The Laurel Walk
Date: 2013-07-08T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Sisters -- Fiction; Families -- Fiction

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Laurel Walk

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Title: The Laurel Walk

Author: Mrs. Molesworth

Illustrator: John Steeple Davis

Release date: July 8, 2013 [eBook #43129]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAUREL WALK ***

Mrs Molesworth

"The Laurel Walk"

Chapter One.

A Rainy Evening.

There was a chemist’s shop at Craig Bay, quite a smart chemist’s shop, with plate-glass windows and the orthodox “purple” and other coloured jars of Rosamund fame. It was one of the inconsistencies of the place, of which there were several. For Craig Bay was far from being a town; it was not even a big village, and the two or three shops of its early days were of the simplest and quaintest description, emporiums of a little of everything, into which you made your way by descending two or three steps below the level of the rough pavement outside. The chemist’s shop was the first established, I think, of the new order of things, when the place and neighbourhood suddenly rose into repute as peculiarly bracing and healthy from the mingling of sea and hill air with which they were favoured. It was kept in countenance now by several others, a draper’s, a stationer’s, a photographer’s, of course, besides the imperative butcher’s, fishmonger’s, and so on, some of which subsided into closed shutters and vacancy after the “season” was over and the visitors had departed. For endeavours which had been made to introduce a winter season had not been crowned with success. The place was too out-of-the-way, the boasted mildness of climate not altogether to be depended upon. But the chemist’s shop stood faithfully open all the year round, doing a little business in wares not, strictly speaking, belonging to it, such as note-paper and even books, when the library-and-stationer’s in one had gone to sleep for the time.

On a cold raw evening in late November, Betty Morion stood waiting for her sister Frances on the door-step of the shop. It would have been warmer inside, but Betty had her fancies, like many other people, and one of them was a dislike to the smell of drugs, with which “inside,” naturally, was impregnated. And she was thickly clad and fairly well used to cold and to damp—even to rain—for to-night it was drizzling depressingly.

“I wish Francie would be quick,” thought the girl more than once during the first few moments of her waiting, though she knew it was certainly not poor Frances’ fault. Their father’s prescriptions had always some very special and peculiar directions accompanying them, and Betty knew of old that the waiting for them was apt to be a long affair.

And she was not of an impatient nature. After a while she forgot about the tiresomeness, and fell to watching the reflections of the brilliant colours of the jars in the puddles and on the surface of the wet pavement just below her, as she had often watched them before. They were pretty—in a sense—and yet somehow they made the surrounding dreariness drearier.

“I wonder if it does rain more here than anywhere else,” she said to herself dreamily. “What a splashing walk home we shall have! I wish we did not live up a hill—at least I think I wish we didn’t, though perhaps if our house was down here I should wish it was higher up! Perhaps it doesn’t really rain more at Craig Bay than at other places, but we notice it more. For nearly everything pleasant that ever comes to us depends on the weather.” And Betty sighed. “I could fancy,” she went on, “living in a way that would make one scarcely care what it was like out of doors. A beautiful big house with ferneries and conservatories, and lovely rooms to wander about in, and a library full of delightful books, and lots of people to stay with us and—well, yes, of course, it would be nice to go drives and rides and walks too, and to have exquisite gardens. But still life might be very pleasant even when it did rain,” and again Betty sighed. “It needn’t be anything so very tremendous, after all,” she added to herself. “Craig-Morion might be—” but a gentle touch on her shoulder made her turn. It was her sister, packages in hand, and rather embarrassed by her umbrella.

“Can you open it for me, dear?” she said, and Betty hastened to do so. “I am so afraid,” Frances went on, when Betty’s own umbrella was ready for business too, and they were both under way, “I am so afraid of dropping any of these things. Papa is so anxious to have them at once. Do you remember the day that Eira dropped the bottle of red ink—wasn’t it dreadful?” and Frances laughed a little at the recollection.

Her laugh was very sweet, but scarcely merry. There are laughs which tell of sadness more quickly almost than tears. But it was not that kind either; it was the laugh of one who is resolutely cheerful, who has learnt by experience the wisdom of making the best of things—a lesson not often learnt by the young while young, though by some it is acquired so gradually and unconsciously that on looking back from the table-land of later years they do not realise it had ever been a lesson to be learnt at all.

For its roots lie deeper than philosophy. They are to be found in unselfishness, in self-forgetting, and earnest longing to carry the burdens of others, or at least to share them.

And Frances Morion was still young, though twenty-seven. She by no means looked her age. Her life in many ways had been a healthy one in its material surroundings, and she herself had made it so in other ways.

Betty scarcely laughed in return. It is doubtful if she heard what her sister said.

“Isn’t it horribly wet?” she said. “I was really wondering just now if it rains more here than anywhere else, or if—” and after a moment’s hesitation—“if we notice it more, Francie, because, you see, there is so little else to notice.”

Miss Morion turned quickly and glanced at her sister, forgetting that it was far too dark to discern the girl’s features. She always felt troubled when Betty spoke in that way, when her voice took that particular tone. She could be philosophical for herself far more easily than for her younger sisters.

“Well, on the other hand,” she said cheerfully, “doesn’t it show that we have no very great troubles to bear if we have leisure to think so much about small ones?”

“I don’t say we have any very big troubles to bear,” said Betty. “I—I almost sometimes find myself wishing we had—”

“Oh, Betty, don’t,” said her sister quickly, “don’t wish anything like that!”

“No,” said Betty, “I wasn’t going to say quite what you thought. I mean I wish anything big would come into our lives! Anything really interesting, and—well, yes! I may as well own it—anything exciting! It is all on such a dull, dead level, and has always been the same, and always will be, it seems to me. And when one is no longer very young the spring and buoyancy seem to go. When I was seventeen or eighteen I’d all sorts of happy fancies and expectations, but now—why, Francie, I’m twenty-four, and nothing has come.”

For a moment or two Frances walked on in silence.

“I dare say,” she said at last, “if we knew more of other lives, we should find a good many something like ours. And after all, Betty, one’s real life is what one is oneself.”

Betty laughed slightly. Her laugh was not bitter, but without any ring of joyousness.

“I know that,” she said. “But it doesn’t do me any good. It’s just myself that depresses me. I’m not big enough, nor brave enough, nor anything enough, to rise above circumstances, as people talk about. I want circumstances to help me a little! And I don’t ask anything very extravagant, I know.

“No, Frances,” she added, “you’re not—not quite right. I think I could bear things better and feel more spirit if you would allow that our lives are exceptional in some ways.”

“Perhaps so,” the elder sister agreed.

“You know,” continued Betty, “it isn’t fallings in love or marriage that I’m talking about. I really and truly very seldom think of anything of that kind, though of course, in the abstract, I can see that a home of one’s own, and the feeling oneself a centre, is the ideal life; but heaps of girls don’t marry, and there are plenty, lots of other interests and objects to live for, which we are unusually without!”

Frances opened her mouth with an intention of remonstrating, but the words died away before she gave them utterance. There was so much truth in what Betty said, and Frances was too thorough-going to believe in the efficacy of any consolation without a genuine root, so she said nothing.

“And I’m afraid,” pursued Betty, who certainly could not be accused this evening of having donned rose-coloured spectacles, “I’m afraid,” she repeated, “that it’s coming over Eira too, though she has kept her youngness marvellously, so far.”

In her turn Frances gave a little laugh which could scarcely be called mirthful.

“Betty dear,” she said, “you are rather unmerciful to-night, piling on the agony! You think me very philosophical, but I must confess I am not proof against our present depressing circumstances. I don’t think I’ve ever come up the hill in such rain and darkness, and so horribly cold too.” And in spite of herself she shivered a little.

In a moment Betty’s mood had changed to penitence.

“Oh, Frances, I’m a brute,” she exclaimed, “for I know you were tired before we came out; reading aloud to papa for so long together is really exhausting. I know what I’ll do,” she went on, with a tone of defiance; “if I have to carry the coals and wood myself upstairs, you shall have a fire in your room as soon as we go in, you shall!”

Frances laughed again, this time with real amusement. She was always happier about Betty when the younger girl’s latent energy asserted itself.

“I’m all right, dear,” she said, “and we’re getting near home now. We must be near the lodge gates. I thought I saw a light a moment ago.”

In spite of the drenching rain, Betty stood still an instant to reconnoitre.

“Yes,” she said, “I see a light, more than one, two or three, but they’re not from the lodge. Francie!” with a sudden excitement in her voice, “they’re up at the house. We’ll see them more clearly as we go on. Who can be there? It’s not likely Mrs Webb would have chosen an evening like this to be making the rounds, or lighting fires in the big house.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Frances, half indifferently. “They may have been doing some extra cleaning or something of that kind earlier in the day, and not have finished yet. There’s nobody at the lodge itself, anyway,” as at this moment they approached the gates. “There’s no light in the windows except from the kitchen fire and—oh dear! I’m sorely afraid that the gates are locked, and neither of the Webbs there to let us through;” and she sighed ruefully, for this meant a quarter of a mile’s further walk—there being an understanding that the Morion family should have a right of way through the grounds of the deserted home of their far-away relatives, to their own little house which stood just beyond the enclosure. “It is unlucky,” she added, “to-night of all nights, when every step of the way is an aggravation of our miseries!”

Strangely enough, Betty’s depression seemed, for the time being, to have vanished. For some passing moments, the sisters might almost have changed characters. Frances was honestly, physically tired. She had had a trying, fatiguing day at home, and the walk to the village, which had in a sense invigorated Betty (who, to confess the truth, had spent the day in doing little or nothing), had really been too much for the elder sister.

“Never mind,” said Betty briskly; “we’ll soon be there now. I shall keep a sharp lookout when we turn the corner to see if there are lights at the back of the big house too.”

Frances, for once, was feeling too tired to rise to her sister’s little fit of excitement, though she smiled to herself in the darkness with pleasure, as she realised that if Betty’s spirits were apt to sink very much below par, they were ready enough to rise again on very small provocation.

“She is still so young,” thought the elder sister; “so much younger than most girls of her age. If only I had a little more in my power for her and Eira!” And the smile gave way, all too quickly, to a sigh, which in its turn was intercepted by an eager exclamation from Betty, for they had turned the corner of the road by this time.

“Look, Francie!” she said, in an involuntary whisper, as if by some extraordinary possibility her remarks could have been overheard at the still distant big house; “look, Francie, it is something out of the common! The offices are lighted up—some of them, anyway; and don’t you see lights moving about too, as if there were several people there? What can be going to happen?”

“Your curiosity will soon be satisfied,” returned Frances; “that’s one good thing of living in a little world like this. By to-morrow at latest, any news there is will be all over the place.” And then she relapsed into silence; and Betty, always quick of perception, seeing that her sister was really tired, said no more, though her little head kept turning round from under the shelter of her umbrella as long as the back precincts of Craig-Morion remained visible.

This was not for long, however. A few moments more, and their path skirted a thickly-planted belt of Scotch firs, which here bordered the park. They had almost to feel their way now, so dark had it become.

“Oh dear,” said Betty, when there was no longer anything to distract her attention from the woes of the present moment. “Oh dear, Francie, did the way home ever seem quite so long before? I do hope the next time papa wants his medicine in a hurry that he’ll choose a fine evening.”

“Dear,” said Frances regretfully, “I shouldn’t have let you come with me.”

“Rubbish! nonsense!” cried Betty, “as if Eira and I would have let you go alone. I do believe in my heart that we’re both quite as strong as you, though you won’t allow it. Poor little Eira, she would have come too, except for her chilblains. It is unlucky that she has got them so early this year. And they spoil her pretty hands so.”

“It’s only from the unusual cold,” said Frances, “and—” she hesitated. “I am sure I could cure them,” she resumed, “if I had my own way, or if I had had it when you were both growing up. What makes me really stronger is, I am sure, that I had so much better a time as a child than either of you, before papa gave up his appointment and we were better off.”

“I wish you’d leave off repeating that old story,” said Betty. “After all, I’m not four years younger than you, and whatever Eira and I have not had, we’ve had you, darling—a second mother as people say, a great, great deal better than a second mother I say, and oh joy! here we are at last; I see the white gate-posts.” And in another moment they were plodding the short, badly kept gravel path, not to be dignified by the name of a drive, which led to their own door.

“Take care of the big puddle just in front of the steps; it must be a perfect lake to-night,” Betty was saying, when, before they had quite reached it, the door was cautiously opened, and a girl’s face peered out, illumined by the light, faint though it was, of the small hall behind her. It was Eira, the third and youngest of the Morion sisters.

“It’s you at last,” she said in a low voice; “come in quickly, and I’ll take the medicine to papa, he’s been fussing like a—I don’t know what, and if he gets hold of you he’ll keep you waiting in your soaking things for half-an-hour while he goes on about your having been so long! Now go straight upstairs,” she continued, when she had got her sisters inside, and extricated them from their dripping umbrellas and waterproofs. “I’ll see to these things as soon as I’ve been to papa. Go straight up to your room, Frances; there’s a surprise for you there. Go up quickly and keep the door closed till I come.”

She took the parcel from her elder sister’s hands as she spoke, and, without wasting time in more words, gave her a gentle little push toward the staircase. Frances and Betty went up softly, but as quickly as their feet, tired and stiffened with cold and wet, would allow. The staircase, like everything in the house, was meagre and dingy, the steps steep and the balusters rickety. At the top a little landing gave access to the best rooms, and a long narrow passage at one side led to the sisters’ own quarters.

Betty ran on in front and threw open the door of her elder sister’s room eagerly. She had hard work to repress an exclamation of delight at what met her eyes. It was a fair-sized, bare-looking room, though scrupulously neat and not without some simple and tasteful attempts at ornamentation, and to-night it really looked more attractive than was often the case, for a bright glowing fire sent out its pleasant rays of welcome, and on a little table beside it stood, neatly arranged, everything requisite for a good, hot cup of tea.

“How angelic of Eira!” exclaimed Betty. “How has she managed it? Just when I was planning how I could possibly get you a fire, Francie.”

The eldest sister sat down with a smile of satisfaction in front of the warm blaze.

“Run into your own room, Betty, and take off your wet things as quickly as possible, and then come back here for tea. We have still over an hour till dinner-time.”

Betty hurried across the room and threw open the door, almost running into Eira as she did so.

“Oh! this is lovely,” she exclaimed, “especially as you’ve got away too, Eira. Do tell us how you managed it.”

“No, no,” remonstrated Frances, “tell her nothing. Don’t answer her till she has taken off her wet things. She will be all the quicker if you don’t begin speaking.”

So Betty ran off and Eira joined her elder sister at the fireside.

“Wasn’t it a good idea?” she said, smiling at the cheering glow.

“Yes, indeed,” said Frances. “Betty was meditating something of the kind as we were coming home, but I doubt if she could have managed it. Anyway it wouldn’t have been ready to welcome us in this comfortable way. Oh dear! it was wet and dreary coming home, and we were kept waiting such a long time for papa’s medicine! By-the-by, is it all right?”

Before Eira could answer, the door reopened to admit Betty.

“Haven’t I been quick?” she exclaimed brightly. “Do pour out the tea, Frances. And tell me, Eira, I am dying to hear what good fairy aided and abetted you in this unheard-of extravagance.”

“Nobody,” said Eira. “I simply did it. After all, I think it’s the best way sometimes to go straight at a thing. And if papa had met me carrying up the tea-tray I should have reminded him that it was better to have some hot tea ready for you, than to risk you both getting rheumatic fever. I didn’t meet him, as it happened, but just now when I gave him the medicines I took care, by way of precaution, to dilate on the drenched state you had arrived in and the long time you had been kept waiting at the chemist’s. The latter fact I made a shot at.”

Frances drew a breath of relief.

“Then we may hope for a fairly comfortable evening,” she said.

“Yes,” said Betty; “to give the—no, Frances, you needn’t look shocked, I won’t finish it. I must allow that papa is more sympathising about physical ills than about some other things.”

“And so he should be,” said Eira, “considering that he says he never knows what it is to feel well himself. Mamma is worse than he about being hardy and all that sort of thing. I often wonder how children grew up at all in the old days if they really were so severely treated as we’re told.”

“It’s the old story,” said Frances; “the delicate ones were killed off, and those who did survive must have been strong enough to be made really hardy. How are your chilblains, Eira dear?”

“Pretty bad,” the girl replied cheerfully; “at least I feel some premonitory twinges of another fit coming on! I mustn’t stay so near the fire. Talk of something else quick to make me forget them.”

“Drink up this tea, in the first place,” said Frances. “That kind of warmth is good for them.”

“And, oh, I have something to tell you,” said Betty, “something quite exciting! What do you think? I believe something has happened or is going to happen at Craig-Morion. It was all lighted up as we passed. No, I mustn’t exaggerate! There were lights moving about in several of the rooms, and the old Webbs were not at the lodge. It was all dark, and the gates locked, so they must have been up at the big house. That helped to make us late, you see.”

“You poor things!” exclaimed Eira, though her pity was quickly drowned by this exciting news. “Can they be expecting some one? After all these years of nothing ever happening and nobody ever coming!”

“It looks like it,” said Betty shortly. Then she gave herself a little shake, as if some unexpressed thought was irritating her. “Anything about Craig-Morion makes me cross,” she went on in explanation, “even though there’s something fascinating about it, too—tantalising rather. Just to think how different, how utterly different our lives would have been, if that stupid old woman had done what she meant to do, or at least what she promised. It wouldn’t have been anything so wildly wonderful! We should scarcely have been rich even then, as riches go. But it would have been enough to make a starting-point, a centre, for all the interests that make life attractive. We could make it so pretty!”

“And have lots of people to stay with us, and whom we could stay with in return,” said Eira. “Just think what it would be to have really nice friends!”

“Yes,” said Frances, in her quiet voice; “and as it is, the people it belongs to scarcely value it. It is so little in comparison to what they have besides. Yet,” and she hesitated, for she was a scrupulously loyal daughter, “unless papa and mamma had been able to interest themselves in things as we three would, perhaps it wouldn’t have made much radical difference, after all?”

“Oh, yes, it would,” said Betty quickly. “It would have made all the difference. Papa wouldn’t have got into these nervous ways, if he had had things to look after and plenty of interests, and money, of course. And mamma would have been, oh! quite different.”

“Perhaps so,” Frances agreed, “but it isn’t only circumstances that make lives. There are people, far poorer than we, I know, whose lives are ever so much fuller and wider. It is that,” she went on, speaking with unusual energy, “it is that that troubles me about you two! I want to see my way to helping you to make the best you can—in the very widest sense of the words—of your lives;” and her sweet eyes rested with almost maternal anxiety, pathetic to see in one still herself so young, on her two sisters.

“And you, you poor old darling!” said Eira, “what about your own life?”

“Oh!” said Frances, “I don’t feel as if I had any, separate from yours. All my day-dreams and castles in the air and aspirations are for you;” and in the firelight it seemed as if tears were glistening in her eyes.

She was, as a rule, so self-contained and calm that this little outburst impressed her sisters almost painfully, and, with youthful shrinking from any expression of emotion, Eira answered half-jestingly:

“I’m ashamed to own it, but do you know really sometimes that life would be quite a different thing to me—twice or three times as interesting—if I could have—”

“What?” said Betty.

“Heaps and heaps of lovely clothes?” said the girl. At which they all three laughed, though half-ruefully, for no doubt their present wardrobe left room for improvement.

Chapter Two.

A Break in the Clouds.

Things, externally at least, had brightened up by the next morning. The rain had ceased during the night, and some rays of sunshine, doubly welcome after its late absence, though not without the touch of pathos often associated with it in late autumn, came peeping in at the dining-room window of Fir Cottage, when the family assembled there for breakfast. For Mr Morion, valetudinarian though he was, had not even the “qualités de ses défauts” in some respects. That is to say, he was exasperatingly punctual, and at all seasons and under almost all circumstances an exemplary early riser.

Naughty Eira groaned over this sometimes. “If he would but stay in bed, and enjoy his ill-health comfortably, and let us breakfast in peace, I could face the rest of the day ever so much more philosophically,” she used to say. “Or at least if he wouldn’t expect us to praise him for coming down in time when he hasn’t closed an eye all night!”

“I always think that rather an absurd expression,” said Frances, “begging poor papa’s pardon; for when one can’t sleep, one both opens and shuts one’s eyes a great deal oftener than when you go straight off the moment your head touches the pillow.” At which her sisters laughed. The spirit of mischief latent in both the younger ones enjoyed decoying their sister into the tiniest approach to criticism of their elders. But this morning the rise in the barometer seemed to have affected Mr Morion’s nerves favourably; he even went the unusual length of congratulating himself openly on the promptitude with which the impending attack had been warded off, thanks to Frances.

“Yes, indeed,” Lady Emma agreed, “it was a very good thing that the girls went themselves. If we had sent the boy he would have come back with some ridiculous nonsense about its being too late to make up the prescriptions last night. What are you fidgeting about so, Eira?” she went on; “you make me quite nervous.”

“It’s only my chilblains, mamma,” the girl replied, holding up a pair of small and naturally pretty, but for the moment sadly disfigured hands, while a gleam, half of amusement, half of reproach, came into her bright blue eyes.

“Really,” said her mother, “it is very provoking! I don’t know how you manage to get them, and you so strong. If it were Betty now, I shouldn’t be so surprised.”

And certainly her youngest daughter, little hands excepted, looked the picture of health. She had the thoroughly satisfactory and charming complexion, a tinge of brown underlying its clearness, which is found with that beautiful shade of hair which some people would describe as red, though in reality it is but a rich nut-brown. Betty, on the contrary, was pale, and looked paler than she actually was from the contrast with darker eyes and dusky hair. The family legend had it that she “took after” her mother, whose still remaining good looks told of Irish ancestry. And for this reason, possibly, it was taken for granted that the second girl was her mother’s favourite, though, even if so, the favouritism was not of a nature or an amount to rouse violent jealousy on the part of her sisters, had they been capable of it, for Lady Emma Morion had certainly never erred on the side of over-indulgence of her children. She was a good woman, and meant to be and believed herself to be an excellent mother, but under no circumstances in life could she have fulfilled more than one rôle, and the rôle which she had adopted since early womanhood had been that of wife. It simply never occurred to her that her daughters could have any possible cause of complaint, beyond that of the very restricted condition in which the family were placed by the prosaic fact of limited means.

That she or her husband could have done aught to soften or improve these for their children would have been a suggestion utterly impossible for her to digest. The privations, such as they were, she looked upon as falling far more hardly on herself and their father than on the daughters, who, when all was said and done, had youth and health and absence of cares.

That their youth was passing; that absence of cares may on the other side mean absence of interest; that the due supply of mere physical necessities can or does ensure health in the fullest sense of the word to eager, capable natures longing for work and “object” as well as enjoyment, never struck her. Nor, had such considerations been put before her in the plainest language, could she have understood them, for she was not a woman of much intellect or, what matters more in a mother, of any width of sympathy.

Greater blame, had he realised the position, would have lain at her husband’s door. He was a cultivated, almost a scholarly man, but the disappointments of life had narrowed as well as soured him. His was a sad instance of the dwarfing and stunting effects of self-pity, yielded to and indulged in till it comes to pervade the whole atmosphere of a life.

The brighter morning had cheered the sisters half-unconsciously, and Frances felt sorry at any friction beginning again between her mother and Eira. For though Lady Emma was not sympathising by temperament, she was not indifferent to annoyances, and that chilblains should be described by any stronger term she would have thought an exaggeration. Yet the fact of them worried her, and Frances felt about in her usual way for something to smooth the lines of irritation on her mother’s face.

“I have often heard, mamma,” she said, “that strong people suffer quite as much from chilblains as delicate ones, and they sometimes are worse the first cold weather than afterwards.”

“I believe they come from want of exercise,” said Lady Emma, in a somewhat softened tone. “If this bright dry weather lasts, you must go some good long walks, Eira.”

Eira made a wry face.

“I am sure I’ve no objection, mamma,” she said; “there’s nothing I like better than walking, but it’s a vicious circle, don’t you see? I dare say my not walking makes my circulation worse, but then again the chilblains make walking, for the time being, simply impossible.” Perhaps it was lucky that at this juncture Betty’s voice made a sudden interruption. Betty, though the quietest of the three, was rather given to sudden remarks.

“Papa,” she said, “have you possibly heard any sort of news about Craig-Morion?”

Her father glanced at her sharply over his eyeglasses.

“What do you mean, child?” he said. “News about Craig-Morion! What sort of news?”

“Oh, that it’s going to be sold or let, or something of that kind,” replied Betty calmly.

“Going to be sold, Craig-Morion!” exclaimed her father, his voice rising to a thin, high pitch. “What on earth has put such a thing in your head? Of course not.” But the very excitement of his tones testified to a certain unacknowledged uneasiness.

“Oh, well,” said Betty, “I didn’t really suppose it was going to be sold. But none of its present owners ever care to come there, so I thought perhaps there was to be a change of some kind.”

“And why should you suppose there was to be a change of any kind?” repeated Mr Morion, with a sort of grim repetition of her words, decidedly irritating, if his daughters had not been inured to it.

Betty flushed slightly.

“It was only something we noticed last night,” she replied, going on to relate the incidents that had attracted their attention. Her father would not condescend to comment on her information, but Lady Emma did not conceal her interest, and cross-questioned both her daughters. And from behind his newspaper her husband listened, attentively enough.

“It is curious,” she said. “If you pass that way to-day, girls, try to see old Webb and find out if anything has happened. Can any of the Morions possibly be coming down, Charles, do you suppose?”

Mr Morion grunted.

“Any of the Morions! How many of them do you think there are?” he said ironically. “You know very well that the present man was an only son, and his father before him the same.”

“Yes,” replied Lady Emma meekly, “but there were sisters in both cases. When I spoke of the Morions I meant any members of the family. Though I suppose it is very unlikely that any of them would suddenly come down here, when they care nothing about the place, and have got homes of their own.”

“That to me,” said Betty, speaking again abruptly, “is the aggravating part of the whole affair. If people lived at the big house who enjoyed it and appreciated it, it would be quite different. One couldn’t grudge it to them, but to see it empty and deserted year in and year out, when—” she stopped short, a touch on her foot from Frances’, under the table, warning her that it would scarcely be wise to dwell further on what was a sore subject.

Mr Morion rose, pushing back his chair with a rasping sound on the thin, hard carpet, and left the room.

“I hope the fire in his study is all right,” said Lady Emma anxiously.

“Yes,” said Frances; “I glanced in on my way. Is there anything you want us to do this morning, mamma?” she added.

“I cannot possibly say till I have seen the cook,” her mother replied. “There is pretty sure to be something forgotten—servants are so stupid—if you are going to the village.”

“It’s my morning for reading to old Gillybrand,” said Frances rather drearily, “so while I am there Betty can do any messages there are—that’s to say if you care to come with me, Betty.”

“Tell me before you start, then,” said their mother, as she, in her turn, left the room for her kitchen interview. Poor woman! Housekeeping at the Firs was no sinecure, for Mr Morion was, like all hypochondriacs, difficult to please in the matter of food, firmly believing that his life depended on a special dietary. And such a state of things, when there is no financial margin, taxes invention and ingenuity sorely enough.

“What are you going to do to-day, Eira?” asked Frances. “You can’t possibly go out, I’m afraid.”

For all reply Eira extended first one foot and then the other, both encased in woolly slippers, each of which was large enough to have held two inmates at once, under ordinary circumstances.

“You poor child,” said her elder sister. “But those slippers are a comfort to you, I hope.”

“My dearest Frances,” Eira replied, “but for them I really don’t think I should be alive at the present moment. But I must pay you for them with the first money I can lay hands on. You don’t suppose I didn’t notice your shabby gloves last Sunday?”

“Oh, what does it matter in winter?” said Frances indifferently. “One can always use a muff.”

“When you’ve got one to use,” said Eira. “Mine looks more fit to be a mouse’s nest than anything else.”

Betty had been standing at the window, gazing out at the oval grass plot, not imposing enough to be dignified by the name of lawn, and at the shrubberies enclosing it.

“Do you see those berries?” she said, wheeling round as she spoke. “If only all the bushes were not so dreadfully wet still, I could make up some lovely bunches and trails for the drawing-room vases, if mamma would let me.”

“It will be dry enough by the afternoon,” said Frances, “or we may find some treasures on our way through the grounds, without having to paddle over wet grass to reach them.”

“The best plan,” said Eira, “is to arrange the vases first, and then let mamma see the effect. It doesn’t do to ask leave beforehand, for if we do we are sure to be told not to fill the house with rubbish and weeds. Bring in the prettiest things you can find, Betty, and we’ll do them after luncheon. It will help to pass the afternoon for poor me. Oh dear! things are never so bad but they might be worse. I’m beginning to feel now as if life would be worth having if only I could go a good long walk! And before my chilblains got bad, I didn’t think anything could be duller or drearier than the way we were going on.”

“We’ll try to bring you in some lovely berries and tinted leaves to cheer you,” said Frances, but Betty’s next remark did not follow up her elder sister’s determined effort to make the best of things.

“What’s the good?” she said lugubriously, “what’s the good of trying to make the drawing-room look better? It’s hopelessly ugly, and even if we could make it pretty, who would care? There’s nobody to see it.”

“Come now, Betty,” said Frances, “don’t be untrue to your own belief. Beauty of any kind is always worth having. Let us be thankful that, living in the country, we never can be without the possibility of some, even in our indoor life. What would you do, Betty, if we lived in a grey—no, drab-coloured—street in some terrible town?”

“Do? I should die!” replied Betty.

“I shouldn’t,” said Eira. “I’d get to know some people, and that, after all, is more interesting than still life. But the present question is what shall I do with myself all this long morning?”

“You must stay in a warm room, whatever you do, if you want to cure those poor hands and feet. The only thing you can do is to read, and oh! by-the-by, I was forgetting—I got one or two books at the lending library yesterday that I want to look through before I read them aloud. I think they seem rather interesting. So if you can glance at one of them for me this morning it would really be a help.”

Eira brightened up a little at this, and before her sisters left her, they had the satisfaction of seeing her comfortably established on the old sofa.

“Yes,” she said, as they nodded good-bye from the doorway, “I repeat, things never are so bad but that they might be worse. We might have a dining-room without a sofa.”

Frances and Betty, despite their curiosity to spy the state of the land—that is to say, of the big house—at close quarters, had to make their way to the village this morning by the road, as one of their mother’s messages took them to the laundress’ cottage which stood at some little distance from the Craig-Morion grounds. Further on, however, they passed the lodge, and there for a moment they halted, on the chance of a word with the old gate-keeper. But she was evidently not there and the gates were still locked.

“What a good thing we didn’t come through the grounds,” said Betty. “But what can have become of old Webb and his wife? There must be something agog, Francie.”

“We shall see on our way back,” her sister replied; “they’re sure to come home for their dinner.”

“If they don’t,” said Betty, “I shall try to climb the gates, and invent some excuse for going up to the house to see what they are about.”

But fate was not so cruel; for assuredly, with all the good-will in the world and disregard of appearances, Miss Elizabeth Morion could never have succeeded in scaling the entrance.

An hour or two later, when Frances had dutifully accomplished her self-imposed task of reading to Gillybrand, a pitifully uncomplaining, almost entirely blind old man, and had picked up Betty at the village reading-room, which the sisters often found a convenient rendezvous, the two made their way back to the lodge, where their misgivings were agreeably dispersed.

For not only were the gates unlocked—they stood hospitably open, while traces of the wheels of some tradesman’s cart were clearly to be seen on the still damp gravel; and standing at the door of her little abode was old Mrs Webb, her wrinkled face aglow with excitement, and lighting up with increased satisfaction as she caught sight of the young ladies—newcomers on whom she might bestow some of the news which was evidently too important to be suppressed.

But it was Betty who began the colloquy.

“What have you been about, Mrs Webb,” she said, teasingly, “locking the gates so early last night, and opening them so late this morning? You must have been asleep half the day as well as the night!”

“Bless you, no, miss,” said the old woman, eagerly. “Quite the contrary, I do assure you. We was working hard up at the big house last night, and this morning too, was me and Webb, for never a girl, let alone a woman, could he get to help us. And no wonder neither, with such short notice to get two or three rooms ready by to-night, and the rest of the house dusted up for the gentlemen as is coming down to stay for a day or two.”

“Gentleman?” exclaimed the sisters. “Who? Not Mr Morion?”

“No, miss, not the master himself, but friends of his. First there was a telegraph, and this morning a letter. I’d show them to you, but Webb’s got them in his pocket,” and she jerked her head in the direction of the house. “I’ve just run down to open the gates for the butcher and the other carts from the village, for I’ve got to have dinner for eight o’clock to-night, so you may fancy we’ve had to bustle about.”

“Do you know the gentlemen’s names?” asked Betty, eagerly.

“Mr Milner for one,” said Mrs Webb, at which the sisters’ faces fell. “But the other’s a Mr—no, to be sure, I’ve forgotten it; but it’s some gentleman as is thinking of taking the place for a while!”

Chapter Three.

Mr Milne and Another.

Luncheon at Fir Cottage was not an attractive meal. Perhaps the least so of the three principal repasts of the day. There was a certain flavour of early dinner about it, recalling the days of the sisters’ childhood, when roast mutton and rice pudding formed, with but little variety, the pièce de résistance of the daily menu, though for Mr Morion himself there was usually some special and more attractive little dish.

But to-day the walk in the fresh invigorating air had given the two elder sisters a satisfactory appetite, in which, chilblains notwithstanding, Eira was seldom deficient.

Frances and Betty had returned only just in time enough to make their appearance punctually in the dining-room, and in the first interest of hearing how her commissions had been executed, Lady Emma forgot to question them as to the result of their intended inquiries at the Craig-Morion Lodge. Not so Eira. She was fuming with impatience all the time that Frances was repeating the laundress’ excuses for the faulty condition in which Mr Morion’s shirt-fronts had been sent home, or Betty explaining, for her part, the reason why she had brought a packet of oblong instead of square postcards. Eira’s opportunity came at last.

“And what about the big house?” she exclaimed.

“Oh, yes,” said her mother, eagerly enough; for which her youngest daughter mentally blessed her, saying to herself that, after all, “mamma was not without some points of sympathy.”

“I have been wondering all the morning if there was going to be anything to hear. Did you see the Webbs?”

“We saw Mrs Webb,” said Frances, “on our way home. She really is in a flutter of excitement,” and here Frances became conscious of a half-suppressed movement on her father’s part, showing that he, too, was listening with interest. “It appears,” she went on, “that Mr Milne is expected here this evening—”

“About time,” interrupted Mr Morion. “There are several things waiting for him to decide. Tomlinson shelters himself behind Milne in an absurd way, whenever he’s asked to do anything. There’s that gate—coming this evening, do you say?” he broke off. “Why should any one be excited about that?”

“You didn’t let me finish, papa,” said Frances, for in her quiet way she could sometimes hold her own very effectually with her father. “Mr Milne is coming for a special reason; he is accompanied by, or accompanying, a Mr—somebody else—Mrs Webb couldn’t remember his name—who is thinking of taking Craig-Morion for a time.”

Her father started.

“They are going to let it?” he exclaimed, for he had all the old-world prejudice against the modern fashion of everybody living in somebody else’s house. “They’re actually going to let it? More shame to them—the real birthplace of the family as it is—and just because it’s small they care nothing about it in comparison with their other houses.”

“But it isn’t like selling it,” said Betty. “For my part, I shall be only too delighted if they do let it. Anything for a change, and at worst a chance of nice neighbours.”

“Yes,” said Lady Emma, agreeing for once, not uncordially, with her daughter’s point of view. “I don’t see why you need feel sore about it, Charles. Far better for the house to be lived in and aired, than to be shut up in that damp dreariness.”

“We do very well without neighbours,” said Mr Morion hastily. “Far better have none than objectionable ones.”

“Why should they be objectionable?” said Eira. “There must be plenty of nice people in the world as well as disagreeable ones.”

“Yes,” said Betty, “why should we take for granted that, if new people come to Craig-Morion, they shouldn’t be nice and pleasant?”

“Nice and pleasant they might be,” replied her father, “in their own world of wealth and luxury and among themselves. But in such a case your common-sense might tell you that it is most unlikely that they would give a thought to your existence, or even know of it, living in poverty as we do. And one thing I shall never allow,” he went on, working himself up into assuredly very premature irritation, “I give you fair warning, and that is I will allow no sort of patronising.”

Not only his three daughters but even poor Lady Emma looked aghast at this unexpected fulmination.

“It is too bad,” thought the younger girls to themselves, “that we should be scolded beforehand for a state of things which will probably never come to pass.”

“And it is no good,” said Betty afterwards, when she found herself alone with Eira, “no good trying to get up the tiniest little bit of excitement or variety in our lives. Papa is too bad! I’m going to give up trying for anything, except a sort of stupid lethargic contentment. Perhaps that’s what people mean by the discipline of life.”

“I can’t quite think that,” Eira replied. “Look at Francie, now. You can’t say she’s in a state of lethargic resignation. She looks out for any little pleasure as eagerly as for the first primroses in the spring.” For Eira was on the whole less impressionable than Betty, or perhaps constitutionally stronger, and therefore more able to repel the insidious attacks of not-to-be-wondered-at depression, before which Betty felt frequently all but powerless.

But this conversation took place later in the afternoon. At the luncheon table her father’s bitter and hurting words incited Frances as usual to exert her calming influence.

“It would be such a terrible pity,” she thought to herself, “for papa to begin nursing up prejudices against these possible neighbours.”

“I scarcely think,” she said aloud, gently, “that any people coming to Craig-Morion could altogether ignore us, or rather,” with a bright inspiration, “that it would be possible for us altogether to ignore them. Our very name would forbid it; and surely, papa, you, who know far more of the world than any of us, would hesitate to say that even in this material age money is everything.”

Mr Morion fell unsuspectingly into the innocent little trap laid for him by his eldest daughter.

“I have never said such a thing, or thought such a thing,” he replied, turning upon her sharply. “Money by itself everything? Faugh! Nonsense! All I say is, what every person with any common-sense must say, that without money very few other things are worth having from a worldly point of view. It is certainly the oil without which no machine can be worked, let it be the most perfect of its kind,” and having emitted these sentiments, he looked round for his family’s approval, having talked himself almost into a good humour.

“There is a great deal in what you say,” murmured his wife, while Frances remarked that she scarcely saw how it could be otherwise from a worldly standpoint, and she did not add the second part of her reflection, namely, Was the worldly standpoint the truest or best from which to look out on the problems of life? The younger girls had given but scant attention to their father’s dictum, or the comments it had drawn forth.

As the day went on, the look of the outside world grew gloomier again.

“I really agree with you, Betty,” said Eira, “that there’s not much use or satisfaction in our trying to do anything with this terrible old room. It is so ugly!” and she gazed round her in a sort of despair.

“No,” said Betty, “I don’t quite think so. It is more dull than offensively ugly. A few things would make a great difference—more than you realise. Pretty fresh muslin curtains to begin with—I think it’s the greatest mistake not to have them in winter as well as in summer—besides the thick ones, of course—and two or three big rich-coloured rugs, and a few nice squashy sofa cushions, and—”

“My dearest child, start by providing yourself with Aladdin’s lamp in the first place,” said Eira; but Betty had worked herself up into a small fit of enthusiasm, as was her “way,” and would not be snubbed.

“Yes,” she went on, “I could do wonders with the room without any very important changes; you see, its present monotony would do well enough as a background, and—oh, Francie, do come in, and listen to my ideas about this room.”

Frances, who had been employing herself since luncheon, if not really usefully, at least with the honest intention of being so, by writing various letters to her father’s dictation—for a new source of personal uneasiness had lately suggested itself to Mr Morion in the shape of fears that his eyesight was failing—Frances came forward into the room and looked about her.

“Those trails and bunches of leaves are lovely,” she said heartily, “they make all the difference in the world, and it will all look still prettier when the fire has burnt up a little,” for one of the changeless rules at Fir Cottage was that the drawing-room fire should only be lighted at four o’clock.

She moved towards it as she spoke, and gave it an audacious touch with the poker.

“Dear me, how chilly it is!” she went on. “Aren’t you both half-frozen, or is it the change from papa’s study, where I’ve been sitting? He does keep it so hot. And oh! by-the-by, you will be interested to hear that I’ve just been writing a note to his dictation making an appointment for to-morrow with Mr Milne, for a letter came by the afternoon post saying he was to be down here this evening for a couple of days, and would see papa about those repairs that the bailiff couldn’t order without his authority, and—now wouldn’t you like to know the name of the man who’s coming down with him?—all that old Webb told us was quite correct.”

“How interesting,” exclaimed Eira, “how extraordinarily interesting! Yes, of course, do tell us his name at once.”

“He is a Mr Littlewood,” Frances replied. “I don’t know his first name, nor whether he is young or old, or indeed anything about him, except that—”

“What?” said Eira quickly.

“Oh, it is only the tone of Mr Milne’s letter which papa showed me. He seems to take for granted that we know something about this man, and when I asked papa he said he had some vague remembrance of one of Mr Morion’s sisters having married some one of the name several years ago. One of the elder sisters he thinks it was, so in this case Mr Littlewood must be a middle-aged man,” Frances added.

“I’m sure I don’t mind in the least whether he’s old or young,” said Eira, “if only they bring a little life about the place. I only hope they’re not going to turn out invalids coming down here for perfect quiet and rest, and all that kind of thing.”

“It’s sure to be something of that sort,” said Betty, speaking for the first time, rather drearily. “What else, in the name of everything that’s sensible, would any one come to Craig Bay for?”

“Craig-Morion isn’t quite the same as Craig Bay,” said Eira. “A country house makes its own entourage. There are lots of places—delightful to stay at—which must look more isolated and out of the world than this place does, when they are shut up. But do tell us, does he actually say that Mr Littlewood’s going to take it?”

Frances considered.

“If you want his very words,” she replied, “I think they are that Mr Littlewood is coming to see the house with ‘a view to a possible tenancy.’ Dear me! what a long day this has seemed! Isn’t it tea-time yet?”

“It’s,” said Betty, peering up at the timepiece, for the room was already growing dusky, “it’s a quarter or twenty minutes past four. There’s one thing I do thank papa for,” she added, speaking more briskly at the prospect of afternoon-tea in ten minutes, “that he keeps the clocks going correctly. It would be too horrible if they were all standing still and out of repair. Frances,” she went on, “it’s a worn-out subject, I’m afraid, but can you think of any way in which we three, or any one of us, could make a little money? It has come into my head so this afternoon how delightful it would be to brighten up this room a little. Even the thought of old Milne looking in makes me long for it to be rather more like other people’s.”

Before this, Frances, who rarely allowed her hands to be idle, had ensconced herself in a corner as near a window as she could manage, anxious to benefit by the last remains of daylight for a beautiful bit of embroidery, which represented her special fancy work, and this for practical reasons. Her materials were of the simplest, being merely white lawn and embroidery cotton, with which, nevertheless, thanks to her quickness at transferring designs, she was often able to add beauty to her younger sisters’ otherwise undecorated attire.

Before replying, she glanced at her handiwork.

“Personally, I can think of nothing but my work,” she said. “But there are such beautiful imitations of hand embroidery nowadays that I don’t believe I should get much for it, so that really it’s better to use it ourselves; and I must say that the first thing I want money for is to help us to be better dressed, rather than our drawing-room.”

She looked at her sisters regretfully. Nature had not done badly by either of them, and each had a distinct style of her own, which, however, even their sister’s partial eyes could not but own was shown to the very smallest advantage by the chefs d’oeuvre of Miss Tobias, the village seamstress, who spent a few days at Fir Cottage two or three times a year for the purpose of manipulating new material, or transmogrifying old, into clothes for the sisters’ wear.

“Yes,” said Betty, agreeing with the expression she saw in her sister’s eyes, “we are atrociously dressed: there’s no other word for it I know; and what makes it doubly hard to bear is the old story. If mamma would allow us even fifteen pounds a year each, in our own hands, there would be some hope of better things. I am sure we could manage better, but as things are it is quite hopeless. That was what made me speak of this room instead of ourselves.”

Frances sighed and folded up her work for the time, for there came the welcome sound of the tea-tray and its contents.

“They both might look so pretty,” she thought to herself. She watched Betty’s slight figure as she helped to arrange the cups and saucers with her little white hands, and Eira’s lovely hair as it glimmered and glowed in the firelight. “How is it that people will see things with such different eyes? If mamma could but see them as I do! and how, comparatively speaking, small effort might make them and their lives so different.”

For Frances thought a great deal more than she expressed. She had an almost morbid terror of adding or exaggerating any new grounds of discontent to the two, who often seemed to her more her children than her sisters, slight as was in reality the difference of age which separated her from them.

An approaching rustle—somehow or other their father always announced his advent by a rustle; this time it was that of the afternoon paper he had just opened—made her look up in expectation of some request or complaint. This time, by good luck, it was the former.

“Sorry to disturb you, young ladies,” he said in an unwontedly amiable tone, “but if you’ll allow me a little bit of the fire, I should be grateful. Where is your mother?” and as at that moment Lady Emma made her appearance, “I have a letter from Milne at last, you will be glad to hear,” he said, addressing her, “so I hope these wretched repairs will now be seen to.”

Lady Emma replied with unusual animation. “You mean that he is really coming down?” she said; “and what about the second arrival expected? Is it true that we are to have neighbours at Craig-Morion, as the girls heard?”

“Dear, dear!” said her husband; “what incorrigible gossips women are!” But his tone was still agreeable. “It is true that a Mr Littlewood is thinking of the place. And, by-the-by, Emma, your memory may be better than mine. Is there not some connection between the Littlewoods and—the Morions?”

“To be sure,” said Lady Emma, a spot of colour appearing on her cheeks with gratification at his flattering appeal. “To be sure: the present man’s eldest sister married one of the Littlewoods of Daleshire. No doubt it’s one of them—perhaps the very one.” But on Eira’s following up this promising beginning by further inquiries, her mother declared herself unable to give any more particulars, and the conversation lapsed into its usual monotonous and scarcely more than monosyllabic character.

Still, throughout the rest of the evening the sisters were conscious of a slight stir in the moral atmosphere; very little, it must be confessed, was enough to give them this sensation; and when the next morning at breakfast their father announced his intention of shortening his usual—when the weather was fine enough—afternoon constitutional, by reason of the probability “of Milne looking in about tea-time,” they felt justified in harbouring a definite expectation of some break in the regular routine.

The weather was somewhat milder, thanks to which and to Frances’ nursing, Eira’s chilblains were decidedly on the mend, in itself enough to raise her spirits to an extent which would appear disproportionate to the happy beings who know not the woe and misery occasioned by these unwelcome visitors.

Lady Emma was heard to give certain injunctions as to afternoon-tea, which encouraged Frances to follow suit.

“You would like us to be in by four o’clock or thereabouts, I suppose?” she said, “in case of Mr Milne’s coming,” for the old lawyer was sufficiently man of the world for a little gossip with him to be a by no means disagreeable variety.

Lady Emma looked up vaguely.

“He may only have time for a talk with your father,” she replied. “But—well, yes, you may as well be at hand. For one thing, your father may want you, and there’s no reason why you all shouldn’t be here at tea-time as usual.”

“Or not as usual,” said Betty, as they ran upstairs to put on their outdoor things. “I warn you both that whatever you do, I am going to try to make myself fit to be seen, for once, and I advise you to do the same. It stands to reason that if these Littlewoods are coming down here, they’ll be asking Mr Milne about possible and impossible neighbours, and as they are connections of the other Morions, our name must catch their attention.”

“And we certainly don’t want to be described as dowdy—no, I won’t say old maids—but getting on in that direction sort of people,” said Eira. “Yes, Betty, I back you up. Let’s, at any rate, do the best we can. Our best serge skirts aren’t so bad, as country clothes go, and we may as well wear our black silk blouses—the ones mamma gave us when Uncle Avone died—they’re such a much better cut than poor Tobias can achieve.”

“But we’re not supposed to wear them till some other old relation dies,” said Frances. “There are ever so many still, a generation or so older than mamma! It’s wonderful how Irish people cling to life! And I don’t suppose we’d get such nice blouses again in a hurry.”

“Well, you needn’t wear yours,” said Eira; “somehow you always manage to look better than we do!” In which there was a certain truth, for Frances had the advantage of superior height, and her undeniable good looks more nearly approached beauty, though of a somewhat severe type, than Betty’s delicate sweetness or Eira’s brilliant colouring.

“My old velveteen looks wonderful still by candle-light, I must allow,” said Frances, not ill-pleased by her sister’s innocent flattery, “and I dare say mamma won’t notice your blouses.”

“Any way she can’t scold us before old Milne,” said Eira, “and I don’t care the least bit if she does after he’s gone. All I do care for is that he should be able to speak of us with a certain amount of—not exactly deference, nor admiration, nor even appreciation, but simply as not being completely ‘out of the running,’ we may say, so far as appearance goes.”

The result of this confabulation was not altogether unsatisfactory. The two younger girls, at least, had a certain childlike pleasure in the sensation of being better dressed than usual, which was not without a touch of real pathos, being as far removed from any shadow of vanity or even self-satisfaction as could be the case in feminine nature.

They were sitting in the drawing-room in the half-light of the quickly waning day, brightened by the ruddy reflections from a much better fire than usual, when their mother came in hastily, glancing round with her short-sighted eyes.

“Frances,” she said, “are you there? I told you to be ready. Your father has just looked out of his study calling for you, and I said I would send you.”

Frances started up, not hastily—her movements were never hasty, but had a knack of inspiring the onlooker with a pleasant sense of readiness, of completed preparation for whatever she was wanted for.

“I am here, mamma,” she said. “I will go to the study at once. Is papa alone?”

“Of course not,” said her mother, “Mr Milne has been with him for quite half-an-hour. I was just wondering if we should ring for tea.”

“I will go to the pantry, if you like,” said Betty, “and see that it’s quite ready, so that the moment you ring it can come in.”

Frances by this time had already left the room, but she returned again almost immediately.

“It was only some papers that papa couldn’t find,” she said, “but he’s got them now. They’re just coming in to tea; shall I ring for it, mamma?”

Betty and the tea-tray made their appearance simultaneously, as did the lamps, and a moment or two later Mr Morion and his visitor crossed the little hall to the drawing-room.

Lady Emma greeted Mr Milne with what, for her, was unusual affability; the truth being that she was by no means devoid of curiosity as to the talked-of changes at the big house, though she would have scorned direct inquiry on the subject. The old lawyer glanced kindly at the two younger girls, saying to himself as he did so that their appearance had decidedly altered for the better.

“Not that they were ever plain-looking,” he reflected, “but they seem better turned out somehow—a touch less countrified.”

And he felt honestly pleased, for he had known the young people at Fir Cottage the greater part of their lives, and it had often struck him that their lines could scarcely be said to have fallen in pleasant places.

“You have brought us rather better weather,” said Frances, when her mother’s first remarks had subsided into silence. It seemed to her that Mr Milne’s manner was a trifle preoccupied, and neither Mr Morion nor his wife could be said to possess much of the art of conversation.

“Yes, really?” replied the lawyer. “I’m glad we put off a day or two in that case, for much depends on first impressions of a place.”

“You are not alone, then?” said Lady Emma; and three pairs of ears, at least, listened eagerly for his reply.

“Why, don’t you remember, my dear?” said Mr Morion, intercepting it. “I told you that Milne was coming down with a Mr Littlewood, who is thinking of renting Craig-Morion for a time. By-the-by,” he went on, “what does he think of the place?”

“He’s taken by it, decidedly,” said the lawyer, “and though my clients have no very special reason for letting it, still they will not be sorry to do so. A house always deteriorates more or less if left too long uninhabited, and—”

At that moment came the unusual sound of the front door bell ringing—an energetic ring too, as if touched by a hand whose owner neither liked nor was accustomed to being kept waiting.

Chapter Four.

Betty in Arms.

Mr Milne started to his feet half involuntarily.

And—“He has been expecting this summons,” thought Frances.

“I am afraid,” he said, turning to his hostess apologetically, “I am afraid I must not allow myself to enjoy a cup of your excellent tea, for that must be Mr Littlewood. He’s been looking round the place with the bailiff this afternoon, and we arranged that he should call for me here, as we have a good deal of business before us this evening; so may I ask you to excuse—”

“By no means,” said Mr Morion in a tone of unwonted heartiness. “We can’t think of excusing you, Milne. On the contrary, can you not ask Mr Littlewood to join us? A few moments’ delay in tackling your business cannot possibly signify.”

The three pairs of ears could scarcely credit what they heard, the three pairs of eyes exchanged furtive glances, while Lady Emma murmured something vaguely civil by way of endorsement of her husband’s proposal.

It was the lawyer who hesitated. To tell the truth, knowing the peculiarities of his present host as he did, he had been feeling during the last quarter of an hour somewhat nervous, and he now devoutly wished that he had not suggested Mr Littlewood’s calling for him at Fir Cottage, seeing that his talk with Mr Morion had been so much longer than he had anticipated.

“I should not have let myself be persuaded to come in to tea,” he thought, “and then I could have met Littlewood just outside.”

And now his misgivings, thanks to Mr Morion’s unusual amiability, turned in the other direction.

“Ten to one,” so his inner reflections ran on, “Littlewood will be annoyed at being asked to come in.” For by way of precautionary excuse for any possible surliness on the part of the representative Morion of the neighbourhood, should he and the stranger come across each other, poor Mr Milne had thought it politic to describe Fir Cottage and its inmates in no very attractive terms.

“I think, perhaps,” he began aloud, addressing his hostess, and rising as he spoke, “I think perhaps I had better not suggest Mr Littlewood’s joining us, though I shall take care to convey to him your kind wish that he should do so. I have been decoyed,” with a smile in his host’s direction, “into staying an unwarrantable time already, and as I must positively return to town to-morrow morning, I have really a good deal of work to get through to-night.”

Lady Emma would have yielded the point, and was beginning to say something to that effect, when her husband interrupted her. Mr Morion was nothing if not obstinate, and now that the fiat had gone forth that the stranger was to be admitted, enter he must at all costs.

“Nonsense, my good sir,” he said, in what for him was a tone of light jocularity. “There now! I hear them answering the door and your friend inquiring for you. Just ask him to come in,” and he opened the drawing-room door as he spoke. “I’ll step out with you myself.”

There was no longer any getting out of it for Mr Milne. He hurried forward with the intention of an explanatory word or two with Mr Littlewood, but in this he literally reckoned without his host, for Mr Morion was at his heels, and there was nothing for it but a formal introduction on the spot.

“Pray, come in,” said Mr Morion; “we are just having tea. My wife and daughters are in the drawing-room,” he said, with a wave of his hand in that direction, “and Mr Milne always pays us a visit when he comes down.”

The newcomer glanced at the lawyer in some surprise. This was scarcely the boorish hermit who had been described to him. All the same, he was not desirous of embarrassing himself with the acquaintanceship of this family, whose very existence he had almost ignored, or at least forgotten, till Mr Milne took occasion to refer to them.

But the afternoon was drawing in to evening; it was raw and chilly outside, and disagreeably draughty in the doorway where he stood, and the prospect of a hot cup of tea was not without its attraction.

“Thanks, many thanks,” he said. “We haven’t long to spare, but I should be sorry to hurry Milne,” and so saying he entered the little hall.

In the drawing-room, meantime, the suppressed excitement of the two younger of its four inmates was increasing momentarily, Eira, indeed, being so far carried away by it as to approach the half-open door, or doorway, so as to lose no word of the colloquy taking place outside.

“Betty! Frances!” she exclaimed, though in a whisper, her cheeks growing momentarily pinker, “he’s coming in! I do believe he’s coming in, and his voice doesn’t sound as if he were old at all. He’s tall, too, and”—with another furtive jerk of her head—“as far as I can see, I do believe he’s very good-looking.”

Frances was springing forward with uplifted finger, in dismay at Eira’s behaviour, when for once, to her relief, her mother took the matter out of her hands.

“Eira,” she said quickly, so that, even if her voice had been overheard by those outside, no chiding tone could have been suspected, “Eira, I am really ashamed of you. Sit down quietly and take your tea.”

Eira obeyed without a word, feeling, in point of fact, rather small; so no signs of agitation were discernible in the little group as the door was thrown open more widely to admit of Mr Morion ushering in his guests, the stranger naturally first.

“I have persuaded Mr Littlewood to join us for a few moments,” said the master of the house, as he introduced him to his wife. “Frances, another cup of tea, if you please.” And Betty quietly rang the bell as he spoke, returning immediately to her seat near the large table, on which was placed a lamp.

Mr Littlewood glanced at her, and then at her sisters, without appearing to do so.

“Milne has not much power of description,” he thought to himself; “if they were decently dressed they would not be bad-looking girls; indeed,”—and for a moment his glance reverted to Betty.

He would have been quite ready to open a conversation with her or with any of them, but, humiliating as it is to confess it, both the younger girls were by this time consumed by an agony of shyness. It was to Frances as she handed him some tea that he addressed his first observation—some triviality about the weather, to which she replied with perfect self-possession, taking the first opportunity of drawing her mother into the conversation, for such a thing as independent action on the part of even the eldest daughter would certainly have been treated by her parents as a most heinous offence.

By degrees Betty and Eira gained courage enough to glance at the stranger, now that his attention was taken up by their mother and sister.

He was young and—yes—he was decidedly good-looking. Rather fair than dark, with something winning and ingratiating about his whole manner and bearing, in spite of the decided tone and air of complete self-possession, if not self-confidence—almost amounting to lordly indifference to the effect he might produce on others.

As in duty bound, Mr Littlewood responded at once to Lady Emma’s first remark—some commonplace inquiry as to whether this was his first visit to that part of the country.

“Yes,” he replied, “practically so, though my mother informs me that as children we spent some months in this neighbourhood, but I don’t remember it. That’s to say, I remember nothing of the country, though I do recollect the house and garden, which seemed to me all that was charming and beautiful—and mysterious too. The garden was skirted by a wood, fascinating yet alarming. Children’s memories are queer things.”

“Do you think it was near here?” said Frances, “anywhere about Craig Bay? If so, it would be interesting to revisit it.”

Betty and Eira glanced at her in mute admiration. How could she have the courage to address this exceedingly smart personage with such ease and self-possession? Nor did the manner of his reply diminish their wonder. He seemed to look at Frances as if he had not seen her before, though at the same time no one could possibly have accused him of the slightest touch of discourtesy.

“I haven’t the vaguest idea,” he said, “and there would be small chance of my recognising the place if I did see it.”

“How does Craig-Morion strike you?” asked Lady Emma, and the well-bred indifference of her tone was greatly appreciated by Betty and Eira, who by this time had labelled the newcomer as “horridly stuck-up and affected.”

“Craig-Morion?” he repeated. “Oh, I think it may serve our purpose very well for the time. Of course it should have a complete overhauling, but Morion doesn’t think it worth while to do much to it, and, substantially speaking, it’s not in bad repair. I think, however, I shall be able to report sufficiently well of it to make my sisters—or sister more probably—come down to see it for themselves.”

Even Lady Emma was slightly nettled at his tone of half-contemptuous approval of the place which to the family at Fir Cottage represented so much.

“It is a pity,” she said, speaking more stiffly than before, “that the head of the family should never live at what was—is—really their original home.”

Mr Littlewood raised his eyebrows.

“Why should he?” he said carelessly; “he’s got everything in the world he wants at Witham-Meldon and at his Scotch place. He’d feel this awfully out-of-the-world.”

This last speech was too much for the feelings of one person in the company. Shyness disappeared in indignation, and, to the utter amazement of her audience, Betty’s voice, pitched in a higher key than usual, broke the silence.

“I think,” she said, while a red spot glowed on each cheek, “I think it’s a perfect shame and utterly unfair that any one should own a place which they never care to see; and of course it is actually unfair, as everybody knows it should be ours!”

“Betty?” murmured Eira, as if she thought her sister had taken leave of her senses.

“Betty!” repeated Lady Emma and Frances in varying tones of amazement and reproof, while Mr Morion and the lawyer abruptly stopped talking, as they turned round to see what in the world was happening.

Only Mr Littlewood smiled, as he might have done with amusement at a sudden outburst from a silly child, which stung her still more; and without vouchsafing another word, she rose quickly and left the room, followed by the stranger’s eyes, while an expression half of perplexity, half of concern, overspread his face.

“I am afraid,” he began, somewhat ruefully, though the smile still lingered, “I am afraid I have unwittingly annoyed the—the young lady—your sister, I suppose?” he added to Frances, who had half started up with the instinctive wish to put things somehow to rights.

“Oh, no,” she said, half nervously, far more afraid of the parental displeasure than caring for what the stranger might think. After all, his face was pleasant and kindly, and how could he know what the very name of Craig-Morion meant to them? “Oh, no, it won’t matter at all. We are terribly stay-at-home people, you see, and Craig-Morion seems a sort of earthly Paradise to us!”

“Nonsense, Frances!” said her father harshly. “Betty is a foolish, spoilt child, and must be treated accordingly. Don’t give another thought to it, Mr Littlewood.”

The young man murmured something intended to be gracious, indeed apologetic, though his words were not clearly heard, and then with a feeling of relief he turned to Frances with an instinct that here was the peace-maker.

“You will tell her how sorry I am,” he said in a low voice, for the vision of Betty’s troubled little face as she passed him in her swift transit across the room was not to be quickly banished from his mind’s eye.

Frances nodded slightly with a smile, Lady Emma’s attention being by this time happily distracted by some tactful observation from Mr Milne, who, to confess the truth, was not a little amused by what had just passed. And a few moments later the two visitors took their leave, the old lawyer shaking hands punctiliously with the four members of the family present; Mr Littlewood contenting himself with a touch of his hostess’ cold fingers, a more cordial clasp of Frances’ hand, and a vague bow in the direction of Eira, still in the sheltered corner so abruptly deserted by Betty.

Mr Morion accompanied his guests to the hall door, leaving, by his studied urbanity, the impression in Mr Littlewood’s mind that the master of Fir Cottage was far less of a bear than the lawyer had depicted him.

This opinion would probably have been modified had he been present at the scene which ensued in the drawing-room when the head of the house rejoined his wife and daughters, who listened in silence to his not altogether unjustifiable irritation against Betty, for as he went on he worked himself up, as was his way, to exaggerated anger, concluding with a comprehensive command that, till she could learn to behave properly to her father’s guests, he must insist on Lady Emma’s banishing the culprit to her own quarters when any visitors were present. Not that this command was in reality as severe as it sounded, judging at least by past experiences at Fir Cottage, where visitors were scarcely if ever to be found, and the deprivation of seeing such as on rare occasions were admitted was certainly not what Betty would have considered a punishment.

Poor Betty! punishment indeed was little needed by her at the present time. Up in the room which she shared with Eira, she was lying prostrate on her little bed, sobbing as if her heart would break, with a rush of mingled feelings such as she had never before experienced to the same extent.

There was reaction from the pleasurable excitement of a break in their monotonous life, indignation at the manner and bearing of “that detestable man;” worst of all, mortification, deep and stinging, at having behaved, so she phrased it to herself, like “an underbred fool.” Altogether more than the poor child’s nerves could stand. And added to everything else was the fear of what lay before her in the shape of reproof, cutting and satirical, from her father. She would have given worlds to undress and go to bed, and thus avoid facing her family with swollen eyes, from which she felt as if she could never again drive back the tears.

“How I wish I could leave home for good!” she said to herself. “I don’t believe Frances and Eira would miss me much, and papa would have one less to scold. At least I wish I could go away just now rather than risk meeting that man again, and if his people do come here it will be unendurable. Even if they condescend to be civil to us, there would be the terrible feeling of being patronised and probably made fun of behind our backs. It is too late for us to improve now, we are not fit for decent society; at least Eira and I are not, and poor Frances would suffer tortures if—”

A knock at the door interrupted the depressing soliloquy.

“Come in,” said Betty, hoping that in the gloom her disfigured face might escape notice, and jumping up as she spoke, she hurried across to the dressing-table, where she pretended to be busying herself in rearranging her hair.

It was Frances who came in. For the first moment Betty felt disappointed that it was not Eira, but when the kind elder sister came forward and threw her arms round her, saying tenderly and yet with a little smile:

“My poor, silly little Betty, this is what I was afraid of. You really mustn’t take it to heart in this way. You poor little things making yourselves look so nice, and for it to end like this, though after all it is more to be laughed at than cried over.”

“No, no, it isn’t, Francie,” sobbed Betty, hiding her face on her sister’s shoulder. “I’ve disgraced myself and all of us, and it’s no good your trying to say I haven’t. I don’t know what came over me to say what I did.”

“I think it was not unnatural,” said Frances; “even mamma was slightly ruffled by Mr Littlewood’s tone, and yet—I’m quite sure he didn’t in the least mean to hurt us. How could he? We are complete strangers to him, and we were doing our best to be hospitable and—and nice. And—he has a good sort of face, and kind, straightforward eyes, in spite of his—I scarcely know what to call it—ultra-fashionableness, which seems to us like affectation.”

Betty was interested, in spite of herself, by her sister’s comments.

“All I feel,” she said, “is the most earnest hope that we may never see him again, and that his people will not take Craig-Morion.”

“Come now, Betty, don’t be exaggerated,” said Frances. “By the way, he left a message with me for you: it was to say that he was very sorry if he had annoyed you, and he said it so simply that it made me like him better than I had done before; and he took care that no one else should hear it, which was thoughtful too.”

“I don’t see that it much matters,” answered Betty, too proud to show that she was a little mollified, in spite of herself. “Heaven knows what I’m not going to have to bear from papa.”

“Well, dear,” said Frances, “you must just bear it as philosophically as you can. It may be a good lesson in self-restraint. And after all there is no lesson of more importance. I don’t agree with you in hoping that we may never see this Mr Littlewood again; on the contrary, far the best thing would be to get to know him a little better, so that any sore feeling you have—”

“Any sore feeling indeed!” interrupted Betty, with a groan, “I’m sore feeling from top to toe. It seems as if I should scarcely mind what papa says in comparison with this wretched hateful disgust at having lowered myself so.”

Frances smiled.

“That will all soften down,” she said, “see if it doesn’t; and perhaps papa won’t be so down upon you as you expect.”

Nor was this encouragement without grounds, for in the interval between his first burst of irritation and Frances’ seeking her sister, Lady Emma had exerted herself with some success to smoothing down Mr Morion’s displeasure, reminding him that Betty’s family feeling could scarcely be called ill-bred, and that it had evidently had no ill effect upon their guest, whose tone had struck herself at first as deficient in deference. For Betty, as has been said, was her mother’s favourite.

On the whole, Frances’ words had a soothing effect on her sister.

“Oh well, I must just bear it, I suppose, even if he is very down upon me, for this time I can’t say that I was blameless, and, compared to the terrible feeling as to what that man must think of me, it doesn’t seem to matter. Oh, Frances, how I do hope and pray those people won’t come down here! And only a few hours ago I should have been so disappointed at the idea of the whole thing falling through. Frances,” she went on again after a moment or two’s silence, “do you know I don’t believe they would come if they knew everything.”

Frances looked slightly annoyed.

“I wish, dear,” she said, “that you and Eira wouldn’t let your minds run so constantly on that old grievance. We are not in Italy, where vendettas go on from generation to generation; and what would the Littlewoods care as to whom the place should rightly belong?”

“I don’t mean that,” said Betty. “Of course, how could that matter to them? I was thinking of,” and here involuntarily she dropped her voice and gave a half-timorous glance over her shoulder, “what they say about here of the big house—about, you know, Frances, great-grand-aunt Elizabeth’s ‘walking,’ as the country people call it.”

The cloud on her sister’s brow deepened. “Betty, you promised me, you know you did,” she said, “both you and Eira promised me, that you would leave off thinking of that silly nonsense.”

“I know we did,” said Betty meekly. “I’m sure I don’t want to talk about it; the very mention of her name frightens me. I do so wish it wasn’t mine! For it gives me a feeling as if she had something special to do with me. All the same, I shouldn’t be a bit sorry if that Mr Littlewood got a good fright,” and her eyes twinkled, in spite of their swollen lids. “If it’s true that she repents of her negligence, if negligence it was, she certainly can’t feel pleased at being disturbed by any one connected with the elder branch of the family!”

“I had no idea you were so vindictive, Betty,” said Frances; “but I’m afraid it’s not likely that our poor old great-grand-aunt would have power to oust either him or his people from her old home.”

Chapter Five.

Autumn Leaves.

The next day passed so uneventfully that Betty began to think that for once the Fates had taken her at her word, and that the episode of Mr Littlewood’s visit might be forgotten without fear of their meeting him again, to revive its annoying associations.

“He must have left with Mr Milne after all, I hope,” she said on the following afternoon, alluding to something he had said to Frances about staying a day or two longer to see if the head-keeper’s roseate account of shooting was to be depended upon. “Oh, I do hope he has!”

“I hope he hasn’t,” said Eira. “I dare say we should like him very much if we knew him better. I think you were absurdly exaggerated about what he said. And even if we didn’t like him, I’d be glad of anything for a change.”

“You don’t mean to say,” said Betty, reproachfully, “that you still hope these people will come here?”

“Yes, of course I do,” said Eira. “But there’s Frances waiting for us, as usual. Oh! how glad I am that my chilblains are better.”

For once the three sisters were setting off for a walk unburdened by commissions of any kind, but as the route through the park was the starting-point for rambles in almost every direction, they, by common accord, turned that way and were soon at the end of the side-path which led to the main entrance.

Somewhat to their surprise, the lodge gates were open, though neither Mrs Webb nor her husband was to be seen, as usual, peering out like spiders in hopes of alluring some human fly to provide them with a dish of gossip. Eira stood still and looked about her.

“Betty,” she said, after some little scrutiny, “I don’t believe your arch-enemy has left, after all.”

“If so,” said Frances, “I wish we hadn’t come through the park. I certainly don’t want the Morions or their friends to think we claim right of way across it.” And she hastened her steps to regain the road as quickly as possible.

Once on it she turned in the opposite direction from Craig Bay.

“Where are you steering for, Frances?” asked Betty.

“I don’t think I quite know,” her sister replied, “except that I do not want to go to the village.”

“No wonder,” said Eira, “I am so tired of the sight of those dreary little shops. In the spring there’s a certain interest in them—the looking out for the ‘novelties’ they try to attract the visitors with.”

“Yes,” said Betty, “and even at Christmas they get up a little show—good enough to tempt me,” she went on, in her plaintive way. “I see lots of things I’d like to buy if only I had some money. I know I could trim hats lovelily for us all, if only I’d some decent materials. Oh, Frances, if you don’t mind, do let us go through the copse: it’ll be quite nice and dry to-day, and we might get some more of those beautiful leaves. They’re even prettier there than in the park, and as ‘silence means consent,’ I suppose we may take for granted that mamma has given us negative permission to ‘litter the drawing-room with withered branches!’”

“I believe,” said Eira, “that at the bottom of their hearts both papa and mamma were very glad that we had made it look so nice the day before yesterday when those men called.”

Betty groaned.

“Oh, Eira!” she ejaculated, “for mercy’s sake let that wretched subject drop. Let’s get over this stile,” she added: “I’ve a sort of remembrance of some lovely berries a little farther on. There they are!” with a joyous exclamation; “could anything be prettier? I wonder if there is any possible way of drying them and pressing some of the leaves without their losing colour? I feel as if I could make our hats look quite nice with them.”

“They would last a few days, anyway, as they are,” said Frances. “But, Betty, if you begin loading yourself already, I don’t see how we can go much of a walk.”

“I know what I’m about,” said Betty, as she drew out of her pocket a sturdy pair of unpointed scissors. “I shall cut a lot of things now and put them ready to pick up on our way back. One must have clear light to choose the prettiest shades.”

Some minutes passed in this occupation. Then when her spoils were carefully tied together, Betty having also provided herself with string, they set off at a good pace, soon leaving the little copse behind them, and crossing the high-road in the direction of a long hilly path ending in a stretch of table-land which was a favourite resort of the sisters. The grass was so short and thymy that it was rarely even damp, and on one side the view was certainly attractive.

“I have always liked this place,” said Betty, “ever since I was quite tiny. Do you remember, Eira, the dreams we had of catching a lamb and taking it home for a pet? We were to hide it somewhere or other.”

“Yes,” replied Eira, “in the china closet out of the nursery, and get up in the night to play with it, and then put it to sleep in each of our beds in turn. It was never to grow any bigger, it was always to be a lambkin.”

“And so it has remained,” said Frances, smiling, “and always will! That is one of the comforts of dream-life: nobody gets older, or uglier, or anything they shouldn’t. And real life would be very dull without it.”

“It’s dull enough with it,” said Betty, “or perhaps the truth is that we’re growing incapable of it for want of material to build with.”

“No,” said Frances; “I don’t agree with that. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention,’ and when one has a real fit of castle-building one creates the stones.”

“I wish one of us were poetical,” said Eira. “I’ve a vague feeling that something might be made of those ideas of yours and Betty’s, Frances, if either of you had the least knack of versification. And then perhaps we might send your poem to some magazine and get a guinea or half a guinea for it. Fancy how nice that would be!”

Betty gave a deep sigh.

“What is the matter?” said Frances.

“Oh, it’s only a bit of the whole,” said Betty. “Why wasn’t one of us a genius, to give some point to life? Just because it is so monotonous, we are monotonous too—not the least tiny atom of a bit of anything uncommon about us.” Frances laughed.

“I don’t know about being uncommon,” she said; “but assuredly, Betty, nobody could accuse you of being monotonous! Why, you are never in the same mood for three minutes together!”

“But her moods are monotonous,” said Eira. “She’s either up in the skies about nothing at all, or down in the depths about—no, I can’t say that there’s often nothing at all as an excuse for descending in that direction.”

Thus chattering, with the pleasant certainty of mutual understanding, they had walked on for some distance, when a glance at the red autumn sun already nearing the horizon made Frances decide that it was time to turn.

“It’s always extra dull to go back the way we came,” said Betty, “and to-day it’s my fault, for I do want to pick up my beautiful leaves and berries.”

“We must walk quickly, then,” said Frances; “or you’ll scarcely be able to distinguish your nosegay. Dear me! the days are getting depressingly short already.”

“And then they will begin to get long again, and you will be saying how cheering it is,” said Betty. “You are so terribly good, Francie. I quite enjoy when I catch you in the least little ghost of a grumble. It really exhilarates me.” A few minutes’ rapid walking brought them to the steep path again. Then they crossed the road and were soon over a stile and in the copse. None too soon—here under the shade of the trees it was almost dark already, and Betty’s soft plaintive voice was heard in lamentation.

“I don’t believe we shall ever find the bundle,” she said. “Francie, Eira, do help me—can you remember if it was as far on as this, or—”

“Oh, farther, some way farther,” interrupted Eira. “Much nearer the other stile. Don’t you see—”

She started and did not finish her sentence, for at that moment a figure suddenly made its appearance on a side-path joining the rather wider one where the sisters were. And, though it was almost too dark to distinguish the action, a hand was instinctively raised to remove the wearer’s cap, and a voice, recognisable though not familiar, was heard in greeting.

“Good-evening,” it said. “Can I be of any use?” for its owner had heard enough to guess that the sisters had met with some small mishap.

“Oh,” replied Betty, who was the first to identify the newcomer, “no, thank you. It’s only Frances,” with a significant change of tone, “it’s Mr Littlewood.”

Frances, self-possessed as usual, came forward quietly and held out her hand.

“We are hunting for some lost treasures,” she said, “which it is too dark to distinguish.”

“Anything of value?” he said quickly, glancing about him.

His tone of concern was too much for Eira’s gravity. A smothered laugh added to Mr Littlewood’s perplexity, for Eira’s person had till now been hidden behind some bushes where she was groping to help her sister in her search. Frances turned upon her rather sharply, for, despite her comforting tone to Betty two evenings before, she had no wish for any further gaucherie on the part of her sisters.

“What are you laughing at, Eira?” she said, and then, without waiting for an answer, she went on in explanation to Mr Littlewood: “Oh, no, thank you; nothing of value in one sense. It’s only a large bunch of shaded leaves and berries that we gathered on our way out: they were too heavy to carry, so we hid them somewhere about here, and now we can’t find them—it has got so dark.”

Mr Littlewood smiled.

Perhaps it was fortunate that only Frances was near enough to him to perceive it. He was turning towards the hedges where the two younger girls were still poking about, when a joyful cry from Betty broke the momentary silence.

“Here they are!” she exclaimed. “Help me to get them out, Eira;” which Eira did so effectually that there was no occasion for the young man’s offered help.

And once laden with her booty, a share of which she bestowed on her sister, Betty hurried onward, Eira accompanying her, leaving Frances to dispose of Mr Littlewood as she thought well.

He did not intend to be disposed of just at once. As Frances walked on slowly towards home in her sisters’ rear, he suited his step to hers with an evident intention of beguiling the way with a little conversation.

“I’m afraid,” he began, with a touch of hesitation which scarcely seemed consistent with his ordinary tone and bearing, “I am afraid that your—your sister—I do not know if she is the youngest?—has not quite forgiven me for my stupid speech the other day.”

Frances tried to answer lightly, but in her heart she felt annoyed with Betty.

“I hope she is not so silly,” she replied. “More probably she is still vexed with herself for having taken offence at—at really nothing.”

“Nothing in intention, most assuredly,” he replied, with a touch of relief in his tone. “But still, she was annoyed. And—if I am not making bad worse—would you mind giving me some idea, Miss Morion, what it was that she referred to? In case, you see, of my people coming down here, as seems very probable, it would be just as well—it might avoid friction if I understood just a little how the land lies.” Frances hesitated.

“It is such an old story,” she said, “and rather an involved one, and really not of any interest except to ourselves!”

“I don’t know that,” he replied quickly. “To tell you the truth—you mustn’t be vexed with me—I asked Milne about it, but he was rather muddled, I think. Possibly he scarcely felt free to explain it, so he ended up by saying he was too busy to go into it then, all of which, of course, whetted my curiosity.”

There was something naïf, almost boyish, in his manner, which Frances had not before been conscious of, and it gave her a feeling of greater sympathy with him.

“There is really no secret or mystery of any kind,” she said. “I mean nothing that I could have the least hesitation in telling you, or any one who cared to hear. Though a mystery there is, a commonplace enough one too, I suppose: a lost or hidden will! It was long ago—” but by this time they were at the stile, over which the two younger girls had already clambered, and now stood waiting on the road, evidently expecting that at this juncture their companion would take himself off.

“It’s getting so chilly, Frances,” said Betty, “I think we had better walk quicker.” With which faint approach to apology for her abruptness, she was starting off, when Mr Littlewood interposed.

“Why don’t you go through the park?” he said. “I thought you always did. It must make quite half a mile’s difference.”

“Yes,” said Frances, “it does. Come back to the lodge, Betty and Eira!” for she felt it would look too ridiculous to depart from their usual habit merely because this young man happened to be staying a night or two at the big house. Furthermore, she was conscious that her companion was really anxious to hear what she had to tell, and if she and the others went home by the road, he would scarcely have a pretext for accompanying them.

“Oh, Frances,” said Betty, “I think at this time of day the road is much the best. It’s so gloomy in the park.”

“Only the last little bit,” replied her sister, with a certain intonation which the younger ones understood, “and it is considerably shorter.”

“And,” interposed Mr Littlewood, so quickly as to seem almost eager, “you will of course allow me to see you through the gloomy part.”

“Thank you,” said Frances courteously, “it is not that we are the least afraid. We are far too well accustomed to looking after ourselves, and this is not a part of the country much frequented by tramps, I am glad to say.”

She had turned already, however, in the direction of the big gates, so there was no occasion for further discussion, and the old programme was soon resumed, Betty and Eira hurrying on well in front, though not so far in advance but that a faint sound of laughter—laughter with a touch of mischief or mockery in it which made their elder sister’s cheeks burn with annoyance—from time to time was carried back by the breeze to the ears of the two following more slowly. This made Frances the more anxious to divert her companion’s attention from her sisters.

“I really must pull them up when we get home,” she thought to herself. “They will have no one but themselves to thank for it if Mr Littlewood puts them down as a couple of silly school-girls.”

She was turning over in her mind how best to revert to the subject of their conversation before Betty’s interruption, when, to her relief, her companion himself led the way to it.

“Won’t you go on with what you were telling me?” he said, with a slight touch of diffidence, “that is to say, if you are sure you don’t in the least mind doing so. Perhaps you wouldn’t think so of me,” he went on, “but there’s something of the antiquary about me. Old bits of family history always have a fascination for me.”

“This bit,” said Frances, “is, as I was saying, rather commonplace. It is simply that an ancestress of ours—no, scarcely an ancestress—a certain Elizabeth Morion, a grand-aunt of my father’s, in whom the whole of the family possessions at that time centred, played his father false by promising what she never did. That is, by leaving a will which gave everything to the elder of her two nephews, the—yes, the great-grandfather of your—” here she hesitated and looked up inquiringly. “What is the present Mr Morion to you, by-the-by?” she asked.

“Nothing, nothing whatever,” said Mr Littlewood. “A brother’s brother-in-law is no relation.”

“N-no,” Frances half agreed, “but it’s a connection. Let me see, your brother married his sister?”

“Yes, that’s it,” he answered. “Ryder Morion’s sister is my sister-in-law. There, now, that puts it neatly. Then, this capricious spinster broke her word to your grandfather, did she?”

“Well, yes, we must suppose so, unless—there has always been the alternative possibility that she did make the right will, and that it got lost or mislaid.”

“H-m-m!” murmured Mr Littlewood thoughtfully. “I suppose that does happen sometimes, but rarely, I should think. I don’t know if I have peculiarly little faith in human nature, but in a general way there’s been something worse than accident at work in such cases. Was the old lady on good terms with both nephews?”

“I believe so,” Frances replied. “Though she was much more in awe of the elder. He had made an extremely good marriage, and, besides coming into the more important Morion place, his wife had heaps of money. I have always thought,” she went on, “that great-grand-aunt Elizabeth was a little afraid of telling him that she had left this property, small as it is, away from him. For, you see, it has the family name; yet, elder branch though they are, its owners have never cared for it. So,” with a slightly rising colour which it was too dark for him to see, and a half-deprecating tone in her voice which he was quick to hear, “there is some excuse for the way we feel about it, though certainly Betty need not have blurted it out as she did the other day for your benefit!”

“On the contrary,” exclaimed her companion, “I enter most thoroughly into her feelings. And it is delightful to come across some one that isn’t afraid to speak out her mind. But—now, do scold me if I am indiscreet—considering these very natural feelings, which your father must realise to the full, is it not rather a pity to have settled down here, in constant, hourly view of what should have been your home?”

“Well, yes,” said Frances, “on the face of it I can understand it striking you so, but circumstances often lead up to the very things one would originally have avoided. So it has been with us. My grandfather bought our present little house, which did not belong to the Morions though surrounded by the property, for a very small sum: he kept a sort of foothold in the place I fancy, in case—just in case—of the will, in whose existence he never lost faith, turning up; and also perhaps out of a sort of not unnatural self-assertion. And when papa retired—he was many years in India, you know, and married rather late—it seemed the best place for us to come to. We three were tiny children, and Anglo-Indians of all people believe in country air for their children, and here we have been ever since, our income, unfortunately, having creased as time went on, instead of improving.”

For a moment or two Mr Littlewood walked on in silence. He was really of an impressionable nature, despite appearances, and the girl’s simple words told him even more than she was conscious of.

“Dull little lives,” he thought to himself. “Poor children! If my people come down here they must try to do something for them, though I see it must be done with tact. Dear me! what a clumsy fool I must have seemed to that sweet little Betty.”

Then turning to Frances:

“Thank you,” he said gently, “thank you so much for telling me about it. I quite see the whole thing. I wonder,” he went on, with a slight laugh, “I wonder if anything will turn up some day?”

“Oh, no,” said Frances, “it’s far too long ago now. We amuse ourselves sometimes by building castles in the air about it, but I am not sure that it is a very wholesome occupation.”

“It would be very good fun,” said the young man, “if our living in the house somehow led to any discovery! By-the-by,” he added suddenly, “it would make a splendid groundwork for a ghost story. If the old lady is repentant for breaking her word, she shouldn’t be having a peaceful time of it; or even if she were not to blame, and the will were in existence, that’s the sort of thing ghosts should come back to set right, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes,” said Frances, “I suppose so, but the queer thing about ghosts is that they so much more often appear for no reason than for a sensible one.” But there was a certain repression in her tone which returned to his mind afterwards.

They had crossed the park by this time, and were close to the door into the road, where a little way farther on stood Fir Cottage. The voices of the two girls in front sounded softly now, and here in this more sheltered spot the evening breeze had grown gentle and caressing in its dainty touch. The moon, too, had come out, and the whole feeling of the evening breathed peace and restfulness.

“It scarcely seems like late autumn now, does it?” said Frances. “And, oh!” she went on, “isn’t the glimpse of the old church pretty, Mr Littlewood?”

From where they stood, the windows at one side and the ivy-covered tower of the venerable building, more picturesque than beautiful in the full daylight, had caught the silvery gleam.

“Yes,” he agreed, “it looks at its best, doesn’t it? If Ryder was more here, he’d have gone in for restoring it by now; and, inside, I must say, it would be an improvement, though it would almost seem a pity to tear down that ivy. I looked over it this morning.”

“Oh, did you?” said Frances. “It is getting to be almost a survival. The day must come, I suppose, for overhauling it, if it is to hold its own much longer. Papa says the masonry is becoming very bad. I should like to see it really well done, though I am heathen enough to have a queer affection for it as it stands.”

“Do the visitors from Craig Bay come up here?” Mr Littlewood inquired.

“Not regularly,” Frances replied. “There is a very modern, tidy little church near the station. Were you thinking of funds for restoring this one when you spoke of the visitors? Our old vicar is too old, I suppose, to take any interest in doing it up, otherwise something might be done.”

“Oh, funds can’t be the difficulty,” said Mr Littlewood quickly. “Ryder Morion has far more money than he knows what to do with. I dare say he has restored other people’s churches more than once; that sort of thing is rather in his line.”

“Then, why doesn’t he begin at home?” asked a clear voice, startling them a little. It was Eira’s. Frances and Mr Littlewood, gazing at the church, which stood just outside the park wall in the opposite direction from Fir Cottage, had not observed that the two younger girls had retraced their steps some little way, and now were standing close behind them.

Again Frances felt annoyed, though she could not help being glad that this time the offender was not Betty. But her companion was on his guard: he answered gently, in a matter-of-fact tone, of itself conciliatory, “You may well ask. I shall tell Ryder what I think about it when I see him,” he said. “Why, he has never been here that any of you can remember, has he?” There was no immediate reply. It was, naturally enough, a trifle mortifying that on the few occasions—rare enough, it must be allowed—on which the owner of Craig-Morion had visited the place, he had taken no notice, direct or indirect, of his kindred at Fir Cottage. But the three sisters were nothing if not candid—candid and ingenuous in a very unconventional degree—and the silence was almost immediately broken by Frances’ clear, quiet voice.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “he has been here several times for a few days together, but we don’t know him at all, not even by sight.” Again Mr Littlewood anathematised his bad luck.

“Really?” he said, with apparent carelessness.

“I can’t call him exactly a genial person,” he went on, “and you know, I suppose, that his wife died a few years ago, which has not made him less of a recluse. All the same,”—for the young man was on common ground with his new friends so far as a constitutional love of candour goes—“all the same, I’m very much attached to him. He’s been a good friend to me in more ways than one.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Frances. “One can never be without interest in the head of one’s family, it seems to me.”

They had been strolling on during the last few moments towards their own gate, and, there arrived, Frances held out her hand.

“Good-night, Mr Littlewood,” she said simply, adding no invitation to come in with them.

“Good-night,” he repeated, shaking hands with each in turn, “but—it need not be ‘Good-bye,’ as I don’t leave till the day after to-morrow. Do you think Lady Emma would allow me to look in some time in the afternoon?”

“Y-yes, I will tell her,” was Frances’ rather ambiguous reply; and as the young man re-entered the park, his thoughts busied themselves with the glimpse, the almost pathetic glimpse, he had had into these young lives.

Chapter Six.

“Not at Home.”

“What in the world,” said Betty, “what in the whole world, Frances, did you get to talk about to him, all that long way across the park?”

“Really, Betty,” said Frances, for her, almost crossly, “you are too bad! Did I elect to have a tête-à-tête with Mr Littlewood? If it were worth while I might blame you and Eira seriously for the way you behaved—like two—”

Betty was on the point of interrupting with some vehement repetition of the dislike she had taken, and that not causelessly, to their uninvited visitor, when a significative tug at her sleeve from Eira startled her into silence, though thereby Frances’ intended lecture made no further way, as the interruption came from Eira instead.

“You are not to say ‘silly school-girls,’” she exclaimed. “I know that’s what you were going to say. We simply walked on because three women and one man seem—are—so stupid. Why does it always seem as if there were too many women?”

“In a family where there are no brothers it couldn’t very well seem anything else,” replied Frances, rather shortly; but she did not resume her remonstrances, for by this time they were by the front door, and she hurried into the drawing-room, where, as she expected, tea, and a somewhat ruffled Lady Emma, were awaiting them.

“You are very late, why—” were the words that greeted her; but before hearing more, Eira softly closed the door, holding back Betty for a moment’s confabulation in the hall.

“What is it, Eira?” said Betty impatiently. “You tug my sleeve, and then you pull me back when I’m tired and want some tea. What is it you want to say?”

“We had better leave our cloaks outside,” said Eira, rapidly unbuttoning her own garment as she spoke. “What I want to say can’t be said in a moment, it is something too tremendous! I only felt that I must give you a hint to be more careful in your way of speaking about Mr Littlewood.”

“Why?” asked Betty, opening her dark eyes to their widest.

“Because,” said Eira, “I am not at all sure but what a most wonderful thing is going to happen, or, for that matter, has happened. Betty, suppose—just suppose—that he has fallen in love with Frances.”

Betty gasped, unable for a moment to articulate.

“That man!” she at last ejaculated.

“Well, why not?” returned Eira. “You’ve taken a dislike to him of some kind, or you fancy you have, and of course I don’t mean to say that I think he’s good enough, but still—but I can’t speak about it just now, only take care!”

She had certainly succeeded in taking Betty’s breath away. The girl would scarcely have been capable of a coherent reply, but she was not called upon for one. The drawing-room door opened, and their elder sister’s voice was heard.

“Do come in to tea,” she said, “and, Eira, you run and tell papa it is ready. I had no idea it was so late,” she went on. “Poor mamma has been wondering what was keeping us,” she added, in a deprecatory tone, as Betty followed her into the room.

“We can’t blame Mr Littlewood for it,” said Betty eagerly; “we were walking almost all the time we were talking to him, so he can’t have delayed us!”

“Mr Littlewood?” repeated Lady Emma, in the high-pitched tone which with her was one of the signs of disturbed equanimity. “Mr Littlewood? What is she talking about? You don’t intend to say that you have been a walk with a—perfect stranger! Frances, what does this mean? I insist on your telling me.”

“I have not the very least objection to telling you, mamma,” said Frances. “In fact, I have a message for you from Mr Littlewood, which I was just going to deliver.”

Her tone was absolutely respectful, but there was a touch of coldness in it, not without its effect on her mother. In her heart Lady Emma not only trusted her eldest daughter entirely, but looked up to her in a way which showed her own involuntary consciousness of the superiority in many ways of the girl’s character to her own. But any approach to acknowledgment of this real underlying admiration and respect would have seemed to her so strange and paradoxical, considering their mutual relations, as to be almost equivalent to a reversal of the fifth commandment.

She contented herself with replying in a calmer tone, “Did you meet Mr Littlewood, then? Naturally I can’t understand things till you explain them.”

“Yes,” Frances replied, “we met him on our way home, not in the park, but in the little copse on the Massingham road.”

“I am glad you were not in the park,” said Lady Emma.

“But we did come through it after meeting him,” said Frances. “It would have been affected to do otherwise just because he is staying at the house, and I suppose, as he was walking our way, he could scarcely have avoided walking on beside us. He asked me if he might call to say good-bye to you, mamma, to-morrow afternoon?”

The last words, unfortunately as it turned out, were overheard by Mr Morion as he entered the room. His wife, taught by long experience, made no reply, so the message remained uncommented upon, unless a doubtful grunt from the depths of the arm-chair where the master of the house had settled himself could have been taken as referring to it.

Silence, not an unusual state of things at Fir Cottage, ensued, and as soon as the two younger girls could escape from the room they hastened to their own quarters, a small and in wintertime decidedly dreary little chamber, which in old days had been used as their schoolroom. It looked out to the side of the house and was ill lighted. But its propinquity to the kitchen was, practically speaking, in cold weather no small boon, preventing its ever becoming very chilly, for, though it boasted a fireplace, the restrictions as to fuel formed one of the most disagreeable economies in practice at Fir Cottage. In summer, on the other hand, the schoolroom was apt to become unbearably hot; but in summer, if it is anything like a normal season, and in the country, life usually presents itself under a very different aspect. Such things as fires and chilblains do not enter into one’s calculations; one’s own room, in nine cases out of ten, is a pleasant resort, and even if not so, are there not out-of-doors boudoirs by the dozen?

Dreary enough, though, the little room looked this evening, when by the light of one candle Betty and Eira established themselves as comfortably as circumstances allowed of, that is to say, on two little low basket-chairs, dismissed from the drawing-room long ago as too shabby, which had been one of their few luxuries in lessons days. Just now, also, the extraordinary possibilities which they were about to discuss so filled their imaginations that the uninviting surroundings over which they often groaned would have passed unnoticed had they been ten times worse. And worse they might have been most assuredly! For one fairy gift was shared alike by the three sisters—the gift of dainty orderliness; and where this reigns one may defy poverty to do its worst, for with such a background the tiniest attempt at prettiness or grace is trebled in pleasing effect.

“Eira,” said Betty in an almost awe-struck whisper, “do you really, really mean what you said? Do you think it possible? And—” with a touch of hesitation, quaint and almost touching in its contrast to the outspoken treatment of such subjects by the typical maiden of to-day, “if—if he had—fallen in love with Frances, could she ever care for him, I wonder?”

A dreamy questioning came into her eyes as she spoke.

“I don’t see why she shouldn’t,” said Eira. “Of course neither you nor I can picture to ourselves any man being good enough for Frances, so we need not expect the impossible. But taking that for granted, I don’t see why she mightn’t get to care for this man. Indeed, she has liked him from the beginning, and stuck up for him against you. And as men go—of course we really don’t know any, but I suppose some books are more or less true to life?—as men go, I suppose any one would consider him very attractive.”

“Perhaps,” said Betty gently, for she was already beginning to see her bête noire through very different spectacles, “perhaps. And then,” she added, with an amusing little air of profound worldly wisdom, “he must be rich, and made a good deal of, and all that sort of thing, and for a man of that kind to find out what a girl really is, in spite of her plain simple life, and way of dressing, and all that—though, of course, nobody can say that Francie is not good-looking, far more than merely pretty—don’t you think, Eira, that that of itself shows that he must have a great deal of good in him?”

“Yes,” Eira agreed, “I do. Though it doesn’t do to be too humble, Betty, even about external things. Remember, however poor we are, that as far as family and ancestry go we could scarcely be better. No one need think it a condescension to marry a Morion.”

“Of course,” said Betty, speaking half absently. “Oh, Eira, how interesting it will be when he comes to-morrow! Do let us think what we can do to—to show everything to advantage. If we could persuade Francie to sing, for her voice is so lovely!”

“She never would,” said Eira, “not to any one like that, who is pretty sure to be a good judge, for she knows her voice is untrained. Why, she has never had a lesson in her life! Can’t we do anything about her dress, however? She always looks nice, perfectly nice, but almost too plain, too severe, as if she had retired from the world and was above such things as dress and looks.”

“Perhaps it’s just that that attracts him in her,” said Betty—“the difference, I mean, between her and the fashionable girls he is accustomed to.”

“Yes,” replied Eira, “up to a certain point that’s all very well, but no man would like to have a wife, however beautiful she was, who did not to some extent look like other people. Betty, how could we contrive to make her wear her own black silk blouse to-morrow? It is even more becoming to her than ours are, and a little handsomer. Don’t you remember her saying when we got them that hers mustn’t look too young? She is rather absurd about her age, for certainly she doesn’t look older than twenty-four at most.”

“I wonder how old Mr Littlewood is?” said Betty, thoughtfully: “I’m afraid not more than twenty-seven; and Frances is one of those people who would think it almost a crime to marry a man younger than herself.”

“We can easily keep off the subject,” said Eira. “Indeed, after he has left, I think we had better say very little about him, though we may go on planning all the time by ourselves, you know, how to help it on in every possible way, once he comes back again.

“Oh, Betty!” and she clasped her hands in excitement, “isn’t it nice to have something to make plans about?”

Somewhat to their surprise and still more to their satisfaction, the two girls found their sister, the next morning, much more amenable to their tactfully administered suggestions than they had anticipated.

“Yes,” she said simply, “I should like to make the room nice, and ourselves too, so that he may take as favourable an impression as possible back with him to his people and the other Morions, and you will be careful, Betty dear, won’t you, not to hoist your flag of war again?”

“Don’t be afraid,” said Betty, kissing her sister as she spoke. “I see now that I behaved idiotically, and I see too how kind he was to take it as he did.”

In their uncertainty as to the time at which their acquaintance might call, the sisters decided on taking their usual walk in the morning, and remaining about the premises after luncheon. There was not much fear of their mother’s not being at home, in the literal as well as conventional sense of the words, for Lady Emma was not given to constitutionals, or, except on the rarest occasions, to returning the formal calls of the few neighbours with whom she was on visiting terms, and in her heart she was rather gratified than otherwise at the stranger’s overtures, due, as she imagined, to some extent at least, to the impression made upon him by her own cold dignity of manner, seconded, however childishly, by Betty’s outburst of self or family assertion.

All, therefore, promised propitiously for the expected visit of farewell, though at luncheon a not unfamiliar gloom was to be discerned on the paternal countenance which sent a thrill through the hearts of the two younger girls, Betty’s especially, the most sensitive to such misgivings.

“Let us keep out of his way,” she whispered to Eira as they left the dining-room: “if he had the least, the very least, idea that we wanted to stay at home he would be sending us off on some message to that wretched chemist’s, as sure as fate!”

“But how about Frances?” said Eira, in alarm.

“I think it’s all right,” Betty replied. “Both she and mamma, though they don’t perhaps say so, want it all to be nice, I feel sure. I saw Frances giving some finishing touches to the drawing-room, which really looks its best, and I heard mamma saying something about tea cakes, and you know how in reality mamma depends on Frances: she won’t let her go out, even for papa.”

Mr Morion’s “den,” as in jocund moments he condescended to call it, opened unfortunately on to the hall, almost opposite the drawing-room. In some moods he had a curious and inconvenient habit of sitting with the door open, and though he sometimes complained of advancing years bringing loss of hearing, there were times at which his ears seemed really preternaturally acute, and this afternoon, thanks to this peculiarity, aided possibly by some occult intuition of anticipation in the air, he was somewhat on the qui-vive for—he knew not what. Suffice to say he was in a raw state of nervous irritability, ready to quarrel with his own shadow, could that meek and trodden-upon phantom have responded to his need.

Four o’clock struck, the light was rapidly waning, when he issued an order to whatever daughter was within hearing to have tea hastened, as he wanted it earlier than usual.

It was Frances who heard him, and she at once rang the bell, though not without a silent regret as to this unusual precipitancy.

“For Mr Littlewood is pretty certain not to call before half-past,” she reflected, “and afternoon-tea looks so untidy when it has been up some time.”

Some little delay, however, ensued. It was between a quarter and twenty minutes past the hour when she summoned her sisters, hidden till then in their little sitting-room.

“Has he come?” whispered Betty.

Frances shook her head.

“No,” she replied, in the same voice, “but papa would have tea extra early. Help me to keep the table tidy.”

Mr Morion, by this time, had taken possession of an arm-chair by the drawing-room fire, which he pulled forward out of its place, as he was feeling chilly. As Frances was handing him his cup of tea the front door bell rang. A thrill of expectancy passed through Betty and Eira.

“Who can that be?” said their father, in a tone of annoyance.

“It is probably Mr Littlewood,” said Lady Emma quietly, “calling to say good-bye. I was expecting him.”

“Very strange, then, that you didn’t mention it to me,” replied her husband acridly. “Am I in a fit state of health to be troubled with visitors to-day? Not that it signifies: he need not be admitted.”

“Papa,” said Frances, in a tone of remonstrance, “it will seem very rude—he asked if he might call—we met him yesterday, and—”

But the parlour-maid’s approaching footsteps were already to be heard in the hall, and, without taking the slightest notice of his daughters words, Mr Morion rose from his seat, and, opening the door, gave his orders in a decided voice.

“Parker,” he said, “if that is a visitor, say at once that her ladyship is not at home, and that I am not at home either.”

No one spoke. In the perfect silence the short colloquy which ensued at the front door was distinctly heard. Then came the sound of its shutting, and Parker appeared in the drawing-room with a card on a salver, which bore the name of Mr Horace Littlewood, an address, and added, in pencil in one corner, the letters, “p.p.c.”

Mr Morion threw it on to the table without comment; then turned sharply on Frances with a demand for a second cup of tea.

Frances handed it to him. Her face had grown scarlet—a most unusual occurrence with her. Lady Emma leaned back in her chair with an expressionless face. The younger girls, sitting together, clasped each other’s hand secretly in mute, inexpressible disappointment and indignation. Frances, crossing the room on the pretext of handing them their tea, glanced at them with such sympathy in her eyes as all but upset their outward composure. It is, indeed, to be questioned if in Eira’s case at least her tea was not mingled with unperceived tears; and as soon as they dared to do so all three sisters left the room.

Two or three days later came the climax to the episode which had broken the monotony of life at Fir Cottage, in anticipation even more than in actuality. For Frances, returning from one of the endless expeditions to the village from which as often as possible she saved the younger ones, came into their little sitting-room with a half-rueful, half-comical expression on her face.

“My dear pets,” she said, “I feel half-inclined to laugh at myself for minding what I have just heard, but for once I must own to absurd disappointment. Mr Webb has just told me that the Littlewoods have given up thoughts of taking Craig-Morion.”

Betty and Eira gazed at her speechless.

“I had hoped,” she went on, “that it would have brought some brightness, change, at least, and variety into your lives, you poor dears.” They glanced at each other.

“Dear Frances,” said Betty at last.

“But how little—oh! how little,” she said to Eira, when they were alone again, “Frances suspects why we mind so much!”

Eira was by this time quietly wiping her eyes.

“Betty,” she replied, “from this moment I give up castle-building for ever. Let us settle down to be three old maids—they always go in threes—the sooner the better.”

“Yes,” Betty agreed, “and some day, I suppose, Eira, we shall find out how to make some use of our lives.”

“I don’t know,” said Eira. “I’m not as good as you and Frances. Just now I don’t feel as if I cared!”

Chapter Seven.

The Curtained Pew.

There is a commonplace saying that old people love best the springtime of the year, as it brings back the brighter memories of their youth, and to a certain extent the sense of buoyancy which fades with increasing age; while the young, on the other hand, love the autumn with its tender sadness in contrast to their own joyous anticipations. But generalities are, after all, but generalities; there was little in the lives of the three Morion daughters this autumn to induce them to turn with any sentimentality or even sentiment to outside nature in its fall; there was too much real greyness, too much real endurance of daily, hourly depressing circumstances for them to long for anything but change.

“It wouldn’t be so bad, it really wouldn’t,” said Eira, “if it were the spring, but another long, long winter, when we can be so much less out of doors; and to have had the glimpse of a chance of a break in it all only seems to have made it worse. Surely, Frances, without wrong complaining and grumbling, isn’t it the case that we are peculiarly unlucky in some ways—that our lives are, I mean? Now, supposing we had had to work for our living, we should probably have been far happier, don’t you think?”

Frances hesitated in her reply, and a shadow clouded her face. Unwittingly enough, Eira had touched on perplexing ground, all too familiar to the eldest sister’s thoughtful mind. Had she done wrong or unwisely in regard to her younger sisters? Not very much, perhaps, had been practically in her power, but, still, had she given too much consideration to the right of their all too quickly passing youth, the right of happiness, of enjoyment, of the many things that only during youth can normally exist, and too little to the actual formation of character, to the development of their individual capacities? Had she been too sorry for them, or shown it too much? Strange reflections, more maternal than sisterly, when the actual small amount of difference in their ages was remembered. But since little girlhood Frances Morion had felt herself more mother than sister to the two younger ones.

“That’s a big question, Eira,” she said, trying to speak lightly. “We must believe that the circumstances of every life are, to a certain point at least, meant—intended.” And her voice changed as she went on, more slowly and seriously: “The puzzle is to find out the point at which we should resist them, and not carry resignation or submission too far.”

“There’s not much puzzle about it for us,” said Betty. “We are pretty clearly hedged in! Papa and mamma would never allow us to take any sort of line of our own.”

“Then, for the present at least,” said Frances, “the line is drawn, and I suppose if by the end of life one had learnt perfect patience one would have learnt a good deal; but still—”

“Still what?” said Eira.

“I am not quite ready to say what is in my mind,” replied her sister. “Perhaps it will come when I have thought more about it. Roughly speaking, I was considering if there is nothing that we can do—nothing that I can help you two to do, in the way of extending your interest a little, even as things are. And, of course, the best way to do that is to look out for what we can reach of helping others.”

“We do do what we can, I think, Francie,” said Eira, in a tone of some disappointment. “We have our Sunday-school classes, and Betty’s blind old man and my bedridden old woman that we go to read to; but beyond that there are always the old difficulties: papa’s opposition and—want of money. I’m sure now we could do a lot at Scaling Harbour, among the fisher-children—such a terribly rough set—if we had money and a little more freedom.”

“I know,” said Frances quietly; but, though for the moment the subject dropped, she thought the more.

And the next few weeks gave her both leisure and cause for ever-deepening reflection.

The weather was unusually and monotonously disagreeable. Raw, grey, and as cold as weather can be when it just falls short of the stimulus and exhilaration which, to the young and strong at least, usually accompany frost. Letters, rare at all times, dwindled down to almost none. Even a family chronicle from their ex-governess, now a settler’s wife in the Far West, was hailed almost enthusiastically as a welcome distraction.

“There is only one thing in the world that I have to be thankful for,” said Eira one day, when, defiant of wind and threatening rain, they started for their afternoon walk, “and that is, that, thanks to you, Francie, and all the wonderful things you’ve done for me and made me do, my chilblains haven’t got bad again—not since—oh, yes! do you remember?—not since the time Mr Littlewood was here.”

“That’s one good thing,” said Frances, “one very good thing. I sometimes think I wouldn’t have made a bad woman-doctor.”

“What a horrible idea!” said Betty, with a shudder. “I hope it doesn’t mean that you ever think of becoming a hospital nurse. If you did, I should just simply drown myself, and make Eira do the same!”

“Hush!” said Frances. “Don’t say such things, even in fun. No, I’ve no ambition of the kind—not while I’ve got my own place at home, any way. But it’s rather curious you should have said that, Betty, for an idea has come into my head of something we could do for the people at Scaling Harbour, which really would cost us nothing, or next to nothing. It struck me when Mrs Ramsay”—(the ex-governess)—“sent me that commission for a few simple surgical books, to teach her to know what to do out there in case of accidents, which she says are always happening.”

“And certainly, by all accounts,” said Eira, with interest, “they are always happening at Scaling Harbour. But what is your idea?”

“It is not very definite yet,” said Frances. “Only the first steps towards it. What I am thinking of is, if we could use part of this winter, when we have so much time on our hands, for teaching ourselves the elements of surgical aid, and then when we have, to some extent, mastered it, to give simple little lectures—lessons, rather—to the fisher-women down there once a week or once a fortnight.”

Eira’s eyes brightened.

“Yes,” she said, “I would like that! There is something, I think, very attractive about those people; something a trifle wild, almost foreign. They do say, you know,” she went on, “that there’s a strain of Spanish descent among them; and, in any case, they are quite unlike the inland people about here, who are peculiarly dull and phlegmatic.”

“I should be frightened to go much among them,” said Betty.

“Possibly,” went on Frances, “we might persuade mamma to let two or three of them come up to us a few times. We could teach them a little of the practical part in the first place, and get to know them, and then they might talk about it to their neighbours. To begin with, all we want is one or two sensible books, or possibly, a set of ambulance lessons by correspondence. I think I have heard of such things.”

“They would be sure to cost a lot of money,” said Betty, who was evidently not inclined to take an optimistic view of the scheme.

“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Betty,” said Eira. “We can but try.”

“And even if we couldn’t manage it just now,” said Frances, “something might make it feasible after a time. It might prove the getting in the thin end of the wedge; you know papa and mamma sometimes come round to things if we wait long enough for—for them to get accustomed to the idea, as it were.”

“And when that time comes,” said Betty dolorously, “all the interest of the thing we wanted has gone.”

“O Betty, do not croak so,” said Eira; “it’ll depend on ourselves to keep up the interest by talking about it.”

“Yes,” said Frances, “you are quite right, though I have noticed that pleasant things seldom come quickly, and troubles and disappointments do. It isn’t often that one has some quite delightful surprise! Nice things either come in bits, so that you scarcely realise the niceness, or else they are pulled back when you feel sure of them, so that, even if they come after all, the bloom seems taken off.”

“Dear me, Frances,” said Eira, glancing up at her with a smile, “you are quite a pessimist for once.”

“No—no,” returned Frances. “I don’t mean to be. I was really thinking about it to myself and wondering why it is so. When there appears to be a sort of rule about anything, you can’t help beginning to hunt for the reason of it.”

“The rule with us,” said Betty, still in the same plaintive tone, “according to the old saying, is no rule, for the exceptions never appear.”

Both Frances and Eira laughed.

“Why, Betty, you are becoming quite paradoxical, inspired by melancholy,” exclaimed the latter; but not the ghost of a smile was to be raised this afternoon on Betty’s pretty little face.

“I suppose it’s very wrong of me,” she said, “but I do feel cross and dull. Even these horrid, dirty roads, and this detestable wind, add to it all. It’s scarcely worth while coming out, except that there’s nothing to do indoors.”

“I really think it’s no use attempting a long walk,” said Frances. “Let us turn here, and get home by the other road, past the church; it will be a little more sheltered.”

“If the church were open and decently warm,” said Eira, “like the little new one in the village, it would be rather nice to go in there sometimes. I’m not imaginative, but I can fancy things in there. Even the mustiness, the very old smell, carries one back in a fascinating way. I always begin thinking of great-grand-aunt Elizabeth, though I’ve no love for her! But she must have been young once upon a time, and pretty and lovable perhaps.”

“Perhaps she was,” agreed Frances, “though her position—put in her brother’s place—makes one feel as if she may have been unsisterly and designing. But then, no one knows the rights of the story, or what her brother had done for his father to disinherit him.”

They were nearing the church by this time; as the old porch came within view, Eira gave a little cry of satisfaction.

“It is open, I declare,” she said. “Do let us go in, Francie. I hate going home before there is a prospect of tea, and it’s too early for that yet.”

Her sisters made no objection, and they entered. Inside it felt comparatively warm, and, though at first almost dark, as their eyes got accustomed to the gloom they caught sight of the old vicar, standing in a pew near the chancel, apparently looking for something.

He turned as he heard their steps, and greeted them kindly:

“Good-day, young ladies,” he said. “If I may venture to trouble you, Miss Eira—your young eyes are keener than mine. Mrs Ferraby has lost a little brooch, not a thing of much value except to herself, and it struck her that it may have dropped off her in church, as that was the last time she remembered wearing it. Of course it would be better to look for it by a clearer light.”

As he spoke he drew still further aside the red moreen curtain which separated the vicarage pew from the larger square one belonging to the big house, permission to occupy which was one of the very few advantages enjoyed by the Fir Cottage family, as representatives of the Morions. Betty and Eira came forward eagerly.

“Do let us look,” they said, both together; Eira, who was the old vicar’s favourite, adding, playfully, “But you must come out yourself, Mr Ferraby, please. If it is anywhere, it is pretty sure to be on the floor.”

“I don’t know that,” said Betty, who had no special wish to grope on her hands and knees. “You may feel on the floor if you like, Eira; I shall look on the seats and the book-rail.” And, strange to say, she had scarcely begun to do so when she gave a little cry of pleasure. “Here it is,” she exclaimed, “wedged into a crack in the woodwork between the pews, ever so neatly; but no doubt it would have dropped down the first time the pew was dusted,” and with deft fingers she withdrew the little trinket from its temporary resting-place. “It is queer,” she added; “there must be a hollow space between this and the panel on our side. Perhaps it’s the place with a little door where we leave our prayer-books,” and, standing on a hassock, she peered over into their own pew, adding, “No, our book-cupboard is farther along.”

No one paid any attention, however, to her researches. Mr Ferraby was too delighted to have recovered the brooch to care much about where it had been concealed. He thanked Betty with effusion.

“My good wife will not have come home yet; she is in the village,” he said. “So I am not in a hurry, and quite at your service, young ladies. Were you looking for me?”

For, in his mild, unenergetic, though kindly way, the old vicar was always ready to be consulted as to the few poor people under his wing, or indeed on any other subject as to which the Morion sisters could apply for his advice or sympathy.

For half an instant an impulse came over Frances to confide in him her little scheme for benefiting the fisher-folk at Scaling Harbour, but a glance at the bent and fragile figure of their old friend made her dismiss the idea.

“He wouldn’t understand it,” she thought; “it would seem to him new-fangled and unnecessary; and then he is so poor and so generous,”—for it was well known that out of his tiny stipend Mr Ferraby was far too ready to give more than he could really afford—“he would be writing for books for us, even if he thought it would only be an amusement. No, I had better not speak of it.”

And—“Thank you,” Frances went on aloud, “no, we had no idea you were in the church; seeing it open, we just strolled in, with no better motive than to kill a little time, I’m afraid. It is not tempting weather for walking.”

“No, indeed,” the vicar agreed. “The season is peculiarly dull and depressing this year, even to one who should be well accustomed to this climate and to everything about the place. I have been here over fifty years, half a century,” and he gave a little sigh.

“And we have been here,” said Eira, “nearly all of our lives that we can remember; so we should be accustomed to it, too, shouldn’t we, Mr Ferraby?”

He shook his head.

“Scarcely so,” he replied, “at least not necessarily. The sort of ‘getting accustomed’ to things—in reality I was thinking of more than the climate—that I had in my mind—is not of a piece with youth and its natural distaste for monotony. My wife and I often think it must be dreary for you three, and we wish we had it in our power to help you to a little variety. If things had been different with us—if that poor boy of ours had been spared—we should not now be the dull old couple I fear we are.”

His hearers were touched by his simple self-depreciation.

“Dear Mr Ferraby,” said Frances, “you mustn’t speak like that. It is very nice for us to feel that we are always sure of two such kind friends at hand.”

There was more pathos in his allusion than a stranger would have understood, for this same “boy,” of whom he spoke, would by this time have been not far off fifty himself, though to his parents he ever remained the bright, promising young fellow suddenly cut off in his early manhood.

“Who was here before you came, Mr Ferraby?” Eira inquired abruptly.

The little group was seated by this time in the large, square pew, which almost looked like a cosy little room, and even to-day it felt fairly warm.

“Who was here before me?” the old man repeated. “Broadhurst was the last vicar, and before him there was a private chaplain resident at Craig-Morion. That was in its palmy days, when the family spent most of the year here—quite early in this century, that is to say—for I remember Broadhurst telling me that things had been quiet enough during his time, and he was here for nearly twenty years.”

“And you never saw our great-grand-aunt Elizabeth, did you?” Betty inquired. “I think we’ve asked you before.”

“No,” the vicar replied. “Strangely enough, her funeral was one of the first ceremonies at which I officiated—that was in the year forty. She was very ill when I came, and refused to see me, and indeed, for several years before that, she had led a life of utter seclusion. I remember hoping for brighter days coming, for I was young then, and no misanthrope, but they never did, as the elder of her two nephews took a dislike to the place, which his son—a grandson now—seems to have inherited!”

“I wonder how it would have been if our grandfather—her younger nephew—had come in for it, as she led him to expect,” said Frances. “Of course, you know all about that, Mr Ferraby?”

“Very different, I expect,” said the vicar. “I often wish there was a law against pluralists of estates, as well as of livings. When a man has only one place, you see, it is his home, and that insures his interest in it. Putting aside my natural wish that the big house here were your home, I really do feel it a terrible loss that its owner should be such a complete absentee.”

“It is very wrong,” said Frances, “wrong of Mr Morion, I mean, never to come here, even though there are not many tenants. I should be glad to have an opportunity of saying so to him. You heard of the talk there was a little while ago of some of his connections coming here for a time, I suppose, Mr Ferraby?”

“Yes,” the vicar replied, “and I began to build some hopes on it, and was disappointed to hear it had ended in nothing.”

He glanced round the whole building as he spoke.

“I should like to see this church in better condition,” he went on. “Not that I go in for new-fangled ways, but a good deal could be done without trenching on such ground. I can’t say that it is substantially out of repair, but Mr Milne only advises what is absolutely necessary, and unless Mr Morion came down here enough to get to care for the place, I can hope for nothing more.”

“Is it any prejudice against the place?” said Betty, in her abrupt way. Then a curious gleam came into her eyes. “You know what the people about here say, Mr Ferraby?” she asked; “that great-grand-aunt Elizabeth ‘walks.’ I wonder if possibly, when Mr Littlewood was here, anything—of that kind, like seeing her—happened to him. For he told us his people’s coming was all but decided upon.”

The old vicar looked at her as if he scarcely understood, and Frances turned rather sharply.

“Don’t talk nonsense, Betty,” she said. “Somehow things of that kind—about a place being haunted and so on—ooze out, if one isn’t very careful, and I can’t see but what they may do mischief.”

Mr Ferraby looked at her approvingly.

“I quite agree with you, Frances,” he said: “though certainly nobody would accuse the good folk about here of too much imagination or nerves. Hard work have I to impress them in any way, yet it is an undoubted fact that stolid souls of this kind are often absurdly superstitious. They are too conservative, perhaps, or too stupid, to invent new ideas. If they would hark back a little further still, one would have better ground to work upon.”

“Mr Ferraby,” said Betty, “you’re becoming quite a Radical.”

“No, no, my dear,” he replied, “have I not just said that I wish they would retain some of the belief in the supernatural, even if mingled with some superstition, which the last century did so much to destroy? That is what I meant to imply, though I did not express it clearly. Yes,” he went on, replying to her former remark, “I have of course heard the talk about old Miss Morion’s unrestful condition. But,”—and, had it been light enough to see his faded blue eyes more clearly, a gleam of mischief, akin somewhat to the recent sparkle in Betty’s own orbs, might have been discovered—“you are not quite on the right tack. It is not the house, but this church which the poor lady is said to frequent. Indeed, the very spot where we are seated is said to be her favourite resort.”

Betty almost screamed, and even Frances and Eira involuntarily drew closer together, for there was no denying the creepiness of their old friend’s information under present circumstances.

“No,” said Eira eagerly, “I never heard that. Have you any theory to account for her coming here? Can it be that she wants to be shriven for her misdeeds, and that she chooses the spot where, Sunday after Sunday, she accused herself of being a miserable sinner?”

“Come now, my dear,” said the old man, “don’t be too severe upon your dead kinswoman.”

“No,” said Frances, “it isn’t kind, for, after all, we don’t know that she did break her word. The will may have been stolen or suppressed.”

“I beg her pardon, then,” said Eira. “I wonder if she can hear me! Can’t you tell us something more, Mr Ferraby? Does she suddenly appear here, or is she seen coming from the house?”

“I believe,” the vicar replied, “she is supposed to come along the path they call the Laurel Walk, that leads from the side-entrance. A safe place to choose, as it is always dark and shadowy there; and her visits are not restricted to the night, though I forget what is supposed to be her favourite time.”

“Late on a winter’s afternoon, I should say,” remarked Eira. “Just such a time as this, don’t you think?”

At this Betty started to her feet.

“Eira,” she said, “you are very, very unkind, and—Mr Ferraby, you don’t know how she tries to frighten me sometimes, though I dare say I’m very silly.”

The others could scarcely help laughing at her pitiful tone, though Frances’ ears detected that very little more would bring tears.

“Let us go,” she said; “it is getting chilly, and mamma will be expecting us.”

Betty caught hold of her arm.

“I dare not walk down the aisle alone,” she whispered, “especially with Eira behind us.”

“Eira,” said Frances, “are you coming, or will you follow with Mr Ferraby?”

“I must be off too,” said the vicar. “I am eager to tell my wife of Miss Betty’s successful search.”

So the quartette, Eira bringing up the rear, made their way to the door.

“I wish,” thought she, “I could do some little thing to frighten Betty. I know what—I will stretch out my umbrella and touch her neck with the cold end,” for there was still light enough for this piece of mischief; and she was leaning forward to put it into execution when a slight sound in the pew they had just quitted arrested her. It was that of stiffly rustling garments, as of a person clad therein rising with difficulty from a kneeling posture.

The biter was bitten!

“Mr Ferraby,” she exclaimed, clutching at his arm, “did you hear that?”

“What?” was the reply. “No, nothing; but then I am a little deaf.”

“What is it?” said Frances quickly.

Eira turned off the question with some laughing remark as to the difficulty of groping their way without misadventure; but the old vicar glanced at her curiously in the clearer light outside the porch.

“That child had better not be too confident about her own nerves,” he thought to himself. “She is looking quite pale.”

Chapter Eight.

When Things are at the Worst.

There was no waiting for tea this afternoon; on the contrary, when the three girls reached home, tea was waiting for them, and, beside the table, their mother, with unmistakable annoyance in her face.

“Why have you stayed out so late?” she questioned. “You know how it vexes your father; in fact, he has had tea and has gone back to the study.”

“I am very sorry, mamma,” said Frances. “It was thoughtless of me. We have been in the church with Mr Ferraby,” and she went on to relate the little incident of the lost brooch, and how cleverly Betty had found it, thinking that it would distract Lady Emma’s attention—in which hope she was not disappointed; so well did she succeed in gaining her mother’s interest that, under cover of the little narrative, Betty was able to steal from the room with the teapot and to obtain a fresh supply, without risk of tannin poisoning, unobserved.

Tea over, Betty and Eira disappeared, as was their habit, leaving Frances to entertain their mother, during what—in a very small country house, above all, one in which the family party is but seldom unbroken—is perhaps the dreariest hour of the twenty-four which make up a winter’s day and night.

Frances’ spirits rose on finding that her mother’s annoyance had been but passing. For half a minute she felt tempted to relate to her their conversation with the vicar, but on second thought she decided that it was better to avoid the always sore subject of the Craig-Morion inheritance. So she went on talking lightly and pleasantly on ordinary topics.

“I told you of Mrs Ramsay’s letter, did I not, mamma? She really seems to have fallen on her feet, and to be quite happy as a colonist’s wife.”

“Yes,” her mother agreed, with a little shudder, “though to me it is perfectly incomprehensible how any one, any lady—and Miss O’Hara was essentially a lady—can endure it.”

“She was so brave,” said Frances. “I often think, mamma, that I owe a great deal to her—or rather, to go to the root of it, to you, for choosing her so well.”

Her mother looked gratified. To do her justice, in spite of her cold reticence of manner, she was easily gratified, especially by any expression of appreciation from her eldest daughter.

“Her coming to us,” she said, “was really more good luck than good management on my part, and I do believe she was happier with us than she could have been in many other families. She knew that I understood her position—in a sense,” with a little sigh, “not unlike my own. We poor Irish always sympathise with each other, whatever our faults are. I often wish Miss O’Hara—no, I really must say Mrs Ramsay—could have stayed longer, for the sake of the two younger ones, except, of course, that had she not married it would have been too much of a sacrifice to expect of her—the staying on, I mean, at a still smaller salary.”

“Perhaps it was all for the best,” said Frances cheerfully, if tritely. “The teaching Betty and Eira was an immense interest to me; and I can never be thankful enough that I had it. Indeed, sometimes, mamma,”—she stopped, hesitating. “May I tell you something I have been thinking about?” she went on, for it seemed just then one of the occasions on which her mother and herself were drawn together in fuller sympathy than often happened.

“Of course,” replied Lady Emma. “Why need you hesitate? I am sure I am always ready to give attention to anything you want to say.”

“It is about Betty and Eira,” said Frances. “Sometimes it does seem to me that we look upon them still too much as children; that they haven’t enough interest—responsibility—I scarcely know what to call it, for they are not idle exactly.”

Lady Emma sighed.

“Oh, my dear Frances,” she said, “I don’t think there’s any use in your worrying yourself or me about that sort of thing. It is simply a bit of the whole—inevitable, as we are placed. At their age, of course, girls of our class are usually absorbed by amusement and society—too much so, I dare say, in many cases. But still there it is, and I hope I should have steered clear of letting them spend their lives in empty frivolity in other circumstances. I think my mother did so; for, of course, poor as we were, it was nothing to be compared with what my married life has made me acquainted with. Each of us had one or two seasons in London, and there was always a good deal going on at Castle Avone in the winter, and yet we were taught to be good housekeepers and to look after our poor people, and all that sort of thing.”

“Yes,” said Frances, “I know.” For in her more effusive moments her mother had sometimes entertained the three girls with reminiscences of the happy, careless Irish home-life, in which, to see her now, it was difficult to believe that poor Lady Emma Morion had ever had the heart or spirit to join. “Yes, I know,” Frances repeated, “it always sounds to me delightful. But it was not so much amusement that I was thinking about for Betty and Eira. That kind of thing is literally and practically out of our power. But I have been wondering if we couldn’t help them to have some more definite occupation or interest—they are both, though with such perfectly different temperaments, in danger of becoming very desultory, I fear—if not, what is even worse, discontented, and every one knows there is nothing so invigorating as feeling oneself of use to other people,” and with that she proceeded with great care and tact to unfold to her mother her simple little scheme in connection with the fisher-people at Scaling Harbour.

Lady Emma listened with attention, and not without interest, but with no brightening of expression or respondent gleam, such as had sprung out of Eira’s eyes when the plan was first mentioned. Not that Frances had expected this—even Betty, unselfish and tender-hearted as she was, had none of the latent enthusiasm which Frances often found so invigorating in her youngest sister, and which went far to balance her greater amount of self-will. And Betty had not welcomed the suggestion with any eagerness; so how could she expect anything of the kind from her mother, tired and in a sense worn out by the incessant small worries of her restricted home-life?

No, it was not to be wondered at that Lady Emma could not rise to any very great interest in philanthropic work.

“Poor mamma,” thought Frances, always ready to judge the deficiencies of others in the gentlest and most generous spirit, “she has reason enough to be absorbed by home things.” But she watched her mother’s face anxiously, nevertheless, hoping for at least conditional consent, and what furtherance of the scheme should be possible for her to promise.

And the disappointment was extreme when Lady Emma slowly shook her head.

“That’s been put into your mind by Mrs Ramsay’s writing to you on the subject,” she began, and immediately poor Frances’ hopes faded. “I can’t say that it’s the sort of thing I should at all care for you to do, though what ever I feel about it really does not signify, as your father would never allow it. Then there is the expense of it—everything of that kind costs money.”

“Very little, as I tried to explain,” said Frances; “some of the books I got for Mrs Ramsay were most inexpensive.”

“I dare say,” said her mother, touched a little, in spite of herself, at the girl’s evident disappointment. “Of course, if I had any money to spare, I should have no objection to your all acquiring a little good practical knowledge of the kind. We, my sisters and I, were by no means ignorant about household remedies. The poor people used to come to the Castle as a matter of course when they were at a loss what to do. But it was so different! The people at Scaling Harbour can send for a doctor. There is a parish doctor, I suppose?”

Frances said no more. She knew by experience that it was a mistake to enter into an argument which would only end by emphasising opposition. She had learnt for so long the philosophy of thankfulness for small mercies that she was even glad of the inferred permission to get the books, should the chance of so doing ever present itself—but for the present, yes, the outlook was dreary enough. Frances could not but own it to herself.

“It does seem hard,” she thought, “very hard, not even to be allowed to use what little talent one may have in some good, sensible direction.”

She was on her way to join her sisters when she made these reflections, though with no intention of repeating to them the conversation that had just passed. She found them in the dining-room, kneeling on the rug before the fire—at this hour of the day a safe resort, as Mr Morion, though nothing would have made him acknowledge it, indulged in a before-dinner nap, apt to be somewhat prolonged, between tea and dinner-time. Considerably to her surprise, even more to her relief, the two girls were talking eagerly, almost indeed excitedly, though their voices were low.

“Oh, Francie, I’m so glad you’ve come!” said Betty. “Do you know what Eira has been telling me? She didn’t want to frighten me, but I made her tell. Do you know she really did hear something in the church?” and she proceeded to repeat Eira’s strange experience of the sound of rustling garments in the big pew.

Frances was inclined to be sceptical; sensible people usually are when first confronted with anything of the kind. It was easily to be accounted for, she thought, considering that Mr Ferraby had just been telling that the squire’s pew was, by repute, the haunted spot.

“I dare say it was one of the stiff moreen curtains dropping back into its place again, after you had been pushing them aside,” she said. But Eira shook her head.

“No,” she maintained, with conviction in her voice, “it wasn’t the least like that. It was a slow, rising sort of sound, and it was the rustle of silk, of stiff silk—of that I am certain; at least, I mean to say I am certain that that was the impression produced on my senses.”

“You’d better write it out for the Psychical Society, it has made you so eloquent,” said Frances laughingly, though in the depths of her heart she was not a little impressed. Then came an exclamation from Betty, which, accustomed as they were to the startling suggestions she was apt to burst out with, for once really took their breath away.

“Frances,” she said, “I’ve thought of something. I’m getting nearly desperate for a change of some kind, and I feel as if I could be brave enough to do anything, especially if you and Eira will back me up. Supposing we three manage to get into the church some evening and wait for the ghost, and try to get something out of her? Would you have the nerve for it?” Her eyes gleamed with excitement, and her whole face was lighted up in a way that for the moment transformed it.

“Betty!” exclaimed her sisters, together, in amazement.

“You must be joking,” Frances added. “You, of all people, to dream of such a thing!”

“I am not joking,” Betty replied. “Just fancy, if we did find out anything. It would be worth while having one’s hair turned grey with fright to begin with.”

“Betty,” said Eira solemnly, “you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you had said such a thing this time yesterday, I should have felt quite different about it. But I can’t put into words the impression left upon me by what I heard—little as it seems. No, indeed,” and she shook her head, “I should never be able to attempt anything of the kind.”

“If you both work yourselves up about it so,” said Frances, “you will make me sorry that it has ever been alluded to. Don’t talk about it any more to-night, or neither of you will sleep. Promise me you won’t?”

“Very well,” Betty replied reluctantly, though her face fell as she gave the promise; for, although it only bound her to the avoidance of the subject for that evening, she felt pretty sure that there would be no chance of enlisting either of her sisters in her scheme. “And,” she thought to herself, “I’m afraid I should never have courage to try it alone, and without courage it would be no use, as everybody knows that unless you speak first to a ghost, he, or she, or it—why does ‘it’ seem so much more terrible?—will never speak to you!”

If it is true, as is often said, that happy times require no chronicler, it is certainly also the case in life that one has to traverse dreary, monotonous stretches of which there is literally nothing to record. This, certainly, was no new experience to the Morion sisters, but it is to be questioned if they had ever before been so painfully conscious of the almost unendurable dreariness of their general circumstances.

Nature, even, seemed maliciously inclined just now to make things worse for them. No winter sprightliness came to relieve the autumn gloom which, in this country, we have come to look upon as more or less inevitable. It was the dullest of dull weather; the very thought of Christmas seemed out of place.

“It is as if the sun had really said ‘good-bye’ to us for ever,” remarked Betty one day. “I am growing so stupefied that I think the only living creatures I now envy are dormice. Don’t you think, Eira, that Providence, if that isn’t irreverent, might have arranged for human beings to have a good long sleep of several months together, if, or when, they have absolutely nothing to do which it would in the least matter to themselves or any one else if they left undone?”

Eira’s only answer was a sigh, and even Frances, from the low chair where, for once in a way, she was sitting idle, said nothing. For poor Frances’ spirits were, at the present moment, really depressed by physical causes; she had had a wretched cold, which, though not very severe, had been sufficiently so to lower her vitality uncomfortably and disturb her usually well-balanced mental and moral condition.

She glanced at the window.

“Who would think it was Christmas week?” she said. “Actually, it comes next Friday, and this is Tuesday.”

“I had almost forgotten it,” said Eira. “What about those little things, Frances, that you said you had still to get in the village? Cards, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Frances replied, “and one or two trifles; literal trifles they’ll have to be this year, for the servants and our two or three poor people. Which of you will come with me this afternoon to help me to choose them?”

Eira looked at her doubtfully.

“Are you sure, Francie dear,” she said, “that you are fit to go out to-day? Your cold has pulled you down so.”

“Oh, it’s over now,” said Frances. “A walk will do me good. Are you coming too, Betty?”

“Would you mind if I didn’t?” said Betty; “for once I’ve got some sewing that I’m rather in a hurry about, but I will come to meet you—you won’t be very long?”

“As quick as possible, you may be sure,” replied Frances. “But, any way,” she added, with a smile, “if possibly we are later than I mean to be, we won’t expect to see you, Betty, as I know you’ve no love for being out alone when it’s getting dark.”

So they set off, and Betty, exhilarated a little by the work she hoped to finish in their absence, which had to do with her Christmas presents for her sisters, spent the first part of the afternoon cheerily enough, though by herself.

“I do feel brighter to-day somehow,” she thought, “and, after all, it’s terribly pagan not to cheer up at Christmas-time. Then, too, though it’s such a platitude, things are never so bad but they might be worse. Supposing Francie’s cold had turned into bronchitis, or something dreadful like that, and she had been very, very ill, how miserable we might have been just now! What would Eira and I do without her? Even if she married, how dreadfully dull it would be—but no, it wouldn’t, she would have a charming home of her own, and we would go and stay with her and—oh, yes! it would change everything. But I must remember I had made up my mind to give up building castles in the air!”

By four o’clock she was ready to go out to meet her sisters, her work completed and laid safely away. It was dusk, almost more than dusk, when she opened the gate and passed out into the road. But a little further on it grew lighter again, as here the trees were less thickly planted. Betty went into the park through the usual entrance, and, crossing through the shrubbery quickly, stood for a moment on a little knoll which commanded a view of the open drive from the lodge, by which her sisters would make their way.

It was light enough still to have perceived them, had they been within the park walls; but they were not to be seen.

“I don’t care to go all the way to the gates,” she said to herself. “I’m not in the humour for gossiping with the old Webbs. I’ll just walk up and down about here till I see them, or till I hear the gates clang. It is so very, very still to-day, and the ground feels harder, as if frost were coming; I could almost hear their steps before I saw them.”

But, though clear and still, it was not a bright evening. Walking up and down soon palls, and Betty stood still, half hesitating as to whether she should change her mind and go farther to meet the others.

Suddenly—most things were sudden with Betty—an idea struck her.

“I have a great mind,” she thought, “to run up to the church end of the Laurel Walk, and peep along it, just to see if possibly—oh! of course there could be nothing to see, or even to hear; but it would be rather fun to be able to tell Eira that I had done it. She couldn’t but think it brave of me, and I can certainly be back in time to meet them, before they’re half across.”

But she had reckoned without her host—that is to say, in ignorance of her own uncertainty as to the nearest way to the aforesaid Laurel Walk, for it was in a part of the grounds she seldom frequented, as it led straight from the church to a side-entrance of the big house, nowadays rarely used. Betty made two or three wrong détours—not to be wondered at, for, once in among the shrubs again, it was really almost dark; and when at last she came out at the point she was in search of she began to repent what now seemed to her foolhardiness, for the thickly bordered path in question did look from her end of its long, narrow course extremely eerie and forbidding.

“I can’t risk losing my way in those shrubberies again,” she thought. “I remember now that there is a side-path a little farther along, which will take me by a short cut out into the open again. I’ll run along as fast as I can till I come to it.”

But alas! for poor Betty. There was more than one side-path, and the first she tried, after pursuing it for some yards, only landed her more confusingly than ever in the thickest part of the plantation.

“This isn’t the right one,” she thought. “I must go back again, and rather than risk remaining hereabouts I’ll go straight to the church.”

Running just here was not an easy matter. The nervous fears which were beginning, in spite of herself, to overcome her, were once or twice dispersed for a moment by a bang against some obtruding tree or branch.

“Oh, how silly I have been!” thought Betty. “But here’s the opening into the Laurel Walk. Yes, I’d better make straight for the church.”

Something—she could not have said what—made her stop for a moment, as she turned into the path of uncanny reputation. She started—what was that? A rustle of some kind in the direction of the house, a falling branch or leaf, no doubt—all was so still! She turned towards the churchyard, walking fast, her heart beating quickly enough already, when—oh, horrors!—she heard all too distinctly the sound of a tread behind her. For half an instant she stopped in vain hope that she might have been mistaken.

It stopped.

“Shall I have strength to get out of this horrible place?” thought Betty, for she felt her limbs already all but failing her, from her now excessive trembling. But desperation gives courage. She hurried on again; again, too, the footsteps behind became audible.

“Oh,” thought Betty, “if it tries to overtake me, I shall die. If I can but keep up for half a minute more, I shall be at the little gate into the churchyard, if only—oh, if only it’s not padlocked!”

Chapter Nine.

They Begin to Mend.

Alas! for poor Betty, the little gate, her only hope of escape, was padlocked. At the first moment she scarcely realised this. She seized its upper bar by both hands and shook it violently, and for half a moment she fancied it yielded; all her faculties were confused by fright, and even the short distance over which she had run so fast had been enough to add materially to the overwhelming beating of her heart, the surging of blood into her ears, which all but deafened her.

But as her repeated shaking proved of no avail, and the tumult in her veins somewhat abated, terror notwithstanding, again, to her horror, she became conscious of the advancing footsteps behind. True, they did not sound like those of any one in pursuit; but what then?—ghosts didn’t run! The steady tread of the advancing presence was scarcely a source of consolation, till, frightened as she was, she began to perceive that the footsteps were firm and unfaltering—there was something commonplace and matter-of-fact about them, by no means ethereal or feeble, such as one would picture those of a ghostly visitor, especially the ghost of an old lady, who, in the many years during which she was supposed to have perambulated the Laurel Walk, was not likely to derive any increased energy from her fruitless peregrinations.

A sudden impulse of courage, though perhaps but the courage of desperation, flashed through Betty.

“I will face it,” she said to herself, “and know the worst.”

She turned. The advancing figure was now but a short distance from her, and—oh! thank Heaven—it was that of a man! Cold drops slowly gathered on her forehead in the intensity of her relief. At another time she might have been frightened at the very fact for which she was now so thankful. But all visions of tramps or other nefarious-minded intruders had been banished for the moment by the overpowering dread of the supernatural.

Her heart still beat uncomfortably, but she moved forward a few steps.

“This gate is locked,” she called out, trying to master the quaver in her voice. “Is that you, Webb?”—though before the name had passed her lips she could distinguish enough to make sure it was not that of the newcomer. “Have you got the key with you?”

There was no immediate reply. Then came the sound of hastening footsteps, and an exclamation of surprise.

“Is it—can it be Miss Morion?” were the first words, “or—”

“It is I, Betty Morion,” she replied mechanically, for her own astonishment was far greater than her questioner’s could have been, as regarded herself, when her eyes as well as her ears told her that he was none other than Mr Littlewood. “Oh!” she ejaculated, with a strange sense of weakness and relief, while her arms dropped to her side, “can it be you? I have been so terrified! I thought you were the ghost.”

“The ghost?” he repeated; “what ghost?” But then, seeing how really startled and upset the poor child was, he continued in a matter-of-fact tone: “No, no, I am no ghost, though dreadfully sorry to have frightened you. If I had had the least idea who it was, I would have called out before. But till a moment or two ago I was scarcely sure it was any one! Yes, I have the key of the padlock. I only arrived this afternoon, and I was going across to the vicarage to consult Mr Ferraby about a little matter. I used this short cut two or three times when I was here before. Allow me,” and he came forward to the gate, and in another moment it stood open and they passed through.

Betty, who was slowly recovering her wits by this time, glanced up half shyly at her companion.

“If I hadn’t been so frightened, I should have been still more astonished,” she said, “at seeing you. We thought—we were told that you had given up all idea of coming down here.”

“So we had,” he replied; “it’s rather a long story. I needn’t go into it all. My mother heard of another place which she thought would be better. I was awfully vexed when I went back to find it so. But it’s all right now. You will have us down here soon after Christmas. This time I have come with plenipotential powers to settle everything.”

Betty could scarcely believe her ears. What news for Frances and Eira! A real prospect of change and variety and break in their dull life at last, not to speak of the fascinating possibilities for the future which Eira and she had given up with such wistful regret.

“I—I am very glad,” she said timidly, and her words evidently pleased her hearer.

“It’s very good of you to say so,” he replied heartily. “On my side I hope you will find us pleasant neighbours. My sister—I’ve one still unmarried—is looking forward very much to coming here.”

“I do hope the weather will be better,” said Betty; “it has been—oh! so horrid since you were here, so dull and depressing.”

“It has been pretty bad all over the country, I fancy,” he replied. By this time they were at the gate of Fir Cottage. “I hope,” he continued, “that Lady Emma and Mr Morion are well, and that I may have the pleasure of seeing them in a few days. I shall probably stay on here now, as I have a visit to pay in the neighbourhood. I mean I shall not go all the way home again before my people come down. And—though I mustn’t detain you now—you will tell me the story of the ghost some day, I hope—and how you came to be wandering in search of it?”

“Oh!” cried Betty in alarm, “please don’t speak of it! Please,” imploringly, “don’t ever tell any one that I did. I should be so scolded. I was really going to meet my sisters, and it was very silly of me to go near the Laurel Walk.”

“Oh, well,” he said, “I won’t betray your confidence, but on your side you must promise to tell me all about it some day soon. Perhaps,”—with a slight touch of hesitation—“I may look in to-morrow afternoon on the chance of finding some of you at home.”

A sudden inspiration seized Betty.

“Is—is there possibly anything that you would like to ask papa about?” she said abruptly. “I am sure he would be pleased to—to be of use to you, if there were:” and to herself she added mentally, “It is the only chance of propitiating papa, I am sure, for Mr Littlewood to seem to seek his advice. He rarely has the pleasure, poor papa, of being applied to as if he were of any consequence, and he’d be gratified at it.”

Horace Littlewood was by no means devoid of tact and insight into the peculiarities of those with whom he had to do. His first blunder, as regarded the feelings of his new acquaintances, had also sharpened his perceptions with regard to them—he read between the lines, so to say, of Betty’s innocent appeal; indeed, it was not difficult to put two and two together in this case, for Mr Milne had descanted at some length on the idiosyncrasies of the master of Fir Cottage. And even kindly old Mr Ferraby had given more than one hint of the same nature, greatly influenced, no doubt, by his earnest wish that circumstances might arise to break the monotony of the three young lives in which both he and his wife felt so natural and sincere an interest. So Betty’s suggestion fell on prepared ground.

“How very kind of you to think of such a thing!” he said quickly. “Well, yes, if it were not troubling your father too much—for I know he is something of an invalid—I should be glad of his opinion on some little local matters. There is one of the keepers I don’t quite like the look of, and yet, as you can understand, I don’t want to begin by making myself disagreeable.”

“There is one, I know, that papa doesn’t like,” said Betty eagerly, “though he has been a long time about the place. Of course papa never shoots now, himself, though he used to be a very good shot. But it will be far the best for you to ask him yourself.”

And delighted with having obtained a definite message for her father, she held out her hand in farewell, and ran up the little drive to her own door, brimful of her unlooked-for news.

They were all in the drawing-room when she got in, tea half over, to say the least, and Betty’s heart went down in some apprehension of paternal or maternal reproof. But the first words that greeted her came from Frances, and, simple as they were, something in her tone carried immediate conviction to Betty that the news she was so eager to tell had already reached her sister’s ears.

“Where have you been? How did you manage to miss us?” Frances inquired. “We had quite a nice walk; it is really getting to feel more like Christmas.”

“The missing you was my fault,” said Betty. “When I first went out it was fairly light, and as I couldn’t see you in the park I strolled about a little, and came home another way. And—oh, papa, I mustn’t forget to give you a message I have for you. I met Mr Littlewood on my way in,” and as she named him she took care to avoid looking at her sisters, and to speak in a studiously matter-of-fact voice; “he has just arrived here again, and his people are taking the big house, after all. And he wants to talk over something, something private about the keepers, as to which he thought you would be so kind as to advise him if it will not be a trouble to you—though he said he knew that you are a good deal of an invalid.”

“What does he want?” said Mr Morion, and though his tone was superficially testy, it was easy for his family to discern his underlying gratification. “Is he going to write to me, or does he expect me to call on him, or what? Of course he couldn’t apply to any one who knows more about the place, and the idle lot of rascals with no one to look after them—it will be an uncommonly lucky thing for him to be forewarned.”

“Oh,” said Betty, “of course he didn’t expect you to go out of your way; he only seemed afraid of bothering you. He asked if he might call to-morrow afternoon on the chance of your being able to see him.”

“He must take the chance,” said Mr Morion, evidently by no means displeased. “If I’m well enough, I will see him; if not, he must wait till I am.”

“Is he to be here for some time?” asked Lady Emma. “And when do his people mean to come?”

“He said soon, I think,” Betty replied; “but no doubt he’ll tell papa all about it,” and then she turned her attention to the tea, which Frances, with her usual thoughtfulness, had managed to keep hot for her, though she nearly scalded herself in her eagerness to swallow it quickly, so as to leave the room on pretext of taking off her outdoor things, sure that she would at once be followed by Eira at least, if not by Frances.

And in this expectation she was not disappointed, for before she had had time to unbutton her boots the bedroom door was burst open, and in rushed Eira, followed more deliberately by Frances.

“Oh, Betty,” exclaimed the former, “what an afternoon! Just fancy you having met him, and we having heard it. The only pity is that neither of us had the pleasure of telling the other. But how well you managed to smooth down papa!”

“Eira, dear,” said Frances, “do be a little more careful how you speak. I don’t like the idea of managing or planning, though I was glad that Betty had a definite message, for of course, as the Littlewoods are coming, it would be most disagreeable, and a great loss to us all probably, if we were not on friendly terms with them.”

“Who told you?” asked Betty.

“The old Webbs, of course,” said Eira. “But, Betty, there’s some other news! Only Francie must tell you herself. You’ll scarcely be able to believe it.”

Betty turned to Frances, with intense curiosity in her eyes.

“What is it? What can it be?” she ejaculated.

For all reply Frances held out a large thin-looking envelope, from which she proceeded to extract, with great care and deliberation, a sheet or two of what is called “foreign” writing paper.

“This is,” she said at last, “a letter from Mrs Ramsay. Look, Betty,” and here she displayed a smaller slip of paper which told its own tale. “She has done it so thoughtfully,” Frances continued; “it is an English bank-note, you see. I wonder how she managed to get it out there in New Zealand? A bank-note for ten pounds, so there will be no trouble about cashing it, or anything of that sort! And, Betty, it is a Christmas present to be divided between us three! Isn’t it—oh! isn’t it good of her?”

Betty, as yet, had not gotten beyond a gasp. The full realisation of this fairy gift of fortune was still to come to her.

“You must read the letter,” went on Frances. “She doesn’t want us to tell papa and mamma; she is so terribly afraid of it vexing them. And, of course, it isn’t as if we were children now, I especially.”

“Of course not,” Eira chimed in.

“It is good of her, so good that I can scarcely believe it,” said Betty, who by this time had found her voice; “but, Francie, I don’t think you should divide it equally. I think you should keep five pounds, or four, any way, and Eira and I have three each. Think of how you gave us what you once made by your lace—and of the lace itself you have given us, which, after all, you might have sold.”

“No, no,” Frances replied. “Don’t talk such nonsense! Of course it must be in equal shares, though I’ll tell you what we might do, if you two agree to it. We might spend one pound on books and things for our ‘ambulance society,’” and she laughed, “which would leave three pounds each to do as we like with. And I certainly think you two should spend it on your clothes.”

“You too?” said Eira.

“Well, yes,” Frances agreed. “There are lots of little things, gloves and shoes, that we can scarcely do without if we are to see anything of the people at Craig-Morion—things that are matters of course for other girls.”

“Let us settle it that way,” said Betty. “If you promise, Francie, to spend your three pounds on yourself, on your own adornment, I don’t mind using the odd pound for—in a sense—charity: at least, for something which we hope will be of use to other people some day! It may bring us good luck!”

“Better than that, I hope,” said Frances softly. “A tenth is a nice proportion to spend not on ourselves!”

“Though I warn you,” said Betty again, “that I could never be of the least use in your medical or surgical lessons. I hate everything to do with illness or suffering!—unless you like to make a dummy of me for bandaging me up, and rolling sheets under me without my knowing it, and so on.”

The joke was of the mildest, but the new sensation of happy excitement made them all laugh. Then Eira got out paper and pencils, and began a series of abstruse and most interesting calculations as to how many pairs of gloves, including a possible pair each for evening wear, shoes, re-trimmings for hats, and additions to Frances’ lace for the one presentable evening dress possessed by each could, by dint of good management, be coaxed out of three pounds a head.

The result proved on the whole very satisfactory. The sisters even went the length of discussing what shops they should write to for the various treasures so unexpectedly placed within their reach.

“It is too late for to-night’s post,” said Eira, “and perhaps, after all, we had better wait till Christmas is over.”

“Yes,” said Betty, “let us each make a definite list of what we want, by—let us see—next Monday; and then, Francie, darling, you will write for us, won’t you? You would do it so much the best, and then you know the shops.”

For once upon a time, four or five years ago, the eldest sister had spent a never-to-be-forgotten fortnight in London, every detail of which was impressed upon her memory with an almost pathetic vividness.

The wonderful subject of Mrs Ramsay’s gift discussed and dismissed for the time being, Eira’s curiosity had to be satisfied as to all that had passed between Betty and Mr Littlewood, for by this time Frances had left the two younger ones by themselves.

Eira’s eyes grew round with excitement and sympathy, as Betty related the fright she had had.

“It was silly of you,” she said, when she had heard the whole, “really very silly of you to go to the Laurel Walk after dark, when you know how nervous you are. I don’t know what Frances will say when she hears about it.”

“She will say nothing,” said Betty, decidedly, “because she is not going to hear anything. You are not to tell her, Eira. I especially don’t want her to know; and, besides the delight of that money coming, I am very glad that it prevented her cross-questioning me any more about my walk.”

“But if Mr Littlewood calls to-morrow,” said Eira, “is he not pretty sure to talk about it? Or did you ask him not to?”

“Yes,” said Betty, “I did, and he promised he would not, on condition that I would tell him all about our great-grand-aunt’s ghost some time or other.”

“It’s all very queer,” said Eira meditatively. “Till the other day when Mr Ferraby told us about it, we really knew very little ourselves. But why do you specially not want Frances to know of your fright?”

“Because,” said Betty slowly, “I’ve got a curious feeling now that some day something else will happen, and I don’t want to be hedged in by promises to Frances, promises of not doing anything ‘foolhardy,’ as she would call it. Now that I have got over my fright, I feel as if I were braver than I was before! I think, if need were, I could almost make up my mind to speak to her, to the poor old thing, if I knew she were there!”

She fixed her dark eyes impressively on her sister as she spoke. But Eira shook her head.

“What are you doing that for?” asked Betty.

“Because,” replied Eira, “from what you say, from the feeling you have about it, I am more and more convinced that what I heard in the church was something real. You couldn’t possibly think of trying it again if you had felt what I did. I know I wouldn’t for worlds—not for a dozen Craig-Morions—risk meeting the ghost. And I am naturally both stronger and braver than you.”

Chapter Ten.

The Eyrie.

A tall girl was standing at the window of a drawing-room in a large house at the corner of a certain London square.

It was a good house, though with nothing very distinctive about it; one of the class that now, at the end of the nineteenth-century, people are beginning to look upon as somewhat old-fashioned. There was nothing “Queen Anne” about it, or its furniture; though, to make amends for this, it gave the impression of dignity and stateliness: perhaps, after all, the points that it is safest to aim at in a definitely town house, where light and height and air are the great desiderata. And there was nothing grim or gloomy in the colouring of the room, though a perhaps too studied avoidance of mere prettiness, which would, I fear, have been designated by its mistress as “tawdry frippery” or something analogous thereto.

And this was the home—since his father’s death, that is to say—of Horace Littlewood, who at this present moment was successfully accomplishing the afternoon call which, with Betty’s assistance, he had arranged to pay at Fir Cottage, primarily, of course, on the master of the house, whose favour he had gained to such an extent that, after a discussion of local matters in his study, his host had begged him to join the ladies of the family at tea in the drawing-room.

Madeleine Littlewood, his only unmarried sister, was the tall girl who stood gazing out into the gloom of the late winter afternoon. From the position of the house she could see more ways than one. In the square itself the lamps were now in process of being lighted. One by one she saw them twinkle out, though the result was but faint and dim in comparison with the brilliance of the adjoining street—a wide and important one, where the presence of shops made the contrast with the silent square the more striking.

The girl gave a little sigh.

“Dear me,” she said to herself, “how well I remember watching the lamplighter when we were children! We each used to try to catch sight of him first. There seemed something mysterious about him. I think it began the first winter we were ever in London; it was all so new, and then for so long we only came up in the summer, and everything was different. And now again it will be quite a new experience to be in the country for so long together in the winter. I wonder how we shall like it, and if mamma won’t find it dreadfully dull, after all.” She turned from the window as she spoke, partly because at that moment the front door bell rang sharply, and, as a rule, at this hour, she and her mother were supposed to be “at home.”

“I wonder who that is,” she thought.

She was not long left in doubt, for a minute later the door was thrown open, the butler announcing—“Mr Morion.”

“Bring the lamps,” she said, as she moved forward a little to greet the newcomer, “and let Mrs Littlewood know Mr Morion is here.”

“Horace is away, I suppose,” were the visitor’s first words.

“Yes,” she replied, “the day before yesterday; in such spirits too. He seems to be greatly taken with that eyrie of yours up in the North. He was quite disappointed when mamma gave up thought of it.”

“I hope you’ll all like it,” was the reply, though the tone was indifferent enough. “But you mustn’t blame me if you don’t.”

“Well, no!” she replied. “I can’t say that you painted it for us in very attractive colours; in fact, you have not praised it up at all.”

“I could scarcely have done so,” he said; “I know it so little. But hearing what you, or rather what your mother wanted—bracing northern air, with a touch of the sea, and to be left at peace, it would have been rather dog-in-the-manger of me not to suggest it.”

“Oh! it was very kind of you to think of us,” she replied, more cordially than she had yet spoken. “You must come down when we are there and learn to know your own home, or rather the home of your forefathers, for Horace tells me it was the cradle of your race. It is odd,” she went on, reflectively, “that you should never have cared to know it better.”

Something in her words or tone slightly jarred on the owner of Craig-Morion.

He pushed his chair back a little, and hesitated in his reply.

“A great many things seem odd to outsiders,” he said, dryly.

Madeleine smiled. Somehow, though she scarcely could have said why, for she had no real antipathy to her sister-in-law’s brother, she and Ryder Morion never “got on,” though underneath this surface antagonism each had for the other a solid foundation of respect and even liking.

“Yes,” she replied coolly, “it is not always the case that they see ‘the most of the game.’ I am afraid I am a born gossip,” she added, with a little laugh. “I like to know the ins and outs of my friends’ affairs. And oh, by-the-by, à propos of Craig-Morion, you have relations there of your own name, I hear! Do tell me something about them.”

“You could not apply in a worse quarter,” he said. “I know literally nothing of them, except that the father is a peculiar, and, as far as any personal experience of him goes, a very disagreeable man. There was an old—complication. He believes his grandfather should have inherited the place, instead of my people, though really, as it all happened ages before I was born, I don’t see why he visits it on me.”

“And does he?” inquired Madeleine.

“Well, yes, I fancy so. He was very rude to me once, at all events, and naturally that didn’t add to the attractions of Craig-Morion, for these people live almost on my own ground. But really,” he went on frankly, “there are no reasons for my avoidance of the place, except negative ones. I get into grooves, I fear, and feel lazy about things that I have not always done.”

There was silence for a moment or two, then Miss Littlewood spoke again.

“Horace has interested me in those relations of yours,” she said, “from what he has told me of them. Let me see, cousins, are they not? But not at all near? Or is the father a sort of great-uncle to you?”

“Oh, dear, no,” replied Mr Morion, speaking more briskly than he had yet done. “The father is actually of my own generation, though old enough almost to be my father. I have never counted the cousinship—it must be of the third or fourth degree by this time—in fact, as I said before, I have had little or nothing to do with them.”

Madeleine did not reply. A certain occult suspicion of unexpressed disapproval in her mind made itself felt by her companion. He glanced at her rapidly.

“They are very poor, from what Horace says,” she remarked.

“Are they?” Mr Morion answered indifferently. “I really can’t say. I don’t suppose they are rich, but there is no son, and little girls are easily educated.”

“Little girls!” repeated Madeleine, with a slight laugh. “Why, you are ignorant about them. The eldest certainly, if not the middle one, is as old as I, four or five and twenty.”

“Really?” he said, in the same tone. “I thought their father married late in life, and I am getting to an age when youth at any stage seems some distance from me. Poor girls! their life must be dull enough up there with that old bear. You may be able to show them some kindness, Madeleine. I know you are one of those people whose benevolence is somewhat abnormally developed.”

“I should like to be kind to them,” she said, simply, and Mr Morion believed her and admired her, as he often did. But yet something in her very downrightness had a slightly irritant effect upon him, and of this in return Madeleine was not unconscious.

“I wonder,” she thought to herself, “why Mr Morion and I always rub each other the wrong way? I never feel sure if he is talking in good faith or sarcastically. I suppose one must put down a good deal to the change in him caused by his wife’s death. And yet that is long ago now, and she was so very young, and the marriage only lasted a year or so. Still—” Her train of thought was interrupted by the door opening to admit her mother, who came forward with an expression of pleasure as her eyes fell on their visitor, for Mr Morion was decidedly a favourite of hers, and on the whole he preferred her society to that of her daughter, though by no means unaware of the latter’s great intellectual superiority.

Mrs Littlewood was still very pretty, though she by no means obtruded this fact, for her taste was good, and her tact excellent. As a rule, she was a very gentle woman, but a strong will underlay the gentleness, genuine though it was. She liked to be liked, and disliked making herself disagreeable, in consequence of which perhaps, when her disapproval or opposition was once aroused, it was not easily resisted.

“We have, of course, been talking about Craig-Morion,” said Madeleine, when she had provided her mother with tea. “But I can’t get much information about it.”

“I really know it so little,” repeated Mr Morion. “My chief feeling about it now is the hope that you will like it, and not be disappointed.”

“That is not likely,” said his hostess. “To begin with, I am one of those philosophical people who never expect perfection, and what we do want I think we are sure to find there: fresh, bracing air, quiet, and some amount of amusement for Horace.”

“I hope it won’t be too bracing for him,” said Mr Morion, “or too cold rather, though they do say that the first winter home from India one never feels the cold so much—still, there was his illness.”

For Horace Littlewood had but recently returned home from his regiment in the East, in consequence of an accident at polo, complicated by a sharp attack of fever, and at present his future career was, to some extent, in abeyance. His mother, whose favourite son he was, was most anxious for him to settle down in England, to which, however, the very fact of his dependence upon her—for Mrs Littlewood had been more or less of an heiress—caused him to hesitate in his consent. He hated the thought of an idle life, and was not, moreover, without experience of the love of power, but little suspected by many who imagined that they knew her well, latent in Mrs Littlewood.

“I think he will be all right,” Horace’s mother replied, “with us—Madeleine and me—to look after him, and he is very pleased with the shooting. Oh, yes, Mr Morion, I am sure we shall be quite satisfied, and, if you won’t take it on hearsay, the only thing to do will be for you to come down and judge for yourself.”

“Thank you very much,” he replied, adding, somewhat to Madeleine’s surprise, if not to that of her mother, “Yes, I think I should like to come down for a little while you are there.” For, as a rule, any invitation to Mr Morion was either politely put aside or accepted on such general terms as to leave but vague probability of his ever availing himself of it.

Mrs Littlewood glanced at him as she responded cordially that she was delighted to hear it. And across her own mind there flashed again a reviving hope—a hope which she had once cherished eagerly, though for some time past it had all but faded.

“Can it be,” she thought, “that, after all, he does care for Madeleine? They say that such things often begin by a kind of antagonism. And in many ways, au fond, they would be so well suited.”

Madeleine’s unspoken reflections ran in a very different direction.

“I wonder,” she said to herself, “if it has possibly struck him that he should know something of those poor relations of his. He is not the sort of man to shirk a duty, or even a piece of kindness, once he recognises it; but he has got into a curiously indifferent sort of way of looking at things. Lives and circumstances are oddly arranged. He is just the type of man who would have been quite happy and content, and probably more useful in his generation, had he had moderate means and been able to devote himself to study—as, indeed, I suppose he does; but then comes the question, Has he a right to do so, considering that he is a large landed proprietor, with so many, in a sense, dependent upon him?”

She looked at him, as the thoughts, as they had often done before, passed through her mind. He felt conscious of her involuntary scrutinising expression, and again he grew slightly irritated.

“That girl lives upon criticising other people,” he said to himself. “I wonder what she is inwardly arraigning me for now.”

To some extent he did her injustice; to a greater extent she was guilty of the same offence towards him. But there are people who, in obeying the command of concealing from the one hand the good deeds of the other, lose sight of the equally authoritative warning against hiding our light, humble as we may and should esteem it, “under a bushel.” And such people must often be misjudged.

“When do you think of going down?” Mr Morion went on. “I believe Horace mentioned a date, but I have forgotten it.”

“The end of next week probably,” replied Mrs Littlewood promptly, for she still kept the reins of family plans and arrangements well in her own grasp, her daughter being often in ignorance of them till the eve of their accomplishment. “Horace does not come south again—or at least only part of the way. He has an invitation to the Scoresbys for the next few days; then he will return to Craig-Morion and be there to welcome us—some of the servants go on Monday.”

“And how do you propose to employ—nowadays one is frightened to say ‘amuse’ to young women—yourself in my eyrie (I rather like the name), as you call it, Madeleine?” inquired their visitor. “Horace has his shooting, and a little hunting for a change if he thinks it worth a short journey for, and your mother quiet, and, I trust, the consciousness of invigoration. But what are you going to do?”

“Oh,” said she, “I have given no very special thought to it as yet. Of course we shall have books, as usual—by-the-by, have you a library there? And driving—we are taking down a little cart on purpose for me, and Horace is looking out for a stout pony, not afraid of hills. And—walking—I have a great idea that exploring a new country is better done on foot than any other way, and I love exploring. I expect I shall be able to make a guide-book for you of your unknown part of the country before we leave it.”

“But you cannot explore all by yourself,” said Mr Morion, “and I don’t suppose Horace will be always at your command.”

A very slight twinkle of amusement might have been discerned in Madeleine’s eyes by a close observer. She guessed that almost in spite of himself Mr Morion was leading back again to the rather delicate subject of his ignored relations, which seemed to have a kind of fascination for him. And she was not unwilling to play into his hands.

“Perhaps,” she replied, “once I have made acquaintance with them, your cousins may be good enough to accompany me in my rambles. Doubtless they know their own neighbourhood well.”

“Mr Morion’s cousins?” said her mother, before he had time to say anything. “Whom are you talking about, Madeleine? Oh, yes, I remember; Horace said something about a family of your own name, I think,” turning to her visitor, “who are living up near there. But they are scarcely within countable relationship, are they?”

“I’m afraid I have got into the way of thinking of them as not so, or rather of not thinking of them at all,” he replied. “But Madeleine has been obliging enough to remind me, at least tacitly so, that blood is thicker than water. Horace, too, has discovered that these cousins of mine, many times removed, are very poor, so on the whole I am beginning to feel rather guilty.”

Mrs Littlewood turned to her daughter with something in her manner which to Madeleine revealed a sense of annoyance, though her tone and words were gentle.

“My dear child,” she said, ignoring the latter part of Mr Morion’s speech, “you should be getting old enough by this time to realise that few of us have a mission for correcting other people. In very early youth such ideas are more excusable.”

Madeleine’s rather pale face flushed all over. She looked reproachfully at their guest.

“Mr Morion,” she exclaimed, “I really don’t think you are—” and then she stopped.

“Mamma,” with considerable appeal in her tone, “truly I don’t think that I was so impertinent as—as it sounds.”

Mr Morion felt sorry for her, and again vexed with himself.

“I was more than half joking,” he said apologetically. “Forgive me. I must be becoming more bearish than I realise. You will have to take me in hand, Mrs Littlewood.”

The elder woman smiled pleasantly.

“On my side,” she replied, “I fear I am growing very matter-of-fact in my old age. But no harm is done. Of course you have only to tell us if you wish us to make friends with the family in question. Did not, by-the-by, one of the Avone family marry a Mr Morion? The Avones, as every one knows, are terribly poor for their position, so it sounds as if it might be the same.”

“It is the same family,” answered Mr Morion. “The mother was Lady Emma Marne.”

Then the subject of the Fir Cottage people dropped, and was not again reverted to. Still the illusion to them had left its mark, in a decided amount of curiosity as regarded them, in Madeleine’s mind; some self-reproach and a touch of interest in Mr Morion’s; and a quick questioning, which darted across Mrs Littlewood’s, in connection with Horace’s name.

“I do hope,” she was already saying to herself, “that there are no pretty daughters among them. It would never do for Horace to entangle himself in any stupid way, when even Conrad, who had so much less reason to consider ways and means, made such a wise choice. But I need not be afraid. Horace is far too difficult to please to be attracted by any girl who has laboured under the enormous disadvantages of these poor Miss Morions.”

And she dismissed the unknown sisters from her mind, nor was the Fir Cottage family again alluded to, even between Madeleine and herself, when Mr Morion had taken his leave.

Madeleine thought about them, nevertheless, a good deal. She had extracted a certain amount of information from her brother—more than she had mentioned to the owner of Craig-Morion, more than she thought it expedient to retail to Mrs Littlewood. For while she thoroughly, and with reason, trusted her mother and greatly admired her, she had learnt by long experience that even with those nearest and dearest “least said is” not unfrequently “soonest mended.” There were directions of thought in which she felt intuitively that their two minds would not run together. For Madeleine, beneath her calm, occasionally, in appearance, almost too composed and self-contained manner, was at heart enthusiastic, eager, and impetuous. She knew this well, however; she was on her guard, and thus the very fact of her impressionable nature made her appear cold and even “stand-off,” while Mrs Littlewood’s though not unreal or insincere of its kind, often misled others into stigmatising the daughter as hard and dictatorial—“laying down the law” to the mother, with whom, in point of fact, she very rarely ventured to disagree, whose slightest wish or opinion was weighted for her with authority, but rarely, nowadays, existent in such a relationship.

Horace had not said much, after all. He had not seemed inclined to discuss the family whose acquaintance he had made the first time he went down to Craig Bay with “Old Milne.” And this of itself struck Madeleine as unlike him, and prepared the ground with her for greater curiosity concerning them. She had satisfied herself that one, at least, of the sisters was “pretty”—“very pretty, indeed, if she were decently dressed,” but beyond that, and replying to some of her questions as to the manner of living, etc, of the Fir Cottage Morions, she had found her brother more reticent than usual. Of this, the principal reason had been his own annoyance with himself for his clumsy blunder, as he styled it, to which he could not but attribute the “not at home” with which he had been met the second time he called, and which somehow he had not felt inclined to relate to his sister.

Had it been possible for Madeleine to have seen him this evening, she would have found his mood greatly changed, for, thanks to Betty’s inspiration, and the good tact of Frances and her mother, this third bearding of the lion in his den was crowned with success.

Horace left the cottage after a somewhat prolonged visit in the best of spirits, full of projects for introducing his sister and his new friends to each other—inclined, as he had never before been in his life, to see everything through very rosy-coloured spectacles.

The next few days passed monotonously enough for Madeleine. She missed her brother; the weather was wretchedly dull and gloomy; there was no interest in looking up such friends as were winter residents in London, and likely to be returning there after spending Christmas in the country, seeing that she herself was on the verge of leaving; there was no interesting shopping to do, as Craig-Morion was not likely to make great demands on her wardrobe. In short, everything seemed very flat and unexciting: an impression increased by the more or less dismantled aspect of the house in preparation for a long absence. Nothing seemed worth while, and Madeleine felt half ashamed of herself.

It was with feelings very much the reverse of those of one anticipating an “exile”—as some of their friends had chosen to call their voluntary banishment to an out-of-the-way part of the country—that both Madeleine and her mother found themselves at last fairly started on their journey.

“I don’t know how it is,” said the former, when they were comfortably seated in the railway carriage, “that I have never felt better pleased to leave London than just now; not even after a hot summer. Don’t you feel a little the same, mamma? Somehow I fancy you do.”

“Yes,” Mrs Littlewood replied, “I am glad to get away. I have a sort of longing to feel myself farther north, and, above all, free to do just as we like, and to see no one if we are not inclined for it. I suppose Conrad and Elizabeth will be coming to us, but not just yet, I hope. They are sure to prefer waiting till the days are a little longer,” and she turned to the book with which she was provided, with an evident and wise determination not to tire herself by talking in the train.

Madeleine did not regret this, for she was not inclined to talk either. After a certain point on the journey, the country was new to her, and therefore interesting, and she regretted the early falling darkness which soon hid the outside world from view.

It was quite dark when they reached Craig Bay, quite dark and very cold when they stepped out on to the platform, where her brother had no difficulty in at once distinguishing them, as they were almost the only arrivals.

It was cheering to hear his voice in welcome.

“Come on quickly,” he said, as he gave his arm to his mother, “the carriage is waiting for you, and I have made everything as comfortable as I could. You must expect a tiresome bit of hill, though at first the road is on the level; it takes more than half an hour to get to the house.”

“I am glad of it,” said Madeleine; “I want to forget everything about trains and stations, and everything civilised and modern.”

Horace laughed.

“I don’t think the absence of civilisation will be as pleasant as you think,” he said; “but it isn’t as bad as that; it is really a place where comfort and antiquity might be excellently blended.”

And when at last they turned in at the lodge gates, and a few minutes later found themselves in front of the somewhat rugged granite steps leading up to the door, and then, in another moment, inside the lofty arched hall, of which the walls were hung round with trophies of the chase interspersed with old—and, it must be confessed, rusty—armour, a great wood fire burning in the vast stone hearth, an indescribable feeling of isolation and yet homelikeness pervading all—Madeleine drew a deep breath of satisfaction.

“It is delightful,” she said, turning to her brother. “I am sure we are going to love being here.”

Chapter Eleven.

First Impressions.

Breakfast-time the next morning found the brother and sister at table by themselves, for Mrs Littlewood, of late, did not make her appearance much before noon.

“How did you sleep, Madeleine?” asked Horace. “Nothing disturbed you, I hope?”

“Why do you ask? I am not given to bad nights. I slept very well, except that I think one never sleeps quite as soundly the first night in a new place,” she replied.

“H’m-m!” murmured her brother, but there was a good deal of meaning in the inarticulate sound, and a decidedly mischievous sparkle in his eyes when she again addressed him and he was obliged to look up.

“Horace,” she said, “you have some reason or motive for asking how I slept! You must tell it to me. Are you only wanting to tease, or is there something that you’ve kept to yourself about this house? Is it supposed to be haunted?”

Mr Littlewood’s face put on an expression of preternatural gravity, but Madeleine knew him too well to be deceived by this.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I believe you are trying to invent something just to frighten me. I know your little ways of old. If there had been—” she hesitated.

“What?” asked her brother.

“I was going to say anything real,” she replied: “if there had been anything real of the kind, you would not have let us take the house, or rather Ryder Morion would not have done so without warning us.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t know,” said Horace mysteriously, with a shake of his head which expressed more than his words.

“Tell me at least what you know,” rejoined his sister, rather impatiently.

“Will you first promise me,” he replied, really in earnest, “that you won’t mention it to mother? Though she is so strong-minded, I honestly don’t think she’d like it, not having been well lately.”

Madeleine nodded in acquiescence.

“I promise,” she replied; “but do be quick.”

“Well,” he said, “to tell you the truth, up to now I know very little, but I mean to find out more, and I hope you will help me. It has something to do with an old story of the place being left away from the other branch of the family, to whom it had been promised by an ancestress. She, as far as I can make out, is credited with conscientious remorse for her misdeeds or non-deeds, and walks about a certain part of the grounds in the stupid way that ghosts always do. There, now, that is really all I know; but I am not inventing.” And Madeleine felt satisfied that he was speaking in good faith, as his story tallied with the allusions made by Mr Morion, that last time she had seen him in London, to some ancient family complications. “I know you’ve good nerves,” Horace went on, “and it may add a spice of excitement to our time here!”

“But how are we to find out more?” asked Madeleine. “It would never do to be cross-questioning the people about; that might annoy Ryder Morion seriously. Who told you what you do know?”

“Two or three people,” he replied. “The old vicar knows the whole story, I strongly suspect, but I couldn’t get much out of him. The best people to apply to, but we must do it carefully, are the Miss Morions—the other Morions, you know, at the cottage over there,” inclining his head as he spoke in the direction alluded to.

Madeleine’s interest increased.

“Would they not mind talking about it?” she asked. “Family ghosts are ticklish subjects sometimes, and in this case there really is some sore feeling still existent, it appears.”

Horace looked up in surprise.

“How do you know that?” he inquired.

And then she told him what had passed between her and Mr Morion on the subject.

“The daughters, at least one of them,” said her brother, “I know would not mind talking about it to us privately. She has half promised to tell me all she knows; but I certainly would be very sorry to allude to it to the father, or to their mother, for that matter. They are both so peculiar, though quite different.”

“Well, I hope we shall get to know the girls,” replied Madeleine, “whatever the parents are.”

“That reminds me,” said Horace, in a would-be offhand tone, “I was to tell you that Lady Emma hopes to call on my mother. Will you tell her so? She surely won’t mind having to know these people, the only ones really in the place that there would be any question of knowing. Of course there are others farther off, at the other side of the county, or, indeed, some in the next county, nearer at hand, whom we know already, the Thurles and the Laughtons—the Scoresbys are almost too far off to count—and these we can arrange to see or not, as we like, later on.”

Madeleine’s expression was somewhat dubious.

“Of course, when Lady Emma comes, mamma must see her, and return the call,” she said; “but there, as far as mamma is concerned, the acquaintance would probably end. She really does want—mamma, I mean—to be perfectly quiet here. Anything more than that, Horace, I can scarcely answer for.” And she watched with some curiosity the effect of her words.

A shade of disappointment crossed his face—as to that there was no doubt—but he threw it off quickly.

“I don’t see that that matters,” he said. “The old bear and his wife—a very submissive wife, too, I should imagine her—wouldn’t interest my mother, or be interested themselves. I believe they ask nothing more than to be left alone. But as regards the daughters—to tell you the truth, Maddie, I can’t help being very sorry for them, and it would really be kind of you to cheer them up a little.”

“I have no objection,” said Madeleine cordially; “on the contrary, it would be a pleasure and interest to me to make friends if—you are sure you are not reckoning without your host, Horace?—if—I was going to say—these girls, on their side, would care about it.”

“I am sure they would,” said her brother.

“I don’t know,” Madeleine went on. “The way they have lived may make them extra shy—proud—I don’t know what to call it!—ungetatable. But I promise you to do my best, and that carefully in every way. I don’t want mamma to begin warning me against flying into sudden friendships!—at my age it is absurd; but then, mamma never remembers that I am no longer in my first youth.”

As she said the words, something in her mind seemed to contradict them, and gradually she recalled what gave her this feeling. It was the remembrance of her mother’s remark the afternoon that Mr Morion had called, as to her no longer having the excuse of “early youth” for thinking she could set other people to rights.

“I wonder what made her say that?” thought Madeleine to herself, but Horace’s next words put the subject out of her head.

“I don’t think you need anticipate any holding back on their side,” he said. “Certainly not on the part of—two of them. The youngest is almost childlike, and the eldest, oh! she is really charming and out of the common. I am sure you will take to her.”

“And why do you except the middle one?” asked Madeleine.

“I don’t feel as if I could judge of her,” he said indifferently. “She seems a changeable sort of girl.”

“And they are all pretty, more or less, I think you said?” continued his sister.

“I don’t know that I did say so, though—well, yes, I suppose they are. But Miss Morion is the sort of person whose looks you forget in what you feel she must be in herself, and the others—they really are so atrociously dressed!” he broke off rather ruefully, and yet with a little laugh. “You won’t be hypercritical, Maddie, but I don’t know about my mother.”

Madeleine was standing looking out of the window by this time. For a midwinter day it bade fair to be a very pleasant one. The sky was clear, though the lights were thin, and in the air there was a decided touch of frost.

“I am glad to be here at last,” she said. “You are not doing anything to-day, I hope, Horace—shooting or anything? For I want you to show me all over the place.”

“I’ve kept free on purpose for that,” he answered. “Shall we go out at once?”

“No,” replied Madeleine, with some regret in her tone, “I don’t think that would quite do. Mamma may want me. I had better wait until after luncheon, except for a mere stroll near the house. And in the first place I want to see something of the house itself. Is this the only dining-room?” glancing around her as she spoke.

“Yes,” Horace answered; “none of the rooms are very large, except the hall and the library. That is really the most curious room. I can’t make it out: it seems disproportionately big, and perfectly filled with books, the most modern of which must be fifty years old, I should say. Lots of rubbish among them, no doubt, and probably some of value if we had an expert to look them over.”

“Long ago,” said Madeleine, “no books were considered rubbish. They cost too much, and the bindings were so heavy that they took up much more room. Let us go and have a look at them. Just ring the bell to let the servants know that they can come in.”

Horace led the way through a little anteroom, on the opposite side of which high doors led into the two drawing-rooms—all the rooms at Craig-Morion were lofty—down a short passage leading into a longer and wider one, then up two or three shallow steps to a sort of little dais or landing railed round with heavily carved balusters. Then, with a certain air of proprietorship, he threw open the heavy oaken door facing them, and stood back for his sister to pass in.

She gave a little cry of surprise.

“Yes,” she said, “this is quite a unique room. And oh! what a musty smell, Horace!”

The mustiness was quickly accounted for. Up to a certain height the walls were lined with books, except at one end, where two long painted windows looked out on to a dark and gloomy path among the shrubberies. The room, even in full daylight, would have been almost dark had these windows been its only source of illumination. But this was not the case, for the walls rose to the full height of that part of the house, and the arched roof was completed by a glazed dome, through which some rays of wintry sunshine lighted up the dusty old volumes into an almost uniform tint of orange-brown which would have delighted the eyes of many a painter.

“I wonder,” continued Madeleine, “if possibly in old pre-Reformation times this was a private chapel?”

“How clever of you to think of it!” said Horace. “It never struck me before, but it may very well have been so, I should say, though I am no archaeologist. We will suggest it to Ryder when he comes down. That gloomy walk,” and he crossed to one of the windows as he spoke, “is the short cut through the grounds to the church, which stands just outside the park wall. So the chaplain, if chaplain there was, must have found it convenient, as you see there is a door in this window.”

He opened it, and Madeleine looked over his shoulder at a short flight of broken, moss-grown steps leading to the ground.

“What a gloomy place!” she said, with a little shiver, caused partly no doubt by the sharp air which met her, “and how long and straight the walk is! I should not like, Horace, I confess, to pace up and down here in the twilight, and scarcely, indeed, at any time of the day—it can never be anything but twilight here!”

“They call it the ‘Laurel Walk,’” said her brother. “It is—” but he stopped short, and Madeleine, who had retreated inside the room again, did not notice his breaking off.

“It’s too gloomy here,” she said. “Why isn’t there a fire? A huge fire would mend matters a little and be good for the books too, though the room does not seem damp, I must say.”

“No,” Horace replied, “the whole place is wonderfully dry. You see, it has splendid natural drainage from standing so high. There is a fire once a week or so, I believe, but we can have one every day if you like, though I fear the books, if there are any valuable ones, are gone past redemption with the long neglect.”

“I should like to get to the brighter part of the house—the other side,” said Madeleine, moving towards the door by which they had entered; but, to her surprise, Horace crossed the room to the other corner—that farthest from the windows, and appeared to be fumbling among the book-shelves.

“Oh come,” she said impatiently, “it is so cold, and I don’t want my first impression of the house to be a gloomy one.”

“Nor do I,” he answered; and then, glancing in his direction, Madeleine was almost startled by a sudden glow of light and warmth behind him. “You don’t call this gloomy,” he proceeded, and Madeleine, hastening forward, saw that his apparent fumbling among the books had in reality been the feeling for a spring, by which to open a door, concealed by rows of “dummy” volumes, which now stood wide open, giving access to a cosy and inviting looking sanctum or smaller library, where a splendid fire was burning, and where, moreover—for this was at an angle of the building—the morning sun penetrated brightly, through windows facing east and south.

“Oh, how charming!” cried Madeleine, hurrying over to the fireplace. “Is this where you have established yourself, Horace?”

“Yes,” he replied, “hence my intimate acquaintance with the library, and the short cut down the Laurel Walk. This is one of the jolliest rooms in the house, and you see I’ve got all my own belongings here already. And you don’t know all its attractions yet! There is a hidden door in the corner here too, opening on to a private staircase up to a couple of capital rooms—bedroom and dressing-room—which I’ve taken possession of. They communicate as well with the main part of the house, where all your rooms are. But it is jolly, isn’t it? I don’t believe Ryder has any idea how comfortable this old place might be.”

He seemed as pleased as any school-boy with his new quarters; and Madeleine, on her side, was girl enough to enter into the little excitement in connection with their temporary home with equal zest. She insisted on following her brother up the little staircase to see his other rooms, then down passages and across landings to the main staircase, down which they came again to visit the drawing-rooms. Of these there were two, on the whole the most attractive rooms on the ground floor, for they had windows on both sides, and though their furniture was somewhat scanty and quaint, and there was naturally an air of unusedness about them, Madeleine’s quick eye soon decided that with a little rearrangement, some high-growing plants and ferns here and there, books, photographs, and so on, it would be easy to give them a homelike and gracious aspect.

“I thought,” said Horace, “that mother could probably use the smaller one as a sort of boudoir, and if you want a den of your own, Maddie, there’s rather a nice little corner room close to where you are, upstairs. A plainly furnished little place, as you prefer, I know, for your various avocations, which don’t always find favour in the maternal eye.”

Madeleine laughed.

“Show it to me,” she said. And upstairs again they went. The little room was greatly approved of. “Yes,” agreed Madeleine, “it is just what I like. Not so very little, after all—large enough to have a friend or two at tea privately. You must hunt me up a few more chairs and a sofa from somewhere. Yes, this room is a capital idea. I can bring in any botanical spoils, or cut out my poor work, without fear of annoying mamma by my untidiness.”

“You are very untidy, you know,” said Horace, who had all a soldier’s precision and orderliness. “I don’t mean in your dress, of course, but I do sometimes sympathise with mother.”

“Oh, don’t preach, Horace!” answered his sister, for her untidiness was an old story. “By-the-by, are there any poor people about here?”

“Scarcely any in the place itself,” said Horace. “But there is a queer fishing village not far off, the old vicar tells me, full of attraction for the artistic as well as the philanthropic. The people keep very much to themselves, and are delightfully picturesque, awfully dirty, and generally barbaric.”

“Why doesn’t he look after them, then?” said Madeleine rather sharply.

“Poor old chap,” answered Horace, “he can’t. He would if he could, even though it isn’t his business. But he has plenty of work in his own parish, even though there’s very little actual poverty.”

“Of course,” said Madeleine, “the cure of souls is the same responsibility whether it concerns the well-to-do or the poor. What is the name of the fishing village?”

“Scaling Harbour. The people are supposed to be partly of Spanish descent,” said her brother, “and they look like it.”

“Is there no church, then, or mission-room, or anything?” inquired Madeleine.

Horace shook his head.

“Certainly no church; and mission-rooms don’t seem to have found their way up here. The parson at Craig Bay should look after it, I suppose! He is certainly not overburdened with money, though.”

“And whom does the place belong to?” asked his sister.

“Partly to Ryder,” Horace replied, as if rather tired of the subject. “You can tackle him about it—you generally have a crow of some kind or other to pick with him, it seems to me.”

Madeleine flushed a little.

“Don’t say that,” she began. “To tell you the truth, I fear I have already annoyed him rather about his ‘absenteeism’ as regards this place.”

Horace laughed.

“Upon my word, Maddie,” he said, “no one can accuse you of not having the courage of your opinions. It isn’t everybody—not I, I confess, for one—who would venture to pull up Ryder Morion for anything he does or does not do, or choose to do.”

Madeleine still looked annoyed.

“I think it must run in the family,” she said, in a tone of irritation.

“What—and what family?” inquired her brother.

“Bearishness,” she replied curtly—“bearishness in the Morion family, of course.” Horace shrugged his shoulders.

They were crossing the landing to go downstairs again; but at that moment Mrs Littlewood’s maid met them with a request that Madeleine would go to her mother’s room for a moment. So, telling her brother that she would join him in a few minutes for their projected stroll round the house, she left him, to do as she was asked.

Chapter Twelve.

Lady Emma “Gets it Over.”

A day or two passed. The weather fulfilled its amiable promises to the Littlewoods on their first arrival, and was all that could be desired, excepting that the cold increased.

But then, as Mrs Littlewood observed with warmth, what else could be expected up in the north, and in the month of January? For her part she enjoyed the bracing air—it was what she had wanted. Nor did Madeleine object to it: she drove with her mother in an open carriage in the afternoon, Mrs Littlewood well enveloped in furs, and she went long walks with her brother in the morning, so that before she had slept three or four nights at Craig-Morion she had already acquired some knowledge of the locality.

There came a day, however—the Friday after their arrival—when the forbidding aspect of the sky made Mrs Littlewood decide that it would be scarcely prudent to risk the possibilities of the heavy clouds, and more advisable to remain indoors. Her daughter received this ultimatum with philosophy, even though Horace was off on his own account, and not available for a walk or drive. The pony had not yet been found, though several had been interviewed. But this morning’s post had brought news of one which, according to the description, bade fair to unite all desirable qualifications, and Madeleine’s brother had gone at once—a journey of some little distance—to judge for himself as to its suitability.

Luncheon over, Madeleine, wrapping herself up warmly, started for a brisk walk to the village, which had not yet begun to pall upon her by its familiarity. Indeed, the shops were so far a source of amusement to her, combining, as most of them did, during the winter, a little of everything, including some things rarely to be found except in such “olla podrida.”

“It reminds me,” she said to herself, “of that queer little hamlet on the Devon coast, where Horace and I were sent for change of air after whooping-cough. I remember the wonderful little work-boxes, or button-boxes, with landscapes on the lid, which we considered perfect works of art, and which I am certain one could never have found in any London shops at any date. Horace and I joined together to get one for mamma, and I believe she has it still.”

She entered the shop in front of whose window she was standing, and made some trifling purchases—two or three baskets of different sizes and of rather quaint construction, which would be “just the thing,” she thought, for the treasures—botanical and others—which, even in midwinter, she seldom came home from a ramble in the country without. Then she took a fancy for some wonderful, many-coloured check material, which she caught sight of on a shelf: it was of the old-fashioned “gingham” make, and struck Madeleine as a pleasing variety for the aprons she contributed to her needlework guild. And she was much amused by finding, when she came to give her name and address for sending the somewhat bulky parcel, that doing so was quite a work of supererogation, as the well-pleased shop-woman intercepted the words of direction by a deferential, “Oh, yes, ma’am, quite right—Miss Littlewood, at the big house!”

Madeleine walked home briskly, but she had made a détour on her way to the village, and it was now later than she had imagined. As she paused in the hall on her return, intending merely to divest herself of her outermost wraps before glancing in to see if her mother was in the drawing-room, a door leading to the offices opened, and a footman—who, to tell the truth, had been posted by his superior in office, to look out for the young lady’s return, in order to pave the way for a possibly called-for mediation with his mistress—appeared, of whom she made the inquiry.

“Yes, ma’am,” was the reply. “Mrs Littlewood is in the inner drawing-room, and,” with the air of announcing an event which made Madeleine realise how far they were from London, “there are visitors, ma’am.”

“Who are they?” she inquired, with some apprehension of her mother’s displeasure.

“Lady Emma Morion and two young ladies. Bateson thought it right to say ‘at home,’ though we had no orders, owing to the name, ma’am.” But there evidently was some misgiving in his mind, not unshared by Madeleine.

“It is unlucky,” she thought, “that I should have gone out this afternoon, for I don’t want mamma to be prejudiced against these Morions, for the daughters’ sakes. Who could have thought of them calling on such a threatening day? I must do my best.” And without further delay she passed through the larger drawing-room into the smaller one, where her mother usually sat.

It was not till long afterwards—an “afterwards” bringing with it relations which allowed the tragic element to melt into the comic, on looking back to that afternoon’s history—that Madeleine fully knew the relief her appearance brought with it to the very unhappy-looking group in the boudoir.

“You came in like a ray of sunshine or a breath of fresh, sweet air,” she was told in that hereafter-to-come “afterwards.”

She meant to do her best, and she did it, and she was not one to do such things by halves. As far as “good-will” went Frances Morion was certainly not behind her; but then Frances was at a disadvantage from her want of social experience—more at a disadvantage than the quiet calm of her manner might have led one to suppose, as this only made her appear somewhat impassive and phlegmatic. Madeleine, on the contrary, forearmed by a certain amount of knowledge of the ground, discarded for once the self-containedness which was usual to her, and which she had learned to adopt as a cloak for her real impulsiveness. Nothing could have been easier, kindlier, more girlish even, without a touch of self-assertion, than her greeting of the three strangers—Lady Emma stiffly established on one end of her hostess’ sofa, her eldest daughter a chair or two off, cudgelling her brains for some observations which might possibly draw forth a spark of kin-making “nature” in the direction of sympathy from Mrs Littlewood; Betty seated at a much greater distance, dreamily gazing out into the wintry garden, apparently indifferent, in reality throbbing with disappointment for Frances’ sake at “Mr Littlewood’s” non-appearance, and at the well-bred unapproachableness of the two seniors of the party.

She had begged to be allowed to come, and Lady Emma had given in, little suspecting the girl’s real motive of hoping, by some innocent tact and diplomacy, to help the position, perhaps to “throw them together,” as Eira expressed it, seeing that it was almost a case of “three being no company.”

“For mamma and Mrs Littlewood are sure to talk,” said Eira, “and then Miss Littlewood would absorb Frances, and Frances in her usual dreadfully unselfish way would think herself bound to talk only to her, and he would feel himself snubbed very likely.”

And, alas! “mamma and Mrs Littlewood” found nothing to say; and for once even Frances seemed discomfited, and no “he” appeared, and his sister evidently did not want to make friends. For her mother forgot to mention—or refrained from doing so—that Madeleine was out.

Altogether it was a terrible fiasco, and Betty’s one great longing was to get out, and rush home, and burst into tears in the arms of the sympathetic Eira, when—the door opened, and, with it, light and life and “sugar and spice and all things nice” seemed almost immediately to pervade the atmosphere.

Madeleine’s first greeting—to Lady Emma, of course—had just that touch of deference which gratified the elder woman. Mrs Littlewood, who, to give her her due, was feeling far more conscious of being bored and stupid herself—for to tell the truth she had been more than half asleep when the visitors were announced—than of any positive irritation at them, gave an inaudible sigh of relief. Frances, when the newcomer turned to her with something in her eyes which said tacitly, “I hope you will like me, I mean to like you,” was won on the spot. Only Betty’s half-childish gravity, her big dark eyes fixing themselves on Madeleine with dubious inquiry—only Betty struck Madeleine as somewhat baffling and unresponsive. The thought darted quickly through her mind:

“I wonder if this is the youngest of the or the middle one, whom Horace spoke of as a ‘changeable sort of girl not easy to understand.’ I fancy she must be that one. She is pretty, very pretty, but the other one is almost beautiful.”

We all know how much more quickly thoughts pass through our minds than it takes to relate them. The sound of the door opening seemed still in the visitors’ ears as Madeleine seated herself in the best position for talking to Frances, and at the same time keeping an alert though dutiful eye on the two mammas.

“I am so sorry I was out when you came,” she began. “I wish I had happened to meet you in the park; I should have turned back, as I had really nothing to do of the least consequence.”

“I am very glad you have come in,” said Frances, in a tone that gave the commonplace words real meaning. “But we have only been here a few minutes.”

“What a gloomy day it is!” resumed Madeleine. “My mother was afraid of going out, though really, mamma,” she went on, turning to her, “it is scarcely colder than yesterday.”

“Do you dread the cold much?” inquired Lady Emma. “I did when we first came here, but once I got used to it a little I found it really less insidious than the damp of the winters of my own old home.”

Mrs Littlewood brightened up.

“In Ireland that was, I believe?” she inquired, with more interest than she had yet shown. “How one’s life changes! I was brought up principally abroad, a good deal in hot climates, as my father had several diplomatic appointments in South America and elsewhere, and yet now I prefer a cold, or at least a bracing, climate to any other.”

“So do I,” said Lady Emma, “though it necessitates some care. I make a rule of never staying out—” But Madeleine listened to no more—the good ladies were sufficiently launched on their way probably to as much intimacy as they would ever achieve. This reflection, however, did not trouble Mrs Littlewood’s daughter.

“It is not the least necessary,” she thought, “for them to see very much of each other. Neither wishes it, I am sure, and it will do just as well, or better, to be just on friendly terms, and leave me free to see as much as I can of the daughters, at least of this eldest one. I quite agree with Horace about her,” and she turned with a pleasant feeling of relief again to Frances, feeling at liberty now to give to her her whole attention, not troubling herself specially about the younger girl with the dreamy, just now almost gloomy eyes, who still sat gazing out of the window, as if absorbed in the wintry scene before her.

The next few minutes passed rapidly for the two elder girls. Something in Frances’ quiet eyes told Madeleine that the attraction she felt was reciprocated, and not likely to be effervescent, and already they touched upon several topics which promised to call forth their common sympathy—like glades in a forest clearing, gently lighted by the sunshine, inviting and promising further charm in exploring at one’s leisure.

Then afternoon-tea made its appearance, and Madeleine’s duties in dispensing it, tactfully aided by Frances, for still the little figure in the window sat motionless, scarcely arousing itself even when summoned to come nearer the tea-table.

“Can I help you in any way?” she—Betty—asked, half mechanically. Then, seeing that everybody’s wants had been supplied, she retreated again, cup in hand, to the corner.

“What a queer girl she seems,” thought Madeleine. “Perhaps she is only desperately shy.”

Suddenly the door opened, and Horace made his appearance. By this time the fading daylight was giving a shadowy look to the room, and for the first moment the young man’s eyes were a little at a loss. But the fire was burning brightly, and another glance or two revealed to him the position of things. It all looked very comfortable and friendly, and a feeling of satisfaction stole through him, though his manner was studiously quiet, almost deferential as he shook hands with Lady Emma and her elder daughter. Then turning in quest of Betty, whom he had early perceived by her window, to his surprise he found her flown. For with one of her sudden movements—Betty’s impulses were not confined to speech—she had darted at his entrance across the room towards the tea-table, and was now established as near to Madeleine as she could manage, looking up in her face, greatly to the latter’s surprise, with a curious air of determination to find something to talk about to her!

Considerably amused, a little puzzled, but nothing loath, Madeleine responded to Betty’s unexpectedly friendly overture.

“She is a funny little thing,” she thought. “But Horace will enjoy talking to Miss Morion;” and she devoted herself with kindly unselfishness to encourage Betty’s spasm of sociability.

“Do you care for pictures?” inquired the younger girl, so abruptly that Madeleine for an instant or two scarcely took in the sense of the words.

“Pictures,” she repeated absently, “what kind of pictures?” with the sort of smile with which one encourages a timid child.

“Oh! I don’t know exactly,” said Betty, “any kind of pictures. I—I suppose you see lots in London?”

“Do you mean in exhibitions?” said Madeleine. “Yes, of course, they are always interesting. I don’t paint myself, though; do you?”

“Oh dear, no,” said Betty, with rather unnecessary emphasis; “and I don’t know anything about pictures. I don’t think I care for them much.” And then, as she fancied that Madeleine’s head was veering in the direction of Frances and her brother, she burst out into another little rush of polite conversation.

“I have never been in London,” as if this fact was sure to enlist her companion’s interest, which, to tell the truth, it did.

“Really?” said Madeleine. “I rather envy you. I often do envy those who have not seen much or travelled much till they were old enough to understand something of what they saw.”

At another time Betty would have understood and probably taken up the suggestions in this remark, but just now her brain, by no means a deficient one, was too absorbed by one dominant idea.

“They are getting on nicely,” she thought as some snatches of the tête-à-tête a few chairs off caught her ears. “I must keep Miss Littlewood talking to me, or Eira will think me stupid when I tell her about it.”

“Frances was there once,” she said, “for a fortnight. She got to know several of the shops, which was a very good thing, wasn’t it? She wrote down the names and addresses of some of them, and just lately we have written for things—we had—” here she stopped and grew crimson, and Madeleine, wondering what could be the cause of this sudden embarrassment, said kindly:

“Yes? I hope the results were satisfactory. About Christmas-time, in the country, one seems always to have so many wants.”

Betty laughed. Her laugh was extremely pretty, and it seemed to set both her and her companion more at their ease.

“Wants!” she said, with, for the first time, some of her own natural manner. “I don’t think our wants are confined to Christmas! They go on all the year round, but—” then with a little flush again, and a mental “she looks so kind”—“I don’t see why I mayn’t tell you,” she went on aloud, though with a slightly lowered voice. “This Christmas we were so lucky. A friend—an old friend—sent us a present to spend as we liked, and you don’t know how delightful it has been! We have so enjoyed ordering things! The only fear was that mamma wouldn’t like it, but it has come all right. Frances explained it so nicely to her!”

“How nice!” said Madeleine. “That kind of present often gives far more pleasure than anything else. I remember when I was about—I suppose about your age—the intense delight of my father’s giving me money one birthday, when he had not been able to choose a gift as usual.”—“She is a dear little thing, after all,” she thought to herself: “she cannot be more than eighteen or nineteen: she is surely the youngest!”

“How interesting it must be,” she went on again aloud, “to have sisters to consult with about such things. My two sisters were the eldest of us all, and I am the youngest. They married before I grew up, so I almost feel like an only daughter at home. And you are like me, are you not? the youngest, though you still have your sisters with you.”

Betty shook her little head sagely.

“No,” she said, “I am not the youngest. Eira is nearly two years younger, just twenty-two.”

“Just twenty-two!” repeated Madeleine, “and you two years older! You don’t mean to say you are twenty-four! I can’t believe it.”

“But it’s true,” said Betty, with a smile; then, a sudden misgiving seizing her that by her way of speaking Miss Littlewood might infer that Frances’ age was more mature than it was in reality, she went on quickly: “We are all three near in age, though Frances is so much better and wiser than Eira and I—especially than I—that it often seems as if she were a second mother to us!”

“I see,” said Madeleine thoughtfully, her eyes straying in Frances’ direction. Then a smile irradiated her whole face, adding greatly to its charm. “I dare say you wouldn’t suspect me of such a thing,” she said, “but do you know, if I let myself go, I should really be afraid of getting too enthusiastic about your sister? She is so—beautiful, in the best way; beautiful with goodness as well as literally!”

Betty’s heart was now completely won.

“Yes,” she said simply, “what you say is true.”

Just then there came a little break in the conversation between Frances and her host, which had hitherto been progressing most propitiously. Horace glanced in Betty’s direction.

“Madeleine is greatly interested in this house,” he observed. “I suppose you all know it well?” and, as he addressed himself directly to the younger sister, she had no choice but to reply, and at the same moment, Frances moved to a chair nearer Madeleine’s, and the two went on with their interrupted talk.

“No,” said Betty, “not so very well, though of course we have been all over it.”

“My sister was much struck by the library,” he resumed, in his turn changing his seat for one nearer hers.

Betty’s shy eyes glanced at him questioningly with latent reproach. She knew that he knew the association that the room must have for her with the dreaded Laurel Walk, and she looked upon his avoidance of the other evening’s adventure as tacitly promised, till an opportunity presented itself of her explaining more to him.

“I don’t like the library,” she said, in a lower tone. “I don’t like that side of the house at all.”

He understood her.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, dropping his voice also. “I am not going to tease you about it, though I should like to know more of the story.”

A grateful glance out of those same eyes was his reward, and at that moment Lady Emma rose from her seat.

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, with unwonted affability. “I had no idea it was so late. Frances, my dear, Betty, we shall be benighted if we don’t make haste!”

“I hope you have plenty of wraps,” said Mrs Littlewood. “Are you driving?”

“Oh no,” Lady Emma replied, though the inquiry did not displease her, “it is nothing of a walk. Mr Morion hopes to find you at home some day soon, I was nearly forgetting to say.”

“I shall be delighted,” murmured Mrs Littlewood, not sorry, however, that the farewells to Frances and her sister obviated the need of saying more. Her eyes rested a moment somewhat coldly on Frances as they shook hands, then glanced off with more cordiality to Betty’s solemn little face.

“Good-by, my dear,” the last two words escaping her almost involuntarily. Then, to everybody’s surprise, her own possibly included, she gently touched the girl’s soft slightly flushed cheek, with a little gesture of caress in her pretty fingers. “You will come to see us again soon, I hope?”

And Betty, lifting her eyes, realised for the first time the delicate charm of “Mr Littlewood’s mother,” as she smiled in response.

“What a lot I shall have to tell Eira!” thought Betty, as she followed her mother and sister out of the room. “After all, it has gone off capitally, and I thought everything at first was turning out wrong.”

Their host accompanied them to the hall door. “You are sure you don’t mind crossing the park alone, now it is so nearly dark?” he said, with some little hesitation.

“Oh, not in the least,” replied Lady Emma, with decision; for, truth to tell, she had had enough and to spare of “society” for the time being, though on the whole it had been less antipathetic than she had expected.

“Oh dear, no, we are so accustomed to it,” Frances repeated, though as her mother walked on she was obliged to delay a moment to listen to Horace’s last words.

“There is a pony in the yard,” he said, “waiting for Madeleine to see. Otherwise I hope you would have allowed me to escort you home.”

Betty had already run on.

“Oh, we are quite right, I assure you,” said Frances. “I hope the pony will please your sister.”

Horace stood for a moment looking after them, then turned into the house again to summon Madeleine.

“Well?” he began, when they were on their way to the stable-yard. “What do you think of the Fir Cottagers?”

“I like the daughters extremely,” said Madeleine heartily, “both of them, though they are so different; and mamma and Lady Emma took to each other quite satisfactorily—quite as much as is necessary.”

“I’m glad of that,” her brother replied simply.

On their side the three wending their way homewards were discussing their new acquaintances in greater detail.

“I think them charming,” said Betty eagerly, “even the mother, and somehow I didn’t expect to like her. But didn’t she speak kindly at the end? And, oh! how pretty she must have been, Frances.”

“Yes,” agreed Lady Emma, one of whose good qualities, negatively speaking, was an absence of any spirit of small feminine jealousy. “Her daughter is not nearly so pretty.”

“But she, Miss Littlewood, has a very nice face,” said Frances. “On the whole, I am sure we shall find them pleasant neighbours.”

Lady Emma gave a sigh.

“I am glad to have got the call over, any way,” she said, in a tone of relief, adding, reflectively, “and I daresay if your father has no objection you may enjoy seeing something of the girl. It might be mutually pleasant,” mentally resolving to put things in this light to her husband, whose terror of being patronised was a mania.

Chapter Thirteen.

Growing Interests.

Pleasant bits in life’s journey are in reality not unfrequently monotonous, though this fact may not be realised at the time. This much indeed is certain: that they often leave little for their chronicler to record.

With the coming of the Littlewoods to Craig-Morion, things in general took almost at once an aspect of new and unwonted interest for Frances and her sisters. There was no longer the dreary waking in the morning to the often reiterated question: “What shall we do with ourselves to-day?” For once its few “musts” and “oughts” had been attended to, and that dutifully, there yet always remained a doleful stretch of hours to fill up as best might be, and Frances’ anxious invention was taxed to the uttermost, in winter especially, to employ this enforced leisure, healthily as well as pleasantly, for the two younger ones, whose welfare was seldom if ever absent from her mind.

Now all seemed different. For even if meetings or expeditions of some kind were not planned for every day, and even if these same little plans were of the simplest and least exciting nature, there was always the consciousness of outside interest and sociability at hand, hitherto so peculiarly absent from the young lives at Fir Cottage.

Ten to one, before Frances had left her father’s study, where most mornings she wrote to his dictation business letters, more often than not entirely works of supererogation, or while Betty and Eira were doing their best to brighten up the drawing-room with such wintry spoils as were to be had, the parlour-maid would appear with a note from the big house, asking: “If one of you would care to drive with me this afternoon, and the others meet us at tea-time in my own room?”

This of course from Madeleine.

Or Horace would make his appearance with unacknowledged calculations as to its being an hour when the great bear was not to the fore, with a proposal, were the weather specially promising, for a good walk, not seldom in the direction of Scaling Harbour; as to the increasing attractions of which unique spot more hereafter.

On these occasions the two younger sisters always found it impossible to give an answer without an appeal to their senior, and Mr Littlewood waited with exemplary patience while Eira made some excuse for penetrating into her father’s sanctum, and there conveying by means of some “family masonic” sign a hint to Frances that she was wanted.

Things fitted themselves in marvellously well and apparently without effort. The three elders of the two groups scarcely realised how much the young people were together. Horace’s utmost tact was employed to propitiate Mr Morion in various ways. Now and then he made a special call upon him, during which the ladies of the family were not alluded to, or he would ask his advice on some matter on which the elder man’s opinion was really worth having, as he himself knew. And, if her husband was content, Lady Emma, who had thoroughly learnt the lesson, not perhaps uncongenial to her temperament, of letting well alone, was not likely to make or notice rocks ahead of any description.

But there remained Mrs Littlewood, as a matter of fact the most acute and the most powerful of those concerned. She knew much more than the parents of her young neighbours, whose worldly experience through disuse had grown rusty, the possible complications that this familiar daily intercourse might initiate. But it was a rule of life with her to refrain from acting till she was pretty sure of being able to do so effectually. She contented herself negatively with reflections that “Horace knew what he was about”—“All young men were the same”—“Conrad,” naturally far more inflammable than his younger brother, “could not have done better for himself than he had done, and even Madeleine—well, Madeleine might be Quixotic and romantic in certain ways”—for Mrs Littlewood gauged the impulsive side of her daughter’s character more accurately than that daughter suspected—“but au fond she had her brother’s real interest at heart.” And, positively, Mrs Littlewood now and then exerted herself to bring a fresh element into the group. It was she who suggested Horace’s inviting his old friend, Mark Brandon, to give them a day or two on his way south from Scotland; though as far as Madeleine was concerned such a visit could result in nothing, Sir Mark Brandon not being in the very least to her taste. It was also by a hint from Mrs Littlewood as to the kindliness of such an attention that the curate-in-charge at Craig Bay was more than once invited to join their expeditions, and on the one or two occasions when Frances or her sisters were at luncheon at the big house, to make one of the party.

“For that now,” said Mrs Littlewood to herself, with the comfortable ignoring of ways and means below a certain level, peculiar to the rich, “is the sort of marriage that a sensible girl like Frances Morion should make. She would have nothing new to face considering her present life.”

But curates-in-charge, like more important people, may be led with facility to the water’s edge, and arrived there refuse all attempt to drink thereof. Mr Darnley had eyes and ears for no one except Miss Littlewood, whose growing concern as to Scaling Harbour and the grave questions of what could be done for it made her always ready to respond to the young man’s gratification in her interest in his work.

There came a day on which some self-invited guests for a couple of nights at Craig-Morion opened the way, naturally enough, to asking Mr Morion, his wife and eldest daughter to join the party there at dinner in a quite unceremonious way.

It was Horace who undertook the negotiation, for his mother hesitated not a little as to the propriety of such a step.

“The poorer people are, the prouder they are, of course,” she reminded him, “and, old-fashioned as Lady Emma is in her ideas, I should greatly dread offending her.”

“Put it upon your own health, my dear mother, and make a favour of it—a great favour of it on their side. Say how kind it would be of them to help us to entertain the Charlemonts coming to us so unexpectedly, or something of that kind. No one is cleverer than you, mother, at saying the right thing. And I’ll take the note this afternoon and see what I can do.”

“After all,” said Mrs Littlewood quietly, “we are not at all obliged to have them, and it does not matter whether they come or not except—”

Her son glanced up with a shade of disappointment on his face.

“Except what?” he said quickly. “Though not of course that you need do it unless you thoroughly like it.”

“It is really of too little consequence to talk so much about,” said his mother languidly. “I was only going to say, except that I think it might please Madeleine. She has taken to these girls a good deal, and they really are quite unobjectionable. I fancy, too, she would like to show Ryder Morion, if he comes down while we are here, that the sympathy she expressed for them has led to friendly relations.”

Horace gave a slight laugh.

“I am by no means sure,” he replied, “that Morion would look upon it in that way. It would be tacit reproach to him for his neglect of them!”

“He would not be so foolish,” replied Mrs Littlewood calmly. “He is not a small-minded man, and very likely he has been thinking over what Madeleine said”—“and,” she added in her own mind, “likes her all the better for the interest she has taken in them. Furthermore, if there were any fear of Horace’s being seriously attracted by that eldest girl, nothing would be so fatal as for me to appear to oppose it.” No more was said on the subject, at least by or to Mrs Littlewood, till the next day, and even then not till the evening, when, after the servants had left the dining-room, she looked up suddenly, with an inquiry:

“By-the-by, Horace, what about the invitation to Fir Cottage? I have had no answer.” Horace started to his feet with an exclamation of annoyance.

“Really,” he said, “I am not to be trusted. The answer was written there and then by Miss Morion and given to me, and is at the present moment, I have no doubt, in my overcoat pocket. Excuse me an instant, mother,” and he left the room to return immediately with the letter in his hand. Madeleine, as it happened, had not seen her friends that day, though she had known of her mother’s invitation.

“Oh! I hope they are coming,” she said. “You are talking about next week, I suppose, when the Charlemonts will be here?”

Mrs Littlewood did not reply till she had opened and read the note.

“Yes,” she said, “they accept. Not that I had much doubt of it. Pretty handwriting,” she went on. “I wonder how those girls got educated?” Her daughter’s face grew rather red.

“They are very well educated,” she said. “Frances undoubtedly is, and she is naturally the cleverest. Whatever the other two are, and they would certainly pass muster to say the least, they owe greatly to her. She is a model elder sister.”

“She would be a model in any relation of life, it seems to me,” said Horace, for the slight irritation which his mother’s tone had caused his sister was not unshared by him.

Mrs Littlewood’s underlying, though usually well-controlled spirit of perversity, here slightly got the better of her.

“For my part,” she said, “I confess to being very much more attracted by the younger sister. I don’t mean Eira—what a fantastic name!—she is too much of a hoyden still to please me, but by that dark-eyed Betty. There is something quite unique about her.”

Madeleine said nothing, but glanced at her brother with a certain anxiety.

“Horace is by no means a diplomatist,” she thought to herself, “if what I more than half suspect is the case,” for her glance revealed to her a slight deepening of colour through the sunburn of his face. “He is annoyed,” she went on in her own mind, “but he should not show it.” And anxious to change the subject to some extent, and at the same time to please her mother, she turned towards Mrs Littlewood quickly.

“Yes,” she said, “Betty has something very uncommon about her. I should like to see her in the evening. I wonder how she ‘lights up.’”

Her success was greater than she had expected, greater than she had dreamed of, for though her mother’s next words contained a suggestion in every way congenial to Madeleine, it was one she would never herself have ventured upon making.

“I don’t see why she should not give you an opportunity of satisfying your curiosity,” said Mrs Littlewood pleasantly. “Supposing we ask the two younger girls to come in after dinner? Gertrude Charlemont would make friends with them—she must be about the same age.” Gertrude Charlemont was only eighteen or nineteen at most, as Madeleine knew. But she did not correct her mother’s impression as to Betty or Eira’s age. “She is all the more likely to judge them leniently if she thinks of them as so young,” said the Morion sisters’ warmhearted champion to herself, with some pardonable calculation, as she turned to her mother and replied quietly—Madeleine was always afraid of laying herself open to any charge of “gushing” or exaggeration—

“What a good idea, mamma! I am sure they would be very pleased to come. Shall I ask them when I see them? It is scarcely worth while to write another note about it.”

Horace said nothing.

“Do just as you like, my dear,” Mrs Littlewood replied. “I leave it in your hands.”

And she could not have done better.

To describe the excitement caused at Fir Cottage by Madeleine’s message, delivered in a kindly, matter-of-fact tone, as if it were a suggestion of but slight importance, would expose the chronicler of these simple annals, deservedly enough, to a strong suspicion of exaggeration. So no attempt to do so will be made. All the more that the expression of this excitement had to be confined to the sisters’ own quarters, and private confabulations. For in their different ways both parents would have resented any appearance of treating the invitation as anything out of the common—Mr Morion, when by any chance such a subject as his now grown-up family’s isolation from ordinary social life came on the tapis, always speaking as if it were entirely a question of “choice” on his part; Lady Emma, though more practical, also taking for granted that only material difficulties as to ways and means were to be thanked for the exceptional state of things. And in this she was probably correct. For her husband’s eccentricities would undoubtedly have never become so marked had he been a rich man, or, even had he all the same deserved Horace’s sobriquet of “the bear,” bears are tolerated when their trappings are of gold—sometimes with really astonishing leniency.

There was from the first no opposition to the invitation of which Madeleine’s brother was the bearer. Lady Emma thanked him—or rather requested him to thank his mother—with calm equanimity.

Yes, Betty and Eira would be pleased to come, she had no doubt. That is to say, if there were no very appalling change in the weather, which would make it scarcely desirable to go out so late.

“You know,” she added, with a smile, “we are terribly rustic in our habits, Mr Littlewood. It is so seldom that anything in the way of evening engagements tempts us to leave our own fireside.”

“I suppose you have any amount of garden parties and that sort of thing in the fine season,” he said; “though you probably find them a great bore?” he added, turning to Betty.

The girl opened her eyes very wide.

“A great bore,” she repeated; “oh dear, no. I think they are delightful. But there are not many here. The Ferrabys have one on the vicar’s birthday if it is fine—that is the end of July, so it suits very well, as it is just about the time for the school feasts, and—”

A glance from Eira arrested her confidences, and Horace was left to wonder why the two entertainments coming together should be so desirable, Betty meekly accepting the reproof from her younger sister administered in privacy that she really need not say things “like that.”

“Mrs Ferraby would not like it,” she explained; “for of course I know what you were going to say—that the cakes and buns and things over came in so usefully.”

Her interruption in Mr Littlewood’s presence had been, she flattered herself, skilfully managed.

“The Ferrabys’ garden party is the dullest of any; I don’t think you need give it as an example, Betty,” she had said, and Horace listened with some amusement to her graphic description of the few neighbours within hail, who blossomed out into entertaining of even this mildest description.

“It is certainly rather an unusually isolated part of the world,” said he. “We shall be all the more grateful to you next week for helping us to amuse these good people—the Charlemonts. The daughter, by-the-by, Gertrude, is quite a nice little girl, about your own standing—eighteen or nineteen.”

This time it was Eira who was interrupted. She was just beginning a protest against being defrauded of the three or four years of seniority to the “nice little girl,” of which she was young enough to be rather proud, when Frances crossed the room with a note she had been writing to Miss Littlewood, which she wished her friend’s brother to take charge of.

“You won’t forget it?” she added, with a touch of playfulness rather new to her. Of late Frances had seemed younger; her manner to Horace was decidedly cordial and friendly—increasingly so, as they got to know each other better—and as he replied with an earnest disclaimer of any such possibility as his omitting to execute her commission, Eira’s slipper toe touched Betty’s significantly.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she said five minutes later, when their visitor had left and they were alone in her own quarters, “isn’t it delightful to see how well they are getting on?”

“Yes,” Betty replied, though there was a half-absent, almost dreamy tone in her voice. “Yes,” she repeated, rousing herself a little, “that is if—you are sure they are getting on all right, Eira?”

“Of course,” said Eira, “nothing could be better, and I really think, though I’m younger than you, Betty, that I understand some things more quickly! Indeed, more than Frances herself does! She has lived so for other people, so entirely putting herself in the background, that I dare say it will be difficult for her to realise such a thing. It will come to her,” she went on sagely, “through friendship, so to say, and anyone can see how Mr Littlewood respects her opinion, and tries to get it on all subjects. He loves talking to her, of that I am certain.”

“And Madeleine is devoted to her,” said Betty, “and she and her brother are firm friends. That must be a good thing. But, O Eira, we must make her look very, very nice the night she dines there.”

“I’m sure she will,” said Eira. “I really think I’ve got everything about her dress quite settled in my head, though there are a few points we had better not come upon to her till the last minute. The thing for her hair that we’ve ordered, she won’t be able to refuse it when she sees that we’ve actually got it. O Betty, what should we have done with all this happening but for Mrs Ramsay’s present, for you see now that we are going too, or half going anyway, we couldn’t have done without our new shoes and gloves and sashes.”

Betty looked up anxiously.

“You’ve been thinking it all over already, I see,” she said. “You do think our best evening dresses—the new white nun’s veiling ones, I mean—will do? Of course they are perfectly clean, we’ve never worn them since we’ve turned them into evening dresses, and we took such care of them last summer!”

“Oh dear, yes, they’ll be all right,” said Eira reassuringly. “Thanks, of course, to the blue sashes.” Then, with a little laugh—“Especially,” she added, “as Mrs Littlewood thinks we are only eighteen and nineteen.”

The eventful day arrived. Fortunately on all accounts, looks included, the weather was mild, and Lady Emma, with unwonted maternal solicitude, had told her daughters they were not to think of dressing without fires in their rooms. And Frances’ appearance, thanks to her two devoted tire-women, when she joined her parents in the drawing-room—where Mr Morion was already fuming, ten minutes before the time, at the anticipated unpunctuality of the fly-driver—was in itself a reward to her mother for this same unusual amount of motherly concern.

“You do look very nice, indeed,” she exclaimed, with a little rush of surprise at her own enthusiasm. “Look at her, George,” on which Mr Morion condescended to turn in his daughter’s direction.

“Very nice,” he murmured, as without entering into detail he took in the general impression of her tall, well-proportioned figure, which it would have been difficult to disguise by even the least “well-cut” of draperies. As it was, the prettily shimmering black gauze, broken only by a large bunch of violets at her waist, was unexceptionable in the almost classic of its long, straight folds, and the lovely fair hair in which glistened the little coronal of fairy plumes, which Eira’s quick eyes had picked out in a fashion plate and ordered forthwith, made up a whole which a father would have been almost inhuman not to feel proud of.

“Good-night, dears,” whispered Frances to her sisters, as she followed her mother to the fly, which, after all, had appeared to the moment. “Good-night for the time being, I mean. If you only take half as much pains about yourselves as you have done about me, papa will have reason to be pleased.”

She was feeling deeply touched by her “little sisters’” evident devotion. And for almost the first time a faint suspicion dawned upon her that their ultra concern about her appearance might have a special cause. Her fair face flushed at the mere suggestion, though it was too dark in the fly for either of her companions to notice it.

“They are dear, good little things,” she thought to herself, “but they mustn’t fancying that other people see me with their eyes. And as for me, at my age it would be too absurd to begin thinking of anything of that kind for the first time.”

But the half-unconscious confession to herself that such a warning might be salutary was significant.

As the mother and daughter, followed by Mr Morion, made their way into Mrs Littlewood’s drawing-room—the larger of the two, well lighted and beautified by hot-house flowers, so that the impression was a brilliant one—more than one pair of eyes turned in their direction, to rest for the moment with pleasure on the stately girl whose dignity of bearing was scarcely perceived ere it was tempered by the charm of her sweet expression.

“She is beautiful,” thought Horace, while Mrs Littlewood thought to herself, “I had no idea she would light up so well—I am glad that Horace must take in her mother, and not herself;” while Madeleine turned with frank delight in her eyes to a dark, grave-eyed man who was, at the moment of the Morions’ entrance, standing near the fireplace talking to her.

“Do you know who that is?” she said, with a smile, dropping her voice.

“There are three ‘thats,’” he replied dryly, smiling too. “Yes, I think I can guess, for I knew whom you were expecting—your mother, by-the-by, seemed rather taken back on my unlooked-for appearance, and I was glad to find that her only reason was the fact of my cousins dining with you to-night.”

“Then you don’t mind?” said Madeleine quickly.

“Of course not,” he said, “why should I? No, I set your mother’s mind quite at rest by undertaking to smooth down the other side also—Mr George Morion, I mean. I should have known him anywhere, though it’s years since we met. I had better go over and speak to him at once.”

“He is still taken up with mamma,” said Madeleine hurriedly. “Do wait one instant. I want to know what you think of my special friend, Frances? I have been longing for you to see her.”

Mr Morion’s eyes strayed half carelessly again in the direction of the little group where stood the newcomers.

“That is surely rather unreasonable,” he said. “I have not even heard the tone of her voice,” and he crossed the room as he spoke.

“You are contradiction personified,” was Madeleine’s mental ejaculation. “All men are contradictory, but you are the quintessence of it! I wish I hadn’t asked him what he thought of her!”

By this time Ryder Morion was gravely shaking hands with his kinsfolk—a word from Mrs Littlewood having already explained the situation to some extent.

“Yes,” he went on to Lady Emma, cleverly including her husband in what he said. “I arrived more than unexpectedly, for my letter, which should have preceded me, has not yet appeared. I am specially fortunate in finding you here this evening.”

Mr Morion the elder eyed him somewhat grimly; Lady Emma replying more graciously, though with a touch of nervousness as she caught her husband’s expression.

“You have not been here for a good many years, I suppose?” she said.

“No,” he replied candidly, “I am beginning to think it has been wrong of me, and I cannot really give any reason for it, except multifarious occupations elsewhere. And—I don’t think I have realised,” he went on, turning to Horace’s bear, “that it would have been better to give things up here more personal attention. I must not begin about private matters just now, but I am hoping,” with some slight hesitation, “I should be grateful if while I am here you would allow me to consult you a little.”

No one but Lady Emma detected the slight softening in her husband’s face at this speech.

“Are you making some stay?” was his rather abrupt reply.

“It depends on two or three things,” Ryder answered. “I scarcely know what may suit Mrs Littlewood yet, and I am always busy in my own, perhaps useless, way. But a few days, yes, I must stay a few days if possible, and I hope I may take my chance of finding you at home?”

He glanced round with the half intention of asking to be introduced to the tall fair girl, whose appearance, to tell the truth, had considerably surprised him, but he gave up the idea. Frances was seated at some little distance, and bending over her, as he stood beside her chair, was Horace Littlewood, talking eagerly.

Chapter Fourteen.

In the Old Library.

When the ladies returned to the drawing-room after dinner, two figures in white, with broad blue sashes, rose to greet them.

Frances’ face grew still brighter. She had dreaded for her sisters an entrance into an already crowded room, for such to their inexperienced eyes would it have appeared a quarter of an hour or so later, though the number of guests was in reality but a small one. In addition to the Charlemonts, father, mother, and daughter, were one or two odd men, whom Horace had managed to secure from no great distance, and a young married couple, who thought nothing of a twelve-mile drive for the sake of a little variety in what they considered the dullest of dull neighbourhoods, where they were forced to pass three months of every winter, for the sake of pleasing an elderly uncle. They, like the rest of the party, were spending the night at Craig-Morion, and the young wife had been confiding to Frances, in their progress from the dining-room, her regret that they were not nearer neighbours. For Miss Morion’s appearance and name had at once caught her attention.

“You would find it unbearable here,” said Frances, “if you think Mellersby dull. We consider that neighbourhood quite in the centre of things compared to this.”

“Oh, you don’t know—” her companion was rejoining, when her glance fell on the two expectant figures standing near the fireplace. “Who are these?” she broke off. “Parson’s daughters, no doubt.”

“They are my sisters,” Frances replied, with dignity, though not without a gleam of amusement in her eyes.

“I beg your pardon,” was the instantaneous rejoinder. “They are not like you; but very pretty—” she was going on, when a second glance somewhat modified this impression. One was pretty, the taller and fairer of the two, though in neither respect did she equal her eldest sister, but then she was evidently “very young” and would probably improve. But the other, the little slight dark one, was scarcely pretty, not noticeable in any way. And Frances, quick to perceive the hesitation, realised with disappointment that her Betty was by no means at her best. Of her, Mrs Littlewood could not have thought to herself, “How well she lights up!” Frances felt grateful to her hostess when she saw the kindliness with which she was greeting her little guest, seating her on a low chair near herself, and expressing regret at the increasing coldness of the night.

“It was really so good of you and your sister to come to us this evening,” she said; “especially as I am afraid the weather is changing.”

Betty’s dark eyes looked up in hers gratefully.

“Eira and I would have been very disappointed not to come,” she said, “and, oh! I was so glad to get here before you had all come in from the dining-room. May I stay beside you here, Mrs Littlewood, and then—” She stopped.

“Certainly,” replied her hostess, with a smile. The girl’s appealingness was a new experience to her. “But what were you going to say?—‘And then?’”

A tinge of colour crept into Betty’s cheeks, making her look prettier, at least to one close beside her; indeed, the delicacy of her features and colouring, like those of an exquisite miniature, could scarcely be appreciated from a distance, where the general effect was apt on small provocation, such as a cold day or a little extra fatigue, to fade into insignificance.

“I was only going to say,” she replied, “that if I stay near you, mamma and the others won’t think I was shy or ‘absent,’ as they do sometimes, even if I don’t talk much.”

“I will protect you then,” said Mrs Littlewood, laughing, though while she spoke she glanced round with the quick discernment of a well-trained hostess. The result was satisfactory. Lady Emma and Mrs Charlemont were getting on famously; Eira and the latter’s daughter had already, thanks to Madeleine’s introduction, coalesced; while at a little distance a group of the remaining three, Frances, her new friend, Lady Leila Bryan, and Madeleine, were talking with interest and animation. Till the men made their appearance at least, Mrs Littlewood was free to devote herself to her little favourite.

“We had an unexpected arrival this evening,” she told her, “did you know? Oh no! how could you? Your father’s cousin, Mr Ryder Morion—Mr Morion, I suppose I should say! But since we’ve been here I have learnt to associate that with your father. Ryder Morion arrived here this afternoon.”

Betty opened her eyes, profoundly interested. This was news indeed.

“Mr Ryder Morion!” she repeated. “I have never seen him. I suppose your being here has made him come. He is a relation of yours, too, isn’t he?”

“Not a relation, only a connection,” Mrs Littlewood corrected gently. “My elder son married his sister Elizabeth.”

For a second time Betty repeated the name that her hostess had just pronounced.

“Elizabeth—Elizabeth Morion she must have been. That is my name, too,” she said; “sometimes I wish it were not. We must both have been called after the same person, our great-grand-aunt Elizabeth.”

“It is a nice name,” said Mrs Littlewood, “and Betty is a charming ‘little name,’ as the French say. I am so glad it has come into fashion again. Why do you at all dislike it?”

“Because,” said Betty, glancing round her cautiously—Betty firmly believed that she was acquiring great tact and discretion—“because it was she that did all the harm to us, and caused the sort of feeling there has been ever since.”

“I have heard something of it,” said Mrs Littlewood. “But it is all so long ago,” she added soothingly.

“Yes,” said Betty eagerly, throwing discretion to the winds, “but you know they do say that in one way it isn’t so long ago. I mean—it is still there, so to speak, for they say that she”—with an instinctive glance over her shoulder—“has never left off thinking about it, and that she comes back,”—in an awe-struck whisper—“and I can’t help thinking it is true. I wouldn’t go along the Laurel Walk, and in at that library door at night, for—oh dear!” with a sudden start of horror, as she caught sight of her hostess’ startled expression, “what have I been saying? Frances would be so vexed with me!”

“Don’t look so distressed, dear; she shall hear nothing about it, and don’t suppose I am the sort of person to be frightened at things of the kind! Not that it doesn’t interest me. You must tell me all about it—some other time. But, of course, it would not do to risk a panic among the servants, and—oh, here they come—the men, I mean!”

They all entered the room as she spoke, Horace bringing up in the rear. Catching sight of the as yet ungreeted guests, he crossed at once to his mother’s sofa, and shook hands with Betty, his face lighting up as he did so, but solemn was no word for the glance with which he was greeted, as Betty instinctively crept a little closer to her hostess.

“I shall die of fright,” she thought to herself, “if Mr Ryder Morion speaks to me. And I’m so afraid Mrs Littlewood will introduce him. I feel as if he must know all the horrid things we’ve said of him behind his back ever since we were old enough to know there was such a person. And now if he knew that I’ve just been telling Mrs Littlewood stories against this place! I wonder which he is?” she went on, for her prejudice against the owner of Craig-Morion was strongly mingled with curiosity.

Her first guess fell on a good-looking, brown-haired, rather florid young man, to be, however, almost instantaneously dismissed on hearing him addressed as Hilton or some such name. And then her eyes, straying a little further, lighted on an older, darker man, less “smart” perhaps, but with something about his general bearing more calculated to arrest her attention. He was speaking to Madeleine—no, to Frances—no, after all he seemed to be more engrossed by a very pretty, beautifully dressed young woman, whom Betty, never having seen before, could not identify as Lady Leila Bryan.

“How can she? Oh, how dare she talk in that easy, merry sort of way to that grave-looking man?” she thought to herself. “I am sure he is Mr Morion, and he’s awfully frightening looking; even if he weren’t himself I should think him so. Oh, I beg your pardon,” she said aloud, with a start, as she became aware that Horace Littlewood was speaking to her, had, in fact, addressed her two or three times, without succeeding in obtaining her notice; “were you speaking to me?” she went on, while her face grew crimson.

He looked down at her with a curious expression, in which both amusement and annoyance might have been detected. Betty thought it bespoke but contempt, and her confusion increased.

“It was nothing—nothing of the slightest consequence,” he replied. By this time his mother was engaged in talking to Mr Charlemont. “I was only asking you if you would care to accompany us on a raid into the library, and that part of the house. Mr Morion—Ryder—says it is years and years since he entered it, and Bryan is interested in old books, so I’ve had it lighted up. I thought,” and here his expression grew significative, “perhaps you would like to see—the library for once at night, in cheerful company.”

Betty’s face, as she took in the proposal, was a curious study. In spite of what she had just been saying to Mrs Littlewood, the grim strange room which she had never thoroughly explored had a strong fascination for her. Sometimes when she woke in the night to a fit of tremors, her imagination would picture to itself the long, black, tree-shrouded aisle leading from the old church to the deserted wing of the mansion.

“Perhaps,” she would say to herself, “at this very moment she is creeping out at that door, down those steps, to pace up and down the Laurel Walk;” and then, too frightened even to call out to Eira, she would bury her head in the clothes, only to dream, when she did manage to fall asleep again, of the poor old ghost, for whom, in spite of her terror, she always felt an irrepressible pity. And all this of course had been much more defined since the evening when they had met the vicar in the church, and heard from him more particulars of the heretofore vague old family legend.

Joined to these private sensations was the wish to fall in with any suggestion of Mr Littlewood’s. She got up almost with a spring.

“I should like very much to come,” she said eagerly. “But, please, is Frances coming too?”

Horace smiled.

“I expect so,” he replied. “Do you need her to protect you? There’ll be three or four of us, at least.”

There were more. For Madeleine, as well as the Bryans and Mr Charlemont, accompanied them, though Eira refused the invitation with so much emphasis that her new acquaintance, Gertrude Charlemont, could not resist, when they were left alone, inquiring what it all meant.

It seemed as if Horace had had some prevision of this incursion into what he considered his own quarters at Craig-Morion. For there was a splendid fire burning on the huge hearth, which really did more to lighten up the lofty room than all the lamps and candles which had been hastily carried in, though, in spite of all the sources of illumination, more than half the walls were lost in gloom, culminating in a black expanse of dome overhead.

Ryder Morion, who was one of the first to enter, gave a little exclamation.

“Dear me,” he said, turning to his nearest companion, who happened to be Frances, “it is a queer-looking place—I had almost forgotten about it. I dare say your father could tell me something about the books,” he continued, when he took in whom he was speaking to.

“I scarcely think so,” was the rather cold reply. “I have never heard of his going through your library. It is only the second time in my life that I have entered it. Indeed, it is only since Mrs Littlewood has been here that we have got to know the house at all well,” and Mr Morion saw that he had made a mistake. But he was not of the nature to be easily baffled.

“I am sorry to hear it,” he said quietly. “But I hope it is one of the cases in which it is not too late to mend—my ways, I should add,” and here for the first time he smiled, and his cousin of the fourth or fifth degree was obliged to own to herself that the smile was decidedly happy in its effect. Somehow he was conscious of the slight thaw in Frances’ manner.

“Miss Morion,” he said, speaking for once in what for him was almost an impulsive tone, “don’t think I’m not aware of my shortcomings hitherto with regard to this place. I shall be more than grateful to you for any hints or information as to the real needs hereabouts. I have heard from Miss Littlewood how good you and your sisters are to your poor neighbours, and—”

“Madeleine—Miss Littlewood,” she began, “sees things too partially. In the first place, as you must know, there are scarcely any poor on your property; such as there are, Mr Ferraby can tell you all about far more satisfactorily than I can. And as to other things—other places in the neighbourhood—well, no, I suppose they are not more your affair than that of several other people, to whom I could not apply without seeming officious, and gaining nothing in the end.”

But through her rather curt manner he detected a slight hesitation. And in point of fact, at that moment she was asking herself if she should suppress all other feeling in the hope of gaining his interest and assistance where both were so badly needed.

“Are you thinking of Scaling Harbour?” he inquired abruptly.

Frances’ brow cleared, while her doubts vanished. Yes, this was her opportunity; there was now no mistake about it.

“Yes,” she replied, and for the first time she raised her eyes and looked at him fully and unconstrainedly, “I was.”

“Thank you,” he said quickly. “I shall not forget. Now, Horace,” he went on, turning to young Littlewood, who had got down a big book containing some very quaint illustrations which he was exhibiting to Betty on a side-table. “Do the honours, can’t you? Oh, I beg your pardon, I see you are doing them already.”

Horace looked up, but kept his place.

“What do you want me to do?” he inquired; then, without waiting for an answer, he turned to his folio again.

“Francie,” came in Betty’s clear treble, “do look here. Did you ever see such queer old figures?”

Frances crossed over to her sister’s side, not sorry on the whole that her tête-à-tête was over.

“Yes,” she said, examining the pictures with interest. “They must be about the date of—let me see—Queen Anne! or older than that?”

“It is easily seen,” said Horace, turning back to the title-page. There was no fly-leaf, but at the top was written in clear, still black handwriting:

“Elizabeth Morion: the gift of her father on the 16th anniversary of her birth.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Betty. “It was her book,” and she drew back with a little shiver.

“Don’t be silly, Betty dear,” said Frances. “It makes it all the more interesting.”

But Horace’s face expressed some concern, and he murmured something, of which the word “unlucky” was the only one audible to his companions.

“What have you got hold of over there, Horace, that is absorbing you so?” said a voice close at hand, and, glancing up, Frances saw Mr Morion standing beside her.

“Only one of these queer old books,” Horace replied carelessly, though as he spoke he turned over the pages so that the first one, with the inscription, was no longer visible. For which piece of tact both sisters felt grateful to him.

“It would have been disagreeable to have come upon the subject of the split in the family this very first time of our meeting,” thought Frances, while Betty, too, was relieved, though on different grounds.

Ryder Morion glanced at the book indifferently. Then his eyes strayed back to the other side of the room.

“I’ve found some better books than that already,” he said. “Just look over here, Miss Morion.”

Frances could not but follow him, though not particularly desirous of doing so. Horace and Betty remained where they were.

“I wish he would leave us alone,” said Betty, half petulantly. “Frances was interested in the book, and then,” with some hesitation, “she doesn’t mind about our great-grand-aunt the way I do. Do you think,” she went on naïvely, “that it can have anything to do with my being named after her, or just—just that Frances is so sensible and good about everything, and that I’m silly?”

“Frances,” began Horace, then he checked himself, and his colour deepened a little. “I beg your pardon,” he said, with a slight laugh; but Betty’s face was far from expressing displeasure. “Your sister,” he began again, “deserves most assuredly what you say of her, but you can scarcely expect me to endorse what you say of yourself.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t mind in the least,” Betty rejoined. “I am silly—very silly in some ways, I know,” and she glanced up at him with a light in her shy eyes, which illumined all the little flower-like face, as if it were a ray of sunshine. “I thought it was because of that that you turned over the pages of this creepy book so quickly.” For by this time Betty had redeemed her promise of telling Mr Littlewood all that she herself knew of the reputed ghost.

He looked gratified. Everybody likes to be credited with tact.

“I knew it wasn’t exactly a subject you cared to speak about—to strangers,” he replied.

“Less still,” said Betty, “to Mr Ryder Morion, who, besides being a perfect stranger to us himself, has to do with it, of course.”

“He doesn’t seem to have taken your fancy,” said Horace tentatively.

Betty closed her lips in a way she had which expressed more than words.

“Tell me,” persisted Horace, “I promise not to let him know. Is it a case of Dr Fell?”

“No,” said Betty, in a funny little tone of defiance, “for I do know. Besides the old reasons, just now I’m vexed with him for teasing Frances!”

Her remark, childish as it was, provoked no smile, but, on the contrary, an almost grave reply, as if the speaker were well considering his words.

“You are very, very fond of your elder sister, I see,” said he. “I suppose you have scarcely a thought apart from her?”

“Not a single one,” said Betty eagerly; then she stopped suddenly. “No, that isn’t quite true; just lately—well, for some little time, I have had a thought—some thoughts, that she doesn’t know about.” But no sooner had she uttered this sphinx-like speech than her cheeks grew crimson, painfully crimson. “Oh dear,” she exclaimed, “I wish I talked at all! I always say what I don’t mean to!”

Horace was regarding her with a very perplexed expression.

“Never mind,” he said. “Can’t you get into the way of thinking that it doesn’t matter what you say to me? I wish you would. I really am to be trusted, and—”

“What?” said Betty, the distress in her face beginning to fade.

“You don’t know,” he went on, “how I like being treated quite—naturally, as you sometimes honour me by doing—as if, so to say, you were beginning to think of me as—as an old friend.”

Almost before he had finished speaking Betty’s expression had undergone one of the sudden transformations so characteristic of her. It was all but radiant.

“How nice of you!” she said. “How very nice of you to put it like that!”

But, strange to say, though he smiled indulgently, a shadow had crept across Horace Littlewood’s face at her eager words.

“Perhaps,” he said, “we had better go back to the drawing-room,” and he glanced round to see what the rest of the party was about. Three had already left the room, Lady Leila and Mr Charlemont escorted by Miss Littlewood, who had come to the rescue on finding them mutually boring each other, Mr Bryan following them with a couple of volumes under his arm, which he meant to study at leisure. There remained Frances and Mr Morion, who were staring out through the unshuttered door-window into the blackness of the Laurel Walk, as if fascinated. And when Horace suddenly addressed her, he was startled as Frances turned to see that her face had grown strangely pale. Or was this only his fancy?

“There is something uncanny about the place,” he thought to himself. “Can they have seen anything? I shall find out afterwards from Ryder.”

For evidently, if his suspicion were true, this was not the moment for satisfying it, as Ryder Morion hurried forward at once.

“Yes,” he said, “we had better return to the drawing-room.” And somewhat to his surprise, Betty started forward at his words.

“It is getting chilly,” she said, addressing him directly. “Do let us go,” on which he naturally accompanied her; thus leaving Horace and Frances for a moment or two in the rear.

“Wasn’t Madeleine saying something about a walk to Scaling Harbour to-morrow?” began the former in a low and rather hurried tone. “If so, may I join you in it, Miss Morion? I should be glad of the chance of a talk with you.”

Frances lifted her grave eyes to his face.

“Certainly,” she said, “we quite mean to go, if it is fine.”

The words and tone were matter-of-fact and commonplace enough. Not so the inward surmises which his words, still more his manner, suggested.

For the first time Frances allowed her thoughts to entertain a possibility which till this evening she had resolutely refrained from even considering.

Could it be that her fanciful little sisters had any ground for the castle they were busily constructing, of which the foundation hitherto she would have refused to believe more stable than “in the air?”

Chapter Fifteen.

Breaking Ground.

Mrs Littlewood glanced up quickly as Betty and Ryder Morion entered the room. She was seated not far from the door, showing some photographs of her grandchildren to Mrs Charlemont. A curious expression, half annoyance, half expectancy, stole into her face as she caught sight of the two, and between handing the portraits to her friend and listening: to her comments thereupon, she managed to keep a keen though unobtruded watch on the doorway.

She had not long to wait. Scarcely a minute had elapsed before her son and Frances made their appearance. Mrs Littlewood’s perceptions and instincts were very quick: something told her that the two had been talking more or less confidentially, for Horace looked eager and slightly nervous; his companion, on the other hand, grave and almost absent, with a dreamy look in her eyes, which her hostess—little as, comparatively speaking, she knew her—felt intuitively was not Frances’ habitual expression.

“It cannot surely have come to anything serious as yet,” with a sudden rush of alarm which almost startled herself. “He would never dream of it without consulting me, dependent on me as he is, and surely I have more hold on his affection and respect than that would show!”

But the misgiving was there. Had she been a woman of less breeding and self-control she could scarcely have hidden her uneasiness. Even as it was, she did so less completely than she imagined, or else Frances herself was all but morbidly acute to-night, for as Mrs Littlewood moved to her with some polite commonplace, the girl felt that the courtesy but overlay increasing coldness and disapproval.

“She has never really liked me,” thought she, “and now she is on the way to less negative sentiments, I fear.” Nor was this belief in any way softened by the hostess’ manner when the time came for saying good-night—the difference between her kindly, all but affectionate tone to Betty and the chilly though irreproachably courteous farewell to herself was so marked.

And it deepened the impression of Horace’s words. “His mother is afraid of it,” said Frances to herself; “I can feel that she is.”

She was glad that he had kept away from her during the rest of the evening, talking more to the two younger girls, Eira and Miss Charlemont, with whom Betty had taken refuge.

Altogether, the sister’s well-balanced mind had good need of its practised self-restraint that evening. And during the drive home, short as it was, it was all she could do to reply in an ordinary way to the comments on her family’s unwonted piece of dissipation, which not unnaturally came to be expressed.

It had left a favourable impression on her father and mother; thus much Frances was satisfied to see. Beyond this she felt incapable of further discussion.

“I am a little tired, dears,” she said to her sisters as they were making their way upstairs. “Don’t let us talk over anything till the morning.” And, though with a little disappointment, Betty and Eira yielded at once to her wish.

“Frances is, don’t you think, a little strange, not quite like herself?” said Betty, when she and Eira were alone in their room. “She might have told us a little about the dinner, who took her in, and all that. We were so pleased to make her look so nice,” and she gave a little sigh.

“You are rather stupid, Betty,” was the reply. “Things couldn’t be better. Even her wanting not to talk to-night.”

“Talking” was easy to avoid, not so thinking. Frances felt, with a strange sensation of excitement, as if she were on the verge of some great change or changes in life; almost, as it were, on the brink of some discovery. And this was not solely owing to her scarcely avowed anticipation of distinct intention as regarded herself on the part of Horace Littlewood. He had not been mistaken as to the startled, strange expression on Miss Morion’s face at the moment of his suggestion that they should leave the library, which had caused her to turn somewhat suddenly from the window overlooking the Laurel Walk. She had seen, or at least believed that she had seen, something mysterious and inexplicable, and, what was more, she knew that her companion, Ryder Morion, had seen it too.

“What was that?” were the words which had escaped her in a low tone, with an involuntary appeal to him; and his reply, “Some curious reflection of the light in here, I suppose,” though intended as reassuring, had not achieved its object, not even so far as to make her feel that he was expressing his own conviction.

For what they had both perceived was no stationary gleam such as is often thrown on glass with a dark background in such circumstances: it was a faintly luminous something, slowly moving down the path towards the church, gradually fading into nothingness as it neared the little gate.

“What can it have been?” Frances now asked herself, with a shiver of sympathy for Eira, as she recalled the girl’s impressive words about the effect of “really having heard something.”

“I do feel,” thought the elder sister, though with a little smile at her own weakness, “as if I had really seen something! It looked about the height of a small woman moving slowly. Can such things be? Shall I speak of it again to Mr Morion? I have such a shrinking from any allusion to him, to that old story. No, I would rather leave it. Possibly he may tell Mr Littlewood about it, and in that way I may hear if it made any impression on him.” And with the reference to Horace, her thought grew again absorbed by the still vague surmises which his manner, even more than his words, had given rise to.

“To-morrow will give me more grounds for real consideration,” she thought. “It isn’t as if I were a mere girl who could be excused for beginning fancying things which after all may have no existence. It isn’t even as if I were one of the younger ones. I am rather ashamed of myself. After all, I doubt if I am not older than he, and in any case I probably seem so to him,” with a little sigh. “It all comes, I suppose, from this strangely isolated life of ours—things of no importance in the eyes of others seem to us so wonderful.”

Yet in spite of herself the impression was made, and deepened undoubtedly—much as this would have been regretted by the lady herself—through the unmistakable change to increasing coldness and formality in Mrs Littlewood’s bearing to her that evening.

Considerably to Frances’ relief, somewhat too to her surprise, though the former feeling prevented her dwelling on the latter, she was not subjected the next morning to any cross-examination on the part of her sisters as to her experiences the night before, previous to their own appearance on the scene. On the contrary, Betty and Eira seemed fully absorbed by the plans for that day. They had arranged more definitely than Frances knew with Madeleine and her young guest for the expedition to the fishing village which Horace had alluded to.

“They are to call for us,” said Betty, “or we for them. That is to say, we are both to start from our own doors at half-past one; most likely we shall meet in the park. You must manage, Francie, to get us some sort of luncheon before we go. We’ve asked mamma, and she doesn’t mind, if you can arrange it with the cook.”

Betty’s prevision came true. The sisters had just entered the Craig-Morion grounds when they caught sight of a little group coming to meet them.

“Dear me! what a lot of people they seem,” said Eira. “Whom has Madeleine brought? Oh, I see,” she went on, “it is only Miss Charlemont and her father and one of those other men: do you know his name, Frances?”

But Frances did not reply; indeed, she scarcely heard her sister’s remarks. For perhaps the first time in her life, she was feeling self-conscious and constrained. He was there of course, Horace, that is to say, looking his best in his rough tweed suit and brown leather gaiters, bright and eager and evidently in excellent spirits as he shook hands with his fair neighbours. Though underneath this, one who knew him intimately—his sister, had she been on the lookout for it—might have discerned a certain nervousness, of which a superficial judgment would little have suspected this very smart young man of the day of being capable.

The air was exhilarating; with one exception they were all young, and as they walked on together, the sound of their voices in lively talk, broken now and then by Betty’s silvery laugh in response to some merry speech, told their own tale, and that a pleasant one.

Frances glanced at her little sister with satisfaction.

“Betty is looking ever so much better than last night,” thought she; “perhaps she is one of those people—they are often really the loveliest—who are at their best by daylight, though as far as dress goes she and Eira are almost more at a disadvantage than in the evening,” as her eyes strayed from her sister’s neat but unmistakably “home-made” country attire to the perfect finish and cut of Madeleine’s and Gertrude’s short-skirted “tailor” costumes.

For the days are past, if indeed they ever existed, in which “anything,” however dowdy or shabbily fine, was considered “good enough” for country wear. Partly, perhaps, owing to the fact, ignored or scarcely realised, that our ancestresses at no very remote period—those who figured, and deservedly, in books of beauty or on immortal canvases—knew not what country life in our modern sense of the word really is or should be. They never walked; for who would call a stroll up and down a terrace or across a park in clinging draperies and lace “fichus” worthy of the name?

As they emerged from the lodge gates, the party fell naturally into twos and threes. Madeleine, with her usual unselfishness undertaking the entertainment of Mr Charlemont, led the way. And soon Frances, though, needless to say, by no connivance of her own, found herself to all intents and purposes tête-à-tête with Horace.

“What has become of Mr Morion?” she asked, more for the sake of saying something than from any real interest in that personage’s movements.

“I really don’t know,” Horace replied, half absently. “He’s a queer fish. He went off this morning early somewhere; that’s rather his way. When you’re staying at Witham-Meldon you never see your host till late in the day. He doesn’t mind how many people he has to stay so long as they look after themselves or each other till late afternoon or dinner-time. I have even known him stroll into the drawing-room when everybody was assembled as if he had nothing to do with it all, and greet people here and there with an offhand ‘good-morning.’”

“It must be rather uncomfortable,” said Frances, “rather as if you were all staying at a hotel?”

Horace laughed.

“Wait till you see it,” he said. “It’s splendidly managed, even though for the greater part of the year he lives in a corner of it shut up with his books. No,” warming to enthusiasm as he went on, “it is simply perfection to stay at. Besides his huge wealth, which he knows how to use, he is far cleverer than you would think in some ways. I don’t mean his learning, but socially speaking, as the string-puller, so to say. He knows how to get the right people together, and you’re always sure of somebody interesting there; and he very often has my sister-in-law—his sister, you know—to act hostess, and she is quite charming, though almost plain.”

Frances had grown interested by this time, and forgetful for the moment of her own preoccupation.

“You put Mr Morion in rather a new light to me,” she said. “Somehow I have always thought of him, if indeed I have thought of him at all, as a sort of bookworm and recluse, with no sympathy or geniality about him—indifferent to the rest of the world. That is why I have sometimes almost—” She stopped short.

“Do go on,” said Horace, with the persuasive charm of manner, sometimes quite irresistible, about him. “You know surely by this time that you can trust me perfectly?”

“It was more,” she replied, “that I felt ashamed of what I was going to say. It was that I have almost grudged him his wealth, thinking him one of those people that did not know how really to use it—for others.”

“There you wrong him,” said Horace quickly: “he is by no means selfish, or even self-absorbed—as I have good cause to know,” he added, in a lower voice, as if thinking aloud. “His manner is certainly against him,” he went on; “he gives one the impression of being much more indifferent—cynical—than he really is. In point of fact I know few men, if any, that would have been what he is in the same position; quite unspoilt by coming into all that money and property—Witham-Meldon is really princely—so young as he did.”

Frances was one of those people who instinctively respond to expressions of generous appreciation or admiration of others. There was real pleasure in her face as she turned to Horace, quite unrestrainedly now, for as the conversation went on its increasing: interest had tended more and more to make her for get her perplexing thoughts of the preceding night.

“You and he must be really friends,” she said. “He must be quite different from what I thought.”

Horace smiled, but without speaking. Then half nervously he began to flick at some withered leaves at the side of the path where they were walking, with the stick he held. And almost instantaneously Frances again became self-conscious, or conscious, rather, that her companion was feeling so.

She was right: the young man’s first words confirmed her suspicion.

“Miss Morion,” he began, “do you remember my saying last night that I should be so glad of the chance of a quiet talk with you? I hope it won’t bore you, if—if I try to make you realise a little how I am placed. I have never minded it, or thought much about it till lately, and now everything seems coming upon me at once. Not that for worlds I—I would be without these—new experiences—I would almost say, whatever the end may be! I have never in my life, I don’t think, felt really alive till now. Never so happy, and yet—the other thing too, so terribly anxious—oh! I can’t express it! I have always been a duffer at putting feelings into words. Most men are, don’t you think so?”

“Perhaps,” Frances replied, forcing herself to speak in an ordinary matter-of-fact tone, as her instinct of dignity demanded; but that was all.

“But I may explain a little to you, may I not?” he went on eagerly. “You see, I am the younger son, and entirely, or as good as entirely, dependent on my mother. And she has been a very kind mother, for I have cost her more than I should have done, and she has never reproached me. Now she wants me to leave the army, and—as she expresses it—‘settle down,’ as my brother Con has done. But, then, think of the huge difference between his position and mine. I couldn’t—I really couldn’t think of marrying for money; indeed, if I was inclined to care for a rich girl I think the fact of her being so would destroy her attraction! I am not hitting at my brother in saying this: he had plenty on his side too to offer, and he did care for Elise. The only way out of it I can see is for me to stay where I am, to stick to my profession. Then, if the worst came to the worst—it’s horribly difficult for me to say it—but if it were against my mother’s wishes, there would still be something to fall back upon. That is to say, if I was fortunate enough to find I might hope. What do you think?”

Frances was silent. She seemed to be reflecting deeply, though no one would have guessed from her quiet manner the internal tumult which his half-disjointed speech had aroused.

“Is there any necessity,” she at last managed to say, “for you to decide anything—as to your plans—just yet? It all seems to me so—so sudden.”

Her voice was low and somewhat tremulous. He glanced with a quick shade of apprehension in his honest blue eyes.

“You don’t mean to say,” he asked anxiously, “that I had better not build upon—what it all hangs on, after all?”

“I—I don’t mean to say anything,” she replied, her tone growing firmer as she went on, “to influence you one way or the other. I—naturally it is rather bewildering—it is difficult for me to take it in—all at once.”

“But you can’t but have known it was coming, that it must come?” he said questioningly. “At least I feel as if you must have known it, as if every one must! I suppose when one is so absorbed by a thing like this, it feels as if it were written on one’s very forehead. Ever since that first afternoon at your house when I was so stupid—you remember?—and thought none of you would ever look at me again—I understand now why I minded so much—ever since then, I see how it has been with me.”

Frances felt strangely touched, and the real feeling which his straightforward words evoked somehow made it easier for her to reply. She even looked up at him with a touch almost of tenderness in her eyes.

“Don’t you see,” she said, “how very difficult it is, how wrong it would be, for me to risk misleading you? I must think it over; besides the personal questions, there is the fear, the reluctance, to risk disturbing your happy relations with your mother. Indeed, they would be more than risked—she would not like it.”

His face fell.

“To some extent I am afraid you are right,” he answered. “But two people, if I may dare think of it as concerning two, are more than one, and that one not a principal in the matter. Little as you have said, Miss Morion, I thank you for that little—more even than if you had said more—for I trust your every word. The question of returning to India,” he went on, “seems to me almost decided, and for myself I don’t mind. But I have always shrunk from it for—for a wife. There is so much that goes against the grain for a girl—a woman—of refinement and all that sort of thing.”

“But,” said Frances, more timidly than she had yet spoken, “if two people really care for each other, must not that make all the difference in the world?”

Though scarcely had the words passed her lips before she regretted them; she would indeed have given worlds to recall them. Had she any right to say as much? Was it not distinctly wrong to do so, uncertain of herself and of the possibilities of her own feelings as she was? A sort of cold misgiving seemed to creep over her, which in her peculiar inexperience she was unable to explain. Was this what all girls felt or went through, she asked herself, on first actual realisation of a man’s devotion? She was gratified, touched; but was that enough? Were her motives entirely pure as regarded him—what he deserved?—or was she influenced by secondary ones, laudable enough in themselves, but to a woman of her character no longer so if allowed to interfere with the plan of the one great question—could she love him?

All this surged through her mind far more quickly than it takes to tell it. She looked up with the intention of some attempt at modifying her last speech, but what she saw in Horace’s face told her it was too late. It was illumined with pleasure.

“Of course,” he replied, “that is everything—everything. Thank you a thousand times, Miss Morion; it is more by far than I was daring to hope for at present.”

Something, an impalpable something, struck her in his words: was it his still addressing her by her formal name? All things considered, this seemed scarcely natural, scarcely consistent. A quick terror seized her that her inferred encouragement, grateful as he was for it, might have seemed premature!

“Don’t put more into my words than I meant,” she forced herself to say; “remember it was an ‘if.’”

But the radiance did not fade from his face.

“Do not deprive me of the little I have got,” he said, “and do trust me. I shall do nothing further without your full knowledge and approval.”

And again, as at that moment a summons from others of the party interrupted them, Frances felt a touch of perplexity.

Chapter Sixteen.

“I Don’t Quite Remember.”

The summons had come from one of the younger girls, for they had reached a point on the road to Scaling Harbour at which there was a question of two ways thither.

“Shall we take the sea-road?” said Eira, “or the higher one?”

Frances hesitated and glanced at Horace.

“Which do you think gives the best view, the most picturesque to newcomers?” she asked.

“The sea-road, I should say,” he replied, “decidedly so. Shall we lead the way?” he went on, addressing Betty as he hastened forward to where she, Eira, and Miss Charlemont were standing; and in a moment or two, Frances, who by this time had attached herself to Madeleine and the two other men, heard by the sound of their merry voices that Horace’s spirits were at their highest.

“How considerate he is!” she thought to herself, “so careful not to involve me in any kind of notice. I wish I could—I do hope—” but then she put it all resolutely aside for the moment; the time had not yet come for a good thorough “thinking out” of it all, and in spite of Madeleine’s evident readiness to leave her undisturbed should she wish it, she joined with seeming interest in the talk going on around her, thereby winning still more golden opinions from her friend as to her unselfishness and self-control. For the little manoeuvres by which her brother had cleverly secured the coveted tête-à-tête had been by no means unperceived by his sister.

A few minutes’ quick walking now brought the party on to what was called the sea-road; another quarter of an hour and the queer little village lay close before them. Unanimously they came to a halt.

“It is indeed picturesque,” said Gertrude, whose taste lay in the direction of sketching.

“If only it were summer—not too cold for sitting still!”

“Wait till we have gone a little farther,” said Horace. “It isn’t only the place, the people themselves will tempt you still more.”

And when they found themselves in the one straggling street, where the reddish sandstone cottages looked much as they might have done at any time since the famous Armada days, when—so ran the legend—the strange little colony had first been founded, Miss Charlemont fully agreed with him. Here and there swarthy-faced men were seated at their cottage doors, occupied in the never-failing resource of a fisherman’s “off-hours”—mending their nets. A few women looking out, or here and there gossiping with each other, had a strangely un-English air, not only as to their, in most cases, black hair and eyes, but in the very colour and tone of their carelessly adjusted garments, in which a vivid blue and almost orange-scarlet, however stained and faded, still predominated. The very children, from the tumbling-about babies to the bare-legged, brown-skinned urchins of both sexes, who, considering the cold especially, seemed to take life uncommonly easily, all shared the same distinct and peculiar characteristics.

The strangers were much struck.

“Curious,” said Mr Charlemont meditatively, “how the Southern strain is still so predominant. It reminds me of—” but his daughter interrupted him.

“It’s worth coming any distance to see,” she said enthusiastically. “Even the very smell of the place isn’t like an English village! Do you often come here?” she went on, turning to the Morion sisters.

“I don’t,” Betty replied. “I like our own poor people far better. But Frances and Eira—and Madeleine too—have taken to rushing off here this winter, as often as they can get; once or twice a week sometimes.”

“What for?” asked Miss Charlemont. “Sketching? I don’t mean out of doors, of course, but the people themselves?” and as, at that moment, a woman passing along the road—a young and handsome woman—looked up with a smile and a half-graceful, half-bashful gesture of greeting, she added, glancing at her, “Is she a model of yours?”

Frances and Eira smiled.

“Oh no,” said the latter, “we are not half as accomplished as you think us. It is for something quite different that we come. And but for Madeleine we should never have been able to do it at all.”

Eira and Gertrude were now walking together; Horace and Betty behind them. Madeleine, who was just in front, caught Eira’s words, and looked back with a smile of deprecation.

“Don’t praise me so undeservedly,” she said. “I assure you, Gertrude, it is all their doing. I have only helped in the smallest way. I don’t see how I could possibly have done less.”

“Tell me about it,” said Gertrude to her companion; and Eira, by no means unwillingly, gave her a rapid little sketch of their “plan” for helping and instructing the poor, neglected fisher-folk of this outlying little village.

Gertrude listened with interest, the greater perhaps for the impression made upon her by the uncommon aspect of her surroundings.

“So you see,” Eira concluded, with her usual frankness, “we couldn’t possibly have managed it without Madeleine’s help, though Mrs Ramsay’s money did come in for the first start. Madeleine has given us, I know, all she possibly could, out of her own money.”

“But she has plenty,” said Gertrude, though with no wish to decry one for whom her admiration was unbounded.

“Of course I know she is rich,” said Eira in a lower voice; “but then she does and helps such heaps of things already. It isn’t as if this were her home. I don’t know,” she went on reflectively, “if she will be able to continue things here when she leaves. It doesn’t do to look forward—we had never hoped to manage half we have already got done this winter.”

“But doesn’t the village belong to Mr Morion, Mr Ryder Morion I mean?” asked Gertrude, a practical little person in her way.

“Only part of it,” was the reply; “and he has never,”—she stopped abruptly. “Oh, Gertrude,” she exclaimed—for the two young things had already arrived at the Christian-name stage of intimacy—“oh, Gertrude, speak of—” and again she stopped, for at that moment down a steep, rocky path, leading on to the main street from some cottages perched above, appeared two figures, those of the part-proprietor of the village and of Mr Darnley, the Craig Bay curate-in-charge, the eager aspirant to the same post at Scaling Harbour.

He was talking eagerly, with some explanatory gesticulation, to his companion as they came along. Mr Morion, on the contrary, looked cooler, almost colder, than his wont. It was he who first caught sight of the little procession of visitors. A shade, though but a slight one, of annoyance crossed his face: he had heard something of the projected expedition, but had hoped and intended to get his own business there completed in time to leave before coming across any of the others. But his investigations, even under Mr Darnley’s experienced guidance, had taken longer than he anticipated; taken longer and impressed him more deeply and more painfully than he had been in any way prepared for. But he was not the man to show this; on the contrary, he hastened forward with more than usual alacrity to meet the party.

“So there you are,” he said, in a pleasant but somewhat nonchalant manner. “I have had the start of you, however; indeed, I scarcely expected to see you down here.”

“But you will wait, now we have met, and walk back with us, won’t you?” said Madeleine. “You don’t know the treat that is in store for us all,” she went on, turning with her hearty smile to Frances and the others. “Tea and buns! half-past three, at Mrs Silver’s! I sent down about it this morning.”

“What a good idea!” “How nice!” were the exclamations that greeted this announcement. For the walk in the keen air and the very early luncheon had naturally an invigorating effect on everybody’s appetite.

“I am specially glad to hear of it,” said Mr Darnley, “on Mr Morion’s account. I’m afraid I have used you very badly,” he went on, turning to the person in question. “We have been at it since ten this morning, and you have had no luncheon at all. Though,” with a touch of admiration and pleasure that he was too young and enthusiastic to suppress, “I must say it wasn’t all my fault, you have gone into things so very thoroughly!”

A look of real annoyance flashed into Mr Morion’s eyes at these words, to be, however, as instantaneously expelled, for he caught sight of the flush of gratification on his companion’s eager, still boyish face, and he had not the heart to snub him. One person only, of those about him, saw and understood this little by-play, and that was Frances. And often in days to come she was glad that she had done so. For the memory of it helped to obviate, or at least modify, misconstruction of a character none too easy to interpret.

“And how about your own luncheon, my good fellow?” were the words genially substituted for the cold rejoinder which had been on the speaker’s lips. “You deserve at least three buns and two cups of tea.—Yes, Madeleine,” he went on, “yours was a capital thought, and if some one will lead the way to Mrs Silver’s we shall all gladly follow.”

“It is distinguished,” said Madeleine, “by being the cleanest cottage in the place, you will be glad to hear. Indeed,” catching sight of a slightly apprehensive look on Betty’s face, “it is more than that, it is really clean.”

“Thank goodness,” Betty murmured to herself, at which Horace, who was beside her, could not repress a smile.

“You don’t share your sister’s enthusiasm for—no, I won’t say ‘slumming,’ it is such a hateful word, and has been so abused,” he said.

“Slumming?” repeated Betty, “I don’t quite know what you mean.” And she looked up in his face naïvely.

The questioning in her eyes made her look even more childlike than usual. For a moment Horace seemed to have forgotten what they had been saying; then he pulled himself together, as it were.

“I am very glad you don’t,” he said, “and of course anything your sister does would be on quite different lines from that kind of sensational philanthropy. I only meant that you have a natural shrinking from—well, dirty cottages and people, and that sort of thing! I am sure I sympathise with you in it. Any one so sensitive—”

But, rather to his surprise, Betty’s expression had grown somewhat shamefaced.

“Oh,” she said quickly, “it’s just selfishness, I’m afraid. I often think I am rather the spoilt one at home; Frances and Eira are so good, and never think about themselves. I dare say disagreeable things are quite as disagreeable to them as to me. But they always save me from them in every way. I believe it began by my not being as strong as they when I was quite a little girl. And even mamma petted me much more than the others.”

“I don’t wonder at it,” said Horace; “there are some people made to be petted, and the world would be a worse place than it is without them.”

“But,” said Betty, again scarcely seeming to notice his words, and with a funny little air of dignity, “I am really not so babyish as you might think! With such an elder sister as Frances, how could I be? I do help a little, even in what they do here. I write out a good deal. We have made large sheets of directions in printed letters of what to do in accidents and so on, copied from our books, of course, and the others say I can print better than they can. So that is something,” with a touch of satisfaction.

“Yes, indeed,” said her companion, “a pretty big something, I should say. It must be tiresome work. I hope,” he went on, with a little hesitation, “that now Ryder has seen things for himself more thoroughly than before—indeed, I doubt if he ever walked through this village before to-day—I hope that he will give some substantial help.”

“I hope so too,” said Betty dryly. “Oh,” she went on, with a little gasp, “it would be nice to be rich!”

Horace’s face fell a little.

“Do you feel that?” he said quickly. “Don’t you think that people are often quite as happy, or happier, who are not very rich, especially if they are without great responsibilities? Of course few things would be worse than to be a large proprietor with lots of people you should look after, and no means for doing it.”

“Yes,” Betty agreed, “it reminds me of what mamma has often told us about grandpapa’s and Uncle Avone’s difficulties in Ireland. But with your Mr Morion it is quite different, of course—isn’t he very rich?”

“I should say so,” said Horace.

“I don’t think I should wish to be very rich like that,” said Betty simply. “There would be such a lot of trouble about it, and I should not be clever enough to manage things well—even a woman’s part of things. Now Frances, for instance,” she went on thoughtlessly, “would be perfection in such a position.”

“I can well imagine it,” said Horace cordially; but, instantly realising that she had said one of the things she had better have left unsaid, Betty looked up at him with one of those sudden changes of expression peculiar to her, and by no means always easy to interpret.

“Oh, but don’t misunderstand about her,” she said. “She’s not a bit ambitious or fond of being important, or—or anything like that. She would be quite happy in a far simpler kind of life. Indeed, I don’t know any sort of life she couldn’t fit herself into, though Eira and I can’t help feeling that she is thrown away here, in this little out-of-the-way corner.”

“But yet what would you do without her?” said Horace. “Could you—can you imagine for yourself—we’ll say—the ever being happy away from her?”

“Oh yes,” said Betty, eager to remove any false impression she might have given. “She often says it would be better for me to have to depend a little more on myself.”

“I can scarcely picture your ever being very independent,” said Horace. “I should not like to do so. But—you may not always have her to take care of you, and yet not be left quite to your own devices!”

He glanced down at her as he spoke, with some scrutiny in his smile.

“No,” she replied, in a matter-of-fact tone, “of course there would still be Eira, though she says she would make me be the elder sister.”

Mr Littlewood turned away half abruptly. “Here we are,” he remarked, “this must be Mrs Silver’s abode!”

He was right. The young woman who was to act as their hostess, or, as she would have expressed it, “to serve tea to the gentlefolk,” was on the lookout for them. She was a pleasing-looking person, though of a slightly different type from the people about, with fairer hair and skin, which rather curiously contrasted with her dark eyes. For her mother had been an “inlander,” to use the term of the fisher-people for any one not purely of themselves. Her husband did not appear. He had been out for two days, she informed her visitors, on some remark being made about the weather and the fishing prospects, but she expected him home that evening.

“Isn’t it dreadfully dull for you when he is away?” asked Gertrude Charlemont, “and don’t you get terribly frightened if you hear the wind at night?”

The young woman shook her head with a little smile.

“We get used to it, miss,” she replied. And Mr Morion, whom the girl’s questions had struck as scarcely judicious, came to Mrs Silver’s assistance.

“Dwellers by the sea learn to have brave hearts,” he said; “and then there is always the pleasure of a safe home-coming to look forward to.”

“It will be an out-of-the-way pleasant one to-night, if all’s well, thanks to you, sir,” the young woman replied; and turning to Frances, she added, “It’s the pigsty I’m thinking of, miss. I’m that pleased about it. We’ve been wishing for one so long. It’ll be company for me when Joe’s away!”

It was impossible not to laugh at this, impossible for Mr Morion not to join, though he had been more than half-inclined to be vexed at the matter being mentioned.

“There must be something Irish about these good people as well as Spanish,” he said, in a lower voice, as Mrs Silver, to his relief, turned her attention to the tea-table.

“Scarcely so,” said Frances in reply. “In Ireland the absence of a sty would certainly not be any difficulty in the way of keeping pigs!”

“No,” Horace agreed, “they would be in and out all over the place. Genuine company if you like!”

This provoked another laugh, for when people are inclined to be happy it takes very little to give things a merry turn. And tea at Mrs Silver’s proved a great success. There was not much time to spare after it was over, if they were to get home by a reasonable hour. A little détour by the shore, sufficient to give them some idea of the picturesqueness of the rugged coast, was all that could be attempted, and Gertrude Charlemont declared that by hook or by crook she must come back to the neighbourhood in the long-day season, for sketching purposes.

“Oh, I wish you would,” said Betty eagerly.—“Craig Bay is quite a nice place to stay at, isn’t it, Mr Littlewood?” she went on, as, happening to glance round, she caught sight of him at her side, “and we should so enjoy having friends there!”

“I should say you could get very comfortable quarters there,” he agreed heartily; “and I hear there is excellent fishing—river fishing—a little way inland. I mean to find out about it, and come down here again, later on, perhaps, before my leave is up. You won’t think me too much of a bad penny if I do, I hope, Miss Betty?”

Betty raised her eyes to his with a half-inquiry in them, which he did not understand.

“Of course not,” she said, the little flush in her cheeks which came with the words rendering her very charming at that moment. “Of course not; we should be only too pleased to think that you like the place, though it is so dull and out-of-the-way. Your all being here this winter will have quite spoilt us, I’m afraid,” with a little sigh. “It has been—it is—so—delightful.”

“You delight me by saying so,” was the quick answer, heard by no one but Betty herself, for somehow or other by this time she found that he and she had drifted a little apart from the others.

“If only I were Eira,” thought Betty, “what a good opportunity I could make of this for finding out a little more! but I get so shy and silly immediately,” and when she spoke again it was with a little effort.

“It is very pretty about here in the summer,” she said. “Up at Craig-Morion—I mean down here the seasons don’t make so much difference in the look of things. I’m glad,” she continued, “that we don’t live nearer the sea; it frightens me.”

“You have never been a voyage, I suppose?” said her companion. “You would soon get used to it, I dare say. Now-a-days, with the splendid boats there are, many people go backwards and forwards from India for the mere pleasure of the thing, you know.”

“Thank you,” said Betty, laughingly. “I’ve no ambition of the kind! Dull as it is here, I should rather stay safe on dry land. Frances longs to travel, and I wish she had more chance of it! She is so clever, you know, she would find—”

“But you yourself,” persisted Horace, “you don’t intend surely to spend all your life in this little nest of a place? The Eyrie, as Madeleine calls it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Betty. “If I must, I must! Don’t make me discontented. I am afraid I am rather so already,” with a touch of penitence.

“And why shouldn’t you be?” he responded eagerly. “Think how young you are, and how—” here he checked himself—“how much there is to see in the world,” he added, rather lamely.

“But, you see,” said Betty, “I should scarcely be fit for it!—for making my way in society, or anything of that kind. I get frightened and stupid about nothing at all.”

She felt that he was looking at her with kindly sympathy, and, impressionable as she was, it encouraged her. Almost before she knew what she was about, she found herself giving him her innocent confidences to an extent which she had rarely, if ever, done to any one, certainly not to any man. And the way home seemed marvellously short that winter afternoon.

Long, it must be owned, it was not found by any of the little party. Gertrude and Eira were enjoying themselves under the escort of Horace’s friend, young French, who could make himself very entertaining; Mr Charlemont and Mr Darnley, on each side of Madeleine, were interesting her by a discussion on one of her pet hobbies in a philanthropic direction; and Frances, bringing up the rear with Mr Morion, found herself more nearly on common ground with him—thanks in part, no doubt, to the unexpected side-light Horace had thrown on his character—than a few hours previously she could have believed possible. And it was pleasant to her to feel that the young man’s influence bid fair to dissipate the prejudices she had half-unconsciously harboured. Once or twice even she glanced round with a half-formed wish that Horace should notice how well she and her far-off cousin were getting on. But he was some way ahead with Betty.

“I can tell him about it afterwards,” she thought, with a curious little thrill at the realisation of the confidence already existing between them. Though even without this new prepossession in his favour, Ryder Morion would probably have won his way towards her esteem and liking by the quiet, unassuming manner in which he told her of his increasing interest in, and sense of responsibility for, the till now almost terra incognita of his northern possessions. It would have been affectation for him to avoid the subject after what the curate-in-charge had said, and the meeting himself on the very spot where help was most needed. And despite her own preoccupation of mind, Frances was too well trained in habitual unselfishness not to feel warmly delighted, almost indeed breathlessly so, at the projects as to which he consulted her, and the means which he proposed to lay at the disposal of herself and Mr Darnley.

Altogether the expedition seemed to have been eminently successful, and no one felt this more heartily than Eira, whose spirits were always ready to rise, and not easily depressed, save perhaps by chilblains, or the apprehension of them!

“Betty,” she said, when they were dressing rather hurriedly for dinner, “isn’t it all going on too beautifully?”

Betty was seated on the end of her bed looking somewhat fagged.

“Yes,” she agreed, “we have had a very nice day; but I must be quick!” starting up as she spoke.

“I thought it so considerate of him,” continued Eira, “to walk home with you, not to make Frances, you see, too conspicuous, as it were. Was he talking of her all the way?”

“No—no, not all the way, I don’t think,” said Betty, in the intervals of coiling up her long black hair. “I—I don’t quite remember.”

“How tiresome you are!” said Eira; “you can’t have forgotten so quickly. I thought you’d have such a lot to tell me, and that you’d be in such high spirits.”

“I never feel in high spirits when I’m tired,” said Betty, “though no doubt it isn’t right.—I don’t know,” she added to herself, “why I don’t feel as happy about it as Eira does. He couldn’t have been nicer, but can it be that he’s only friendly about us all?”

Chapter Seventeen.

The Laurel Walk Again.

The Littlewoods’ guests left the next day, all, that is to say, except the owner of Craig-Morion himself, who, finding more to interest and occupy him than he had anticipated, was glad to avail himself of his hostess’ sincerely meant invitation to remain as long as it suited him to do so. For one reason or another he had called two or three times at Fir Cottage, and each time he had gained ground with his kinsman, more than once, indeed, inveigling the valetudinarian into a walk all over the property, such as for many years past he would have thought himself incapable of.

And the effect of this humanising influence on the elder man was of the happiest, not only as regarded himself, but for his family also. Yet in those days something at Fir Cottage felt out of gear; now and then it almost seemed as if Frances and her next sister had to some extent exchanged natures, Frances’ spirits were fitful and uncertain, at times verging on excitement, then again lapsing into unusual dreaminess and absent-mindedness, while Betty was quiet, self-possessed, and, to all outward appearance at least, calm and equable. She had, too, a fit of extreme industry: from morning till night she was busy about something or other, so that Eira found it difficult ever to buttonhole her for one of their “good long talks.”

“I don’t understand you, Betty,” she said one day. “Just now, when we have something more interesting to discuss than ever in our lives before, there is no getting a word out of you. What are you always fussing about? could almost fancy—”

“What?” asked Betty.

Eira laughed.

“Don’t be vexed,” she said: “you make me feel as if you were preparing in good time to take Frances’ place, but you know you couldn’t possibly do so without my help.”

To her surprise, Betty faced round upon her with some indignation.

“I don’t see that at all,” she replied. “I am tired of being treated like a baby. I am fit for much more than you think. But I am not going to talk about possibilities any more. We have done so too much, and—and I think it is rather indelicate.”

“You are very unkind,” said poor Eira, looking more than half ready to cry, “and from now I vow that I shall pay you out in your own coin. You may try as you like, but you won’t get me to talk about it or him any more, and I won’t tell you anything I get to know.”

“Very glad to hear it,” said Betty, though in her heart she already wished that she had not snubbed Eira quite so fiercely, for the younger girl had opportunities of judging and remarking the drift of events, as Betty herself, in some ways increasingly self-conscious and less of an outsider than she would have liked to own, was unable to do. Eira, hurt feelings notwithstanding, was not slow to find consolation even in Betty’s unwonted petulance.

“She really thinks it’s serious, and she is beginning to feel unhappy at the thought of Frances leaving us,” thought Eira. “I am not even sure but that Mr Littlewood has said something about it to Betty, and that she is desperately afraid of breaking his confidence. She has a funny look sometimes when he is with us—half-frightened, as if she wanted to get away. Perhaps,” reflectively, “it has to do with his going back to India.” For that such a possibility was in question, words let fall by Horace himself, and by his sister, had made no secret of.

On the whole, just at this time the domestic atmosphere of the big house was more genial than that of the little one, despite the improvement in Lady Emma’s husband. For one thing Mrs Littlewood laid herself out to be agreeable to the elder Mr Morion, and declared to Ryder—not a little, strange to say, considering how recently his own attitude to his cousins had been one of slightly resentful indifference, not a little to the younger man’s gratification—that she had no idea “the old bear” could have proved so well worth knowing.

“He is really quite interesting, once you start him on subjects he is well up in,” she said, “so long as you can keep him from the terrible topic of his ailments. And my admiration for Lady Emma increases daily: she is really a saint of unselfishness, quite beaming with pleasure if she thinks her husband is enjoying himself.”

“It is very good of you,” was the reply, “to draw out the best of them in this way; as you must know there are very few people who could have done it with your perfect tact.”

“Tact,” she replied, “in spite of the fashion of exalting it into a positive virtue, is to my mind a mere question of ‘knack.’ Superficial tact, at least, which often serves the purpose as well as or better than anything deeper!”

“You do yourself injustice,” said Ryder. “I don’t believe your tact has no more sturdy root.”

“You are right perhaps to some extent,” she said. “I am glad to please Madeleine in the matter. If you want the best kind of tact, that which springs from real honest kindness of heart and thoughtfulness for others, you will find it in her. Though she does not show it to every one, I must allow. For instance,” with a smile, “she does not care a farthing if she rubs you the wrong way, but she would not hurt by the shadow of a touch any one whom—” but here she hesitated, scarcely liking to allude to her companion’s now thoroughly recognised relatives as in any way objects for pitying consideration—“well, any one whom things have gone hardly with.”

“Madeleine is very good, very good indeed,” he answered cordially; “and so far as I have any right to be so, I am really grateful in the present instance. She has brought a good deal of brightness into those young lives already, and that with no jarring note. Though,” and here in his turn he smiled, “I must own it would be difficult to show kindness to Frances Morion in which there was the slightest touch of condescension: thoroughly gentle and sweet as she is, there is yet a rather remarkable dignity about her for a young person. Don’t you agree with me?”

“To tell you the truth,” said Mrs Littlewood, turning back the lace ruffles which fell so becomingly over her beautiful white hands, “to tell you the truth, I have seen too little of the eldest Miss Morion personally to be able to judge of her, and the characteristic that has struck you in her is not one that appeals to me in a young girl—not, of course, that she is very young, though living so entirely out of the world, of course, detracts from a girl’s savoir-faire. One may have the deficiencies of youth even when youth itself is past.”

Mr Morion listened in silence, and Mrs Littlewood, fearing that for once she had allowed prejudice to overcome her good sense, with a glance at his impassive face, went on again in a different tone.

“I will tell you whom I have taken a great fancy to,” she said; “and that is that charming little Betty! There is no need to see much of her to fall in love with her! She is so perfectly sweet and naïve, candid and transparent as the day.”

Mr Morion smiled rather enigmatically.

“I agree with you there,” he replied; and Mrs Littlewood felt relieved, though she detected a reserve of expression on her hearer’s face, which she was quite at a loss to understand.

He rose as he spoke, and strolled towards the door. The tête-à-tête had taken place in Mrs Littlewood’s boudoir.

“Then I may really feel satisfied,” he said, as he turned the handle, “that my remaining a few days longer is in no way outstaying my welcome?”

“Certainly not,” was the reply; “I mean,” with a smile, “that you could not outstay your welcome with us.”

“You are very good,” he said, and as he passed through the outer room there was a smile on his face. He was at no loss to understand his hostess, for whom, nevertheless, he had a sincere regard.

“I may as well set her mind at rest. She thinks she has annoyed me,” he thought, and, turning back, he glanced in again. Mrs Littlewood was still sitting as he had left her, and she seemed to be absorbed in thought.

“By-the-by,” he said, and at the sound of his voice she started slightly, “I shall be looking in at Fir Cottage this afternoon; have you any message?”

“I have, as it happens,” she replied. “Will you ask Lady Emma if she would care to drive with me to-morrow? If it is fine and not too cold, that is to say; the wind is still so uncertain, though for myself I scarcely dread it. You don’t know how much the better I feel for this bracing air of yours, Mr Morion!”

“I am delighted to hear it,” he answered. “I shall not forget your message.”

“There are two or three calls,” Mrs Littlewood resumed, “at some distance, which I really must not neglect longer. You might mention incidentally,” with a little hesitation, “that I thought of driving in the Heatherbridge direction, for I fancy Lady Emma might be glad of the opportunity of paying calls about there too.”

Mr Morion bent his head and finally disappeared, fully appreciating the situation and tacit amende.

His cousin, as he anticipated, was at home, and after some talk, in which the younger man’s interest was not feigned—for his relative, as has been said, was really cultivated, and possessed, despite his egoism, of much valuable if somewhat eccentric information in more than one direction, and by no means destitute, when he chose to use it, of solid, practical good sense—they adjourned to the drawing-room, where for once only the two younger girls were in charge of the tea-table.

As he handed a cup to Lady Emma, the newcomer delivered his message. It was received, he saw, with satisfaction, for though she did not say so, these distant calls had for long weighed rather heavily on the lady’s mind.

“Pray thank Mrs Littlewood,” she replied. “I should enjoy the drive very much.”

“Her daughter would thank you for saying so,” Ryder Morion replied. “One of Madeleine’s fads is a dislike to a long country drive in a big carriage, though she doesn’t say so to her mother.”

“And,” said Eira quickly, “she and Frances have planned to go to Scaling Harbour to-morrow, I know, and Mr Littlewood too, perhaps.”

Betty, in her corner, said nothing.

“Oh, indeed!” remarked the visitor, glancing round. “I was just going to ask for your sister. I thought possibly she was busy about something of the kind to-day.”

“No,” replied Eira, “I don’t know where she is. Betty and I have been looking for her. She may have gone up to the vicarage. Poor Mrs Ferraby has had such a bad cold. Yes, I am almost certain she must be there.”

“We all seem straying in different directions to-day,” said Ryder, the little suggestion of familiar companionship falling not unpleasingly on the ears of those present. “Madeleine is shopping vehemently at Craig Bay. Horace, I know,” and as he mentioned the name he turned half involuntarily to Betty, as if to draw her into the conversation, “is off to Heatherbridge himself this afternoon, by rail. He is, I fancy, a little anxious about his leave, and preferred telegraphing from a better office than yours here.”

Betty looked up with evident interest in her eyes, and spoke for the first time.

“Is he afraid of having to go back to India soon?” she inquired.

“Not to India, as yet at least, but there is some possibility of his having to put in an appearance at the depot, or something of the sort.”

“I think it would be perfectly horrible to have to go to India?” exclaimed Betty abruptly.

“That depends, I should say,” Ryder replied, “like most things in this life, on circumstances.” And Betty felt that his eyes were keenly fixed on her.

She got up, and walked across to the window. “Eira,” she said, “don’t you think we might go up to the vicarage to meet Francie and walk back with her? I am going to, any way.”

“I am afraid I can’t,” said Eira. “I must finish my letter to Mrs Ramsay. It is a specially interesting one this time,” with a quick look in their guest’s direction; “she will be so glad to hear about Scaling Harbour,” the last words almost in an undertone.

“And you, Betty,” interposed her mother unexpectedly—there was a touch of Betty’s abruptness about Lady Emma sometimes—“you must not think of going out this evening. It would be madness, when I have kept you in all day on account of your throat! Sore throats,” half turning to Ryder Morion, in an explanatory tone, “need of all things to be stopped at the beginning.”

“I quite agree with you,” he said, and as he spoke he rose to take leave. “Perhaps, Miss Betty,” he added in a slightly rallying tone, as he shook hands with her, “a little taste of your dreaded warm climates would do you no harm!” He kept his eyes on her for a moment, and noticed, by no means to his dissatisfaction, that her colour deepened a little.

When he left the house he turned half mechanically towards the vicarage. The evenings were much longer now, though not always correspondingly milder, for in this hilly, often storm-tossed northern country, weather and seasons are by no means to be depended upon in any orthodox way. And to-night it was not only chilly, but already, thanks to the darkening clouds which were gathering about the sunset, dusk had fallen earlier than might have been expected.

Ryder Morion stood still and looked about him, though there was no view to speak of.

“It is a queer part of the country,” he thought, “or so at least it strikes me, and yet—I feel at home in it too. I am glad to belong to it. No doubt that’s natural when one thinks for how many generations one’s people have been here, and I should be sorry to give it up, sorry at least for it to belong to another name, though if old George had had a son, I don’t quite know—” And he walked on again till he came to the point in the road where on one side the little gate at the end of the Laurel Walk led out of his own grounds, and a few yards farther on, across the road, stood the small group of buildings consisting of the church, the vicarage, and one or two adjacent cottages.

Why he had chosen this way home he scarcely knew, but as he lingered for a moment before entering the gloomy little avenue, he caught sight of a figure just emerging from the lych-gate on the other side. A woman’s figure, and something light-coloured, a white fleecy “cloud,” which she had thrown round her neck, recalled to his memory the curious experience of a week or so ago—the night that he had first met his cousins at the big house, when he and Frances, standing at the library window, had gazed in perplexity at the luminous object moving down the walk.

“I never had a chance of asking her what she thought of it,” he said to himself, “or rather it went out of my head. I wonder if it was some reflection from indoors?” And as this passed through his mind he recognised the newcomer as the “she” of his cogitations.

Half-impulsively he moved forward to meet her.

“Good-evening, Miss Morion,” he said. “You weren’t startled, I hope, by seeing me here? It is so dark and gloomy already this evening.”

“Scarcely startled,” was the reply, with a smile, “but I did wonder who you were. You see, that path is so seldom used, I suppose that the people about avoid it purposely, though indeed it is only convenient as a short cut from the house to the church.”

By tacit consent they both came to a halt in front of the little gate again.

“I have just been at Fir Cottage,” said Mr Morion: “your sister Betty wanted to come to meet you, but Lady Emma negatived it.”

“I am very glad she did not come,” said Frances. “She has a little cold, and it is a chilly evening.”

“And I am keeping you standing,” he said; but still neither moved, and the eyes of both were turned in the same direction.

Frances seemed on the point of speaking, for she slightly parted her lips, only, however, to close them again. But some sort of “brain wave” was in the air, for a sudden impulse made her companion turn towards her with a query.

“Miss Morion,” he said, “though I had forgotten about it between times, I have more than once meant to ask you, if you don’t mind my doing so, what you thought about that queer light—reflection—that we both noticed the other evening?”

“I was just thinking about it,” said Frances in her straightforward way.

“And how do you account for it? For I think it struck you even more than it did me. Horace asked me what we were both staring out at, but—I don’t quite know why—I turned the subject. I thought I would ask you first.”

“Horace,” said Frances hastily—“Mr Littlewood, I mean—knows that the Laurel Walk is said to be haunted,” but with these words she stopped again. Her hearer’s interest increased.

“Surely,” he said, “I must have heard something about it, but it is very vague. Who is our family ghost? And,” with some hesitation and a smile, “was it on its account—I don’t know what gender to use—that you seemed startled that evening?”

“Well, yes,” she acknowledged, replying only to his last question. “I suppose it was. I have never myself seen anything or heard anything of the ghost before, though Eira was once very frightened by some inexplicable sounds in—in church, in the family pew, which is supposed to be one of the limits of its wanderings. But,” she went on quickly, for she was anxious to avoid direct reference to the old story itself, “I cannot in any way account for what we saw that evening, and I believe in such cases the witness of two is very rare.”

“Did it look to you then like a human being?” he inquired. “To me it was almost too small for that, though it certainly seemed as if it were walking slowly along; not with any jerky movement, such as the reflection of a lamp being carried about, upstairs perhaps, might have thrown out into the darkness.”

Frances shook her head.

“No lamp could have produced the effect we saw,” she said. “I just can’t account for it by natural causes, though I am really not given to superstitious fancies.”

Mr Morion was silent, but still his gaze, as well as that of his companion, was fixed on the Laurel Walk, now almost dark. Suddenly the gate gave a little click, though no one was touching it. Both started, both gave a little laugh, and at that moment a gust of cold air, though till then the evening had been very still, if chilly, passed them with a sort of sobbing sigh, a sound that seemed to be wafted along the straight gloomy path in their direction. Involuntarily, Frances gave a little shiver, and she felt rather than saw that her sensation was not unshared by her companion.

He glanced at her.

“Odd,” he said abruptly, “that breath of cold air, I mean, when all is so quiet to-night. It is a creepy spot, and not improbably the creepiness has localised the legend.”

“If it is only a legend,” said Frances. “After all, one is driven back upon one’s ignorance in such matters.”

“The ‘more things in heaven and earth’ you are thinking of, I am sure,” said he. “No one has ever said it better, and no one ever will. But we must not stand here any longer, ghost or no ghost, unless you are really to get thoroughly chilled.” And they both turned back on to the road, Mr Morion accompanying her to her own gate.

“Some time or other,” he said, as he shook hands, “I should like to hear more of our ghost story and its origin. I even doubt if I have been fully or correctly informed of the facts which started it originally.”

“Fully informed you could not be,” was the reply, “for no one knows the whole facts of the case, and I am pretty sure no one ever will. And even as to what we do know, I should not, to speak quite frankly, wish to be the one to tell you more! Very likely,” after a moment’s pause, “you know as much as we.”

With these words she passed through the gate which he was holding open for her, though a friendly little nod of farewell took away any possible savour of animosity from her words.

Ryder Morion went slowly home, this time by the lower path leading through the new open part of the park.

Chapter Eighteen.

“Elise.”

That evening, that still chilly evening, was always in Frances’ mind, when she recalled the winter of the Littlewoods’ sojourn at Craig-Morion, associated with the eve of the real spring. For the next morning came one of those bursts of warmth and sunshine which go far to make amends for the trying side of our capricious climate.

And this year there was no harking back upon the winter. It said “good-bye” and went, closing the door behind it like a well-trained servant. The month of March for once was true to its proverbial character, while its often coquettish successor, April, proved, even up in the north, so altogether charming that the visitors to the big house were constantly tempted into expressions of regret that its close must see their departure for the south.

“I had no idea,” said Madeleine one day, when she and her Fir Cottage friends were primrose and cowslip gathering as busily as if they were still children, “that I should have been so sorry to leave this place, though I think I had premonitions of great enjoyment here.”

“I am so glad,” was the reply from Frances, “so very glad that you liked being here.”

“It has been more than half,” Madeleine rejoined—“three-quarters, seven-eighths, if you like—owing to all of you, as you must know.”

“Well, only think, then,” said Eira, “what your being here has been to us! But don’t talk as if it was all at an end already! We have three weeks at least of this lovely weather, for I am determined to believe in its lasting till you go.”

“I hope it will,” said Madeleine, “for more reasons than one. I waited to tell you and Betty about some news we have had.”

Betty, who was near her, glanced up quickly. Betty was looking tired and pale, notwithstanding the sunshine and the warmth. “Perhaps, indeed, because of them,” said her mother; “early springs are often trying to sensitive people.”

“Oh! I hope it is not that your brother is going away,” said Eira. “He’s so nice about planning expeditions! And now that the spring is here, there really are some you should make in the neighbourhood. There are ruins and things we have scarcely even seen ourselves. It would be nice to have a brother,” with a little sigh.

“If we had had one,” said Betty, “he could not have stayed at home. He would have most probably been away in India or the colonies, or some terrible place! A brother’s no good if you are poor.”

“And as for having one always with you,” said Madeleine, “that is not to be counted on, whatever other circumstances are. I am not speaking about Horace’s present plans, though, for I hope when he comes back,”—he had not yet returned from a short absence in town, whither he had accompanied Mr Ryder Morion—“that it will be to stay nearly as long as we do. No, my news is not about him, and perhaps it is rather horrid of me not to feel more pleased about it. It is only that the Conrads are coming down upon us,” with a half-rueful smile. “Next week they come, for ten days or so; it is sure to get into a fortnight, and I feel as if it would be a finish up of this comfortable, self-arranging life that I have so enjoyed!”

“Will your sister-in-law expect you to be so much with her then?” asked Frances.

“N-no,” said Madeleine, “not exactly that. Mamma and she suit each other perfectly, and require no third person—are much better without one, indeed. But—oh, really,” with a change of tone, “I cannot explain it without seeming a little unkind, so, if I do seem so, promise to forget that part of it, for I do want you to understand about my sister-in-law. She is, so to say, a typical person, one of the best of her class, quite good and high principled, and with a strong sense of her responsibilities, and all that side of things. But yet she and I are not and never could be great friends, though, on the other hand, I am equally sure that we should never quarrel. Now with her brother, Ryder, I very often—no, I can’t say quarrel, it’s too strong an expression—but we very often openly disagree and argue it out, and yet I feel that we have more in common than Elise and I ever could have.”

Her three companions listened with great interest, Frances and Betty especially.

“I think I do understand,” said the former, “and I am sure I shall do so still better when I have seen her. But you know, Madeleine, you don’t perhaps take sufficiently into account that you yourself are not a typical person, by any means!”

“Am I not?” said Madeleine, laughing. “In what way?”

“There are very few,” said Frances gravely, “who would have remained so unspoilt, unself-engrossed as you, in the same circumstances.”

This was strong commendation, above all from such a person as Frances, whom no one could have suspected for an instant of flattery, and who yet loved to be able to admire. And whenever she had a fit occasion to express her admiration and appreciation, few things pleased her more than doing so, and few people could have done so more gratifyingly.

For such power of expression is not a common gift. Nothing is easier than to criticise with even a certain cleverness, on which its possessors will always be found to pride themselves most unduly; but to “admire,” to discern “the admirable,” of which few human beings are entirely devoid, one must indeed have risen to a far higher plane, both morally and intellectually. Nay, indeed, might not one almost add “spiritually?” And a curious anomaly is to be observed as regards this subject. One often hears the excuse—“I am not effusive—it does not come naturally to me to praise people. I have a horror of flattery”—yet this same reticence, this same powerlessness of expression disappears in a really remarkable and all but magical way when a disagreeable or hurting remark, personal or otherwise, suggests itself.

Madeleine’s pleasant brown eyes sparkled with gratification.

“I do like you to say so,” she said, “for I know you mean it, little as I feel I deserve it. Don’t you think,” she continued, “that real praise always makes one feel very humble?”

“Yes,” said Frances, with a smile, “your thinking so much of mine has that effect on me at this moment.”

“Please leave off paying each other compliments,” said Eira, “I want to hear some more about Mrs Conrad Littlewood. Is she always called ‘Elise?’ her real name is Elizabeth, I know. I don’t think Elise suits a very stately, ‘grande dame’ sort of person!”

“She isn’t that,” said Madeleine, “she is really very nice—what a stupid expression!—it is just, I suppose, that she has always lived in a certain way, and not come really into contact with the other half of the world, though she believes herself to be very wide-minded, and is benevolent. I often think if she hadn’t married my brother, though he is a good fellow too, she would have been different—really wider in her outlook.”

She smiled to herself as she spoke.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Frances.

“I was only picturing to myself,” was the reply, “how differently you and she would go about the same sort of thing, even with equally good intentions. I was thinking, down at the harbour, how you forget yourself and your own standpoint almost, for the time, in your sympathy with the people! That is how you gain their confidence. Whereas Elise, with the best will in the world, however kindly she spoke, would remain an outsider. She would come away saying one must never expect gratitude, and be very good to them all the same, and very pleased with herself for not being repelled by their peculiar offhand manners and want of deference.”

“Well,” said Betty, speaking for the first time. “I must say I should have some fellow-feeling with my namesake as regards your pet fisher-folk. They are unusually queer, you must allow; in fact, they seem to me half-savages, wherever they came from.”

“Your bark is worse than your bite, Betty,” said Eira. “I saw you hugging, yes, really hugging, one of those little black-eyed imps down there one day, one of the rare days we persuaded you to go with us. And he clung on to you like a limpet!”

“Oh,” said Betty coolly, “that was because he was like a little Murillo! and his mother looked quite fierce.”

“Nonsense,” said Frances. “She was intensely gratified and horribly shy. If our poor friends can be so misunderstood, Madeleine, I think on the whole we had better not suggest Mrs Conrad Littlewood’s visiting them. Is it next week she and your brother are coming?”

“Yes,” Madeleine replied. “We must make the best of our time till then.”

And she and Frances went on talking together on the subject which their conversation had drifted into—“that everlasting Scaling Harbour,” as naughty Betty called it.

“I hope,” said Eira, when Madeleine had left them and they were turning in at their own gate, “I hope Horace Littlewood will come back a few days before those other people come up—just for us to have a sort of Saint Martin’s Summer of what this winter has been. For I feel convinced that once they are here it will be the real good-bye to it all.”

“Or,” thought Frances in her secret heart, “the real beginning;” but aloud she said nothing, though she endorsed Eira’s hopes as regarded Horace’s return. Somehow—how was it, she asked herself, that she felt more drawn to him, more nearly sure of her own capacity for responding to the devotion which, from her first suspicion of its existence, had profoundly touched and gratified her, in his absence than when actually with him? Was it always so, she wondered, or was she in any way, thanks to her delayed experience in such things, exceptional? If only there were any one, any woman, she could quite entirely confide in! If her mother had been what—in fiction at least—some mothers are to their daughters—closer, in fuller sympathy, more able, as it were, to recall her own youth and the perplexities, hopes, and fears which doubtless had their place in it—how gladly would Frances have confided in her! But as things were, this would have been useless, nay, more than useless, impossible.

“I know,” she thought, “how good and unselfish mamma is. Never was there a better wife, but I have read somewhere that every woman is more wife than mother, or vice versa. I think the former must be the case with mamma, and in one way I should be glad of it, for I think it has given more object and motive to my own life, in the trying to be a real elder sister to the others.”

Eira’s hopes as to what she had spoken of as a “Saint Martin’s Summer,” in connection with the pleasant experiences of the last two or three months, were not destined to be fulfilled.

For the expected guests at Craig-Morion arrived there some days before Horace Littlewood’s own return.

A day or two afterwards Lady Emma called, but found no one at home, somewhat to the disappointment of her daughters, whose curiosity concerning Mrs Littlewood the younger had been naturally aroused by Madeleine’s description of her. All the more welcome, therefore, was Madeleine’s own appearance at Fir Cottage about five o’clock the following afternoon.

“I thought I was never going to get here again, and that the end of everything had come,” she exclaimed, as she threw herself into the most luxurious of the wicker chairs, the pride of the sisters’ little sitting-room, which Eira drew forward for her eagerly, as soon as her bright face was perceived at the door.

By good luck, as some special formalities in the shape of curtains changing or something of the kind were taking place in the drawing-room, a pleasant fire was burning in the little grate, for however bright and sunny spring days may be, it is rarely the case that their close is not chilly. And Lady Emma was herself spending the afternoon with her husband in the study.

“How cosy it is in here!” Madeleine went on. “I just managed to escape before I was caught for tea. When Elise is there I really don’t see that it does her any harm for her to act daughter of the house—every one knows that mamma and she are devoted to each other.”

“Then you have not had tea?” said Frances quickly, “nor, for a wonder, have we. Eira—” but Eira had already disappeared, returning in an incredibly short time, followed by the parlour-maid and a welcome little clatter of tea-cups, for Madeleine’s attractiveness had not stopped short at winning the younger members of the household—Mr Morion appreciating her quick intelligence, and Lady Emma often declaring that Miss Littlewood’s manners reminded her of the days of her own maidenhood, when the young knew what it was to pay some deference and attention to their elders—thanks to which fortunate circumstances, “tea in our own room” had been more readily conceded than would otherwise have been the case.

Frances glanced at their guest with a little smile, though she waited to speak till the servant had closed the door behind her.

“You are not quite,” she said, “in your usual spirits, Madeleine.”

“No,” was the honest reply. “Somehow Elise seems to rub me the wrong way this time more than usual, and it makes me blame myself, for I know she means to be nice, and she is really interested in the old place and all about it, as she should be, of course.”

She did not allude to, or even hint at, her sister-in-law’s “tone,” when “those other Morions,” as she called them, had been spoken of, though this had, in point of fact, been the chief cause in her own mind of the annoyance she had experienced—annoyance the more difficult to pass over philosophically as it had to be borne in silence, past experience having well taught her that any expressed disagreement with Elise, on her part, was sure to do more harm than good.

“And for Horace’s sake,” she said to herself, “I must be as wise as possible. Perhaps when she sees them for herself, if I don’t set up her opposition, she will be won over, to some extent at least.”

“Poor Madeleine!” said Frances sympathisingly, “yes, I agree with you. I think that sort of thing is more trying than—almost than a quarrel, an honest quarrel, between friends even, which often puts things right again.”

“Oh, far, far more,” said Madeleine, yet in spite of the emphasis she spoke absently. “I must not forget,” she began again after a little pause, “that I have a message from mamma. If I don’t see Lady Emma, will some of you undertake to deliver it conscientiously? It is to ask you all to tea to-morrow, to meet Elise of course. I think that your father and mother are going to be asked more formally to dine next week, but of course I had no message about that.”

“I doubt if they will be able to go,” said Frances, “for papa is anticipating a touch of bronchitis, having already got a cold,” and she could not repress a tiny smile.

“I doubt,” said Eira, “very seriously indeed, my dear Madeleine, if the youngest Miss Morion will be able to join you to-morrow afternoon!”

“Why not?” exclaimed Frances; “oh, you must come, Eira,” for Eira’s comfortable absence of self-consciousness had often been a relief in the somewhat strained position brought about greatly by Mrs Littlewood’s undoubted prejudice against Frances, of late even more marked than heretofore.

“Oh,” replied Eira airily, “because I should be terrified out of my wits by your respected sister-in-law. And as I’ve two elder sisters, I don’t see that I need sacrifice myself.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Madeleine. “You know you are never really shy or frightened. You are quite different from little Betty here.”

Eira reared her head.

“Perhaps that is true,” she said, “but I have feelings, all the same, Madeleine. If there is one thing in the world that I hate, it is being criticised.”

“You don’t suppose anyone likes it,” said Betty, “and I don’t quite see why you, the youngest of us all, should imagine that you will come in for much of it. It’s rather conceited of you!”

Eira’s colour rose.

“You might credit me with disliking the idea of it for us all,” she said. “You really are getting into the way of saying such disagreeable things, Betty.”

Before Betty had time to reply, perhaps fortunately so, Frances interrupted the discussion.

“My dear Eira,” she said, “it is all very well to treat Madeleine to the privileges of intimate friend in the shape of small family jars, but I really think you are overdoing it a little.”

“Yes,” agreed Madeleine, though the kindly laugh which accompanied her words took from them any possible sting. “You will end by making me the self-conscious one if you don’t take care. I shall feel as if I had been dreadfully disloyal to poor Elise if I have made you feel so about her! She is not unkind, and she does not mean to be censorious. It is only—I wish I could make you understand—that she has got an orthodox little conventional standard of her own that she tries to fit every one into, and if they won’t go in, why then—”

“A kind of bed of oh! what was the man’s name? It begins with P—Pro—” said Eira.

“Procrustes,” said Frances, with a smile; and Madeleine laughed. Only Betty remained grave.

“The results are not quite so terrible in Elise’s case,” said her sister-in-law. “You really need not be afraid of her. But I am rather afraid of my own sensations to-morrow! If the poor thing looks at you, or makes the mildest remark, you will suspect something personal! You, at least, Eira, will do so, and then you will get onto your high horse at once!”

“No, no,” said Frances, “she will not be so foolish. Mounting one’s high horse is a very lowering proceeding.”

“Yes,” said Eira, “I think I agree with you—on consideration. And if I come, Madeleine, please forget all the silly things I have said. Candidly speaking, I think my chief feeling about your sister-in-law is curiosity. I liked Mr Ryder Morion, and it is interesting to fit in what you have said of her with a certain amount of resemblance to him—her brother.”

But Eira’s curiosity was not destined to be directly gratified as soon as she expected. For Lady Emma, on receiving the invitation, decided that it was far better not to accept it too literally as regarded the “all of you,” and it was accompanied by her two elder daughters only that she set forth, the following afternoon, on the visit to the Craig-Morion of much more formality than the recent almost familiar intercourse which even the elders of the two households had half-unconsciously drifted into.

Nor was this feeling modified by the reception which awaited them. Conrad Littlewood’s wife was nothing if not ceremonious. She prided herself, and that somewhat unduly—for she was a less clever woman intellectually than she believed—on her infallible discrimination as to shades of position, and still more of character as affecting such position. There were people decidedly beneath her to whom she considered it quite “safe” and even expedient to unbend to the point of making herself charming, in the superficial sense of the word. There were others, again, whom even she recognised as superiors in every sense of the word, whom she would on no account have condescended to appear to court. To-day she was in a not unpleasing state of expectancy as regarded these hitherto unknown relations. Kinship to a certain point she recognised as establishing its own distinct claims; beyond this, “I must wait till I see them,” she said to herself, for she did not pin her faith by any means to her mother-in-law’s dicta on such points, and in the present instance still less than usual.

“For, after all, they are my own blood-relations,” she thought, “and it is only through us that they are anything to Mrs Littlewood, or that she has had anything to do with them. And she does take up prejudices. I can see that she dislikes the eldest daughter.” And in this, as we know, Elise was not mistaken, for as regarded Frances the dowager lady had allowed her own keen and true perceptions to be unfairly clouded.

The visitors were ushered into the large drawing-room, hitherto but rarely occupied during the daytime. There was also an atmosphere of things being to a greater extent en grand tenue than had been usual; and the very look of Mrs Conrad’s tall figure, robed in unexceptionable, somewhat severe attire, as she rose and stood aside for a moment till the first greetings had been exchanged, effectually destroyed the old association of pleasurable intimacy.

Lady Emma, as was always the case when she chose to give herself a little trouble, was fully equal to the occasion. She held out her hand with the amiable but slightly indifferent air of an elder to a much younger woman, in whom nevertheless she feels in duty bound to show some special interest.

“I am pleased to meet you,” she said. “I hope you are pleasantly impressed by this place?”

Mrs Conrad was somewhat taken aback.

She covered this at once by turning to the two girls.

“Your daughters, I suppose?” she said, more stiffly than she had intended to speak, for the first glimpse of Frances’ graceful and yet dignified person also tended to bewilder her, and her eyes rested with greater satisfaction on Betty’s less imposing figure and dainty face, out of which two grave dark eyes were looking up, with the unconscious expression of childlike appeal habitual to her when she was feeling shy. And the touch of Elise’s fingers as they met those of the younger girl had a kindly pressure entirely wanting in that which she bestowed upon Frances.

“I feel, after all, that I shall agree with mother,” was the thought that flashed across her mind: “the little one is infinitely the nicer. The elder girl is handsome, but evidently too pleased with herself. Independently of outside circumstances, not at all what we should choose for—” But the consciousness of some pause in the conversation that had followed the Morions’ entrance aroused her to her duties to the visitors, and prevented her from pursuing her private reflections further.

She turned to Frances, who was sitting near her, as she was not sorry to see. For the unfavourable prepossession had by no means diminished her curiosity as to this certainly not “commonplace-looking” girl.

And Elise Littlewood was fond of thinking of herself as a student of character.

“I suppose you are devoted to the country, Miss Morion?” she said. “Naturally so. It must be in many ways delightful,” with the smallest of sighs, “to be able to enjoy it in the spring and early summer.”

“Of course,” said Frances, “those seasons are the loveliest everywhere. But I don’t quite agree with you that one naturally likes what one has the most of. On the contrary, many people long for the things that don’t come in their way,” and as she spoke a slight twinkle of amusement might have been discerned in her usually quiet eyes.

“Perhaps so,” was the rejoinder, “though it is perfectly impossible for any one to judge fairly of a kind of life they have never experienced.”

The touch of acerbity in the speaker’s tone roused Frances to a very rare impulse of self-assertion, and she was on the point of a reply which, however courteous, would not have tended to smooth matters, when there came an unexpected distraction in the sound of wheels driving up rapidly to the hall door, for the windows of the large drawing-room looked on to the front entrance.

“Who can that be?” said the elder Mrs Littlewood.

“It is too early for Conrad,” said his wife, “and yet,” for by this time she was glancing out of the window—“yes, it is a dog-cart; why, I declare, it is Horace!”

“Horace!” exclaimed his mother, “impossible! He was not to return till next week, and then only to—say good-bye.”

But all the same she rose to her feet, and turned towards the door with a word of apology to Lady Emma.

Chapter Nineteen.

Unsatisfactory.

If Mrs Littlewood’s intention had been to meet the newcomer in the hall, and by the exercise of some diplomacy prevent his joining the party of ladies in the drawing-room, it was frustrated. For before she reached the door it was thrown open, not by a servant, but by Horace himself. An expression of surprise crossed his face on first catching sight of the six or seven occupants of the room, to be, however, quickly replaced by a smile of pleasure and slightly heightened colour.

“So glad I am in time for a cup of tea,” he said; “I was in luck to find the dog-cart waiting for Con at the station—don’t be afraid, Elise, I’ve sent it straight back again—I wasn’t expected,” he continued, to Lady Emma, as he shook hands with her, then with Betty, who happened to come next, and lastly with Frances, on whose fingers he bestowed an earnest pressure which brought the colour into her cheeks, this latter incident, slight as it was, not passing unperceived by Elise’s observant eyes.

Then things settled down again, Horace accepting his position as the only man of the party with perfect equanimity, and availing himself with satisfaction of the resources of the tea-table, going on to explain that he had had no luncheon and was as hungry as a hawk.

“That’s what men always say,” observed Madeleine. “I mean they always have some excuse ready if they have a weakness for afternoon-tea.”

“I’m not ashamed of an honest appetite at any time,” said Horace. “May I have some more sandwiches, Madeleine?”

“My dear boy,” said his mother, “you will spoil your dinner, to use a commonplace expression. Do you know what o’clock it is?” At these words Lady Emma made a slight movement, as if in preparation for going. Mrs Littlewood turned at once, laying a detaining hand on her arm.

“Please don’t think of leaving us yet,” she said, “it is only a little past six. The evenings are so light now.”

But by this time Lady Emma was on her feet, and she was not the sort of person to sit down again, once she had decided to go. So a little bustle of leave-taking ensued, the lady of the house excelling herself in cordiality, for in her heart she felt a little guilty. Her punishment followed quickly, for, without waiting for the fresh relay of sandwiches which his sister had ordered, Horace calmly accompanied the Morions across the hall and, seizing a cap as he passed, out into the grounds, with the evident intention of escorting them, if not the whole way home, at least to the door in the wall.

In the natural order of things he should have walked first with Lady Emma, but Betty was too quick for him.

“Let me go on with you, mamma,” she whispered, slipping her little hand inside her mother’s arm, and hurrying forward with her, so as to leave the other two in the rear.

Whether or no her tactics were at all appreciated by Lady Emma, the action was not repulsed; indeed there would have been explanation enough of it in the family legend of Betty’s chronic shyness.

Somewhat to Frances’ surprise Horace walked for a few moments in silence; gradually the consciousness of this became almost oppressive to her, and, anxious at any cost to break it, she turned towards him with a few quick words.

“You have come back sooner than you expected?” she said.

He gave a slight start.

“Yes, that is to say sooner than I have lately expected,” he answered. “Though when I left here I had no idea of being away so long. Things never turn out as one anticipates, and still more rarely as one hopes,” and again he grew silent, and this time Frances made no further effort at talking.

So they walked till within a few yards of the boundary of the grounds, Lady Emma and Betty coming to a halt when they reached the door in the wall, glancing towards the two in the rear, to show that they were waiting for them.

Then, at last, Horace spoke again, this time hurriedly and nervously and as if indifferent whether this was perceived or not.

“I have been hesitating,” he said, “hesitating terribly, as to what was best to do. I was not even sure of seeing you at all, for I leave again to-morrow night, so I think it is hopeless to attempt any satisfactory explanation. My only comfort is that I believe you trust me, and as soon as I possibly can do so, I will write to you fully.”

Frances glanced up at him; her face was calm but very pale.

“Just tell me one thing,” she said. “Is there any chance of—is it likely that you will have to return to India immediately or very soon?”

He shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “It is not quite as bad as that. At all costs, whatever turns up, I shall not leave England without coming down here again.”

By this time they were within earshot of the others, and no more was said.

“I am afraid,” began Horace, addressing himself to Lady Emma, “that this must be good-bye, for some little time to come, at least. I had hoped to have had a week or two here still.”

“Indeed,” said Lady Emma courteously, but with some not unintended indifference of manner. “I am sorry for you all to leave just as our best season is coming on, but we shall of course be pleased to see you if ever you are in the neighbourhood again,” and she held out her hand as if in polite dismissal. “We must not linger, my dears.”

Neither of her daughters replied. Frances shook hands with Horace without looking at him. Betty’s little face, on the contrary, was turned full upon him, and as her dark eyes scanned him with a strange, indescribable, almost pathetic questioning, verging on reproach, his hand retained hers for a second longer than need have been. Then her mother and sister disappeared through the doorway, and before following: them she looked at her hand with a curious expression. Had it been her fancy? What did he mean?

As she passed through the door she closed it behind her without looking back, so she did not see him still standing there, where they had said good-bye, motionless.

When Horace got back to the house again, he hesitated for a moment as he was crossing the hall in the direction of his own quarters.

“No,” he said to himself, “I had better go back to the drawing-room. If things are ever to come right I shall have worse than that to do, and I must face it. If even I could win over Elise, it would be something, perhaps even a great deal, to the good, for Conrad always sees through her eyes.”

He rejoined the family circle therefore. When his mother saw him a slight touch of relief overspread her face; she had been dreading his accompanying the Morions all the way home and not returning till dinner-time.

“You have taken us by surprise, Horace,” she said, smiling at him with what was intended to be a perfectly natural expression, “and I am so anxious to hear what you have settled. It was provoking that we were not alone when you came back, but poor, dear Lady Emma is not wanting in tact, after all.”

Her daughter-in-law half rose from her seat: “I think,” she said, “in my turn I had better leave you; you must have a lot to talk about.”

“Nothing but what I flatter myself you may be interested in, too, Elise,” replied Horace quickly, gently advancing her chair again. “I am very lucky to have got down here at all to have a glimpse of you and Con. But I am sorry to say it will be only a glimpse. I have to leave again to-morrow night, mother.”

His mother’s face fell, for though she did not desire his prolonged stay at Craig-Morion, she hated parting with him, and she feared that this recall to his work meant business.

“To-morrow!” she repeated, rather blankly. “That is very soon, but,” as a new idea struck her, “it means, I hope, that you are only joining at the depot preliminary to—what you know I long for! Otherwise you would have had all your leave clear, till you had to go back to India, would you not?”

He had sat down beside her, and took her hand in his.

“Not exactly that, mother dear,” he replied. “I am not forced to join at the depot, but my doing so will be a great help to them just now, as one or two are on sick leave, and they are unexpectedly short-handed. I may get a month or two, later on, just before I shall have to start.”

“Oh, Horace!” his mother exclaimed.

“Are you really deciding to go out again,” said Elise, “when mother does so want you to give it up? Are you so devoted to your profession, Horace? It isn’t as if there were active service in prospect. I do think you have had enough of it.”

“But remember, my dear Elise,” answered Horace, “that I am not a second Con, and I am quite content to be myself. But I could not stand nothing to do, and no distinct position. I should hate hanging about.”

“But you know, my dear boy,” said his mother, “there are plenty of things you could get to do.”

“Not without some capital,” said Horace pointedly.

“Perhaps not,” she replied, flushing a little. “All the same you need not talk as if you were alone in the world. There is nothing I long for more than to see you settled down with—plenty to do, and—” but she did not finish her sentence—“that would come no doubt in good time.”

“I don’t know that it would,” said Horace, not affecting ignorance of her meaning, “not if I give up my only certainty, or, practically speaking, my only certainty of better things in the future, at any rate.”

For though Horace was not entirely unprovided for on the paternal side as a younger son, the family property was strictly entailed on the elder brother, leaving the others to a great extent dependent on their mother.

Mrs Littlewood made a movement as if to withdraw her hand.

“You pain me, Horace,” she said, “when you say such things.”

He retained her fingers in his clasp.

“Heaven knows I don’t mean to do so in the least, mother dear,” he said. “But you, and Elise too,” with a little smile towards her, “are not the sort of women to respect a man less for wishing to guard his independence, for wishing to feel that he is doing some work in the world, earning enough at least not to feel himself a fainéant.”

“There is always useful work to do,” said Elise, “though, perhaps, the most useful to others does not directly repay the doer of it. Look at Conrad, how he devotes his time to our tenants, and the many dependent on us.”

“Of course,” said Horace, “and he is quite right, but the positions are perfectly different. I want to feel—well—” he stopped, and, getting up, strolled towards the window. The two ladies exchanged glances. Then Elise, by a gesture, made her mother-in-law understand that she thought it would be better for her herself to leave the room; but Mrs Littlewood negatived the suggestion in the same way. And in a moment or two, Horace came back again and took up his position by the fire.

“It’s really too bad of me,” he said, “to be entertaining you with all this talk about myself.”

“No, my dear boy,” said his mother, “but I just wish I understood you a little better.”

“You are rather enigmatical, you know,” said Elise. “If it were not—” but here she hesitated.

“Go on,” said Horace smiling, and, as this was followed by no hint of caution from his mother, Elise did go on.

“After all, it was something silly I was going to say!” the younger woman continued, “for I know you have been quite out of the way of anything of the kind for ever so long, but except for that, I was going to say I should almost have suspected it was a case of the ‘not impossible she’ with you!”

Mrs Littlewood glanced up, for her, nervously at her son. He was quite calm and apparently in no way annoyed by his sister-in-law’s speech.

“Provided it were ‘a not impossible she,’” said his mother pointedly. “Few things, indeed nothing, would give me greater pleasure!” Horace did not reply for a moment or two.

“I quite believe you, my dear mother,” he said at last, “but,” as the sound of approaching wheels was heard, “there’s the dog-cart again and Conrad. I hope it was in time for him.”

“By-the-by, Elise,” said her mother-in-law, “we must settle about asking the old people at Fir Cottage to dine here soon. We must make sure of Conrad. I don’t think we need ask any of the daughters again, and really, poor girls, I doubt if it gives them any pleasure—they are so painfully shy.”

“Not the eldest one,” said Elise. “To me she would be much more attractive if she were less self-confident, I might almost say self-asserting, but I suppose it is a natural result of the kind of life they have led, that they should fall into one extreme or the other. I almost wonder Miss Morion hasn’t taken some line of her own, like the rather emancipated young women of the day. Especially as, in their practical reasons for this being advisable. Surely no foolish family pride can be in the way.”

“I really don’t know,” said Mrs Littlewood. “Where people have nothing but a good old name to fall back upon, they are, I fear, apt to overestimate its value. Of course,” with a little hesitation, “I cannot in anyway think of them as relations of yours, Elise!”

“Naturally so,” said her daughter-in-law indifferently. “Nor can I feel as if they were except in so far that I should really be glad to be of use to them if any opportunity offered itself. And I must say,” with a certain softening in her tone, “there is something very sweet and lovable about the younger one.”

“I am glad you feel that,” said the elder woman, “dear little Betty. Yes, her shyness is certainly an additional charm. I really love the child.”

Horace had taken no part in this conversation; up till now he had remained standing on the hearth-rug with an impassive countenance. Now, he turned abruptly, murmuring something about his brother, towards the door. But as the movement caught her attention, Elise, whose ears were very keen, glanced up at him. Somewhat to her surprise, there was a slight smile on his face, a smile that no one could have mistaken for one of anything but pleasure, and—or was it her fancy? or the glow from the fire? No, he had not been facing it, and, as she glanced again, she felt sure she was not mistaken—a distinct heightening of colour through the still remaining sunburn on her brother-in-law’s cheeks and forehead.

“Really,” thought the younger Mrs Littlewood, “the plot thickens. I cannot make him out. I wonder if Ryder could explain things? But he is sometimes so absurdly Quixotic, unconventional; a man in his position may, of course, take up that line if he chooses without detriment to himself, though I hope he would not be unwise enough to back up poor old Horace in anything absurd; still, all men are contradictory. I don’t think it would be well to consult Ryder. And, at present, at any rate, I will not say anything to mother.”

For Elise was not fond of giving an opinion or taking a distinct line on any subject till she was fairly sure of her data; a characteristic caution which, perhaps, had a good deal to do with the reputation for wisdom which she enjoyed, and that in the literal sense of the word, among her special friends.

The dinner invitation to Mr and Lady Emma Morion was duly sent, and duly—declined, though with all the expressions of regret that courtesy could demand. Mr Morion’s expected bronchitis was still hovering about somewhere—ready to pounce upon him, or, so at least, he believed, which in the present instance served the purpose quite as well. For Lady Emma did not care to spend an evening at the big house without a daughter, and was glad of a civil excuse. She had not “taken to” the new Mrs Littlewood, and in her secret heart—the home of more genuine maternal pride and affection than would easily have been believed—it was to this new influence that she attributed the fact of none of her daughters being included in the invitation.

And with this interchange of notes the more formal intercourse between the two houses practically ceased. Mr Morion called on the younger Mrs Littlewood in spite of the sword of Damocles, in the shape of bronchitis, hanging over him, and seemed, on the whole, to have been more favourably impressed by her than were the ladies of his family—possibly because she had taken more pains in his case that it should be so.

As regarded Madeleine, however, things were quite different; that is to say, they remained to the last on the old familiar footing. As often as was possible for her, she made her escape from Craig-Morion during her sister-in-law’s visit, if but for half-an-hour or so at a time, to her friends at Fir Cottage, where she was always welcomed with the same affection that on her side brought her thither. But she seemed, for her, almost dull and depressed, and, when taxed with this by Eira, tried to evade any definite reply, attributing it only to her regret at leaving and that circumstances should have so interfered with the pleasant conditions of things previous to “the Conrads’” appearance on the scene.

“If they had come earlier in the winter,” she said, “it wouldn’t have mattered so much. We should have had time to get over it again before this, and I should have had Horace to back me up at home. As it is I really feel like a caged bird sometimes, mentally as well as physically. I couldn’t stand much more of it, and I know that nothing would be so foolish as any sort of ‘squabbling’ among us.”

“And they are staying longer than you expected?” inquired Frances.

“Yes, indeed, a whole week longer,” was the reply; “they only leave two days before we go ourselves. They seem to have rather taken a fancy to the place. Elise is becoming quite interested in family lore. She should have applied to some of you on the subject.”

She did not add, as she might have done, that her sister-in-law had announced on more than one occasion that such matters were of no real interest to so very remote and junior a branch of a family, for Madeleine was the very reverse of a mischief-maker, and, much as she would have appreciated the full sympathy of her friends had she entered more into detail as to the difficulties of her present position, she even blamed herself for the little she had allowed herself to say.

“And your brother Horace,” said Eira, “is not coming back at all?”

“I am afraid not,” was the reply, with an unmistakable sigh, which it took some self-restraint on Eira’s part not to echo.

A sort of cloud seemed to be falling over the brightened life at Fir Cottage again. The day before that of Madeleine’s leaving, when she ran in to say good-bye, it was all that Eira at least could do, not to speak of her sisters, to repress the tears very near her eyes—tears in which disappointment, as well as the natural regret in parting with their friend, had no small part.

Chapter Twenty.

An Afternoon Letter.

Ten days, a fortnight passed, a few hurried words from Madeleine reporting the re-installation of her mother and herself in their London house for the season, full of affectionate assurances of her constant thought of them, Frances especially, and regret that they were now so separated, seemed the only break in the old monotony settling down again over the sisters.

Eira frankly owned herself to be feeling “terribly dull.” Betty said nothing, though she looked not only depressed but really ill. Frances, on the contrary, was cheerful, by fits and starts that is to say, though her old equability had strangely deserted her. She was restless and preoccupied. The reasons for this change were suspected by those about her more than she knew or ever did know, though, in time to come, her sisters and even her mother became convinced that they had been entirely mistaken.

There came a crisis.

One afternoon, chance—a most fortunate chance, she afterwards saw that it had been—led to her going alone to the village on some little errand, and on her way back she called at the post-office for the letters which otherwise, if there were any, would not have reached the cottage till the following morning.

It was a lovely day. A typical spring day, showing to the greatest advantage the peculiar beauties, greatly enhanced by clear light and shade, of that part of the country. On her way to the village Frances could not help stopping now and then, arrested by sheer admiration of the loveliness around her. Her spirits rose high, as in those days they were more apt to do; misgivings, half-acknowledged apprehensions, disappeared. She felt as if on the eve of some great happiness such as life had not yet brought her.

And when, in reply to her inquiry, “Any afternoon letters?” the smiling postmistress handed to her three or four, some for her father, but one, yes one, in recognised, though scarcely familiar handwriting, her heart gave a great throb of anticipation.

“It has come,” she thought to herself, as she turned to make her way homewards by the least frequented route. “Now I must pull myself together, and think it well—well over!”

Yet now that it had come, she almost shrank from facing the “it.” Now that she believed the matter to be in her own hands, she wished she could put it from her. But soon her natural womanly feeling reasserted itself, and she realised—whatever her own decision might be—the gratification, the satisfaction to her self-respect of the definiteness, the actual expression in plain terms of Horace’s regard for her, which, as she believed, the letter in her hand contained.

And, as soon as she found herself in a part of the road where interruption was improbable, she broke the seal—for sealed the letter was, which in itself marked it as something out of the common—and drew forth the sheet it contained.

It was dated from his club, and had been written only the day before.

“My dear Miss Morion,” it began—why did these four words, correct and natural enough under the circumstances, cause to pass through her a little thrill of—she scarcely knew what? Misgiving? Apprehension? Neither word expressed it clearly. It was more a sort of intuitive anticipation of some great impending change in the aspect of things, something which would cause her bewilderment as well as pain, which would, as it were, necessitate a reconstruction of all the theories as to herself and her own life, in which of late she had been living.

She read on.

“My dear Miss Morion,—First of all, I feel that I must thank you, and that most heartily, for your goodness to me of late. You have cheered and encouraged me more than you know; in no way resenting the, in one sense, unsatisfactory degree of confidence which was all I felt free to give you hitherto. No one could have been wiser than you have been, no one, I am well assured, could have been more entirely trustworthy. Sometimes, I may confess, I could scarcely have borne it all but for feeling and knowing that I had your sympathy and good wishes, and pity, even, for the miserable uncertainty in which I was forced to leave things; the uncertainty, I mean, as to her feeling towards me, as to the possibility, which now and then seems to me a wild dream, of her in any way responding to what I feel for her. But now I have come to a certain decision. I must know the best or the worst, by which of course you will understand that I mean my chances at head-quarters—with your sister herself. I have sounded my mother so far as I felt it expedient to do so, for I am most anxious to keep Betty’s name out of the way of all remark till I know how I stand with her. I am delighted to find that my mother has a strong personal liking for her—though how could it be otherwise? But I will not trust to this in any practical way. I have decided not to give up my profession, which, with the small private means I am sure of, makes marriage possible without any wild imprudence. Scores of men, especially in India, get on all right with less, and without things being too hard upon their wives. That I could not bear. And even as it is, I dread the thought of the climate for one so tender and fragile. Still, all things considered, I think the time has come for laying it before her, not hiding from her the sacrifices it might have to entail upon her, though these, I need not say, so far as it lies within the power of man to do so, should be counterbalanced by the entire and absolute devotion of my whole life. I intend coming down to Craig-Morion in the course of a few weeks, nominally to settle up some things there for my mother and myself, in reality to learn my fate. I may perhaps write a word or two to your father, just to allude to my coming, in a commonplace way, which may come round to her. You will, I know, do whatever is judicious as to this, although you will see that it is best for her never to suspect that you have been my confidante. And now you must forgive this long letter; selfish, I should feel it, were it not that I well know the depth of your sisterly devotion, and that nothing concerning her can fail to ensure your heartiest interest. So I will not inflict more apologies upon you. I will only thank you again and again.

“Yours most sincerely,—

“Horace Bertram Littlewood.”

Did she read it once or twice or twenty times? or had she not read it at all? Was it all a dream, a miserable dream of shameful self-disgust and mortification? For some minutes, I doubt if Frances knew, or that she could have replied with any accuracy to any of these questions.

She was utterly, completely stupefied, and when at last her ideas began to take coherent form again it was only in the shape of increasingly definite pain and self-abasement. Unselfish, radically unselfish as she was, it became for some little time impossible for her to think of, to care for any one but herself, in the shock of revolted, almost outraged, feeling that overwhelmed her. For she was of a nature to be terribly sensitive to mortification, and with such natures, proud, dignified, mentally and morally on a high plane, recognising high ideals as the goal of all endeavour, mortification, paradoxical though it may sound, can be almost a passion.

Not that she dreaded or even thought as yet for a moment of others—outsiders—in this terrible mistake. It was herself as judging herself that she cowered before.

“I who thought myself the soul of modesty and delicacy, as I see now that I did—I, to have imagined such a thing! At my age, older than he—oh, it is dreadful to realise,” and she sat down on some rising ground by the side of the road and covered her burning face with her hands, while slow hot tears forced themselves through her fingers. In these few minutes—a quarter of an hour at most—Frances Morion seemed to herself to have lived years.

”‘No fool like an old fool!’ it is like having the measles in middle age—always worse than at the normal time, they say.”

These and other bitter, absurdly exaggerated cynical remarks passed through her mind, not to be harboured there, however, for her real character, her habitual attitude of mind, could not for long be untrue to themselves.

And “Oh, what a selfish, shamefully selfish, woman I am—I must be!” was the next phase. “I needed this lesson to open my eyes. Yes, indeed, I needed it,” and already, though the pain was still so stinging, the wound so raw, curious suggestions began to insinuate themselves. If it had been “the real thing,” would not its overthrow have affected her somewhat differently—would not the true malady have developed other symptoms?

For the moment she put these vague hints aside, to be taken out and examined into more at leisure, with possibly some salutary, health-restoring result, and with new resolution tried to concentrate her mind on what now lay before her—on the thorny, self-effacing path which duty, affection, all the associations and motives of her life pointed out as the only one she could tread.

There were alleviations—alleviations and mitigations—of her present suffering, and by degrees the first, perhaps the greatest, of these gradually crept into her thoughts. No one need ever know; more than this, it would be wrong, disloyal to others, to allow her secret to escape. This was so clearly binding upon her that it reconciled her to the necessity, already making itself felt, of to some extent acting a part. And the very relief of knowing that she must thus shield herself brought with it another, as yet faint, but yet suggestive, source of support.

“If it were really that I had got to care for him—thoroughly, genuinely in that way,” she asked herself, “would I so soon be ready to accept any sort of comfort?” But again for the present she put these ideas aside, concentrating all her powers in the direction of the immediate action required of her. “All I can do to help him, I must do,” she thought; “as to that there can be no sort of question. I must as far as I possibly can tacitly familiarise Betty with the idea of what is coming, for he is good and true, I feel convinced, and worthy of her. Oh if I had but known it sooner! It would have been nothing but happiness.”

And this was true. Six months ago, if Frances had been asked what was the darling wish of her heart, her reply would have been to see one of her sisters, Betty especially, well and safely married.

But, as things were, would Betty respond to him? It almost seemed impossible. Or perhaps the entire dislocation of the positions of all involved made it as yet seem so to her.

“I am to exert myself doubly,” she went on thinking. “It is a case in which non-interference on my part would be a crime. I have so much to make amends for in this horrible, miserable mistake of mine. I must not allow the slightest trace of depression or agitation to appear. And, oh! how unutterably grateful I should be and am that the blow has fallen in this way, by a letter instead of—in any other way; all my thought, all my care now must be for my dear little Betty.”

She rose to her feet, composed and even strengthened, and as her thoughts concentrated themselves more and more on her sister, new and strange suggestions took shape respecting her.

Had Betty been quite like herself of late? Was she not looking less well, less restful than was usual with her? She had been, for her, abnormally energetic, it was true, but all the same, on looking back, Frances began to see that there had been a curious self-repression about the girl. She had certainly avoided any talk about herself; the old, almost childish habit with which she had often been laughingly charged, of “saying out whatever came into her head,” had deserted her. Yes, she had grown strangely reticent.

Was it possible, Frances asked herself, that in her own self-absorption she had been blinded to the true state of affairs with Betty? Was it possible that the child had already learnt to care for Horace? That, anxious as he had been to do nothing to gain her affections till he was justified in doing so, he had unconsciously betrayed himself?

“If it is so,” thought Frances, “I should have still more to be thankful for. For in my determination to forget myself there might be a real danger of my influencing her too much in his favour. And yet the suggestion must in some way be made; perhaps—we shall see—Eira may be brought to help in it. I must at least find this out, for I very much fear that poor Eira, as well as dear Betty herself, has been deceived by her affection for me into imagining what—oh! how could I ever have thought it?”

And again there came the sharp stab of mortification, which indeed it would take time and resolution entirely to overcome.

The consciousness, however, of how much she might have to undo as well as to do brought vigour with it. She walked on with a firm step, a step that had something of hardness in it, hardness directed solely against herself and the weakness which she was so resolutely determined to overcome.

It was, as has been said, a lovely day, an exquisite spring day, and for this, too, Frances felt a strange new sense of gratitude. A lark rose over her head with its never-to-be-mistaken song of jubilance, all but disappearing, as she gazed after it, into a scarcely discernible speck in the blue.

“So fade our hopes,” thought Frances, “many of them at least. But yet,” for in another moment the happy bird was back again within hearing, “perhaps it only seems so to us. There must always be real sources of joy and thankfulness, even if they are sometimes beyond our perception.”

Yet she did not deceive herself. This sensation of almost exhilarating resolve and self-sacrifice would not, she knew, be lasting. There were hard struggles before her still, for the mere habit of thought into which she had almost insensibly glided during the last few weeks as to her own life and future was not to be shaken off all at once.

“The best I can do,” she went on, “is to fill my mind, to the exclusion as far as possible of everything else, with Betty. Time enough, when I can feel at rest about her, for me to unlock it all again and decide to what extent I have been to blame.”

A few yards before their own gate she caught sight of her sisters coming to meet her, and, as she watched them approaching, the listlessness and languor of Betty’s movements struck her forcibly.

“How I wish I had gone with you, Francie,” said Eira. “Betty is so tiresome! She wouldn’t go for a walk, she wouldn’t even sit out in the garden comfortably, and I only stayed at home to keep her company, because she seemed dull!”

“Are you dull, dear?” said Frances, turning to Betty. Her tone was very kind, indeed tender, and Betty, glancing up at her, read a confirmation of this in her sister’s eyes.

Betty’s cheeks grew pink, though the colour left them again as quickly as it had come.

“Spring often makes people feel rather tired,” she said. “There is nothing the matter with me except that.”

“But you mustn’t be tired,” said Frances. “It is so lovely now, so very lovely. We must be all quite well—and happy, so as to enjoy it. We can stay out a little longer. Let us sit down, and I am rather tired myself.”

Betty’s face expressed some self-reproach. “Eira,” she said. “We should not have let her go alone to the village. She always does the disagreeable things.”

Frances’ hand was lying on her knee. Betty took it in hers as she spoke and stroked it. To the elder sister the little action said much. It seemed as if in some intuitive way the coldness or constraint which had been creeping in between them for the first time in their lives was melting away, though by no visible agency. Tears crept up very near to Frances’ own eyes, but she resolutely kept them back, though a feeling of gratitude for this scarcely looked-for prompt encouragement on the path she saw before her warmed her heart.

“What a pity,” exclaimed Eira, “that Madeleine couldn’t have stayed two or three weeks longer, just to see how pretty this place can be. I don’t think, however rich I were, that I could ever make up my mind to spend this part of the year in London.”

“It is very pretty there, too, just now though,” said Frances absently. “If it were a little nearer I dare say Madeleine would come down again for a few days—with her brother, perhaps,” she went on more brightly. “I am sure Mr Morion would always be glad for them to use the big house.”

Eira, who had been leaning back on the rustic bench in rather a depressed attitude, pricked up her ears at this.

“Oh, how nice that would be!” she said. “Better than my poor Indian summer which never came to pass. What made you think of it, Francie?” And as the only reply was a smile, “I do believe that you’ve heard something! Have you had a letter from Madeleine that you have not told us about?”

Frances shook her head.

“No, truly I have not,” she said. “But Horace Littlewood did—does mean to come down again. He said so, definitely, and it just struck me how nice it would be if Madeleine could come with him.”

Eira’s face by this time was gleaming with excitement.

“Francie!” she exclaimed, “you never told us before! Betty, do you hear?”

But for all reply, Betty seemed to creep back further into her corner. Frances turned to her. “You don’t dislike him?” she said. “We got to know him so well!”

“I never said I disliked him,” said Betty. “But you know him far better than I do, and if—of course you know, Francie, if—if anybody liked you, or—or you liked anybody in a special sort of way, of course I should like such a person too!”

Frances drew a deep breath, and gathered herself together. It had come—the supreme moment, sooner than she had expected, and she must meet it bravely. It had come—to Betty too, and the little creature had risen, in her own way, with heroism. But this state of things as yet Frances scarcely realised.

“Betty, my dear child,” she began, “don’t get any mistaken ideas into your head about me—your second mother, as I always feel myself. I won’t pretend to misunderstand you, and I am glad you have spoken about it. No, no, don’t dream of anything of that sort about me, the time for it has passed. Why, I must be a year or two older than Horace! He and I are excellent friends, and I do believe he looks upon me almost as an elder sister. I should be glad,” here she spoke with hesitation that she did not attempt to conceal, “I should be glad to feel sure that as regards you yourself no shadow of the old prejudice about him remains. He deserves to be thoroughly liked and trusted.”

There was no answer from either of the other two, though Frances felt Eira’s eyes fixed on her in half-dazed amazement. She felt, too, that at Betty it was better not to glance! And after a moment or two she got up slowly, saying it must be near tea-time and that she would like to take off her outdoor things, and steadily, though with inward tremulousness, little suspected by the two others, she made her way to the house.

“Betty,” said Eira, when sure that Frances was beyond earshot. “Betty, do you hear me, what does she mean?”

But for all answer Betty turned her head away, so that her face was quite hidden from her sister, and only by the convulsive movement of her shoulders did Eira know that she had burst into uncontrollable tears.

“Never again,” thought Eira to herself, “will I meddle with or even think of other people’s affairs of this kind! There have I been for months past wearing myself out with hopes and anxieties about Frances and Horace Littlewood. And for all I know now, torturing Betty! Who would have dreamt of such a thing? It is rather too bad of Frances not to have given me some idea of how the land lay, for from her very superior well-informed manner, it is evidently not new to her. As to Betty, I don’t know what I feel. She might have—no, I don’t see that she could have acted differently, but I won’t call her cross or depressed any more. Poor little Betty! Still, on the whole, for the present, I think I had better leave her alone.”

And Eira, feeling considerably discomposed and “out of it,” not yet able to realise that this new turn of affairs might bring as much cause for congratulation as the fulfilment of the hopes on which she told herself she had wasted so much care and thought—Eira, swinging her garden-hat on her arm with a great air of “nonchalance,” followed her elder sister into the house, though not upstairs. But a moment or two after she entered the drawing-room the door reopened to admit Frances. Gladly would the elder sister have remained upstairs in the quiet of her own room if but for half an hour, but this she felt she must not do. For the moment the privilege of solitude and reflection must be renounced.

“It is only a bit, a very little bit, of the whole,” she thought to herself. “Just at first, of all times, it is most important that I should seem quite like myself, and not give the very slightest opening for suspicion that things are turning out differently from what I expected. And it will not be difficult to do so, if I keep my thoughts centred at this crisis on my poor little Betty.”

And her mother’s first words as she caught sight of her brought a little glow of gratitude to her heart—not so much of gratitude to Lady Emma herself, but of thankfulness in the abstract for this first little touch of encouragement in the road she had marked out for herself.

“You look as if you had enjoyed your walk, Frances,” was her mother’s remark. “You have got such a nice colour,” mentally adding to herself, “really Frances grows handsomer and handsomer as she gets older. Her eyes have such a bright expression,”—little suspecting the tears those eyes had so recently shed, still less those which had been repressed with so much resolution. “I have never thought them as fine as Betty’s, but somehow Betty doesn’t look like herself now-a-days,” and she gave a little sigh. “Where is Betty?” she asked aloud.

Frances glanced at Lady Emma quickly. Now and then there seemed a curious tacit sympathy between the mother and daughter, just now this struck the latter, for she herself was feeling anxious about her younger sister.

“She is coming in a moment,” said Eira, with a slight nervousness unusual to her. “Shall I run and tell her that tea is ready?”

There was no need for a reply. Betty herself came in. She was looking pale, but to a superficial observer the traces of tears had already disappeared. Her dark eyes with their even darker fringes were not easily disfigured. Tea-time passed quietly and more quickly than when Mr Morion was present. For this Frances was grateful, as it left her the sooner at liberty.

“I am going up to the vicarage,” she said, as she left the room. “I had a little commission for Mrs Ferraby in the village.”

Ten minutes later she rang at the vicarage bell, and handed in the small parcel she had brought. When she got back to the gate again, she stood still for a moment in hesitation.

“I wonder if by chance the church is open,” she thought. “I should like to go in there for a few minutes. I don’t think I have ever been there alone since the afternoon Eira was so startled;” and with a rather sad smile, “I don’t think anything would startle me to-day.”

Chapter Twenty One.

Horace.

Yes, the church door was unlocked, as happened not unfrequently, though not of intention on the worthy vicar’s part, or on that of his subordinates.

Inside, though of course the sunny daylight out-of-doors was still at its full, thanks to the high pews, and narrow windows deep set in the massive walls, all was dusk and gloom. The more so at first from the sudden contrast.

But to Frances just now this was congenial. Half mechanically she made her way up to her usual place, for one act of courtesy on the part of the temporary occupants of the big house had been to beg that the Fir Cottage family would not think of vacating the spacious old pew, where indeed there was room enough and to spare for the united households.

With a sense of weariness, to which for the first time she ventured to yield, Frances leaned back in her old corner. Venerable as it was, the church was not one, under present conditions, which lent itself readily to devotion. And it was scarcely with any feeling in this direction that the girl had sought its shelter—only a vague yearning for quiet and solitude had brought her thither. But gradually as she sat alone thinking, though but dreamily, more than what she had sought seemed to creep into her spirit. A sense of world-wide sympathy, sympathy extending indeed into time as well as space, came to soften and yet strengthen her.

How much sorrow there was in the world! Sorrow and disappointment and perplexity, bravely borne in so many cases, unsuspected even. How much sorrow there had been, how much was yet to come! How many fatal mistakes, inexplicable shortcomings, whose results stretched far!

For it was almost impossible to sit there alone in the quiet dusk, without her thoughts reverting to the strange old story of her own ancestress’ lack of good faith, from which indirectly she and those dearest to her were even now suffering.

“Our lives would have been so different!” thought Frances, “our lives and characters and everything about us. So much more consistent if we had been less isolated, and in a sense less ignorant. At least it appears as if it would have been better for us, but it is not for us to judge. I really do not think that the best side of me is inclined to murmur for myself if things go right for the others.”

The last word at the present juncture being synonymous with “Betty.”

She half rose to go, but sat down again for a moment, as she heard the clock striking, in order to count its tale of time.

“I may stay five minutes longer,” she thought, but somehow the sense of repose and comfort had been disturbed; in spite of herself, a very slight sensation of eeriness began to creep over her. It was in the evening that Eira had been so frightened. Could that be the favourite time for her troubled, old, great-grand-aunt’s visit to the church? “I wish I could feel sure,” she went on thinking, “that it is not true, that she does not really wander about in that sad, lonely restlessness! I can’t bear to think of it! Poor soul! Perhaps, after all, she was not to blame.”

What was that? Frances started, as again the long-drawn, all but inaudible breath, rather than sigh—which she and Ryder Morion had been conscious of that evening several weeks ago when standing at the end of the Laurel Walk—made itself felt rather than heard.

“It must be the draught from the open door,” she thought. “But I am getting fanciful; I had better go,” and she rose to her feet with decision.

But—now came a shock, a real shock, which could not be put down to fancy or an accidental draught of air. For as she stood up, Frances felt herself caught back, jerked back almost, by a sharp sudden catch at the little mantle she wore; it was all she could do to suppress a scream—perhaps, indeed, she did scream. She could not afterwards say. The shock, under the circumstances and with her already overstrained nerves, was really dreadful; no one who had seen her just then, white to the very lips, shivering and breathless, would have recognised poor Frances.

But the terror was not for long: the strange incident was quickly explained. “Thank God!” murmured the girl, as she discovered its cause; “I could not have stood any supernatural experience. I believe it would have nearly killed me. I have been too self-confident,” with a rather piteous smile, as she disengaged the fold of her cloak from the crevice where it had caught.

For that was all that had happened. In the corner of the pew, the old panels, as Eira had already noticed, seemed to fit less well than elsewhere. Time, doubtless, had made the wood shrink; there was a line of interstice all but in the corner, giving the look of an intended opening—a small cupboard door, as it were, of which the narrow strip of space might be either the closing or the opening side. It was a little above this that a splinter had been partly broken off, the point of which had hooked, in the extraordinarily clever way in which, in similar cases, such things do hook or catch, the silk frill of her cape. It was freed in a moment; in fact, if the tiny accident had happened elsewhere, Frances would scarcely have perceived it, except, perhaps, for the sound of some slight fracture of stuff or stitches, though, as things were, the tug, apparently from invisible fingers, had caused her a sensation of real horror. And for a minute or two, anxious though she was to get out into the cheerful daylight again, she felt too shaken to move. But by degrees this feeling passed off, and with but small trace of her recent agitation she made her way home again, devoutly wishing that the evening were over and she herself free to rest and think in the solitude of her own room.

All passed off, however, more easily than she had feared. She thought it best to own to being a little tired, and was pleased to find Betty coming about her more in the old caressing way than had been the case for long; and there was a look in the girl’s face which Frances was glad to see, not so much of actual happiness as of freedom from constraint—of hopefulness.

“It will be all right,” thought Frances. “I can see already that it is going to be all right. I shall have nothing to reproach myself with as regards the effect on them of my deplorable mistake. It is only I—and how thankful I should be for this—that will have any suffering to bear, and I shall be able to hide it. And as for Betty, perhaps the child needed the training of what I now feel convinced she has gone through.”

Nevertheless, it was a relief, and a great one to Frances, as the days went on, to perceive that Betty sought, and intended to seek, no further confidence or explanation of her elder sister’s undisguised hints. More than this, Eira had evidently been tutored to take the same line, though in both instances it was done with affectionate delicacy, so as to give rise to no misgiving on Frances’ part that for any reason she was less trusted than heretofore.

Just one word in allusion to what had passed between the sisters that afternoon when they were sitting on the garden bench came from Eira:

“Francie dear,” it was, “we are not to speak about it, not even when you and I are alone. Betty begs us not to, and I have promised. I think—she is perhaps afraid of letting herself get too sure, so many, many things might come in the way.”

“Wise little Betty,” was Frances’ reply, but the smile which accompanied it went far to raise Eira’s spirits, at any rate, whether or no she ventured to insinuate a greater degree of confidence into Betty’s own views.

After this, which occurred within a short time of the receipt of her letter from Horace, Frances felt that she might write to him with less caution. He had not asked her to reply—not directly so, at least; but her own intuition told her that he would be very grateful for even a few words. But, as is sometimes the case where lives or circumstances have droned along with but the minimum of movement, once the turn comes events seem to precipitate themselves far beyond reasonable anticipation.

“We may have to wait some time,” Frances had said to herself, “in spite of Horace’s ‘few weeks.’ He will scarcely dare to take any very decided step till he is a little more settled.” And this not improbable space of waiting was what for herself she had dreaded almost more than anything.

She was not called upon to face it. Before she had written, before she had even framed in her mind an answer to his letter, all doubts were set at rest.

“What’s this?” said her father one morning, as he scrutinised his scanty correspondence. “I should know the handwriting, surely. Oh, yes, of course,” as he opened the envelope, and ran his eyes over its contents. “It’s from Littlewood—Horace Littlewood. He is coming: down again for a day or two. One or two things Ryder wants him to see to.” This to Lady Emma, as if by no possibility the news could in any way interest his daughters. “Matters as to which he would like my advice—naturally. Oh, I remember now, by-the-by, that he said something about it before he left, and hoped I should be at home.”

“When is he likely to come?” asked his wife with mild interest.

“Let me see,” Mr Morion went on, reverting to the letter. “He doesn’t say definitely. In the course of a day or two. Ah, well,” and he pushed his spectacles up on to his forehead, “remember to tell that stupid parlour-maid—Frances, or one of you girls—to let him in whenever he calls, into my study at once. I see he will depend a good deal on my opinion.”

“Will he, indeed?” muttered Eira, making a little face behind the shelter of her breakfast cup.

And two or three times at least in the course of the next twenty-four hours the somewhat querulous voice of the master of the house was heard inquiring if they, or she, or “one of you” had seen to it that Brown understood clearly about “when young Littlewood calls,” though a couple of words to the servant herself might have set his own mind at rest, and saved his family the irritation of having on each occasion meekly to reply, “Yes, papa; she quite understands.”

No steps or precautions were taken by Frances towards securing for Horace any private interviews with Betty.

“It would only annoy her inexpressibly if I did so,” she said to herself, “and he has scarcely empowered me to act for him in any more definite direction than I have done. He is well able to manage matters for himself and will prefer doing it.”

But while cheerful and practical in her ordinary intercourse with her sisters, she was specially tender to Betty, in small, almost indescribable ways, which the younger girl’s quick instincts were at no loss to appreciate. On her side too, and consistently with her own character, Betty comported herself after a manner which won for her not only her elder sister’s admiration but increased respect.

“There is no lack of real strength about her,” thought Frances. “She will enter into nothing rashly or childishly, nor without grave consideration. And—at best it is not likely to be all roses for her: Mrs Littlewood may be attracted by Betty herself, but ‘the connection,’ as people call it, will not, most assuredly, find favour in her eyes. All I can possibly do to help my little sister, I am very distinctly bound to do, and gladly will I lend myself to it.”

“He” did not delay. The very next morning but one after his letter had arrived at Fir Cottage, there came the ring at the front door bell which in their hearts the three sisters had been on the alert to hear. Frances and Eira were together, sorting some of the now rapidly increasing and important Scaling Harbour papers—notices of lectures, evening classes, magazines for distribution, and all the paraphernalia connected with well-organised parish work—in their own little sitting-room, a pleasant enough den in the warm bright weather. Betty was out of doors, “somewhere about,” a frequent resort of the least practical of the three!

Eira stopped short in the midst of making up a packet; she grew a little pale, though her eyes were bright with expectancy.

“Francie,” she exclaimed breathlessly, “there he is, I do believe.”

“Well,” said Frances smiling, “I dare say it is, as we know he is coming. Don’t look so startled, Eira. There is nothing for us to do just now.”

“But I don’t know where Betty is,” said Eira uneasily. “She may be in the garden, and may have gone up to the church or anywhere.”

“We must leave it to chance, and to Horace,” answered Frances. “Remember, he will be going straight into papa’s room, as he has come ostensibly to see him. It would never do for us to look for Betty: it would only annoy her.” So, in deference to her elder sister’s opinion, Eira went on as best she could with her sorting and folding, though little gasps, which from time to time escaped her, betrayed that she was in anything but a philosophical mood. At last Frances could stand it no longer. With a laugh, born, to tell the truth, in great part of the nervousness she herself was so resolutely repressing, she turned to her sister.

“You had much better tell me what you have got on your mind, Eira,” she said. “I can feel that you are working yourself up, though really unnecessarily, about it all.”

With this encouragement Eira flung her papers on the table and herself into a chair.

“It has just struck me, Francie,” she ejaculated, “that, supposing—supposing, you know, for he must have seen how peculiar papa is, that he went first to him in the old-fashioned way, and that he—you know how astonished he’d be—on the first shock of such a thing—negatived it before he had given himself time to think it over, and take in that nobody could object to him, that he is quite un—exceptional—no, unexceptionable I mean! Wouldn’t it be awful? For, once he had committed himself, there is no moving him. Don’t laugh at me, I am really frightened.”

“I am quite sure,” said Frances, “that you need not dread anything of the kind. Even at the risk of any possible difficulty with papa, he—Horace, I mean—your personal pronouns are really too chaotic, Eira!—would not set about things in that way. But if you are feeling so worried, leave these Scaling Harbour papers just now, and go out. You may very likely meet Betty, and as you don’t know that there is any one in the library, you can do no harm.”

Off flew Eira, delighted to be free, and full of excellent resolutions as to the discretion with which she would act should need arise.

There was no Betty in the garden, nor, without asking a direct question, which under the circumstances she thought it best to avoid, could Eira satisfy herself that Mr Littlewood had really come. So she strolled along the road towards the church, her perseverance being rewarded before long by the sight of Betty seated calmly on a very ancient moss-covered tombstone, meditating apparently, with somewhat eccentric inappropriateness, present circumstances considered, rather on the end of life than on the changes which it was on the point of bringing to her.

“Oh, Betty!” exclaimed Eira, “what are you doing there? You might have stayed in the garden, or at least told me if you meant to come up here.” For by this time the younger sister’s excitement was in danger of lapsing into the cross stage. And it was very hot!

“I am thinking,” replied Betty coolly. “There’s no place like a churchyard for it, and this is a very comfortable seat. And it is nice to remember about all the people that have once been alive and have now got out of it all!”

“Tastes differ,” said Eira, rather sharply. “I shouldn’t call this exactly the time for a new edition of Young’s ‘Night Thoughts’ or Grey’s ‘Elegy,’ whichever suits you best, just when—when other people,” with marked emphasis, “are feeling very anxious about you, and wondering—”

Betty looked up at her with irritating composedness in her eyes.

“What are you talking about, and who has asked you or any one else to feel anxious about me, or to worry about me in any way?” she asked calmly.

Eira felt that she had made a mistake.

“How vexed Frances would be with me!” she thought. And “I did not say ‘worry,’” she replied meekly; “I said,” but she stopped in time. “Wondering” would have been even worse. She felt herself growing very red, with the consciousness of Betty’s steady, calmly inquiring gaze upon her. “Oh, never mind,” she broke off petulantly, “never mind what I was going to say; I’m a fool, I know. It is much better not to care about anybody or anything. I don’t pretend to be wise and well-balanced and superior and all the rest of it, like you and Frances,” but all she got in return was a quiet little rejoinder.

“I don’t know what is the matter with you this morning, Eira. You are very cross.”

It was too bad, she thought, this “pose” on Betty’s part, when only a few days ago she had burst into tears and not attempted to hide the fact from Eira.

“One’s sister’s love affairs are best left alone,” was the resolution she at last arrived at. All the same, she was restless and uneasy; it was almost unbearable to think of Horace Littlewood at that very moment “cooped up with papa—thinking, perhaps, that Betty is keeping out of his way on purpose, for he must have meant us to know that he was coming, and I feel almost sure there is some understanding between him and Frances about it. And a really nice man, so at least I have always read in novels, is so easily discouraged.” At last she could stand it no longer. She got up from the old stone, where for the last few minutes she had been sitting in silence beside her sister.

“Betty,” she said, “I am going home. Won’t you come too? I don’t want to stay here thinking about dead and gone people, as you do. I am too interested in the living,” though the moment she had blurted out the words she regretted them again.

Betty looked up.

“There is no hurry,” she said, “but you need not stay. I will come soon, and—oh, there is Mr Ferraby,” and she rose from her seat and went towards the old vicar, emerging from his own garden by the little gate between it and the churchyard, while Eira, in a fever of irritation and impatience, made her way home again. Nor was her mood any calmer by the time she had reached her own door, for she had stopped a moment at the gate leading into the Laurel Walk, with a sudden instinct that here might be something to be seen. Nor was she mistaken. Half-way down the path she descried a figure—a familiar figure—that of Horace Littlewood, wending his way, and that—or so it seemed to her—with a dejected air, towards the house. He was too far off for her to have accosted him, nor would she have known what to give as an excuse for so doing.

“It is too bad of Betty,” she said to herself, “playing with a man’s feelings in this way. I do believe she has managed it on purpose, and Frances seems to be aiding and abetting her. I dare say we shall hear that he has gone back to London to-night, and is off to India in disgust.”

There was no one to be seen when she got to the cottage. It was still fully an hour till luncheon-time. Eira went up to her room and occupied herself resolutely with certain “tidyings-up,” which she reserved as a species of tonic when feeling herself unusually discomposed. And as she possessed one of those healthy natures which have the power of throwing themselves heartily into whatever is the occupation of the moment, the time passed more quickly than she realised.

It was within a few minutes, a very few minutes, of the luncheon hour, when the door opened softly and some one came in.

“Who is there?” said Eira, without looking round. “Is it you, Frances? The luncheon bell hasn’t sounded yet, I’m sure.”

“It isn’t Frances,” was the reply, in a voice which she knew to be Betty’s, though with something—what was it?—in it which had never been there before, and, turning round quickly, with a curious thrill of eager anticipation in her warm, sisterly little heart, she faced the newcomer.

Yes, Betty it was, but what a Betty! Whence had come this wonderful glow, almost radiance, which seemed to transfigure and illumine her whole personality? Were there tears trembling on her eyelashes? It may have been so, or it may have been the reflection of the new light within the dark eyes themselves.

“Eira,” she exclaimed tremulously, “dear little Eira! I know you thought me horrible this morning, but I didn’t mean it really. I was only—frightened to—to let myself believe about it. I had no certain reason, you see, and I thought it might be just a mistake of dear Francie’s. Please forgive me. I thought I must tell you first—even before her, for we have been almost like one, haven’t we? And—oh, I am so happy now!”

She threw her arms round her sister; for a moment or two neither spoke. Then Eira looked up.

“Betty, dear,” she whispered, “have you seen him then? did you meet him?”

“Yes,” was the reply, while Betty’s face grew rosy all over. “He was waiting for me, watching for me to pass back home. He had found out somehow—perhaps he met Frances—where I was, and we strolled up and down the Laurel Walk. I am rather glad it was there—aren’t you? Perhaps somehow poor old great-grand-aunt, whose namesake I am, will know it and be glad. He is coming this afternoon to see you all, and—” with an irrepressible smile—“to speak to papa.”

The smile of amusement developed into a laugh of mingled delight and mischief in Eira’s case.

“To speak to papa,” she repeated, “how lovely! He is perfectly satisfied that Horace came down on purpose to consult him about the new gamekeeper’s cottage, or something of that sort, that Ryder Morion is settling about. What will papa say? He will never be able to believe that one of us could be more interesting to talk to under any circumstances than he himself. Oh, it will be fun!”

But a tiny shadow had crept over Betty’s face. “You don’t think papa will be angry, do you, Eira?” she said, “or set himself in any way against it? Of course it won’t be all perfection, nothing ever is; we shall have to go to India, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t see why,” said Eira, “when the Littlewoods are so rich. But even if you have to, think what hundreds do so! Papa couldn’t be so unreasonable. And you may trust Horace to have thought everything well out.”

“Oh dear, yes,” said Betty, all the brightness returning. “He is only too anxious, too careful for me. No, I must not spoil it by being afraid about papa.”

Chapter Twenty Two.

Proverbs and Parents.

The luncheon bell rang at that moment. Eira, on the tiptoe of expectation, took her place quietly at table, and no one would have suspected the spirit of mischief which was largely mingled with her happy excitement. She spoke little, and only in her dancing eyes could anything unusual have been discerned.

Betty, on the contrary, was more talkative than her wont, and now and then Frances glanced at her in some perplexity, for Eira’s suspicion that a hint as to Betty’s probable whereabouts that morning had been given by the elder sister to Horace, when she met him for an instant, was well founded.

Had they come across each other? Frances asked herself. She could scarcely think so, and yet Betty was not quite like herself.

“Surely she would have told me first,” thought Frances, though as quickly as the thought came she put it from her as savouring of self-seeking. Why should she expect it? Betty had no idea on what foundation was built the fabric of her own happiness, and nothing was more earnestly desired by Frances than that her sister should never, in the very slightest degree, suspect the real state of the case.

She was recalled from her own abstraction by her father’s voice, replying to an inquiry from her mother as to whether Mr Littlewood had made his appearance.

“Oh dear, yes,” was the reply. “We’ve had a long talk this morning. I was, of course, able to give him the information he wanted. But he is coming again this afternoon.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Lady Emma, with more interest; “then I hope we may see something of him.”

“I doubt it,” Mr Morion replied. “His time is limited, and we have a good deal to go over yet. Really,” with a little self-conscious smile, “if I don’t take care I shall be getting myself into the position of doing agent’s work for no pay,” and he leaned back in his chair complacently.

“I am sure Mr Ryder Morion should be very much obliged to you,” said Lady Emma, “and, indeed, to Mr Littlewood too. It isn’t every young man, with plenty of affairs of his own, no doubt, who would give himself so much trouble for a friend.”

“Humph! he is an intelligent young fellow,” said Mr Morion; “seems glad to gain experience. I don’t know what his prospects are, but he may have property of his own some day, though a younger son. The mother is wealthy. I have promised to look up some things for him this afternoon, so see that tea is brought into my study.”

“Won’t it do in the drawing-room?” said Eira, who could keep silence no longer. “Mr Littlewood surely won’t leave without seeing us at all! We should like to know how Madeleine is, and all sorts of things.”

“Nonsense,” said her father. “He has come down for other purposes than idle chatter with you girls. If his sister sends any message, I can give it you.”

He rose from the table as he spoke, Eira receiving her snub with the keenest sense of enjoyment.

“You don’t mind asking him to give our love to Madeleine, all the same, do you, papa?” she said meekly.

“I will do so if I remember,” Mr Morion replied, as he left the room, followed, as usual, by his wife.

“Francie,” said Betty, in a low voice, for Eira had had the discretion to leave her sisters alone together. “Francie, come out into the garden with me for a moment or two; I want to speak to you,” and Frances understood.

Tea was served in Mr Morion’s room, as he had ordered. But a long time passed after the ladies had finished theirs in the drawing-room, without any sign of the visitor’s departure. At last even Lady Emma began to fidget.

“I am afraid poor papa will be quite tired out,” she said. “I wish I had insisted on their coming in here to tea. Frances, Eira—no, it would scarcely do to send one of you—I think I must go myself. It is really inconsiderate of the young man.”

She was preparing to do as she said, when the door opened, and the two men came in; Horace, slightly flushed, eager, and a little embarrassed as he made his way up to Lady Emma, and shook hands with her heartily. But she scarcely noticed him, so struck and startled was she by Mr Morion’s almost indescribably strange, half-dazed manner and expression. He seemed like a man walking in a dream.

“My dear!” exclaimed his wife, “I am quite sure you are dreadfully tired. Mr Littlewood will excuse you, I have no doubt, if you go and lie down till dinner-time.”

Mr Morion started.

“Tired! I? Oh, no,” he said, “nothing of the kind! Don’t be so fanciful, Emma.”

“And I mustn’t stay,” said Horace—“not for more than a few minutes, at most. There are letters I must write for the night mail. I’m afraid I have tired you, Mr Morion,” and indeed the poor man did look, for once, in danger of a thorough collapse.

Lady Emma glanced at him again with increasing anxiety, while Horace, looking and feeling very guilty, still stood irresolutely, making no attempt to sit down.

Frances came to the rescue, as usual. Doing so, indeed, seemed to be her mission in life. She turned to Horace with a smile.

“Supposing we go out into the garden for a minute or two,” she said, “or at least we can go as far as the gate with you, Mr Littlewood, and leave papa to rest. We want to hear about Madeleine, too.”

Lady Emma looked relieved.

“Frances really has a good deal of tact,” she thought, “but it is very stupid of Mr Littlewood to have tired George so, by staying so long.”

Once outside the house Horace turned eagerly to Frances.

“I hadn’t the least idea,” he began, “that your father was really so nervous. I’m afraid I must have been far too abrupt.”

He glanced round for Betty as he spoke. She had moved towards him, her face full of anxiety.

“But it is all right, surely?” she whispered. “Papa wasn’t angry, was he?”

“I don’t think so,” answered Horace, “he only seemed extremely surprised. What do you think, Miss Morion?” turning to Frances. “You don’t anticipate any real difficulty, I trust?”

“No,” said Frances, with a smile. “I think it will be all right. But we must have a little time to get used to the idea. I suppose fathers always feel a certain shock when they have to face the thought of parting with a daughter.” Her words dispelled the slight misgiving, and Horace’s spirits rose again, and so, as a matter of course, did Betty’s. Eira’s were already bubbling over, and soon, very soon, the merriest of laughter might have been heard through the open windows of the drawing-room, had Lady Emma and her husband not been too preoccupied to notice it.

To say that the mother was less astonished than had been Betty’s father would still leave a wide margin for surprise on her part. For Mr Morion’s state of mind far exceeded that of even extreme astonishment. He was amazed, unable even now to take in as a fact that Betty, insignificant little Betty, as he had been rather in the habit of considering her, could have become a person of sufficient consequence to attract the notice—nay, more than notice, the admiration—of an intelligent man, whom he had honoured with his own friendly regard, and he blurted out the news with an abruptness and almost incoherence enough to have startled any one less calm and in some ways phlegmatic than his wife.

“Mr Littlewood,” she repeated, “Mr Littlewood has proposed for Betty? Betty! you are sure it is she—not, not Fr—?” Here some unexplained instinct made her stop short.

“Betty, of course it is Betty,” was the reply. “Though I confess I am not a little astonished. A child—an undeveloped child—and he, a man of the world and of very fair average intellect. What is he thinking of?”

“You didn’t speak in that way to him, I hope,” said Lady Emma. “It seems to me natural enough—he has fallen in love with her—and to my mind has shown his good taste in doing so. She is not a showy girl, I allow, but eminently refined and sweet-looking. And you forget that she is twenty-four. A very suitable age. And except that she has no money, I, her mother, consider her a prize worth winning.”

“Ah, well,” said Mr Morion, in a more conciliatory tone, for the rarity of the occasions on which his wife “spoke out” to him made them the more impressive. “Ah, well, I was taken aback, I suppose. You forget the wretched state of my nerves. And—my being utterly unprepared for anything of the kind. But you needn’t be uneasy. I shall doubtless get over it in a day or two.”

For once the mother in Lady Emma asserted itself more strongly than the wife.

“I have no doubt you will,” she said, with a touch of irony which, even if her husband had perceived, he could not have believed in. “But I am, if not uneasy, at least anxious to learn more. Naturally so—for Betty’s sake. Is all satisfactory? His position and prospects? And his mother’s approval?”

At this Mr Morion began to feel and look rather small.

“I—I really can scarcely say,” he replied. “He said a good deal—something about India in the first place.”

“Ah, yes,” said Lady Emma, “he may have to go out for a few months, perhaps, before he can arrange things for settling down.”

“And as to his mother’s approval,” continued Mr Morion, not sorry to turn the tables, “I scarcely understand you. How could there be any possible question of her disapproval? One of my daughters? And a Morion? Where were the Littlewoods, I should like to know, in the days when the Morions owned half a county and more in these parts? Besides, it is not the first alliance between the two houses.”

“True,” said Lady Emma dryly. “But not only was Conrad Littlewood the elder son—practically free to please himself—but his Miss Morion, as is often the case with the choice of a rich man, had a large private fortune of her own.”

To this Mr Morion found no reply. He was not going to allow that there could be any possible question as to one of his daughter’s eligibility.

And if Lady Emma’s misgivings were not dispersed, there was too much latent womanly sympathy about her for her to express them so as to cloud the sunshine of Betty’s first happiness. The sight of her radiant face, half-an-hour or so later, when Horace had at last torn himself away, and she crept into the drawing-room, her sisters having had the discretion to betake themselves to their own quarters, appealed to the deepest of her maternal feelings.

“My darling child,” she said. “I am so happy for you, and I think I have good reason to be so. I feel sure we may trust him.”

“Dearest mamma,” was all Betty’s reply. Later in the evening she confided to Frances that it all seemed too happy.

“In story-books,” she said, “and it is only from them that I know about anything like this, things never go so well, there are always lots of troubles, and uncertainties, and difficulties.”

“But there is no rule without exception, you know,” said Frances, smiling at the sweet little face. “Let us hope that your case is in this way to prove the rule.”

In her own heart, nevertheless, Frances was by no means free from misgiving, though in these first happy days she would not for worlds have suggested anything to mar the fresh brightness.

And they were happy days, even to Frances herself. There came to her almost at once the reward of her self-effacement, aided no doubt by her resolutely refraining as yet from dwelling on the mortification which at first had seemed to her so well-nigh unendurably bitter. Horace had but a short time to spare, two or three days at most, and then came the good-bye, not a very melancholy one, as he was only rejoining as yet the depot of his regiment. He was to pass through London on his way thither, for Frances, the only one whom he thought it well to consult on the point, agreed with him that it was better that his news should be communicated to his mother by word of mouth than by letter. Mr Morion entered into no practical details, the state of his own nerves occupying him sufficiently for the present—a circumstance which, considering his own uncertainty as to his plans, Horace could scarcely regret.

“I am very sanguine about it all,” he said to Frances the evening before he left. “There is no doubt as to my mother’s great liking for Betty.”

Frances smiled.

“Yes,” she said demurely, “she likes her much the best of us, I know; it is not Betty personally that she will object to, of course.”

“As soon as I get on to definite ground with her,” Horace continued, “I will try to come down here again, and go into things with your father, who will have got accustomed to the idea by then, I hope. You don’t think I have any reason to feel uneasy on that score, do you? Mr Morion has not even spoken against India, so far.”

Frances hesitated in her reply.

“I don’t think he has taken in the possibility of Betty’s going to India,” she said. “Indeed, I don’t think his mind has gone into any details, though I fancy both he and mamma have some vague idea that you may have to go out for a time in the first place.”

Horace’s face fell.

“That would never do,” he exclaimed. “I should not have a moment’s peace of mind if I went back there alone. And I don’t see that that need be anticipated. Heaven knows I don’t want to take her out there, but plenty of girls, even delicate girls, do go and are none the worse for it, for a short time, and my mother would not like me to be so far away indefinitely. It might be the best thing—to bring her to her senses,” he was going to have added, but the expression jarred on him. “I cannot think that your father would really object to it.”

“Not on ordinary grounds,” Frances replied. “But—papa is peculiar. If he thought that Mrs Littlewood opposed your marriage on any grounds, he, on his side, would not give in in the least. On the contrary, he would seek for all sorts of objections. He would be too indignant at the idea of a child of his being unwelcome to any family to be even reasonable.”

Horace sighed.

“Well,” he said, “we must hope for the best, and thank you very much, Frances, for putting things so clearly. I know my ground better now. If,” he went on—“forgive me if you don’t like the suggestion—if Ryder Morion had been a nearer relation of yours, or on more intimate terms, he might have seemed the natural person to influence my mother, should need arise.”

“Yes,” said Frances, thoughtfully, “but, you see, he is not in that position towards us, and it would have had to be done very, very carefully, so that my father should never have suspected any intervention on his part. There is still the old sore, though I am very glad that we now know him better.”

The next few days were passed in keener anxiety on Frances’ part than on Betty’s. Nor, if she had been gifted with clairvoyant powers, would her misgivings have been decreased, but very much the reverse, by a conversation which took place between the Littlewoods, mother and son, the day following that of the latter’s arrival in London.

Mrs Littlewood’s tone and manner at the opening of this tête-à-tête were strangely disconcerting, and the cause of this ever remained a mystery to Horace, completely unsuspicious, as he was, of his mother’s fears lying in the direction of Frances instead of Betty. And as the conversation proceeded, and light broke in upon her, he naturally attributed the unmistakable softening of her tone to his own good management, and his hopes rose accordingly; only, however, to be dashed to the ground again, for while Mrs Littlewood’s relief was great at the substitution of the one sister for the other—towards whom she had allowed herself to indulge in really unjustifiable prejudice—this happy effect was greatly marred by her personal feeling of annoyance that she herself should have been so mistaken. Her pride rose in arms, for she would not allow, even to herself, that she was actuated by anything but purely disinterested regard for Horace’s welfare.

And her ultimatum, when she delivered it, was in accordance with this position.

“My dear Horace,” she said, “the whole thing could scarcely be more unfortunate. She is a dear, sweet child, I own, but about as little fitted to be your wife as Conrad’s Lilian. So delicate, too, you could never dream of taking her out to India.”

A pang of cruel disappointment shot through the young man’s heart at these words.

“I have certainly not the slightest wish to do so,” he replied, “though she is not as delicate as she looks. I agree with you, however, as to the inadvisability of such a step. That, indeed, is my reason for putting it all before you in this way.”

Mrs Littlewood raised her eyebrows.

“But what is the alternative?” she said. “If you exchange, you lose all your steps, as you have constantly impressed upon me, not to speak of the diminished pay in England. Of course the only thing to be done is for you to go out alone again till you get your troop. And in every way this is the wisest course. It gives time for consideration of the whole affair. I need not remind you of the old proverb, ‘Marry in haste—’”

“But, mother,” said poor Horace, almost stunned by her words. “You have over and over again begged me to retire altogether, and—and promised to make my doing so possible, though you know I would never have led an idle life at home or anywhere.”

“I have never promised, nor dreamt of promising, material help towards your making an undesirable marriage,” was the cold reply. “If you can get employment in England which would justify you in marrying a penniless, inexperienced, fragile girl like Betty Morion, do so. There shall be no scandal about it in the family, but I entirely wash my hands of any and all responsibility in the matter.”

There was no more to be said. Half brokenhearted, for Frances’ warnings as to the probable effect on her father of such opposition naturally came to add their force to his distress, Horace left his mother and spent the rest of the morning in writing a very long letter to Frances explaining the whole state of the case, and, by the same post, a much more carefully worded one to his father-in-law elect, setting forth the advantages to his future of his not leaving the service at present, and expressing his hopes that, as the regiment was at a healthy station, the marriage might take place within the next few months, so that Betty might accompany him on his return to India. He did not name his mother.

Frances’ heart sank when her father summoned her into his study the morning of the receipt of these letters.

“What is the meaning of all this?” he demanded. “Littlewood says you understand his position! Not very complimentary to Betty—baby though she is. Does he think I am going to allow a daughter of mine to marry into a marching regiment and go to the ends of the earth? What is his mother thinking of?”

Chapter Twenty Three.

Not too “Smooth.”

The storm had burst. Poor little Betty’s half-superstitious misgivings, that in their case “the course of true love” was “running too smooth” to last, for her and Horace, seemed to have been prophetic. For, as Frances, with her experience of her father’s peculiarities, had feared, once the idea had entered Mr Morion’s mind (suggested in the first place negatively by Horace’s non-allusion in his letter to his mother or his family) that but scanty welcome was to be accorded to his daughter, he mounted a very high horse indeed. He refused to entertain for an instant the idea of India for her; he went back upon the Littlewoods’ shorter pedigree and deficient quarterings; he worked himself up to refuse his sanction to any engagement of any kind!

Horace, as his letter showed, was in despair. Betty was palely miserable, though between the two themselves the opposition but strengthened their trust and devotion. Frances suffered for both to an extent which really blotted out the sting of her own disillusionment more completely than she as yet realised.

Things were in this position when one afternoon, about a week after the receipt of Horace’s letter by Mr Morion, Frances, feeling self-reproachful for having omitted her usual visits to Scaling Harbour during the last few days, made her way thither, feeling, sadly depressed and almost hopeless. The sight of Betty’s white face was beyond the reach of her philosophy.

“I cannot bear to see her,” she thought to herself, “just when I thought her happiness, at least, was secured;” and it took considerable self-control to listen with her usual sympathy and attention to all the confidences, requests for advice, hopes and troubles, which were poured out upon her by her now familiar friends among the fisher-folk. And of all these there was to-day a more than usual amount, partly owing to her own temporary absence, partly owing to an unfortunate coincidence, which she now learnt for the first time, that during the last fortnight Mr Darnley had been forced to go away for change and rest.

Everything down here, too, seemed to have been going crookedly, and her face, as she turned the corner of the main street on her way home again, looked very unlike its serene self.

So absent-minded was she that she almost ran against a man walking rapidly in the opposite direction; it was not till his murmured “I beg your pardon” made her glance up quickly that she saw, to her amazement, that the newcomer was no other than Mr Ryder Morion. She gave a little exclamation of surprise, and somehow, almost in the same instant, the expression of his eyes, kind and somewhat concerned, sent through her a curious little instinct of hopefulness.

“Can he have heard about it?” she thought, and his next words did not dispel the idea, though they scarcely confirmed it. He turned at once as if to accompany her.

“You are not looking well, Miss Morion,” he said. “I am afraid you have been overworking yourself down here, with Darnley’s absence. I only heard of it on my arrival at Craig-Morion last night. There are several things that need seeing to at once, so I am doubly glad I came, even though I may miss him. But you mustn’t burden yourself too much.”

“On the contrary,” said Frances, her colour deepening, “I am reproaching myself with having done nothing here lately. I—we have been a good deal absorbed at home by other things. And I, too, did not know Mr Darnley had been ill. It does seem unfortunate—before his helper, the new curate, has come, too. Things always seem so contrary,” with a little attempt at a smile.

“That is not your usual way of looking at the world,” said her companion. “I hope—I am afraid—do not think me impertinent—I hope your home absorptions have not been painful ones.”

Frances’ lips opened and closed again. “I—I wonder if you know anything?” she said, with a kind of abrupt frankness; “but I must not take you out of your course—you were going in the opposite direction.”

“I had only one more thing to do,” he said, “and then I am going home. It was, in fact, a second thought—may I overtake you? I shall not be more than five minutes, and I want to talk to you about some of the people down here. I am sorry about the Silvers. I want to see Mrs Silver again for half a moment.”

Frances looked up.

“I was afraid there was something the matter there,” she said. “Though Jenny did not say much.”

“I will tell you about it,” he replied, as he hurried off.

As soon as he had turned the corner, Frances—who was feeling very tired, and yet, inconsistently enough, far less depressed than five minutes ago—sat down on one of the rocky boulders strewn capriciously about this part of the coast, even some little way inland. Down below, the little waves were rippling in gently, gleaming softly in the sunshine; the day was balmy rather than brilliant—there was a sense of afternoon restfulness over the whole, very soothing and congenial. She felt as if she could trust Ryder Morion, and the impulse grew stronger upon her to tell him everything, whether or not he was already prepared for it. But before she had time to come to any decision he was back again. She started to her feet at the sound of his approaching steps.

“What is it about the Silvers?” she said.

“Nothing very grave, I hope; it is only that Jack came home—well, not sober—the other night. It is only the second time it has happened, but I don’t wonder at the poor little woman being uneasy. She was ashamed to tell you, but—I am sure you will not mind—she has promised me to let you know if it seems well to do anything in the way of giving him ‘a talking-to.’ It appears that Mr Ferraby knows them both well—he married them—and in Darnley’s absence his influence might be of use.”

For a minute or two they went on talking about the Harbour and its inhabitants. Then there came a little pause. Without appearing to do so, Mr Morion had by this time made his own observations, and drawn his own conclusions therefrom.

“She is very troubled,” he thought. “I feel sure that it is about this affair of Horace’s. I wish I understood better. Why could he not have told me the whole?”

Frances walked on, her eyes bent on the ground, thinking deeply. Once or twice her companion hazarded some remark in hopes of drawing her into speech again. But she scarcely seemed to hear him. Then, suddenly, she looked up as if she had come to a decision.

“Mr Morion,” she began, “I am anxious and unhappy, as you have seen. Worst of all, I am utterly at a loss how to act, or rather how to advise others to act who look to me for advice. I had not, of course, the slightest idea that you were here, but yet you were one of the very few whom I wished I could tell about this trouble. You—and Madeleine—the only two, perhaps. Shall I tell you the whole?—regardless of the rather peculiar position you are in to both sides, as it were.”

“Perhaps I know more already than you suspect,” he said gently. “That may make it easier for you. It is about Horace Littlewood, is it not? and—your sister. Please do tell me exactly how things stand. I gather that you are free to do so. And please forget that I am myself—except in so far as my position towards all concerned might give me more power of judgment. You see, I know all the Littlewoods well. Horace’s mother is a good woman and means to be a just one. Don’t exaggerate about her. I fancy she is not at present being true to her best self.”

“I hope so,” said Frances. “I hope so indeed. I will tell you all,” and so she did.

It was not difficult, once she had begun. He drew from her with infinite tact, the tact born of true interest, the conflicting shades of feeling which were complicating the whole. For she was too essentially dutiful a daughter to throw any avoidable blame upon her father, yet too fair-minded not to allow that his extreme attitude—his mixing up of personal feeling and family prejudice where there was no need to have brought them in—was every day making conciliation more and more difficult.

“He will not hear of Betty’s going to India,” she said, “and has now reached the length of saying that under no circumstances would he sanction the engagement. And surely that is not fair or right? Eira declares,” she went on in a lighter tone, “that it is a case which would justify the two principals in running away.”

“I almost sympathise with her,” said Mr Morion, “still—that would be an extreme measure! If Horace were independent, I mean practically so—so placed that he could marry without imprudence, I should say, do so! and trust to time and her real good feeling to conquer his mother’s unreasonableness.”

“Ah, yes,” said Frances, “but you are forgetting papa: we could not risk it with him, and Betty would be miserable through her whole life if there were any coldness with her own people. You see, papa is so sore. It is not that he is ungenerous: he wouldn’t mind if Horace had nothing, if he could give her enough. But he has been brought up to feel sore about things, and he cannot throw it off.” For the moment she had really forgotten to whom she was speaking.

In one direction her companion was glad of this; it was what he had asked her to do. On the other hand—“Am I growing very selfish and grasping?” was the thought that went through his mind. “I should like to say, or at least to feel, that all this has come from the old disappointment—our great-grand-aunt’s failing to keep her promise, and to regret it as heartily as George Morion himself could do. But I cannot. There is a strange survival in me of the old family feeling as to this queer place. I would sacrifice a good deal rather than let it go from the old name.”

“Some way must be found out of the difficulty,” he said at last, aloud. “We cannot stand by and see these two young lives clouded and perhaps spoilt, and Betty looks a fragile, sensitive little creature.”

“She is stronger than you would think; strong enough and deep enough to suffer a good deal,” answered Frances; but, as Mr Morion glanced at the grave young face beside him, it struck him that Betty would be by no means the only one on whom all this trouble would leave its mark.

“I shall be here for a few days,” he said. “Will you trust me to think it well out, and see where or how I can be of use? I would go to see Mrs Littlewood if that could help matters.”

Frances looked at him with thankful eyes, and again there came over her, still more strongly, the sense of strength and protection she had already been instinctively conscious of. To her it was a strange and novel but none the less grateful sensation. Even with Horace she had never experienced it in the same way.

“I suppose it is that he is so much older,” she thought, “and that it has never come in my way before—for with poor papa it has always been us trying to shelter him!”

Their talk had carried them far on their road. Half-unconsciously Frances had passed through the lodge gates which Mr Morion opened for her, thus making her way home across the park, till they reached the usual short cut to Fir Cottage, where he came to a halt.

“I will not attempt to see your father for a day or two,” he said. “I will write to him asking when I may call.”

“Thank you,” said Frances, “that will be best. And in the meantime I will not mention having seen you. As things are, I think it will be better. But,” with a little touch of anxiety and appeal, new in her, but none the less charming, “you will be sure not to go away without letting me know?”

“Certainly not,” he replied. “I think very probably my first step will be to write fully to Horace, which may lead to my going to see his mother. If so, I will tell you.”

Five minutes later Frances entered her own home with a heart considerably lightened. Her burden was at least shared. She felt too that she had laid it in willing and helpful hands.

“How little, how very little,” she thought to herself, “did we ever imagine that Ryder Morion was the sort of man—would be the sort of friend he is!” And though she did not as yet feel free to tell Betty of the somewhat clearing horizon, her new hopefulness made itself instinctively felt.

“Things will come right somehow, I feel convinced!” she did say to her sisters, for poor Eira stood in need of cheering almost as much as Horace’s fiancée herself.

Frances’ sleep that night was disturbed, to an extent which rarely occurred with her, by strange and fantastic dreams. Her common-sense explained them, partially at least, by the unusually anxious and almost overstrained condition of her mind and nerves. Yet, as she lay awake the next morning in the early summer daylight, she could not altogether account for them in this way.

“I wonder if there really are occult influences of which we are only conscious when the more material part of us is inactive,” she said to herself. “It would seem so, though it would be dangerous to give too much thought to such a possibility. It would interfere with ordinary life and duties.”

Yet, despite this practical view of the matter, she could not succeed in throwing off what had been the predominant impression of her visions, even though these in themselves had grown vague and confused. She was haunted by a feeling that there was something for her to do, something that some one—who or where she knew not—was wishing her to do. Now and then in the stillness, broken but by the voices of the little birds outside, she could almost have believed that whispers, like a far-off murmur of the sea, were growing all but audible to some interior faculty of hearing which under normal conditions she was unconscious of possessing. The dreams themselves had been a fantastic mingling of fact and fancy, as indeed dreams commonly are. It had seemed to her that she was again on the sea-shore near the Harbour, but late at night instead of in the balmy sunshine. Cries of distress reached her, apparently from a boat some little way out at sea, and her first thought was of Jack Silver, who, she imagined, must be in danger. She turned to run homewards in search of help, when suddenly she found herself in the Laurel Walk, at the other extremity of which—the farther end from the house—she saw a light gleaming more distinctly and brightly than the faint reflection which it had puzzled both herself and Ryder Morion to account for that night when they were standing at the library window. She tried to follow the light, but found to her distress that she could not overtake it, her feet seeming too tired and heavy to move, though she was conscious that the beacon was intended to direct her towards the church. Then came another sudden change of scene and of time. She was a little girl again, playing in their own garden with her two still smaller sisters, Eira rolling on the lawn, Betty clinging to her as if asking to be carried. But with the effort to lift the child came again the painful sensation of powerlessness, till, glancing up, she saw a white figure standing beside them, whose sweet, pale face bent gently over the child, while a voice whispered softly: “Forgive me, and let me lift her!” At the words a shudder, not so much of fear as of awe, went through Frances, and the relief was great when, on her endeavouring to interpose, she saw that where the weird figure had been standing there was now in its stead that of Ryder Morion with a reassuring smile on his face. But before she quite awoke she seemed again to hear the pleading voice, though from a greater distance, and to feel, rather than hear, the words “Forgive me, and try—” and with the unfinished sentence the dream broke off, and she awoke with the sense, as has been said, of some task having been laid upon her to accomplish.

Nor did this leave her during the next few days, though from time to time the impression somewhat faded. Rather to her disappointment and surprise, she heard nothing of any note or letter to her father from Ryder Morion. No one but herself seemed to have known of his being in the neighbourhood! She could almost have fancied that her walk and talk with him had been a curiously rational episode in the strange dream which had visited her that same night. But all doubt of the reality of his material presence was put to flight by a letter which she received on the fourth morning after having met him. A letter which fortunately did not attract her father’s attention, as the Fir Cottage bag was rather unusually full that day, and which she was able to read without any one noticing it. It contained but a few lines:

“Dear Miss Morion,—
“I am afraid you will scarcely feel inclined to trust me any more, when you see that I have left Craig-Morion without seeing you again or writing to you,”—for the letter was dated from the writer’s club in London. “I was summoned quite unexpectedly up to town. I think, however, the matter which we were talking about will not suffer from this; on the contrary, it may turn out for the better. I will write again before long,—
“Yours very sincerely,—
“Ryder Morion.”

This explained the silence, and Frances was fain to take refuge again in the patience of not wholly unhopeful waiting. More than this, she succeeded in cheering poor Betty, and that not groundlessly, for her confidence in Ryder Morion suffered no diminution.

Still those were trying days, at best.

Late one afternoon, just as tea was over, Frances was told that a young woman was asking to speak to her, waiting at the back door.

“Is it any one you know by sight?” she inquired of the parlour-maid.

“I think she has been here before, miss,” was the reply. “She comes from Scaling Harbour, but”—with a little hesitation—“she seems rather in trouble. I don’t think she would give me her message,” and at these words there returned to Frances’ memory the promise Ryder Morion had made to Jenny Silver of help and advice, should need arise, from herself.

She started to her feet with some self-reproach for having forgotten, in the pressure of other thoughts, the poor girl’s anxiety. And further back in her mind there lurked another remembrance, which did not till later on take distinct form. It was that of the association of some trouble menacing the young couple of which she had dreamt, though but for this visit she would probably never have thought of it again.

As she expected, the figure awaiting her was that of Jenny Silver.

“Oh, miss!” she exclaimed. “I am ashamed to trouble you, but the gentleman told me I might come to you if things got worse.”

“You were quite right to come,” said Frances, and as she spoke she glanced round. “I will come out with you a little,” she said. She still wore her out-of-door things. “We shall be quieter in the garden.” And she took the poor woman to a seat hidden in the shrubberies.

After all, things with the Silvers were not in one direction as bad as she had feared. Jenny had come to her partly because her husband’s old father was very ill—dying, in short. Her Jack, she went on to say, had not offended again, but he had remained sullen and unlike himself. This had troubled the old man, and Jenny had come to ask if Miss Morion thought it would be possible to get Mr Ferraby to go to see him the next day.

“Father thinks a deal of the old vicar,” said the young woman, “and he thinks maybe it would be a good chance for Jack to start fresh again. Father can’t be with us long, and the vicar might know how to get hold of Jack just at this time.”

Frances quite agreed with her that the opportunity should not be lost, and after a little more talk it was settled that she should walk up to the vicarage with Jenny, and explain things in the first place to Mr Ferraby, as it was a good while since he had seen any of the Silver family. Jenny was full of gratitude for Miss Morion’s help, and fortunately they found the old vicar at home. A few minutes’ talk between him and Frances while Mrs Silver waited outside put him in possession of the state of the case, and he expressed himself as eager and ready to help and sanguine as to the result of a good talk with the young man.

“He is far from a bad fellow,” he said, “though I am not surprised at Jenny being anxious. Her own people, the Bretts, have always been so very respectable and sober that the contrast between them and what she sees down at the Harbour must be painful. But put them off your mind, my dear Frances; Darnley and I will see to it that he is pulled up in time.”

So Frances was able to say a hopeful word to the young wife before she sent her into the vicarage, promising to look her up at home before long; and when Jenny disappeared through the glass door of Mr Ferraby’s study, she turned away again with a feeling of relief, so far as her poor friends were concerned.

Chapter Twenty Four.

“The Secret of the Panel.”

Frances stood for a moment in hesitation. Should she go home at once, or stroll a little farther? No one was wanting her at Fir Cottage just then, and she rather shrank from tête-à-têtes with her sisters in their present suspense. Her glance fell on the old church, and there came upon her a strange feeling of attraction thither, overmastering the remembrance of the shock she had received there. And somehow, almost before she knew it, for the door was again open, she found herself in the old pew in the very same corner where both she and Eira had in different ways been so startled.

Her glance fell on the woodwork where her frill had caught. Yes, the little splinter was still sticking out. She touched it: it was stronger than she had thought, and did not yield to her intention of pulling it off. She pulled again, then pressed it backwards.

“I must either pull it off or push it in,” she thought, “or it will be tearing our things.”

But the pressing had an unexpected effect. Suddenly something gave way under her fingers: the whole little panel, about a foot in length, fell in with a clatter, and she saw before her a small cupboard of which she had inadvertently touched the spring, something like the concealed boxes to be found in the wainscoting of old windows, which used to be called “fan cupboards.”

At the first glance there was nothing to be seen. The panel in falling flat had covered the contents of the little receptacle. But as she put in her hand to draw it upwards again, she caught sight of something white lying beneath. Another moment and she drew out a lone narrowly folded parchment document, on which, to her unmitigated amazement, were inscribed in crabbed old-fashioned letters, the words: “Last Will and Testament of Elizabeth Morion, spinster,” with the date.

Breathless with excitement, feeling as if in a dream, Frances unfolded it. It was almost impossible for her to decipher much, couched as it was not only in technical but very old-fashioned phraseology, with a great mixture of legal Latin, and the usual absence of punctuation. But she read enough to satisfy herself that it was the missing will, the will devising to her grandfather the smaller of his aunt’s (the testator) properties, i.e., Craig-Morion, while Witham-Meldon, with its long list of appertaining estates, was bequeathed to the elder nephew, the direct ancestor of Ryder Morion.

For a few moments after this extraordinary discovery Frances was literally physically incapable of moving. Half mechanically she at last managed to pull back the panel into its place, and then she sat clasping the document in her hands, while a whirl of ideas rushed through her mind as to the consequences of her trouvaille. She felt no sensation of fear, though she actually listened in a kind of expectation of hearing again the softly drawn-out breath, sigh, or the rustle of the stiff silken garments, by means of which the perturbed spirit of her long-dead great-grand-aunt had seemed to endeavour to draw the attention of the still living to her secret. But there was nothing to be heard. Perfect stillness reigned. And at last Frances drew herself together and made her way out of the ancient building.

In the still sun-flecked churchyard, where the long evening shadows were now falling on the familiar tombstones, Frances felt herself in the ordinary world again. But for the contact of the thick sheets in her hand she would have fancied herself waking from a dream. Gradually the question took shape in her mind, what was best for her to do? Her first impulse was to hasten home with the wonderful story to her sisters, to consult them before any one else. But Frances had drilled herself rarely, if ever, to yield to first impulses. As she stood there, her perturbation of spirit, insensibly coloured, and composed with the sweet yet solemn peace around, a new impression stole into her mind. To whom was it due to confide first of all this extraordinary discovery, if not to the head of her house, the representative of the elder branch of the Morions, whose resting-places for centuries past were all around her as she stood there? And who, from what she had come to know of him, could better be trusted to act with fairness and right judgment—nay, even more, with sympathy for those whose interests conflicted with his own—than Ryder Morion himself?

“Yes,” was her mental decision, “that is the right thing to do. It is straightforward and best in every way.”

For though not a moment’s doubt crossed her mind as to the result of what she had found—what she now believed she had been guided to find by the strange influences she had more than once been conscious of—yet, knowing her father’s peculiarities, and the critical state of things in her family at the present juncture, she felt it would be kinder and better, even though at some cost to herself, to keep the events of that afternoon secret till she should have related them to the present owner of Craig-Morion.

“If only he were still here,” she thought, “or if I knew when he was returning! I don’t want to write it to him—I really feel as if I could not!” For now her scattered faculties, fast recovering their balance, reminded her that there were two sides to the strange restitution.

True, Ryder Morion was by all accounts far too wealthy a man to take into consideration the two or three thousand a year—which at most Frances imagined it must be—of loss of income, involved by the alienation of his smaller property. But independently of this she felt a strong persuasion that his interest in the place had come to be a close and personal one.

“It will seem an instance of the irony of fate to him,” she thought, “that just as he has got to identify himself more with Craig-Morion, he should have to give it up.” Yet, on the other hand, her cheeks flushed with delight as she thought of the advantages to those nearest and dearest to her of this almost incredible windfall. “It is not only the money,” she went on thinking, “though to us that will seem great riches, but the position it will give papa. Mrs Littlewood will think differently of a marriage with one of us now.”

All these reflections, as everybody knows is the case—above all, in moments of excitement—took far less time to pass through her mind than is required to relate them.

When Frances had reached this point she was no farther on her way home than the little gate leading into the Laurel Walk. Her glance fell on it.

“I know what I can do,” she thought. “I will go up to the house at once. The Webbs are sure to be there, as Mr Morion is expected back again, and I can hear from them how soon he is returning. If there is to be any delay about it, I may have to write and hint at a new development which makes me more anxious to see him again.”

And, acting on this determination, she lifted the latch and made her way towards the side-entrance of the big house.

Was it her fancy, or was it owing to some peculiar effect of the time of day, that the Laurel Walk looked less gloomy than she had ever before seen it? Streaks of sunshine crept through unexpected places, falling athwart the old gravel path, usually so grey and colourless. The cheerful, chirped “good-night” of the little birds sounded full of hope and happy summer anticipation of another blissful day. It really seemed to Frances as if some spell of gloom and sad regret had been dispersed.

When she reached the house the door at the top of the short flight of steps stood slightly ajar. She was scarcely surprised, as she knew Mrs Webb’s uncomfortable love of “spring cleanings” at every season, orthodox or unorthodox, of the year.

“She is probably having a turn-out of the library because poor Mr Morion has used it lately,” she thought; and, instead of making her way round to the back premises by the narrow path skirting the house, she ran up the steps, calling out as she pushed open the glass door, “Are you there, Mrs Webb?”

Some one was there, some one who came forward at her words from the other side of the dimly lighted room, some one whose voice made her start and stop short in her surprise. It was the very person she had been wishing to see, and now that he was there it was all she could do to reply with any composure to his own somewhat astonished exclamation of “Miss Morion! You cannot have got my letter already?”

“Your letter?” she repeated, shaking her head; “no, I have had no letter except the one saying you had to go. I had not the least idea you were here. I was—looking for Mrs Webb.”

“Shall I find her for you?” he asked, turning towards the inner door.

“N-no,” said Frances; “no, thank you.” Then, summoning her courage: “The truth is, I only wanted to hear from her if she knew when you would be coming back again. I—I wanted to see you very, very much! Something quite extraordinary, something you can hardly believe, has happened. The old will—the missing will—has been found.”

“The missing will?” he repeated. “Whose will?”

“Our great-grand-aunt’s, of course,” she said impatiently. “The will she always promised to make, and which could never be found. Our great-grand-aunt, Elizabeth Morion! Oh! you do know about it!”

His face changed, he was beginning to take it in.

“And who found it, and where?” he said rapidly. “And why was I not told of it at once?”

Frances drew herself up.

“I found it,” she said, “this very afternoon, not an hour ago, in a panel in the old pew. And no one knows of it as yet—I meant, I thought it was right to tell you first.”

She held out the packet, but, before taking it from her, Mr Morion drew forward a chair.

“I will look through it as quickly as possible,” he said, “but do sit down.”

She did so, watching him intently as he opened out the stiff, crackling sheets, and set himself to study their contents. At first his face remained absolutely impassive. He had turned over three or four sides—after all, as such things go, it was not a very long document—when some sudden thought made him glance at the end. Then came a change, a strange change in his expression: he knit his brows and his whole face clouded in perplexity.

Now again, for the first time since entering the house, Frances remembered what, in her excitement, she had momentarily forgotten—that these must be the revers de la médaille, and her own face fell as she realised the blow that her discovery might cause to her kinsman.

“May I,” he began at last—“don’t hesitate to say if you would rather not consent—may I keep this document for a day or two—nay, even less, a few hours would do?”

Frances coloured.

“Of course,” she said, “it is safer with you than with me. Keep it as long as you like, except that—I am naturally anxious to tell the others.”

He did not reply, a little to her surprise, but sat for a moment in consideration.

“Yes,” he said at last, “a few hours will be enough for me to take it all in. Can I see you again to-morrow? Do you mind telling no one else till then?”

“I will do as you think best,” she replied; “but how can I see you without fear of interruption? Oh! I know! Will you meet me at the church? I can easily get the key. I should like to show you the cupboard in the pew. I can be there quite early, and then we can settle about telling papa.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Yes, you will find me in the churchyard waiting for you.”

Frances rose to her feet. As they shook hands, she felt his eyes, the kindly grey eyes she had learnt to trust, fixed upon her with an expression she could not define, and, as she walked home slowly, the question as to what it meant came to add itself to the already existing whirl of thought in her brain.

“It was almost as if he were sorry for me,” she reflected, “whereas, I think I should be sorry for him. What strange minglings and revulsions of feeling I have had to go through in the last few weeks! I, whose life had hitherto been so monotonous. After all, how difficult it is to get at even one’s own real self! That afternoon when I first found out about Horace and Betty—was what I felt all a mistake? Was it only mortification? I begin to think so, and that there is no need for me to examine the wound—that there is no wound, scarcely a scratch! Otherwise could it have healed so quickly?”

The remaining hours of that day seemed interminable, and the next morning found her at the church gate, armed with the great key, some minutes before the time agreed upon. But, early as it was, Mr Morion was there before her, and together they made their way to the pew, where she pointed out the secret of the panel.

“It is very curious,” he said, “very curious indeed,” but his manner was somewhat absent and “carried.”

“Before we talk about this,” he went on, touching the large envelope in his hand, “I should like to tell you that I am much happier about Horace Littlewood’s affairs. I have—we have, he and I—arranged something. One of my agencies will shortly be vacant, he is just the man I should like for it, and a short training will make him quite competent. I should have offered it to him in any case. It gives him the independence he longs for, and—I do not see that your father can now oppose the engagement.”

Frances hesitated.

“It is very, very good of you,” she said; “you must let me thank you, even though you may have acted primarily as Horace’s friend. Certainly, my father will have no reason for any objection—no valid reason. But except for,”—and she glanced at the packet—“the change in his position, I doubt if he would have got over his hurt feelings towards Mrs Littlewood.”

A look of real distress came over Ryder Morion’s face.

“I think it will be all right,” he began. “I think Horace and I can make him see things differently, independently of,”—here he broke off—“and,” he resumed, “once Mrs Littlewood takes in that Horace has a right to act upon his own judgment and that he is no longer a boy at her beck and call, she too will act reasonably, I feel sure. But—I scarcely know how to tell you what must be told. This discovery of yours, so strangely made, practically leads to nothing. You had not observed,” and again he hesitated with a painful consciousness that Frances was growing terribly white, “that—that the will is not signed.”

They were in the porch by now. Frances sank down on the stone bench beside her, without speaking.

“Not signed!” she gasped out at last; and for all reply Ryder Morion held out the last page for her to see, and a glance satisfied her.

“Oh dear!” she murmured, “how could I have been so blind? Not signed!”

He gave her a moment or two in which to recover herself a little.

“There is still more to tell you, and it is best to get it over,” he said. “Even if it had been signed, I believe it could not have been acted upon, after this long lapse of years, though I should have done my best, you may be sure. But as things are, I have nothing in my power. This property, like the rest, is strictly limited to the descendants of the elder branch.”

“And papa, of course,” said Frances sadly, “is very proud. A doubt of any kind as to perfect legality would have—I mean to say he would never have taken advantage of your good will.”

“Which, as you see, I have no chance of exerting. Still,” he went on, “I am not without some hope that I may persuade him, seeing that there is now no doubt of our great-grand-aunt’s intention, to look upon Craig-Morion as his home for life. As regards this, things are made easier by his having no son.”

But Frances shook her head. The tears were slowly welling up into her eyes, and she made no attempt to hide them.

“I wish I could thank you as you deserve,” she said. “I feel horribly selfish at being so disappointed, when—I should remember that it could not but have been a wrench to you to part with the old place. And, too, when you have been so very, very good to Horace. I am afraid my father would never agree to any arrangement such as you propose.”

“If only—” he began impulsively, then checked himself again. “Frances, I cannot bear to see you in such trouble, and I may succeed with your father by showing him that even by the terms of this will, failing a son, he would have been in much the same position of only life-renting the place. At any rate I will do my best.”

“Then you have no doubt as to its being well to tell him?” she asked.

“None whatever,” he replied warmly. “You yourself, or I, if you prefer it, or—both together, perhaps, can do so.”

Then followed a long silence. Frances quietly wiped her tears away, while the colour slowly returned to her cheeks.

“I think I had better go home now,” she said.

“I would rather not tell papa to-day. I would like him first to have heard about Horace. You are free to tell him, I suppose?”

“Yes, Horace has empowered me to do so,” he replied, “and there is no reason for delay. I will ask him to see me to-morrow morning, and then,”—he looked at her interrogatively.

“Then I suppose I had better tell him my story?” said Frances. “Though I should like, if possible, to hear in the first place the result of your talk with him.”

“That can easily be managed,” he answered. “I will write to you as soon as possible after seeing your father.”

“Thank you,” said Frances.

They strolled slowly down the churchyard path: the subject of her discovery was still prominent in the girl’s mind.

“Mr Morion,” she began again abruptly. “I cannot help saying what can have been the poor old lady’s motive in acting so inconsistently? Just think of all it has caused! No wonder her spirit has not been able to rest,”—with a half-smile—“if it is really the case that any supernatural influence has been exerted upon us!”

Ryder did not show any sign of making light of the supposition.

“It will be curious to notice,” he said, “if these strange experiences, which I own I can’t explain, come to an end now that she has at least vindicated her intention of acting up to her promise. It almost seems as if she had been under some fear of the elder of the two cousins—my forbear! Perhaps she meant to leave the will in its hiding-place till the very last, and then have it brought to her for signature, when no anger could fall upon herself. And she may have died too suddenly to carry this out.”

“It looks like it,” said Frances. “But no one will ever know fully.”

“I should say no one,” repeated Mr Morion.

“And all the poor old great-grand-aunt’s efforts to put things right will after all have been in vain,” Frances resumed.

“Not quite, I hope,” said her companion eagerly. “You are forgetting that I am depending much on your discovery as a lever wherewith to persuade your father to agree to what has become almost my greatest wish, especially as—I wish I dared hope that other possibilities might tend in the same direction.” Frances looked up, perplexed.

“I don’t understand,” she said; but no explanation followed.

“I have tired and worried you enough for to-day,” said Ryder, regretfully.

“You forget the good side of it all,” said Frances, gratefully. “Betty’s happy prospects!”

He smiled with gratification.

“I hope our next talk will have no bad side to it,” he said, as they parted.

A week later saw the fulfilment of Ryder Morion’s good hopes of a successful termination to his interference on Horace’s behalf. How far this was due to the skilful diplomacy exercised, how far aided and abetted by Mr Charles Morion’s immense satisfaction at the tenor of the will, which almost nullified the disappointment at its practical inadequacy, it is not necessary to define. From henceforth the master of Fir Cottage was able to speak with confident magnanimity of the position and possessions which should in “all equity” have been his. And though as yet he had not absolutely consented to the position of life-tenant of Craig-Morion, which his kinsman urged upon him, the latter was sanguine as to his eventual success in this particular also. For, as he had prophesied, Horace’s mother had given in, and that graciously, being far too clever a woman to do a thing of the kind by half, if she did it at all.

After the manner of the old fairy-tale we may here say good-bye to little Betty and the prince, who, though in nineteenth-century garb, had after orthodox fashion broken the long captivity not only of his lady-love but of those about her.

But there is more to tell.

There came a day on which Mr Ryder Morion’s allusion to other vague possibilities was explained to Frances, and that not in vain.

“Though there is one confession I feel it due to you to make,” she said to him. “It is all so different now—so much, much happier and surer and more restful—that I can scarcely believe I was ever so foolish! But—Ryder—there was a time that I thought I cared for some one else, and, worse still, that he cared for me!”

The smile with which this avowal was received was more than reassuring.

“Worse still?” he repeated; “no, as to that I can’t agree with you—not as far as I am concerned. Perhaps I knew or suspected more than you had any idea of. Perhaps you were not alone in your suspicion, deepened in my case into fear, that the ‘some one’ did care for you! And the relief was great when I found my mistake. But it would have been worse had your feelings been involved as you may have imagined they were.”

“And as I now know so certainly they were not,” said Frances happily. “You see, I was so inexperienced in such things, though not young.”

“Not young! When my greatest misgiving has been that I was far, far too old for you,” he answered. “For there was a time when I thought I should never again care for any woman—I was scarcely more than a boy and she still younger when I lost her. Some day I will tell you more; there is nothing painful in it to me now, and her short life was very happy.” And as Frances looked at him she thought indeed that it could scarcely have been otherwise.

The rôle of “great lady” was not what she had ever dreamt of for herself, not, assuredly, what she would have chosen; but she fulfilled it well, bringing to bear upon its difficulties and responsibilities—its temptations even—the same single-minded sincerity of purpose which is, in all conditions in life, the best armour for man or woman.

Even Mrs Conrad Littlewood came by degrees to own that no better châtelaine could have been selected to do honour to the glories of Witham-Meldon, and to dispense its generous bounties in all right directions.

And “great-grand-aunt” Elizabeth slept henceforth in peace.

The End.

| Chapter 1 | | Chapter 2 | | Chapter 3 | | Chapter 4 | | Chapter 5 | | Chapter 6 | | Chapter 7 | | Chapter 8 | | Chapter 9 | | Chapter 10 | | Chapter 11 | | Chapter 12 | | Chapter 13 | | Chapter 14 | | Chapter 15 | | Chapter 16 | | Chapter 17 | | Chapter 18 | | Chapter 19 | | Chapter 20 | | Chapter 21 | | Chapter 22 | | Chapter 23 | | Chapter 24 |

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Table of Contents

- Mrs Molesworth "The Laurel Walk"

- Chapter One.

- A Rainy Evening.

- Chapter Two.

- A Break in the Clouds.

- Chapter Three.

- Mr Milne and Another.

- Chapter Four.

- Betty in Arms.

- Chapter Five.

- Autumn Leaves.

- Chapter Six.

- “Not at Home.”

- Chapter Seven.

- The Curtained Pew.

- Chapter Eight.

- When Things are at the Worst.

- Chapter Nine.

- They Begin to Mend.

- Chapter Ten.

- The Eyrie.

- Chapter Eleven.

- First Impressions.

- Chapter Twelve.

- Lady Emma “Gets it Over.”

- Chapter Thirteen.

- Growing Interests.

- Chapter Fourteen.

- In the Old Library.

- Chapter Fifteen.

- Breaking Ground.

- Chapter Sixteen.

- “I Don’t Quite Remember.”

- Chapter Seventeen.

- The Laurel Walk Again.

- Chapter Eighteen.

- “Elise.”

- Chapter Nineteen.

- Unsatisfactory.

- Chapter Twenty.

- An Afternoon Letter.

- Chapter Twenty One.

- Horace.

- Chapter Twenty Two.

- Proverbs and Parents.

- Chapter Twenty Three.

- Not too “Smooth.”

- Chapter Twenty Four.

- “The Secret of the Panel.”

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE