A Country Gentleman

VIII.

IT was a violent beginning ; but perhaps it was as well, on the whole, that the idea of Theo’s future supremacy should have been got into the heads of the duller portion of the family. War-render was so anxious that there should be no unnecessary haste in his mother’s departure, and so ready to find out a pleasant place where they could all go, that everything that had been harsh was forgotten. Indeed, it is very possible in a family that a great many harsh things may be said and forgotten, with little harm done — boys and girls who have been brought up in the same nursery having generally insulted as well as caressed each other with impunity from their earliest years. This happy effect of the bonds of nature was no doubt made easier by the placid characters of the girls, who had no inclination to brood over an unkindness, or any habit of thinking what was meant by a hasty word. On the contrary, when they remembered it in the morning, after their sound night’s sleep, they said to each other that Theo could not possibly have meant it ; that he must, have been out of temper, poor fellow. They even consented to listen and to look when, with unusual amiability, he called them out to see what trees he intended to cut down, and what he meant to do. Minnie and Chatty indeed bewailed every individual tree, and kissed the big, tottering old elm, which had menaced the nursery window since ever they could remember, and shut out the light. “ Dear old thing ! ” they said, shedding a tear or two upon its rough bark. “It would be dear indeed if it brought down the wall and smashed the old play-room,” their brother said, — an argument which even to these natural conservatives bore, now that the first step had been taken, a certain value. Sometimes it is not amiss to go too far when the persons you mean to convince are a little obtuse. They entered into the question almost with warmth at last. The flower garden would be so much improved, for one thing; there never had been sun enough for the flowers, and the big trees had taken, the gardener said, all the goodness out of the soil. Perhaps after all Theo might be right. Of course he knew so much more of the world 1

“ And mother, before you go, you should see—Lady Markland,” Theo said.

There was a little hesitation in his voice before lie pronounced the name, but of this no one took any notice, at the time.

“ I have been wondering what I should do. There has been no intimacy, not more than acquaintanceship.”

“ After what has happened you sure, ly cannot call yourselves mere acquaintances, you and she.”

“ Perhaps not that: but it is not as if she had thrown herself upon my sympathy, Theo. She was very selfcontained. Nobody could doubt that she felt it dreadfully ; but she did not fling herself upon me, as many other women would have done.”

“ I should not think that was at all her character,” said Warrender.

“ No, I don’t suppose it is her character ; and then there were already two of her, so to speak, — that child” —

“ The only thing I dislike in her,” he said hastily, “ is that child. What good can a creature of that age do her ? And it must he so bad for the boy.”

“ I don’t know about the good it can do her. You don’t any of you understand,” Mrs. Warrender said, with a moistening of her eyes, “the good there is in a child. As young people grow up they become more important, no doubt, — oh, yes, far more important, — and take their own place. But a little thing that belongs to you, that has no thoughts but what are your thoughts, that never wants to be away from you ” —

“Very unnatural,” said the young man severely, “ or else fictitious. The little thing, you may be sure, would much rather he playing with its own companions; or else it must be an unhealthy little sentimental ” —

Mrs. Warrender shook her head, but said no more. She gave him a look half remonstrating, half smiling. I had a little hoy once, it was on her lips to say: but she forbore. How was the young man beginning his own individual career, thinking of everything in the world rather than of such innocent consolation as can he given to a woman by a child, to understand that mystery? She whose daughters, everybody said, must be “ such companions,” and her son “ such a support,” looked back wistfully upon the days when they were little children ; but then she was an unreasonable woman. She was roused from a little visionary journey back into her own experiences by the sound of Theo’s voice going on : —

— “ should call and ask,” he was saying. “ She might want you. She must want some one, and they say she has no relations. I think certainly you should call and ask. Shall I order the brougham for you this afternoon ? I would drive you over myself, but perhaps, in the circumstances, it would be more decorous ” —

“ It must be the brougham; if you think I ought to go so soon ” —

“ Well, mother, you are the best judge; but I suppose that if women can be of any use to each other it must be at such a — at a time when other people are shut out.”

Mrs, Warrender was much surprised by his fervor: but she remembered that her husband had been very punctilious about visiting, as men in the country often are, the duty of keeping up all social connections falling upon their wives, and not on themselves. The brougham was ordered, accordingly, and she set out alone, though Minnie would willingly have strained a point to accompany her. “ Don’t you think, mamma, that as I am much nearer her own age she might like me to go?” that young lady said. But here Theo came in again with his newly acquired authority. “ Mother is the right person,” he said.

She did not feel much like the right person, as she drove along. Lady Markland had not wanted consolation ; the shock had turned her to stone. And then she had her child, and seemed to need no other minister. But if it pleased Theo, that was motive enough. She reflected, as she pursued her way, upon the kind of squire he would make, different from his father, — oh, very different; not the ordinary type of the English country gentleman. He would not hunt, he would shoot very little; but her husband had not been enthusiastic in either of these pursuits. He would not care, perhaps, for county business or for the quarter sessions ; he would have too much contempt for the country bumpkins to be popular with the farmers or wield political influence. Very likely (she thought), he would not live much at the Warren, but keep rooms at Oxford, or perhaps go to London. She had no fear that he would ever “ go wrong.” That was as great an impossibility as that he should be prime minister or Archbishop of Canterbury. But yet it was a little odd that he should be so particular about keeping up the accidental connection with Lady Markland. This showed that he was not so indifferent to retaining his place in the county and keeping up a connection as she thought. As for any other ideas that Theo might associate with the young widow, — the widow whose husband lay still unburied, — nothing of the kind entered Mrs. Warrender’s head.

The nakedness of the house seemed to be made more conspicuous by the blank of all the closed windows, the white blinds down, the white walls shining like a sort of colorless monument in the blaze of the westering sun. The sound of the wheels going up the open road which was called an avenue seemed a kind of insult to the stillness which brooded over the house of death. When the old butler came solemnly down the great steps, the small country lady, who was not on Lady Markland’s level, felt her little pretense at intimacy quite unjustifiable. The butler came down the steps witli a solemn air to receive a card and inquiries, and to give the stereotyped reply that her ladyship was as well as could be looked for, but lifted astonished eyes, not without a gleam of insolence in them, when Mrs. Warrender made the unexpected demand if Lady Markland would see her. See you! If it had been the duchess, perhaps ! was the commentary legible in his face. He went in, however, with the card in his hand, while she waited, half indignant, half amused, wdth little doubt what the reply would be. But the reply was not at all what she expected. After a minute or two of delay, another figure, quite different from that of the butler, appeared on the steps : a tall man, with very thin, unsteady legs, a face on which the ravages of age were visibly repaired by many devices unknown to its simpler victims, with an eyeglass in his eye and a hesitation in his speech. He was not unknown to the society about, though he showed himself but rarely in it, and was not beloved when he appeared. He was Lord Markland’s uncle, the late lord’s only brother, — he who was supposed to have led the foolish young man astray. Mrs. Warrender looked at him with a certain horror, as he came walking gingerly down the steps. He made a very elaborate bow at the carriage door, — if he were really Satan in person, as many people thought, he was a weak-kneed Satan, — and gulped and stammered a good deal (in which imperfections we need not follow him) as he made his compliments. His niece, he said, had charged him with the kindest messages, but she was ill and lying down. Would Mrs. Warrender excuse her for to-day ?

“ She is most grateful for so much kindness; and there is a favor — ah, a favor which 1 have to ask. It is, if you would add to your many kind services ” —

“ I have rendered no kind services, Mr. Markland. The accident happened at our doors.”

“ Ah, no less kind for that. My niece is very grateful, and 1 — and I, too, — that goes without saying. If we might ask you to come the day after to-morrow, to remain with her while the last rites ” —

“ To remain with her ! Are you sure that is Lady Markland’s wish ? ”

“ My dear lady, it is mine, and hers, — hers, too ; again, that goes without saying. She has no relations. She wants countenance, — countenance and support; and who could give them so fitly as yourself? In the same circumstances, accept my sincerest regrets. Mr. Warrender was, I have always heard, an excellent person, and must be a great loss. But you have a son, I think.”

“ Yes, 1 have a son.”

“ Who has been here twice to inquire? Most friendly, most friendly, I am sure. I see, therefore, that you take an interest. Then may we calculate upon you, Wednesday, as early as will suit you ? ”

“ I will come,” said Mrs. War render, still hesitating, “ if you are quite sure it is Lady Markland’s wish.”

While he repeated his assurances, another member of the family appeared at the door, little Geoff, in a little black dress, which showed his paleness, his meagre, small person, insignificance, and sickliness more than ever. He had been there, it would seem, looking on while his uncle spoke. At this moment he came down deliberately, one step at a time, till his head was on a level with the carriage window. “ It is quite true,” he said. “ Mother ’s in her own room. She’s tired, but she wants you, if you ‘ll come; anyhow, I want you, please, if you ’ll come. They say I’m to go, but not mamma: and you know she could n’t be left by herself ; uncle thinks so, and so do I.”

The little thing stood shuffling from one foot to another, his hands in his pockets, his little gray eyes looking everywhere but at the compassionate face turned to him from the carriage window. There was a curious ridiculous repetition in the child’s attitude of Theo’s assertion of his rights. But Mrs. Warrender’s heart was soft to the child. “ I don’t think she wants me,” she said. “ I will do anything at such a time, but” —

“ I want you,” said Geoff. He gave her a momentary glance, and she could see that the little colorless eyes had tears hi them. “ I shall have to go and leave her, and who will take care of her? She is to have a thing like yours upou her head.” He was ready to sob, but kept himself in with a great effort, swallowing the little convulsion of nature. His mother’s widow’s cap was more to Geoff than his father’s death; at least it was a visible sign of something tremendous which had happened, more telling than the mere absence of one who had been so often absent. “ Come, Mrs. Warrender ! ” he said, with a hoarseness of passion in his little voice. I can leave her if you are there.”

“ I will come for you, Geoff,” she said, holding out her hand, and with tears in her eyes. He was not big enough to reach it from where he stood, and the tears in her voice affected the little hero. He dug his own hands deeper into his pockets, and shuffled off without any reply. It was the uncle, whose touch she instinctively shrunk from, who took and bowed over Mrs. Warrender’s hand. The Honorable John bowed over it as if he were about to kiss it, and might have actually touched the black glove with his carmine lips (would they have left a mark?) had not she drawn it away.

What a curious office to be thus imposed upon her ! To give countenance and support, or to take care of, as little Geoff said, this young woman whom she scarcely knew, who had not in the depth of trouble made any claim upon her sympathy. Mrs. Warrender looked forward with anything but satisfaction to the task. But when she told her tale it was received with a sort of enthusiasm. “Oh, how nice of her!” cried Minnie and Chatty ; and their mother saw, with half amusement, that they thought all the more of her because her companionship had been sought for by Lady Markland. And in Warrender’s eyes a fire lighted up. He turned away his head, and after a moment said, " You will be very tender to her, mother.” Mrs. arrender was too much confused and bewildered to make any reply.

When the day came she went, with reluctance and a sense of self-abnegation, which was not gratifying, but painful, to fulfill this office. “ She does not want me, I know,” Mrs. Warrender said to her son, who accompanied her, to form part of the cortege, in the little brougham which had been to Markland but once or twice in so many years, and this last week had traversed the road from one house to another almost every day. “ I think you are mistaken, mother ; but even so, if you can do her any good,” said Theo, with unusual enthusiasm. His mother thought it strange that he should show so much feeling on the subject; and she went through the great hall and up the stairs, through the depths of the vast, silent house, to Lady Markland’s room, with anticipations as little agreeable as any with which woman ever went to an office of kindness. Lady Markland’s room was on the other side of the house, looking upon a landscape totally different from that through which her visitor had come. The window was open, the light unshaded, and Lady Markland sat at a writing-table covered with papers, as little like a broken-hearted widow as could be supposed. She was dressed, indeed, in the official dress of heavy crape, and wore (for once) the cap which to Geoff had been so overpowering a symbol of sorrow; but save for these signs, and perhaps a little additional paleness in her never high complexion, was precisely as Mrs. Warrender had seen her since she I had risen from her girlish bloom into the self-possession of a wife matured and stilled by premature experience. She came forward, holding out her hand, when her visitor, with a reluctance and diffidence quite unsuitable to her superior age, slowly advanced.

“Thank you,” she said at once, “ for coming. T know without a word how disagreeable it is to you, how little you wished it. You have come against your will, and you think against my will, Mrs. Warrender ; but indeed it is not so. It is a comfort and help to me to have you.”

“ If that is so, Lady Markland ” —

“ That is why you have come,” she said. “ It is so. I know you have come unwillingly. You heard — they have taken the boy from me.”

“ But only for this day.”

“ Only for the hour, I hope. It is supposed to be too much for me to go.” Here she smiled, with a nervous movement of her face. “ Nothing is too much for me. You know a little about it, but not all. Do yon remember him when we were married, Mrs. Warrender ? I recollect you were one of the first people I saw.”

This sudden plunge into the subject for which she was least prepared — for all her ideas of condolence had been driven out of her mind by the young woman’s demeanor, the open window, the cheerful and commonplace air of the room — confused Mrs. Warrender greatly. “ I remember Lord Markland almost all his life,” she said.

“ Here is the miniature of him that was done for me before we were married,” said Lady Markland, rising hurriedly, and bringing it from the table, “ Look at it ; did you ever see a more hopeful face ? He was so fresh ; he was so full of spirits. Who could have thought there was any canker iu that face ? ”

“ There was not then,” said the elder woman, looking through a mist of natural tears — the tears of that profound regret for a life lost which are more bitter, almost, than personal sorrow — at the miniature. She remembered him so well, and how everybody thought all would come right with the poor young fellow when he was so happily married and had a home.

“ Ah, but there was ! — nobody told me; though if all the world had told me it would not have made any difference. Mrs. Warrender, he is like that now. Everything else is gone. He looks as he did at twenty, as good and as pure. What do you think it means ? Does it mean anything ? Or is there only some physical interpretation of it, as these horrible men say ? ”

“ My dear,” said Mrs. Warrender, quite subdued, “ they say it means that all is pardoned, and that they have entered into peace.”

“ Peace,” she said. “ I was afraid you were going to say rest; and he who had never labored wanted no rest. Peace, — where the wicked cease from troubling, is that what you mean ? He had no time to repent.”

“ My dear — oh, I am not clear, I can’t tell you ; but who can tell what was in his mind between the time he saw his danger and the blow that stunned him ? If my boy had done everything against me, and all in a moment turned and called to me, would I refuse him ? And is not God,” cried one mother to the other, taking her hands, “ better than we ? ”

It was she who had come to be the comforter who wept, tears streaming down her cheeks. The other held her hands, and looked in her face with dry, feverish eyes. “ Your boy,” she said slowly, " he is good and kind, — he is good and kind. Will my boy be like him? Or do you think there is an inheritance in that as in other things ? ”

IX.

The post town for the Warren was Highcombe, which was about four miles off. To drive there had always been considered a dissipation, not to say a temptation, for the Warrenders; at least for the feminine portion of the family. There were at Highcombe what the ladies called “ quite good shops,” — shops where you could get everything, really as good as town, and if not cheaper, yet quite as cheap, if you added on the railway fare and all the necessary expenses you were inevitably put to, if you went to town on purpose to shop. Notwithstanding, it was deemed prudent to go to Highcombe as seldom as possible; only when there was actually something wanted, or important letters to [tost, or such a necessity as balanced the probable inducements to buy tilings that were not needed, or spend money that might have been spared. The natural consequence ot this prudential regulation was that the little shop in the village which lay close to their gates had been encouraged to keep sundry kinds of goods not usually found in a little village shop, and that Minnie and Chatty very often passed that way in their daily walks. Old Mrs. Bagley had a good selection of shaded Berlin wools and a few silks, and even, when the fashion came in for that, crewels. She had Berlin patterns, and pieces of muslin stamped for that other curious kind of ornamentation which consisted in cutting holes and sewing them round. And she had beads of different sizes and colors, and in short quite a little case of things intended for the occupation of that superabundant leisure which ladies often have in the country. In the days with which we are concerned there were not so many activities possible as now. The village and parish were not so well looked after. There was no hospital nearer than the county hospital at Highcombe, and the “ Union ” was in the parish of Standingby, six miles off. too far to he visited; neither had it become the fashion then to visit hospitals and workhouses. The poor of the village were poor neighbors. The sick were nursed, with more or less advantage, at home. Beef tea and chicken broth flowed from the Warren, whenever it was necessary, into whatsoever cottage stood in need, and very good, wholesome calf’s-foot jelly, though perhaps not quite so clear as that which came from the Highcombe confectioners. Everything was done in a neighborly way, without organization. Perhaps it was better, perhaps worse. In human affairs it is always so difficult to make certain. But at all events the young ladies had not so much to do. And lawn tennis had not been yet invented; croquet only was in the mild fervor of its first existence. Schools of cookery and ambulances were unknown. And needle-work, bead-work, muslin-work, flourished ; crochet, even, was still pursued as a fine-art occupation. That period is as far back as the Crusades to the sympathetic reader, hut to the Miss Warrenders it was the natural state of affairs. They weut to Mrs. Bagley’s often, in the dullness of the afternoon, to turn over the Berlin wools and the crochet cottons, to match a shade, or to find a size they wanted. The expenditure was not great, and it gave an object to their walk. “ I must go out,” they would say to each other, " for there is that pink to match ; ” or, “ I shall be at a standstill with my antimacassar ; my cotton is almost done.” It was not the fault of Minnie and Chatty that they had nothing better to do.

Mrs. Bagley was old, but very lively, and capable, even while selling soap, or sugar, or a piece of bacon, or a tin teakettle, of seeing through her old spectacles whether the tint selected was one that matched. She was a woman who had “come through ” much in her life. Her children had all grown up, and most of them were dead. Those who remained were married, with children of their own, making a great struggle to bring them up, as she herself had done in her day. Two daughters were widows,— one in the village, one at some distance off; and living with herself, dependent on her, yet not dependent altogether, was all that remained of another daughter, the one supposed to have been her favorite. It seemed to the others rather hard that granny should lavish all her benefits upon Eliza, while their own families got only little presents and helps now and then. But Lizzie was always the one with mother, they said, though goodness knows she had cost enough in her lifetime without leaving such a charge on granny’s hands. Lizzie Bagley, who in her day had been the prettiest of the daughters, had married out of her own sphere, though it could not be said to be a very grand marriage. She bad married a clerk, a sort of gentleman, — not like the ploughmen and country tradesmen who had fallen to the lot of her sisters. But he had never done well, had lost one situation after another, and had gone out finally to Canada, where he died, — he and his wife both; leaving their girl with foreign ways and a will of her own, such as the aunts thought (or at least said) does not develop on the home soil. As poor little Lizzie, however, had been away but two years, perhaps the blame did not entirely lie with Canada.

Her mother’s beauty and her father’s gentility had given to Lizzie many advantages over her cousins. She was prettier and far more “ like a lady ” than the best of them ; a slim, straight little person, without the big joints and muscles of the race, and with blue eyes which were really blue, and not whity-gray. And instead of going out to service, as would have been natural, she had learned dressmaking, which was a fine-lady sort of a trade, and put nonsense into her head, and led her into vanity. To see her in the sitting-room behind the shop, with her hair so smooth, and her waist so small, and collars and cuffs as nice as any young lady’s, was as gall and wormwood to the mothers of girls quite as good (they said) as Lizzie, and just as near to granny, but never cosseted and petted in that way. And what did granny expect was to become of her at the end? So long as she was sure of her ’ome, and so long as the young ladies at the Warren gave her a bit of work now and again, and Mrs. Wilberforce at the rectory had her in to make the children’s things, all might be well enough. But the young ladies would marry, and the little Wilberforces would grow up, and granny — well, granny could not expect to live forever. And what would Miss Lizzie do then ? This was what the aunts would say, shaking their heads. Mrs. Bagley, when she said anything at all in her own defense, declared that poor little Lizzie had no one to look to, neither father nor mother, and that if her own granny did n’t take her up and do for her, who should? And besides, she did very well with her dressmaking. But nevertheless, by times, Mrs. Bagley had her own apprehensions, too.

Minnie and Chatty were fond of making expeditions into the shop, as has been said. They liked to have a talk with Lizzie, and to turn over her fashionbooks, old and new, and perhaps to plan, next time they had new frocks, how the sleeves should be made. It was a pleasant “ object” for their walk, a break in the monotony, and gave them something to talk about. They paid one of these visits on an afternoon shortly after the events which have been described. Chatty had occasion for a strip of muslin stamped for working, to complete some of her new underclothing which she had been making. The shop had one large square window, in which a great many different kinds of wares were exhibited, from bottles full of barley sugar and acid drops to bales of striped stuff for petticoats. Bunches of candles dangled from the roof, and nets of onions, and the old lady herself was weighing an ounce of tea for one of her poor customers when the young ladies came in. “ Is Lizzie at home, Mrs. Bagley ? ” said Minnie. “ Don’t mind us, — we can look for what we want; and you mustn’t let your other customers wait.”

“ You ’re always that good, miss,” said the old woman. (Her dialect could be expressed only by much multiplication of vowels, and would not be a satisfactory representation even then, so that it is not necessary to trouble the eye of the reader with its peculiarities. A certain amount of mispronunciation may be taken for granted.) “ If all the quality would be as considerate, it would be a fine thing for poor folks.”

“ Oh, but people with any sense would always be considerate! How is your mother, Sally ? Is it for her you are buying the tea ? Cocoa is much more nourishing; it would be an excellent thing for her.”

“ If you please, miss,” said Sally, who was the purchaser, “ mother do dearly love a cup of tea,”

“ You ought to tell her that the cocoa is far more nourishing,” said Minnie. “It would do her a great deal more good.”

“Ah, miss, but there isn’t the heart in it that there is in a cup o’ tea,” said Mrs. Bagley. “It do set a body up when so be as you ’re low. Coffee and cocoa and that’s fine and warming of a morning; but when the afternoon do come, and you feels low ” —

“ Why should you feel low more in the afternoon than in the morning, Mrs. Bagley? There’s no reason in that.”

“ Ain’t there, miss ? There’s a deal of ’umau nature, though. Not young ladies like you, that have everything as you want; but even my Lizzie, I find as she wants her tea badly afternoons.”

“ And so do we,” said Chatty, “ especially when we don’t go out. Look here, this is just the same as the last we had. Mrs. Wilberforce had such a pretty pattern yesterday, — a pattern that made a great deal of appearance, and yet went so quick in working. She had done a quarter of a yard in a day.”

“ You ’ll find it there, miss,” said the old woman. “ Mrs. Wilberforce don’t get her patterns nowhere but from me. Lizzie chose it herself, last time she went to Ilighcombe. And they all do say as the child has real good taste, — better nor many a lady. Lizzie ! Why, here’s the young ladies, and you never showing. Lizzie, child! She’s terribly taken np with a — with a — no, I can’t call it a job,— with a hoffer she’s had.”

“ An offer! Do you mean a real Offer ? ” cried the girls together, with excitement, both in a breath.

“ Oh, not a hoffer of marriage, miss, if that’s what you ’re thinking of, though she’s had them, too. This is just as hard to make up her mind about. Not to me,” said the old woman. “ But perhaps I’ve give her too much of her own way, and now when I says, Don’t, she up and says, Why, granny ? It ain’t always so easy to say why; but when your judgment’s agin it, with reason or without reason, I ‘m always for following the judgment. Lizzie! Perhaps, miss, you’d give her your advice.”

As this was said, Lizzie came out through the little glass door with a little muslin curtain veiling the lower panes, which opened into the room beyond. She made a curtsey, as in duty bound, to the young ladies, but she said with some petulance, “ I ain’t deaf, granny,” as she did so.

“ She has always got her little word to say for herself,” the old woman replied, with a smile. She had opened the glass case which held the muslin patterns, and was turning them over with the lips of her fingers, — those fingers which had so many different kinds of goods to touch, and were not, perhaps, adapted for white muslin. “ Look at this one, miss: it ’s bluebells that is, just for all the world like the bluebells in the woods in the month o’ May.”

“ I’ve got the new Moniture, Miss Warrender, and there are some sweet things, — some sweetly pretty things,” said Lizzie, holding up her paper. Minnie and Chatty, though they were such steady girls, were not above being fluttered by the Moniteur de la Mode.

They both abandoned the muslin-work, and passed through the little door of the counter which Mrs. Bagley held open for them. The room behind, although perhaps not free from a slight perfume of the cheese and bacon which occupied the back part of the shop, was pleasant enough. It had a broad lattice window, looking over the pleasant fields, under which stood Lizzie’s work-table, a large white wooden one, very clean and old, with signs of long scrubbing and the progress of time, scattered over with the litter of dressmaking. The floor was white deal, very clean also, with a bit of bright-colored carpet under Lizzies chair. As it was the sittingroom and kitchen and all, there was a little fire in the grate.

‘‘ Now,” said Mrs. Bagley, coming in after them, and shutting the door, — for there was no very lively traffic in the shop, — “ the young ladies is young like yourself, not to take too great a liberty, and you think as 1 ’m old and old-fashioned. Just you tell the young ladies straight off, and see what they ’ll have to say.”

“ It ain’t of such dreadful consequence, granny. A person would think my life depended on it, to hear you speak. Sleeves are quite small this summer, as I said they would he; and if you ’ll look at this trimming. Miss Chatty, it is just the right thing for crape.”

“ People don’t wear crape, Miss Muffler tells us, nearly so much as they used to do,” said Miss Warrender, “or at least not nearly so long as they used to do. Six months, she says, for a parent.”

“ Your common dresses will be worn out by then, miss,” said Lizzie. “I would n’t put any on your winter frocks, if I was you : for black materials are always heavy, and crape don’t show on those thick stuffs. I’d just have a piping for the best, and” —

“ What’s that,” said Chatty, who was the most curious, “ that has such a strong scent, and gilt-edged paper ? You must have got some very grand correspondent, Lizzie.”

Lizzie made a hasty movement to secure a letter which lay on the table, and appeared for a moment to intend to thrust it into her pocket. She changed her mind, however, with a slight scowl on her innocent-seeming countenance, and, reluctantly unfolding it, showed the date in large gilt letters : “ The Elms, Underwood, Highcombe.”1 Underwood was the name of the village. Minnie and Chatty repeated it aloud; and one recoiled a few steps, while the other turned upon Lizzie with wide-open, horrified eyes. “ The Elms ! Lizzie, you are not going there ! ”

“ That’s what I say, miss,” cried Mrs. Bagley, with delight; “that’s what i tells her. Out o’ respect to her other customers she could n’t go there ! ”

“To the Elms!” repeated Minnie. She became pale with the horror of the idea. “ I can only say, Lizzie, that in that case mamma would certainly never employ you again. Charlotte and I might be sorry as having known you all our lives, but we could do nothing against mamma. And Mrs. Wilberforce, too,” she added. “You may he sure she would do the same. The Elms! — why, no respectable person — I should think not even the Vidlers and the Drivers ” —

“That is what I tells her, miss,— that’s exactly what I tells her ; nobody, — much less madam at the Warren, or the young ladies as you ’re so fond of: that’s what I tells her every day.”

Lizzie, whose forehead had been puckered up all this time into a frown, which entirely changed the character of her soft face, here declared with some vehemence that she had never said she was going to the Elms, — never ! Though when folks asked her civilly, and keeping a lady’s-maid and all, and dressing beautiful, and nothing proved against them, who was she that she should say she would n’t go ? “ And I thought it might be such a good thing for granny, who is always complaining of bad times, if she could get their custom. It’s a house where nothing is spared,” said Lizzie ; “ even in the servants’ hall the best tea and everything.” She was fond of the young ladies, but at such an opportunity not to give them a gentle blow, in passing, was beyond the power of woman ; for not even in the drawingroom did the gentlefolks at the Warren drink the best tea.

“ I would n’t fiave their custom, not if it was offered to me,” said Mrs. Bagley, with vehemence. “ And everybody knows as every single thing they have comes from Highcombe, if not London. I hope as an empty nest may n’t be found some fine morning, and all the birds away. It would serve that nasty Molasis right, as is always taking the bread out of country folks’ mouth.”

“That’s just what I was thinking, granny,” said the girl. “ If I’d gone it would have been chiefly for your sake. But since the young ladies and you are both so set against it, I can’t, and there’s an end.”

“ I am sure she never meant it,” said the younger sister. “ She was only just flattered for a moment, — were n’t you, Lizzie ? — and pleased to think of some one new.”

“ That’s about the fact, that is,” said the old woman. “ Something new, — them lasses would just give their souls for something new.”

“ But Lizzie must know,” said Miss Warrender, “ that her old customers would never stand it. I was going to talk about some work, and of sending for her to come to the Warren two days next week. But if there is any idea of the — other place ” —

“ For goodness’ sake, Lizzie, speak up, and say, No, miss, there ain’t no thought of it! ”

“ Now I know you ’re so strong against it, of course I can’t, and there’s an end,” said Lizzie ; but she looked more angry than convinced.

X.

The girls went round by the rectory, on their way home. It was a large red brick house, taller almost than the church, which was a very old church, credibly dating from the thirteenth century, with a Norman arch to the chancel, which tourists came to see. The rectory was of the days of Anne, three stories high, with many twinkling windows in framework of white, and a greal deal of ivy and other climbing plants covering the walls, through the interstices of which the old mellow red bricks showed cheerfully. The two Miss Warreuders did not stop to knock or ring, but opened the door from the outside, and went straight through the house, across the hall and a passage at the other end, to the garden beyond, where Mrs. Wilberforce sat under some great limes, with her little tea-table beside her. She was alone; that is, as near alone as she ever was, with only two of the little ones playing at her feet, and the Skye comfortably disposed on the cushions of a low wicker-work chair. The two sisters kissed her, and disturbed the children’s game to kiss them, and displaced the little Skye, who did not like it at all. Mrs. Wilberforce was a little roundabout woman, with fair hair and a permanent pucker in her forehead. She was very well off, — she and all her belongings; the living was good, the parish small, the work not overpowering: hut she never was able to shake off a visionary anxiety, the burden of some ancestral trouble, or the premonition of something to come. She was always afraid that something was going to happen : her husband to break down from overwork (which for clergymen, as for most other people in this generation, is the fashionable complaint), the parish to be invaded by Dissent and Socialism, the country to go to destruction. This latter, as being the greatest, and at the same time the most distant, possibility, a thing which might happen even without disturbing one’s individual comfort, was most frequently in her thoughts; and she waited till it should occur, with always an anxious outlook for the first symptoms. She received Minnie and Chatty, who were her nearest neighbors, and whom she saw almost daily, with a tone of interest and attachment beyond the ordinary, as she had done ever since their father’s death. Indeed, they had found this everywhere, a sort of natural compensation for their “ great loss.” They were surrounded by the respect and reawakened interest of all the people who were so familiar with them. A bereaved family have always this little advantage after a death.

“ How are you, dears,” Mrs. Wilberforce said, “and how is your dear mother?” Ordinarily Mrs. Warrender was spoken of as their mother, toute courte, without any endearing adjective.

“Mamma is quite wonderful,” said Minnie. “She thinks of everything and looks after everything almost as if — nothing had ever happened.”

“ She keeps up on our account,” said Chatty, “ and for Theo’s sake. It is so important, you know, to keep home a little bright — oh, I mean as little miserable as possible— for him.”

“ Bright, poor child ! ” said Mrs. Wilberforce pathetically. “ You have not realized as yet what it is. When the excitement is all over, and you have settled down in your mourning, then is the time when you will feel it. I always tell people the first six weeks are nothing ; you are so supported by the excitement. But afterwards, when everything falls into the old routine— I suppose, however, you are going away.”

“Mamma said something about it: but we all preferred, you know ” —

“ You had much better go away. I told you so the first time I saw you after the sad event. And as Theo has all the Long before him before he requires to go back to Oxford, what is there to stop you ? ” Mrs. Wilberforce took great pleasure in settling other people’s plans for them, and deciding what they were to do.

“ That was n’t what we came to talk about,” said the elder Miss Warrender, who was quite able to hold her own. “ Mrs. Wilberforce, we have just come from old Mrs. Bagley’s at the shop: and there we made quite a painful discovery. We said what we could, but perhaps it would be well if you would interfere. I think, indeed, you ought to interfere with authority: or even, perhaps, the rector ” —

“ What is it ? I always thought that old body had a turn for Dissent. She will have got one of those people from Highcombe to come out and hold a meeting : that is how they always begin.”

“ Oh, no, — a great deal worse than that.”

“ Minnie means worse in our way of thinking,” the younger sister explained.

“ I don’t know anything worse,” said the clergyman’s wife, “ than the bringing in of Dissent to a united parish, such as ours has been. But I know it will come. I am always expecting to hear of it: things go so fast, nowadays. What with radicalism, and the poor people all having votes, and what you call progress, one never knows what to expect, except the worst. I always look for the worst. Well, what is it, then, if it is n’t Dissent ? ”

Then Miss Warrender gave an account of the real state of affairs. “ The letter was there on the table, dated the Elms, Underwood, Highcombe, as if — as if it were a county family ; just as we put it ourselves on our paper.”

“ But far finer than ours : gilt, and such paper! — polished and shining, and a quarter of an inch thick. Ob, much finer than ours ! ”

“ Ours, of course, will be black-edged for a long, long time to come ; there could not be any comparison,” said Minnie, with a sigh. “ But think of the assurance of such people! I am so glad to have found you alone, for we could n’t have talked about it before the rector. And I believe if we had n’t gone in just at the right moment she would have accepted. 1 told her mamma would never employ her again.”

“ I never had very much opinion of that little thing,” said Mrs. Wilberforce. “ She is a great deal too fine. If her grandmother had been a sensible person, she would have put a stop to all those feathers and flowers and things.”

“ Still,” said Minnie, with some severity, “ a young woman who is a dressmaker, and gets the fashion-books, and is perhaps in the way of temptation, may wear a feather in her hat — but that is not to say that she should encourage immorality, and make for anybody who asks her, especially considering the way we have all taken her up.”

“ Who is it that encourages immorality ? ” said a different voice, over Mrs. Wilberforcc’s head : — quite a different voice; a man’s voice, for one thing, which always changes the atmosphere a little. It was the rector himself, who came across the lawn in the ease of a shooting-coat, with his hands in his pockets. He wore a long coat when he went out in the parish, but at home there can be no doubt that he liked to be at his ease. He was a man who was too easy in general, and might perhaps, if his wife had not scented harm from the beginning, have compromised himself by calling at the Elms.

“ Oh, please ! ” cried Minnie, with a blush. “ Mrs. Wilberforce will tell you. We really have not time to stay any longer. Not any tea, thank you. We must be running away.”

“ There is nothing to be so sensitive about,” said the clergyman’s wife. “ Of course Herbert knows that you must know: you are not babies. It is about Lizzie Hampson, the dressmaker, who has been asked to go and work at the Elms.”

“ Oh ! ” said the rector. He showed himself wonderfully reasonable, — more reasonable than any one could have expected. “ I would n’t let her go there, if I were you. It’s not a fit place for a girl-”

“ We are perfectly well aware of that,” said Mrs. Wilberforce. “ I warned you from the beginning. But the thing is, who is to prevent her from going? Minnie has told her plainly, it appears, and I will speak to her, and as her clergyman T should think it was your duty to say a word ; but whether we shall succeed, that is a different matter. These creatures seem to have a sort of real attraction for everything that is wrong.”

“ We all have that, 1 ‘m afraid, my dear.”

“ But not all in that way. There may be a bias, but it does n’t take the same form. Do sit down,girls,and take your tea, like reasonable creatures. She shall never enter the rectory, of course, if — and if you are sure Mrs. Warrender will back me up. But you know she is very indulgent, — more indulgent than I should be in her place. There was that story, you know, about Fanny, the laundry-maid. I don’t think we shall do much if your dear mother relents, and says the girl is penitent as soon as she cries. She ought to know girls better than that. A little thing makes them cry: but penitence,— that is getting rarer and rarer every day.”

“ There would be no need for penitence in this case. The girl is a very respectable girl. Don’t let her go there, that’s all, and give me a cup of tea.”

“ Is n’t that like a man ! ” cried Mrs. Wilberforce. “ Don’t let her go there, and give him a cup of tea! — the one just as easy as the other. I am sure I tell you often enough, Herbert, what with all that is done for them and said about them, the poor people are getting more and more unmanageable every day.”

“ Our family has always been liberal,” said Minnie. “ I think the poor people have their rights just as we have. They ought to be educated, and all that.”

“ Very well,” said the other lady ; “ when you have educated them up to thinking themselves as good—oh, what am I saying ? far better — than their betters, you ’ll see what will come of it. I for one am quite prepared. I pity the people who deceive themselves. Herbert chooses to laugh, but I can’t laugh ; it is much too serious for that.”

“ There will be peace in our days,” said the rector; “and after all, Fanny, we can’t have a revolution coming because Lizzie Hampson” —

“ Lizzie Ilampson,” said his wife solemnly, “ is a sign of the times. She may be nothing in herself, — none of them are anything in themselves, — but I call her a sign of the times.”

“ What a grand name for a little girl ! ” he said, with a laugh. But lie added seriously, “ I wish that house belonged to Theo, or some one we could bring influence to hear upon ; but what does a city man care ? I wish we could do as the Americans do, and put rollers under it, and cart it away out of the parish.”

“ Can the Americans do that?”

“They say so. They can do every sort of wonderful thing, 1 believe.”

“ And that is what we are coming to ! ” said Mrs. Wilberforce, with an air of indignant severity, as if this had been the most dreadful accusation in the world.

“ I suppose,” said the rector, strolling with the young ladies to the gate, “ that Theo holds by the family politics. I wonder whether he has given any attention to public questions ? At his age a young fellow either does — or he does not,” he added, with a laugh. “ Oxford often makes a change.”

“ We don’t approve of ladies taking any part in politics,” said Minnie, “ and I am sure I have never mentioned the subject to Theo.”

“ But you know, Minnie, mamma said that Theo was — well, I don’t remember what she said he was: but certainly not the same as he was brought up.”

“ Then let us hope he has become a Conservative. Landholders ought to be, and the clergy must,” said the rector, with a sigh. Then he remembered that this was not a style of conversation likely to commend itself to the two girls. “ I hope we shall see you back next Sunday at the Sunday-school,” he said. “ Of course I would not hurry you, if you found it too much; but a little work in moderation I have always thought was the very best thing for a grief like yours. Dear Mrs. Warrender, too,” he added softly. He had not been in the habit of calling her dear Mrs. Warrender ; but it seemed a term that was appropriate where there had been a death. “ I hope she does not quite shut herself up.”

“ Mamma has been with Lady Markland several times,” said Minnie, with a mixture of disapproval and satisfaction.

“ Naturally, we have been so much thrown together since ” —

“ To be sure. What a sad thing ! — twice in one house, within a week, was it not, the two deaths?”

“ Just a week,” said Chatty, who loved to be exact.

“ But you know Lord Markland was no relation,” added Minnie, too conscientious to take to herself the credit of a grief which was not hers. “ It was not as if we felt it in that way.”

“ It was a dreadful thing to happen in one’s house, all the same. And Theo, I hear, goes a great deal to Markland. Oh, it is quite natural. He had so much to do for her from the first. And I hear she is a very attractive sort of woman, though I don’t know much of her, for my own part.”

“ Attractive ? Well, perhaps she may be attractive, to some people,” said Minnie ; “ but when a woman has been married so long as she has, one never thinks of her in that light — and her attractiveness has nothing to do with Theo,” she added, with some severity.

“ Oh, no, I suppose not,” said the rector. “ Tell him I hope we shall soon see him here, for I expect his friend Dick Cavendish in the end of the week. You remember Cavendish ? He told me he had met you at Oxford.”

“ Oh, yes,” replied Chatty quickly. Minnie, who was not accustomed to be forestalled in speech, trod upon this little exclamation, as it were, and extinguished it. “ Cavendish ! I am not sure.

I think I do recollect the name,” she said.

And then they shook hands with the rector across the gate, and went upon their way. But it was not for the first momeut quite a peaceful way. “ You were dreadfully ready to say you remembered Mr. Cavendish,” said the elder sister. “ What do you know of Mr. Cavendish ? If I were you, I would not speak so fast, as if Mr. Cavendish were of any importance.”

“ Oh, no, he is of no importance ; only I do recollect him quite well. He gave us tea. He was very” —

“ He was exactly like other young men,” said Miss Warrender. And then they proceeded in silence, Chatty having no desire to contest the statement. She did not know very much about young men.

Their way lay across the end of the village street, beyond which the trees of the Warren overshadowed everything. There was only a fence on that side of the grounds, and to look through it was like looking into the outskirts of a forest. The rabbits ran about by hundreds among the roots of the trees. The birds sang as if in their own kingdom and secure possession. To this gentle savagery and dominion of nature the Miss Warrenders were accustomed; and in the freshness of the early summer it was sweet. They went on without speaking, for some time, and then it seemed wise to the younger sister to forestall further remark by the introduction of a new subject, which, however, was not a usual proceeding on Chatty’s part.

“ Minnie,” she said, “ do you know what the rector meant when he was speaking of Lady Markland, — that she was an attractive woman ? You took him up rather sharply.”

“ No, I did n’t,” said Minnie, with that freedom of speech which is so pleasant among near relations. “ I said she was rather old for that.”

“ She is scarcely any older than you. I know that from the peerage. I looked her up.”

“ So did I,” said Miss Warrender. “ That does not make her a day younger or more attractive. She is four years older than Theo : therefore she is as if she were not to him. Four years is a dreadful difference when it is on the wrong side.”

Chatty was ridiculously simple for a person of three and twenty. She said, “ I cannot think what that has to do with it. The rector is really very silly at times in what he says.”

“ I don’t see that he is silly. What he means is that Lady Markland will amuse herself with Theo, and that he will fall in love with her. I should say, for my part, that it is very likely. I have seen a great many things of the kind, though you never open your eyes. He is always going to Markland to see what he can do, if there is anything she wants. He is almost sure to fall in love with her.”

“ Minnie, a married woman ! ”

“ Oh, you little simpleton ! She is not a married woman, she is a widow ; and she is left extremely well off and with everything in her hands, — that is to say, she would be very well off if there was any money. A widow is in the best position of any woman. She can do what she likes, and nobody has any right to object.”

“ Oh, Minnie ! ” protested the younger sister again.

“ You can ask mamma, if you don’t believe me. But of course she would not have anything to say to Theo,” Miss Warreuder said.

M. 0. W. Oliphant.