat you." 
 
 And Mrs. O'Brien enforced her consolations by 
 bathing Winnie's forehead with Eau de jOologne ; 
 so that Winnie had to submit to being treated as if 
 her sobs were hysterical, instead of sympathetic, 
 until she had quieted herself sufficiently to say : 
 
 " O auntie ! poor little Fan ! poor little Fan ! She 
 is not a monster; Rosalie is! She is a poor little 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN". 23 
 
 girl without shoes. And I was not going to kiss 
 her. She hadn't washed her face. She only wanted 
 one rose to take to Dan. Dan is her poor little 
 brother, who broke his leg. And they live in the 
 court opposite the church with the high tower, with 
 the Ragged School at one end of it. And I do so 
 want to go and see them. I am sure Maurice could 
 find it. Oh please do let me go." 
 
 " My dear child," expostulated Mrs. O'Brien, 
 " you really should not invite any little beggar 
 girl into the garden. It is hardly safe. You can 
 give her sixpence through the bars when she comes 
 again. She is sure to come again." 
 
 " Oh no," sobbed Winnie ; " she is sure never to 
 come again! never! Rosalie was so cross; she 
 was like a fury. And Fan only wanted that one rose. 
 She did not ask for anything else. And her mother 
 is dead. Oh, don't listen to Rosalie. Please do let 
 me go and see little Fan." 
 
 " My darling," said Mrs. O'Brien, " you have too 
 much feeling. There are so many little girls in the 
 world whose mothers are dead. It is very sad. 
 But there always were. And your uncle and I sub- 
 scribe to three Orphan Asylums. Besides, no one 
 ever could find out your little orphan with such a 
 direction as that. There are thousands of courts in 
 London, and hundreds of churches and ragged 
 schools. Besides, if there is a church and a school 
 so close, there is somebody to take care of the little 
 girl and her sick brother." 
 
 Winnie was quite confident that Maurice could 
 find out : and at length the matter was compromised 
 
 
24 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 by referring it to Maurice, although Mrs. O'Brien 
 said, she could not think of allowing Winnie to go 
 herself. She could never answer for the conse- 
 quences to her mother in India. 
 
 And that night, during the little while that Win- 
 nie lay awake before she fell asleep, her heart^was 
 much too full of little Fan and. her griefs to wonder 
 any more whether she had got into the Contracting 
 Chamber. 
 
 Just as she was falling asleep, however, what 
 Maurice had said about the Five Worlds came into 
 her mind, and she resolved to ask what he meant. 
 
 One new world had opened before her and be- 
 neath her that day, which she certainly could not 
 yet see to the end of. 
 
 The next morning Winnie awoke very wide 
 awake. She had been dreaming about being stifled 
 in the Contracting Chamber ; and when she opened 
 her eyes it was very pleasant to see that the sun 
 was shining in at the two undiminished windows of 
 her room, and the jasmin^ sprays tapping at the 
 glass, as if to tell her to get up. She arose and 
 opened the window, and looked out on the lawn, 
 still sparkling with dew, and drank in the early 
 fragrance of the flowers, and looked beyond and be- 
 yond, over the shrubberies, and over the fields, and 
 over the woods, and over the blue hills, to the bright 
 sky, and thought how wide the world was. 
 
 And then, as the breeze brushed a cluster of climb- 
 ing roses against her cheek, and filled the rjoom with 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 25 
 
 sweet smells, she thought of little Fan, and the one 
 rose which had given her such delight, and had 
 seemed such a treasure to her. 
 
 And she thought how rich the world was, if one 
 of its millions of flowers could fill any one's heart 
 with such pleasure. 
 
 But then it came into her heart how tired she 
 had been of everything, and what it was that made 
 the difference between her and little Fan. 
 
 " It was Dan !" she said to herself; " it was the 
 thought of Dan, and his smiling over it, that made 
 the rose such a treasure to little Fan. It wasn't 
 for herself she wanted the flower, but for Dan. It 
 was I)an that made the rose such a prize Dan and 
 the pains she had taken to get it for him Dan's 
 sweet smile and her poor little blistered feet," con- 
 cluded "Winnie. 
 
 And with this thought came back the recollection 
 of Maurice's story, and how the beautiful palace- 
 chambers grew narrower and narrower when the 
 ladies only used them for themselves. She began 
 to have a clearer understanding of the meaning. 
 But at the same time it became less and less clear 
 to her how any one was to get out of the Contract- 
 ing Chamber; or, at least, how she could, if she was 
 really in it. How could she use what she had for 
 others, and not for herself? She had no Dan watch- 
 ing for her at a garret window, and ready to be 
 pleased with just one rose. Every one around her 
 had everything they wanted, and she could not 
 see what there was for a little girl like her to do to 
 help any one. She resolved to ask Maurice. 
 3 
 
2 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 And in the meantime she knelt down to say her 
 prayers. 
 
 But as she began with " Our Father which art 
 in heaven," it flashed on her that this was what 
 Dan had learned to say mornings and evenings, 
 which little Fan had told her it made him so happy 
 to say. 
 
 Her busy thoughts wandered away to the garret 
 in the court, and she seemed to hear the feeble voice 
 of the sick child, in his little bed, saying the words 
 with her. And for the first time she felt how very 
 sweet these words were. 
 
 " Our Father," she thought. " That means Dan's 
 Father and little Fan's, and mine. Our Father in 
 heaven. Dan has a Father in heaven, and he knows 
 it. Perhaps that is why he feels heaven is not very 
 far off. Besides, he learned to sing about the children 
 in heaven. I suppose with his Father and the chil- 
 dren in heaven, Dan feels heaven more like home 
 than the poor room in the court, where his aunt is 
 cross sometimes, and his uncle drinks too much; 
 and, I suppose, that makes up to Dan a good deal 
 for his home here being so poor." 
 
 Some of the following petitions in the prayer 
 were not much clearer to Winnie as she went on 
 than to little Fan. Yet, somehow, she said them 
 differently that morning from before. The " Our 
 Father" seemed to flow through them all like music ; 
 the " Our Father," and the sound of poor " brother 
 Dan's" feeble voice. 
 
 But when she came to " Give, us this day our 
 daily bread," she thought : 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 2J 
 
 "I suppose Dan really means, { Give me my 
 breakfast and my dinner to-day,' when he says that ; 
 and if he gets it he thinks his Father gives it him. 
 But then," continued Winnie, falling into perplex- 
 ities, " I wonder what ne thinks when he doesn't 
 get any. For little Fan says he doesn't always. I 
 wonder if Dan ever feels puzzled, and thinks his Fa- 
 ther in heaven has forgotten him. I don't think he 
 can, or he wouldn't go on saying it. Perhaps he 
 thinks it will all be made up to him in heaven, that 
 the things are being kept for him in some way there. 
 But I do wish very much auntie would let me go 
 and find out little Fan, and take Dan some nice 
 things, if it were only that he mayn't get puzzled 
 and not feel happy .when he says * Our Father.' 
 But one thing," concluded Winnie, " I can certainly 
 do. As it does seem so very plain about my daily 
 bread, I will think of Dan and little Fan whenever 
 I say ' Give us this day,' and, perhaps, God will 
 attend more 'to us altogether. Perhaps even one 
 day He might make auntie let me go myself." 
 
 All these thoughts passed through Winnie's mind 
 in much less time than you can read them. But 
 she never dreamt of telling any one about them. It 
 never occurred to her that any one else had ever 
 had anything like the same difficulties. 
 
 Only she rose from her knees that morning with 
 a feeling she had never had so strongly before 
 that God had been listening, and that He understood. 
 And that is very much for any one to learn. We 
 most of us have to learn it over and over again a 
 great many times. 
 
28 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 It was well that Winnie's heart had been warmed 
 in this way, for whe'n she came down stairs a great 
 chill awaited her. 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien was staying in her own room to 
 breakfast. Her Uncle O'Brien was a very kind 
 man ; but it so happened that he knew very little 
 of the poor except from police reports and statistical 
 returns. When, therefore, she told him her adven- 
 ture with little Fan, he listened to her very pa- 
 tiently until she came to poor Dan's breaking his 
 leg in going up the chimney. 
 
 Then he laughed, not at all unkindly, but in a 
 way that greatly disconcerted Winnie, and said : 
 
 " My poor little philanthropist, I am very sorry 
 for the bad success of your first charitable enter- 
 prise ; but it is altogether an imposture. The little 
 girl got up her story very badly. I should think 
 she must have inherited it from her grandmother. 
 No little boys do go up chimneys in these days. 
 It is against the law, and people use sweeping ma- 
 chines instead. You need trouble yourself no more 
 about little Fan. I have no doubt when she got 
 home she had as good a supper as you, and a laugh 
 at the soft-hearted little lady to season it. And I 
 have no doubt, if Rosalie had not come in time, 
 she would have contrived to take home with her 
 some property of yours much more valuable than 
 a rose or a rosebud." 
 
 And Mr. O'Brien patted Winnie's cheek, and 
 took up his newspaper again, totally unconscious 
 that he had driven his chariot- wheels of laws and 
 facts quite through the middle of Winnie's heart. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 2 g 
 
 Unfortunately, the recent discoveries about the 
 continued employment of poor little sweep-boys 
 had not then been disclosed, so that Winnie had 
 nothing to bring against her uncle's facts but her 
 own convictions. Not -that she was in the least 
 shaken herself. She was only hopeless about con- 
 vincing him. 
 
 So she remained quite silent, until a little sup- 
 pressed sob aroused Mr. O'Brien's attention, and, 
 looking up he saw that Winnie was vainly endeav- 
 oring to swallow her tears. 
 
 " Why, my little maiclen," he said very gently, 
 " you must not take things so to heart. There 
 always were naughty little beggar girls in the 
 world, and it is only because this is the first time 
 you have seen one that it troubles y9u. You must 
 forget it, and go and play like a good little girl, 
 and think no more about it." 
 
 Winnie could only moan out : 
 
 " Oh, uncle, you never saw little Fan !" but she 
 resolved never to mention little Fan's name again 
 until she saw Maurice. Then she turned from the 
 table and crept out of the room, and, seating her- 
 self on the window-steps outside, took the kitten 
 on her knee, an^ discoursed to her at large about 
 her troubles, as oeing the most sympathizing per- 
 son at present within reach. 
 
 As she sat there, out of sight, Mrs. O'Brien came 
 down, and while her husband was finishing his 
 breakfast, she told him, by way of amusing him, 
 Winnie's precocious idea of her being " blase, like 
 Mr. Vernon." ; \ 
 
 3* 
 
3 o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 At first Mr. O'Brien laughed, but then he became 
 very grave, and said : 
 
 " My dear, I am afraid we are not managing that 
 child well. She is altogether too excitable and 
 self-conscious. She has not enough of buoyancy 
 and life about her. - This morning she was actually 
 quite sobbing because I told her that little vaga- 
 bond was an impostor. And I don't like children 
 meditating about themselves, and thinking what 
 they feel. . A healthy child ought to be as uncon- 
 scious of its feelings as a kitten. It is a terrible 
 thing for a child to lose so early the simple uncon- 
 scious enjoyment of life, and to begin analyzing 
 her sensations and sentiments like a little German 
 philosopher. The truth is, Winnie has been too 
 much with us. She wants children for her com- 
 panions, and I think we had better send her to 
 school." 
 
 At this point, much as her curiosity was excited, 
 Winnie's sense of honor was aroused as to the 
 impropriety of her listening any further to a dis- 
 cussion about herself, and she crept back into 
 the room. 
 
 It so happened that morning, that when Winnie 
 went to Rosalie for her French ftsson, she found 
 her bathed in tears with a letter in her hand. 
 
 " See, Mademoiselle Yini !" she exclaimed, " here 
 are troubles indeed to make any heart bleed. While 
 you have been shedding vain tears over that little 
 vagrant, here are my people suffering, starving, 
 dying the 'houses of my relations swept away by 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 3 1 
 
 the flood my grandfather driven from his house, 
 driven from prosperity and ease to stretch out his 
 venerable hands for a morsel of bread my sister 
 in the dead of night without a moment to make 
 her toilette, compelled to' fly with her young infant, 
 and then scarcely escaping destruction. And you, 
 mademoiselle, are enraged on account of that little 
 deceiver against me ; me who love you, me who 
 am suffering such extremities !" 
 
 But for the exhortation at the close, Winnie 
 would have been greatly touched by Rosalie's 
 narration. But she could not see why, if it was 
 right for Rosalie to weep over the sufferings of 
 little French children, it was wrong for her to feel 
 for little Fan, and accordingly she began to say her 
 lessons rather sullenly. 
 
 Mademoiselle, however, was not prepared to let 
 fthe matter rest there. 
 
 " Little ungrateful one !" she murmured through 
 her tears, " this little beggar stranger and her pre- 
 tended woes are more to thee than all the sorrows 
 of thy poor Rosalie. But it is ever thus ! The 
 false sentiment expels the true !" 
 
 The accusation of falseness was more than Win- 
 nie could stand. 
 
 " I am not false, Rosalie," she said, " it is you 
 who are false to say so." 
 
 " Proceed with your studies, mademoiselle," re- 
 torted Rosalie, " madame shall hear your accusa- 
 tions." 
 
 But as the lesson proceeded, Winnie's own con- 
 science pricked her for her want of sympathy, and 
 
3 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 after a little while, when she perceived that Rosa- 
 lie's voice was really faltering, and, looking up, 
 saw that her tears were really continuing to flow 
 silently, she said : 
 
 " Rosalie, I am sorry for your old grandfather, 
 and the little children who had to 1 escape in the 
 night with nothing on. I am, indeed." 
 
 Happily there was something in "Winnie's tone 
 which touched Rosalie's heart, and brought her 
 down from her high judicial seat ; she was really 
 fond of Winnie, in her own way, and she was too 
 really in trouble to reject any true sympathy, and 
 thus she poured out into Winnie's ears the story 
 of an inundation in the south of France, which 
 had reduced many people from prosperity to pov- 
 erty, and among others some of Rosalie's relations. 
 
 " Would it help them to have some English 
 money to buy back the things they have lost ?"= 
 asked Winnie at length. " I have a sovereign in 
 my box up stairs," she added with some hesitation 
 (for she had already devised a hundred ways of 
 spending this for Dan and little Fan, whenever 
 they could be found, and it would have seemed 
 like relinquishing her belief in Dan's existence to 
 appropriate the whole of it otherwise, yet this was 
 a charge on the property which she certainly could 
 not venture to mention to Rosalie) ; "I have a 
 sovereign up stairs, Rosalie ; I have promised half 
 of it in my own mind to somebody, but the rest I 
 should be so glad if you would take. It might buy 
 something to wrap up your sister's baby in." 
 
 At this moment Mrs. O'Brien entered, and see- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 33 
 
 ing Rosalie in tears, and yet at the .same time evi- 
 dently in such very friendly relations with Winnie, 
 she asked what was the matter. Rosalie went 
 into raptures over the generous heart of that 
 charming child, and in a torrent of eloquent 
 French, poured out a forcible narrative of the 
 inundation, and the miseries it had caused. 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien was much affected. Her own heart 
 was always kind and impressible, and now she 
 caught some of Winnie's enthusiasm, and was 
 roused to unusual energy. She was also very glad 
 to be able to enter into her niece's charitable plans 
 on this occasion. She thought it might prevent 
 the child!s heart being chilled by the failure of her 
 projects about little Fan. 
 
 She was therefore induced, as the case was urgent 
 (very contrary to her usual habits), to set forth that 
 very afternoon to collect subscriptions among her 
 acquaintances. Immediately after luncheon, the 
 carriage was at the door, and Winnie accompanied 
 her aunt, in the highest spirits. 
 
 Their success was considerable, although varied, 
 and, in many cases, contrary to Winnie's expecta- 
 tions ; the people who were tenderest in their 
 lamentations frequently to her surprise finding they 
 had the least to spare ; and those, on the other 
 hand, who at first excited her indignation by their 
 cool way of investigating the facts, not seldom 
 ending in contributing liberally. 
 
 There was one house especially where Winnie 
 was greatly perplexed. 
 
 It belonged to an elderly single lady, and was 
 
34 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 furnished with the most elaborate costliness and 
 care, although not in a way Winnie admired. 
 
 The handsome ornaments were under so many 
 glass cases, that she thought the drawing-room 
 looked like a china shop ; and the rich furniture 
 and brilliant carpets were so carefully covered, that 
 she felt it was like stepping over flower-beds to 
 walk about the rooms, which feeling was increased 
 to a nervous dread when Miss Dalton in a caress- 
 ing voice, as if she was addressing a baby, begged 
 the dear little girl to excuse her, but her dress was 
 on the point of upsetting a china vase. 
 
 " It had been her grandmother's," Miss Dalton 
 remarked, and what made her a little anxious about 
 it was, that very morning her poor poodle Dandy 
 had broken the fellow to it, and there was not 
 another like it in England, except at her friend the 
 Marquis of Carabbas. 
 
 She then proceeded to tell so many remarkable 
 anecdotes about her doings and belongings, illus- 
 trated by the names of so many distinguished 
 people, that Winnie became profoundly impressed 
 with her importance, and began to entertain very 
 large hopes as to her subscription. So that she 
 was proportionately disappointed when, on Mrs. 
 O'Brien's laying the case before her, Miss Dalton 
 replied that she was really very sorry, but that she 
 had a very strong feeling against English people 
 withdrawing the help wanted by our own poor, 
 and sending it to the other end of the earth. Mr. 
 Dickens' very clever hit about Borrioboula Gha 
 had long since convinced her of that. Although 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 35 
 
 she must confess, that even at home, she had seen 
 so much ingratitude, and heard of so much im- 
 posture, and so much mismanagement of public 
 money, and had so constantly found that people 
 brought their troubles on themselves ; that she 
 found it more and more difficult to contribute to 
 anything without feeling one might be doing more 
 harm than good. She quite appreciated dear Mrs. 
 O'Brien's benevolent feelings in undertaking so 
 unpleasant an office, and she was sure Mrs. O'Brien 
 would also understand her motives. 
 
 In the window, while this conversation was going 
 on, a plain-looking person in a widow's cap was 
 sitting writing. They had not been introduced to 
 her, and Winnie had concluded that she was some 
 kind of servant. 
 
 As they left the room, however, she rose, and 
 accompanying them to the door, said, in a humble 
 and timid way, as she took out her purse : 
 
 " If you would not think it a liberty, I should 
 like to help a little. I lived some time in that part 
 of France long ago, and I saw what misery such an 
 inundation caused." 
 
 And as she put a few shillings in Mrs. O'Brien's 
 hand, and Winnie looked up in her face and saw 
 how the kind eyes lighted up the thin, worn-look- 
 ing countenance,, she quite loved her. And for a 
 long time afterwards when she read the story of 
 the widow's mite, she always pictured to herself 
 the widow's face as like that of the poor lady who 
 was Miss Dalton's companion. 
 
 That visit was their last, and when they got 
 
3 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM. 
 
 into the carriage again Winnie fell into a long 
 meditation. 
 
 ' " What are you thinking of ?" asked Mrs. O'Brien 
 at length, after watching for some time the thought- 
 ful, little face. 
 
 " I was wondering whether Miss Dalton had got 
 into the Contracting Chamber," she said. 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien of course did not understand what 
 the Contracting Chamber was. And when she 
 heard Winnie's -version of Maurice's story, she ob- 
 served that : 
 
 Maurice was very good, but he had very curious 
 ideas. She was quite sure, however, that he did 
 not mean Winnie to apply his stories to other 
 people in that way, especially to grown up people. 
 
 " Yes," said Winnie coloring, " I remember Mau- 
 rice said it was easy enough to see the other people's 
 houses contracting from outside, but that was no 
 help to any one about her own." 
 
 But between her aunt's injunctions not to apply 
 the story to other people, and her uncle's objection 
 to her making observations about herself, Winnie 
 felt rather bewildered. She would ask Maurice 
 when he came again. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 OW many things were accumulating for 
 Winnie to ask Maurice about, and how 
 long it seemed before he came ! 
 
 Meantime she 'asked Rosalie- what 
 her aunt could mean by Maurice having " curious 
 ideas." The inundation, and the subscriptions in 
 aid of the sufferers, which had on the whole been 
 very considerable, had drawn Rosalie and Winnie 
 into a far more intimate alliance. Rosalie thought 
 madame must mean that Mr. Maurice was going 
 by his own choice to bury himself in a parsonage 
 in one of the lowest parts of London a place 
 (Rosalie had heard), near which no cabs approached 
 within a mile, where carriages were never seen, into 
 the recesses of which the police even dared not 
 always venture ; where, in short, there was no life, 
 and nothing worth living for. 
 
 "Ah, mademoiselle," she observed, "your Lon- 
 don is sad enough even by your queen's palaces. 
 The people look like mutes at a funeral when they 
 4 (37) 
 
3 8 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 are going to the opera. There are no fetes, no 
 flowers, no gaiety, no sunshine. What must it be 
 then in those savage retreats where Mr. Maurice 
 prepares to bury himself ! I shudder to tjiink of it." 
 
 "But," said Winnie, "the poor people must live 
 there, and Maurice is going to try and help them." 
 
 " Ah,my poor child, you cannot understand. In 
 my country it is the monks and nuns who thus im- 
 molate themselves. But Mr. Maurice proposes, not 
 to institute a religious house in those dreary regions, 
 which one could comprehend religion exacts sacri- 
 fices but to make a home ; a home where one day 
 he may doubtless bring some beautiful young lady, 
 in Brussels point and white glace, as his bride. 
 But," she continued, "you English are, without 
 doubt, a strange people, you weep little and you 
 laugh little ; but you feel, you give, you sacrifice. 
 I suppose in your heavy atmosphere everything 
 becomes so serious that there is little difference be- 
 tween your amusements and your martyrdoms, be- 
 tween a wedding and a religious profession." 
 
 How long Winnie's wishes made the delay in 
 Maurice's return ! For the last five years she had 
 seen little of her brother. He had been at Oxford, 
 or travelling, and since his ordination he had been 
 hard at work in a curacy in one of the large manu- 
 facturing towns. And five years ago Winnie had 
 been little more than a plaything for him. Now 
 she began to feel he was her most intimate friend. 
 She felt he quite understood her, and she felt she 
 did not half understand him, which is an excellent 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 39 
 
 foundation for friendship. So she watched for him 
 very eagerly; not sometimes without a little fear 
 that the beautiful young lady in Brussels point and 
 white glace, whom Rosalie's imagination had pic- 
 tured, might have appeared, and be detaining him. 
 
 Meantime she very often went to the rock-gar- 
 den, and looked in a wistful way through the bars 
 of the little gate where she had wished Maurice 
 good-bye, and through which Rosalie had ruth- 
 lessly chased little Fan. 
 
 Not that she hoped ever to see Fan appear again. 
 Her dismissal had been much too abrupt and rough, 
 for Winnie to hope ever to see the little thin white 
 face and the large questioning eyes peeping through 
 those bars again. 
 
 But there is a strange attraction about the place 
 where anything dear to us has vanished; and so, 
 without questioning why, Winnie did very often 
 climb on the marble seat by the fountain, and look 
 over into the world outside. 
 
 One evening when she was thus engaged, when 
 there was a large dinner-party in the house, and 
 she was in the state of freedom she enjoyed on such 
 occasions, when every one was too busy to attend to 
 her, she saw a figure far down the hill coming up 
 the little path across the waste ground. 
 
 It came on with long strides, and in an instant 
 she knew it was Maurice. She was at the gate, she 
 had undone the fastenings, she had rushed down 
 the hill to meet him, in a minute. 
 
 " Softly, softly ! little sister!" he said as he took 
 her in his arms and kissed her. "At that pace, it 
 
 - 
 
4 o VHN1FRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 is no wonder you should have so soon come to the 
 end of the world." 
 
 "Oh, Maurice, but I have-wo*/" she exclaimed. 
 "I have not come to the end of anything. So 
 many things have happened since you were here. 
 And I have no end of things to ask you. And 
 there is a great dinner party, and they have begun, 
 and no one expects you, so we may stay in the gar- 
 den as long as we like. And you will tell me all . 
 about the Five Worlds, and the Contracting Cham- 
 ber, and everything. And you will find out all 
 about little Fan, and whether the chimney-sweep 
 boys do go up the chimneys now, and how it was 
 Dan broke his leg." 
 
 All which incoherent information, conveyed in 
 a breathless manner before they reached the garden 
 gate, left Maurice, figuratively speaking, in as 
 breathless a state as Winnie herself. 
 
 The first thing to be explained was, of course, 
 about little Fan. And to Winnie's immeasurable 
 delight, she made Maurice believe both in Dan and 
 little Fan. 
 
 Whether it was that the actual presence of the 
 scene where little Fan had appeared of the rose- 
 tree from which she had modestly gathered her 
 one rose, and where the roses which had been buds 
 when she was there were now opening "so happy 
 like" among the green leaves of the gate through 
 which the little face had peeped of the stone seat 
 from which the little plaintive voice had first been 
 heard whether it was that the sight of these 
 things gave a reality to Winnie's narrative, or that 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. ^i 
 
 Maurice was more naturally credulous than other 
 people, certain it is that he did believe that little 
 Fan was no impostor, and that there was such a 
 person as Dan. 
 
 This was a great point for Winnie to have gained. 
 But the rest was even greater. Maurice admitted 
 very sorrowfully that little chimney-sweeps were 
 sometimes, even now, in spite of the law, sent up 
 the old chimneys which the machines could not 
 easily reach, and that their poor little limbs were 
 often sorely bruised and grazed, and that a broken 
 leg was not an impossible accident in such climbing. 
 
 Winnie was so delighted at this confirmation of 
 little Fan's truth, that she did not think at the mo- 
 ment of mourning for the poor ill-used little sweeps, 
 and Maurice had some difficulty in restraining her 
 from instantly hastening to get dressed and go to 
 the dinner-table to tell her Uncle O'Brien. 
 
 " Uncle ought to know," she said, " he may be 
 telling some one else that, little Fan is an impostor ! 
 And it must be dessert-time, and I would creep in 
 by his side and whisper, and I am sure he would 
 not be displeased." 
 
 But Maurice suggested quite a different line of 
 action, which delighted Winnie still more. He said 
 he would try to find out little Fan, and that he had 
 great hope of succeeding. Her home must, he 
 thought, be in some part of London not very far 
 off. He could easily find out the ragged schools in 
 any district, and the church with the high tower 
 opposite the court would be a further guide. 
 
 Maurice promised, therefore, to set about the in- 
 4* 
 
4 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 quiry at once. And he counselled Winnie in the 
 meantime to keep silence on the subject ; his believ- 
 ing the story could not prove to any one else, he 
 said, that it was true; and the triumph of truth 
 would be so much greater if one day she could 
 quietly tell her uncle and aunt that little Fan had 
 been found and had proved as poor and as good as 
 Winnie believed her to be. 
 
 This momentous question being settled Winnie 
 reverted to her minor difficulties about the Con- 
 tracting Chamber. 
 
 " Maurice," she said, " I want to know how any 
 one ever got out of that dreadful chamber?" 
 
 " No one ever did," he replied. 
 
 " Then was there no way of making it grow wide 
 again?" asked Winnie anxiously, " when once it 
 had begun to contract, or at least of stopping it 
 from getting any narrower ?" 
 
 " There was nothing said about it in the book," 
 he said. 
 
 " What book was it ?" she inquired. 
 
 " It was a book called the Book which shows 
 how things went wrong," replied Maurice. " It is 
 a very large book and very old, and in I do not 
 know how many volumes. And it is not finished 
 yet. People -are always adding sequels and new se- 
 ries to it." 
 
 " A very dull book, I should think," observed 
 Winnie. 
 
 " Rather," he replied, " without the other Book, 
 which ought always to be read with it." 
 
 " What is that," she asked. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 43 
 
 " It is the Book which shows how things are set 
 right," he replied in a gentle, grave voice. 
 
 " Is that book finished yet?" Winnie inquired. 
 
 " Yes, a long time ago," he replied, " but it is a 
 strange thing no one ever finished reading it." 
 
 " I wonder at that," said Winnie. " I think it 
 must be interesting. I should like to see it." 
 
 " It is the most interesting thing in the world to 
 people who understand it," said Maurice. " The 
 curious thing is that a great many people think 
 they have read it through and finished it. But 
 when (especially after reading another chapter of 
 the other Book) they take it up again, they find 
 they were mistaken, for there it is quite new again, 
 with things in it they never saw before." 
 
 " Two very strange books," said Winnie musing, 
 " the Book that never is finished writing, and the 
 Book that never is finished reading." 
 
 But while she was thinking about it, voices were 
 heard approaching. Mrs. O'Brien was coming to 
 show her guests the rock garden, so that Winnie 
 had no time to ask Maurice about the Five Worlds. 
 
 Maurice was obliged to go away again very early 
 the next morning ; and it would probably, he said, 
 be some little time before he could come back. So 
 it happened that Winnie was left for days to her 
 own meditations so as to the Two Books and the 
 Five Worlds. For, like so many children, it never 
 occurred to her voluntarily to unlock the little world 
 within to any one. She understood it indeed s lit- 
 
44 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 tie herself that it would have "been impossible for 
 her to make any one else understand it. The germs 
 and shapeless beginnings of all kinds of unknown 
 things lay so strangely scattered about in the early 
 twilight of that little chaotic world that it was not 
 in Winnie's power to explain half of them to her- 
 self, much less to others, unless they brought the 
 clue with them. 
 
 Besides, ' since she had overheard her uncle 
 O'Brien so strongly disapproving of little girls 
 thinking about their own feelings, she had felt it 
 almost wrong to have any inward perplexities at 
 all. Yet, try as she might, she could by no means 
 bring herself to the " beautiful unconsciousness" 
 of the kitten. Those troublesome ideas of right and 
 wrong which never seemed to beset pussy, would 
 come back so pertinaciously to Winnie, do what 
 she would to banish them. 
 
 It happened also that during these days, unusually 
 many things came to waken up these uneasy busy 
 thoughts. 
 
 Mr. O'Brien had invited a little girl to stay with 
 Winnie, thinking it would be good for her to be 
 thrown more with other children, and that little 
 Lucy Avenel was an unexceptionable little friend. 
 
 Now it cannot be denied that among children as 
 among grown-up people, friendships can seldom be 
 construe d in this way, from outside, however con- 
 venient it might be. Moreover Lucy's tastes and 
 subjects of interest and Winnie's were quite differ- 
 ent, while at the same time Lucy was a child mod- 
 eled after Rosalie's own heart. " A child," she 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 45 
 
 said, " that never had a torn frock nor dishevelled 
 hair, a little being whose toilette it was a luxury to 
 make, and who was as perfectly in order at the end 
 of an evening as at the beginning." It was not in 
 human nature, therefore, not to institute compari- 
 sons, with the materials for such striking antitheses 
 continually at hand. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Wini," Rosalie would exclaim, 
 " observe this little model ! She stands as still as a 
 stone while I arrange her tresses in any device I 
 like. She rejoices in it, that wise little one ! Every 
 evening I can vary her style. Yesterday, severe 
 and simple as a Greek statue ; to-day graceful, flow- 
 ing, romanesque as a heroine of your Sir Walter ; 
 to-morrow, in countless little luxuriant curls like a 
 little court-lady of the Grand Monarque. "With en- 
 thusiasm for one's art, and with a subject, what may 
 not one accomplish ? And the charming child all 
 the time motionless as the waxen model of an artist 
 in hair 1" 
 
 Or at the end of the evening : 
 
 " See mademoiselle, not a hair out of place, not a 
 ribbon disordered, whilst you ! how can I describe 
 it> disorganized demoralized a chaos !" 
 
 Thus the comparisons went on, at first to Win- 
 nie's amusement, until Mademoiselle Rosalie, ag- 
 grieved at the small efiect of her admonitions, grew 
 more serious, and. Winnie was provoked to con- 
 temptuous rejoinders; such as, that she had no am- 
 bition to be like a barber's block. 
 
 More serious replies from Rosalie; mournful 
 prophecies that whatever Mademoiselle Winnie 
 
 I 
 
46 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 thought in the bloom of her young years, she 
 would remember her faithful Rosalie, alas, too late ! 
 Depressing generalizations as to the universal fate 
 of people who cannot bear to hear other people 
 praised, and who are too self-opinionated to learn in 
 their youth ; until one evening, Winnie, distracted 
 between her indignation at Rosalie's injurious com- 
 parisons and her anxiety to say nothing fierce to 
 her guest, subsided into silence ; when Rosalie, un- 
 able to let slip such an opportunity for a moral, 
 whispered, " Ah ! ah ! Fie then ! the poor little one 
 is jealous. Away mademoiselle, with passions so 
 dark, so destructive." 
 
 Then unable to stand any more, Winnie wrenched 
 herself from the hands of her unconscious tormentor, 
 and decisively finishing her own toilette, rushed into 
 bed with the feeling that she was undoubtedly very 
 naughty, yet that the whole system of things was 
 terribly against her, so that naughtiness seemed a 
 kind of fate. 
 
 At length the week ended, and Lucy's visit ; and 
 Mrs. O'Brien, knowing nothing of this secret drama, 
 wondered that Winnie did not seem more sorry to 
 part with her little friend. 
 
 Rosalie's accusation, however, sank deeper than 
 she meant into Winnie's heart. 
 
 Was it indeed true that she was jealous? Such 
 a mean, ungenerous fault, Winnie thought. Yet 
 it certainly did seem like it when it made her so 
 vexed to hear another little girl praised. 
 
 Certainly she must be in the Contracting Cham- 
 ber, and it must already have got very narrow 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 47 
 
 and stifling, for her to have such petty, .narrow 
 feelings. 
 
 What was she to do ? 
 
 It seemed to her she could herself easily add 
 another chapter to Maurice's Book about things go- 
 ing wrong. 
 
 So Sunday came; and Winnie went to church 
 with her aunt and uncle. It had not generally 
 occurred to Winnie that sermons were things she 
 had anything to do with except to sit as still as she 
 could during the process, an achievement in which 
 she generally assisted herself by counting the leaves 
 on the trees outside, or by calculating how much 
 money she would probably have accumulated by 
 Christmas, and what presents she would buy with 
 them, or -by other abstruse arithmetical processes, 
 varied with practical reflections as to how she would 
 not bring up her own little girls, illustrated from the 
 educational methods of Mademoiselle Rosalie, like 
 the examples of bad grammar in Noel and Chapsal. 
 
 To-day, however, there was a new clergyman; 
 and he had a deep sonorous voice, and his text 
 was: 
 
 " The way of transgressors is hard?* which seemed 
 to Winnie so remarkably applicable to her own re- 
 cent history, that she was constrained to listen. 
 And exceedingly disturbed she was by that sermon. 
 The clergyman showed so very plainly and power- 
 fully the misery of doing wrong, and led on the 
 people whose wrong-doings he described to such 
 very terrible ends that, Winnie could not take her 
 eyes off his face. And when the service was fin- 
 
48 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 islied she drove -home from church in a silence very 
 unusual with her, for she felt that, perhaps after all, 
 Rosalie was right in her worst accusations and 
 gloomiest prophecies, and that she was going along 
 t a very hard way to a very dark end indeed. And 
 what was worst, she could see no way out of it 
 at all. 
 
 The sermon, Winnie thought, was plainly a 
 chapter out of the Book that showed how things 
 went wrong. She wished very much some one 
 would come and preach a sermon out of the Book 
 which shows how "things are set right. 
 
 She remained very quiet all the day, but in the 
 evening twilight, when she was left alone with Mrs. 
 O'Brien, the weight became too great for her little 
 heart to bear, and drawing close to her aunt, on the 
 sofa in 'the inner drawing-room, she said : 
 
 " Auntie, Rosalie says I am jealous. And I am 
 dreadfully afraid I am. She used to make me so 
 angry by her constantly praising Lucy. But oh, 
 auntie, how am I to help it ?" 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien tried most gently to soothe her, for 
 Winnie's tears began to flow very fast. She assured 
 her she did not believe she had meant any harm ; 
 but that if she had, she must be a dear good little 
 girl and try and not do it again. Neither of which 
 consolatory remarks at all comforted Winnie. For, 
 in the first place, she felt sure she had meant harm, 
 at least that she had felt so angry she scarcely knew 
 what she might not have done. And in the second 
 place, how not to do so any more was exactly what 
 she could not find out. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. ^ 
 
 So she was thrown back on herself, and on the 
 longing to see Maurice. 
 
 However, Mrs. O'Brien's kindness comforted the 
 little girl, if her words did not, and in a little 
 while she fell asleep with her head on her aunt's 
 shoulder. 
 
 She was awakened by hearing her uncle's voice 
 say: 
 
 " Quite morbid ! a child of her age ! A most 
 unnatural development of conscience ! This will 
 never do." 
 
 Then Winnie opened her eyes wide, having a con- 
 sciousness that they were talking about her. 
 
 There was a kind of pitying tenderness in her 
 uncle's manner to her which touched her very 
 much, and yet made her feel very uncomfortable. 
 She felt, as if they thought something was the 
 matter with her, and whether it was illness or 
 naughtiness she could not make out ; so that she 
 was not sorry when her aunt said that as she had 
 been rather agitated, she had better go to bed early, 
 and go to sleep as fast as possible. 
 
 Opposite Winnie's bed two little walnut-wood 
 bookshelves were suspended against the wall. 
 They contained her little library. All the books 
 were presents ; and Winnie liked as she lay in bed 
 to read over their names, and think about the 
 people who had given them to her, and about the 
 happy birthdays they recalled. 
 
 On the top of these shelves lay one small book, 
 not standing upright like the others, but laid down 
 5 
 
5 o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 by itself. It was bound in purple morocco, and 
 had gold rims and two gold clasps, which was per- 
 haps one reason why Winnie had not thought of it 
 so much as a book at all as a kind of sacred orna- 
 ment or jewel, like the miniature of her father and 
 mother which lay in the morocco case on her dress- 
 ing-table, and which she looked at every morning 
 and evening before she said her prayers : for in the 
 beginning of the book was written her own name, 
 and those of her father and mother, who had given 
 it her years ago, when she was a very little child, 
 and was sent away from their Indian home to Mr. 
 Bertram's sister, Mrs. O'Brien, in England. 
 
 As Winnie lay on her little French bed, very 
 wide awake, thinking things over, her eyes rested 
 on this sacred book. 
 
 And it flashed on her : 
 
 " That is Maurice's Book, that shows how things 
 are set right." 
 
 It was still quite light enough to read ; so she 
 sprang out of bed, and reaching up this book, took 
 it back into bed with her, and folding herself up in 
 an old Indian shawl of her mother's, unfastened 
 the clasps with eager, trembling hands, and began 
 to read. 
 
 You must not think Winnie had never read this 
 book before. Almost every day, although not from 
 that very volume, she read the Psalms and lessons 
 to her aunt, as something which had to be done 
 regularly, like her morning walk. Sometimes, 
 moreover, just as the fresh air and open sky, and 
 the flowers, and the songs of the birds, sent her 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 5 l 
 
 home from her daily walk refreshed and exhilarated, 
 she could not tell how, this little daily journey over 
 sacred ground left her, she scarcely knew how, 
 refreshed ahd exhilarated in spirit. 
 
 But that was a different thing from opening the 
 book, as she did that night, to get her questions 
 answered, and her heart set at rest about right 
 and wrong. 
 
 She felt, as she unfastened the golden clasps, 
 although she could not have expressed her feeling 
 like some one opening the golden doors of a temple, 
 in whose silent recesses, if you listened, you would 
 hear a voice, which would tell you all you wanted 
 most to know. 
 
 And the first time any of us open that book, to 
 hear the voice speaking from it to us, is a great 
 day for us, whether we remember it in after years 
 or not. The first thing Winnie read in it was the 
 text at the beginning, in her mother's writing : 
 
 " Herein is love ; not that we loved God, but 
 that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the pro- 
 pitiation for our sins ;" and : 
 
 " We love him because he first loved us." 
 
 The chapter and verse were not put, but Winnie 
 thought it must be from St. John, because of there 
 being so much about love. She looked through 
 the Gospel in vain, and then she turned to the 
 Epistle ; but before she found what she sought, her 
 eye rested on the words : 
 
 " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to 
 forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all 
 unrighteousness ;" and just above : 
 
52 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us 
 from all sin." 
 
 Hundreds of times, as she had heard those words, 
 especially those about confessing, they came to her 
 that night, as Maurice had said the words of that 
 book so often did to people, like something quite 
 new ; new in power and freshness, and yet sacred 
 with the authority and tenderness of things long 
 familiar. 
 
 She did not read any more that evening. She 
 thought she had found the answer she wanted ; 
 and kneeling down by her bedside, she prayed in 
 interrupted, broken words : 
 
 " Our Father, which art in heaven, I am come to 
 confess my faults. I have been jealous I am 
 afraid I have. I have been cross I know I have. 
 I am very sorry. I want so very much not to do 
 it again ; but I do not know how to help it. Oh, 
 do forgive me, and do help me. For Jesus Christ's 
 sake." 
 
 That was all Winnie's prayer ; but she felt very 
 much lighter in heart for it. 
 
 And then she put the Bible under her pillow, and 
 felt as if it were a friend close to her ; and very 
 soon she fell asleep. 
 
 A few minutes afterwards, when Mrs. O'Brien 
 came very softly into her room, she found Winnie 
 deep in her first sleep, with a happy smile on 
 her rosy little face, and one hand unconsciously 
 stretched out under her pillow clasping the book 
 whose gold rim was peeping out underneath ; as if 
 it had been a mother's hand. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. ^ 
 
 Tender and true as a mother's hand indeed it is, 
 little Winnie, leaning down to thee out of heaven, 
 to lead thee on step by step, and to uphold thee 
 while it leads ! 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien looked a long time at the sleeping 
 child ; and as she stooped down very softly to kiss 
 her, her eyes filled with tears. She would not on 
 any account have attempted to loosen the clasp of 
 the little hand, but she drew the sheet over the 
 uncovered arm. 
 
 And Winnie's was not the only prayer offered by 
 her bedside that night, nor the only confession. 
 
 The next day brought Winnie a great joy. 
 
 As she was doing her French lessons, Maurice's 
 face appeared at the open window of the school- 
 room, and by the brightness in it she knew at once 
 what he had to say ; and springing up with one of 
 those sudden movements which so disconcerted 
 Rosalie, and endangered dress and furniture, she 
 threw herself into her brother's arms, exclaiming : 
 
 " I know what you mean, Maurice. It is all 
 right. You have found little Fan !" 
 
 Having conciliated Rosalie by a courteous greet- 
 ing and a request for permission to abstract her 
 pupil for a time, Maurice led Winnie into the garden 
 for a confidential talk. 
 
 He had found little Fan. But his face was* 
 graver about it than Winnie liked. 
 
 " And there is such a person as Dan, Maurice, 
 and he is a dear good brother, like you I am sure 
 5* 
 
54 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 he is ! And Fan took him the rose ? I am sure 
 she did!" 
 
 " There is such a little man as Dan," Maurice 
 replied, " and he seems to me a kind brother to 
 Fan, and they seem to love each other very dearly. 
 And I found the withered roses, wrapped up very 
 carefully in a little bit of old newspaper, under 
 Dan's pillow." 
 
 "I knew it! I knew it!" Winnie exclaimed, 
 jumping and clapping her hands ; " it is all true ! 
 My poor dear little Fan ! And Rosalie will know 
 it ! And it is true about Dan's going up the chim- 
 ney, and everything, Maurice, isn't it? It is all 
 true. Oh, how I wish uncle would come home, 
 that I might tell him !" 
 
 " It is all quite true, Winnie too true, I am 
 afraid," said Maurice ; " for poor little Dan's leg is 
 no better than it was, and I am not sure if it ever 
 will be." 
 
 In her delight at the clearing of little Fan's 
 character, and the restoration of Dan from a myth 
 to an historical person, Winnie had for the moment 
 utterly lost sight of Dan's sufferings and Fan's 
 poverty ; and the recollection not only completely 
 sobered her, but brought a very sorrowful shade 
 over her heart and face, as she walked on silently 
 with her hand in Maurice's. 
 
 Very soon, however, her confidence in the general 
 cheerfulness of life, and the power of doctors to 
 make sick people well, revived, and she said: 
 
 "We will tell auntie, Maurice, and you know 
 we can ask Dr. Dee to go and see Dan. Auntie 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 55 
 
 says Dr. Dee's cures are miraculous. I heard her 
 say so yesterday. And he always makes me well 
 in a day or two." 
 
 Maurice's face did not quite respond to Winnie's 
 hopes. However, he said : 
 
 " We will try, at all events. We will do every 
 thing for Dan that can be done." 
 
 " Do you know," she said, " I have still half a 
 sovereign of my own, and that will go a long way, 
 I should think, in buying nice things for Dan to eat. 
 And oh, Maurice, do you think auntie will ever let 
 me go and see little Fan ? " 
 
 Maurice sat down on a garden chair, and taking 
 Winnie's hands in his looked very kindly down on 
 her eager up-turned face. 
 
 " I have asked auntie," he said, " and she says 
 you may go to-morrow." 
 
 Winnie's joy once more quite overwhelmed her 
 sorrow. 
 
 "Aunt O'Brien says you may go on one con. 
 dition," he resumed, " that is, if I will assure her it 
 is not too sad a sight for a little girl like you to see. 
 She says you have no control over your feelings. 
 And it is a sad sight. I cannot say it is not. But 
 I think you could bear it, Winnie. And I am sure 
 it must do any one good to see Dan's patient little 
 face. And I think you would bear it, Winnie," he 
 concluded. " You would not make the poor boy 
 think his case worse than it is, by crying too much? 
 or by looking dreadfully grieved ! " 
 
 A soft, steady, womanly light dawned in the 
 depths of Winnie's eyes, as she opened them wide 
 and looking up at Maurice said : 
 
56 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 "I would not make Dan worse for the world, 
 Maurice. I won't begin to cry a bit, because if one 
 once begins I don't see how any one can help going 
 on. Besides," she continued, her face brightening 
 up again, " you know we are not going only to look 
 at Dan, as if he were a melancholy picture, or a story 
 book written to make people cry. We are going to 
 help him, Maurice." 
 
 The whole of the day was full of busy prepara- 
 tions. Everything and every person seemed now to 
 combine to help Winnie in her plans about little 
 Fan, as, before, all had seemed to conspire to 
 hinder her. 
 
 There had been a dinner-party, so that there was 
 even more than a usual store of delicacies and all 
 kinds of nice nourishing things to take to Dan. 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien brought out an old frock, hat, and 
 woollen cloak of Winnie's for little Fan, and quite 
 a stock of warm wraps and clean soft linen rags for 
 Dan. 
 
 Mr. O'Brien gave her a whole sovereign to spend, 
 under Maurice's directions, for the orphans, and 
 proposed getting each of them into a separate orphan 
 asylum ; a plan, however, which Winnie secretly 
 determined must never be carried out. 
 
 Winnie herself rummaged out a little library of 
 story-books and pictures, out of which after many 
 discussions as to Dan's probable tastes and literary 
 capabilities, she was allowed to select a Bible 
 picture-book in which the people wore very bril- 
 liant coats of many colors. Winnie thought these 
 would be very fascinating to both brother and 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 57 
 
 sister, except that at the last she was on the point 
 of keeping it back, because, as she said, little Fan 
 might think the Bible was like the church with the 
 tall tower where no one belonged but the people 
 who had fine clothes. 
 
 Even Rosalia was entirely won over, and entered 
 warmly into Winnie's schemes. She had the highest 
 opinion of Mr. Maurice's judgment. She thought 
 him, although a little eccentric (but then he was 
 English), a gentleman of very distinguished man. 
 ners, and moreover (although a Protestant) a kind 
 of St. Vincent de Paul. She was anxious, more- 
 over, to atone for her previous scepticism. Accord- 
 ingly, just as Winnie and Maurice were starting in 
 the carriage, she handed to Winnie an elegant little 
 basket which her clever French fingers had twisted 
 the night before out of paper and wire, and in which 
 were arranged among dark leaves with as much 
 taste as if for a fruit picture, six beautiful peaches, 
 which she had risen early that morning to purchase 
 at the fruiterer's. This attention so overcame Win- 
 nie with penitence, gratitude, and a flood of good 
 resolutions, as almost to overpower at the outset her 
 heroic purposes of self-control. 
 
 The carriage passed very quickly from the high 
 open ground where Winnie lived, through a suburb 
 of large houses with high garden walls, with car- 
 riages frequently waiting at the gates ; then through 
 a district of small houses, behind little railed 
 gardens in which very low arithmetical powers 
 might have counted the shrubs and flowers, and the 
 chief vehicles were the baker's and butcher's cart $ 
 
5 8 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 then through broad thoroughfares noisy with omni- 
 buses and cabs ; and finally into a region of narrow 
 streets and dingy old-fashioned houses below the 
 level of omnibuses or cabs, or bakers' carts, where 
 the vehicles were heavy lumbering coal-wagons 
 and drays, and where hats and shoes were, among 
 the children, quite a rare distinction. 
 
 At length they came in sight of a high church 
 tower, and Maurice stopped the carriage, helped 
 Winnie out with the parcels, and silently the brother 
 and sister walked along until they came close to 
 the church, and then under a narrow covered way 
 between two houses, so narrow that they could not 
 walk abreast, they entered an alley with no outlet 
 at the other end, where five or six ragged boys (a 
 great deal too cool and experienced to pay any 
 particular attention to the gentleman and little lady) 
 were shouting over pitch and toss, and at almost 
 every door sat or stood a ragged little girl hoisting 
 a ragged baby just as big as herself. 
 
 " Those are the boys who would have snatched at 
 little Fan's flowers," whispered Winnie, with a 
 slight shudder. 
 
 At the end of the court Maurice entered a low 
 door, and asked if he might see the little boy with 
 the broken leg. 
 
 A sullen looking man sat smoking by the fire, 
 but' vouchsafed no answer, except a toss of his head 
 in the direction of the staircase. 
 
 Before they could reach this, however, a woman 
 appeared from a mysterious back room, and with 
 officious politeness, but in a shrill voice which 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 59 
 
 seemed as if it had got so high up in the practice 
 of scolding that it never could be got down again 
 for any milder use, told them how condescending it 
 was of gentlefolks like them to come into such poor 
 dark holes, warned the dear young lady to take care 
 of her pretty dress, and offered to guide them up- 
 stairs herself. Winnie was very glad that Maurice 
 declined her assistance, for the woman's shrill com- 
 pliments grated against her more than the sulky 
 silence of the man, although as they went upstairs 
 she heard him muttering something not pleasant 
 about " parsons,'* and a man's house being his own. 
 
 Up and up they went, and round and round, past 
 doors at which strange faces peeped at them cu- 
 riously, until they came to the garret. 
 
 At first Winnie thought Maurice had made a 
 mistake and brought her to a lumber-room, for there 
 was nothing in it but two old boxes, and the roof 
 sloped to the floor. 
 
 But as her eyes recovered from the dazzle of day- 
 light after the dark stairs, she saw something stir- 
 ring from a mat on the floor in a corner near the 
 window, and then she perceived that it was the thin 
 wan face of a litle boy who had raised himself on 
 his elbow to look at the visitors. 
 
 Large dark eager eyes, like Fan's looked out from 
 the thin hollow cheeks with a wistful longing, as if 
 through prison-bars. 
 
 But as he recognised Maurice, a happy child's 
 smile beamed out over all his face, and he sank 
 down again as if quite at home. 
 
 Winnie understood why Fan had felt it worth 
 
6o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND . 
 
 while to take such pains to waken up that smile. 
 For a moment it took all the old wizened suffering 
 look out of the face, and made it the face of a happy 
 child, yet with a depth of expression about it that 
 only comes out of suffering. 
 
 She needed no introduction, she had no doubt 
 who it was, but she lingered in a shy way near the 
 door, until Maurice led her forward with Rosalie's 
 basket and a bunch of roses in her hand, and said : 
 
 " This is the little girl who gave your sister the 
 rose, Dan. She is my little sister. She thought 
 you might like some fruit, and she has brought 
 you some." 
 
 It did not seem in the family to say, " thank 
 you," but Dan nodded his approbation, and had 
 evidently his own ideas of good manners, for he 
 did not attempt to taste the fruit until Maurice 
 had expressly told him to do so, and given one 
 peach into his hand, and then pointing to Winnie, 
 he said : % 
 
 " Give one to her." 
 
 Winnie's honesty would not allow her to appro- 
 priate all Dan's gratitude, so coloring very much, 
 she said : 
 
 " They are not my peaches, they are Rosalie's. 
 But the roses are mine, Dan, they, are from my 
 own rose-bush." 
 
 " I wish Fan was here," said Dan, " she'll be 
 dreadful cut up to miss you. She do'n't scarcely 
 never leave me. But uncle sent her for a ha'porth 
 of gin." 
 
 In a little while Maurice sitting on a box near 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 61 
 
 * 
 the bed had drawn the little boy into conversation. 
 
 Perfectly unencumbered with the rules about bad 
 or good manners, or titles or forms of address, Dan 
 was in this respect on firmer ground with Maurice 
 than if he had belonged to a class a little bit 
 higher, and had thus come under the restraint of 
 conventional rules imperfectly understood, and only 
 practised at rare intervals. Next to the ease of 
 manner of a perfect gentleman is the ease of man- 
 ner of an unmitigated ragged boy, especially, pro- 
 vided the ragged boy is a natural gentleman ; 
 although in some points, it must be confessed, there 
 are differences. And Dan was by nature a gentle- 
 man, as Winnie knew from the moment he offered 
 her the peach. Indeed, his good manners were 
 rooted in something a good deal deeper than any 
 codes of etiquette written or unwritten, as Winnie 
 felt while she listened to him and Maurice. 
 
 Not that Dan said much, at Jeast at first ; he 
 seemed to devour Maurice's words as he spoke, 
 looking into his face with those great questioning 
 eyes, and every now and then nodding his head 
 and smiling his approval. It was, indeed, evi- 
 dent that Maurice and he quite understood each 
 other. 
 
 By degrees, however, Dan began to speak 
 himself. 
 
 " You see," said Maurice softly, " God has not 
 forgotten you." 
 
 " He never don't," said Dan, " night nor day." 
 
 " God doesn't forget you, even when you don't 
 get much to eat," said Maurice, to whona Winnie 
 6 
 
6 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 had revealed her anxieties that Dan should not get 
 perplexed on this subject. 
 
 " Mother couldn't always give us bread, if we 
 ''cried for it," replied Dan, " and she was as good as 
 could be, and teacher said God is better nor her. 
 Jesus took 'em up in His arms," he continued, 
 " teacher said he did. And I know He'd help me 
 and Fan, if He saw any way. Of course there is 
 ways," concluded Dan, " for teacher said there was 
 nothing He couldn't do. But He won't never take 
 none but the right way. In course He couldn't. 
 So we must wait till He has found it." 
 
 " Perhaps our Saviour has found the right way 
 now," said Maurice, " and has sent us. You think 
 a great deal, Dan !" he continued, as he looked at 
 the little thin suffering face, and thought how 
 much Dan had learned, if he had learned to wait 
 for God. 
 
 "Yes," said Dan confidentially, " but most at 
 nights. The court's quiet then, and I don't feel so 
 much that I should like to be out at play with 'em 
 all in the sun. And it's all dark, except up there 
 in the sky. And the stars come out, such lots of 
 them, for they're not the same, and they don't keep 
 in one place." (Dan announced this as a discov- 
 ery.) "They keep going on. Sometimes there's 
 four or five of 'em in a bunch, and sometimes three 
 in a row. And then there's one or two brighter 
 than all the others, that don't wink, but keep look- 
 ing at me so kind and steady like. They make me 
 think of mother, and of our Saviour, and of the 
 children in heaven. And I 'most think I can hear 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 63 
 
 'em singing up there sometimes." Then after a 
 little pause, he suddenly looked up with a penetrat- 
 ing look at Maurice, and said : 
 
 " What becomes of them stars all day long ?" 
 
 " They are always there," said Maurice, " only 
 they are hidden in the sunshine." 
 
 Dan nodded as if confirmed in a conviction. 
 
 " I thought so," he said, " and that's how it is 
 with heaven, and the Lord, and the children up 
 there. It's just the same as with the stars." 
 
 "What do you mean, Dan?" said Maurice, 
 anxious to bring out the boy's thought. 
 
 " Why they're always there" said Dan in a low, 
 happy voice. " They're always there, looking and 
 smiling on us ; only there's too much dazzle for us 
 to see 'em, or hear 'em, and too much noise." 
 
 Maurice did not say anything for some time. 
 Then he said : 
 
 " You have very happy thoughts, Dan, I think 
 God gives them to you." 
 
 Dan nodded assent. 
 
 " There's another thing I think at night," he 
 said, eager now his heart was opened by such rare 
 comprehension and sympathy to pour out the long 
 pent-up feelings, " and that makes me 'most happier 
 than anything else. Teacher said them stars is 
 miles and miles away ; and as I look up, and up, I 
 think I see they are. The world seems so high and 
 so wide, there's no end to it. And that's very 
 gaod to feel." 
 
 " You think you won't always be imprisoned in 
 this little narrow room," said Maurice. 
 
64 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " No," said the boy, " but what I feel most is 
 how small I am in this big world. At first I didn't 
 like to feel that. It felt cold like. But now I like 
 it 'most best of all. 'Cause, you know, there's 
 Jesus ; and teacher said it all belongs to Him, the 
 world do ; and when I think of Him, it's so -good 
 to feel small. His arms is all round me, as mother's 
 was when I was a little child. And it's so good to 
 nestle in quite close like, and feel so helpless and so 
 little, and He so kind and strong." 
 
 Just then Winnie heard little feet climbing up 
 the stairs, and in a minute little Fan appeared 
 laboriously carrying a jug of water nearly as big 
 as herself, which she all but dropped in her amaze- 
 ment at seeing Winnie and Maurice. 
 
 Dan, however, encouraged her to come in. 
 " It's only your own little lady, Fan," he said. 
 At first the little girls were rather shy with each 
 other, but as Maurice continued his conversation 
 with Dan, and examined his broken leg to see what 
 could be done, by degrees the confidence Rosalie 
 had so roughly broken was restored ; Winnie 
 opened the bundle containing the frock and hat, 
 and the basket with the cold soup and jellies, and 
 by the time Maurice rose to go, she had got the 
 length of delicately suggesting to little Fan how 
 very nice it was to wash one's hands and face. 
 
 When they were about to leave, the Bible pic- 
 ture-book dropped by accident on the floor. Win- 
 nie picked it up, but did not propose giving it 
 to Dan. 
 Maurice thought she was shy, and was proceed- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 65 
 
 ing to give it in her name, when she stopped him, 
 and flushing very red, whispered, " Don't, Maurice, 
 please. I don't think Dan w6uld like it." 
 
 He yielded in some perplexity. And they took 
 leave, Maurice promising to return very soon. 
 
 " Will she come, too ?" said Dan stretching out 
 his hand to shake Winnie's. 
 
 And as that rare sunbeam of a smile broke over 
 the wan, little face again, Winnie very nearly for- 
 got her resolution and burst into tears. 
 
 Very silent she was as they drove home, until 
 Maurice asked her why she did not wish to give 
 Dan the picture-book. 
 
 " Oh, Maurice, how could I ?" she said ; " he 
 knows so much better than that. How could I 
 give Dan such pictures of our Saviour as those ! 
 There is one in auntie's dressing-room," she added, 
 " that might be good enough. The face listening 
 at the closed door, you know. But, perhaps, auntie 
 mightn't quite like to give that to Dan." 
 
 "Are you pleased or disappointed, Winnie," 
 asked Mrs. O'Brien, when Winnie came back with 
 an earnest, thoughtful face. 
 
 " I don't quite know, auntie," she said, " I thought 
 we would have done more for Dan ; that he would 
 have wanted more. But what we can do seems 
 so little and poor. God has made him so happy 
 already." 
 
 " We can help about his broken leg, Winnie," 
 said Maurice, " and get him into a home where he 
 will be kindly nursed and have plenty of good 
 6* 
 
66 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 food, and where little Fan may learn to read, and 
 to wash her face, and that will be something." 
 
 Winnie shook her head. And at length' the 
 long-controlled feelings gave way, and she burst 
 into tears. 
 
 "What is the matter, darling?" Mrs. O'Brien 
 asked. 
 
 " I am so sorry for Fan," sobbed Winnie ; " I'm 
 so sorry for poor little Fan." 
 
 " Why, little Fan's troubles are over, I hope, 
 Winnie," said Maurice. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Winnie. " Oh, no ! I'm so sorry 
 for little Fan !" 
 
 "Why, what is the matter, my child?" said 
 her aunt. 
 
 " Oh," sobbed Winnie, " when Dan dies !" 
 
 " But I have great hope Dan will live and get 
 well, Winnie," said Maurice. " Why are you so 
 distressed ?" 
 
 " It isn't that he's so ill," moaned Winnie, " but 
 he's so good. All the children in the books die 
 when they talk like that. And I'm so sorry for 
 Fan." 
 
 By degrees, however, Winnie was reassured. 
 Maurice thought the leg a more hopeful case than 
 he had at first ; and a long talk ensued as to the 
 best way of helping the orphan children. 
 
 That evening when she went to bed, Winnie led 
 Maurice to the door of her aunt's dressing-room, 
 and showed him the picture she thought would do 
 for Dan. 
 
 " Only," she said, " the Face is so very sad, and 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 67 
 
 the door is shut against Him. And Dan's door 
 isn't shut, Maurice, is it ?" 
 
 And when a week afterwards Mrs. O'Brien drove 
 Winnie to the home for sick children, and she saw 
 Dan laid on a clean, fresh bed, with the look of 
 suffering greatly lightened on his face, and heard 
 the tone of delight in which little Fan (who as a 
 special privilege was permitted to wait on her 
 brother), told how he had walked that day from 
 one end of the room to the other, her fears were 
 calmed, and she even admitted that although God 
 had done so much for Dan already, He had left 
 something for them to do, and she was so glad 
 He had. 
 
 And in the evening after they returned, as she 
 was having a twilight talk with Maurice, Winnie 
 said: 
 
 " Oh, Maurice, I do hope I have found the way 
 out of the Contracting Chamber." 
 
 "I think you have, Winnie," he said. "It's 
 when we ourselves are in the middle of the world 
 that it grows so narrow and poor to us ; is it not ? 
 Fan's world was larger than yours, because Dan 
 was in the middle of it, and not herself. But Dan's 
 world is widest of all. Do you know why ?" 
 
 " God is in the middle of it," she replied very 
 softly ; isn't that it ?" 
 
 " Like the sun," said Maurice, " and that makes 
 it all so wide and bright." 
 
 " And oh, Maurice," concluded Winnie very seri- 
 ously, " I do hope God will help me never to get 
 into the middle of my world again !" 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 |OW, Maurice," said Winnie, " about the 
 Five Worlds, and about little Grace 
 Leigh." 
 
 To explain these words, it is necessary 
 to go back three hours, three hours of that precious 
 day to which Winifred had been looking forward so 
 long as quite a little lifetime of delight. 
 
 For it was the first of October, and Winifred's 
 birthday. She had been offered various kinds of 
 entertainment by her aunt and uncle, including an 
 elaborate children's ball, a conjurer, and a ventrilo- 
 quist ; but she had chosen in preference to every- 
 thing else in the world, a whole day with Maurice, 
 stipulating only for a visit in the morning from 
 little Fan. 
 
 Maurice had come to stay at Mr. O'Brien's on 
 the previous evening, that it might be really a 
 whole day ; and Winnie had parted from Rosalie 
 with the most urgent entreaties not to wake her a 
 minute after seven o'clock, that she might not lose 
 a moment of the treasured hours. 
 
 (68) 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM. 69 
 
 But before that hour arrived, the child's light 
 morning slumbers were broken by the rustle of a 
 dress and the soft closing of a door. 
 
 "Oh, Rosalie!" she exclaimed, starting up> 
 " you are trying to impose on me. It is seven 
 o'clock." 
 
 " It is scarcely six," rejoined Rosalie, reopening 
 the door ; " and madame gave the most express 
 orders you were to sleep till seven at earliest. 
 Tranquillize thyself, little enthusiast, the day will 
 last thee long enough." 
 
 The door closed again. 
 
 But Winnie' had caught sight of something which 
 quite neutralized any orders to sleep. Over the 
 walnut bookshelves was suspended a large new 
 engraving of the picture she loved the thorn- 
 crowned Saviour listening at the closed weed-grown 
 door. 
 
 And over the picture, resting on its frame, was 
 placed, in large illuminated letters, blue and crimson 
 and gold, wreathed with spring-flowers, the text, 
 " We love Him because He first loved us." It seemed 
 to Winnie like a message from unseen worlds, from 
 the unseen Saviour in heaven, and from the absent 
 mother whose loving hands had written those very 
 words so many years before in the little Bible which, 
 since that Sunday evening, the child always kept 
 under her pillow at night. 
 
 A kind of tender awe came over the child's heart 
 as she sat up gazing at her new treasures, until her 
 eyes filled with tears. 
 
 No doubt she thought Maurice had something to 
 
7 o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 do with it ; but how could Maurice, or anyone on 
 earth, remember what was written inside the Bible 
 which never left her room, or know about that 
 Sunday evening when in the summer twilight those 
 words had first grown so dear to her ? 
 
 As Winnie gazed and wondered, this feeling of 
 awe deepened within her, as if presences she could 
 not see were around her, and had been around her 
 without her knowing it all her life ; as if she were 
 half-waking, and caught the soft sweep of angels' 
 raiment passing away, and the faint echo of retreat, 
 ing footsteps, and the whisper of voices just hushed ; 
 and the dim smile of holy vanishing faces that had 
 been watching her sleep ; and as if, could she only 
 quite awake, she would see and hear wonders of love 
 and joy hear not only the voices but the words. 
 
 "I wonder if people ever do quite awake and 
 hear and see all this ? I will ask Maurice about it 
 all," she thought. And then came the joyful 
 recollection, "Maurice is to be here all day, all 
 day." 
 
 And she laid her head back on her pillow just to 
 be still a little while, and measure over the joy 
 again and again. Nearly an hour before seven to 
 think of it beforehand, and then twelve, thirteen, 
 fourteen hours to be with Maurice, to ask every 
 question she could think of, and hear all about every- 
 thing. 
 
 And through all her thoughts those words kept 
 shining on her, " We love Him, because He first loved 
 us" One word after another. " We that is Mau- 
 rice, and Dan, and I. Yes, I myself," thought 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 71 
 
 Winnie ; " yes, I do love Him. Yes, love ; who 
 could help it ? Yet how little. Oh, I wish it was 
 better, then I should be better. I love auntie, and 
 I love papa and mamma ; but then I have seen 
 them. If I could only see Him, look up into His 
 face just once, and see Him looking on me, I should 
 know Him so much better. I wonder if He thinks 
 how much easier it is to see.' He certainly must. 
 Then how tenderly He must pity us who cannot." 
 
 And then her eyes and heart ran on to the word 
 "first" in large letters of deep blue, starred over 
 with gold. " First ! first !" she thought. " What 
 does ' first ' mean ? When did first ' begin ? Did 
 it ever begin ? Before we ever thought of Him, 
 before we were born, before He died, before God 
 gave His only begotten Son. Yes, the { loved' 
 comes before the t gave.' Did it ever begin ? What 
 was there before ' first ?' What was there before 
 love," thought Winnie, losing her thoughts alto- 
 gether, like a lark as we watch it singing itself out 
 of sight into the sunshine. And then once more 
 her eyes lighted on that unfathomable simple word, 
 and, like a lark to its nest, her heart came down to 
 the human love that gave her these birthday gifts 
 to-day. For she thought, " no one but God knew 
 how I love those words, so He must have put it 
 into some one's heart to send them to me." From 
 " Did that love ever begin ?" she came down to, 
 " Yes 1 , it is always beginning. It is never I that 
 begin. It is God who is always beginning to do 
 me good and to bless me. If I awake in the morn- 
 ing, and thank Him, it is because He was awake all 
 
7 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 night watching me. If I look up to Him, it was 
 because He was first looking at me. If I remem- 
 ber Him, it is because He is always first remember- 
 ing me. He is always before us, always loving us 
 first, forever, and every day, and forever." 
 
 This was Winnie's birthday hymn, although she 
 could no more have put it in words than the lark 
 his song. 
 
 And then came back the first wonder, who could 
 have chosen that text, and painted it so beautifully 
 for her ? which wonder in all its ramifications kept 
 her busy thoughts fully occupied till all the clocks 
 struck seven ; the church clock solemnly from the 
 hill-side below, with a sweet Sunday music in its 
 tone ; the house clock, ostentatiously from the 
 stable, like a clock of respectability that knew it 
 was not every one that had a stable clock; the 
 kitchen clock decisively, like a clock of business ; 
 the little French clock in the nursery, hastily, like 
 a clock of pleasure, always late, and, therefore, 
 always in a hurry ; and finally, heavily booming in 
 deep tones behind all the rest, the great clock of 
 St. Paul's, like a clock of state, burdened with the 
 responsibility of keeping three millions of people 
 in time. 
 
 "Winnie counted the last stroke of the last of 
 them like a miser his gold, and then she rose 
 triumphantly, and said to herself : 
 
 " Now I have a right to get up. No one can 
 say I have not done what auntie told me. The 
 day has begun." 
 
 It was difficult for Winnie to give even such a 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 73 
 
 parenthetical welcome as gratitude required to the 
 other presents which awaited her on her coming 
 down stairs, so eager was she to come to the solu- 
 tion of the matter of the illuminated text. A flush 
 of pleasure did, indeed, crimson the little bright 
 face as she saw the wonderful erection of leaves 
 and flowers with which Rosalie had embowered 
 her own peculiar chair at the breakfast table ; and 
 she inwardly resolved never to be provoked again 
 with Rosalie all her life long. The little ruby 
 locket on her plate, and the brilliantly-bound books 
 beside it, ensured a fervent hug for her uncle and 
 aunt ; and the India workbox of inlaid silver, 
 ebony, and ivory, with the inscription upon the 
 inside, " For our darling child Winifred," brought 
 tears at the thought of the absent parents who 
 were thinking of her, and could not be thanked. 
 But the love which sent the things having thus 
 found its response in Winnie's heart, the things 
 themselves soon took that place in her regard, 
 which the most costly things must, which have 
 never been consecrated to a value not their own, 
 by waiting or privation, or self-denial. And her 
 thoughts reverting to the text, she whispered to 
 Maurice : 
 
 " Who painted those words ?" 
 
 " Little Grace Leigh," he said. 
 
 " But who is little Grace Leigh ? And how 
 could she know ?" rejoined Winnie. 
 
 " She is the daughter of the curate of St. Cuth- 
 bert's. And how could she know what ?" replied 
 Maurice. 
 
74 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 "What mamma wrote inside my Bible" said 
 Winnie in a low whisper, coloring. 
 
 " I do not understand," said Maurice, shaking his 
 head. " We will talk about it after breakfast." 
 
 And so, grave and happy with the possession of 
 one mystery and the expectation of more, Winnie 
 returned to her canopy, and sat, a depth of delici- 
 ous wonder in her great soft eyes, speculating what 
 her uncle meant by saying she looked imperial 
 enough for ox-eyed Juno on her golden throne, or 
 what Maurice meant by suggesting a resemblance 
 to the Norn of the future sitting beside the Well 
 by the roots of the green Tree of life. 
 
 Then Mr. O'Brien and Maurice branched off into 
 a comparison of the Old World stories of the 
 Greeks and the Goths, which left her imagination 
 free to return to her own little world. And so tne 
 time passed until Mr. O'Brien had left for London, 
 and Mrs. O'Brien for household consultations, and 
 Maurice and Winnie were left alone by the dining- 
 room fire, he in the easy chair, and she on the 
 hearth-rug before him. 
 
 " And now, Maurice," she said, " about the Five 
 Worlds and about little Grace Leigh." 
 
 " Grace Leigh must explain herself to you," he 
 said. " If I described her to you, when you saw 
 her you might say, ' I do not see any resemblance 
 between your picture and the original.' We see 
 in people what we know in them. And we can 
 only know in them what we have faculties to know. 
 We must all learn each other for ourselves. My 
 Grace Leigh would not be your Grace Leigh, or, at 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 75 
 
 least our pictures would* be different, and neither 
 of them," he added, musing, " after all, would be 
 quite Grace Leigh herself." 
 
 " Oh, Maurice," said Winnie, " that is exactly 
 the kind of thing that puzzles me, and that I can- 
 not bear. It is like what Uncle O'Brien told me 
 about the pictures in our eyes. He said we, none 
 of us, see the same world, or, indeed, see the world 
 at all, but only a photograph of it in our eyes. 
 Yet there is a world outside, I am quite sure ; for 
 if you or I fell into the fire, we should both be 
 burned ; and we could not be burned in a photo- 
 graph in our eyes. There is a world, and there is 
 Grace Leigh, for she painted those words; so, 
 please, tell me about her." 
 
 " You decline metaphysics," he said. " But I 
 was not talking metaphysics, but remarking a plain 
 fact which you will have to learn. Portrait paint- 
 ers cannot paint like the sun, because they see not 
 with the eyes only, but the mind, and they paint 
 not with colors only, but with the soul. And so 
 when we describe other people's characters, we 
 often unconsciously describe ourselves far more 
 than the people we are speaking of. Especially 
 when 'we speak of their motives, or our suspicions 
 about them." 
 
 " I understand," said Winnie. " Perhaps that is 
 often the reason why Kosalie finds fault with me." 
 
 "Not a safe conclusion, little sister," was the 
 reply ; " you should always take your moral illus- 
 trations from the other side ; for example, * That is 
 why I find fault with Rosalie.' " 
 
 : ^v 
 " . v ' : " . " 4*^ 
 
 <s fff W *B C -*f TR \ 
 I M J, V <) ** * * *> * j 
 
7 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " That is rather terrible, however," said Winnie, i 
 meditatively. " Perhaps when we think we are 
 very clever, and have found out some one's faults, 
 some one else who is cleverer, is reading our faults 
 in our fault-finding." 
 
 "Very probably," said Maurice. "All the por- 
 traits men draw of each other are mirrors as well 
 as portraits. But not only mirrors," he continued ; 
 " I did not say we saw only our own characters in 
 other people's, but that we only see as much as our 
 characters enable us to see. And therefore, I would 
 rather not try to describe Grace Leigh to you ; par- 
 ticularly, Grace Leigh," he added," because I am 
 learning every month to see more in her myself." 
 
 " Is she very clever then ?" said Winnie. 
 
 " I should not have thought of calling her ex- 
 actly clever," he said ; " and yet I remember one 
 day, Mr. Leigh's landlady, Mrs. Treherne, told me 
 Miss Leigh was as clever as a college-gentleman, 
 for she could read Greek. But when I asked Grace, 
 she said it was only with helping Harry; and 
 Homer was so beautiful, with the heroes and sea, it 
 was impossible to help getting to understand him." 
 
 " Grace Leigh reads Greek !" said Winnie, awed 
 to a respectable distance ; " and I only read a little 
 French. But who is Harry, and who is Mrs. 
 Treherne ?" 
 
 "Mrs. Treherne is the greengrocer who keeps 
 the shop over which Mr. Leigh lives, and Harry is 
 Grace's only brother, four years younger than her- 
 self. And she loves him and takes care of him like 
 a little mother." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 77 
 
 " Then she is good, at all events," said Winnie, 
 " good, and reads Greek. But does any one who 
 reads Greek live over a greengrocer's shop ?" said 
 Winnie, in some perplexity; "however, at all 
 events, Maurice, you can tell me whether she is 
 tall and pretty, and what color her eyes and 
 hair are ?" 
 
 " Indeed, I cannot," said Maurice ; " I never 
 thought what color her eyes are. People have 
 such different ideas about color. Homer calls the 
 sea wine-colored, and there has been much discus- 
 sion as to what he could mean, because, you know, 
 some wines are golden, and some are ruby, and 
 certainly the sea is neither." 
 
 "Ah," said Winnie, decisively, "that is easily 
 explained. Homer was blind. Auntie told me so, 
 one day." 
 
 "Excuse me, little sister," he replied, with a 
 grave little smile, " that is a kind of criticism we 
 do not apply to poets who lived three thousand 
 years ago. .When a poet of our own times says 
 something the critics do not understand, they 
 naturally say, poor man, he is blind. But when a 
 poet has been dead a thousand years, or so, we try 
 to understand what he means. And in that way 
 sometimes we find it was we who were blind, and 
 learn to see." 
 
 " But what has that to do with Grace Leigh's 
 eyes ?" asked Winnie. 
 
 " Just this," he replied. " One day, when I was 
 looking up at her, I thought I understood what 
 Homer meant by calling the sea wine-colored. He 
 
7 g ' WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 did not think of its color so much as of its depth 
 and transparency. He meant I think, that it was 
 dark and bright, impenetrable and clear. And that 
 is what Grace Leigh's eyes are Sometimes they 
 seem an entrance into an unfathomable world of 
 thought, and sometimes they shine as if all her heart 
 lay open in them like a little child's." 
 
 " Well," said Winnie, " I can always tell what 
 color the sea is, and what color people's eyes are. 
 The sea is blue, and sometimes it is green; and 
 when I see Grace Leigh I shall know what color 
 her eyes are. And her hair ?" 
 
 " It must be fair, I suppose," said Maurice, " be- 
 cause her face always reminds me of one of Raph- 
 ael's early pictures of the Madonna in the Louvre." 
 
 "Let me see," said Winnie, counting over her 
 information, " Grace Leigh reads Greek, and is a 
 mother to her little brother, and her hair is like a 
 picture of Raphael's, and her eyes are wine-colored, 
 or like the sea. And she painted me that beautiful 
 text. Oh, Maurice, when can I see her ?" 
 
 " This evening, perhaps," said Maurice, " we will 
 see." 
 
 And Winnie clapped her hands with delight, and 
 on the subject of Grace Leigh was satisfied. 
 
 " And now, Maurice," she resumed, " about the 
 Five Worlds. When I said one day oh, so long 
 ago ! that I had come to the end of the world, 
 you said you knew five worlds, and that you had 
 scarcely got beyond the beginning of any of them." 
 
 " Did I say only five ?" he said. 
 
 " At least five, I think you said, Maurice." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 79 
 
 " Then I must have been thinking about the Ex- 
 panding Palace," he said. 
 
 " What is that?" she asked. 
 
 " It is the other side of the story of the Con- 
 tracting Chamber," he replied. 
 
 " Oh, tell me then, at once," she said, settling 
 herself into an attitude of enrapt listening, with 
 her chin on the palm of her hand, gazing up into 
 his face. 
 
 " But it is an allegory, Winnie." 
 
 " I do not care. Call it anything you like. Only 
 begin." 
 
 And Maurice began : 
 
 THE EXPANDING PALACE. 
 
 " All the dwejlers in the palace of the Queen I told 
 you of were not faithless to their trust. I will tell 
 you the history of one who was faithful to it. Her 
 name was Ethel. Her especial charge were the 
 orphan little giuls of those who had died belonging 
 to the Queen's household. Dearly she loved her 
 work, and dearly the little forlorn ones loved her. 
 Every afternoon, when her attendance at the Court 
 permitted, a band of these children might be seen 
 trooping to her apartment. There she welcomed 
 them, taught them, and shared their plays, and 
 listened to all their little confidences, till the forlorn, 
 unanswered, orphaned look passed from the little 
 faces, because each felt there was one in the world 
 to whom all their little interests, and joys, and 
 sorrows were not childish trifles, but matters of 
 
8o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 true, hearty, loving interest. Ethel would have 
 laughed if any one had talked to her of a reward 
 for her work of love. The work was her joy, and 
 the love was her life. But, nevertheless, or rather 
 all the more, the reward came naturally, necessarily, 
 inevitably, as, in the other case, the punishment of 
 the Contracting Chamber. 
 
 " One evening Ethel was sitting in her apartment 
 alone (when the children were asleep, each in her 
 own nest), in that happy weariness which follows 
 labors of love, when a slight click attracted her 
 attention. You remember that these apartments 
 had many mirrors, as well as many windows, and 
 that in the process of contracting, the horror of her 
 position was concealed from the selfish inmate by 
 the transformation of the windows into mirrors. 
 Just the reverse of this now took place before the 
 eyes of Ethel. Looking around, she saw that the 
 reflecting metal had dropped like a gauzy veil from 
 one of these mirrors, and that it had become a 
 window into another chamber, or rather (as she 
 afterwards ascertained) into another world. At first 
 there was a dimness about the light from within 
 this new chamber; but gradually beautiful and 
 strange forms revealed themselves to her, illumina- 
 ted by a soft magical light, pale and silvery, like 
 moonlight, yet with a kind of torch-like splendor 
 about it. She longed that the window might be- 
 come a door, and that she might go into this new 
 world. As she stood and gazed, two maidens ap- 
 peared beside her, clad in white robes pure as a lily, 
 and glistening with a silky sheen. The one was 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 81 
 
 called Humility ; and she was scarcely more than a 
 child, and her eyes had a happy upward look, 
 because she was always rejoicing in something 
 above herself. The name of the other was Love ; 
 and her eyes had a sweet downward glance, because 
 she was always watching the need of others to see 
 how she could serve. And in their hands was a 
 key which they gave to Ethel, each with a tender 
 embrace, Humility with the clinging caress of a 
 child, and Love with the tender circling of a mother's 
 arms, and then vanished." 
 
 " Did they leave her alone, then ?" asked Winnie. 
 " I only said they appeared and vanished," replied 
 Maurice ; " I believe they had been with her long 
 before, and stayed with her always afterwards. But 
 they vanished from her sight. Then Ethel took 
 the key. The name engraven on it was Work ; 
 and the wards were difficult to fit in. She could 
 not open the door with it that night, nor the next ; 
 but she was persevering, and at length the lock 
 yielded. All at once with a spring as if it had been 
 the easiest thing in the world (as you will find with 
 one difficult door after another, if you persevere) 
 the magic door sprang open, and the new World lay 
 free to her. The first thing before her was a long 
 broad flight of marble steps. When she had de- 
 scended these, she found herself in a broad lofty hall. 
 For this world was subterranean. It lay under- 
 neath the foundations of the other world. On it 
 was raised the Palace of Ethel's Queen ; and, indeed 
 of all other palaces worth the name. The Hall was 
 full of statues and it was lighted by lamps held in 
 
82 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 the hands of these statues ; or I should rather say 
 illuminated, because there was a festive splendor 
 about the light, as if it were an illumination in honor 
 of some perpetual, stately holiday. Around these 
 statues were grouped piles of armor, implements 
 of toil, models of cities, paintings of landscapes ; 
 and on the pedestal of each, in high relief, was 
 sculptured the story of their deeds. But save for 
 the lamps in the hands of these stately, silent, 
 human forms, not a glimmer of light would have 
 penetrated the place. The scenes and actions were 
 only revealed through the persons. 
 
 " But as Ethel became accustomed to the place, 
 she perceived that this great hall was but a vesti- 
 bule. On all sides were transparent doors like the 
 one through which she had entered. From each 
 streamed the same pale, still, silvery light, but when 
 Ethel applied her key to the locks she found the 
 same difficulty as with the first. Each gateway of 
 the palace required a separate probation before it 
 could be passed. She could see, indeed, through 
 the transparent doors, but to enter one after another 
 and make acquaintance with the stately forms en- 
 shrined within was a work of time. It was much, 
 however, to stand thus in the vestibule and gaze 
 into one noble hall after another, and yet beyond 
 again, through further transparent portals, on 
 through avenues of stately marble forms and silvery 
 lamps, as far as her eye could reach. Each hall had 
 its especial destination. The generations who had 
 lived together on earth were gathered together in 
 one chamber of this palace. Kings and queens sat 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 83 
 
 there enthroned with their stony diadems ; conquer- 
 ors and martyrs with crowns strangely inter- 
 changed, the head of many a conqueror being 
 wreathed with funeral cypress, while living amaranth 
 and bay were intertwined around the patient brows 
 of the sufferers for truth. Great orators were there, 
 their faces eloquent with the last burning words 
 which had parted from their mute lips ; and holy 
 men and women, bearing neither crowns nor lamps 
 because a glory beamed from their high pure brows, 
 which was better than a diadem, or any illumination 
 from without." 
 
 " Was it all silent in this palace ?" asked Winnie. 
 " Could not any of these stately figures be ques* 
 tioned or answered ?" 
 
 " None could be questioned or give any answer," 
 said Maurice, " except by the language of the 
 records of their deeds immutably sculptured and 
 grouped around them. An d> all the palace would 
 have been silent, save that in almost every hall 
 stood some form beautiful beyond the rest, though 
 seldom draped in any but the simple clothing of 
 the people, crowned, not with dead di'adems of stone, 
 but with a living fragrant wreath of fresh leaves 
 and flowers, from whose parted lips floated from 
 time to time soft strains of song. And when those 
 were heard, a strange magic life seemed to breathe 
 through the mute forms around ; the warrior's mar- 
 ble hand stirred to his sword, the brows of kings 
 gathered a compelling majesty, the faces of saints 
 beamed with the smile of joy and love. Four 
 especially of these Ethel observed. Two had 
 
84 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 solemn upturned faces, and sang of tilings above 
 and below and afar off, unseen and eternal ; and two 
 had broad open brows, and countenances which 
 seemed to gather all the dim struggling life around 
 them to themselves, and give it back made clear 
 and beautiful. Yet of each of these immortal pairs 
 one was blind ; and the voice of one, familiar and 
 faltering as its tones seemed to Ethel, came from 
 the very furthest recesses of the palace, mingled 
 with the dull far-off murmur of the river of forget- 
 fulness, which flows round all, on which the golden- 
 thorned Olympians look down from their snowy 
 peaks, and whose murmurs mingle with the low 
 plash of the waters from the other side, with which 
 the ancient Norns water the roots of the tree of 
 life ; from the fountain where the white swans float, 
 and near which the old serpents coil." 
 
 " That blind singer was Homer, I think," said 
 Winnie, meditatively ; " I wish I were as wise as 
 Grace Leigh or Ethel that I might hear him 
 too." 
 
 " So," continued Maurice, " Ethel listened and 
 gazed ; and she learned that but for the light borne 
 by great and good men and women, all that great 
 palace of glory and beauty would have been dark 
 and impenetrable as a tomb ; and but for the voices 
 of the poets it would have been as silent. Won- 
 dering and reverent she passed once more by the 
 stately statues of the vestibule and up the marble 
 stairs ; and when she re-entered her apartments it 
 was dawn. She had come up from the great Palace 
 of the Past." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 85 
 
 " That was one of the Five Worlds," said Winnie. 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Some evenings afterwards," said Maurice, " the 
 mysterious veil dropped from another mirror. The 
 two white-robed forms appeared to Ethel again, 
 presented her with another key, vanished as before, 
 and left Ethel standing before what seemed a temple 
 of a thousand columns, through which she looked 
 into the starry sky and across a beach of silvery 
 sand to the sea. From inside this door she could 
 see nothing very new or strange, only the same 
 glorious friendly stars she had wondered at from 
 infancy, the same waves she had played with, the 
 same sands she had dug and heaped into mimic for- 
 tresses, or lakes and islands. It was not till after 
 many trials that the lock of this door gave way. 
 But when she* was once through it she found herself 
 in a world of wonders all the more wonderful 
 because every object was so familiar. A veil seemed 
 to have dropped, not only from the mirror, but from 
 her eyes. She found that what had seemed a 
 temple was in fact but a portico to the great Tem- 
 ple beyond ; and this temple was none other than 
 the old familiar world. The blue arch of sky which 
 had spanned the earth of her childhood expanded 
 into an ocean of space, and the twinkling starry 
 lamps were unveiled into worlds, suns of many 
 worlds. One mild planet floated above her, fair 
 and bright as the moon, with other silvery moons 
 circling round it. From beneath the sea shone 
 countless phosphorescent fires, and many voices 
 sounded, not of breaking waves only, but of living 
 8 
 
86 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 creatures, each with its separate history. Every 
 pool among the rocks expanded into a world of life, 
 peopled with tiny glancing fish and starry zoophytes, 
 and branching ruby coralline. From the ledges of 
 the cliffs came the murmurs of the sea-birds brood- 
 ing over their nests every nest a home, every 
 feather of every nestling a wpnder of delicate 
 mechanism. And over, and through, and beneath 
 all this hum and stir of life, Ethel heard the steady 
 vibrations of the great mechanism of the world, the 
 ebb and flow of tides, the revolving of suns, and 
 moons, and stars, the ceaseless transformations of 
 the elements of things ; the grand march of the 
 worlds around some mysterious unknown centre ; 
 the changeless tide of Law which is ever encoun- 
 tering the varying currents of Life. And as she 
 gazed her heart sank before the infinity around her; 
 she shrank to a point in the boundless universe ; 
 until once more looking up, she saw that deeper 
 than Law and at the heart of Life, interpenetrating 
 and inspiring all, flowed the great light-ocean of 
 Love. And she made melody in her heart, and 
 sang, t No more a point in the infinite universe, but 
 a child close to Thy boundless heart.' Then she 
 turned back silently through the columned portico 
 of the great temple reverent and wondering. For 
 through the portico of Science, with its thousand 
 pillars, she had entered into the temple of nature." 
 
 " I understand a little of it," said Winnie, slowly. 
 " It makes me feel very little and ignorant, Maurice, 
 yet I like it. Go on." 
 
 " The third discovery," he continued, " came to 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 87 
 
 Ethel in the morning. She had wakened early, 
 while all was still gray in the morning twilight 
 when from a mirror opposite her the veil dropped 
 suddenly, and a glorious flush of dawn burst on her 
 eyes. Behind rich purple draperies of cloud the 
 face of the morning shone on Ethel, it seemed 
 to her, with altogether a new beauty. She arose, 
 and dressing quickly, stood with clasped hands and 
 a face full of wondering joy before this new world. 
 Dawn deepened into day as she looked, and every- 
 thing in the chamber within sobered into common 
 practical light to work by, but still that glorious 
 flush of morning glowed on the world which spread 
 before her outside that new window. She looked 
 across a country rich as Paradise, with everything 
 that was pleasant to the eye. Close at her feet lay 
 a garden, where grew every variety of delicate and 
 gorgeous flower, mingled with thickets of myrtle, 
 oleander, and pomegranate, and winding spaces of 
 soft turf; beyond stretched an undulating plain, 
 broken by stately forests, and watered by a river 
 which flowed from a range of snow-peaked mountains 
 in the distance, and which brought down the crimson 
 glory from their peaks in many lake-like reaches to 
 the plain. But what arrested Ethel's gaze was a 
 City with a Hundred Towers, which rose beside this 
 river. Its walls flashed back the light in a thousand 
 hues, as if they were translucent like precious 
 stones ; its roofs shone like gold, and delicate pinna- 
 cles and minarets sprang from them here and there 
 like fretted ivory. While Ethel was still standing 
 thinking, the two white-robed maidens appeared to 
 
88 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 her once more, presented her with a golden key, and 
 vanished. To Ethel's delight this door yielded 
 more easily than the others, and the instant it was 
 opened quite a flood of aromatic perfumes, and 
 music dreamy and delicious as the perfumes, 
 streamed in upon her. There was no lifeless silence 
 in this new world. The music was from the songs 
 of multitudes of birds hidden among the forests, 
 from the flow of the countless streams which spar- 
 kled and danced towards the river, blended with 
 far-off mystic harmonies of instruments and human 
 voices from the City of a Hundred Towers. The 
 perfumes floated from a sea of flowers and fragrant 
 shrubs, blended with some fine aromatic scent, as if 
 from costly woods kindled by human hands. Both 
 sounds and scents drew Ethel's steps insensibly on 
 towards the city. But when she reached it she found 
 the city was one great palace. At the entrance 
 she perceived a fountain, in which she bathed her 
 hands and eyes. As she wandered through the 
 halls everything she had seen in the subterranean 
 palace, and in the temple by the boundless sea, as 
 in the beautiful world around the city, seemed 
 mirrored and glorified here. The forms of the old 
 heroes seemed to breathe once more in these enchant- 
 ed chambers : the stars shone with a new splendor 
 through the golden air, which, while radiant as day 
 was clear and transparent as night. And when she 
 looked through those palace windows at the moun- 
 tains, and woods, and waters of the world outside, it 
 seemed to her as if she had scarcely seen them 
 before, so wonderfully did fresh beauty beam back on 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 89 
 
 her from every natural thing. After a time she 
 found that the two chief wonders of the palace were 
 its magic windows, through which all the old world 
 shone with a new glory ; and its magic mirrors, 
 which brought the beautiful things of the outer 
 world, and of the subterranean palace, and of the 
 temple by the sea into this City of Beauty and 
 which, at the touch of a certain magic wand (which 
 was not in her hand, but waved for her by one who 
 went with her as a guide), ceased to be mere 
 mirrors, and became exquisite miniature worlds, with 
 mimic reproductions of those old subterranean halls 
 where the marble forms no longer sat mutely, with 
 stony eyes, enthroned on their pedestals, but 
 breathed, and moved, and looked, and spoke. 
 "And when Ethel left the palace and returned 
 through the plains and gardens to her home, to her 
 joy she saw that the glory thrown on the outside 
 world did not fade away like a dream, but rested 
 on everything still. Then she understood that the 
 fountain had opened her eyes to a reality, not de- 
 luded her with a dream. And with a thankful 
 heart she went about her daily work, and saw every 
 common thing around her clothed with a new 
 beauty. For she had been in the Palace of Art ; 
 and the work of true Art, as much as of true 
 Science, is not to veil but to unveil." 
 
 " I am glad the door of that Third World was 
 the easiest to unlock," said Winnie, " for I like it 
 the best of all." 
 
 " It is the easiest world to enter as a spectator," 
 he replied ; " but the magic wand which opens its 
 8* 
 
9 o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 wonders to others is the gift of but few, and the 
 perseverance necessary to earn the skill to wield it 
 is the possession of fewer still." 
 
 " It is more like a fairy tale than the rest were," 
 said Winnie. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " and I forgot to tell you that as 
 Ethel came back from the palace she caught 
 glimpses of the white robes of nymphs among the 
 stems of the forest trees, and in the green glades 
 not far-off saw more than once the glancing of the 
 feet of tiny, fairy folk feasting and dancing on the 
 dewy turf, and mingling their low, silvery laughter 
 with the deeper music of the place." 
 
 " I do not expect to like either of the two other 
 worlds as much as that," said Winnie, " but tell me 
 about them." 
 
 "Both of these," Maurice replied, "had been 
 open to Ethel long before the date when this story 
 began. The fourth mirror-window was a door 
 which stood orJen all day long, not only for Ethel 
 to go out, but for other people, especially the chil- 
 dren, to come in. This door opened on the outside 
 of the Queen's Palace, on the slopes which led to 
 the great city of the people, and through it came 
 the sound of human voices, not always joyous; 
 echoes of marriage-bells and of the slow tolling 
 which beats time to the slow tread of mourners ; 
 voices of weeping, and of toil, and of eager con- 
 tention ; the sharp tones of those who inflicted 
 wrong, and the bitter cry of those who suffered 
 wrong ; the long low wail of disappointed hope ; 
 the shriek of fear ; mingled with happy, innocent 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. g l 
 
 laughter, and songs of thanksgiving, and lullabies 
 over cradles. That was no door at which Ethel 
 could stand and gaze ; it was a door for going out 
 to help, and coming in for shelter and kindness. 
 For no one could ever bear to listen long at that 
 gate unless they make it a gate of mercy. Any 
 who stand listening there in listless dreaming will 
 soon weary ; and the door will close, and they will 
 turn to the other worlds to dream there. And 
 then the Expanding Palace will become once more 
 the Contracting Chamber." 
 
 " But," said Winnie, musing, " it seems to me if 
 once that Door is opened one would have no time 
 for any of the rest, scarcely to look through them, 
 much less go in. There must be so endlessly much 
 to do in that city." 
 
 " Many find it so," said Maurice, smiling. " Very 
 few indeed do find time to enter more than one or 
 two of these worlds, or at all events to step 
 beyond the threshold. But it is good to know 
 that they are there, and to look through the win- 
 dows into them, even if it be only with a passing 
 glance. It clears the eyes and strengthens the 
 hands for much that has to be done in the city 
 below, in the actual world of human life." 
 
 " But there is the Fifth World," said Winnie. 
 
 " That was the one which was opened to Ethel 
 first of all," said Maurice. " There was an inner- 
 most chamber into which no one could enter but 
 herself; and at the end of that chamber was a 
 transparent door, covered with heavy folds of 
 purple drapery which none but an unseen hand 
 
9 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 could lift. But that hand was always ready at her 
 call. What she saw when that curtain was with- 
 drawn was better than all the glories of the Four 
 Worlds beside. From it rose a flight of stairs 
 white as snow, and glistening as light. And up 
 and down these steps glorious happy beings came 
 and went to an open gate at the top a wide, open 
 gateway in the crystal walls of the Golden City. 
 Everything fair she had seen in the other worlds 
 was here, not in form or image, but in glorious 
 reality. The stately forms of the great Past were 
 there, no longer stony silent statues, but living and 
 perfected* She caught glimpses of them now and 
 then moving through golden streets, encouraging 
 her to come. Below the City, stretched far-off 
 spaces of worlds unveiled as they had never been 
 in the Temple by the Sea. Over all streamed a 
 glory warm and life-giving, such as had never 
 shone on the Palace of Art. The shadows of 
 leaves, and the gleam of golden fruits mingled 
 with the glories within that gate, and breathed 
 their perfume even to her as she knelt outside and 
 gazed. And the City was as full of human life as 
 the city below the Queen's Palace, the voices that 
 sounded thence were tender with past tears, though 
 never broken more by sorrow or pain. And from 
 within the gate, now and then, she thought one 
 and another glorious face was turned to her with 
 welcoming looks, and the lips parted as soft mur- 
 murs of speech came down to her; and though 
 she could not hear the words, she knew they were 
 encouraging her to come." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 93 
 
 " But she could not go," said Winnie, her eye 
 lashes drooping far over her cheek. 
 
 " No, this door was not one for going in and out 
 at," said Maurice in a low voice. "Those that 
 once entered in came back through it no more. 
 And the key was never given to any hand but one." 
 
 " I suppose they never wished to come back," 
 said Winnie very softly, for tears were gathering 
 under the drooping lids. 
 
 " Never, that I heard," replied Maurice. " All 
 the broken glories of all the other worlds were 
 gathered together in this one ; and made living in 
 the loving Presence which was the Life of all. And 
 thus it was made up richly there to those who had 
 given up so much of their strength and time below 
 to the world of human need and sorrow that they 
 had left themselves little for the worlds of the 
 Past, or of Science, or of Art." 
 
 Then Winnie rose, and creeping to Maurice's 
 side, murmured, " I think I know in whose hand 
 the Key of that World is kept !" 
 
 A silence of some minutes followed, which was 
 broken by the announcement that a poor little girl 
 was wanting to see Miss Winifred. In an instant 
 Winnie was recalled into the actual world. She 
 knew quite well who it was, and suddenly leaving 
 Maurice she flew upstairs to collect the presents 
 she had! been buying or making for little Fan. 
 She soon came down with her hands and arms full 
 with a warm frock (which she considered hardly 
 a present at all, being only a necessary thing) ; a 
 
9 4 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 beautiful Bible for Dan ; and what Winnie thought 
 would enchant Fan, a doll with clothes to take off 
 and on, and a doll's bed to correspond. 
 
 She came into the servants' hall where little Fan 
 was, laid the gifts on the table, and then was seized 
 with a fit of shyness ; for Fan had begun to learn 
 manners, and stood courtesying in an indiscrimi- 
 nate way which perplexed Winnie very much what 
 to do next. 
 
 At length she said : 
 
 " Those are for you, little Fan, the frock and the 
 doll ; and the book is for Dan." 
 
 Fan's eyes sparkled at this last announcement, 
 and without venturing to touch the treasure she 
 said: 
 
 " Brother Dan can read out of that, he gets 
 on wonderful with his learning, the doctor says, 
 Dan do." 
 
 The frock also was received with unfeigned de- 
 light, as soon as Fan took in the idea she was to 
 wear it. But she seemed still to give no attention 
 to the doll. 
 
 "Don't you li^e this, Fan?" said Winnie at 
 length, rather disappointed ; " I made its clothes 
 myself at least Rosalie and I did ; and they take 
 on and off, and the bed .has a real bolster, and 
 pillows, and a mattress." 
 
 Still Fan looked very grave, and seemed rather 
 awed than delighted. 
 
 At last she said when Winnie laid it in her arms : 
 
 " It won't hurt it not to undress it, will it ? Dan 
 wouldn't like it to be hurt if you gave it to me." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 95 
 
 " What do you mean ?" asked Winnie quite per- 
 plexed. " It is a plaything, little Fan ; you are to 
 play with it." 
 
 " But I don't know how," said little Fan color- 
 ing. " I hadn't never time to play." 
 
 "You don't know how to play, little Fan?" 
 exclaimed Winnie, at first seriously inspecting Fan, 
 in the fear she was not right in her mind. 
 
 " I'd always got to mind aunt's baby," said Fan 
 apologetically. " Dan played at marbles between 
 whiles with the boys in the court, but there weren't 
 nowhere for me to play, and there weren't no 
 time." 
 
 Slowly the thought of that motherless, joyless 
 childhood rose before Winnie ; and as she looked 
 at the thin, pale, cold little face, she said, with 
 quivering lips : 
 
 " Oh, little Fan, not to know how to play ! How 
 very unhappy you must have been ! how unkind 
 they must have been !" 
 
 "It weren't always so bad," said Fan, cheerily, 
 " there was always brother Dan. Aunt weren't 
 always cross. She did hit about sometimes, but 
 sometimes she giv'd me a ha'penny for sweets; 
 and the lady who kept the greengrocer's shop gave 
 me an orange many times for me aiid Dan. And 
 aunt's baby was good sometimes, and didn't cry 
 for an hour together; and sometimes he'd crow 
 quite pretty. Some of the girls in our court had 
 shuttlecocks ; but the big boys hit about them 
 dreadful sometimes when the little ones came in 
 their way, and I felt safer like with baby on the 
 
9 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 door-step. And then," she concluded ended as 
 she had begun with the joy of her life" there 
 was always Dan !" 
 
 Winnie's heart began to revive, and a dim hope 
 to creep in, as she listened to little Fan's patient 
 and cheery view of things, that after all God might 
 have kept some little bit of joy for every little 
 child, and did perhaps provide all those who took 
 things patiently with something that answered 
 both for play and study. A baby that could crow 
 and didn't -always cry had certainly some claims 
 against a doll. And then the consolatory thought 
 further occurred to her : 
 
 " Then, little Fan, you had no French lessons ?" 
 
 Fan's views on this subject, however, entirely 
 varied from Winnie's. Her face lighted up, and 
 she said triumphantly : 
 
 " But I am to have lessons though ! There's 
 such good news come. When Dan gets well he's 
 to be the baker's boy. And the lady who keeps 
 the greengrocer's shop says I may mind her baby. 
 And I am to go to school for an hour or two every 
 day besides till I can read like Dan. And I'm to 
 sweep out Miss Grace's room. And ain't Miss 
 Grace's room beautiful ?" 
 
 As the vision of the tiny figure wielding a baby, 
 or a broom, rose before Winnie, she began to feel 
 that a doll and a doll's bed were altogether too 
 childish gifts for a young woman of such preten- 
 sions ; and when she proposed giving her some- 
 thing else instead, Fan was certainly relieved 
 at being delivered from the charge of a young 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 97 
 
 lady of such very high toilette requirements as jthe 
 doll. 
 
 " But who is Miss Grace, little Fan ?" Winnie 
 asked, when the question of the doll was settled 
 her curiosity being highly excited by the resem- 
 blance of the name to that of Maurice's friend, and 
 her friend that was to be. 
 
 " It's Miss Grace the parson's daughter, who 
 lives over the shop," said Fan. 
 
 "Over the greengrocer's shop! It's the very 
 same," concluded Winnie, decisively. " What is 
 she like, little Fan ?" 
 
 Fan retreated into herself, silenced at this call 
 on her descriptive powers. At last she looked up, 
 and said : 
 
 " She speaks soft, and kind like you, but graver 
 like. And she do sing, Miss Grace do. She come 
 once to Dan's bedside and sang him a hymn ; and 
 he said it must be like they sang in heaven. And 
 she sews," continued Fan. " The lady in the green- 
 grocer's shop says she sews beautiful, and she says 
 she'll teach me Miss Grace will and I'm to make 
 Dan's shirts." And Fan's little thin face quite 
 beamed at the thought of the happiness before 
 her. 
 
 Winnie cast one lingering look of disappoint- 
 ment on the doll she had spent so many happy 
 hours in dressing for little Fan ; b*ut she took it 
 away and soon returned with a fairy rose-bush in a 
 flower-pot, which was an especial treasure of her 
 own, and told Fan that was for her and Dan. 
 
 For a minute the child stood speechless; 
 9 
 
98 WINIFRED BERTRAM. 
 
 then tears came into her eyes, and she murmured, 
 in a broken voice : 
 
 " Dan'll see them growing ! Brother Dan'll see 
 'em grow !" 
 
 Winnie returned with a very happy but a very 
 thoughtful face to Maurice. He was still alone, 
 writing letters; and going up to him, she said 
 in a low trembling voice, her face crimson with 
 eagerness : 
 
 " Oh, Maurice, can it be that the door into the 
 city below the palace has opened for me, even for 
 me the door at which you go in and out ; the 
 best door of all, but one ? Can it be, Maurice ? 
 And if it is, what can I do that it may never be 
 closed again ?" 
 
 " Going out and welcoming others in through it 
 is the sure way to keep it open," said Maurice. 
 " It is always either narrower and narrower with 
 us, or wider and wider, day by day, for ever and 
 ever." 
 
 " And when we get through that last door," 
 said Winnie, softly, " into that last world .which 
 has all the best of all the worlds in it !" 
 
 " Then," said Maurice, " I think we shall find all 
 around us and all within us grow so high, and 
 broad, and deep, that the best of us will feel as if 
 we had been living in the narrow chamber all our 
 lives, and had only now first entered on the thresh- 
 old of the wide world of God." 
 
 " Then that last step," said Winnie, " will be 
 only a first step after all" 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 | AURICE'S story was finished, little Fan's 
 visit was over, and yet Winifred's day 
 had scarcely begun, when Maurice an- 
 nounced his intention of taking her an 
 expedition into London. Mrs. O'Brien offered the 
 carriage, and Rosalie was fully persuaded of the 
 necessity of her own attendance ; but both these 
 honors were respectfully declined, and Winifred was 
 intrusted to the sole guardianship of her brother. 
 
 She deemed it a point of honor not to inquire into 
 Maurice's intentions ; until, after walking together 
 for half an hour, curiosity overcame discretion, and 
 she said : 
 
 " If it is not against your plan, Maurice, I should 
 like to know where we are going ? I do not like 
 surprises, Maurice, if you please ; because it is 
 always so difficult to be as surprised as the people 
 expect, when you have been expecting you do not 
 know what ; and I think it is nicer to know before- 
 hand." 
 
 " Well," said Maurice, " I am looking for a cab ; 
 
 99 
 
loo WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and we are going first to take ices and luncheon at 
 a confectioner's, and then to the British Museum, 
 and afterwards to see little Grace Leigh." 
 
 It must be confessed that Winnie's spirits did not 
 rise at the prospect of the British Museum, which 
 she had been in the habit of irreverently considering 
 rather as a kind of national lumber-room, or entrance 
 hall leading nowhere. The great lofty halls, lined 
 with statues and sarcophaguses, and stuffed ani- 
 mals, always reminded her of her Aunt Katharine 
 Wyse's great hall at Combe Monachorum; and 
 the rooms full of cases of stuffed birds, and all kinds 
 of disconnected " bits of things," always recalled 
 to her an old deserted room, also at Combe, full 
 of dusty and forgotten* "curiosities," collected by 
 previous generations of the Wyse family, and put 
 there by succeeding generations to be out of the 
 way. 
 
 Accordingly, diplomatically waiving the unat- 
 tractive part of the programme, she said : 
 
 " Luncheon with you at a confectioner's will be 
 delightful Maurice, and so will little Grace Leigh ; 
 but do you think we might go in an omnibus instead 
 of a cab ? I have so often wished to see what the 
 inside of an omnibus is like it must be almost as 
 nice as riding on an elephant." 
 
 This point conceded, the travelers arrived safely 
 at the British Museum. 
 
 At the door they met a tall, thin, elderly cler- 
 gyman, with a slightly stooping gait; a meek, 
 monotonous voice, as if he had been more used to 
 reading than speaking ; and a kind of bewildered, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 101 
 
 hesitating, short-sighted manner, as if he had all 
 his life been looking for something, he did not ex- 
 actly know what or where. 
 
 By his side, leaning on his arm, in a way that 
 was half protective and half dependent, stood a 
 little girl, who rose on tiptoe and whispered some- 
 thing to him as Maurice and "Winnie appeared. 
 
 Winnie felt instinctively that this could be no 
 other than little Grace Leigh ; but intimate as 
 during the last few hours she had grown with the 
 thought of her friend-elect, the sight of her as an 
 actual person dressed in actual every-day clothes 
 seemed at first to throw Winnie back rather than to 
 advance her in the acquaintanceship. She colored 
 to her temples ; she could not have explained to 
 herself* why, but it felt rather as if she had penetrat- 
 ed into Grace's room among her secret treasures, 
 and had been turning them over with the freedom 
 of an intimate friend, when suddenly Grace had 
 appeared, and she remembered that they had never 
 met. 
 
 If Grace had felt any shyness at first, it quite 
 vanished when she preceived Winnie's embarrass- 
 ment. She seemed only to think how to make 
 Winnie feel at ease ; and came up to her and took 
 her hand, and began pointing things out to her, 
 taking charge of her in a kind of self-possessed, 
 motherly way, which wa's natural to her, blended 
 with a gentle deference, arising from the conviction 
 she had that every one she met knew more, and 
 was wiser than herself. Meanwhile Mr. Leigh and 
 Maurice pursued their course; and a shy-looking 
 9* - 
 
102 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 schoolboy, with dark eyes, deeply veiled by long 
 black lashes and shaggy hair that would droop 
 over them, whom Winnie knew must be Harry, kept 
 hovering about the party, paying spasmodic atten- 
 tion to sarcophaguses and mummies, from behind 
 which he occasionally encountered Winnie with 
 strange, investigating glances, as if she had been a 
 curiosity just imported from Upper Egypt. 
 
 Like all double-minded people, between his in- 
 terest in Winnie and the mummies, Harry was sel- 
 dom clear where he was going, which was a cause 
 of some solicitude to Grace. 
 
 She evidently felt from the first that the charge 
 of both of her companions devolved on her : and 
 although she never irritated her brother with any 
 prohibitory " don'ts," more than once Winnie ob- 
 served that she saved some curiosity, or Harry's 
 head, from damage, by calling him to see some re- 
 markable object just as a concussion was imminent. 
 
 Harry's blunders had nearly as much effect in 
 calming Winnie's nerves as Grace's composure ; and 
 when Mr. Leigh and Maurice had finished their 
 discussion over the Rosetta Stone, Maurice was 
 satisfied to see Winnie walking hand in hand with 
 Grace, and looking up from time to tune in her face 
 with the confidence of being taken care of, and led 
 where it was best to go. 
 
 Gradually Harry subsided under the guardianship 
 of his father and Maurice ; and Grace's mind be- 
 coming relieved about her responsibilities, she was 
 free to enjoy the things about her. 
 
 The great black marble Egyptian kings, with 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 103 
 
 their hands on their knees, and their placid faces, 
 seemed quite old friends of hers. 
 
 " Should not you like to see them," she said, " in 
 their own places, at the entrances of the great tem- 
 ples, sitting so calmly under the burning sun, and 
 looking out over the burning sands, and the 
 ruins, and the graves ? Don't they look grave, 
 and calm, and satisfied, as if they were saying to us, 
 4 Why are you puzzled about things ? It is all 
 right. We have been watching for thousands of 
 years, and we know.' " 
 
 Grace spoke softly, as if she were thinking rather 
 than talking ; and as Winnie looked up at the 
 straight, white smooth forehead, and followed the 
 sweet, thoughtful, happy eyes up to those calm 
 ancient faces, she said : 
 
 " I do not think they would say so to you ; for 
 you don't look puzzled at all. You look as if you 
 knew as much as they do." 
 
 Grace smiled a peculiar sudden smile of her own 
 which seemed to leave a music in your heart, like a 
 child's sudden, joyous laughter ; and she said : 
 
 " I think we do know more than they did about 
 some things ; don't you ?" 
 
 As her eyes met Winnie's, Winnie thought of 
 the illuminated text, but she could not speak of it 
 then ; and they walked on in silence until they stood 
 before the great Assyrian human-headed bulls, and 
 Grace said : 
 
 " Only think that those great grave eyes may 
 have looked down on thfe prophet Jonah ! Can you 
 not almost fancy them following him, reproaching 
 
10 4 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 him, and saying, c And should not I spare Nineveh, 
 that great city, wherein are six-score thousand 
 persons that cannot discern between their right 
 hand and their left hand ?' Father says that means 
 the babies. Think of babies and little children 
 playing about those old giants !" 
 
 Winnie, who had never formed any distinct idea 
 about either the prophet Jonah or Nineveh, still 
 less about Assyrian babies, was more impressed 
 with Grace's learning than with the human-headed 
 bulls. She began, however,, to have a dim idea that 
 these great halls- might after all be a vestibule 
 leading somewhere ; and all at once she remembered 
 the subterranean palace of the Past, but she only 
 said to Grace : 
 
 " Do you know Egyptian and Assyrian, then, as 
 well as Greek?" 
 
 She said this with a blush, and with some hesita- 
 tion, because she was not at all clear what language 
 people used to speak in Nineveh or in Ancient 
 Egypt. 
 
 It was Grace's turn to blush ; and she said : 
 
 " I do not know Greek only a little, just to help 
 Harry about his lessons." 
 
 " Do you come here often ?" asked Winnie. 
 
 " Oh, no very seldom. Father can so seldom 
 take a holiday, and he does not like me to come 
 alone. There are so many baptisms a,nd funerals ; 
 and then there is the Union. But it is such a 
 delight when we can. It is like spending a day 
 with the kings and queens and great anen and 
 women of old times in their own homes." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 105 
 
 But Grace's favorite rooms were the Greek 
 rooms. There she seemed quite at home. 
 
 "Everything is so beautiful here," she said. 
 " The other things seem old and strange ; but these 
 never look old or strange, any more than the flow- 
 ers and leaves which must have grown around 
 them. Father lets me stay and sketch here some- 
 times." 
 
 And she pointed out to Winnie some of the 
 beautiful, delicate carvings of capital and column 
 with such a genuine delight that Winnie said : 
 
 " You seem as much interested in them as if they 
 had been made by some one you knew and loved 
 dearly." 
 
 Then they went up stairs into the department of 
 the shells ; and here, to Winnie's surprise, as she 
 was hurrying past what seemed to her mere collec- 
 tions of things with labels, as uninteresting as a 
 bazaar when you had no money to buy anything, 
 Grace stopped and said, 
 
 " Oh, don't hurry here ! This is almost the best of 
 alL It always feels like hearing the waves heaving 
 and breaking, and tasting the salt sea air. Look at the 
 shapes and the carving ; and she pointed to the 
 delicate branching spines of a Murex ; the twist of 
 the translucent Nautilus ; and the exquisite curves 
 of the alabaster-white Heart Clam, meeting each 
 other like a heart. " See," she said, " they are 
 more beautiful than the capitals of the Greek 
 columns ! And look at the color," she added, 
 pointing to the delicate rose-colored lip of a great 
 whelk-shell. It is as delicate as a moss-rose. And 
 
lo6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 yet they have been tossed about on the great waves, 
 or have been lying, no one knows how long, far 
 down in the dark at the bottom of the sea. And 
 then," she concluded very softly, " they were carved 
 by One we know." 
 
 Winnie clung close to Grace's hand. She felt quite 
 sure she had found a friend; and she felt also a 
 happy sense of her own littleness and ignorance, 
 and of the breadth and height and depth of the 
 world she lived in. And as they left the Museum, 
 she caught Maurice's hand, and said : 
 
 " Oh, Maurice, I know quite well now why you 
 chose to come here. And Grace has been in Three 
 of the Five Worlds, I am sure, and knows them so 
 well. And she is not at all proud. She says she 
 knows scarcely anything ; but / think she knows 
 Egyptian and Nineveh as well as Greek. And I 
 think she will help to open all the doors to me. 
 And I like her so much, and the Museum. And I 
 see the British Museum is not at all a dull place 
 like the hall or lumber-room at Aunt Katharine's. 
 And I'm so much obliged to you, Maurice," she 
 concluded, apologizing to him for her disparaging 
 thoughts, " for bringing me to the Museum. It 
 was the very nicest thing you could have done." 
 
 " And ain't Miss Grace's room beautiful ?" 
 Little Fan's words rang through Winnie's head 
 as the narrow door by the side of the greengro- 
 cer's shop was opened to them, and they went up 
 the old dark staircase, with low carved oak balus- 
 trades, into the curate's one sitting-room, a room 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 1O7 
 
 with three high narrow old-fashioned windows in 
 rather deep recesses, festooned with massive brown 
 draperies which the landlady had thought it a master 
 stroke of policy to acquire at a sale of one of the 
 many houses in that decaying neighborhood. 
 These solemn curtains, weighty with their former 
 grandeur, and the houses on the opposite side of 
 the street, certainly threw rather a sombre shade 
 over the room, which was contrasted, but scarcely 
 relieved, by a very gorgeous carpet, with bunches 
 of enormous flowers in yellow baskets purchased, 
 on a subsequent occasion the delight of the land- 
 lady's heart, but not of Grace's. 
 
 (How vividly Grace remembered the evening 
 when after a day's holiday, the landlady welcomed 
 her and her father at the door with a mysterious exul- 
 tation beaming in her full goodnatured face, crimson 
 with the day's exertion, and triumphantly ushered 
 them into the room where that brilliant carpet and 
 those impressive curtains were displayed of precisely 
 the tones of color which went wrong with each 
 other ! 
 
 " There, Mr. Leigh !" the landlady said, inter- 
 preting in her favor Mr. Leigh's dismayed silence. 
 " I knew you and Miss Grace would be taken aback 
 like, but I did it on purpose. We've been toiling 
 and moiling like black slaves, but I had set my 
 heart you and Miss Grace should see I know'd 
 what was fit for a, gentleman. I didn't live in the 
 first families in Whitechapel when I was a girl for 
 nothing. Them curtains is real damask, you can't 
 buy such nowadays at no price ; and the carpet 
 
108 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 was new last year, and the color'll stand like 
 china." 
 
 " The color will stand, will it, Mrs. Treherne ?" 
 said Mr. Leigh, sorely puzzled between gratitude 
 and honesty. " You think it'll never be a little less 
 striking ?" 
 
 " Bless you, no, Mr. Leigh no fear, it's none of 
 them common stamped things. The colors are as 
 sure as the wear !" 
 
 " And it's sure to wear ?" said Mr. Leigh, taking 
 refuge in as inexpressive a tone as he could com- 
 mand. 
 
 " As long as you or me, Mr. Leigh," was the 
 exulting reply ; " and I hope that'll be saying a 
 good deal." 
 
 "Thank you, Mrs. Treherne, thank you," he 
 replied. " I am sure no one could do more to make 
 us comfortable." For Mr. Leigh well knew that Mrs. 
 Treherne combined a warm heart with what she 
 herself called " a terrible hasty temper," of which 
 she was wont to complain, as of an unmanageable 
 animal she had to keep. Accordingly, he ventured 
 on no expression of opinion, and Mrs. Treherne left 
 the room in a state of radiant complacency. 
 
 " Never likely to fade, Grace, my dear !" said Mr. 
 Leigh, when they were left alone with that perpetu- 
 al discord of color. " It will be like living under 
 that poor man who was always tuning his violin, 
 and always tuning it wrong. Grace, my dear, what 
 are we to do ? I'm afraid it'll put me out so in my 
 sermons.". 
 
 " There's a great deal of dust here, father," said 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. ^9 
 
 Grace consolingly ; " and Harry moves about a good 
 deal, and wears things out, and I think we shall 
 not always notice it so much. And," she concluded, 
 struck with a bright idea, " perhaps Mrs. Treherne 
 wouldn't be offended if one day we bought a piece 
 of quiet drugget. We might say it would save the 
 carpet." 
 
 Mr. Leigh was comforted, but Harry had to be 
 sent to .school, and the drugget had not yet been 
 bought.) 
 
 Perhaps it was on account of this discord that it 
 was not until the curtains were drawn and the can- 
 dles lit that Winnie began to echo Fan's opinion as 
 to the room. 
 
 Grace had contrived, by a little diplomacy, to 
 banish from it sundry ornaments which Mrs. Tre- . 
 herne had placed there : three vases of gigantic 
 wax flowers under glass shades, which had adorned 
 the chimney-piece ; and two striking portraits in 
 oils, indiscriminately purchased at a sale ; so that 
 at length nothing remained which, in Mrs. Tre- 
 herne's opinion, made the room look " fit for quality" 
 but two mirrors, one over the fire, a low gilt one with 
 gilt pillars and cornices ; and opposite it a concave 
 circular one in a black frame, which with its repeat- 
 ed reflections, diminishing to nothing, had occasion- 
 ed Grace and Harry their first perplexities both in 
 optics and metaphysics, they having never been 
 able to decide whether those reflections went on 
 forever, or ceased when they ceased to be visible. 
 Besides these, the only ornaments of the room 
 were on the walls a head of a lady, with a rosy 
 10 
 
1 10 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 little girl of five, and a round-faced brown-eyed 
 baby, sketched in water colors ; a stray copy of 
 Raphael's Elymas the Sorcerer ; one or two illumi- 
 nated texts ; and on the chimney-piece, a huge old 
 silver watch, suspended from a little bronze stand ; 
 two plaster casts of Canova's Night and Morning ; 
 and two silhouettes of ancestors, old gentlemen 
 with black faces and silvery bag wigs. 
 
 On one side of the fireplace stood a small table 
 of inlaid wood, which had been one of Mrs. Leigh's 
 few wedding presents ; and upon it, a work-basket, 
 neatly covered with an embroidered handkerchief. 
 In the recess on the other side, above Mr. Leigh's 
 writing table, were fixed a few bookshelves, where 
 Harry's blue and crimson-backed prizes shone con- 
 spicuous among Mr. Leigh's classics and the few 
 second-hand volumes of Patristic and Reformation 
 divinity which made his theological library. On the 
 top shelf was a line of faded " Gems" and " Wreaths" 
 and "Affection's Offerings," dating from Mrs. 
 Leigh's school days. On the old square piano, 
 which also did duty as sideboard, stood a huge 
 brass-bound desk, which had belonged to Grace's 
 grandfather, and was Harry's one piece of entailed 
 property. 
 
 To Mr. Leigh and Grace almost everything in the 
 room was an illuminated text of some portion of 
 their life-history ; and even to Winnie's eye a kind 
 of significance seemed to shine out of the worn and 
 faded things, as if they were saying, " If you knew 
 our language, you would see we are not mere 
 Arabesques, but sacred Arabic inscriptions." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 1 1 1 
 
 The tea was spread on the table when they arriv- 
 ed. Winnie had little idea what thought and 
 pleasure the preparation of this little entertainment 
 had given Grace, or what anxious solicitude it had 
 cost her father, nor what a proud day it was to 
 Mrs. Treherne to welcome Mr. Bertram, the rector 
 of St. Alphege the Martyr's under her roof, and to 
 see " Miss Grace among such as was fit to sit down 
 with her mother's daughter, poor lamb." 
 
 All Grace's entreaties had been powerless to pro- 
 cure a white cloth to be spread on the table. 
 
 " Scores of hours I've spent on that table, Miss 
 Grace," she said, " me and mother before me ; and 
 after all to hide it away as if it were a bit of kit- 
 chen deal, real Honduras mahogany that my father 
 brought from the Americas, when it shines like a 
 looking-glass ! Never mind, Miss Grace, if it is 
 scratched and spotted a little. I don't grudge 
 elbow grease. But to hide it would be a sin." 
 
 She had also insisted on introducing her own 
 best china, of a pattern extensive and brilliant 
 enough to match the carpet. But beyond this, the 
 little feast was all Grace's arrangement. The plate 
 of flowers in the centre, filled with a mosaic of 
 flowers and moss, from which sprang a vase where 
 white stocks and a few scarlet geraniums rose 
 among delicate drooping sprays of asparagus ; the 
 little French rolls and fresh eggs ; the cake decorat- 
 ed with paper cut in the style of the Portuguese 
 nuns ; and the plate of fresh cresses and radishes. 
 
 Histories again in everything. Mr. Treherne had 
 made an especial expedition to the market an hour 
 
112 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 earlier than usual that morning, to surprise Miss 
 Grace with the freshest cresses. Mrs. Anderson, 
 the Scotch baker's wife opposite, had got the rolls 
 baked in an especially dainty twist for the occasion; 
 and Miss Lavinia Lovel, who kept a " Ladies' 
 School" at the corner, had spent her spare moments 
 for the last day or two in cutting the paper into 
 those wonderful flowers and perforations. Such a 
 rare thing was it for Mr. Leigh and Miss Grace to 
 have visitors, and so many were there gathered 
 around them to whom their little joys and sorrows 
 were matters of hearty interest. 
 
 So that far below the level of Mr. O'Brien's 
 ordinary table as little Grace's highest efforts at 
 entertainment fell, to Winnie it was quite a festive 
 board ; she felt that the eggs and the radishes were 
 holiday eggs and radishes, to be enjoyed with quite 
 a different appreciation from the prosaic .eggs and 
 radishes which were laid in the poultry-yard, or 
 grew in the kitchen garden at home. 
 
 It was a very joyous little feast. Winnie had 
 never seen Maurice in such high spirits. Harry 
 was in a state of most pleasurable excitement be- 
 tween his efforts not to laugh too uproariously at 
 Maurice's sallies on him and Winnie, and his semi- 
 civilized attempts at doing the host to Winnie by 
 convulsively poking at her various articles of food. 
 Little Grace sat serene and motherly behind the 
 urn, always instinctively knowing what every one 
 wanted. The only anxious member of the party 
 was Mr. Leigh, who, while he practically leant on 
 little Grace as he had on her mother, theoretically, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 1 13 
 
 never believed she was more than six, and living 
 as he did in constant nervous apprehension as to 
 what Harry would do next, had naturally looked 
 on the whole entertainment as a wild and daring 
 enterprise. However, even Mr. Leigh became by 
 degrees reassured as to the character of Grace's tea, 
 and of her arrangements in general, and the con- 
 tentment of his guests. 
 
 His apprehensions were nevertheless a little 
 revived when Maurice ventured to address some 
 inquiries to Grace about her Greek. 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Bertram," he said, apologizing to 
 Winnie, " you must not give your sister a wrong im- 
 pression. I assure you my Grace is nothing of a 
 bluestocking. Her mother had an aunt who knew 
 Latin and Greek, and embraced the fatal doctrines 
 of the French Revolution, and that made her family 
 always dread learned ladies; although I did not 
 quite see the connection. Grace can read and write 
 and sew ; and I think she has some talents^for draw- 
 ing and music. But beyond this she aspires to 
 nothing. We are plain people, Miss Bertram, very 
 plain, old-fashioned English people." 
 
 " Grace knows more Greek than I do, father," 
 interposed Harry, bending up to his sister's de- 
 fence. 
 
 " No difficult task, I fear, my boy," said Mr. 
 Leigh, with a quiet, little smile. 
 
 " She reads a hundred lines of the Iliad in no 
 
 time," retorted Harry. Thus actually brought face 
 
 to face with facts, Mr. Leigh looked anxiously at 
 
 Grace, who had no defence but " Indeed, father, 
 
 10* 
 
114 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 I did not mean to I could not help it, at least at 
 first ; and then," she concluded, gathering courage, 
 " I got to like it so much, it was impossible to 
 help going on." 
 
 Maurice laughed rather a malicious little laugh at 
 Mr. Leigh's discomfiture ; but then he said in a consol- 
 ing tone : " You remember Lady Jane Grey, Mr. 
 Leigh, a thorough Englishwoman, and the most du- 
 tiful of daughters, and she was even guilty of 
 Plato." 
 
 " True," said Mr. Leigh, with some hesitation ; 
 " and then Grace may forget !" 
 
 After this discussion, Grace and Winnie soon left 
 the room for the delights of a tete-a-Ute. 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Bertram," said Mr. Leigh, as he re- 
 turned from closing the door on the little girls, 
 " that was a race of giants and giants' works. 
 Lady Jane Grey was a good woman, undoubtedly, 
 although she was a scholar ; but consider what men 
 and women she had to measure herself with ; and 
 consider what cares she had to counterbalance her 
 learning, and keep her from being one-sided and 
 unfeminine." 
 
 " It seems to me that the cares at least are not 
 banished from our times," said Mr. Bertram. 
 
 " Ah, well," sighed Mr. Leigh, " Grace has hers, 
 poor child. And a sweeter, gentler, humbler child 
 never lived. I should never have suspected she 
 knew anything of Greek." 
 
 Meantime, Winnie had entered on the inmost 
 shrine of her aspirations for that day of delights. 
 She was alone with Grace in Grace's own room. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. U 
 
 But in this new stage of friendship a new veil 
 of shyness seemed to drop over her heart : the ten 
 thousand questions she had planned to ask Grace 
 died on her lips, and she would have sunk into si- 
 lence, if Grace's tender, little loving ways had not 
 broken the spell again, and set her tongue free, not, 
 indeed as she had meant, to question Grace, but to 
 pour out the story of her own life ; so that in a short 
 time, as they sat curled up hand in hand in the lit- 
 tle bed together, Grace knew all about her parents 
 in India, and her aunt and uncle, and the pretty 
 home and the rose-garden, and her books, and va- 
 rious possessions, her lessons and pleasures, the 
 places she had seen, the excursions she had made, 
 and little Fan and Dan, and Rosalie and all ; all 
 but the inmost things which still lay hid behind 
 that inmost veil which hangs before the sanctuaries 
 of all temples in which there is any sacred Presence 
 at all to reveal. 
 
 At length she paused, and looking up suddenly 
 at Grace, said : 
 
 " Now tell me all about what you do your les- 
 sons, and your holidays, and everything." 
 
 Grace was so little accustomed to look on herself 
 or her life from outside, or indeed as anything apart 
 from those she loved, that at first she was as much 
 at a loss for a reply as if she had been asked for a 
 concise narrative of the most recent explorations of 
 Central Africa. 
 
 At length she said : 
 
 " I went to school to the Miss Lovels, until they 
 said I had learned their books through. There were 
 
H6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 not very many. There were Pinnock's Goldsmith, 
 Greece, and England, with the Catechisms, and 
 Hangnail's Questions, and the French Grammar, 
 and the Vocabulary, and the Becueil Choisi. But 
 I am afraid the French is a little altered since the 
 Miss Lovels learnt, because I once tried to show an 
 old French sailor his way, and he thanked me, but 
 said he did not understand English. But they 
 taught me to illuminate, too, and to make flowers, 
 and cut paper like the Portuguese nuns, and to em- 
 broider and to sew, and the First Arithmetic Book. 
 And Mrs. Anderson, the baker's wife opposite, 
 taught me to knit stockings. Then there are Har- 
 ry's books, the Analecta there is a beautiful poem 
 in that about all the creatures drinking from one 
 another ; and helping one another ; the sun drink- 
 ing from the sea, and the sea from the earth, and the 
 earth again from the sun. And then there are 
 Cesar's Commentaries and Cornelius Nepos, and fa- 
 ther's Iliad and Odyssey, which are the best of all." 
 
 " Have you no books of your own, then ?" asked 
 Winnie with some hesitating delicacy. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Grace ; " all mamma's small 
 books are mine. There are the Gems and the For- 
 get-me-nots. But I don't care quite so much about 
 them. But there are the poems by John Milton ; 
 and some of those are as beautiful as the Greek. 
 And then there are the three odd volumes of Shak- 
 speare. Mrs. Treherne said they were play books, 
 and I ought not to read them ; but when I asked 
 father he smiled, and said, John Wesley advised 
 people to read Shakspeare ; which made all the dif- 
 
THE WORLD SHJE LIVED IN. 117 
 
 ference, Mrs. Treherne said, for she is a Methodist. 
 Miss Lavinia Lovel said one day, when I told her, 
 that it was not quite fit for little girls ; but Miss 
 Betsy said that was nonsense, and I do enjoy it so 
 much. It is all English history, but so different 
 from Pinnock's Goldsmith. You get to know the 
 kings and queens, and the great men and women, 
 as well as Hector, and Andromache, and Achilles ; 
 and they are not one of them like the others just 
 like real people, only so great and beautiful." 
 
 " Those are three of the great poets in Maurice's 
 subterranean palace," said Winnie ; which led to a 
 digression concerning Maurice, with a sketch of the 
 two allegories. 
 
 After which Winnie resumed : 
 
 " I suppose' you are too old for playthings ; I am, 
 very nearly." 
 
 After some ransacking of her memory, Grace 
 said : 
 
 " I had a doll once. I remember it because of 
 its end. I must have been very little, for I remem- 
 ber crying one day at finding Harry pouring out 
 its body in a shower of bran from a wound in its 
 arm. And we have part of a box of dominoes, 
 with which I used to keep Harry quiet when fa- 
 ther was writing his sermons. I never remember 
 any other toys. Everything was a plaything to us 
 when we wanted to play, and father was out. 
 Under the piano was a lion's den, or a robber's cas- 
 tle, or the counter of a shop the chairs were 
 horses and carriages ; the music-stool was a pulpit ; 
 a pocket-handkerchief tied up was a baby ; and a 
 
ng . WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 footstool on its back made a beautiful cradle. I 
 often wonder," concluded Grace, " when I look at 
 a toy-shop why people take such trouble to make 
 toys. Harry and I could always make the whole 
 room into a toy-shop whenever we fancied. And 
 I suppose other children are just the same." 
 
 Winnie's thoughts recurred to the elaborate furni- 
 ture of her own nursery the gigantic baby-house, 
 so passionately desired, so seldom used ; the exqui- 
 sitely dressed dolls ; the musical carts ; the railway 
 trains that went round the table with the touch of 
 a spring ; she remembered how often she and her 
 playfellows, after disputing the use of these wonder- 
 ful machines, had turned from one and another in 
 weariness ; and she said, as if to herself: 
 
 " And then there was little Fan.' It is nice to 
 have things given you, but it does seem made up to 
 people when they haven't got them. But then I 
 couldn't have done without my bricks. I have 
 such a beautiful box of pillars and arches. The 
 worst of them is, that you have so often to build 
 them up in the same way, one gets tired, and I think 
 sometimes they would be better if they were all 
 plain." 
 
 " We have a box of plain bricks," said Grace, " I 
 forgot that. A ship's carpenter made them for us, 
 whose wife father had visited when she was ill, and 
 been a comfort to. Square bricks which you can 
 build anything with temples, and towers, and 
 palaces. And Harry has a box of tools. Mr. Ber- 
 tram gave them to him. Harry was always cutting 
 or pulling things to pieces, till Mr. Bertram gave 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 119 
 
 him those tools, and the ship's carpenter some large 
 chips of wood. Father said it was very dangerous. 
 But Harry quite took to it, and seemed to enjoy 
 making things as much as pulling them to pieces ; 
 which was a great relief to us all. And I remem- 
 ber Mr. Bertram said he thought a great deal of 
 the mischief done in the world might be put an end 
 to in the same way. He said the love of pulling to 
 pieces was often only the love of putting together 
 turned inside out. You have only to turn it 
 round, and it is all right. And it did seem so with 
 Harry. 
 
 " Now tell me about your holidays." 
 
 " There is one every week," said Grace. " Every 
 Monday afternoon father takes me for a walk. He 
 is always rather low on Saturdays, because of his 
 sermon that is to come ; but on Monday afternoon 
 father often says, ' Well, Grace, I think I did my 
 best yesterday. I am afraid it was very poor, my 
 child ; but we must leave the past things with God.' 
 And then we have our walk." 
 
 " Where do you walk ?" said Winnie, her imagin- 
 ation wandering drearily through the long ranges 
 of crowded, dingy, narrow streets, through which 
 they had passed. 
 
 " Oh," said Grace, " there are many ways. Some 
 times we cross the river in a ferry boat, and then 
 very soon you come to market-gardens here and 
 there. And sometimes we go up by the docks, and 
 I like to see the ships ; and, besides, there is an old 
 woman here who remembers when the docks were 
 all green fields with cattle grazing on them ; and 
 
120 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 that is very pleasant to think of. And then there 
 are the penny steamers, and the great river, and the 
 bridges with the arches reflected on it, and the 
 houses and ships making such pretty pictures un- 
 derneath. And once we went to Margate, which 
 made me care for it much more, because I heard 
 the real sea-waves the old heroes heard, and be- 
 oause I know now where the river is going. And 
 twice we have been to Greenwich. And the great 
 hospital there is beautiful. It is like the pictures 
 of Venice when the sun is shining. It was a palace 
 once, and now it is better than a palace, I think, 
 since so many poor old men are taken care of in it. 
 And there are such trees ! They make you think ol 
 the great beech tree by the gate of Troy, where the 
 old princes sat talking softly, watching the heroes 
 fight on the plain. And there are deer, with lovely, 
 soft, large, kind eyes. And once we have been to 
 the Zoological Gardens ; and that is almost as good, 
 you know, as going to India, and Africa, and all 
 the countries where they used to live. And four 
 times to the British Museum ; and that is like spend- 
 ing a day with the Pharaohs and the Assyrian kings, 
 or with Homer himself. n 
 
 " Things seem to make you very happy," said 
 Winnie candidly. " It is very strange. I always 
 thought the Zoological Gardens very uninteresting, 
 except the monkeys, and the creatures who would 
 eat biscuits. And I always thought the British 
 Museum as dull as a lesson in French history, until 
 to-day." 
 
 Grace looked rather perplexed. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 12 i 
 
 " But then the great pleasure, you know," she 
 said in explanation, " was having father, and hav- 
 ing to cheer him up and make him happy. Because 
 father," she added, in a low voice, " is low some- 
 times. He has had so many things to tro.uble him." 
 
 " Perhaps that is the difference," said Winnie : 
 " every one is always trying, on my holidays, to 
 make me happy, and it does seem easier the other 
 way. It was the same with little Fan. And then," 
 she continued, meditatively repeating over in her 
 mind the endless variety of treats, and fetes, and 
 amusements provided for her, " perhaps you do like 
 your pleasures better because they don't come so 
 often." 
 
 " But," said Grace, to whom this view of "' plea- 
 sures" as something got up expressly for the sake 
 of being pleasures was quite new and incomprehen- 
 sible, " nearly everything is pleasant, I think. Ex- 
 cept," she added, with the almost nervous dread of 
 exaggeration she inherited from her Father, " ex- 
 cept when father has headaches with being anxious 
 about his sermons; and when Harry gets imposi- 
 tions ; and when we have to pay our New Year's 
 visit to Cousin Felix Hunter, although they mean 
 to make that pleasant, to us no doubt only Cousin 
 Felix seems to think we ought to have got on 
 better, and that makes Father low." 
 
 " How do you mean that everything is pleasant ?" 
 said Winnie. 
 
 " It is pleasatit to wake in the morning and think 
 how much one has to do for people ; and to think 
 how sure God is to be near and help us to do it ; 
 11 
 
122 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and then," she added softly, " to ask him. And 
 it is pleasant to mend father's things, and make 
 them nice., and think how he will wonder at their 
 lasting so long, and how little he knows how it is. 
 And it is pleasant just to learn a little bit more 
 every day, and feel getting on. And it is pleasant 
 to help the Miss Lovels with their scholars when I 
 can., and save Miss Lavinia's voice, and Miss Bet- 
 sy's eyes. And it is pleasant to help Harry. And 
 it is pleasant to contrive how to make the cold meat 
 that lasts too long seem like new to father, by lit- 
 tle changes. And it is pleasant to make things 
 pleasanter in all kinds of ways for father and 
 Harry, by giving up little things which they never 
 know I give up (because if they knew they might 
 think I cared, and not let me, and I don't care in 
 the least), and which they enjoy having ; that is one 
 of the greatest pleasures. And then it is pleasant 
 that Mr. Treherne is a greengrocer and not a baker, 
 because there are never any hot uncomfortable 
 smells ; and the cabbages, and the red bunches of 
 carrots, and the baskets of turnips, are so nice to 
 look at ; and the parsley is just as beautiful to sketch 
 as the acanthus on the Corinthian columns ; and Mr. 
 Treherne is so kind in giving me moss and aspara- 
 gus tops ; and it is so pleasant to hear Mr. Tre- 
 herne talk about the sea, and the fishermen, and the 
 mines in Devonshire and Cornwall. And it is 
 pleasant that Mrs. Anderson, when she is teaching 
 me knitting, has such wild strange stories about her 
 father's old home in the Highlands. People who have 
 been in places are so much mcer than books of travel, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 12 ^ 
 
 or than any books, I think, except one or two. And 
 then," she continued, taking Winnie to the window, 
 " it is so pleasant that there is a corner of the 
 churchyard in sight. If you squeeze your face a 
 very little against the glass you can see a tree. 
 And it is delightful to watch it in spring getting 
 more beautiful every day." 
 
 Winnie had some difficulty in taking in the 
 catalogue of Grace's pleasures. So she turned the 
 conversation and said : ' 
 
 " But what are your Sunday books ?" 
 
 Grace paused a little to consider, and then' she 
 said : 
 
 " I have none." 
 
 " Not one Sunday book!" exclaimed Winnie, fix- 
 ing her questioning eyes on Grace, in some doubt 
 whether to attribute such destitution to a confusion 
 in Grace's ideas about Sunday, or to a poverty 
 which seemed inconceivable" Not one ?" 
 . " JSTo, I think not," replied Grace, not at all de- 
 spondingly, yet in a tone of apology, " unless it is 
 Paradise Lost. I do not think Shakspeare is quite 
 one, nor Homer, although it often helps me on Sun- 
 days, and every day, to think of them. There are 
 father's books for his sermons, but I never thought 
 of reading them. They look so much the same all 
 the way through, and there are so few proper names ; 
 and then they seem all about things, not about peo- 
 ple, like the Bible. Of course there is the Bible," 
 she concluded reverently ; " but that is not a Sun- 
 day book, is it ? The Bible is for Sundays, and 
 every day, and always." 
 
1 24 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " How very strange !" said Winnie. " I have 
 dozens of Sunday books. Do let me give you some 
 of them. It is not worth calling a present," she 
 added candidly, " for except two or three I never 
 cared very much about them. They are like Mr. 
 Leigh's books for the sermons round and round, 
 always .the same. But I always thought that was 
 because of my not being good. And you are good," 
 concluded Winnie, in the delicious confidence of her 
 first living hero-worship, " so you might like them. 
 And at all events they might be better, than nothing. 
 What can you do with yourself on Sundays without 
 the garden and without books ?" 
 
 It was Grace's turn to be astonished. 
 
 " Thank you very much," she said, " but what 
 could I do with more books on Sundays ? There 
 is never half enough time. And all the time there 
 is passes so quickly. I always get up a little earlier 
 because father likes breakfast early, and because 
 it is Sunday ; and there is such a fresh happy feeling 
 about it always. Then there are the sermons." 
 
 " You like sermons," said Winnie, despondingly. 
 
 "I think all sermons are nice," replied Grace, 
 " at least there is always something nice in them. 
 And the text always." Grace's criticism being of 
 that happy kind which darts on a pearl as eagerly as 
 some critics on a flaw. " Then there is the Sunday 
 school, and it is such a delight to meet the little 
 children." 
 
 " You have a class at the Sunday-school ?" said 
 Winnie, more awed by this dignity than by any of 
 her other discoveries. " You really teach little chil- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. i 2 $ 
 
 dren ? What can you find to say ? It must be like 
 making a sermon." 
 
 " They are only the little ones, and I know them 
 all so well," said Grace. " It is only like talking. 
 And they like to tell me things. And," she con- 
 cluded, her quiet face kindling as she spoke, "I 
 think it is the happiest hour in all the week, that 
 and one besides. For I tell them about Jesus from 
 the Gospels. . And sometimes it seems as if the 
 Gospels were written just on purpose for little 
 children. There is so much they care to listen to 
 there. I think there are no stories half so beautiful ; 
 if they were only stories. Think of all the people 
 HE made happy, and how well we seem to know 
 them all ; the poor blind men the people tried to 
 keep quiet, but Jesus would listen ; the poor woman 
 with the sick daughter they wanted Him to send 
 away, but Jesus would help her ; the little children 
 they tried to keep back, but He would have them 
 close in his arms, on his bosom, his hand on their 
 heads, resting there ; the woman with the box of 
 precious ointment they complained of, but He 
 spoke such kind words to ! And then the things He 
 said, and the places where He said them the sea- 
 shores, and the gardens, and the sides of the beau- 
 tiful hills, and the tops of the mountains, and walk- 
 ing through the corn-fields ; and even the streets. He 
 walked through the streets, I am always so glad of 
 that. And then the things He noticed the lilies, 
 the sparrows, and the two mites. One does seem to 
 know what many of the old heroes and kings would 
 have looked on grand occasions. But with Jesus," 
 11* 
 
126 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 she said very softly, " you seem to know such beau- 
 tiful little things as well as the great ones you 
 seem to feel what his very touch was on the heads 
 of the little children, and the blind eyes, and the 
 poor leper; and what his look was, and how he 
 must have said the things. And then, you know, 
 they are not made-up stories, but truer than 
 the truest history in the world. And not like the 
 histories about people that are dead and gone. For 
 Jesus," she concluded, " you know, is living ; and 
 He never goes away, and never will. And it is so 
 delightful to talk to the poor little children about 
 him. For some of them have such poor sad homes, 
 and if you can only make them feel Jesus is with 
 them there not at church or at school only, but at 
 home !" 
 
 " I should like to be one of your Sunday class," 
 said Winnie, putting her arms round Grace and 
 nestling her head on her shoulder. " But what is 
 your other happiest hour ?" 
 
 Grace colored a little and paused, and then she 
 said: 
 
 " I never spoke of it to any one. But it is when 
 the evening service is over in the church, and the 
 last footstep has passed out of hearing, and the last 
 note of the organ has died away, and yet the music 
 seems still there, and the sexton is putting out the 
 lights one by one, so that the church gets almost 
 dark, and the sky looks down, dark blue, through 
 the top of the windows above the galleries. Father 
 has always something to do in the vestry, and 
 Harry goes round helping to put out the lights, and 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED 
 
 127 
 
 then goes to join Father. And our pew is square, 
 just under the reading-desk; and in the corner no 
 one sees me. Then it is so solemn in the empty 
 church, and I am so tired, and so happy ; and God 
 seems so near ; and I think of my school children, 
 how they are asleep in their homes, and God is near 
 them too, and I ask him to bless them ; and I think 
 of mother, how she has gone home, and how near 
 she is to God, and that she does not look up to 
 heaven through a little strip of a church window, 
 but is there, not in darkness, but in the light, at 
 church and at home at once. And I wonder how it 
 will feel when the last day's work is done, and I 
 shall be tired and yet happy, as she looked when I 
 saw her last, and she smiled on me ; and I long to 
 see her smile again and to hear her say, * Grace, 
 you have taken good care of your Father and 
 Harry, and now we will rest together.' And then 
 I think of the welcome Jesus will give, and what it 
 must be to see Him smile and look really pleased, 
 and to hear Him say 'Well done.' Because you 
 know," she said, " we are not told He ever did smile 
 on earth, and they did so much to grieve Him, so 
 little to please Him. And yet," she concluded, " I 
 do think He is more ready to be pleased with us 
 than any one; such little things please Him, if we 
 really try. And then I give up thinking, and look 
 up to Him." 
 
 There was a silence, and then Winnie came out ' 
 with her long-delayed question : 
 
 " How did you know ? What made you choose 
 that text and illuminate it for me ?" 
 
128 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 "Mr. Bertram had been so kind in helping 
 Harry," said Grace, " and he had so often talked to 
 us about you." 
 
 " Bat that text how could you know how I cared 
 for it, or that mamma had written it in my Bible ?" 
 
 " I only know how I cared for it and mother," 
 replied Grace ; and opening a little thick old Bible 
 bound in faded red morocco she showed Winnie 
 written on the first page, first in a clerical hand, 
 " Grace Ratcliffe from H. L. ;" and then in a trem- 
 bling, delicate hand below, " Grace Leigh, from her 
 mother ;" and below, the text : " We love Him because 
 He first loved us" 
 
 " Does it not seem as if God meant we should 
 love each other ?" said Winnie. " Well, Grace, will 
 you love me and be my own friend ?" 
 
 "It does seem as if God means us to love each 
 other," said Grace. " I like to think He means, bet- 
 ter than that He meant. Because you know He has 
 not only planned something for us long ago and 
 gone away He is with us now. And I think we 
 are friends," she concluded, "and I am sure I do 
 love you." 
 
 And so the children returned to the sitting-room, 
 and Grace's portfolio was brought out, with which 
 Winnie was a little disappointed ; for except some 
 half-finished illuminations and some sketches in 
 chalk of Greek sculpture, it contained chiefly water- 
 color drawings of parsley-leaves and mosses and 
 even of cabbage-leaves and baskets of turnips, 
 which Winnie's ideas of Grace's powers had been 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 129 
 
 soaring too high altogether to appreciate. There 
 was one little sketch, however, of a harebell throw- 
 ing the shadow of its delicate stem over a tuft of 
 ivory-white woodrooffe and bright green turf which 
 seemed to Winnie, she could not tell why, like one 
 of Anderson's fairy tales, which she thought so 
 pleasant because she was always half-guessing their 
 meaning, and never quite. And this Grace insisted 
 on her taking home as a present. 
 
 " Maurice," said Winnie, after a long silence, as 
 they were driving home together, " how did you 
 first find out Grace Leigh ?" 
 
 " About two years since," he said, " I was taking 
 the duty for a few weeks, as curate, in the next 
 parish to Mr. Leigh. I had known him before, and 
 had often met him at meetings, but I had never 
 been to his house, until, one evening. in January, 
 when it had been snowing all day, and the snow 
 had frozen so that the horses were falling in the 
 slippery streets, I heard a knock at my door, and 
 my landlady introduced ' Miss Leigh.' 
 
 " I looked up, expecting to see some strange lady 
 on business, probably an energetic elderly district 
 visitor for a subscription. But instead, I saw before 
 me a little person, apparently not more than ten or 
 eleven years old, in a large shawl tied around and 
 across her, as if she had been a parcel. On her 
 head was a tiny straw bonnet, looking as if it had 
 been meant for a younger child, which half fell off 
 her head, and underneath it looked out that grave, 
 sweet little face, more shaded by its own, long fair 
 
130 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 curls than by her bonnet. In that quaint dress, 
 with her bright hair all flaked with snow, she looked 
 like a Christmas fairy, who, having some benevo- 
 lent reason for paying a visit to our world, had dis- 
 guised herself in the first stray garments she could 
 lay her hands on. Yet the little face was human 
 enough, with its earnest, pleading look, trembling, 
 too, as she was with cold. I begged her to warm 
 herself at the fire ; but she said, in a soft, childish 
 voice, without any pause (as if she had wound her- 
 self up for a great effort and would break down 
 altogether if she hesitated a moment) : " Please, Mr. 
 Bertram, I cannot stay, Father is very ill in bed, 
 and he will want me, he does not know I came out, 
 but he spoke of you, and the other day you were 
 kind to our little Harry when a big boy had knocked 
 him down in the street and taken away his marbles, 
 and I thought you would help us now, for Mrs. 
 Treherne says it would be death to Father to go 
 out and preach to-morrow, and I was afraid the 
 church would stop, or Father would go and never 
 get better, and J did not know what else to do, so 
 please, Mr. Bertram, you will try and come and help 
 Father, won't you, that the church may not stop." 
 As I listened to her, the whole gravity of the situ- 
 ation gradually unfolded itself. This little creature 
 was actually a little Atlas, bearing on her small 
 shoulders the whole ecclesiastical weight of the 
 parish. Taking Mrs. Treherne's prognostications 
 literally, she saw before her only two awful alterna- 
 tives her father going out and killing himself; 
 or the whole congregation sitting, expectant, before 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 131 
 
 the empty reading-desk. And without hesitation 
 ehe had thrown her little person into the chasm. 
 So I said, ' Don't be afraid, Miss Leigh. Mr. Leigh 
 need not attempt to go out, and the church shall 
 not stop; I will arrange it all.' The weight of 
 responsibility glided off from the little anxious face 
 at once. She said, ' I am not Miss Leigh, I am only 
 little Grace.' Then I told her I would go back 
 with her to her father at once. For, with the re- 
 sponsibility, had melted away the courage : tears 
 were gathering in her eyes, and her lips quivered 
 not with cold. She let me take her dear little cold 
 hand in mine, and lead her back through the slip- 
 pery streets to Mrs. Treherne's shop, entirely trust- 
 ing the rest of the negotiations to me. Mr. Leigh's 
 illness was more than half on the nerves. The 
 relief from the dread of having to undertake the 
 service went some way towards strengthening him 
 to do it. I read the morning-prayers and by the 
 afternoon he was well enough to read the service, 
 before I preached. But since then little Grace and 
 I have always been friends." 
 
 Winnie relapsed for some time into meditation, 
 and then she said, ( " What a delightful long day 
 this is to think of! I have found out about the 
 Five Worlds, and about the British Museum leading 
 into them ; and I have found out a friend oh, such 
 a friend, Maurice ! I think Grace is Ethel. I think 
 she can never have known for a moment what it is 
 to be in the contracting chamber. I think she has 
 one of the magic wands in the Palace of Art. And 
 she loves me, Maurice ; I do feel sure she .does : and 
 
132 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 she is going to help me. Only, Maurice," she con- 
 tinued, " I do think it is easier to be good if you 
 are poor, at least rather poor, than if you are rich. 
 It takes Uncle and Aunt O'Brien so much trouble 
 to make lessons, and then to make amusements 
 for me. And to Grace, and even partly to little 
 Fan, the lessons and the pleasures seem to come 
 without any one taking any trouble about it, all 
 mixed up together ; and that does seem nicer on 
 the whole. Do you think God settles it in that 
 way, and that is why He makes so many people 
 poor, and so few people rich ?" 
 
 " I do think riches are a very poor providence, 
 when they are put instead of God's providence 
 Winnie," he said ; " but if you ask and watch and 
 really wish it, you will find God will take your les- 
 sons and your pleasures under His care as much as 
 little Fan's or Grace Leigh's." 
 
 Rosalie was much perplexed at Winne's recital 
 of her birthday delights. 
 
 " You have taken off all the first freshness of your 
 beautiful dress among the lowest of the people in 
 an omnibus," she said ; " you have had tea in the 
 most wretched faubourg over the shop of a seller 
 of turnips ; and you might have driven with mad- 
 ame like a princess through the parks, and been 
 enthroned in the evening in your robe de fete under 
 a canopy of myrtles, with hair crowned with roses 
 like a fairy queen, receiving the homage of the 
 young ladies and gentlemen your companions, and 
 afterwards a dance, ravishing as the opera. But," 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 133 
 
 concluded mademoiselle in the grand style, rush- 
 ing to rash generalizations, " your nation is a 
 sphynx, an enigma. To you amusement is a seri- 
 ous work, and serious work is a pastime. But 
 what does it matter? Each must fulfill his 
 destiny 1" 
 
 12 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 JT is time to give a more succinct narrative 
 of Grace Leigh's history ; to fill up the 
 gaps between the glimpses she had un- 
 consciously given Winifred into her life 
 and the world she lived in. 
 
 When about fifteen years ago Mr. Leigh had 
 brought his bride a governess and an orphan to 
 Mrs. Treherne's lodgings, it was a great change to 
 her from the country town where the rest of her 
 life had been spent, and where she knew the faces 
 and something of the history of almost every one 
 she met. At first the more prosperous parishioners 
 had called upon them ; and they might have lived 
 in a round of small entertainments. The incumb- 
 ents had long since fled to fairer regions, and a 
 curate under the circumstances was not to be des- 
 pised. Among these new acquaintances, there were 
 more than one kind-hearted family who perplexed 
 themselves how to increase the comforts so evi- 
 dently needed by the delicate-looking wife, without 
 (134) 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM. l ^ 
 
 wounding the feelings of Mr. Leigh. But Mrs. 
 Leigh's health had gradually grown feebler and 
 feebler. She pined for air, and open spaces of 
 fields and sky, and could not walk far enough to 
 reach them. So that visiting proved a toil, (to say 
 nothing of the expense involved in the simplest 
 attempts to dress as her husband liked), and her 
 life had become more and more secluded. More- 
 over, the one little maid, who was all they could 
 afford, was by no means to be trusted with the sole 
 responsibility of one baby ; much less of the four 
 babies who co-existed, when Grace was four years 
 old and Harry was just born. 
 
 And then the two intermediate babies died. A 
 great relief to every one who looked at the matter 
 from a statistical point of view. But to poor Mrs. 
 Leigh they were her darling little baby Alice and 
 her prattling Georgie, whose loss cost her nights 
 of weeping, and agonies of yearning, when she 
 woke from her brief morning sleep, for one more 
 tender clinging of the soft arms and pressure of 
 the warm cheek to hers. She had " a foolish coun- 
 try fancy " too, she said, to look now and then at 
 their little graves. And she was never strong 
 enough to go to the cemetery amidst the far-off 
 fields, which had been assigned to the parish 
 instead of the dark damp churchyard closed some 
 years before by the laws against intramural inter- 
 ment. So that, although she tried very hard to get 
 strong, the struggle against want of fresh air, 
 and sorrow and care proved altogether too much 
 for her ; and when Grace was nine and Harry five, 
 
136 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 that happened which made Gracie a little woman 
 before her time. 
 
 One morning Mrs. Leigh told Grace to bring her 
 the red morocco Bible ; and she wrote the child's 
 name in it, with the text Winnie had seen, and 
 said : " Read it every morning and every evening, 
 Gracie, for mother's sake, &nd for Jesus' sake." 
 And three evenings afterwards, when she wished 
 Grace good-night, she said, in a very feeble little 
 whisper, " Take care of father, and of little Harry, 
 Gracie, darling, and God will take care of you." 
 And then she gave her a long, long kiss, and that 
 was the last mother's kiss little Grace ever had. 
 
 Grace could not remember any details of what 
 happened next. Nothing seemed to happen for 
 many days. It seemed like a long week, with no 
 distinction of evenings or mornings, days or nights, 
 all dark and cold alike ; and at the end, the light 
 let in again as if on desolate empty rooms, although 
 everything was unchanged in them, even to the 
 work-basket with the unfinished frill in it for 
 Harry's best frock. And her father sobbing like a 
 child, with his head hidden on his hands ; and 
 Harry, pleased at the blinds drawn up, chirruping 
 to the horses in the streets ; and little Grace hold- 
 ing him on her knee, and trying to make him happy 
 in a quiet way till bed-time ; and then putting him 
 to bed herself, and talking to him, and having a 
 little struggle to make him say his " Gentle Jesus, 
 meek and mild," to her instead of to his mother, 
 and soothing him as well as she could until he fell 
 asleep; and then coming down and venturing to 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. i^j 
 
 nestle in close to her father, until he drew his arm 
 round her, and felt for the first time that his grief 
 was not utterly unfathomable, that in the terrible 
 void ther>e were still some precious treasures of 
 love left. 
 
 That was how Grace's history began. Before 
 that terrible week all the days were uncounted 
 days of Eden ; days of being loved, and cared for, 
 and helped, and cherished; a mother's heart be- 
 tween her and the world ; a mother's love and care 
 making visible to her the love and care of God. 
 
 But after that all was changed ; the Eden faded, 
 and the tender self-denying woman's life, which is 
 such a well-trodden way to the better Eden, began. 
 
 " For mother's sake, and for Jesus' sake ; and 
 take care of father, and little Harry, and God will 
 take care of you," was the illuminated text running 
 through all her days. 
 
 As the months passed on, little Grace's life be- 
 came a far brighter one than her mother's could 
 ever have been. She had no contracted memories 
 of sweet, quiet country lanes and fields, to make 
 the streets seem dingier and noisier. The very 
 holiday excursions, the half-country places, which 
 would have recalled the real country painfully to 
 her mother, were a rapture to little Grace. The 
 quick sense of beauty which was frequently a tor- 
 ture to the negative artist-nature of Mr. Leigh, was 
 a constant source of joy to the positive artist-nature 
 of his little daughter, with her happy temper, and 
 her quiet healthy nerves. 
 
 The mere light and shade of the outline of the 
 12* 
 
138 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 houses on a sunny day gave her pleasure ; the 
 fresh vegetables and baskets of fruits in the green- 
 grocer's shop were a feast of color to her ; and the 
 blooming of the market-gardens on the other side 
 of the river, or even the budding of the leaves in 
 the churchyard, brought all the spring into her 
 heart. 
 
 Not that little Grace had no dark days. No 
 one who has days worth calling bright can be 
 without them. 
 
 Saturdays were very often dark days, because 
 Mr. Leigh then finished his sermon for Sunday 
 afternoon. And although there were seldom more 
 than twenty people, chiefly old women and servant- 
 girls, to hear it, Mr. Leigh had a rigid ideal of his 
 own, quite independent of audience or effect, which 
 he never could satisfy. 
 
 Then there were very anxious hours as the time 
 went on and Harry went to school, when he did 
 not reappear at the hour when he was due, and at 
 last came back with downcast face, very much 
 aggrieved with the master, or the lesson, or things 
 in general, which had caused him to have an impo- 
 sition and to be kept in. For Harry was one of 
 the many sufferers by the confusion of tongues, or 
 rather, as Mrs. Treherne viewed the case, by the 
 interference with Providence of the philologists 
 who tried to do away with its effects. 
 
 " The people were scattered on the face of the 
 earth," she would say, as she wiped Harry's tear- 
 stained face, and administered to him a consolatory 
 orange, or a piece of cake, " and made to speak 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 139 
 
 different languages on purpose that they mightn't 
 understand each other. And I say it's a cruel 
 thing, Caleb Treherne, and an ungodly thing, to be 
 torturing poor motherless lambs like Master Harry, 
 just to undo what the Lord saw fit to do thou- 
 sands of years ago." 
 
 A view of philology against which Mr. Treherne 
 ventured no remonstrance, and which Harry thought 
 very enlightened. For Harry's delights were not, 
 it must be confessed, in the great deeds of Caesar, 
 or in the heroes of Homer ; but in carving boxes 
 and sticks with his tools, and in researches among 
 the ponds on the remote wilds of Hampstead Heath 
 for tadpoles and tittlebatSj which he brought home 
 in triumph on half holidays. 
 
 But the darkest day for the family was the 
 annual visit to Mr. and Mrs. Felix Hunter, who 
 lived with a family of young Hunters in a large 
 house in Bedford Square. Cousin Felix was a suc- 
 cessful man, and he was steeped in the conscious- 
 ness of this; not that he obtruded the fact on 
 others, but he felt he was an example, and the 
 whole family shared the sentiment. The footman 
 condescendingly opened the door and closed it on 
 Mr. Leigh, and crept with a noiseless dignity about 
 the house in the consciousness he was an example 
 to footmen. The nursery was a model nursery. 
 The children were examples from the cradle. The 
 little Master Hunters trundled their hoops with a 
 sober self-possession round the square gardens ; 
 and the little Miss Hunters daintily dandled their 
 dolls in a way which was an example to nurse- 
 
! 4.0 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 maids. The very babies sucked their thumbs in 
 an exemplary manner, and looked at you with a 
 calm stare of superiority, as if they felt they were 
 " representative babies." So that, altogether, Mr. 
 Leigh, who was never satisfied with himself or any- 
 thing he did ; and Harry, who was liable to human 
 infirmities ; and Grace, who felt every slight to 
 Mr. Leigh far more than if it had been inflicted on 
 herself, and every solecism of Harry's far more 
 than if she had committed it herself, generally 
 returned from Bedford Square on that memor- 
 able day in a very cowed and humbled state of 
 mind. 
 
 Not that Mr. Felix Hunter made any especial 
 efforts to impress Mr. Leigh with the sense of his 
 comparative merits ; he intended to be very affable 
 and condescending. At first, indeed, when his poor 
 cousin Mary married the poor curate, he did feel it 
 a duty to press on him the necessity of making 
 some effort. " What would even he himself have 
 been unless he had made his own way?" He 
 recommended Mr. Leigh to try for sundry lecture- 
 ships in the city, and even to apply to some distin- 
 guished patrons to whom Mr. Hunter gave him 
 introductions. But Mr. Leigh after enduring 
 agonies of conflict between his modesty and his 
 duty to his family, and trying two or three times, 
 and being found nowhere on the list of candidates, 
 and receiving two or three polite letters from pri- 
 vate secretaries of distinguished patrons acknow- 
 ledging that " his lordship had received his letters, 
 and had the greatest respect for Mr. Hunter, and 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. l ^i 
 
 would consider Mr. Leigh's claims, but there were 
 so many imperative demands, etc. " gave up the 
 struggle in despair. And thenceforward Mr. Hun- 
 ter admitted that some people are born ineffective, 
 and proceeded to turn the whole blaze of his 
 example on Harry, confounding him with glimpses 
 of wonderful prizes bound in calf which he had 
 gained at public schools, and with impressive moral 
 tales about what energy and ability can do, illus- 
 trated from his own autobiography. Everything, 
 he said, depended on taking the right turn at the 
 right moment. 
 
 Meantime Mrs. Hunter, who knew, she said, that 
 good little girls like to make themselves useful, 
 usually employed Grace in covering up and putting 
 away ornaments and knick-knacks displayed at the 
 grand party of the previous day, and rewarded her 
 by showing her some gigantic drawings in colored 
 chalks by her cousin Alicia ; large enough for the 
 ceiling of a Town-hall, and " very effective," Mrs. 
 Hunter said. Once, at her father's desire, Grace 
 had brought a delicate little coloring of a primrose, 
 which cousin Alicia condescended to say was " very 
 nicely done for a child ;" but, she observed, that 
 " flowers " had quite " gone out." Indeed, she 
 spoke in a deprecatory way of her own pictures ; 
 and stated that next half she was to paint histori- 
 cal pictures in oils after the great masters ; which 
 made Grace feel as small beside her accomplished 
 cousin as her primrose "beside the colossal chalk 
 drawing, one tuft of herbage in the foreground 
 of which was as large as the whole primrose 
 
142 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 plant together ; and " all done," as Miss Alicia 
 said triumphantly, " in three or four hours." 
 
 Mrs. Hunter's self-complacency took a different 
 form from that of Mr. Hunter. With Mr. Hunter 
 everything he possessed was a model ; with Mrs. 
 Hunter all her possessions, at least if Grace or Mr. 
 Leigh praised them, were " mere every-day things," 
 thrown entirely into the shade by some unknown 
 magnificencies, that once had been, or one day 
 were to be, hers, . or which belonged to some 
 acquaintance, who threw a reflected glory on her, 
 from a region altogether beyond the possibility of 
 Grace ever attaining even to the beatific vision of. 
 
 So the day wore on until the close, when Mr. 
 Hunter, having hospitably handed his guest to the 
 door, returned, and said to Mrs. Hunter, " Well, it 
 is something to give those poor things one good 
 dinner and one happy day in the year." 
 
 But Mr. Leigh meanwhile was returning home 
 with a depressing sense that he ought in some way 
 to have deserved and earned a large house in Bed- 
 ford Square, and that he and his family were alto- 
 gether, ecclesiastically and socially, a failure and a 
 mistake, which depressing conviction was not 
 usually relieved until some time in the next Mon- 
 day afternoon holiday, when Mr. Leigh would say 
 to Grace : 
 
 " Gracie, my child, if we do our best, God is very 
 compassionate ; and we cannot all be so successful 
 as Cousin Felix. I don't really think we can. I 
 am very sorry I had no better home for your poor 
 dear mother, and for you and Harry ; but the living 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 143 
 
 is a hundred a year, and the chaplaincy to the 
 Union is fifty pounds more ; and I don't see how I 
 could get more, Gracie. I know I ought to have 
 "been a more successful man, Grace, and to have 
 taken the right turn ; but, indeed, I can't think 
 where it' was I took the wrong turn. I don't really 
 think every one can succeed like Cousin Felix, do 
 what they will." 
 
 And Grace, leaning like a small woman on her 
 father's arm, would press the other hand round it 
 and say : 
 
 " I would not have you like Mr. Hunter, or like 
 any one but yourself, father, for the world. I think 
 one hundred and fifty pounds a year regularly is a 
 fortune ; and I know the Miss Lovels do. It would 
 be quite ungrateful, you know, not to think so : and 
 then think how two or three of the people attend 
 sometimes when you preach, and how the poor old 
 people in the Workhouse look for you. A hundred 
 and fifty pounds a year, father !" concluded Grace ; 
 " and then for such work reading the Bible and 
 comforting and teaching people ! Is not that bet- 
 ter than a hundred and fifty thousand a year for 
 doing other things poor worldly things, that do 
 no one any good ?" 
 
 Thus Mr. Leigh always resigned himself to be 
 comforted. 
 
 " Poor sermons mine, Grace, I am afraid," he 
 would say fondly, " to teach and comfort people ! 
 But I do always feel it an honor to read the pray- 
 ers and the lessons. Yet you must not undervalue 
 other people's callings, Gracie. Cousin Felix may 
 
I 44 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 serve God in his calling as well as I in mine." To 
 which Grace attempted no reply. 
 
 It was quite true that the Miss Lovels thought a 
 hundred and fifty pounds a year regularly quite a 
 fortune. 
 
 The regular income of the Miss Lovels was ten 
 pounds a year, from some mysterious fund for the 
 orphans of naval officers. Their father had been 
 a lieutenant in the navy ; their mother a pretty 
 portionless daughter of a lieutenant in the marines. 
 Cousin Felix would have disposed of the Miss 
 Levels' existence at once without further solicitude. 
 " Such people as Mr. and Mrs. Lovel had no right 
 to marry. Therefore, of course, the Miss Lovels 
 had no right to exist. Their existence was alto- 
 gether a mistake, and an impertinent intrusion into 
 the universe. There was no place provided for them 
 at the world's table ; society had never invited or 
 expected them at all ; and, accordingly, they 
 could never be too thankful if they were permitted 
 now and then to rest for a time on the edge of 
 other people's places, and to eke out a living 
 from other people's meals." 
 
 Miss Lavinia, the youngest botfi were elderly 
 was a pale, shadow-like, little woman, who 
 seemed so to have accepted Mr. Hunter's verdict as 
 to be in a general state of apology for her exist- 
 ence, and scarcely to have ventured to become a 
 being of solid flesh and blood at all, but to be hov- 
 ering perpetually on the borders of the world of 
 shades. It would have seemed quite natural that, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 145 
 
 as with a melancholy heathen ghost, the faint mur- 
 mur should have died at its birth on the pale, parted 
 lips ; and as it was, her voice was always dropping 
 into a whisper. Her face was like a faded sketch 
 in her own antique water-colors ; ringlets of fair, 
 thin hair, from which the gold had been rubbed off ; 
 light, mild eyes. Her dress seemed to partake of 
 the same colorless character. It did not sweep 
 and rustle like other people's. She glided in and out 
 among the pupils without displacing or coming in 
 contact with anything, as if impenetrability were 
 no property of the matter of which she was com- 
 posed. 
 
 Her accomplishments (for Miss Lavinia undertook 
 the accomplishments) were what might have been 
 expected 'the shadow of a shade ;' faint water-color 
 sketches of a world evidently below or beyond the 
 region of earthly color and substance, where the 
 " brown air" was but feebly varied with shadowy 
 grays ; mild, indefinite little tunes on the worn-out 
 cottage piano, which furnished the young ladies of 
 the academy with music ; a French which was 
 a slightly nasal modification of English echo of 
 an echo of some French lessons her mother's mother 
 had once had from an emigrant Abbe in the last 
 century. 
 
 There had also been a shadowy love story flowing 
 through a large portion of Miss Lavinia's life. A 
 taciturn but unexceptionable young man, clerk in a 
 government office, who had known her father and 
 formed an attachment for her during that brief space 
 when youth touched her pale features into a faint 
 13 
 
j 4 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 glow of beauty : and for thirty years he had con- 
 tinued to accompany the sisters every Sunday to 
 church, and to return with them to tea, on which 
 occasions he said little in the conversation, but 
 usually concluded by sending Miss Betsy to sleep 
 with a sermon, followed by a few minutes of low- 
 toned conversation with Miss Lavinia. Beyond 
 this neither the clerk nor Miss Lavinia seemed to 
 expect the matter to proceed. For twenty-five 
 years there had been a widowed mother to be sup- 
 ported. Then followed four years of patient sav- 
 ing and extra working for the future possible home. 
 Probably of too scanty living and too hard work ; 
 for at the end of those years came a year of failing 
 health and strength, which made the Sunday visits 
 difficult ; and an obstinate cough, which stopped the 
 reading of the sermon ; and at last, one Sunday, a 
 note in a trembling hand instead of a visit, full of 
 hope but never followed by another; and in a 
 fortnight an announcement of a death, scarcely no- 
 ticed by any but Miss Betsy, who perplexed herself 
 all day how to break it to Lavinia, and then found 
 at night that Lavinia had read it from the first in 
 her face. And after this his will ; by which Miss 
 Lavinia Lovel was left sole executrix and residuary 
 legatee of a fortune, which after paying doctor and 
 undertaker, left Miss Lavinia a residue sufficient to 
 purchase one mourning brooch for herself and one 
 for her sister. And these, with an old well-worn 
 leather writing-desk, formed the only visible relics 
 of an engagement of thirty years. 
 
 The elder sister, Miss Betsy was a striking con- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 147 
 
 trast to the younger. Plump, firmly built, with 
 quick black eyes, black glossy hair, and a fixed 
 bright color, she was prepared to do battle with 
 the world both for her sister's existence and her 
 own. To be " put down," or to be " put upon," 
 were achievements the most strong-minded person 
 would have found no easy matter with Miss Betsy. 
 Indeed, perhaps the most solid and substantial ex- 
 istence Miss Lavinia attained was in the central 
 place she occupied in Miss Betsy's very warm and 
 human heart. For to Miss Betsy Miss Lavinia, 
 shadow as she appeared to others, was the most 
 real and living being in the creation. She had 
 nursed her for hours together in her infancy, when 
 scarcely more than a baby herself. In girlhood she 
 had toiled at mending and sewing, and even at 
 house-work, that Lavinia, who was always delicate, 
 and was considered " talented," might pursue her 
 accomplishments. And Miss Lavinia's accomplish- 
 ments were to this day, now that they were elderly 
 women together, the pride of Miss Betsy's heart, 
 and in her belief the support of the academy, in 
 which she never ventured beyond the "solid 
 branches" of reading and writing, arithmetic, Pin- 
 nock's Goldsmith, sewing and darning. Outside 
 the school, indeed, she admitted that perhaps La- 
 vinia could not have done without her. The con- 
 test with impertinent landladies and parents, who 
 attempted to 'screw' or to patronize and the bargains 
 with acute shopkeepers, which were only a healthy 
 excitement to the brave naval and marine blood 
 which flowed in the true British veins of Miss 
 
148 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Betsy, would have soon altogether driven Miss La- 
 vinia from these regions of conflict. As it was, 
 the sound of dear Betsy's voice in such conflicts, 
 and the decisive, military bang of the door as she 
 returned triumphant from the glorious tumult of the 
 fight, not unfrequently brought Miss Lavinia's 
 " heart into her mouth," although she would not 
 have betrayed it to Miss Betsy for the world. 
 
 To Miss Lavinia Miss Betsy was an Achilles, in 
 whose presence everything was sure to prosper. 
 To Miss Betsy Miss Lavinia was a genius, whose 
 creations it was her happy vocation to appreciate 
 and promote. Thus, happy in the illusions of their 
 life-long love (if that, indeed, could be called illu- 
 sion which love so truly made them to each other), 
 the sisters found, in that life of endless small strug- 
 gles to make the two ends of a very narrow income 
 meet, which looked so dreary and poor to others, a 
 life of endless little ennobling self-denials, and lov- 
 ing contrivances for each other, and generous con- 
 cealments of want or pain. 
 
 And in that Day, when prizes are assigned, not 
 as with Miss Alicia Hunter's drawings, according 
 to size, but according to perfection from that Bar 
 whence this whole earth shall shrink to a planetary 
 point, and the two mites count for a kingdom on 
 what a broad focus of light will the deeds of many 
 such lives be projected ! 
 
 For there was one region in which Miss Lavinia's 
 life was neither shadowy nor feeble. Deep in that 
 heart, whose earthly pulses beat so feebly, glowed 
 the tire of Divine love. To her, God was, indeed, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 149 
 
 the substance of all being, the one eternal, living 
 " I Am," in whom alone all the true living live, and 
 move, and have their being. To her Christ was the 
 Light, and all else worth anything the reflection. 
 To her, heaven was the reality and earth the 
 shadow; and faith the substance of things hoped 
 for, the evidence of things not seen. In any conflict 
 where prayer or trust in God were the weapons to 
 be used, the relations between the sisters were re- 
 versed. Here it was Lavinia's tread that was 
 steady, and her grasp that was firm ; and the brave 
 elder sister leaned on her, and wondered at her, and 
 trusted her like a child. 
 
 Something of the same kind was the case with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Treherne. In the shop, Mr. Treherne, 
 with his small stature, his dark Celtic face, and his 
 hesitating utterance, invariably yielded the palm 
 to his stalwart Saxon wife, with her great hearty 
 voice, her handsome, ponderous frame, her frank, 
 animated face, and her very decisive opinions. But 
 in all matters that concerned the " Society " Mr. 
 and Mrs. Treherne being hereditary Wesleyans of 
 a century's standing it was Mr. Treherne who was 
 the giant, while his wife meekly sat at his feet. 
 Not that Caleb Treherne was in any circumstances 
 a man of quick, ready utterance. He was a class- 
 leader ; but his leading consisted rather in a faculty 
 of drawing others out to speak and work than in 
 saying much himself, except, indeed, in his prayers, 
 which came out in quick, short, detached sentences, 
 yet were always eloquent with the true eloquence 
 of prayer that is to say, they were prayers words 
 13* 
 
I $0 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 spoken evidently with the conviction that God was 
 nearer, and more ready to listen, and more able to 
 understand, and infinitely more able and willing to 
 help, than man. But it was in labors of love that 
 Caleb Treherne rose to his true spiritual stature 
 going after " backsliders " to public houses ; en- 
 countering violence with heroic gentleness ; prop- 
 ping up weak resolves by timely encouragement ; 
 quenching despair by unquenchable hope. " Hope- 
 less cases " were Caleb Treherne's chosen field. He 
 never gave up any one ; which implies that his cares 
 were not confined to the " class," or the " meeting," 
 but that his prayers in public were, indeed, only the 
 feeble overflowings of the torrents of unutterable 
 supplication he poured out in secret before God. 
 
 Caleb and Miss Lavinia were great allies. Many 
 a wandering sheep they had watched and prayed 
 over together she on the sofa, where her weak 
 spine obliged her to spend increasingly many hours, 
 and he in solitary morning journeys in his market- 
 cart, and in evening haunts among low courts and 
 alleys. Not that they had often met. Miss Lavinia 
 seldom went out except to church, and neither of 
 the sisters would have dreamt of setting foot in a 
 meeting-house ; but Caleb was handy, and had done 
 many occasional little services for the sisters, and 
 Miss Lavinia had an especial interest in the poor, 
 hard-worked, half-starved little maids-of-all-work 
 who appeared at their lodgings, and occasionally, 
 after loud words in the kitchen, disappeared, no one 
 but Caleb could find out where. 
 
 Her attention had first been drawn to these poor 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. l $ l 
 
 girls some years since, when she was sitting one 
 morning, not long after her lover's death, at the 
 open window, and heard the baker's boy address a 
 new maid who had come in that morning : 
 
 " Good luck to you, miss," he said ; " I've seen 
 ten on 'em in these six months. They mostly comes 
 on Saturdays and leaves on Mondays. They says 
 the Missis is particular, and the victuals ain't noth- 
 ing particular. But four on 'em stayed ; and one 
 on 'em is at Colney Hatch Madhouse ; and one in 
 the prison ; and one was took up by the p'lice for 
 drowning of herself; and you're the fifth. I wish 
 you good luck, miss." And the baker's boy went 
 up the steps humming a jaunty popular air, but 
 quite unconscious that he had dropped a living seed 
 of compassion into Miss Lavinia's heart. Thence- 
 forward she had the little maids in on Sunday, and 
 Bead the Bible and spoke kindly to them. Her 
 Sunday evenings were unoccupied now, she said ; 
 and from that time dated her friendship with Caleb 
 Treherne. 
 
 Both Miss Lavinia and Miss Betsy would as soon 
 have thought of recognizing an irregular army and 
 navy, as an irregular company of preachers. It 
 was very shocking, they both thought, and a proof of 
 the degeneracy of the times, that uneducated men 
 who could not pronounce their Vs should set them- 
 selves up in pulpits. But there is a good deal of 
 the work in this wilderness of a world which can- 
 not be done by people standing in pulpits or on 
 platforms, or any other high places ; however loud 
 they may call, the wandering sheep do not always 
 
! 5 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 come back for calling, but have to be followed in 
 quite an irregular way into most irregular places, 
 and brought back on the shoulders, or on the bosom, 
 or in any other way in which they can be got to 
 come. And for such work Miss Lavinia thought 
 the services of quite uneducated people, who could 
 not even pronounce their A's, ought not to be de- 
 clined, the great thing being to get it done. 
 
 And Caleb Treherne did it, as countless volun- 
 teers are doing it, working every day and night in 
 ragged schools, and crowded London alleys, among 
 Cornish mines or Northern collieries, unknown to 
 the Miss Lovels, or indeed to any of the " higher 
 classes," or perhaps to any one except the wander- 
 ing sheep they bring back, and the Good Shepherd 
 who is watching, and those whom the Good Shep- 
 herd calls to rejoice with him. Blundering, no 
 doubt, and stumbling, and sometimes failing and 
 fainting on their way, as most of us do ; but still 
 now and then just rescuing some one poor, lost, 
 perishing brother for whom Christ died, and thereby, 
 we are told, causing a new thrill of joy in the 
 presence of God. 
 
 The Miss Lovels had been Mrs. Leigh's first 
 friends on her arrival in the parish, and now after 
 fifteen years of that continual flow of emigration 
 which, as we are told, is always impelling the Indo- 
 European races from the east to the west, they were 
 the only friends in her own position of life remain- 
 ing in the district. 
 
 During those fifteen years there had been a steady 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 1 - 3 
 
 decline in the social dignity of the young ladies 
 who attended the Miss Lovels' Academy. 
 
 There had been days, Miss Betsy said (she being 
 the more sophisticated and worldly of the two), 
 when gentlemen who drove their gigs, and one lady 
 whose father kept a chariot and pair, and profes- 
 sional men, lawyers and doctors, who had connec- 
 tions in the army or navy or government offices, 
 and would on no account have " demeaned them- 
 selves " to trade, had been proud to send their 
 children to study with the Miss Lovels. " Then 
 Grace, my dear," she said, one day just before the 
 holidays, " we had something like examinations ! 
 The young ladies repeating their pieces and playing 
 their tunes so prettily, and the table covered with 
 their drawings, screens, and portfolios of embossed 
 cardboard, and watch-pockets, and painting on vel- 
 vet, and bunches of wax flowers as large as life, 
 which the parents thought it well worth while to 
 put under glass shades. And Mr. Bellamy (his 
 brother is in the Customs, and he was a man of the 
 most refined language, and always spoke as cor- 
 rectly as if he was at a public meeting), I remember 
 his coming up to me and saying, with a bow fit for 
 a court, before all the parents and scholars, ' Miss 
 Level, these paintings by my granddaughter would 
 do credit to the Royal Academy. No doubt, all 
 have not equal talents, but these productions do 
 infinite credit, ladies, both to your capabilities and 
 your exertions as instructresses.' And now the 
 grocer's wife in the next street comes to me and 
 complains that for what she pays she thinks it bare 
 
I 54 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 justice that her daughter should be able in a twelve- 
 month to paint something fit to hang up in their 
 parlor, and that the National schoolmistress teaches 
 more geography than we do ! It was a great pity 
 that ever we took tradespeople's children," con- 
 cluded Miss Betsy, " and it is a great imposition 
 that charity-children should be taught geography at 
 all. What chance have the daughters of gentlemen 
 if Government sets up young women who ought to 
 be thankful to know how to sew and read their 
 Bibles, to dress in silks and velvets, and to teach 
 any beggar's brat that will learn, the atlas and the 
 grammar ? I can't think what the world will come 
 to ; and not a maid-of-all-work- to be found who 
 knows how to shake a feather-bed ! " 
 
 But Miss Lavinia, who was always afraid lest in 
 railing against the course of the world, her sister 
 should be unconsciously railing against Providence, 
 and who was also anxious not to give gloomy im- 
 pressions of life to Grace, observed gently : 
 
 "I suppose Government thought a good deal 
 about it, sister, first ; and after all there's no going 
 beyond Providence. It does seem as if some people 
 got out of the stream, and were left behind some- 
 how ; especially women, and especially when every- 
 thing goes so fast as it does now. But I suppose 
 if one were only on the stream, it would seem a 
 very fine thing to see it going so fast. We must 
 get you on the stream, Grace dear, if we can," she 
 concluded. 
 
 " I suppose the people on the stream are always 
 seeing new shores," pursued Grace musing, " while 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. ^5 
 
 those who are left behind always see the same 
 shores, only new waters and new boats always 
 passing them. But, please, I had much rather not 
 get into the stream and leave any one behind." 
 
 " There is a river which leaves no one behind, 
 dear, whether they will or no," said Miss Lavinia 
 softly ; " and there is a River, the streams whereof 
 make glad the city of God. We should not mind 
 being left behind by all the world, if we are borne 
 home on that River, Gracie." 
 
 At this moment Miss Betsy found some work 
 which required a good deal of moving about, as 
 she frequently did when her sister fell into that 
 strain, and at length, when Grace left, she said, 
 rather impatiently, " Well, Lavinia, I am sure I 
 meant no disrespect to Government or to Provi- 
 dence ; but it does seem to me as if things were in 
 a general way left to themselves. Of course, they 
 get shaken right now and then when they are going 
 too far wrong; and there is the Deluge, or the 
 Philistines, or the captivity, as the Bible tells us. 
 But between times it does seem to me things are 
 allowed to go a good bit out of the way. It may 
 be my temptation, but that's how it seems to me. 
 And I never shall think Government can be justi- 
 fied for letting those young women at the National 
 Schools teach geography ; or that it's a good thing 
 for all the respectable people in the parish to go 
 and live miles away in the country, leaving the 
 tradespeople to set themselves up as gentry, and 
 the poor to sink into savages or American republi- 
 cans. And I always shall think it mysterious that 
 
156 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 your talents should be wasted at this end of the 
 town." 
 
 Miss Betsy's controversy with society was, you 
 see, extensive and profound ; and Miss Lavinia 
 having long given up both the hope of disentan- 
 gling her sister's many social perplexities, and the 
 feminine ambition of having the last word, dropped 
 the subject. 
 
 Only as they read the Bible together in the even- 
 ing, and, as it happened, came in their course to the 
 tenth chapter of St. John, she paused a moment at 
 the words, " He calleth his own sheep by name, 
 and leadeth them out," and said, " Then there must 
 always be some bewilderments and perplexities to 
 lead them out of, mustn't there, sister ? It always 
 bewilders one so to think of Government, and 
 Providence, and society. And then it is such a 
 help to come back to the ' by name? and i one by 
 one? That's how He leads us, and that's what I 
 think we've got to do for one another. ' By name? 
 and ' one by one? And, sister," she continued, " I'd 
 rather you wouldn't say it's mysterious that I am 
 not more appreciated. It always seems to me 
 mysterious I get on as well as I do ; of course, I 
 shouldn't if it weren't for you. And I forgot to 
 tell you that Caleb Treherne has found that poor 
 little runaway Jenny, and got her into a place with 
 a good woman who will be kind and look after her." 
 
 That was Miss Lavinia's way of disentangling 
 the perplexities of our social system. She was in- 
 capable of climbing to any earthly height from 
 which she could command a prospect of the field 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. i$j 
 
 of the world. But there are two points, one in the 
 depths and one on the upper heights, from which 
 its perplexities are less perplexing than from any 
 intermediate regions. One is in the path of lowly 
 obedience and only reveals to-day ; and the other 
 is on the threshold of eternity, and commands the 
 ages. And while the " love that is not puifed up 
 and seeketh not her own," kept Miss Lavinia's steps 
 to the one, the faith which endures as seeing Him 
 who is invisible, frequently bore her on eagle wings 
 to the other. 
 
 Miss Lavinia had unconsciously touched on one 
 of Grace's greatest difficulties, when she spoke of 
 getting her "out of the creek into the stream." 
 Leaving the Miss Levels behind was exactly the 
 thing she was always afraid of some day doing. 
 It seemed to her such a disloyalty not to think as 
 highly of those water-colors, which were, in Miss 
 Betsy's eyes, the perfection of art ; and whose ex- 
 cellences even Miss Lavinia but mildly disclaimed. 
 Yet after vainly endeavoring to accommodate the 
 view of the world taken in these drawings to any- 
 thing either at Greenwich, in the Parks, or 011 
 Hampstead Heath ; after looking in vain for the 
 brown foreground tree tapering like a telescope, 
 and then having to sustain three gigantic tufts of 
 brown vegetation, which had apparently crushed 
 its trunk into a helpless curvature of the spine ; 
 and for the round gray woolly balls on the wood- 
 land distance, or the similar white gray woolly balls 
 in the sky, Grace had taken refuge in a theory that 
 there must be fashions in painting as in other things, 
 14 
 
158 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and concluded that Miss Lavinia's paintings were as 
 much beyond criticism and impertinent comparison 
 with nature as the sculptures of Egypt or of Nine- 
 veh. Meanwhile, inasmuch as the fashions did not 
 change in natural things, and the crimson-tipped 
 daisy was evidently clothed in the same garb as 
 the one beneath Burns' plough ; and the primroses 
 had not grown paler nor the grass greener since 
 Shakspeare's time ; and the " lilies of the field " (if, 
 as her father thought, they meant the scarlet poppy 
 or anemone) had kept their first glory longer still ; 
 and since, moreover, Grace could command mosses 
 and flowers and vegetables in brown baskets to 
 copy; and could not command woods and lakes 
 and mountains, she thought it safer, and certainly 
 pleasanter, to abandon the lofty regions of land- 
 scape in which Miss Lavinia and her cousin Alicia 
 Hunter disported themselves, and to hover quietly 
 like a honey bee over the mosses and grasses and 
 sweet lowly blossoms. 
 
 She had also vainly struggled against the convic- 
 tion that she learned more geography from the 
 maps at the National School than from the " geo- 
 graphy book." And besides the uncomfortable 
 suspicion* which she had mentioned to Winifred, 
 as to whether the Miss Lavinia's French would be 
 quite understood in France, the organist, on the 
 day of the last recorded conversation with the 
 Miss Lovels, gave a ruthless blow to her musical 
 acquirements, when, at her father's request, she 
 had played him the most elaborate of Miss La- 
 
THE WORIJ) SHE LIVED IN. 159 
 
 vinia's quadrilles, by declaring that she must begin 
 at the beginning, and practice scales and exercises, 
 and then he had no doubt he could make something 
 of her. Poor little Grace could have cried, not at 
 her own failure, but at the thought how vexed Miss 
 Lavinia would be if she were to hear it ; for Miss 
 Lavinia had pronounced that she could teach her 
 no more, an announcement which had exalted Grace 
 into a prodigy in the estimation of all the other 
 young ladies, and especially of Miss Betsy. It 
 was terrible to the tender-hearted loyal child to 
 feel the world, and even herself, do what she could 
 to hide it, thus leaving her mother's old kind friends 
 behind. Thus it happened that her compassionate 
 reverent thoughts, with the recollection of Miss 
 Lavinia's words, embodied themselves that night 
 in a dream. She seemed to be stranded in a reedy 
 creek, with her father and the Miss Lovels in four 
 little boats, while all the world was rowing and 
 sailing or steaming merrily past them in gay barges 
 and steamers ; national schoolmistresses in brilliant 
 ribbons, and the " young ladies " of the academy 
 itself with their parents, in the most fashionable 
 shawls and bonnets, and Cousin Alicia with a paint- 
 ing as large as those in the Houses of Parliament, 
 and Mr. and Mrs. Hunter serenely contemplating 
 it. All this would not have distressed 'Grace in the 
 least, for she would have been happier with her 
 friends in the creek, than with all the rest of the 
 world on the broad stream, had it not been for an 
 uneasy feeling that they had all to go somewhere, 
 and ought to be getting on ; and for the scornful, 
 
160 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 t 
 
 or reproachful, or compassionate gestures of the 
 people who were getting on in the steamers and 
 barges. But worse than all, it happened that 
 Grace's own boat was on the outer edge of the 
 creek and all but in the current, and friendly but 
 mistaken people every now and then would give 
 her a helping hand, so that she was in continual 
 dread of being swept away with the crowd. At 
 last the dreaded moment came ; Winifred Bertram 
 came floating by, and with a little laughing touch 
 actually set Grace's boat drifting down the stream. 
 Then just as she had dropped her oars, and was 
 crying bitterly as she lost sight of the old familiar 
 shores, she heard her father's voice saying, " Never 
 mind, Grace, look up, it will be all right at last ;" 
 and rising in the boat to look, she suddenly caught, 
 through the reedy jungle on the banks, a glimpse 
 of another river flowing from the further end of 
 the creek where they had been stranded. As she 
 looked longer, she saw that it was not a river, but 
 an arm of the great sea beyond, and the waves 
 came slowly sweeping up, till they flooded its banks, 
 and filled the creek to the brim, and floated the 
 stranded boats. And when the ebb came, she saw 
 them borne along the golden tide to the golden sea 
 beyond, which was clear as crystal, yet glowing 
 through and through as if with fire. And she saw 
 that from that forgotten creek and the boats stranded 
 there out of the way of the world, there was a way 
 to the Crystal Sea and the Golden City, more direct 
 even than by the great stream. And Grace awoke, 
 and thought a long time over her dream, and was 
 comforted. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. j6i 
 
 For the Miss Levels were not the only people 
 she knew whom the busy eager world had left 
 behind, or was leaving behind, on that forsaken 
 strand of the east of London. There was a laun- 
 dress whose customers had migrated westward, 
 and who was too old to follow, and who had long 
 stories of the good old families she had washed for 
 in the good old times. There was a poor widow 
 whose mother had made a decent living by needle- 
 work, who was now engaged in a hopeless struggle 
 with the " sewing machines," and had the greatest 
 difficulty in eking out bread for her little ones from 
 the workhouse allowance, and making shirts at a 
 penny three-farthings each, with the thread to buy. 
 And to these, and to many others, the progress of 
 society seemed the progress of a Juggernaut, out 
 of whose way they had no strength to struggle. 
 
 And with regard to all these it was a great com- 
 fort to think there was a way still open to the sea 
 of glass and the songs of triumph and the city of 
 God, even for those who have been baffled and 
 stranded on this stream of time. 
 
 But, perhaps, the friend closest of all to Grace's 
 heart was Mrs. Anderson, the baker's wife, who 
 lived on the opposite side of the street. For Mrs. 
 Anderson had nursed Mrs. Leigh with the tender- 
 ness of a mother and the reverence of an old ser- 
 vant, and there was a natural courtesy and dignity 
 about her which prevented her ever wounding Mr. 
 Leigh's or Grace's feelings by the unconscious 
 patronage which sometimes tasked Grace's humil- 
 ity to the utmost with Mrs. Treherne. Mrs. Tre- 
 14* 
 
l6z WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 herne looked on Mr. Leigh and Grace, not to 
 mention her own children and her husband and the 
 Miss Levels as a kind of " feeble folk " whom it 
 was her " mission " to direct and take care of, if 
 they were submissive, with gentleness ; if not, with 
 decision, for their good, whether they liked it or not. 
 
 But Mrs. Anderson had too strong an individ- 
 uality of her own not to respect other people's. 
 Besides she had not the Saxon aggressiveness of 
 Mrs. Treherne, which does not improve the man- 
 ners ; but rather a Celtic or Oriental passiveness, 
 when it was not a question of right or wrong, 
 which gives a high-toned mixture of repose and 
 deference to the manner, worthy of the best society. 
 To Mrs. Treherne a difference of opinion was a 
 thing which brought her out of her shell to contend 
 and conquer, and perhaps at some occasions to be 
 conquered. With Mrs. Anderson a difference of 
 opinion sent her back into her shell to endure and 
 to defend, and perhaps to be silenced, but never to 
 be conquered. 
 
 Moreover, Mrs. Anderson came from a fallen 
 ancestry, and a race that had known better days. 
 She had married a Lowlander, of whose " English " 
 as of his pedigree she thought little ; but her 
 grandfather had been a Highland farmer in Suther- 
 landshire, and her own childhood had been spent 
 in one of the fishing villages on the coast, into 
 which the inland peasantry were crowded when 
 their houses were unroofed and their glens were 
 depopulated to make way for the gigantic sheep- 
 farms. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. ^3 
 
 Many a tale of wrong and ruin Mrs. Anderson 
 told Grace as she initiated her into the mysteries 
 of heels and toes of stocking-knitting. The old 
 histories dropped from her lips in quiet cadences 
 of voice, falling monotonously like a Gregorian 
 chant ; with as little comment on the right or 
 wrong, and as few tempests of indignation as in 
 the old Scriptural narratives, but with that irresisti- 
 ble pathos of unexaggerated facts, which burns 
 into the heart more than the most vehement denun- 
 ciations. Deep into Grace's heart sank the story 
 of those old wasted homes. She saw the deep 
 glens among the hills, each with its own cluster of 
 farms and cottages, the inhabitants for the most 
 part very poor, and earning a precarious livelihood 
 in that uncertain climate, but loving their homes 
 and their burial places with the tenacity of affec- 
 tion peculiar to a race much of whose life is in the 
 past rather than in the future. She followed them 
 in their Sabbath gatherings from many a scattered 
 glen to the church where their forefathers had 
 prayed, and around which they had been laid to 
 rest for generations, and she seemed to have heard 
 the solemn singing of their grand old hymns when 
 they met from far and wide on the hillside for a 
 Sacrament. Grand old hymns they were. Mrs. 
 Anderson said there were none like them. Some 
 of them had been brought in old days from the 
 Continent, where one of the chiefs had led many 
 of his clansmen to fight for Gustavus Adolphus in 
 the great Protestant conflict of the seventeenth 
 century. More than one of Mrs. Anderson's family 
 
164 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND. 
 
 bore the name of the Swedish hero ; and some of 
 Grace's most vivid glimpses of history were those 
 which came to her through these old Highland 
 traditions of the Thirty Years' War. Homer, and 
 Shakespeare, and Mrs. Anderson were indeed her 
 chief historical authorities, and the Iliad with its 
 brave tender-hearted dying hero seemed to her 
 strangely to spring forth again in the Christian 
 king who. never spared himself, and died on the 
 victorious field ; and again in those poor, brave, 
 patient Highlanders, whose houses were unroofed, 
 and their women cast homeless on the world, while 
 they were far away victoriously fighting the battles 
 of the nation. Many a time she cried heartily as 
 she thought of the poor families leaving the un- 
 roofed houses of their fathers, the poor household 
 furniture which had made the old home so home- 
 like, looking so forlorn as it was stowed away in 
 the farm cart ; and the cattle which had been such 
 familiar friends in the simple country life, sold 
 away as if they were mere chattels ; and they them- 
 selves huddled into wretched crowded villages on 
 the coast, where those who still clung to the old 
 country were left to struggle with starvation year 
 after, while the sheep were grazing in their deso- 
 lated glens, delighting in the greener patches which 
 marked where the ruined homesteads had been. 
 
 Many a time little Grace listened to the quietly 
 told tale of bitter wrongs, in speechless indigna- 
 tion; but when she spoke, Mrs. Andeison gave 
 but a faint response. At least, so Grace used to 
 think at first. Afterwards she learned that such 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 165 
 
 wrongs are not alleviated by words. They must 
 either be avenged, or endured. There were only 
 two alternatives ; and the i Sutherlandshire High- 
 landers had chosen the latter. 
 
 Once, indeed, Grace, fresh from the Odyssey, had 
 come primed with consolations for the wrongs of 
 her friend's kindred. 
 
 She gave her the history of the Iliad, the death 
 of Hector, and the lamentings of the Trojan wo- 
 men. Mrs. Anderson considered it must have been 
 like an old Highland funeral. 
 
 " But, Mrs. Anderson," Grace continued, " there 
 was another history to follow. Scarcely one of 
 those old heroes reached their homes in safety, and 
 none without years of sorrowful wanderings. So 
 you see the gods did avenge after all." 
 
 " That may be, Miss Grace," said Mrs. Ander- 
 son; "but you see they were but heathen gods 
 after all, and had nothing but this world, poor 
 things, to look to. So the stories had to be fin- 
 ished off on earth. But we have got the Bible, 
 and for the most part you'll see the Bible stories do 
 not not get finished in this world at all Nor, I 
 think, do ours." 
 
 "But," said Grace, "to burn the house down 
 about the poor old mother, while the sons were 
 fighting the battles of the country ! Surely there 
 are some things God punishes even here." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Anderson, " Til not say that 
 I've not heard very dark stories of the way the 
 factors who did that work came to their end. And 
 one thing, I know," she continued, with a 'quiet 
 
166 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 irony, "they may search the hills far and wide 
 before they'll fill up the Highland regiments now. 
 'Will you not fight for the country?' said the 
 recruiting sergeants, and the men gave answer, 
 ' We've no country to fight for.' They may hunt 
 the deer on the mountains, and count their sheep 
 by thousands in the glens, but when they want 
 something else than sheep and deer to fight their 
 battles, the men are away, hunted out of hearing, 
 over the hills and over the seas, and they'll find 
 them hard to reach." 
 
 " But," said Grace, struggling hard for a visible 
 solution of the problem which weighed on her 
 heart, " you say the people have better homes in 
 the new country than in the old ; and, perhaps, God 
 meant the new countries to have people living in 
 them, and made the cruel people bring about good 
 in that way. You know, Mrs. Anderson, there was 
 Joseph ; he was even sold for a slave, yet God did 
 make it end well." 
 
 " The Lord forbid I should say it's not all well, 
 Miss Grace ; but it's not for me to be peepirg and 
 prying into His reasons. How would I know I'd 
 not put down the wrong reason after all, and so 
 been blaspheming him ? No doubt, the Lord or- 
 dains all things, and, no doubt, all that He ordains 
 is right. No doubt we are but the clay in the 
 hand of the potter, and shall the thing formed say 
 to Him that formed it, What doest Thou ? The 
 world was not created for us, Miss Grace, nor 
 we for ourselves, but for the Lord." 
 
 Grace was awed and silenced, and refrained from 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. ^7 
 
 further consolation. As she looked at Mrs. Ander- 
 son's grave, worn, earnest face, and heard the deep 
 reverent tone in which she spoke, she felt there was 
 a majesty in such unconditional submission beside 
 which all her struggles to find out reasons seemed 
 the restless frettings of a baby. 
 
 " But, Mrs. Anderson," she ventured to say at 
 length, " God does care for us, does n't He, even in 
 the little things by the way as well as in the great 
 things at the end? Even for the sparrows, you 
 know, he cares, our Lord said." 
 
 " Cares for us ! Miss Grace," exclaimed Mrs. An- 
 derson, her clear gray eye for a moment kindling, 
 and then vailing its fire in tears. " I should just 
 think he does ! As he cares for the sparrows ? No ! 
 as a father pities his children, his babes ! Cares for 
 us ? Why, he died for us, my poor lamb. He died 
 on the cross for us. Cares for us ? No wonder ! 
 And more than that. He redeemed us by his blood, 
 He saved us, paid the whole ransom and set us free ; 
 took the whole burden, 'and will bring us the whole 
 way through to share the whole glory. The Lord 
 does no half works, Miss Grace, and gives no half- 
 gifts, and forgives with no half-forgiveness. He 
 forgives and forgets (he says it), and washes us 
 white as snow, and never leaves nor forsakes his 
 people till he gets the poor ragged prodigal to his 
 Father's heart, and the poor cripple beggar on the 
 king's throne." 
 
 Mrs. Anderson was a firm adherent of the old 
 Covenanting theology, and thought rather little of 
 the orthodoxy of the Independent Chapel which her 
 
168 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 husband sometimes attended, as the nearest approach 
 to Presbyterianism within reach on wet evenings. 
 
 Many a battle she had with Mrs. Treherne for her 
 Calvinism ; but Caleb, orthodox Wesleyan that he 
 was, felt no uneasiness about it. " For," said Caleb, 
 " Mrs. Anderson believes that every thing good be- 
 gins, and goes through, and ends with the Lord, and 
 so did John Wesley ; and as to what happened be- 
 fore the beginning, it's my belief, neither Mrs. An- 
 derson nor I, nor John Wesley himself could tell. 
 And she believes that it's a real fight we're in with 
 the devil, not a got-up fight arranged beforehand 
 like a puppet-show ; and that if we pray, the Lord 
 hears and does help us and others too ; and if we 
 go after the lost sheep, he does really help us to 
 bring them back when they were going further and 
 further away. And she believes it's no painted fight, 
 and no painted devil, and no painted Saviour, but 
 a real fight to be lost or won, and a real devil, and 
 a real Saviour ; not a helper only, but the Saviour. 
 Mrs. Anderson's a real good woman, and has be- 
 haved like a mother to that poor little straying 
 maid I found out for Miss Lovel. And if she's got 
 some twists ; why so have most of us, and so I ex- 
 pect we shall until we get put straight in the other 
 world." For Caleb was not metaphysical ; and he 
 was well acquainted with Mrs. Anderson, who, 
 besides this history of her kindred, had an especial 
 history of her own, which Grace did not learn till 
 afterwards. Mrs. Anderson, on her part, thought 
 Caleb very " sound for an Englishman." 
 
 Little Grace was not ignorant of these theologi- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 169 
 
 it 
 
 cal discussions ; and although once when she ques- 
 tioned Mr. Leigh about them, he said these were 
 things quite beyond a little girl's comprehension, 
 she could not help pondering them in her mind, 
 until at last she found her way to the great foun- 
 dation question of the origin of evil. For a very 
 short flight brings us to the bars of our cage, and 
 little children climb very soon to the bottom of 
 difficulties which no philosopher can scale. 
 
 M It is very difficult," she thought, " and yet if we 
 were to be people at all, and not things to be moved 
 about, it does seem as if it could not be helped that 
 we might go wrong if we would." 
 
 So, Grace having beaten her wings a little while 
 against the bars, wisely turned from them altogether 
 and soared upward, there being no bars to hinder 
 the flight of the mind or heart in that direction ; 
 the temple of the world, like the ancient temples, 
 being always open to the sky. She took refuge in 
 God himself. " For thou, O God," she thought, 
 " art love." And then when her thoughts came 
 down to earth again, she found there the stem of 
 the Cross, at the foot of which she could rest as 
 peacefully as in the heights above the clouds. For 
 there also, in a cry of anguish, and in crimson stains 
 she could, read as clearly as in characters of light, 
 and in songs of joy above, " Thou art love." 
 
 But Mrs. Anderson had a personal history of her 
 own quite independent of the history of her people ; 
 and it was this which, as it came pouring out one 
 day in an hour of rare confidence, drew Grace's 
 heart to her so closely forever. 
 15 
 
I 7 o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " I was not always a childless old woman, Miss 
 Grace,, as I am now. I came to London as rich as 
 Hannah when the Lord had heard her prayer. Not 
 that I had seven bairns ; but my two were as much 
 to me as seven. One was a bonny lad, as full of 
 spirit as Master Harry ; and one was a lassie with 
 fair hair like yourself. Maybe that's why I think so 
 much of you. I had known pretty much what it is 
 to be poor, and I set myself to work, heart and soul, 
 that Alick and Maggie might never taste a bitter 
 drop out of that cup. I saved and toiled, and I 
 stinted and I spared ; and I grudged many a time 
 to see how hungry my goodman was. I thought it 
 was all duty and love. But the Lord knew better, 
 Miss Grace, and a sore controversy He had with me. 
 It's a long story; but I'll make it short. First, He 
 laid his hand on the worldly goods. We were set- 
 tled in Glasgow, and had a pretty business, when a 
 new-fashioned man came with advertisements and 
 new-fangled devices, and embellishments, and un- 
 dersold us, and beguiled away our customers. He 
 was ruined himself afterwards, poor foolish man : 
 but little comfort was there in that. Then we came 
 to London. And a very mysterious dispensation I 
 thought it, Miss Grace, that the Lord should prosper 
 an upstart like that, and let diligent, honest, old- 
 established people, like James Anderson and me, be 
 banished from the country. Many a time we 
 tangle our threads and let down our stitches, Miss 
 Grace, and then talk of the Lord's mysterious dis- 
 pensations ! But that's neither here nor there. 
 Well, we prospered well in London. And then I 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 171 
 
 thought the Lord, as it were, had found out what 
 we were at last, and was giving us our reward. 
 And the foolish man in Glasgow failed, which 
 proved, I said to James Anderson, that there is a 
 Providence that orders all. I thought it the most 
 fitting thing in the world, Miss Grace, that all the 
 good things should drop into our hands, such sober, 
 frugal people as we were. If James Anderson had 
 been made Lord Mayor, I believe I should have 
 thought it the most natural thing in the world, and 
 have thanked the Almighty for doing the right 
 thing, and never have had a thought I was like the 
 Pharisee in the parable. I thought I was as humble 
 as the publican, for I was never one that made a 
 loud profession of religion. We always put our 
 mite into the ' ladle' when the deacon came round. 
 Our * mite,' I called it, for what indeed had I to 
 spare more than the poor widow (I thought), with 
 Alick and Maggie to provide for, and Alick to make 
 a minister of, if the Lord gave him the call. So I 
 spared more and more, and grudged more and -more, 
 and despised the poor people who were so foolish 
 as not to get on in the world, and had never a 
 thought all the time that I was coiling a serpent 
 close around my heart. But the Lord knew ; and 
 He visited me again. This time He laid his hand 
 not on the goods but on the bairn. Alick took the 
 fever, and spite of all I could do, and all the doctors 
 could do ; for the one idol broke the other as it 
 fell, Miss Grace, and I spared neither silver nor gold 
 the laddie died. 
 
 " And then all the rebellion broke out in my heart 
 
172 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 again. I did not say a murmuring word. But my 
 whole life was one long murmur from morning to 
 night. My prayers were murmurs ; my thanksgiv- 
 ings were murmurs ; for I thanked the Almighty, 
 or I tried to thank him, that I was not as the poor, 
 careless wretches around me. They never prayed, 
 I said, and their bairns were not smitten ! It was 
 not for me, who was honored by His chastening, to 
 wish myself as they, going as they were going on 
 the broad road to destruction. At least that was 
 the bitter comfort I tried to find out of my anguish, 
 when I heard the little ones laugh and gambol, and 
 would have given all I had in the world for one 
 clasp of the little arms that were cold. At first I 
 told you my idol was broke by the fall of the other. 
 But the beautiful idol was gone from my sight, and 
 the hideous, monstrous thing, set itself up again 
 stronger than ever. 
 
 " I would make our Maggie a lady, I thought. 
 Easy enough to do, I thought, and she so fair and 
 gentle, with such winning ways of her own ; no 
 days of want should come near her ! I would send 
 her to the Miss Levels with you, Miss Grace, I 
 thought ; and she should be fit to take her part with 
 the best in the country. So the old serpent crept 
 in again. And I spared, and saved, and stinted, and 
 counted the gains that were, 4 and the gains that 
 should be, and had never a penny to give beyond 
 the l mite ' I could give without feeling it. And all, 
 I thought, for Maggie, and for love and duty ! Was 
 not he that did not provide for his own house worse 
 than an infidel ? 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 173 
 
 " The Almighty did not leave me without many 
 a warning from his own word. Most times I was 
 clever enough to turn the edge of his messages 
 straight off on my neighbors. But one word cut 
 me sharp for the time. 
 
 " It was the New Year's Day after Alick was 
 taken, and I was straying along with no heart for 
 church or home, when I passed a church well lighted 
 for service, and filled with many poor, humble- 
 looking people; and something made me go in. 
 The minister was half through his sermon, and I 
 never knew the text, but his words were very 
 searching, and they searched me or, I should say, 
 the Lord searched me with them. He said New 
 Year's Days are questioning days. The Lord was 
 catechizing us all, as it were. We were taking 
 stock, he said of our goods ; but our goods, as it 
 were, were also taking stock of us. We asked what 
 we had made of them. God was asking what they 
 had made of us. Now, whatever the last year had 
 been, he said it had been one of conflict. Whether 
 we knew it or not, he was sure of that. On which- 
 ever side we were, there had been a battle going on 
 for us and within us between the Saviour and the 
 Devil. He went on to say and that was what cut 
 me that the Devil had sometimes no objection to 
 help us even against our sins. He drove out the 
 sins of youth by the sins of age. He drove out the 
 lust of the flesh by the lust of the eye, and the lust 
 of the eye by the pride of life ; and the warm, 
 quick sins of youth, by the cold, slow sins of age. 
 But all the Devil's driving out, he said, was reallr 
 15* 
 
I 7 4 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND . 
 
 only driving in. ' You,' he said, looking at me (I 
 thought), ' who think you are above caring for show, 
 and pleasure and folly, take care you have not ex- 
 changed all these idols for a worse than all the 
 service of Mammon, the love of money. Not caring 
 for outward shows, but caring infinitely for what 
 will give you the power to purchase these if you 
 liked ; you who scorn the pride and gewgaws of 
 youth, take care you are not priding yourselves on 
 being above pride. Take care you are not taking 
 your idols from the court of the Temple to the Holy 
 Place. Take care you are not driving your enemies 
 from the field into the citadel. Take care whether 
 you are driving your sins out or in. J 
 
 " Those w^ords haunted me long. It was Mr. 
 Bertram who was preaching ; and often and often 
 the question came back Out or in? Are you 
 driving your sins out or in ? 
 
 " However, I got the better of that controversy, 
 and persuaded myself that it was no love of money, 
 but the love of Maggie, which made me grudge, 
 stint, and save. Was n't she God's gift to us ? 
 And besides the natural love in my heart, had I not 
 the Lord's own command to care for the lassie ? So 
 the serpent coiled tighter and tighter, and I nour- 
 ished it in my bosom, and called it a heavenly 
 grace. But the Lord knew better, Miss Grace. 
 And he smote me again ; and this time the stroke 
 came home. 
 
 " He took my Maggie, my poor, own, only bairn. 
 He smote the lassie, and she died. And then I sat 
 seven days by the dead child, with the chests stored 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. .175 
 
 with fine linen for her wedding, and she that would 
 never need but that one white shroud in which she 
 lay stretched before me ! I did not make much 
 moaning ; where was the use ? Nor did I make 
 much prayer. The Pharisee's prayers die on the 
 lips when the anguish is great as mine. I could not 
 stand up against the rod and thank God he had 
 stricken me now, and that I was not like other men. 
 A poor, abject, bruised, earthly-hearted, childless 
 woman, that would have gone on my knees to be 
 allowed to be like even the poorest beggar I despised, 
 only to have niy Maggie again. I was down, Miss 
 Grace, down! And there were the profits that 
 Christmas, like a little fortune ! We might have 
 sent the bairn to the first school in the land and 
 there she lay in her little four feet of grave. I 
 sought no comfort. I hoped for none. I had no 
 controversy with the Lord. I had felt his hand. 
 But I crouched under it like a poor, smitten, abject 
 hound, with all the human heart beaten out of me. 
 But that was not what the Lord meant, Miss Grace. 
 That was not what he meant ! 
 
 " That New Year's Day I strayed in again, my 
 goodman and I, into Mr. Bertram's Church. He 
 had another question that night ; it was, ' Upward 
 or Downward.' He said (or that was what I mind 
 his saying), every sorrow was like a landing-place 
 on the great winding stair of life. Two ways led 
 from it up and down ; and two Spirits stood there, 
 the spirit of evil and the Spirit of God ; and one 
 tried to lead us downwards and the other upwards. 
 And downwards or upwards we must go ; for the 
 
I7 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 ground was slippery, and no one could stand still 
 on it. 
 
 " ' Now,' he said, ' there you are, but there you 
 cannot stay. A great grief has smitten you down. 
 Will you listen to the Tempter who is trying to 
 make you think hard thoughts of God ? Will you 
 believe that because the Lord kateth you he chasten- 
 eth you ? Will you crouch and writhe from under 
 the rod ? Will you glide down, with your hand in 
 the enemy's, from slope to slope, from depth to 
 depth, from darkness to darkness, until you are fit 
 to become a tempter like him, and to say to others, 
 as he says to you, ' God hath forgotten ! Tush ! he 
 regardeth not ! What are your griefs to him. ? 
 Could he not have healed them all with a word ? 
 He sits on high and rules the stars, not you and 
 your poor little petty lives.' Or will you bow down 
 beneath the rod, and look up beneath it, and take 
 the gracious Hand of the Comforter, stretched out 
 to you, and let him lift you up, when His time 
 comes ; and bruised, and humbled, and broken as 
 you are, lead you gently on and up to where he can 
 show you what danger he drove you from, in smiting 
 you ? until he makes you a comforter too, and from 
 your poor, trembling lips shall drop on the hearts 
 of other mourners such words as He speaks to you. 
 * Because the Lord loveth he chasteneth you.' He 
 cares for every pang you suffer. But he cares in- 
 finitely more to save you from sin. For that He 
 bowed beneath not the scourge only, but the cross. 
 For that, dearly as He loves you, He spares neither 
 rod, nor sword, nor fire. And that, if you will yield 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 177 
 
 yourselves up to His will and His way with all 
 your hearts, He will do.' 
 
 " I went out, Miss Grace, and my goodman said 
 it was a fine discourse for the Church of England. 
 But I said nothing. Not Mr. Bertram, but the Lord 
 himself had been preaching to me. And I went to 
 my poor Maggie's little empty room, and knelt 
 down by her little empty bed, a poor, broken- 
 hearted, stricken, sinful woman, without a ray of 
 goodness, or strength, or hope, and I said, * Lord, 
 Lord, not down, but up I I have no foothold ; I 
 have no strength. Oh, stretch out thy hand ; let 
 me not perish ! Hold Thou me up ! up ! Not 
 downwards, but upwards? And he heard me ! 
 Heard me ? Had not he been calling me all those 
 years, until at last he opened my heart to hear ? 
 And since then He has given me many little things 
 to do for Him, and never to this day let me set up 
 the idol again. And to this day I pray He ne"ver 
 will." 
 
 Thus little Grace received her education in a way 
 that brought her early into contact with some his- 
 torical facts not mentioned in her " Pinnock's Gold- 
 smith," and with many very ancient problems, 
 social, political, and theological. 
 
 She learned that the natural dignity of character 
 and the delicate consideration for others which 
 constitutes good-breeding, are not peculiar to any 
 social class. 
 
 She learned that in England, in this nineteenth 
 century, as a matter of fact, there exist more than 
 one form of ecclesiastical organization, deeply 
 
178 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 rooted in the hearts and homes of the people, rich 
 in historical memories, and strong with the force 
 of early hereditary association, and in the activity 
 of expansive Christian life. Church history came 
 before her as a question of facts rather than of 
 rights. She became acquainted with various doc- 
 trinal and ecclesiastical differences, as absorbed into 
 living Christian hearts, instead of as petrified into 
 systems and confessions. She had grown to feel the 
 unity before she learned to perceive the variety. 
 
 On the other hand, brought up in that forsaken 
 East of London, she was little tempted to consider 
 the world a Utopia, or to round off the broken 
 and fragmentary human histories around her into 
 pretty little finished moral tales. All her instinct 
 for piercing through the discord to the harmony 
 could not resolve in this visible sphere the discord 
 of life. History, on the great or on the small scale, 
 seemed to her strangely typified in the two earliest 
 epics of our race. The music of the Iliad and the 
 Odyssey floated around her like a grand mystical 
 prelude to the world's history, in which the mel- 
 odies of the drama to come were wonderfully 
 gathered and foreshadowed. Wars and wanderings 
 of the heroes were to her a picture in a magic mir- 
 ror of the wars and wanderings of human life, 
 through which all the true heroes must be trained. 
 Her father, and Caleb Treherne, and the Miss 
 Levels, and Mrs. Anderson, and even she and Harry, 
 like Hector, and Ulysses, and Gustavus Adolphus, 
 had their own plains of Troy, and their own stormy 
 Voyage Home by perilous unknown shores, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 179 
 
 that she could distinctly have stated this to herself; 
 but all these influences together helped to mould 
 the loving, buoyant heart, into such a temper of 
 self-sacrificing courage, and self-denying endurance, 
 as is needed by all who would be good soldiers of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 entirely new light began to dawn on 
 Winifred as to the meaning and object 
 of " lessons." Dictionaries and Gram- 
 mars were becoming glorified in her 
 eyes into " keys of the Expanding Palace." 
 
 The unmeaning and disjointed planks and nails 
 she had been laboriously shaping and sharpening 
 as a mere mechanical labor were, she began to see, 
 only the materials for building ships which were to 
 be her wings to bear her on to new worlds. And 
 thenceforth every rib, and plank, and nail became 
 to her like the feathers of these new wings. That 
 connection between the details and the whole, be- 
 tween the little tasks and the great purposes of 
 life, began to be revealed to her, which has power 
 to transfigure manufacture into art ; the aimless 
 treading of the treadmill into the joyous climbing 
 of " the world's great altar-stairs ;" the toil of the 
 beast of burden into the work of those whose des- 
 tiny it is to be fellow- workers with God. A great 
 point to be reached in any kind of education. 
 (180) 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM. iSi 
 
 When it is reached in that education whose gram- 
 mars and lexicons are hardships and disappoint- 
 ments, humiliations and successes, joys and sor- 
 rows, and whose school is life, the weariness and 
 bitterness pass out of everything, a glorious signifi- 
 cance shines through the dullest lives ; the poor 
 nails and planks of time are seen to be indeed but 
 as feathers of the new wings which are to bear us 
 on to new worlds ; the daily task which is training 
 us is found also to be the daily work which is 
 enriching us. Not, indeed, that the wisest of us, 
 any more than Winifred, can see how the disjointed 
 planks are to grow into the ship. We are not the 
 architects of our own destiny, but only the day- 
 laborers, under the Architect ; but we believe in it, 
 and we believe in Him, and that is enough. 
 
 For other educations were being carried on be- 
 side and around Winnie's. 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien and Maurice were also learning 
 their lessons, a fact of which Winnie had no idea, 
 she having a vague persuasion that the primary 
 meaning of being grown-up is having finished one's 
 education, and having, moreover, a very definite 
 conviction that Maurice, at all events, had learned 
 all any one could ever have to learn, and had noth- 
 ing to do' henceforth but to help other people up to 
 the point he had reached.. This new impulse to 
 Winnie's activities had been communicated from 
 more than one point. 
 
 In the first place she had been learning the mean- 
 ing of prayer. She had begun to know it not as 
 an exercise to be gone through, but as a real means 
 16 
 
1 82 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 of communication with God. And whenever prayer 
 becomes a reality to us, everything else becomes 
 real; because everything becomes connected with 
 God. Just as, on the other hand, whenever our 
 prayers become shadowy and unreal, our life is 
 sure to become shadowy and unreal also ; because 
 everything is broken off from God, and the flowers 
 of our life, instead of growing flowers, cradles of 
 fruits, and buds, become here gathered and perish- 
 ing flowers stuck idly in a child's play-garden. 
 
 In the second place Maurice's stories and conver- 
 sations had helped to show her the connection 
 between herself and others, and how whatever she 
 acquired or possessed might become riches to use 
 for the pleasure and good of those she loved. In 
 the third place she was growing older. And in 
 the fourth place she had the new and inspiring 
 delight of a companion. 
 
 Three times in the week she met Grace at a 
 house in London, and Grace shared her lessons 
 in German and in water-colors, and also occasion- 
 ally received hints as to French from Rosalie, to 
 Grace's intense delight ; for she had a secret plan 
 of life which she had never communicated to any 
 one, until one day, in a moment of tender confi- 
 dence, she entrusted her secret to Winnie. Grace 
 hoped and prayed that she might one day be clever 
 enough to be a daily governess, and to sell her 
 drawings, so that Harry might be able to go to the 
 university, and that her father's last days might be 
 resting days. 
 
 But this was Grace's one great secret, which no 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 183 
 
 one in the world was to have a suspicion of un- 
 til the time came, in return for which Winnie 
 confided to Grace her own great secret that if 
 the lady in white glace, threatened by Rosalie, 
 failed to appear, she looked forward one day to 
 living with Maurice at the parsonage, and keeping 
 house for him. 
 
 On the other hand, Mrs. O'Brien had for some 
 time been beginning to have an uneasy feeling that 
 her life had hitherto been like a dream ; that she had 
 been living too much like the patients in a lunatic 
 asylum, detached from all around her, wrapped up 
 in a solitude of illusions. 
 
 And now she awoke to the sense that she was in 
 a community. Not that she had been consciously 
 living only for herself. Voices from the outside 
 world had indeed, at times, penetrated into her 
 inner world, as a patient in delirium can often be 
 roused to a momentary consciousness by a direct 
 appeal. At such times she had aroused herself, 
 listened, understood, given what was asked, and 
 then relapsed again into her life-dream. But now 
 she was waking indeed, and began to feel that she 
 was not the sole tenant of a world of her own, but 
 a unit in a world of needy and suffering, struggling 
 men, and women, and little children. And in the 
 confusion of her half-waking thoughts she began to 
 plunge vaguely hither and thither in search of 
 something to do and. somebody to help. 
 
 In this perplexity, one day when her physician 
 Dr. Dee was paying one of his periodical visits, she 
 remembered having heard that Mrs. Dee was a 
 
184 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 very active and benevolent woman, and she resolved 
 to seek an introduction. 
 
 " I have heard that Mrs. Dee is very useful and 
 good," she said. 
 
 " I have heard so too, very often," was Dr. Dee's 
 rather dry reply. " Six committees a week on an 
 average. Letters enough for a foreign secretary. 
 Our eldest daughter is indeed quite a private sec- 
 retary. People have such a wonderful opinion of 
 Mrs. Dee's judgment. No mere romance and sen- 
 timent with Mrs. Dee, but plain practical sense. 
 Looks into cases herself. Wonderful dispatch of 
 business. Scarcely an instant's leisure. Variety 
 of work, Mrs. Dee says, is her repose. A noble 
 sentiment especially for angelic beings. To or- 
 dinary mortals sometimes a little overwhelming, 
 Mrs. O'Brien. Even to me, I confess, at times, 
 myself; but happily there are long distances be- 
 tween my patients sometimes, which are a rest and 
 relaxation ; a thing, of course, not to be expected 
 in the house, with such an energetic and invaluable 
 woman as Mrs. Dee. Not, however, I should think, 
 much in your way," he concluded, with a dry little 
 smile, as he glanced at the languid form half-reclin- 
 ing in the low chair before him. 
 
 " I think Mrs. Dee would do me good," said Mrs. 
 O'Brien, timidly. " I wish I could know her." 
 
 " Mrs. Dee lives to do good," he replied. " No 
 doubt she would be delighted, my dear Mrs. 
 O'Brien, to include you among her cases, if you 
 wish to call in further advice. Only, you under- 
 stand, if the treatment is too severe, I am not 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 185 
 
 responsible. Mrs. Dee lias inexhaustible energy 
 perfectly inexhaustible. She has no experience of 
 fatigue I mean subjectively and no objective 
 faith in nerves, not the slightest ; considers them 
 nothing but products of idleness and discontent : 
 indeed, considers sickness and trouble in general 
 quite a mistake, always to have been prevented if 
 steadily resisted from the first, and always to be 
 overcome by energy and judicious advice." 
 
 In spite of which warning, it was arranged that 
 this invaluable lady should call the next day ; and 
 Mrs. O'Brien conscientiously prepared herself to 
 go through a course of Mrs. Dee. 
 
 Mrs. Dee did not appear to consider her patient's 
 case at all hopeless. Mrs. O'Brien was anxious to 
 have something to do " a most healthy symptom," 
 said Mrs. Dee. And the world was in want of a 
 great deal to be done. Most easy circumstances to 
 adjust. The only difficulty was to discover what 
 was Mrs. O'Brien's " speciality " ; and this, of 
 course, could only be ascertained by experiment 
 the soil being hitherto fruitless of crops of any 
 kind which could determine its capabilities. 
 
 Mrs. Dee began with committees one for foreign 
 female missions, one for an orphan asylum, and one 
 for a school. Mrs. O'Brien did not find the exer- 
 tion demanded by this species of work at all an 
 exorbitant demand on her energies, physical or 
 intellectual. She drove to the appointed place of 
 meeting, sat silently for two hours among a number 
 of ladies, also either silent or occasionally engaged 
 in indulging a few mild " asides ;" while Mrs. Dee 
 16* 
 
1 86 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and two or three other energetic ladies discussed 
 and settled a number of things which the specta- 
 tors then approved as a matter of course. Mrs. 
 O'Brien's difficulty on these occasions was to per- 
 suade herself slie was doing anything. Mrs. Dee 
 assured her she was. She was giving her sanction. 
 And it was most important that such good works 
 should have the sanction of numbers, a considera- 
 tion which, unhappily, did not satisfy Mrs. O'Brien, 
 because, being naturally scrupulous and anxious, 
 she felt considerably alarmed at giving her sanc- 
 tion to a quantity of mysterious proceedings which 
 she could not fathom. And, moreover, she felt she 
 had much rather have been in some way directly 
 cheering the blind people in the asylum, or person- 
 ally helping the children in the school, than indi- 
 rectly setting some invisible machine in motion by 
 sitting in a committee-room. But how to do this she 
 had no clear idea. Once she had ventured on a 
 faint effort at making acquaintance with the blind 
 girls in the asylum, by means of little observations 
 about their work ; but the blind people were shy, 
 and Mrs. O'Brien was shy, and a sympathetic re- 
 mark addressed to one, with the consciousness that 
 a room-full of quick ears were listening, seemed to 
 Mrs. O'Brien an operation too painfully like public 
 speaking to be pursued to any extent. If she had 
 known one blind woman as a human link, it would 
 have made all the difference. Similarly, on the 
 occasions on which she had officially visited the 
 school, the mistress, not to say the pupil-teachers, 
 seemed to Mrs. O'Brien so much wiser than herself, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. rfj 
 
 that she felt it quite a liberty even to offer any 
 commendations. 
 
 At length she communicated these difficulties to 
 Mrs. Dee, who was instantly ready with a remedy. 
 
 " Personal work ? O yes, I see. You wish for 
 personal work among the poor. By far the highest 
 work, my dear Mrs. O'Brien ; what I prefer myself, 
 decidedly. But we must not choose. Some must 
 be content to be pioneers and directors. I can 
 accommodate you at once. A few months since I 
 undertook a district in the east of London. I can 
 introduce you, and hand it over to you at once. 
 To-morrow I will bring you my book, and we will 
 begin, if you like, on the spot." 
 
 Accordingly the book was brought, in which 
 Mrs. Dee had classified the human beings living in 
 her district. There were about a hundred families 
 to be visited, so that personal acquaintance seemed 
 to Mrs. O'Brien a thing difficult, at least, to acquire 
 in a morning ; but Mrs. Dee assured her that classi- 
 fication was everything ; and to illustrate this, 
 showed her the hundred human beings classified 
 with as much decision and precision as substances 
 in a treatise on chemistry. 
 
 " No. 1, Treherne. Green-grocer. Woman clean 
 and independent, but apt to be violent. Objects 
 to interference. Must be kept in her place. Six 
 children. Go to Wesleyan school. Strong Dis- 
 senter; not open to conviction. Husband quiet 
 and civil, but not easy to get at. He keeps out of 
 the way." 
 
 "Do you call on the shopkeepers?" said Mrs. 
 
1 88 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 O'Brien, in a startled manner. "I should never 
 have ventured. I only thought of going to see the 
 people who want help." 
 
 " Most people feel with you," was the reply ; 
 " but I never yield to prejudices. Everything I do, 
 I do thoroughly. If I undertake a district, I under- 
 take every house in it. If people don't want help, 
 they always want advice ; and if they don't like 
 advice, that only shows they want it all the more. 
 If they refuse to see me, of course that is their 
 fault. I have delivered my conscience and they 
 must take the responsibility." 
 
 And she proceeded with the book. 
 
 " No. 8. Two old maids, who call themselves the 
 Miss Lovels, who keep what they term an * Acad- 
 emy for Young Ladies.' (I did call there once ; 
 but the eldest sister looked like thunder, and said 
 it must be a mistake, as they had not the pleasure 
 of my acquaintance. A very ridiculous person. 
 But I have not called again. I have no patience 
 Mrs. O'Brien, with such wretched affectations of 
 imitating the higher classes. I have a class of 
 dressmakers and shop-girls, who call themselves 
 young ladies ; but I always make a point of calling 
 them ' young persons ' on every occasion)". 
 
 " Do they submit to it ?" said Mrs. O'Brien., 
 
 " Those who come must" said Mrs. Dee. " Cer- 
 tainly the class has become very small ; but that is 
 not my fault. It is just like the contest which the 
 missionaries in India had about caste." 
 
 " Only a little the other way, isn't it ?" suggested 
 Mrs. O'Brien, in some perplexity. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 1 89 
 
 "I think," pursued Mrs. Dee, not heeding the 
 interruption, " in these socialistic days, one of our 
 chief duties in visiting the poor is to teach them 
 their places. I have no idea of these petty distinc- 
 tions; the little shopkeeper despising the honest 
 day-laborer, and people like those Miss Lovels look- 
 ing down on both. Indeed, I never miss an oppor- 
 tunity of showing how unscriptural these miserable 
 little distinctions are." 
 
 " But," said Mrs. O'Brien, timidly, " do the peo- 
 ple like it ?" 
 
 " That is no affair of ours," was Mrs. Dee's reply, 
 in the grand style. "We shall do little good, 
 indeed, in the world if we are considering what 
 people tike." 
 
 Poor Mrs. O'Brien was silenced ; but she began 
 to think that " district-visiting " must be a very 
 terrible ordeal indeed, if it was to be a course of 
 driving over people's prejudices, and grinding them 
 to a level. At length she ventured to say : 
 
 " But there are a good many distinctions, dear 
 Mrs. Dee, even among people in our own position, 
 which might seem petty from a still higher point 
 of view. One would not quite like, for instance, 
 to invite one's tailor to dinner ; although," she pur- 
 sued, apologizing to the imaginary tailor, " I have 
 heard there are tailors living in the best style, with 
 families very well educated. Yet it would not be 
 quite liked, would it, if one asked one's friends to 
 meet them ?" 
 
 " Of course not, Mrs. O'Brien ; the idea is an 
 obvious absurdity. There always have been, and 
 
190 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 always must be, these distinctions. But what has 
 that to do with the poor and with district-visit- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing, of course," said Mrs. O'Brien, re- 
 treating in confusion, and without the least inten- 
 tion of flinging a Parthian dart in her flight. " No 
 doubt, nothing to do with it at all Of course no 
 one would ever think of making us into a district, 
 and district-visiting us. I only meant I am afraid 
 whether this is work I am fit for ?" 
 
 " You will learn ; you will gain courage and ex- 
 perience, my dear Mrs. O'Brien. Everything must 
 have a beginning." And Mrs. Dee resumed the 
 classification : 
 
 "No. 12. Anderson. Baker. Scotch. No chil- 
 dren. Had two. Died ten years since. Woman 
 very reserved. A bigoted Presbyterian. Spoke to 
 her of the advantages of our inestimable liturgy. 
 Said it might be very well for the English. Scotch 
 terribly self-opinionated and dirty. Remarked 
 strongly on dust on her dressers. No family to 
 put things out of order. House ought to be a 
 model. Quite sullen. Seemed to think it a liberty ! 
 
 "No. 16. Widow. Laundress. Consumptive 
 daughter. Complains of neighborhood having 
 changed, and customers left. Gave her a coal- 
 ticket, and a tract on Contentment, and showed 
 how far money can be made to go with manage- 
 ment. Not so thankful as might be expected. 
 (Would have preferred half-a-crown probably and 
 no tract. But, above all, my dear Mrs. O'Brien, 
 beware of pauperizing.) 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 191 
 
 "No. 18. Irishwoman. Drunken husband. Com- 
 plains of bad health. Wretched room. Children 
 not at school. Showed how impossible to have 
 anything but bad health and drunken husband with 
 such a miserable room. Left a sanitary tract. 
 Explained why it is against our principles to help 
 women with drunken husbands. Encourages vice. 
 Cried, and seemed quite convinced. 
 
 " No. 19. Man out of work a fortnight. Three 
 children. Complained of machinery. Could not 
 make five shillings where used to earn a sovereign. 
 Explained how machinery did good in the end, 
 although inconvenient to some at first, and how the 
 world must advance. Could not see it. Thought 
 people must live. Civil, but ripe for socialism. 
 Things going daily to pawnshop for food. Spoke 
 strongly of evils of pawn system. No attempt at 
 reply, but muttered, Children could not be let 
 starve. 
 
 " No. 20. Mechanic. Broken arm. Infidel prin- 
 ciples. Said there are so many religions, no know- 
 ing which is right. Showed he ought to know. 
 Spoke of sin of infidelity. Showed what will be 
 the end of infidels, and that no one does disbelieve 
 except because they wish to disbelieve. Looked as 
 if he could be insolent. Rather desperate case." 
 
 But by this time Mrs. O'Brien was so convinced 
 of her incapacity for the task proposed to her, that 
 she gathered courage decisively to break off the 
 negotiations. It seemed to her as if this method 
 of dealing with human beings would be removing 
 oneself even further from them than by keeping 
 
I 9 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 within the machinery of committee-rooms. Mrs. 
 Dee's method of district-visiting seemed to her to 
 transform the whole human race into a set of 
 machines which had gone wrong, and were put 
 under Mrs. Dee's charge to be rectified. And she 
 shrank appalled from the task. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Dee," said she, " I have so little ex- 
 perience, I really don't know in the least how to 
 tell that poor widow the way to make her money 
 go further. I am afraid I should never make it go 
 half so far. I have not the least idea what to do 
 if I saw the poor creatures wanting anything, ex- 
 cept to help them to get it; and that, you say, 
 would be interfering with the whole social system, 
 and making paupers. So I think I had better wait 
 till I see my way a little, and keep to the commit- 
 tees." 
 
 Mrs. Dee soon retired in a compassionate frame 
 of mind, and Mrs. O'Brien wondered if she kept a 
 district-book for " cases " in her own rank of life, 
 to which she felt it her mission to " do good ;" and 
 if so, she pictured to herself some such entry as 
 the following : 
 
 "O'Brien. Woman unmanageable. Troubled 
 with ' nerves ' and i scruples.' Seems at first amen- 
 able to reason, but in reality full of a quiet, imper- 
 meable obstinacy. Resists every effort to put her 
 in the right way. Spoke plainly to her on duty of 
 saying disagreeable truths. Smiled, and was civil, 
 but did not yield. Rather a desperate case." 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien had not yet found the links she was 
 vaguely searching for. Perhaps there was another 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. I93 
 
 link which needed riveting first. The connection 
 with the fountain needs to be opened before the 
 connection with the fields to be watered. 
 
 Perhaps she had yet to learn that the " Come 
 unto me and drink " must always, at first and every 
 day, precede the " flowing forth of the streams of 
 living water." The being and becoming must come 
 before the doing. 
 
 All these endeavors and conflicts had, it must be 
 confessed, the immediate effect of making Mrs. 
 O'Brien not quite such a serene companion for 
 Winnie as she had been. Hitherto, when Winnie 
 had done any lesson unusually well, she had always 
 been sure of a sign of a rather languid approval, 
 and an indulgent entreaty not to overtask herself. 
 Now, frequently, when Mrs. O'Brien looked over 
 her drawings, or heard her repeat German or French 
 poetry, she would give a little sigh, and warn Win- 
 nie not to let her precious days of sowing pass by 
 unused. And once or twice she was almost fretful 
 with Winnie for not preparing her lessons in time ; 
 fretting being the nearest approach Mrs. O'Brien 
 could make to scolding. " It is a sad thing," she 
 said one day, " to have to be sowing in harvest-time, 
 In our climate, at least, there are no second crops 
 to be depended on." All which transformation be- 
 wildered Winnie not a little. 
 
 But what surprised and bewildered her far more 
 was an interview she had one evening with Mau- 
 rice. She had seen him coming up the lawn as she 
 was writing an exercise at the library-window, and 
 17 
 
! 9< j. WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 bounding out of it, she had her hand in his in a 
 moment. But there was something in his face 
 which froze the histories she had to tell him on her 
 lips. It was not that he looked displeased, or 
 exactly sad, but pre-occupied. He seemed not to 
 see her coming, when usually he met her with hi& 
 looks such a long way off. And when she came 
 close to him, although his face brightened for a 
 moment, and his voice had its old tones of welcome, 
 the brightness seemed to pass like a sunbeam flit- 
 ting over a snowy landscape, and the lips were 
 compressed, and the two furrows came back to his 
 forehead. 
 
 Winnie crept closer to him and ventured to say 
 at last, " Nothing is the matter with Dan, Maurice, 
 or with Fan ?" 
 
 He looked at her in wonder. 
 
 Then suddenly Winnie's great dread rushed irre- 
 sistibly over her, she colored crimson, stopped, and 
 said with a great gasp : " Don't mind telling me, 
 Maurice. Don't be afraid; I can bear it. If the 
 lady Rosalie talks about is coming, I had rather 
 know at once, please, and I will try and love her ; 
 indeed I will." Then he wakened up entirely, and 
 fixed his eyes full on Winnie, with a flash such as 
 she had never seen in them. But he only said : 
 
 " That woman is too foolish, Winnie, she ought 
 not to be allowed to talk such nonsense to a child 
 like you. No lady is coming, or ever was, or ever 
 is to be. And you must not let Rosalie take such 
 liberties." 
 
 Very unlike Maurice, especially as only a week 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 '95 
 
 since he had seemed rather to enjoy her telling him 
 Rosalie's ideas about the white glace and Brussels 
 point. So he went hastily in at the library window, 
 and Winnie followed, feeling as if mines were spring- 
 ing under her feet everywhere, bitterly reproaching 
 herself for the great mistake she had unconsciously 
 committed, and wondering what it was. Reproach- 
 ing Maurice was a treason that never entered her 
 loyal heart. 
 
 Maurice continued a few moments apparently 
 absorbed in Winnie's exercise, and then looking up, 
 he said cheerily in his own ordinary tone : 
 
 " You are to be my little woman in white, little 
 sister, and you can tell Rosalie so the next time she 
 perplexes you on the subject." 
 
 " Oh, Maurice !" she said, " are you really in 
 earnest ?" 
 
 He was quite startled when he looked down on 
 the little flushed face, so eager and intense was the 
 expression, the great earnest eyes watching for his 
 answer as if it had been a sentence of life or death. 
 
 " Mean to bury you in a dreadful den of bricks 
 and mortar," he said, with a slight bitterness, as if 
 he were making a quotation, " not unless you like, 
 and papa and mamma like, which is very doubtful." 
 
 " Oh, papa and mamma have Alick, and Jamie, 
 and Allan, and the baby," she said ; " besides, of 
 course, I do not mean until I am quite wise, and 
 old, and fit ; and then every one will be grown up, 
 and of course I can be spared." 
 
 " But what if you should be a little woman in 
 white on your own account before that time comes ?" 
 
196 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " I !" exclaimed Winnie indignantly, " when I 
 might stay with you, Maurice, instead ! But," she 
 concluded, with a sudden flash of suspicion, " Grace 
 never told you, did she ? It is your own thought." 
 
 " Told me what ?" 
 
 " How I wished it. Because^it was my secret, 
 Maurice, and I never told any one but Grace. Was 
 it your very own thought, Maurice ; and do you 
 really mean it ?" 
 
 " I should like nothing better in the world," he 
 said, rather sadly, " but we must not be too eager 
 in making plans." 
 
 " Grace says we must not make cares, but she 
 thinks we may make plans, especially if we make 
 them into prayers." 
 
 " But God who loves us has also plans for us, 
 and knows best, Winnie," he said, very gently, 
 " and then if we have been too eager in our plans, 
 it is not always so easy to take His instead, and be 
 pleased with them." 
 
 But she was too overfilled with delight to take 
 the check, although there was something in his 
 manner which prevented her talking to him any 
 more about it. 
 
 That evening Winnie thanked God in the depths 
 of her heart that he had given her the wish of her 
 heart. 
 
 She little knew at what a cost to Maurice. 
 
 She little knew that what to her was the thresh- 
 hold of a new world of living hopes, was to him 
 the gravestone of a whole world of buried hopes. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 197 
 
 For he also had had visions of a radiant presence 
 which was to brighten his dingy East End parson- 
 age into something better than a palace, and but 
 yesterday he had found they were no prophetic 
 visions, but simply dreams. 
 
 It had happened that in a country curacy which 
 he had held for a few months, the old manor-house 
 was occupied by a Mr. and Mrs. Denison and one 
 daughter, Minna Denison. She was not an only 
 daughter. The old halls had echoed to the wed- 
 ding festivities of three of her sisters ; three bro- 
 thers were scattered far and wide through the land, 
 and she, the youngest, had inherited the love of all 
 the six. To her parents she was a sort of combined 
 child and grandchild. Her father marvelled at her 
 quaint little sayings as he had when she had been 
 " baby." Her mother received the capricious little 
 caressings, with which she won her own way, as 
 proofs of an impulsive but sensitive heart. Her 
 brothers, if sometimes they saw through her little 
 wiles, thought them delightfully feminine, espe- 
 cially as they were very frequently exercised on 
 their behalf, and had rescued them from sundry 
 scrapes from boyhood upward. Her sisters, being 
 some years older, petted her nearly as much as their 
 own children ; and the children, catching the fam- 
 ily infection, considered Aunt Minna the model of 
 beauty and the perfection of kindness ; except when 
 her pleasures happened to cross theirs, on which 
 occasions they found themselves in the most inex- 
 plicable and endearing manner, charmed out of 
 Annt Minna's way. And finally she herself entirely 
 
198 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 agreed with all her admirers, and was far too 
 securely enthroned in her own and other people's 
 good graces to be guilty of an uneasy self-assertion. 
 If individuals (or nations) are extraordinarily ad- 
 dicted to self-laudation, it is generally to bo con- 
 cluded that they are not so absolutely convinced 
 of their superiority as they wish others to be. 
 Boastings are very often only the conclusions of an 
 internal argument in self-defense. In Minna's mind 
 there was no conflict of this kind, and thus she was 
 free to acknowledge every one else's excellences, 
 and to sympathize with every one's sentiments and 
 tastes. With opinions she concerned herself little. 
 " Women," she said, " like the rest of the inferior 
 animals, are always really guided by instinct." 
 For one of Minna's " sentiments " was the enthroni- 
 zation of everything masculine, of the lesser throne 
 for the queen consort she had no idea ; woman's 
 place, she considered, was the footstool. The old 
 Greek ideal of Hector and Andromache was not hers, 
 nor the Saxon ideal of lord and lady, nor the old 
 Christian ideal of " service," nor the old Teutonic 
 ideal of the Hausmutter, nor the old Divine ideal 
 of the " help-meet ;" but a transcendental combina- 
 tion of Oriental, mediaeval, and Celtic ideas, pas- 
 sionate adoration, " le besoin de se devouer" from the 
 heights of which she looked supremely down on 
 women's books, women's music, women's opinions, 
 and all feminine things in general except herself. 
 
 Unlike little Grace Leigh, Minna Denison's favo- 
 rite books counted their age by days and months, 
 scarcely by years, certainly not by decades ; if, in- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 199 
 
 deed, any one could be said to have favorite books 
 who never read any book more than once. 
 
 So Minna grew to eighteen, prepared, as she be- 
 lieved, for unlimited self-sacrifice, when the true 
 object of adoration should appear, and meantime 
 mingling the incense of her own admiration with 
 that offered to her from all around her, with no 
 more conception that the world or self was her ob- 
 ject in life, than Maurice Bertram had, when he fell 
 in love with her. She worldly ? Had she not re- 
 fused the best marriage in the county ? She sel- 
 fish, who caressed her mother and amused her 
 father, and mediated for her brothers, and indulged 
 her nephews and nieces, and had bewitching smiles 
 for every old woman and little child in the country ; 
 and was prepared for that heroic life whenever the 
 call should come ? If she found pleasure in all 
 these sweet ways of hers, it was because of the in- 
 herent sweetness of her nature. If she had a way 
 of escaping doing everything that was unpleasant, 
 of leaving the tiresome visits, and the tiresome 
 letters, and all dealings with poor people who were 
 cross or unpleasant, or with friends who were bores, 
 or with children who were fretful, to her mother or 
 sisters, who could wonder at " that poor tender- 
 hearted child" avoiding such things? She felt 
 everything so much more than others ! And be- 
 sides, when the hour came, was she not prepared 
 for martyrdom ? Thus Minna Denison was among 
 that most dangerous class of impostors who first 
 impose on themselves. 
 
 And Maurice Bertram, coming fresh from the 
 
200 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 university to the parish in which she lived, fell into 
 the ranks of her captives at once, and walked hum- 
 bly in the " Trionfo de Madonna Minna." She, on 
 her part, was not without interest in him. She had 
 heard of his confronting storms on the snowy 
 moors, and encountering infectious diseases in visit- 
 ing the sick ; and she, who never voluntarily en- 
 countered a cold blast or a storm, admired this in 
 him, and showed him the way to one or two cot- 
 tages, where old dependents of her family wel- 
 comed her as something between a nursling and an 
 angel. She read the books he lent her with a deli- 
 cate appreciation which amazed him, illogical and 
 unintellectual as she always declared herself to be ; 
 and then she always had some delicious little diffi- 
 culty in them which she was sure Mr. Bertram 
 could solve. She entered into his enthusiastic plans 
 for helping and raising his fellow-creatures with a 
 penetrating sympathy which made him feel as if 
 they had been in her heart before they were in his ; 
 and Minna very nearly believed the same. Much 
 of her fascination lay in the faculty she had of 
 living for the time in the part she was playing. If 
 she had been an actress by profession (instead of 
 being only one by nature) when she represented 
 Queen Constance, no doubt the stage Prince Arthur 
 would have felt her hot tears upon his cheek. 
 
 Occasionally Maurice wished she had been a lit- 
 tle less medieval in her tastes ; but it was not from 
 " opinion " of any kind that the little library where 
 she spent most of her time was fitted up with ivory 
 crucifixes and marble madonnas, and with one great 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 201 
 
 pathetic wooden crucifix from Nuremberg, which, 
 after a suggestion from Maurice as to its terrible 
 truth, he found a few days afterwards tenderly 
 veiled in transparent muslin. Minna was not High 
 Church, nor Low Church, nor Broad Church, nor 
 anything angular or defined of any kind. She 
 " assisted " at an altar more ancient and more uni- 
 versal than any Church parties. She had only 
 " sweet child-like yearnings after all that was beau- 
 tiful and true." How could a creature with those 
 delicious dreamy brown eyes, which rested on you 
 with a sweet childish unconsciousness, and then 
 sank vailed under the long lashes, quite unaware 
 that they had pierced into your heart ; and those 
 delicate, childlike lips, with smiles like a child's 
 playing on them, and that hair of true auburn, 
 which was not a color merely, but golden light and 
 soft shade, help having sympathy with everything 
 that was lovely, whether pre-Raphaelite, Papal, or 
 Pagan? 
 
 So it happened that Maurice loved Minna Deni- 
 son, and loving her, believed her to be Andromache, 
 and Una, and Miranda, and Wordsworth's " Per- 
 fect Woman," and Elaine, and Enid, and the Prin- 
 cess and every ideal of perfect womanhood in 
 one ; and yet not a mere combination of perfections, 
 but herself, Minna Denison, the best of all, with 
 all kinds of delicious and charming imperfections 
 of her own, on account of which she was to be 
 cherished, and shielded, and guarded with the 
 whole strength of his heart all her life long, if she 
 would only suffer it so to be. And being a man 
 
202 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 vowed to a high calling, he was also persuaded that 
 in loving Minna Denison he was making the wisest, 
 most deliberate, and most beneficent choice he could 
 make, for which all future generations of his future 
 parishioners would have cause to bless him. 
 
 So, after a few months in the parish of Beech- 
 lands, he departed for his curacy in the manufac- 
 turing districts, persuaded that Minna Denison 
 thought it the noblest work in the world to live to 
 ennoble and Christianize the great patient working- 
 classes; and also persuaded that she must know, 
 although he had not spoken, how entirely his heart 
 was hers. In which last persuasion he was proba- 
 bly right. 
 
 Two years passed in this manufacturing town 
 years of hard, patient work, of many disappoint- 
 ments, and of some most precious successes in- 
 spired to Maurice, next to the heavenly love and 
 duty which truly held the divine place in his 
 heart by that sweet human hope (earthly he would 
 not call it), of a home one day to be blessed by 
 that gentle radiant presence. Twice during those 
 years he saw her, and she seemed always equally 
 interested to hear of his work, whether from the 
 royal graciousness with which she entered into the 
 interests of all, or from a deeper feeling, he could 
 not tell. Then came the gift of the living in the 
 east of London. He accepted it, made acquaintance 
 with it, and went at once to Beechlands. 
 
 He met Minna in the wood between the lodge 
 and the house. He spoke to her with trembling 
 eagerness of his new home. She said it was a no- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 203 
 
 ble self-sacrifice, but very terrible, she was afraid. 
 If it had been among those fine fishermen in Corn- 
 wall, or among the manly intelligent mechanics of 
 the north, or even among the New Zealanders or 
 Brahmins, it might have been easier, but Cock- 
 neys (she said the word hesitatingly) were a little 
 too trying, were they not ? 
 
 Then he plunged into his declaration, and told 
 her all she might be what an angel to the poor, 
 what unutterable help and joy to him, what an in- 
 spiration the thought of her had been to him. She 
 listened composedly, a little troubled, a good deal 
 perplexed, and at last, when he ceased, she an- 
 swered him in the truest words she had ever spoken : 
 
 " Mr. Bertram, I am very sorry, but I am afraid 
 we have misunderstood each other. I have no 
 idea of practical work, not the least. I should be 
 quite lost in district visiting and Sunday-schools, 
 and all that kind of thing. In a general way, of 
 course, nothing can be nobler than such a life. But 
 I have no head for details. I should be dreadfully 
 in your way. I assure you, you would very soon 
 agree with me ; and besides, poor dear papa and 
 mamma, what would they say ? It would be cruel 
 to mention it." 
 
 " Miss Denison," he said, bent on knowing the 
 worst, " would it make any real difference if I 
 could change my home ? Is it the place you shrink 
 from, or is it the work, or is it more than that ?" 
 
 " How can I define and divide things so precisely," 
 she said a little pettishly. "You know," she 
 added, with a little pleading look, " I never could 
 
204 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 manage to analyze things ; I always see things and 
 people blended together, I cannot separate. I as- 
 sure you, Mr. Bertram, I shall always think with 
 the greatest interest of your work, but I am quite 
 unworthy to share it. Indeed you must not think 
 any more of it." 
 
 There was something in the little perplexed yet 
 decided manner which spoke more to him than her 
 words. She seemed scarcely so much pained even 
 as vexed. He was quite sure she was too good and 
 generous to have really cared what the work was 
 if she had one grain of real affection for him. 
 With a man more worthy of her, more able to have 
 won and satisfied her, she would have been equal 
 to anything, he was sure. It was not the London 
 parish or the homely duties of the clergyman's 
 wife she rejected, it was simply himself. He felt 
 it would have been unmanly, and indeed impossible 
 to have urged one other plea. So he very quietly 
 wished her good-bye, and turned back to the lodge. 
 
 " You will come to the house," she said, " my fath- 
 er and mother would be sorry if you did not rest." 
 
 " Thank you, I think I had better not." 
 
 "I shall always be interested to hear of your 
 work," she said, giving him her hand. He took it 
 for an instant, and went away. 
 
 " She has not cared enough for me," he thought, 
 " for me even to have been a cloud on her path." 
 But he never thought she had trifled with him ; he 
 never lowered the thought of her for a moment in 
 his heart. 
 
 Minna meantime returned to the house, and that 
 
THE WO'RLD SHE LIVED IN. 205 
 
 evening she contemplated herself and pitied herself 
 a great deal, and wrote in her diary (for at that 
 time she had been keeping a diary for ten days a 
 diary with a golden lock and key, and bound in 
 purple velvet) : " I am capable of great things. I 
 feel it. But it must be under great inspirations. 
 A life of self-sacrifice would be like my native ele- 
 ment to me. I should breathe for the first time 
 freely in it, but it must be self-sacrifice for great 
 ends, in a noble field. Contact with what is low 
 and mean and morally ugly would paralyze me. 
 There must either be the inspiration of a great love 
 or a great object." Having performed this little 
 act of inward self-contemplation to her satisfaction, 
 Minna closed and locked her diary, and entered on 
 another phase of the sacred rites of her shrine, by 
 ocularly contemplating herself in the glass. The 
 luxuriant waving auburn hair was floating around 
 her white throat framing the brilliant yet deli- 
 cately colored face, and as she looked into the 
 soft depths of the brown eyes which met her, she 
 concluded, "It was very unreasonable. An East 
 London parsonage for me ! To knit stockings, I 
 suppose, for oH women ; and on Sundays to teach 
 dirty little set-up London children, who call each 
 other ' Miss,' and would try to copy my bonnets ; 
 and to keep accounts of clothing societies, details 
 that would annihilate me." Minna's " great ob- 
 jects " were always to be reached, not by little suc- 
 cessive steps, but by soaring to the stars, or by pre- 
 cipitating ourself into chasms, or by some other 
 mythological process equally uncommon. 
 18 
 
206 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " He could not really have loved me to think of it." 
 He could surely have found some worthier home, 
 or he might have asked me to choose before he ac- 
 cepted that wretched living ! No, that is not 
 what I call love," concluded Minna ; " I am ready 
 to sacrifice anything, but then it must be for one 
 who would sacrifice anything for me." And having 
 thus worked herself up to the right devotional 
 point of self-admiration and self-pity, she laid down 
 the censer for the occasion, and concluded the ser- 
 vice by going through, in a formal and official man- 
 ner, those other antique rights to that Supreme and 
 Unapproachable Essence which is said to be recog- 
 nized in most idolatrous systems of religion ; al- 
 though, since nothing is expected from It, conse- 
 quently as little as possible is rendered to It. 
 
 Maurice reached his despised East London par- 
 sonage that evening. In the morning when he had 
 set out, he had persuaded himself that the trees in 
 the church-yard gave it almost a cheerful look, that 
 the rooms were not so very dingy after all, but 
 that affection might make them bright even for a 
 creature so choice as Minna Denison. 
 
 In the evening when he came fcack, the old 
 church-yard trees creaked and strained like trees 
 already half stiffened into mere timber, as if they 
 were croaking, " We sprang from graves and we are 
 fast growing into coffins. How could you think of 
 bringing any bright living creature under our 
 shadow ?" 
 
 And within the house, all the rooms had shrunk 
 into a mere place to eat and find shelter in. There 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 207 
 
 was no welcome and no fire, for he was not ex- 
 pected ; and he would not have any meal prepared. 
 
 He sat down in the library and mechanically 
 took up a book he had left there in the morning 
 a volume of old poems which he had once lent 
 Minna. Beside it lay a heap of reports, and some 
 notes for a sermon. Very prosaic everything looked. 
 And he did not wonder at Minna's decision. He 
 only wondered at his own presumption. 
 
 How dull, and mean, and characterless the oppo- 
 site houses and the narrow street looked the next 
 morning ; how endless and sunless the work that 
 had to be done. The sunshine seemed to have 
 passed from his life the sun to have shrunk from a 
 radiant " strong man rejoicing to run his race," to a 
 round red ball, to light up the world of counting- 
 houses and committees. 
 
 Only " seemed ;" for the radiance of the true 
 Sun of Maurice's life was no transitory halo. It 
 was the fog obscuring the rays which was transitory. 
 
 But he had to learn the hard lesson of discerning 
 how much of the light of his heart and life had 
 come from earth, and how much from heaven ; an 
 analysis not t* be accomplished by any instrument 
 which cannot divide asunder the joints and marrow ; 
 never by any instrument except in divine hands 
 and never in divine hands without pain. 
 
 Terribly humbling he found the lesson. In the 
 darkness, the tempter does not fail to draw near, to 
 insinuate his poisoned arrows of doubt into the 
 wounds made by the searching arrows of the Al- 
 mighty. And in the darkness and the anguish too 
 
208 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 often with frantic hands the sufferer, seeking to 
 staunch the wounds which are to cure, only rivets 
 the darts which are destroying. 
 
 Maurice's doubts were all about himself. He 
 never for an instant doubted Minna's goodness and 
 truth. " If he had thought she felt anything more 
 than an ordinary interest in him, it had been only his 
 wretched vanity misinterpreting the kindly sympa- 
 thy she showered on all alike. If he had thought 
 her purposes high enough for any self-sacrifice in a 
 noble cause, he had been right. Only on another 
 level than his, and with worthier help. She was 
 capable of sacrificing anything, but not for him." 
 He did not suffer a shadow to dim her image in his 
 inmost heart. " She was gentle, and noble, and 
 lowly; beautiful and sound to the heart's core. 
 How could he have dreamt of her loving him ? 
 one so weak and wavering that at the first crossing 
 of his foolish hopes and dreams, all seemed to have 
 become unreal to him, and he scarcely dared stand 
 up and preach to the people Glad Tidings which 
 had so little power to make him glad." 
 
 But the Gospel was true ! He had no doubt of 
 that, however little share he had in it ; God's love 
 was true, however little he could rejoice in it it 
 was true that there was One now in heaven who 
 had lived and died on earth, and had redeemed 
 men, however little that redemption had set him 
 free ; it was true there was One now on earth ready 
 to abide in the hearts of men, Sanctifier and Com- 
 forter, however little that holy Presence had conse- 
 crated his heart. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 209 
 
 And being convinced it was true, and that men's 
 souls needed this truth, he decided that it was no 
 hypocrisy for him to stand up and preach it ; but a 
 duty, whether he felt it or not. And accordingly 
 the next Sunday he stood up and spoke of the great 
 facts no feelings can change, the great miracles 
 of Divine love no flight of ages can remove to a 
 distance. 
 
 And those who listened had no suspicion that the 
 calm, strong words, spoken with such conviction, 
 came from a heart that could itself rise to no ex- 
 perience beyond, " Have mercy on me." For that 
 day and many days he went as usual on his errands 
 of mercy to the sick and dying. The living waters 
 existed, and had been opened ; and if the hand that 
 lifted them to the thirsty lips was itself parched 
 with fever, still the draught it bore was life-giving 
 and pure, and from time to time refreshment 
 flowed back to his own heart from those to whom 
 he brought it. 
 
 But the conflict was long and bitter. His own 
 conversion to God had been simple and joyous, like 
 a child awakened on a sunny morning by a mother's 
 kiss, like the spirit of the damsel called with a 
 mother's word of endearment, a " Talitha Cumi," 
 to open her eyes on the Saviour's face. And his 
 life had been bright. His tastes were high, and 
 Christianity had from the first so possessed his 
 heart as the Beautiful as well as the True, that 
 between his tastes and his faith there had been no 
 repulsion. Outward temptations he had known, 
 but with a healthy intellect, and a health-giving 
 18* 
 
210 WINIFRED BERTRAM. 
 
 because joyful religion, he had known little of 
 temptations within. 
 
 And now, in this hour of crushed hopes, they 
 came ; fiery darts falling thick, and striking home. 
 When he knew them, indeed, he had a shield which 
 could ward them off. When, on questionings of his 
 own honesty and worthiness, followed low, bitter 
 murmurs about the goodness and truth of God, 
 such as, " Is this the end of so many prayers for 
 guidance? What would have been the difference 
 if I had not prayed ? " he was at no loss to repel 
 these. " God is good ; and prayer is a reality." But 
 when it fell back to, " Are thy prayers realities ? Is 
 'goodness' or 'severity' the due of one whose 
 fancied heavenly joys all fade before the fading of 
 an earthly hope ? " he did not always recognize 
 the hand which threw them, but bowed over the 
 poisonous shaft, and with his own hand often fixed 
 it in. 
 
 It was not until after many days that he came 
 out of the battle ; and then it was with a sense of 
 weakness and deep humiliation rather than with a 
 sense of victory, with many scars, and with the 
 pangs of some wounds scarcely healed ; but with 
 the heavenly armor fitted on as only battles fit it ; 
 with a conviction of the existence of the tempter, 
 and a sympathy with the tempted ; with a faith in 
 the victory of the Saviour, and in the presence 
 of the other " Comforter," such as he had scarcely 
 known before, yet which is sorely needed by those 
 who have to be leaders as well as soldiers in the 
 fight. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 |UNT KATHARINE proposes to pay 
 us a visit next week," said Mrs. O'Brien 
 one morning at that daily rendezvous 
 with distant friends which the Penny 
 Post establishes at many breakfast tables. 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien's tone was a little ambiguous. Lady 
 Katharine Wyse was one of the people who reserve 
 to themselves that right of speaking their minds 
 which is seldom enjoyed (however it may be appre- 
 ciated) by the recipient of such franknesses. Her 
 visits had therefore been regarded by her niece 
 rather in the same light as those clear, hard frosts 
 which every one says are so wholesome, and which 
 every one appreciates so highly when they are over. 
 Her natural enemies were all " shams," and her 
 natural idol was " effectiveness." She did not per- 
 haps always distinguish correctly between incon- 
 sistency and insincerity, or recognize the danger 
 of the epithets " hypocrite," " fool," or " blind," or 
 their equivalents, issuing from any lips but those 
 of the All-seeing and All-merciful. 
 (211) 
 
212 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Energetic, warm-hearted, accustomed to rule, and 
 to rule well, she had no tolerated rummage corner 
 for any crotchets either of her own or of other 
 people's. During her husband Mr. Wyse's life she 
 had reigned by deputy, and since in person. Her 
 two sons (she could not think why) preferred hav- 
 ing their own establishments at some little distance 
 from the ancestral house at Combe Monachorum, 
 although their annual visits were the delight of the 
 children of both families, as well as of the old ser- 
 vants at the Abbey. But daughters-in-law she 
 acknowledged were " proverbially difficult to get 
 on with." Her eldest son was persuaded of his 
 mother's wisdom in managing the estates, and pre- 
 ferred a residence in London, and maintaining the 
 relation of host and guest with his mother to the 
 complications of a co-agency ; displacing Lady 
 Katharine from the throne was an achievement 
 not to be contemplated. Her reign had now ex- 
 tended to half a century, from the day when she 
 was brought, a bride of seventeen, under triumphal 
 arches of greenery to the family home of three 
 hundred years of the Wyses. From that time she 
 had adopted her husband's place and ancestry as 
 her own. The Abbey had fallen to the lot of the 
 ancestors of the Wyses as a reward for naval vic- 
 tories over the Spaniards in the days of the Armada. 
 She taught her sons that the titles of her own fam- 
 ily, dating from a party political struggle in one of 
 the early Brunswick reigns, were of small account 
 beside the untitled dignities of the Wyses, which 
 could be traced back to the grand old Elizabethan 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 21$ 
 
 times. One of Elizabeth's esquires, it was her 
 theory, was beyond all comparison nobler than any 
 of the Georgian nobility. Prizes won in the race 
 with the Sidneys, and Drakes, and Frobishers, she 
 said, were worth twenty peerages dropping from 
 the heavy indiscriminating hands of the Hanover- 
 ians. And besides that, she maintained that the 
 Wyses had a right to the field on which they won 
 their spurs before Hanoverians, or Tudors, or Plan- 
 tagenets, appeared above the horizon. The Maiden 
 Queen had indeed apportioned to them the forfeited 
 lands of the monks ; but before a Benedictine had 
 come with cowl and vows and Gregorian tones to 
 claim the broad meadows of Combe Monachorum 
 for the Church, the Wyses had held their own at 
 the old manor of Combe Regis at the head of the 
 same valley. Lady Katharine inspired the loyalty 
 of her sons by more than one royal name. Eliza- 
 beth had given the baronetcy, which had after- 
 wards lapsed ; but she loved to trace the fortunes 
 of the Wyses to Alfred, the darling of his people, 
 to whom she considered, if to any monarch or saint 
 in England, a national holiday ought to have been 
 dedicated; Combe Regis having been, tradition 
 said, one of his royal villas, given by him to an 
 ancestor of the Wyses for services against the 
 Danes. 
 
 The fifty years of Lady Katharine's sway had 
 witnessed many changes in the neighborhood. She 
 had seen the rise and progress, she averred, of a 
 whole crop of new families, and of at least two 
 schools of opinion in the church. It was astonish- 
 
214 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 ing, she said, at what a variety of comparative eccle- 
 siastical levels she had found herself by the simple 
 process of standing still. 
 
 Lady Katharine's proposals were as imperative 
 in the family as any royal invitations, and on the 
 next week accordingly she arrived at the Cedars. 
 She was not noisy, nor fussy, nor demonstrative, 
 but her presence was always rather like that of a 
 wind. Nothing stagnated around her. Nothing 
 could lie safely in corners, sure of being let alone. 
 Nothing could hide itself hazily in mists without 
 giving an account of itself. She had a faculty of 
 making people find out what they meant and what 
 they did not mean ; and if they did not mean any- 
 thing, of finding out that, which is almost as impor- 
 tant a discovery. To her earth was earth, and sky 
 was sky, and clouds were clouds, namely, " water 
 in the form of vapor," which either had to descend 
 in rain, or to diffuse itself and disappear, or, at the 
 worst, to manifest itself as fog; but was by no 
 means to confuse people into the idea it was either 
 an earthly mountain or a heavenly city. To Mrs. 
 O'Brien, who had spent so much of her life in 
 cloudland hitherto, three very unpleasant alterna- 
 tions. Now, however, that she desired to become 
 a dweller on the common earth, the chasm between 
 herself and Lady Katharine seemed far less impass- 
 able. 
 
 On the evening of Lady Katharine's arrival, 
 there was a dinner-party, at which were present 
 "Winnie's old perplexity, Mr. Yernon, and Mr. Wei- 
 don, the curate of the parish. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. Z i$ 
 
 The conversation before dinner fell on the sub- 
 ject of sermons. Mr. Yernon was of opinion that 
 the clergy were in general a very harmless and 
 well-disposed body of men, and only became dan- 
 gerous for an hour or two on Sundays in the pulpit. 
 He thought it would be a final remedy for all our 
 ecclesiastical difficulties if sermons were abolished 
 altogether, or at all events if the congregation gen- 
 erally dispersed after the prayers, and left the 
 clergyman to deliver a confidential oration to such 
 of his parishioners as had a taste for that rather 
 obsolete pastime. 
 
 Mr. Weldon thought that it was a sign of the 
 decided progress of Catholic feeling that preaching 
 was being dethroned from the pre-eminence which 
 the Reformation had given it, and was being sub- 
 ordinated to the higher sacerdotal functions of the 
 clergy. An ominous smile, boding mischief, might 
 have been seen in Lady Katharine's face ; but she 
 did not enter the lists, and there the matter might 
 have dropped had it not been Mr. Weldon's fate to 
 be her neighbor at dinner, and his misfortune to 
 believe that he had to entertain a dignified and 
 mildly-disposed elderly lady. 
 
 " It is rather a remarkable symptom of the times," 
 he began, " to see men of such variety of character 
 agreeing in the opinion Mr. Vernon expressed." 
 
 " Do you think so ?" she said. " It seems to me, 
 from my limited observation, that there always are 
 a certain number of opinions which people in gene- 
 ral agree in, that is, people belonging to the same 
 set and the same generation. The remarkable thing 
 
2i 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 is when any one does not agree with them. Yet it 
 really does not need much courage to differ, at least 
 not any very continued exercise of courage. In 
 about twenty years the tide turns ; and then you 
 find the same remarkable unanimity of opinion on 
 the other side." 
 
 " You do not agree with Mr. Vernon, then," was 
 the rejoinder. 
 
 " Not agree with Mr. Vernon in thinking sermons 
 tiresome ?" she said. " I cannot say I have been 
 entirely without experience of the kind. But in 
 general we do not confide these little difficulties to 
 the clergy. They might think it discourteous. My 
 difference with Mr. Vernon is not so much as to the 
 fact as to the remedy." 
 
 Mr. Weldon began to have an uneasy feeling 
 that he had lighted on a dangerous character, pos- 
 sibly some relic of antique Puritanism. 
 
 At length he said mildly : 
 
 "There can surely be little doubt as to the 
 remedy, can there ? The country seems awaken- 
 ing to it in all directions. In almost every parish 
 you see restored churches where the huge pulpit 
 has been broken up, and replaced by a modest 
 reading-stand, leaving the aisle clear to the altar. 
 The change is typical, is it not ? People are begin- 
 ning to understand that we do not meet to listen to 
 a preacher, but to worship God." 
 
 " Excuse me," said Lady Katharine, " I think we 
 go to church for two purposes : to adore, and to be 
 taught. The Liturgy and the Lessons are no sub- 
 stitute, it seems to me, for a bad sermon, although 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 217 
 
 they may be an antidote. The only remedy for 
 bad preaching, it seems to me, is to make it better. 
 The church ought to be not only a temple of wor- 
 ship but a school of divine instruction. To the 
 educated it may matter comparatively little, but to 
 the uneducated it appears to me sermons are and 
 ought to be the most effective teaching they have. 
 I can conceive of no nobler sphere of influence 
 than the pulpit ought to be. To stand up for an 
 hour, or half an hour (I confess I think half an 
 hour is better), and speak to .some hundreds of 
 people, who must listen whether they like it or not, 
 of all it most concerns them to hear about ; to 
 pierce people's disguises and excuses, with plain, 
 faithful words about God and right and wrong 
 with such histories as the Bible gives you, and 
 such promises, and such precepts to unfold ; the 
 calling seems to me the grandest on earth ! And I 
 cannot bear to hear it undervalued. The people 
 never do undervalue it," she concluded ; " and if 
 they have cold, neat, little essays in church, they 
 go to the Wesleyans, or the Baptists, or anywhere 
 where they can find what they think stirs them up 
 and helps them, 6r teaches them, and leave the 
 aisle to your beautiful new altar very open and 
 untrodden indeed." 
 
 "No doubt," said Mr. Weldon ; "the natural 
 result, you must allow me to say, of the system 
 they have been trained in. They have been taught 
 to consider preaching everything, and to consider 
 the test of preaching not its power to calm, but to 
 excite. And if they do not find stimulants excit- 
 19 
 
218 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 ing enough at church, they go to schismatics to 
 obtain them. The calming influences which this 
 restless age needs, are precisely what it despises. 
 And as the novelty of each fresh stimulant is ex- 
 hausted, the congregation splits to seek a stronger." 
 
 " I must admit," said Lady Katharine, " our con_ 
 gregations are certainly too respectable to split. 
 They certainly disappear. But whether this pro- 
 cess says more for our cohesive force I scarcely 
 know. Solid bodies split with an explosion, liquid 
 substances trickle, away with a murmur, fluids 
 evaporate without rany disturbance at all. Our 
 congregations in city and country occasionally seem 
 to be subject to the last mode of dispersion. The 
 lower classes, who are apt, you know, to generalize 
 rather roughly seem to require something positive 
 to be done either for them or to them, when they 
 go to church. The Roman Catholics persuade the 
 congregations that something very positive is done 
 for them in the Sacrifice of the Mass and the inter- 
 cession of the priest. And you will find plenty of 
 poor people in their churches. There are, on the 
 other hand, some sermons which uneducated people 
 consider do a great deal of good to them. They 
 feel rebuked, consoled, cheered, instructed, their 
 hearts warmed, their minds, as they think, enlight- 
 ened. They call what does this the Gospel ; and 
 where this is to be found, you will find again 
 crowds of the poor. I think these facts worth con- 
 sidering. And I believe all parties are beginning 
 to consider them more and more." 
 
 " Extremes always attract the masses," said Mr. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 219 
 
 Weldon. " Are they not always wavering between 
 the counter-excitements of ' spectacles ' and dema- 
 gogues ?" 
 
 Lady Katharine's eye kindled. 
 
 "In the New Testament," she said in a low 
 voice, " the words ' common people ' and c multi- 
 tude ' are used instead of ' mobs ' or ' masses.' And 
 it is said ' He had compassion on the multitudes,' 
 and the * common people heard him gladly.' " 
 After which remark, and a brief pause, Lady 
 Katharine and the curate gradually glided into 
 deeper and calmer waters. 
 
 The next morning at breakfast Lady Katharine 
 said penitently to Mr. O'Brien : 
 
 " Cecil, my dear, I am afraid I was very fierce 
 with Mr. Weldon yesterday. I am naturally 
 tempted to be savage with young curates. Suffer- 
 ings do make people savage, unless they are great 
 saints ; and we have suffered at Combe. The rec- 
 tor, you know, is old, and there has been a constant 
 succession of curates getting * titles ' out of our 
 unhappy congregation. There was one whose 
 father was a good man I have a great respect for, 
 a small shopkeeper and a Dissenter in our county 
 town, who tried my good manners extremely by 
 knowing no human being intimately out of the 
 peerage, and no sections of Christians below the 
 level of the highest and latest Anglicanism. Then 
 there was a prophet who considered that the one 
 great embodiment of sin was the Church of Rome, 
 which he denounced in terms which (as there have 
 
220 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 been no papists for three centuries in our parish) 
 seemed to the farmers very correct, no doubt, as to 
 doctrine, but not sufficiently practical as regarded 
 sheep-stealers and other practical sinners of the 
 parish, and also rather strong language for the 
 young people to hear. Then, afterwards we had 
 two or three useful, humble-minded men, who were 
 called off very soon to larger spheres. And lately 
 a young philosopher of a very advanced school has 
 been informing us that the Bible in general, al- 
 though as a collection of interesting documents of 
 high authority, and an expression of the devout 
 aspirations of all ages, undoubtedly much to be 
 respected, is nevertheless full of the most obvious 
 mistakes and misstatements from beginning to end ; 
 although I am happy to say his language also is so 
 ' advanced ' and indefinite that I do not think any 
 one in the church understood more from his ser- 
 mons than that he is a very clever young gentle- 
 man, who, on the shoulders of certain wise men on 
 the Continent, has climbed far above the heads of 
 all the people whom, in old days, we used to be 
 taught to look up to. And the worst of it is, that 
 each one of these young people has not an idea 
 that there is an opinion any intelligent man can 
 hold for an instant except his own. My only com- 
 fort is, that sometimes after a few years I have 
 found these very men softened and smoothed into 
 sober-minded vicars, with nothing at all particular in 
 their opinions ; and that in the cottages, where they 
 come into contact with the troubled, and sick, and 
 dying, I have found that frequently these peculiar 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 2 2l 
 
 opinions have dropped off from them like an out- 
 side cloak, and they have taken refuge in a few 
 very simple truths and facts out of the old Bible. 
 However, the curates and I have had so many com- 
 bats that I know I am not safe with the species. I 
 have no doubt they think me a very positive and 
 bigoted old woman ; yet I flatter myself we have 
 done each other a little good now and then, and we 
 generally part better friends than we meet." 
 
 Winifred had been gazing with wide-open, earn- 
 est eyes at Lady Katharine while she was speaking, 
 and after breakfast she crept to her side and whis-- 
 pered softly : 
 
 "Please, Aunt Katharine, don't be fierce with 
 Mr. Leigh. He is coming to-day with Grace, and 
 he is very gentle, and rather timid, I think." 
 
 " Who is Mr. Leigh, my pet ?" 
 
 " Mr. Leigh is Grace's father, and Grace is my 
 friend, Aunt Katharine ; and he is a curate, but I 
 don't think he can help it. And he is not young, 
 Aunt Katharine ; his hair is gray." 
 
 " A gray-haired curate is a very different phe- 
 nomenon, Winnie," she said, laughing, " from any 
 of my foes. I promise you I will not be at all 
 fierce, but be on my best behavior. He must be a 
 very sensible man, moreover, to have called his 
 little girl Grace, instead of Etheldreda or Rade- 
 gunda, or some of the various names which are 
 being disinterred from the calendars in these days 
 to perplex old-fashioned people like me. I will be 
 as civil as I can to Mr. Leigh, Winnie, I assure you, 
 and to little Grace also." 
 19* 
 
222 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Winifred was relieved. And in another hour 
 she saw Mr. Leigh's tall, stooping figure moving 
 slowly up the pathway across the lawn, conducted 
 by Maurice, while little Grace was lingering a little 
 behind, looking round at the view. Winnie was at 
 her side in an instant, and leading her by the hand 
 to introduce her to Mrs. O'Brien. 
 
 Winnie, in her eagerness to make the most of 
 her friend, was far more confused and shy than 
 Grace, who, after quietly looking up and meeting 
 Mrs. O'Brien's gentle kind eyes, seemed to feel 
 quite at home. There was something in the soft 
 voices, the easy unaffected manners, and the gen- 
 eral tone of things around her, in which little Grace 
 seemed to float into her element at once. And 
 Lady Katharine's reception of Mr. Leigh was in 
 Winifred's opinion unexceptionable. She received 
 him with a kind of gentle deference, as she might 
 a prince in exile; like some one she had heard 
 often about and had wished to know. She spoke 
 to him of his Grace and of her little niece, and in 
 a few minutes established countless fine little links 
 between them, and shed a kindly sunshine around 
 her, which quietly divested Mr. Leigh of his cloak 
 of shyness, and made him expand into a freedom 
 of intercourse he had known little of since his old 
 college days. 
 
 Meantime Grace, considering her father in good 
 keeping, was conducted by Winnie through all her 
 treasures, her books, her photographs, her garden ; 
 Grace admiring, and Winnie perplexing her gener- 
 ous little heart to devise by what means she might 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 223 
 
 transfer the greater portion of her possessions to 
 her friend, without taking the position of a benefac- 
 tress and seeming to assume that Grace's home 
 was deficient in anything. 
 
 But either Winnie was a poor diplomatist, or 
 Grace was very impenetrable, for not one natural 
 opening could be found through which to insert a 
 present. At length, as usual with her, Winnie 
 abandoned finesse, and rushed at her point. 
 
 " Please, Grace, will you choose ? I can't think 
 what you would like best, and I should like you to 
 take everything. I have no paintings of my own, 
 you know, like the one you gave me. But won't 
 you tell me which of these photographs or books 
 you like? They are quite my very own; and I 
 should be so much obliged if you would take them 
 for your very own." 
 
 Grace looked perplexed. Possession was alto- 
 gether a new light for her to contemplate things in. 
 
 " How kind you are," she said. " But I really do 
 not want anything. It is such a pleasure to see the 
 things. I never think of having things. When one 
 looks at things, really beautiful things I mean, one 
 does seem to have them for one's very own. When 
 I shut my eyes to-night I shall see all this lovely 
 garden, and the woods, and the water, and the 
 beautiful blue distant hills again, and the pictures, 
 just as I shall see you ; and I do not think they 
 would be more like my own for having them at 
 home. I am so much obliged ! But you know we 
 have not very much room ; and Mrs. Treherne is 
 sometimes a little particular about there being 
 ' heaps of things about, as sTie says." 
 
224 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 "But things are not your own, by looking at 
 them," rejoined Winnie ; not quite sure whether 
 Grace was talking what Maurice called metaphy- 
 sics, or whether she had confused notions of property. 
 ' You cannot look at them again whenever you like. 
 
 " But," said Grace, " one cannot have everything 
 to look at again whenever one likes. So I like al- 
 ways to look well at things, and have them for one's 
 own in that way. Just as the stars, and the sun and 
 the moon, and the rivers and the trees, are one's 
 own, or any person one loves." 
 
 Winnie was not convinced. 
 
 " The moon is one thing," she replied in plain 
 Anglo-Saxon, " and a photographic album is an- 
 other. Of course no one can have the moon ; but I 
 should think it so kind, Grace, if you would take 
 my album. Please do. I always manage things in 
 such a blundering way," she concluded. " Rosalie 
 ays I do." 
 
 And to pacify her friend, Grace accepted two 
 photographs from Ary Scheffer, and having accepted 
 them, tasted the delight of possession at once, and 
 cheered Winnie's heart by saying : 
 
 " They will look lovely on the chimneypiece by 
 Canova's Night and Morning. I am so little used 
 to having things," she added, coloring a little. 
 " Father not being very rich, and Mrs. Treherne 
 being particular. And whenever one begins, you 
 know one must stop somewhere, even if one were 
 the Queen. I mean one must stop having, and one 
 might always go on wishing ; so perhaps it is just 
 as well to stop wishing at the beginning as after- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 225 
 
 wards. And don't you think," she concluded, 
 " that looking will be the way we shall have things 
 in heaven ? looking and loving ?" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" said Winnie softly. 
 
 " I mean that in heaven of course everything will 
 be God's really. We shall not have our little bits 
 of property shut up in houses there, and yet it will 
 be all really ours too, more than anything can be on 
 earth ; because we shall always be able to look at 
 all the glorious things, and because He is our 
 Father, and heaven is our Father's house ; and look- 
 ing and loving does seem the most like heaven, and 
 the best way really to have things even now." 
 
 " But we are not in heaven, and here people really 
 want many things," said Winnie, meditatively. 
 " It would not have made little Fan less hungry, 
 you know, to look at a loaf of bread, would it ? 
 Rather more I think. And, oh, Grace," she con- 
 tinued,'" are you really going to teach little Fan to 
 sew ?" 
 
 Which led to a long conversation, where Winnie, 
 not being a person of mystical tendencies, felt more 
 at home than in any theories of possessing the 
 world " by right of eye." 
 
 It was a long happy day. There were games on 
 the lawn, in which it was Winnie's delight to 
 initiate Grace and Mr. Leigh ; and at Winnie's es- 
 pecial request, there was early tea in the rock 
 garden. 
 
 And there were strollings about the garden, and 
 confidential conversations, in which Mrs. O'Brien 
 
226 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and Lady Katharine made little Grace's acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien was strangely attracted by the 
 gentle child, and took her to show her the new fern- 
 ery, with delicate tropical ferns growing around a 
 fountain springing from a basin of Majolica china, 
 which made the delicate fronds tremble and sparkle 
 in its spray, with which Grace was enchanted, con- 
 sidering it like fairy land. In the course of con- 
 versation Grace happened to mention the name of 
 Mrs. Treherne, which recalled to Mrs. O'Brien Mrs. 
 Dee's book of classified human beings. " Did you 
 ever happen to hear Mrs. Treherne or any one 
 speak of a lady called Mrs. Dee ?" she asked. 
 
 " Yes, often," said Grace, smiling a little. 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 " She said Mrs. Dee should never set foot in her 
 house again," replied Grace ; " but perhaps I ought 
 not to have told. Mrs. Treherne sometimes says 
 more than, she quite means. And she is not very 
 fond of advice, I think, and she thought Mrs. Dee 
 gave her a great deal of advice, and had no right." 
 
 " Then there were two Miss Lovels ?" 
 
 Grace was silent. 
 
 " They did not like being visited ?" 
 
 "Miss Lavinia thought it was kindly meant," 
 said Grace, "but Miss Betsy said an impertinent 
 person had called one day without an introduction 
 or anything to say." 
 
 " Mrs. Dee spoke also of a Mrs. Anderson, a 
 Scotchwoman, I think, who had lost two children." 
 
 Grace colored a little. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 227 
 
 " I am sure Mrs. Dee could not have meant it, 
 but something she said once pained Mrs. Anderson. 
 I went into her little parlor one afternoon and 
 found her crying bitterly. She very seldom shows 
 what she feels. But she was quite sobbing then, 
 and she said, 'O Miss Grace, the lady said, the 
 house ought to be a model of neatness, with no 
 children to put things out of order ! no children ! 
 no bairns ! none indeed in the house to make 
 stir or life in it now ! ISTo Alick or Maggie now !' 
 And Mrs. Anderson could not say any more, her voice 
 was so choked because of her little son and daughter 
 who died. And I could not think what to say to 
 comfort her ; sometimes things you mean to com- 
 fort seem only to make the pain worse, when it is 
 very bitter. So I could do nothing but sit down 
 and cry too. And then after a few minutes Mrs. 
 Anderson became quiet, and the sobs stopped, and 
 she looked up and said, 'I gave them up to the 
 Lord years ago, Miss Grace. And I give them up 
 now. The Lord knows that tears are not murmurs, 
 and pain is not sin. He knows.' And before I went 
 away she told me not to think harshly of Mrs. Dee, 
 for she was a benevolent lady and meant well, and 
 if there were some wounds that would burst out 
 with the old anguish whenever they're touched, it 
 was not to be expected a stranger would know that." 
 
 " Mrs. Anderson was not angry then with Mrs. 
 Dee?" 
 
 " Not at all," said Grace. " She said she was no 
 more to be blamed than a person in the street who 
 seized you by a broken arm, to push you out of the 
 
228 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 way of something he thought might hurt you. 
 How could he know it would pain you ?" 
 
 " The best way is never to seize people roughly, 
 I think," said Mrs. O'Brien. " But when one thinks 
 what storms every one may have had, it does seem 
 a great risk to plunge in on them in that indiscrimi- 
 nate kind of way. I am afraid Mrs. Dee must have 
 left a great many people rather out of temper." 
 
 " I do not know," said Grace. " Mrs. Anderson 
 told me afterwards of some very kind things she 
 did. There were two or three men whom she took 
 great trouble to get into work, and succeeded. 
 And there was one family of orphans whom she 
 provided for in various asylums. And several peo- 
 ple she stirred up to sending their children to school, 
 paying for some of the poorest. And others she 
 got to understand the good of fresh air and cleanli- 
 ness, and made their homes quite a different thing. 
 Mrs. Anderson thought she did many good things 
 for the people. She said she thinks God never lets 
 any one try to help others without doing some 
 good." 
 
 " Then some of the people were grateful to Mrs. 
 Dee?" 
 
 " I am not quite sure of that," said Grace, color- 
 ing. "Perhaps they ought. But I heard father 
 and Mr. Treherne once talking about it. Father 
 said that Mrs. Dee was an excellent woman, and 
 people ought to be grateful to ladies coming down 
 out of their way from their comfortable homes to 
 lift poor fallen people out of misery. But Mr. Tre- 
 herne said the poor law was an excellent institution, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 229 
 
 and a steam crane was an excellent thing to lift 
 things out of a ship, but no one ever thought of 
 being grateful to the poor law or to a steam crane ; 
 and he thought it was not so much the things done 
 for people, as the heart it was done with that made 
 people grateful." 
 
 "Mr. Treherne must be a remarkably sensible 
 man for a greengrocer," said Mrs. O'Brien. 
 
 Grace was perplexed. It had never occurred to 
 her that intellect was to be classified according to 
 trade, and she did not know what to say. 
 
 "I understand," said Mrs. O'Brien, "they feel 
 people like Mrs. Dee like a kind of embodied soci- 
 ety; a sort of charity-machine. They are helped, 
 but the heart is not cheered and comforted. But 
 how is that to be done ? You seem to know a great 
 deal of the poor. I wish you would tell me what 
 you do when you visit the poor. Mrs. Dee asked 
 me to take her district, but I do not know how." 
 
 Grace looked up in wonder. 
 
 " I am sure I cannot tell you anything, Mrs. 
 O'Brien," she said. " I do know a good many peo- 
 ple who are poor, but I never thought of them so 
 much as ' the poor,' as of people that had been given 
 me to know and love, and who happen to be poor 
 and in trouble, which, of course, makes one love 
 them all the more. They are the parents of my 
 school-children, and blind Jenny, and a few besides. 
 I go to see them just as I do the Miss Lovels, to 
 read to them, or talk to them, or to listen, or to do 
 anything they seem to want. They are my friends, 
 you know, Mrs. O'Brien, so it is quite easy. I do 
 20 
 
230 WINIFRED BERTRAM, ANfi 
 
 not see how I ever could help and comfort any un- 
 less they were my friends, unless I cared about 
 them, and they cared about me. I am afraid I do 
 not know anything about visiting the poor. But I 
 am only a child," concluded Grace apologetically. 
 
 " But how am I to make friends among the poor, 
 my child ?" said Mrs. O'Brien. " Tell me your secret.'* 
 
 " I am sure I cannot tell," said Grace ; and then 
 she added musingly, " I think friends come one by 
 one, Mrs. O'Brien, not in a district, all at once, do 
 they ? If you could begin with one, you might go 
 on, mightn't you?" "And," she added, smiling 
 suddenly, as if a bright thought had struck her, 
 " you have one friend in Mrs. Dee's own district. 
 There is little Fan who has come to be Mrs. Tre- 
 herne's little maid. She says you are the kindest 
 and sweetest spoken lady she ever saw, and were 
 so kind to her and Dan. She and Dan think there's 
 no one in the world so good as you and Miss Wini- 
 fred and Mr. Bertram. She says you not only gave 
 them all they wanted, but you took Dan's hand as 
 he lay in the bed at the hospital and stroked it like 
 their mother used, and smoothed his pillow. And 
 she says she saw great tears in your eyes the first 
 time you saw him. She knows you feel in your 
 heart for Dan, little Fan says. O Mrs. O'Brien," 
 concluded Grace, " you have one friend to begin 
 with. You have won little Fan's heart. Oh, do 
 take Mrs. Dee's district." 
 
 Great tears started to Mrs. O'Brien's eyes then, 
 and she said little more. She only took Grace's 
 two hands in hers and murmured : 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 231 
 
 " Perhaps it is not too late to begin, even for me, 
 Grace. I began to be afraid it was." 
 
 Lady Katharine's tete-a-tete with Grace was 
 briefer. Little Grace was standing in the Rock 
 Garden watching the fountain with the water- 
 lilies, in a perfect trance of pleasure. 
 
 " You seem to admire this place very much, my 
 child," she said. "What were you thinking of?" 
 
 " I was thinking of Paradise Lost," said Grace, 
 coloring a little, for she felt a little instinctive sense 
 that Lady Katharine would not quite understand, 
 yet she was too honest not to give a direct answer 
 " and the garden there." 
 
 " That shows how much Milton was right in say- 
 ing 'the mind is its own place,' Grace," replied 
 Lady Katharine. " Now while you were having such 
 beautiful thoughts, I was thinking that I felt like a 
 Newfoundland dog in a greenhouse. Everything is 
 so small, and neat, and perfect in these suburban 
 gardens, I feel as if I were in a china shop, I am 
 always afraid of breaking or disarranging some- 
 thing. I must persuade you and Mr. Leigh to come 
 to Combe. We have real wild tangled woods there, 
 and a real wild river, with such lovely wild flowers, 
 and great, wet, green ferns about it, and a little way 
 off the sea, a real, noisy, blustering, hearty sea. 
 Would you like to come ? " 
 
 Grace's eyes shone. 
 
 " If father could have a holiday," she said. 
 
 " Yery well. I have your promise. We will try 
 and arrange the rest, and you are to bring your 
 
2 3 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 colors, and you may paint from morning to 
 night." 
 
 "I think I should be too happy to paint," said 
 Grace. " I should be always wanting to look and 
 listen." 
 
 " Well then, you shall do nothing from morning 
 till night, if you like that better. All my guests 
 are free as air." 
 
 "But please, Lady Katharine," said Grace, "I 
 should not like that at all. But looking and listen- 
 ing are not always doing nothing, are they ?" 
 
 " I will debate that point when you are at Combe," 
 said Lady Katharine, " however, I am quite sure 
 doing nothing sometimes does wonders. And I hope 
 you will see that with your father. We will not 
 let him, at all events, do a thing from morning till 
 night, and you yourself shall draw, and Mr. Leigh 
 will grow quite young and strong, with a voice like 
 a lion, and a step like a deer." 
 
 "It would be nice to hear father's voice quite 
 strong again," said Grace, calling largely on her 
 recollection of the Zoological Gardens to realize 
 Lady Katharine's similes. " He was quite strong 
 once, and used to take such long walks when he 
 was at Cambridge." 
 
 "We will make him quite strong again," said 
 Lady Katharine decisively. 
 
 And Grace, looking up into her kind, clear, pow- 
 erful eyes, felt as if Lady Katharine really could do 
 whatever she would. 
 
 Winifred was quite satisfied with the impression 
 produced by her friend. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 233 
 
 "That child is a gentlewoman through and 
 through," pronounced Lady Katharine ; " she would 
 be as much at home at court as in a cottage, and as 
 sweet and humble with a beggar as with the queen. 
 But that is only natural. Her father is a true gen- 
 tleman of the old school. Her mother must have 
 been a thoroughly well-bred person. That kind of 
 thing only comes by race that tact and delicate 
 instinct what to do and say. Every look of her 
 sweet, calm, motherly-like face, every movement of 
 her pretty, small, white hands, has a charm in it. 
 And her voice is, as sentimental people would say, 
 like a summer wind, not ringing like a fairy bell, 
 like our Winnie's, and sometimes like a very perti- 
 nacious little bell, but like a thought unconsciously 
 taking sound. She ought to sing ; she must have 
 lessons." 
 
 " She does sing, Aunt Katharine, little Fan told 
 me so. She sang once by Dan's bedside." 
 
 " Ah," said Lady Katharine meditatively, " then 
 perhaps she had better not have lessons. They 
 might spoil her. I know how she would sing 
 warbling like a bird, no great compass, but rich, 
 and tremulous, and full. Those voices are spoiled 
 by forcing them into heights and depths, or fetter- 
 ing them with rules. No, she must not have les- 
 sons." 
 
 Rosalie also had her commendations of Mademoi- 
 selle. Of Grace's French, she had expressed (pri- 
 vately to Winnie) an opinion, I am sorry to say, 
 confirmatory of Grace's own worst suspicions. 
 But of Grace herself there could be but one opinion. 
 20* 
 
234 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " The dress of your compatriots usually," she 
 said, " has the look of being built upon them. First, 
 no doubt, as a foundation there is a human figure. 
 On this is constructed an erection of clothes, manu- 
 factured by the thousand, like regimental uniforms, 
 without reference to individualities. Colors, shades, 
 materials are distributed as in a lottery. But with 
 Mademoiselle Grace, as with a Parisian, her toilette 
 is her own, from the small, high-instepped, firmly 
 planted feet, to the small round throat which the 
 simple dress clasps so well. There is a character 
 in everything, from her chaussure to her glossy 
 brown hair. I do not say some of your country- 
 women cannot make grand toilettes. My lady 
 Katharine sweeps her black moiree and her lace 
 shawl around her in grand simple folds, like a 
 queen's robes. But Mademoiselle Grace's dress 
 enfolds her as the green leaves enfold a lily bud. 
 And in her manners such a repose. She understood 
 also, when I was dressing your hair, Mademoiselle 
 Winnie, that the toilette is a work of art, a sculp- 
 ture, a painting, only with living subjects ; not to 
 be hurried over like a mere mechanical operation. 
 Mademoiselle Grace has appreciation. With six 
 months' education she might mingle in the first 
 salons of Paris and not be distinguished from a 
 young lady of the old noblesse. She might walk 
 through Paris, and no one say, That is not a Pa- 
 risian." 
 
 And beyond that Winnie knew commendation 
 from Rosalie would not soar. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 235 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien said little. Her heart was drawn 
 to the gentle, humble, loving child, she felt afraid 
 to say how much. 
 
 A new meaning seemed to shine for her that 
 night in the words, " Except ye enter the kingdom 
 of heaven as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter 
 therein." 
 
 And as Winnie looked at her illuminated text in 
 the evening, the divine voice seemed all the deeper 
 and sweeter from the human tones which echoed it. 
 " We love Him because he first loved us." 
 
 " How much more must Grace love God," she 
 thought, " than I do, to be so much more like him. 
 But yet it is, ' He loved us ' me as well as Grace, 
 and Dan, and Maurice, and the people who are so 
 much better than I am. How good it is of God to 
 make those who are so really good, love me who am 
 not. And yet, I suppose," she concluded, " it is be- 
 cause they are so really good, that they do love 
 people who are not, but are meant to be. Because 
 that is just what God does. The people who are 
 best must love most, always, I suppose, and love 
 first. Only God begins before any one else. He 
 must begin to love us before we even want to be 
 good. But that is, of course, because he is best of 
 all. And how happy it is to think of that." 
 
 So happy, that in a few minutes the happy child 
 fell asleep with a warm, safe feeling at her heart, as 
 if she had been lulled to sleep by her mother's 
 voice singing hymns softly by her, bedside. 
 
 Mr. Leigh and Grace were driven home in Mr. 
 O'Brien's carriage, a proceeding which highly im- 
 
236 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 pressed Mrs. Treherne, although it was not an eco- 
 nomical mode of conveyance to Mr. Leigh, who 
 thought it his duty to give the coachman a larger 
 fee than his and Grace's omnibus fare. 
 
 But he returned really refreshed. " I declare, it 
 has made me feel quite young, and they were very 
 kind, Gracie," he said ; " I am sure I cannot tell 
 why, but they really did seem to enjoy it almost as 
 much as we did." 
 
 Lady Katharine carried her point. A clergyman 
 was found, by her exertions, to take Mr. Leigh's 
 duty for six weeks, at St. Cuthbert's, and at the 
 Workhouse. Mr. Leigh's many scruples were 
 overcome, not so much by force of argument, as by 
 force of will, and the day of departure was fixed. 
 
 All Grace's little world was set in commotion on 
 the morning of that memorable day. Mrs. Tre- 
 herne considered the whole expedition a great risk, 
 living, as she did, in the conviction that it was 
 nothing but her skillful counteracting of the various 
 snares, which in this world of mutual preying on 
 each other, continually endanger helpless and un- 
 suspicious creatures like Mr. Leigh and Grace, that 
 preserved them from unknown disasters from day 
 to day. She had, however, an aunt, a small farm- 
 er's wife, living some few miles from Combe Mona- 
 chorum, to whom she gave Mr. Leigh a parcel to be 
 delivered at his convenience, partly from a wish to 
 communicate with her aunt, but chiefly because, as 
 she said, " Mr. Leigh, poor dear good gentleman, 
 knew no more of the world than an infant, and if 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 237 
 
 anything should go wrong, her aunt was a com- 
 fortable woman, that had her eyes in her head, and 
 had brought up her children ; and she could look 
 after him." 
 
 Mrs. Anderson was under no apprehension of the 
 kind. She believed Miss Grace was going among 
 those who were naturally fit to be her companions, 
 and she rejoiced in it. 
 
 Miss Betsy Lovel gave Grace the benefit of all 
 her little store of old-fashioned rules of etiquette, 
 how to address people of title, etc., which might 
 have tended to perplex the child, if Miss Lavinia 
 and Miss Betsy had been able quite to agree on the 
 subject. But as they could not, she wisely resolved 
 not to burden herself with any of them. 
 
 " You will come back quite a grand lady, Gracie," 
 said Miss Lavinia, from her resting-place on the 
 sofa, " and not care to have anything to say to your 
 poor old friends." 
 
 But her trustful look and her loving fondling of 
 Grace's bright hair, as she knelt beside her, quite 
 belied her doubting words, and Grace vouchsafed 
 no answer, but kisses on the thin, long fingers. 
 
 " What ideas to put into the dear child's head, sis- 
 ter," said Miss Betsy, bridling a little. " Grace is 
 not the first person of our acquaintance, I am sure, 
 who has been invited to stay with an earl's daugh- 
 ter. In my grandfather's regiment, I have heard 
 my mother say, they thought very little of * hono- 
 rables.' Not that I should disparage the aristoc- 
 racy," continued Miss Lovel, in a patronizing way, 
 "It is not for us to undervalue the ancient institu- 
 
238 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 tions of the country. My mother, when she was a 
 little girl, was in the habit of playing every day 
 with the granddaughters of an Irish viscount. To 
 say nothing of our own connections, which might 
 look like boasting. I am sure, my dear Gracie," 
 she concluded, " you will not understand my sister's 
 humility. She would be the last to wish to put 
 foolish worldly ideas in your head. Rank is noth- 
 ing, Gracie, my dear ; and wealth is vanity. The 
 one thing, as you say in your catechism, is to do 
 your duty in the state of life to which it pleases 
 God to call us. But there are few families in the 
 kingdom before whom the Lovels would be ashamed 
 to hold up their heads. All my sister, Miss Lavinia, 
 meant, my dear, was to warn you against worldly 
 ideas, now that you are going out into the world 
 for the first time." 
 
 But Grace and Miss Lavinia had not in the least 
 misunderstood each other. Grace was a little be- 
 wildered with Miss Betsy's explanations and exhor- 
 tations, but she only said : 
 
 " Please, I do not think I am going out into the 
 world, Miss Lovel, at all. We are only going into 
 the country." 
 
 Little Fan and Grace understood each other bet- 
 ter on the subject. 
 
 " I am going into the country, Fan," said Grace, 
 " the real country where God made everything with 
 his own hands." 
 
 " Please, Miss Grace," said Fan, " you will tell 
 me all about it when you come back. Dan says 
 when you wake up in the morning in the country, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 239 
 
 the first thing you hear is the birds singing ; and 
 the corn grows so tall, I could hardly see over it, 
 Dan says ; and the flowers grow so beautiful, and 
 belong to nobody, and there is nobody to look after 
 them, and there are creatures that build houses 
 and roof them, and creatures that crack nuts and 
 sit on the trees eating them. Dan reads such lots 
 of things in his books. But the other boy at the 
 shop says some of them books are all made up 
 like, and are nothing but lies. And Dan wants to 
 know." 
 
 So anxious was little Fan to deliver Dan from 
 the sceptical doubts of bakers' boys and such a 
 paradise did "the country" seem to both the 
 children. 
 
 They started early on the morning of their de- 
 parture, to be in time for a parliamentary train. 
 Harry on the outside of the cab, fraternizing in a 
 manly way with the cabman, and ostentatiously 
 protectirig everybody and everything ; Grace inside 
 silently caring for her father, Harry, and every 
 article of luggage, her traveling bag full of pro- 
 visions of her own, increased by sundry gifts 
 from her friends ; and Mr. Leigh beside her, per- 
 suaded they should be too late for the train, and 
 inwardly debating in his own mind whether, in that 
 case, he might not regard it as a providential inti- 
 mation that he had better return to his work and 
 his corner by the fire-place, his apprehensions hav- 
 ing been in no degree relieved by Mrs. Treherne's 
 farewell, as with tears on her cheeks, she said, 
 " Well, we can only hope all '11 be for the best, Mr. 
 
240 
 
 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Leigh, and you'll all come back safe. But it's 
 a wicked world, and full of dangers, and them 
 railways is no better than so many man-slaugh- 
 terers. However, the Almighty can do all things, 
 and some folks do come back alive, there's no 
 denying." 
 
 Once embarked in the train, however, beyond 
 the power of altering his decision, Mr. Leigh's 
 spirits began to revive. He was a little anxious at 
 first as to whether he was performing his duties to 
 various fellow-passengers, encumbered with babies 
 and with burdens of various kinds ; but rather a vague 
 offer of assistance, which he made to an earnest- 
 minded person with two huge bundles, a large boy 
 and a basket, who stumbled into the carriage rather 
 hot from an encounter with a porter, having been 
 apparently misunderstood and resented, Mr. Leigh 
 felt himself justified in retiring into private life. 
 The earnest-minded person remarked that " every 
 one thought they could impose, on a poor lone 
 woman, with a poor helpless infant ; but that if the 
 railway thought she was going to trust her little 
 property to be kicked or tossed about by porters, the 
 railway was mistaken ; and if other people thought 
 she took more room than she had a title to, they 
 had better complain to the railway and not to her. 
 She had not had the making of the carriages." 
 On which, Mr. Leigh feeling himself inextricably 
 involved with personified railway companies and 
 impertinent porters in a catalogue of the enemies 
 of lone women, attempted no defence, but confined 
 himself thenceforth to his duties to Grace and 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 241 
 
 Harry, and to as small a space of the carriage as 
 was compatible with retaining any of the proper- 
 ties of matter. Harry, meantime, on his part, car- 
 ried on a silent war of defiant glances with his 
 father's foe, and Grace gave herself up undisturbed 
 to the unutterable delight of whirling through 
 countless miles of cool delicious green, and looking 
 up into boundless depths of pure sunny blue. 
 
 The historical stateliness of the gray old Abbey, 
 and the lofty avenues of Combe Monachorum had 
 not at all the depressing effect on Mr. Leigh pro- 
 duced by his cousin Felix Hunter's great house in 
 Bedford Square. Partly because they lifted him 
 by the force of association from the petty thoughts 
 of to-day into the calm of history. And partly, 
 no doubt, because he felt that whatever might have 
 been his sins of omission in not acquiring a home 
 in Bedford Square, even Mr. Hunter, judging by 
 his highest standard of duty, could not have rea- 
 sonably expected him to provide his family with 
 an estate like Combe Monachorum and an ancestry 
 reaching back to the days of Alfred the Great. 
 He was therefore delivered from any sense of re- 
 sponsibility and failure in the matter, and felt at 
 liberty to enjoy the woods and meadows of the 
 Abbey with as complete an absence of self-reproach 
 as if he had been called to be a guest at the British 
 Museum, or the Zoological Gardens, or any other 
 neutral territory which no one could have expected 
 him to possess. Moreover, there was none of that 
 solemn sense of success ancl impeccability at Combe 
 Monachorum which upheld every one in the house 
 21 
 
242 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 in Bedford Square, and made it quite an effort of 
 self-restraint to Mr. Leigh not to apologize to the 
 very superior footman who helped him to take off 
 his great-coat, for its being a little shabby and 
 rubbed about the collar. 
 
 The old butler at the Abbey evidently took a 
 paternal interest in Mr. Leigh from the first, re- 
 garding him as a London gentleman, of rather an 
 absent mind, not much acquainted with the coun- 
 try, and requiring to be watched in a delicate 
 manner and kept out of danger. He accordingly 
 warned Mr. Leigh repeatedly concerning any of 
 the dogs who were apt to be uncivil to strangers, 
 and any field in which there were cattle given to 
 run at intruders, and any steep places on the cliffs 
 at the entrance of the Combe over which unwary 
 people had at any time stumbled ; warnings which, 
 if they tended a little to increase Mr. Leigh's natu- 
 ral nervousness, and to keep him in a state of 
 apprehension out of doors, yet served to convince 
 him effectually of the friendly intentions of the 
 butler. 
 
 The housekeeper, also a Wesleyan, took him 
 under her especial protection, confided to him her 
 family joys and sorrows, declared his discourse did 
 her as much good as any sermon she ever heard at 
 the meeting, and repaid his sympathy by a mild 
 tyranny in the form of hot possets at night for the 
 good of his throat, and cold bitters in the morning 
 for the good of his chest. Indeed the servants in 
 general declared that since master died, they had 
 not seen such a gentleman as Mr. Leigh. lie made 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 243 
 
 no more mark on the floors with his shoes than a 
 ghost. He was so anxious to give no trouble, it 
 was quite a trouble to find out what he wanted ; 
 and he was as thankful for any one answering the 
 bell as if it had been quite an unexpected favor. 
 Then for all he seemed so in the clouds, he saw in 
 a moment if any one was in want of a kind word. 
 Sarah, the under-housemaid, had lost her brother, 
 and she had been crying one morning as she was 
 washing the door-steps, when Mr. Leigh was going 
 out for his early walk ; and he saw it, and spoke so 
 feelingly to her, and when he found what was the 
 matter, he crept away that very morning to see 
 Sarah's mother who was a widow, and gave her 
 such a discourse and such a prayer, Sarah said, that 
 her mother was quite lifted up like, and said she 
 should never forget it. 
 
 So that Mr. Leigh naturally felt more at home at 
 Combe than Bedford Square. The Combe Mona- 
 chorum household was not like Mr. Hunter's a 
 museum of models, all of them representative men 
 and women but a collection of peccable and falli- 
 ble human beings like Mr. Leigh himself; and 
 association of human beings of that ordinary kind, 
 if less elevating and improving, is also less over- 
 powering. The mutual links between the represen- 
 tative units themselves may be of a very elevated 
 and representative character; but the links of 
 those units with inferior orders of humanity being 
 rather quantitative, or arithmetical, than personal, 
 are apt to be similar to the relations between a 
 unit and its fractions, and, therefore, oppressive to 
 
244 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 the fractions. Especially if the fraction is bur- 
 dened, like Mr. Leigh, with the sense that it ought 
 to have been a unit, and is deeply responsible for 
 being a fraction at all. For what, as Cousin Felix 
 or Mrs. Dee, or any representative unit knows, is a 
 fraction but a fragment, broken, and chipped, and 
 squeezed, and jostled by its own inherent brittle- 
 ness and compressibility, encountering an energetic 
 and advancing age, out of the upper line altogether 
 till it had sunk below the surface of society into 
 the line of minuses, and ceased to have any real 
 value or standing at all in the universe. 
 
 At Combe Monachorum, as in his own little 
 circle in the east of London, the arithmetical or 
 quantitative relations gave way to the human. 
 And Mr. Leigh was not without gleams of hope 
 that this might also be the case in another Home 
 where certain two mites, and even a cup of cold 
 water, which would not have cost one mite, are 
 said to be invested with a value plainly not depend- 
 ent on any known laws of number or magnitude. 
 
 Grace meanwhile, having never been distressed 
 with any social responsibilities of the kind, feeling 
 her father's lot as the curate, and her own as the 
 curate's daughter, to be as divinely ordered as the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury's or Lady Katharine's, 
 and being, moreover, relieved of her own peculiar 
 responsibilities with regard to her father and Harry, 
 by seeing her father quite at home, and enjoying 
 his long solitary rambles, and Harry safe and proud 
 under the gamekeeper, and in charge of a pony for 
 his own use, was for the first time in her life since 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 245 
 
 her mother's death once more a free and joyous 
 child, without any one in particular to take care of, 
 having only to exercise that mild protectorate of 
 her fellow-creatures in general, which was her natu- 
 ral prerogative. 
 
 Lady Katharine provided Grace and Harry with 
 two occupations which were the source to them of 
 endless adventures and delights. One was to stock 
 an aquarium with sea-creatures from the rocky 
 pools and the sands on the sea-shore, which was 
 not a mile distant. The other was to supply a wild- 
 garden she was forming with wild flowers and ferns. 
 As early as possible after breakfast, tlie two chil- 
 dren started, Harry accoutred with a manly knap- 
 sack containing sundry satisfactory West-country 
 pasties ; and armed (according to their various des- 
 tinations) with a spade, trowel, and basket, or with 
 a large-mouthed glass bottle, and a small net on 
 a hoop. 
 
 T9 Harry these excursions had all the excitement 
 of hunting or deerstalking. Steeple chases, indeed, 
 he made of them, marching Grace with a lofty 
 scorn of obstacles over hedges, and up and down 
 cliffs, whilst she never thought of questioning that 
 this was the ordinary mode of progress in " the 
 country," being imposed on by Harry's narrations 
 of his Hampstead experiences. His delight was in 
 the pursuit and the capture, in the scrambles by 
 the way, and in baffling the attempts of the vari- 
 ous creatures to escape. They were to him in 
 starting like going off to the wars ; and in return- 
 ing, like the march of a conqueror. He shouldered 
 21* 
 
246 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 his spade like a rifle, and handled his trowel like a 
 carbine, and dug out tiny sea anemones, or seized 
 recalcitrant crabs with as much triumph as if they 
 had been foxes or cannibals, especially if the 
 achievement could be accomplished, as it frequently 
 was, at some risk to his neck. 
 
 Grace's delight, on the other hand, was in pene- 
 trating into all kinds of hidden nooks and corners 
 of the beautiful world, in tracing the streams, the 
 flowers and the shells to their cradles and homes. 
 
 " It will always sound like a bit of poetry, you 
 know, Harry," she said, " after this, to hear them 
 crying periwinkles in the streets. It will take us 
 back to the rock-pools, and the sands, and the shin- 
 ing sea with all its sounds. It will be almost as 
 good as a bit of IJomer." 
 
 " Quite, I think," said Harry, whose associations 
 with periwinkles had not previously been of a pain- 
 ful kind, and whose recollections of Homer were 
 not of unmixed delight. 
 
 To Grace these expeditions were "voyages of dis- 
 covery. No voyager on unexplored seas ever de- 
 lighted more in the sight of new shores than Grace 
 whenever she lighted on a new world of wonders 
 in some still rock-pool, where tiny silvery fish 
 'flashed in and out among sea-weeds and crimson 
 corallines, or in some woodland nook where ferns 
 and wild flowers nestled around the cradles of the 
 brooks. Many a time she thanked God silently in 
 her heart for opening, one by one, the doors of 
 these treasure-chambers of his beautiful world to 
 her. All day long she often felt as if she were 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 247 
 
 being led by the hand into room after room of 
 God's palaces. 
 
 " Oh, Harry," she said, as they were sitting on 
 rocks one day at their luncheon, when, as usual, 
 she had clasped her hands, and said her grace, 
 " Harry, it seems as if one must be saying grace all 
 day long. It seems like eating and drinking de- 
 light into one's very heart all day long, to wander 
 about like this." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 | HE arrival of Mrs. O'Brien and Winnie, 
 and Winnie's accession to the children's 
 exploring parties certainly did not de- 
 crease their perils. To Winnie, as to 
 Harry, more than half the pleasure was in the 
 climbing and the daring. While Grace looked on 
 these perils as necessary ingredients in the pleas- 
 ures, and, therefore, never thought of evading them 
 more than she would any other risk in her path, 
 Winnie delighted in the daring for its own sake, 
 and she and Harry excited each other to more and 
 more adventurous feats, until one day these expedi- 
 tions had very nearly been brought to an abrupt 
 conclusion. 
 
 " Madame," exclaimed Rosalie, rushing one after- 
 noon into the drawing-room, where Lady Katharine 
 and Mrs. O'Brien were sitting, " lose not a moment, 
 I implore. I come from watching Mademoiselle 
 Winnie descend a precipice where none but a 
 chamois, or a creature with wings, could tread with 
 safety. I stand on the summit, I wring my hands, 
 C248) 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM. 249 
 
 I cry to her, I implore her with every gesture of 
 passion to return. But the sea drowns my voice, 
 and mademoiselle, with the recklessness of child- 
 hood, only waves her hand and laughs. At length 
 I see her reach the sands below. I clasp my hands, 
 and thank a merciful Heaven for this miracle. 
 Then I rush home to tell you and my lady, that 
 you may be there to prevent these young creatures 
 from rushing on self-destruction." 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien threw on a shawl and prepared 
 to follow Rosalie in a tremor of alarm. Lady 
 Katharine said quietly : 
 
 " Don't be too uneasy, Cecil. Rosalie does not 
 know what a nation of cats we are. It is as natural 
 to an English boy to scramble to a mast-head as to 
 a French boy to dance. But we will certainly go 
 and see. From Rosalie's description I think they 
 must be below the cliffs just on the other side of 
 the hill." 
 
 Climbing through the wood behind the abbey, by 
 a short cut, they soon reached the open down at the 
 top. But before they had crossed it to the edge of 
 the cliffs which bordered it, one after another the 
 figures of two of the three culprits appeared, Harry 
 helping Winnie. 
 
 Lady Katharine, having firm nerves, went to the 
 edge, and there saw little Grace struggling up an 
 almost perpendicular slide of slaty rock, with a 
 load of sea- weed. Harry wanted to go down and 
 help her ; but she refused his help, and in time she 
 was high enough to accept Lady Katharine's hand, 
 and sprang to the top. 
 
250 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Lady Katharine was not at all excitable ; but she 
 did breathe an involuntary sigh of relief as she drew 
 Grace away from the edge. 
 
 " Grace," she said, " I thought you were a very 
 wise and sober-minded little woman. I find you are 
 first cousin to an Alpine chamois. What ever 
 tempted you to attempt such a precipice? Have 
 you no fear ?" 
 
 "A little," said Grace quietly, " I did not like it 
 at all at first ; but Harry said people had always to 
 go by paths of that kind on the sea-shore, so I 
 thought it was of no use to be afraid, and I came." 
 
 Lady Katharine gave a quiet pleased-like little 
 laugh. 
 
 " But, as to you," she resumed, turning to Winnie 
 and Harry, whose hair was streaming in the wind, 
 " you little Berserkers, what have you to say for 
 yourselves ?" 
 
 " It was such a delightfully difficult place, please, 
 Aunt Katharine," pleaded Winnie. "Harry had 
 always been wishing to try it ; and to-day the tide 
 is coming in so fast that we persuaded Grace." 
 
 Harry had nothing to plead in extenuation. His 
 courage was not so much moral as physical, and as 
 the conscious ringleader, he felt, moreover, the ad- 
 ditional burden of guilt. 
 
 " Grace," said Lady Katharine, with a forced 
 gravity, "I am very much amazed at you. I 
 thought you were as good as a little mother to these 
 wild young people. How can I ever trust you 
 together again?" 
 
 Grace looked up, and, meeting ttie smile in 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 251 
 
 Lady Katharine's eyes, was not at all alarmed, but 
 only said : 
 
 " Please, Lady Katharine, I am really rather glad^ 
 we must not go up quite such dangerous places 
 any more." 
 
 But Harry, not having courage to meet Lady 
 Katharine's eyes, yet not hesitating an instant to 
 rush to his sister's defence, said, with a very crim- 
 son face : 
 
 " It was not Grace's fault at all, Lady Katharine. 
 She is as good as a mother to me always ; or she 
 would be, but I would not let her. It is all my 
 fault. Please, you must not be angry with Grace." 
 
 " Very pretty dictation from a prisoner at the 
 bar to the judge," said Lady Katharine ; ^ and now, 
 culprits, hear your sentences : Harry and Winnie* 
 are sentenced not to break their necks more than 
 once a day ; and Grace is sentenced not to let them. 
 Now you are free." 
 
 Pondering which oracular judgment, the three 
 children went home to dinner. And Lady Katha- 
 rine, following slowly, said to Mrs. O'Brien : 
 
 " Those children will do, Cecil. The boy has a 
 true man's courage. He is not afraid of danger, 
 but he is afraid of disgrace ; yet he will encoun- 
 ter disgrace rather than let another bear an unjust 
 burden. And Grace has a true woman's courage. 
 She will shrink from nothing that is to be en- 
 countered in the path she is once persuaded she 
 ought to take. True woman and true man that is, 
 gentlewoman and gentleman. Yes, our Winnie 
 may be content with her friends," 
 
2 5 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 The next day Maurice arrived, a great festival to 
 the children, and above all to Winnie. He looked 
 white, Lady Katharine said, and worn, and alto- 
 gether in want of wind and sunshine. He was also 
 a little more silent than usual with the grown-up 
 portion of the circle, although with Winnie, Grace, 
 and llarry, as merry in his quiet way as ever, and 
 ready to initiate Harry into all kinds of games and 
 feats. 
 
 A few days afterwards it chanced that a pony 
 carriage drove to the door, containing a lady and a 
 little girl, and in a minute Miss Minna Denison 
 was ushered into the library, where they, were all 
 sftting. She came with an invitation to Lady Kath- 
 arine from her sister, ^ with whom she was staying. 
 
 She was looking brilliant with her rapid drive 
 through the fresh morning air, and was especially 
 gracious, charming Mr. Leigh by her pretty naive 
 questions about the natives of the east of London, 
 and drawing him into descriptions which appeared 
 to surprise and interest her intensely. 
 
 Between Lady Katharine and Miss Denison there 
 seemed to be an ancient and instinctive antagonism. 
 Lady Katharine had often seen Minna at intervals 
 from her childhood, and believed her to have pre- 
 cisely that unreality and ineffectiveness of character 
 to which she was disposed to be unmerciful. Her 
 quick eyes, moreover, had caught a change in 
 Maurice's face at the announcement of Minna's name 
 which did not at all decrease this distaste ; and the 
 more rapturous was Miss Denison's delight in the 
 brilliancy of the garden, the grandeur of the cedars, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 253 
 
 and the historical associations, the more brief and 
 dry were Lady Katharine's remarks. It provoked 
 her, especially to see Mr. Leigh's simplicity, as she 
 considered, imposed upon. And when Mr. Leigh 
 began to regret he had no reports of his ragged 
 schools to give Miss Denison, Lady Katharine's im- 
 patience overflowed all bounds, and she said : 
 
 " Do not trouble yourself, Mr. Leigh, I have some 
 sketches by a cousin of mine in the Fiji Islands, 
 which will interest Miss Denison quite as much, 
 perhaps for the tune. You can send the reports, 
 you know, to me," she added, apologizing to Mr. 
 Leigh's rather perplexed look. "I will forward 
 them to Miss Denison." 
 
 Nevertheless, Lady Katharine's hospitality got 
 the better of her " anti-pathetic" feelings to the 
 extent of asking Minna to have the horses put up, 
 and to share an expedition they had planned to the 
 sea-shore, an invitation which Minna, seeing, she 
 said, how her little niece was enchanted with her 
 playfellows, Irad not the heart to disappoint her by 
 refusing Minna Denison having a habit of per- 
 suading herself whenever she did anything she liked, 
 that it was because she wished to gratify some one 
 else. 
 
 And thus it happened that while Mr. Leigh drove 
 Lady Katharine and Mrs. O'Brien round to the 
 point to be reached, in a basket-carriage, and Win- 
 nie and Harry made straight for it by all kinds of 
 marvelous and perilous short cuts across the cliffs, 
 Minna was not able to get through the various diffi- 
 culties of the way without Maurice Bertram's as- 
 22 
 
254 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 sistance, so that the care of little Clare entirely de- 
 volved on Grace, who took the child carefully round 
 by the easiest paths she could find, lifting her over 
 the stiles. Once, indeed, Maurice looked back, 
 rather hesitating whom he ought to help, and at 
 once Minna proposed to wait. But when they ar- 
 rived she said, in her gracious little way, to Grace : 
 
 "Any one can see how fond you are of children, 
 Miss Leigh. Little Clare felt it the first moment 
 she saw you. Do you like to be with Miss Leigh, 
 Clare, or will you come to auntie ?" she said. 
 
 The child clung to Grace's protecting hand, and 
 looked up in her face. 
 
 " There, Clare, your choice is plain enough. What 
 a blessing for you that auntie is not given to jeal- 
 ousy ! But don't let Clare be a trouble," she added 
 to Grace ; " and don't be willful and troublesome, 
 Clare, to Miss Leigh." 
 
 " Miss Leigh says I am no trouble," said Clare. 
 " You like having me, don't you, Miss Leigh ?" 
 
 " Yes, I do, indeed," said Grace. 
 
 So, in a sense, she did, although it was not with- 
 out some little wish to participate that she saw 
 Winnie and Harry eagerly hunting among the pools 
 on the rocks below, or listened to such fragments as 
 she caught of Mr. Bertram's and Miss Denison's 
 conversation about books and art, and schools, and 
 various things that especially interested her. And 
 moreover, Clare, being a spoilt only child, was occa- 
 sionally very willful and exacting, and required all 
 Grace's skill to keep her out of mischief. 
 
 Meantime Maurice Bertram's manner was greatly 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 255 
 
 perplexing Minna Denison. It was so completely 
 the manner of a mere acquaintance. He failed so 
 entirely to follow up any allusion to their former 
 pursuits together at Beechlands, that Minna began 
 to wonder whether he had ever really cared for her 
 at all, or whether he had transferred his allegiance 
 to some one else. And this very doubt just piqued 
 and interested her sufficiently to lead her not to be 
 easy until she had solved it. She was not accus- 
 tomed to see her captives so easily glide out of the 
 ranks of her triumphal procession. And the true 
 solution never occurred to her. She never conjec- 
 tured that Maurice had so sincere a faith in her truth 
 and goodness that he felt sure she never would have 
 given him the answer she had in the easy and un- 
 pained way she had, if there had been ever the 
 slightest real interest in him in her heart. 
 
 If at moments he in his heart felt- a little perplex- 
 ity that after what had passed she should wish for 
 any conversation with him at all, he set it down to 
 the entire indifference to him, which made her una- 
 ble to conceive his feelings, combined with that gen- 
 eral graciousness of hers, which made it impossible 
 for her not to try to make things pleasant to every 
 one. 
 
 So they walked on separately, Grace coaxing 
 Clare into ways as little perilous as possible, until 
 they reached the sands, not far from the place of ren- 
 dezvous, and with some relief Grace resigned her 
 dangerous charge into the hands of Aunt Minna. 
 
 Minna was alone, Maurice having gou,e forward 
 to ask the meaning of a sign from the pony-carriage, 
 
2 5 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 which was halting in the distance, and she drew 
 Grace into a conversation about her father and her 
 home-life, which absorbed Grace entirely until they 
 were both roused by a sharp childish shriek at some 
 little distance above them, and looking around they 
 saw little Clare a long way above, on the side of 
 the cliff, rolling down a slide of loose slate until she 
 reached a projecting piece of rock, to which she 
 clung, shrieking violently. 
 
 Minna elapsed her hands. " What shall we do ?" 
 she exclaimed ; " it is exactly the kind of place I 
 never could climb over." 
 
 Grace was on her way up the cliff without another 
 word. 
 
 " Oh, don't ! don't !" exclaimed Minna, and she 
 ran in the other direction crying for help. 
 
 In a minute or two Maurice was by her side. 
 
 " Look !" she said, pointing to where Grace was 
 climbing, and then turning away her head, she hid 
 her face, " What are we to do ? If I look again I 
 shall faint !" 
 
 Maurice surveyed the ground for an instant be- 
 fore he decided what to do. He saw that Grace, in 
 her haste, had taken the wrong path, and that be- 
 tween her and little Clare jutted up a sharp point 
 of rock which it seemed impossible for her to cross. 
 But in another instant Grace was creeping ronnd it 
 on her knees, and catching hold of little Clare's 
 dress, reassured her, and held her tight until Mau- 
 rice climbed up by another way, steeper, but prac- 
 ticable, by means of narrow ledges in the rock, and 
 rescued them both. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED 
 
 257 
 
 " How can I ever thank you enough ?" said Min- 
 na, when they returned. 
 
 " It is more Miss Leigh you have to thank than 
 me," he said. "One would think you had been 
 trained as chamois-hunter," he added, with a smile, 
 to Grace ; " people do not grow into heroines in a 
 moment." 
 
 " I have had some practice lately," said Grace, 
 blushing partly at his prafse, and partly at the recol- 
 lection of Lady Katharine's exhortations. 
 
 " It is a great gift not to be too sensitive," said 
 Minna. " If I had looked at you all another instant 
 I should have fainted. I was absolutely obliged to 
 cover my eyes." 
 
 He glanced for an instant from her mobile bril- 
 liant face, as she sat on a rock, caressing the sobbing 
 child, to Grace, who stood pale and quiet near, 
 while 
 
 " On her eyelids many graces sat, 
 Under the shadow of her even brows," 
 
 as if a contrast were flashed suddenly on him. If 
 so, his thoughts were arrested by an exclamation 
 from Minna, who, covering her eyes in earnest, 
 said: 
 
 " O Clare ! what have you done to yourself? 
 Look at her arm, Miss Leigh ; what can we do ? I 
 never could bear to see anything like that !" 
 
 And looking at Clare's arm, Grace perceived a 
 deep cut, which in her terror the child had scarcely 
 noticed, but which was now beginning to bleed. 
 
 " I can bear it, Miss Denison," said Grace, quietly ; 
 22* 
 
258 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " I had to get used to it when Harry had his head 
 cut at cricket. I think I know what to do, if you 
 will let me try." 
 
 And she began gently to wash the wound from 
 the sand, which was likely to irritate it, with water 
 from her painting-tin. 
 
 But Clare struggled and shrieked, and Minna pet- 
 ted and pitied her, and declared she couldn't bear 
 to see the child hurt. Stf that it was not until Mau- 
 rice took the child on his knee, and with a few firm, 
 gentle words, encouraged her to brave and bear the 
 pain, that Grace succeeded in binding up the cut, 
 while Minna moved away, only returning when all 
 was accomplished, to lavish the tenderest caresses 
 on Clare, and the tenderest pity on herself. 
 
 " I know you all think me very sensitive and ridi- 
 culous," she said, as they walked over the sands to 
 rejoin the rest^of the party. 
 
 But except Minna Denison herself, none of them 
 were at that moment thinking of Minna Denison at 
 all. Grace was thinking how to comfort little Clare, 
 who was thinking to some profit between her sobs 
 that it would have been better if she had done what 
 she was told. And Maurice was not exactly think- 
 ing at all, but was feeling that there were things 
 more feminine, as well as more heroic, to do on such 
 occasions than to faint, and that it was possible for 
 people to be so sensitive about their own sensations 
 as to be rather insensible to the wants of others ; a 
 feeling which was deepened as he observed how 
 Minna's sensitiveness did not at all affect her enjoy- 
 ment of the rest of the entertainment, and heard 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 259 
 
 her giving a narrative of the whole proceedings, in 
 which the chief contrasts lay between her own 
 tender and too-feeling heart and Grace's marvel- 
 ously strong nerves. 
 
 Grace, meanwhile, after persuading every one but 
 Lady Katharine that she was not in the least agi- 
 tated, finally belied herself by only escaping an 
 actual fainting fit, through Lady Katharine's autho- 
 itative administration of a glass of wine at the 
 moment when the delicate color usual to her was 
 fading into a deadly paleness. 
 
 Minna Denison's review of the proceedings of 
 that day, when she sat alone in the evening to con- 
 template herself before her material and spiritual 
 looking-glasses, was not altogether satisfactory. 
 
 The vision of that sweet pale face of little Grace 
 rose before her as at all events more fit for transfer- 
 ence to a sacred picture than the soft brilliant color 
 and eyes before her. And at the same time also rose 
 before her the vision of a self-sacrificing love, not 
 leaping into chasms, or sitting transfixed as with 
 arrows, or reclining on an Oriental couch letting an 
 asp poison the fair round arm, or clothed with 
 wings, but embodied the form of a young girl 
 scarcely more than a child, tenderly, with com- 
 pressed lips, binding up the wound on the arm of 
 another little child, 
 
 But Minna Denison did not transfer this medita- 
 tion to the velvet diary with the golden lock and 
 key, perhaps because it was the first act of worship 
 in a service and at an altar new to her, whose first 
 
260 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 devotions are apt to be expressed, not in any poeti- 
 cal or elevated language at all, but in poor blun- 
 dering, broken, humble words, mixed with sighs 
 and tears, carefully hidden from the eyes of all but 
 one. 
 
 Maurice also had his own private and altered 
 reflections that evening as he reviewed the events 
 of the day. And if these might not have been 
 altogether flattering to Minna Denison, they were 
 far more humbling to himself. 
 
 Often and often he had said to himself in that 
 recent struggle with disappointment, how far bet- 
 ter it was to have a sacred shrine simply closed on 
 him than to have it desecrated. If Minna's rejec- 
 tion had been like the death of half of himself to 
 him, anything which lowered the thought of her in his 
 heart would, he had thought, have been like anni- 
 hilation. Anything rather than that ! It was much 
 to know that that gracious, pure, true womanly 
 presence was shining somewhere in the world, if 
 not for him. Yet, contrary to what he could have 
 believed, as he thought over the events of that day, 
 a new strength came into his heart. He had been 
 deluded. He had deluded himself. He blamed no 
 one but himself. The idol was not only dethroned, 
 it was broken, or rather nothing had really crossed 
 his path but a dream of his own. The Minna he 
 had loved had never really existed. 
 
 Many cgnflicting feelings sprang out of the anni- 
 hilation of that mistaken love. Humiliation at his 
 want of penetration ; had his own character been 
 deeper and truer, he thought, he surely could not 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 2 6i 
 
 have failed to feel the want of depth and truth in 
 hers. Thankfulness that he had awakened not too 
 late ; and then a generous compassion for her who 
 might, as in outward things, so in inward (he could 
 not help thinking), have been so different and so 
 beautiful. And beside the dissolving image of 
 Minna rose the sweet childish form which shone 
 on Minna's own meditations, which, as his thoughts 
 glided into dreams, became mingled with a white 
 sculptured form of Charity, with the children clus- 
 tering round her, and a figure like that of the child 
 Samuel kneeling and praying in the twilight of the 
 Temple. 
 
 Lady Katharine, on her part, concluded the day 
 with an inward storm of indignation, directed firstly 
 at the blunders of men in general, good men in par- 
 ticular, and Maurice in particular of all good men ; 
 and secondly, at the detestable selfish sensitiveness 
 and unreality of young ladies in general, and Min- 
 na Denison in particular. 
 
 While Grace, perhaps, looked deepest into the 
 matter of them all. For on their way home it had 
 chanced that Grace and Minna being on the seat 
 of the pony carriage alone together, Minna had 
 
 " How do you make children love you and do 
 what you tell them ? Clare clung to you after you 
 had hurt her in binding up her wound, more than 
 to me who could not bear to see her hurt." 
 
 " I am sure I don't know," said Grace, " I suppose 
 she felt I did really wish to help her, although I 
 did hurt her. I am afraid I was very awkward." 
 
2 6 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " But how could you do it ?" said Minna, with a 
 little shudder. 
 
 Grace looked up in wonder. 
 
 " It had to be done, you know, Miss ^Denison," 
 she said, " and there was no one else. And I had 
 tried before for Harry." 
 
 " It is a great blessing not to have one's nerves 
 too finely strung," said Minna ; " how I should like 
 to be as courageous as you are !" 
 
 Yet the two principles of doing things " really to 
 help others" and because they "had to be done" 
 instead of in order to make- people love us, and be- 
 cause we like, slowly penetrated into Minna's heart, 
 bringing new thoughts of love and duty, strong 
 enough to overturn her whole dream-world if only 
 they were inspired with the life by which princi- 
 ples grow. 
 
 And Grace, pondering Minna's questions that 
 night in her heart, prayed that she might know the 
 joy of loving and helping people, as God loves and 
 helps us ; because it seemed to her the power to 
 help followed necessarily on the love. 
 
 
 
 " Difficulty in visiting the poor, Cecil, what do 
 you mean ?" said Lady Katharine, as they were 
 returning from a walk round the village, where 
 she had an inquiry, or a suggestion, or a word of 
 sympathy for every one, from the toddling wee 
 thing to the gray-haired grandfather set to take 
 care of it. " Difficulty in visiting the poor ! No 
 more than in visiting any one else ; less, indeed, 
 for we have not half the ridiculous crusts of con- 
 
TEE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 263 
 
 ventionalism to break through with them that we 
 liave with other people. In going to see the people 
 in our village, I see mothers and children, sick peo- 
 ple, suffering old and young. We speak of births 
 and deaths, and household cares, just the things 
 that are really interesting to us. In calling on my 
 neighbors, we speak of the weather, the Queen's 
 speech, what people are talking about in Parlia- 
 ment or convocation, anything in the world that 
 does not interest us, does not come close to us. Of 
 course, I am more at home in visiting the poor. 
 The conversation is real, the interests are natural, 
 the links between us are real and natural. What 
 can you mean by finding it difficult ?" 
 
 " I do not suppose you do find it difficult, Aunt 
 Katharine. I do not think I should in your place. 
 You know every one in the village, and every one 
 knows you. More than that, you know every one's 
 grandmother or grandchildren, arid every one knows 
 yours. And you belong to each other. You are 
 related to each other. You are mistress and ser- 
 vant, landlord and tenant, employer and employed, 
 friends of generations. I think visiting the poor, 
 as you do in the country, might not be difficult 
 even to me ; but with me, near London, it is quite 
 different. I have no natural links with the poor." 
 
 " Indeed," said Lady Katharine, " then I suppose 
 in the neighborhood of London you have no wash- 
 erwomen and no cooks. You polish your own boots 
 and scrub your own floors, and dig your own pota- 
 toes, I suppose, in the neighborhood of London." 
 
 " You do not call paying bills a natural link with 
 
264 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 anybody, Aunt Katharine, do you? Besides, I 
 never do pay my own bills." 
 
 " I suppose somebody does pay the laundress, 
 however." 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Brewer does. She is my cook and 
 housekeeper, a very respectable person." 
 
 " And, I presume, the laundress is a human being 
 who has her own bills to pay, or not to pay," con- 
 tinued Lady Katharine ; " and sundry small mouths 
 to fill, or not to fill ?" 
 
 " I don't know much about her, Aunt Katharine ; 
 but I should think the laundress was scarcely poor. 
 Her bills are very high, and she keeps a donkey 
 and a spring-cart, and sends a woman, I think, 
 for the money." 
 
 " I suppose, then," pursued Lady Katharine, " it 
 would be no insult to the laundress' woman to call 
 her poor?" 
 
 "She does look rather wretched," said Mrs. 
 O'Brien, as if a new light were dawning on her. 
 " I never spoke to her, but I have seen her pass. 
 Mrs. Brewer always pays her, and she says those 
 women who wash for the laundresses are a very 
 low, set, and drink terribly." 
 
 " Then we have come at last obviously to the 
 stratum of society which may be called poor, in 
 the person of the laundress' woman, Cecil. But 
 you are four links off from her. Let me see. There 
 is first the very respectable Mrs. Brewer, then the 
 laundress herself, who is almost ' genteel,' since she 
 keeps a spring-cart, which every one knows is next 
 door to a gig, and then the laundress' woman. A 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 265 
 
 long chain, certainly, for animal magnetism to "be 
 conducted through. And then, unfortunately, when 
 you have got to the laundress' woman, she is not 
 the ' right kind of poor ' to care about, for she 
 drinks. Some of the people in our village also 
 drink, Cecil, but then, as you say, we have natural 
 links with each other, and I talk to them, and tell 
 them I am sorry for it, and encourage them to try 
 and give it up, and now and then one or two of 
 them do. But I suppose laundress' women who 
 drink are stereotyped in their bad habits." 
 
 " They get tired with standing, Mrs. Brewer 
 says, and then they take a little to keep them up, 
 and the little becomes much, and more, and so they 
 become hopeless drunkards." 
 
 "Then there is a moment," said Lady Katharine, 
 " at which these laundress women only take a little y 
 and are not hopeless drunkards. I wonder, Cecil, 
 if any one ever happened to catch them just at that 
 moment, if they might be stopped, and persuaded 
 not to become drunkards ? But then, perhaps, 
 they would become respectable, and drive spring- 
 carts, and land you on the other horn of your di- 
 lemma. It is very hard for you, certainly, that your 
 4 poor ' are all either too respectable to be visited, or 
 too c low ' to be helped. Can you find no one half 
 way ? I suppose your butler is far too respectable 
 even to have poor relations." 
 
 , " Mr. Walters, Aunt Katharine ? I am sure I 
 have no idea if he has any relations at all. I 
 should think it quite a liberty to ask him. Be- 
 sides, he is going to leave us. He said he really 
 23 
 
266 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 could not live any longer with a low fellow like 
 the footman, who had not the manners to open 
 the doors for the ladies' maids when they left the 
 table." 
 
 " The gardener is a man without encumbrances ?" 
 asked Lady Katharine. 
 
 " No, Aunt Katharine, he has a family of exem- 
 plary, neat little children. They go to school, and do 
 everything right. And his wife is a hard-working, 
 decent woman. I do know them well." 
 
 " And the kitchen-maid, and under housemaid ?" 
 said Lady Katharine, " I suppose they have no re- 
 lations either ? Probably they * grow'd,' like Topsy." 
 
 " I really am afraid I have not done my duty to 
 them, Aunt Katharine ; but how is one to know 
 under-servants ? Mrs. Brewer thinks it an intru- 
 sion if I appear in her territories more than once 
 a day, and the rooms of course are all cleaned 
 when I am out of the way, so that I never see any- 
 thing of Kitty or Lucy except a flying vision of a 
 dustpan and a white apron retreating in the dis- 
 tance. But their relations are not near us. Mrs. 
 Brewer says it is safer to take young people who 
 have no relations at hand, to come gossipping about 
 the house. I did notice that Kitty's eyes were 
 very red some days after she came, when she came 
 in to prayers. And once or twice I spoke to her 
 when I met her on the stairs. But she blushed so 
 much, I thought she was going to cry, so I gave 
 it up. She had just come from a village in the 
 country." 
 
 "Poor village child!" said Lady Katharine, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 267 
 
 softly, " at home she had known every one she met, 
 I suppose, from babyhood. And now she is so far 
 away from all with no danger of any one coming 
 to gossip about mother or father, or the sister who 
 married last year, or the baby-brother who died 
 this spring. So she can work on without being 
 hindered, poor child." 
 
 " Aunt Katharine," said Mrs. O'Brien, " you 
 think me a brute." 
 
 " My dear," said Lady Katharine, " what lan- 
 guage ! And of you who have a district in the 
 East of London. You a person without a feeling 
 heart ! Your only fault, of course, as the formula 
 runs, is that you. have * too much ;' and that you 
 cannot find the right kind of poor. With the peo- 
 ple in the East of London you have no natural 
 links ; and the people who keep your house in order 
 are either not poor at all, or are scarcely it seems, 
 people at all, but a species of domestic animals 
 brought from the country to be out of the way of 
 acquaintances, and to brush, sweep and scour with- 
 out let or hindrance. These creatures from the 
 country are not liable to have lovers, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Mrs. Brewer makes it a point in engaging any 
 one that 'followers' are not allowed," said Mrs. 
 O'Brien. " She says it is so dangerous for people 
 of that kind." 
 
 " And so if they have any lovers, they are lovers 
 who are NOT allowed ?" pursued Lady Katharine. 
 " Is that kind of lovers less dangerous, Cecil ?" 
 
 " What are we to do, Aunt Katharine ?" 
 
 " I suppose people of that kind do marry now 
 
2 68 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and then," said Lady Katharine, " in spite of the 
 best arrangements Mrs. Brewer can make in en- 
 gaging their services. At least they do in the 
 country. But then in the country they have 
 mothers to consult, and fathers' homes in which to 
 meet their c sweethearts.' Cecil," she said, suddenly 
 changing her tone " have you ever asked yourself 
 before God how you will answer it to him, to have 
 taken those young creatures from a mother's care 
 and a father's roof rough indeed they may be and 
 poor, but a mother and father still under your 
 roof, without a friend to consult or care about 
 them, away from every one who loves them, who 
 knows everything about them, and to expose them 
 to the risk that the first words of interest and re- 
 gard they hear shall be from those who are not their 
 true friends ?" 
 
 " Aunt Katharine," said Mrs. O'Brien, in a falter- 
 ing voice, " directly I get home, I will see Kitty and 
 Lucy, and as far my counsel or care is worth anything, 
 they shall never henceforth be without a friend." 
 
 " Then you have found three natural links at 
 least with the poor," said Lady Katharine, " Kitty, 
 and Lucy, and the gardener. Most strange it always 
 seems to me that people who have men and women 
 from poor families actually living under their roof 
 eating, and drinking, and sleeping, and waking in 
 one house, meeting at family prayer, perhaps morn- 
 ing and evening, should talk of wanting natural 
 links with the poor." 
 
 " But servants do not like being interfered with, 
 Aunt Katharine." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 269 
 
 "Who does? I am sure I do not," said Lady 
 Katharine (and it was a proposition no one could 
 controvert). "But who does not like to have a 
 real friend ? Now," she concluded, testily, " the 
 next thing you will do, Cecil, is to go to Kitty and 
 Lucy, and ask them about their mothers and fath- 
 ers, and expect them all in a moment to confide the 
 inmost secrets of their hearts to you ; and then, if 
 they don't, declare that the English poor are so 
 reserved, so 'impenetrable,' or 'have no sensibili- 
 ties,' or some nonsense of that kind; at least I 
 don't say you will. But many sensitive people who 
 begin to awake suddenly to their duty to their 
 neighbors do, and I only hope you won't." 
 
 " But, Aunt Katharine," resumed Mrs. O'Brien, 
 "I was thinking when I began comparing your 
 relations with the poor and mine, of my district in 
 the East of London, and of Mrs. Dee's introducing 
 me to it. You seem to speak to the people 
 whether you are scolding a little, or cheering, or 
 advising in a natural every-day tone, as if you 
 were down among them and close to them. Mrs. 
 Dee seemed to me all the time not so much talking 
 as making speeches from a platform above every 
 one. Not only to the poor but to me." 
 
 " That last certainly was a grievance for you, 
 Cecil ! I hope you folded your hands meekly and 
 were benefited. What did Mrs. Dee reprove you 
 about?" 
 
 " She did not reprove me. She commended me. 
 But her commendations are as humbling as her re- 
 bukes. She said, as we drove into London, I must 
 23* 
 
270 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 excuse her for observing, but she could not help 
 expressing her decided approval of my dress. She 
 had no idea, she said, of people putting on plain or 
 unfashionable things in going among the poor. 
 She thought it was well they should recognize dis- 
 tinctions, and that the world should see religion did 
 not make people slovenly. Then she told me she 
 was glad to see I did not neglect music and paint- 
 ing. She thought it produced such a bad effect 
 when religious people were narrow. ' We must 
 not bring discredit on our profession by peculiari- 
 ties,' she said. ' I give my daughters the first mas- 
 ters and mistresses indeed every advantage, that 
 the world may see religion is not incompatible with 
 taste and education. We must always remember 
 the great cause which we represent,' Mrs. Dee 
 said." 
 
 " I detest representative women !" said Lady 
 Katharine. " It is bad enough to live on a platform 
 before one's friends, worse within one's own home, 
 but worst of all to live on a platform before one's- 
 self, set up in the midst of one's own heart. I do 
 not know what is to be done with people who are 
 unnatural all through, and yet there is a style of 
 religious people who are in danger of being so. 
 You feel sure that they say their prayers, when 
 alone, in the most elegant language, fit to be trans- 
 ferred without correction from the diary to the 
 press. Well, Cecil, what did you say to Mrs. 
 Dee?" 
 
 "I could only say the truth, Aunt Katharine, 
 which was that I was afraid I had not thought of 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 271 
 
 representing anything or producing any particular 
 effect at all (at least not any moral effect), by dress, 
 or music, or buying pictures, or doing anything 
 else I liked ; but simply of my husband's taste and 
 my own. Of course it was not the highest motive. 
 But it seems to me terrible if religion is to make 
 people do these simplest things with the idea of 
 producing some effect, or accomplishing a purpose. 
 It seems almost as bad as the opposite extreme of 
 worldliness. How is one ever really to know people 
 who are doing anything not spontaneously or natu- 
 rally, but with the purpose of doing you or some 
 one good ? All the time I am with Mrs. Dee, I feel 
 as if I were in a theatre, and she were acting a 
 kind of sacred drama for the good of me and the 
 rest of the world. When I take leave of her, I no 
 more feel I have advanced a step to acquaint- 
 ance with her real self than if I had been seeing her 
 represent Mrs. Hannah More's 'Jochabed,' The 
 sentiments are excellent, the principles uncontro- 
 vertible, but of the person I know nothing. And 
 yet, of course, doing good is the highest object to 
 live for?" 
 
 " Is it ?" said Lady Katharine. " Does not lov- 
 ing come first ? Do not being good and pleasing 
 God come a little before it ? You had better look 
 in the Bible, Cecil, and see. But go on about your 
 district. I suppose the poor did not enjoy Mrs. 
 Dee much more than you did ?" 
 
 " I am afraid she ruffled a good many tempers. 
 But the people seemed to me wonderfully patient 
 on the whole. I think some of them felt that it 
 
272 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 was their duty to pay for her kindness by listening 
 to her exhortations. Besides, no one can contro- 
 vert anything she says. That is almost the most 
 provoking part of it. She told the people in afflic- 
 tion that tribulation was a blessing. She told the 
 sick people that sickness is a blessing. She told 
 the bereaved that it is a blessing to have our friends 
 at rest. She met complaints and lamentations with 
 admirable essays on thankfulness. Indeed she said 
 so many excellent things that I should feel quite 
 hopeless as to succeeding her, except that there is 
 just one thing she did not do, which I think I 
 could. I could listen. And that Mrs. Dee never 
 does. She says it would never do to encourage 
 gossip. Some of the people would talk on for ever, 
 if you would let them. Yet, Aunt Katharine, if 
 one does not listen, I don't see how one ever is to 
 know people or to help them. The people must 
 always remain mere arithmetical figures to us, or 
 adjectives without substantives. But, perhaps, if 
 I were to sit patiently by one or two of the sick- 
 beds, by degrees the sick people might talk to me 
 a little, as they do to you, and I might get to know 
 a few of them. Of course it would waste a great 
 deal of time, but my time is not so valuable as 
 Mrs. Dee's, and it does seem to comfort poor people 
 in trouble to pour out the trouble, so I think I 
 shall try." 
 
 " I see," said Lady Katharine, " Mrs. Dee is one 
 of the people who travel by railway, always on 
 their own line. Sometimes their rails cross your 
 path, and then, perhaps, they stop till you pass j 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 273 
 
 or perhaps they don't, and then if you are persist- 
 ent there is a collision. But whatever happens, 
 they never leave their rails and silently walk with 
 you for a time on your path. Such people get 
 over a great deal of ground, and think they see a 
 great deal of the world; but they only see the 
 world as a colored map, and they only see people 
 as figures in a landscape. I know a little about 
 it, Cecil," she said, laughing ; " for I am apt my- 
 self now and then to travel in the same way. I 
 generally find it out by a collision ; and then for a 
 time I get out, and walk, and learn a little." 
 
 " What tried me most, however," resumed Mrs. 
 O'Brien, " were the lectures on management and on 
 contentment, and the tone of superiority." 
 
 " The case is very plain Mrs. Dee is not a gentle- 
 woman," said Lady Katharine, carelessly. " No 
 persons ought to be permitted to visit the poor who 
 have not proved themselves thoroughly well-bred." 
 
 " Mrs. Dee is very well-connected, Aunt Katha- 
 rine." 
 
 " Very probably. Most people are in one direc- 
 tion or another. But I was thinking of a standard 
 of good breeding, not to be determined by Burke 
 or Debrett." 
 
 For some minutes they had been standing in the 
 library, where Maurice was reading in a deep bay- 
 window. 
 
 " There, Cecil, lay your case before Maurice," 
 said Lady Katharine. " He is too great a Jesuit 
 not to be a good casuist. Maurice," she concluded, 
 addressing him, " I really cannot stand that way of 
 
274 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 yours of listening surreptitiously behind the screen 
 of that old folio. You know you have heard every 
 word we have been saying for the last ten minutes. 
 Now tell us, what is your aunt to do with Mrs. 
 Dee ?" 
 
 " I was just reading a passage in Stier's Reden 
 Jesu, Aunt Katharine, which seems rather to the 
 purpose. He says some people, like the rabbis 
 among the Pharisees, have occupied themselves so 
 incessantly with teaching, that they have lost the 
 divine art of learning" 
 
 "Very well; let that settle Mrs. Dee, Cecil 
 And now for links with the poor. How is a lady, 
 residing in the greatest comfort in a suburb near 
 the west of London, to acquire natural links with 
 poor people, living in the greatest discomfort six or 
 seven miles off in the east of London ?" 
 
 " I suppose," said Maurice, " there are natural 
 links between every sinning, suffering, mortal hu- 
 man being, if we dig deep enough for them ; and," 
 he added gravely, " there is, I believe, one Mediator 
 not only between God and man, but between man 
 and man the man Christ Jesus." 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien looked up thoughtfully, as if she 
 were trying to see through a telescope, to which 
 her eyes were not accustomed. 
 
 There was a little silence, and then Lady Katha- 
 rine said : 
 
 " I suppose that little Grace knows more practi- 
 cally about the matter than any of us. I sent her 
 twice, to her great delight, to take a dinner to old 
 Granny Coxe, the Grossest old woman in the parish, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 275 
 
 Yesterday, when I called on granny myself, I said, 
 * Well, granny, how did you like my little messen- 
 ger ?' * Better than the new parson, at any rate,' 
 replied granny, who never can bring in a commen- 
 dation except as a seasoning to fault-finding. ' She 
 can read her Bible plain enough for folks to under- 
 stand, any way. And I might be worse off than I 
 be, I don't say I mightn't. The apostle Paul was 
 bad off enough, sure, in the stocks ; and he and the 
 other did sing. Of course, as I told her, it isn't to 
 be expected a old woman like me should sing ; and 
 no one would find it much pleasure to listen if I 
 did. But I might, perhaps, tell the Lord I am 
 pleased with things now and then, if he cares about 
 it, and little miss says he do. I've half a mind to 
 try. She sings like a lark.' ' Grace,' I said that 
 evening, ; what have you been doing to Granny 
 Coxe ? She thinks you sing like a lark, and are 
 better than a parson.' ' Please, Lady Katharine,' 
 said Grace, blushing, * I don't remember saying any- 
 thing particular. But I felt very sorry for poor old 
 granny. It must be so very sad to have got into a 
 way of looking on the dark side of things. The 
 Bible says, you know, we are to bear one another's 
 burdens ; and I only tried to help granny bear her 
 burden a little while, and to tell her that Jesus was 
 always near, and always would, if she wished. It 
 must be such a heavy burden not to be able to feel 
 grateful to God.' I said no more to Grace," con- 
 cluded Lady Katharine ; " but I believe she has 
 got to the root of the subject. She just stoops 
 down by the people she wants to help, and takes 
 
276 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 up the burden; and in that way she not only 
 lightens the load to them for the time, but shows 
 them the way to lighten themselves." 
 
 " Poor little Grace !" said Maurice gravely ; " I 
 am afraid she has had too much of helping to bear 
 burdens in her short life." 
 
 At that moment the happy sound of children's 
 laughter came in at the open window. There were 
 Harry's boyish shouts and Winnie's laugh ringing 
 up and down among the trees, with^those delicious 
 echoes which the merry voices of children make 
 among avenues of old trees and the walls of old 
 mansions. And between these louder sounds came 
 floating now and then a softer sound, silvery and 
 low, yet joyous as either. 
 
 " That must be little Grace," sai$ Maurice. " Her 
 smile is often as bright as laughter, but I never 
 heard her laugh before." 
 
 And going to the window, they saw the children 
 in an ecstasy of fun, sharing the gambols of a huge 
 Newfoundland and an audacious little bully of a 
 Skye terrier. 
 
 "We need 'not fear that the child's heart is 
 pressed out of that happy, loving, little woman," 
 said Lady Katharine. 
 
 " Or ever will be," said Maurice, half to himself. 
 " It is distrust of the Father's heart alone that can 
 press the child's heart out of any of us ; not sor- 
 row, not repentance, not care from without, only 
 care from within ; and that is distrust of God." 
 
 " Not one drawing, Grace, for a fortnight !" said 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 277 
 
 Maurice, as he was showing her a portfolio of old 
 Italian line-engravings that evening. Mr. Leigh 
 was reading aloud at the other end of the room to 
 Lady Katharine and Mrs. O'Brien, while Winnie* 
 and Harry were deep in a game of draughts. 
 
 " Please Mr. Bertram, I don't think I could help 
 it," said Grace, apologizing. " I have been getting 
 to know the things." 
 
 " What things, Grace ?" 
 
 " The homes and cradles of all the creatures," 
 said Grace. " I have seen where the limpets live, 
 and the fish, I have seen them browsing on the 
 sea-weed on the rocks, and glancing in and out of 
 the tiny forests under the sea, just as the birds do 
 in the woods on the land. Some of the tiny trees 
 in the pools have little crimson branches, as if it was 
 real fairy-land, and they were cut out of precious 
 stones ; and little creatures with heads like stars 
 come and sit among them, and sway their little 
 starry crowns about, and look so at home and 
 happy. If you keep still, and look down and 
 down, it is wonderful what you find out in those 
 clear pools. Being in another world, I suppose the 
 creatures do not mind us, and so are not frightened, 
 but let us look into the middle of their homes, and 
 see them at work and at play. Do you think, Mr. 
 Bertram, that perhaps they really do not see us ?" 
 
 " I suppose they feel our shadows when we hide 
 the sun from them, Grace," he said, guessing her 
 thoughts. " But why do you ask ?" 
 
 " Because it would be so pleasant to think they 
 didn't see us. It would help us so much, I think." 
 24 
 
278 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " How, Grace ?" he asked. 
 
 " Because of our other world, you know," she 
 said softly, " that we cannot see into. It would 
 help us to understand those who are there watch- 
 ing us unseen. Don't you think so ?" 
 
 " Perhaps it might." 
 
 " Because, you know," she continued, " we are 
 better off than the creatures in the pools with their 
 other world. When they feel the shadow come 
 between them and the sun, it must puzzle them so 
 much. They have nothing to do but to creep into 
 their holes till it is light again. But we have." 
 
 " What can we do, Grace ?" 
 
 " Oh, you know, Mr. Bertram," she said, with 
 her sudden smile, " we can speak to our Sun, can't 
 we ? And our Sun can shine through any shadow, 
 can He not ?" 
 
 " Grace," he said, " you are a very happy crea- 
 ture if you have found out this." 
 
 "I am very happy," said Grace simply. 
 
 " And what other cradles and homes have you 
 found ?" he said. 
 
 " Those of the flowers," she said, " the kind of 
 green banks that the primroses love, and the violets, 
 by roadsides and in deep lanes, and in all the hedges, 
 and on the edges of woods, and in all kinds of 
 sweet, homely, every-day places. And then the 
 ferns ; and the large-leaved water-plants breasting 
 the brooks, bathing in them and enjoying the de- 
 licious wet, always flowing round them, and over 
 them, and through them." 
 
 " And what else, Grace ? " 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 279 
 
 " I have seen the cradles of the rivers them- 
 selves," she said. " I know one which bubbles out 
 of the hill-side, in a very tiny cave with a roof of 
 lovely mosses, and has a little floor of sand and 
 pebbles, and then trickles down and begins to sing 
 at once. And I know another more like a real baby 
 river, scarcely able to speak at all. You only see 
 it by the green of everything about it, and you only 
 hear it, if you listen very quietly, making a very 
 little soft purring around the roots of the grasses. 
 So now I know what I have always wished to know, 
 what kind of a cradle the river at home comes from, 
 and what kind of a world it is going to in the great 
 sea. And those will be such delightful things to 
 think of always. Indeed I have had no time yet 
 to draw, Mr. Bertram. Painting, even really beau- 
 tiful painting, seems only to give such a little bit 
 of the outside of things, does it ? just the beautiful 
 color and shape. And there are such hundreds of 
 other beautiful things about everything, besides 
 color and shape. All the rustling in the leaves, and 
 the coolness of the rain and dew, and then all the 
 delicious smells and tastes of the air, the salt sea 
 tastes, and the smell of the old fir trees like incense 
 in the sunshine, and of the grass just mown, and 
 of the earth when it has been raining, to say no- 
 thing of the flowers, so sweet, and every one of 
 them different." 
 
 Grace's treasury was quite unlocked. Mr. Ber- 
 tram was her oldest friend among her new friends. 
 And he was by nature a listener. And like 
 Winnie, and Dan, and most others loved by 
 
2 8o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Maurice, she felt lie would not misunderstand 
 her. 
 
 " I see," said Maurice at length, " you do not 
 mean to draw any more, until you can find some 
 kind of brush or pencil that will paint wetness and 
 coolness, and salt sea tastes, and the smell of roses, 
 or of new-mown hay. When you are at home again 
 then, Grace, will you care no more to see the land- 
 scapes in the Academy ?" 
 
 " Oh, ten times more than ever, Mr. Bertram," 
 she said. " I shall feel the fresh air, and the sweet 
 smells, and everything now, whenever I look at 
 those pictures of the sea, and the rivers, and the 
 birds' nests." 
 
 " But you will despair of painting yourself?" 
 
 " I do not think I shall," she said. " I think I 
 shall enjoy more every leaf and flower I sketch, 
 now I know about their homes in the woods. It 
 will be like painting portraits of people you love." 
 
 At last a wet day came. Mr. Leigh was su- 
 premely happy among shelves of Reformation di- 
 vinity in a rather disused corner of the library. 
 Maurice had been initiating Harry, in the hall, into 
 the mysteries of billiards. Grace and Winnie were 
 busy copying flowers. The methods of the two 
 little artists were as different as their characters. 
 Winnie dashed at once into the midst of her opera- 
 tions, and had drawn and rubbed out numbers of 
 outlines almost before Grace had begun to use her 
 pencil. 
 
 " What are you doing, Grace ?" she said. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 2 8l 
 
 " I am beginning to see it all," said Grace ; " I 
 can never draw anything until I begin to know it, 
 and it makes itself into a picture in my eyes." 
 
 Winnie evidently thought this a weak and slow 
 proceeding ; but soon Grace began, and before long 
 she had made a graceful, delicate outline, and was 
 ready to color, while poor Winnie's paper was so 
 rough with corrections that it was doubtful if it 
 would take color at all. 
 
 " It is very strange, Grace," said Winnie, " that 
 things will not come right to-day ;" the wilfulness 
 of things being an established article of Winnie's 
 creed. 
 
 Grace's pencil was laid aside in a moment, and 
 a few encouraging words and hints soon restored 
 Winnie's hopefulness, and set Grace free for her 
 second little contemplation of the flowers before 
 trying to paint. 
 
 In this she was speedily so absorbed that she 
 was conscious of nothing until she heard a sudden 
 tearing of Winnie's hapless paper, and felt a flushed 
 little cheek pressing against hers, not without tears 
 on it. 
 
 " I am not jealous, Grace !" said the faltering 
 little voice. " Oh, I am so glad ! I feel sure I am 
 not ! I do so love you for being so clever and 
 doing everything so beautifully. If God has not 
 made me clever, Grace, you know I cannot help it, 
 can I ? I will just sit still and look at you. And 
 oh, Grace, I am so glad, I feel I like it. And I am 
 more glad of that than if I could draw like you. 
 Because I don't think jealous people like to see 
 
282 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 other people do things better; do they, Grace? 
 And Rosalie said I was jealous. And, oh, I do 
 hope I am not. Grace," she continued reveren- 
 tially, " you are a genius. Rosalie said so. I feel 
 sure you are. But if you should ever have crowns 
 put on you, as Rosalie says they do sometimes to 
 geniuses in the Capitol at Rome, you won't forget 
 me, will you ? For I do love you so dearly." 
 
 Grace was so entirely confused between Winnie's 
 outburst of humility and affection, her vehement 
 destruction of her morning's work, and the vision 
 of her own flower painting ending in anything so 
 exceedingly disagreeable as to have to sit on a plat- 
 form at Rome with a crowd of people gazing at 
 her, that she could not at all collect her thoughts. 
 
 Happily Maurice had entered before the conclu- 
 sion of Winnie's speech, and he took the matter into 
 his own hands. First, he looked with no small plea- 
 sure at his little sister's bright, earnest, truthful face. 
 There was such unfeigned love and delight in it as 
 she looked at Grace and her drawing, that he said to 
 himself: " She has reason to be glad. Love has 
 slain envy in her heart, as only love can." But he 
 knew that little eager, impetuous heart had many 
 a lesson yet to learn. And taking up the torn 
 drawing he said : 
 
 " Who could be so stupid as to tear this ? It is 
 the best sketch, Winnie, you ever made." 
 
 " I am never going to sketch any more," said Win- 
 nie ; " I am going to look at Grace." 
 
 " A very profitable employment, I dare say," he 
 said ; " but suppose Grace were to give up drawing 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 283 
 
 also, and take to looking at Michael Angelo ? Don't 
 you think," he continued, turning to Grace, " that 
 it is rather presumptuous for any one to attempt 
 to paint in a world where there are pictures by 
 Raphael and Michael Angelo ?" 
 
 Grace thought a minute, and then she said : 
 
 " It is so difficult to help sketching beautiful 
 things when you see them. And then doesn't it 
 make us enjoy the great pictures more ? Besides," 
 she continued softly, " ought we to think if we are 
 doing better or worse than other people ? Ought 
 we not to try the best we can ?" 
 
 " But it is not every ones' duty to be an artist." 
 
 " No ; but it is every one's duty, isn't it, to use 
 what God has given them ? It isn't only the roses 
 and the thrushes, is it, that make the sweet sounds 
 and the sweet smells which make the summer ? It 
 is all the little chirpings and breathings that help, 
 don't they, down to the grasshoppers, and the very 
 little blades of grass ?" 
 
 " I think they do.. The world would be very poor 
 in music if all the second best was left out. We 
 should have no choruses, Winnie, only one or two 
 great solos, now and then. I think one great les- 
 son in humility is to do our very best, when we 
 know it can only be second best. It is harder to do 
 second best then than to do nothing. And now I 
 will tell you a parable by a poet older than Homer : 
 
 " * The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king 
 over them ; and they said to the olive-tree, Reign 
 thou over us. 
 
 " * But the olive-tree said unto them, Should I 
 
284 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God 
 and man, and go to be promoted over the trees ? 
 
 " * And the trees said to the fig-tree, Come thou, 
 and reign over us. 
 
 " * But the fig-tree said unto them, Should I for- 
 sake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be 
 promoted over the trees ? 
 
 " ' Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, 
 and reign over us. 
 
 " * And the vine said unto them, Should I leave 
 my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to 
 be promoted over the trees ? 
 
 " c Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come 
 thou, and reign over us. 
 
 " c And the bramble said unto the trees, If in 
 truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and 
 put your trust in my shadow.' " 
 
 " That is no new parable, Maurice," said "Winnie. 
 "It is in the Bible." 
 
 " It is : a good deal of the Bible is older than 
 Homer, you know. But you see it is only brambles 
 who set their hearts on being first. The trees which 
 bear fruits are too busy in doing their best, to think 
 of being first." 
 
 " Maurice," said Winnie, " I shall put this poor 
 torn drawing together and gum it on a card, and 
 finish it as well as I can, and put it on the wall of 
 my own room. I am not going to be a bramble. The 
 shadow of a bramble, conceited thing !" she added 
 laughing. " Oh if I cannot be any thing better 
 than a bramble, Maurice," she concluded softly, 
 rising and drawing his hand over her forehead, " I 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 285 
 
 will be busy about my blackberries, and you and 
 Grace shall be my vine and my fig-tree, and I will 
 look up and delight in you both." 
 
 And Maurice said softly : 
 
 " There is a country where the fruits most prized 
 are not works of art, but works of love ; or rather, 
 not works at all, but the love that inspires them. 
 Love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness. When we 
 get there, Winnie, we shall see which were the 
 blackberries, and which the grapes. Till then we 
 will each do the best we. can." 
 
 Happy days those were at Combe Monachorum 
 to the children, each day a life of delight ; mornings 
 eager in schemes, noon-tides busy in fulfillment, 
 evenings rich in recollections. Harry growing into 
 a daring manly boy, Grace shaking out the folds of 
 her too careful childhood and gliding into a joyous 
 happy child. Winifred, on the other side, in her 
 great love and reverence for Grace, beginning to 
 rise from the petted child into the womanly con- 
 sider ateness of Grace, and into the high loving 
 heavenward aim which Grace unconsciously blended 
 with every thing. So all their characters were 
 moulding each other, as loving intercourse does 
 always mould, not into copies of each other, but 
 each into its own perfection. 
 
 But at length the last day came, the last scram- 
 ble over the rocks, the last ramble through the 
 great woods, the last lingering on the cliffs, looking 
 out at the last sunset over the purple sea. 
 
 Winnie was sitting with Grace on the short 
 
286 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 grass, twining her arms around her, very plaintive, 
 and ready to cry on the smallest incentive. 
 
 " But there is one difference, Winnie, you know," 
 said Grace, after a silence of some minutes, " be- 
 tween this sea and the Sea of Galilee. That sea 
 had another side." 
 
 " I wish this had," said Winnie, with a little 
 moan seeing the image of her great sorrow of the 
 morrow in everything. " It is quite dreadful here 
 to-night, looking on and on into nothing. It is just 
 what I shall feel to-morrow, Grace, when you are 
 gone." And she burst into a passipnate flood of 
 tears. 
 
 " But there is another side to this sea, you know, 
 Winnie, really," pursued Grace, who had been too 
 much accustomed from that first day of her moth- 
 er's funeral, to repress her own feelings and to 
 soothe other people's, to be very easily moved to 
 tears. " There is another side to everything that 
 troubles us, only our sight does not reach far en- 
 ough to see it." 
 
 " Then it is just as melancholy for us as if there 
 were none," sobbed Winnie. " To-morrow seems 
 like the end of everything of everything." 
 
 " But it is only the beginning," said Grace, ten- 
 derly, " you are not going to give me up, Winnie." 
 
 A fervent kiss and a sob were the only possible 
 replies. 
 
 Then after sitting some minutes in silence, while 
 Winnie's tears spent themselves a little, Grace said : 
 
 "I am so glad, Winnie, the Bible does not give 
 us the ends of things, but only the beginnings." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 287 
 
 " Oh !" said Winnie, " are you ? I know it must 
 be, but I ahvays wish it didn't. I do so want to 
 know what became of the people." 
 
 "But we shall know," said Grace, "the Bible 
 makes us know the people. And by-and-by we 
 shall know all their stories. Because, you know, it 
 is not a book of stories, but a book of introductions 
 to our friends." 
 
 "But," said Winnie passionately, "I shall not 
 want to have so many new friends in heaven, 
 Grace, I shall want the old ones, you, and Maurice, 
 and Aunty, and all. And if you were to care more 
 for the people in the Bible than for me, I am afraid 
 I should not be happy at all. It would be very 
 dreadful," she concluded, " to be jealous of Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob ; only of course if we were 
 all in heaven, I shouldn't be jealous, Grace, so I 
 needn't trouble myself about that need I ?" 
 
 Grace did not answer for a moment, and then she 
 said very tenderly : 
 
 "I think God will love us so very much in 
 heaven, and we shall love him so very much, and 
 each other, that there will be no room for jealousy." 
 
 " It will be each other, Gracie ? Not all good 
 people only, but each other, you and I will it not ? 
 There will be so many ! Yet we will not forget 
 each other, or lose each other, shall we ?" 
 
 " If we did, it would be just the same as losing 
 ourselves," said Grace, in her quiet way, " And I 
 do not think it would be living at all, it would only 
 be dreaming, forgetting from one time to another 
 what we were and what we did, as we do in our 
 
288 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 dreams. This world one dream, and the next an- 
 other dream. And God never meant that." 
 
 Winnie was satisfied. And so ended the last 
 conversation at Combe Monachorum. 
 
 The tea-table was spread in Mr. Treherne's 
 lodgings, in Mrs. Treherne's very best china teaser- 
 vice ; the brown curtains fell in heavy discordant 
 masses, on the gaudy carpet, uncovered for the fes- 
 tive occasion of the return of Mr. Leigh, and 
 Grace, and Harry. 
 
 " I didn't order a fowl, Miss Grace, although 
 you wrote," said Mrs. Treherne, " the man wanted 
 six shillings a couple, and I couldn't abide that you 
 should be so imposed on. If he would have taken 
 off threepence, I might have bought it, but he 
 would not be beat down a penny. But I have got 
 a beautiful tender steak, my dear. And it'll be 
 ready hi no time." 
 
 For six weeks Grace had been freed from all 
 housekeeping cares, and all thoughts of the cost of 
 anything. The disputed threepence brought her 
 down at once to the old fetters twined of ten 
 thousand Lilliputian threads. She felt ashamed to 
 feel what fetters they were. 
 
 So she had recourse to a remedy very usual with 
 her. Sh went to her room and locked the door, 
 and when she had got ready to come down, she 
 knelt down and prayed through the Lord's Prayer. 
 " After this manner pray ye," HE had said, and 
 she tried to obey, applying the deep, simple words 
 to the circumstances of the moment. But with the 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 289 
 
 first words her heart rose with such a spring, she 
 scarcely needed to go further, " Our Father. Yes it 
 is Thou that orderest all ; ten thousand little cares 
 are but the pressure of Thy hand. Thy will be done, 
 now to-day, by me, to me. Give its this day our 
 daily bread. It is not purchased with threepence 
 then but given us, just the very best for us, direct 
 from Thee our Father in heaven." 
 
 So it happened that when Grace went down to 
 make her father's tea, she felt not bound by the 
 cramping chain of ten thousand Lilliputian fetters, 
 but bowing under that happy yoke beneath which 
 the lowly walk at liberty. 
 
 And the smile with which she returned little 
 Fan's torrent of courtesies, as she stood in all the 
 importance of a new white apron carrying up the 
 steak, was such a sunbeam of a smile that little Fan 
 felt it as good as a kiss. 
 
 And when Mr. Leigh, tea being removed, sat down 
 by the fire with Grace at her sewing beside him, and 
 the rain pattering on the window-panes, and Harry 
 drawing out his treasures x>f shells and stones on a 
 tray on the table, and the large black cat, sleepily 
 winking at the fire, and purring to herself, " Now 
 the world is going on again, and I am in the middle 
 of it, in the warmest place," and (unmindful of dis- 
 cords between carpet and curtains, or any discords 
 else), Mr. Leigh said, "Ah, Grace, after all, there is 
 no place like home," no visions of stately halls, and 
 free sea-shores, and beautiful woods, broke the echo 
 of those words on Grace's heart. She looked round 
 25 
 
290 WJN1FRED BERTRAM. 
 
 at her mother's work-table, and at Harry's ancestral 
 desk, and at the old square piano under which they 
 had made lions' dens, and up in her father's face, 
 and felt how wonderfully happy she was to have so 
 many to love, and two such dear ones of her very 
 own to live for, and plan for, and give up things 
 for. And she said : 
 
 "Ah, father, I suppose the grandest palace in the 
 world may be a home, if people love each other 
 there. Inside all the state, I suppose, people make 
 each other a home. But we have no outside courts, 
 have we ? Our home is home all through." 
 
 But neither Mr. Leigh nor Grace knew how much 
 of that home was made the home it was by the lit- 
 tle loving, truthful heart within it, that was at rest 
 all through. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 [] RACE LEIGH'S reception, when she came 
 back among her old friends, was very 
 varied. Mrs. Treherne was decidedly 
 impressed by the fact of her lodgers hav- 
 ing been the guests, as she said, of a " lady in her 
 own right." The second reflection of this glory on 
 herself had, indeed, not a little increased her con- 
 scious dignity at sundry tea-parties. But when she 
 was actually brought into contact with the first re- 
 flection in the person of Grace, her own dignity, in- 
 herent and acquired, paled sensibly before so near 
 an approach to the source of the light, so that her 
 manner to Grace, for the first two or three days, at 
 least, had a certain awe in it, not natural to Mrs. 
 Treherne. Miss Grace had been waited on by but- 
 lers and footmen; Mr. Leigh had had his boots 
 blacked by the person who blacked the boots of an 
 earl's grandsons ; Miss Grace had been driving in 
 a carriage and ' pair, if not in a carriage and four, 
 and had been eating off plate, there could be no 
 (291) 
 
292 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 doubt, and had seen the table served in a manner 
 which would certainly throw into the shade even 
 those tables of the first families in Whitechapel, on 
 which Mrs. Treherne's knowledge of the world was 
 founded. All which glories could not but leave 
 their traces on Miss Grace herself, very much like 
 her former self as she appeared. 
 
 Miss Betsy Lovel, on the other hand, also ap- 
 peared to have been removed to a little distance 
 from Grace by those weeks at Combe Monachorum. 
 At least so it seemed at the first interview ; but 
 quite in a different way from Mrs. Treherne. What 
 were earl's daughters, or butlers, or carriages and 
 pair, or plate, or any such vulgar distinctions, to 
 one of the Lovels of Downwardshire, whose mother 
 had been in the habit, in her childhood, of playing 
 every day with the granddaughters of an Irish 
 viscount ? 
 
 Miss Betsy, therefore, if a little distant to Grace 
 at their first meeting, was distant by virtue of her 
 comparative elevation. She kept a little on the 
 high and dry elevation of first principles, and took 
 occasion to assert, grandly, for Grace's good : 
 
 "A gentlewoman is a gentlewoman whether she 
 is a governess or a duchess." 
 
 And when Miss Lavinia mildly opined that a cer- 
 tain degree of respect might be conceded to a duch- 
 ess without compromise of dignity : 
 
 " My dear Lavinia," said Miss Betsy, decisively, 
 " you are an excellent woman, but you know noth- 
 ing of the world, and I should be sorry for Grace 
 to take up foolish notions. People cannot be more 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 293 
 
 than well-born and well-bred, and if they are less, 
 we have nothing to do with them." 
 
 " Except, perhaps, as human beings and fellow- 
 creatures," remonstrated Miss Lavinia feebly. 
 
 "Who was talking about fellow-creatures?" re- 
 torted Miss Betsy, a little sharply ; " we were speak- 
 ing of social distinctions. If you come to fellow- 
 creatiyes, of course a shoeblack is my fellow-crea- i 
 ture, or a grasshopper." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sister," replied Miss Lavinia, 
 " I thought you were speaking of worldly distinc- 
 tions. I thought you wished Grace to see how 
 empty they are." 
 
 " Really, Lavinia," said Miss Betsy, driven to ex- 
 tremities, " you are sometimes a little pertinacious 
 and provoking. I was not speaking of worldly dis- 
 tinctions, but of social distinctions, which, of course, 
 must be recognized (although they may belong to 
 our fallen nature), if the world is to hold together 
 at all. There is a self-respect quite distinct from 
 petty pride, which I should be sorry for Grace or 
 any of us to lose. If Lady Katharine were to look 
 down on us, it would show she was no gentlewoman. 
 If the national schoolmistress, or the wife of that 
 butcher who has retired to Hackney and keeps a 
 phaeton, were to consider themselves on a level 
 with us, and not to look up to us, they would show 
 they were vulgar, ignorant people. Nothing can 
 be clearer." 
 
 Nothing could be clearer ,to Miss Betsy, as to so 
 many on various social levels, that between them 
 and all beneath them there is a great gulf which 
 25* 
 
294 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 cannot be crossed, whilst between them and those 
 above them there exist only those petty distinctions 
 which no right-minded person thinks anything of. 
 
 Meantime, during this discussion, Grace was sit- 
 ting apart, " seen and not heard," pondering many 
 things in her mind. 
 
 " Gracie, what are you thinking of?" said Miss 
 Lavinia at length. 
 
 " I was thinking of something Mr. Bertram said," 
 replied Grace, hesitating a little. 
 
 "About what ?" said Miss Lavinia. 
 
 "About people despising each other." 
 
 " I am sure, my dear, I despise no one," said Miss 
 Betsy, quickly ; " not even the butcher's wife or the 
 schoolmistress. They are very worthy people, no 
 doubt, in their way ; only, of course, they ought to 
 understand their position." 
 
 "What did Mr. Bertram say, Grace?" asked 
 Miss Lavinia. 
 
 " He said contempt was the meanest and smallest 
 thing in the world, because it keeps any heart in 
 which it reigns from ever growing or learning ; be- 
 cause it never looks up to see anything above it, 
 and only sees what is lowest in things below it. 
 He said people imagine themselves standing erect, 
 when they despise others, and looking down, with 
 heads drawn back, with a lofty scorn. But he 
 thought, to heavenly eyes, the attitude of the con- 
 temptuous heart is always a mean stooping, which 
 lowers them below the lowest of the people they 
 despise. Because, he said, there is something in 
 every one to honor, if we could find it out ; but con- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 2 95 
 
 tempt passes by all that could be honored, to look 
 at that which is lowest. He said, too, that con- 
 tempt and envy are very often only the inside and 
 outside of the same sin. People profess to despise 
 what they inwardly envy." 
 
 " Did Mr. Bertram say that in a sermon ?" asked 
 Miss Betsy, growing a little impatient ; " if he did, 
 you have remembered it very nicely, my dear." 
 
 " No," said Grace, " he was talking to Lady Kath- 
 arine and Mrs. O'Brien about visiting the poor ; but 
 what I remember best is what he said about the 
 ladders." 
 
 " Tell us about that, Gracie, if you remember," 
 said Miss Lavinia. 
 
 " He said there were two ladders, or stairs. One 
 is up the great mountain of the world ; and as the 
 people who are climbing up this ladder have two 
 constant aims one to keep those below from get- 
 ting up to them, and the other to reach the next 
 step themselves, while those who are not climbing 
 but are obliged to stand still on a particular step, 
 are always trying to prove that between them and 
 the next step below there is an impassable barrier, 
 while between them and the highest summit above 
 there are nothing but little insignificant steps. And, 
 after all, those who have reached the very top, know 
 that the summit is nothing but a last step nothing 
 but an empty platform, and no better for building on 
 than those below only more exposed to the storms 
 which destroy buildings. Then Mr. Bertram said 
 there is another ladder, like the old dream-ladder 
 Jacob saw, reaching from heaven to earth. And in 
 
 
296 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 all that great stair, he said, there is no break or 
 chasm except at the top. From the archangel to 
 the sea anemone, all is one stair of gentle steps 
 without a break." 
 
 "Something very like a break between us and 
 the monkeys," suggested Miss Betsy, vaguely com- 
 bating some vague suspicion of a new theory con- 
 cerning the origin of species. 
 
 " Mr. Bertram said it was not a slope, but a stair, 
 and, of course, some steps may be higher than 
 others," replied Grace ; " but the only chasm is at 
 the top, and that is immeasurable, for it is between 
 God and the highest of his creatures. But that 
 chasm has been altogether filled up," said Grace, 
 very reverently, " since the Son of God, the Lord 
 Jesus, became a little babe, and grew up to man, 
 and died, and rose again for us ; so that now there 
 is no chasm at all. But on this stair people are not 
 thinking of climbing, but of ivor shipping , or of help- 
 ing up those below. For they are altar-stairs. And 
 the law which rules the company there is, 'Be ye sub- 
 ject one to another? So that the people rejoice to 
 recognize every distinction, even poor earthly dis- 
 tinctions. The young are subject to the old, and 
 the poor recognize the gifts of the rich, and those 
 who are not clever delight in the gifts of those who 
 are. They are helping those below, and honoring 
 those above. And so Mr. Bertram said," concluded 
 Grace, "the whole happy company are always 
 rising higher and higher towards heaven, and nearer 
 and nearer God." 
 
 " Surely," said Miss Betsy, fidgeting a little, and 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 297 
 
 just perceiving the meaning clearly enough to try 
 to miss it, " surely Mr. Bertram did not mean to say 
 that money and rank, and such poor, worldly things, 
 were of any value in God's sight. There is no re- 
 spect of persons with him ; and I am sure Mr. Ber- 
 tram is too good a man not to see that." 
 
 " Oh, sister," said Miss Lavinia, taking courage, 
 " what Gracie says is just what I feel. I do think 
 it makes us so much happier to recognize every lit- 
 tle distinction of money, or rank, or ability, or any- 
 thing, just as so many steps of God's ordering. I 
 feel so much freer with people when I simply say to 
 myself, ' Now you are wiser, or richer, or higher up 
 in the world than I am ; but I am as much in my 
 place that is, God's place for me here as you are 
 there ;' than if I were trying to think their gifts are 
 nothing, and to stretch up and feel as tall as they 
 are." 
 
 " Well, well," said Miss Betsy, "/ was taught to 
 believe, at all events, that these little differences 
 ended in the grave. I must say I am surprised that 
 Mr. Bertram should carry them into heaven ; and I 
 cannot say I think it quite reverent to talk of an 
 archangel and a periwinkle, or some creature of that 
 kind, in the same breath. But I know I and the 
 Church Catechism are old-fashioned and out of date 
 now, according to some people's notions." 
 
 When Miss Betsy, figuratively speaking, took the 
 bit between her teeth in that way, and ran away on 
 the wrong road, Miss Lavinia well knew that the 
 only way to bring her back was to make no effort 
 to stop her. Accordingly, she checked Grace, who 
 
298 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 was preparing for an eloquent vindication of Mr. 
 Bertram, by opening a little book of dried seaweeds 
 which Grace had brought her as a present ; and by 
 the time they had looked admiringly through every 
 page, Miss Betsy had brought herself up ; and, be- 
 fore Grace left, she said : 
 
 " Mr. Bertram is an excellent young man, Grace, 
 my dear, and of course a little girl like you could 
 not be expected to remember everything exactly, 
 although, I must say, you told it all very prettily. 
 Of course we all do recognise differences of station. 
 I was only anxious you should not attach too much 
 importance to petty distinctions of rank and wealth. 
 And, of course, Mr. Bertram acknowledges that 
 these differences have only to do with time and 
 temporal things." 
 
 " Even the distinction between the butcher's wife 
 and ourselves," suggested Miss Lavinia. 
 
 "Undoubtedly, if the butcher's wife does her 
 duty in that station of life to which it has pleased 
 God to call her. Only, of course, we cannot under- 
 stand it now. We shall all of us have to undergo 
 such a great change when we leave this world. You 
 are a good little girl, Grace, and have done those 
 seaweeds beautifully, and are above being spoiled 
 by the notice of those whom vulgar people think 
 great. I am sure Lavinia has her own ideas ; but 
 to me, I confess, these differences are of no import- 
 ance whatever." 
 
 And yet Grace instinctively felt that Miss Betsy's 
 lofty scorn of these " petty distinctions " implied 
 far more value for them than Miss Lavinia's con- 
 
THE WORLD 'SHE LIVED IN. 299 
 
 tented recognition of them, or even than Mrs. An- 
 derson's reverence for ancient pedigree, when she 
 said, " I do feel glad, Miss Grace, you have seen 
 something of the real old families. It's such as 
 they I'd like to see you amongst always. Not but 
 that there are names in the country made little of 
 now, that can be traced further back than any Low- 
 land lord's. But that's nothing to the purpose. 
 The Lord putteth down one and setteth up another. 
 And there are names," she concluded, solemnly, 
 " written in another Book which is older than either, 
 and will last longer." 
 
 To little Fan, in her low place in the world, all 
 the minor gradations of society were as much lost 
 in the distance above, as to a despotic monarch in 
 the distance below. Both counted the rest of the 
 world in " masses." To her, the lady who kept the 
 greengrocer's shop, and the Miss Lovels, and Mrs. 
 O'Brien, and Lady Katharine, were all blended into 
 one indiscriminate mass of superior people who 
 had to be courtesied to. 
 
 Grace noticed that little Fan had rather a fright- 
 ened and subdued look, as she waited on the tea- 
 table the first evening of their return ; but she said 
 little to her until the first afternoon when Fan could 
 be spared for the hour's sewing-lesson, which was 
 her great holiday twice a week. Then, to Grace's 
 surprise, almost at the first kind word she spoke to 
 her, asking about Dan, Fan burst into tears. 
 
 " What is the matter, little Fan ?" 
 
 " Nothing isn't the matter, Miss Grace. Only 
 
300 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 I'm so glad you're back again. I've done so many 
 things wrong since you were away." 
 
 " What kind of wrong things ? can you tell me, 
 Fan ? Perhaps I might help you. We all do 
 wrong things sometimes ; and then the right way 
 is to start again." 
 
 " Not wrong things like me," sobbed Fan. I've 
 got such fingers, like butter, missis says. "I've 
 broken three mugs and four glasses, and a bottle, 
 and the great pie-dish with the pie in it. Missis 
 says it's more than my work's worth in a year, 
 and she don't think I shall never be no better," 
 sobbed Fan, " never. She had a girl, she says, 
 once before like that, and she turned out dreadful, 
 and was sent over the seas. She says I shall be 
 like her, if I don't mind ; and oh ! Miss Grace, I 
 do mind. I do try, and I don't get no better. The 
 more I try, the more the things seem to slip through 
 my fingers. I seem to hear missis' voice saying, 
 4 There you go again,' and somehow my fingers 
 won't hold, and down the things go. And then I 
 lie awake, thinking of the girl who was sent across 
 the seas. And I pray to God, Miss Grace, I do. I 
 ask him not to let me break anything more. I 
 asked him last night so hard ; and this morning, 
 the first thing, I heard missis calling quick, and I 
 broke the milk-jug ; and she come and says there's 
 no hope I shall ever mend. And I don't suppose 
 there is. And oh my ! I shall spoil my apron with 
 crying, and I had two clean last week. There 
 never was such a careless child, missis said, I spill 
 things so ;" and she made a great gulp to stop the 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 301 
 
 tears which were running fast on her checked 
 apron. 
 
 Grace wiped the tears away, and pondered in her 
 mind how "best to comfort Fan without making too 
 light of her offences, when Fan looked and said in 
 an awed voice : 
 
 "Please, Miss Grace, they have to do a good 
 many things besides breaking and spilling things, 
 haven't they, before they're sent to prison and 
 across the seas ? It would bo such a disgrace to 
 Dan, he'd never get over it, Dan wouldn't." 
 
 Reassured on this point, Fan was prepared to 
 receive the consolation Grace was able to give. 
 
 "Fan," she said, "I think I may tell you that 
 Mrs. Treherne spoke very kindly of you. She said 
 you had everything to learn, and, of course, you 
 have. And she said you had broken several things, 
 but not as many as some. And she said you were 
 so gentle and kind to the little ones, and swept out 
 the rooms so nicely into the corners, she should cer- 
 tainly try to keep you, and she believed you might 
 one day make quite a nice little housemaid." 
 
 The tears stood still in Fan's eyes with amaze- 
 ment, and then they gathered again into one more 
 little sob of delight, the last. 
 
 " Me a housemaid, Miss Grace ! Missis said that 
 of me ?" 
 
 For Mrs. Treherne's principles of education were 
 all in the way of prohibitions and threats. She 
 would have thought it a most imprudent conces- 
 sion to tell little Fan one half of the good things 
 phe had said about her to Grace. She believed, as 
 
3 02 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 many people do, that fear was a stimulus, and hope 
 a soporific, and that the most impressive way of 
 urging any one to overcome a fault is to tell them 
 they never will. Little Fan, however, being accus- 
 tomed to believe evil things of herself, and having 
 seen a good deal of the dark ends of evil ways, 
 had taken Mrs. Treherne literally, and but for 
 Grace's timely encouragement, might have sunk 
 for life, under this wholesome discipline, into a 
 hopeless resignation never to overcome anything 
 wrong, or do anything well. Grace, on the other 
 hand, having no theories of education, but having 
 proved, in her own experience and in Harry's, that 
 the most difficult thing in morals is to repair the 
 languor of frequent failures, and to give the impe- 
 tus to start again after failure, bent her whole 
 powers to persuading little Fan that she would be 
 sure to succeed in the end if she tried ; and at the 
 end of the hour, when she asked Fan : 
 
 " You won't think it no good to ask God to help 
 you again to-night, will you, Fan ?" 
 
 Fan smiled and nodded a promise, and whispered, 
 " Then you really think, Miss Grace, I may grow 
 up not to be a disgrace to Dan ? For Dan's to be 
 a shoemaker ; the baker's loads were too many for 
 him, and Mrs. Anderson's been and got him bound. 
 Oh, Dan's such a good lad, Mrs. Anderson says." 
 
 And Fan's eyes sparkled with hope and love, as 
 she went to get the tea-things, with a steadier hand 
 than she had known since Grace had left home. 
 
 " Oh father," said Grace that evening, " how glad 
 I am we are at home." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 303 
 
 " So are the old people in the workhouse," said 
 Mr. Leigh. " One of them said that while I was 
 away no one had done anything for them but read 
 the service and a sermon once a week, and stand at 
 the door of the wards, and smile, and hope in a 
 general way they were all comfortable ; and I can, 
 at all events, go and listen and talk to them one by 
 one. It does seem, Gracie, sometimes as if we 
 were in the right nook in the world, instead of in 
 the wrong ; although, of course, Cousin Etlix can't 
 be expected to think so ; and I do wish for your 
 and Harry's sakes I had been a more successful 
 man. However, if Harry gets that scholarship, 
 perhaps things may not turn out so very badly 
 after all" 
 
 For the annual visit to Bedford Square generally 
 threw its shadow over Mr. Leigh at least a month 
 before, and it was already November. 
 
 That year the visit was certainly not more cheer- 
 ful than usual. Mr. Hunter threw out sundry plain 
 suggestions as to the advantages to be obtained 
 from aristocratic friends, if they really were friends 
 worth the name, and had not merely taken you up 
 by way of passing a dull season, or investigating a 
 new phase of society, as they might an African 
 explorer, or a book about the manners and customs 
 of London thieves, or any other instrument by 
 which they might obtain glimpses into spheres be- 
 yond or below their own reach. It was true (Mr. 
 Hunter said in a confidential communication with 
 Mr. Leigh after dinner), that the Reform Bill had 
 seriously lessened the influence of families like the 
 
34 
 
 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Wyses, by sweeping away their rotten boroughs ; 
 but there were livings still in their gift, he knew, 
 and Lady Katharine's connections had the disposal 
 of two or three of the largest livings in England. 
 Mr. Leigh, he knew, had scruples of conscience 
 against asking for anything ; but his ideas of con- 
 science were that a man's first duty is to provide 
 for his own. Of course it was not pleasant to ask 
 for things ; it was very unpleasant to be refused, 
 and not -always very pleasant to receive ; but duties 
 are not always pleasant, and men with families and 
 without property had to do many things that were 
 not pleasant, or else their sons and daughters would 
 have to do things that were more unpleasant still ; 
 and he must confess the men he respected were 
 those who had the self-denial to sacrifice petty 
 scruples of conscience, or of pride, or whatever you 
 like to call it, and expose themselves to the risk of 
 rebuffs rather than lose the chance of obtaining 
 benefits for the family. Altogether, Mr. Hunter 
 succeeded in so working on Mr. Leigh's conscience 
 that on rising from the table he felt that another 
 visit to Combe Monachorum would be almost as 
 depressing as a visit to Bedford Square, since he 
 would be divided all the time between his own ab- 
 horrence of encroaching on any one, and Mr. Hun- 
 ter's code of the duty of his turning everything to 
 the profit of Grace and Harry. 
 
 Meantime Mrs. Hunter had been practising a 
 great amount of dignity on Grace without produc- 
 ing any corresponding effect. She had (quite pa- 
 renthetically, as if the Combe Monachorum episode 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 305 
 
 were something that had scarcely occupied her 
 thoughts) informed Grace that the Wyses were a 
 family very little thought of in those lofty unknown 
 circles into which she soared altogether beyond 
 Grace's ken; that Lady Katharine's father was 
 only the fourth earl, and that the less said about 
 the circumstances to which her ancestors owed 
 their elevation to the peerage the better. All 
 which information had no more personal effect on 
 Grace than a dissertation on the origin of the 
 Hohenstaufen, or on the comparative merits of the 
 Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Lady Katharine's dig- 
 nity in Grace's eyes consisting in her being a very 
 open-hearted and majestic old lady, who looked 
 like a queen, and behaved to her like a very indul- 
 gent grandmother, and who, if her father had been 
 the fourth earl or the four-and-twentieth, deserved 
 herself to be the " first countess " in the land. She 
 felt sorry certainly that Lady Katharine's great- 
 great-great-grandfather had obtained his peerage in 
 a way that was not to his credit ; but the only con- 
 clusion she could draw from this fact (if it were a 
 fact), was that Lady Katharine must be unlike her 
 great-great-great-grandfather, or that the family 
 must have improved generally since the days of the 
 ancestor who had better not be talked about ; which 
 Grace thought was a pleasant thing to think, be- 
 cause if they had begun they might go on improv- 
 ing ; in which case no one could say to what 
 degree of excellence the four-and-twentieth earl 
 might attain. 
 
 But Grace did not say this to Mrs. Hunter. She 
 26* 
 
306 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 only listened until Mr. Hunter and her father ap- 
 peared, and the Hunter parents branched off into a 
 responsive discourse illustrative of the merits of 
 the various Hunter children who had not yet re- 
 turned from school, Mr. Hunter enlarging on the 
 exalted opinions of the abilities, and the lofty hopes 
 of the destinies of those remarkable young people 
 entertained by their various tutors and masters ; 
 and Mrs. Hunter treating all these attainments and 
 promises in a grand style, as no more than must in 
 reason be expected of her children, and as the mere 
 alphabet of the glories reserved for them in the 
 future. 
 
 Then Mr. Hunter took the lamp, to show his poor 
 relations some pictures which he had recently pur- 
 chased at an enormous price, or as an enormous bar- 
 gain, although, of course, he said (rather ironically), 
 " you would not think much of them after the gal- 
 lery at Combe Monachorum, which, I believe, cost 
 the late Mr. Wyse and his father fabulous sums." 
 Mr. Leigh felt tempted to apologise for having 
 seen finer pictures at Combe Monachorum, but Mrs. 
 Hunter said loftily, " My dear, you talk as if the 
 Wyses were something out of the common. I be- 
 lieve their pictures are no more than may be found 
 in thousands of private houses." 
 
 "Mamma," said a little voice from an invalid 
 chair by the fire, " I think Combe must be a beau- 
 tiful old place. There are cedars as tall as the 
 chimneys, and a hall as large as a square, and such 
 beautiful horses, and miles of woods. Cousin 
 Harry has been telling me all about it." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 307 
 
 " I daresay it was a great contrast to Harry, my 
 dear," said Mrs. Hunter with a magnificent smile. 
 " I hope you did not feel the return to your lodg- 
 ings too much, Grace," she added. 
 
 Grace colored a little ; but there was no cloud 
 of pride on the smile in her eyes as she looked up 
 in Mrs. Hunter's face, and said : 
 
 " We were very happy at Combe, Mrs. Hunter ; 
 every one was so kind. But we could not help 
 being glad to be at home again, they were so glad 
 to have us back. And then, you know, it is home, 
 and the people were so glad to see father again." 
 
 " Yes," chimed in the feeble voice from the fire- 
 side, " the people in the workhouse, mamma, they 
 love Mr. Leigh so much. They were so pleased to 
 see him again, Cousin Grace says." 
 
 " In the workhouse, Maud !" said Mr. Hunter, 
 "you do not know what you are talking about. 
 The people in the workhouse are paupers. No one 
 ought to be pleased about anything in a workhouse, 
 for no one ought to be there. If people were only 
 provident and used their opportunities as they 
 ought, no one would be there. Every one ought 
 to be ashamed of being there ; and I am happy to 
 say, such is the generally high tone of feeling in 
 the country, almost every one is ashamed to be 
 there." 
 
 " But there are the blind people, papa," said the 
 feeble voice, " and the lame people, what' are they 
 to do ?" 
 
 " There are blind asylums for respectable blind 
 people," replied Mr. Hunter ; " but, my dear, these 
 
308 WIN [FRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 questions are beyond a little girl's comprehen- 
 sion." 
 
 Mrs. Hunter summoned Grace to play a duet 
 with her, Mr. Hunter took up the Times, and Mr. 
 Leigh and little Maud were left to a private chat, 
 as he seated himself beside her. 
 
 For even in Mr. Hunter's household there was 
 one unsuccessful person. Little Maud, the young- 
 est child, had in some unaccountable way so far for- 
 gotten herself and her representative duties as a 
 Hunter as to have had very feeble health from 
 infancy. A model nurse, moreover, had so far for- 
 gotten herself as to let her be upset in a perambu- 
 lator, and twist her ancle ; and the inaction caused 
 by the crippled limb had increased her natural deli- 
 cacy, so as to make her a confirmed invalid. 
 
 Always at these annual visits Grace had contrived 
 to say a few loving words to Maud, which had 
 quietly sunk into the little sufferer's heart, and 
 made that dreaded annual visit anything but 
 dreaded by her. But hitherto little Maud had been 
 much lost sight of among the older children, and 
 besides, this was the first year when her invalid 
 chair had been removed from the nursery to the 
 drawing-room, so that Maud and Mr. Leigh were 
 that evening making each other's acquaintance. 
 The words that passed between these two were 
 very few and simple ; but they made that house a 
 different place to Mr. Leigh from that hour. 
 
 " You have suffered much pain, Maud, I'm afraid," 
 said Mr. Leigh, looking at the little thin face, and 
 into the eyes that had so little sparkle in them. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 309 
 
 " Not so very much, and not always, Mr. Leigh ; 
 only sometimes when the wind changes, or I try to 
 move too quickly. But it isn't the pain I mind," 
 she continued. 
 
 " No," said Mr. Leigh, as if he understood it, 
 " it isn't generally pain that is the worst thing." 
 
 "And it isn't only being unlike the rest," she 
 added, after a little hesitation, " it is because I am 
 so stupid." 
 
 " But perhaps you are mistaken about that," said 
 Mr. Leigh, " we can seldom judge that for our- 
 selves. Very clever men sometimes have thought 
 themselves stupid until they found out the thing 
 they could do." 
 
 " But I am not at all clever," was the reply, with 
 a hopeless little movement of the head. "They 
 have tried me in everything, and they have never 
 found out the thing I am particularly clever in. I 
 don't get on ; every one says so. I don't do any- 
 thing as well as the rest. Papa says it is very 
 strange, because it is generally made up to people 
 for wanting one thing by having more of something 
 else. I have heard him say so once to the German 
 master. But I haven't more of anything. It seems 
 as if there was some mistake about it ; and of 
 course it must be my mistake ; but I don't know 
 how to get right and get on. And that is what I 
 care for more than the pain." 
 
 The child spoke with slow gravity, as if she were 
 unfolding the long perplexities of years, not so 
 much with a hope of solution as because it was a 
 relief to unfold them. 
 
3 10 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Leigh, half to himself, " a strain 
 is often the worst pain." 
 
 The child looked up. 
 
 " That is what I feel," she said, " a pain all through, 
 such as I feel in my bad ancle when I try to move 
 it." 
 
 " God does not mean any of us to feel that, 
 Maud," said Mr. Leigh gently. " No one does 
 feel it when they are doing His work ; but only 
 when we are setting our tasks for ourselves." 
 
 The child looked intently in his face, but said 
 nothing. 
 
 " The Lord Jesus does not say, ' Get on,' " he 
 said, " but ' Follow me.' He does not want us to 
 do as well as other people, but as well as we can ; and 
 then He is quite sure to be pleased. He wills all 
 His children to bring Him their work every even- 
 ing. Some of them have done things which will 
 be talked about and praised while the world lasts, 
 and some have done what no one thinks anything 
 of, perhaps cut the grass in the Square garden, or 
 borne a bad ancle patiently, and done a few lessons 
 as well as they can. But God is quite as pleased 
 with one as with another ; God sets us here not to 
 do wonders, but to learn lessons. We are to do 
 the wonders by-and-by." 
 
 " Then you don't think I ought to be cleverer 
 than other people, or do something wonderfully 
 well, to make up for being so small and lame ?" 
 
 " I think God will give you something more to 
 make up to you if 'you ask Him." 
 
 " I have asked Him so many times," said Maud, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 311 
 
 " to make me sing beautifully, or draw beautifully, 
 or something ; but I can't." 
 
 " God has better things than these to give you, 
 Maud," said Mr. Leigh. 
 
 Her thoughtful grave eyes brightened into an 
 inquiry. 
 
 "Love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
 meekness, temperance, those are God's best things, 
 Maud," said Mr. Leigh. 
 
 A new look of rest came over the thin little eager 
 face, making it quite beautiful ; not a smile, but a 
 calm, as of a limb strained in every muscle sub- 
 siding into soft curves of repose. 
 
 And Mr. Leigh left Bedford Square that even- 
 ing as quiet and peaceful as if he were returning 
 from his evening service on Sunday. For he and 
 Maud had been preaching each other a sermon, 
 which made it quite clear to Mr. Leigh for the 
 time that both his lodgings over the greengrocer's, 
 and the house in Bedford Square might be steps of 
 a stair, where going straight forward is " getting 
 on" always. 
 
 When Mrs. O'Brien^ nad asked Lady Katharine's 
 advice about the best way to do good to her poor 
 people in the east of London, Lady Katharine had 
 said: 
 
 "I had some advice given me by my French 
 master, when I was a child, which has often helped 
 me since in other ways. 'If you wish to learn 
 to read,' he said, ' read ; if you wish to learn to 
 speak, speak ; if you wish to learn to write, write 9 
 
3 1 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 So, Cecil, I say to you, If you wish to learn how to 
 assist the poor, assist them ; if you wish to learn 
 how to do good, do good. The only way to learn to 
 do anything is to do it ; and, of course, that im- 
 plies that before you learn to do it right you will 
 do it wrong. You will make blunders, you will 
 make failures ; you are very fortunate if you do not 
 do mischief; but persevere, and in the end you 
 will learn your lesson, and probably a good many 
 other lessons by the way." 
 
 With which counsel Mrs. O'Brien had to be con- 
 tent, and to launch herself on the. sea of experience. 
 Mr. O'Brien, who was many years her senior, looked 
 on these new experiments of his wife with much the 
 same lofty and pitying interest which he had shown 
 for her fernery, her aviary, her rock garden, or any 
 other of the schemes which had occupied her from 
 time to time. A little more dangerous, he thought 
 it, inasmuch as the experiments were made with 
 more unmanageable materials. If Mrs. O'Brien 
 killed her birds or her ferns with kindness, less 
 mischief was done, he thought, than by her pursu- 
 ing the same process with human beings. How- 
 ever, in this matter Mrs. O'Brien had evidently 
 advanced in her own opinion from the domain of 
 taste to that of conscience ; and with conscience 
 Mr. O'Brien was far too liberal-minded to interfere. 
 He rather inclined, indeed, to the belief that " char- 
 ity " is one of the eccentric influences which pre- 
 vent " social science " from working itself out effect- 
 ually ; but he candidly admitted that, constituted 
 as things are, it is perhaps hopeless in our genera- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 313 
 
 tion to see the social system work quite as steadily 
 as the planetary ; that there actually are other 
 eccentric influences of a more irregular and per- 
 nicious kind than " charity," and that as long as 
 there are some human beings " eccentric " enough 
 to do nothing, steal, murder, or kill themselves with 
 drinking, it might be as well there should be other 
 human beings eccentric enough to spend their lives ( 
 in counteracting the disorder thus introduced, 
 although by disorderly means. 
 
 He therefore only entered enough of a protest 
 to give him a right, when Mrs. O'Brien's plans 
 failed, to say with an air of serene superiority, 
 " My love, I am not surprised." 
 
 And it must be confessed Mrs. O'Brien's plans 
 did fail very frequently. Starting with Mrs. Dee 
 as a danger-signal to show her where not to go, 
 and with the old maxim of believing every one an 
 honest man until you prove him to be a rogue, her 
 errors were not on the side of incredulity or want 
 of tenderness. From Mrs. Dee's extreme of ex- 
 horting from a platform, she fell into the other of 
 regarding poverty and trouble as a kind of dignity 
 and consecration in themselves, raising the suffer- 
 ers on a platform, which she must approach with a 
 delicate reverence, even when the suffering was, too 
 obviously, the result of mismanagement and im- 
 providence. " How could I manage," she thought, 
 " to maintain a family on eighteen shillings or a 
 pound a week ? and what right have I to wonder 
 if this poor man cannot ? How could I be house- 
 maid, laundress, nurse, cook, needle-woman to a 
 27 
 
3H 
 
 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 husband and half a dozen children, as these poor 
 mothers have to be ? and what right have I to lec- 
 ture them if the children's faces are not always 
 washed, and the floors not always swept ? How 
 could I make everything comfortable for my hus- 
 band with only one room to live in; and what 
 right have I to judge a poor delicate woman if she 
 does not ?" She did not at once perceive that while 
 souls and bodies arc the same in all classes, and 
 therefore everywhere heart answereth to heart, the 
 effect of circumstances on souls and bodies is infin- 
 itely varied by habit and association, and that there- 
 fore what would be " straits " to one, is absolutely 
 wealth and a " large room " to another. Thus she 
 frequently returned from her visitations more ex- 
 hausted by sympathy than' the sufferers she sym- 
 pathized with were by their troubles. 
 
 Then, as to " giving," after some months' expe- 
 rience, she was almost tempted to come to Miss 
 Dalton's conclusion that it was impossible to give 
 without doing at least as much harm as good. It 
 would have been a relief if she could have at least 
 have adopted the theory that alms do good to the 
 giver, whatever the effect on the receiver, and have 
 looked on the poor as a savings bank in which to 
 invest for heaven. But she could not divest her- 
 self of the conviction that doing harm, with the 
 best motives, will not count the same as doing good 
 in any day of account. Besides, she really cared 
 for the people, and it distressed her beyond mea- 
 sure when she found that money given to clothe a 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 315 
 
 family, mysteriously fallen into hunger and naked- 
 ness, had gone through the wretched mother's hands 
 to swell the source of their misery at the next gin- 
 shop ; or when she discovered that her benefactions 
 had been encouraging an idle man in idleness, and 
 making the hard-earned bread of the neighboring 
 family seem earned more hardly still ; or when she 
 found the spirit of complaining only grow with the 
 donations it fed upoji. 
 
 Many a bitter lesson she had to learn about 
 others, starting from the belief that the poor and 
 afflicted are generally better and less selfish than 
 the rich and prosperous ; passing through the dreary 
 fear that they are more selfish, more mean, more 
 jealous, more corrupt ; till at length she landed in 
 the conviction that human nature is the same bro- 
 ken and imperfect thing everywhere, only that per- 
 haps the cracks seem wider where the glazing does 
 not cover them. 
 
 But Mrs. O'Brien had bitterer lessons still to 
 learn about herself. Brought into contact with 
 various forms of suffering and sickness, she learned 
 how very little she had learned, how little she 
 knew what to suggest, or what to do, or how to 
 help. She began to see also how, in her own house- 
 hold, she had all her life been doing her duties by 
 deputy, and been content to stand merely turning 
 the handle of a machine, when she might have been 
 the centre of a home. 
 
 But she began to perceive a want deeper still 
 than any of these. As she sat by the bed-side of 
 the sick or the dying,* and anxious questioning eyes 
 
316 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 were fixed on her, she began to feel there was a 
 question asked she had not yet herself asked, and 
 an answer needed which she had not yet learned. 
 
 The necessities of really poor districts so soon 
 surpass the capacities of the fullest purse. Mrs. 
 O'Brien could dispense coals and meat in hard sea- 
 sons, undertake the charge of families rendered des- 
 titute by sickness or bereavement ; she could, by a 
 little constant relief, enable the aged to keep the 
 luxury of a home instead of sinking into units in a 
 workhouse. But when it came to slack seasons, 
 long frosts, failure in the particular trade of the 
 district, and working men, accustomed to earn at 
 least one pound a week, and barely to support their 
 families on that, were thrown out of work for weeks 
 together, the limit of her means of assistance must 
 at last be reached, and beyond money and sympa- 
 thy she had nothing to give. So soon she reached 
 the bounds of her poor human power to comfort 
 and assist ! So many broken hearts were there, 
 and her balms scarcely reached to soothe, and had 
 no power to heal ! So many lives torn by great 
 earthquakes of sorrow ; and could she fill the chasm 
 with her tears, or bridge it over with gentle words ? 
 
 Many a time she returned from her work ex- 
 hausted, as if every drop of life and power had been 
 drained out of her heart ; and yet feeling tjiat all 
 she had felt and spent had scarcely availed really to 
 lift up one of the sorrowful hearts whose sufferings 
 so weighed on her. It is a tremendous thing to 
 venture down into the depths of human misery 
 with none but human aid to offer, and without a 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 317 
 
 firm faith that the ideal of life is not a parade or a 
 party of pleasure (still less a bower of rest), but a 
 battle and a pilgrimage. It is to go into a besieged 
 city, perishing with famine, with proclamations of 
 assistance, and have nothing to give but our own 
 daily loaf of bread. It is to stand before the nation 
 in the wilderness, fainting from days of drought, 
 and to offer them to drink from the few drops left 
 in the pitcher which we have brought by the same 
 journey with the rest from the same wells. It is a 
 perilous thing to come to the nation in bondage 
 with words of sympathy, and promises of help 
 unless we ourselves have first been in the wilder- 
 ness alone with Him who is mighty to save, and 
 heard His voice and received His promises, and 
 proved His power. 
 
 " Bear ye one another's burdens " will soon bring us 
 to the end of our strength unless we have first 
 proved unless we are daily proving " Cast THY 
 burden on the Lord, and he will sustain thee" 
 
 Through this exhaustion and helplessness Mrs. 
 O'Brien was passing, sinking deeper with every 
 effort to lift others out. 
 
 Yet Lady Katharine's advice had been right. 
 She was learning the lesson in doing the work ; 
 and many other lessons by the way. 
 
 Many bitter tears she shed in secret over her in- 
 capacity and helplessness. She mourned over the 
 precious years of wasted youth, and wasted early 
 womanhood, never she thought to be regained. 
 Precious years of training for the sacred uses of 
 life, lavished on training to be the ornament of a 
 
318 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 drawing-room. She mourned over her own empty 
 home. The weakest and most ineffective mothers 
 must, she thought, have learned lessons in their 
 nurseries, by watching the development of their 
 children's characters at their play, and at their les- 
 sons, and on sick-beds, which no one could teach 
 her. But that path led too far down into bitter 
 depths of murmuring to be pursued. And she 
 came back to her own neglects. Winnie had been 
 sent her. She might have taken the little one to 
 her heart, taught her, watched her, learned from 
 her. But she had deputed the care of her health 
 to an experienced nurse, and of Jier mind to 
 teachers and masters ; so that the child, who might 
 have been a link for her with the hearts of other 
 women, had been to her little more than rather a 
 perplexing pet and plaything. And what power, 
 human or divine, can give back wasted years ? 
 She felt as if the greatest blessing would be some 
 convulsion which would shatter the smooth, barren 
 surface of her life, and enable her to make a new 
 beginning, even though it were amidst ruins. 
 
 But unknown to her, all this while, a strong hand 
 had been shattering the smooth, barren surface of 
 her life. She was among ruins. And what she 
 needed was not the earthquake or the whirlwind, 
 but the still small voice, a little grain of living seed, 
 and the soft breath and dew of life. 
 
 In all these conflicts Mrs. O'Brien was alone. 
 Many people indeed volunteered consolation and 
 advice when she dropped any little expression of 
 disappointment. One lady advised her to send 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED 
 
 319 
 
 relief to the poor by her maid ; these sad scenes 
 were evidently too much for her nerves. Another 
 said it was no wonder people should find work alto- 
 gether out of their province too much for them ; 
 women were to be almoners, religious instruction 
 and consolation should be left to the clergy. Mrs. 
 O'Brien would have been only too happy to leave 
 religious consolation to any one who could give it ; 
 but her difficulty was where the consolations of re- 
 ligion were to begin. It seemed to her that she 
 was continually encountering, in the commonest 
 trials of life among the poor, something too deep 
 for her words of comfort to reach, and if she were 
 to call in the clergymen whenever words deeper 
 than expressions of ordinary kindness and sympa- 
 thy were needed, she would require a chaplain al- 
 ways at hand to supplement her labors. Not on 
 dying beds only are the consolations of religion 
 needed, or something stronger than a little money 
 or a little pity ; but every morning, when it is not 
 clear where the daily bread is to come from, or the 
 daily strength for the daily work, every evening 
 when the hard working husband, out of employ- 
 ment, comes home from a weary, fruitless search 
 for work, or when the reckless, well-paid husband 
 comes back intoxicated on the wages which were 
 to have bought the children bread. 
 
 Miss Dalton watched with a cynical satisfaction 
 Mrs. O'Brien's disappointments, and observed that 
 she had gone through it all long since, and proved 
 what a set of impostors the London poor are. The 
 more you give, the more you may give. Again and 
 
320 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 again she Lad found that poverty was the result of 
 hopeless thriftlessness and improvidence, and that 
 charity was a mere encouragement to vice. She 
 had gone through it all, and had come out of it, 
 and she trusted Mrs. O'Brien would soon attain 
 the same result. But it was precisely the dread of 
 going through the experience by the same path and 
 coming out of it on the same side as Miss Dalton, 
 hardened, narrowed, chilled to the heart, that al- 
 most more than anything gave Mrs. O'Brien cour- 
 age to struggle on. 
 
 For in all that really made this experience bitter 
 Mrs. O'Brien was quite alone ; in her disappoint- 
 ment in human nature, in her far bitterer disap- 
 pointment with herself. And yet she had a library 
 of religious biographies of all schools ; and a far 
 more instructive Library of human biographies col- 
 lected in one Book. Footprints were before her 
 all the way, footsteps were beside her all the time. 
 And yet, like all the rest, she went her solitary way 
 to the Door of Life, thinking herself on an untrod- 
 den path, feeling herself in an unbounded wilderness. 
 
 Happy for those whose first experience of spir- 
 itual loneliness, of destitution of human .compan- 
 ionship, of the unutterable isolation of the spirit from 
 all human spirits, is made on the way to the Gate 
 of Life, not in the valley of the shadow of death. 
 
 Meantime, the year, with many rebuffs and re- 
 coils, was struggling from winter into spring. 
 Trees, and flowers, and green herbs, and birds were 
 battling for their lives with stormy winds, and 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 321 
 
 chilling snows, and nipping frosts; while under- 
 neath the great mother earth was gently resting, 
 having a perfect understanding with storms, and 
 snows and frosts, that they were only to assist her 
 in the education of her children, peacefully feel- 
 ing how the frosts were destoying their destroyers, 
 while the winds made them cling tighter to her 
 breast, and the snows penetrated slowly down, re- 
 newing all the springs of her life and theirs. 
 
 For the earth had known at least six thousand 
 springs, and many of her children but this one, 
 which made all the difference. 
 
 A very happy spring it was for Grace. Harry 
 had been moved into a higher class at school. The 
 autumn holidays had wonderfully restored Mr. 
 Leigh. She had been taking lessons with Winnie 
 from time to time of Rosalie and of a German master, 
 and also in water colors of a celebrated painter of 
 flowers. Every day she felt gaining a step in 
 something, consciously growing. For Grace was 
 one of those artist-natures who are able to rejo'ce 
 in their work. Never thinking she had " alread/ 
 attained," yet nevertheless each step towards at- 
 tainment was to her a new joy. Seeing the dis- 
 tance before her to be absolutely infinite, she was 
 yet able to think of each advance on the way to it 
 not as a missing of her ideal, but an approach to 
 it. And her ideal being not other people's ideals, 
 or other people's attainments, but simply God's 
 reality, she scarcely knew which was the greatest 
 source of happiness, to feel the beauty of his crea- 
 tion always so infinitely above her, to feel herself 
 
 
322 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 drawing nearer to it. " Comparing ourselves 
 among ourselves," must always be narrowing, either 
 with the contraction of depression, or the meaner 
 contraction of contempt. Comparing ourselves with 
 Divine standards is always expanding. It exalts 
 while it humbles. Indeed, but for the tender little 
 pang of fear that she was leaving her old friends, 
 the Miss Lovels, behind, Grace's delight in her new 
 means of progress would have been unmixed. One 
 .day, however, an understanding was established 
 between the friends on that subject which set Grace 
 at rest about it forever. It happened that on the 
 morning of this day Miss Betsy had been saying to 
 Lavinia : 
 
 " What a pity Grace should devote so much time 
 to painting little bits of leaves, and berries, and in- 
 significant flowers and birds' nests. If they were 
 camelias and greenhouse flowers, or even roses and 
 geraniums, it might be something. I wonder she 
 should sink into such child's work, after having really 
 made some very tolerable copies of your landscapes." 
 
 But Miss Lavinia. said: 
 
 "Sister, I would rather be able to do one of 
 Grace's primroses, than ten of my landscapes. 
 And I would rather see that dear child do them 
 than do them myself. Life is before her, it is not 
 before me at least not the greater part of it." 
 
 " Well, well," replied Miss Betsy, " I only hope 
 you won't spoil the child. Of course there will be 
 fashions in every thing, and if you can go with 
 them perhaps it's all the better. But I can't bear 
 to hear you undervalue yourself, Lavinia. It's 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 323 
 
 hardly fair, either, to your drawing-master, who was 
 the best papa could get. I shall always think moun- 
 tains, and lakes, and trees better worth drawing than 
 hedge-flowers and birds' eggs. And if every one 
 takes the same fancies, what is to become of our 
 school ? There are two pupils less this half than 
 last. And one of the parents wanting to dictate to 
 me how to teach geography like the national school- 
 mistress another fighting to have the guineas re- 
 duced to sovereigns. And if they begin to fancy 
 their children are to draw primroses, birds' nests, 
 etc., instead of painting on velvet and drawing 
 lakes and mountains, what is to become of us ?" 
 
 Poor Miss Betsy spoke with not a little of the 
 bitterness which is apt to be infused into art criti- 
 cism when daily bread and theories of art become 
 too closely connected. 
 
 " At the worst," said Miss Lavinia, smiling, " we 
 will ask Grace to paint us a nest of one of ' the 
 fowls of the air,' and hang it up opposite the break- 
 fast-table, with the text belonging to it underneath." 
 
 And Miss Betsy went away to her daily pur- 
 chases, wondering at her sister's victories of faith, 
 and quite unaware that in her way she also was 
 winning victories, while, proud yet generous wo- 
 man that she was, willing to have lived on bread 
 and water rather than have done anything to betray 
 their poverty, she encountered the contemptuous 
 glances of tradesmen to secure a little better bargain 
 and a little choicer meal for her invalid sister at 
 home. 
 
 "Sister," said Miss Lavinia when she returned 
 
3 24 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 triumphant with her purchases, " perhaps poor little 
 Grace may have herself to depend on her own 
 earnings some day. Mr. Leigh sometimes looks 
 very frail. And I do feel thankful she is getting a 
 better education than we could give her. You 
 know fashions will change, and it is a comfort to 
 think she may have a better chance than we have." 
 
 "Poor child, poor child !" said Miss Betsy, " God 
 knows I grudge her nothing. And it will always 
 be a comfort to think we laid the foundations, if 
 she was obliged to set up a quantity of flimsy new- 
 fangled things on the top of them." 
 
 At that moment the " young ladies" began to 
 arrive, and the sisters had no more conversation 
 until the interval of dinner. 
 
 Miss Betsy had just put the cold mutton away for 
 the second time, and calculated that with a pudding 
 it might last till the end of the week, and had with 
 peremptory affection placed her sister on the sofa, 
 when Grace Leigh's sweet clear, girlish voice was 
 heard at the door, and in another instant the dingy 
 prosaic lodging room was brightened by the quiet 
 radiance of her face, always like something in the 
 open light of heaven, but at that moment positively 
 brimming over with some repressed inward delight. 
 
 There was always something infectious in Grace's 
 happiness. She had a way of making people feel it 
 was only a drop from a fountain common to all, a 
 smile from a love embracing all, and to Lavinia 
 Lovel she had always been the treasury of that 
 motherliness which is at the core of the heart of 
 all women who have hearts, and who have not fallen 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 3 2 5 
 
 into the suicidal delusion of making pets of them- 
 selves. With Miss Betsy, Lavinia herself had occu- 
 pied the child's place, and Grace rather that of a 
 niece, the child of a sister dear to her, to be faithfully 
 educated, a good deal advised, and also loved, but 
 by no means to share Lavinia's indivisible inherit- 
 ance of affection. 
 
 The sight of Grace's happy face, therefore, at 
 that moment, brought a light on Miss Lavinia's, as 
 near a glow as anything on that shadowy counte- 
 nance could be. Very different the two faces looked 
 as Grace went over to the sofa. Both pale in 
 coloring, but one pale as a gray reflection in a 
 steel mirror, or as if all the tints had been mixed to 
 a slightly varied neutral on the pallet before they 
 were laid on ; the other pale as a blush rose is pale, 
 but with every tint delicately distinct ; from the 
 hair, with the gold shining on the rich brown, to 
 the soft glow on the cheek, which was as distinctly 
 the glow of health and pleasure as if it had been 
 the brilliant flush on Winnie's face, but which an- 
 other shade of depth would have brought out of 
 harmony with the pure whiteness of the smooth, 
 even brow. Very different as an alabaster lamp 
 is different from a dull earthenware one ; yet with 
 the same soft light of love and peace shining 
 through both. And since it is the alabaster and 
 the earthenware that are to perish, and not the 
 light, the resemblance was more permanent than the 
 difference. 
 
 " Well, Grace, what is it ?" murmured Miss La- 
 vinia, in that faint shadowy <voice which contrasted 
 28 
 
3 2 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 as strongly, though in a different way, with Grace's 
 clear, low, even tones, as with Miss Betsy's rather 
 elevated treble. 
 
 In reply to Miss Lavinia's surprise, Grace drew a 
 long old-fashioned netted purse out of her pocket, 
 and out of the purse a five-pound note. 
 
 " A present, Grace, from your new friends ?" said 
 Miss Betsy. 
 
 " Oh, no, Miss Lovel ! better than that," said 
 Grace. " It is my very own I earned it. It is for 
 the primroses and the apple-blossom." 
 
 " Lady Katharine or Mrs. O'Brien bought it then, 
 I suppose," said Miss Betsy, a little stiffly. " It 
 was very kind. It must be quite an encouragement 
 to you." 
 
 " No, please, Miss Lovel, it was my drawing-mas- 
 ter," said Grace, coloring and fluttering a little. 
 " Mrs. O'Brien knows nothing about it, nor any one. 
 She is so kind, you know, I could never have asked 
 her. I was alone with him one day before Winnie 
 came, and Harry's clothes have been so dear, and 
 his school-books and everything lately, and father 
 was troubled about his being able to go on paying. 
 So I ventured, and asked him if he thought my 
 drawings would ever sell. And he looked at me 
 first as if he were puzzled, and then said, as if to 
 himself, ' Curate ? Ah, poor curates ! always in 
 difficulties, always have ten children ! I see.' But 
 I told him we were only two, and had no real diffi- 
 culties, and I only wanted to know, because Harry 
 had to go to college to help him, if he could, and I 
 must be a governess one day, and it might be bet- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 327 
 
 ter if I could do the drawings at home. Then he 
 looked^t the last drawing I had done, and put in a 
 few touches, and said, ' There, say you are my 
 pupil, and ask what you can get for that.' But I 
 said I had no one to ask, and besides it was not 
 mine. Then hte smiled* and said, ' A conscience 
 too ! A brother at college, and a conscience ! Too 
 much for any one little pair of hands to manage at 
 once. Very well, since you won't let me interfere, 
 take it home and see what you can do next week 
 by yourself.' And the next week he took my 
 drawing, and nodded at it, but did not touch it, 
 and took it away, with the last I had done before. 
 And the next week," concluded Grace coloring " he 
 brought me this, and gave me a letter to a person 
 who has a shop, who, he said, would buy more. So it 
 really is like a fortune, and I could not help telling 
 you, because you are my own dearest, oldest friends." 
 
 And Grace kissed both the Miss Lovels, and 
 Miss Lavinia looked at her with a fond, motherly 
 pride ; and Miss Betsy, a good deal touched by the 
 child's confidence, but also not a little nettled at 
 the art-blindness of the century, said : 
 
 " Well, Grace, my dear, I am sure you did right 
 to tell us. Some people are fortunate, and I am 
 sure I shall be very glad if you are one. And, of 
 course, there's no disputing about taste, and people 
 will buy what they fancy. When I was a little 
 girl young ladies did not sell things; I never 
 thought of offering LavnriVs drawings for sale ! 
 but, of course, times change, and you are a very 
 good little girl to wish to help your father, and I 
 
328 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 only hope, for your sake, this fashion for primroses 
 and birds' eggs may last." 
 
 Which speech of Miss Betsy's would have made 
 it very difficult for Grace to bring out the next 
 thing she had to say, had not Miss Lavinia added : 
 
 " Sister and I are so very glad, Gracie. We shall 
 thank God for you in our prayers to-night, both of 
 us. It must seem more His very own gift, Gracie, 
 than anything. When rich relations leave us 
 money, or rich friends give us anything, it comes 
 through other people's hands, and we have them to 
 thank as well as God, but what God gives us 
 through the work of our own fingers and brains 
 comes straight from Him, doesn't it ? because no 
 one but God gave them to us." 
 
 " Yes," said Grace, looking down and hesitating 
 a little, " no one but God gave them, Miss Lavinia ; 
 but without you, I should never have known how 
 to use them. That is just what I wanted to say. 
 Would you be so kind as to change this for me ? 
 Because, you know, it is half yours." 
 
 " Half ours !" said Miss Betsy, " what can you 
 mean, Gracie ?" 
 
 " Oh," said Grace, " please, father says there is 
 no doubt of it. You always said, Miss Betsy, when 
 we were rich you would let him pay for my lessons, 
 or that I might help you when I grew up, and now 
 this is just the same." 
 
 "Why, Gracie, how can you prove that?" said 
 Miss Lavinia, in a faltering voice, " five pounds is 
 not quite a fortune, and certainly you are not quite 
 grown up yet." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 329 
 
 " Not quite grown up, Miss Lavinia," said Grace, 
 " but I shall be my next birthday but one, for then 
 I shall be sixteen. And it is not the five pounds 
 that is the fortune, but the person at the shop, you 
 know, who will buy more. Father says it is quite 
 plain," concluded Grace, decisively, " as far as my 
 education would have cost is a simple debt, and 
 after that we can talk about it ; and I am either to 
 bring it to you as I receive it, or to put it in the 
 bank in your name. Father said it is God's gift to 
 us all. He said God had sent it you for being so 
 good to me, and to me for being " and there 
 Grace's voice broke down. And the three friends 
 wept together, Miss Lavinia and Grace in silence, 
 as if they enjoyed it ; and Miss Betsy with spas- 
 modic demonstrations with her pocket-handkerchief, 
 as if she were ashamed of her tears, and was deter- 
 mined to get them over as soon as possible. In 
 spite of which controversy with herself, her feelings 
 entirely got the better of her, and when Miss La- 
 vinia was restored to composure, Miss Betsy and her 
 pocket-handkerchief were still fruitlessly contend- 
 ing with her emotions, until at length she burst into 
 an uncontrollable wail, and sobbed out : 
 
 " I am sure God never sent this to me because I 
 was good to any one never ! I'm sure I've been 
 as wicked as Ahab in my heart ; I'm sure, Gracie, 
 I've worried and coveted about your primroses and 
 birds' eggs as much as ever he did about Naboth's 
 vineyard, and I shall never forgive myself never ! 
 I did think the world was cruelly unjust to Lavinia. 
 I do still, and I don't mean, my dear, that I ever 
 28* 
 
330 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 shall think birds' nests equal to landscapes with 
 skies, and trees, and rivers it is not to be expected 
 but I ought not to have felt as I did, and I shall 
 never forgive myself to my dying day. I know it 
 isn't good for a little girl to speak to you so, my 
 dear, but I can't help it. If you never respect me 
 any more, Gracie, I can't help it. All the scorn in 
 the world hasn't half such a sting as praise you 
 don't deserve, and I couldn't bear it." 
 
 Grace was far too solemnly impressed with Miss 
 Betsy's emotion to attempt any consolation. But 
 when the next time they were alone, Lavinia 
 said: 
 
 " You will not misunderstand Miss Betsy, Gracie. 
 There is not a more generous heart in the* world. 
 Her only fault is thinking too much of me." 
 
 Grace answered : 
 
 " Oh, Miss Lavinia, I was always grateful to Miss 
 Betsy, but I never quite ventured to love her in my 
 very heart, until the other day." 
 
 It was not without a little further struggle that 
 Miss Betsy Lovel consented to accept any portion 
 of Grace's earnings. Lavinia, trying things by her 
 simpler rules, had no difficulty on the subject. " It 
 was a delight to help Gracie," she said, " and, of 
 course, it would be much pleasanter never to be 
 paid ; but it is God's will that we want it, and that 
 she can give it. And we must do as we would be 
 done by." And considering the value of Lavinia's 
 instruction in accomplishments, Miss Betsy was at 
 last persuaded to receive a fifth of the money paid 
 for Grace's paintings, until the fifty pounds which 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 33, 
 
 she declared was ample payment for her education 
 had heen paid. 
 
 On the strength of the first sovereign, Miss Betsy 
 recklessly insisted on lavishing eighteen pence on 
 an expedition, partly by boat and partly by omni- 
 bus, to St. James' Park. It made one feel one was 
 an Englishwoman, she said, to walk once more by 
 the Admiralty, and under the great gates of the 
 Horse Guards. Miss Lavinia, also, had her own 
 tender, shadowy associations with Somerset House ; 
 and as the sisters subsided on one of the seats near 
 the pond, and watched the beautifully dressed chil- 
 dren feeding the ducks, certainly not one of the 
 children there had for the moment a simpler enjoy- 
 ment of life than the two antiquated-looking old 
 ladies who watched them. Probably, indeed, there 
 were few of the little miniature representations of 
 the Modes de Paris there that day who would not 
 have looked down on the simple old ladies for their 
 ignorance of the world and its ways. 
 
 Miss Adela Hunter, at all events, was decidedly 
 of that way of thinking, as she manifested very 
 plainly when, having seated herself for a few min- 
 utes with her maid beside Miss Lavinia, that lady 
 addressed a few mild observations to her in a soft 
 and chirrupping voice concerning the ducks and 
 the sunshine, Miss.Adela vouchsafed no reply but a 
 lofty stare of inspection, which made Miss Lavinia 
 quiver all over with a nervous terror that she had 
 put on her bonnet wrong, or her shawl inside out, 
 or made some other preposterous mistake in her toi- 
 lette, and which drew from the belligerent Miss 
 
332 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Betsy some laconic moral observations on good 
 breeding, addressed abruptly to her sister. 
 
 " Think what impertinence," said Miss Adela to 
 Mr. Hunter, on her return home, " a person in an 
 old brown-black silk bonnet, and a cloth cloak which 
 looked as if she had made it herself, and ridiculous 
 corkscrew ringlets right on each side of her face, 
 and cotton gloves, and no crinoline, ventured to 
 speak to me on a seat in St. James' Park !" 
 
 " Of course you know how to check such an in- 
 trusion," said Mr. Hunter. 
 
 " Yes ; I hope so, indeed. I looked at her quietly 
 for a minute or two until she blushed and did seem 
 to feel what a liberty she had taken ; and another 
 person beside her, with a small old-fashioned shawl 
 hung on her round shoulders like a peg, and a great 
 vulgar hair brooch set in silver, and a black straw 
 bonnet, such as no servant in our house would have 
 worn, and her dress so short I saw the tips of her 
 rusty old boots as she was sitting, actually began 
 to talk at me about young ladies having been taught 
 good manners when she was young, but now, she 
 supposed, when every shopwoman who could buy a 
 silk dress called herself a lady, things were al- 
 tered." 
 
 " I hope you did not condescend to make any re- 
 ply, Adela ? Where could these people have come 
 from?" 
 
 " I don't know, I am sure," said Adela ; " from 
 underground somewhere, I suppose." 
 
 But little Maud interposed : 
 
 " Did they look old, Adela ? " 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 333 
 
 " Old, of course they did ; worse than old elder- 
 ly. Two abominable, antiquated old maids." 
 
 " But perhaps they were poor, and could not help 
 not having prettier clothes," said Maud. 
 
 " Of course they were poor," said Adela. " Then 
 what right had they to speak to me ? Besides, they 
 were worse than poor. They were what nurse used 
 to call * shabby genteel,' which is r what every one 
 despises, nurse said, poor and rich, alike." 
 
 "Perhaps the poor old lady with the ringlets 
 meant to be kind, Adela," continued Maud. "I 
 hope she was not very much vexed at your looking 
 at her in that way." 
 
 " I hope she was vexed enough to learn not to do 
 it again," retorted Adela, and Maud kept the rest 
 of her compassionate thoughts to herself. 
 
 In the mean time it was not until after one or two 
 turns by the park guns, and the sight of a cavalry 
 officer careering through the park, had reminded 
 Miss Betsy of her connection with the great insti- 
 tutions of her country, that her temper recovered 
 its calmness. 
 
 "An impertinent, conceited little upstart!" said 
 Miss Betsy, as she took her seat beside her sister 
 again. " I have no doubt her grandfather swepj out 
 a shop." With which oriental denunciation of the 
 offender's ancestry, Miss Lovel rinsed out the last 
 drop of vengeance from her heart, and was free once 
 more to enjoy the sunshine and the holiday. 
 
 Miss Lavinia, on the other hand, clothed in the 
 impenetrable soft armor of humility, had been en- 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 tirely unpierced by the shafts from Miss Adela's 
 scornful eyes, and being once reassured as to noth- 
 ing being wrong in her dress, had dropped back 
 into the current of her meek and grateful thoughts. 
 
 " Whose grandfather swept out what shop, Bet- 
 sy ?" was her ungrammatical and rather absent re- 
 ply to her sister's last observation. " I was looking 
 at the water-fowl. What beautiful arrowheads they 
 are making on the water. Only look at them cross- 
 ing the deep green reflections with those sunny 
 lines." 
 
 " Yes, my dear ; it's just like your picture of the 
 Lake of Geneva, and you are just like an angel ; 
 but it's a blessing you have got a poor old woman 
 like me with a little spirit to take care of you. I 
 do think it is, Lavinia, as we haven't got into the 
 millennium yet." 
 
 Grace Leigh was sitting at a table in the window 
 eagerly using the last relics of daylight for her 
 drawings, when a soft knock was heard, at the 
 door, and a faint little petition in Fan's voice to 
 be allowed to . come in. Grace thought it was 
 probably some fresh offense of poor Fan's uncertain 
 fingers, or some other small confidence, but she 
 kne^ it betokened an interruption, which would 
 consume the little remaining daylight, and she was 
 at that moment putting the last delicate touches to 
 the petal of a daisy. At first she was tempted to 
 proceed with her work, giving meanwhile a paren- 
 thetical attention to Fan. But she was used to con- 
 sider other people's aftairs of at least as much im- 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 portance as her own, and she had moreover a belief 
 that interruptions were often more directly the Mas- 
 ter's real daily work for us than the tasks we set 
 ourselves ; so after one momentary lingering look 
 at her almost finished flowers, she decisively laid 
 down her brush, rose from the table, and went to 
 speak to Fan and let her in. 
 
 But when Fan appeared all regrets about her own 
 lost time vanished from Grace's heart at once. So 
 woe-begone was the little face, the eyes, now dry, 
 so red and swollen with weeping. Grace took the 
 cold little hand and held it in both hers, and with the 
 touch the flood of Fan's tears and words was op- 
 ened at once, and she sobbed out : 
 
 " Oh, Dan, brother Dan, he's got the throat ! 
 And missis won't let me go nigh him." 
 
 " Where is he, Fan ?" said Grace. 
 
 " In the hospital," said Fan ; " and missis won't 
 let me go. She says I should catch it and die. 
 But what would it matter to me, or any one, Miss 
 Grace, if Dan don't get better ? Oh, Miss Grace, 
 do ask missis to let me go, and do please get me 
 in. I would do anything, or I would do nothing 
 all day, and never speak a word, if they'd only let 
 me sit by Dan's bed and look at him. He's my 
 own brother, Miss Grace," she said, bursting into a 
 sense of her womanly rights, " my own brother, 
 and he's no one but me, Dan hasn't, and I've got a 
 right, more right than missis or any one, to go to 
 him. Oh, don't let them keep me away." 
 
 It was some time before Grace could make Fan 
 understand that the barrier which kept her from 
 
336 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Dan was not "missis' will," supreme as that ap- 
 peared to Fan, but all manner of medical and social 
 regulations entirely beyond the control of Mrs. 
 Treherne or Mr. Leigh. 
 
 When at last Fan began to perceive that she was 
 separated from her brother not by an arbitrary 
 will which might be softened or persuaded, but by 
 an immutable impersonal wall of rules and prohibi- 
 tions, no more to be melted by tears than the walls 
 of the hospital itself, that it was not cruelty but 
 necessity which kept her from Dan, she ceased to 
 weep ; but a stony look of hopelessness froze over 
 her face which Grace had no words to meet. Be- 
 fore those stony barriers the very heart of poor Fan 
 seemed to turn into stone. And Grace could do 
 nothing but draw the little still, cold form close to 
 her, and kneel down with her arm around the child, 
 and have recourse to the one remedy she used for 
 all her troubles. " Say it after me, dear Fan, if 
 you can," she said. And she began : " Our Father" 
 " Our Father,7 sobbed Fan. " Our Father, which 
 art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, 
 thy will be done on earth" But there Fan broke 
 down. " I can't, Miss Grace," she whispered. " Oh, 
 please, Miss Grace, I can't. Suppose it should be 
 God's will to to," and she could say no more. 
 
 Grace was perplexed for an instant, and then she 
 said : " Then we will go back, Fan ; we will go as 
 far as you can. Our Father" she began again, and 
 again little Fan sobbed "Our Father," "Our 
 Father," over and over again, and could get no 
 further than " Our Father," and " Oh, Miss Grace ; 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 337 
 
 our Father ! poor brother Dan ! Oh, brother, brother ! 
 our Father /" 
 
 And Grace thought God would understand, and 
 would take that for poor Fan's prayer; so she 
 said no more. But they knelt together, and their 
 tears fell together as Grace drew the child's 
 face to hers, until Fan's sobs were quieted, and 
 Grace said softly, "For our Lord Jesus Christ's, 
 sake," and they rose, and Fan was comforted ; she 
 could not have told why, she could not have spoken 
 the words, Thy will be done; but Grace hoped 
 that God would take Fan's " Our Father" for the 
 same. To say " Our Father " from the inmost 
 depths of the heart, Grace thought, is to say all 
 that prayer can say. Little Fan had once more 
 penetrated through the iron barrier of things to 
 the living will of a living Person, and not an arbi- 
 trary will, but the will of perfect wisdom and love. 
 
 They had stood for a few minutes together, and 
 Grace had just read to Fan the story of Jairus* 
 daughter from the Gospels, while Fan's sobs had 
 gradually lulled, when Maurice came in to see Mr. 
 Leigh, and Fan left. 
 
 Grace had been planning in her own mind how 
 it could be managed to get an interview with Dan ; 
 but being herself nearly as much in the dark as 
 Fan as to hospital regulations, she had arrived at 
 110 definite purpose, and she would not on any ac- 
 count have spoken of any such hopes to Fan unless 
 she were sure they could be fulfilled. 
 
 Maurice entered into Fan's troubles at once. " I 
 will go this -very evening," he said. 
 29 
 
338 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " There is infection, Fan says," said Grace. 
 
 " Then it is just the case for me," he said. " You 
 know I have no Mrs. Treherne at home, with little 
 children, whose lives might be endangered. Be- 
 sides, Dan is my friend and parishioner." 
 
 Grace looked perplexed and distressed. 
 
 " But there is Winnie, Mr. Bertram," she said. 
 
 " Do you think I ought not to go, Grace ?" he 
 said. " What would you wish Harry to do in my 
 place ?" 
 
 She hesitated an instant, and a shade came across 
 her face ; but then she looked up with a soft de- 
 termination in her eyes, and said : 
 
 " I think I should wish Harry to go, Mr. Bertram." 
 
 " And I am sure you would, Grace," he said. 
 
 He moved to leave the room, but at the door, he 
 turned back, and said : 
 
 " Is Harry getting on with his Greek and Latin ?" 
 
 " Not very well, Mr. Bertram," said Grace, with 
 a look of distress. " He doesn't like it ; and I am 
 so afraid he never will. But I must not despair. I 
 do so want Harry to be a clergyman, Mr. Bertram ; 
 and if he does not get on with the Greek and Latin, 
 how can he ?" 
 
 " Does Harry wish to be a clergyman ?" 
 
 " I hope he does I hope he will," said Grace, a 
 little doubtfully ; " he does try, indeed, to do what 
 he thinks father and I like ; and by-and-by I do 
 hope it will be his very own wish. Harry is not at 
 all thoughtless not careless about religion, Mr. 
 Bertram," she concluded, as if she feared she had 
 been accusing him. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 339 
 
 "But every one who is really and truly religious 
 need not be a clergyman," he said. 
 
 She looked troubled. 
 
 " But I want Harry to be the very best thing," 
 she said. 
 
 " The very best thing," he said, " is what God 
 means us to be, is it not ? And God does not mean 
 every one to be a clergyman. You will not be like 
 the vine on the ruined temple column, will you ?" 
 he added, gently, answering an anxious look that 
 saddened her face. 
 
 " The vine on the temple ! what is that, Mr. Ber- 
 tram ?" she asked. 
 
 " Only one of Winnie's parables," he replied. 
 " A vine had entwined itself around the column of 
 a ruined temple in a palace-garden. One night a 
 hurricane swept over the land, and threw down the 
 portion of the roof this column had supported. 
 The next morning the vine hung drooping around 
 the column. The gardener came round and looked 
 anxiously at the fading leaves. At first he thought 
 the storm must have broken it ; but root, and stem, 
 and branches, all were firm and healthy. { What 
 ails this vine ?' he said ; and an answer came rust- 
 ling back to him from the drooping leaves : ' We 
 have failed in the work the Master gave us to do. 
 We were set here to support the temple-roof, and 
 the roof has fallen. We have failed in our work.' 
 Then the gardener smiled, and held up a ripening 
 cluster of rich purple grapes, and said : ' This is the 
 work the master set thee to do, and thou hast done 
 1C Then a thrill of new life stirred through every 
 
340 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 twig, and the sap flowed freshly through every little 
 cell and fibre." 
 
 Grace looked thoughtful,, as if the lesson would 
 take her some time to learn. 
 
 And Maurice went down stairs ; but before he 
 reached the lowest step he turned back again and 
 said: 
 
 " Mr. Leigh will not expect to see me again for 
 some little time. I do not think anything of the 
 danger of infection, but some people do, and I 
 must keep clear of my friends for a time." 
 
 His voice was very cheerful, but Grace felt as if 
 the closing of the door as he left the house were 
 the falling of a weight on her heart. Her memory 
 went back through all the years since she had crept 
 through the snow, a little trembling child, to ask 
 Mr. Bertram's help for her father ; she thought of 
 the many desponding hours he had lightened for 
 Mr. Leigh ; of the many difficulties through which 
 he had helped Harry to struggle ; of the many en- 
 couraging words he had spoken to her. And then 
 she thought of the little sister who loved him with 
 such entire devotion; how Winnie would watch 
 for him at the garden-gate, and not see him for so 
 long, until she felt like a traitress for saying a word 
 to induce him to venture into danger on account of 
 Dan. Then her thoughts went back to little Fan 
 and the Lord's Prayer, until the words which had 
 been too much for poor Fan's courage rang once 
 more through her heart, not, this time, in trembling 
 accepts of submission, but in ringing tones like a 
 trumpet-call to the field of battle. " Thy will be 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 341 
 
 done, thy will be done !" said Grace. " It must be 
 done Dan must be helped. Oh, our Father, give 
 us grace to do it. Give Winnie strength to choose 
 that her brother should do it." 
 
 And then Grace went back to the old poems of 
 her childhood ; to. the plains where the heroes 
 fought, while the women and the old men watched 
 from the walls ; and she thought, " Andromache 
 could not have loved Hector as she did, if she had 
 not known he would not yield to her prayers, and 
 desert the field. And Winnie will be as brave as 
 Andromache. I am sure God will strengthen her 
 to be. For this world is a battlefield always the 
 Bible says so ; only the women's part of the battle 
 has to be fought very often, I suppose, in their own 
 heart, watching from the walls." 
 
 So the very next morning Grace went to tell Mrs. 
 O'Brien and Winnie about Dan, and to ask Win- 
 nie's forgiveness for telling Maurice, and to comfort 
 her concerning Maurice. 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien looked very grave when Grace told 
 them about Dan. t There had been many cases of 
 death lately from diphtheria, and she was not quite 
 sure as to the necessity of Maurice visiting him ; 
 so that Grace apologized, and said : 
 
 " I did not think of Mr. Bertram's going to the 
 hospital when I told him. I only wanted him to 
 tell us what to do." 
 
 But Winnie interfered : 
 
 " But you would have told Maurice if you had 
 thought he would go, wouldn't you, Grace ?" 
 
 " I think I should," said Grace, a little timidly. 
 29* 
 
34 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " I hope you would forgive me, Winnie. But it 
 does seem right for him to go at least Mr. Ber- 
 tram thought so." 
 
 " Of course Maurice thought so," replied Winnie, 
 her eyes flashing and her cheek flushing ; " and of 
 course I think so ; and you will think so too, auntie. 
 I am sure I would not have had Maurice not go 
 for the world. What is he a clergyman for if 
 he is not to help people when other people 
 cannot, and when they want it most, like Dan ? 
 Only I do wish I were a woman, that I might 
 go too." 
 
 There was no occasion to cite examples from the 
 Iliad to Winnie as to the place of the heroes. As 
 to the place of the women, she was not quite so 
 clear ; for when, a little while afterwards, a letter 
 arrived from Maurice, saying that he founii Dan's 
 was a very bad case, making light of the danger of 
 infection, but saying he thought it better not to see 
 Mrs. O'Brien while he was continuing to visit the 
 hospital, Winnie's courage rather failed. The kind- 
 ling eye was softened with teafs, the determined 
 lips quivered, and she said : 
 
 " Oh auntie, let me go at once to Maurice's 
 house. If he cannot come here, please let me go 
 to him ; because, you know, if he came to be in the 
 least ill, I must go, auntie, and I might as well go 
 at first don't you think so ?" 
 
 But Mrs. O'Brien was entirely of a different 
 opinion. It was her duty to Winifred's parents, 
 she said, to keep her from seeing Maurice until all 
 possible risk of infection was over. And gentle as 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 343 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien's language was, Winnie found her 
 determination on this occasion firm as adamant. 
 
 So she also, like little Fan, had to begin her expe- 
 rience of the woman's share in the battle the 
 invocations in the Temple, and the watching from 
 the walls. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 | HAT night, while the little sister in the 
 garret was sleeping the sweet sleep of 
 the laboring, with little Sally Treherne's 
 hand nestling in hers ; and while the 
 little sister at the Cedars had at length fallen into 
 tranquil slumber with her flushed cheek resting on 
 the pillow, underneath which lay her mother's 
 Bible ; each with tears of loving anxiety on her 
 face, and with the peace of childlike prayer in her 
 heart, there was no sleep for Maurice or Dan. "With 
 fearful rapidity the mysterious disease had drained 
 away the springs of the poor lad's life, and nothing 
 but continued stimulants kept him from sinking 
 into faintings, out of which the doctor said he 
 might too probably never rally. 
 
 Maurice had remained with him. Such a faint 
 tender return of Dan's old bright smile came over 
 his face when Maurice came, and such a wistful 
 despairing look had gloomed in his poor hollow 
 eyes when he was about to leave, that he had not 
 the heart to come away at all. Having obtained 
 permission to share the watching, he wrote a hasty 
 (344) 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM. 345 
 
 letter to Mrs. O'Brien, and then crept quietly back 
 to the sick-bed to do what he could there. 
 
 It was no time for words or for " spiritual minis- 
 trations." Beds of dangerous sickness seldom are. 
 All the bodily strength is needed to bear the reme- 
 dies. All excitement is forbidden, and if it were 
 not, the mind, weakened with the body, has seldom 
 power for anything but a childlike instinctive cling- 
 ing to old familiar truths, or rather to long-trusted 
 love. Alas for those who at such times have no 
 instincts, or half-instinctive habits, of renewed 
 spiritual life to guide them ! 
 
 But with Dan, Maurice felt sure those truths and 
 that love were not now first to be sought or proved. 
 It was, therefore, a great perplexity and distress to 
 him when once he ventured to whisper a promise 
 of the Bible while giving Dan his medicine, to per- 
 ceive no responsive look in the poor lad's face, but 
 instead, a gaze of wistful, anxious questioning, as 
 of one who had called for help, and was listening 
 and listening, and could hear no answer. 
 
 Maurice could say no more then ; but in the quiet 
 intervals of that long listless night, when he did 
 not venture to move a finger, in the hope the patient 
 might be sleeping, his thoughts went sadly back 
 to the little garret in the alley where he had first 
 seen Dan, so suffering and destitute, yet so happy 
 in his unquestioning child's faith in the Presence of 
 God with him all day (though hidden " like the 
 stars in the light"), and in the love of God which 
 was better than " mothers," and in Jesus who took 
 the children in His arms. 
 
346 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 What dreary change had come over the lad that 
 that Name brought no light into his face now ? 
 
 Had he failed in his care over this lamb of the 
 Great Shepherd's flock ? While caring for Dan's 
 earthly wants, and providing him with the means 
 of maintaining himself, had he left him alone to 
 struggle with the terrible tempter in the wilder- 
 ness, " an hungered " among the wild beasts ? 
 
 Maurice recalled many a time when he had 
 sought to keep open by friendly conversation the 
 confidence Dan had once given him. He remem- 
 bered also that he had observed lately how this 
 confidence seemed to have grown more reserved. 
 But until now this had not troubled him. He had 
 thought it was merely the natural change from 
 childhood to youth, when the intenser personal 
 consciousness of dawning manhood gathers the 
 soul into itself, and makes it silent, with the silence 
 of those " nights " of life, which are as essential as 
 the " days " to the growth of the good seed. He 
 had a horror of forced confidences, or rather a con- 
 viction of their impossibility. Such violent pump- 
 ings out of experience, Maurice thought, commonly 
 only succeeded in extracting what has previously 
 been pumped in. The deep springs of the heart 
 remain unstirred. True confidence, he believed, is 
 scarcely more at the control of the giver than of 
 the receiver. It flows when the subterranean reser- 
 voirs are full, and not else. Yet Maurice knew that 
 there are moments when the heart is bursting to 
 speak, and yet unable of itself to break the barrier 
 of timidity, until the floods are set free by some 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 347 
 
 destructive convulsion, to desolate and destroy, 
 which the slightest touch of love might have un- 
 sealed, to fertilize and freshen. Had he watched 
 as he ought for such moments with Dan ? Had he 
 waited as he ought on the Hand in which the hearts 
 of men are held always as the rivers of water ? 
 
 Very easy questions to answer or to evade in the 
 ordinary course of life ; but very apt to recur, and 
 to be found very hard to answer, and quite impossi- 
 ble to evade, by sick or dying beds, when the heart 
 which we might have reached is sealed to us, and 
 the voice which might have spoken to us is silent, 
 or startles us with the abrupt questionings of deli- 
 rium. Maurice found no answer but a very humble 
 expression of short-comings to God, and a very 
 earnest prayer that the feeble breath of life beside 
 him might not fail. 
 
 So many days passed on, and Maurice spent all 
 the time of the day or night that he could spare in 
 watching by Dan's sick-bed. 
 
 Thus it happened that while Winnie was think- 
 ing of him as a hero, and seriously considering 
 whether she might not include him in the " noble 
 army of martyrs " when she sang the Te Deum, 
 and Fan was thinking of him as an angel of grace, 
 Maurice was feeling himself a very neglectful and 
 unprofitable servant, whose only hope it was that 
 God in His great mercy would give him another 
 opportunity of doing the duty he had failed to do. 
 A state of feeling more common, perhaps, among 
 the holy Church throughout the world, and even 
 with the noble army of martyrs, than some writers 
 
348 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 of religious biography and oraisons funebres would 
 lead us to imagine. 
 
 But at length the day came when the prayers of 
 the little sister in the garret looking on the sky, 
 and the little sister in the room in the pleasant 
 home looking over lawn, and wood, and distant 
 hills, those prayers which had for so many days 
 been meeting on their way to heaven, were changed 
 into thanksgivings. 
 
 Little Fan came to another depth too deep for 
 words as she sobbed out her thanks to God that 
 brother Dan was mending ; and Winnie quite en- 
 tered into the old Hebrew expressions about the 
 heart leaping and dancing for joy, as she rose one 
 morning and thought of Maurice's promise to come 
 and see them on the next day but one, which was 
 Monday, when all fear of carrying infection, he 
 said, would be over. 
 
 But Maurice's own thanksgivings were deeper 
 still, for on the morning before, Dan had been re- 
 moved, at Mrs. Anderson's request, to a room in 
 her house, where she could look in on him, and see 
 to al\ he wanted, and on that very morning the 
 long pent-up tide of perplexities and doubts had 
 found its way from poor Dan's heart into his. 
 
 The very utterance had greatly relieved the poor 
 lad. '.There are many goblins which only need to 
 be tempted to the threshold of the heart to melt at 
 once into nothingness by the mere force of day- 
 light. There are many perplexities which are an- 
 swered in the mere utterance of them. 
 
 Yet Pan's fight had been a very real one. It is 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 349 
 
 the necessary solitariness of all true spiritual strug- 
 gles that constitutes more than half the struggle. 
 These battles have to be fought in the darkness. 
 The enemy chooses his field and his hour. We 
 cannot see the forces we are fighting with. And if 
 the shield of faith falls from the grasp faith in 
 Him who can see, who had His hour of darkness, 
 and is evermore the Light for all, we are helpless 
 indeed. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Bertram," Dan said at length, on the 
 morning after his reaching the quiet room at Mrs. 
 Anderson's, when Maurice had been reading him 
 one of the Gospel narratives of the crucifixion, 
 " you believe it is all true ! It is not only that 
 you are a parson, and that you wish it was true ; 
 you believe it is true in your very heart ; don't 
 you ? As true as that you see me ?" 
 
 " I do," said Maurice, recalling his own hours of 
 doubt and darkness. " I have never doubted this 
 history, only my own." 
 
 " You have had doubts too, then ?" said Dan 
 eagerly. But then he added with a languid hope- 
 lessness, " But not like mine, not like mine I" 
 
 "No two people's doubts and temptations are 
 alike, Dan," said Maurice ; " the tempter has too 
 many wiles to employ the same twice." 
 
 " Yes, the tempter !" sighed Dan ; " Mrs. Ander- 
 son said it was the tempter. Oh, I wish I could be 
 sure it was I" 
 
 " Did you say anything to Mrs. Anderson, then ?" 
 asked Maurice. 
 
 " Only last night, when she had smoothed my 
 30 * 
 
250 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 pillow like a mother, and kissed my forehead, and 
 read me a Psalm, and I was so miserable, and felt 
 such an impostor, I could not help saying, ' O, if I 
 only could believe !' and she said, * Believe that you 
 have an interest in Christ ?' And I said, * Oh, if I 
 could believe that there is Christ /' But she looked 
 so grieved-like, and told me to beware of the tempt- 
 er, and never let such thoughts in, and above all, 
 never speak them out, so that I could not say 
 another word. But she said she'd pray for me." 
 
 " And she will," said Maurice, " which is better 
 than many arguments. Did you ever tell any one 
 else of your difficulties, Dan ?" 
 
 " Once I was beginning with a missionary kind 
 of a gentleman, but he spoke so learned, and said 
 such terrible things about conceit and presumption, 
 that I was shut up altogether, and never dared to 
 breathe a word of what I felt to any one." 
 
 " You never spoke even to me, Dan." 
 
 " Once, Mr. Bertram, I was very near it. If you 
 had stayed five minutes longer I must. You spoke 
 to me about the day you came to me in the garret 
 at aunt's and said you hoped I had the same happy 
 faith as then." 
 
 " That five minutes might have saved you much 
 misery, my poor fellow," said Maurice ; "I must have 
 neglected you sadly, I am afraid. But perhaps the 
 Good Shepherd was leading you by better ways, 
 hard as they might be. What did you doubt then, 
 Dan ?" 
 
 "Everything, Mr. Bertram," said Dan, "every- 
 thing I cannot see or touch, and sometimes that too. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 251 
 
 Sometimes it seems as if we were nothing but a 
 better-made kind of beasts ; and sometimes it seems 
 as if I was nothing but a dream myself, and all 
 that happens to me." 
 
 Then came out the history. On the unreasoning, 
 unquestioning faith of childhood had broken in the 
 rude Why and How of unbelief, not mistily rising 
 from his own heart, but pressed rudely on him, in 
 strong, tangible forms, by his mates in the work- 
 shop and at meal-times. While the religious world, 
 high on dry land, was busy with its neat little de- 
 bates, or its fiery little explosions, about " baptisms 
 and laying on of hands," and the forms, and atti- 
 tudes, and costumes in which to pray, and the 
 precise efficacy of sacraments, and the precise set- 
 tlement of prophetical dates, poor Dan, with the 
 working men around him, was being tossed about 
 by the rough breakers, and the rough and real rocks 
 of utter shipwreck, battered between the old shoals 
 and whirlpools of materialism and Pyrrhonism. 
 The scepticism of his circle was on such world-old 
 questions as whether there ever was a revelation ; 
 whether prayer is anything but a dream ; whether 
 the soul is immortal or, indeed, exists apart from the 
 brain ; whether anything exists beyond the material 
 and visible ; on the very personality and existence 
 of God. He, with so many like him, had been toss- 
 ing on the great sea of heathenism, which is always 
 dashing round the farthest outposts of what can 
 by any stretch of liberality be called the Church. 
 
 He had been asked why he believed the Bible 
 true, and he had little reason to give except that it 
 
35 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 had made him happy ; and then the sneering doubt 
 found its way in and the happiness vanished. He 
 had been asked why he prayed, and he had little 
 reason to give except that he felt God was hearing 
 him. And then even on his knees the mocking 
 words followed him, and he could not resist them, 
 and he seemed speaking into a blank. So the 
 temptation went on, until there was little left to 
 him except the growth of pure feelings and moral 
 principles which the Sun of Righteousness had rip- 
 ened in his heart, and the anguish that the Sun 
 had vanished. 
 
 " And as I lay on my bed," said Dan, " it felt 
 like falling and falling through a great gulf without 
 any bottom ; and clutching, and grasping, and feel- 
 ing all round me nothing but emptiness; and 
 gazing, and gazing, and seeing nothing but the 
 dark." 
 
 " You did not give up prayer and reading the 
 Bible ?" said Maurice. 
 
 " No ; I said the words-, because of poor mother 
 asked me when she die ; and I read the chapter be- 
 cause of poor little Fan. She thinks so much of me, 
 Fan do, Mr. Bertram, and she told me how you and 
 Miss Grace wished her and me to read the Bible 
 every day, and it would have puzzled her so if I 
 had told her I didn't. Besides, now and then they 
 seemed to do me good, somehow, like the sound of 
 mother's voice, or yours, or Fan's." 
 
 " Thank God for that," said Maurice, quietly. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Bertram, how I wish I'd died when I 
 was lying lame and sick in aunt's garret. I was so 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 353 
 
 happy then. Except for Fan," he added, " except 
 for poor Fan. She's got no one but me." 
 
 " Why should you wish you had died then ?" 
 said Maurice, quietly. " If what you believed then 
 is not true, what good is it to die ? and if it is true, 
 how well it is worth while to live !" 
 
 "Oh, but, Mr. Bertram, I should know ," said 
 Dan, " I should know." 
 
 " You shall know, Dan," said Maurice, gently. 
 "If any man will do my will he shall know of the 
 doctrine whether it is of God or whether I speak 
 of myself." 
 
 And then, very calmly, leaving aside all minor 
 questions of evidence, and all the great outer sea of 
 scepticism, Maurice went straight to the heart of 
 Christianity. He spoke of the Redeemer. He told 
 Dan something of what the heathen world and the 
 Jewish nation were when that divine life was lived ; 
 of the corruption of the Gentile, the narrow for- 
 malism and narrowing pride of the Jew. He made 
 him see how that pure and perfect character rose 
 from amidst all this hollowness and corruption, not 
 detached from them as an image fallen from heaven, 
 but springing from the same root, growing amidst 
 it, sharing every influence of the age ; a Jew whose 
 patriotism no fanatical Jew dared to question, yet 
 the friend of the Samaritan and the Canaanite ; re- 
 ceiving sinners and eating with them, yet with a 
 Ht.ainless purity no suborned false witness dared to 
 assail. He showed the poor perplexed lad how the 
 invention of such a life at such a time would have 
 been scarcely less a miracle than the living it. He 
 30* 
 
354 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 pointed out to him detail after detail of those four 
 marvelous pictures through which we gain a more 
 intimate acquaintance with that sacred life through 
 the mists of eighteen centuries than any biography 
 gives us of the life of any good man who died in 
 our times. The words He spoke, the looks with 
 which He spoke them ; the turning to the outcast 
 woman while He pleaded for her with the Pharisee ; 
 the touching the leper who might approach no one, 
 while the nobleman's son was healed across the Gali- 
 lean hills by a word ; the holy anger with which 
 He looked at the cruel formalists who grudged 
 the healing of the sufferer on the Sabbath yet 
 anger which in all its holy fire was akin not to ven- 
 geance but to sorrow, " being grieved at the hard- 
 ness of their hearts ;" the tenderness and truth 
 which made the severity against all that was 
 against love and truth so piercing. Maurice spoke 
 of all this until his own heart glowed with the ut- 
 terance, and the wandering, aimless, hopeless look 
 in poor Dan's face was slowly changed into the 
 penetrating gaze of eager interest. And then at 
 last he spoke of that last night and day ; the day 
 which closed at the ninth hour, and closed over the 
 dead Redeemer, and the redeemed world. He 
 showed Dan how terribly spontaneous and real 
 were all the actions of all the human actors and 
 sufferers in that last crisis, how Judas " watched to 
 betray him ;" how Pilate all but took courage to 
 rescue him ; how Peter was warned step by step of 
 his danger, as from warming himself at the fire 
 among his master's enemies, he came to denying 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED *IN. 3 5 5 
 
 him with a vehemence which reached the Sufferer's 
 heart through all the blindfolding and buffeting; 
 and how all the tide of love came rushing back on 
 his heart with that "'look." And yet he made him 
 see behind these human agents dreadful glimpses of 
 the invisible tempter who was " watching to betray" 
 Judas, who was seducing Pilate, who was sifting 
 Peter. He made him see how every step of that 
 long " way of sorrow" by which the victim was 
 dragged bound and bleeding to the cross, was yet a 
 voluntary step of the willing sacrifice, whose eyes, 
 still haggard with the agony of Gethsemane, could 
 make the band of officers fall to the ground ; whose 
 lightest tone as he stood a bound captive could have 
 brought down legions of angels ; whose interces- 
 sion, as they nailed his hands to the cross, was the 
 prayer of the High Priests, saving to the utter- 
 most ; whose promise on lips parched with the 
 thirst of death was paradise. 
 
 Gradually, as Maurice spoke, the look in Dan's 
 face changed still further, from perplexity to steady 
 attention, from attention to the faint dawning of 
 hope, from hope to adoration, until, as Maurice, 
 after a short silence, knelt beside the bed and offered 
 a few words of prayer, one long sob of relief 
 burst from Dan's heart, like the sob of returning 
 life in a drowning man, and when Maurice rose 
 he clasped his hand for some moments with a 
 speechless look of gratitude, until at length he mur- 
 mured : 
 
 " It is gone ! the darkness is gone. Jesus Christ 
 is true Jesus Christ is living. The darkness is 
 
356 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 gone, Mr. Bertram all gone ; it is all right, for I 
 can see Him." 
 
 That was the recovery which filled Maurice with 
 such unutterable thankfulness,deeper even than Win- 
 nie's for his own preservation from infection, or little 
 Fan's for Dan's recovery from the borders of death. 
 
 Many conversations followed, as Dan could bear 
 them. All lesser doubts melted away on the un- 
 sealing of that living fountain of love and truth, as 
 a spring sweeps away its own icicles. The moral 
 and spiritual world grew real at once, and took form 
 and substance around that perfection of moral and 
 spiritual beauty manifested in God manifest in the 
 flesh. Eternal life was the necessary atmosphere 
 around the Living Lord ; immortality was His natu- 
 ral clothing, and ours through Him ; that must, in- 
 deed, be a Divine revelation which had revealed 
 Him. His miracles, Dan thought, must have been 
 as natural to Him as speech and movement to us. 
 Life and healing must have flowed from his touch ; 
 the waves and winds must have known His' voice of 
 command, and recognised His step, just as the sellers 
 of doves did in the temple. His wondrous works 
 were so like Him, Dan thought like His gracious 
 words of authority, like His tones of command and 
 pity, like Himself. And as to that mighty and mer- 
 ciful Saviour pitying and forgiving him, himself, 
 poor, weak, doubting, perplexed, bad as he felt him- 
 self to have been, Dan had no more doubt of it 
 than if he had heard him say, " Thy sins be forgiven 
 thee." Had he not stretched out His hand to Peter, 
 and sent a message to him by name, by an angel, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 357 
 
 that he might not think for an hour longer than 
 could be helped, he was forgotten or unforgiven 
 even after he had denied with oaths ? To believe 
 that " He is " and not to believe that He is love ; to 
 believe that He has died to redeem and not to be- 
 lieve that He will forgive those who ask Him ; to 
 believe and adore Him and think that He will not 
 love and pity and help us ; to believe that the Sa- 
 viour lives and is not ready to save were perplex- 
 ities that did not enter Dan's mind. After the fur- 
 nace he had passed through, these fiery darts fell 
 feebly around him, like spent sparks. In finding 
 the Christ he found all immortality, life, forgive- 
 ness, strength, rest. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. A very joyous Sun- 
 day morning it was to Dan, as he sat propped up at 
 the window in the little back-room at Mrs. Ander- 
 son's, too weak yet to walk, and listened to the 
 plashing of the water from the pipe into the back 
 court, and to the twittering of the sparrows on a 
 poor maimed tree in the next back court, and won- 
 dered if they were like the sound of the streams 
 and the twittering of the sparrows in Judea and 
 Galilee. And a very joyous Sunday morning also 
 to Fan in her garret, dressing quickly to light the 
 kitchen fire, but not too quickly to have time to 
 kneel and look up through the garret window to the 
 sky, and feel how sweet it was to say, " Our Father 
 who art in heaven, thy will be done" now that Dan 
 was getting well again ; and to Winnie rejoicing in 
 
358 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 the thought of the morrow which was to bring 
 Maurice; and to Maurice, giving thanks for Dan, 
 and feeling what a glorious thing it was to have to 
 speak of that living Word, that dying Lord, to hun- 
 dreds of toiling and tried human beings that very 
 day ; and to Grace rejoicing in the happiness of 
 Fan, and Dan, and Winnie, and Maurice, and in her 
 own private share of all this joy besides. 
 
 Winnie was, moreover, in a great state of exulta- 
 tion not only on account of her hopes for the mor- 
 row, but in virtue of a plan she had for that day. 
 This plan was no other than that Mrs. O'Brien 
 should go with her that very Sunday evening to 
 hear Maurice in his own church. 
 
 Most diplomatically she arranged in her OWD 
 mind how she would introduce the subject, how she 
 would interest her aunt in it, and how unanswera- 
 bly she would meet the objections of her uncle. 
 But, as usual when the umbrella is provided, the 
 rain never came. All these imaginary objections 
 were never made, and these irresistible arguments 
 were never needed. Mrs. O'Brien caught quite 
 eagerly at Winnie's proposition, and Mr. O'Brien, 
 having concluded that a fly would be a more appro- 
 priate mode of conveyance to such a neighborhood 
 than the carriage, had not a difficulty to throw in 
 the way. 
 
 Winnie little knew the thoughts that were tumul- 
 tuously surging through Mrs. O'Brien's heart as 
 they drove through the streets. Her own heart 
 was entirely full of one thought; the joy of seeing 
 and hearing Maurice. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 359 
 
 The streets through which they drove had a Sab- 
 bath stillness, but little of a Sunday joyousness 
 about them. The great current of business was for 
 the day arrested. They passed rapidly without ob- 
 struction through the silent thoroughfares, where 
 on any other day they would have had to creep 
 slowly step by step amidst a deafening din of drays, 
 gigantic wagons, and heavily-laden omnibuses. The 
 side pavements were deserted by the great stream 
 of commercial activity with which they usually 
 overflowed, and instead were besprinkled with a few 
 drops of the human life still left in the city, bub- 
 bling up from side streets and blind alleys and cel- 
 lars. Poor pallid specimens of human life they 
 were, for the most part, in Winnie's eyes, neutral- 
 tinted with the coloring of pawnshops, poor people 
 who had not strength or means to fly for the day's 
 holiday to the suburbs ; pale mothers, and ragged 
 elder sisters bringing out the babies for a breath of 
 fresh air in the wide empty streets ; men loitering 
 about in their working clothes from one gin palace 
 to another. And here and there a company of 
 orderly people united in a common stream by the 
 bond of some common place of worship to which 
 they were hastening. Winnie looked with inquiring 
 interest on the pallid wanderers, and on the church- 
 goers. She wondered if among the former there 
 might not be some Dan and Fan ; and to the latter 
 she wished to be able to say, " We are not loiterers ; 
 we are going to church to hear Maurice, my own 
 brother Maurice !" 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien saw and heard little. The outside 
 
360 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 of the ragged, dejected-looking creatures was too 
 familiar to her ; and their hearts she began almost 
 to despair of reaching, at least of reaching with 
 anything that could raise and help. Yet through 
 all her regrets and recollections some words Maurice 
 had spoken at Combe floated like the fragment of a 
 melody, and she had a kind of vague hope that that 
 evening she might hear the rest. She remembered 
 his once saying to her and Lady Katharine, in the 
 drawing-room at the Abbey, " There is, I believe, 
 but one Mediator between man and man, as well as 
 between God and man." 
 
 A bare prosaic church Winifred thought St. Al- 
 phege, in the few moments she had to observe any- 
 thing before the service began. A church built 
 after the great fire had burned the living old Gothic 
 churches out of the city, and a cold classicism had 
 frozen the living spring of Gothic architecture in 
 the imagination of artists and people. The last 
 summer evening sunbeams slanted in long dusty 
 lines on the large old pulpit and on the side of the 
 reading-desk, which was concealed from her by a 
 pillar, until Maurice's voice broke on the little sis- 
 ter's ear, and then, for a few minutes, not only gal- 
 leries, high pews, and dusty sunbeams, but the 
 meaning of the sacred words themselves, were en- 
 tirely lost to her in the great joy of hearing his 
 voice once more, deep and clear and natural, filling 
 the church as easily as if he were only speaking 
 " parables " to her at home. Only for a few min- 
 utes. Very soon Winnie felt that Maurice was 
 praying, and her heart went penitently up in the 
 
THE WOULD SHE LIVED IN. 3 6i 
 
 old petition so continually needed, " We have gone 
 astray like lost sheep, we have done those things 
 which we ought not to have done, and left undone 
 those things which we ou*ght to have done, and 
 there is no health in us." 
 
 Then came the sermon. And for the first time 
 Winnie saw her brother's face again. By this time 
 the pulpit lamps were lighted, and Winnie's heart 
 almost stopped beating as she saw how very pale 
 and worn he looked, so that she carried away only 
 two definite thoughts from the sermon; the first 
 that Maurice was very ill ; and the second that the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, of whom he was speaking, was 
 infinitely kind and good, and very near. Between 
 which thoughts she silently cried all the time, let- 
 ting the tears fall as they trickled down for fear her 
 aunt should see her and try to comfort her. 
 
 But Mrs. O'Brien drank every word of that ser- 
 mon into her inmost heart. And to her the sermon 
 seemed to be this. For to every true hearer's heart 
 a true sermon is preached over again, and in none 
 quite in the same way. The thought glanced at in 
 one is brought out in strong relief to another as if 
 it were the only one, because it is the message 
 needed. To the minds of false hearers on the lofty 
 platform of self-complacent criticism the true ser- 
 mon is probably not preached at all, but quite an- 
 other, composed of such echoes of the ends and 
 beginnings of sentences as reach their heights, 
 pieced out with comments of their own. 
 
 But Mrs. O'Brien was on no critical judgment- 
 seat. She sat in the low place of the little chil- 
 31 
 
362 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 dren, and to her Maurice's sermon seemed to be 
 this: 
 
 "' While He yet talked to the people, behold, 
 His mother and His brethren stood without, desir- 
 ing to speak with Him. 
 
 " t Then one said unto Him, Behold, thy mother 
 and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak 
 with thee. 
 
 " ' But He answered and said unto him that told 
 Him, Who is my mother ? and who are my brethren ? 
 
 " * And He stretched forth His hand toward His 
 disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my 
 brethren ! 
 
 " ' For whosoever shall do the will of my Father 
 which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and 
 sister, and mother.' 
 
 "Did these words never strike any of you as 
 wanting in that human tenderness, which we know 
 characterized our Lord ? If it has been so with 
 any of you, do not try to explain this feeling away, 
 or to gloss it over with some faint misty comprom- 
 ise between the text in the Bible and text of the 
 old characters of pure human affection, equally 
 divine, although broken and defaced, written in 
 your hearts. Bring both to the light ; examine 
 every letter. They never disagree, when you read 
 the whole of both. They were written by the 
 same hand. But never try to make them agree by 
 leaving out part of either, still less by altering one 
 iota of either. That is the way half the heresies 
 have arisen, and all of them have been nourished. 
 Let us bring out, as far as we can, the apparent 
 contradiction, and examine it. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 363 
 
 " For thirty years the perfect manhood of our 
 Lord has been shining as the light of one humble 
 home at Nazareth, all that perfection of truth and 
 love, trust and trustworthiness, had been known to 
 Mary, as the Son 'subject' to her; and now He 
 sat surrounded by a crowd of strangers, carping 
 scribes from Jerusalem, ignorant wondering pea- 
 sants, and fishermen from the towns around the 
 lake of Galilee, and she stood without, outside the 
 inner circle, ' desiring to speak with Him,' need- 
 ing some stranger's voice to ' entreat' that she 
 might speak to Him, and for answer receiving 
 nothing but the declaration not addressed to the 
 mother, but to the disciples placing her, it might 
 seem, on a level with those who had only begun to 
 know Him yesterday! Was. there nothing in this 
 to pierce through her heart, faithful and gentle as 
 it was ? 
 
 " But was there nothing in the history of those 
 thirty years to explain this to her who ' kept' so 
 fondly all things concerning Him, and pondered 
 them in the silence of her lowly heart ? Was there 
 no bursting on her memory of the face of One little 
 more than a child, yet deep with a superhuman 
 depth, in the midst of the doctors in the Temple ? 
 No echo of a ' Wist ye not ?' tender yet most sol- 
 emn ? No memory of a wedding-feast, where her 
 prayer had indeed been granted, but as the prayer 
 of a child, not the command of a mother ? Was 
 there nothing in her own purpose that ought to 
 explain this answer to her? St. Mark, so often 
 supplying some characteristic detail, can explain 
 
364 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 this to us. Our Lord had just solemnly ordained 
 the twelve, laying the foundation of the Church ; 
 and the multitudes had gathered together around 
 Him, the first stones of the building which was to 
 be the new temple of God ; and when His friends 
 (or kinsmen) heard of it, they went out to lay hold 
 on Him, for they said, ' He is beside himself.' It 
 ' was to this purpose Mary for a moment seemed to 
 be lending herself, the love of the mother for a brief 
 space contending with the love of the redeemed 
 creature. Three times only do we hear of her heart 
 rising in momentary misunderstanding and opposi- 
 tion to His. Once in Jerusalem, after the three 
 days seeking Him sorrowing, ' Son, why hast thou 
 thus dealt with us ?' Once at Cana, in a subtler 
 form, pressing Him on with a fond eagerness to 
 His glory before the time ; and now again the poor 
 fond heart trembles and struggles as the home of 
 Nazareth crumbles away, that He who had been its 
 Support and Joy may become the foundation of the 
 Church of God. And after that never again ! 
 
 " When He went up sore amazed and very heavy 
 to Jerusalem to die, when He came unto the gar- 
 den where He knew the traitor would find Him, no 
 fond mother's voice sought with agonized plead- 
 ings to keep Him back. And yet she was not far 
 off. At the Cross she stood by Him, speechless 
 and submissive, while the sword pierced her heart. 
 At the Cross once more His eyes noted her ; amidst 
 the agony of death, amidst the joy of the world's 
 redemption, tender and pitiful came back the voice 
 she had known at Nazareth, ' Woman, behold thy 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN, 365 
 
 son ! behold thy mother !' And now, as she, lowly 
 and blessed, stands among the innermost circle of 
 the disciples, do not the words which once may 
 have pierced as a reproof, fall for evermore a bene- 
 diction, as looking round on His disciples, He says, 
 ' Behold my mother and my brethren ?' 
 
 " But the lesson Mary learned then can scarcely 
 be learned without anguish. What was this les- 
 son ? God first. Not God only, as some mystical 
 writers say, not the Creator to the exclusion of the 
 creature. But God first. Mary was our Lord's 
 one human relationship. He had no other. All 
 earthly tenderness was for Him concentrated in the 
 love of a son for the mother. And that this love 
 was real, she can testify, in whose house He lived 
 subject for thirty years, who followed Him to the 
 Cross. His own death agony made no break in 
 His tender care for her. But did she seek to come 
 for an instant between Him and God ? * Wist ye 
 not that I must be about my Father's business ?' 
 ' What have I to do with thee ?' Turning from her 
 to the disciples, ' Behold my mother and my breth- 
 ren.' Take the words in their full strength. If 
 you attempt to soften away the lofty determination 
 of the choice between the earthly and the heavenly, 
 between the mother and God, you lower at the 
 same time the tenderness of the human love into 
 mere softness. 
 
 " Consecration, Christians, before service. Obe- 
 dience to God, if necessary, against obedience to 
 man. 
 
 " But to this incident, as in most others in our 
 3]* 
 
3 66 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Lord's life there are two aspects. * Perfect man 
 and perfect God.' He manifests in all He is, and 
 says, and does, not by effort, not as one acting to be 
 an example, but naturally, necessarily, essentially, 
 what man should be, shall be. 
 
 " And also He manifests, not by an effort as an 
 ambassador representing a Sovereign, but naturally, 
 necessarily, essentially, what God is. 
 
 " If to Mary those words were the closing of 
 earthly love and its fond ties, to us they are the 
 unclosing of the heavenly life and its relationships, 
 or rather the revealing of the Church which is the 
 heavenly family. They reveal to us the individual- 
 ity of the love of Christ. They reveal Him to us 
 as the Divine Head of redeemed man, the second 
 man who is the Lord from heaven. They give us 
 the key at once to the heart of Christ and to the 
 hearts of men. They unite us to our fellow men 
 in uniting us to Him. 
 
 " St. Mark and St. Matthew more especially show 
 us this individuality of the love of Christ to each 
 disciple. They add the words, 'For whosoever 
 shall do the will of God, the same is my mother, 
 and sister, and brother.' Not mother and brethren 
 only, but mother, sister, and brother. No mere plural 
 brethren, no vague collective, substantive ' brother- 
 hood,' but mother, and sister, and brother. Not 
 ' /' and * you ' merely, still less I and they, but I 
 and thou, and thou, and thou. 'My mother, my 
 sister, my brother ;' so close, so personal, so tender 
 is the relationship between our Lord and the dis- 
 ciples. Between our Lord and whom? Looking 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 367 
 
 round about on those that sat about Him, He loved 
 the multitude around Him, He had taken on Him 
 the nature common to all. The look of pitying, 
 welcoming love was on all. But the words must 
 have pierced into some hearts there as a sword, 
 before they flowed into the wound as the balm. 
 * Whosever shall do the will of God. Whosoever 
 shall hear the word of God and do it.' The truth 
 must divide before it can unite. It must wound 
 before it can heal. Many thronged Him. But one 
 touched Him. He felt the touch. She felt the cure. 
 So must it be with you. Any gospel which speaks 
 of Christ as the Physician of all without pointing 
 out the necessity of each coming to Him for the 
 cure, may flow around the heart like music. It 
 will never penetrate into the heart, like balm, and, 
 heal its wounds. We have need of St. Paul's and 
 Luther's my as well as of St. John's 'the whole 
 world.' ' My mother, my sister, my brother,' fol- 
 ows on l my Saviour, my Lord, and my God.' Say 
 so to Him, beloved, look up to Him, meet His look 
 as He looks round about on you all, and say, ' My 
 Lord !' Since that day in the house at Capernaum, 
 He, has been in agony in Gethsemane, He has been 
 crucified on Calvary, He has been obedient to the 
 death of the Cross for us, He has finished the work 
 the Father gave Him to do for us, He has drunk to 
 the dregs the cup the Father gave Him to drink for 
 us, He has loved us unto death. The eyes which 
 look round about on us now have looked up from 
 the Cross as He said, * Father, forgive them ;' have 
 looked down from the Cross as He said, ' To-day 
 
3 68 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 thou shalt be with me in Paradise ;' have been 
 sealed in death ; have welcomed thousands of thou- 
 sands of His redeemed to the Father's house. Look 
 up, acknowledge it, and thank Him. Or, if you 
 can not look up, fall at His feet and hide your face 
 there, and say, * My Lord and my God,' and He 
 will say to you, ' Whosoever shall do the will of 
 God, the same is my sister, my mother, my brother. 
 This is the will of God that ye believe on Him 
 whom He hath sent.' 
 
 " Yes, ' my ' as strictly, truly, really, personally, 
 ' my,' and as if, with Mary, you had dwelt with 
 him thirty years at Nazareth. 
 
 " Take this ' my ' to your heart, ask the Spirit of 
 God to engrave it there. It will make the poorest 
 heart rich, and will supply every earthly relation- 
 ship withheld from you. It will compensate for 
 every earthly relationship withdrawn from you. 
 
 "In two ways. Firstly and primarily, by the 
 personal love of Christ to you, felt delighted in, 
 returned, actually, truly, simply, without exaggera- 
 tion the deepest joy, and the deepest feeling the 
 heart of man or woman can know. It will abso- 
 lutely satisfy your heart. It would satisfy your 
 heart if it were his will you should spend the rest 
 of your life alone in a dungeon. 
 
 " But secondly and secondarily, since you are not 
 alone in a dungeon, but in families, in parishes, in 
 congregations, in a country, it will fill your hearts 
 by rebinding the broken links of human love which 
 were snapped when Adam fell, and excused his dis- 
 trust of God by a selfish accusation of her God had 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 369 
 
 given to be with him. In Christ, the second Adam, 
 we have a new relationship to all human beings. 
 In Christ, the Head of the Church, we have a new 
 and immortal relationship to all Christians. 'In 
 that ye did it to the least of these my brethren, ye 
 did it unto me.' Link these words to the other ; 
 let the life of faith overflow into the life of service, 
 and never more shall you complain of isolation or 
 loneliness, of none to love you, or of none for you to 
 serve. See in every suffering, tried, sinful man and 
 woman around you, those whom your Lord pitied, 
 loved, died for ; those who may be led from what- 
 ever depth, who may be led by your voice and your 
 hand, to be blessed as you are in Him. Go forth 
 every morning not from his presence, but in His 
 presence, strong in the faith of His personal love to 
 you, and you shall find the hardest yoke easy, and 
 the heaviest burden light ; for the burdens of cir- 
 cumstance and earthly trial are light indeed to those 
 whose hearts are set free from the burden of guilt, 
 from the weight of an aimless life, from the weight 
 of an empty heart, crushed by its own vacuum. 
 
 " And let us notice that in all this specifying of 
 the relationships which the Lord sustains to the 
 individual disciple, there is one omission. Unno- 
 ticed and unknown Christian, serving perhaps in 
 some strange household with your kindred far 
 away ! He says to you, ' My sister !' , Poor broken- 
 hearted outcast, cast out by yourself from home, 
 not having heard the tones of pure affection for 
 years He is ready to call you ' my sister !' Aged 
 and lonely, from whom all who knew you in child- 
 
370 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 hood and youth have died away, whom no one lives 
 to call by the tender old home name He calls you 
 4 my sister.' Bereaved and childless, from whom 
 the tender clinging of infant arms has been with- 
 drawn He promises to supply that void to you. 
 He draws you tenderly to himself, ' My sister, my 
 mother.' 9 He sends you forth to the motherless to 
 the helpless, childless hands that have no mother's 
 bosom round which to cling. 
 
 " But one name he calls you not. So carefully, 
 so jealously does the Bible keep guard over the 
 barrier which divides tenderness from sentiment- 
 alism, mystery from mysticism. 
 
 " He calls no one of you ' My bride.' 
 
 " The bride of Christ is One. 
 
 " Not to the Church does our Lord say ' My 
 mother, my sister.' 
 
 "Not to the individual Christian does he say, 
 'My spouse.' 
 
 " The day is coming when the whole multitude 
 of the redeemed, cleansed in one fountain, tried in 
 many fires, shall rise as one spotless, consecrated 
 company, to share forever the keeping of the new 
 Paradise, the Bride of the Lamb, the Eve of the 
 second Adam. That company is being gathered, 
 tried, purified now. 
 
 " But to the inmost heart of each one in it 
 that Divine and human voice is ever saying, * My 
 mother, my sister, my brother.' ' In that ye did it 
 to the least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
 unto me.' " 
 
 Maurice's calm, deep voice ceased. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 371 
 
 But the voice that had been speaking in Mrs. 
 O'Brien's heart ceased not. She had found the 
 lacking link with God and with man. She had 
 found the living Fountain from which her own 
 heart and all beside can be watered. "Winnie felt a 
 new indescribable tenderness in her manner that 
 evening as she came to see her after she was in bed, 
 and comfort her about Maurice's pale face. 
 
 " We will ask God to take care of Maurice," she 
 said, softly. No more, yet in such a tone, so calm 
 and reverent, they seemed like new words to 
 Winnie. 
 
 To Mrs. O'Brien it was as if an adamant wall had 
 melted away between her and God, and between 
 her and every heart around her. The crystal bar- 
 rier which had isolated her, had indeed been not 
 rock but ice ; no new truth was this which had set 
 Mrs. O'Brien's heart free. But there is such a 
 thing in this nineteenth century as well as in the 
 first, as the Holy Spirit opening the heart to Di- 
 vine truth, and making the truth the living seed of 
 the new creation. 
 
 There is such a thing in these days as coming to 
 Christ, as personally as those did who touched the 
 hem of his garment, or bathed his feet with tears ; 
 not thinking about him merely, but coming to him 
 not coming to him for forgiveness and deliverance 
 from death only, but for strength to suffer, to labor, 
 to conquer, to serve, coming to him and having 
 life. 
 
 Just when Dan was recovering, one of those low 
 
37 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 fevers which are hovering perpetually like birds of 
 prey over the low neighborhoods of large cities, 
 made a swoop on Maurice's parish and carried off 
 some of the many in such districts always standing 
 on that lowest level of life, which is on the verge of 
 death. Maurice was constantly occupied among 
 the sick and dying, and his health, already tried by 
 the watching and anxiety, was not proof against 
 the sorrowful scenes he had to witness and the in- 
 fected atmosphere he had to breathe. 
 
 One morning Mrs. O'Brien was made anxious by 
 a brief note, began in his handwriting, speaking of 
 a, slight feverish cold, but supplemented with some 
 words in a round laborious hand, commencing, Hon- 
 ored Madam, and informing Mrs. O'Brien that 
 master was very low, and had been a little " out " 
 in the night ; but that the doctor thought he would 
 get him through, and the "other doctor" said he 
 would know better in the evening ; and that she, 
 the writer, would have sent to Mrs. O'Brien before, 
 but they had not been able to leave master alone, 
 and that he must be kept quiet ; and the doctor did 
 not think the fever was catching, but he could not 
 be sure ; and they were using chloride of lime and 
 taking every care, and the doctor was going to send 
 another nurse. 
 
 All which, with an entire absence of dates and 
 medical definitions, left nothing clear on Mrs. 
 O'Brien's mind but that she must go instantly 
 and see what was the matter, and what could be 
 done. 
 
 She was perplexed what to do about Winnie, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 373 
 
 but as she looked up at her from the open letter, 
 something in the child's face made her feel that 
 the greatest cruelty would be to keep her in sus- 
 pense. 
 
 " It is from Maurice," she said. 
 
 Winnie nodded ; she had known it, and had been 
 watching her aunt's changing face all the time she 
 was reading. But she could not speak. 
 
 "My darling," said Mrs. O'Brien, drawing her 
 closer to her, " Maurice is ill." 
 
 " Yes, auntie," in a steady voice. "And we are 
 going to him." 
 
 " I am, Winnie at once and I will come back 
 and tell you directly." 
 
 No reply. Her lips were quivering. 
 
 " If you and Maurice were my own children, Win- 
 nie, I would take you. But I must not, for your 
 mother's sake." 
 
 A look of agonized imploring from Winnie's eyes, 
 but not a word. Partly because the words seemed 
 strangled, and partly because she did very earnestly 
 want to do what Maurice would think right. 
 
 " I must not, darling. Do you understand ? 
 Maurice and I talked about it once," she said, " and 
 he begged me not." 
 
 " Maurice did ?" said Winnie, with one sob. And 
 then, " Oh auntie, I cannot make it out, but I will 
 try to bear it." 
 
 "And now, Winnie, the sooner I am gone, the 
 sooner I shall be back." 
 
 "And Maurice will be glad to see you, auntie." 
 
 The tears were kept back. The bell was rung 
 32* 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 for the carriage, but Winnie found comfort in run- 
 ning out to the stable and telling the coachman. 
 No one, she was sure, (fould do it so quickly. - And 
 then she came back and handed Mrs. O'Brien her 
 things, and stood with her at the door waiting for 
 the carriage, without a tear or another entreaty. 
 Only just as the wheels were heard, her face flushed 
 crimson, and she whispered : 
 
 " Not if Maurice would not wish it, auntie, but 
 if I might drive in with you and wait outside ! I 
 should see his window, and I should know an hour 
 sooner, and I should not come near any danger. 
 Only not if Maurice and you would think it 
 wrong." 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien hesitated an instant, and then con- 
 sented, and almost before she was in the carriage, 
 Winnie was beside her, Rosalie for once making no 
 attempt to delay her toilette. 
 
 What an age the few minutes at the door of 
 Maurice's parsonage seemed to the child as she sat 
 in the carriage outside. How far off all the people 
 seemed, passing by and gazing at her. In another 
 world, Winnie thought. It was Winnie's first ex- 
 perience of the variableness of our measures of time 
 and space. 
 
 But at length Mrs. O'Brien reappeared. And 
 with the quiet even voice which naturally comes by 
 sick beds, she said : 
 
 " There is no danger." And then she went on to 
 say something about weakness and slow recovery. 
 But Winnie heard nothing else. She sat quite quiet 
 until Mrs. O'Brien went into the house again, and 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 375 
 
 then she sank down on the floor of the carriage and 
 buried her face on the seat, and wept out one of 
 those prayers of agony whose repetitions are not 
 "vain." "No danger oh, our Saviour, our dear 
 heavenly Father, I do thank thee ; I am so glad ; I 
 do thank thee. No danger no danger. Oh, do 
 help me to be good, and to trust thee all my life !" 
 
 It was happy for Winifred that her anxiety had 
 been so great as to make her accept any lesser de- 
 gree of it as a blessing. For it was long before she 
 was allowed to see Maurice again. The disease 
 was but slowly prevailed with to relax its hold on 
 him, and then it left him so enfeebled that he was 
 ordered to winter in the East, commencing his ab- 
 sence with a voyage by the Bay of Biscay to Alex- 
 andria. 
 
 Very delicious it was at first when she could be 
 with him again, to be allowed to sit quiet by Mau- 
 rice, and watch what he wanted and bring it to 
 him, although she resented the reiterated exhorta- 
 tions not to talk to him or to let him talk to her too 
 much. "As if it were possible," she thought, " to 
 descend to talking, from" that rapture of sitting still 
 and looking at him, or as if she wanted him to do 
 anything but sit still and let him look at her." 
 Nevertheless, as the days wore on, and accumulated 
 endless material for conversation, endless questions 
 for Maurice to answer, endless things to explain to 
 him. She began again to despond. Accustomed 
 as her imagination was to leap all intervals, and 
 taking the miraculous healings in the Gospels as 
 her chief experience of disease and cure, she began 
 
376 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 to be plunged again in the depths of despair. So 
 that when at last Maurice announced to her that he 
 was* sentenced to absolute rest for at least six 
 months, and to winter in Egypt, she felt persuaded 
 she had been buoyed up with false hopes, a convic- 
 tion which was confirmed by Rosalie's ominous 
 waving of her hands when the news was communi- 
 cated to her. 
 
 "These unfortunate islanders," she murmured, 
 " they fly everywhere from the fatal weight of their 
 sombre atmosphere. But, ah, who can fly from des- 
 tiny ? Ah, well, we will have a mass said for him. 
 Who knows but he may be saved after all. The 
 good God is merciful." 
 
 " Pray that Maurice may be saved from what, 
 Rosalie ? Pray that he may only become a Roman 
 Catholic ? Oh, please not to ask that." 
 
 "Ah, mademoiselle, perhaps it was wrong ; but I 
 was thinking not of M. Maurice's soul so much as 
 of his life, little one, and of you." 
 
 "But, Rosalie," rejoined Winnie, with tears in 
 her eyes, " the gentleman, the priest you will ask to 
 pray for Maurice will not care about it nearly as 
 much as you do. And God cares for the prayers of 
 the people who care. Will you ask ?" 
 
 " Do I not, mademoiselle, every evening ? Do I 
 not recommend M. Maurice to the protection of our 
 Lord ? Have I not said hundreds of aves and paters 
 for him, more than I did for my little brother Jean- 
 not?" 
 
 "But Jeannot did not recover, Rosalie!" said 
 Winnie, despondingly. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 377 
 
 "There is wood grown for every one's coffin, 
 poor little one," said Rosalie, whose practical reli- 
 gion (like that of multitudes in all parts of Christen- 
 dom, whether nominally Roman Catholic or Protest- 
 ant), was derived from a source more ancient than 
 the Christian era, and amounted to a vague belief 
 in a perpetual struggle between destiny and certain 
 friendly heavenly powers, in which prayers and reli- 
 gious rites may possibly make the scale for a time 
 incline to' the side of the suppliant. 
 
 But when one evening before he left, Maurice's 
 hopeful encouraging words penetrated the tearful 
 mist of Winnie's forebodings, and she confided to 
 him, in a burst of long-repressed grief, her fears 
 and Rosalie's, he said : 
 
 " Winnie, poor little sister, you have indeed been 
 taking a long journey, quite down into the sunless 
 land among the old pagan shades. And a dreary 
 company of ghosts you have brought back with 
 you. Prayers which cannot stop the growth of cof- 
 fins ! And vague presentiments and stony fates ! 
 Where have you been? Wake up, Winnie," he 
 said, " and look up. It is daylight. This world is 
 no bounded theatre with a low arched roof of stars 
 and blue, and the destinies of men balancing in 
 scales you cannot touch, held in a hand you cannot 
 see, itself controlled by a power without heart or 
 life, irresistibly moving all things, and outside all. 
 It is the free, boundless open air, where all creatures 
 that are not doing wrong move freely. The irresist- 
 ible power is not Fate but Love not love only as 
 a vague essence, but God-loving loving you and 
 32* 
 
378 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 me, little sister, and hearing you and helping me 
 every time you pray for me, whether I am sitting 
 close to you, or watching beside Dan's bed, or steam- 
 ing away on the Mediterranean." 
 
 And for the time the old pagan ghosts were laid 
 in Winifred's heart. And she parted with Maurice 
 more full of hope than of fear. 
 
 Meantime Grace Leigh had been going through 
 her own trials. For the time her path and Wini- 
 fred's had separated. 
 
 During Dan's illness, and then during Maurice's, 
 the weeks and months had worn on as time does 
 wear on in sickness day crumbling away slowly 
 after day, until, like the soft land on a coast on 
 which the sea is slowly encroaching no convul- 
 sion's, no noise, nor incident to arrest attention. 
 The passing observer sees only a few grains of earth 
 gently mouldering down to the sands, like the sands 
 of an hour-glass. But the aged inhabitant tells of 
 fields and farms swept away. 
 
 So the year wore away and the friends saw little 
 of each other, and Christmas came round again. 
 
 Grace was seeing other things besides time crum- 
 ble away from her. She was sitting, one evening 
 early in January, in her own room, with the red 
 morocco Bible open before her at the page with her 
 mother's writing in it. Her eyes were cast down, 
 but she was not reading, and slowly, under the 
 almost closed lids, tears were falling slow, heavy 
 drops, not like the showers which clear the air, but 
 like the heat-drops on a sultry day. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 3-9 
 
 It was the evening of the annual visit to Mr. 
 Hunter's. But it was not that which was depress- 
 ing Grace. The oppressive weight of Cousin Felix's 
 patronage had been greatly lightened by little 
 Maud's welcome. She managed to find some quiet 
 minutes to tell Mr. Leigh how much happier she 
 had been since her talk with him; but without 
 words the quiet look of the little thin face and the 
 unclouded smile with which she welcomed him 
 would have told of the rest which had come into 
 her heart. 
 
 " You look better, Maud," said Mr. Leigh, bend- 
 ing over the chair. 
 
 " Yes ; I found it all in the Bible," said Maud, 
 coloring, " all that you said." 
 
 "What did you find, Maud?" 
 
 " About God's better things," said Maud, softly,. 
 " and about our not having to be like other people, 
 but just the best we can be, and about the Lord 
 saying to us, not ' Get on,' but * Follow Me.' I 
 have tried it, Mr. Leigh, and it is so true. And I 
 have worked it for you in gold thread. Please 
 don't show it any one," she added, giving him a 
 parcel, " for it is not illuminated but only worked, 
 and Alicia and Adela say it is only fit for Sunday- 
 school children. But I thought you would accept 
 it, and I am so very much obliged to you. No one 
 ever helped me as you did." 
 
 Which conversation Mr. Leigh related on their 
 return to Grace with a faltering voice, as he un- 
 folded the wrapping of silver paper and discovered 
 a Bible-marker, on which were worked on perfor- 
 
3 8o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 ated card-board, in black silk and gold, the words, 
 " If any man serve Me, let him follow Me." 
 
 And yet it was from little Maud's lips that the 
 wound had come to Grace that day, which was 
 costing her those bitter tears. 
 
 Grace had begun saying something to Maud 
 (drawn on by her loving sympathy about her draw- 
 ings) about Harry going to the University and be- 
 coming a clergyman. 
 
 But little Maud's face had clouded, and after a 
 silence she had looked up, and said timidly : 
 
 " Are you sure Cousin Harry wishes it, Cousin 
 Grace ?" 
 
 Those words, gentle as they were, had pierced 
 Grace's heart like a sting, as the simplest words so 
 often will which compel us to face fears we have 
 been struggling to repress, and she sat silent a few 
 minutes, inwardly recalling what Maurice had said 
 to her on the same subject. 
 
 " Has Harry been saying anything to you, 
 Maud ?" she said at length. 
 
 "No; I never asked. Only once when I was 
 saying to him how nice it must be to be a clergy- 
 man like Mr. Leigh, he did not seem to think it 
 nice. At least he looked grave, and began to talk 
 about Hampstead Heath, and a strange kind of 
 lizard he found there, and about getting the crea- 
 tures for my Aquarium. So I thought Cousin 
 Harry did not perhaps wish to be a clergyman," 
 concluded Maud, " and asked him if he could get 
 me some creatures one day from the Hampstead 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. tfi 
 
 Ponds for my Aquarium. And he seemed to like 
 that much better. But perhaps it was only that 
 Cousin Harry did not like to speak to me about it, 
 or to any one but you, Cousin Grace," she added, 
 seeing the shadow on Grace's brow, with the quick 
 perception of one whose feelings generally expressed 
 themselves more in looks than in words, and whose 
 life had consisted so much in watching other peo- 
 ple's lives. 
 
 But Maud's tender little apology could not do 
 away with the effect of her previous question ; and 
 the next evening when Mr. Leigh happened to be 
 out and the brother and sister were left alone Grace 
 resolved bravely to face the question, which she 
 now for the first time felt how determinedly she 
 had evaded. 
 
 Harry was only too ready on his part for the 
 confidence. She began with referring to his diifi- 
 culties with Latin and Greek. 
 
 " It is not necessary, you know, Harry," she said 
 " for you to know so very much of the classics. 
 At least Mr. Bertram says not. And even if you 
 only just passed, the University honors are not 
 everything. And you might be useful in your 
 parish in all kinds of practical ways afterwards." 
 
 "It is not the Latin and Greek," said Harry, 
 availing himself desperately of the first opportu- 
 tunity Grace had given him, " or the University. 
 It is the being a clergyman, Grace. Don't think 
 me very wicked or ungrateful. I never can, I am 
 sure ; I never shall be fit for it. I have been long- 
 ing to tell you for months and months. I've been 
 
382 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 a great coward not to tell you before, but I could 
 not bear to see you unhappy. But I'd rather stand 
 behind Mr. Treherne's counter than stand up in a 
 pulpit to preach." 
 
 " But you cannot stand behind Mr. Treherne's 
 counter," said Grace, " and you would not have to 
 stand in a pulpit and preach for years." 
 
 " But I should be getting nearer it every year," 
 replied Harry, who had felt being silently and irre- 
 sistibly attracted to that dreaded point by the silent 
 power of Grace's gentle, persistent will, desperately 
 bent on not losing this chance of escape. 
 
 Grace said nothing. 
 
 " You think me ungrateful and heartless ! If it 
 were only anything in the world to do or go through, 
 Grace ; but I can't talk about things. I have asked 
 God to help me," he added, " but it's no good. It's 
 no good, you know, Grace," he said in a reverent 
 tone, " to ask even God to make an oyster into a 
 nightingale. And that's just what I am. I mean 
 an oyster. When I feel anything most it doesn't 
 make me speak, it shuts me up ; and I shall never be 
 any better. So what's the good of my ever hoping 
 to make sermons ? If I care about things, \ can't 
 talk about them ; and if I don't, of course there's 
 nothing to talk about, unless you talk humbug, and 
 I can't even do that," said Harry despondently, in- 
 voluntarily proving his position by his very impo- 
 tence to make his meaning clear. 
 
 To his infinite relief Grace looked up with one 
 of her brightest smiles (she kept the tears for after- 
 wards) and said: 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 383 
 
 " I don't think you ungrateful or wicked, Harry. 
 I only think I have been very stupid and willful and 
 blind." 
 
 Harry in an ecstacy of gratitude and relief and 
 tenderness, was surprised into further confiding to 
 his sister his ardent desire to be a medical man, and 
 more especially, to be a naval surgeon. In this 
 direction Harry soon became eloquent, and Grace 
 endeavored to enter into it, though to the last she 
 continued in doubt whether the chief element of 
 Harry's choice was dread of sermon making, a later 
 development of his childish passion for tittle-bats, 
 the love of wandering and of maritime adventure, 
 which is a phase in Anglo-Saxon boy-nature, or a 
 genuine instinct towards the profession he was 
 made for. 
 
 Of one thing, however, Grace felt more and more 
 certain as she sat alone in her room, after this inter- 
 view with her brother, and that was that the dream 
 of life for Harry which had been interwoven with 
 all her thoughts and had inspired half her work 
 and sacrifices ever since she could remember, must 
 be given up for ever. 
 
 Harry would never be the blessing of that ideal 
 parish where he was to have been watched for by 
 sick-beds and listened to so eagerly by an eager, 
 simple-hearted congregation, while she was going 
 quietly in and out, and supplementing his work 
 among the mothers and the little ones, and hearing 
 how he was beloved and watched for on sick and 
 dying beds, while Mr. Leigh in a green old age, set 
 free from the weight of constantly recurring preach- 
 
384 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 ing which tried his nerves, might be the gentle 
 counsellor and friend of all in need of sympathy 
 and counsel, and the centre and consecration of 
 that ideal humble little parsonage which Grace was 
 to make such a resting-place for her father and 
 brother. 
 
 A whole world of sweet visions had been shat- 
 tered that evening. But more, perhaps, than over 
 this desolation, she was grieving over the strength 
 of her own rebellious will. With her sweet, bright 
 temper, accustomed as she was to yield her own 
 selfish wishes to others, and to make music, like a 
 quiet brook, of the tiny obstacles which turned her 
 out of her course, Grace had never until that even- 
 ing learnt the strength of her own will. Like most 
 sweet-tempered and gentle people, she had been 
 much used to having her own way. The strength 
 which peevish tempers waste in perpetual small 
 contests had with her been gathered into the greater 
 purposes of life. Unselfish alike in small plans and 
 great, with a heart whose love all trusted, and a 
 quiet good sense no one could help leaning on, she 
 was little aware how much the lives of those around 
 her had been moulded by her gentle, persistent will. 
 And now she blamed herself far more than Harry 
 for having so long misunderstood him. The " Thy 
 will be done " that evening had especial need of the 
 " as it is in heaven" to make her resolve to bend her 
 own cherished life-purpose, which seemed to her 
 so clear and good, to that larger scheme of which 
 she saw so little. 
 
 And the next morning, when she came down, as 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 385 
 
 usual, to do an hour's painting before breakfast, the 
 work did seem sadly flattened into prose, now that 
 the money raised by it was to purchase, not the 
 ambrosia of that ideal clerical life, but the daily 
 bread wherewith to make Harry a naval surgeon. 
 
 Yet she knew that Mr. Bertram had been right in 
 saying that the highest work for any one of us is 
 that given us to do. And when her father met her 
 revelation to him of Harry's confidence with awful, 
 vague terrors as to the moral and theological perils 
 to which medical students are exposed, tempted as 
 she felt to seize this chance of escape back into her 
 own way, she nevertheless honestly transferred her- 
 self to Harry's side, and succeeded in persuading 
 Mr. Leigh to consult an old friend of his who was 
 now an eminent physician ; the result of which 
 consultation was, that Harry was permitted to fol- 
 low the career of his choice, the only stipulation 
 which Mr. Leigh made being that he should do 
 nothing decisive until Mr. Bertram returned, and 
 Harry could have a confidential talk with him. 
 
 Winnie, to whom Grace confided her disappoint- 
 ment, ,and to whom Maurice's life and lot were the 
 real and ideal of every vision, sympathized deeply 
 with the fall of Harry's prospects. Personifying 
 her visions from the characters known to her, it 
 seemed to her a terrible fall indeed from a destiny 
 like Maurice's to driving about in a brougham like 
 Dr. Dee, and discussing coughs, and sore throats, 
 and nerves. 
 
 " However," she said, " Grace," desperately catch- 
 ing at the only consolatory idea that suggested 
 S3 
 
3 86 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 itself, " St. Luke was a physician ; and he found 
 time to write the Gospel and the Acts between 
 times. So perhaps Harry may do some good things 
 by the way ; perhaps he may even plan about them 
 while he is driving in that brougham." 
 
 " I cannot bear that the work for God should be 
 only leisure-work" said Grace. "I wanted all 
 Harry's business-work to have been all of the highest 
 kind." 
 
 " But," said Winnie, " there must be congrega- 
 tions, Grace ; and don't you think the people who 
 listen may be doing a little bit of God's work as 
 well as the people who speak ? Don't you think 
 the people who look at the pictures may be of a 
 little use as well as the people who paint them ? I 
 do hope they may; because it seems to me as if I 
 were good for very little but being one of the peo- 
 ple to look and listen." 
 
 " The lives of people must certainly be more 
 than paintings or poems about them," said Grace, 
 thoughtfully. "The living people must be more 
 than the songs or the pictures." 
 
 " And then," said Winnie, " if Harry is a really 
 clever doctor, and helps to make the people them- 
 selves stronger, and healthier, and less suffering, 
 they may paint better, and sing better, and preach 
 better, and live better, Grace ; and that does seem 
 something worth doing, particularly if God means 
 him to do it," concluded Winnie, softly ; " for I 
 suppose God does mean some people to be doctors." 
 
 " I remember Mr. Bertram said once, to do God's 
 work is simply to do His will," responded Grace. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 387 
 
 And with this appeal to the keeper of her con- 
 science, with Winnie at least the point was settled. 
 
 From her old friends, the Miss Levels, Gracie 
 did not find quite so much sympathy as she ex- 
 pected. Miss Betsy, indeed, thought it was a social 
 descent for Harry, naval surgeons not having had 
 the highest social standing in early days. But Miss 
 Lavinia had a medical ideal of her own. She 
 thought a clever, kind-hearted, high-principled 
 parish doctor in the east of London might have as 
 lofty a career as Henry Martyn or St. Francis 
 Xavier, and might bring light and heavenly com- 
 fort into many corners no clerical foot would 
 penetrate. 
 
 " And Gracie, darling," she said, " I have found 
 if we want to help people, we must do it in their 
 own way, not in ours. Pray God that Harry may 
 be the best doctor that can be, Gracie ; and I think 
 by-and-by you will find all is right, and will give 
 very hearty thanks that you had to give up your 
 own way. I am sure we shall find it so always, 
 Gracie," continued Miss Lavinia ; " only it is im- 
 possible sometimes to see how." 
 
 There was a sad emotion about Miss Lavinia's 
 tones which startled her, and looking up, she saw 
 quiet tears on the thin pale face. 
 
 " What is the matter, Miss Lavinia ? Can I do 
 anything ?" 
 
 " It is only that we seem falling a little further 
 down, Gracie," said Miss Lavinia. Two of the 
 parents came last week to say their little girls did 
 
3 88 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 not get on fast enough, which they were sure could 
 not be the children's fault, as both their papas 
 and mammas knew they had remarkable capacities. 
 But they took them away, and it was only just 
 enough before ; and I cannot quite see what we are 
 to do, nor can Betsy." 
 
 Grace's lips parted for a request, but her eyes 
 met Miss Lavinia's and she did not venture to 
 utter it. 
 
 " No, Gracie," she said, shaking her head, " it is 
 of no use saying a word more about that. You 
 have paid us back to the very full all your education 
 could have cost, and much more, I am afraid, than 
 it was worth ; and we would rather both of us go 
 to the workhouse than take another penny from you 
 or yours. But oh, Gracie," she continued, putting 
 her face in her handkerchief, with a burst of grief 
 most unlike her tranquil, subdued self" Gracie, it 
 is for Betsy I am so unhappy. She has tried one 
 pair of glasses after another, until they say there 
 are no stronger to be had. For many months she 
 has done nothing but knit by candle-light, and to- 
 day she made several mistakes in reading the psalms 
 and lessons. She thinks I do not notice it ; but oh, 
 Gracie, I think of scarcely anything else ! And 
 she has a way of putting out her hand to feel her 
 way, I cannot bear to see. It is like my grandpapa 
 when the cataract was coming on." 
 
 Grace caught eagerly at the word, for she also 
 had noticed Miss Betsy's failing sight. 
 
 " But cataract can be removed, Miss Lavinia," 
 she said. " Oh, if Harry were only grown up and 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 389 
 
 a doctor now !" she continued, for the first time 
 seeing some light on Harry's choice. 
 
 " I know it can be removed," said Miss Lavinia. 
 " But sometimes it takes years coming on, and all 
 the time the eyes almost useless. But don't breathe 
 a word of it, Grace," she added, as Miss Betsy's 
 brisk knock was heard at the door, and her quick 
 step in the passage " not a syllable." 
 
 Miss Betsy looked flushed when she came in. 
 
 " The people are ruder and more republican than 
 ever," she said. " I declare I think one would be 
 treated with more respect in the United States. I 
 have heard they are civil to women there, even old 
 women. I just happened to run against the wheel 
 of a costermonger's orange cart, and to throw down 
 a few oranges, in crossing the street, and he swore 
 at me, and asked if I was deaf or blind." 
 
 Grace and Miss Lavinia glanced hastily at each 
 other, and colored to as deep a crimson as Miss 
 Betsy herself. 
 
 " It is very strange," she continued : " the cart 
 was the same color as the street, and I did not see 
 it at first. I had my spectacles on, too : but there 
 is no one now who knows how to make spectacles 
 as they were made in our grandmamma's time. 
 She could see to read small print by candle-light 
 when she was eighty, with those glasses on ; but I 
 broke one of them, and I cannot find any fit to 
 wear. There is a great optician somewhere near 
 the British Museum," she exclaimed, as if struck 
 with a sudden thought ; " Grace, will you go with 
 me next Saturday half-holiday ?" 
 33* 
 
39 o WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Grace appealed with her eyes to Miss Lavinia, 
 and receiving an assenting nod, with a trembling 
 heart she agreed to go. 
 
 Accordingly on the following Saturday afternoon, 
 a slight fair girl and a brisk, decisive old lady ap- 
 peared in the great optician's shop. Pair after pair 
 of spectacles the old lady decisively rejected, not 
 without historical comments depreciating to the 
 science of the century, until the shopman's patience 
 was all but exhausted, and would have been en- 
 tirely, but for the gentle voice which kept endeav- 
 oring to keep peace. 
 
 At length appeal was made to a person of more 
 authority in the shop, whose experience and quiet 
 manner had weight with the difficult customer. 
 After a few more futile endeavors to find glasses 
 that would make ordinary print visible : 
 
 " Madam," said the person in authority, " would 
 you permit me to look at your eyes." 
 
 The elderly lady consented. 
 
 " Cataract !" was pronounced decisively ; " on one 
 eye in an advanced state. The other probably will 
 not be ready for an operation for some little time." 
 
 " Sir," said the elderly lady, firing up, " I regret 
 to see that respectable tradesmen can attempt to 
 account for the deficiency of their instruments, by 
 throwing out most painful insinuations against their 
 customers' organs of vision." 
 
 And the aggrieved lady swept hastily out of the 
 shop, in her indignation very nearly casting a 
 further slur on her organs of vision, by running 
 through the glass door. But the young girl who 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 391 
 
 lingered a moment after her, to deprecate the anger 
 of the optician, and to thank the shopman for his 
 patience, saw the latter give a little scornful shrug, 
 which the older man, however, checked by saying, 
 " Poor lady, it must have been a shock. But she 
 has spirit enough for an operation. She may 
 get all right again." The young girl lingered a 
 moment. 
 
 " Would it be quite a year, sir, before anything 
 could be done ?" 
 
 " Depends on how long the other was forming. 
 If you like," he added, softening to the pleading 
 look, " you may come again, that is," he added 
 with a smile, " if the lady thinks better of me." 
 
 " She is very patient generally," pleaded the girl 
 as she hastened away. 
 
 In a moment Grace rejoined Miss Betsy. 
 
 " What have you been about, Grace ? I would 
 not give another look at that impudent creature. 
 And she went on denouncing spectacles, opticians, 
 and science, and commerce in general, as under- 
 stood in these degenerate days, until they reached 
 the penny steamer. There she sat quiet beside 
 Grace, until they nearly reached their destination, 
 and then in a low x changed voice, she said : 
 
 " Gracie, I have been thinking it all over. And 
 I think the man was right. How long did he say 
 it might be before there might be an operation? 
 It was foolish of me to be so angry, but I was 
 startled, and I thought he was trying to impose on 
 me, and I did not listen." 
 
 " He said it might be within a year," said Grace, 
 
392 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " and he said," she added, timidly, " if you liked, 
 and thought better of it, he would look again." 
 
 " Then that was what you stayed back for, 
 Gracie ?" said Miss Betsy, with a sad little attempt 
 at a smile. " Then you believe it ?" 
 
 Grace could not deny. 
 
 " Don't tell Lavinia don't breathe a word to 
 Lavinia !" 
 
 " Wouldn't it be easier for Miss *Lavinia to*know, 
 than to be suspecting ?" said Grace. 
 
 " What, is Lavinia suspecting ?" said Miss Betsy, 
 fiercely. " You have been talking me over ! I 
 can't bear it ! She has treated me like a child. I 
 am not a foolish, nervous, old woman, to be petted 
 and coaxed, or to coax and pet myself. I always 
 like to know the truth, and the whole truth. I am 
 getting blind, Gracie ! blind" she said, repeating 
 her words in slow wondering accents, as if to en- 
 grave the fact deep on her unbelieving mind. 
 " Blinder and blinder, day by day, week by week, 
 and month by month, until it will be quite dark, 
 and I shall have to be led about like a child." 
 
 " And then all the darkness is to go in a moment, 
 and you are to see as well as ever again. What a 
 day that will be, Miss Betsy !" 
 
 " But twelvemonths and more, Grace, who knows 
 how much longer. Things always take longer 
 than doctors say. And what is to become of the 
 school !" 
 
 " I see no difficulty about that," said Grace 
 timidly, yet resolved to speak out. " You know, 
 Miss Betsy, how I have always longed to learn to 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 393 
 
 teach. And with you and Miss Lavinia to help, it 
 would be just the very opportunity. Because it 
 would be real, you see, and one never can learn 
 anything real, I think, by playing at it." 
 
 Miss Betsy shook her head and said no more 
 until they reached home. 
 
 But when they reached the little parlor, where 
 Miss Lavinia was awaiting them in fear and trem- 
 bling, Grace gave such a cheering narrative of the 
 optician's hopeful view of the case, interwoven with 
 her own loving plans for aiding in the school, that 
 she almost persuaded the sisters for the moment 
 into regarding the twelvemonths' growth of the 
 cataract as a twelvemonths' holiday, especially pro- 
 vided for Miss Betsy, to prepare her for marvel- 
 ous achievements of tuition and money-making in 
 the future. 
 
 Full of her schemes, and sure of sympathy, Grace 
 related the day's history that evening to Mr. Leigh, 
 while Harry was in another room writing his Latin 
 exercise. 
 
 " Grace, my darling," he said at length, " I would 
 have given the world to save you from this. But I 
 cannot think what we are to do ourselves. This 
 morning my voice quite broke down in reading the 
 prayers. And the doctor says I must absolutely 
 rest for three months, and not attempt to read a 
 service or a sermon. And if not, I may never be 
 able to be of any use any more." 
 
 Mr. Leigh did not say that the doctor had also 
 said he was afraid even rest would be of little use 
 without change of air. Change of air was for him, 
 
39 4 WINIFRED BERTRAM. 
 
 he believed, a simple impossibility, and he would 
 not, on any account have tormented Grace with 
 the thought of it. 
 
 But to Mr. Leigh's surprise, Grace did not seem 
 nearly as crushed as he expected by the tidings. 
 
 " Father," she said softly, " you and Miss Betsy 
 have been working yourselves to death all your 
 lives, and now God is giving you your holidays in 
 spite of yourselves. And he is going to let me 
 work a little for you. And there is nothing he 
 could have given me in all the world I should have 
 liked half so well." 
 
 " My child !" said Mr. Leigh, stroking her hair as 
 she knelt before him ; " my own poor, brave, little 
 Gracie." 
 
 For Mr. Leigh thought Grace's projects little 
 more than the dreams of a happy child, who knows 
 nothing of the practical difficulties of life. 
 
 He was little aware how that child's heart had 
 for years been between him and the practical diffi- 
 culties of every-day life. 
 
 He did not perceive how the child's heart and 
 the sweet childish face had grown into the woman's, 
 with all the childlike freshness in it still. 
 
 He did not know how that night and the next 
 morning Grace knelt before the Father in heaven, 
 and felt a heavenly hand laid in blessing on her 
 head, not to soothe only, but to consecrate and to 
 strengthen ; and how she rose to her daily work 
 with that light, and joy, and freshness in Her heart, 
 which is expressed in the wonderful words, " chil- 
 dren of light," and " children of the day." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 |T the spring equinox of the following 
 year, Lady Katharine Wyse and the 
 equinoctial gales made a simultaneous 
 descent on the Cedars. 
 The winds tried the strength of every root, and 
 stem and stake in the garden, left the paths strewn 
 with dead branches, threw down a decaying old pop- 
 lar, gave the stately elms and cedars a fresh grip of 
 the soil, intolerantly swept the atmosphere clear of 
 fog and smoke, sharpened the outline of the distant 
 hills, and generally made every member of the 
 vegetable kingdom understand what it was about, 
 what it was in want of, what it possessed, and what 
 ground jt had lost or won. 
 
 Lady Katharine, on the other hand, was doing 
 the same kind of work in the animal kingdom 
 within the house-^rtrying the strength of people's 
 principles or the nature of their practice, throwing 
 down tottering theories, snapping off dead fragments 
 of belief, hastening the downfall of morbid fears and 
 worn-out fancies, defining the outlines of all things^ 
 
 (395) 
 
396 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and in general making people clear their mental and 
 moral atmosphere of vagueness and mistiness, and 
 understand what they were seeking, what they had 
 found, what they had lost or won, what they were 
 really thinking, feeling and doing, and whither they 
 were going. 
 
 On the whole, she was satisfied with the progress 
 of things and people during her absence. Maurice's 
 journey, she was sure, was the best thing that 
 could have happened for him. Indeed, she was of 
 opinion that in all possible cases, an Egyptian or 
 Syrian tour ought to be insisted on as a part of the 
 preparation for Orders. Mrs. O'Brien, she was glad 
 to find, had made some friends among the poor in 
 the east of London, in whom she took a true, whole- 
 hearted interest, caring for them not as " hands," 
 nor as " cases," nor merely as u souls," but as human 
 beings training for higher and iinmortal destinies, 
 through all kinds of small and humble earthly 
 cares, and joys, and sorrows. And, moreover, 
 which to Lady Katharine seemed equally import- 
 ant, Mrs. O'Brien had begun to find many other 
 ties which of old had been merely mechanical or 
 conventional, to be living and human. The under 
 housemaid and kitchenmaid, for instance, were no 
 longer known to her merely as wielders of brooms 
 and scrubbing brushes, but as Kitty Dawson and 
 Lucy Saunders, with parents and brothers in 
 far-off country -homes in the colonies, in the army, 
 or on the seas. 
 
 Lady Katharine also highly approved of Mau- 
 rice having given Dan the charge pf a little ragged 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 397 
 
 Infant Sunday-School. The true way to keep Di- 
 vine truth fresh in the heart, she said, is to keep it 
 flowing. Dan's doubts, she was sure, would be ef- 
 fectually banished by proving 1 the power of the 
 truth on other hearts. 
 
 Winnie she consoled for the lack of special " tal- 
 ents," which she occasionally bewailed, by pre- 
 senting to her the vision of the return of her father 
 and mother from India with a bevy of little brothers 
 and sisters, to whom the absence of engrossing 
 tastes, and the possession of general good sense 
 and capacity would make her the perfection of an 
 eldest sister. So that Winnie began almost to be 
 glad that she had no special gifts beyond a 
 general intelligence, which enabled her to do most 
 things pretty well, and understand most things 
 quickly, and to appreciate others who had these es- 
 pecial gifts, and could excel. In this way the in- 
 terval between the " finishing " of her own educa- 
 tion, and that ideal life of devotion to Maurice and 
 a " mission " at the parsonage, was, Winnie felt, 
 likely to be well filled up. 
 
 The only portion of Winifred's world with 
 whose condition and progress Lady Katharine was 
 dissatisfied was that of which Grace Leigh and her 
 father were the centre. 
 
 "You have not seen so much of Grace lately, 
 Cecil, Winifred tolls me." 
 
 " No, Aunt Katharine. It is quite a grief to me, 
 
 as well as to Winnie. But I cannot tell what to 
 
 do* Grace is doing wonders. She is earning 
 
 enough by her paintings to pay a curate for under- 
 
 34 
 
39 8 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 taking her father's duty while he is obliged to rest. 
 And she is helping the Miss Levels about their 
 school until the cataract in Miss Betsy's eyes is ad- 
 vanced enough for an operation. Grace Leigh is 
 really a wonderful child." 
 
 " I don't believe in wonders, Cecil ; and least of 
 all, in wonderful children. Children have no right 
 to be wonderful. That is, when children are said to 
 be doing wonders, Ihey are merely being suffered to 
 be spendthrifts, lavishing what ought to last through 
 life on the first fragment of it, and absolutely cer- 
 tain to end in being paupers a burden on others 
 when they ought to be a help. It is perfectly clear 
 to me what Grace Leigh is doing. She is killing 
 herself by inches, and she must be stopped." 
 
 " But, Aunt Katharine, how is any one to stop 
 her? That gentle, yielding creatuie has the strength 
 of purpose in her of a hero." 
 
 " Of course. Do you suppose Deborah, or Joan 
 of Arc, or any of the hero-women, wasted! their 
 strength in quarreling who should have the first 
 turn with the pitcher at the well ?" 
 
 " But what can we do, Aunt Katharine ? If to 
 supply the money she earns were the only thing, it 
 would be easy enough. But who is to make her 
 take it ?" 
 
 " And who is to make Mr. Leigh recover on alms, 
 if she would? 1 ' replied Lady Katharine, meditat- 
 ively. " Well, Cecil, ask them all here, and let us 
 see." 
 
 The invitation was given and accepted fo the 
 following Monday. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 399 
 
 As Grace came up the lawn to meet Winnie, who 
 bounded down to meet her, the happy light in her 
 eyes, the soft flush on her face, the firm, light tread, 
 made Lady Katharine doubt if after all her fears 
 had not been groundless. 
 
 " You are grown into quite a tall and stately 
 lady, Grace," she said. " My little Grace is gone, 
 with the snowdrops and the spring violets, and we 
 are come to the Bourbon of roses and the royal 
 Fleurs de lys." For Grace, during the last year, 
 though scarcely seventeen, had grown to that 
 stately height which corresponds so well with calm 
 fair faces ; a little above the middle stature, but with 
 that graceful suppleness and ease of carriage which 
 naturally makes you think of a lily, and which 
 wrung even from Rosalie the admission that Made- 
 moiselle Grace knew how to walk. 
 
 To the end of her days, " little " was a term of 
 endearment which might be applicable to eager, im- 
 pulsive Winnie, but scarcely to Grace. Her growth 
 in every way had been that of a creature to be 
 clung to or leant on, rather than to cling and twine. 
 Or rather her clinging was more to stay and up- 
 hold what she clung to than to be sustained, except 
 in the one direction in which she sought her strength* 
 And that had drawn her upward. 
 
 " That child is more than ever like a Pre-Raph- 
 aelite," said Lady Katharine to Mrs. O'Brien. 
 " The appealing, childish look has grown into a 
 tender maidenliness, while the motherliness re- 
 mains. See the changes in her face as she glances 
 from happy, eager, talking Winnie to her father. 
 
4 oo 
 
 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 She feels anxious about his sitting in the draught 
 of that window, but she will not rush up to him as 
 I should, to snatch him from the danger, or kindly 
 entreat him to move as you would, Cecil, inflicting 
 on him thereby the miserable self-consciousness of 
 being watched. See, she is asking Winnie's leave. 
 She just creeps away for an instant, closes the win- 
 dow, and now she is talking eagerly again with 
 Winnie, and Mr. Leigh knows nothing about it. 
 And there is her own sweet, soft, ringing laugh 
 again. I am so glad to hear it. She is just the 
 kind of woman a man could bear to be nursed by. 
 But Mr. Leigh looks very worn and anxious, Cecil. 
 I am so glad you thought of arranging an interview 
 with Dr. Dee." 
 
 Dr. Dee came in, as if by accident, to luncheon ; 
 had a conversation with Mr. Leigh ; drew him into 
 talking naturally about his ailments, and cheered him 
 by narratives of similar cases which had ended in 
 complete recovery. But afterwards, when Lady 
 Katharine asked him what he thought, lie shook his 
 head and said : 
 
 " Nothing for it but change of air. Some might 
 say nothing but Algiers or Cairo. But I suppose 
 that is out of the question. And the South of Eng- 
 land, without anxiety and care, would do more 
 than the climate of Egypt, or of Eden, with them. 
 Curates at sixty, Lady Katharine, ought either to 
 be made canons, with no work and much pay, or 
 sent as missionaries among the cannibals, with es- 
 pecial recommendations to their chefs de cuisine. 
 But what is the matter with the daughter ?" 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 401 
 
 " Miss Leigh ? Do you see anything the matter 
 with her ?" 
 
 " Yes. I said something to her about the neces- 
 sity of a change of air for her father, and since 
 then there is a look of distress in her eyes, and a 
 steady spot of soft color on her cheek I don't like 
 to see. She is too young to have too much strain 
 on her." 
 
 And Dr. Dee took leave, setting Lady Katharine 
 free to observe Grace, and to think what must be 
 done next. 
 
 Grace's expression was indeed changed since she 
 had had those few confidential words with Dr. Dee. 
 Her eyes continually wandered to her father's face, 
 but no longer with the tender, care-taking look of 
 one who felt she was able to shield and help him. 
 Instead, there was an anxious, questioning, wistful 
 gaze, more than once all but melting into tears, 
 which, however, were always repressed with an evi- 
 dent effort to interest herself in what was going on 
 around her. 
 
 Lady Katharine noticed the change and under- 
 stood it, and longed to speak ; but there was a gentle 
 dignity about Grace which cut her off from her 
 usual direct and abrupt road to any point she 
 wished to reach, and she could discover no other. 
 It was her very power to help, she felt, which 
 raised the barrier between her and Grace in this 
 her hour of sore need. Lady Katharine could only 
 find an opportunity to say to Grace when she was 
 leaving : 
 
 " Your hand is feverish, child. Winnie told me 
 34* 
 
402 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 once Harry said I was like everybody's grand- 
 mamma. . Now, I never let any of my grandchil- 
 dren be their own doctors. Therefore, if you do not 
 take care, I shall come and see what you are doing. 
 So write me a bulletin to morrow you or Harry 
 or I shall appear on a broomstick. And Mrs. 
 O'Brien can tell you how I can scold. So take 
 care !" 
 
 But the next day no bulletin came. Only on the 
 day following day a note from Harry, in a style 
 apparently designed finally to disprove his capacity 
 for ever making sermons : 
 
 " DEAR LADY KATHARINE, Grace would not let 
 me write yesterday, and father does not know I am 
 to-day. But I was afraid you would be angry with 
 Grace and come, so I could not help it. Grace is 
 very ill. At least, Mrs. Treherne says so. And the 
 doctor says nothing. At least, he shakes his head 
 and says there is no saying. It is a sore throat. 
 She took it on Monday. It was very cold as we 
 came home, and I was clumsy and broke the car- 
 riage windows. And I shall never forgive myself. 
 At least, I never shall if it is scarlet fever. And 
 Mrs. Treherne says that is the way scarlet fever be- 
 g'ns, and most things, she thinks, that are dangerous. 
 And Grace would never let me write if she knew. 
 She keeps saying she shall be quite well in a day or 
 two. But I thought you would be glad to know 
 at least, that I ought to let you know. And then, 
 if you think Grace is right, you need think nothing 
 more about it ; only please, Lady Katharine, I 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 403 
 
 should like to know what you think. And please 
 let Miss Bertram know. I don't mean let her know 
 what Mrs. Treherne thinks, but about the sore throat. 
 
 " Believe me, etc. 
 
 " No one can send their love to any one because 
 no one knows about my writing, or I am sure every 
 one would." 
 
 " There, Cecil I" exclaimed Lady Katharine, as 
 she threw this letter on the breakfast-table ; " ex- 
 actly what I expected. That child has been killing 
 herself. Illnesses are only symptoms of previous 
 mischief, every one knows. However, now, wo 
 will set things all right. Excuse me, Cecil." 
 
 And Lady Katharine rose and decisively rang 
 the bell 
 
 " What will you do, Aunt Katharine ?" 
 
 " Do ! Cecil ? Go and nurse the poor motherless 
 child at once. Be so good as to tell my maid I 
 want to speak to her instantly," she said to the 
 footman who appeared in answer to the bell. 
 " Excuse my ordering about your servants, Cecil. 
 I forgot I was not at home." 
 
 " But, Aunt Katharine," feebly remonstrated Mrs, 
 O'Brien, " if it should be scarlet fever, and infec- 
 tious." 
 
 " I am the very person to go, my dear, evidently. 
 An old woman, with both my sons settled in life, my 
 will made, and all my affairs m perfect order." 
 
 " If I could only be of any use," sighed Mrs. 
 O'Brien, "I should so delight to help that dear 
 child." 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " Of course you would, Cecil, but you can't. 
 Your husband would not hear of it, to begin with. 
 And, besides, excuse me, but you have not despot- 
 ism in you for a nurse. Of course, I shall find all 
 the windows shut ; the patient distracted with all 
 manner of contradictory recommendations; the 
 doctor's orders supplemented by all manner of tra- 
 ditional quackeries, and Miss Nightingale's 4 Notes 
 on Nursing,' systematically contravened in every 
 practicable and impracticable way." 
 
 " But, Aunt Katharine, the house is very small, 
 and not at all such as you are accustomed to, 
 and" 
 
 " Cecil ! I have been desiring all my life to have 
 the privilege of making myself uncomfortable for 
 the sake of -my fellow-creatures. And I have never 
 been able to attain anything beyond helping other 
 people, with the greatest ease and comfort to my- 
 sel And now, when, at sixty, the golden oppor- 
 tunity offers itself to me, do you think I shall throw 
 it away ? Besides, Cecil," she added, in a grave, 
 low voice, " I remember too well one long night, 
 thirty years ago, when I watched by my own little 
 Evelyn, to let that sweet motherless child be alone 
 now." 
 
 And that very evening Lady Katharine had suc- 
 ceeded in establishing herself as head-nurse in Grace's 
 room, in a soft, unrustling dress, prepared to sit up 
 with her for the night. She had gained her point 
 and established herself as commander-in-chief with 
 less difficulty than might have been expected. Mr. 
 Leigh was too anxious about Grace to be at all 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 405 
 
 overwhelmed with the kindness. It seemed to him 
 only natural that any one who knew Grace should 
 do anything that could be done for her. Mrs. Tre- 
 herne struck her colors at once to my lady. Mrs. 
 Anderson who had sat up on the previous night, 
 being a woman of a strong character, instinctively 
 recognized the same in another, seeing the repose 
 which Lady Katharine's quiet habit of command 
 gave to the patient. The only contest was with 
 Miss Betsy Lovel, who had no idea of a stranger 
 coming and taking possession of everybody and 
 everything just on account of a wretched little 
 scrap of rank, and because she had been used to 
 having her own way. But she was soon concil- 
 iated by the tact which at once conceded her rights 
 in full, as a representative of British institutions in 
 general, and as the oldest friend of Grace's mother. 
 
 " I have heard so much of you and your sister," 
 Lady Katharine said, "from that dear grateful 
 child. But I knew you were neither of you quite 
 strong or at leisure just now, and I felt sure you 
 would allow me to supplement your care." 
 
 The relief to Grace was unspeakable. In the 
 first place she had some one who would tell her 
 exactly how ill she was, without mystery, and with- 
 out circumlocution. 
 
 " I heard Miss Betsy whispering so long yester- 
 day," she said, " with the doctor and with father, 
 when they had left my room. And when she came 
 back again, she looked so grave, until she saw I 
 was watching her, and then she nodded, and made 
 up such a smile as you do to a sick, fretful child, 
 
406 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and told me in a sprightly voice that I should be 
 all right in no time. And I do so want to know 
 what it is, and I have had no one to ask." 
 
 She seemed quite relieved when told it was scar- 
 let fever. 
 
 " People get well from that, often, don't they ?" 
 she said. " I do so very much want to get well, 
 and soon." 
 
 But in the night when she had been lying very 
 still for some time, so that Lady Katharine hoped 
 she was asleep, and crept to the bedside to look, 
 the closed eyes opened at once as eyes that had 
 evidently only been closed by an effort of will ; and 
 Grace said : 
 
 " Lady Katharine, will you let me say something 
 quite through without stopping ?" 
 
 " Am I then such a bad listener, Grace ?" 
 
 " No. But every one seems to think they must 
 not let me speak, And it is so terrible to lie here 
 thinking so fast, and not be allowed to tell any one. 
 So you will listen. If I die, for people do die in 
 scarlet fever, I know ; would you go to my work- 
 box ? The key of it is in the left hand drawer of 
 the dressing-table, and would you take out the bank 
 notes that are there ? There are twenty-five fire 
 pound notes, and one ten pound note for my last 
 drawing. And would you, please go to my port- 
 folio and take the finished sketch there to the shop. 
 And would you keep the money and give it to 
 father, every quarter, really that and nothing else. 
 For I feel sure it would be enough, and that he 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 407 
 
 will not be long here, when I am taken. But if he 
 had it himself, he would never think it would last. 
 I meant it for Harry, and to help about Miss Betsy's 
 operation. But I can't help that, Lady Katharine, 
 can I ? It would not do for everything, would it ? 
 And if God takes me, He will take care of the rest. 
 I think I have done nearly as much as I could, 
 Lady Katharine. But I could not have foreseen 
 this, could I ? And will you do this for me ?" 
 
 The large bright eyes were fixed with intense 
 earnestness on Lady Katharine's, and she felt it 
 difficult to meet them steadily. But following the 
 current of Grace's thoughts, she went to the dress- 
 ing-table and took out a key tied with blue ribbon. 
 
 " Is this the key, Grace ?" 
 
 Grace nodded and smiled ; " it was my moth- 
 er's," she said, " and you will do it for me ?" 
 
 " I will," was the reply ; " I will sacredly keep 
 every word you say, Grace, and arrange everything 
 so that your father shall not have an anxiety, and 
 shall owe it all to you." 
 
 The strained expression relaxed from the flushed 
 eager face. Grace stretched out her feverish hand, 
 took Lady Katharine's, and kissed it. 
 
 " I am so thankful," she said, " it will not make 
 me die an hour sooner to have said this, unless it is 
 God's will." 
 
 " Certainly not, my child. And now I am nurse 
 again, and you must obey, and lie still and be 
 quiet." 
 
 " Must I go to sleep ?" 
 
 " Not unless you like. But you must not talk." 
 
4 o 8 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 A submissive smile came over Grace's 1 face ; but 
 'after a few minutes' tossing from side to side, she 
 said : . , x . 
 
 " Would it be very troublesome to you to read 
 to me a little ? I could not read my chapters to- 
 day. But I think I could attend to it now." 
 
 Lady Katharine began to read the first lesson 
 for the day, but before it was finished, the effort to 
 attend had brought sleep. Chapter after chapter 
 Lady Katharine read on, in a low, monotonous 
 voice; and book after book, until the dawn was 
 reflected with a cold gray light from the looking- 
 glass, and the first cries began to be heard in the 
 streets ; and at last Grace awoke, and said, but 
 still in a drowsy voice : 
 
 " I am so sorry, I am afraid I have not been 
 listening, Lady Katharine. I thought it was in 
 Deuteronomy, and you are reading Isaiah. Or is 
 my head confused ?" 
 
 " Don't you think you have probably been sleep- 
 ing three months, by the calendar ?" 
 
 Grace smiled a drowsy little smile. 
 
 " If I have," she said, " I feel as if I should like 
 to sleep three months longer." ^ 
 
 " And you shall, if you like," was the reply ; 
 " only after three months you ought to feel a little 
 hungry." 
 
 " I do," she said, gladly receiving the veal-jelly 
 Lady Katharine offered. 
 
 And from that time the tide turned, and life re- 
 gained its power. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 409 
 
 " In another month, Gracie, you shall recover 
 your personal existence. At present you are only 
 a thing," said Lady Katharine, as she wrapped 
 Grace up in a warm shawl, and led her down to 
 the carriage, where Mr. Leigh and Harry were wait- 
 ing for them; while Mrs. Treherne and her six chil- 
 dren were contemplating with a wonder too imper- 
 sonal for envy, the stately coachman, with the foot- 
 man and lady's-maid solemnly installed in the 
 rumble behind. 
 
 They were to travel to Combe, in Lady Katha- 
 rine's carriage, by short stages, to renew the memo- 
 ries of her youth, Lady Katharine said, and to 
 give Grace and Harry a glimpse into the pre-his- 
 toric days before railways. 
 
 "You can think of Homer, Gracie, and fancy 
 yourself Lady Jane Grey if you like," she said. 
 
 " But it was Plato, not Homer, Lady Jane Grey 
 was so fond of," said Grace. 
 
 " Well, never mind," said Lady Katharine, " the 
 resemblance is stronger than the difference. I have 
 not the least doubt that in similar circumstances 
 you would not have been at all wiser than she was, 
 but would have run your head against any amount 
 of difficulties or dangers, if once you had persuaded 
 yourself it was for the good of religion, or of your 
 relations. But it is of no use, Gracie. It is not so 
 easy to get into the Tower or upon a Martyr's Me- 
 morial in these days, especially with a prosaic old 
 woman like me to impede any such glorification." 
 
 Grace was perfectly aware that a conflict was 
 impending between Lady Katharine's will and her 
 85 
 
4 io WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 own ; but she was also aware that the hour for this 
 conflict had not yet come ; and she was too confi- 
 dent in her own strength of purpose, and too well 
 aware of the strength of Lady Katharine's position, 
 to risk any of her forces in preliminary skirmishing. 
 Accordingly she resigned herself, and Mr. Leigh, 
 and Harry, for the present, entirely to Lady Katha- 
 rine's guidance, and to any amount of kindness and 
 happiness that might be destined for them, with a 
 heart overflowing with gratitude and peace. 
 
 They were not posting, but travelling with Lady 
 Katharine's own horses, so that they took the jour- 
 ney in easy stages ; one stage usually in the early 
 morning, and another in the cool of the evening ; 
 resting through the heat of the day at some pleas- 
 ant country inn, where they could explore delicious 
 woodland nooks by brooks and rivers, or ramble 
 over open downs ; or at other times, in some old 
 historical city, with cathedral, and castle, and relics 
 of the battles and homes of centuries ago. Morn- 
 ing after morning, and evening after evening, one 
 pleasant picture after another photographed itself 
 forever on Grace's memory, as they passed by 
 orchards, snowy or rosy with pear or apple blos- 
 soms, and smelt the fragrance of the hawthorn 
 hedges, and watched the sheep grazing on the crisp 
 grass of the hills, or the cattle on the deep-green 
 meadows, by stately parks, and quiet farmsteads hid- 
 den amongst the foliage of old trees ; and the map 
 of England was transformed for her into a series 
 of pictures of English homes. 
 
 Westward and westward they went, past the 
 
THE WORLD SITE LIVED IN. 4 i i 
 
 ehalkdowns where King Alfred's first victories 
 were won ; past that solitary sacred circle of stones 
 whose history is lost in a past so far off that it 
 makes King Alfred seem like a contemporary, 
 until they reached the deep Combes and Tors of 
 the West Country, whose antiquities stretch beyond 
 the centuries of the historian into the millenniums 
 of the geologist, where moorland streams rush down 
 into deep wooded valleys, from springs hidden at 
 the base of old granite tors ; where the boldness of 
 mountain outline is combined with the richness of 
 southern vegetation ; and the valleys springing 
 from the feet of gigantic hills of bare rock, soften 
 into lovely ferny dells, and end in creeks clothed 
 with luxuriant wood to the edge of the green, quiet 
 sea, until at length they reached the first lodge of 
 Combe Abbey, and looked down on the hills folding 
 over each other to form a rest for the gray old 
 towers which rose above the soft masses of wood. 
 
 It was a great delight to Grace to visit the old 
 place again, and to discover how much new beauty 
 she had learnt to see in it ; how every tree, and 
 flower, and every form and tint, seemed to enshrine 
 new depths of life and glory, whilst, nevertheless, 
 the rapture of the childish joy with which she had 
 first looked down into the green-sea world below, 
 or up through the spaces of translucent green leaves 
 into the blue-sky world above, was as keen as ever. 
 Where she had seen one tint in sea and sky, she 
 now saw thousands ; where she had heard one 
 mingled tide of music, she could now discriminate 
 countless voices and instruments, and the harmony 
 
4 i2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 of innumerable interwoven melodies ; and yet the 
 song of one lark, soaring as it sung, or the ming- 
 ling of sea and sky in every sunset, brought her 
 delight as fresh as at first. Those to whom the 
 world is above all a church a place of worship 
 rather than a picture gallery or an orchestra will 
 always find fresh beauty in its pictures, and new 
 depths in its songs. The harmonies which are the 
 natural speech of adoration will never weary, the 
 colors which shine on us through the pauses of the 
 Psalm and carry on its strains, will never pall. It 
 is only those to whom nature is degraded from a 
 temple into a mere gallery of art, or a quarry from 
 which to carve illustrations, who can ever find the 
 pathetic monotony of her repetitions stale or " vain." 
 
 And to Grace Leigh the world was, first of all, a 
 cathedral ; and next, the sea-shore of the Iliad or 
 the sea of the Odyssey of human life. 
 
 Moreover, she had an especial delight in this 
 visit because of its being in a different season from 
 the last. Her first visit to Combe had been in the 
 full-grown, silent, stationary days of summer, and 
 now it was spring. Every day brought change, 
 and all the change was growth. To Grace it 
 seemed like being taken by a great artist into his 
 studio and shown the growth of his thoughts from 
 bud to blossom from sketch to finished picture. 
 It was like being taken by the hand by the gracious 
 Mother Nature herself, and led into her nurseiy, 
 and by the cradles of her babes being told in soft 
 tones, like lullabies, old stories of her own child- 
 hood, ever renewing itself from spring to spring. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 413 
 
 Every bank of those deep West Country lanes was 
 a garden of primroses and violets ; and soon the 
 green glades of every wood were shot with the 
 lustrous blue of innumerable hyacinths, while above 
 them the birds sang no chance bursts of casual 
 music, but their sweetest home songs, waking their 
 nestlings into life with melody. 
 
 And then the colors ! Instead of the deep even 
 greens of summer, or the gorgeous definite crimson 
 and gold and purple of autumn, there were those 
 translucent greens, and melting grays, and inde- 
 scribable, ever-changing opals which no pencil can 
 attempt and no memory recall, which need to be 
 repeated year by year before our eyes that we may 
 believe them possible, or remember what they were. 
 
 And all this beauty was not the languid lulling 
 loveliness of a season, but the beauty of life and 
 hope, which braced Grace Leigh's mind and heart, 
 as the fresh sea-breezes braced her nerves and 
 brought color into her cheek ; until she felt strong 
 enough for anything, and counted it almost a joy as 
 she looked at her father to think how he needed her 
 to work for him. For Mr. Leigh's voice was com- 
 ing back, so that her chief anxiety was over, and she 
 thought his remaining weakness was merely that 
 infirmity of age which she knew must come, and 
 which all her life it had been her prayer that she 
 might have the privilege of soothing and support- 
 ing. Poor child, she never thought of the time 
 when all her soothing would be in vain, and her 
 support no longer needed. All her visions of life 
 went no further than the long vistas of a pathway 
 35* 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 with the three walking in it; that one beloved, 
 revered form growing a little feebler and more in 
 want of support from year to year, and the two 
 beside it, year by year, more able to give it. This 
 was Grace's dream of life, and after that heaven ; 
 a " place prepared " for all, a Father's House, a 
 mother there to welcome; and One better and 
 dearer than mother, father, or brother binding all 
 together in the might of His personal all-embracing 
 love. 
 
 It was the Sunday of Grace Leigh's first Com- 
 munion. She had been confirmed before her illness, 
 and this day she had received for the first time 
 from her father's hands the cup and bread of the 
 communion of the body and blood of Christ. And 
 now, after the afternoon service, she had wandered 
 with her father to the sea-shore, and they were sit- 
 ting on a point of rock which jutted out far into 
 the sea. The receding tide was making quiet music 
 to their quiet thoughts, as it plashed softly round 
 the sea-weed which it floated, and for a long time 
 they did not speak. *, . 
 
 Mr. Leigh was watching Grace, and Grace was 
 looking down into the sea. He saw that tears were 
 trembling under her drooping eyelids, and at length 
 he laid his hand on hers and said : 
 
 " It is a great day for you, Gracie." 
 
 She looked up, and the bright smile showed the 
 source of the tears. 
 
 " Oh, father," she said, " how good it was of our 
 Lord not to entrust the deepest thing of all to 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 415 
 
 words. Words seem always to have some limit j 
 or they bring things before us only one by one. 
 But this that He told us to do in remembrance of 
 Him beams the whole Truth on us at once, does it 
 not ? We seem at once at the foot of the Cross, 
 and at the foot of the Throne. We seem at once 
 the cause of His agony and the crown of His re- 
 joicing. We seem face to face with Him Himself. 
 He gave Himself for us, and He is giving Himself 
 to us. And we see our sin and our redemption, 
 and Calvary and the marriage-supper all in Him in, 
 Himself. He needs to say nothing, but He is there. 
 And we need to say nothing for He knows us 
 through and through, and loves us. Is it not won- 
 derful ? Must it not be almost as good and beauti- 
 ful as dying and going to be with Him in Paradise ?" 
 
 He looked at her with unspeakable tenderness, 
 and after a few minutes' silence he said : 
 
 " Ah, Gracie, my poor child, we are not in Para- 
 dise yet. I tremble sometimes at the weary way 
 that may lie before you." 
 
 There was something in his tone that fell on her 
 like a death-chill. She looked up anxiously and said : 
 
 " It is getting near sunset, father ; we had better 
 go back before we feel the night air. But you do 
 not feel ill?" 
 
 " I do not feel worse," he said ; " but at sixty-one 
 naturally thinks more for oneself of the way behind 
 than of the way before. But I want you to be for- 
 tified for the way before you. The world is not all 
 Combe, Gracie, and there are many battles to be 
 fought." 
 
416 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " Oh, Father," she said, I like to think of the 
 battles. It is not like the Iliad, you know," she 
 added with some hesitation. " Hector's side is to 
 win. It is you who have the victory, and not 
 Cousin Felix." 
 
 " I am to have the victory over Cousin Felix ?" 
 he said, half puzzled and half purposely misinter- 
 preting. 
 
 " No, no, father !" she said, " you know what I 
 mean. I mean that the people who sacrifice them- 
 selves and not the people who succeed here, are the 
 real conquerors, are they not ? I do like to think 
 of this life as an Iliad and an Odyssey, father ; and 
 of all the world as the great battle-plain on the 
 shores of the great sea ; or, as the great sea itself 
 on which we are going home, through a thousand 
 perils, but sure to reach the Home, not too late and 
 not shipwrecked, but enriched and strengthened by 
 every battle and every storm." 
 
 " My warlike little Grade," he said, " that comes 
 of learning Greek." 
 
 " Oh, no, father !" she replied. " You know it 
 is all in the Bible, and in the baptismal service. 
 4 Good soldiers of Jesus Christ,' and ' the waves 
 of this troublesome world.' That is our Iliad and 
 our Odyssey, is it not ?" 
 
 The next day Grace observed that Lady Katha- 
 rine was in and out all the morning far more than 
 usual, and that something mysterious was going on 
 in the background. And in the evening they were 
 all taken to see a pretty rose-covered cottage in the 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. ^j 
 
 village, which had been recently furnished. Lady 
 Katharine prolonged the inspection of the rooms 
 and the various arrangements, rather to Grace's 
 perplexity ; and, moreover, kept nervously and sur- 
 reptitiously creeping to the windows, looking up 
 the village street, and then saying it was of no con- 
 sequence, in a nervous way, quite unlike herself; 
 until at the sound of approaching wheels and the 
 ostentatious crack of a post-boy's whip, she hastily 
 sent Grace down stairs to see who was coming. 
 
 Just as Grace reached the door of the house, a 
 carriage stopped at it ; the steps were let down 
 with an artistic flourish by the Abbey footman, 
 and two elderly ladies walked up the little garden, 
 the paler and feebler-looking guiding and support- 
 ing the brisker and stronger of the two. 
 
 " Miss Betsy ! Miss Lavinia !" 
 
 And after a tumult of kisses and tears, and ques- 
 tions to which no one waited for an answer, and 
 explanations made inexplicable by absence of con- 
 text, the two old ladies were safely deposited in the 
 cheery little parlor, where tea was laid around a 
 large vase of fresh flowers. 
 
 " Where is Lady Katharine ?" exclaimed Grace, 
 at length. " She sent me to see who was coming, 
 and I forgot all about my being her messenger." 
 
 Upstairs and downstairs Lady Katharine was 
 sought in vain, until a servant came from the Abbey 
 to assist in unpacking the ladies' boxes, and to say 
 with her ladyship's apologies to the Miss Lovels, 
 that her ladyship had gone home on urgent busi 
 ness, but she hoped Miss Leigh would make the 
 
418 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 ladies comfortable, that Mr. Leigh would fetch her 
 home, and her ladyship would call to-morrow. 
 
 Gradually the rush of greetings subsided over 
 the tea-table into a stream of quiet talk. 
 
 " So you know nothing about it, Gracie," said 
 Miss Betsy. " Well, Lavinia, ] do hope we are 
 doing right. It seems to me too pleasant to be 
 right. But Lavinia says it is as bad as the Trap- 
 pist monks to say that, and we ought to take all 
 from God and from Lady Katharine, as simply a? 
 children, and be thankful. But I never thought it 
 would be such a paradise of a place. Lady Katha- 
 rine said it was only a little cottage built by her 
 husband, for which they could find no tenant, and 
 it would be quite a kindness for us to come and 
 take care of it. It was rather ruinous, she wrote, 
 and a little damp, and wanted fires and airing, but 
 she hoped we should not find it uncomfortable. 
 But this is a paradise, indeed," concluded Miss Betsy, 
 wiping her eyes ; " two parlors, and such a kitchen, 
 and a bedroom with such sweet-smelling things 
 round the' window. But I suppose it cannot be 
 helped! And such an easy flight of stairs, just 
 made for a poor blind, helpless old creature like 
 me!" 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Leigh," she resumed, when he arrived, 
 " do you think we were right in coming ? Lavinia 
 says she is sure. But then she always sees every- 
 thing as if it were all from God with nothing be- 
 tween. And I can't feel quite so clear. I certainly 
 can't teach until I have my eyes again, and I couldn't 
 let Grace kill herself for us, and Lady Katharine 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 419 
 
 said she would, so what was there to do ? And it's 
 only till I can see again." 
 
 Mr. Leigh thought there was nothing to be done 
 but to thank God and take courage. 
 
 But that evening as they walked home, he said 
 to Grace, in a manner remarkably decisive fo& him : 
 
 " Gracie, I must be at home again next Sunday. 
 My voice is quite strong again. And it is the 
 greatest blessing I have to be able to work for our 
 daily bread. I would not give it up for the 
 world." 
 
 Grace was quite of the same mind. 
 
 Lady Katharine did not attempt to oppose Mr. 
 Leigh's decision, but with Grace she made a serious 
 remonstrance. 
 
 " Do you think, Gracie," she said, " that I do not 
 see what makes you run away from me in this 
 unceremonious way ? But depend upon it, Miss 
 Lavinia's is the true independence. She depends 
 on God, and takes all He sends quite simply, no 
 matter through whose hand it comes. He might 
 so easily, if it had seemed good to Him, have made 
 your father owner of Combe, and of a hundred 
 Combes, and me a helpless, blind old creature ; and 
 would you have called it humility if I had refused 
 to allow you to help and cheer me, as you would 
 have Gracie, only ten thousand times better and 
 more sweetly than I ever can poor blundering old 
 woman that I am ?" 
 
 " Please do not misunderstand us, Lady Katha- 
 rine," said Grace. " If my father could do nothing 
 for us, and we could do nothing for him, I would 
 
4 zo WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 
 be as glad and as grateful to take our daily bread 
 
 from you, as if it were manna straight from Hea- 
 ven ; and more glad, I think, because your hand 
 would be so much nicer than the clouds or the 
 ravens ; and it would be sweet to have to be grate- 
 ful to%you as well as to God. But father can preach, 
 thank God ; and if he could not, I can paint. And 
 I cannot, indeed I never can, give up the joy of 
 helping him to any one on earth. I don't think 
 God would ever command it. And besides, by-and- 
 by, I am sure it will be so much better for Harry. 
 And it was you, dear Lady Katharine, who had me 
 taught to paint, so it is all really from you after all." 
 
 Lady Katharine was vanquished. 
 
 " Well," she said, " Gracie, there never would 
 have been any fairy tales with such unmanageable 
 Cinderellas as you. So you must go your own will- 
 ful way. And God bless you after all. For after 
 all life is not a fairy tale, and a fairy godmother's 
 providence is a very poor thing compared with 
 God's." 
 
 The only concession Lady Katharine could obtain 
 was one more week's sojourn, in order to make the 
 Miss Lovels feel more at home ; to initiate them 
 into the mysteries of drying sea-weeds, construct- 
 ing aquariums, and to guide them to all the walks 
 accessible, as Miss Betsy phrased it, to the blind 
 and the lame. 
 
 " I am very happy here, Grace, my dear," said 
 Miss Betsy as she wished Grace good-bye. "At 
 least I am sure I ought to be. The air seems doing 
 Lavinia so much good. It seems as if, after all, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 421 
 
 she might prove to be the strong one. And when 
 once more I can see and she can walk, we may do 
 wonders again with the Academy. For this is only 
 a holiday, you know, Grace my dear. And it 
 would be no holiday to me, I must confess, if I did 
 not look forward to working again when it is over. 
 I hope Lady Katharine quite understands that, my 
 dear. And besides," she added confidentially, " I 
 wouldn't tell Lady Katharine or Lavinia for the 
 world. But I do rather miss the streets ; the sound 
 of the wheels, and the cries, and going to Mrs. Tre- 
 herne's, and the baker's, and the butcher's, and 
 managing everything. You see I am not poetical, 
 Grace, my dear ; and it does seem to me rather too 
 much like a churchyard here ; too much like always 
 Sunday. Of course, my dear, I like Sunday in its 
 place, once a week. But there seems too little dif- 
 ference. And I do miss your father's afternoon 
 sermons and his reading the service. And then I 
 knew the people and the places, and the people 
 knew me. And here no one knows anything about us. 
 We seem dropped in among them like a stray 
 chapter of a story-book. And I do feel a little, too, 
 as if they thought themselves wiser. A little lad 
 quite laughed at Lavinia the other day, for asking 
 what a field of turnips was. The very babies here 
 know more about such things than we do. And of 
 course they can't understand how much more we 
 know about other things, about the city, St. 
 Paul's, and Westminster Abbey, and tii^ shops,.and 
 the Pinnock's Goldsmiths and the painting on velvet. 
 So that we must seem like two old simpletons to 
 36 
 
4 22 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 them. And that's humiliating. For things do look 
 so different in the fields and in the shop-windows. 
 But don't say a word about this, Grace, iny dear. I 
 am sure Lady Katharine and every one is kindness 
 itself, and I am very happy. Or Lavinia is, and if 
 I am not it is my own fault. Only a little as if I 
 had been dead and buried, and had risen up again 
 somewhere else, I didn't quite know where. Not 
 the real resurrection, you understand Grace, my 
 dear ; of course, that will be in heaven, and I trust 
 we shall all know where we are, and feel at home 
 there. At least after a time. But we've got a 
 great deal to go through, before that, my dear. 
 And don't be anxious about Mr. Leigh, Grace, my 
 dear ; not that it was the resurrection that made me 
 think of him. His voice is quite strong again ; and 
 he looks so much better, only a little flushed some- 
 times. And be sure, Grace, my dear, you give 
 him the mixture whenever he coughs. I have made 
 some in a large bottle, I hope you'll find room for it." 
 
 And with kisses and ill-suppressed sobs, mingled 
 with assurances of being very happy, Miss Betsy 
 wished Grace good-bye. 
 
 But while she was settling the traditional bottle 
 of cough-mixture, Miss Lavinia said her farewell in 
 far fewer words. 
 
 " Grace, darling," she said " we shall pray for you 
 night and day. Here are too little shell pincush- 
 ions for little Fan, and for the poor little maid of 
 all work at our old lodgings. Mr. Treherne prom- 
 ised to look after her. Betsy and I are very grate- 
 ful to God and to Lady Katharine, more than we 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 423 
 
 can ever say. And I do trust it will be given to 
 Betsy to see again, and to me to get stronger, and 
 then to come back and live near you in the old 
 place, darling." But there Miss Lavinia's voice 
 broke down, and she only added, after a pause, 
 " One. by one, Grace, He leads us, and day by day." 
 Thus it was evident that the dreary lodgings in 
 the dingy streets of the east of London had been 
 glorified into a home of fond memories and hopes 
 to these sisters a home of toil and of aifection, 
 which no lt paradise" of hills and woods and gar- 
 dens could replace in their hearts. In so many 
 senses besides the highest, the things which are 
 seen are temporal, and the things which are not 
 seen are eternal. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Treherne," said Grace, the morning 
 after their return, when the good landlady was evi- 
 dently lingering for a gossip, as she removed the 
 breakfast things, " don't you think the country has 
 done wonders for us all ?" 
 
 " Master Harry do look as hearty as a sea-captain, 
 and you Miss Grace as rosy as a peach. And Mr. 
 Leigh can speak above a whisper again. He cer- 
 tainly can. And that is something." 
 
 " My father says he feels up to anything," said 
 Grace. 
 
 " No doubt he do, poor gentleman" was the reply ; 
 " that's just what I should expect, Miss Grace." 
 
 " Don't you really think him looking better, Mrs. 
 Treherne ?" said Grace, anxiously. | 
 
 " Well, I can't be a hypocrite, Miss Grace, to save 
 
424 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 my life. And it wouldn't be doing fairly by you 
 if I was to be." 
 
 " I had much rather you would say what yon 
 think, Mrs. Treherne. I do so want always to 
 know the truth. But I did think he was really 
 stronger. What do you see in him that makes you 
 think not ?" 
 
 " Well Miss Grace, I am no doctor, and I never 
 set up for any such thing. But to my mind, Mr. 
 Leigh has a scooped-out life look in his face, and 
 something hollow and scooped-out in his voice, and 
 a kind of stoop." 
 
 " My father is so tall and thin, Mrs. Treherne, 
 and being so near-sighted, you know he always did 
 stoop," said Grace, eagerly. 
 
 " Very true Miss Grace, my dear. I'd rather you 
 wouldn't ask me. I'm no doctor, as I said, and no 
 prophet ; and after all, as Caleb Treherne says, it's 
 blasphemy to doubt what the Almighty can do." 
 
 And beyond that Mrs. Treherne would not go 
 with Grace. But with her husband she was far 
 more definite. 
 
 " All right, Caleb Treherne," she said, repeating 
 his words with scornful emphasis." Poor dear Mr. 
 Leigh's voice all right ! That shows what men's 
 ears are worth, the best of them. No need for 
 those trumpets and machines, if it had been the 
 Almighty's will that women should have been the 
 doctors ! Why Mr. Leigh's voice tells as plain a 
 tale as though you struck a spoon on mother's best 
 china sugar-basin, that Fan cracked the first month 
 she came." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 425 
 
 " Don't say too much about it to Miss Grace," 
 said Caleb, compassionately. " They say the best 
 doctors are deceived sometimes. So even you might 
 be wrong." 
 
 " They may be," retorted Mrs. Treherne, solemn- 
 ly, " attending to their instruments and inventions 
 instead of to their senses, and to God's natural 
 signs ! And as to Miss Grace, do you think no 
 body but yourself, Caleb Treherne, have got a 
 heart for her, poor lamb ? Of course if she asks, 
 I'm not going to demean myself to tell a lie. But 
 beyond that no one with a natural woman's heart 
 need to go. Poor innocent ! There's enough be- 
 fore her, without my hurrying her to find things 
 out," concluded Mrs. Treherne, believing that the 
 vague consolatory words with which she had closed 
 the conversation had quite lulled Grace's fears. 
 
 But Grace was not given to quelling fears by 
 closing doors and shutting them in. Her way was 
 rather to take the light and explore every corner of 
 the dark chambers, light and fresh air being the 
 great elements of the materia medica, mental, moral 
 or physical, known to Grace. 
 
 But into the darkness of these fears she had no 
 light which could penetrate. The longer she gazed 
 and tried to see into it, the darker this darkness 
 grew. She who had always so tried and prayed to 
 know the truth about everything, -could she after 
 all have been deceiving herself? Were she and 
 Harry really too much bound up with this peril to 
 comprehend it ? She wished Mr. Bertram could 
 return, and tell her what he thought. His words 
 36* 
 
426 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and looks were always truth itself. She wondered 
 when he would return. Her thoughts recurred to 
 his parable of the vine entwined around the ruin. 
 How much had fallen into the ruin since he told it ! 
 all her dreams about Harry and his parish ; all the 
 plans she had felt so strong to carry out for the 
 support of the Miss Lovels. She had certainly 
 proved plainly enough that she was not the stay of 
 the temple ; but if not the roof merely, but the very 
 pillar around which the vine had entwined itself 
 were to fall, what would become of the vine then ? 
 Would the leaves lie trailing, withered, on the 
 ground, and the grapes shrivel as they lay ? 
 
 Maurice's parable led her thoughts to another 
 parable of a sacred Vine. " Not a vine," she thought, 
 " but The Vine, the true Vine. That Vine t* the 
 stay and pillar of heaven and earth. I am not a vine 
 at all, only a branch ; I and Father and Mr. Bertram 
 and all of us. The fruit of that Vine never fails. 
 Only, if one branch begins to set itself up as the 
 Vine, then not the fruit only, but the branch itself 
 withers. Oh how happy," she concluded, " and how 
 strong it makes one to know one is not a wretched 
 little isolated independent plant, but a branch a 
 branch in the true Vine. I wonder if it is to find 
 out more what this means, that we are allowed to 
 droop and be disappointed. I wonder if the dis- 
 appointments are the pruning, and if the husband- 
 man has indeed been pruning me, and not only me 
 but Father and Miss Lavinia and poor Dan and all 
 of us. N ot only not a pillar of the temple, but not a 
 vine, but only a branch ! And the Vine is so strong 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 427 
 
 and full of life. I will tell Mr. Bertram when he 
 comes back how happy it makes me to think of this.'' 
 Thus, although Grace saw no clearing in the dark 
 forest of anxieties Mrs. Treherne had conjured up, her 
 heart was lightened by this conviction, as by a 
 breath of fresh air from heaven. And then she re- 
 membered how Mrs. Treherne had had presentiments 
 long ago, which had not come true. She recalled 
 that snowy night so very long ago, when terrified 
 out of all minor terrors by prognostications of Mrs. 
 Treherne' s, scarcely less terrible than these, she had 
 crept through the snow to ask Mr. Bertram to take 
 her father's duty. And then she fell into a long 
 musing as to how much more difficult it would be 
 to do such a thing now, although they all knew Mr. 
 Bertram so much better, and had proved his kind- 
 ness so often. Why was this? Had she grown 
 more conventional and worldly, or less brave ? One 
 thing, however, she could do. She could go and 
 ask her old friend Mrs. Anderson what she thought 
 of Mr. Leigh. On Mrs. Anderson's judgment she 
 could always rely. But to her dismay, when she en- 
 tered the well-known baker's shop, a spruce strange 
 man stood behind the counter, most anxious to oblige 
 his supposed customer, but whose countenance 
 fell when he found she had only come to inquire for 
 her old friend. The old gentleman was dead, he 
 said, and he had bought the goodwill, and very 
 little he found it worth, and the old lady had been 
 gone these ten days, bag and baggage ; but where, it 
 was not for him to say. The business was now his, 
 and was to be conducted on the newest and most 
 
428 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 accomodating principles, as she would see from the 
 card which he handed her. 
 
 " Mrs. Anderson, Miss Grace," explained Mrs. 
 Treherne on Grace's return ; " she is gone to nurse 
 that poor fussy lady, Mrs. Dee, and I wish her joy 
 of her work. She hurt herself, poor lady, by slip- 
 ping in her hurrisome way on a bit of orange-peel ; 
 and they do say she is as peevish and helpless as a 
 child, and that no one could keep her quiet, till Mrs. 
 Anderson went to her." 
 
 Grace went up stairs to her solitary room, and 
 felt rather desolate. Every one seemed gone : Mr. 
 Bertram, the Miss Lovels, and now Mrs. Anderson. 
 But she was too busy to brood over troubles ; and 
 taking out her portfolio of sketches made at Combe, 
 she sat down to group some scattered blossoms and 
 tufts of moss into a picture, and was contentedly 
 humming to an improvised chant Miss Lavinia's 
 farewell words, " One by one, and day by day" over 
 and over again, in rather a Bedouin fashion, when a 
 carriage stopped at the door, a ringing voice filled 
 the house with life and music, and Winnie, rushing 
 into the room, overwhelmed her with kisses, exclaim- 
 ing " Maurice, Gracie ! Maurice has come, never to 
 go away again. Are you not, Maurice ?" she con- 
 tinued, turning to her brother as he followed 
 her. " And he is glad to come back, Gracie. He 
 doesn't care for all those beautiful places, nor for a 
 creature he has seen a thousandth part as much as 
 he does for his poor old parish, and for us. Noth- 
 ing like it, Maurice, do you? Didn't you say so? 
 For us and Mr. Leigh and Grace and all of us. And 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 429 
 
 please, Grace, if you think Mr. Leigh would like it, 
 Maurice said we might send away the carriage and 
 stay to tea." 
 
 " A dangerous confidant, "Winnie," said Maurice. 
 But they stayed. 
 
 Grace had so many things about which she wish- 
 ed to consult Mr. Bertram, that now he was actually 
 there she had not the least idea where to begin. And 
 Maurice himself seemed still more spellbound and 
 silent. He stood and turned over her drawings 
 rather absently, Grace thought, and at length he 
 said, as if to himself: 
 
 " The same touch ; but what a difference. These 
 flowers seem to have come forth from their de- 
 tached dreamy child-life into the large world, and to 
 have begun their life-story. The lilies are floating on 
 the stream. This little moss is tenderly cushioning a 
 child's grave. This blue gentian is finding or mak- 
 ing a rest and home even among the snows. This 
 little redbreast, plucking the red berries from the 
 snow-covered twig of thorn, does not need to have 
 4 Consider the fowls of the air ' written underneath. 
 These are not flower-paintings only. They are 
 poems." 
 
 " I meant them to be a kind of illuminated texts, 
 or hymns," said Grace. 
 
 " Are they not beautiful ?" said Winnie, eagerly. 
 " Is not our Gracie really a genius now, Maurice ?" 
 
 " But why are so many of them about snow and 
 winter ?" he asked. 
 
 " It was winter," said Grace ; " and then so many 
 wintry things were happening," she added, softly. 
 
430 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Miss Betsy Level's blindness, and Harry not being a 
 clergyman, and my father's voice " 
 
 He looked at her anxiously. 
 
 " I know," he said, sadly, " too much of human 
 life has passed into the life of these flowers." 
 
 "You know about Miss Betsy, then, and Harry," 
 she said, very glad not to have to explain. 
 
 " I don't think it so very wintry about Harry," he 
 said, half smiling. 
 
 " But have you seen my father ? " Grace asked, 
 timidly. 
 
 " Only for a minute or two. Mr. Leigh was going 
 to the workhouse, but he would be at home, he said, 
 in less than an hour." 
 
 " Of course, then, you cannot understand whether 
 he is looking better or not. Besides," she added 
 (forearming herself, as she had grown so used to do 
 against adverse judgments), " you did not see him 
 when he was really ill." 
 
 He did not speak. He comprehended her mean- 
 ing but too well. 
 
 " You did not think him looking really ill ? " she 
 said, with a trembling voice. " I know you cannot 
 tell me anything but the truth." 
 
 " I thought Mr. Leigh looked older. But we all 
 are that. Only not exactly in the same way." 
 
 Just then a slow step was heard on the stairs and 
 Mr. Leigh entered, flushed and tired, and so put an 
 end to the conversation. 
 
 ' " Do you think Mr. Leigh looking very ill, Mau- 
 rice ? " said Winnie, as they drove home together, 
 " he seemed so bright and full of life to-night." 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 43, 
 
 " A little too bright, I am afraid," said Maurice, 
 gravely. 
 
 " But is not our Gracie the very same, dear dar- 
 ling, gentle, determined, beautiful, sweet, happy 
 Grace as ever ? " 
 
 " The same, yet very different, I think," he said. 
 
 " Oh, of course. The very same, only a thousand 
 times better, as she will always go on being for 
 ever," said Winnie, involving herself in great 
 arithmetical difficulties. 
 
 " I did not say better, but different, Winnie," 
 said Maurice. " Sometimes it seemed as if I must 
 have known her before we were born, in some other 
 life, I seemed to know so strangely what she meant 
 to say. And sometimes, it seemed as if I had never 
 seen her before this evening. She seemed so new 
 and so far off, and so different from what she was, 
 and yet from every one else in the world." 
 
 "Different from every one else in the world; I 
 should think Grace was, Maurice," said Winnie, not 
 altogether satisfied with his appreciation of her 
 friend, and not a little perplexed as to whether he 
 had brought home any strange Oriental idea about 
 the transmigration of souls. " Different from what 
 she was ! I cannot think what you mean, Maurice ; 
 I am sure she is always the very same true, dear, 
 affectionate Grace to me. And I thought she was 
 quite the same to you. Only a little quieter, be- 
 cause you had both so much more to say, of course, 
 than you could say. And that always makes 
 people quiet." 
 
 " I suppose it does," said Maurice laughing, " but 
 
43 2 
 
 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 you learned that, I presume, little sister, rather 
 from observation than from experience." 
 
 "From both," replied Winnie, sententiously. 
 "All that first evening after you came home, I 
 could do nothing but sit quite silent and look at 
 you, don't you remember ? And that is the reason 
 why I have had such a quantity to say ever since. 
 And so you will find it is with Grace, when once 
 she begins." 
 
 " Shall I ? " he said demurely. " And when do 
 you think that will be ? " 
 
 " That depends, as Rosalie says," replied Winnie. 
 Whereupon she plunged into a series of domes- 
 tic narratives, and problems in the science of life, 
 which occupied her entirely until they reached the 
 Cedars. 
 
 Lady Katharine, on the other hand, wrote to say 
 she had always thought of it, and had had much 
 difficulty in preventing herself from spoiling every- 
 thing by taking on herself that role of fairy-god- 
 mother, in which it was evident she succeeded so 
 badly. 
 
 But the immediate change in Grace Leigh's life 
 was, simply, that there were three instead of two to 
 watch beside her father's sick bed. 
 
 For the slow downward steps of decline went 
 steadily on. But steadily as the feeble steps went 
 downwards, the spirit seemed to rise. 
 
 In that sick room there prevailed always a sacred 
 joyous calm, like a Saturday afternoon holiday, 
 when the work of the week is done, and its traffic 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 433 
 
 is over, and its cares are laid aside, and the next 
 morning is to bring the Day of Rest, and Festival, 
 and Worship, of church-bells and church music ; the 
 first day of the new life. 
 
 " I wish I could shake hands with Cousin Felix 
 once more," he said one morning to Grace. " Has 
 little Maud written to say how he is to-day?" 
 
 " She says two doctors come now, father, instead 
 of one ; and they say the attack might pass off, with 
 care and quiet, but that Mr. Hunter is a difficult 
 patient to treat. He has so many things to manage, 
 Maud says, and he will see so many people on 
 business. He is sure there are so many things no 
 one can conduct successfully but himself." 
 
 "Ah! Gracie," said Mr. Leigh, "you see the 
 most successful life must leave many things unfin- 
 ished at last, as well as the least successful, perhaps 
 more. It is well, perhaps, after all, not to have 
 too many things to arrange and set in order at 
 last." 
 
 " There is a difference, is there not," said Maurice, 
 who had just entered the room, " between one kind 
 of unfinished work and another ? There are some 
 unfinished things which are beginnings and not 
 broken endings, and which will be finished by-and- 
 bye." 
 
 " I believe so," said Mr. Leigh, with a tranquil 
 smile. "And there are also things which it is 
 happy to think will be better finished by those 
 who follow us, than they were begun." 
 
 For at this time there was a sick room in the 
 37 
 
434 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 great house in Bedford Square, as well as in the 
 poor lodgings in the East of London. 
 
 A poor irritable invalid lay there in a darkened 
 chamber, vainly striving to contend with disease as 
 he had so long successfully contended with other diffi- 
 culties in his life. Doctor after doctor had been con- 
 sulted and dismissed. Mr. Hunter only wished he had 
 been a medical man himself, and he would not have 
 been baffled by such a trifling attack as this. Servants 
 and children alike dreaded the impatient dissatis- 
 faction of the invalid with everything that was done 
 for him. Indeed, one child after another discovered 
 various reasons, unanswerable to themselves, for not 
 troubling themselves with much of the old man's 
 company. Plainly it did him no good, they said, 
 and gave him no pleasure to see them. The sons 
 and daughters, therefore, concluded they were 
 rendering him the greatest service by doing what 
 he had always told them to do, as the first end of 
 life, namely, to look after their own affairs. The 
 sons went to their business or their amusements, 
 and the daughters frequently spent much of their 
 time at the houses of various friends. It was their 
 duty, they said, to keep the house quiet for poor 
 dear papa, therefore they could not entertain at 
 home, and at the same time, it would, evidently, be 
 contrary to all his maxims to allow themselves to 
 drop out of sight and be forgotten. Mrs. Felix 
 Hunter, meanwhile, was much occupied in furnish- 
 ing the new house in Belgravia. An occupation, 
 she observed, naturally very uncongenial to her 
 under the circumstances, but she had never been in 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 435 
 
 the habit of yielding to her own feelings, and dear 
 Mr. Hunter was so particular about having every- 
 thing in the first style, that she could not answer it 
 to her conscience to leave these things to trades- 
 men, especially as all the medical men agreed that 
 quiet was the one essential for Mr. Hunter; and 
 Maud, poor child, was always ready to remain with 
 him. It was in fact quite an occupation for Maud, 
 and besides, Mr. Hunter liked the room so hot, and 
 want of air, unhappily, was the one thing she could 
 not stand, and, happily, Maud did not in the least 
 suffer from it. So that every thing really seemed to 
 fit in remarkably. 
 
 Thus it happened that Maud's little^ chair was 
 wheeled continually near her father's bed or sofa ; 
 and she read to him newspapers and novels nearly 
 all day- long, content with the reward of being 
 allowed to read a chapter in the Bible, or a hymn, 
 morning and evening. 
 
 At first it frightened her very much to read aloud 
 to her father ; and Mr. Hunter did not increase her 
 courage by his frequent disadvantageous compari- 
 sons between her reading and her sister's, and his 
 continual complaints that the newspapers were all 
 humbug, and the novels all trash. 
 
 But Maud being quite acquiescent in any amount 
 of depreciation of herself, and moreover feeling 
 sure that in this particular instance she had the one 
 vocation to her work which she was persuaded was 
 the only vocation she could ever have to any work, 
 namely, that there was no one else to do it, gradu- 
 ally grew bolder. And gradually Mr. Hunter grew 
 
43 6 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 accustomed to her voice ; and although he never in-' 
 dulged in the extravagance of praise or thanks, his 
 complaints became fewer, until Maud's chief per- 
 plexity grew to be that he did not like to spare her 
 an hour from his side. 
 
 "What have you been doing child?" he said, 
 fretfully, one day. "I thought you were never 
 coming back, like the rest." 
 
 " I was only writing a little note to Grace Leigh, 
 papa." 
 
 " You are always writing little notes to Grace 
 Leigh. I can't think what you see in those Leighs, 
 I am sure." Then after a pause : " Does Grace 
 Leigh write to you ? What can she find to say ? " 
 
 " She says to-day, papa," replied Maud, eagerly 
 seizing the opportunity, " that Mr.. Leigh thinks so 
 much about you, and wants to know how you 
 are?" 
 
 " I am sure I am much obliged to Mr. Leigh," 
 was the grim reply. " I suppose he has not much 
 else to think of, that he should be so concerned 
 about me." 
 
 " May I send your kind remembrances," perse- 
 vered Maud, " and say you hope Mr. Leigh is 
 better?" 
 
 "What is the use? Mr. Leigh will never be 
 better. And as to me, if you want to say any- 
 thing, you had better say that if there were a 
 doctor worth his salt in the kingdom, I should have 
 been as well as ever weeks ago." 
 
 Nevertheless, after this, a link seemed to spring 
 up between the invalids. Mr. Hunter frequently 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 437 
 
 asked, although in rather an ungracious way, how 
 Mr. L^igh was. And then came a few words from 
 Mr. Leigh expressive of the faith and hope which 
 sustained him, and which he trusted would also 
 sustain Mr. Hunter. 
 
 " I don't want to be sustained," said Mr. Hunter 
 fiercely, when Maud gave this message. " What 
 does he mean ? He speaks as if I were dying, like 
 himself. Tell him I expect to go to Deerham Park, 
 and get my new steam plough to work in a week 
 or two. And don't go and put in any texts, child, 
 I can't endure cant." 
 
 Yet his thoughts seemed to revert, beyond his 
 own control, to Mr. Leigh's sick-bed. And one 
 evening he said, bitterly, when he had expressed a 
 wish that his daughter Alicia would come and read 
 to him, and had been told that she was so sorry, but 
 Lady de Wint had reserved a seat expressly for 
 Alicia that very evening in her opera-box, and 
 Alicia was sure Mr. Hunter would not like Lady de 
 Wint to be neglected : 
 
 " I suppose Grace Leigh would think it more im- 
 portant not to neglect her sick father." And then 
 suddenly looking at Maud with a most unusual 
 tenderness, he added : " Poor little Maud. It is a 
 good thing, perhaps, after all, to have one little 
 girl whose life hasn't been such a success as to 
 make her feel her father's sick-room a prison to 
 escape from whenever she can." 
 
 Maud tried to defend her sisters, but he replied 
 with an indescribable bitterness : " Nonsense, child ; 
 you know nothing about it. They are a set of self- 
 37* 
 
43 8 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 seeking worldly girls. And I have made them so. 
 I have spent my life in making them so." 
 
 After this, Mr. Hunter seemed to make less effort 
 to conceal his interest in Mr. Leigh. 
 
 He grew to receive the messages of Christian 
 faith and love which came from the dying curate's 
 sick-bed with undisguised pleasure, and even to ask 
 anxiously for a letter when none arrived. And 
 once he sent a message to say he should like to see 
 Grace if she could spare him an hour. Yet when 
 she came, he seemed to have little to say to her ex- 
 cept a few broken inquiries and vague good wishes, 
 until she rose to leave, when he said : " You are a 
 good, affectionate child, Grace, and so is this little 
 Maud. God will reward you both. He knows 
 best how. Our rewards are very poor. Tell your 
 father, perhaps his life has been the success and 
 mine the failure, after all. It is late to find it out. 
 But perhaps not too late. Maud won't hear me 
 say too late. And I hope she may be right. Be 
 kind to Maud, Grace Leigh. Be kind to my little 
 Maud." 
 
 And the feeble hand that lay in Grace's, too 
 feeble to return the pressure of hers, appealed to 
 her with irresistible force of entreaty. She gave 
 one farewell look at the eyes which followed her so 
 wistfully, and turned silently away, praying that 
 she might never more disbelieve, as she feared she 
 sometimes had, in the grace of God, or imagine 
 there was an impassable gulf between the best 
 human being on earth and the worst. 
 
 When she reported this interview to Mr. Leigh, 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 439 
 
 a deep and joyful awe came over his face, like the 
 shadow of an unseen heavenly presence. For 
 some time he said nothing. And then at intervals : 
 
 " Children, the Holy Catholic Church is wider 
 and higher, and its gate more open than we any 
 .of us imagine." 
 
 Then: 
 
 " Perhaps it would be ungrateful for me to think 
 I took the wrong turning, after all." 
 
 And afterwards in slow broken utterances, like 
 sacred sentences spoken from before the altar : 
 
 " I have been thinking of our last sunset at 
 Combe, and how like that close of day was to the 
 close of life. The clouds, which like our earthly 
 trials, throw their shadows on us by day, become 
 illuminated like the white robes of saints floating 
 in the glory of God. Then as the sun sinks further 
 they become, not merely illuminated, but luminous 
 torches burning in the deepening blue of Heaven. 
 Our sorrows are not only lit up by faith. Of the 
 sorrow itself is born the joy. And then the atmo- 
 sphere of earth disappears altogether and there are 
 the stars. Perfumes, slumbering since the dews of 
 dawn were dried, breathe out again from the cen- 
 sers of a million flowers. It is dawn once more ; 
 the dawn of night and of the stars. From the twi- 
 light of the first dawn the earth shone forth. From 
 this twilight, Heaven." 
 
 And not many weeks afterwards, within a week 
 of each other, two funeral processions passed 
 through the crowds of the great city. One, with 
 
440 
 
 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 all the pomp of plumes and jet-black horses, mutes 
 and mourning coaches, and empty honorary car- 
 riages ; and within the house daughters divided 
 between filial regrets and millinery vexations, and 
 sons returning to the world through the vexed 
 channel of their father's will ; and one little crip- 
 pled child, creeping into her dead father's empty 
 room alone, to kneel down and weep beside the bed 
 she had so faithfully watched. 
 
 The other, attended by only one mourning coach, 
 with three mourners in it, but met at the grave 
 among the fields in the far-off country, by poor, 
 weeping people, with scraps of incongruous black 
 studiously added to their poor, patched, colorless 
 clothes, who had started early in the morning to 
 pay their last poor tribute of love and honor to the 
 friend of many years. 
 
 A few weeks more passed away, and one cold, 
 bitter day in a late spring, Dan, who had been 
 watching at the doorsteps of Maurice Bertram's 
 parsonage in the responsible capacity of parson's 
 man, announced to Fan, who had been watching at 
 the pantry window in the equally high responsible 
 capacity of housemaid, that Mrs. O'Brien's car- 
 riage was in sight, and Fan announced the same 
 fact to Winnie and Harry fluttering around the 
 tea-table in the library, and in a few minutes Mau- 
 rice led his bride over the threshold of their home 
 to Winnie's sisterly embrace, not, indeed, accord- 
 ing to Rosalie's threat, in white glace and Brussels 
 point, but in deep mourning, and with smiles of 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 441 
 
 welcome mingled with many irrepressible though 
 not bitter tears. 
 
 Then, after Winifred and Mrs. O'Brien had left, 
 and the household had been consecrated by the first 
 family prayer, and Maurice and Grace were alone 
 in the library, he opened the shutters, and they 
 stood together looking out through the falling snow 
 over the white streets, to the white roofs and win- 
 dow-sills of the opposite houses. 
 
 " My dove has come to me once more," he said, 
 " through the snow !" 
 
 And Grace, with her heart full of sacred memo- 
 ries as well as hopes, replied : 
 
 " And God will never let us forget that we are 
 still on the battlefield." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I HE light breeze of a summer morning 
 was occasionally stirring the Venetian 
 blinds in the half-darkened sick-room 
 where Mrs. Dee, during the last ten 
 weeks had been learning the existence and mean- 
 ing of " nerves," since the disastrous morning when 
 in hastily crossing the pavement from her carriage 
 to her house, her foot had slipped on a piece of 
 orange-peel, and she had sustained one of those 
 inexplicable "jars" which prove the terrible deli- 
 cacy with which our " harp of thousand strings " 
 is tuned. 
 
 " A most mysterious dispensation," said Mrs. 
 Dee's large circle of admiring friends and co-com- 
 mittee ladies ; " such an invaluable life, spent in 
 such incessant and self-denying usefulness ! If it 
 had been a railway accident, or the explo'sion of a 
 powder-magazine, one would not, perhaps, have 
 wondered so much but a scrap of orange-peel ! 
 Such a mission to be arrested by such a trifle ! 
 And actually in the very prosecution of her benevo- 
 
 (442) 
 
WINIFRED BERTRAM. 443 
 
 lent work; for she was returning from a school 
 committee." 
 
 Mrs. Dee's acquaintance felt very much perplexed 
 with " Providence " indeed, although of course 
 they were too polite to express themselves strongly 
 on the subject. 
 
 And " most mysterious " Mrs. Dee herself thought 
 it. Of course she had not looked for her reward in 
 this life. Who would, for labors such as hers ? 
 But a little consideration for the importance of such 
 labors as hers might perhaps have been expected. 
 It was not, even (which would not have been so 
 surprising), as if she had been set on a pedestal of 
 unprecedented suffering, as before on a pedestal of 
 unprecedented usefulness ; as if, after a life marvel- 
 ously displaying all the active virtues of an exalted. 
 Christian character, she had been called to a fiery 
 trial displaying as marvelously all its passive graces. 
 Such a termination might have been comprehensible. 
 What is a martyrdom, but the natural close of an 
 apostolate ? And the biographer of this excellent 
 and lamented lady, this " saint who had combined 
 in one unparalleled life the graces of a Martha and 
 a Mary, the gifts of a Deborah with the ministries 
 of a Phoebe, the ministries of a Pljrebe with the 
 patience of a Stephen, and who, finally, had only 
 escaped the translation of an Enoch or an Elijah 
 by the anachronism of being born in the nineteenth 
 century if indeed such a death could be called 
 less than a translation " might have added another 
 to the list of those sinless mortals whose histories 
 perplex tender consciences like Mrs. O'Brien, and 
 
444 WINNIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 (according to Lady Katharine), render entirely su- 
 perfluous any Papal sanction to the doctrine of an 
 Immaculate Conception. 
 
 The triviality of the orange-peel, even, need not 
 have marred this climax. It might, in ingenious 
 hands, have been rendered more effective than the 
 more vulgar and sensational incident of the powder 
 explosion. The explosion might immortalize any 
 insignificant mortal it exploded. But Mrs. Dee 
 would have immortalized the orange-peel. 
 
 No such glorification, however, was in store for 
 Mrs. Dee or the orange-peel. If her sufferings had 
 only been on a scale with her labors she felt sure 
 she could have borne them. If the medical men 
 had said among Mrs. Dee's friends, " the sufferings 
 of that exemplary woman are unparalleled. In all 
 the course of our medical experience we have not 
 encountered such a complication of injuries. Any 
 one of them would have surpassed ordinary powers 
 of endurance"-;- Mrs. Dee felt sure she could have 
 borne it. But there she lay, feeling every noise 
 and movement jar through her as if she had been 
 the violin of a maestro in the hands of a mischiev- 
 ous schoolboy ; while doctor after doctor assured 
 her there was nothing to be in the least alarmed 
 about, that her sensations were undoubtedly un- 
 pleasant, but that hundreds of their patients under- 
 went the same ; and meanwhile nurses and servants 
 murmured openly concerning " whims and fancies." 
 
 During those ten weeks she had worn out ten 
 successive nurses, until during the last week Mrs. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 445 
 
 Anderson had been persuaded to attempt the task. 
 And already, the calm strength of Mrs. Anderson's 
 character, and her watchful sympathy, testified not 
 so much by words as by little opportune kindnesses, 
 had begun to exercise a soothing control over the 
 sufferer. 
 
 On this particular morning, for the sixth time 
 that night, Mrs. Anderson was summoned from her 
 broken sleep on the sofa to Mrs. Dee's bedside. 
 
 " I am very sorry, Mrs. Anderson," said the poor 
 querulous voice, " but I cannot bear it any longer. 
 I have been trying for an hour not to mind it, but 
 the flapping of those blinds will drive me distracted. 
 Could you fasten them a little more firmly ?" 
 
 Mrs. Anderson's dexterous, strong fingers soon 
 effected this purpose ; and an expression of relief 
 came over the patient's face. 
 
 " Would it be very exacting," she said, " to ask 
 you to read to me a little ?" 
 
 And Mrs. Anderson read the fortieth Psalm, 
 
 " I waited patiently for the Lord." 
 
 When she ceased, Mrs. Dee was lying still, shed- 
 ding quiet tears. 
 
 " I cannot wait patiently for anything, Mrs. An- 
 derson," she said at length ; " I could have borne a 
 broken limb or any terrible operation. I feel sure 
 I could. But the trying thing in this is that there 
 seems so little to bear. I have lost the power to 
 endure anything. It is very mysterious." 
 
 " I think the Lord's dealings mostly are mysteri- 
 38 
 
446 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 ous, ma'am," said Mrs. Anderson ; " at least there 
 are a good many of them I can't see to the end 
 of yet. And I never could see the meaning 
 of any of them until I got on the other side of 
 them." 
 
 " You have had your troubles, no doubt," said 
 Mrs. Dee; a little disposed to resent her nurse's 
 trials being put on the same level with her own. 
 
 " A few, ma'am. And many's the time I've 
 fretted myself sick to try to read the meaning of 
 the Almighty's dispensations, while they were being 
 burned in on my heart. But I never could. So at 
 last I let it alone. For I consider it's my part not 
 to read the writing to see if it is right, but just to 
 bear the pain. It's the Lord Himself who has got 
 to engrave His commandments on the heart. And 
 He'll be sure to do it right. And when it's done, 
 I'll be sure to read it. And since then I've found 
 things easier." 
 
 " Ah !" said Mrs. Dee ; " if you had told me that 
 three months since, I should have made a note of 
 it, and repeated it to my Bible class. But now I 
 have to do it, and I can't. And it's so dishonoring 
 to God," she continued ; " it's enough to make 
 people think religion is all a delusion. Only think 
 of the doctors, and servants, and every one saying, 
 ' there's Mrs. Dee who could talk so well, and now 
 she hasn't patience to hear a blind flap !' It's very 
 mysterious that exactly the kind of suffering should 
 be laid on me that I cannot glorify my profession 
 by bearing patiently." i - 
 
 Mrs. Anderson was silent. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 447 
 
 "Don't you think it is very mysterious?" re- 
 peated Mrs. Dee. 
 
 " Well, ma'am," said Mrs. Anderson, medita- 
 tively, " I've generally found that my troubles did 
 come just in the way I didn't like." 
 
 " That is not at all what I mean," said Mrs. Dee, 
 a little offended ; " what we like or dislike is of 
 little moment. Of course, if we are to be tried we 
 must be tried in a way that is a trial. I have said 
 so hundreds of times. But I did expect tribulation 
 would have been sent me in a form which would 
 have enabled me to do credit to the cause of re- 
 ligion." 
 
 " Tell me honestly what you think," she resumed, 
 after a pause. % 
 
 " I'm but a plain-spoken body, ma'am, and words 
 are not like fingers ; you can never say precisely 
 where they'll touch, and I might be hurting you 
 without meaning it." 
 
 " Say what you think," said Mrs. Dee, " I hate 
 to be treated ceremoniously." 
 
 " Well, ma'am, I can only speak what I have 
 felt. It seems to me the Lord can take very good 
 care of the credit of His own cause, and if the 
 foolish bodies say ' what's the profit of being relig- 
 ious, when Mrs. Dee who spoke so well and did so 
 much, has not patience to bear a few restless nights ?' 
 there are others who will be remembering about 
 Stephen the martyr, and a good many since his 
 day who have suffered a thousand times as much 
 without a murmur ; and they will consider, maybe, 
 that if we are not always patient it's not the fault 
 
4<j.8 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 of the Almighty, nor of religion, but of ourselves, 
 poor feeble creatures that we are." 
 
 Mrs. Dee was silent. The words seemed to flash 
 a new light into her heart, and to reveal many 
 dusty corners there. And at first she was disposed 
 to be more angry with the light, or with the hand 
 that bore it, than with the dusty corners of her 
 heart. 
 
 " This comes of putting it into the power of 
 people of that kind to say impertinent things," she 
 said to herself. She lay still a minute, and then 
 said, distantly and coldly : 
 
 " I have no further occasion to disturb you, Mrs. 
 Anderson, at present. It is not yet five o'clock. 
 You had better lie down and rest, whether I can 
 or not." 
 
 And poor Mrs. Anderson, fearing she had blund- 
 ered out something harsh and inopportune, pondered 
 for a long time how she could pacify the patient 
 and justify herself. But being of that peculiar 
 species of human beings who grow dumb when self- 
 justification is needed, she could think of nothing 
 conciliatory to say, and after a brief prayer for 
 forgiveness, and for more wisdom in the future, she 
 fell asleep. 
 
 Just as Mrs. Anderson fell asleep the sun rose to 
 a point, from which, through a chink in the blind 
 his rays lighted up a glass lustre on the chimney- 
 piece into an instrument of torture for poor Mrs. 
 Dee, while at the same time a neighboring cat be- 
 gan to make demonstrations under the window. 
 For ten minutes, which seemed an hour, Mrs. Dee 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 449 
 
 bore this double fire, until she could endure no 
 longer, and then once more she aroused Mrs. An- 
 derson, saying : 
 
 " If that cat cannot be silenced, and the sun kept 
 out, the medical men may say what they like, but 
 my brain will not stand it." 
 
 A cascade from the water-ewer " dispersed " the 
 cat, and a shifting of the blind blotted out the daz- 
 zling prism from the lustre. 
 
 " I do wonder, Mrs. Anderson, I must confess, 
 that you could sleep through that horrible noise," 
 said Mrs. Dee, reproachfully ; " it is rather a dis- 
 advantage to a nurse to be a heavy sleeper." 
 
 Mrs. Anderson did not retort that the lightest 
 sleep might be made heavy by being continually 
 broken. Her heart was too full of pity and 
 self-reproach. * And before long Mrs. Dee made 
 the retort on herself, exclaiming with a burst of 
 tears : 
 
 " I am a poor, miserable, selfish creature. You 
 were right enough to say that all this peevishness 
 and impatience are not to be put down to religion, 
 but to me. It is better every one should know 
 what a humbug and a hypocrite I have been." 
 
 From bestowing on her infirmities the prettiest 
 " platform " titles, she fell into the other extreme 
 of befouling them with the ugliest names she could 
 think of. 
 
 Mrs. Anderson not being in the habit of keeping 
 
 an emotional diary was not aware that this was a 
 
 form of private penance. She accordingly thought 
 
 it was merely a little hysterical burst of temper, 
 
 38* 
 
450 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 and instead of spiritual consolation she adminis- 
 tered smelling-salts. 
 
 " You had better tell every one what a hypocrite 
 I am," pursued Mrs. Dee, bitterly ; " and then, at 
 all events, there will be no dishonor done to relig- 
 ion. A poor, wretched, noisy, empty, tinkling- 
 cymbal !" 
 
 " Ah !" said Mrs. Anderson, very tenderly, think- 
 ing she saw some light on the case. " My poor, 
 dear lady ! The adversary tried that device with 
 me too. And I believed him for many a long day. 
 But it's a lie. It's a cruel lie !" 
 
 " / am a lie. My life has been a lie," said Mrs. 
 Dee, gradually approaching a true, unexaggerated 
 confession. "At least much of it has. I have 
 spoken that I did not know. I have testified that I 
 had not seen. 1 have preached what I shall never 
 be able to practice." 
 
 " Never fear, ma'am. The good Lord'll be bet- 
 ter than all your fears and all the adversary's 
 threats. He'll strengthen you to be still and suffer, 
 and then He'll strengthen you to get up and speak, 
 as you never spoke before ; not from the heights 
 looking down on the world's sorrows and sins, but 
 from the depths, where the Lord meets us, and where 
 so many of the grandest psalms were sung. Isn't 
 one wo^rd tried in the fire worth a thousand ? 
 We're all idol-makers at the best, and idol-worship- 
 ers. When the Lord breaks our idol we make a 
 dozen out of the bits. And when He breaks our 
 very hearts, we'll take the rod He breaks them 
 with ; we'll take the poor shattered heart itself to 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 45 ! 
 
 make a pillar to lift ourselves upon, and say : * see, 
 was ever grief like mine ?' But the Lord loves us 
 too well to let us alone in our work. So he just 
 shatters us with some poor, little easy, ordinary 
 trouble that crumbles the very bits to dust, and 
 shows us nothing but how weak we are. And then 
 when we lie all bare and crushed, and nothing, He 
 comes and stands beside us in the dark, and says : 
 ' Why weepest thou ?' And at first we know Him 
 not. But then He calls us by name, tenderly, by 
 the poor name we have learned to think so mean, 
 as if it was still dear to Him. And we look round 
 and sea Him there Himself, and can say or sob noth- 
 ing but ' Master ! Master !' He is Master of us 
 altogether. And the idols are broken, and our 
 hearts are broken, and we have nothing, and we 
 are nothing. But we are rich as the angels, for we 
 have the Lord Himself." 
 
 Mrs. Dee said nothing in reply. A long silence 
 ensued, in which Mrs. Anderson sat appalled at 
 the length of her own speech, and fearing she had 
 wearied out her patient, while Mrs. Dee lay still, 
 for the first time for years applying a sermon, not 
 to her district or classes, or to this or that " incon- 
 sistent" person among her acquaintances, but to 
 herself. She was learning " the Divine art of learn- 
 ing." To her amazement, after teaching for years 
 the highest classes, with the highest approval, she 
 found herself learning on what seemed to her the 
 lowest form in the school. 
 
 Yet she was far from feeling altogether cast 
 down. A depth of meaning began to dawn on her 
 
45 2 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 in these elementary lessons which she had not 
 hitherto found in the most advanced. Glimpses of 
 grandeur and beauty began to dawn on her in many 
 a self-distrustful sufferer, and in many a despised 
 
 publican. 
 
 She began to feel, that if ever she were permitted 
 to go forth into the world again, it might look 
 higher and wider to her than ever it had before, 
 by so much as she felt herself lower and less. She 
 began to understand that there are a great many 
 things, human as well as Divine, that can only be 
 understood by looking up to them. 
 
 But such lessons take a long while learning. 
 For which reason Mrs. Dee's silences became long 
 and frequent. And it was chiefly by an increasing 
 gentleness of manner, and by the quiet interest 
 with which she listened to the histories of other 
 sufferers, that Mrs. Anderson gradually felt that 
 Mrs. Dee had fallen out of the ranks of the Rabbis, 
 into the company of the " little children." 
 
 It cannot be, Mr. Bertram. I am sure it would 
 not be right," said Grace Leigh. " You do not 
 know my father as I do. You cannot. I know it 
 would be like breaking up his life. Indeed it must 
 not be." 
 
 She was sitting on a low chair by her mother's 
 little work-table, with her work beside her, and her 
 hands clasped on her knees. 
 
 " I know you must have really decided before 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 453 
 
 you gave me your answer," Maurice said ; " yet let 
 me say one word more. Could not our home be- 
 come as homelike to Mr. Leigh as this? And 
 could you not trust me to share your care for him ?" 
 " You do not know him as I do," she persisted. 
 " You did not see the look of peace which came 
 over his face each time we returned from Combe. 
 The first time he looked brighter than I ever saw 
 him since my mother died, and he said with such a 
 smile : ' Oh, Gracie, there is no place like home !' 
 And this time, though he did not look quite so 
 bright because he is not yet, you know, quite well, 
 he seemed to feel it such a rest to be here again. 
 He looked with such a quiet satisfaction round the 
 room, and inspected all the old familiar things. 
 And he said : ' Promise me, Gracie, you will never 
 try to take me away again, at least not for my 
 good.' I said, we must attend to what the doctors 
 said. But he said : ' They may say what they like, 
 I shall never be as well or as happy anywhere on 
 earth as here. Promise me not to make any loving 
 little plots to get me away. It is of no use, and 
 it makes me feel like a drifting weed.' And I 
 promised him to plan nothing except he knew all 
 about it, all through, and really wished it himself. 
 And could I ask him to leave for my sake ? He 
 would not make a difficulty if he thought I had the 
 least want or wish for anything. For me to ask 
 him for what might break his heart to grant would 
 be just to take it from him. He would never let 
 me see one reproachful look. But I should see him 
 droop, and suffer, and how could I bear that ?" 
 
454 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 A gleam of hope came over Maurice's face at the 
 half-implied .admission that her father's happiness 
 was the only consideration that made an obstacle, 
 and he said : 
 
 " You may be right. You must be right, if you 
 feel always as you do now. But give me the faint- 
 est hope that one day you might think otherwise ; 
 that if you could see any way in which Mr. Leigh's 
 happiness could be consulted without destroying 
 mine, you would think over your decision again. 
 If you could "give me the faintest hope of your 
 being what you could be, and you only in the world 
 to me, and I would come and go as if I had never 
 spoken these words to you." 
 
 She hesitated and looked down for a minute. 
 Then looking up at him with the clear truthful eyes 
 no one could ever doubt, she said : 
 
 "I cannot, Mr. Bertram. How could I? How 
 could I feel honest with my father, if I had a con- 
 cealment from him in the innermost corner of my 
 heart ? I could not live a day like that. I should 
 feel as if I were deceiving him, and although I 
 might be doing it for his happiness, I could never 
 bear it. His trust and his tender thoughtfulness 
 for me would sting me to the heart if I felt I was 
 secretly leaning on any one in the world but on 
 him, or looking for my happiness in any time, how- 
 ever far off, to any but to him. Besides," she 
 added, " I could never let you sacrifice your life to 
 such a dream." 
 
 He said quietly that her permission or prohib- 
 ition would make no difference in this but only in 
 
. THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 455 
 
 his hope; that having found the very best, the 
 reality of all his visions, it was simply impossible 
 for his heart ever to turn from it more. And then 
 he took leave, and slowly went out of the house, 
 and with a heart not a little cast down, re-entered 
 his parsonage and locked himself into his study. 
 
 " A just Nemesis," he said bitterly to himself, 
 " for my ever mistaking the false for the true. And 
 yet," he continued, rising from these self-reproaches 
 to a truer feeling, " if ever love was true on earth, 
 mine is for Grace. And nothing can or shall pre- 
 vent my caring all my life for her and her happi- 
 ness, more than for anything on earth, and watch- 
 ing to turn aside every possible trial and distress 
 from her, although I must do it unknown, and 
 unregarded, and unrewarded by word or look." 
 
 Yet just then a bewildering sunbeam of hope 
 broke in on his thoughts. " She said she could not 
 ask her father ! But if she were altogether indif- 
 ferent, could she not tell him all quite naturally and 
 easily !" 
 
 This avenue of thought led far, but suddenly he 
 turned resolutely from it, for it seemed to him 
 almost a treachery to creep by any bypath to the 
 glimpse of a hope she had refused to allow. " No," 
 he thought, " she is true to her innermost heart, 
 and I will be true to her commands in mine. I 
 witl not in my secret thoughts admit a hope she 
 does not sanction." 
 
 But when the sun is risen it is hard, by the most 
 resolute foldings of drapery, to make the day quite 
 like night. The faintest pencil of a sunbeam is so 
 
456 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 much stronger than all the bolts and bars of dark- 
 ness. 
 
 ("Exaggerated! uber spannt ! n Lady Katharine 
 would have said, had she known of this. " Exactly 
 what I always felt to be Grace's weak point ! Con- 
 science getting the better of common sense. In 
 Lady Jane Grey's position, for instance, Grace, and 
 nine-tenths of the good women in the world, would 
 have made Lady Jane's mistake ; that is, gone and 
 done precisely the wrong thing precisely because 
 she didn't like it. But as to Maurice, I have no 
 patience with him. Men ought to know better, 
 even good men (who always, by the way, do more 
 wrong-headed things than any one else). Be true 
 to Grace's commands in his innermost heart ! arrant 
 Quixotic nonsense. He should have gone direct to 
 Mr. Leigh at once, and everything and every one 
 would have been set right in half an hour." 
 
 However, Lady Katharine knew nothing of the 
 matter until long afterwards, which may partly 
 account for the good sense of her remarks. Critics 
 of all kinds of battlefields have such a great advan- 
 tage over combatants as to clearness of vision; 
 especially when the smoke and the din have van- 
 ished, and the battle is lost or won.) 
 
 Meantime Grace sat some minutes, quite still, 
 where Maurice left her. 
 
 " If it had been possible !" she thought, but did 
 not even in thought follow the possibility to a con- 
 clusion, " for it is not possible," was her conviction. 
 "And I am true to my father in my innermost 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 457 
 
 heart," she said to herself. " I do choose with my 
 whole heart to liVe for him, and only for him. I 
 can meet his smile with a smile from my whole 
 heart. I am sure I can. I will. I can feel it the 
 happiest thing, in the world to work for him and 
 Harry, and to make his home home-like and bright. 
 I always did, and I shall still. I will. I need not 
 tell father anything about it, I am sure, because-j- 
 because there is nothing to tell. My whole heart 
 belongs to him and to Harry as much as ever it did. 
 My happiness is in the old home as much as ever it 
 was. Of course, I cannot help being sorry for Mr. 
 Bertram. But he is so good and true, all must be 
 right for him. But it will be wonderfully happy 
 for the woman whose duty it is to love him as he 
 ought to be loved !" 
 
 And persuaded as Grace felt that her father and 
 Harry and their home, were as much her all and 
 her happiness as ever, some shadows would drop 
 heavily over the sunny pictures she tried to make. 
 The struggle ended in a retreat to her room and an 
 overwhelming flood of tears, which she tried hard 
 to check, but failed: partly because the hidden 
 source from which they sprang was the one point 
 she dared not approach, and partly Jbecause she 
 attempted too much, not merely to assuage the 
 waters, but to bring back the sunshine. At length 
 she effected a compromise and tacit truce with her- 
 self, concluding : " It is not necessary to be happy 
 about everything. It is only necessary to do right 
 and to be sure God is doing right with us. He 
 will take care of the happiness." 
 39 
 
458 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 The autumn and winter of that year passed away 
 with little incident either at Combe Monachorum 
 or at the Cedars, or in Grace Leigh's world in the 
 east of London. 
 
 Miss Betsy Lovel's cataract was slowly advanc- 
 ing towards the complete blindness which was to 
 be the signal of deliverance. Miss Lavinia's 
 strength was steadily increasing, and from time to 
 time she sent memorials of her walks to Grace in 
 the form of dried flowers, or sea-weeds from green, 
 cool banks and tide-washed pools, well known to 
 both. To Miss Betsy's chagrin, Miss Lavinia could 
 not be induced to prosecute her landscape painting. 
 It was so difficult to her to adapt her conventional 
 grays and browns, and her various symbolical 
 "touches" for trees and herbage, to the very 
 unconventional and irregular trees and ferns and 
 grasses ; the fresh and tender greens and blues of 
 the hills, and the translucent emeralds and ame- 
 thysts of the sea around Combe, that after a few 
 disappointing efforts, she gave up the struggle, and 
 sagaciously determined for the future to look and 
 enjoy out-of-doors, and to paint in-doors. By this 
 means many perplexing contrasts of form and color 
 were evaded, and her respect for the instructor of 
 her youth was made compatible with her delight 
 in a nature dissenting schismatically from his prin- 
 ciples of art. His sketches, she concluded, must 
 have been made in some peculiarly-tinted foreign 
 country, where the meadows had too much respect 
 for the sun, or the color-box, to persist in unattaina- 
 ble greens, and where the trees were highly respect- 
 
TEE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 459 
 
 able, and clothed themselves in decent browns, and 
 ranged themselves in appropriate attitudes for fore- 
 grounds. 
 
 Either this, or there must be an " artistic " way 
 of seeing the world, and an ordinary human way. 
 Miss Lavinia, therefore, not being able to attain to 
 the high artistic point of vie wf* contented herself 
 with coloring like her drawing-master, and seeing 
 like other people. 
 
 She took endless delight on the other hand in 
 reviving certain faint beginnings of LinnaBan bot- 
 any, and in two books about ferns and sea-weeds, 
 which Lady Katharine lent her. Arid great as Miss 
 Betsy considered the fall from landscape art to such 
 childish amusements, she was consoled by witness- 
 ing the health and pleasure her sister was gaining 
 every day in searching among the treasure-houses 
 of these " riches " of God. More than one old 
 woman and sick child, moreover, Miss Lavinia 
 found to read the Bible to, while Miss Betsy took 
 comfort in reviving traditional receipts for possets 
 and cough mixtures, which greatly increased the 
 respect entertained towards her in the village, and 
 by the housekeeper at the Abbey. Nevertheless, 
 the hearts of the sisters remained true to the old 
 home in the east of London, and by far the larger 
 portions of Miss Lavinia's letters (to say nothing , 
 of the reiterated P. SS.) were occupied with in- 
 quiries about the maids-of-all-work, past and present, 
 at the lodgings, Mr. Leigh's health and sermons, 
 Caleb Treherne, Mrs. Anderson, and other matters 
 connected with the district. 
 
460 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Mrs. Anderson herself, meanwhile, had begun 
 quietly working under Mrs. O'Brien's superintend- 
 ence, among the poor she had been so long ac- 
 quainted with in her own neighborhood ; finding 
 out, as it would scarcely have been possible for Mrs. 
 O'Brien to have done, the true cases of distress 
 from the false, anorhe people to whom alms might 
 be a priceless bridge over a temporary difficulty 
 from those to whom they would have been merely 
 a further step in the descent to helpless and hope- 
 less pauperism. 
 
 Gradually, moreover, as with all good works that 
 have root in themselves and life from above, one 
 benevolent plan grew out of another. For instance, 
 a home for destitute orphan children, not so large 
 as to cease to be home, nor for individual character 
 and affection to be lost in the necessary routine of 
 a great institution ; and a cottage where the sick 
 enjoyed fresh air and nourishing food and the luxury 
 of being cared for during those weeks of convalesc- 
 ence which so often decide whether the patient re- 
 turns to life with renewed strength and spirit, or 
 sinks into permanent feebleness and depression. 
 And as in all things of natural growth, these works 
 of love all fitted into and filled out each other ; the 
 orphan children waiting on the sick women, and 
 thus being themselves trained for their work in 
 life, while more evils were avoided which spring 
 from any one class or age being unnaturally secluded 
 to itself. 
 
 Many also were the ways in which Winnie could 
 share in Mrs. O'Brien's work, so that she began to 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 461 
 
 lose her fear that the door of the Expanding Palace 
 which could only be kept open by going out to 
 serve and welcoming others within, would ever 
 again be closed. 
 
 Lady Katharine, on* one of her flying visits, saw 
 and rejoiced. 
 
 " Ah," she said, " if we would only each of us 
 take care of the little bit of waste ground around 
 us, there would be no need (as unhappily there now 
 is !) of almshouses, where isolated old women worry 
 each other into the grave, or for gigantic asylums 
 where little children are squared and squeezed into 
 uniform little blocks of humanity, only to be dis- 
 tinguished by size !" 
 
 " In that case," Maurice replied, " perhaps there 
 need have been only one institution and one asylum 
 in the world, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church. And that would be a Family and a Home. 
 But we are some little way off from that yet." 
 
 " But Grace Leigh," said Winnie one day to 
 Maurice, " is best off of us all. It seems as if, for 
 her, the gates opened into all the Five Worlds at 
 once. For everything she learns and sees and 
 imagines is consecrated to the service of other 
 people. Religion and art and serving others, seem 
 all one for Grace. She is doing the very highest 
 thing any one can do just in doing little loving 
 home-duties. Don't you think, Maurice, there is 
 no one's life so good and happy as Grace's ?" 
 
 Happily for Maurice, when Winnie was. pursuing 
 a track of her own, she was often too eager- about 
 it to watch how it affected other people^ There- 
 39* 
 
462 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 fore she did not observe his silence, but before he 
 could decide what to reply, she continued : 
 
 " If it would only last for ever, Maurice ! But 
 auntie says Mr. Leigh looks more and more feeble 
 every time he comes here for his Monday holiday, 
 once a month. And if his voice should break down 
 again, what would Grace do ? I began once to 
 speak to her about it, but she did not seem to like 
 to dwell on it. She only said he would rest a little 
 while again, but she hoped he would not need it. 
 But her voice trembled ; and when I ventured to ask 
 her what she would do if she herself were ill again, 
 she only laughed and said she was the toughest 
 person in the world, and had never been ill in her 
 life except that once, and she often thought that 
 instead of Campbell's last man, she should be the 
 last woman. But then," continued Winnie, " her 
 face suddenly changed, and she looked at me so 
 earnestly and said : * Indeed, I don't think father 
 is worse ; Harry and I both think he is stronger 
 than he usually is in the autumn. And I think no 
 one can judge as well as Harry and I.' But she 
 did not ask me what auntie or any one else thought. 
 And I did not dare to say anything more. Do you 
 think she could have been afraid to ask, Maurice ? 
 or do you think I ought to have told her ?" 
 
 " I think not. No, certainly not," said Maurice ; 
 " only if Aunt Cecil likes to ask them, it might do 
 Mr. Leigh good to spend a week or two here at 
 Christmas. I shall have to be in the country just 
 then," he added, rather carelessly. Winnie thought 
 and wondered. 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 463 
 
 Grace had indeed quite given up asking people 
 how they thought Mr. Leigh looking. She could 
 so often see what they would have answered hy the 
 expression of their faces ; and people who only saw 
 him occasionally (she persuaded herself) forgot 
 how he looked when they saw him last, and natu- 
 rally thought him worse than he really was. For 
 he did always now look rather white and feeble, 
 Grace admitted to herself. But only she and Harry 
 could perceive the little improvements in appetite 
 and spirits, or' in power of walking or studying, 
 from day to day. Besides, had he not been able to 
 read the Church service morning and evening, and 
 to preach in the afternoon every Sunday, without 
 intermission, since their return from Combe ? 
 
 So the months passed quietly on, until the close 
 of the year came, and the day for the annual visit 
 to Cousin Felix. 
 
 Mr. Leigh had, more than once, during the year, 
 contrived to call, and had found opportunities for a 
 few minutes' quiet talk with little Maud, so that he 
 and the child had a complete mutual understanding, 
 and the smile of welcome which lit up her whole 
 countenance when she saw him, quite warmed the 
 chill atmosphere of the house for Mr. Leigh. 
 
 On this occasion the Hunter family were more 
 unapproachable in their various forms of state than 
 ever. Mr. Hunter had bought a mansion and estate 
 in one of the western counties near Combe Mona- 
 chorum, and had that autumn astonished the natives 
 by a magnificence which threw the Abbey and the 
 Wyses quite into the shade. 
 
464 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 The boys incensed Harry by informing him that 
 the young Wyses were "muffs," and that Lady 
 Katharine was a " screw," as (in another sense) was 
 every horse in her stables. Indeed, no man who 
 had the least idea what a horse should be, would, 
 they asserteil, be seen behind that disreputable old 
 pair of grays, which Lady Katharine drove. But, 
 of course, they conceded, women could not be ex- 
 pected to understand such things. Beyond Lady 
 Katharine's stables, the Hunter family did not as 
 yet appear to have penetrated. 
 
 " The truth was (Alicia told Grace) that those 
 decaying old country families are dying with envy 
 at the superior elegance of papa's establishment, 
 and endeavor, mamma says, to hide their mortifica- 
 tion under an affectation of indifference or con- 
 tempt." 
 
 From which it might perhaps be gathered that 
 the reception of the Felix Hunters in the West 
 Country had not corresponded to what Cousin 
 Felix called their due and becoming sense of their 
 own position and character. 
 
 From Mr. and Mrs. Hunter not a word dropped 
 to lead to any conclusion of the kind. 
 
 Mr. Hunter expatiated to Mr. Leigh on the ex- 
 cellences of his estate, and on the immense advan- 
 tage it would be to that old-fashioned country 
 neighborhood to have a man introduced into it 
 who understood what the nineteenth century was, 
 who would initiate it into the mysteries of steam 
 ploughing and threshing, drain the low lands, en- 
 close and subsoil the wastes, and, in short, give the 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 465 
 
 inhabitants generally an idea of what could be done 
 with land by a man of progress who looked on it, 
 not as a mere ancestral position, but as an invest- 
 ment. 
 
 Mrs. Hunter observed to Grace, in her loftiest 
 manner, that Deerham Park would be a very 
 'pleasant retreat for people who like themselves 
 would of course spend the season in London, or 
 some portion of each year on the Continent. It had 
 been the residence of Lord Newmarket, she re- 
 marked, in passing, and Lord Newmarket's house- 
 keeper, who would remain with them, had observed 
 that the Wyses were respected in the neighbor- 
 hood as very good kind of people, although, natu- 
 rally, not living in the style they were accustomed 
 to at Deerham Park. 
 
 Mrs. Hunter also regretted that this would be the 
 last year they should see Grace and her father at 
 Bedford Square. It had, however, long been a trial 
 to her to be imprisoned in a part of the town where 
 none of her " set " felt at home. And Mr. Hunter 
 had just concluded a negotiation for the purchase 
 of a house in Belgravia, to which, she was afraid, it 
 would hardly be a kindness to ask poor dear Mr. 
 Leigh to come, so delicate as he seemed to be, on 
 account of the distance. 
 
 Grace might have consoled Mrs. Hunter by 
 assuring her that Belgravia was not as far from the 
 East of London as the Cedars, but that the distance 
 in that case was made no obstacle by means of Mrs. 
 O'Brien's carriage. But retort was not at all in 
 Grace's way. Indeed, almost the only part of Mrs. 
 
466 . WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Hunter's discourse which made any impression on 
 her was the fact that one person more evidently 
 thought her father looking out of health. An im- 
 pression deepened to an overwhelming conviction 
 when little Maud said, as they were going away, 
 with great tears in her eyes : 
 
 " Oh, Cousin Grace, I have been knitting a little 
 comforter for dear Mr. Leigh's throat. Do you 
 think he might wear it on Sunday evenings when 
 he comes out of church ? The churches get so hot, 
 and Mr. Leigh looks " 
 
 But there either little Maud's tears, or a glimpse 
 she caught of Grace's face stopped her, and it was 
 not till after some moments' silence that she 
 resumed : 
 
 " You won't think it strange or interfering of me, 
 Cousin Grace ? I know you do everything any one 
 could possibly do, or think of, for Mr. Leigh. But 
 I thought perhaps you might not have thought ot 
 the comforter. And if you have, I should be very 
 much obliged if Mr. Leigh would wear mine some- 
 times. Mr. Leigh has been so very good to me," 
 said the poor child, " and I do love him so very 
 dearly." 
 
 When, after the long silent kiss with which the 
 cousins parted, Grace looked back again at Maud, 
 it sent a terrible pang to her heart to see the wist- 
 ful look with which she followed Mr. Leigh. And 
 she felt drawn back by it as if by a spell to give 
 one more kiss to the little suffering creature who 
 loved her father so well. 
 
 " Cousin Grace," little Maud then whispered 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 467 
 
 timidly, " the house in Belgravia is not so very far 
 from the river, they say, and there are steamboats 
 on the river, are there not? Do you think Mr. 
 Leigh could ever come and pay me one of his little 
 visits ? They do help me more than anything in 
 the world. But not, if it would tire Mr. Leigh, 
 Cousin Grace, you know, not for the world ! " 
 
 * With, one more kiss and a conditional promise 
 Grace went away, and this time she did not venture 
 to look back again. 
 
 The three walked silently away from Bedford 
 Square that night. 
 
 " Your Cousin Felix is a remarkable man, Grace,," 
 said Mr. Leigh at length, " really a very remarkable 
 man. Such indomitable energy and perseverance ! 
 Naturally, such a man must succeed. What a use- 
 ful life his has been 1 He reminded me to-night, as 
 we were going over the past, that he had founded 
 or begun to found an Hospital and an Orphan 
 Asylum. And he talks of restoring the church in 
 the parish where his new place is, an'd of quite re- 
 modeling the board of guardians. No one can say 
 the amount of good he may do in that parish, with 
 his energy, and his means. A useful life ! indeed a 
 very remarkable life ! " concluded Mr. Leigh, re- 
 cognizing by a sigh the contrast which Mr. Hunter 
 had been implying throughout those impressive 
 fragments of his autobiography which he had been 
 recapitulating to his meek and patient guest. 
 
 Grace attempted no debate with her father. But 
 Harry, panting for an outlet to his long pent-up 
 indignation, . exclaimed : 
 
468 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " I think Cousin Felix is a Pharisee, and Cousin 
 Hunters are every one of them snobs, and Mrs. 
 Hunter," concluded Harry hunting through his not 
 very extensive resources of imagery for a simile, 
 expressive enough " Mrs. Hunter is the frog in 
 ^Esop's fables." 
 
 " Harry, Harry ! " said Mr. Leigh. " Judge not, 
 and ye shall not be judged." 
 
 " I do not judge, father," said Harry, writhing 
 from beneath what he felt to be an amiable misap- 
 plication of the text. " I only feel ! And I can't 
 help it ! They actually pretend to look down on 
 Lady Katharine, and Grace and you," said he, 
 advancing to what, in his loyal eyes was a climax 
 of enormities. " And 1 can't stand it, and I won't. 
 It's a disgrace to have them for -cousins. And I 
 wish I need never speak to one of them again, ex- 
 cept little Maud, of course ; poor good dear little 
 Maud," he added in a softened tone. 
 
 " Poor dear little Maud," said Grace, seizing the 
 first favorable turning. " She loves you so dearly, 
 father 1 She says no one in the world ever helped 
 her as you have." 
 
 "And that alone is better than founding ten 
 thousand of Cousin Felix's Hospitals and Orphan 
 Asylums. I have no doubt," pursued Harry, 
 " they give cheap broth and scraps to those wretch- 
 ed orphans ; and that in that Hospital the nurses 
 drink brandy, and starve the patients, as I saw they 
 do, the other day, in the paper. When I am a 
 doctor, won't I get appointed to that Hospital of 
 Cousin Felix's, and see all about it and write to 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 469 
 
 the Times, and have the poor creatures set right ! " 
 concluded Harry, waxing eloquent in his imaginary 
 defense of the imaginary wrongs of his patients 
 that were to be. 
 
 Mr. Leigh was appalled at Harry's vehemence 
 but he simply said : 
 
 " You will find a good many other things to set 
 right first, Harry, on your way." 
 
 The next day brought two letters from Combe. 
 One was in the conventional handwriting of Miss 
 Lavinia's school-days, the letters neatly constructed 
 to be as nearly like each other as was consistent 
 with any possibility of being read, as if it had been 
 their first vocation in life to look elegant, and quite 
 a secondary one to be understood; a graceful 
 obscurity which was further deepened by every 
 page being crossed, Miss Lavinia never having been 
 able experimentally to realize the fact of the penny 
 postage. 
 
 The letter, however, gave great delight to Grace. 
 
 " They are coming back, father," she said. 
 " They are coming back. They want us to take 
 lodgings for them at once. Miss Betsy's eyes are 
 ready for the operation. They seem so glad to 
 come, and won't it be delightful to have them here 
 again ? " 
 
 " Lady Katharine wants us to return," the letter 
 concluded, " and it does, I am afraid, seem very un- 
 grateful not to wish to come back to such a pretty 
 home as she has provided for us. But we are two 
 foolish old people, and I do want to see Caleb 
 40 
 
4.70 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 Treherne about some of those neglected girls ; and 
 Betsy says she is very sorry to grieve Lady Kath- 
 arine, but if she recovers her sight she does not 
 think she could bear to live in a place where she 
 has nothing to do, and nobody to manage. And 
 we do both want so very much to hear Mr. Leigh 
 preach again. I never shall find anything help me 
 like those afternoon sermons of his. Nor will 
 Betsy." 
 
 Grace's voice trembled perceptibly as she read 
 those words, for her father could scarcely speak 
 above a whisper that morning, and she was in 
 terror as to what could be done for the next 
 Sunday. 
 
 The other letter was from Lady Katharine, in a 
 large bold hand, which seemed to have no other 
 purpose but to be written quickly and read easily, 
 the first purpose occasionally prevailing over the 
 second. It began : 
 
 " MY DEAR GRACE I don't make at all a good 
 old fairy. My perverse proteges persist in mistak- 
 ing me for the wicked old fairy, regarding my fairy 
 palaces as dreadful fairy-prisons, where, having 
 oe witched my victims into strange unwonted 
 shapes, I shut them up in cages, and expect them 
 to sing gratefully for my amusement, as if they 
 enjoyed it. Two of these victims are at this 
 moment escaping from these malicious spells. They 
 insist on abandoning their cage, and resuming their 
 former mode of life, in spite of all my persuasions, 
 and all the sugar and gilding I have lavished on the 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 47 1 
 
 cage. But what hurts my feelings most of all is 
 that I suspect you and Mr. Leigh of being my 
 
 counter magicians. 
 
 " Seriously, dear Grace, it is very hard that the 
 friends of a solitary old woman like me will prefer 
 being troubled in their own way to being happy in 
 mine. But I give up the contest. Willfulness was 
 the first sin, and will be the last, our new curate 
 says ; and even in myself, I confess I can detect just 
 those few faint traces of its presence which are 
 necessary to give one a sympathy with fallen hu- 
 manity so that, for instance, it might at this mo- 
 ment be dangerous to the Miss Lovels and to you, 
 were I a despotic monarch, or the majority in a 
 Republic. 
 
 " But now, Grace, be reasonable, and make the 
 Miss Lovels understand that it is in some way 
 essential to my happiness that you should take for 
 them the most comfortable lodgings you can find, 
 near you. Say I have the distribution of a fund 
 instituted in the days of Arthur Pendragon for the 
 especial benefit of the daughters of naval and 
 marine officers. Say I expect Miss Betsy to repay 
 me the debt to the last farthing, with compound 
 interest, in the millennium ; and as our new curate 
 says the millennium is to begin either in October 
 1867, or in January 1876, really the investment is 
 scarcely a speculation ! But whatever you say or 
 do, make that dear fidgetty old gentlewoman com- 
 fortable until the operation. I have settled about 
 that, already, with the oculist. Afterwards, a willful 
 woman must have her way. But I also have my 
 
472 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 plans. And time only will prove who this willful 
 woman is: Miss Betsy Lovel, or you you meek 
 little despot or your affectionate old friend, 
 
 " KATHARINE WYSE. 
 
 " 1ST.B. I enclose a letter to "be delivered to Miss 
 Lovel in case of the operation proving successful, 
 and her thereupon proposing to resume her school." 
 
 Grace simply engaged the required lodgings and 
 took Miss Betsy and Miss Lavinia thither, on their 
 arrival in London, telling them that Lady Katharine 
 insisted on their still being her guests. 
 
 Miss Betsy patiently submitted and Miss Lavinia 
 thankfully acquiesced, and thus matters rested until 
 the operation. 
 
 The couching of the cataract was perfectly suc- 
 cessful, and after the few prescribed weeks of sub- 
 sequent inaction, as soon as Miss Betsy was per- 
 mitted to use her eyes again, Grace found her one 
 morning busy writing circulars to inform the 
 parents of her former pupils of her intention to re- 
 open the academy for young ladies. "I should 
 prefer calling it a girls' school," she said, " but I 
 suppose we must yield to vulgar prejudices." 
 
 Miss Betsy was evidently trying hard to take a 
 cheerful view of things, yet it was equally evident 
 that desponding thoughts would intrude them- 
 selves as -she prepared to recommence the old life- 
 long struggle with advancing years, and a terribly 
 progressive age. 
 
 "I do wish sometimes," she said, "I had been 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 473 
 
 gifted with a taste for teaching, or that there were 
 anything else for poor gentlewomen to do." 
 
 Grace concluded that the moment had arrived for 
 producing Lady Katharine's enclosed letter. 
 
 Miss Betsy read it through, with quivering lips 
 and a deepening color. But as she laid it down, 
 an expression of hope and joyful determination 
 beamed over her whole countenance. 
 
 " Lady Katharine need not have apologised," she 
 said, " or tried to make it easier for me, by saying 
 it is what she would have liked herself. My pride 
 is not of that kind. I will go and see Mrs. Dee 
 about it to-morrow. They want us to undertake 
 the superintendence of a training school for nurses," 
 she added in explanation, " with a small orphanage 
 and servants' training school, in which Lavinia 
 would help as well. It is to be in Mr. Bertram's 
 parish ; Mrs. Dee and Mrs. Anderson have been 
 arranging the details with Lady Katharine. And 
 to prepare me for it, I must myself be trained in 
 one of the Hospitals. It will be new life to Lavinia. 
 And as to her accomplishments being thrown away," 
 concluded Miss Betsy, with a final little fling at 
 the century, " why, they are thrown away on such 
 an age and in such a neighborhood as this. It 
 will be quite a comfort to withdraw them from a 
 world so little capable of appreciation. Only think, 
 instead of teaching girls who ought to be at the 
 National Schools, things they don't appreciate, and 
 have no right to learn of spending one's life in 
 helping to make sick people comfortable, seeing 
 that the nurses obey the doctors, and training ser- 
 40* 
 
474 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 vants to do their work, as not one in a hundred 
 knows how to do it, in these days ! And only think 
 of Lavinia actually having her poor maids-of-all- 
 work under her own roof to comfort, and teach, 
 and help, with me beside her to see she doesn't 
 spoil them." 
 
 And Mifs Betsy's eyes kindled with hope, not 
 the less because her military soul foresaw enough of 
 wholesome discipline and conflict in the future to 
 keep her true British blood healthily stirring. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Leigh's health slowly declined 
 from stage to stage ; yet he himself was the only 
 one of the little family party who indulged in no 
 delusions as to his state. So much of his life, from 
 character as well as from circumstances, had been 
 passive ; so much of his inward conflicts had arisen 
 from indecision how far it was his duty to suffer, 
 and how far to contend, that now, when he was 
 called, plainly and only, to suffer, half his trials 
 were over. In suffering, his whole nature seemed 
 to rise into action. So entire was his acquiescence 
 that mere endurance became glorified into sacrifice. 
 His will not merely submitted to all the trials laid 
 on him, but actively embraced the will of God, " re- 
 joicing in tribulation." Life, for him, had long had 
 in it so much of " dying daily," that Death appeared 
 to him as the conscious beginning of eternal living. 
 Life had, for him, had in it so much that was pas- 
 sive that death presented itself as a sacred willing 
 act. He had so long endeavored to resign his will 
 to the will of God, that the last act of commending 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 475 
 
 his spirit into the hands of God seemed to him no 
 strange plunge into a fathomless- chasm, but simply 
 the last step of a long but necessary descent, after 
 which the next step would be upward. 
 
 Moreover, his relations with Grace underwent a 
 gradual transformation. So long he had, uncon- 
 sciously, been leaning on her; so long it had been 
 her one aim to fulfill her mother's dying wish that 
 she should take care of him and Harry, that they 
 neither of them marked the moment when all this 
 was changed; when, as they went down together 
 to the edge of that gulf which one only was to 
 cross, the sufferer became the supporter, and the 
 heart that had turned so instinctively to her for 
 comfort and strength, began at length to give in- 
 stead of receiving. 
 
 " Grade," he said one evening, when Harry was 
 out, "I have not done half for you and Harry I 
 could have wished. But perhaps I have done 
 nearly all I could, and what God willed. I have 
 had one concealment from you darling, which it is 
 time I should tell you of. Out of that sum I took 
 for pocket money, I have always paid an insurance 
 on my life. It is but little Grace. It is for a 
 thousand pounds. But it will enable you to set 
 Harry going, and perhaps leave a little to be in- 
 vested to help out your income by-and-by. And 
 for the rest Harry must work. Remember, Grace, 
 it will be Harry's greatest safeguard to work for 
 you. It brings nothing of what you dread really 
 nearer, Gracie," he concluded (seeing her turn away 
 her head), "to speak of it." 
 
476 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 " Oil father," she. said, trying to control herself, 
 "I know you cannot dread it. You cannot help 
 wishing to go. But it is so dreadful to think things 
 must go on, when every thing is over for me." 
 
 " Not every thing, darling," he said, taking her 
 hand. "Remember, there is Harry. You must 
 bring him to us to your mother and me. But 
 never forget, Gracie, work will be Harry's safe- 
 guard. You must let him feel he has to work for 
 you. I know," he added, tenderly, " what you like 
 best. You would like to be a Providence for all 
 you love, and to work yourself to death to enable 
 them to live in ease. But remember that would be 
 Harry's ruin. Nothing will help him more to grow 
 into a true Christian man, than to feel he has a 
 home to make for you. I spoke to him once about 
 it. And by the look of resolution that came over 
 his face, and by the way he has worked at his 
 lessons since, I know he will do it, and in doing it, 
 will grow what he should be. And now, Gracie," 
 he concluded, " I want to see Mr. Bertram. He has 
 not been here much lately. I suppose he is more 
 and more occupied in his parish. But I want to 
 ask him to be a trustee to manage that little pro- 
 perty for you and Harry." 
 
 "No, father, please not," said Grace, coloring 
 beyond all control, " could you not ask ask ask 
 Cousin Felix," she suggested, in desperation. " Is 
 it not better to have such things in one's own 
 family." 
 
 " Gracie," said Mr. Leigh, very gravely and 
 softly, after some moments' silence. " Remember I 
 
THE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 477 
 
 am mother and father to you. You would not, I 
 am sure, be so unjust to me as to have any conceal- 
 ments on any grounds from me." 
 
 She hesitated an instant, and then, looking down 
 with a face in which all the sudden color of the 
 minute before had faded, she said, " Father ! I 
 could not, I could never have left you. And if I 
 had told you, you would perhaps have thought I 
 wished to go, and not have allowed me to give Mr. 
 Bertram the answer I did." 
 
 " But Gracie," said Mr. Leigh smiling a little, as 
 he looked at her downcast eyelids. " It might have 
 been perfectly simple, might it not ? If you had 
 only told me you did not wish it, I should have be- 
 lieved you, should I not, and all would have been 
 quite simple and plain." 
 
 To which, Grace tried to make a reply, but suc- 
 ceeded in making none except through the sudden 
 color which rushed again over her face, and 
 through the faintest dawn of an unconscious smile 
 which dimpled' her cheeks. 
 
 But that evening Maurice Bertram received a 
 letter from Mr. Leigh, which he came very early 
 the next morning to answer in person. To Mau- 
 rice's disappointment, Grace was nowhere to be 
 found, and Mr. Leigh, little Fan said, with a mul- 
 tiplication of courtesies, was not up but wished to 
 see Mr. Bertram in his bedroom. 
 
 Before the day was closed Maurice stood in a 
 relationship to Grace and Harry which gave him 
 the right to take every possible care of them both. 
 But it was not that of a Trustee. 
 
478 WINIFRED BERTRAM, AND 
 
 And the next morning Mrs. O'Brien's carriage 
 was waiting a long time outside Mrs. Treherne's 
 shop, to the great glorification of Mrs. Treherne. 
 
 Mrs. O'Brien meekly and timidly assured Grace 
 that although she could not be a mother to her, 
 " of course no one but a mother could," she did love 
 her with a love as nearly like a mother's, she be- 
 lieved, as anything else in the world could be. 
 
 And Winnie, when she and Grace stood once more 
 together alone in Grace's little bedroom, before the 
 little dressing-table with the red morocco Bible on 
 it, took Grace's hands and pressed them tight in 
 hers and said : 
 
 " Oh Gracie, I am so glad, in the very inmost 
 middle of my heart. And I am so glad I am 
 glad, Gracie. For I always thought I never should 
 have been able to love any one who took Maurice 
 away. Because I had so planned everything all 
 my life. But I am glad, Grace, in my inmost heart. 
 And I am so glad I am glad. Because it does show 
 that I love you and Maurice reaUy, doesn't it? 
 And don't you think it may show that I have got 
 out of the Contracting Chamber, at last ? " 
 
 And she threw her arms round Grace's neck and 
 sobbed. 
 
 " But I am crying," she said, " because I am so 
 glad, so glad and thankful to God. Rosalie said, 
 when she heard it, 'Poor little one! Then the 
 beautiful lady has come to Mr. Maurice at last. 
 Thy trials are begun. Thou canst never more be 
 the first. But take courage ! one day some one else 
 will love thee best ! ' But I was angry at that, 
 
1HE WORLD SHE LIVED IN. 
 
 479 
 
 Gracie. I could not help it. Do you think I could ? 
 And I said, ' Rosalie, I never want to be first any 
 more. I had rather be second with Maurice than 
 first with any one else in the world.' And I would 
 Gracie, of course. And then only think of our 
 being sisters real sisters. I wonder I never 
 thought of it before." 
 
 END. 
 
I \ 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DtfE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 OCT20 1931 
 
 30m-l,'15 
 
U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 - 
 
u 
 
 Bl