EIGN 
 
 icOUsiN PHILLIS
 
 I 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 COUSIN PHILLIS.
 
 TALES FROM FOREIGN LANDS. 
 
 UNIFORM IN STYLE AND PRICE. 
 
 * 
 
 I. 
 
 Memories : A Story of German Love. Translated from 
 
 the German of Max Mim.if.r, by Geo. P. Upton. i6nio, 
 173 pages, gilt top. 
 
 II. 
 
 Graziella: A Story of Italian Love. Translated from 
 
 the French of A. ur Lamartine, by James R. Runnion, 
 i6nio, 235 pages, gilt top. 
 
 III. 
 
 Marie: A Story of Russian Love. From the Russian 
 
 of Al^K.XANDKR PlSHKlN, by MaRIE H. DE ZiELIN.SKA. 
 
 i6mo, 210 pages, gilt top. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Madeleine: A Story of French Love. Translated from 
 
 the French of Julks Sandf.ai;, by Francis Charlot. 
 i6mo, 244 pages, gilt top. 
 
 V. 
 
 Marianela : A Story of Spanish Love. Translated from 
 
 the Spanish of B. Pkri-z Gai.dhs, by Helen \V. Lester. 
 i6mo, 243 pages, gilt top. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Cousin Phillis: A Story of English Love. By Mrs. 
 
 (Iaskp.li,. i6mo, 222 pages, gilt top.
 
 COUSIN PHILLIS 
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. GASKELL 
 
 CHICAGO 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 
 1S95
 
 SRLF 
 
 
 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 PART I . 
 
 IT is a great thinf^ for a lad when he is 
 first turned into the independence of 
 lodginj^s. I do not tliink I ever was so satis- 
 fied and proud in my Hfe as when, at seven- 
 teen, I sat down in a Httle three-cornered room 
 above a pastry-cook's shop in the county town 
 of Eltham. My father had left me that 
 afternoon, after delivcrinii^ himself of a few 
 plain precepts, strouf^^ly expressed, for my 
 guidance in the new course of life on which 
 I was entering. I was to be a clerk under 
 the engineer who had undertaken to make 
 the little branch line fic^m Eltham to Hornby. 
 7 
 
 G5557'i
 
 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 My father had got me this situation, which 
 was in a position rather above his own in 
 life; or perhaps I should say, above the sta- 
 tion into which he was born and bred; for he 
 was raising himself every year in men's con- 
 sideration and respect. lie was a mechanic 
 by trade, but he had some inventive genius, 
 and a great deal of perseverance, and had 
 devised several valuable improvements in 
 railway machinery. He did not do this for 
 profit, though, as was reasonable, what came 
 in the natural course of things was acceptable; 
 he worked out his ideas because, as he said, 
 " until he could put them into shape, they 
 plagued him by night and by day." But this 
 is enough about my dear father; it is a good 
 thing for a country where there are many like 
 him. He was a sturdy Independent by de- 
 scent and conviction ; and this it was, I be- 
 lieve, which made hirn place me in the lodg- 
 ings at the pastry-cook's. The shop was 
 kept by the two sisters of our minister at 
 home; and this was considered as a sort of 
 safeguard to my morals, when I was turned
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 9 
 
 loose upon the temptations of the county 
 town, with a salary of thirty pounds a year. 
 My father had given up two precious days, 
 and put on his Sunday clothes, in order to 
 bring me to Eltham, and accompany me first 
 to the office, to introduce me to my new 
 master (who was under some obligations to 
 my father for a suggestion), and next to 
 take me to call on the Independent minister 
 of the little congregation at Eltham. And 
 then he left me; and though sorry to part with 
 him, I now began to taste with relish the 
 pleasure of being my own master. I un- 
 packed the hamper that my mother had pro- 
 vided me with, and smelt the pots of preserve 
 with all the delight of a possessor who might 
 break into their contents at any time he 
 pleased. I handled and weighed in my fancy 
 the home-cured ham, which seemed to promise 
 me interminable feasts; and, above all, there 
 was the fine savor of knowing that I might 
 eat of these dainties when I liked, at my sole 
 will, not dependent on the pleasure of any- 
 one else, however indulgent. I stowed my
 
 lO CO us r AT PHILLIS. 
 
 eatables away in the little corner cupboard 
 that room was all corners, and everything was 
 placed in a corner, the fireplace, the window, 
 the cupboard; I myself seemed to be the only 
 thing in the middle, and there was hardly 
 room for me. The table was made of a fold- 
 ing leaf under the window, and the window- 
 looked out upon the market-place; so the 
 studies for the prosecution of which my father 
 had brought himself to pay extra for a sitting- 
 room for me ran a considerable chance of 
 being diverted from books to men and women. 
 I was to have my meals with the two elderly 
 Miss Browns in the little parlor behind the 
 three-cornered shop downstairs; my breakfasts 
 and dinners at least, for, as my hours in an 
 evening were likely to be uncertain, my tea 
 or supper was to be an independent meal. 
 
 Then, after this pride and satisfaction, 
 came a sense of desolation. I had never been 
 from home before, and I was an only child ; 
 and though my father's spoken maxim had 
 been, " Spare the rod, and spoil the child," 
 yet, unconsciously, his heart had yearned after
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. II 
 
 me, and his ways towaitl me were more tender 
 than he knew, or would have approved of in 
 himself, could he have known. My mother, 
 who never professed sternness, was far more 
 severe than my father; perhaps my boyish 
 faults annoyed her more; for I remember, 
 now that I have written the above words, how 
 she pleaded for me once in my riper years, 
 when I really offended against my father's 
 sense of right. 
 
 But I have nothing to do with that now. 
 It is about cousin Phillis that I am going to 
 write, and as vet I am far enough from even 
 saying who cousin Phillis was. 
 
 For some months after I was settled in 
 Eltham, the new employment in which I was 
 engaged the new independence of my life 
 occupied all my thoughts. I was at my desk 
 by eight o'clock, home to dinner at one, back 
 at the oflicc by two. The afternoon work 
 was more uncertain than the morning's; it 
 might be tlie same, or it might lie that I had 
 to accompany Mr. Iloklsworth, the managing 
 engineer, to some point on the line between
 
 12 CO US I ^r Pf/ILLIS. 
 
 Eltham and Hornby. This I always enjoyed, 
 because of the variety, and because of the 
 country we traversed (which was very wild 
 and pretty), and because I was thrown into 
 companionship with Mr. Holdsworth, who 
 held the position of hero in my boyish mind. 
 He was a young man of five-and-twenty or 
 so, and was in a station above mine, both by 
 birth and education; and he had travelled on 
 the Continent, and wore mustaches and whis- 
 kers of a somewhat foreign fashion. He was 
 really a fine fellow in a good number of ways, 
 and I might have fallen into much worse 
 hands. 
 
 Every Saturday I wrote home, telling of 
 my weekly doings my father had insisted 
 upon this; but there was so little variety in 
 my life that I often found it hard work to fill 
 a letter. On Sundays I went twice to chapel, 
 up a dark, narrow entry, to hear droning 
 hymns, and long prayers, and a still longer 
 sermon, preached to a small congregation, of 
 which T was, by nearly a score of years, the 
 youngest member. Occasionally, Mr. Peters,
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 13 
 
 the minister, would ask me home to tea after 
 the second service. I dreaded the honor, for 
 I usually sat on the edge of my chair all the 
 evening, and answered solemn questions, put 
 in a deep bass voice, until household prayer- 
 time came, at eight o'clock, when Mrs. Peters 
 came in, smoothing down her apron, and the 
 maid-of-all-work followed, and first a sermon, 
 and then a chapter was read, and a long im- 
 promptu prayer followed, till some instinct 
 told IMr, Peters that supper-time had come, 
 and we rose from our knees with hunger for 
 our predominant feeling. Over supper the 
 minister did unbend a little into one or two 
 ponderous jokes, as if to show me that minis- 
 ters were men, after all. And then at ten 
 o'clock I went home, and enjoyed my long- 
 lepressed yawns in the three-cornered room 
 before going to bed. 
 
 Dinah and Hannah Dawson, so their names 
 were put on tlie board above the shop-door I 
 alwavs called them Aliss Dawson and Miss 
 Hannah considered these visits of mine to 
 Mr. Peters as the greatest honor a young man
 
 1 4 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 could have; and evidently thought that if, after 
 such privileges, I did not work out my salva- 
 tion, I was a sort of modern Judas Iscariot. On 
 the contrary, they shook their heads over my 
 intercourse with Mr. Holdsworth. He had 
 been so kind to me in many ways, that when I 
 cut into my ham, I hovered over the thought 
 of asking him to tea in my room, more espe- 
 cially as the annual fair was being held in 
 Eltham market-place, and the sight of the 
 booths, the merry-go-rounds, the wild-beast 
 shows, and such country pomps, was (as I 
 thought at seventeen) very attractive. But 
 when I ventured to allude to my wish in even 
 distant terms, Miss Hannah caught me up, and 
 spoke of the sinfulness of such sights, and 
 something about wallowing in the mire, and 
 then vaulted into France, and spoke evil of the 
 nation, and all who had ever set foot therein, 
 till, seeing that her anger was concentrating 
 itself into a point, and that that point was Mr. 
 Holdsworth, I thought it would be better to 
 finish my breakfast, and make what haste I 
 could out of the sound of her voice. I rather
 
 A STORV OF EJVGL/SH LOVE. J 5 
 
 wondered afterward to hear her and Miss 
 Dawson counting up tlieir weekly profits with 
 glee and saying that a pastry-cook's shop in 
 the corner of the market-place, in Eltham fair 
 week, was no such bad thing. However, I 
 never ventured to ask Mr. Holdsworth to my 
 lodgings. 
 
 There is not much to tell about this first 
 year of mine at Eltham. But when I was 
 nearly nineteen, and beginning to think of 
 whiskers on my own account, I came to know 
 cousin Phillis, whose very existence had been 
 unknown to me till then. Mr. Holdsw^orth 
 and I had been out to Heathbridge for a day, 
 working hard. Heathbridge was near Hornby, 
 for our line of railway was above half finished. 
 Of course, a day's outing was a great thing to 
 tell about in my weekly letters; and I fell to 
 describing the country a fault I was not 
 often guilty of. I told my father of the bogs, 
 all over wild myrtle and soft moss, and shaking 
 ground over which we liad to carry our line; 
 and how Mr. Holds wortli and I had gone for 
 our mid-day meals for we liad to stay here
 
 1 6 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 for two days and a night to a pretty village 
 hard by, Heathbridge proper; and how I hoped 
 we should often have to go there, for the shak- 
 ing, uncertain ground was puzzling our engi- 
 neers one end of the line going up as soon 
 as the other was weighted down. ( I had no 
 thought for the shareholders' interests, as may 
 be seen; we had to make a new line on firmer 
 ground before the junction railway was com- 
 pleted.) I told all this at great length, thank- 
 ful to fill up my paper. By return letter, I 
 heard that a second cousin of my mother's was 
 married to the Independent minister of Horn- 
 by, Ebenezer Holman by name, and lived at 
 Heathbridge proper; the very Heathbridge I 
 had described, or so my mother believed, for 
 she had never seen her cousin Phillis Green, 
 who was something of an heiress (my father 
 believed), being her father's only child, and old 
 Thomas Green had owned an estate of near 
 upon fifty acres, which must have come to his 
 daughter. ISIy mother's feeling of kinship 
 seemed to have been strongly stirred bv the 
 mention of Heathbridge, for my father said she
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 17 
 
 desired me, if ever I went thither again, to 
 make inquiry for the Reverend Ebenezer Hol- 
 man; and if indeed he lived there, I was fur- 
 ther to ask if he had not married one Phillis 
 Green ; and if both these questions were ans- 
 wered in the afHrniative, I was to go and intro- 
 duce myself as the only child of Margaret 
 Manning, born Moneypenny. I was enraged 
 at myself for having named Heathbridge at all, 
 when I found what it was drawing down upon 
 me. One Independent minister, as I said to 
 myself, was enough for any man, and here I 
 knew (that is to say, I had been catechized on 
 Sabbath mornings by) Mr. Hunter, our min- 
 ister at home; and I had had to be civil to 
 old Peters at Eltham, and behave myself 
 for five hours running whenever he asked 
 me to tea at his house; and now, just as I felt 
 the free air blowing about me up at Ileatii- 
 1)ridge, I was to ferret out another minister, and 
 I should perhaps have to be catechized by him, 
 or else asked to tea at his house. J^esides, I did 
 not like pushing myself upon strangers, who 
 perhaps had ne\ ei" heaid of my mother's n.une.
 
 iS COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 and such an odd name as it was Money- 
 penny; and if they had, had never cared more 
 for her than she had for them, apparently, until 
 this unlucky mention of Ileathbridge. 
 
 Still, I would not disobey my parents in 
 such a trifle, however irksome it might be. So 
 the next time our business took me to Heath- 
 bridge, and we were dining in the little sanded 
 inn-parlor, I took the opportunity of Mr. 
 Iloldsworth's being out of the room, and asked 
 the questions which I was bidden to ask of the 
 rosy-cheeked maid. 1 was either unintelligible 
 or she was stupid ; for she said she did not 
 know, but would ask master; and of course the 
 landlord came in to understand what it was I 
 wanted to know; and I had to bring out all m}- 
 stammering inquiries before Mr. lloldsworth, 
 who would never have attemled to them, I dare 
 say, if I had not blushed, and blundered, and 
 made such a fool of myself. 
 
 "Yes," the landlord said, "the Hope Farm 
 was in Heathbridge proper, and the owner's 
 name was Holman, and he w as an Independent 
 minister, and, as far as the landlord could tell.
 
 A STORT OF ENGLrSH LOVE. 19 
 
 his wife's Christian name was Pliillis, anyhow 
 her maiden name was Green." 
 
 " Relations of yours ? " asked Mr. Holds- 
 worth. 
 
 " No, sir -only my mother's second cousins. 
 Yes, I suppose they are relations. But I never 
 saw them in my life." 
 
 "The Hope Farm is not a stone's throw 
 from here," said the officious landlord, going 
 to the window. " If you carry your eye over 
 yon bed of hollyhocks, over the damson ti'ees 
 in the orchard yonder, you may see a stack of 
 fiueer-like stone chimneys. Them is the Hope 
 Farm chimneys; it's an old place, though Hol- 
 man keeps it in good order." 
 
 jMr. Holdsworth had risen from the table 
 with more promptitude than I had, and was 
 standing by the window, looking. At the 
 landlord's last words he turned round, smiling 
 "It is not often that parsons know how to 
 keep land in order, is it?" 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir, but I must speak as I find; 
 and Minister Ilolman we call the church 
 clergyman here 'parson,' sir; he would be bit
 
 20 COUSIN PHILIJS. 
 
 jealous if he heard a Dissenter called parson 
 Minister Holman knows what he's ahout as 
 well as e'er a farmer in the neighhorhood. He 
 gives up five days a week to his own work, and 
 two to the Lord's; and it is difficult to say whicli 
 he works hardest at. He spends Saturday and 
 Sunday a-writing sermons and a-visiting his 
 flock at Hornby ; and at five o'clock on Mon- 
 day morning he'll be guiding his plow in the 
 Hope Farm yonder just as well as if he could 
 neither read nor write. But your dinner wall 
 be getting cold, gentlemen." 
 
 So we went back to table. After awhile 
 Mr. Holdsworth broke the silence: "If I 
 w^ere you. Manning, I'd look up these relations 
 of yours. You can go and see what they're 
 like while we're waiting for Dobson's estimates, 
 and I'll smoke a cigar in the garden mean- 
 while." 
 
 " Thank you, sir. But 1 don't know them, 
 and I don't think I want to know them." 
 
 " What did you ask all those fpicstions for, 
 then?" said he, looking quicklv u]) at me. He 
 had no notion of doing;' or savin<r thin<js with-
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 2 1 
 
 out a purpose. I did not answer, so he contin- 
 ued, "Make up your mind, and go off and 
 see what this farmer-minister is like, and come 
 hack and tell me I should like to hear." 
 
 I was so in the habit of yielding to his 
 authority, or influence, that I never thought of 
 resisting, but went on my errand, though I 
 remember feeling as if I would ratlier have 
 had my head cut off. The landlord, who had 
 evidently taken an interest in the event of our 
 discussion in away that country landlords have, 
 accompanied me to the house door, and gave 
 me repeated directions, as if I was likely to 
 miss my way in two hundred yards. But I 
 listened to him, for I was glad of the delay, to 
 sci'ew up my courage for the effort of facing 
 unknown people and introducing myself. I 
 went along the lane, I recollect, switcliing all 
 tlie taller roadside weeds, till, after a turn or 
 two, I found myself close in front of the Hope 
 Farm. There was a garden between the house 
 and the shady, grassy lane; I afterward found 
 that this garden was called the court; perhaps 
 because tliere was a low wall around it, with an
 
 2 2 COUSIN PlIILLIS. 
 
 iron railing on the top of the wall, and two 
 great gates hetvveen pillars crowned with stone 
 balls for a state entrance to the flagged path 
 leading up to the front door. It was not the 
 habit of the place to go in either by these great 
 gates or by the front door; the gates, indeed, 
 were locked, as I found, though the door stood 
 wide open. I had to go around by a side path 
 lightly worn on a broad grassy way, which led 
 past the court wall, past a horse-mount, half 
 covered with stone-crop and the little wild yel- 
 low fumitory, to another door "the curate," 
 as I found it was termed by the master of the 
 house, while the front door, " handsome and all 
 for show," was termed the " rector." I knocked 
 with my hand upon the "curate" door; a tall 
 girl, about my own age, as I thought, came 
 and opened it, and stood there silent, waiting 
 to know my errand. I see her now Cousin 
 Phillis. The westering sun shone full upon 
 her, and made a slanting stream of light into 
 the room within. She was dressed in daik 
 blue cotton of some kind, up to her throat, 
 down to her wrists, with a little frill of the
 
 A STOR7^ OP ENGLISH LOVE. 23 
 
 same wherever it touched her white skin. And 
 sucli a white skin as it was! I have never seen 
 the hke. She had Hght hair, nearer yellow 
 than any other color. She looked me steadily 
 in the face with large, quiet eyes, wondering, 
 but untroubled by the sight of a stranger. I 
 thought it odd that, so old, so full-grown as she 
 was, she should wear a 2^i''''^fore over her 
 gown. 
 
 Before I had quite made up my mind what 
 to say in reply to her mute inquiry of what I 
 wanted there, a woman's voice called out, "Who 
 is it, Phillis? If it is anyone for buttermilk 
 send them around to the back door." 
 
 I thought I could rather si^eak to the owner 
 of that voice than to the girl before me; so I 
 passed her, and stood at the entrance of a room, 
 hat in hand, for this side door ojoened straight 
 into the hall or house-place where the family 
 sat when work was done. There was a brisk 
 little woman of forty or so ironing some huge 
 muslin cravats under tlie light of a long vine- 
 shaded casement window. She looked at me 
 distruslfulh till I began to si)eak. " ^^y name
 
 24 COUSIiY PIIILLTS. 
 
 is Paul jNIanning," said I; but I saw she did 
 not know the name. "My mother's name was 
 ^loneypcnny," said I "Margaret Money- 
 penny." 
 
 "And she married one John Manning, of 
 Birmingham," said Mrs. Ilolman, eagerly. 
 "And you'll be her son. Sit down! I am 
 right glad to see you. To think of your being 
 Margaret's son! Why she was almost a child 
 not so long ago. Well, to be sure, it is five- 
 and-twenty years ago. And what brings you 
 into tliese parts? " 
 
 She sat down herself, as if oppressed by 
 her curiosity as to all the five-and-twenty years 
 that had passed by since she had seen my 
 mother. Her daughter Phillis took up her knit- 
 ting a long gray worsted man's stocking, I 
 remember and knitted away without looking 
 at her work. I felt that the steady gaze of 
 those deep gray eyes was upon me, though 
 once, when I stealthily raised mine to hers, she 
 was examining something on the wall above 
 my head. 
 
 When I had answered all my cousin IIol-
 
 A STOnr OF ENGLISH LOVE. 25 
 
 man's questions, she heaved a long hreath, and 
 said, "To think of Margaret Moncypenny's 
 boy being in our house! I wish the minister 
 was here. Phillis, in what field is thy father 
 to-day?" 
 
 "In the five-acre; they are beginning to 
 cut the corn." 
 
 " He'll not like being sent for, then, else I 
 siiould have liked you to have seen the minister. 
 But the five-acre is a good step off. You shall 
 have a glass of wine and a bit of cake before 
 you stir from this house, though. You're bound 
 to go, you say, or else the minister comes in 
 mostly when the men have theii' four o'clock." 
 
 " I must go I ought to have been off be- 
 fore now." 
 
 " Here, then, Phillis, take the keys." She 
 gave her daughter some whispered directions, 
 and Phillis left the room. 
 
 "She is my cousin, is she not?" I asked. 
 I knew she was, but somehow I wanted to talk 
 of her, and did not know how to begin. 
 
 "Yes Phillis Holman. She is our only 
 child now."
 
 26 COUSIN PIIILLIS. 
 
 Either from that " now," or from a strange 
 momentary wistfuhiess in her eyes, I knew 
 that there had been more children, who were 
 now dead. 
 
 "How old is cousin Phillis?" said I, 
 scarcely venturing on the new name, it seemed 
 too prettily familiar for me to call her by it; 
 but cousin Holman took no notice of it, answer- 
 ing straight to the purpose. 
 
 " Seventeen last May-day ; but the minister 
 does not like to hear me calling it May-day," 
 said she, checking herself with a little awe. 
 " Phillis was seventeen on the fii-st day of May 
 last," she repeated in an amended edition. 
 
 " And I am nineteen in another month," 
 thought I, to myself; I don't know why. 
 
 Then Phillis came in, carrying a tray with 
 wine and cake upon it. 
 
 " We keep a house-servant," said cousin 
 Holman, " but it is churning-day, and she is 
 busy." It was meant as a little proud apology 
 for her daughter's being the handmaiden. 
 
 " I like doing it, mother," said Phillis, in 
 her grave, full voice.
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 27 
 
 I felt as if I were somebody in the Old 
 Testament who, I could not recollect being 
 served and waited upon by the daughter of 
 the host. Was I like Abraham's steward, 
 when Rebekah gave him to drink at the well? 
 I thought Isaac had not gone the pleasantest 
 way to work in \vinning him a wife. But 
 Phillis never thought about such things. She 
 was a stately, gracious young woman, in the 
 dress and with the simplicity of a child. 
 
 As I had been taught, I drank to the 
 health of my new-found cousin and her hus- 
 band, and then T ventured to name my cousin 
 Phillis with a little bow of my head toward 
 her; but I was too awkward to look and see 
 how she took my compliment. " I must go 
 now," said I, rising. 
 
 Neither of the women had thought of 
 sharing in the wine; cousin Ilolman had 
 broken a l)it of cake for form's sake. 
 
 " 1 wish the minister had been within," said 
 his wife, rising, too, vSccretly I was very glad 
 he was not. I did not take kindly to ministers 
 ni those days, and T thought he must be a
 
 28 CO us /AT PIJILLIS. 
 
 particular kind of man, by his objecting to the 
 term May-day. But before I went, cousin 
 riolman made me promise that I would come 
 back on the Saturday following and spend 
 Sunday with them, when I should see some- 
 thing of " the minister." 
 
 " Come on Friday, if you can," were her 
 last words as she stood at the curate-door, 
 shading her eyes from the sinking sun with 
 her hand. 
 
 Inside the house sat cousin Phillis, her 
 golden hair, her dazzling complexion, lighting 
 up the corner of the vine-shadowed room. She 
 had not risen when I bade hergood-by; she 
 had looked at me straight as she said her tran- 
 quil words of farewell. 
 
 I found Mr. Holdsworth down at the line, 
 hard at work superintending. As soon as he 
 had a pause, he said, " Well, Manning, what 
 are the new cousins like? How do preaching 
 and farming seem to get on together? If the 
 mmister turns out to be practical as well as 
 reverend, T sliall begin to respect him." 
 
 But he hardly attended to my answer, he
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 29 
 
 was so much more occupied with directing his 
 work-people. Indeed, my answer did not 
 come very readily; and the most distinct part 
 of it was the mention of the invitation that had 
 been given me. 
 
 " Oh, of course you can go and on Friday, 
 too, if you like; there is no reason why not 
 this week, and you have done a long spell of 
 work this time, old fellow." 
 
 I thought that I did not want to go on 
 Friday; but when the day came, I found that 
 I should prefer going to staying away, so I 
 availed myself of Mr. Holdsworth's permis- 
 sion, and went over to Hope Farm some time 
 in the afternoon, a little later than my last 
 visit. I found the " curate " open to admit the 
 soft September air, so tempered by the warmth 
 of the sun that it was warmer out of doors 
 than in, although the wooden log lay smolder- 
 ing in front of a heap of hot ashes on the 
 hearth. The vine-leaves ovei- the window had 
 a tinge more vellow, their edges were here and 
 there scoichcd and ])ro\viK'd; there was no 
 ironing about, and cousin Ilohnan sat just
 
 30 COUSIN PIIILLIS. 
 
 outside the house, mending a shirt. PhilHs 
 was at her knitting indoors; it seemed as if 
 she had been at it all the week. The many- 
 speckled fowls were pecking about in the 
 farmyard beyond, and the milk-cans glittered 
 with brightness, hung out to sweeten. The 
 court was so full of flowers that they crept out 
 upon the low-covered wall and horse-mount, 
 and were even to be found self-sown upon the 
 turf that bordered the path to the back of the 
 house. I fancied that my Sunday coat was 
 scented for days afterward by the bushes of 
 sweetbrier and the fraxinella that perfumed 
 the air. From time to time cousin Holman 
 put her hand into a covered basket at her feet, 
 and threw handsful of corn down for the 
 pigeons that cooed and fluttered in the air 
 around, in expectation of this treat. 
 
 I had a thorough welcome as soon as she 
 saw me. "Now this is kind this is right 
 down friendly," shaking my hand warmly. 
 " Phillis, your Cousin Manning is come!" 
 
 " Call me Paul, will you ? " said I; " they 
 call me so at home, and Manning in the oflice."
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 31 
 
 " Well, Paul, then. Your room is all 
 ready for you, Paul, for, as I said to the min- 
 ister, ' ril have it ready whether he comes o' 
 Friday or not.' And the minister said he 
 must go up to the Ashfield whether you were 
 to come or not; but he would come home 
 betimes to see if you were here. I'll show 
 you to your room, and you can wash the dust 
 off a bit." 
 
 After I came down, I think she did not 
 quite know what to do with me; or she might 
 think that I was dull; or she might have work 
 to do in which I hindered her; for she called 
 Phillis, and bade her put on her bonnet, and 
 go with me to the Ashfield, and find father. 
 So we set off, I in a little flutter of desire to 
 make myself agreeable, but wishing that my 
 companion were not quite so tall; for she was 
 above me in height. \Vhile I was wondering 
 how to begin our conversation, she took up 
 the words. 
 
 " I suppose, cousin Paul, you have to be 
 very ])usy at your work all day long in gen- 
 eral."
 
 32 COUSIN PIIILLIS. 
 
 " Yes, we have to be in the office at half- 
 past eight; and we have an hour for dinner, 
 and then we go at it again till eight or nine." 
 
 " Then you have not much time for read- 
 ing." 
 
 " No," said I, with a sudden consciousness 
 that I did not make the most of what leisure I 
 had. 
 
 " No more have I. Father always gets 
 an hour before going a-field in the mornings, 
 but mother does not like me to get up so 
 early." 
 
 " My mother is always wanting me to get 
 up earlier when I am at home." 
 
 " What time do you get up?" 
 
 " Oh ! ah ! sometimes half-past six; 
 not often though;" for I remembered only 
 twice that I had done so during the past sum- 
 mer. 
 
 She turned her head and looked at me. 
 
 " Father is up at three; and so was mother 
 till she was ill. I should like to be up at foin." 
 
 "Your father up at three! Why, what 
 has he to do at that hour .'' "
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 33 
 
 "What has he not to do? He has his 
 private exercise in his own room; he always 
 rings the great bell which calls the men to 
 milking; he rouses up Betty, our maid; as 
 often as not he gives the horses their feed 
 before the man is up for Jem, who takes 
 care of the horses, is an old man; and father 
 is always loth to disturb him; he looks at the 
 calves, and the shoulders, heels, traces, chaff, 
 and corn before the horses go a-field; he has 
 often to whip-cord the plow-whips; he sees 
 the hogs fed; he looks into the swill -tubs, 
 and writes his orders for what is wanted for 
 man and beast; yes, and for fuel, too. And 
 then, if he has a bit of time to spare, he 
 comes in and reads with me but only En- 
 glish; we keep Latin for the evenings, that we 
 may have time to enjoy it; and then he calls 
 in the man to breakfast, and cuts the boys' 
 bread and cheese; and sees their wooden bot- 
 tles filled and sends them off to their work 
 and by this time it is half-past six, and we 
 have our breakfast. Tliere is father," she 
 exclnimed, pointing out to me a man in his 
 3
 
 34 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 shirt-sleeves, taller by the head than the other 
 two with whom he was working. We only 
 saw him through the leaves of the ash-trees 
 growing in the hedge, and I thought I must 
 be confusing the figures, or mistaken: that 
 man still looked like a very powerful laborer, 
 and had none of the precise demureness of 
 appearance which I had always imagined was 
 the 1^ characteristic of a minister. It was the 
 Reverend Ebenezer Holman, however. He 
 gave us a nod as we entered the stubble-field; 
 and I think he would have come to meet us 
 but that he was in the middle of giving some 
 directions to his men. I could see that Phillis 
 was built more after his type than her moth- 
 er's. He, like his daughter, was largely 
 made, and of a fair, ruddy complexion, 
 whereas hers was brilliant and delicate. His 
 hair had been yellow or sandy, but now was 
 grizzled. Yet his gray hairs betokened no 
 failure in strength. I never saw a more pow- 
 erful man deep chest, lean flanks, well- 
 planted head. By this time we were nearly 
 up to him; and he interrupted himself and
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 35 
 
 stepped forward; holding out his hand tome 
 but addressing PhilHs. 
 
 "Well, my lass, this is cousin Manning, I 
 suppose. Wait a minute, young man, and 
 I'll put on my coat, and give you a decorous 
 
 and formal welcome. But Ned Hall, 
 
 there ought to be a water-furrow across this 
 land: it's a nasty, stiff, clayey, dauby bit of 
 ground, and thou and I must fall to, come 
 next Monday I beg your pardon, cousin 
 Manning and there's old Jem's cottage 
 wants a bit of thatch; you can do that job to- 
 morrow while I am busy." Then, suddenly 
 changing the tone of his deep bass voice to 
 an odd suggestion of chapels and preachers, 
 he added, " Now, I will give out the psalm, 
 'Come all harmonious tongues,' to be sung to 
 ' Mount Ephraim ' tune." 
 
 He lifted his spade in his hand, and began 
 to beat time with it; the two laborers seemed 
 to know both words and music, though I did 
 not; and so did Phillis: her rich voice fol- 
 lowed her father's as he set the tune; and 
 the men came in with more uncertaintv, but
 
 36 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 still harmoniously. Phillis looked at me once 
 or twice with a little surprise at my silence; 
 but I did not know the words. There we 
 five stood, bareheaded, excepting- Phillis, in 
 the brawny stubble-field, from which all the 
 shocks of corn had not yet been carried a 
 dark wood on one side, where the wood- 
 pigeons were cooing; blue distance seen 
 through the ash-trees on the other. Some- 
 how, I think that if I had known the words, 
 and could have sung, my throat would have 
 been choked up by the feeling of the unac- 
 customed scene. 
 
 The hymn was ended, and the men had 
 drawn off before I could stir. I saw the 
 minister beginning to put on his coat, and 
 looking at me with friendh- inspection in his 
 gaze, before I could rouse myself. 
 
 " I dare say you railway gentlemen don't 
 wind up the day with singing a psalm to- 
 gether," said he; "but it is not a bad practice, 
 not a bad practice. We have had it a bit 
 earlier to-day for hospitality's sake that's 
 all."
 
 A STOR7' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 37 
 
 I had nothing particular to say to this, 
 though I was thinking a great deal. From 
 time to time I stole a look at my companion. 
 His coat was hlack, and so was his waistcoat; 
 neckcloth he had none, his strong full throat 
 heing bare above the snow-white shirt. He 
 wore drab-colored knee-breeches, gray worsted 
 stockings (I thought I knew the maker), and 
 strong-nailed shoes. He carried his hat in his 
 hand, as if he liked to feel the coming breeze 
 lifting his hair. After awhile, I saw that the 
 father took hold of tlie daughter's hand, and 
 so, they holding each other, went along toward 
 home. We had to cross a lane. In it there 
 were two little children, one lying prone on 
 the grass in a passion of crying, the other 
 standing stock still, with its finger in its 
 mouth, the large tears slowly rolling down its 
 cheeks for sympath}'. The cause of their 
 distress was evident: there was a broken 
 brown pitcher, and a little pool of spilt milk 
 on the road. 
 
 "Hollo! Hollo! What's all this?" said 
 the minister. " Why, what have you been
 
 38 COUSIN PHIL LIS. 
 
 about, Tommy" lifting the little petticoated 
 lad, who was lying sobbing, with one vigor- 
 ous arm. Tommy looked at him with sur- 
 prise in his roui;d eyes, but no affright 
 they were evidently old acquaintances. 
 
 "Mammy's jug !" said he, at last, begin- 
 ning to cry afresh. 
 
 " Well ! and will crying piece mammy's 
 jug, or pick up spilt milk? How did you 
 manage it. Tommy?" 
 
 "He" (jerking his head at the other) 
 " and me was running races." 
 
 " Tommy said he could beat me," put in 
 the other. 
 
 " Now, I wonder what will make you 
 two silly lads mind, and not run races again 
 with a pitcher of milk between you," said the 
 minister, as if musing. " I might flog you, 
 and so save mammy the trouble; for I dare 
 say she'll do it if I don't." The fresh burst 
 of whimpering from both showed the proba- 
 bility of this. " Or I might take you to the 
 Hope Farm, and give you some more milk ; 
 but then you'd be running races again, and
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 39 
 
 my milk would follow that to the ground, 
 and make another white pool. I think the 
 flogging would be best don't you?" 
 
 " We would never run races no more," 
 said the elder of the two. 
 
 "Then you'd not be boys; you'd be 
 angels." 
 
 " Xo, we shouldn't." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 They looked into each other's eyes for 
 an answer to this puzzling question. At 
 length, one said, " Angels is dead folk." 
 
 "Come; we'll not get too deep into the- 
 ology. What do you think of my lending 
 you a tin can with a lid to carry the milk 
 home in? That would not break, at any rate; 
 though I would not answer for the milk not 
 spilling if you ran races. That's it!" 
 
 lie had dropped his daughter's hand, and 
 now held out each of h.is to the little fellows. 
 Phillis and I followed, and listened to the 
 prattle wh.ich the minister's companions now 
 poured out to him, and wliich he was evi- 
 dently enjoving. At a certain point, there
 
 4 COUSIN PHILLTS. 
 
 was a sudden burst of the tawny, ruddy- 
 evening landscape. The minister turned 
 around and quoted a line or two of Latin. 
 
 " It's wonderful," said he, " how exactly 
 Virgil has hit the enduring epithets, nearly two 
 thousand years ago, and in Italy; and yet how 
 it describes to a T what is now lying before us 
 
 in the parish of Heathbridge, county , 
 
 England." 
 
 " I dare say it does," said I, all aglow with 
 shame, for I had forgotten the little Latin I 
 ever knew. 
 
 The minister shifted his eyes to Phillis's 
 face; it mutely gave him back the sympathetic 
 appreciation that I, in my ignorance, could not 
 bestow. 
 
 " Oh ! this is worse than the catechism," 
 thought I ; " that was only remembering 
 words." 
 
 " Phillis, lass, thou must go home with 
 these lads, and tell their mother all about the 
 race and the milk. Mammy must always know 
 the truth," now speaking to the children. 
 "And tell her, too, from me, that I have got
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 4 1 
 
 the best birch rod in the parish ; and that if she 
 ever thinks her children want a flogging she 
 must bring them to me, and, if I think they 
 deserve it, I'll give it them better than she can." 
 So Phillis led the children toward the dairy, 
 somewhere in the back yard, and I followed 
 the minister in through the " curate " into the 
 house-place. 
 
 " Their mother," said he, " is a bit of a 
 vixen, and apt to punish her children without 
 rhyme or reason. I try to keep the parish rod 
 as well as the parish bull." 
 
 He sat down in the three-cornered chair by 
 the fireside, and looked around the empty 
 room. 
 
 "Where's the missus?" said he to himself. 
 But she was there in a minute; it was her 
 regular plan to give him his welcome home 
 by a look, by a touch, nothing more as soon 
 as she could after his return, and he had missed 
 her now. Regardless of my presence, he went 
 over the dav's doings to her; and then, getting 
 up, he said he must go and make himself 
 "reverend," and that then we would have a
 
 42 COUSIN PlIILLIS. 
 
 cup of tea in the parlor. The parlor was a 
 large room with two casemented windows on 
 the other side of the broad flagged joassage 
 leading from the rector-door to the wide stair- 
 case, with its shallow, polished oaken steps, on 
 which no carpet was ever laid. The parlor floor 
 was covered in the middle by a home-made 
 carpeting of needlework and list. One or two 
 quaint family pictures of the Holman family 
 hung around the walls; the fire-grate and irons 
 were much ornamented with brass; and on a 
 table against the wall between the windows, a 
 a great beau-pot of flowers was placed upon 
 the folio volumes of Matthew Henry's Bible. 
 It was a compliment to me to use this room, 
 and I tried to be grateful for it; but we never 
 had our meals there after the first day, and I 
 was glad of it; for the large house-place, living- 
 room, dining-room, whichever you might like 
 to call it, was twice as comfortable and cheer- 
 ful. There was a rug in front of the great 
 large fireplace, and an oven by the grate, and a 
 crook, with the kettle hanging from it, over the 
 bright wood-fire; everything that ought to be
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 43 
 
 black and polished in that room was black and 
 polished; and the flags, and window curtains, and 
 such things as were to be white and clean were 
 just spotless in their purity. Opposite to the 
 fireplace, extending the whole length of the 
 room, was an oaken shovel-board, with the 
 right incline for a skillful player to send the 
 weights into the prescribed space. There were 
 baskets of white work about, and a small shelf 
 of books hung against the wall, books used for 
 reading, and not for propping up a beau-pot of 
 flowers. I took down one or two of those 
 books once when I was left alone in the house- 
 place on the first evening Virgil, Caesai", a 
 Greek grammar oh, dear! ah me! and Phillis 
 Ilolman's name in each of them! I shut them 
 up, and put them back in their places, and 
 walked as far away from the bookshelf as I 
 could. Yes, and I gave my cousin Phillis a 
 wide berth, although she was sitting at her 
 work quietly enough, and her hair was looking 
 more golden, her dark e\elasiies longer, her 
 round pillar of a throat whiter tlian ever. We 
 Iiad done tea, and we had returned into the
 
 44 COUSIN PH/LLTS. 
 
 house-place that the minister might smoke his 
 pipe without fear of contaminating the drab 
 damask window-curtains of the parlor. He 
 had made himself " reverend " by putting on 
 one of the voluminous white muslin neck- 
 cloths that I had seen cousin Holman ironing 
 the first visit I had paid to the Hope Farm, and 
 by making one or two other unimportant 
 changes in his dress. He sat looking steadily 
 at me, but whether he saw me or not I can not 
 tell. At the time I fancied that he did, and 
 was gauging me in some unknown fashion in 
 his secret mind. Every now and then he took 
 his pipe out of his mouth, knocked out the 
 ashes, and asked me some fresh question. As 
 long as these related to my acquiicments or my 
 reading, I shuffled uneasily and did not know 
 what to answer. Bj'-and-by he got around to 
 the more practical subject of railroads, and on 
 this I was more at home. I really had taken 
 an interest in my work; nor would Mr. Holds- 
 worth, indeed, have kept me in his employment 
 if I had not given my mind as well as my time 
 to it; and I was, besides, full of the difficulties
 
 A STOnr OF ENGLISH LOVE. 45 
 
 which beset us just then, owing to our not 
 being able to find a steady bottom on the 
 Heathbridge moss, over which we wished to 
 carry our Hue. In the midst of all my eager- 
 ness in speaking about this, I could not help 
 being struck with the extreme pertinence of his 
 questions. I do not mean that he did not show 
 ignorance of many of the details of engineer- 
 ing; that was to have been expected; but on the 
 premises he had got hold of, lie thought clearly 
 and reasoned logically. Phillis so like him 
 as she was both in body and mind kept 
 stopping at her work and looking at me, trying 
 to fully understand all that I said. I felt she 
 did ; and perhaps it made me take more pains 
 in using clear expressions, and arranging my 
 words, than I otherwise should. 
 
 "She shall see I know something worth 
 knowing, though it mayn't be her dead-and- 
 gone languages," thought I. 
 
 "T see," said the minister, at length. "I 
 understand it all. You've a cleai', good head 
 of \ouY own, my lad, choose how you came 
 by it."
 
 46 COUSIN PHI I. LIS. 
 
 " From my father," said I proudly. " Have 
 you not heard of his discovery of a new 
 method of shuntinjr? It was in the Gazette. 
 It was patented. I thought every one had 
 heard of Manning's patent winch." 
 
 " We don't know who invented the alpha- 
 bet," said he, half smiling, and taking up his 
 pipe. 
 
 " No, I dare say not, sir," replied I, half 
 offended; "that's so long ago." 
 
 Puff puff puff. 
 
 " But your father must be a notable man. 
 I heard of him once before; and it is not 
 many a one fifty miles away whose fame 
 reaches Heathbridge " 
 
 " My father is a notable man, sir. It is not 
 me that says so; it is Mr. Holdsworth, and 
 and everybody." 
 
 " He is right to stand up for his father," 
 said cousin Holman, as if she were pleading 
 for me. 
 
 I chafed inwardly, thinking that my father 
 needed no one to stand up for him. He was 
 man sufficient for himself.
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 47 
 
 " Yes he is right," said the minister, 
 placidly. " Right, because it comes from his 
 heart I'ight, too, as I believe, in point of fact. 
 Else there is many a young cockerel that will 
 stand upon a dunghill and crow about his 
 father, by way of making his own plumage 
 to shine. I should like to know thy father," 
 he went on, turning straight to me, with a 
 kindly, frank look in his eyes. 
 
 But I was vexed, and would take no notice. 
 Presently, having finished his pipe, he got up 
 and left the room. Phillis put her work hastily 
 down, and went after him. In a minute or 
 two she returned and sat down again. Not 
 long after, and before I had quite recovered 
 my good temper, he opened the door out of 
 which he had passed, and called to me to come 
 to him. I went across a narrow stone passage 
 into a strange, many-cornered room, not ten 
 feet in area, part study, part counting-house, 
 looking into the farmyai"d; with a desk to sit 
 at, a desk to stand at, a spittoon, a set of shelves 
 with old divinitv books upon them; another, 
 smaller, filled with books on farriery, farming.
 
 4S COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 manures, and such subjects, with pieces of 
 paper containing memoranda stuck against the 
 whitewashed walls with wafers, nails, pins, 
 anything that came readiest to hand; a box of 
 carpenter's tools on the floor, and some manu- 
 scripts in shorthand on the desk. 
 
 He turned around half laughing. " That 
 foolish girl of mine thinks I have vexed 
 you" putting his large, powerful hand on 
 my shoulder. " ' Nay,' says I ; ' kindly meant 
 is kindly taken' is it not so?" 
 
 " It was not quite, sir," replied I, van- 
 quished by his manner; "but it shall be in 
 future," 
 
 " Come, that's right. You and I shall be 
 friends. Indeed, it's not many a one I would 
 bring in here. But I was reading a book this 
 morning, and I could not make it out; it is a 
 book that was left here by mistake one day; 
 I had subscribed to Ijrother Robinson's sermons; 
 and I was glad to see this instead of them, for 
 sermons though they be, they're . . . well, 
 never mind ! I took 'em both, and made my old 
 coat do a bit longer; but all's fish that comes
 
 A STOR2' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 49 
 
 to my net. I have fewer books than leisure to 
 read them, and I have a prodigious big appe- 
 tite. Here it is." 
 
 It was a vohime of stiff mechanics, involv- 
 ing many technical terms, and some rather 
 deep mathematics. These last, which would 
 have puzzled me, seemed easy enough to him ; 
 all that he wanted was the explanations of the 
 technical words, which I could easily give. 
 
 While he was looking through the book to 
 find the places where he had been puzzled, my 
 wandering eve caught on some of the papers 
 on the wall, and I could not help reading one, 
 which has stuck by me ever since. At first 
 it seemed a kind of weekly diary; but then I 
 saw that the seven days were portioned out for 
 special prayers and intercessions; Monday for 
 his family, Tuesday foi" enemies, Wednesday 
 for the Independent churches, Thursday for all 
 other churches, Fridav for persons afflicted, 
 vSaturday for his own soul, Sunday for all 
 wanderers and sinncis, that tliey might be 
 brought home tcj the ff)ld. 
 
 Wc were called back into the house-j^lace 
 4
 
 50 COUSIN P HILL IS. 
 
 to have supper. A door opening into the kitchen 
 was opened; and all stood up in both rooms, 
 while the minister, tall, large, one hand resting 
 on the spread table, the other lifted up, said, 
 in the deep voice that would have been loud 
 had it not been so full and rich, but with the 
 peculiar accent or twang that I believe is con- 
 sidered devout by some people, " Whether we 
 eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, let us do all 
 to the glory of God." 
 
 The supper was an immense meat-pie. We 
 of the house-place were helped first; then the 
 minister hit the handle of his buckhorn carv- 
 ing-knife on the table once, and said, 
 
 " Now or never," which meant, did any of 
 us want anv more; and when we had all de- 
 clined, either by silence or by words, he knocked 
 twice with his knife on the table, and Betty 
 came in through the open door, and carried off 
 the great dish to the kitchen, where an old man 
 and a young one, and a help-girl, were await- 
 ing their meal. 
 
 " Shut the door if you will," said the min- 
 ister to Betty.
 
 A STORl' OF ENGL IS f I LOVE. 5 1 
 
 " That's in honor of you," said cousin Hol- 
 man, in a tone of satisfaction, as the door was 
 shut. 
 
 " When we've no stranger with us, the min- 
 ister is so fond of keeping the door open, and 
 talking to the men and maids, just as much 
 as to PhiUis and me." 
 
 " It brings us all together like a household 
 just before we meet as a household in prayer," 
 said he, in explanation. " But to go back to 
 what we were talking about can you tell me 
 of any simple book on dynamics that I could 
 put in my pocket, and study a little at leisure 
 limes in the day ? " 
 
 " Leisure times, father ? " said Phillis, with 
 a nearer approach to a smile than I had yet 
 seen on her face. 
 
 "Ves; leisure times, daughter. There is 
 many an odd minute lost in waiting for other 
 folk; and now that i^ailroads are coming so 
 neai" us, it ])ch()oyes us to know something about 
 them." 
 
 I tliought of his own description of his 
 " prodigicnis big appetite" for learning. And
 
 52 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 he had a good appetite of his own for the more 
 material victuals before him. But I saw, or 
 fancied I saw, that he had some rule for him- 
 self in the matter both of food and drink. 
 
 As soon as supper was done the household 
 assembled for prayer. It was a long impromptu 
 evening prayer; and it would have seemed 
 desultory enough had I not had a glimpse of 
 the kind of day that preceded it, and so been 
 able to find a clue to the thoughts that preceded 
 the disjointed utterances; for he kept there, 
 kneeling down in the center of a circle, his 
 eyes shut, his outstretched hands pressed palm 
 to palm sometimes with a long pause of 
 silence, as if waiting to see if there was any- 
 thing else he wished to " lay before the Lord " 
 (to use his own expression) before he con- 
 cluded with the blessing. He prayed for the 
 cattle and live creatures, rather to my surprise; 
 for my attention had begun to wander, till it 
 was recalled by the familiar words. 
 
 And here I must not forget to name an odd 
 incident at the conclusion of the prayer, and 
 before we had risen from our knees (indeed
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 53 
 
 before Betty was well awake, for she made a 
 nightly practice of having a sound nap, her 
 weary head lying on her stalwart arms); the 
 minister, still kneeling in our midst, but with 
 his eyes wide open, and his arms dropped by 
 his side, spoke to the elder man, who turned 
 around on his knees to attend. "John, didst 
 see that Daisy had her warm mash to-night; 
 for we must not neglect the means, John --two 
 quarts of gruel, a spoonful of ginger, and a gill 
 of beer the poor beast needs it, and I fear it 
 slipped out of my mind to tell thee; and here 
 was I asking a blessing and neglecting the 
 means, which is a mockery," said he, dropping 
 his voice. 
 
 Before we went to bed he told me he 
 should see little or nothing more of me during 
 my visit, which was to end on vSunday even- 
 ing, as he always gave up both Saturday and 
 .Sabbath to his work in the ministry. I re- 
 membered that the landlord at tlie inn had told 
 me this on the day when I first incpiired about 
 these new relations of mine; and I did not dis- 
 like the opportunity which I saw would be
 
 54 COUSIN P HILL IS. 
 
 afforded me of becoming more acquainted with 
 cousin Holman and Phillis, though I earnestly 
 hoped that the latter would not attack me on 
 the subject of the dead languages. 
 
 I went to bed and dreamed that I was as 
 tall as cousin Phillis, and had a sudden and 
 miraculous growth of whisker, and a still more 
 miraculous acquaintance with Latin and Greek. 
 Alas! I wakened up still a short, beardless 
 lad, with " tempus fugit " for my sole remem- 
 brance of the little Latin I had once learned. 
 While I was dressing, a bright thought came 
 over me: I could question cousin Phillis, in- 
 stead of her questioning me, and so manage to 
 keejD the choice of the subjects of conversation 
 in my own power. 
 
 Early as it was, everyone had breakfasted, 
 and my basin of bread and milk was put on the 
 oven top to await my coming down. Every- 
 one was gone about their work. Tlie first to 
 come into the house-place was Phillis with a 
 basket of eggs. Faithful to my resolution, I 
 asked, 
 
 "What are those?"
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 55 
 
 She looked at me for a moment, and then 
 said gravely 
 
 "Potatoes!" 
 
 "No! they are not," said I. "They are 
 eggs. What do you mean by saying they are 
 potatoes?" 
 
 "What do you mean by asking me what 
 they were, when they were plain to be seen ? " 
 retorted she. 
 
 We were both getting a little angry with 
 each other. 
 
 " I don't know. I wanted to begin to talk 
 to you; and I was afraid you would talk to me 
 about books as you did yesterday. I have not 
 read much, and you and the minister have read 
 so much." 
 
 " I have not," said she. " But you are our 
 guest; and mother says I must make it pleasant 
 to you. We won't talk about books. What 
 must we talk about?" 
 
 "1 don't know. How old arc you?" 
 
 " vSeventeen last May. How old are 
 
 you?" 
 
 " I am nineteen. Older tlnan you by nearly
 
 56 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 two years," said I, drawing myself up to my 
 full height. 
 
 " I should not have thought you were above 
 sixteen," she replied, as quietly as if she were 
 not saying the most provoking thing she possi- 
 bly could. Then came a pause. 
 
 " What are you going to do now? " asked I. 
 
 "I should be dusting the bedchambers; but 
 mother said I had better stay and make it 
 pleasant to you," said she, a little plaintively, 
 as if dusting rooms was far the easiest task. 
 
 "Will you take me to see the live stock? I 
 like animals, though I don't know much about 
 them." 
 
 " Oh, do you? I am so glad! I was afraid 
 you would not like animals, as you did not like 
 books." 
 
 I wondered why she said this. I think it 
 was because she had begun to fancy all our 
 tastes must be dissimilar. We went together 
 all through the farmyard; we fed the poultry, 
 she kneeling down with her pinafore full of 
 corn and meal, and tempting the little timid, 
 downy chickens upon it, much to the anxiety
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. SI 
 
 of the fussy, ruffled hen, their mother. She 
 called to the pigeons, who fluttered down at 
 the sound of her voice. She and I examined 
 the great sleek cart-horses; sympathized in our 
 dislike of pigs; fed the calves; coaxed the sick 
 cow, Daisy; and admired the others out at pas- 
 ture; and came back tired and hungry and 
 dirty at dinner-time, having quite forgotten 
 that there were such things as dead languages, 
 and consequently capital friends.
 
 PART II. 
 
 COUSIN HOLMAN gave me the weekly 
 county newspaper to read aloud to her, 
 while she mended stockings out of a high 
 piled-up basket, Phillis helping her mother. I 
 read and read, unregardful of the words I was 
 uttering, thinking of all manner of other things; 
 of the bright color of Phillis' hair, as the 
 afternoon sun fell on her bending head; of the 
 silence of the house, which enabled me to hear 
 the double tick of the old clock which stood 
 halfway up the stairs; of the variety of inartic- 
 ulate noises which cousin Holman made while 
 I read, to show her sympathy, wonder, or 
 horror at the newspaper intelligence. The 
 tranquil monotony of that hour made me feel 
 as if I had lived forever, and should live for- 
 ever droning out paragraphs in that warm 
 
 S8
 
 A STOin' OF EXGLISH LOVE. 59 
 
 sunny room, with my two quiet hearers, and 
 the curled-up pussy cat sleeping- on the hearth- 
 rug, and the clock on the house-stairs perpetu- 
 ally clicking- out the passage of the moments. 
 By and bv Betty, the servant, came to the door 
 into the kitchen, and made a sign to Phillis, 
 who put her half-mended stocking down, and 
 went away to the kitchen without a word. 
 Looking at cousin Holman a minute or two 
 afterward, I saw that she had dropped her 
 chin upon her breast, and had fallen fast asleep. 
 I put the newspaper down, and was nearly 
 following her example, when a waft of air 
 from some unseen source slightly opened the 
 door of communication with the kitchen, that 
 Phillis must have left unfastened; and I sav/ 
 part of her figure as she sat bv tlie dresser 
 peeling apples with quick dexterity of finger, 
 but with repeated turnings of her head toward 
 some book King on the dresser by her. I 
 softly rose, and as softly went into the kitchen, 
 and looked over her shoulder ; beff)re she was 
 aware of mv neighboiliood, 1 liad seen that 
 the book was in a language uid<nown to me.
 
 6o COUSIN PHIL LIS. 
 
 and the running title was L,'' Inferno. Just as 
 I was making out the relationship of this word 
 to " infernal," she started and turned around, 
 and, as if continuing her thought as she spoke, 
 she sighed out 
 
 "Oh! it is so difficult! Can you help me?" 
 putting her finger below a line. 
 
 "Me! I! Not I! I don't even know what 
 language it is in ! " 
 
 "Don't you see it is Dante? " she replied, 
 almost petulantly; she did so want help. 
 
 " Italian, then? " said I, dubiously; for I 
 was not quite sure. 
 
 " Yes. And I do so want to make it out. 
 Father can help me a little, for he knows 
 Latin; but then he has so little time." 
 
 " You have not much, I should think, if 
 you have often to try and do two things at 
 once, as you are doing now." 
 
 "Oh! that's nothing! Father bought a 
 heap of old books cheap. And I knew some- 
 thing about Dante before; and I have always 
 liked Virgil so much! Paring apples is noth-
 
 A STORT OF EXGLISH LOVE. 6i 
 
 ing, if I could only make out this old Italian. 
 I wish you knew it." 
 
 " I wish I did," said I, moved by her im- 
 petuosity of tone, " If, now, only Mr. Holds- 
 worth were here; he can speak Italian like 
 anything, I believe." 
 
 "Who is Mr. Holdsworth?" said Phillis, 
 looking up. 
 
 " Oh, he's our head engineer. He's a 
 regular first-rate fellow! He can do any- 
 thing;" my hero-worship and my pride in 
 my chief all coming into play. Besides, if I 
 was not clever and book-learned myself, it was 
 something to belong to someone \vho was. 
 
 "How is it that he speaks Italian?" asked 
 Phillis. 
 
 " He had to make a railway through Pied- 
 mont, which is in Italy, I believe; and he had 
 to talk to all the workmen in Italian; and I 
 have heard him say that for nearly two years 
 lie had onh' Italian books to read in the queer, 
 outlandish places he was in " 
 
 "Oh, dear!" said Phillis; "I wish "
 
 62 COUSIN PHTLLIS. 
 
 and then she stopped. I was not quite sure 
 whether to say the next thing that came into 
 my mind; but I said it. 
 
 " Could I ask him anything about 3'our 
 book, or your difficulties? " 
 
 She was silent for a minute or two, and 
 
 then she made reply 
 
 "No! T think not. Thank you very much, 
 though. I can generally puzzle a thing out 
 in time. And then, perhaps, I remember it 
 better than if someone had helped me. I'll 
 put it away now, and you must move off, for 
 I've got to make the paste for the pies; we 
 always have a cold dinner on Sabbaths." 
 
 "But I may stay and help you, mayn't I?" 
 
 " Oh, yes; not that you can heljD at all, but 
 I like to have you with me." 
 
 I was both flattered and annoyed at this 
 straightforward avowal. I was pleased that 
 she liked me; but I was young coxcomb 
 enough to have wished to plav the lover, and 
 I was quite wise enough to perceive that if 
 she had any idea of the kind in her head she 
 would never have spoken out so frankly. I
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH I.OVE. 63 
 
 comforted myself immediately, however, by 
 finding out that the grapes were sour. A 
 great, tall girl in a pinafore, half a head taller 
 than I was, reading books that I had never heard 
 of, and talking about them, too, as of far more 
 interest than any mere personal subjects; that 
 was the last day on which I ever thought of 
 my dear cousin Phillis as the possible mistress 
 of my heart and life. But we were all the 
 greater friends for this idea being utterly put 
 awav and buried out of sight. 
 
 Late in the evening the minister came 
 home from Hornby. He had been calling on 
 the different members of his flock ; and un- 
 satisfactory work it had proved to him, it 
 seemed from the fragments that dropped out 
 of his thoughts into his talk. 
 
 " I don't see the men ; they are all at their 
 business, their shops, or their warehouses; they 
 ought to be there. I have no fault to find 
 witli them; onlv if a pastor's teaching or 
 words of admonition are good for anything, 
 they are needed bv the men as much as by 
 the women."
 
 64 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 " Cannot you go and see them in their 
 places of business, and remind them of their 
 Christian privileges and duties, minister? " 
 asked cousin Holman, who evidently thought 
 that her husband's words could never be out 
 of place. 
 
 " No! " said he, shaking his head. " I judge 
 them by myself. If there are clouds in the 
 sky, and I am getting in the hay just ready for 
 loading, and rain sure to come in the night, I 
 should look ill upon brother Robinson if he 
 came into the field to speak about serious things." 
 
 " But, at any rate, father, you do good to 
 the women, and perhaps they repeat what 
 you have said to them to their husbands and 
 children?" 
 
 " It is to be hoped they do, for I cannot 
 reach the men directly ; but the women are 
 apt to tarry before coming to me, to put on 
 ribbons and gauds; as if they could hear the 
 message I bear to them best in their smart 
 
 clothes. Mrs. Dobson to-day Phillis, I 
 
 am thankful thou dost not care for the vani- 
 ties of dress! "
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. 65 
 
 Phillis reddened a little as she said, in a 
 low, humble voice, 
 
 " But I do, father, I'm afraid. I often wish 
 I could wear pretty-colored ribbons around my 
 throat like the squire's daughters." 
 
 "It's but natural, minister!" said his wife; 
 " I'm not above liking a silk gown better than 
 a cotton one, myself!" 
 
 " The love of dress is a temptation and a 
 snare," said he, gravely. " The true adornment 
 is a meek and quiet spirit. And, wife," said 
 he, as a sudden thought crossed his mind, " in 
 that matter, I, too, have sinned. I wanted to 
 ask vou, could we not sleep in the gray room, 
 instead of our own?" 
 
 " Sleep in the gray room ? change our 
 room at this time o' day?" cousin Ilolman 
 asked, in dismay. 
 
 " Yes," said he. " It would save me from 
 a dailv temptation to anger. Look at my 
 cliini" he continued; " I cut it this morning 
 I cut it on Wednesday when I was shaving; 
 I do not know how many times I have cut 
 it of late, and all from impatience at see- 
 5
 
 66 COUSriV PHILLIS. 
 
 ing Timothy Cooper at his work in the 
 yard." 
 
 "He's a downright lazy tyke!" said cousin 
 Holman. " He's not worth his wages. There's 
 but Httle he can do and what he can do he 
 does badly." 
 
 " True," said the minister. " But he is but, 
 so to speak, a half-wit; and yet he has got a 
 wife and children." 
 
 " More shame for him! " 
 
 " But that is past change. And if I turn him 
 off, no one else will take him on. Yet I can- 
 not help watching him of a morning as he goes 
 sauntering about his work in the yard; and I 
 watch, and I watch, till the old Adam rises strong 
 within me at his lazy ways, and some day, I 
 am afraid, I shall go down and send him about 
 his business let alone the way in which he 
 makes me cut myself while I am shaving 
 and then his wife and children will starve. I 
 wish we could move to the gray room." 
 
 I do not remember much more of my first 
 visit to the Hope Farm. We went to chapel 
 in Heathbridge, slowly and decorously walk-
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 67 
 
 ing along the lanes, ruddy and tawny with the 
 coloring of the coming autumn. The minister 
 walked a little before us, his hands behind his 
 back, his head bent down, thinking about the 
 discourse to be delivered to his people, cousin 
 Holman said; and we spoke low and quietly, 
 in order not to interrupt his thoughts. But I 
 could not help noticing the respectful greet- 
 ings which he received from both rich and 
 poor as we went along; greetings which he 
 acknowledged with a kindly wave of his hand, 
 but with no words of reply. As we drew near 
 the town, I could see some of the young fellows 
 we met cast admiring looks on Phillis; and 
 that made mc look, too. vShe had on a white 
 gown, and a short, black silk cloak, according 
 to the fashion of the day. A straw" bonnet 
 with brown ribbon strings; that was all. But 
 what her dress wanted in color her sweet, 
 bonny face had. The walk made her cheeks 
 bloom like the rose, the \erv whites of her 
 eves had a ])hie tinge in them, and her dark 
 cvclashes brought f)ut the de]:)th of the blue 
 eves tliemselves. Her yellow hair was put
 
 68 COUSTN PIIILLIS. 
 
 away as straight as its natural curliness would 
 allow. If she did not perceive the admiration 
 she excited, I am sure cousin Holman did; for 
 she looked as fierce and as proud as ever her 
 quiet face could look, guarding her treasure, 
 and yet glad to perceive that others could see 
 that it was a treasure. That afternoon 1 had 
 to return to Eltham to be ready for the next 
 day's work. I found out afterward that the 
 minister and his family were all " exercised in 
 spirit," as to whether they did well in asking 
 me to repeat my visits at the Hope Farm, see- 
 ing that of necessity I must return to Eltham 
 on the sabbath-day. However, they did go on 
 asking me, and I went on visiting them, when- 
 ever my other engagements permitted me, Mr. 
 Holdsworth being in this case, as in all, a kind 
 and indulgent friend. Nor did my new ac- 
 quaintances oust him from my strong regard 
 and admiration. I had room in my heart for 
 all, I am happy to say, and, as far as I can re- 
 member, I kept praising each to the other in a 
 manner Avhich, if I had been an older tnan, 
 living more amongst people of the world, I
 
 A STOnr OF ENGLISH LOVE. 69 
 
 should have thought unwise, as well as a little 
 ridiculous. It was unwise, certainly, as it was 
 almost sure to cause disappointment if ever 
 they did become acquainted; and perhaps it 
 was ridiculous, though I do not think we any 
 of us thought it so at the time. The minister 
 used to listen to my accounts of Mr. Holds- 
 worth's many accomplishments and various 
 adventures in travel with the truest interest, 
 and most kindly good faith; and Mr. Holds- 
 worth in return liked to hear about my visits 
 to the farm, and description of my cousin's life 
 there liked it, I mean, as much as he liked 
 anvthing that was merely narrative, without 
 leading to action. 
 
 So I went to the farm certainly, on an 
 average, once a month during that autumn; 
 the course of life there was so peaceful and 
 (juiet, that I can only remember one small 
 event, and that was one that I think I took 
 more notice of than anyone else: Pliillis left 
 off wearing the pinafores that had always been 
 so obnoxious to me, 1 dn not know why they 
 were banished, but on one of my visits 1 found
 
 yo COUSIN PHIL LIS. 
 
 them replaced by pretty linen aprons in the 
 morning, and a black silk one in the afternoon. 
 And the blue cotton gown became a brown 
 stuff one as winter drew on; this sounds like 
 some book I once read, in wdiich a migration 
 from the blue bed to the brown was spoken of 
 as a great family event. 
 
 Toward Christmas my dear father came 
 to see me, and to consult Mr. Holdsworth 
 about the improvement which has since been 
 known as " Manning's driving wheel." Mr. 
 Holdsworth, as I think I have before said, 
 had a very great regard for my father, who 
 had been employed in the same great machine- 
 shop in which Mr. Holdsworth had served 
 his apprenticeship; and he and my father had 
 many mutual jokes about one of these gentle- 
 men-apprentices who used to set about his 
 smith's work in white wash-leather gloves, 
 for fear of spoiling his hands. Mr. Holds- 
 worth often spoke to me about my father as 
 having the same kind of genius for mechan- 
 ical invention as that of George Stephenson, 
 and my father had come over now to consult
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 71 
 
 him about several improvements, as well as 
 an offer of partnership. It was a great pleas- 
 ure to me to see the mutual regard of these 
 two men. Mr. Holdsworth, young, hand- 
 some, keen, well-dressed, an object of admira- 
 tion to all the youth of Eltham; my father, in 
 his decent but unfashionable Sunday clothes, 
 his plain, sensible face full of hard lines, the 
 marks of toil and thought, his hands, black- 
 ened beyond the power of soap and water 
 by years of labor in the foundry ; speaking a 
 strong Northern dialect, while Mr. Holds- 
 worth had a long, soft drawl in his voice, as 
 many of the Southerners have, and was reck- 
 oned in Eltham to give himself airs. 
 
 Although most of my father's leisure time 
 was occupied with conversations about the 
 business I have mentioned, he felt that he 
 ought not to Ij^'ave Eltham without going to 
 pay his respects to the relations who had 
 been so kind to his son. So he and I ran up 
 on an engine along the incomplete line as 
 far as Ileatlibridge, and went, by invitation, 
 to spend a day at the farm.
 
 72 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 It was odd and yet pleasant to me to per- 
 ceive how these two men, each having led 
 up to this point such totally dissimilar lives, 
 seemed to come together by instinct, after 
 one quiet, straight look into each other's faces. 
 My father was a thin, wiry man of five foot 
 seven; the minister was a broad-shouldered, 
 fresh-colored man of six foot one; they wei'c 
 neither of them great talkers in general 
 perhaps the minister the most so but they 
 spoke much to each other. My father went 
 into tlie fields with the minister; I think I 
 see him now, with his hands behind his back, 
 listening intently to all explanations of tillage, 
 and the different processes of farming; occa- 
 sionally taking up an implement, as if un- 
 consciously, and examining it with a critical 
 eye, and now and then asking a question, 
 which I could see was considered as j^ertinent 
 by his companion. Then we returned to 
 look at the cattle, housed and bedded in ex- 
 pectation of the snow-storm hanging black 
 on the western horizon, and my father learned 
 the points of a cow with as much attention
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 73 
 
 as if he meant to turn farmer. He had his 
 little hook that he used for mechanical mem- 
 oranda and measurements in his pocket, and 
 he took it out to write down " straight back," 
 " small muzzle," *' deep barrel," and I know 
 not what else, under the head "cow." lie 
 was very critical on a turnip-cutting machine, 
 the clumsiness of which first incited him to 
 talk; and when we went into the house he 
 sat thinking and quiet for a bit, while Phillis 
 and her mother made the last preparations 
 for tea, with a little unheeded apology from 
 cousin Ilolman, because we were not sitting 
 in the best pai^loi-, which she thought might 
 be chilly on so cold a night. I wanted noth- 
 ing better than the blazing, crackling fire that 
 sent a glow over all the house-place, and 
 warmed the snowy flags under our feet till 
 they seemed to have more heat than the crim- 
 son rug right in front of the fire. .After tea, 
 as Phillis and I were talking together verv 
 happilv, I heard an irrepressible exclamation 
 from cousin Ilolman, 
 
 " ^Vhatever is the man about!"
 
 74 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 And on looking around, I saw my father 
 taking a straight burning stick out of the fire, 
 and after waiting for a minute, and examin- 
 ing the charred end to see if it was fitted for 
 his purpose, he went to the hardwood dresser, 
 scoured to the last pitch of whiteness and 
 cleanliness, and began drawing with the stick; 
 the best substitute for chalk or charcoal within 
 his reach, for his pocket-book pencil was not 
 strong or bold enough for his purpose. 
 When he had done, he began to explain his 
 new model of a turnip-cutting machine to the 
 minister, who had been watching him in 
 silence all the time. Cousin Holman had, in 
 the meantime, taken a duster out of a drawer, 
 and, under pretense of being as much inter- 
 ested as her husband in the drawing, was 
 secretly trying on an outside mark how 
 easily it would come off, and whether it would 
 leave her dresser as white as before. Then 
 Phillis was sent for the book on dynamics, 
 about which I had been consulted during my 
 first visit, and my father had to explain many 
 difiiculties, which he did in language as clear
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 75 
 
 as his mind, making drawings with his stick 
 wherever they were needed as illustrations, 
 the minister sitting with his massive head rest- 
 ing on his hands, his elbows on the table, 
 almost unconscious of Phillis, leaning over 
 and listening greedily, with her hand on his 
 shoulder, sucking in information like her 
 father's own daughter. I was rather sorry 
 for cousin Holman; I had been so once or 
 twice before; for do what she would she was 
 completely unable even to understand the 
 pleasure her husband and daughter took in 
 intellectual pursuits, much less to care in the 
 least herself for the pursuits themselves, and 
 was thus unavoidably thrown out of some of 
 their interests. I had once or twice thought 
 she was a little jealous of her own child, as a 
 fitter companion for her husband than she was 
 herself; and I fancied the minister himself 
 was aware of this feeling, for I had noticed 
 an occasional sudden change of subject, and a 
 tenderness of appeal in his voice as he spoke 
 to her, wliicii always made her look contented 
 and peaceful again. 1 d(j \\o\. tliink that Phillis
 
 7^ COUSIN PIIILLIS. 
 
 ever perceived these little shadows; in the first 
 place, she had such complete reverence for her 
 parents that she listened to them both as if 
 they had been St. Peter and St. Paul; and be- 
 sides, she was always too much engrossed with 
 any matter in hand to think about other people's 
 manners and looks. 
 
 This night I could see, though she did not, 
 how much she was winning on my father. She 
 asked a few questions which showed that she 
 had followed his explanations up to that point; 
 possibly, too, her unusual beauty might have 
 something to do wath his favorable impression 
 of her; but he made no scruple of expressing 
 his admiration of her to her father and mother 
 in her absence from the room ; and from that 
 evening I date a project of his which came out 
 to me a day or two afterward, as we sat in my 
 little three-cornered room in Eltham. 
 
 " Paul," he began, " I never thought to be 
 a rich man; but I think it's coming upon me. 
 Some folk are making a deal of my new 
 machine" (calling it by its technical name), 
 " and Ellison, of the Borough Green Works,
 
 A STOR2' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 77 
 
 has gone so far as to ask me to be his 
 partner." 
 
 "Mr. Elhson, the Justice! who lives in 
 King Street? why, he drives his carriage!" 
 said I, doubting, yet exultant. 
 
 " Ay, lad, John Ellison. But that's no sign 
 that I shall drive my carriage. Though I 
 should like to save thy mother walking, for 
 she's not so young as she was. But that's a 
 long way off, anyhow. I reckon I should start 
 with a third profit. It might be seven hun- 
 dred, or it might be more. I should like to 
 have the power to work out some fancies o' 
 mine. I care for that much more than for th' 
 brass. And Ellison has no lads, and by nature 
 the l:)usiness would come to thee in course o' 
 time. Ellison's lasses are but bits o' things, 
 and are not like to come by husbands just yet; 
 and when they do, mav be they'll not be in the 
 mechanical line. It will be an opening for 
 thee, lad, if thou art stead}-. Thou'rt not great 
 shakes, I know, in th' inventing line; but 
 manv a one gets on better without having 
 fancies for somethin<r he does not see and
 
 78 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 never has seen. I'm right down glad to see 
 that mother's cousins are such uncommon folk 
 for sense and goodness. I have taken the 
 minister to my heart like a brother; and she is 
 a womanly, quiet sort of a body. And I'll tell 
 you frank, Paul, it will be a happy day for me 
 if ever you can come and tell me that Phillis 
 Holman is like to be my daughter. I think if 
 that lass had not a penny, she would be the 
 making of a man ; and she'll have yon house 
 and lands, and you may be her match yet in 
 fortune if all goes well." 
 
 I was growing as red as fire; I did not 
 know what to say, and yet I wanted to say 
 something; but the idea of having a wife of 
 my own at some future day, though it had 
 often floated about in my own head, sounded 
 so strange when it was thus first spoken about 
 by my father. He saw my confusion, and half 
 smiling said, 
 
 " Well, lad, what dost say to the old father's 
 plans? Thou art but young, to be sure; but 
 when I was thy age, I would ha' given 
 my right hand if I might ha' thought of
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 79 
 
 the chance of wedding the lass I cared 
 for " 
 
 "My mother?" asked I, a little struck by 
 the change of his tone of voice. 
 
 "Xo! not thy mother. Thy mother is a 
 very good woman none better. No! the 
 lass I cared for at nineteen ne'er knew how I 
 loved her, and a year or two after and she was 
 dead, and ne'er knew. I think she would ha' 
 been glad to ha' known it, poor Molly; but I 
 had to leave the place where we lived for to 
 try to earn my bread and I meant to come 
 back but before ever I did, she was dead 
 and gone: I ha' never gone there since. But 
 if you fancy Phillis Holman, and can get her 
 to fancy you, my lad, it shall go different with 
 you, Paul, to what it did with your father." 
 
 I took counsel with mvself very rapidly, 
 and I came to a clear conclusion. 
 
 " Father," said T, " if I fancied Phillis ever 
 so much, she woukl never fancy me. I like 
 her as much as I could like a sister, and she 
 likes me as if I were her brother her younger 
 brother."
 
 8o COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 I could see my father's countenance fall a 
 little. 
 
 " You see she's so clever she's more like 
 a man than a woman she knows Latin and 
 Greek." 
 
 " She'd forget 'em, if she'd a houseful of 
 children," was my father's comment on this. 
 
 " But she knows many a thing besides, and 
 is wise as well as learned; she has been so 
 much with her father. She would never think 
 much of me, and I should like my wife to think 
 a deal of her husband." 
 
 " It is not just book-learning or the want 
 of it as makes a wife think much or little of 
 her husband," replied my father, evidently un- 
 willing to give up a project which had taken 
 deep root in his mind. "It's a something I 
 don't rightly know how to call it if he's 
 manly, and sensible, and straightforward; and 
 I reckon you're that, my boy." 
 
 " I don't think I should like to have a wife 
 taller than I am, father," said I, smiling; he 
 smiled too, but not heartily. 
 
 " Well," said he, after a pause. " It's but a
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. 8 1 
 
 few days I've been thinking of it; but I'd got 
 as fond of my notion as if it had been a new 
 engine as I'd been planning out. Here's our 
 Paul, thinks I to myself, a good sensible breed 
 o' lad, as has never vexed or troubled his 
 mother or me; with a good business opening 
 out before him, age nineteen, not so bad- 
 looking, though perhaps not to call handsome, 
 and here's his cousin, not too near a cousin, but 
 just nice, as one may say; aged seventeen, good 
 and true, and well brought up to work with 
 her hands as well as her head ; a scholar, but 
 that can't be helped, and is more her mis- 
 fortune than her fault, seeing she is the only 
 child of a scholar and as I said afore, once 
 she's a wife and a mother she'll forget it all, 
 I'll be bound, with a good fortune in land 
 and house when it shall please the Lord to 
 take her parents to himself; with eyes like 
 poor Molly's for beauty, a color that comes 
 and goes on a milk-white skin, and as pretty 
 
 a moutli " 
 
 " Why, Mr. Manning, what fair lady are 
 you describing?" asked Mr. Iloldsworth, who 
 6
 
 82 COUSIN PHIL LIS. 
 
 had come quickly and suddenly upon our tete- 
 h-tete., and had caught my father's last words 
 as he entered the room. 
 
 Both my father and I felt rather abashed; 
 it was such an odd subject for us to be talking 
 about; but my father, like a straightforward, 
 simple man as he was, spoke out the truth. 
 
 " I've been telling Paul of Ellison's offer, 
 and saying how good an opening it made for 
 him " 
 
 " I wish I'd as good," said Mr. Holdsworth. 
 " But has the business a ' pretty mouth? ' " 
 
 " You're always so full of your joking, Mr. 
 Holdsworth," said my father. " I was going to 
 say that if he and his cousin Phillis Ilolman 
 liked to make it up between them, I would put 
 no spoke in the wheel." 
 
 "Phillis Ilolman!" said Mr. Holdsworth. 
 " Is she the daughter of the minister-farmer 
 out at Heathbridge? Have I been helping on 
 the course of true love by letting you go there 
 so often? I knew nothing of it." 
 
 " There is nothing to know," said I, more 
 annoyed than I chose to show. " There is no
 
 A STOR7' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 83 
 
 more true love in the case than may be be- 
 tween the first brother and sister you may 
 choose to meet. I have been telHng father 
 she would never think of me; she's a great 
 deal taller and cleverer; and I'd rather be 
 taller and more learned than my wife, when I 
 have one." 
 
 " And it is she, then, that has the pretty 
 mouth your father spoke about? I should 
 think that would be an antidote to the clever- 
 ness and learning. But I ought to apologize 
 for breaking in upon vour last night; I came 
 upon business to your father." 
 
 And then he and my father began to talk 
 about many things that had no interest for me 
 just then, and I began to go over again my 
 conversation with my father. The more I 
 tliought about it the more I felt that I had 
 spoken truly about mv feelings toward Phillis 
 Ilolman. I loved her dearlv as a sister, but I 
 could never fancy her as my wife. Still less 
 could I thiidv of her e\er yes, condescending ., 
 that is tlie word condescending to irinrrv me. 
 I was roused from a rcveiie on what I should
 
 4 COUSTN PHILLIS. 
 
 like my possible wife to be, by hearing my 
 father's warm praise of the minister, as a most 
 unusual character; how they had got back 
 from the diameter of driving-wheels to the 
 subject of the Holmans I could never tell; but 
 I saw that my father's weighty praises were 
 exciting some curiosity in Mr. Holdsworth's 
 mind; indeed, he said, almost in a voice of 
 reproach, 
 
 " Why, Paul, you never told me what 
 kind of a fellow this minister-cousin of yours 
 was! " 
 
 " I don't know that I found out, sir," said I. 
 " But if I had, I don't think you'd have listened 
 to me, as you have done to my father." 
 
 "No! most likely not, old fellow," replied 
 Mr. Holdsworth, laughing. And again and 
 afresh I saw what a handsome, pleasant, clear 
 face his was; and though this evening I had 
 been a bit put out with him through his 
 sudden coming, and his having heard my 
 father's open-hearted confidence my hero 
 resumed all his empire over me by his bright 
 merry laugh.
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 85 
 
 And if he had not resumed his old place 
 that night, he would have done so the next day, 
 when, after my father's departure, Air. Holds- 
 worth spoke about him with such just respect 
 for his character, such ungrudging admiration 
 of his great mechanical genius, that I was com- 
 pelled to say, almost unawares, 
 
 " Thank you, sir. I am very much obliged 
 to you." 
 
 " Oh, you're not at all. I am only speaking 
 the truth. Here's a 15irmingham workman, 
 self-educated, one mav sav having never asso- 
 ciated with stimulating minds, or had what 
 advantages travel and contact with the world 
 may be supposed to afford working out his 
 own thoughts into steel and iron, making a 
 scientific name for himself a fortune, if it 
 pleases him to work for money and keeping 
 his singleness of lieart, his perfect simplicity 
 of manner; it puts me out of patience to think 
 of mv expensive schooling, mv travels hither 
 and thither, my heaps of scientific books, and I 
 have done nothing to speak of. But it's evi- 
 dently good blood; theie's that Mr. Holman,
 
 86 COUSTN PHILLIS. 
 
 that cousin of yours, made of the same 
 stuff." 
 
 " But he's only cousin because he married 
 my mother's second cousin," said I. 
 
 " That knocks a pretty theorj' on the head, 
 and twice over, too. I should like to make 
 Holman's acquaintance." 
 
 " I am sure they would be so glad to see 
 you at Hope Farm," said I, eagerly. " In fact, 
 they've asked me to bring. you several times; 
 only I thought you would find it dull." 
 
 " Not at all. I can't go yet though, even 
 
 if you do get me an invitation; for the 
 
 Company want me to go to the 
 
 Valley, and look over the ground a bit for 
 them, to see if it would do for a branch line; it's 
 a job which may take me away for some time ; 
 but I shall be backward and forward, and you're 
 quite up to doing what is needed in my ab- 
 sence; the only work that may be beyond you 
 is keeping old Jevons from drinking." 
 
 He went on giving me directions about the 
 management of the men employed on the line, 
 and no more was said then, or for several
 
 A STORT OF EXGLISH LOVE. 87 
 
 months, about his going to Hope Farm. He 
 
 went off into Valley, a dark, overshadowed 
 
 dale, where the sun seemed to set behind the 
 hills befoie four o'clock on midsummer after- 
 noons. 
 
 Perhaps it was this that brought on the 
 attack of low fever which he had soon after 
 the beginning of the new year; he was very 
 ill for many weeks, almost many months; a 
 inarried sister his only relation, I think 
 came down from London to nurse him, and I 
 went over to him when I could, to see him, 
 and give him " masculine news," as he called 
 it; reports of the progress of the line, which, 
 I am glad to sav, I was able to carr}- on in his 
 absence, in the slow, gradual way which suited 
 the company best, while trade was in a languid 
 state, and money dear in the market. Of 
 course, witli this occupation for my scanty 
 leisure, I did not often go over to Hope Farm. 
 Whenever I ditl go, I met with a tliorough 
 welcome; and manv iiujuiries were made as 
 to Holdsworth's illness, and the progress of his 
 recovery.
 
 SS COUSIN PHTLLTS. 
 
 At length, in June I think it was, he was 
 siitiiciently recovered to come back to his lodg- 
 ings at Eltham, and resume part at least of his 
 woik. His sister, Mrs. Robinson, had be n 
 obliged to leave him some weeks before, owing 
 to some epidemic among her own children. 
 As long as I had seen Mr. Iloldsworth in the 
 rooms at the little inn at Hensleydale, where I 
 had been accustomed to look upon him as an 
 invalid, I had not been aware of the visible 
 shake his fever had given to his health. But, 
 once back in the old lodgings, where I had 
 always seen him so buoyant, eloquent, decided, 
 and vigorous in former days, my spirits sank 
 at the change in one whom I had always re- 
 garded with a strong feeling of admiring affec- 
 tion. He sank into silence and despondency 
 after the least exertion ; he seemed as if he 
 could not make up his mind to any action, or 
 else that, when it was made up, he lacked 
 strength to carry out his purpose. Of course, 
 it was but the natural state of slow conva- 
 lescence, after so sharp an illness; but at the 
 time, I did not know this, and perhaps I repre-
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 89 
 
 sented his state as more serious than it was 
 to my kind relations at Hope Farm; who, in 
 their grave, simple, eager way, immediately 
 thought of the only help they could give. 
 
 " Bring him out here," said the minister. 
 '' Our air here is good to a proverb; the June 
 days are fine; he may loiter away his time in 
 the hayfield, and the sweet smells will be a 
 balm in themselves better than physic." 
 
 "And," said cousin Holman, scarcely wait- 
 ing for her husband to finish his sentence, 
 " tell him there is new milk and fresh eggs 
 to be had for the asking; it's lucky Daisy has 
 just calved, for her milk is always as good as 
 other cow's cream ; and there is the plaid room 
 with the morning sun all streaming in." 
 
 Phillis said nothing, but looked as much 
 interested in the project as anvone. I took it 
 up myself. I wanted them to see him ; him to 
 know them. I proposed it to him when I got 
 Iiome. lie was too languid after the day's 
 fatigue, to be willing to make the little exer- 
 tion of going among strangers; and disap- 
 pointed me by almost declining to accept the
 
 go C0U3IN PHILLIS. 
 
 invitation I brought. The next morning it 
 was different; he apologized for his ungra- 
 ciousness of the night before; and told me 
 that he would get all things in train, so as to 
 be ready to go out with me to Hope Farm on 
 the following Saturday. 
 
 " For you must go with me, Manning," 
 said he; "I used to be as impudent a fellow 
 as need be, and rather liked going among 
 strangers, and making my way; but since my 
 illness I am almost like a girl, and turn hot 
 and cold with shyness, as they do, I fancy." 
 
 So it was fixed. We were to go out to 
 Hope Farm on Saturday afternoon; and it 
 was also understood that if the air and the life 
 suited Mr. Holdsworth, he was to remain 
 there for a week or ten days, doing what work 
 he could at that end of the line, while I took 
 his place at Eltham to the best of my ability. 
 I grew a little nervous, as the time drew near, 
 and wondered how the brilliant Holdsworth 
 would agree with the quiet, quaint family of 
 the minister; how they would like him, and 
 many of his half-foreign ways. I tried to pre-
 
 A STORT OF EI^GLTSH LOVE. 9I 
 
 pare him, by telling him from time to time 
 little things about the goings-on at Hope 
 Farm. 
 
 " Manning," said he, " I see you don't think 
 I am half good enough for your friends. Out 
 with it, man." 
 
 " No," I replied, boldly. " I think you are 
 good; but I don't know if you are quite of 
 their kind of goodness." 
 
 " And you've found out already that there 
 is a greater chance of disagreement between 
 two ' kinds of goodness,' each having its own 
 idea of right, than between a given goodness 
 and a moderate degree of naughtiness which 
 last often arises from an indifference to right?" 
 
 " I don't know. I think you're talking 
 metaphysics, and I am sure that is bad for 
 you." 
 
 " ' When a man talks to you in a way that 
 you don't understand about a thing which 
 he does not untlcrstand, them's meta]ihvsics.' 
 You remember the clown's definition, don't 
 you, Maiuiing? " 
 
 " Xo, I don't," said I. " lint what I do
 
 92 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 understand is, that you must go to bed; and 
 tell me at what time we must start to-morrow, 
 that I may go to Hepworth, and get those 
 letters written we were talking about this 
 morning." 
 
 " Wait till to-morrow, and let us see what 
 the day is like," he answered, with such languid 
 indecision as showed me he was over-fatigued. 
 So I went my way. 
 
 The morrow was blue and sunny, and 
 beautiful; the very perfection of an early sum- 
 mer's day. Mr. Holdsworth was all impa- 
 tience to be off into the country; morning had 
 brought back his freshness of strength, and 
 consequent eagerness to be doing. I was 
 afraid we were going to my cousin's farm 
 rather too early, before they would expect us; 
 but what could I do with such a restless, 
 vehement man as Holdsworth was that morn 
 ing? We came down upon the Hope Farm 
 before the dew was off the grass on the shady 
 side of the lane; the great house-dog w^as 
 loose, basking in the sun, near the closed side 
 door. I was surprised at this door being shut.
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. 93 
 
 for all summer long it was open from morn- 
 ing to night; but it was only on latch. I 
 opened it, Rover watching me with half- 
 suspicious, half-trustful eyes. The room was 
 empty. 
 
 " I don't know where they can be," said I. 
 " But come in and sit down while I go and 
 look for them. You must be tired." 
 
 " Not I. This sweet, balmy air is like a 
 thousand tonics. Besides, this room is hot, and 
 smells of those pungent wood-ashes. What 
 are we to do? " 
 
 " Go around to the kitchen. J?etty will tell 
 us where they are." 
 
 So we went around into the farmyard, 
 Rover accompanying us out of a grave sense 
 of duty. Betty was \vashing out her milk- 
 pans in the cold, bubbling spring-water that 
 constantly trickled in and out of a stone trough. 
 In such weather as this, most of her kitchen- 
 wc^rk was done out of doors. 
 
 "Eh, dear!" said she, " the minister and 
 missus is away at Hornby! They ne'er thought 
 (jf your coming so betimes! The missus had
 
 94 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 some errands to do, and she thought as she'd 
 walk with the minister and be back by dinner- 
 time." 
 
 "Did not they expect us to dinner?" 
 said I. 
 
 " Well, they did, and they did not, as I 
 may say Missus said to me the cold lamb 
 would do well enough if you did not come; 
 and if you did, I was to put on a chicken and 
 some bacon to boil; and I'll go do it now, for it 
 is hard to boil bacon enough." 
 
 " And is Phillis gone, too ? " Mr. Holds- 
 worth was making friends with Rover. 
 
 "No! She's just somewhere about. I 
 reckon you'll find her in the kitchen-garden, 
 getting peas." 
 
 " Let us go there," said Holdsworth, sud- 
 denly leaving off his play with the dog. 
 
 So I led the way into the kitchen-garden. 
 It was in the first promise of a summer profuse 
 in vegetables and fruits. Perhaps it was not 
 so much cared for as other parts of the prop- 
 erty ; but it was more attended to than 
 most kitchen-gardens belonging to farm-
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. 95 
 
 houses. There were borders of flowers 
 along each side of the gravel walks; and 
 there was an old sheltering wall on the 
 north side covered with tolerably choice fruit- 
 trees ; there was a slope down to the fishpond 
 at the end, where there were great strawberry- 
 beds; and raspberry-bushes and rose-bushes 
 grew wherever there was a space; it seemed a 
 chance which had been planted. Long rows 
 of peas stretched at right angles from the main 
 walk, and I saw Phillis stooping down among 
 them, before she saw us. As soon as she 
 heard our cranching steps on the gravel, she 
 stood up, and, shading her eyes from the sun, 
 recognized us. She was quite still for a mo- 
 ment, and then came slowly toward us, blush- 
 ing a little from evident shyness. 1 had never 
 seen Phillis sliy before. 
 
 This IS Mr. Iloldsworth, Phillis," said I, 
 as soon as I had shaken hands with her. She 
 glanced up at bim, and then looked down, more 
 tluslied than e\ei- at his grand formality of 
 taking his hat off and bowing; such manners 
 had never been seen at llcjpe Farm l)ef(jre.
 
 96 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 " Father and mother are out. They will 
 be so sorry; you did not write, Paul, as you 
 said you would." 
 
 " It was my fault," said Holdsworth, under- 
 standing what she meant as well as if she had 
 put it more fully into words. " I have not yet 
 given up all the privileges of an invalid; one 
 of which is indecision. Last night, when 3'our 
 cousin asked me at what time we were to 
 start, I really could not make up my mind." 
 
 Phillis seemed as if she could not make up 
 her mind as to what to do with us. I tried to 
 help her 
 
 " Have you finished getting peas? " taking 
 hold of the half-filled basket she was uncon- 
 sciously holding in her hand; "or may we 
 stay and help you ? " 
 
 " If you would. But perhaps it will tire 
 you, sir?" added she, speaking now to Holds- 
 worth. 
 
 " Not a bit," said he. " It will carry me 
 back twenty years in my life, when I used to 
 gather peas in my grandfather's garden. I 
 suppose I may eat a few as I go along? "
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 97 
 
 " Certainly, sir. But if you went to the 
 strawberry-beds you would find some straw- 
 berries ripe, and Paul can show you where 
 they are." 
 
 " I am afraid you distrust me. I can assure 
 you I know the exact fullness at which peas 
 should be gathered. I take great care not to 
 pluck them when they are unripe. I will not 
 be turned off, as unfit for my work." 
 
 This was a style of half-joking talk that 
 Phillis was not accustomed to. She looked for 
 a moinent as if she would have liked to defend 
 herself from the plaj-ful charge of distrust 
 made against her, but she ended by not saying 
 a word. We all plucked our peas in busy 
 silence for the next five minutes. Then Holds- 
 worth lifted himself up from between the 
 rows, and said, a little wearily 
 
 " I am afraid I must strike work. I am 
 not as strong as I fancied myself." 
 
 Phillis was full of penitence immediately 
 lie did, indeed, look pale; and she blamed 
 herself for having allowed him to help 
 her. 
 
 7
 
 98 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 " It was very thoughtless of me. I did 
 not know I thought, perhaps, you really 
 liked it. I ought to have offered you some- 
 thing to eat, sir! Oh, Paul, we have gathered 
 quite enough; how stupid I was to forget that 
 Mr. Holdsworth had been ill!" And in a 
 blushing hurry she led the way toward the 
 house. We went in, and she moved a heavy 
 cushioned chair forward, into which Holds- 
 worth was only too glad to sink. Then with 
 deft and quiet speed she brought in a little 
 tray, wine, water, cake, home-made bread and 
 newly-churned butter. She stood by in some 
 anxiety till, after bite and sup, the color re- 
 turned to Mr. Holdsworth's face, and he would 
 fain have made us some laughing apologies for 
 the fright he had given us. But then Phillis 
 drew back from her innocent show of care and 
 interest, and relapsed into the cold shyness 
 habitual to her when she was first thrown into 
 the company of strangers. She brought out 
 the last week's county paper (which Mr. Holds- 
 worth had read five days ago) and then quietly 
 withdrew ; and then he subsided into languor,
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 99 
 
 leaning back and shutting his eyes as if he 
 would go to sleep. I stole into the kitchen 
 after Phillis; but she had made the round of 
 the corner of the house outside, and I found 
 her sitting on the horse-mount, with her basket 
 of peas, and a basin into which she was shell- 
 ing them. Rover lay at her feet, snapping 
 now and then at the flies. I went to her, and 
 tried to help her; but somehow the sweet, 
 crisp young peas found their w^iy more fre- 
 quently into my mouth than into the basket, 
 while we talked together in a low tone, fearful 
 of being overbcard through the open case- 
 ments of the house-place in which Holdsworth 
 was resting. 
 
 " Don't you think him handsome? " asked I, 
 
 " Perhaps yes I have hardly looked at 
 him," she replied. " But is not he very like a 
 foreigner?" 
 
 " Yes, he cuts his hair foreign fashion," 
 said I. 
 
 " I like an Englishman to look like an En- 
 glishman." 
 
 " I don't think he tliinks about it. lie says
 
 lOO COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 he began that way when he was in Italy, be- 
 cause everybody wore it so, and it is natural to 
 keep it on in England." 
 
 " Not if he began it in Italy, because every- 
 body there wore it so. Everybody here wears 
 it differently." 
 
 I was a little offended with Phillis's logical 
 fault-finding with my friend; and I determined 
 to change the subject, 
 
 " When is your mother coming home? " 
 
 " I should think she might come any time 
 now; but she had to go and see Mrs. Morton, 
 who was ill, and she might be kept, and not be 
 home till dinner. Don't you think you ought 
 to go and see how Mr. Holdsworth is going 
 on, Paul.'' He may be faint again." 
 
 I went at her bidding; but there was no 
 need for it. Mr. Holdsworth was up, standing 
 by the window, his hands in his pockets; he 
 had evidently been watching us. He turned 
 away as I entered. 
 
 " So that is the girl I found your good 
 father planning for your wife, Paul, that even- 
 ing when I interrupted you! Are you of the
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. lOl 
 
 same coy mind still? It did not look like it a 
 minute ago." 
 
 "Phillis and I understand each other," I re- 
 plied, sturdily. " We are like brother and 
 sister. She would not have me as a husband, 
 if there was not another man in the world ; 
 and it would take a deal to make me think of 
 her as my father wishes" (somehow I did 
 not like to say "as a wife"), "but we love 
 each other dearly." 
 
 "Well? lam rather surprised at it- ^not 
 at your loving each other in a brother-and- 
 sister kind of way but at your finding it so 
 impossible to fall in love with such a beautiful 
 woman." 
 
 Woman! beautiful woman! I had thought 
 of Phillis as a comely but awkward girl; and 
 I could not banish the pinafore from my mind's 
 eye when I tried to pictui'c her to myself. 
 Now I turned, as Mr. lloldswoith had done, 
 to look at her again out of tlie window; she 
 had just finished her task, and was standing 
 up, her back to us, holding the basket, and the
 
 COUSIN PIIILLIS. 
 
 basin in it, high in air, out of Rover's reach, 
 who was giving vent to his delight at the prob- 
 abiHty of a change of 2:)lace by glad leaps and 
 barks, and snatches at what he imagined to be 
 a withheld prize. At length she grew tired of 
 their mutual play, and with a feint of striking 
 him, and a "Down, Rover! do hush!" she 
 looked toward the window where we were 
 standing, as if to reassure herself that no one 
 had been disturbed by the noise, and seeing us, 
 she colored all over, and hurried away, with 
 Rover still curving in sinuous lines about her 
 as she walked. 
 
 " I should like to have sketched her," said 
 Mr. Holdsworth, as he turned away. He went 
 back to his chair, and rested in silence for a 
 minute or two. Then he was up again. 
 
 " I would give a good deal for a book," said 
 he. " It would keep me quiet." He began to 
 look around; there were a few volumes at one 
 end of the shovel-board. 
 
 " Fifth volume of IMatthew Henry's Com- 
 mentary^'' said he, reading their titles aloud.
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 03 
 
 ''Housexvifc's Complete ATanualy Berridge 
 on Prayer ; L'' Infcrtio Dante!" in great sur- 
 prise. "Why, who reads this?" 
 
 " I told you Phillis read it. Don't you re- 
 member? She knows Latin and Greek, too." 
 
 " To be sin^el I remember! But somehow 
 I never put two and two together. That quiet 
 girl, full of household work, is the wonderful 
 scholar, then, that put you to rout with her 
 questions when you first began to come here. 
 To be sure, 'Cousin Phillis!' What's here: a 
 paper with the hard, obsolete words written 
 out. I wonder what sort of a dictionary she 
 has got. Baretti won't tell her all these words. 
 Stay! I have got a pencil here. I'll write 
 down the most accepted meanings, and save 
 her a little trouble." 
 
 So he took her book and the paper back to 
 the little round table, and emploved himself in 
 writing explanations and definitions of the 
 \vf)rds which had troubled her. I was not sure 
 if he was not taking a libertv; it did not quite 
 please me, and vet I did not know whv. lie 
 had only just done, and replaced the paper in
 
 104- COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 the book, and put the hitter back in its place, 
 when I heard the sound of wheels stopping in 
 the lane, and looking out I saw cousin Holman 
 getting out of a neighbor's gig, making her 
 little curtsey of acknowledgment, and then 
 coming towards the house. I went out to meet 
 her. 
 
 "Oh, Paul!" said she, "I am so sorry I was 
 kept; and then Thomas Dobson said if I would 
 
 wait a quarter of an hour, he would But 
 
 where's your friend, Mr. Holdsworth? I hope 
 he is come." 
 
 Just then he came out, and with his pleasant, 
 cordial manner took her hand, and thanked her 
 for asking him to come out here to get strong. 
 
 " I'm sure I am very glad to see you, sir. 
 It was the minister's thought. I took it into 
 my head you would be dull in our quiet house, 
 foi- Paul says you've been such a great traveler; 
 but the minister said dullness would perhaps 
 suit you while you were but ailing, and that I 
 was to ask Paul to be here as much as he could. 
 I hope you'll find yourself happy with us, I'm 
 sure, sir. Has Phillis given you something to
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 05 
 
 eat and drink, I wonder? there's a deal in eat- 
 ing a little often, if one has to get strong after 
 an illness." And then she began to question, 
 him as to the details of his indisposition in her 
 simple, motherly way. He seemed at once to 
 understand her, and to enter into friendly rela- 
 tions with her. It was not quite the same in 
 the evening when the minister came home. 
 Men have always a little natural antipathy to 
 get over when they first meet as strangers. 
 J^ut in this case each was disposed to make an 
 effort to like the other; only each was to each 
 a specimen of an unknown class. I had to 
 leave the Hope Farm on Sunday afternoon, as 
 I had Air. Holdsworth's work as well as my 
 own to look to in Eltham; and I was not at all 
 sure how things would go on during the week 
 that Iloldsworth was to lemain on his visit; I 
 had been once or twice in hot water already at 
 the near clash of opinions between the minister 
 and my much-vaunted friend. On the Wednes- 
 day I received a short note from Iloldsworth; 
 he was going to stay on, and return with me 
 on the fcjllowiiig Sunday, and he wanted me to
 
 lo6 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 send him a certain list of books, his theodolite 
 and other surveying instruments, all of which 
 could easily be conveyed down the line to 
 Heathbridge. I went to his lodgings and 
 picked out the books. Italian, Latin, trigonom- 
 etry; a pretty considerable parcel they made, 
 besides the implements. I began to be curious 
 as to the general progress of affairs at Hope 
 Farm, but I could not go over till the Satur- 
 day. At Heathbridge I found Holdsworth, 
 come to meet me. He was looking quite a 
 different man to what I had left him; em- 
 browned, sparkles in his eyes, so languid 
 before. I told him how much stronger he 
 looked. 
 
 "Yes! "said he. I am fidgeting fain to be 
 at work again. Last week I dreaded the 
 thoughts of my employment; now I am full of 
 desire to begin. This week in the country has 
 done wonders for me." 
 
 "You have enjoyed yourself, then?" 
 " Oh! it has been perfect in its way. Such 
 a thorough country life! and yet removed 
 from the dullness which I always used to fancy
 
 A STORV OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 07 
 
 accompanied country life, by the extraordinary 
 intelligence of the minister. I have fallen into 
 calling him ' the minister,' like everyone else." 
 
 "You get on with him, then? " said I. " I 
 was a little afraid." 
 
 " I was on the verge of displeasing him 
 once or twice, I fear, with random assertions 
 and exaggerated expressions, such as one al- 
 wavs uses with other people, and thinks noth- 
 ing of; but I tried to check myself when I 
 saw how it shocked the good man ; and really 
 it is very wholesome exercise, this trying to 
 make one's words represent one's thoughts, 
 instead of merely looking to their effect on 
 others." 
 
 "Then you are quite friends now?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes, thoroughly; at any rate as far as I 
 go. T never met with a man with such a de- 
 sire for knowledge. In information, as fai- as 
 it can he gained frcjm books, lie fai" exceeds me 
 on most subjects; but then I ha\e ti^aveled and 
 seen were not you surprised at the list of 
 thinirs I sent for? "
 
 io8 COUSIN PHI LIAS. 
 
 "Yes! I thought it did not promise much 
 rest." 
 
 "Oh! some of the books were for the 
 minister, and some for his daughter. (I call her 
 Phillis to myself, but I use euphuisms in speak- 
 ing about her to others. I don't like to seem 
 familiar, and yet Miss Holman is a term I have 
 never heard used.)" 
 
 " 1 thought the Italian books were for her." 
 
 "Yes! Fancy her trying at Dante for her 
 first book in Italian! I had a capital novel by 
 Manzoni, / Pro?nessi Sposi, just the thing 
 for a beginner; and if she must still puzzle out 
 Dante, my dictionary is far better than hers." 
 
 " Then she found out you had written those 
 definitions on her list of words?" 
 
 "Oh, yes!" with a smile of amusement 
 and pleasure. He was going to tell me what 
 had taken place, but checked himself. 
 
 " But I don't think the minister will like 
 your having given her a novel to read?" 
 
 " Pooh! What can be more harmless? Whv 
 make a bugbear of a word? It is as pretty 
 and innocent a tale as can be met with. You
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 09 
 
 don't suppose they take Virgil for gos- 
 pel?" 
 
 By this time we were at the farm. I think 
 Phillis gave me a wxirmer welcome than usual, 
 and cousin Holman was kindness itself. Yet 
 somehow I felt as if I had lost my place, and 
 that Holdsworth had taken it. He knew all 
 the ways of the house ; he was full of little 
 filial attentions to cousin Holman; he treated 
 Phillis with the affectionate condescension of 
 an elder brother; not a bit more; not in any 
 way different. He questioned me about the pro- 
 gress of affairs in Eltham with eager interest. 
 
 "Ah I" said cousin Holman, "you'll be 
 spending a different kind of time next week to 
 what you have done this! I can see how busy 
 you'll make yourself! But if you don't take 
 care you'll be ill again, and have to come back 
 to our quiet ways of going on." 
 
 " Do you suppose I shall need to be ill 
 to wish to come back here?" he answered, 
 warmly. " I am onlv afraid vou have treated 
 me so kindlv tliat I shall alwavs l)e turning up 
 on your hands."
 
 no COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 " That's right," she replied. " Only don't 
 go and make yourself ill by overwork. I 
 hope you'll go on with a cup of new milk 
 every morning, for I am sure that is the best 
 medicine; and put a teaspoonful of rum in it, 
 if you like; many a one speaks highly of that, 
 only we had no rum in the house." 
 
 I brought with me an atmosphere of active 
 life which I think he had begun to miss; and 
 it was natural that he should seek my com- 
 pany, after his week of retirement. Once I 
 saw Phillis looking at us as we talked together 
 with a kind of wistful curiosity; but as soon as 
 she caught my eye, she turned away, blushing 
 deeply. 
 
 That evening I had a little talk with the 
 minister. I strolled along the Hornby road to 
 meet him; for Holdsworth was giving Phillis 
 an Italian lesson, and cousin Holman had fallen 
 asleep over her work. 
 
 Somehow, and not unwillingly on my part, 
 our talk fell on the friend whom I had intro- 
 duced to the Hope Farm. 
 
 "Yes! I like him!" said the minister,
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. HI 
 
 weighing his words a Uttle as he spoke. " I 
 Hke him. I hope I am justified in doing it, 
 but he takes hold of me, as it were; and I have 
 almost been afraid lest he carries me away, in 
 spite of my judgment." 
 
 "He is a good fellow; indeed he is," said I. 
 " Aly father thinks well of him ; and I have 
 seen a deal of him. I would not have had 
 him come here if I did not know that you 
 would approve of him." 
 
 " Yes " (once more hesitating), " I like him, 
 and I think he is an upright man; there is a 
 want of seriousness in his talk at times; but, at 
 the same time, it is wonderful to listen to him ! 
 He makes Horace and Virgil living, instead of 
 dead, by the stories he tells me of his sojourn 
 in the ver}' countries where they lived, ;nid 
 where to this day, he says but it is like 
 dram-drinking. I listen to him till I forget 
 my duties, and am carried off my feet. Last 
 Sabbath evening he led us away into talk 
 on profane subjects ill ])efitting the day." 
 
 By this time we were at the house, and our 
 conversation stopped. But before the day was
 
 112 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 out, I saw the unconscious hold that my friend 
 had got over all the family. And no wonder; 
 he had seen so much and done so much as 
 compared to them, and he told about it all so 
 easily and naturally, and yet as I never heard 
 anyone else do; and his ready pencil was out 
 in an instant to draw on scraps of paper all 
 sorts of illustrations modes of drawing up 
 water in Northern Italy, wine-carts, buffaloes, 
 stone-pines, I know not what. After we had 
 all looked at these drawings, Phillis gathered 
 them together, and took them. 
 
 It is many years since I have seen thee, Ed- 
 ward Holdsworth, but thou wast a delightful 
 fellow! Ay, and a good one too; though much 
 sorrow was caused by thee! 
 
 "Vii^^
 
 PART III. 
 
 JUST after this I went home for a week's 
 hohday. Everything was prospering there; 
 my father's new partnership gave evident 
 satisfaction to both parties. There was no dis- 
 play of increased wealth in our modest house- 
 hold ; but my mother had a few extra comforts 
 provided for her by her husband. I made ac- 
 ([uaintance with ^Ir. and Jvlrs. Ellison, and first 
 saw prettv Margaret Ellison, who is now my 
 wife. When I returned to Ellham, I found that 
 a step was decided upon, which had been in 
 contemplation for some time: that Holdsworth 
 and I should remove our (juartcrs to Hornby; 
 our daily presence, and as much of our time as 
 8 113
 
 114 COUSIN PHIL LIS. 
 
 possible, being required for the completion of 
 the line at that end. 
 
 Of course this led to greater facility of in- 
 tercourse with the Hope Farm people. We 
 could easily walk out there after our day's 
 work was done, and spend a balmy evening 
 hour or two, and yet return before the sum- 
 mer's twilight had quite faded away. Many a 
 time, indeed, we would fain have stayed 
 longer the open air, the fresh and pleasant 
 country, m.ade so agreeable a contrast to the 
 close, hot town lodgings which I shared with 
 Mr. Holdsworth ; but early hours, both at eve 
 and morn, were an imperative necessity with 
 the minister, and he made no scruple at turning 
 either, or both of us, out of the house directly 
 after evening prayer, or "exercise," as he called 
 it. The remembrance of many a happy day, 
 and of several little scenes, comes back upon 
 me as I think of that summer. They rise like 
 pictures to my memory, and in this way I can 
 date their succession; for I know that corn- 
 harvest must have come after haymaking, 
 apple-gathering after corn-harvest.
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. II5 
 
 The removal to Hornby took up some time, 
 during wiiich we had neither of us any leisure 
 to go out to the Hope Farm. Mr. Holdsworth 
 had been out there once during my absence at 
 home. One sultry evening, when work was 
 done, he proposed our walking out and paying 
 the Holmans a visit. It so happened that I 
 had omitted to write my usual weekly letter 
 home in our press of business, and I wished to 
 finish that before going out. Then he said 
 that he would go, and that I could follow him 
 if I liked. This I did in about an hour; the 
 weather was so oppressive, I remember, that I 
 took off my coat as 1 walked, and hung it over 
 my arm. All tlie doors and windows at the 
 farm were open when I arrived there, and 
 every tiny leaf on the trees was still. The 
 silence of tlie place was profound ; at first I 
 thought that it was entirely deserted; but just 
 as I drew near the door I heard a weak, sweet 
 voice begin to sing; it was cousin Ilolman, all 
 V)y herself in the house-i^lace, piping up a 
 hymn, as she knitted away in the clouded light. 
 She ga\e me a kindly welcome, and poured
 
 Il6 COUSrN PHILLIS. 
 
 out all the small domestic news of the fortnight 
 past upon me, and, in return, I told her about 
 my own people and my visit at home. 
 
 " Where are the rest?" at length I asked. 
 
 Betty and the men were in the field helping 
 with the last load of hay, for the minister said 
 there would be rain before the morning. Yes, 
 and the minister himself, and Phillis, and Mr. 
 Holdsworth were all there helping. She 
 thought that she herself could have done some- 
 thing; but perhaps she was the least fit for 
 haymaking of anyone; and somebody must 
 stay at home and take care of the house, there 
 were so many tramps about; if I had not had 
 something to do with the railroad she would 
 have called them navvies. I asked her if she 
 minded being left alone, as I should like to go 
 and help; and having her full and glad per- 
 mission to leave her alone, I went off, following 
 her directions: through the farmyard, past the 
 cattle-pond, into the ash-field, beyond into the 
 higher field with two holly-bushes in the mid- 
 dle. I arrived there: there was Betty with all 
 the farming men, and a cleared field, and a
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 17 
 
 heavily laden cart; one man at the top of the 
 great pile ready to catch the fragrant hay 
 which the others threw up to him with their 
 pitchforks; a little heap of cast-off clothes in a 
 corner of the field (for the heat, even at seven 
 o'clock, was insufferable), a few cans and bas- 
 kets, and Rover lying by them panting, and 
 keeping watch. Plenty of loud, hearty, cheer- 
 ful talking; but no minister, no Phillis, no Mr. 
 Holdsworth. Betty saw me first, and under- 
 standing who it was that I was in search of, 
 she came toward me. 
 
 " They're out yonder agait wi' them 
 things o' jMeaster lloldsworth's." 
 
 So "out yonder" I went; out onto a broad 
 upland common, full of red sandbanks, and 
 sweeps and hollows; bordered by dark firs, 
 purple in the coming shadows, but near at hand 
 all ablaze with flowering gorse, or, as we call 
 it in the south, furze-bushes, which, seen 
 against the belt of distant trees, appeared bril- 
 liantly golden. On tliis heath, a little way 
 from the field-gate, I saw the three. I counted 
 their heads, joined together in an eager group
 
 1 1 8 COUSIN PHIL L IS. 
 
 over Iloldsvvorth's theodolite. He was teach- 
 ing the minister the practical art of survey- 
 ing and taking a level. I was wanted to assist, 
 and was quickly set to work to hold the chain. 
 Phillis was as intent as her father; she had 
 hardly time to greet me, so desirous was she to 
 hear some answer to her father's question. 
 
 So we went on, the dark clouds still gather- 
 ing, for perhaps five minutes after my arrival. 
 Then came the blinding lightning and the 
 rumble and quick-following rattling peal of 
 thunder right over our heads. It came sooner 
 than I expected, sooner than they had looked 
 for; the rain delayed not; it came pouring 
 down; and what were we to do for shelter? 
 Phillis had nothing on but her indoor things- 
 no bonnet, no shawl. Quick as the darting 
 lightning around us, Holdsworth took off his 
 coat and w^rapped it around her neck and 
 shoulders, and, almost without a word, hurried 
 us all into such poor shelter as one of the over- 
 hanging sandbanks could give. There we 
 were, cowered down, close together, Phillis 
 innermost, almost too tightly packed to free
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 119 
 
 her arms enough to divest herself of the coat, 
 which she, in her turn, tried to put lightly 
 over Holdsworth's shoulders. In doing so, 
 she touched his shirt. 
 
 "Oh, how ^vet you are!" she cried in 
 pitying dismav; "and you've hardly got over 
 your fever! Oh, Mr. Iloldsworth, I am so 
 sorry!" He turned his head a little, smiling at 
 her. 
 
 " If I do catch cold, it is all my fault for 
 having deluded you into staying out here;" but 
 she only murmured again, " I am so sorry." 
 
 The minister spoke now. " It is a regular 
 downpour. Please God that the hay is saved! 
 Ikit there is no likelihood of its ceasing, and I 
 had better go home at once, and send you all 
 some wraps; umbrellas will not be safe with 
 yonder thunder and lightning." 
 
 Both Iloldsworth and I offered to go in- 
 stead of him; but he was resolved, although 
 perhaps it wculd have l)een wiser if Holds- 
 worth, wet as he already was, had kept him- 
 self in exercise. As he moved off, Phillis 
 crept out, and could see on to the storm-swept
 
 I20 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 heath. Part of Hoklsworth's apparatus still 
 remained exposed to all the rain. Before we 
 could have any warning, she had rushed out 
 of the shelter and collected the various things, 
 and brought them back in triumph to where 
 we crouched. Holdsworth had stood up, un- 
 certain whether to go to her assistance or not. 
 She came running back, her long, lovely hair 
 floating and dripping, her eyes glad and bright, 
 and her color freshened to a glow of health by 
 the exercise and the rain, 
 
 " Now, Miss Holman, that's what I call 
 willful," said Holdsworth, as she gave them to 
 him. "No, I won't thank you" (his looks 
 were thanking her all the time). " My little 
 bit of dampness annoyed you, because you 
 thought I had got wet in your service; so you 
 were determined to make me as uncomfort- 
 able as you were yourself. It was an unchris- 
 tian piece of revenge!" 
 
 His tone of badinage (as the French call 
 it) would have been palpable enough to any- 
 one accustomed to the world; but Phillis was 
 not, and it distressed or rather bewildered her.
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 121 
 
 " Unchristian" had to her a very serious mean- 
 ing; it was not a word to be used Hghtly; and 
 though she did not exactly understand what 
 wrong it was that she was accused of doing, 
 she was evidently desirous to throw off the 
 imputation. At first her earnestness to dis- 
 claim unkind motives amused Holdsworth; 
 while his light continuance of the joke per- 
 plexed her still more; but at last he said some- 
 thing gravely, and in too low a tone for me to 
 hear, which made her all at once become silent, 
 and called out her blushes. After awhile, the 
 minister came back, a moving mass of shawls, 
 cloaks, and umbrellas. Phillis kept very close 
 to her father's side on our return to the farm. 
 She appeared to me to be shrinking away from 
 Holdsworth, while he had not the slightest 
 variation in his manner from what it usually 
 was in his graver moods; kind, protecting, and 
 thoughtful toward her. Of course, there was 
 a great commotion about our wet clothes; but 
 I name the little events of that evening now 
 because I wondered at the time what he had 
 said in that low voice to silence Phillis so
 
 122 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 effectually, and because, in thinking of their 
 intercourse by the light of future events, that 
 evening stands out with some prominence. 
 
 I have said that after our removal to Horn- 
 by our communications with the farm became 
 almost of daily occurrence. Cousin Holman 
 and I were the two who had least to do with 
 this intimacy. After Mr. Holdsworth regained 
 his health, he too often talked above her head 
 in intellectual matters, and too often in his 
 light bantering tone for her to feel quite at her 
 ease with him. I really believe that he adopted 
 this latter tone in speaking to her because he 
 did not know what to talk about to a purely 
 motherly woman, whose intellect had never 
 been cultivated, and whose loving heart was 
 entirely occupied with her husband, her child, 
 her household affairs, and, perhaps, a little 
 with the concerns of the members of her hus- 
 band's congregation, because they, in a way, 
 belonged to her husband. I had noticed be- 
 fore that she had fleeting shadows of jealousy 
 even of Phillis, when her daughter and her 
 husband appeared to have strong interests and
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 23 
 
 sympathies in things which were quite beyond 
 her comprehension. I had noticed it in my first 
 acquaintance with them, I say, and had ad- 
 mired the deHcate tact which made the min- 
 ister, on such occasions, bring the conversation 
 back to such subjects as those on which his 
 wife, with her practical experience of every- 
 day Hfe, was an authority; while Phillis, de- 
 voted to her father, unconsciously followed his 
 lead, totally unaware, in her filial reverence, of 
 his motive for doing so. 
 
 To return to Holdsworth. The minister 
 had at more than one time spoken of him to 
 me with slight distrust, principally occasioned 
 by the suspicion that his careless words were 
 not always those of soberness and truth. But 
 it was more as a protest against the fascination 
 which the younger inan evidently exercised 
 over the elder one more as it were to 
 strengthen himself against yielding to this fas- 
 cination that the niinistei^ spoke out to me 
 about this failing of Iloldsworth's, as it ap- 
 peared to him. In return Holdsworth was 
 subdued by the minister's upiightness and
 
 124 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 goodness, and delighted with his clear intel- 
 lect his strong, healthy craving after further 
 knowledge. I never met two men who took 
 more thorough pleasure and relish in each 
 other's society. To Phillis his relation con- 
 tinued that of an elder brother; he directed her 
 studies into new paths, he patiently drew out 
 the expression of many of her thoughts and 
 perplexities, and unformed theories scarcely 
 ever now falling into the vein of banter which 
 she was so slow to understand. 
 
 One day harvest-time he had been 
 drawing on a loose piece of paper sketching 
 ears of corn, sketching carts drawn by bullocks 
 and laden with grapes all the time talking 
 with Phillis and me, cousin Holman putting in 
 her not pertinent remarks, when suddenly he 
 said to Phillis, 
 
 "Keep your head still; I see a sketch! 1 
 have often tried to draw your head from mem- 
 ory, and failed; but I think I can do it now. 
 If I succeed I will give it to your mother. 
 You would like a portrait of your daughter as 
 Ceres, would you not, ma'am?"
 
 A STORr OF ENGLISH LOVE. 125 
 
 " I should like a picture of her; yes, very 
 much, thank you, Mr. Hoklsworth ; but if you 
 put that straw in her hair" (he was holding 
 some wheat ears above her passive head, look- 
 ing at the effect with an artistic eye), "you'll 
 ruffle her hair. Phillis, my dear, if you're to 
 have your picture taken, go upstairs and brush 
 your hair smooth." 
 
 " Not on any account. I beg your pardon, 
 but I want hair loosely flowing." 
 
 He began to draw, looking intently at 
 Phillis; I could see this stare of his discom- 
 posed her her color came and went, her 
 breath quickened with the consciousness of 
 his regard; at last, when he said, "Please look 
 at me for a minute or two, I want to get in the 
 eyes," she looked up at him, quivered, and sud- 
 denly got up and left the room. He did not 
 say a word, but went on with some other part 
 of the drawing; his silence was unnatural, and 
 his dark cheek blanched a little. Cousin Hol- 
 man looked up from her work, and put her 
 spectacles down. 
 
 "What's the matter? Where is she <rone?"
 
 126 COC'S/X PHILLIS. 
 
 Holdsworth never uttered a word, but went 
 on drawing, I felt obliged to say something; 
 it was stupid enough, but stupidity was better 
 than silence just then. 
 
 " ril go and call her," said I. vSo I went 
 into the hall, and to the bottom of the stairs; 
 but just as I was going to call Phillis, she came 
 down swiftlv with her bonnet on, and saying, 
 " I'm going to father in the five-acre," passed 
 out by the open "rector," right in front of the 
 house-place windows, and out at the little white 
 side-gate. She had been seen bv her mother 
 and Holdsworth, as she passed ; so there was 
 no need for explanation, onlv cousin Holman 
 and I had a long discussion as to whether she 
 could have found the room too hot, or what 
 had occasioned her sudden departure. Holds- 
 worth was verv quiet during all the rest of that 
 day; nor did he resume the portrait-taking by 
 his own desire, onlv at my cousin Holman's 
 request the next time that he came; and then 
 he said he should not require any more formal 
 sittings for onlv sucli a slight sketch as he felt 
 himself capable of making, Phillis was just
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 12) 
 
 the same as ever the next time I saw her after 
 her abrupt passing me in the hall. She never 
 gave any explanation of her rush out of the 
 room. 
 
 So all things went on, at least as far as my 
 observation reached at the time, or memory can 
 recall now, till the great apple-gathering of the 
 year. The nights were frosty, the mornings 
 and evenings were misty, but at mid-day all 
 was sunny and bright, and it was one mid-day 
 that both of us being on the line near Heath- 
 bridge, and knowing that they were gathering 
 apples at the farm, we resolved to spend the 
 men's dinner-hour in going over there. We 
 found the great clothes-baskets full of apples, 
 scenting the house, and stopping up the way; 
 and an universal air of merry contentment with 
 this, the final produce of the year. The yellow 
 leaves hung on the trees ready to flutter down 
 at the slightest puff of air; the great bushes of 
 Michaelmas daisies in the kitchen garden were 
 making their last show of (lowers. We must 
 needs taste the fruit off the different trees, and 
 pass our judgment as to their flavor; and we
 
 128 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 went away with our pockets stuffed with those 
 we liked best. As we had passed to the or- 
 chard, Holdsworth had admired and spoken 
 about some flower which he saw; it so hap- 
 pened he had never seen this old-fashioned 
 kind since the days of his boyhood. I do not 
 know whether he had thought anything more 
 about this chance speech of his, but I know I 
 had not^ when Phillis, who had been missing 
 just at the last moment of our hurried visit, re- 
 appeared, with a little nosegay of this same 
 flower, which she was tying up with a blade 
 of grass. She offered it to Holdsworth as he 
 stood with her father on the point of departure 
 I saw their faces. I saw for the first time an 
 unmistakable look of love in his black eyes; it 
 was more than gratitude for the little attention; 
 it was tender and beseeching passionate. 
 She shrank from it in confusion, her glance 
 fell on me; and, partly to hide her emotion, 
 partly out of real kindness at what might ap- 
 pear ungracious neglect of an older friend, she 
 flew off to gather me a few late-blooming 
 China roses. But it was the first time she
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 129 
 
 had ever done anything of the kind for 
 me. 
 
 We had to walk fast to be back on the Hne 
 before the men's return, so we spoke but Httle 
 to each other, and of course the afternoon was 
 too much occupied for us to have any talk. In 
 the evening we went back to our joint lodg- 
 ings in Hornby. There, on a table, lay a letter 
 for Holdsworth, which had been forwarded to 
 him from Eltham. As our tea was ready, and 
 I had had nothing to eat since morning, I fell 
 to directly without paying much attention to 
 my companion as he opened and read his 
 letter. He was very silent for a few minutes; 
 at length he said, 
 
 " Old fellow I I'm going to leave you!" 
 "Leave me I" said I. "How? When?" 
 " This letter ought to have come to hand 
 sooner. It is from Greathed, the engineer" 
 (Greathed was well known in those days; he 
 is dead lunv, and his name half-forgotten); "he 
 wants to see me about some business; in fact, 
 I may as well tell you, Paul, this letter con- 
 tains a very advantageous proposal for me to 
 9
 
 130 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 go out to Canada, and superintend the making 
 of a line there." 
 
 I was in utter cHsmay. 
 
 "But what will our company say to that?" 
 
 " Oh, Greathed has the superintendence of 
 this line, you know ; and he is going to be en- 
 gineer-in-chief to this Canadian line; many of 
 the shareholders in this company are going in 
 for the other, so I fancy they will make no dif- 
 ficulty in following Greathed's lead ; he says 
 he has a young man ready to put in my place." 
 
 I hate him," said I. 
 
 "Thank you," said Holdsworth, laughing. 
 
 " But you must not," he resumed, "for this 
 is a very good thing for me, and, of course, if 
 no one can be found to take my inferior work, 
 I can't be spared to take the superior. I only 
 wish I had received this letter a day sooner. 
 Every hour is of consequence, for Greathed 
 says they are threatening a rival line. Do you 
 know, Paul, I almost fanc}' I must go up to- 
 night? I can take an engine back to Eltham, 
 and catch the night train. I should not like 
 Greathed to think me lukewaim."
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 131 
 
 " But you'll come back?" I asked, distressed 
 at the thought of this sudden parting-. 
 
 " Oh, yes! At least I hope so. They may 
 want me to go out by the next steamer, that 
 will be on Saturday." He began to eat and 
 drink standing, but I think he was quite un- 
 conscious of the nature of either his food or 
 his drink. 
 
 "I will go to-night. Activity and readiness 
 go a long way in our profession. Remember 
 that, my boy! I hope I shall come back, but 
 if I don't, be sure and recollect all the words 
 of wisdom that have fallen from my lips. 
 Now where's the portmanteau? If I can gain 
 half an hour for a gathering up of mv things 
 in Eltliam, so much the better. I'm clear of 
 debt anyhow; and what I owe for my lodg- 
 ings vou can pav for me out of my quarter's 
 salary, due November 4th." 
 
 "Then you don't think vou will come 
 back? " I said, dcspondingly. 
 
 " I will come back sometime, never fear," 
 said he kindly. " I mav be hack in a couple 
 of days, having been found incompetent for
 
 132 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 the Canadian work ; or I may not be wanted 
 to go out so soon as I now anticipate. Any- 
 how you don't suppose I am going to forget 
 you, Paul this work out there ought not to 
 take me above two years, and perhaps, after 
 that, we may be emploj^ed together again." 
 
 Perhaps! I had very Httle hope. The 
 same kind of happy days never returns. How- 
 ever, I did all I could in helping him; clothes, 
 papers, books, instruments; how we pushed 
 and struggled how I stuffed ! All was done 
 in a much shorter time than we had calculated 
 upon, when I had run down to the sheds to 
 order the engine. I was going to drive him to 
 Eltham. We sat ready for a summons. Holds- 
 worth took up the little nosegay that he had 
 brought away from the Hope Farm, and had 
 laid on the mantel-piece on first coming into 
 the room. He smelt at it, and caressed it 
 with his lips. 
 
 " What grieves me is that I did not know 
 that I have not said good-by to to them." 
 
 He spoke in a grave tone, the shadow of 
 the coming separation falling upon him at last.
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 133 
 
 " I will tell them," said I. " I am sure they 
 will be very sorry." Then we were silent. 
 
 " I never liked any family so much." 
 
 " I knew you would like them." 
 
 "How one's thoughts change, this morn- 
 ing I was full of a hope, Paul." He paused, 
 and then he said, 
 
 " You put that sketch in carefully ? " 
 
 " That outline of a head ?" asked I. But I 
 knew he meant an abortive sketch of Phillis, 
 which had not been successful enough for him 
 to complete it with shading or coloring. 
 
 "Yes. What a sweet innocent face it is! 
 and yet so Oh, dear!" 
 
 He sighed and got up, his hands in his 
 pockets, to walk up and down the room in 
 evident disturbance of mind. He suddenly 
 stopped opposite to me. 
 
 " You'll tell them how it all was. Be sure 
 and tell the good minister that T was so sorry 
 noX. to wish him go()d-b\-, and to thank him 
 and his wife for all their kindness. As for 
 Phillis, please (iod in two vcars I'll be back 
 and tell her myself all in my heart."
 
 134 COUSIN PHIL LIS. 
 
 "You love Phillis, then?" said 1. 
 
 "Love her! Yes, that I do. Who could 
 help it, seeing her as I have done? Her char- 
 acter as unusual and rare as her beauty ! God 
 bless her! God keep her in her high tranquil- 
 lity, her pure innocence. Two years! It is 
 a long time. But she lives in such seclusion, 
 almost like the sleeping beauty, Paul" (he 
 was smiling now, though a minute before I 
 had thought him on the verge of tears) 
 " but I shall come back like a prince f lom 
 Canada, and waken her to my love. I can't 
 help hoping that it won't be difficult, eh, 
 Paul?" 
 
 This touch of coxcombry displeased me a 
 little, and I made no answer. He went on, 
 half apologetically, 
 
 "You see, the salary they offer me is large; 
 and beside that, this experience will give me a 
 name which will entitle me to expect a still 
 larger in any future undertaking." 
 
 " That won't influence Phillis." 
 
 "No! but it will make me more eligible 
 in the eyes of her father and mother."
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 135 
 
 I made no answer. 
 
 " You give me your best wishes, Paul," 
 said he, ahnost pleading. " You would like 
 me for a cousin ? " 
 
 I heard the scream and whistle of the en- 
 gine ready down at the sheds. 
 
 "Ay, that 1 should," I replied, suddenly 
 softened toward my friend now that he was 
 going away. " I wish you were to he married 
 to-morrow, and I were to be best man." 
 
 " Thank you, lad. Now for this cursed 
 portmanteau (how the minister would be 
 shocked); but it is heavy!" and off we sped 
 into the darkness, 
 
 lie only just caught the night train at 
 Eltham, and I slept, desolately enough, at my 
 old lodgings at Miss Dawson's, for that night. 
 Of course the next few days 1 was busier than 
 e\er, doing both his work and my own. Then 
 came a letter from him, vcrv short and affec- 
 tionate, lie was going out in the Saturday 
 steamer, as he had more than half expected; 
 and bv the following Alondav the man 
 wiio was to succeed him wouUl be down
 
 136 COUSIN PHI I. LIS. 
 
 at Eltham. There was a P. S., with only 
 these words: 
 
 " My nosegay goes with me to Canada, but 
 I do not need it to remind me of Hope Farm." 
 
 Saturday came; but it was very hite before 
 I could go out to the farm. It was a frosty 
 night, the stars shone clear above me, and the 
 road was crisping beneath my feet. They 
 must have heard my footsteps before I got up 
 to the house. They were sitting at their usual 
 employments in the house-place when I went 
 in. Phillis' eyes went beyond me in their look 
 of welcome, and then fell in quiet disappoint- 
 ment on her work. 
 
 "And where's Mr. Holdsworth?" asked 
 cousin Holman, in a minute or two. " I hope 
 his cold is not worse I did not like his short 
 cough." 
 
 I laughed awkwardly; for I felt that I was 
 the bearer of unpleasant news. 
 
 " His cold had i?eed be better for he's 
 gone gone away to Canada!" 
 
 I purposely looked away from Phillis, as I 
 \hus abruptly told my news.
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 137 
 
 " To Canada!" said the minister. 
 
 "Gone away!" said his wife. 
 
 But no word from Phillis. 
 
 "Yes!" said I. "lie found a letter at 
 Hornby when we got home the other night 
 when we got home from here; he ought to 
 have got it sooner; he was ordered to go up 
 to London directly, and to see some people 
 about a new line in Canada, and he's gone to 
 lay it down; he has sailed to-day. He was 
 sadly grieved not to have time to come out and 
 wish you all good-by; but he started for Lon- 
 don within two hours after he got that letter. 
 He bade me thank you most gratefully for all 
 your kindnesses; he was very sorry not to come 
 here once again." 
 
 Phillis got up and left the room with noise- 
 less steps. 
 
 "I am very sorry," said the minister. 
 
 " I am sure so am I!" said cousin Holman. 
 " I was real fond of that lad ever since I nursed 
 him last June after that bad fevev." 
 
 The minister went on asking me questions 
 respecting Holdsworth's futuie plans, and
 
 138 COUSIN PHTLLIS. 
 
 brought out a large old-fashioned atlas, that he 
 might find out the exact places between which 
 the new railroad was to run. Then supper 
 was ready; it was always on the table as soon 
 as the clock on the stairs struck eight, and 
 down came Phillis her face white and set, 
 her dry 6yes looking defiance to me, for I am 
 afraid I hurt her maidenly pride by my glance 
 of sympathetic interest as she entered the room. 
 Never a word did she say never a question 
 did she ask about the absent friend, yet she 
 forced herself to talk. 
 
 And so it was all the next day. She was 
 as pale as could be, like one who has received 
 some shock ; but she would not let me talk to 
 her, and she tried hard to behave as usual. Two 
 or three times I repeated, in public, the various 
 affectionate messages to the family with which 
 I was charged by Holdsworth; but she took 
 no more notice of them than if my words had 
 been empty air. And in this mood I left her 
 on the Sal)bath evening. 
 
 My new master was not half so indulgent 
 as my old one. He kept up strict discipline as
 
 A STOin' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 139 
 
 to hours, so that it was some time before I 
 could again go out, even to pay a call at the 
 Hope Farm. 
 
 It was a cold misty evening in November. 
 The air, even indoors, seemed full of haze; yet 
 there was a great log burning on the hearth, 
 which ought to have made the room cheerful. 
 Cousin Holman and Phillis w^ere sitting at the 
 little round table before the fire, working away 
 in silence. The minister had his books out on 
 the dresser, seemingly deep in study, by the 
 light of his solitary candle; perhaps the fear of 
 disturbing him made the unusual stillness of 
 the room. But a welcome was ready for me 
 from all; not noisy, not demonstrative that 
 it never was; my damp wrappers were taken 
 off, the next meal ^vas hastened, and a chair 
 placed for me on one side of the fire, so that 1 
 pretty much commanded a view of the room. 
 Mv eye caught on Phillis, looking so pale and 
 weary, and with a sort of aching tone (if I may 
 call it so) in her \f)ice. She was doing all the 
 accustomed things fulfilling small household 
 duties, but somehow differently I can't tell
 
 140 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 you how, for she was just as deft and quick in 
 her movements, only the Hght spring was gone 
 out of them. Cousin Holman began to ques- 
 tion me; even the minister put aside his books, 
 and came and stood on the opposite side of the 
 fireplace, to hear what waft of intelligence I 
 brought. I had first to tell them why I had 
 not been to see them for so long more than 
 five weeks. The answer was simple enough; 
 business and the necessity of attending strictly 
 to the orders of a new superintendent, who had 
 not yet learned trust, much less indulgence. 
 The minister nodded his approval of my con- 
 duct, and said, 
 
 "Right, Paul! ' Servants, obey in all things 
 your masters according to the flesh.' I have 
 had my fears lest you had too much license 
 under Edward Holdsworth." 
 
 "Ah," said cousin Holman, "poor Mr. 
 Holdsworth, he'll be on the salt seas by this 
 time!" 
 
 " No, indeed," said I, "he's landed. I have 
 had a letter from him from Halifax," 
 
 Immediately a shower of questions fell thick
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 141 
 
 upon me. When? How? What was he 
 doing? How did he like it? What sort of a 
 voj-^age? etc. 
 
 " Many is the time we have thought of him 
 when the wind was blowing so hard; the old 
 quince tree is blown down, Paul, that on the 
 right hand of the great pear tree; it was blown 
 down last Monday week, and it was that night 
 that I asked the minister to pray in an especial 
 manner for all them that went down in ships 
 upon the great deep, and he said then that Mr. 
 Holdsworth might be already landed; but I 
 said, even if the prayer did not fit him, it was 
 sure to be fitting somebody out at sea, who 
 would need tlie Lord's care. Both Phillis and 
 I thought he would be a month on the 
 seas." 
 
 Phillis began to speak, but her voice did 
 not come rightly at first. It was a little higher 
 pitched than usual, when she said, 
 
 " We thought he would be a month if he 
 went in a sailing-vessel, or perhaps longer. I 
 suppose he went in a steamer?" 
 
 " Old Obadiah Grimshaw was more than
 
 142 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 six weeks in getting to America," observed 
 cousin Hoi man. 
 
 " I presume he cannot as yet tell how he 
 likes his new work?" asked the minister. 
 
 "No! he is but just landed; it is but one 
 page long. I'll read it to you, shall I ? 
 
 Dear Paul: 
 
 We are safe on shore after a rough passage. 
 Thought you would like to hear this, but homeward- 
 bound steamer is making signals for letters. Will 
 write again soon. It seems a year since I left Hornby. 
 Longer since I was at the farm. I have got my nose- 
 gay safe. Remember me lo the llolmans. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 E. H." 
 
 " That's not much, certainly," said the min- 
 ister. " But it's a comfort to know he's on 
 land these blowy nights." 
 
 Phillis said nothing. She kept her head 
 bent down over her work; but I don't think 
 she put a stitch in while I was reading the let- 
 ter. I wondered if she understood what nose- 
 gay was meant; but I could not tell. When 
 next she lifted up her face there were two 
 spots of brilliant color on the cheeks that had 
 been so pale before. After I had spent an
 
 A STOR2' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 143 
 
 hour or two there, I was bound to return back 
 to Hornby. I told them I did not know when 
 I could come again, as we by which I mean 
 the company had undertaken the Hensley- 
 dale line; that branch for which poor Holds- 
 worth was surveying when he caught his fever. 
 
 "But you'll have a holiday at Christmas," 
 said my cousin. " Surely they'll not be such 
 heathens as to work you then?" 
 
 "Perhaps the lad will be going home," said 
 the minister, as if to mitigate his wife's urgency; 
 but for all that, I believe he wanted me to 
 come. Phillis fixed her eyes on me with a 
 wistful expression, hard to resist. But, indeed, 
 I had no thought of resisting. Under my new 
 master I had no hope of a holiday long enough 
 to enable me to go to Birmingham and see my 
 parents with any comfort; and nothing could 
 be pleasanter to me than to find mvself at home 
 at my cousin's for a day or two, then. vSo it 
 was fixed tliat we were to meet in Hornby 
 Chapel on Christmas Day, and that I was to 
 accompany them home after service, and if 
 possible to stay over the next day.
 
 144 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 I was not able to get to chapel till late 
 on the appointed day, and so I took a seat near 
 the door in considerable shame, although it 
 really was not my fault. When the service was 
 ended, I went and stood in the porch to await 
 the coming out of my cousins. Some worthy 
 people belonging to the congregation clustered 
 into a group just where I stood, and exchanged 
 the good wishes of the season. It had just be- 
 gun to snow, and this occasioned a little delay, 
 and they fell into further conversation. I was 
 not attending to what was not meant for me to 
 hear, till I caught the name of Phillis Holman. 
 And then I listened; where was the harm? 
 
 "I never saw any one so changed!" 
 
 I asked Mrs. Holman," quoth another, " ' is 
 Phillis well? ' and she just said she had been 
 having a cold which had pulled her down; she 
 did not seem to think anything of it." 
 
 " They had best take care of her," said one 
 of the oldest of the good ladies; "Phillis comes 
 of a family as is not long-lived. Her mother's 
 sister, Lydia Green, her own aunt as was, died of 
 a decline just when she was about this lass's age."
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE, 145 
 
 This ill-omened talk was broken in upon 
 by the coming out of the minister, his wife 
 and daughter, and the consequent interchange 
 of Christmas compliments. I had had a shock, 
 and felt heavy-hearted and anxious, and hardly 
 up to making the appropriate replies to the 
 kind greetings of my relations. I looked ask- 
 ance at Phillis. She had certainly grown taller 
 and slighter, and was thinner; but there was a 
 flush of color on her face which deceived me 
 for a time, and made me think she was looking 
 as well as ever, I only saw her paleness after 
 we had returned to the farm, and she had sub- 
 sided into silence and quiet. Her grey eyes 
 looked hollow and sad ; her complexion was of 
 a dead white. But she Avent about just as 
 usual ; at least, just as she had done the last 
 time I was there, and seemed to have no ail- 
 ment; and I was inclined to think that my 
 cousin was right when she had answered the 
 inquiries of the good-natured gossips, and told 
 them that Phillis was suffering from the con- 
 sequences of a bad cold, nothing more. 
 
 I have said that I was to stay over the next 
 10
 
 146 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 day; a great deal of snow had come down, but 
 not all, they said, though the ground was cov- 
 ered deep with the white fall. The minister 
 was anxiously housing his cattle, and preparing 
 all things for a long continuance of the same 
 kind of weather. The men were chopping 
 wood, sending wheat to the mill to be ground 
 before the road should become impassable for a 
 cart and horse. My cousin and Phillis had 
 gone upstairs to the apple-room to cover up the 
 fruit from the frost. I had been out the 
 greater part of the morning, and came in about 
 an hour hcfoi^e dinner. To my surprise, know- 
 ing how she had planned to be engaged, I 
 found Phillis sitting at the dresser, resting her 
 head on her two hands and reading, or seeming 
 to read. She did not look up when I came in, 
 but murmured something about her mother 
 having sent her down out of the cold. It 
 flashed across me that she was crying, but I 
 put it down to some little spirt of temper; I 
 might have known better than to suspect the 
 gentle, serene Phillis of crossness, poor girl; I 
 stooped down and began to stir and build up
 
 A STOR7' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 147 
 
 the fire, which appeared to have been neglected. 
 While my head was down I heard a noise 
 which made me pause and listen a sob, an 
 unmistakable, irrepressible sob. I started up. 
 
 "PhillisI" I cried, going toward her, with 
 my hand out, to take hers for sympathy with 
 her sorrow, whatever it was. But she was too 
 quick for me, she held her hand out of my 
 grasp, for fear of mv detaining her; as she 
 quickly passed out^of the house, she said, 
 
 "Don't, Paul! I cannot bear it!" and 
 passed me, still sobbing, and went out into the 
 keen, open air. 
 
 I stood still and wondered. What could 
 have come to Phillis? The most perfect har- 
 mony prevailed in the familv, and Phillis 
 especially, good and gentle as she was, was so 
 ])cloved that if they had found out that her 
 linger ached, it would have cast a shadow over 
 their hearts. Had T done anvthing to vex her? 
 Xo: she was crving before I came in. I went 
 to look at Iicr book one of those imintelli- 
 gible Italian books. I could make neither 
 head nor tail of it. I saw some pencil-notes
 
 148 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 on the margin, in Holdsworth's handwrit- 
 ing. 
 
 Could that be it? Could that be the cause 
 of her white looks, her weary eyes, her wasted 
 figure, her struggling sobs? This idea came 
 upon me like a flash of lightning on a dark 
 night, making all things so clear we cannot 
 forget them afterward when the gloomy ob- 
 scurity I'eturns. I was still standing with the 
 book in my hand when I heard cousin Hol- 
 man's footsteps on the stairs, and as I did not 
 wish to speak to her just then, I followed Phil- 
 lis' example, and rushed out of the house. 
 The snow was lying on the ground; I could 
 track her feet by the marks they had made; 1 
 could see where Rover had joined her. I fol- 
 lowed on till I came to a great stack of wood 
 in the orchard it was built up against the 
 back wall of the outbuildings, and I recol- 
 lected then how Phillis had told me, that first 
 day when we strolled about together, that 
 underneath this stack had been her hermitage, 
 her sanctuary, when she was a child ; how she 
 used to bring her book to study there, or her
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 149 
 
 work, when she was not wanted in the house; 
 and she had now evidently gone back to this 
 quiet retreat of her childhood, forgetful of the 
 clue given me by her footmarks on the new- 
 fallen snow. The stack was built up very 
 high; but through the interstices of the sticks 
 I could see her figure, although I did not all at 
 once perceive how I could get to her. She 
 was sitting on a log of wood, Rover by her. 
 She had laid her cheek on Rover's head, and 
 had her arm around his neck, partly for a pil- 
 low, partly from an instinctive craving for 
 warmth on that bitter cold day. She was 
 making a low moan, like an animal in pain, or 
 perhaps more like the sobbing of the wind. 
 Rover, highly flattered by her caress, and also, 
 perhaps, touched by sympathy, was flapping 
 his heavy tail against the ground, but not 
 otherwise moving a hair, until he heard my 
 approach with his quick erected ears. Then, 
 with a short, alirupt bark of distrust, he sprang 
 up as if to leave his mistress. Both he and I 
 were immovably still for a moment. I was 
 not sure if what I longed to do was wise; and
 
 150 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 yet I could not bear to see the sweet serenity 
 of my dear cousin's life so disturbed by a suf- 
 fering which I thought I could assuage. But 
 Rover's ears were sharper than my breathing 
 was noiseless; he heard me, and sprang out 
 from under Phillis's restraining hand. 
 
 " Oh, Rover, don't you leave me, too," she 
 plained out. 
 
 "Phillis!" said I, seeing by Rover's exit 
 that the entrance to where she sat was to be 
 found on the other side of the stack. " Phillis, 
 come out! You have got a cold already; and 
 it is not fit for you to sit there on such a day as 
 this. You know how displeased and anxious 
 it would make them all." 
 
 She sighed, but obeyed; stooping a little, 
 she came out, and stood upright, opposite to 
 me in the lonely, leafless orchard. Her face 
 looked so meek and so sad that I felt as if I 
 ought to beg her pardon for my necessarily 
 authoritative words. 
 
 " Sometimes I feel the house so close," she 
 said; "and I used to sit under the wood-stack
 
 A ST0R7^ OF ENGLISH LOVE. 15 1 
 
 when I was a chil(]. It was very kind of you, 
 but there was no need to come after me. I 
 don't catch cold easily." 
 
 "Come with me into this cow-house, Phillis. 
 I have got something to say to you; and I can't 
 stand this cold, if you can." 
 
 I think she would fain have run away 
 again; hut her fit of energy was all spent. 
 She followed me unwillingly enough that I 
 could see. The place to which I took her was 
 full of the fi'agrant breath of the cows, and 
 was a little warmer than the outer air. I put 
 her inside, and stood myself in the doorway, 
 thinking how I could best begin. At last I 
 plunged into it. 
 
 " I must see that you don't get cold for 
 more reasons than one; if you are ill, Ilolds- 
 woith will be so anxious and miserable out 
 there" (by which I meant Canada) 
 
 .She shot one j^enetrating look at me, and 
 then turned iicr face away with a slightly im- 
 patient movement. If she could have run away 
 then she would, but I held the means of exit
 
 152 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 in my own power. " In for a penny in for a 
 pound," thought I, and I went on rapidly, any- 
 how, 
 
 " He talked so much about you, just before 
 he left that night after he had been here, you 
 know and you had given him those flowers." 
 She put her hands up to hide her face, but 
 she was listening now listening with all her 
 ears. 
 
 " He had never spoken much about you be- 
 fore, but the sudden going away unlocked his 
 heart, and he told me how he loved you, and 
 how he hoped on his return that you might be 
 his wife." 
 
 " Don't," said she, almost gasping out the 
 word, which she had tried once or twice before 
 to speak ; but her voice had been choked. 
 Now she put her hand backward; she had 
 quite turned away from me, and felt for mine. 
 She gave it a soft lingering pressure; and then 
 she put her arms down on the wooden division, 
 and laid her head on it, and cried quiet 
 tears. I did not understand her at once, and 
 feared lest I had mistaken the whole case, and
 
 A STOnr OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 53 
 
 only annoyed her. I went up to her. " Oh, 
 Phillis! I am so sorry I thought you would, 
 perhaps, have cared to hear it; he did talk so 
 feelingly, as if he did love you so much, and 
 somehow I thought it would give you pleas- 
 ure." 
 
 She lifted up her head and looked at me. 
 Such a look ! Her eyes, glittering with tears 
 as they were, expressed an almost heavenly 
 happiness; her tender mouth was curved with 
 raptiu-e her color vivid and hlushing; but as 
 if she was afraid her face expressed too much, 
 more than the thankfulness to me she was 
 essaying to speak, she hid it again almost im- 
 mediately. So it was all right then, and my 
 conjecture was well-founded! I tried to re- 
 member something more to tell her of what 
 he had said, but again she stopped me. 
 
 " Don't," she said. She still kept her face 
 covered and hidden. In half a minute she 
 added, in a very low voice, " Please, Paul, I 
 think I would rather not hear any more I 
 don't mean but what I have but what I am 
 very much obliged Only only, I think I
 
 154 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 would rather hear the rest from himself when 
 he comes back." 
 
 And then she cried a little more, in quite a 
 different way. I did not say any more, I 
 waited for her. By-and-by she turned toward 
 me not meeting my eyes, however ; and put- 
 ting her hand in mine just as if we were two 
 children, she said, 
 
 " We had best go back now I don't look 
 as if I had been crying, do I? " 
 
 " You look as if you had a bad cold," was 
 all the answer I made. 
 
 "Oh! but I am I am quite well, only 
 cold; and a good run will warm me. Come 
 along, Paul." 
 
 So we ran, hand in hand, till, just as we 
 were on the threshold of the house she 
 stopped 
 
 " Paul, 25lcase, we won't speak about that 
 asrain."
 
 PART IV. 
 
 WHEN I went over on Easter day I 
 heard tlie chapel-gossips compliment- 
 ing cousin Ilolman on her daughter's blooming 
 looks, quite forgetful of their sinister prophecies 
 three months before. And I looked at Phillis, 
 and did not wonder at their words. I had not 
 seen her since the day after Christmas Day. I 
 had left the Hope Farm only a few hours after 
 I had told her the news which had quickened 
 her heart into renewed life and vigor. The 
 remembrance of our conversation in the cow- 
 house was vividly in mv mind as I looked at 
 her when her l)i-ight, healthy appearance was 
 rcniaikcd upon. As her eves met mine our 
 mutual recollections flashed intelligence from 
 one to the other. She turned awa\., her color 
 155
 
 I $6 CO us/ IV PHILLIS. 
 
 heightening as she did so. She seemed to he 
 shy of me for the first few hours after our 
 meeting, and I felt rather vexed with her for 
 her conscious avoidance of me after my long 
 absence. I had stepped a little out of my 
 usual line in telling her what I did ; not that I 
 had received any charge of secrecy, or given 
 even the slightest promise to Holdsworth that 
 I would not repeat his words. But I had an 
 uneasy feeling sometimes when I thought of 
 what I had done in the excitement of seeing 
 Phillis so ill and in so much trouble. I meant 
 to have told Holdsworth when I wrote next to 
 him; but when I had my half-finished letter 
 before me I sat with my pen in my hand hesi- 
 tating. I had more scruple in revealing what 
 I had found out or guessed at of Phillis' secret 
 than in repeating to her his spoken words. I 
 did not think I had any right to say out to him 
 what I believed namely, that she loved him 
 dearly, and had felt his absence even to the in- 
 jury of her health. Yet to explain what I had 
 done in telling her how he had spoken about 
 her that last night, it would be necessary to
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 57 
 
 give my reasons, so I had settled within myself 
 to leave it alone. As she had told me she 
 should like to hear all the details and fuller 
 particulars and more explicit declarations first 
 from him, so he should have the pleasure of 
 extracting- the delicious tender secret from her 
 maidenly lips, I would not hetray my guesses, 
 my surmises, my all but certain knowledge of 
 the state of her heart. I had received two let- 
 ters from him after he had settled to his busi- 
 ness; they were full of life and energy; but in 
 each there had been a message to the family at 
 the Hope Farm of more than common regard; 
 and a slight but distinct mention of Phillis her- 
 self, showing that she stood single and alone in 
 his memory. These letters I had sent on to 
 the minister, for he was sure to care for them, 
 even supposing he had been unacquainted witli 
 their writer, because they were so clever and 
 so picturesquely worded that they brought, 
 as it were, a whiff of foreign atmosphere into 
 his circumscribed life. T used to wonder what 
 was the trade or business in which the minister 
 would not have thriven, mentally I mean, if it
 
 158 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 had so happened that he Iiad been called into 
 that state. He would have made a capital 
 engineer, that I know; and he had a fancy for 
 the sea, like many other land-locked men to 
 whom the great deep is a mystery and a fasci- 
 nation. He read law books with relish; and, 
 once happening to borrow De Lohne on the 
 British Constitution (or some such title), he 
 talked about jurisprudence till he was far be- 
 yond my depth. But to return to Holdsworth's 
 letters. When the minister sent them back he 
 also wrote out a list of questions suggested by 
 their perusal, which I was to pass on in my 
 answers to Holdsworth, until I thought of sug 
 gesting a direct correspondence between the 
 two. That was the state of things as regarded 
 the absent one when I went to the farm for my 
 Easter visit, and when I found Phillis in that 
 state of shy reserve toward me which I have 
 named Viefore. I thought she was ungrateful; 
 for I was not quite sure if I had done wisely in 
 having told her what I did I had committed 
 a fault, or a folly perhaps, and all for her sake; 
 and here was she, less friends with me than
 
 A STO/?7' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 159 
 
 she had ever been before. This little estrange- 
 ment only lasted a few hours. I think that as 
 soon as she felt pretty sure of there being no 
 recurrence, either by word, look or allusion, to 
 the one subject that was predominant in her 
 mind, she came back to her old sisterly ways 
 with me. She had much to tell me of her own 
 familiar interests; how Rover had been ill, and 
 how anxious they had all of them been, and 
 how, after some little discussion between her 
 father and her, both equally grieved by the 
 sufferings of the old dog, he had been " remem- 
 bered in the household prayers," and how he 
 had begun to get better only the very next day 
 and then she would have led me into a conver- 
 sation on the right ends of praver, and on 
 special providences, and I know not what; only 
 I "jibbed" like their old cart horse and refused 
 to stir a step in that direction. Then we talked 
 about the different broods of chickens, and she 
 showed me the hens that were good mothers, 
 and told me the characters of all the poultry 
 with the utmost good faith; and in all good 
 faitii r listened, for I believe thei'e was a great
 
 l6o COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 deal of truth in all she said. And then we 
 strolled on into the wood beyond the ash- 
 meadow, and both of us sought for early prim- 
 roses and the fresh green crinkled leaves. She 
 was not afraid of being alone with me after 
 the first day. I never saw her so lovely or so 
 happy. I think she hardly knew why she was 
 so happy all the time. I can see her now, 
 standing under the budding branches of the 
 gray trees, over which a tinge of green seemed 
 to be deepening day after day, her sun-bonnet 
 fallen back on her neck, her hands full of deli- 
 cate wood-flowers, quite unconscious of my 
 gaze, but intent on sweet mockery of sorfie bird 
 in neighboring bush or tree. She had the art 
 of warbling, and replying to the notes of differ- 
 ent birds, and knew their song, their habits and 
 ways, more accurately than anyone else I ever 
 knew. She had often done it at my request the 
 spring before; but this year she really gurgled 
 and whistled and warbled just as they did, out of 
 the very fulness and joy of her heart. She was 
 more than ever the very apple of her father's 
 eye; her mother gave her both her own share
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. l6l 
 
 of love and that of the dead child who had 
 died in infancy. I have heard cousin Holman 
 murmur, after a long dreamy look at Phillis, 
 and tell herself how like she was growing to 
 Johnnie, and soothe herself with plaintive inar- 
 ticulate sounds and many gentle shakes of the 
 head, for the aching sense of loss she would 
 never get over in this world. The old servants 
 about the place had the dumb loyal attachment 
 to the child of the land, common to most agri- 
 cultural laborers; not often stirred into activity 
 or expression. My cousin Phillis was like a 
 rose that had come to full bloom on the sunny 
 side of a lonely house, sheltered from storms. 
 I have read in some book of poetry, 
 
 A maid whom there were none to praise, 
 And very few to love. 
 
 And somehow those lines always reminded me 
 of Phillis; yet they were not true of her cither. 
 I never heard iier praised, and out of her own 
 household there were very few to love her; 
 but though no one spoke out their approbation, 
 she always did right in her parents' eyes, out
 
 1 63 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 of her natural simple goodness and wisdom. 
 Holdsworth's name was never mentioned be- 
 tween us when we were alone; but I had sent 
 on his letters to the minister, as I have said; 
 and more than once he began to talk about our 
 absent friend when he was smoking his pipe 
 after the day's work was done. Then Phillis 
 hung her head a little over her work and lis- 
 tened in silence. 
 
 "I miss him more than I thought for; no 
 offence to you, Paul. I said once his company 
 was like dram drinking; that was before I 
 knew him ; and perhaps I spoke in a spirit of 
 judgment. To some men's minds everything 
 presents itself strongly and they speak accord- 
 ingly, and so did he. And I thought in my 
 vanity of censorship that his were not true and 
 sober words; they would not have been if I 
 had used them, but they were so to a man of 
 his class of perceptions, I thought of the mea- 
 sure with which I had been meting to him 
 when Brother Robinson was here last Thurs- 
 day and told me that a poor little quotation T 
 was making from the Gcorrrics savored of
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. 163 
 
 vain babbling and profane heathenism. He 
 went so far as to say that by learning 
 other languages than our own we w^ere flying 
 in the face of the Lord's purpose when He had 
 said, at the building of the Tower of Babel, 
 that He would confound their languages so that 
 they should not understand each other's speech. 
 As Brother Robinson was to me so was I to 
 the quick wits, bright senses and ready words 
 of Holdsworth." 
 
 The first little cloud upon my peace came 
 in the shape of a letter from Canada, in which 
 there were two or three sentences that troubled 
 me more than they ought to have done, to 
 judge merely from the words employed. It 
 was this: "I should feel dreary enough in this 
 out-of-the-way place if it were not for a friend- 
 ship I have formed with a French Canadian of 
 the name of Ventadour. He and his family 
 are a great resource to me in the If^ig evenings. 
 I never heard such delicious vocal music as 
 the voices of tliese Ventadour ])()vs and girls in 
 their part songs; and the foreign element re- 
 tained in their characters and manner of livinu"
 
 164 CO us IN PHILTJS. 
 
 reminds me of some of the happiest days of my 
 life. Lucille, the second daughter, is curiously 
 like Phillis Holman." In vain I said to myself 
 that it was probably this likeness that made 
 him take pleasure in the society of the Venta- 
 dour family. In vain I told my anxious fancy 
 that nothing could be more natural than this 
 intimacy, and that there was no sign of its lead- 
 ing to any consequence that ought to disturb 
 me. I had a presentiment, and I was disturbed; 
 and I could not reason it away. I dare say my 
 presentiment was rendered more persistent and 
 keen by the doubts which would force them- 
 selves into my mind, as to whether I had done 
 well in repeating Iloldsworth's words to Phillis. 
 Her state of vivid happiness this summer was 
 markedly different to the peaceful serenity of 
 former davs. If in my thoughtfulness at 
 noticing this I caught her eye, she blushed and 
 sparkled all over, guessing that I was remem- 
 bering our joint secret. Her eyes fell before 
 mine, as if she could hardly bear me to see the 
 revelation of their bright glances. And yet T 
 considered again and comforted myself by the
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. 165 
 
 reflection that, if this change had been anything 
 more than my silly fancy, her father or her 
 mother would have perceived it. But they went 
 on in tranquil unconsciousness and undisturbed 
 peace. 
 
 A change in my own life was quickly 
 approaching. In the July of this year my 
 
 occupation on the railway and its branches 
 
 came to an end. The lines were completed 
 and I was to leave shire, to return to Bir- 
 mingham, where there was a niche already 
 provided for me in my father's prosperous 
 business. But before I left the north it was 
 an understood thing among us all that I 
 was to go and pay a visit of some weeks at the 
 Hope Farm. My father was as much pleased 
 at this plan as I was; and the dear family of 
 cousins often spoke of things to be done and 
 sights to be shown me during this visit. My 
 want of wisdom in having told " that thing" 
 (under such ambiguous words T concealed the 
 injudicious confidence I liad made to Phillis) 
 was the only drawback to my anticipations of 
 pleasure.
 
 1 66 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 The ways of life were too simple at the 
 Hope Farm for my coming to them to make 
 the slightest disturbance. I knew my room, 
 like a son of the house. I knew the regular 
 course of their days, and that I was expected 
 to fall into it like one of the family. Deep 
 summer peace brooded over the place; the 
 warm golden air was filled with the murmur 
 of insects near at hand, the more distant sound 
 of voices out in the fields, the clear far-away 
 rumble of carts over the stone-paved lanes 
 miles away. The heat was too great for the 
 birds to be singing; only now and then one 
 might hear the wood pigeons in the trees 
 beyond the ash-field. The cattle stood knee 
 deep in the pond, flicking their tails about to 
 keep off the flies. The minister stood in the 
 hay-field, without hat or cravat, coat or waist- 
 coat, panting and smiling. Phillis had been 
 leading the row of farm servants, turning the 
 swathes of fragrant hay with measured move- 
 ment. She went to the end to the hedge, 
 and then, throwing down her rake, she came 
 to me with her free, sisterly welcome. " Go,
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 167 
 
 Paul! " said the minister. " We need all hands 
 to make use of the sunshine to-day. ' Whatso- 
 ever thine hand findeth to do, do it with all thy 
 might.' It will be a healthy change of work 
 for thee, lad; and I find my best rest in 
 change of work." So off I went, a willing 
 laborer, following Phillis' lead; it was the 
 primitive distinction of rank; the boy who 
 frightened the sparrows off the fruit was the 
 last in our rear. We did not leave off till the 
 red sun was gone down behind the fir trees 
 bordering the common. Then we went home 
 to supper prayers to bed ; some bird sing- 
 ing far into the night, as I heard it through my 
 (jpen window, and the poultry beginning their 
 clatter and cackle in the earliest morning. I 
 had carried \\ hat luggage I immediately needed 
 with me from my lodgings and the rest was to 
 he sent bv the carrier. lie brought it to the 
 farm betimes that morning, and along with it 
 he brought a letter or two that had arrived 
 since I had left. I was talking to cousin IIol- 
 man about my mother's ways of making 
 bread, I reiiicnd)er; cousin Ilolman was ques-
 
 1 68 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 tioning me and had got me far beyond my 
 depth in the house-place, when the letters 
 were brought in by one of the men and 
 I had to pay the carrier for his trouble be- 
 fore I could look at them. A bill a Cana- 
 dian letter! What instinct made me so thank- 
 ful that I was alone with my dear unobservant 
 cousin? What made me hurry them away 
 into my coat pocket? I do not know. I felt 
 strange and sick and made irrelevant answers, 
 I am afraid. Then I went to my room, osten- 
 sibly to carry up my boxes. I sat on the side 
 of my bed and opened my letter from Holds- 
 worth. It seemed to me as if I had read its 
 contents before and knew exactly what he had 
 got to say. I knew he was going to be 
 married to Lucille Ventadour; nay, that he 
 was married; for this was the 5th of July and 
 he wrote word that his marriage was fixed to 
 take place on the 29th of June. I knew all the 
 reasons he gave, all the raptures he went into, 
 I held the letter loosely in my hands and looked 
 into vacancy, yet I saw a chaffinch's nest on 
 the lichen-covered trunk of an old apple tree
 
 STORr OF ENGLISH I.OVE. 169 
 
 opposite my window, and saw the mother-bird 
 come fluttering in to feed her brood and yet 
 I did not see it, although it seemed to me after- 
 ward as if I could have drawn every fibre, 
 every feather. I was stirred up to action by 
 the merry sound of voices and the clamp of 
 rustic feet coming home for the mid-day meal. 
 I knew I must go down to dinner; I knew, 
 too, I must tell Phillis; for in his happy ego- 
 tism, his new-fangled foppery, Iloldsworth had 
 put in a P. S., saying that he should send wed- 
 ding cards to me and some other Hornby and 
 Eltham acquaintances, and "to his kind friends 
 at Hope Farm." Phillis had faded away to 
 one among several " kind friends." I don't 
 know how I got through dinner that day. I 
 remember forcing myself to eat and talking hard; 
 but I also recollect the wondering look in the 
 minister's eyes. He was not one to think evil 
 without cause; but many a one would have 
 taken me fcjr drunk. As soon as I decently 
 could I left tl'ie table, saying I would go out for 
 a walk. At fiist I must have tried to stun re- 
 flection by raj)id walking, for I had lost myself
 
 170 COUSIN PIIILLIS. 
 
 on the high moorlands far beyond the familiar 
 gorse-covered common, before I was obliged 
 for very weariness to slacken my pace. I kept 
 wishing oh! how fervently wishing I had 
 never committed that blunder; that the one 
 little half-hour's indiscretion could be blotted 
 out. Alternating with this was anger against 
 Holdsworth; unjust enough, I dare say. I 
 suppose I stayed in that solitary place for a 
 good hour or more, and then I turned home- 
 ward, resolved to get over the telling Phillis at 
 the first opportunity, but shrinking from the 
 fulfilment of my resolution so much that when 
 I came into the house and saw Phillis (doors 
 and windows open wide in the sultry weather) 
 alone in the kitchen, I became quite sick with 
 apprehension. She was standing by the dresser, 
 cutting up a great household loaf into hunches 
 of bread for the hungry laborers who might 
 come in any minute, for the heavy thunder- 
 clouds were overspreading the sky. She 
 looked around as she heard my step. 
 
 " You should have been in the field, helping 
 with the hay," said she, in her calm, pleasant
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 171 
 
 voice. I had heard her as I came near the 
 house softly chanting some hymn-tune, and 
 the peacefuhiess of that seemed to be brooding 
 over her now. 
 
 " Perliaps I should. It looks as if it was 
 going to rain." 
 
 " Yes; there is thunder about. Mother has 
 had to go to bed with one of her bad head- 
 aches. Now you are come in " 
 
 " Phillis," said I, rushing at my subject and 
 interrupting her, " I went a long walk to think 
 over a letter I had this morning a letter from 
 Canada. You don't know how it has grieved 
 me." I held it out to her as I spoke. Her 
 color changed a little, but it was more the re- 
 flection of mv face, I think, than because she 
 formed any definite idea from my words. Still 
 she did not take the letter. I had to bid her 
 read it, before she cjuitc understood what I 
 wished. She sat down rather suddenly as she 
 received it into her hands; and, spreading it on 
 the dresser before her, she rested her forehead 
 on the palms of her hands, her arms supported 
 on the table, her figure a little averted, and her
 
 172 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 countenance thus shaded. I looked out of the 
 open window; my heart was very heavy. 
 How peaceful it all seemed in the farmyard! 
 Peace and plenty. How still and deep was the 
 silence of the house! Tick-tick went the un- 
 seen clock on the wide staircase. I had heard 
 the rustle once, when she turned over the page 
 of thin paper. She must have read to the 
 end. Yet she did not move, or say a word, or 
 even sigh. I kept on looking out of the win- 
 dow, my hands in my pockets. I wonder hovv 
 long that time really was? It seemed to me 
 interminable unbearable. At length I looked 
 around at her. She must have felt my look, 
 for she changed her attitude with a quick sharp 
 movement, and caught my eyes. 
 
 " Don't look so sorry, Paul," she said. 
 " Don't, please. I can't bear it. There is 
 nothing to be sorry for. I think not, at least. 
 You have not done wrong, at any rate." I 
 felt that I groaned, but I don't think she heard 
 me. "And he, there's no wrong in his mar- 
 rying, is there? I'm sure I hope he'll be 
 happy. Oh! how I hope it!" These last
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 173 
 
 words were like a wail; but I believe she was 
 afraid of breaking down, for she changed the 
 key in which she spoke, and hurried on, " Lu- 
 cille that's our English Lucy, I suppose? 
 Lucille Holdsworth! It's a pretty name; and 
 
 I hope I forget what I was going to say. 
 
 Oh! it was this. Paul, I think we need never 
 speak about this again; only remember you are 
 not to be sorry. You have not done wrong; 
 \ou have been very, t'crj' kind; and if I see 
 you looking grieved I don't know what I 
 might do, I might break down, you know." 
 I think she was on the point of doing so 
 then, but the dark storm came dashing down, 
 and the thunder-cloud broke right above the 
 house, as it seemed. Her mother, roused from 
 sleep, called out for Fhillis; the men and 
 women from the hayfield came running into 
 shelter, drenched through. The minister fol- 
 lowed, smiling, and not unpleasantly excited 
 l)v the war of elements; for, bv dint of hard 
 woik through the long summer's day, the 
 greater part of the hav was safely housed in 
 the barn in the Held. Once or twice in the
 
 174 COUS/N PHILLIS. 
 
 succeeding bustle I came across Phillis, al- 
 ways busy, and, as it seemed to me, always 
 doing the right thing. When 1 was alone 
 in my own room at night I allowed my- 
 self to feel relieved; and to believe that 
 the worst was over, and was not so very 
 bad after all. But the succeeding days were 
 very miserable. Sometimes I thought it must 
 be my fancy that falsely represented Phillis to 
 me as strangely changed, for surely, if this idea 
 of mine was well-founded, her parents her 
 father and mother her own flesh and blood 
 would have been the first to perceive it. Yet 
 they went on in their household peace and con- 
 tent; if anything, a little more cheerfull}^ than 
 usual, for the " harvest of the first-fruits," as 
 the minister called it, had been more bounteous 
 than usual, and there was plenty all around in 
 which the humblest laborer was made to share. 
 After the one thunderstorm, came one or two 
 lovely serene summer days, during which the 
 hav was all carried; and then succeeded long 
 soft rains filling the ears of corn, and causing 
 the mown grass to spring afresh. The minis-
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 175 
 
 ter allowed himself a few more hours of re- 
 laxation and home enjoyment than usual 
 during this wet spell: hard earth-bound frost 
 was his winter holiday; these wet days, after 
 the hay harvest, his summer holiday. We sat 
 with open windows, the fragrance and the 
 freshness called out by the soft-falling rain 
 filling the house-place; while the quiet cease- 
 less patter among the leaves outside ought to 
 have had the same lulling effect as all other 
 gentle perpetual sounds, such as mill-wheels 
 and bubbling springs, have on the nerves of 
 happv people. But two of us were not happy. 
 I was sure enough of myself, for one. I was 
 worse than sure, I was wretchedly anxious 
 about Phillis. Ever since that day of the 
 thunderstorm there had been a new, sharp, dis- 
 c(jrdant sound to me in her voice, a sort of 
 jangle in her tone; and Vv.y restless eyes had no 
 quietness in them; and her color came and 
 went without a cause that I could find out. 
 The minister, ha]:)pv in ignorance of what 
 most concerned him, brought out his books, 
 his learned volumes and classics. Wliether he
 
 176 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 read and talked to Phillis, or to me, I do not 
 know ; but feeling by instinct that she was not, 
 could not be, attending to the peaceful details, 
 so strange and foreign to the turmoil in her 
 heart, I forced myself to listen, and if possible 
 to understand. 
 
 "Look here!" said the minister, tapping 
 the old vellum-bound book he held ; " in the 
 first Geo7-gic he speaks of rolling and irriga- 
 tion; a little further on he insists on choice of 
 the best seed, and advises us to keep the drains 
 clear. Again, no Scotch farmer could give 
 shrewder advice than to cut light meadows 
 while the dew is on, even though it involve 
 nightwork. It is all living truth in these days." 
 He began beating time with a ruler upon his 
 knee, to some Latin lines he read aloud just 
 then. I suppose the monotonous chant irri- 
 tated Phillis to some irregular energy, for I 
 remember the quick knotting and breaking of 
 the thread with which she was sewing. I 
 never hear that snap repeated now, without 
 suspecting some sting or stab troubling the 
 heart of the worker. Cousin Holman, at her
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 177 
 
 peaceful knitting, noticed the reason why Phil- 
 Hs had so constantly to interrupt the progress 
 of her seam. 
 
 " It is bad thread, I'm afraid," she said, in 
 a gentle sympathetic voice. But it was too 
 much for Phillis. 
 
 " The thread is bad everything is bad 
 I am so tired of it all!" And she put down 
 her work, and hastily left the room. I do not 
 suppose that in all her life Phillis had ever 
 shown so much temper before. In many a 
 family the tone, the manner, would not have 
 been noticed; but here it fell with a sharp sur- 
 prise upon the sweet, calm atmosphere of home. 
 The minister put down ruler and book, and 
 pushed his spectacles up to his forehead. The 
 mother looked distressed for a moment, and 
 then smoothed her features and said in an ex- 
 planatory tone, "It's the weather, I think. 
 Some people feci it different to others. It 
 always brings on a headache with me." She 
 got up to follow her daugliter, but half-way to 
 tlie door she thought better of it, and came 
 back to her seat. Good mother! she hoped 
 I?
 
 178 COUSIN PHTLLIS. 
 
 the better to conceal the unusual spirit of tem- 
 per, by pretendin<2^ not to take much notice of 
 it. "Go on, minister," she said; "it is very 
 interesting what you are reading about, and 
 when I don't quite understand it, I like the 
 sound of your voice." So he went on, but 
 languidly and irregularly, and beat no more 
 time with his ruler to any Latin lines. When 
 the dusk came on, early that July night be- 
 cause of the cloudy sky, Phillis came softly 
 back, making as though nothing had happened. 
 She took up her w'ork, but it was too dark to 
 do many stitches; and she dropped it soon. 
 Then I saw how her hand stole into her 
 mother's, and how this latter fondled it with 
 quiet little caresses, while the minister, as fully 
 aware as I was to this tender pantomime, went 
 on talking in a happier tone of voice about 
 things as uninterestmg to him, at the time, I 
 verily believe, as they were to me; and that is 
 saying a good deal, and shows how much more 
 real what was passing before him was, even to 
 a farmer, than the agricultural customs of the 
 ancients.
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 79 
 
 I remember one thing more, an attack 
 which Betty the servant made upon me one 
 day as I came in through the kitchen where 
 she was churning, and stopped to ask her for a 
 drink of buttermilk. 
 
 "I say, cousin Paul" (she had adopted the 
 family habit of addressing me generally as 
 cousin Paul, and always speaking of me in 
 that form), "something's amiss with our Phil- 
 lis, and I reckon you've a good guess what it 
 is. vShc's not one to take up wi' such as you" 
 (not complimentary, but that Betty never was, 
 even to those for whom she felt the highest re- 
 spect), "but Pd as lief yon Iloldsworth had 
 never come near us. So there you've a bit o' 
 my mind." 
 
 And a very unsatisfactory bit it was. I did 
 not know what to answer to the glimpse at the 
 ix'al state of the case implied in the shrewd 
 woman's speech; so I tried to put her off by 
 assuming sui^prise at her first assertion. 
 
 "Amiss with Phillis! I should like to 
 know whv \'ou think an\tbing is wiT)ng with 
 her. She l(Kjks as Ijlooniing as any one can do,"
 
 l8o COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 "Poor lad! you're but a big child after all; 
 and you've likely never beared of a fever-flush. 
 But you know better nor that, my fine fellow! 
 so don't think for to put me off wi' blooms and 
 blossoms and such-like talk. What makes her 
 walk about for hours and hours o' nights when 
 she used to be abed and asleep? I sleep next 
 room to her, and hear her plain as can be. 
 What makes her come in panting and ready to 
 drop into that chair" nodding to one close 
 to the door "and it's 'Oh! Betty, some 
 water, please?' That's the way she comes in 
 now, when she used to come back as fresh and 
 bright as she went out. If yon friend o' yours 
 has played her false, he's a deal for t' answer 
 for; she's a lass who's as sweet and as sound as 
 a nut, and the very apple of her father's eye, 
 and of her mother's too, only wi' her she ranks 
 second to th' minister. You'll have to look 
 after yon chap, for I, for one, will stand no 
 wrong to our Phillis." 
 
 What was I to do, or to say? I wanted to 
 justify Holdsworth, to keep Phillis' secret,
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. i8i 
 
 and to jDacify the woman, all in the same breath. 
 I did not take the best course, I'm afraid. 
 
 " I don't believe Holdsworth ever spoke a 
 word of of love to her in all his life. I'm 
 sure he didn't." 
 
 " Ay, ay ! but there's eyes, and there's hands, 
 as well as tongues; and a man has two o' th' 
 one and but one o' t'other." 
 
 "And she's so young; do you suppose her 
 parents would not have seen it ? " 
 
 "Well! if you ax me that, I'll say out 
 boldly, ' No.' They've called her ' the child ' 
 so long ' the child ' is always their name for 
 her when thc\- talk on her between themselves, 
 as if never anvljody else had a ewe lamb be- 
 fore them that she's grown up to be a 
 woman under their very eyes, and they look 
 on her still as if she were in her long clothes. 
 And you ne'er heard on a man falling in love 
 wi' a babbv in long-clothes I" 
 
 "No?" said I, half laughing. But she 
 went on as grave as a judge. 
 
 " Ay I you see you'll laugh at the bare
 
 152 COUSIN PIIILLIS. 
 
 thought on it and I'll be bound th' minister, 
 though he's not a laughing man, would ha' 
 sniggled at th' notion of falling in love wi' the 
 child. Where's Holdsworth off to?" 
 
 " Canada," said I, shortly. 
 
 " Canada here, Canada there," she replied, 
 testily. " Tell me how far he's off, instead of 
 giving me your gibberish. Is he a two days' 
 journey away ? or a three ? or a week ? " 
 
 "He's ever so far off three weeks at the 
 least," cried I in despair. "And he's either 
 married or just going to be. So there!" I ex- 
 pected a fresh burst of anger. But no; the 
 matter was too serious. Betty sat down and 
 kept silence for a minute or two. She looked 
 so miserable and downcast that I could not help 
 going on and taking her a little into my confi- 
 dence. 
 
 " It is quite true what I said. I know he 
 never spoke a word to her. I think he liked 
 her, but it's all over now. The best thing we 
 can do the best and kindest for her and I 
 know you love her, Betty " 
 
 "I nursed her in my arms; I gave her little
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1S3 
 
 brother his last taste o' earthly food," said 
 Betty, putting- her apron up to her eyes. 
 
 "Well! don't let us show her we guess 
 that she is grieving; she'll get over it the 
 sooner. Her father and mother don't even 
 guess at it, and we must make as if we didn't. 
 It's too late now to do anything else." 
 
 "I'll never let on; I know nought. I've 
 known true love mysel' in my day. But I 
 wish he'd been farred before he ever came near 
 this house, with his ' Please Betty ' this and 
 ' Please Betty ' that, and drinking up our new 
 milk as if he'd been a cat; I hate such beguil- 
 ing wavs." 
 
 I thought it was as well to let her exhaust 
 herself in abusing the absent Holdsworth; if it 
 was shabby and treacherous in me I came in 
 for my punishment directly. 
 
 " It's a caution to a man how he goes about 
 beguiling. Some men do it as easv and inno- 
 cent as cooing doves. Don't you be none of 
 'em, mv lad. Not that you've got the gifts to 
 do it, either; vou're no great shakes to look at, 
 neither for figure nor yet for face, and it would
 
 184 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 need be a deaf adder to be taken in wi' your 
 words, though there may be no great harm in 
 'em." A lad of nineteen or twenty is not flat- 
 tered by such an out-spoken opinion even from 
 the oklest and ugHest of her sex; and I was 
 only too glad to change the subject by my re- 
 peated injunctions to keep Phillis' secret. The 
 end of our conversation was this speech of 
 hers: 
 
 " You great gaupus, for all you're called 
 cousin o' th' minister many a one is cursed 
 wi' fools for cousins d'ye think I can't see 
 sense except through your spectacles? I give 
 you leave to cut out my tongue and nail it up 
 on th' barn door for a caution to magpies, if I 
 let out on that jDoor wench, either to herself or 
 any one that is hers, as the Bible says. Now 
 you've heard me speak Scripture language per- 
 haps you'll be content and leave me my kitchen 
 to myself." 
 
 During all these days, from the 5th of July 
 to the 17th, I must have forgotten what Holds- 
 worth had said about sending cards. And yet 
 I think I could not have quite forgotten; but,
 
 A STORl' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1S5 
 
 once having told Phillis about his marriage, I 
 must have looked upon the after consequences 
 of cards as of no importance. At any rate 
 they came upon me as a surprise at last. The 
 penny-post reform, as people call it, had come 
 into operation a short time before; but the 
 never-ending stream of notes and letters which 
 seem now to flow in upon most households had 
 not yet begun its course; at least in those remote 
 parts. There was a post-ofFice at Hornby ; and 
 an old fellow, who stowed away the few letters 
 in any or all his pockets, as it best suited him, 
 was the letter carrier to Ileathbridge and the 
 neighborhood. I have often met him in the 
 lanes thereabouts and asked him for letters. 
 Sometimes I have come upon him, sitting on 
 the hedge bank resting; and he has begged me 
 to read him an address, too illegible for his 
 spectacled eyes to decipher. When I used to 
 inquire if he had anvthing for me, or for Holds- 
 worth ( he was not particular to whom he gave up 
 the letters, so that he got rid of them somehow, 
 and could set off homeward) he would say he 
 thought he iiad, f(;r such was his invarialjle
 
 i86 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 safe form of answer; and would fumble in 
 breast - pockets, waistcoat - pockets, breeches - 
 pockets, and, as a last resource, in coat-tail- 
 pockets; and at length try to comfort me, if I 
 looked disappointed, by telling me " Hoo had 
 missed this toime, but was sure to write to- 
 morrow;" "Hoo" representing an imaginary 
 sweetheart. 
 
 Sometimes I had seen the minister bring 
 home a letter which he had found lying for 
 him at the little shop that was the post-office at 
 Heathbridge, or from the grander establish- 
 ment at Hornby. Once or twice, Josiah, the 
 carter, remembered that the old letter-carrier 
 had trusted him with an epistle to " Measter," 
 as they had met in the lanes. I think it must 
 have been about ten days after my arrival at 
 the farm, and my talk to Phillis cutting bread- 
 and-butter at the kitchen dresser, before the 
 day on which the minister suddenly spoke at 
 the dinner-table, and said, 
 
 " By-the-by, I've got a letter in my pocket. 
 Reach me my coat here, Phillis." The weather 
 was still sultrv, and for coolness and ease the
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1S7 
 
 minister was sitting in his shirt-sleeves. " I went 
 to Ileathbridge about the paper they had sent 
 me, which spoils all the pens and I called at the 
 post-office, and found a letter for me, unpaid 
 and they did not like to trust it to old Zekiel! 
 Ay! here it is! Now we shall hear news of 
 Holdsworth I thought I'd keep it till we 
 were all together." My heart seemed to stop 
 beating and I hung my head over my plate, 
 not daring to look up. What would come of 
 it now? What was Phillis doing? How was 
 she looking? A moment of suspense and 
 then he spoke again. "Why! what's this? 
 Here are two visiting tickets with his name on, 
 no writing at all. No! it's not his name on 
 both. Mj{S. Holdsworth! The young man 
 has gone and got married." I lifted my head 
 at these w^ords; I could not help looking just 
 for one instant at Phillis. It seemed to me as 
 if slie had been keeping watch over my face 
 and wavs. Her face was brilliantly flushed; 
 her eyes were dry and glittering; but she did 
 not speak; her lips were set together almost as 
 if slie was pinching them tight to prevent
 
 1 88 COUSIN P HILL IS. 
 
 words or sounds coming out. Cousin Holman's 
 face expressed surprise and interest. 
 
 "Well!" said she, "who'd ha' thought it! 
 He's made quick work of his wooing and wed- 
 ding. I'm sure I wish him happy. Let me 
 see " ^ counting on her fingers, "October, 
 November, December, January, February, 
 March, April, May, June, July at least 
 we're at the 28th, it is nearly ten months 
 after all, and reckon a month each way 
 off " 
 
 " Did you know of this news before?" said 
 the minister, turning sharp around on me, sur- 
 prised, I suppose, at my silence, hardly sus- 
 picious, as yet. 
 
 " I knew I had heard something. It 
 is to a French Canadian young lady," I went 
 on, forcing myself to talk. " Her name is 
 Ventadour." 
 
 "Lucille Ventadour!" said Fhillis, in a 
 sharp voice, out of tune. 
 
 " Then you knew too! " exclaimed the min- 
 ister. 
 
 We both spoke at once. I said, " I heard
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 1 89 
 
 of the probability of and told Phillis." 
 
 She said, " He is married to Lucille Ventadour, 
 of French descent; one of a large family near 
 St. Meurice, am not I right?" I nodded. 
 " Paul told me, that is all we know, is not it? 
 Did you see the Howsons, father, in Heath- 
 bridge?" and she forced herself to talk more 
 than she had done for several days, asking 
 many questions, trying, as I could see, to keep 
 the conversation off the one raw surface, on 
 which to touch was agony. I had less self- 
 command; but I followed her lead. I was not 
 so much absorbed in the conversation but what 
 I could sec that the minister was puzzled and 
 uneasy; though he seconded Phillis' efforts to 
 prevent her mother from recurring to the great 
 piece of news, and uttering continual exclama- 
 tions of wonder and siu^prise. Hut with that 
 one exception we were all disturbed out of our 
 natural equanimity, more or less. Every dav, 
 every hour, I was reproaching myself more 
 and moi'c for m\- bluiulciing ofliciousncss. If 
 only I liad licld niv foolisli tongue for tliat one 
 half-hoiu'; if only I had not been in such ini-
 
 190 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 patient haste to do something to rcHeve pain ! 
 I could have knocked my stupid head against 
 the wall in my remorse. Yet all I could do 
 now was to second the hrave girl in her efforts 
 to conceal her disappointment and keep her 
 maidenly secret. But I thought that dinner 
 would never, never come to an end. I suffered 
 for her, even more than for myself. Until 
 now everything whicli I had heard spoken in 
 that happy household were simple words of 
 true meaning. If we had aught to say, we 
 said it; and if any one preferred silence, nay if 
 all did so, there would have heen no spasmodic, 
 forced efforts to talk for the sake of talking, 
 or to keep off intrusive thoughts or suspi- 
 cions. 
 
 At length we got up from our places, and 
 prepared to disperse; but two or three of us 
 had lost our zest and interest in the daily labor. 
 The minister stood looking out of the window 
 in silence, and when he roused himself to go 
 out to the field where his laborers were work- 
 ing, it was witli a sigh ; and he tried to avert 
 his troubled face as he passed us on his way to
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 191 
 
 the door. When he had left us, I caught 
 sight of Phillis' face, as, thinking herself un- 
 observed, her countenance relaxed for a mo- 
 ment or two into sad, woful weariness. She 
 started into briskness again when her mother 
 spoke, and hunied away to do some little er- 
 rand at her bidding. When we two w^ere 
 alone, cousin Holman recurred to Holdsworth's 
 marriage. She was one of those people who 
 like to view an event from every side of prob- 
 ability, or even possibility; and she had been 
 cut short from indulging herself in this way 
 during dinner, 
 
 " To think of Mi". Holdsworth's being mar- 
 ried! I can't get over it, Paul. Not but what 
 he was a very nice young man! I don't like 
 her name, though; it sounds foreign. Say it 
 again, my dear. I hope she'll know how to 
 take care of him, English fashion. He is not 
 strong, and if she does not sec that his things 
 are well aired, I should be afraid of the old 
 cough." 
 
 "He always said he was stronger than he 
 had evei' been before, after that fever."
 
 193 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 " He might think so, but I have my doubts. 
 He was a very pleasant young man, but he did 
 not stand nursing very well. He got tired of 
 being coddled, as he called it. I hope they'll 
 soon come back to England, and then he'll 
 have a chance for his health. I wonder, now, 
 if she speaks English; but, to be sure, he can 
 speak foreign tongues like anything, as I've 
 heard the minister say," 
 
 And so we went on for some time, till she 
 became drowsy over her knitting, on the sultry 
 summer afternoon; and I stole away for a 
 walk, for I wanted some solitude in which to 
 think over things, and, alas! to blame myself 
 with poignant stabs of remorse. 
 
 I lounged lazily as soon as I got to the 
 wood. Here and there the bubbling, brawling 
 brook circled around a great stone, or a root of 
 an old tree, and made a pool; otherwise it 
 coursed brightly over the gravel and stones. I 
 stood by one of these for more than half an 
 hour, or, indeed, longer, throwing bits of wood 
 or pebbles into the water, and wondering what 
 I could do to remedy the present state of
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 193 
 
 things. Of course all my meditation was of 
 no use; and at length the distant sound of the 
 horn employed to tell the men far afield to 
 leave off work, warned me that it was six 
 o'clock, and time for me to go home. Then I 
 caught wafts of the loud-voiced singing of the 
 evening psalm. As I was crossing the ash- 
 field I saw the minister at some distance talking 
 to a man. I could not hear what they were 
 saying, hut I saw an impatient or dissentient (I 
 could not tell which) gesture on the part of 
 the former, who walked quickly away, and 
 was apparently absorhed in his thoughts, for 
 though he passed within twenty yards of me, 
 as both our paths converged toward home, he 
 took no notice of me. We passed the evening 
 in a way which was even worse than dinner- 
 time. The minister was silent, depressed, even 
 irritable. Poor cousin Ilolman was utterly 
 perplexed by tliis unusual frame of mind and 
 temj)er in her husband; she was not well her- 
 self, and was suffering from the extreme and 
 sultry heat, which made her less talkative than 
 usual. Phillis, usuallv so reverently tender to 
 13
 
 194 COUSIN P If ILL IS. 
 
 her parents, so soft, so gentle, seemed now to 
 take no notice of the iniusual state of things, 
 but talked to me to anyone, on indifferent 
 subjects, regardless of her father's gravity, of 
 her mother's piteous looks of bewilderment. 
 But once my eyes fell upon her hands, con- 
 cealed under the table, and I could see the pas- 
 sionate, convulsive manner in which she laced 
 and interlaced her fingers perpetually, wringing 
 them together from time to time, wringing till 
 the compressed flesh became perfectly white. 
 What could I do? I talked with her, as I saw 
 she wished; her gray eyes had dark circles 
 around them, and a strange kind of dark light 
 in them; her cheeks were flushed, but her lips 
 were white and wan. I wondered that others 
 did not read these signs as clearly as I did. 
 But perhaps they did ; I think, from what came 
 afterward, the minister did. 
 
 Poor cousin Holman! she worshipped her 
 husband ; and the outward signs of his uneasi- 
 ness were more patent to her simple heart than 
 were her daughter's. After awhile she could 
 bear it no longer. She got up, and, softly lay-
 
 A STOUT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 195 
 
 ing her hand on his broad stooping shoulder, 
 she said,-- 
 
 " Wliat is the matter, minister? Has any- 
 tliing gone wrong? " 
 
 He started as if from a dream. PliilHs 
 Iiung her head, and caught her breath in terror 
 at the answer slie feared. But he, loolving 
 around witli a sweeping glance, turned his 
 broad, wise face up to his anxious wife, and 
 forced a smile, and took her hand in a reassur- 
 ing manner. 
 
 " I am blaming myself, dear. I have been 
 overcome with anger this aftei'noon. I scarcely 
 knew what I was doing, but I turned away 
 Timothy Cooper. He has killed the Ribstone 
 pippin at the corner of the orchard ; gone and 
 piled the quicklime for the mortar for the new 
 stable wall against the trunk of the tree 
 stupid fellow! killed the tree outright and it 
 loaded with apples!" 
 
 " And Ribstone pippins are so scarce! " said 
 sympathetic cousin Holman. 
 
 "Ay! Hut Timothy is but a half-wit; and 
 he has a wife and children. He had often put
 
 196 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 me to it sore, with his slothful ways, but I had 
 laid it before the Lord, and striven to bear with 
 him. But I will not stand it any longer, it's 
 past my patience. And he has notice to find 
 another place. Wife, we won't talk more 
 about it." He took her hand gently off his 
 shoulder, touched it with his lips; but relapsed 
 into a silence as profound, if not quite so mo- 
 rose in appearance, as before. I could not tell 
 why, but this bit of talk between her father 
 and mother seemed to take all the factitious 
 spirits out of Phillis. She did not speak now, 
 but looked out of the open casement at the 
 calm large moon, slowly moving through the 
 twilight sky. Once I thought her eyes were 
 filling with teais; but, if so, she shook them 
 off, and arose with alacrity when her mother, 
 tired and dispirited, proposed to go to bed im- 
 mediately after prayers. We all said good- 
 night in our separate ways to the minister, who 
 still sat at the table with the great Bible open 
 before him, not much looking up at any of our 
 salutations, but returning them kindly. But 
 when I, last of all, was on tlie point of leav-
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 197 
 
 ing the room, he said, still scarcely looking 
 up, 
 
 " Paul, you will oblige me by staying here 
 a few minutes. I would fain have some talk 
 with you." 
 
 I knew what was coming, all in a moment. 
 I carefully shut-to the door, put out my candle, 
 and sat down to my fate. lie seemed to find 
 some difficulty in beginning, for, if I had not 
 heard tliat he wanted to speak to me, I should 
 never have guessed it, he seemed so much ab- 
 sorbed in reading a chajiter to the end. Sud- 
 denly he lifted his head up and said, 
 
 " It is about that friend of yours. Holds- 
 worth! Paul, have you any reason for think- 
 ing he has played tricks upon Phillis?" 
 
 I saw that his eyes were blazing with such 
 a fire of anger at the ])are idea, that I lost all 
 my presence of mind, and only repeated, 
 
 "Played tricks on Phillis!" 
 
 "Ay! you know what I mean: made love 
 to her, courted her, made hei' thiidv that he 
 loved her, and then gone awa\- and left her. 
 Put it as you will, only give me an answer of
 
 198 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 some kind or another a true answer, I mean 
 and don't repeat my words, Paul." 
 
 He was shaking all over as he said this. I 
 did not delay a moment in answering him, 
 
 " I do not believe that Edward Holdsworth 
 ever played tricks on Phillis, ever made love 
 to her; he never, to my knowledge, made her 
 believe that he loved her." 
 
 I stopped; I wanted to nerve up my cour- 
 age for a confession, yet I wished to save the 
 secret of Phillis' love for Holdsworth as much 
 as I could; that secret which she had so striven 
 to keep sacred and safe, and I had need of 
 some reflection before I went on with what I 
 had to say. 
 
 He began again before I had quite arranged 
 my manner of speech. It was almost as if to 
 himself, "She is my only child; my little 
 daughter! She is hardly out of childhood; I 
 have thought to gather her imder my wings 
 for years to come; her mother and I would lay 
 down our lives to keep her from harm and 
 grief." Then, raising his voice, and looking 
 at me, he said, " Something has gone wrong
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 199 
 
 with the child; and it seemed to me to date 
 from the time she heard of that marriage. It 
 is hard to think that you may know more of 
 her secret cares and sorrows than I do but 
 perhaps you do, Paul, perhaps you do only, 
 if it he not a sin, tell me what I can do to 
 make her happy again ; tell me." 
 
 " It will not do much good, I am afraid," 
 said I, " but I will own how wrong I did ; I 
 don't mean wrong in the way of sin, but in 
 the way of judgment. Iloldsworth told me 
 just before he went that he loved Phillis, and 
 hoped to make her his wife, and I told her." 
 
 There! it was out; all my part in it, at 
 least; and I set my lips tight together and 
 waited for the words to come. I did not see 
 his face; I looked straight at the wall opposite; 
 but I heard him once begin to speak and then 
 turn over the leaves in the book before him. 
 How awfullv still that room was! The air 
 outside, liow still it was! The open windows 
 let in no rustle of lca\es, no twitter or move- 
 ment of bii-(Is no soinid whatever. The clock 
 on the stairs the minister's hartl l)reathnitr
 
 200 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 was it to go on forever? Impatient beyond 
 bearing at the deep quiet, I spoke again, 
 
 I did it for the best, as I thought." 
 
 The minister shut the book to hastily and 
 stood up. Then I saw how angry he was. 
 
 "For the best, do you say? It was best, 
 was it, to go and tell a young girl what you 
 never told a word of to her parents, who trusted 
 you like a son of their own?" 
 
 He began walking about, up and down the 
 room close under the open windows, churning 
 up his bitter thoughts of me. 
 
 " To put such thoughts into the child's 
 head," continued he; "to spoil her peaceful 
 maidenhood with talk about another man's 
 love; and such love, too," he spoke scornfully 
 now "a love that is ready for any young 
 woman. Oh, the misery in my poor little 
 daughter's face to-day at dinner the misery, 
 Paul! I thought you were one to be trusted 
 vour father's son, too, to go and put such 
 thoughts into the child's mind; you two talking 
 together about that man wishing to marry her." 
 
 I could not help remembering the pinafore,
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 20I 
 
 the childish garment which PhilHs wore so 
 long, as if her parents were unaware of her 
 progress toward womanhood. Just in the same 
 way the minister spoke and thought of her now, 
 as a child, whose innocent peace I had spoiled 
 by vain and foolish talk. I knew that the 
 truth was different, though I could hardly have 
 told it now ; but, indeed, I never thought of 
 trying to tell; it was far from my mind to add 
 one iota to the sorrow which I had caused. 
 The minister went on walking, occasionally 
 stopping to move things on the table, or articles 
 of furniture, in a sharp, impatient, meaningless 
 way; then he began again, 
 
 "So young, so pure from the world! how 
 could you go and talk to such a child, raising 
 hopes, exciting feelings all to end thus; and 
 best so, even though I saw her poor piteous 
 face look as it did. I can't forgive you, Paul; 
 it was more than wrong it was wicked to 
 go and repeat that man's words." 
 
 His back was now to the door, and, in list- 
 ening to his low angry tones, he cHd not hear it 
 slowly open, nor did he see Phillis, standing
 
 202 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 just within the room, until he turned round; 
 then he stood still. She must have been half 
 undressed; but she had covered herself with a 
 dark winter cloak, which fell in long folds to 
 her white, naked, noiseless feet. Her face was 
 strangely pale; her eyes heavy in the black 
 circles around them. She came up to the table 
 very slowly and leaned her hand upon it, say- 
 ing mournfully, 
 
 "Father, you must not blame Paul. I could 
 not help hearing a great deal of what you were 
 saying. He did tell me, and perhaps it would 
 have been wiser not, dear Paul! But oh, 
 dear! oh, dear! I am so sick with shame! He 
 told me out of his kind heart, because he saw 
 that I was so very unhappy at his going 
 away." 
 
 She hung her head and leaned more heavily 
 than before on her supporting hand. 
 
 "I don't understand," said her father; but 
 he was beginning to understand. Phillis did 
 not answer till he asked her again. I could 
 have struck him now for his cruelty; but then 
 I knew all.
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. 203 
 
 "I loved him, father!" she said at length, 
 raising her eyes to the minister's face. 
 
 " Had he ever spoken of love to you? Paul 
 says not!" 
 
 " Never." She let fall her eyes, and drooped 
 more than ever. I almost thought she would 
 fall. 
 
 " I could not have believed it," said he, in a 
 hard voice, yet sighing the moment he had 
 spoken. A dead silence for a moment. "Paul! 
 I was unjust to you. You deserved blame, 
 but not all that I said." Then again a silence. 
 I thought I saw Phillis' white lips moving, but 
 it might be the flickering of the candle-light 
 a moth had flown in through the open case- 
 ment and was fluttering around the flame; I 
 might have saved it, but I did not care to do so, 
 my heart was too full of other things. At any 
 rate, no sound was heard for long endless min- 
 utes. Then he said, " Phillis! did we not 
 make you happy here? Have we not loved 
 you enough ? " 
 
 She did not seem to understand the drift of 
 this question; she looked up as if bewildered.
 
 204 COUSIN PlilLLIS. 
 
 and her beautiful eyes dilated with a painful, 
 tortured expression. He went on, without no- 
 ticing the look on her face; he did not see it, 
 I am sure. 
 
 "And yet you would have left us, left your 
 home, left your father and your mother, and 
 gone away with this stranger, wandering over 
 the world." 
 
 He suffered, too; there were tones of pain 
 in the voice in which he uttered this reproach. 
 Probably the father and daughter were never 
 so far apart in their lives, so unsympathetic. 
 Yet some new terror came over her, and it 
 was to him she turned for help. A shadow 
 came over her face, and she tottered toward 
 her father; falling down, her arms across his 
 knees, and moaning out, 
 
 " Father, my head ! my head ! " and then 
 she slipped through his quick-enfolding arms, 
 and lay on the floor at his feet. 
 
 I shall never forget his sudden look of 
 agony while I live; never! We raised her up; 
 her color had strangely darkened ; she was in- 
 sensible. I ran through the back-kitchen to
 
 A STOin' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 205 
 
 the yard pump and brought back water. The 
 minister had her on his knees, her head against 
 his breast, almost as though she were a sleep- 
 ing child. He was trying to rise up with his 
 poor precious burden, but the momentary ter- 
 ror had robbed the strong man of his strength, 
 and he sank back in his chair with sobbing 
 breath. 
 
 ".She is not dead, Paul! is she?" he whis- 
 pered, hoarse, as I came near him. 
 
 I, too, could not speak, but I pointed to the 
 quivering of the muscles around her mouth. 
 Just then cousin Ilolman, attracted by some 
 unwonted sound, came down. I remember I 
 was surprised at the time at her presence of 
 mind, she seemed to know so much better what 
 to do than the minister, in the midst of the sick 
 affright which blanched her countenance, and 
 made her trem])le all over. I think now that 
 it was the recollection of what had gone before; 
 the miseiable thought that possibly his words 
 had brought on this attack, whatever it might 
 be, that so unmanned the minister. We car- 
 ried her upstairs, antl wliilc llie women were
 
 2o6 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 putting her to bed, still unconscious, still slightly 
 convulsed, I slipped out, and saddled one of 
 the horses, and rode as fast as a heavy-trotting 
 beast could go, to Hornby, to find the doctor 
 there, and bring him back. He was out, 
 might be detained the whole night. I remem- 
 ber saying, "God help us all!" as I sat on my 
 horse, under the window, through which the 
 apprentice's head had appeared to answer my 
 furious tugs at the night-bell. He was a good- 
 natured fellow. He said, 
 
 " He may be home in half an hour, there's 
 no knowing; but I dare say he will. I'll send 
 him out to the Hope Farm directly he comes 
 in. It's that good-looking 3'oung woman, Hol- 
 man's daughter, that's ill, isn't it?" 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " It would be a pity if she was to go. 
 She's an only child, isn't she? I'll get up, and 
 smoke a pipe in the surgery, ready for the 
 governor's coming home. I might go to sleep 
 if I went to bed again." 
 
 " Thank you, you're a good fellow ! " and I 
 rode back almost as quickly as I came.
 
 A STOR7' OF ENGLISH LOVE. 207 
 
 It was a brain fever. The doctor said so, 
 when he came in the early summer morning. 
 I beHeve we had come to know the nature of 
 the illness in the night-watches that had gone 
 before. As to hope of ultimate recovery, or 
 even evil prophecy of the probable end, the 
 cautious doctor would be entrapped into neither. 
 He gave his directions and promised to come 
 again; so soon, that this one thing showed his 
 opinion of the gravity of the case. 
 
 By God's mercy she recovered, but it was a 
 long, weary time first. According to pre- 
 viously made plans, I was to have gone home 
 at the beginning of August. But all such 
 ideas were put aside now, without a word being 
 spoken. T really think that I was necessary in 
 the house, and esioecially necessary to the min- 
 ister at this time; my father was the last man 
 in the world, under such circumstances, to ex- 
 pect me home. 
 
 I say, I think I was necessary in the house. 
 Every person (I had almost said every creature, 
 for all the duml) l)casts seemed t(^ know and 
 love Phillis) about the place went grieving and
 
 2oS COUSIN PHIL LIS. 
 
 sad, as though a cloud was over the sun. They 
 did their work, each striving to steer clear of 
 the temptation to eye-service, in fulfilment of 
 the trust reposed in them by the minister. Foi- 
 the day after Phillis had been taken ill, he had 
 called all the men employed on the farm into 
 the empty barn ; and there he had entreated their 
 prayers for his only child; and then and there 
 he had told them of his present incapacity for 
 thought about any other thing in this world 
 but his little daughter, lying nigh unto death, 
 and he had asked them to go on with their 
 daily labors as best they could without his 
 direction. So, as I say, these honest men did 
 their work to the best of their ability, but they 
 slouched along with sad and careful faces, com- 
 ing one by one in the dim mornings to ask 
 news of the sorrow that overshadowed the 
 house; and receiving Betty's intelligence, always 
 rather darkened by passing through her mind, 
 with slow shakes of the head and a dull wist- 
 fulness of sympathy. But, poor fellows, they 
 were hardly fit to be trusted with hasty mes- 
 sages, and here my poor services came in.
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 209 
 
 One time I was to ride hard to Sir William 
 Bentinck's and petition for ice out of his ice- 
 house, to put on Phillis' head. Another it was to 
 Eltham I must go, by train, horse, anyhow, and 
 bid the doctor there come for a consultation, 
 for fresh symptoms had appeared, whicli Mr. 
 Brown, of Hornby, considered unfavorable. 
 Many an hour have I sat on the window-seat, 
 half-way up the stairs, close by the old clock, 
 listening in the hot stillness of the house for 
 the sounds in the sick-room. The minister 
 and I met often, but spoke together seldom. 
 He looked so old so old! He shared the 
 nursing with his wife; the strength that was 
 needed seemed to be given to them both in that 
 day. They required no one else about their 
 child. Every office about her was sacred to 
 them*, even Betty only went into the room for 
 the most necessary purposes. Once I saw 
 Phillis through the open door; her pretty 
 golden hair had been cut off long before; her 
 head was covered with wet cloths, and she was 
 moving it backward and forward on the pillow, 
 with weary, never-ending motion, her poor 
 H
 
 2 10 COUSIN PHIL LIS. 
 
 eyes shut, trying in the old accustomed way to 
 croon out a hymn tune, hut perpetually hreak- 
 ing it up into moans of pain. Her mother sat 
 by her, tearless, changing the cloths upon her 
 head with patient solicitude. I did not see the 
 minister at first, but there he was in a dark cor- 
 ner, down upon his knees, his hands clasped 
 together in passionate prayer. Then the door 
 shut and I saw no more. 
 
 One day he was wanted and I had to sum- 
 mon him. Brother Robinson and another 
 minister, hearing of his " trial," had come to 
 see him. I told him this upon the stair-landing 
 in a whisper. He was strangely troubled. 
 
 " They will want me to lay bare my heart. 
 I cannot do it. Paul, stay with me. They 
 mean well ; but as for spiritual help at such a 
 time it is God only, God only, who can give 
 it." 
 
 So I went in with him. They were two 
 ministers from the neighborhood ; both older 
 than Ebenezer Holman ; but evidently inferior 
 to him in education and worldly position. I 
 thought they looked at me as if I were an
 
 A STORY OF ENGLISH LOVE. 21 I 
 
 intruder, but remembering the minister's words 
 I held my ground, and took up one of poor 
 Phillis' books (of which I could not read a 
 word) to have an ostensible occupation. Pres- 
 ently I was asked to "engage in prayer," and 
 we all knelt down. Brother Robinson " leading," 
 and quoting largely as I remember from the 
 Book of Job. He seemed to take for his text, 
 if texts are ever taken for prayers, "Behold 
 thou hast instructed many; but now it is come 
 upon thee, and thou faintest, it toucheth thee 
 and thou art troubled." When we others rose 
 up, the minister continued for some minutes on 
 his knees. Then he too got up, and stood 
 facing us for a moment, before we all sat 
 down in conclave. After a pause Robinson 
 began, 
 
 " We grieve for you. Brother Holman, for 
 your trouble is great. But we would fain have 
 you remember you are as a light set on a hill; 
 and the congregation are looking at you with 
 watchful eyes. We have l)ecn talking as we 
 came along on the two duties required of you 
 in this strait; Brother Hodgson and me. And
 
 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 we have resolved to exhort you on these two 
 points. First, God has given you the oppor- 
 tunity of showing forth an example of resigna- 
 tion." Poor Mr. Holman visibly winced at 
 this word. I could fancy how he had tossed 
 aside such brotherly preachings in his happier 
 moments; but now his whole system was un- 
 strung, and "resignation" seemed a term 
 which presupposed that the dreaded misery of 
 losing Phillis was inevitable. But good stupid 
 Mr. Robinson went on. " We hear on all 
 sides that there are scarce any hopes of your 
 child's recovery; and it may be well to bring 
 you to mind of Abraham ; and how he was 
 willing to kill his only child when the Lord 
 commanded. Take example by him. Brother 
 Holman. Let us hear you say, ' The Lord 
 giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be 
 the name of the Lord!'" 
 
 There was a pause of expectancy. I verily 
 believe the minister tried to feel it; but he 
 could not. Heart of flesh was too strong. 
 Heart of stone he had not. 
 
 " I will say it to my God, when He gives
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 213 
 
 me strength, when the day comes," he spoke 
 at last. 
 
 The other two looked at each other, and 
 shook their heads. I think the rehictance to 
 answer as they wished was not quite unex- 
 pected. The minister went on: "There are 
 hopes yet," he said, as if to himself. " God 
 has given me a great heart for hopiiig, and I 
 will not look forward beyond the hour." 
 Then turning more to them, and speaking 
 louder, he added : " Brethren, God will 
 strengthen me when the time comes, when 
 such resignation as you speak of is needed. 
 Till then I cannot feel it; and what I do not 
 feel I will not express; using words as if they 
 were a charm." He was getting chafed, I 
 could see. 
 
 He had rather put them out by these 
 speeches of his; ])ut after a short time and 
 some more sliakes of the liead, Robinson be- 
 gan again, 
 
 " .Secondh', we would liave vou listen to 
 llie \oice of the lod, and ask yourself for 
 what sins this trial lias l)een laid upon vou;
 
 214 cousrN PiiiLiJS. 
 
 whether you may not have been too much 
 given up to your farm and your cattle; whether 
 this world's learning has not puffed you up to 
 vain conceit and neglect of the things of God ; 
 whether you have not made an idol of your 
 daughter? " 
 
 "I cannot answer I will not answer!" 
 exclaimed the minister. "My sins I confess to 
 God. But if they were scarlet (and they are 
 so in His sight," he added, humbly), "I hold 
 with Christ that afflictions are not sent by God 
 in wrath as penalties for sin." 
 
 Is that orthodox, Brother Robinson ? " 
 asked the third minister, in a deferential tone 
 of inquiry. 
 
 Despite the minister's injunction not to 
 leave him, I tliought matters were getting so 
 serious that a little homely interruption would 
 be more to the purpose than my continued 
 presence, and I went around to the kitchen to 
 ask for Betty's help. 
 
 " 'Od rot 'em!" said she; "they're always 
 a-coming at ill-convenient times; and they have 
 such hearty appetites, they'll make nothing of
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 215 
 
 what would have served master and you since 
 our poor lass has been ill. I've but a bit of 
 cold beef in th' house; but I'll do some ham 
 and eggs, and that'll rout 'em from worrying 
 the minister. They're a deal quieter after 
 they've had their victual. Last time as old 
 Robinson came, he was very reprehensible 
 upon master's learning, which he couldn't com- 
 pass to save his life, so he needn't have been 
 afeard of that temptation, and used words long 
 enough to have knocked a body down; but 
 after me and missus had given him his fill of 
 victual, and he'd had some good ale and a pipe, 
 he spoke just like any other man, and could 
 crack a joke with me." 
 
 Their visit was the only break in the long 
 weary days and nights. I do not mean that 
 no other inquiries were made. I believe that 
 all the neighbors hung about the place daily 
 till thev could learn from some out-comer how 
 Phillis Ilolman was. But tliey knew better 
 than to come up to the house, for the August 
 weather was so hot that every door and win- 
 dow was kept constantly open, and the least
 
 2l6 COUSIN P HILL IS. 
 
 sound outside penetrated all through. I am 
 sure the cocks and hens had a sad time of it; 
 for Betty drove them all into an empty barn, 
 and kept them fastened up in the dark for sev- 
 eral days, with very little effect as regarded 
 their crowing and clacking. At length came 
 a sleep which was the crisis, and from which 
 she wakened up with a new faint life. Her 
 slumber had lasted many, many hours. We 
 scarcely dared to breathe or move during the 
 time; we had striven to hope so long, that we 
 were sick at heart, and durst not trust in the 
 favorable signs: the even breathing, the moist- 
 ened skin, the slight return of delicate color 
 into the pale, wan lips. I recollect stealing out 
 that evening in the dusk, and wandering down 
 the grassy lane, under the shadow of the over- 
 arching elms to the little bridge at the foot of 
 the hill, where the lane to the Hope Farm 
 joined another road to Hornby. On the low 
 parapet of that bridge I found Timothy Coop- 
 er, the stupid, half-witted laborer, sitting, idly 
 throwing bits of mortar into the brook below. 
 He just looked up at me as I came near, but
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 217 
 
 gave me no greeting, either by word or ges- 
 ture. He had generally made some sign of 
 recognition to me, but this time I thought he 
 was sullen at being dismissed. Nevertheless I 
 felt as if it would be a relief to talk a little to 
 some one, and I sat down by him. While I 
 was thinking how to begin, he yawned 
 weariedly. 
 
 " You are tired, Tim ? " said I. 
 
 " Ay," said he. " But I reckon I may go 
 home now." 
 
 " Have you been sitting here long?" 
 
 " Welly all day long. Leastways sin' seven 
 i' th' morning." 
 
 " Why what in the world have you been 
 doing? " 
 
 " Nought." 
 
 "Why have you been sitting here, then?" 
 
 " T' keep carts off." He was up now, 
 stretching himself and shaking his lubberly 
 limbs. 
 
 " Carts I what carts? " 
 
 "Carts as might ha' wakened yon wench! 
 It's Hornbv market-dav. I reckon yo're no
 
 2i8 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 better nor a half-wit yoursel'." He cocked his 
 eye at me as if he were gauging my intel- 
 lect. 
 
 " And have you been sitting here all day to 
 keep the lane quiet?" 
 
 " Ay. I've nought else to do. Th' minis- 
 ter has turned me adrift. Have yo' beared 
 how th' lass is faring to-night?" 
 
 " They hope she'll waken better for this 
 long sleep. Good-night to you, and God bless 
 you, Timothy," said I. 
 
 He scarcely took any notice of my words, 
 as he lumbered across a stile that led to his cot- 
 tage. Presently I went home to the farm. 
 Phillis had stirred, had spoken two or three 
 faint words. Her mother was with her, drop- 
 ping nourishment into her scarce conscious 
 mouth. The rest of the household were sum- 
 moned to evening prayer for the first time for 
 many days. It was a return to the daily habits 
 of happiness and health. But in these silent 
 days our very lives had been an unspoken 
 prayer. Now we met in the house-place, and 
 looked at each otlier with strange recognition
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 219 
 
 of the thankfulness on all our faces. We knelt 
 down; we waited for the minister's voice. He 
 did not begin as usual. He could not; he was 
 choking. Presently we heard the strong man's 
 sob. Then old John turned around on his 
 knees, and said, 
 
 " Minister, I reckon we have blessed the 
 Lord wi' all our .souls, though we've ne'er 
 talked about it; and maybe He'll not need 
 spoken words this night. God bless us all, and 
 keep our Phillis safe from harm! Amen." 
 
 Old Jolm's impromptu prayer was all we 
 had that night. 
 
 " Our Phillis," as he had called her, grew 
 better day by day from that time. Not quick- 
 ly; I sometimes grew desponding, and feared 
 that she would never be what she had been be- 
 fore; no more she has, in some ways. 
 
 I seized an early opportunity to tell the 
 minister about Timothy Cooper's unsolicited 
 watch on the bridge duiing the long summer's 
 day. 
 
 "(rod f()rgi\'e me!" said the minister. "I 
 have been too proud in my o\yn conceit. Tiie
 
 220 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 first steps I take out of this house shall be to 
 Cooper's cottage." 
 
 I need hardly say Timothy was reinstated 
 in his place on the farm ; and I have often 
 since admired the patience with which his 
 master tried to teach him how to do the easy 
 work which was henceforward carefully ad- 
 justed to his capacity. 
 
 Phillis was carried downstairs and lay for 
 hour after hour quite silent on the great sofa, 
 drawn up under the windows of the house- 
 place. She seemed always the same, gentle, 
 quiet and sad. Her energy did not return with 
 her bodily strength. It was sometimes pitiful 
 to see her parents' vain endeavors to rouse her 
 to interest. One day the minister brought her 
 a set of blue ribbons, reminding her with a 
 tender smile of a former conversation in which 
 she had owned to a love of such feminine 
 vanities. She spoke gratefully to him, but 
 when he was gone she laid them on one side 
 and languidly shut her eyes. Another time I 
 saw her mother brinsr her the Latin and Italian
 
 A STORT OF ENGLISH LOVE. 221 
 
 books that she had been so fond of before her 
 iHness or, rather, before Holdsworth had gone 
 away. That was worst of all. She turned 
 her face to the wall and cried as soon as her 
 mother's back was turned. Betty was laying 
 the cloth for the early dinner. Her sharp 
 eyes saw the state of the case. 
 
 "Now, Phillis!" said she, coming up to the 
 sofa; "we ha' done a' wc can for you, and th' 
 doctors has done a' they can for you, and I 
 think the Lord has done a' He can for you, and 
 more than you deserve, too, if you don't do 
 something for yourself. If I were you, I'd 
 rise up and snuff the moon, sooner than break 
 your father's and your mother's hearts wi' 
 watching and waiting till it pleases you to fight 
 your own way back to cheerfulness. There, 
 I never favored long preachings, and I've said 
 my say." 
 
 A day or two after Phillis asked me, when 
 we were alone, if I thought my father and 
 mother would allow her to go and stay with 
 tliem for a couple of months. She blushed a
 
 222 
 
 COUSIN PHILLIS. 
 
 little as she faltered out her wish for a change 
 of thought and scene. 
 
 "Only for a short time, Paul. Then we 
 will go back to the peace of the old days. I 
 know we shall; I can, and I will!" 
 
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