

About the book

Ten short stories from White Tree Publishing's most popular Christian author from the past, Margaret S. Haycraft. Some are cosy romances, and others less cosy involving forgiveness and acceptance of loss. They are all single chapters, apart from the first, which is six short chapters.

With a Gladsome Mind

Ten Short Stories by

Margaret S. Haycraft

1855-1936

White Tree Publishing Edition

Original book first published 1895

This edition ©White Tree Publishing 2019

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-44-5

Published by

White Tree Publishing

Bristol

UNITED KINGDOM

wtpbristol@gmail.com

Full list of books and updates on

www.whitetreepublishing.com

With a Gladsome Mind is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this abridged edition.

Author Biography

Margaret Scott Haycraft was born Margaret Scott MacRitchie at Newport Pagnell, England in 1855. She married William Parnell Haycraft in 1883 and wrote mostly under her married name. In 1891 she was living in Brighton, on the south coast of England, and died in Bournemouth, also on the south coast, in 1936. She also wrote under her maiden name of Margaret MacRitchie. Margaret Haycraft is by far our most popular author of fiction.

Margaret was a contemporary of the much better-known Christian writer Mrs. O. F. Walton. Both ladies wrote Christian stories for children that were very much for the time in which they lived, with little children often preparing for an early death. Mrs. Walton wrote three romances for adults (with no suffering children, and now published by White Tree in abridged versions). Margaret Haycraft concentrated initially on books for children. However, she also wrote romances for older readers. Unusually for Victorian writers, the majority of Margaret Haycraft's stories are told in the present tense, but not this one, except in the final pages.

Both Mrs. Walton's and Margaret Haycraft's books for all ages can be over-sentimental, referring throughout, for example, to a mother as the dear, sweet mother, and a child as the darling little child. In our abridged editions overindulgent descriptions of people have been shortened to make a more robust story, but the characters and storyline are always unchanged.

A problem of Victorian writers is the tendency to insert intrusive comments concerning what is going to happen later in the story. Today we call them spoilers. They are usually along the lines of: "Little did he/she know that...." I have removed these when appropriate.

£1 at the time of this story may not sound much, but in income value it is worth approximately £120 pounds today (about US$150). I mention this in case sums of money in this book sound insignificant!

This story was sold in a combined volume of two novelettes by Margaret Haycraft, the other being the title of the volume, The Lady of the Chine. This novelette will be published by White Tree Publishing later in 2018. Unlike The Lady of the Chine, Iona seems to have been either rushed to meet a deadline, or poorly edited in places by the original publisher. For example, names appear later as though they have been in the story all along. These and other minor problems have hopefully been addressed in this White Tree Publishing Edition, without changing the plot or characters in any way.

Chris Wright

Editor

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

There are 10 short stories in this book. In the second part are some advertisements for our other books, so the stories may end earlier than expected! The last story is marked as such. We aim to make our eBooks free or for a nominal cost, and cannot invest in other forms of advertising. However, word of mouth by satisfied readers will help get our books more widely known. When the story ends, please take a look at what we publish: Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, and books for younger readers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

About the Book

Author Biography

Note

1. With a Gladsome Mind

2. Strawberries and Cream

3. A Snowdrop Valentine

4. The Useful Trouble of the Rain

5. Among the Lilies

6. Easter Violets

7. Seaweed ‒ A Poem

8. When the Reapers Reaped

9. White Lilac

10. That Song of Old

About White Tree Publishing

More Books from White Tree Publishing

Christian non-fiction

Christian Fiction

Books for Younger Readers

1. WITH A GLADSOME MIND

Chapter 1

Winifred

"The mist and the rain, the mist and the rain,

The wind and the wet, the wind and the wet ‒

The grass will grow when I am gone,

And the west wind‒‒"

"THAT is not a very cheerful quotation, my dear."

"Uncle," asked Winifred Crewe, turning round from the window from where she had been gazing at the sharp downflow of the April rain, "uncle, do we only live to be cheerful? This stormy weather would surely remind us of life's plenitude of tears, for there is no knowing how soon the sunniest existence may be overcast.

"'Into each life some rain must fall;

Some days must be dark and dreary.'"

"Were you at the club last evening, Winnie?" asked her aunt, gazing at her rather anxiously. "Johnnie, Johnnie, take Noah and his wife out of your sister's porridge."

"We do not call it a club, Aunt Nellie," said Winifred, with emphasis. "I certainly attended the weekly meeting of the Eureka Association. Miss Vanguard opened the discussion with a paper on 'Yearnings'. It made a deep impression, and many were moved to tears."

"What part did you take in the meeting, my dear?" asked good-natured Dr. Crewe, as though conscious that his niece would assuredly be found among the speakers. "You are Vice-President, are you not?"

"Yes, uncle, and it fell to me to second Miss Vanguard's resolution with a few words on 'The Cloudland of Ordinary Human Existence.' The Association unanimously adopted our premises, viz., that the present female position is entirely unsatisfactory, opposed to intellectual progress, and restrained by slavish chains. Also, that society is under a delusion as to woman's rightful groove and inner aspirations."

"Jimmie," interrupted Mrs. Crewe, hastily, "do not bring toys to the breakfast table; and take that paper bag off the cat's head at once. I beg your pardon, Winnie dear, what were we speaking about? Oh, yes, I wanted to ask you how you would like your birthday party arranged. Last year, you know, you were studying astronomy, and we took the children over the Altus Observatory, and Mat was frightened at a design of Capricornus on the ceiling of the front hall, and had to be taken home. And that was how Johnnie was left to himself, and got lost in an upstairs room with a skylight. I remember he had bad dreams that night, poor child. He thought he was a star, and the children in the Infant Class at our Sunday school were singing, 'Twinkle, twinkle,' round him. I am sure that was enough to depress the brightest constellation, poor little thing.

"Then the year before last, Winnie ‒ that was about the time you won the ladies' athletic prize, you know ‒ we made the dining room into a gymnasium, and fitted it up for a Hygienic Fete. And poor Jane Raven ‒ she was under nurse then ‒ caught her head in the hanging strap of the 'jumper,' and your uncle gave her a letter to the accident ward of the hospital. Well, dear, this is your twenty-first birthday, so we must make it as enjoyable as possible for you."

"It would be a becoming compliment," said Winifred, "for me to invite the members of the Eureka Association to a congress at our house. It is rumoured, though I can scarcely believe it, that Mrs. Gosse objects to sparing her front parlour for that purpose once a week, so the offer of our room will be timely. We might offer the members afterwards some slight refreshment. Perhaps we could induce Mr. Gosse to be present, and read us something original, or offer a few remarks on that occasion."

"By the way," said her uncle, suddenly, "did I not promise to run down to Redgrove next Tuesday, Nellie? Pity I should have to miss Winifred's party."

"You said Monday or Tuesday, dear," replied his wife.

"Ah, then I can make it Tuesday," murmured the doctor. "Now then, Jim, jump up and see if the chaise is waiting."

The elder boys went away with their father, who set them down at the Grammar school ere proceeding on his rounds. Winifred returned to the window to lament the lack of any object or mission worth living for, whilst cook besought Mrs. Crewe's assistance in the matter of "that there kitchen chimney smoking again," and the little ones came to grief in a confused heap under the table.

"Dear, dear, do you call this keeping quiet?" exclaimed little Mrs. Crewe, hurrying back from an inspection of the flues, which it had never occurred to cook to clean. "Archie, tell nurse the little ones can go out as soon as the rain ceases; and get out the blocks and alphabet bricks. There, my wee Ethel, don't cry. Let mother kiss the poor little leg she knocked."

The children crowded round Mrs. Crewe till nurse appeared. It never occurred to them to claim "Cousin Winnie's" attention or assistance. As Jimmie and Guy expressed it, "She's downright clever for a girl, but she can't put up with being bothered."

"Well, dear," said Mrs. Crewe, kneeling down to mend the cord of an armchair when the children had disappeared, "will you let me know the probable number of your guests, that I may provide accordingly? Of course Tom Tudor will be here. Your uncle asked him yesterday. The Tudors are such old friends that we can scarcely leave them out on such an occasion."

"Personally," said Winnie, with dignity, "I should prefer to drop the connection; for though we have been on intimate terms with the family, it has become evident to me that they are very far from intellectual."

"Winnie dear," said Mrs. Crewe, with some hesitation, "everyone is not equally gifted. But I am sure the Tudors are kind Christian people, and the sick and suffering would esteem far more a visit from Edith Tudor than from Miss Vanguard herself."

"It takes a cultivated taste to appreciate Miss Vanguard," said Winifred shortly. "While we are on this subject, aunt, I may as well tell you at once that my eyes have been opened in time to the true destiny of cultured womankind. I am aware that at one time I did not forbid the attentions of Mr. Tudor, but I have now positively informed him of my intention to remain single, and devote time, thoughts and affection to the progress of the female public."

"That accounts, then," said Mrs. Crewe, "for his visits having nearly ceased. I am very sorry, Winnie; but I should not like you to feel uncomfortable, especially on your birthday. So shall we ask the Tudors to postpone their visit?"

"Not on my account," was the reply. "I shall be unaffected by their presence, and the conversation of my friends may prove of lasting help to any latent mental aspirations that they may possess, especially if I can persuade Mr. Gosse to join us. But unfortunately he is in universal request amongst the advocates of social advancement."

"Has Mr. Gosse any situation ‒ any profession, dear?" asked the busy woman, opening the workbasket so full of "juvenile mending."

"He is a student, aunt. A student of human nature and of human needs. His vocation is to satisfy the mortal longings that this wilderness world has too long neglected."

"But meanwhile, dear," hesitated Mrs. Crewe, "how are his wife and children to be supported?"

"I cannot say," answered Winnie, indifferently. "Mrs. Gosse is a very inferior woman ‒ a person of no mind at all. Our association pays Mr. Gosse for his public lectures, but his personal expenses must be high, as his soul is too deeply enlarged to endure existence save amid high-art surroundings. I only hope we shall secure a speech on Tuesday. I shall make a point of reporting it for the local paper. I have sent the editor several of Mr. Gosse's speeches, but he has hitherto, much to his regret, been unable to find room for them. Of course, they appear at length in The Minerva, the organ of our Association."

"Well, I must see how the children are getting on," said Mrs. Crewe, as sounds of a fall and weeping reached them from upstairs.

"If you are going upstairs, aunt, please send Ethel down with my hat and waterproof. I am going out to see old Mrs. Jarvis in the Almshouse."

"Not in this strangely misty weather, Winnie! It seems deepening to an almost autumnal fog. Really, I do not know what the seasons are coming to. Do stay indoors, to please me."

"I would certainly gratify your wishes, aunt, but the voice of duty calls me out. Our Association takes special care of the minds of the poor. It has been traditional to care only for their bodies, but we undertake the higher parts of their nature. We do not despair of the time when their intellects will be to them as a continual feast. The mist seems clearing now, and Miss Vanguard has entrusted me with two new tracts for Mrs. Jarvis. Emerson for Beginners and The Theory of Mental Association."

"Well, dear, you must wrap yourself up; and if you really must visit Mrs. Jarvis today, will you take her the scrapbook which Ethel has arranged for her? The poor old lady is so fond of pictures, and she will lend them to those around her. And can you take a little basket with tea and sugar? We could spare some of the cornflour pudding from supper last night."

"I will take the basket, aunt; but I trust Mrs. Jarvis has learnt to think more highly of mental nourishment than of material food. She has now had several volumes chosen by our Association, and is by this time far beyond the scrapbook. I wish you and uncle would let me take Ethel's education in hand. She would soon regard these highly coloured recreative pictures with distaste, and live only for the future which lies before her ‒ if she will but grasp it ‒ as the Wilberforce of her sex."
Chapter 2

In the Mist

Away tripped grey-eyed Winifred Crewe, the doctor's somewhat over-indulged orphan niece, who had been a wilful child of ten when the good man took unto himself a wife. The weather was miserably depressing, and the roads were uncomfortably muddy, but Winifred passed on, exalted in spirit by the firmness of her benevolent intentions. She would not have minded an accidental meeting with her heroine, Miss Vanguard, or any other of the Association lights.

"What matter," she inwardly exclaimed, "though all around be dim and dismal? The path of duty is illumined by the soul. And thus most safely guided from within, I pursue my way amid external darkness which is certainly settling into a fog."

At this point, a shouted warning from the conductor of a dustcart warned Winifred that she must have strayed into the road. Drawing back hastily in much alarm, she ran with some force against a milk can, and partially emptied its contents upon the pavement. She found sixpence to satisfy the discontent of the milkman, but being brought into almost immediate concussion with a brewer she clung with determination to a kindly lamp post, against which she landed breathlessly.

What was her dismay when the post found voice, a very familiar voice likewise, and Tom Tudor exclaimed, supporting her meanwhile with sympathetic determination, "Winnie, dar‒‒ Miss Crewe, are you really out in such weather, when winter seems to have found us out most savagely? And close by the Market, nearly three miles from your home!"

"The Market!" repeated Winnie, holding his arm in bewildered association with the lamp post still. "There is no market in Bank Street."

"This is not Bank Street," he answered. "You must have taken a wrong turning, Miss Crewe."

"Many a life is ruined by a wrong turning," moralised Winifred, recovering herself, and anxious to prove to her late suitor her entire self-possession. "As Mr. Gosse has well remarked, the young men of the present day‒‒"

"Yes, yes, very true," said her companion rather impatiently. "We are all liable to make mistakes, but I am glad I happened to be near when you blundered by reason of the mist. The papers say we are to have several days of this heavy atmosphere. Strange for spring, is it not? But we shall prize the sunshine all the more when it wins the battle at last. Are you cold, Winnie?" and his arm moved towards her basket. Perhaps he mistook it for a wrap or shawl.

"You forget yourself," said Winnie, drawing back with decision, but shivering slightly as she spoke. "Must I again remind you that certain passages of our early youth are now ended, never again to be renewed?"

"I think," said he, with a little quiver in his strong voice, "you might at least give me some reason for breaking my heart."

"There are some natures," said Winifred, "eminently fitted for the single life. I repeat that I shall never marry, but, like Miss Vanguard, devote myself to the betterment of my kind."

"Oh, that's all nonsense, Winnie ‒ I beg your pardon. I really did not mean to offend you, but must a woman leave off doing good because she gets married? Think what a blessing you would be at the Manor Farm. You know what you are to me, and how you would cheer my poor old mother who has always been so fond of you. Frank Wilmot will soon be taking Edith away. Our home will be desolate, Winnie. Amid all your philanthropy, can't you take pity on me?"

"My vocation," said Winnie, coldly, "is certainly not to supply Edith's place. My talents and hers run in widely different directions. This conversation must finally cease."

"One word more," cried Tom, impetuously. "Suppose you had not made up your mind to a single life, could you have taken me as a husband?"

"You force me to answer you, Mr. Tudor, and I shall do so at the risk of offending you. I cannot find in you a congenial spirit. I cannot look upon you as a man of mind."

"I know I am not clever," said Tom, flushing slightly, "but I love you very dearly, Winnie. Since I cannot satisfy you, however, I will not distress you by further pleading. Will you let me escort you to your destination? It is too dark for you to go home alone. I fear we shall have a severe storm shortly."

"I am not going home," said Winnie, rather surprised at the change in the tones, a while ago so passionately tender. "I am taking some tracts to Widow Jarvis, at the Almshouse."

"Dear old Dame Jarvis!" exclaimed Tom. "I think mother and Dame Jarvis are the best Christians in Sunnyside. I know the old lady has taught me a very great deal. She is always so bright and unselfish."

"The poor woman is deplorably ignorant," said Winifred, "and rather frivolous-minded for her age and condition. But what can one expect of the uneducated? Do not trouble to come farther, Mr. Tudor. I will not take you out of your way."

"Not at all," he replied, "this is my way."

Mrs. Jarvis, who was crippled in both legs, managed to open the door of her tiny abode for them, and her face made a gleam of sunshine when Tom Tudor hailed her through the mist.

"Stand back, mother, or we shall have you laid up with a cold. Here is Miss Crewe, who has braved the damp weather to visit you. There's something you'll fancy in this basket, I know," and he laid down the burden he had been carrying.

"Aunt has sent you some tea, Mrs. Jarvis," said Winifred, "and I have brought you the Theory of Mental Association, as I have no doubt you have finished Leisure Hours with Modern Metaphysicians by this time."

"It's so kind of you, Miss Winnie," said the old lady, "to take the trouble; but my sight is that weak, I can't read naught but my large-print Bible. Bless the Lord, I can read out a bit there still. There's a little girl round the corner, a sweet little lamb that brings her Sunday school books here at times, and reads that pretty it's a treat to hear her. She tried to read me one of them books you was so good as to bring, Miss Winnie, but the hard words made her cry. So I says, 'Fetch the good Book, dearie, and read me a psalm. I'm powerful dull, but there's something in the good Book as an old woman can get hold of.' I've been thinking, Miss Winnie, it's too late for me to understand all this clever book-learning. I never was anything of a scholar."

"It is never too late to drink from the fountain of knowledge," said Winifred. "The development of the mind ceases only at death."

"Does it cease then?" asked Tom, in a half-whisper. "Surely our lost ones are wiser than we are."

Dame Jarvis caught the words and her face kindled. "Bless the Lord!" she exclaimed, "we shall know Him and see Him as He is, and we shall be satisfied. It's good, Master Tom, to know as He'll take and teach a poor old woman that was always behindhand at her learning ‒ yes, teach her all things, just when her mind gets all dazed like, and the poor feeble body falls asleep."

"Then you do not wish to enjoy the benefits of the Association Library for befriending the poor?" asked Winnie, somewhat offended. "There is a very pleasant looking old man across the way who often stretches out his hand through the window for some of the books. I have not visited him yet, but as I see his soul is thirsting for intellectual culture, I will introduce him at once to the best philosophical writers."

"Please, Miss Winnie," hesitated Dame Jarvis, "old Joey won't do you no harm; but please, miss, he's not sensible."

"You had better return at once, Miss Crewe," said Tom, "for the fog is certainly clearer, though there are storm clouds in the distance."

As the weather was decidedly brighter, he did not press his escort further, but shook hands with her outside the Almshouses. As they parted, Winifred said with emphasis, "Mr. Tudor, you quite understand that subject is never to be renewed?"

"Never," he answered. "I will never re-open it. I promise."

"Thank you," said Winnie, with an air of relief, "because I assure you my mind is made up concerning it, decisively and unalterably."
Chapter 3

A Birthday Party

The dining room at Ivy Cottage was given up on Winifred's birthday to the members of the Eureka Association. Punctually at three o'clock their young hostess seated herself at the head of the table, notebook in hand, her thoughts straying just a little, it must be confessed, to a tiny bunch of choice, sweet violets sent to her that morning as a birthday greeting from Tom Tudor.

These flowers were by her desire to adorn the tea table, and do honour to the intellectual party expected. Poor Tom, arriving with his sister, and hearing his flowers botanically discussed till fierce warfare resulted between the five leading botanists of the association, would not have the comfort of knowing that one little cluster of those violets was shining upstairs in Winnie's room.

Reproaching herself now with moral weakness concerning this small, sweet posy, Winnie's manner took an augmentation of dignity as she bade little Ethel, the only girl in the doctor's large family, retire at once to the nursery.

"But it's your birthday, Cousin Winnie," pleaded the child. "Mayn't I stay here on your birthday?"

"She would play quietly with her puzzle, Winnie dear," said Mrs. Crewe, who was bustling in and out, on hospitable thoughts intent. Then seeing Winifred's far from honeyed expression, and holding it right in her motherly heart that the will of the birthday sovereign should be held in regard, she dismissed little Ethel with the promise that all the children should come down for a little while after tea.

And now the members of the Eureka Association began to arrive in quick succession. It appeared to be a special article in the Eureka creed that any woman wearing colours was degrading her sex by infantile frivolity. Hence poor Mary, who wore a pink bow in her cap in honour of Miss Winifred's birthday, was reduced to shame and confusion of face by the audible whisper of the first arrival that she "decked with perishing ribbons the tomb of a poor, dead, worthless mind."

As for little Mrs. Crewe, who looked the fairest of matrons in grey merino, with here and there a touch of crimson, it was fortunate for her peace of mind that she was too busy to notice the contemptuous glances of her guests. She was obliged to go upstairs, as nurse had a holiday, and there being several married ladies present who had little children of their own, she asked, with a bright smile, if anyone would like to "see the baby."

"We are obliged to you, Mrs. Crewe," said Miss Krabs, an elderly spinster with very little hair and a prominent forehead, "but our purpose in gathering here is to sit, speaking figuratively, at the feet of our president, Miss Vanguard, who will lecture this afternoon on 'The Social Emancipation of the Bondaged Sex.' And as we could derive but little assistance in our consideration from an interview with the infant in question, we ask you to excuse us if we decide, appreciating the importance of time, to open the argument at once."

As Winifred here heaved a sigh over the trivialities which held such interest for her aunt, and as Miss Vanguard, a middle aged lady with a degree and a piercing eye, arose in her place with a cough and a great rustling of black alpaca garments and manuscript paper, Mrs. Crewe betook herself somewhat hastily to the nursery.

Baby was taking his afternoon nap, and as she drew the restless tribe about her, finding occupation for the little active minds and fingers, the mother's eyes wandered often to her youngest treasure, her beautiful boy, nestled beneath a bright plaid shawl, one round arm thrown above his head, his soft cheeks rosy with sleep.

As the afternoon wore on, a faint knock sounded at the nursery door, and a quiet, rather faded-looking woman peeped in. "I am Mrs. Gosse," said the intruder, nervously.

Mrs. Crewe had heard of her ‒ as delicate in body, and "inferior" in mind. Amid her husband's friends she was remembered only to awaken pity for "poor Mr. Gosse," as united to one so utterly beneath the level of his own exalted intellectual platform. Naturally of a shy, self-depreciatory character, Mrs. Gosse shrank out of notice as much as possible, occupying herself with her sicklky children, and the fine embroidery by which her taste and skill replenished the family purse.

It added fuel to the fire of Eureka indignation that the "wife of a Gosse" should waste precious moments in fancy-work when she might have been studying her husband's treatises on Feminine Fetters, or Women, break your chains! But Mrs. Gosse might have answered, had she possessed the courage, that Feminine Fetters would not sole and heel Bobby's boots, nor would Women, break your chains! provide the relish which was necessary to Mr. Gosse's breakfast.

Coming in about four o'clock with her husband, she had felt so miserably out of place downstairs that when someone proposed to her, with veiled sarcasm, to accept Mrs. Crewe's invitation to the nursery, she had crept away at once in intense relief.

Mrs. Crewe made her one of the cosy circle directly. The children showed all their treasures of toys, stories and shells. Baby woke up, the picture of good temper, very willing to sit on the visitor's lap and play with the worn buttons of her dress. And the two mothers drew near in heart as they talked together of their little ones; whilst down in the dining room even the silvery eloquence of Mr. Gosse failed to reconcile the younger Miss Krabs and Miss Vanguard, who were at variance on the subject of interpretation as regarded certain passages in Jeremiah.

How they reached Jeremiah by the road of Social Emancipation of the Bondaged Sex ‒ the paper for the afternoon ‒ is a mystery; but there they still tarried for dispute till there was a sound of cups and saucers, and the tea bell rang at six o'clock.

The Tudors, with three or four other friends of the Crewes, were already in the drawing room. The doctor, sorely against his will, had been persuaded by his wife to join the party, and he was delightedly discussing with Tom some plans for the Temperance crusade which the latter waged so simply and earnestly among the men on his farm, when, notebook in hand, the ladies thronged down upon them, and Mr. Gosse, in the midst, uttered a Greek salutation which caused the members of the association to thrill with admiration, and murmur unanimously, "How truly classic!"

Dr. Crewe, who had professional opinions of his own concerning Gosse's mental condition, eyed him with some degree of compassion, and whispered to Tom that it was "best to humour him." The young farmer, conscious that the Greek placed him at still further disadvantage in Winnie's eyes, made secret resolves to hunt up on the morrow a bygone grammar of his schooldays, but afterwards reflected with melancholy that it was market day, and his attention would be claimed by pigs.

"Your face, young man," said Mr. Gosse to Tom, with complacency, "is not altogether unfamiliar to me. My mind has surely some association with the lines of your physiognomy; perhaps in some art gallery of the ancient seat of the imperial purple. I believe I mentioned to you, Miss Vanguard, that I studied art abroad before my marriage" (and here he sighed pathetically and yearningly, as if searching the depths of the "might have been," and the ladies made a sympathetic chorus) ‒ "probably, young man, in the queen of cities, as one of our gifted writers has it, I have noticed lineaments like yours in a pictured slave, or a sculptured Goth or Vandal. I believe, my young man, you do not devote your attention to anything intellectual, such as would demand the sympathy of the members of this Association?"

Winnie shook her head mournfully in the background. Tom, who much disliked being called "my young man" by Mr. Gosse, made answer, "You are right, sir, in supposing that you have seen me before. Your boy wanted to join our Band of Hope, and I called at your house with a pledge card, which you declined on his behalf. We had a little talk together that evening on the subject of abstaining."

"I recall the circumstance," said Mr. Gosse, tapping his brow meditatively. "My sensibilities were shocked at your offering to a son of mine so debasing a crutch as a Band of Hope pledge card. I informed you, young man, that whilst a Gosse can roam at will in the ambrosial fields of knowledge, he is secure against carnal and fleshly allurements. My son, though scarcely seven, is, by my directions, a student for eight hours daily in the academical walks of learning, and he will grow up, if worthy of certain inherited powers, a genius. And what has genius to fear from the flowing bowl? Does Mind, sir, find, condescend to intoxication? I am aware that many of the lower classes drink to excess; but make them philosophers, scientists, metaphysicians, fill their homes with such books as are approved by the Eureka Association, show them the delights of logic, argument, silvery rhetoric, or cultured meditation, and you will perceive a change. Away with your pledge books, young man! Fetter not the spirit of the free, but gently, gently waft it higher to the atmosphere of Mind, wherein alone mankind truly lives. And what about womankind? Was Eve less‒‒"

Deep interest shone out on the faces of the ladies, who at once crowded round him to hear further discourse on their favourite theme. However, as tea had been waiting for some time, Dr. Crewe apologetically responded to his wife's sign towards the comfortable breakfast room, and offered his arm to Miss Vanguard, whilst Mr. Gosse took Winifred, as the heroine of the day. Mrs. Crewe made room for Mrs. Gosse beside her, then came Willy and Guy, very red and nervous among "such a lot of women," but gradually cheered by the simultaneous advent of Tom Tudor and muffins.

Tom undertook to keep the boys in order, and the merriment at that part of the table was shared by his pleasant faced sister Edith, and by Nora Keough, a dark eyed Irish girl, a former schoolfellow of Winnie's.

"How pretty Nora looks this evening!" thought Winnie, glancing from her young friend to Tom. "How nice it will be if Tom takes a fancy to her; then I shall be quite safe from annoying entreaties." And it was perhaps owing to her anxiety that Tom should make such a choice that Winifred could scarcely keep her attention away from the two during tea, though Mr. Gosse and Miss Vanguard were discussing Sophocles close beside her.

Classical conversation, however, did not render the association indifferent to the claims of cold chicken, ham, teacake, tongue, and various home-made cakes and confections. The ladies plied Mr. Gosse with good things, and Dr. Crewe observed with satisfaction that repletion was proving slowly but surely an antidote to eloquence.

A pleasant little surprise had been arranged by the association for Winifred, namely, the presentation, on the occasion of her birthday, of a new volume of poems by Mr. Gosse, entitled Sighings in a Cemetery. Winifred, though greatly admiring Mr. Gosse as a prose writer, had never read his poetry, and earnestly requested that he would favour the company after tea with a selection from the volume. Tom glanced at the poet somewhat darkly, and then hastened to procure hot toast for Mrs. Gosse, as though unable to repress his practical sympathy with the partner of the popular genius.

The children being disposed amongst the visitors in the drawing room, and severely admonished by Winifred as to behaviour, Mr. Gosse, inly afflicted with acute indigestion, read aloud from Sighings a melancholy effusion entitled "A Garland of Cypress." The ladies murmured, "How chaste! How pathetic!" and Miss Vanguard shed elegant tears at appropriate intervals; but the children were led forth, one by one, in affright, and Dr. Crewe, regarding Gosse, whispered to Tom that he feared it was a "very bad case."

At last the hostess, in despair, sent in sandwiches and coffee to the lingering guests, and having disposed of the refreshment, they took their leave, Mrs. Gosse murmuring to her hostess, "God bless you!" as a basket of "cake for the children" was slipped into her hands, and Mr. Gosse presenting Dr. Crewe with a pamphlet on The Privilege of Entertaining Angels Unawares.
Chapter 4

Winifred's District

The roses budded, bloomed, and died, leaving haunting fragrance in many a heart. The fires of early winter gleamed at Ivy Cottage, shedding their light on warm looking curtains, cosy cushions, toys and picture books here and there, and, best of all, on bright and loving faces.

After tea was the "children's hour," when the Doctor was usually at liberty to act as pony or wild beast according to the entreaties of the little ones, or to continue the relation of the marvellous stories in which good children were rewarded, and offending punished in a manner that deeply impressed the audience; whilst Mrs. Crewe, at the piano, led the little voices in simple songs and hymns before the happy feet trotted off to Slumberland.

On this particular evening, Winifred, as usual, was absent from the group. She had expressed herself to her aunt that her "soul thirsted to exalt her species," and she withdrew herself more and more from family ties. Out among the evening shadows, accompanied by Miss Vanguard, Winifred was paying visits of charity ‒ at least the ladies would have described them as such, though in its sweetest sense of love, charity had very little to do with their manner of caring for the poor. After all, it was their manner that was at fault. They really wished to elevate the condition of the lower classes, but neither stooped down to take up the magical key of sympathy wherewith to unlock this social labyrinth.

No pain-worn face brightened at their approach, no little children ran to welcome them. Miss Vanguard, who held that the mistake of the age is sickly sentimentality, gave no encouragement to demonstrative ways or words on either side, but went from house to house collecting and distributing books, maps, charts, etc., in a bustling, business-like manner. But she was heard to complain to Mr. Gosse that the "Ingratitude of the poor is most astonishing. It seemed to make little difference to them whether the Eureka Association made arrangements to enlighten them or not."

Conscientiously acidulated to the requisite point, the two ladies somewhat abruptly lifted the latch of door after door, pausing sometimes whilst the good man of the house politely stayed his evening meal to commit hygienic memoranda to their notebooks, or to rebuke the presence of Irish stew, and request the wife to remember that the Hindus derived satisfactory nourishment from rice.

Winnie shrank a little from interrogating Widow Barnes as to the system of training she had adopted towards her boy Frank, who had enlisted against her will and added ten years to her age; but Miss Vanguard was about to publish a treatise on "Parental Control," and probed the aged heart for the benefit of the public; then, fearing she had been weak, our heroine severely rebuked the little Johnsons for absenting themselves from an evening class she had lately started at Ivy Cottage on the Formation of the Nose ‒ with diagrams. And when they pleaded the non-existence of boots, she reminded them that man, in his natural and primeval condition, is independent of boots ‒ which indeed, as Miss Vanguard explained to them, have done much to cramp and deform the anatomy of the foot. Miss Vanguard further required of them to repeat, as a warning against an undue hankering to be shod, the well-known lines commencing

"How vain we are! how proud to show

Our clothes, and call them rich and new!"

The ladies "did" all the district apart from Seymour Street. Thither Miss Vanguard declined to go, having heard that fever was raging there, and being required at the evening meeting of the Association to take the affirmative side in the debate, "Is the Female Brain more Highly Developed than the Male?" ‒ present company always being excepted in the person of Mr. Gosse.

Winnie promised to attend the meeting later on, but her romantic nature was eager to dare danger for the sake of duty; and as personal risk was the only one present to her thoughts just then, she drew from her bag a cheap copy of Sighings in a Cemetery, as appropriate to sickness, and knocked bravely at the door of No. 1.

She was surprised, after long waiting, at the sight of a hospital nurse who opened the top window and told her that the fever was abating in the neighbourhood, but there were two very bad cases in that house, and Dr. Crewe had stationed her there, as the patients could not be moved. So, much to Winnie's indignation, she would not admit her, or come downstairs to take the book, but said she must return to the sick children in the back room, and she counselled Winnie to disinfect herself at a chemist's ere returning home.

Highly incensed at the authority in the woman's manner, and wondering how her uncle could have chosen such an "impertinent person" as nurse, Winifred moved away in the direction of the room used by the Association. But close to the house her nerves received a terrible shock, for someone who looked very much like Mr. Gosse was attracting a crowd around him by his speech and gestures of utter intoxication.

Winnie drew back in affright. She would not go nearer to make sure of his identity, but rumours flashed across her mind of weakness in the past as concerned Mr. Gosse. These rumours she had always indignantly repudiated, and the Crewes, "thinking no evil," had shared her belief that they were without foundation. But when a hansom-cab dashed past her, bearing Mr. Gosse's younger brother (a sea-captain who was spending a short time in the neighbourhood) in the direction of the crowd, Winnie's face paled, and misgivings filled her mind with pain and sorrow.

She turned slowly homeward, feeling she could not face her fellow-members in the debating room. The children were in bed, and the Doctor had been called away, but Mrs. Crewe had a tempting little supper ready for Winnie, and was much disquieted that the girl had no appetite.

"Let me bathe your head, dear," said she. "Lie down on the couch, for you look sadly tired."

"Oh, auntie," cried Winifred, "you are better than everybody in the world;" and then, resting her head on that kind shoulder, she fell into a troubled sleep.

Mrs. Crewe sat quietly beside her, reading the sorrowful expression of the young face and thinking in her heart, "Poor child, someone has been telling her the report that Tom Tudor is engaged to Nora Keough."
Chapter 5

Not Comfortless

A shadow of great dread had fallen upon Ivy Cottage, for the mother lay sick unto death. Dr. Crewe spoke and moved like one in a dream; neighbouring physicians came to and fro, trying to cheer him with the words of hope. Most of the children were away, well cared for at the farm by Tom and Edith Tudor; but little Ethel and the bonnie babe had been the first to take infection, and lay helpless in the night nursery, unable to be cared for by the tender mother whose soothing touch had never failed them yet.

Nurse being away with the younger children, a hospital sister had charge of the three patients; but Dr. Crewe did not forbid the sickrooms to Winnie, who pleaded, with tears, to share the nursing. She would allow herself no rest, but passed with white face and a troubled conscience from the children she had neglected, to the aunt whose forbearance she had so thanklessly abused. Finally, Winnie's strength gave way. She faltered to her room, and faint with bodily and mental exhaustion breathed the sobbing prayer of the contrite heart.

And the Master whispered comfort. There came a time, as of newly budding spring, when Ethel and Baby smiled up in Winifred's face, and Mrs. Crewe was borne downstairs in her husband's tender arms. Winnie would not have left her now for the most important Association meeting possible. She was an elder daughter to the invalid, forgetting herself and her unsatisfied yearnings in her anxiety to minister to the feeble one, and feeling abundantly recompensed when the kind eyes grew dim with loving joy, and the weak voice whispered, "Dear child, I could not do without you."

Then there were quiet talks when the two sat hand in hand in the calm rendered necessary by Mrs. Crewe's state of convalescence. They grew to know each other as never before. Mrs. Crewe, shy and nervous by nature, found courage won by prayer to show her wayward niece that the noblest platform for womankind is that of self-denying love, that her grandest right is to be as one that serveth. And Winnie, who had been far too much inclined to despise her aunt's capacities as boasting of little education, grew to understand that the gentle Christian woman had learned the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, and was "content to fill a little space" unto the glory of His name.

Oh, what a morning that was when family and household, after the long period of illness and disinfection, knelt again around the altar together! The father's trembling accents read the 103rd Psalm, and then the young voices and the elder sang together the hymn of praise:

"He hath, with a pitying eye,

Looked upon our misery ‒

For His mercies shall endure,

Ever faithful, ever sure!"

* * * * *

Who is this sitting alone, with shamed downcast face, shrinking from the summer light that laughs between the Venetian blinds ‒ rising to lock the door, then sinking back feebly and wearily as the strong confident step of his sailor brother sounds in the hall? But Harold Gosse does not seek his company. He is sorry for the fallen one, but there has never been a very strong love between the brothers ‒ they are utterly dissimilar in appearance, tastes, and character.

"Uncle Harold" has only come in to take the poor, pale little children for a walk in the beautiful sunshine. He believes in air and brightness, and drinking in to the full the gladness sown in meadows of freshness and fragrance.

Edwin Gosse heard his brother enter the parlour below, and did not repeat his attempt to reach the door, but fell back in the faded chair helplessly and hopelessly. He knew the story of his fall was the common talk of the town, and that the most devout admirers of his talents would shrink from his society as disgrace. No heart on earth could understand the mystery of the terrible craving that had conquered him anew, despite the self-confidence born of long sobriety.

Perhaps the reaction of intellectual excitement, the private depression engendered by intense popularity abroad, had flown for relief to the gleaming poison. Perhaps he had passed through struggles of which the naturally temperate can form no judgment; but he has given way at last, day after day, and this morning he woke from drunken sleep to realise social wreckage. To such a mind as his the loss of public esteem was agony. The golden light of day was as midnight to him, and as he thought over the past and present his case seemed one of blank despair.

But who is this that moves near to him, takes his head upon her breast, finds a thousand caressing touches her timid hands forgot in his prosperity? Though friend and neighbour forsake him, this feeble woman in the shabby gown comforts him, kisses him, and strengthens him with the fulness of her love. Her true heart clings to him yet. Her wifely lips whisper that Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. Her prayers cry out for the power more mighty than the mightiest craving; and in the days to come her thrice- blessed clasp shall lead him into Light.
Chapter 6

Dealing in Bacon

The Eureka Association is no more. The voice of the charmer being hushed therein, a striving for pre-eminence ensued between the leading members, with the exception of Miss Vanguard, who, to the scandal of her friends, evinced strange indifference to the proceedings of the society, and was seen one Sunday in company with Mr. Harold Gosse walking to church in a new spring bonnet trimmed with Cambridge blue, and, as Miss Krabs expressed it, "Other butterfly hues."

Unable to survive the dual shock of Mr. Gosse's departure from platform life, and Miss Vanguard's extraordinary desertion of the black alpaca, the Eureka Association collapsed, some of its members reappearing later on with a new president and new notebooks, as the "Pioneer Sisterhood for Communication with Mars."

Notwithstanding the passing away of the Eureka Society, Winifred Crewe looked comfortable and contented enough as she occupied the broad window seat of the dining room, bending over wee Ethel and a much-befingered spelling book, and instructing the juvenile reader in the assurance that "Frank Pitt was a bad boy."

Winnie had undertaken to prepare her little cousin for school, and though Ethel drawled at times in most depressing tones, and seemed unable to proceed in the interesting recital beyond the fact of Frank Pitt's badness, Winnie knew that she had taken the toil of teaching off the hands of her busy aunt, and there was a bright, kindly light in the girl's eyes that gladdened the heart of Tom Tudor as he ventured into the apartment.

"I hope I am not interrupting," he stammered, "but what beautiful daffodils you are wearing, Miss Crewe! Do you ... do you happen to know if your aunt wants to buy some bacon?"

"Aunt, do you want any bacon?" asked Winnie, turning with a very flushed face to Mrs. Crewe who entered the room just then, saying she wanted Ethel, and would go downstairs and inquire as to bacon.

"How is it I never see you now?" asked Tom, planting himself in front of Winnie, his nervousness gradually evaporating as he saw how she trembled.

"I ... I have been making rhubarb jam," said Winnie, rather vaguely. Then she looked up at him with friendly frankness, and said briskly and heartily, "I am glad to have this opportunity of congratulating you, Tom. I am sure she will make you happy."

"Will you kindly explain yourself?" asked Tom, after a pause. "Who is the she connected with my happiness?"

"You know very well," said Winnie, rather pettishly, "that you are engaged to Nora Keough. Everybody knows it, so you need not make a secret of it."

"Who informed you of the fact?" asked Tom, touching one of Winifred's daffodils, and trying in vain to meet her eyes.

"I heard uncle telling aunt that Nora's parents had at last agreed to her engagement."

"Yes, to Captain Archer. Why, Winnie, you used to be so thick with Nora. I thought you knew all about it."

"I have seen very little of Nora lately," said Winnie, with a burning face. "I must go at once and congratulate her."

"The matter is not so pressing," said Tom. "Can you not stay here a little longer? Winnie, what is it you fear? Do you detest my vicinity, or do you think I shall forget my promise, and annoy you by telling you again of my undying love?"

"Don't," said Winnie, in a broken voice.

"Don't what ?" asked Tom.

"Don't ... not tell me," stammered Winifred, in hopeless verbal entanglement.

Cook's voice waxed eloquent in the hall concerning bacon streaky and mild, and Tom could wait no longer, but held out to Winifred his two strong hands, and whispered, low and passionately, "Tell me what this means, my darling. You despised me once ‒ but you are trembling now. Winnie, I have waited so long. If my great love has conquered, give me a sign. Put up your hands, and touch my arm."

But Winnie bent down, and laid her face upon it.

Outside, the almond blossoms waved sweet pledges of summer bloom to come. Within, the morning light fell round them, like Heaven's blessing on their hopes, whilst they drew nearer still, and for ever and for ever

Their spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips.

2. STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM

"GRANDMOTHER is coming to stop with us, my dear."

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Eden, nervously. "How long will she remain?"

"For an indefinite period. Her house is to be put into thorough repair, and after all she has done for me, she justly claims residence with us meanwhile."

"Yes, dear; you have often told me how she paid for your education and articled you to Linton and Withers."

"She started me on my legal career," said Stephen Eden, gratefully, "and up to the time of my marriage my home was with her. I owe the old lady more than I can repay."

"But I wonder if she has wholly forgiven the fact of your marriage yet," said his young wife, anxiously.

"Of course she has. Why, dear me, we have been married eighteen months! Grandmother would surely not cherish indignation so long."

"I have heard she wanted you to marry Lady Cicely Grant."

"Well, she did, for her idea was that Lady Cicely's father would help me on famously at the bar; but, unfortunately for her plans, Lady Cicely by no means fancied me. She had already given away her heart to Major Kingston, whom she has since married. And besides, I had already seen at Mr. Linton's the one woman for whose love I cared."

"I am afraid an orphan teacher cannot further your prospects much," said Violet, with a shadow on her bonnie face. "The Lintons were very kind then as always, but I feel sure Mr. Linton considered you could have done better for yourself than marry his governess."

"He thought nothing of the sort, and if he did, he was utterly mistaken. The progress I am making is due entirely to the contentment that came to me with you, my darling. Your love is my inspiration; and as to grandmother, directly she sees you she will forgive what she called my infatuation."

"I hope so," said Violet, who knew that her husband regretted the coldness with which his relative had lately treated him; for though Mrs. Eden, senior, bore the character of being a very disagreeable old lady, she had brought up her grandson from infancy, and he was really attached to her.

Mrs. Eden announced that she would probably arrive on Saturday afternoon, and Violet, who had devoted herself on Friday to making the spare room and the adjoining little sitting room with fresh white curtains, tempting cushions, and flowering plants, determined to spend Saturday morning in the kitchen, with a view to custard cake, sponge puddings, and other appetising dainties.

At eleven o'clock, when she was whisking eggs in much heat and mental preoccupation, an important knock was heard at the front door of the little house in South Kensington, and Violet, glancing from the kitchen window in dismay, perceived a cab laden with luggage. It did not take her long to wash her hands and remove her apron, but the consciousness of her fiery face, waiting ingredients, and above all bread and cheese luncheon (for Stephen was to be absent till the evening, and she had contemplated very light refreshment while so busily engaged), rendered her manner somewhat agitated and constrained.

"Oh, how do you do?" said Mrs. Eden, looking far from the typical white-haired grandmother, for her frame was straight and active, and her iron-grey braids looked subduing and severe. "I have come thus early because I wish to go over the Exhibition. I will take luncheon after my journey, and then shall be glad of your company to show me the various objects of interest. I must see as much as possible while I remain in town."

Violet felt exceedingly tired, but she could not bring herself to plead fatigue at eleven o'clock in the morning to this vigorous and keen-sighted old lady. How she dreaded the prospect of dragging from stall to stall in the Exhibition! She was conscious, too, of the fact that Ellen, if left to herself, would certainly ruin the late dinner.

"Let me send round a line to Stephen's office," she said, as a bright thought struck her. "He knows the Exhibition much better than I do, and I dare say he can arrange to come home and be your escort."

"Certainly not! Poor Stephen's career will be ruined if such domestic interruptions are customary," said Mrs. Eden, indignantly. "I had no idea you thought so lightly of the poor boy's professional prospects. I have told you that I will put up with you this morning. What a very awkward turn in the stairs. Stephen will break his neck here some day. What made you choose such a bird's nest of a house?"

"It is as large as we can afford," said Violet, her eyes beginning to feel dewy, for an indefinite visit from such a grandmother was becoming alarming.

"I suppose it is; but, dear me, if my poor boy had not been so easily beguiled he might have done far better, with his handsome face and pleasant manners."

The idea crossed Violet's wifely mind that once for all she would at the outset let Mrs. Eden understand such remarks must not be uttered in her hearing; but she forbore, thinking her guest might be a little irritated after her journey, and not wishing to be on unfriendly terms with her so soon.

"You can take the things out of my large box," said Mrs. Eden, as she removed her bonnet. "Place them neatly in the wardrobe. I assume it is empty?"

"Yes," said Violet, "but may I not send Ellen to help you? Then I can look after your lunch."

"Young girls were not lazy in my time," said Mrs. Eden witheringly; "but I saw long since, from the portrait poor Stephen sent me, that you liked to take your ease. I will do my unpacking myself, thank you;" and she pointed to the door, leaving Violet, who had worn herself out in preparations for her guest, to retreat with resentment and trouble in her heart.

Before descending to the kitchen she had a good cry in her own room, and then, feeling herself quite overwhelmed by perplexities and weariness, she went to the Rock that was higher than her every worry, and took the burden of outward annoyance, and of her own impatience, to the tireless strength of the Saviour.

When she rose from her knees she felt calmed and quieted, and the influence of her peace spread to poor Ellen, who was feverishly continuing the whisking of the eggs.

"You must leave those for the present, Ellen," said her mistress. "Mrs. Eden wants lunch. There is just a little cold meat on the joint of beef downstairs. I will make some sandwiches."

When Mrs. Eden's stately figure sailed into the dining room, she found a luncheon tray spread with a white cloth, and bearing bread and cheese, butter, home-made cake, a couple of cheesecakes that Violet had triumphantly discovered as remnants of yesterday's dinner, and a little white-napkined silver dish of sandwiches, nestling amid fresh parsley.

"It is exceedingly extravagant to use my wedding-gift to poor Stephen in common," said Mrs. Eden, pointing to the silver cake basket as she graciously lessened its burden of sandwiches.

"I brought it out this morning in honour of your visit," said Violet, smiling.

"Stephen used to say," she replied, "that he disliked the notion of good things being laid away, and brought out only for guests. To my mind also there is something vulgar in the habit," she added, musingly.

Violet understood how Mrs. Eden's disposition had estranged all her friends, but she remembered that her visitor had passed through much trouble, having lost in infancy her large family of children, excepting only Stephen's father who had lived to the age of twenty-five, and died at the outset of a promising literary career.

"Trouble has soured her," thought Violet, pityingly; and she said aloud, as cordially as Stephen himself could have desired, "Have a cheesecake, Mrs. Eden. They are home made."

"No, thanks. I always avoid young housekeepers' early efforts, and the pastry looks extremely stale."

"I only made it the day before yesterday," said Violet, colouring, for the reflection on her cooking, in which she was rather proficient, was almost the last straw.

Stephen's step on the threshold was always music to her, but she had never felt so thankful as now, when he hurried up the front steps and hugged his grandmother, who idolised him sufficiently to pardon the damage to her laces.

"My clerk told me he saw a luggage-laden cab at our door about an hour ago," said Stephen. "I knew it must be you, grandmother, and so I have left all else and here I am at your service; for this little woman is, I know, on household cares intent today."

Mrs. Eden's face, that had relaxed into a sort of iron smile, hardened at his reference to his wife, and the sight of his loving hand upon Violet's shoulder. It was unendurable to her that Stephen should have chosen for himself as to matrimony.

"I am surprised to hear your wife is busy today," she said. "All good housekeepers contrive to have perfect leisure on Saturday. There must be bad management somewhere."

Stephen laughed good-naturedly, and his lingering, reassuring touch robbed the words of all sting for Violet. She could bear personal insult, so long as heavenly mercy spared to her Stephen's love and esteem.

"Whence have you evoked such a jolly little spread?" he asked his wife, as he arranged some cherries he had bought. "I thought we had a grand feed at six o'clock. Well, Violet, we'll be back in time for it. I know you don't like sitting still, grandmother. I suppose you want to be off somewhere?"

"Yes; your wife was going with me to the Exhibition, but since she is all behindhand with the work she is best at home."

"She is always dreadfully behindhand in everything," said Stephen, lightly; "especially in saying and doing unkind things. Well, grandmother, I shall be honoured to be your guide. Little wife," he added to Violet, as Mrs. Eden left them to array herself anew, "I had no idea poor grandmother felt so much aggrieved by my bliss. I fear she will make herself rather disagreeable ‒ she can, sometimes ‒ but if she causes you one real heart-pang she shall walk."

"She has shown you years of kindness, Steve," said Violet, tenderly. "Let us both bear and forbear while she is here. All I fear is lest she should make you change your mind about me. She will not set you against me, will she, husband?"

"She will not" said Steve decidedly. "Now, don't worry your heart about impossibilities, but put those cheesecakes within my reach that I may cease to covet them."

He went off presently, with Mrs. Eden on his arm. She gazed back at the little house with a mournful shake of her head, but he kissed his hand to Violet at the corner of the street, and thus fortified she was able even to break into a hymn of praise as she went on with the neglected custard cake.

Unfortunately for the triumph of Violet's culinary skill, Mrs. Eden insisted on dining at the Exhibition, and when the sightseers returned, to find a dainty meal in readiness, "Grandmother" was found to be desirous only of a cup of tea and a cracknel biscuit, the latter article of refreshment happening to be deficient in poor Violet's store cupboard.

Stephen was exceedingly busy in the weeks that followed, and the ladies were necessarily left much together. Mrs. Eden was determined not to abandon her stronghold of prejudice, and she made up her mind that Violet was "very deep," and that poor Stephen's eyes must be opened to the truth of her opinions concerning his wife. All Violet's hospitable courtesy failed to conciliate her, and she rendered herself so obnoxious to both mistress and maid that it was little wonder they yearningly marvelled as to the time of her departure.

At last she dropped into her grandson's connubial calm what she believed to be a fatal bombshell. All day long Violet had noticed her unusual exultation, and the frequency with which she perused a letter received by the morning post. But it was not till the evening time, when Stephen was resting his slippered feet in domestic contentment, that she relieved her pent-up feelings.

"You were a Miss Montrose, I think?" she remarked suddenly to Violet, who was working at the window, and who acquiesced wonderingly.

"Dear me! Quite a coincidence. I have heard today from a friend in Devonshire, who says, 'I wonder if the Miss Montrose who married your grandson is the same young person who taught in some family at Earl's Court. A neighbour of ours, a rich resident of Ilfracombe, while in London was quite fascinated by some governess of that name. His housemaid told our cook that there was some correspondence between them on his return, but I suppose she did not play her cards well enough, for she did not secure him, and he appears to be a confirmed bachelor.' You see," said Mrs. Eden, turning to Violet, "these things come out at last."

"I do not know who your friend may be, grandmother," said Stephen, rising in wrath, "but I consider her letter most interfering and impertinent. Mr. Linton did have a visitor from Ilfracombe, who pestered Violet with his attentions. I have known the whole story for many a day. He proposed to her and was refused, and on his return home he renewed his proposals by letter. 'Some correspondence' indeed! How many times have you written to him, dear?"

"Twice," she said, with a dignity that showed her husband how bravely she was controlling her passion. "Once to decline his offer, and again to request him to discontinue the unwelcome and troublesome letters that he had continued to write, asking me to change my mind. Mrs. Linton interfered at last, and desired him to write no more and he heeded her request."

"There is no knowing what encouragement the poor gentleman received," said Mrs. Eden. "We cannot know his part of the story."

Violet rose and hurried from the room, and Stephen's concern for her overcame his indignation against Mrs. Eden and her correspondent. "Grandmother" was left alone, to deplore to the white Persian cat on the rug the folly which had caused the master of the house to act with such wilful self-assertion as to his marriage. Puss purred sympathetically, but stretched herself out on the rug, well satisfied, nevertheless, with the present position of affairs.

Violet's very trying guest was to return to her country abode shortly, when she chanced to meet some old friends of hers at the Academy, and she asked them to come and take "high tea" with her at her grandson's. They were unable to do so, but named another day, and Violet bestirred herself to please the old lady by arranging an excellent entertainment for her friends.

"Is there anything you would specially like to have for tea tomorrow?" she asked, gently, of Mrs. Eden.

"My friends are partial to strawberries and cream," said that lady, grimly, having just heard the dairyman protest that, it being the height of the strawberry season, it was exceedingly difficult to satisfy the prevailing demand for cream. "At least, when they visit me they expect it. How poor Stephen used to enjoy the strawberries and cream I provided for him in bygone days. But of course they cannot be so well treated in town."

The evening arrived, and the table was graced with dishes of delicious strawberries, blushing against green vine leaves; little glass jugs of cream were apparent here and there. Violet looked for a smile from Mrs. Eden, but looked in vain, and to make matters worse Stephen's usually bright face was like thunder.

The cosy old couple who came prepared to praise and enjoy everything, had hard work to keep the dimples playing on Violet's face. Her heart went out to the old lady with the silver curls who complimented Stephen so heartily on his fair and well-ordered home, but she could not understand why he should receive such compliments in silence, stirring his tea so wrathfully that the best tablecloth was spotted, and why "Grandmother" should sigh so impressively.

"Steve," she whispered in the drawing room, as she passed him on her way to the piano, "are you unwell?"

"What about Ilfracombe?" he asked meaningly, with a dark, suspicious expression.

"Yes, wasn't it nice?" she replied, with a smile.

"Nice?" Stephen groaned and buried his face in an illustrated edition of Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard.

"Perhaps he found it a little too rich," thought Violet, as she commenced to sing "Why throbs my heart?" "Some people do find themselves upset by Devonshire cream."

"Take a digestive tablet," she suggested to Stephen when she again approached him. But he turned his back upon her, and plunged into an indignant tirade against the income tax, in which his excitement evidently found relief.

When Mr. and Mrs. Doveton were gone, she sought the dining room where her husband and his grandmother were holding close association.

"All is discovered at last," said Mrs. Eden eagerly. "I told you, Stephen, long ago, that her face was false."

Violet thought of her visitor's age, and resolutely compressed her lips, but she glanced with astonishment at her husband's quivering face.

"What is this dark correspondence going on?" asked Stephen, sternly. "Do not deny it, Violet. I hold the proof."

"Yes, I picked them out of the rubbish basket," said Mrs. Eden, as Stephen held out a partially destroyed envelope and a label such as is used in the Parcels Post. "It is plain to us that you are still corresponding with Ilfracombe."

"Yes, I am," said Violet, uncertain whether to laugh or cry. "And if I had not been, you might have eaten your strawberries without cream this evening. I could not get any here, for there are several garden parties going on just now. So I wrote to a place in Ilfracombe where Mrs. Linton often ordered cream by post. They sent me their terms ‒ that is the envelope ‒ and this morning I had a tin by Parcels Post. Perhaps another time, Stephen, when my rubbish basket is searched, you will come to me for explanation of its contents before misjudging me. I have given you no reason to entertain such ... such notions." And here the tears welled up, and she covered her face with her hands.

"What a donkey I am!" exclaimed Stephen, taking energetic possession of her. "How stupid of us to associate an Ilfracombe postmark as necessarily implying correspondence with that fellow. Violet, I sincerely beg your pardon. I am utterly ashamed of myself."

"So you ought to be," said Violet, smiling through her tears, "when I took all that trouble for Mr. and Mrs. Doveton's cream."

Thereupon such interesting passages followed that Mrs. Eden senior was quite disgusted with the failure of her very amiable scheme, and went upstairs to pack, shaking off the dust of her feet against that South Kensington villa.

"My unfortunate grandson" was for a long time the theme of her bitter conversation when friends reluctantly gave her their society. As she was left a great deal alone, however, having offended nearly everyone she knew, she became weary of complaining of Violet's baby-face to her roses, that nodded and smiled so cheerily in the sunshine; and she determined at last to take town apartments, and consult a London physician as to the growing irritability of her nerves.

"Your life is too solitary," said that sensible man. "Mix more with other people. Find some object of interest that will make you forget yourself. Try to view things more brightly, and the nerves will right themselves. Get the mind cheered up and it will cure the body."

So Mrs. Eden abandoned the advertised patent medicines she had patiently endured for years, and tried as usual to cheer herself up by sightseeing ‒ proving very speedily that there is no loneliness more real than that experienced in a crowd.

Violet found her one day wearily studying "A Prison Interior" at a picture exhibition. It was not a cheering prospect, and Violet's heart was touched by Mrs. Eden's aspect of increased age and melancholy.

"You will come home with me, won't you?" she asked, holding out her hand. "Stephen and I have often wondered how you are. Oh, yes, please, do come. Stephen will be so delighted; and I ... I have something to show you."

It was such a change to hear a friendly voice, that Mrs. Eden ungraciously consented and Violet piloted her home to the very same rug that her cat had occupied of yore. But the snowy Persian was now reposing in the kitchen; and Mrs. Eden uttered an exclamation of surprise as a smiling nursemaid moved aside and discovered a pink-and-white cradle, all lace and ribbons, and in the heart of the nest a wee, beautiful birdie, with the summer sunlight on her guileless face.

"We told you about her," said Violet, laying the babe in Mrs. Eden's opened arms; "but I don't think you read the letter. It came back unopened. But we have so wanted you to see her. Steve chose her name. We have called her 'Peggy,' after you!"

"So I am a great-grandmother," said the old lady, touching the downy head with a softened look. "Well, little Peggy, God bless you!" And in that blessing on the baby-life something came to her heart that kissed away the sourness; and when Stephen returned home he found assuredly that his little white dove had borne to his domestic ark, never again to wither, the olive-branch of Peace, that betokened fair weather to come.

3. A SNOWDROP VALENTINE

"BEAUTIFUL morning!" is the universal greeting today among the good folks of Ivywood as they pass one another in footpath and lane. There has been a season of bitterly cold, sharp weather, succeeded by rain and mire, but now the sunshine has triumphed, and the skies are smiling with all the fair promise of spring.

Ivywood has awakened and gone out shopping, visiting, or to take the air in bath-chair or perambulator. The sunshine has affected people's spirits, and the young man at the draper's is doing quite a brisk trade today, and has rung the changes of appreciative remarks concerning the beauty of the weather since he took down the shutters.

Then how does it come to pass that the little lady crossing the common does not share the invigorating and cheering influences of the day? There is a lark somewhere among the branches. Birds are flying across the path with cheery twitter and chirp. Between the boughs, the skies are seen in cloudless blue, and the firs around the old grey church are touched with golden light. But it is wintry weather with Daisy Grant ‒ a time of storm. Aunt Effie, who dearly loves that bonnie little face, reads the signs aright and determines to have a quiet talk with her young niece, whose pride is bidding fair to spoil her future life,

"I have come to spend a long day with you, Auntie dear," says Daisy forlornly, looking round the bright little cottage as though it would please her better just now were it the dim cell of a convent. "Some of Nellie's friends have come over, and there is so much talking and laughing, hollow mirth, going on at home, that I wanted to get out of the way."

"And so you have come here to be miserable," says Aunt Effie, caressing the cold hand. "Well, my Daisy, I think a good cry will not harm you. Perhaps the flowers may bloom after the rain. But do not call your sister's cheerfulness 'hollow mirth,' my dear. Nellie is a sensible girl, and none of her friends are empty-headed or foolish-hearted. We must be just to everybody, you know, pet, even though we may not feel like laughing ourselves."

"Well, you see," says Daisy, to account for the tears that find their way to her eyes, when alone with gentle Aunt Effie, "there has been a good deal to worry me of late. My canaries have been ill, and I cut my thumb this morning, and cook broke that old china mug you gave me when I was ten, and Nellie has been learning variations on 'A Last Requiem,' and it is such a melancholy tune."

"And what has become of Ray Cheswick, who would have dispersed the memory of all these afflictions?" asks Aunt Effie, quietly.

"Mr. Cheswick? Why, Aunt Effie, did I not tell you some weeks ago that it was all ended between us? Now and always, Mr. Cheswick and myself are strangers."

"Yes, dear, you did say so, but I hoped you two had long since made it up again."

"Why, Aunt, do you think I have no pride, no self-respect? I hope I know my own mind, Aunt Effie. I told him all was over between us, and so it is. I will never be the first to speak, and I am certain he will not. He is as obstinate as ... as...."

"As you are," says Aunt Effie, holding her trembling hand. "Well, well, when two strong-willed people come into collision, it is the most loving one, I suppose, that is the first to forget the pride. Have you seen Ray since your disagreement, Daisy? He often passes this way, and I must say he looks very unwell and depressed. He is very fond of you, Daisy."

"He used to be," says Daisy, shedding tears; "but 'men are deceivers ever.' I am sure I have learnt the truth of that by experience. If he really cared for me, he would have told me why he took that journey to Aldchester. Fancy, Aunt Effie, away at Aldchester a whole afternoon, and yet he would not tell me his business. He confessed it had nothing to do with the engineering works at Springhill. He confessed it was private business, and yet he would not tell me why he intended spending an afternoon there. I told him plainly I thought his visit must have something to do with that rich Miss Bisworth who has come to visit the Skerratts at Aldchester Grange. He then asked me if I could not trust him, and I asked him to tell me why he was going, and then I would trust him. And then we went on arguing, and I suppose I lost my temper, and set him free for Miss Bisworth. And I have heard Ray ... Mr. Cheswick ... has been seen in Aldchester a good deal of late, so I daresay he is cultivating this popular heiress."

"Well, my dear, that is a hard thing to say of one to whom you were engaged for eighteen months, but I am sure you do not believe any such thing. I think Ray rightly asked if you could not trust him. You have never had cause to do otherwise. How do you act when you meet him now, my dear?"

"I have only met him four times," she says, a little dolefully. "I think he shuns and avoids me, and I am sure I do not want to see him. Every time we have met we have passed as strangers. We have not even bowed, and I always look at something else very hard till he has passed."

"Oh, you silly Daisy!" says Aunt Effie softly, "and worse than silly, my child. Do you remember how you thanked God for the gift of Ray's true and tender love? You hold it but lightly now. Ah, my dear, a loving and faithful heart is worth more than to be recklessly flung aside, hurt and wounded by unkindly words and the arrow of mistrust. Here, in this very little room, you told me when you were first engaged you meant to be Ray's comfort and heartsease and rest. You said you two would help each other higher, and strengthen each other in the upward and heavenward road. You will never strengthen or help him by scolding and recrimination, Daisy. You will never adorn your Christian womanhood by this show of cold, resentful pride."

"I think you are very unkind, Aunt Effie," sobs her niece. "I came here for sympathy, and you only find fault with me. One must have some self-respect, even though one does try to be a Christian. I must not quite forget what is due to myself, as well as what you think due to Ray. He began it. It was all his fault, for he should have told me why he was going to Aldchester."

"Well, my dear, let us assume that all the fault was Ray's. Let us place on one side his reticence as to his doings, his resentment as to your want of trust, his obstinacy now in keeping you to your word as to estrangement. Let us grant he is to blame; but, on the other side, let us put his undoubted love for you, his naturally quick temper, his tenderness towards you now for a long, long time, and think how short is this earthly life, my child, and how uncertain. Do you know, my Daisy, life seems to me all too short for unkindness?"

Daisy is silent, but she presses her face closer down upon her old aunt's shoulder. It seems to her that Aunt Effie's thoughts are in the past ‒ and Daisy has heard that there is a life-story far back among the bygone years.

"Do not be too proud to speak the first word, Daisy," says her aunt softly. "Do not be too obstinate to be the first to make up, and to take the first step towards forgiveness. Ah, child, forgive him, and let him know you do, and be thankful every day you live that the opportunity remains. I think I ought to tell you something, Daisy. The memory of the story may conquer pride in the days to come and deepen the patience of love.

"There was a young girl like yourself, quick-tempered, wilful, a little teasing at times, but fondly loving. She was engaged to a young officer in the navy, one of the noblest hearts that ever beat, true and loyal and brave, but in her foolish ways she liked to try her power over him sometimes and arouse his jealousy. He objected once to her taking a part in some private theatricals to which she had been asked ‒ a part in conjunction with a gentleman whose friendship he considered undesirable.

"Now, she had no intention of acting this part, but to tease him a little and arouse his jealousy she would not promise to write a negative reply, and this led to a disagreement, and a cold, unhappy parting. They bade farewell in anger, but she knew they would meet the next evening at the house of a friend, and she looked forward to a fond reconciliation, for she made up her mind to tell him she would obey his wishes. But the next day brought no meeting, Daisy, only a hurried line from the one she had hoped to see, saying he had been summoned suddenly to join his ship, as it was ordered abroad at once.

Month by month that girlish heart sickened and longed for him, Daisy, to speak the kind word he had asked in vain from her lips ‒ to hear him speak forgiveness. But on his homeward voyage he died at sea. They will never meet again till the sea gives up its dead."

Aunt Effie speaks very quietly, but her eyes have a solemn, wistful, far-away look in them as she turns her gaze to the everlasting hills.

There is silence for a while, and the grave look is reflected on Daisy's tearful face.

"I told you the tale, dear child," says Aunt Effie presently, "to show you how a few ungentle words may lay up a lifetime of repentance and longing. Heaven in its mercy breathes forgiveness and comfort and immortal hope beyond. But to such as have still the present time left them for words and deeds of love and peace and reconciliation, I would say ‒ by all the mercy which has still spared you both ‒ to be at peace and to help one another on. By all the mystery which lies within the future, let the bitterness cease, let the resentment pass, let all be at an end which your heart would weep to remember, could those lips never speak your forgiveness."

"Why, Auntie," says Daisy nervously, "Ray is quite safe. They take all precautions with the machinery at the engineering works. Don't you think he is quite safe? Is he past his time for passing this way?"

"I have no doubt he is safe, my darling, and, to show your thanksgiving for the fact that both of you are spared to confess your mutual mistakes, suppose you take some step to show him how sorely you are fretting for him. Suppose you try in some definite way to end these clouds of misunderstanding?"

"Oh, Auntie, I cannot. Indeed, let him speak first if he wants to. A woman must have some proper pride."

"A loving woman will consent to surrender that pride, will forget and forego her obstinacy, will conquer by yielding, Daisy. Why, now, tell me the truth, little one. Which do you truly love the better: Daisy Grant or Ray Cheswick?"

"Why, Ray," says Daisy, the light beginning to shine through the dew in her eyes.

"Well, now, prove that you do. Just put the pride completely away, tell Ray you have been ill-tempered, and that you are sorry for it, and be your own bright, loving little self again, only the sweeter, truer woman for a little humbling and heart-victory."

"But, Auntie, suppose he does not want to make up. Suppose he is happier free."

"Suppose I shall be Queen of England," says Aunt Effie. "There, Daisy, don't talk nonsense. You know as well as I do ‒ and a good deal better ‒ whether Ray is particularly happy just now."

"Well, but what shall I do?" says Daisy, colouring. "Next month is his birthday. Shall I paint him a card?"

"Next month, my dear? Why, Daisy, how can you know what a day may bring forth, and you would let sun after sun go down upon this bitterness and wrath! How do you know you may ever have the chance of speaking the word of peace again? There is no time like the present, Daisy. Besides, today is St. Valentine's Day. Have you quite forgotten that?"

"No," says Daisy gloomily, having more than half expected that the morning would have brought a valentine from Ray, and thus ended her troubles. "I think it is such a foolish, stupid sort of occasion. Nellie and the others have had valentines, and the servants too, but I don't see why they should all be in such good spirits."

"Well, little Daisy, I should not wonder if you could find a valentine somewhere today, by trying," says her aunt tenderly. "Did you not tell me once that Ray always passes that stile in the woods at half-past one? If you put on your hat, and button your jacket, you will be just in time for him, and you can have tea with me by-and-bye, and Ray can come and take you home. Never mind the tear-stains ‒ the fresh air will soon dry them."

"Oh, Aunt Effie, do you suppose I should go to the stile on purpose to see Ray?"

But, once she is out of doors, it occurs to Daisy that someone has told her that the woods are full of snowdrops, and they are like a white, pure carpet just by the stile. She goes tremblingly on, and very soon she has a posy of snowdrops at her breast, and another in her hat, and another in her restless hand. How can she speak the first word to Ray, and put by all her pride? But suppose any accident were to befall him, and that word had never been spoken?

The church clock strikes two in the distance, and it dawns upon Daisy that Ray is undoubtedly late. Her mind hastily conjures up a fall of machinery, entangling wheels and chains, and Ray speechless, insensible, suffering. Oh, if only I had tried to "make up" earlier. Oh, if only I had forgotten my wicked, senseless pride!

And just as her heart seems breaking for him, in its remorse and anxiety and love, she hears light laughing at her side, and three ‒ not one ‒ loom into sight. Daisy could have faced him alone, and uttered his name, but he is in company with two others ‒ Tom Skerratt, always ready for fun and teasing, from Aldchester Grange, and actually Miss Bisworth, the heiress! Are her jealous forebodings to be realised? Has Ray indeed fulfilled her fears?

How can she take any step towards reconciliation now? Young Skerratt knows they are estranged, and is watching her with laughing eyes, and Miss Bisworth is evidently asking the name of the bonnie, blushing girl by the stile. And they all come up close to her, and Tom Skerratt shakes hands, and Ray is passing on, his face a shade paler for the meeting. And then Daisy takes a little agitated step towards him, and holds out the snowdrops.

"You are a fortunate fellow, Cheswick," says his friend, "to have all those flowers gathered for your pleasure. Come down this path with me, Annie. I will see if I can find you some snowdrops. These woods are renowned for them."

For Ray has snowdrops and hands and all, and is looking in Daisy's eyes with such a gaze that she does not quite know whether to smile or cry, and so gets close up to him, and does both.

"What made you do that, my sweet," asks Ray, forgetting all about his companions gathering wild flowers on the other side.

"Oh, Ray, you were late, and I thought perhaps you never would come again. I thought the machinery had caught you, and ... and ... it is Valentine's Day, and everyone is happy, and I am so miserable, and I treated you so badly "

But here the words are stopped, and Daisy forgets even the rest of her speech of penitence.

"No, love, the machinery did not catch me; but Skerratt brought his fiancée over to see the works. Did you not know they were engaged? I have been showing them over. And it was not your fault at all, Daisy, it was all mine. I ought to have told you my doings at Aldchester, but I did so want to surprise you. Don't you remember, my Daisy, how often we have said we should like such another nest as Meadow-sweet Cottage near your aunt's? Well, I unexpectedly heard that Meadow-sweet Cottage was to be sold, so I went over to Aldchester and arranged the purchase with the solicitors there. My idea was to show you the deeds of our own little future home as a surprise. However, you see my plan proved a failure."

"Meadow-sweet Cottage? Oh, how lovely, Ray. How splendid of you to do it. It is the dearest little place, and a field for my cow, Dimple. And are we not to have it now, Ray?" she asks anxiously.

"We are," he says, laughing, and gently touching her face. "I have the deeds in my possession. The cottage is mine, and what is mine is thine. I think I would have brought the deeds over to show you this evening, anyhow. I felt I must let you know I had been arranging a valentine for you, and I had a notion you would speak if I took the first step. But, oh, little woman, dear little loving heart, I shall be glad all my life you spoke first. And if ever we disagree again, I will take care to be too quick for you in that respect."

"We never will, Ray," says Daisy, with shining eyes, "and you must not praise me, for I never spoke at all. The snowdrops made our peace."

And Ray puts his valentine to his lips. A day or two hence, and those sweet snowdrops will be withered, but they have lived long enough to accomplish their work of bringing light and hope and love through doubt and chill and mist ‒ of lifting the chains of winter, and of whispering that the time of the singing of birds has come.

4. THE USEFUL TROUBLE OF THE RAIN

"From darkness here, and dreariness,

We ask not full repose ‒

Only be Thou at hand to bless

Our trial-hour of woes!"

"COMING, coming!" the beautiful flowers seemed to breathe to the scented winds. "Coming, coming!" was the whisper of the waving trees; and the joyous birds sang, "Coming!"

And the heart of Gladys Thorpe was in very truth at rest.

She stood among the budding roses, "Queen Rose" in her beauty. Very slight, very small, her loveliness was fragile and intensely spiritual. The careless observer might have pronounced her, as did her Aunt Denison, "an ordinary girl enough"; but the aesthetic eye found her perfect, as did her poet-lover. For the tender soul of womanhood looked out from those cloudless eyes, and the fair girlish face was bright with the light of love, as, musing of Karl Howard, she listened for the music of his footsteps.

Even Karl himself marvelled sometimes at the intensity of this maiden's love for him, deeply as it was reciprocated on his part. But Gladys told herself she could not choose but love. He had found her, the unpaid drudge at Denison Grange, chosen her from all her rich, handsome cousins, glorified her life by his tenderness, and waited but till the lilies blew to call her wife.

Now neglect and careless insults had lost their sting for the young orphan girl. She was wrapped in a cloak of happiness, clad in Love's coat of mail invulnerable ‒ for even in his absence she had the memory of his presence, and letters sweet as heart of poet could devise.

Little shadows had fallen upon the course of their gladness. Her aunt's jealousy for her own unmarried girls, the envy of the cousins, and the ill-natured taunts of the young squire who had long admired her, but had never asked the penniless orphan to share his riches. All these were thorns to accompany the roses; but soon, ah, soon, the roses would be thornless, for his home would be ready for her. He had written, at "the time when lilies blow."

And this afternoon he was coming for three golden hours. Verily, this was a time for Gladys to rejoice, an oasis wherein to forget all the desert of the past.

She had longed to meet him at the station, but there was her aunt's much-trimmed silk dress to unpick, and Gladys had just now donned her simple white cambric, and stolen into the rose-path with such a wistful look at the buds, that Davie, the old Scottish gardener, had offered her two fragrant blossoms, in defiance of Mrs. Denison's wrath.

"Eh, but it's a bonnie face," murmured the old man, watching her move, impatient but radiant between the flowers.

Presently the girl's voice addressed him. "Davie, has the church clock struck four?"

"A good ten minutes since, Miss Gladys," he answered.

"Oh no, the train is due five minutes to four. It cannot be quite four yet, I think."

"The train is late at times, missie," said the old man; and thinking he heard footsteps down the road, he betook himself out of sight, with the tact of his country.

Gladys listened to the sound of the little side gate with parted lips, and a colour like sea-coral. But the lips closed quietly, and the colour ebbed away, and a shadow fell slowly upon the eyes of heaven's own blue, for up the path came only her aunt, her cousin, Squire Denison, and Cousin Adelaide.

"Gladys!" called her aunt's sharp, grating tones, "is it possible that you are wasting the afternoon, with our trunks still unpacked for Ventnor? You must have taken leave of your senses, Gladys Thorpe."

"Oh, mamma!" sneered Cousin Adelaide, "you must make allowances when people are deeply in love. Gladys expects Mr. Howard by the 3.55 train."

"Go into the house, Gladys," said her aunt. "That train is in long ago, the passengers have all dispersed by this time. And Davie, Davie!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Remember that no flowers are to be picked without our leave."

"Yes, ma'am. I beg pardon."

"Never mind, Gladys," said the young squire, slipping the rosebud from her braids of gold, "I'll wear this to dinner in honour of my little cousin. Don't grieve over spilt milk, Gladys. We prophesied Howard would prefer being lionised in London, to the seclusion of Grangemere. I never dreamt he would come. He promised before didn't he?"

"Yes," said Gladys quickly, "but the publishers detained him then."

"Oh yes, of course. He knows what a verdant little sweetheart he has got in the country."

"I wish you wouldn't, Cousin Robert. And please let me have my flower."

"No indeed! If Howard comes, I shall tell him who gave it to me."

"Well," said Gladys rather proudly, "if I really had given it, Karl would not mind."

"He makes so sure of you? Then it's like his impudence. A pretty girl like you will recover a jilting. There's as good fish in the sea, you know, et cetera, et cetera."

Gladys looked at him, her quiet face shadowed by distress. Squire Denison felt rather ashamed of himself, and muttered, "It's a shame to work that girl as they do," when Mrs. Denison told her, with accents embittered by her son's attention, to get the packing finished that evening. So Gladys packed portmanteau, trunk, and bag through the bright, fragrant hours. She knew she should hear in the morning, and trust was as strong as love.

And as the evening shades closed in, she turned the key in the last carpet-bag, and went downstairs, weary but hopeful, to water the plants outside Miss Denison's morning room.

"Eh, missie," said old Davie, who was using the garden hose on the lawn, "we need see some raindrops falling soon, for these sunny days have been too many, I'm thinking."

"Oh, Davie, I hope it will not rain tomorrow. They are going to the seaside, you know.'

"Well, Miss Gladys," said Davie, "it is not for us to rule the sun and the rain, but we gardeners will be right glad of a shower in heaven's own time."

"Look, Davie, I fear the clouds are really gathering yonder."

And Gladys made haste with her task, whilst the old Scotsman sang in his low and far from unmusical voice:

"Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and will break

In blessings on your head!"

"Is that a hymn, Davie?" asked the girl. "I could not quite hear it. What does it mean?"

"Eh, lassie, the drops are falling already."

And Gladys took up her watering can and ran into the house, her bright hair heavy and wet with great, splashing drops of rain.

<><><><>

The Denisons and their luggage were safely deposited at View House, Ventnor, and very lovely was the early summer in the Isle of Wight.

In the autumn the Denisons would go on the Continent, and during these two migrations Gladys was expected to superintend house cleaning, general repairing, and accomplish marvels in the dressmaking department, for which her skilful fingers had decided aptitude.

Gladys liked those quiet times. The servants were all so good to her, she gratefully told her friend, old Davie. She would take her work and sit by the open window, or in the summerhouse by the lake, singing his verses to sweet, familiar airs.

And now she could open the grand piano at will, and play the dreamy, classical harmonies her long-lost mother had taught her, or revel in the treasures of the library, affection for which she had inherited from her father, once curate of Grangemere.

Ten days had elapsed since she had waited for Karl Howard, and said, in the words of Marian in Lord Tennyson's poem, "He cometh not"; and Gladys was just beginning to harbour cruel fears for his health, seeing he had not answered her daily letters during that period.

But never the faintest suspicion of his loyalty crossed her devoted heart. The servants might pityingly observe her start and flush at every knock, and whisper among themselves that "That there London chap did ought to be ashamed of himself." The little black-and-white terrier might rub himself against her skirts for sympathy as she sat alone, but Gladys was unconscious of being in a position demanding aught save glad congratulation. She believed, as Karl had himself expressed it in one of his lyrics,

"Who loveth ‒ doth he love for time alone?

Nay, verily! till deathless ages die,

Heart of my heart! I pledge myself thine own Eternally!"

The short, sharp tempest had freshened and fertilised the garden. It was a wealth of early bloom, a luxuriance of promise, when Gladys Thorpe, coming home from an after tea excursion to the shops, came slowly up the rose walk, calculating rather vaguely her purchases for the household stores.

She had mentally attained to the matter of fresh butter from Grangemere Farm, as she passed into the library through the open French window; but there, in a moment, butter and sugar and candles were forgotten ‒ and Gladys, with a cry like music, was in Karl Howard's arms.

"Gladys, my own, only love!"

"Karl ... dear."

The footman came in to shut the window, but they neither saw nor heard him, and he quietly retreated, leaving the window untouched.

Davie caught a glimpse of them as he passed outside, and the old gardener smiled, well pleased for his favourite's sake that the sun of her life shone in glory.

And as they stood there, heart to heart, a sudden dull peal of thunder startled them both, and made Karl Howard shudder.

"It is only a shower ‒ a passing shower. It will do good," said Gladys, with a bright smile, closing the window and the blind.

"Shall we have lights?" said Howard, and she heard the tremble in his voice. "There, now I can see your face plainly at last."

And Gladys could see his face. "Oh, Karl, my Karl, you have been very ill, and I did not know it."

"No, dearest, not ill, but in very sore trouble."

Then Gladys laid his fine curl-crowned head upon her slight shoulder, and bowed her face against his forehead, and comforted him as a mother soothes her child.

But Howard, with his arms around her, bit his lips hard to repress a sob of agony. "Don't, Gladys, my sweet I cannot tell you like this." He moved to put her aside, then drew her suddenly, passionately, closer to him.

"Karl," said she, in low, tender accents, as she marked his suffering, "whatever may be your trouble, this is the place for you to find consolation. I have a right to comfort you. Tell me your grief, that I may make it mine."

Hitherto the master-place had been his own, and this fair girl had been all yielding tenderness. Now, as she spoke of her right, her manner acquired a dignity that made Howard's task even harder.

He raised his head, looked straight into her clear, love-lit eyes, and holding both her hands, spoke in a hoarse, constrained, hesitating manner. "Listen to me, Gladys, whilst I tell you a story."

"That is right," she said, nestling to him, and believing he was in one of his moods of 'inspiration.' "Karl, is it to be a romance of your own?"

"A romance of my own," he answered bitterly. "Heaven help the actors! There was once a lad of seventeen, ardent, idealistic, sentimental, fresh from training which had tried for years, but tried in vain, to crush every disposition save the practical. At seventeen, he was sent to study with a clergyman, in a beautiful idyllic Devonshire village.

"The rectory itself was a picture, the white-haired rector's simple pastoral life a poem. The boy trod as in dreamland. A new existence seemed open before him. For the first time in his life he was in love. It was the intense, fierce fire that dies out so early, but to him it seemed the love of his whole being, the inspiration of his future career. Gladys, Clara was ten years his senior, and she was the rector's only child, handsome, reserved, clever ‒ the ruling spirit of the parish. He cast himself at her feet. She smiled, then rejected him, but her coldness only increased his ardour.

"The first poem he ever published was addressed to Clara. He wrote volumes of verses in honour of her, and at last, when he was eighteen, and had reached the very height of his passion, they were engaged. But they were not to be married till he had left college. His relatives approved of the match, saying he needed a wife of settled age to counterbalance his sentimentality. And the rector, though opposed to it at first, could not long withstand the decision of his daughter.

"But six months at college changed the current of the lad's ideas. He discovered, to his consternation, that other faces, newer and younger, held charms for him ‒ that Poetry and Fame, above all else, were to rule his life ‒ that he rather dreaded than otherwise his Christmas visit to the rustic rectory and Clara. But pride in his college successes increased her affection. Gladys, she was true to him."

"Karl!"

"My darling!"

"Don't, please don't tell me more!"

"But I must, my dearly-loved. Come closer to me, Gladys. There is little more to add, and then, if you will it, we need not part, after all."

"If I will it! Oh, Karl, we must not ... you dare not ... you are all mine "

"Gladys," he half whispered, "listen to the rest. He went back term after term, and year after year, lacking courage to tell her the truth, shrinking from dissolving the engagement of his boyhood, hoping against hope that she would realise their entire incompatibility, and take the initiative. At last, when he was twenty-three, the yoke became unbearable to him, and he cast himself on her mercy, laying bare his whole heart to her, the heart that only held friendship for her.

"He craved her pardon in deep humiliation, and told her if she still desired it the engagement should be carried out, but it was inexpressible relief to him to find how easily she let him go, not only from her heart, but from her life. Henceforward she only knew him through his poems, and he heard of her occasionally, through mutual friends, as entirely absorbed in parochial duties. For four years he worshipped the muse with an undivided allegiance, drinking deeply of the waters of fame, yet conscious that life held a purer, sweeter fount.

"And one summer, resting from his labours in a fair, flower-haunted spot, that man's soul found its Sovereign. Gladys, I found you!"

"Karl, you should have told me. I dreamt I was your first, your only love. I cannot bear it, Karl."

"You are my first love, Gladys. I have never really loved in all my life before. Dear, we have been so perfectly happy."

"Have been, Karl?"

"The morning of that day I trusted to come to you, I had a letter from her."

"Oh, don't tell me, Karl!"

He did not answer, but with a white face laid two letters on her lap. Gladys crept into his arms, and there, her slight form shivering and cold, she read them both. One was in a woman's writing, stained with tears, and the characters were unsteady and faint.

Karl,

Four years ago you gave me the option of taking you against your will, or breaking my heart. I chose the latter, and you went from me at my own bidding. I knew then that slowly, surely, I should grieve for you until my death. For months I have not passed out of these doors ‒ I am in a decline. The physicians brought from London by my poor father say the case is not hopeless yet. They bid me cast off the sorrow that is oppressing me, and rise into new life. But they told my father that if my mind is not relieved ‒ I shall die.

Karl, my dear one, my clever, gifted love, as late as last Christmas the Leighs told me you lived but for your poems. You had found no new engagement. You offered me your friendship, and I repulsed it. Only you can save me now. I do not blush to appeal to you, Karl. You wake to fame, but the woman you once adored still dreams of love. Why should I be ashamed of my fidelity?

My words may read like the outburst of girlhood, but love has nothing to do with age. You will not laugh at my dying plea. You will remember what once lived in your heart for me. Karl, I beseech you, come to me! I ask but to look upon your face again; but come quickly, dear, or it may be too late.

Gladys laid it down, and looked at him silently, shuddering. But his agonised face was hidden in his hands, and her eyes fell upon the second letter, from the poor old rector..

My dear Howard, they tell me my darling daughter is dying. She has slowly wasted away, till this is the end. I do not reproach you, Harold, but to save so precious a life would surely not wreck your cherished projects concerning literature ‒ and you only can save her. I feel certain your presence would be the best remedy, and as you value your future peace of mind I beseech you to come to us. I tremble to think how soon I may be childless.

Then came a long, unbroken silence. The tears were dry in the girl's blue eyes. They seemed burnt by the grief that was too bitter to find such vent. At last Harold removed his hands from his face. He took her face between his hands, and kissed the quivering lips.

"You went?" she breathed, rather than spoke.

"How could I do otherwise, Gladys? I felt you would say, 'Go to her.' I was prepared for a change, but not for the frail, almost dying look I found. She heard my step, poor Clara, and said, 'I was listening for you. I knew you would come to me.'

"I stayed at the rectory all that week, and I heard the doctor describe her improvement as marvellous. Her father began to look quite cheerful, for she could sit up a little while before I returned to London. Oh, Gladys, you would pity Clara could you but see her. Heaven help me, her very existence seems to depend upon me."

"Karl, tell me what you promised her."

"Nothing at all, save to see her again on Monday."

"But what does she expect?"

Karl Howard was silent.

"You did not tell her of our engagement?"

"No, Gladys. It would have been akin to murder."

Gladys slowly refolded the letters, and handed them back to him.

"Well, Gladys?" he said brokenly.

"Go back ... to her."

"Do you mean for ever?"

"For ever, Karl."

He was astonished, almost indignant at the quietude of her voice, the calm of her face. Since the receipt of Clara's letter, life had been to him an agony, compassion and the memory of past days struggling with the mighty love of his manhood.

"Gladys," he said, "you shall choose for me, even against the dictates of my own heart. Think well before you answer. If you only bid me stay, as is your right, my darling, all shall be made clear to poor Clara when she is stronger to bear the tidings. If you bid me farewell now, I must not see your face again. It is goodbye for ever."

There was stillness awhile in the room. Then the girl put her cold hand into his, with a trembling whisper, "Goodbye."

He sank down beside her, his own face dewed as he took her for the last time into his arms ‒ but soon she gently moved her face from his, and looked towards the door. She felt her strength was ebbing, and longed for the parting to be over.

"Gladys," said Karl Howard, in a voice that sent its echoes through all the after years, "you are a noble woman. God bless you." And with one long, long, lingering kiss, he left her ‒ till eternity.

<><><><>

Gladys Thorpe did not hover between life and death in the terrors of brain fever. She did not even faint, save in her poor, tortured soul. But the Denisons, after one look at the change in her face, uttered no word of the curious questioning and unsympathising pity she had expected from them. The squire, looking into her eyes, as he nervously attempted to console her by his favours, felt the words of endearment die on his lips.

For a while there was wild, overpowering longing for her lost love, such impatience of yearning that she felt she must see him, hear his voice, part him from another even at the altar. They belonged to each other by virtue of their undying love. Clara had no right to him. She had her father to care for her, her own dear home surroundings to cheer her, and Gladys had only Karl. It was worst of all to live her happiness again in her dreams, and wake to realise it was ended.

She went through her duties with a kind of dumb submission that had nothing of resignation in it. Old Davie felt he would rather see her overwhelmed with grief, than so unnaturally composed ‒ her cheery girlhood lost, only mechanical life apparent.

The old man's heart ached so sorely for Gladys that at last he resolved to try an experiment. He went to her, as she sat in the summerhouse looking before her, yet seeing no beauty in the sunlit scene. He remembered she had told him her marriage would take place when his lilies were in bloom, and he silently laid on the table before her a full-blown lily, pure and white.

Gladys remembered too. She thought old Davie was cruel and unkind, but as he left, his heart was thankful, though his own eyes were dim, for he knew the tears were coming ‒ the healing drops that were like merciful rain. The good old Christian man was the girl's best friend and comforter. Long after he had gone home to rest, she remembered his humble, kindly ministry, how he guided her weary life unto the "all-availing Christ," and pointed her to the compassionate Saviour whose hand changed her cross at last into a crown of blessing.

"Whatever is the matter with Gladys now?" asked Adelaide Denison wonderingly, of her mother and sisters. "She seems quite to have got over her disappointment. I heard her singing just now when she was filling the vases."

"Oh, she has turned Methodist, or something of the sort," said her brother, glancing up from his paper. "I can't understand how Howard came to jilt her, for he has tied himself up after all. I see by the Times he has married some rector's daughter in a poky little village. I suppose she's prettier than Gladys, though in my own opinion the jilted one is hard to beat as to looks."

Gladys saw the announcement of the marriage, and realised that her sacrifice had not been vain. Clara was happy, and her own life was blessed. She would not allow herself to read Karl's poems, but she knew when they ceased to be written

Three short years sped by, and the noble intellect was lost to earth. The doctors said Karl Howard had died of undue mental effort. They asserted that he had thrown himself into his work with over-intensity. His widow mourned for him long and deeply, though in the end she married her father's successor in the living. Gladys kept her heart's love sacred to his memory for ever.

Her gentle Christian life had a growing influence over the Denisons' home. Ill-health came to Adelaide, the infirmities of age to Mrs. Denison, and Gladys nursed and comforted them. She had only sympathy, love, and helpfulness for the kindred who had once despised and neglected her. But when they could spare her, she felt she would rather dwell under another roof than that of Robert Denison, and she longed too for the mission field, whereto the work was receiving an earnest call.

And now, across the ocean, Gladys Thorpe is teaching little children of the Redeemer, ministering to the sick, carrying the Name that is hope and peace into the homes of hungry-hearted women. Even the memory of her girlhood is robbed of bitter regret at last ‒ her soul has praise alike for storm and sunshine. And when in her labours she is weary, she thinks of Home and Rest.

Is not the pilgrim's toil o'erpaid

By the clear rill and palmy shade?

And see we not, up earth's dark glade,

The gates of Heav'n unclose?

5. AMONG THE LILIES

"I CONGRATULATE you, old fellow. There's no getting near your wife's picture at the exhibition this morning. Is this small snowdrop yours?"

And the pleasant-faced artist stooped to lift up in his arms a tiny maiden of fragile aspect, who drew back frightened for a minute, and then patted his cheek, saying, "Pitty man." There was a laugh among the bystanders who heard little Una. Several who knew Mr. Winyard pressed forward to congratulate him on the triumph achieved by his artist-wife.

"Questions about her are being asked in very high circles," said Balfour, the first speaker. "She will make her fortune, Winyard. Every touch of hers shows wonderful genius, but she never painted anything to equal this."

As he spoke, they gradually edged their way through the Academy throng towards the picture in question, and Winyard listened, with a flush of pride on his handsome face, to the critiques pronounced by the brethren of the brush.

He remembered how the idea of this picture had originated. His wife had listened to a Sunday evening sermon of his own, preached in the little suburban church of which he was incumbent, and a great longing had come to her to labour as he did in the vineyard, and to "do some good," as she expressed it to him afterwards.

"I can never settle down like other clergymen's wives," she said, with a shadow on her fair young features, "to the weekly round of mothers' meetings and sewing clubs and tract-visitation. What a horribly commonplace existence, Harold. I could never bear it! But when I listen to you while you preach, and see your daily life, dear, spent for others, I do feel I want to influence people in the right direction, if I only knew how. And do you know, Harold, I think I might do some good with my brush. You know how soon those scenes of 'Cleopatra' and 'Diana' and 'The Young May Moon' have sold, and how they seemed to take at Burlington House."

"But now you want to try another style?" he said, quietly.

"Yes, if I can," she said thoughtfully, "1 should like to paint something that people would not so much rhapsodise over as think about. Something of which the subject should make them forget the painter. Something that the purchaser would find every day a help. The others are only ornaments after all, Harold."

"I understand your meaning, love," said he. "I have sometimes felt that you, as a Christian, have failed to consecrate your gift as you might have done. I have kept a cowardly silence, but conscience has warned me ere now to speak to you about it. The fact is, Beatrix, I have been utterly elated with your success, and in my heart I feared to offend you, if I spoke what at times I felt."

"Never think that, Harold," said she hastily. "You do not know how I depend upon your guidance, and look up to you."

Yes, he did know. He knew day by day with an ever-recurring pain that to his young wife, his junior by many years, he was guardian and mentor far more than husband.

"If your talent does not lie in the direction of parochial work, dear," said he, taking the little gifted hand into his own, "God has yet endowed you with wonderful genius. And upon that genius, no less than upon the simplest power given to any other of His children, His Hand is laid with the words 'Occupy till I come!' Could you not try, my Beatrix, to glorify Him with this talent of yours?"

"Harold," she answered, "you know you preached this evening from the words 'And He said, Come!' It was about our Lord walking on the sea, and Peter seeking to reach Him. I have a sort of feeling that I could paint a picture on that subject."

The result of that conversation was the picture which this year excited so much attention. Winyard himself felt its beauty too much for words, and gazed in silence whilst the comments went on around him. Upon the canvas the scene stood out as a living reality ‒ the boat, "tossed with waves." The face of Peter full of love and yearning, yet with a half shadow of doubt and fear, as he was "beginning to sink"; and the calm, tender power of Him who stretched forth His hand.

"It gives one a sort of feeling as if one were in church," said Balfour presently, as he turned slowly away. "Where is Mrs. Winyard, by the way? I want to ask her if I can introduce Lord Varple to her. You know he lives in the world of art, and is no mean artist himself. His acquaintance will be an immense help to her."

"She is in the next gallery with some friends," said the clergyman. "I must go and find her, for we should be leaving now. My little one has been ill, and this is her first outing after many weeks."

He was holding the child close to him as he spoke, to preserve her from the perils of the Academy crush. Her little fair head was drooping sleepily, and she was evidently tired out.

"Oh, do not take Mrs. Winyard away so soon," said the other. "There she is, by the statuary, holding a court of triumph."

Winyard had never seen his wife look more beautiful. They were a striking pair as they stood side by side. His face and form were the realisation of the artistic ideal. Beatrix often said laughingly that his mouth and eyes and brow had outweighed one or two substantial fortunes that had been offered to the acceptance of the rising artist. Though Winyard himself was the last man in the world with whom a thought of vanity could be coupled, he liked to know that he was reproduced again and again by her pencil and brush.

Beatrix herself was not exactly beautiful. Her features were too irregular, but there was such a decided look of character and individuality about her that passers-by turned for another glance, and were not surprised to hear, "That is Mrs. Winyard, the painter."

She was now amid a fashionable ring of the admiring and the adulatory. Winyard was aware she possessed immense capabilities of absorbing praise, and he began to think that, what with the newspapers and their acquaintances, she had had quite enough of it to be wholesome. After speaking to those around her, he reminded her of the time, saying he would get a cab at once. But there was a general outcry at this, for some of the ladies there insisted that Beatrix should lunch with them.

"I cannot leave early, Harold," she said, her face eager and excited. "I should like to meet Lord Varple, and hear his opinion of my work. Mrs. Heriot will drive me home in the afternoon."

"You will join us, Mr. Winyard?" asked Mrs. Heriot civilly, but not very cordially, for her table would be overcrowded if he accepted the invitation. Besides, he was not one of the lions whom it was her fancy to entertain.

"Thank you," said he, "but it is impossible. I have to conduct a funeral this afternoon."

"Oh, Harold!" exclaimed Beatrix, with a shiver. The ladies' horrified looks echoed her expostulation.

"Well then," said Mrs. Heriot, "your wife must lunch at St. John's Wood, and we can drive her over later in the day."

Winyard knew from experience, which had grown to be frequent of late, that "later in the day" was an indefinite period, and he turned away reluctantly, for he sorely missed the bright young presence that had become sought after in other homes besides the quiet Vicarage.

Beatrix followed him for a moment to rearrange the coverlet of the sleeping child. A little tasteful movement gave the right fall to the velvet, but Winyard carried away the little light burden with a dull aching at his heart that no lingering, motherly glance had scanned the wee face tenderly.

Una sat up in the cot, and began to cry after her mother. He soothed her as best he could, his passionate devotion to the child venting itself in demonstrations which he avoided as concerned his wife, lest her quietly satisfied tolerance of him should change to weariness. He would not surrender her to the nurse, but kept her with him through dinner, content when her little pale face brightened at his efforts to amuse her, and "Me loves dad" came decisively from the childish lips.

A number of unopened journals were waiting on his study table; each of them had some word of wondering praise for Mrs. Winyard's picture.

"She is among the famous now," thought Winyard, half proudly, half sadly, as he watched his little daughter hugging her doll on the floor.

That lunch at Heriot House proved the beginning of a new era for Beatrix Winyard. The child of a painter, absorbed in his art, hers had been a lonely, secluded childhood, and it was a pleasant change when, at nineteen, she came to the Vicarage, sure in her enthusiastic girlish heart that she could never tire of contemplating the classic outline of her husband's face or the contour of his head.

If a little dissatisfied weariness crept in at times, a visit to her studio comforted her. Her whole soul spent itself upon her pictures, and while Winyard prepared his simple, earnest sermons, or visited the sick and needy, his young wife, in her artist blouse, worked at the visions which should immortalise her.

When Una was born, something infinitely tender and womanly seemed added to her nature. The revelation of these new depths in her character endeared her far more to her husband than any work of her genius, and over the child's cradle they drew near together as never before.

But orders flowed in to her from time to time from quarters of which the notice was highly flattering, and Beatrix was too far up the ladder of fame to consent to forego or postpone the climb. Dearer than ever she had grown to Harold Winyard as he watched her working at the Scripture scene, her face earnest with the sweet solemnity of the subject.

It was a precious thought to him that hand in hand and side by side they were being spent for the glory of God. But it was all too evident now that in some way the pure motives which had prompted the picture were forgotten, and to Beatrix, flushed with prosperity, it was only a "success," as it had brought her social and artistic advancement. All this Winyard would have exchanged, had it been possible, for the tear-dewed eye and contrite, quivering lip which on that Sunday evening had accompanied her longing to do good.

The Vicarage was close to the river, and many were the water picnics inaugurated at this time for the ostensible purpose of filling sketchbooks with the quiet nooks and corners round which flowed the rippling Thames. The studio was invaded day by day by a throng of friends doing homage at the shrine of the artistic star, and Beatrix drank to the full the cup of fame that for years she had coveted in secret with intensest thirst.

Splendidly as she had done in this year's exhibition, she resolved to surpass herself in her next attempt. Richness of colouring was her glory, and the subject that suggested itself to her was "The Field of the Cloth of Gold." From various chronicles and histories she busied herself in making sketches of King Francis and the English Henry, adopting happy suggestions made by her artist acquaintances, and determined to realise Lord Varple's prophecy, that what she would do in the future would astonish even those who thought most highly of her powers.

Lord Varple took the keenest interest in Beatrix, as in every other rising genius. He was an aged nobleman who had the entree of every European studio, and spent his time amid artistic delights, and for Beatrix he had a pet plan, which gradually unfolded itself to her enchanted ideas.

He exerted all his influence to secure study abroad for Beatrix, under the escort of a family which was about to travel. Beatrix was too much lost in her new picture to press the matter just then, but as it drew to completion, and the same escort was still offered to her, she thanked Lord Varple gratefully for his advice and interest in her. She said that she could well afford the expense of the plan from her own earnings, but that she feared her husband would scarcely like to spare her.

"He must make the personal sacrifice for the good of the public," said Lord Varple. "Such genius as yours is not to be selfishly monopolised. In fact, Mrs. Winyard, to genius, marriage is a mistake. It is sufficient to itself, and outside ties are a hindrance."

"Harold," said Beatrix that evening, looking up with a preoccupied expression as he brought little Una in from the garden on his shoulder, "don't you think Jane could look after the house for a few months? I shall never have a similar opportunity of visiting Rome."

"I think," he answered, "it may be arranged for me to act as chaplain there for some time next year. Only wait patiently, and you shall visit the Continent."

"But you would never go about with me to all the galleries as the Christies will. They know all that is to be seen, and how to see it. Lord Varple says my style will never be perfect till I have been under Signor Vecchini."

"Well, dear, I hope you will try to wait till I can accompany you. Una, too, will be stronger by-and-by. She is not fit for travelling yet."

"Oh, she is perfectly well, Harold. She will always be delicate-looking, but there is nothing the matter with her. Don't touch, Una. Oh, take care, Una. Go away, dear," as the little fingers went eagerly to her mother's box of pencils.

A little estrangement sprang up between husband and wife at this, for Beatrix pressed the matter so impetuously that Winyard became hurt, and told her that he would not seek to detain her against her will. On her side, the hardly wrung permission launched her into a delightful tide of busy preparations; but as he watched her joy in anticipation of the change, he withdrew almost entirely into the study where little Una soon followed him, finding herself decidedly in the way of "Pretty mamma."

With the greatest tenderness the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" was packed to be finished under the eye of Signor Vecchini, and that same night Una sobbed herself to sleep because her mother had forgotten to pay the evening visit to the nursery, carelessly promised, to still the child's pleading.

"Miss Una has been coughing sorely in the night, sir," said the nurse to her master the next morning. "She does not seem to get better for the warmer weather. Do you think the doctor should see her, sir?"

Mr. Winyard went up hastily to the child, and found her still in her cot, restless and feverish.

"Beatrix," said he, coming downstairs to his wife, "let me send a telegram to the Christies. The child is very poorly, and really you cannot leave today. I am just going for the doctor."

Beatrix turned round from her packing with a face full of dismay. "But my lessons with the signor are arranged, counting on our starting today. He will not be long in Rome, you know. I cannot lose my lessons, Harold. Una is no worse than usual."

The doctor pronounced it "only a fresh cold," and Una brightened up, and prattled away at sight of her mother. Much relieved, Beatrix sent for a most elegant doll for her little daughter, and bade nurse pay particular attention to all the doctor's directions.

When she went into her husband's study in her stylish travelling garb, sketchbook in hand, to bid him goodbye, at first he could scarcely believe that she was really going. Then he spoke to her sternly for the first time in their acquaintance. "No woman worthy of the name of mother could leave her child in this condition."

"You are a great deal too fidgety about Una, Harold. The Christies say so, and so do other people. I care for her as much as you do, but it is foolish to magnify childish ailments. My picture has gone ahead. It would upset all arrangements if I were to delay now."

"And when do you propose to return?"

"In six months' time, when I have carried out the programme that Lord Varple has drawn up."

"And suppose I exercise a husband's prerogative, and for Una's sake,forbid you going till she is better?"

Beatrix made no reply, but moved towards the door. Then she turned and said, "I am sorry you cannot part more amiably, Harold. Una is all the world to you. It is quite evident I can well be spared."

He took a step forward and held her in his arms. "Una is much to me," he said, "but what you are, Beatrix, it would weary you, were I to tell you. God forgive me, if any word or action of mine has led you to doubt the love which is beyond expression. Goodbye, my wife, my darling. God bless you," and he touched her lips in a passionate, lingering kiss.

It was the first time that he had allowed his deep feelings towards her to outflow. The colour came vividly to the young face, and a little wonder to her eyes; her hand touched his shoulder half uncertainly. Just then the cabman rang to ask for her luggage, and she said in a broken voice, "Goodbye, Harold dear. It will help you and little Una for me to get great, you know."

Yet it was not of getting great she was thinking as the cab drove quickly to the station. Her grave student husband with his strong arms round her, and his handsome face touching her own; her little child tossing in the cot ‒ these were the pictures which for a time shut out even the "Field of the Cloth of Gold," and gave her a sudden, keen sense of loss.

The Christies made much of her, and new scenes succeeded each other daily as they journeyed from place to place, "doing" all that was interesting and remarkable, especially to art-worshippers. But there was a restlessness about Beatrix which her friends could not understand. Conscience and love drew her heart homewards, whilst the inward sense of power and longing to be famous strove to concentrate all her ideas on her picture.

Everyone was expecting her to do great things at next year's exhibition, and she felt that the quiet study in Rome under the shadow of Signor Vecchini's wonderful genius would lift her to a noble place in the world of art. Her dreams painted the renewed adulation of the critics, the silent wonder of throngs surrounding her picture, perchance even the notice of Royalty. Against such visions as these, the quiet home- scene faded slowly but surely away.

There is a sort of intoxication in brilliant success that makes it dangerous. Beatrix seemed to be gliding with the current of her prosperity from the sacred haven where once she had felt herself at rest. She began to tell herself that just as her husband's mission was to teach his fellow creatures the religion of faith in Christ, so hers was to show them the religion of beauty, and wean them from the muckrake of sordid care by the marvels of colouring she could put into the "Field of the Cloth of Gold."

Wherever she went, her husband's letters followed her, and she gave him full accounts of every new spectacle presented to her eyes. A tenderer vein she did not attempt. Perhaps she was afraid to do so, for she thought a good deal about him at this time, and one of her brightest dreams was the pride he would feel in his wife, when "The Cloth of Gold" had been pronounced an epoch in artistic work.

He said that little Una was about the house again, weakly and ailing. "She needs a mother's tenderest care," were the words that approached the nearest to severity in those long letters that waited for her in the various Continental towns.

Signor Vecchini was a very old man, with thin white hair and a black velvet cap, and keen eyes that said more than his words. His nature was a silent one. He gave no praise to his new pupil's picture, but studied it attentively and treated her with interest and cordiality, which she was told proved the standing she held in his opinion.

At first she was inclined to consider him peculiarly aloof, but her opinion changed when the first morning of her lessons his little grandchild, a bonnie, dark-eyed Italian baby of two or three, came toddling into the studio and climbed to her place on his knee. She was the only relation the old man had in the world, and at sound of her voice he turned his head eagerly, even when his brush was most busy.

Beatrix recognised her as the original of his wonderful picture, "Lotta," which was considered the old man's masterpiece.

She had been in Rome about three weeks, and little Lotta had learnt to know her well enough to stroke the folds of her dresses with the baby fingers that recalled Una's touch, when for several days the English letters ceased. In answer to a telegram that she sent at last, for she found it impossible to paint in a condition of suspense, there came a note in her husband's hand saying that he had not been very well, but he was "all right."

The strangely shaken handwriting remained in her memory. She felt certain that something must have happened to alter her husband's firm characters. She would have gone home directly, but her picture was progressing splendidly towards completion, and unless she worked on uninterruptedly, it would certainly not be in time for the Italian gallery where she wished it to be shown first.

Still, she grew fidgety and uneasy, and it seemed to her that her hand had lost its cunning.

She was greatly disappointed one day by a message from the Signor that he could give no lessons, for little Lotta was unwell. She went to his studio where her picture was placed, and worked at it steadily, missing his earnest attention, and Lotta's face like sunshine about the room. The child's illness deepened her secret sense of discomfort. She felt it would be a relief to her when the little sunburnt baby reappeared, and as she painted she marvelled how the Signor, beset on all sides by work, and loving his art as he did, could leave all to pass hour by hour by the side of a sick and fretful child.

"He said nothing about Una," she thought, with a sudden, almost unbearable pang of fear. "It was only a brief note, but he must have known I want to hear about Una. Oh, my darling, my baby!"

The brush dropped from her hands, and a faintness seemed to come over her. She rose up with the purpose of sending the telegram, "How is Una?" but something prevented her from doing so. Something within her shrank too terribly from the answer. She went to her apartments and lay down with a bad headache. It was impossible to paint till her mind grew more at ease.

The following afternoon she went to the studio. Vecchini was moving about in a dreamlike manner, stooping ever and again to pick up little beads or scraps dropped by the baby hand.

"The little one is with the angels," he said. "She went at sunset, yesterday."

Beatrix could not speak. The shock was so sudden, and the rising fear too awful.

He led the way after a little time. It seemed like a holy place ‒ the still, darkened chamber, the heavy fragrance of lilies, and the white, quiet baby asleep under wreaths of pure, drooping flowers. Never, after that, did the scent of lilies come to Beatrix apart from the tiny coffin of white wood, lined with satin and lace, and the stillness of the child that had so late tumbled, and prattled, and sung in her bird-like glee all about the house.

She tried to speak a few words of comfort to the old man, but of the two he seemed more peaceful than herself.

"She is with the angels," was all he said. "And I am very old."

He sat down beside the little one, and Beatrix knew he would fain be alone. She went out into the open air, but the streets seemed warm and close, and nothing relieved the heart-sickness which had taken possession of her. It had come to Beatrix that even whilst she was absent from her, the child whom she passionately loved, yet had neglected for sake of self, might have passed beyond the reach of aught save yearning.

She recalled Una's little loving ways. The weak, uncertain baby steps that surely toddled to her side whenever she appeared. The prattle that had pleaded to "Mamma" to "love me up, and then I'll go to sleep." Would anything ‒ the fairest laurel in the garland of earth's glory ‒ supply the place of her God-given little child to her; fill up the void, if Una's little voice had passed out of her life?

She did not know what to do. She wandered about from street to street, trying to think of some friend with whom she could take counsel. The words of a hymn, often sung at her husband's church, floating over and over again, till her dim mind recalled them longingly:

From every stormy wind that blows,

From every swelling tide of woes,

There is a calm, a sure retreat;

'Tis found beneath the Mercy-seat.

At such times as these, when self is utterly helpless, knowing not where to turn for aid, there is the Saviour who mercifully strives anew for the long resisting will, knocking anew in infinite patience at the long-closed door. The title of her last year's picture ‒ the memory of that Sunday evening text ‒ rose to her like a still, small voice: "And He said, Come!"

Across that terrible sea of conscious failure and wrong, and suspense and fear, she came to the mercy of Jesus, and He stretched out His hand to her, proving to her then, as He proves again and again to laden souls when they cry unto Him in their trouble, that:

The light of love is round His feet,

His paths are never dim;

And He draws near to us when we

Dare not draw near to Him.

<><><><>

The evening light fell fair and calm on the Vicarage garden, fringed by the flowing water, as little Una played among the flowers.

A soft white shawl was wrapped round her tiny shoulders, making her cherub face and golden, floss-like hair look more ethereal. She was singing among the lilies, "playing at church," as she was fond of doing; and the nurse, who sat working in the summerhouse, smiled as the baby-voice reached her: "Eternal Father, strong to save "

At this point the hymn broke hurriedly off. A scream of joy rang through the garden, and with her two little soft hands full of lilies, Una scampered down to the gate, to be caught to her mother's heart.

"Oh! oh! it's my mamma!" and the lilies dropped to the path, as the dimpled arms went tightly round her neck, and the soft cheek was pressed to her own. Beatrix said nothing for a little space, but held the light burden to her shoulder, her lips to the rings of fair hair and a voiceless thanksgiving in her soul.

She had met with great opposition ere leaving Rome, but no reasoning had availed to prevent her return. Lord Varple had just arrived, and he treated her desire to go home as a mere caprice. When he realised her determination, he became thoroughly vexed, and the Christies warned her not to offend so valuable a friend and patron.

"Dear Mrs. Christie," said Beatrix earnestly, "I can never thank you enough for the kindness you have shown to me. I will return to Rome when my husband can accompany me, and meanwhile I must do what I can with my picture at home."

She would not even wait to pack her picture. Some English ladies were returning, and she begged to join their party. She knew that the delay would frustrate her ambition as to the Italian Exhibition, but, as she said to Mrs. Christie, "I have proved that ambition and success cannot satisfy. I shall never leave my dear ones again for the sake of 'getting on.'"

"I am afraid," said one of her friends, "you will find the home life very stifling to your talent. And remember, it is your duty with such a gift not to hide it under a bushel."

"I think," said Mrs. Christie kindly, "Beatrix is right in taking up the work nearest to hand. A way will be made for her, so that her light is not kept under a bushel."

And the young mother smiled tearfully, with a glad look yet in her eyes.

That "light" was to shine henceforth no more to the glory of the painter, but to the painter's Master.

Nurse came forward in alarm at Una's cry. She could scarcely believe that it really was her mistress. "I'm so sorry, ma'am," were the first words she said. "Cook is away at her home, and I do the cooking, for Jane's hurt her hand, and, besides, she's busy about the house. And please, ma'am, there's nothing but cold meat for your supper. I'll go and boil you some eggs, ma'am. We was just saying this morning ‒ Jane and me ‒ we'd a good mind to write and tell you how bad you was wanted, for master's dreadful low."

Beatrix looked up hastily from her child's blue eyes. "Is he not well, nurse? Is he at home?"

"Why, didn't master never tell you, ma'am? He was afeard to frighten you. The mare threw him Monday week, ma'am."

Beatrix seemed to turn giddy, and steadied herself against the garden wall.

"He were dreadful bad, ma'am. A great London doctor came and set his bones right; but the hospital sister as were down here said as he suffered awful. You'd scarce know him, ma'am, his face is that cut and scarred. But, good gracious, ma'am, don't you take on so. He's nearly well, and the hospital nurse went away yesterday."

Una's wee hand patted her mother's face, and seemed to give her new strength. Nurse bustled off to get tea and eggs, and with Una in her arms, Beatrix passed trembling to her husband's study.

He was lying on the sofa, the Bible he had been reading on a little table beside him. For a moment Beatrix shrank back in dismay. What must he have suffered, for that worn look of pain to change the handsome features that had been her pride into a drawn, patient look of suffering? And the scars on brow and cheek seemed quite to alter his expression.

"Is that you, nurse?" said he, still with his weary eyes closed. "Let Una come to me."

Beatrix moved forward, and gently placed the little one on the sofa at his feet.

"My darling..." she said. She would have said more, but the tears came, and she put down her head on his shoulder.

"What a selfish wife you have," she exclaimed, presently, "coming in to upset you like this! Can you not believe it, Harold? It is Beatrix. Oh, love, you should have told me."

"What made you come?" he asked, his changed face so flushed with eager love-light that to her eyes it was more beautiful than ever before.

"I could not bear it, Harold. I wanted you and baby. A little child died in Rome, and ... and ... I could not keep from home."

"This is just what I wanted," said he. "I seem to have been hungering for you, but you were not prepared for this, my wife;" and he touched the broad scar across his brow. "I shall soon be well as to my bodily powers, but...."

He smiled rather sadly, for he knew that she looked out on the world through artist-eyes. "What about your picture, dear one?" he asked, gazing at her as though he feared the vision would fade.

"Never mind the picture," she said, drawing closer to him, as she felt his strong arm tremble; "I have you, Harold ... husband;" and her voice died to a whisper, as her lips went down to the scarred, changed brow.

6. EASTER VIOLETS

CALM spring Sabbath morning. The happy chimes are calling in the people over meadows of silver and gold to sing the resurrection anthem in the ivied church. For this is Easter Sunday:

'Tis the spring of souls today;

Christ hath burst His prison,

And from three days' sleep in death

As a Sun hath risen.

Sweet budding hedges are stirred by the cool fresh wind. Cowslip and celandine are tearful yet with the early dew, and woodland paths are wreathed with star-like anemones, and lilies of the valley, pure and white as the sinless life they typify in their newborn springtide beauty. Pale primroses lift innocent eyes to the blossoming almond trees overhead,

And thick

By ashen roots the violets grow.

The young choirboys, clean-surpliced and shiny-haired, walk two-and-two from the Vicarage between the grass-green graves that gem the churchyard path. And as they file along, they turn their fair, grave faces upward to where in the calm blue heavens, flecked with silver cloudlets, "the lark becomes a sightless song."

Presently the clear boyish voices will chant out the Hymn of Triumph, but the little birds began it with the first blush of day, and wood and meadow and churchyard trees are echoing to the glad Te Deum of those young choristers, of whom the Saviour said, "Not one of them is forgotten before God."

The Vicar has been detained through the week at a clerical congress in London. He only returned to Woodlands late last evening, and now he is in the Church, glancing round at the Easter decorations ere his flock shall gather in ‒ a tall, handsome, stern-looking man, with hard lines about his lips, and clever eyes that seem to read one through and through, and hold in their expression a story of deep calling unto deep in the soul-baptism of trial.

"A good man and a just," say the people of the district. "A scholar and a true Christian."

Eric Edensor is worthier of their praise than his parishioners realise. Self-denying, personally he is open-handed and generous whensoever a brother hath need. He gave up the chance of a easy living at the West End of London to care for this neglected agricultural district where he receives £100 a year, a thatched cottage and a meadow for his cow if he possessed one, to encourage him in the fight against surrounding ignorance, and its offspring ‒ vice.

His classical attainments enable him to augment his income by regular contributions to the literature of the day, and through the winter he has been at his desk by 6 a.m. daily, that the time thus gained by earlier rising may keep the life within a poor sick labourer, and those who cry to him for bread.

"A good man and a just!" But little children never run to him, as they did to the old man who after fifty years' ministry in Woodlands went home to the reward that God had prepared. Eric Edensor feels the little ones are half-afraid of him, and smiles down at their awed faces a little bitterly.

Notwithstanding his unwearying labours for the souls and bodies of his flock, he leads a lonely life in the thatched cottage called the Vicarage, where one old woman he has kept from the workhouse does her best for his comfort, and a splendid Scotch collie lies at his feet in the study, and looks up in his face with something of the tenderness his own clear eyes have missed.

"It is not good that man should be alone." Patiently have the maiden ladies of the district, by sympathetic look and tone, by incessant organ practice, by slippers and tea parties of which the name is Legion, and beef-tea and jelly proportionate to a hospital when he sprained his ankle, preached to the Vicar the personal application of this text.

But if they could see him now, gazing round at the violet-wreathed chancel, they would realise by the stern white face and drawn, tightened lips that their gentle visions are all in vain ‒ that somewhere in this man's life there is a grave of buried hopes and tenderest yearnings that have known no resurrection Easter. And the funeral wreaths cast down upon them were twined of violets.

Eric Edensor is blind to the golden daffodils garlanding the white stone pulpit, the clear-eyed primroses twining the pillars, the cross of purest lilies above the altar. He is conscious only of the scent of violets, the fragrance that has lingered through his life like long-lost, echoing music, half precious in its very pain.

He only sees the sweet, dark flowers, nestled here and there under falling leaves, smiling out at him from woodland baskets and high white chancel vases, touching his hand in a dewy caress as it lies on the chancel rail. And up in the pulpit, beside his own Bible, someone has placed a cluster of white violets.

Church and chancel and Easter garlands vanish away. As in a dream he falters back to his vestry and bows his face upon his hands in memory, while the happy chimes ring on.

Stern self-control and proud composure, won through the battle of ten years of pain, forsake him now ‒ dissolved like a mist in the sudden fragrance of these Easter violets.

He is a fresh-souled boy again, wandering with her ‒ his Violet ‒ through budding woods of spring. She is his father's ward ‒ his sister in all but name, yet how much more! Her golden braids are stirred and loosened by the wind. He twines them with the namesake flowers she loves, and with hot blushes at his own temerity bends down his goodly height to kiss one truant tress. But the girl only looks up at him, with innocent laughter in her blue-black eyes. "Brother Eric's" love seems as natural and necessary to her being, as her own warm breath.

Again they are together; but Eric is now curate of a Hampstead church, and Violet is betrothed to him. After weary searching through many miles of country lanes, he has gathered a few early violets. He brings them to her in the gloaming, praying her to let them waste their perfumed life with the stirrings of her breast.

Half-pained and wholly touched by his intensity of love, she says she will keep them for ever. "And when we quarrel, Rick," she adds, with the rippling mischief of which her young heart is full, "I will send you the violets as a peace-offering ‒ like Essex sent Elizabeth the ring, you know, only she didn't get it in time. Won't you forgive me, Rick, when you see the violets?"

Forgive her? As though there could exist any spirit-feud between his heart and Violet. He draws her to him passionately, and whispers words of such devotion that she shrinks away, a little frightened at his very fervency. Is she wronging him that she cannot love like this.

As he thinks of her then, her pure, girlish eyes looking back into his, half-merry, half-tearful, and wholly his, Eric Edensor shudders like one in torture. But there is another memory yet, and the man's face darkens in terrible revenge.

He is to take the service in his native village on Easter Sunday, and on the Saturday night he goes home, dreaming all the way of Violet's winsome lips, and half-shy caresses at the end of the journey. Rupert Rutland, his Oxford friend, his ideal of all that is noble, physically and mentally, has gone down earlier in the week.

Edensor introduced him at his home during the Christmas rejoicings, and old Mr. Edensor has taken a strong fancy to the young fellow who has taken up no profession, but says he means to be a poet. Violet seemed shy of this new element in their quiet home, but Eric hopes that she has learnt to like his chosen friend better now, since Rutland elected to go down to Dayfield earlier than expected, and Violet has had to entertain him.

The memory of that home-coming is a living pain today to the Vicar, though it is ten years ago. His father's face and hand-clasp ‒ a little tearful note awaiting him ‒ and a few crushed violets on the open piano, that have fallen from her dress. That is all!

Rupert and Violet started off in the morning, ostensibly to the woods, but they have never returned; and now the old man has found an open note addressed to Eric in which she passionately implores forgiveness. She left that morning to be married, and the train that took them to London must have crossed his own. She cries to him in the letter to believe that she has battled and struggled against the new love, which taught her that she had only given away a sister's heart before.

"I have tried, brother Eric," she says; "but oh, I love him so."

Eric drops the letter in the fire still burning on the hearth, and looks at the fallen violets with dazed, bewildered eyes. Presently he takes them up and puts them away in his pocket-book, and then he wanders away into those familiar woods. There the tender dreams of youth die out of his heart for ever, and in their place is born an unnatural hardness which as a Christian he would fain overcome; but the memory of her treachery ‒ and his ‒ crushes down every sweeter purpose like a leaden albatross.

For a few terrible months he cannot preach ‒ he can scarcely pray. His whole spirit thirsts for revenge. He hears of Rutland as a successful author, and Violet as admitted into fashionable circles. If he had his will just now, his hate would wreck their lives.

Then gradually they seem to die out of the literary world. Rumours float to Dayfield of Violet's money wasted, of a neglected wife, and, later on, of a sick man and a baby-boy dependent on a woman's earnings. "As they sow, let them reap," says Eric most bitterly in his heart. Never, never shall help or pardon reach them from him and his.

The rumours fade away at last. He hears no more of Violet, and knows not if she be yet alive. And Eric goes back to his ministry, more active, more earnest than ever, in the straight line of rectitude and duty, but with a change upon him that is felt rather than understood.

He thought he had outlived it all; and now, on this Easter Sabbath, with his earnest, carefully wrought-out sermon before him, and fresh from the blessing of long wrestling in prayer ere he left his home, the battle has begun again. Fierce, bitter feelings are flooding the heart that has to point the people higher.

The bells are slower now; then the chimes die to a toll as the music of his being changed to a funeral knell, and Eric Edensor must robe, and stand in the reading desk.

He tries to merge his thoughts in the beautiful service, and by-and-by it calms him in the way a mother's singing hushes the fretful child. Lover and friend have changed, but he is in the house of the changeless One. Earth's dreams have died, but He hath risen, in whose likeness we shall be satisfied when we awake.

He delivers the sermon, and the squire nods approval of its erudition. The yeomen think, "He's a mighty clever man ‒ our parson"; and their wives perceive that, "He do look uncommon ill. It's them Lunnon meetings, belike."

The sunshine streams in upon the beautiful garlanded flowers ‒ the glorious Easter sunshine. A little footsore boy, ragged and weary, with fair, curling hair, has strayed up the churchyard path and peeps wistfully into the flower-wreathed church. But the verger catches sight of him and promptly motions the tiny tramp away. The child shrinks frightened back into the porch, and the organ swells into a burst of joy, the while the choirboys and the people sing:

"The Day of Resurrection ‒

Earth, tell it out abroad,

The Passover of gladness,

The Passover of God:

From death to life eternal,

From earth unto the sky,

Our Christ hath brought us over,

With hymns of victory!"

The Vicar is delayed inside the church at the close of the service, and comes out at last with a lingering step and pale, tired face that glances back half-wistfully at the fair quiet of the sanctuary.

Where the periwinkle trails its lavender growth, and dark, gleaming leaves at the base of the rustic porch, he becomes suddenly conscious of a little child, a gentle-faced boy with long flowing hair like a girl's, and blue-black eyes, and a tremulous mouth. He is a ragged child, a stray beggar-boy perchance, yet Eric Edensor starts and shudders as he looks upon him.

"Who are you, child?" he asks, in angry, agitated tones. "What are you doing in the churchyard?"

"I want my Uncle Eric," is the frightened, half-sobbing answer. "I'm so hungry, please, and my feet do hurt me so."

He shows his little reddened feet, way-worn and blistered. "I want my Uncle Eric!"

Who has put such words within the lips of this wandering child?

"Who are you?" asks the Vicar again, his heart shrinking from the answer.

The boy looks up in his face, and reading nothing but infinite dislike therein, whispers more timidly still, "I'm Rupert Rutland, please, and I am called Ru. Please, I'm nearly six, and I want my Uncle Eric."

He opens one stained dimpled palm as if in sudden remembrance, and shows Mr. Edensor a faded pink envelope, such as she used "in the long ago." Whereon the words are faintly traced in an unforgotten hand, "Brother Eric, have mercy on my child."

The man's face settles into hardness. He opens the envelope, and Violet's peace-offering of withered scentless violets drops down on the churchyard path.

"So you are Rupert Rutland?" he says slowly, speaking his name as with a bitter effort. "And what do you want with me? Where is your mother?"

The child's face quivers all over, but he forces back the tears; the Vicar sees a twist of shabby crape on the arm of the dusty sleeve.

"Mother's up with God," he answers, his innocent eyes lifted to the clear spring sky. "And please, sir, aren't you Uncle Eric?"

"Who taught you to say Uncle Eric, boy?"

"Mother," is the answer, and now the tears flow forth. "And she said my Uncle Eric preached in the church at Woodlands, and Mr. Grant, the doctor, wrote Uncle Eric this letter I have in my pocket."

This proves to be a few lines addressed by the parish doctor to the "Rev. Eric Edensor, on behalf of little Rupert Rutland, whose mother has died after a lingering illness." Mr. Grant goes on to say, "He lost his father when two years old, and Mrs. Rutland has earned their living as a needlewoman while her health permitted. I have reason to believe she has endured many sad privations, and had a very hard struggle for existence.

"When summoned by her landlady, I found the poor lady in great poverty, and all her few possessions have been parted with to procure necessaries of life. I often heard her speak to her son of 'Uncle Eric,' and when delirious she has repeatedly called upon 'brother Eric.' I therefore pressed her to let me communicate with her brother, when she told me you were no relation in fact, but a friend who had been very kind to her in her girlhood.

"She said she knew you would care for her boy, and she told little Rupert that, when mother had gone to God, he must be Uncle Eric's little boy. She died calmly and trustfully as a child falls asleep. Some charitable ladies of the district ministered to her want at the last. I have paid the boy's journey to Brighton, and would do more for him, did my scanty means permit.

"I believe Woodlands is close to Brighton, and I have directed him to show the address on this letter when he asks his way. I trust he will reach you safely. He is otherwise utterly friendless, and failing your kind assistance must, I fear, be passed on to the workhouse."

Woodlands is several miles from Brighton, and little Ru has been more than a week in reaching "Uncle Eric." Rough tramps, whose language has sorely frightened the poor child, have robbed him of the decent clothes in which the doctor sent him. Pitying farmhands have given him a lift now and then by the way, and let him sleep by night in shed and barn; and their wives have kissed the motherless face, and given him bread and milk from their scanty store.

Eric Edensor guesses something of all this as he looks down on the tiny wanderer, and the scented wind stirs the pitiful scrap of black mourning crape upon the sleeve. Great tears stand in the violet eyes, and with a pleading child-caress the small hands touch "Uncle Eric's." That gesture is fatal to the faint stirrings of the Vicar's tender pity. He remembers that clinging, shy touch of old, and draws back as from a serpent's sting.

"My name is Eric Edensor," he says coldly, "and this letter is written to me. But I am not your Uncle Eric."

"Not Uncle Eric! Not mother's dear brother, who used to swing her in the orchard when she was a little girl, and shake down the apples for her to catch! Oh, please do tell me where my Uncle Eric lives. I'm so tired and I'm so hungry, and my feet do pain me so."

The Vicar looks away from the dewy eyes, and sees White, the verger, coming up the path between the almond trees.

"That man yonder will give you some dinner today," he says, "and let you sleep at his cottage. And tomorrow he will take you to the workhouse where you will be fed and taught, instead of wandering over the country like this."

"Oh no, Mother said my Uncle Eric wouldn't let me go to the workhouse. Oh, do tell me where he is!"

The Vicar leaves him in the porch, and goes to meet White with uncertain steps. The verger is sorry the little rascal has troubled Mr. Edensor. He must have strayed away from some tramps. He's as ill-looking a lot as the verger ever saw, and actually wanted to get into church among the quality. But since his reverence wishes it, he'll give the lad some victuals and pass him on tomorrow to the workhouse, and if his story's true that he comes from London, why, they'll send him back to his own parish, and he'll be looked after decently.

But when Mr. White goes forward to the porch to summon little Ru, he finds that the child has flitted off like a frightened bird. He leaves word at the Vicarage that he cannot find him, and Mr. Edensor sits down to dinner and pretends to eat, looking out through the window at the young lambs that are glad in the streaming sunshine, and thinking of Violet's shelterless lamb that has strayed into his path, "All helplessly, all homelessly."

It seems to him just now that to touch Rupert Rutland's child in kindness would be the most bitter drop life could give him to drink. The hand that was pledged to Violet, and cruelly wronged by her, can never be the one to succour her motherless boy.

There is Sunday school held in the afternoon. At its close the Vicar usually goes across to question the little ones on their lesson, and speak a few earnest words and offer up a prayer, but today he sends word that he cannot come. He tells himself that his head aches too much for the noise; but he knows that he cannot bear the fresh young faces, the innocent voices, the happy smiles of these glad country children, the while Violet's "little Ru" has cried to him in vain!

He shuts himself into his study ‒ shuts out even his faithful dog, that lies whining on the rug outside; and paces up and down the room with throbbing, burning brow, and gives his heart over to vindictive memory.

And so the heavy hours wear on, till the long weary afternoon is spent, and from the school house across the churchyard comes softly echoed the children's closing hymn:

"From all pride and vain conceit,

From all spite and angry heat,

From all lying and deceit,

Save us, Holy Jesu.

"From refusing to obey,

From the love of our own way,

From forgetfulness to pray,

Save us, Holy Jesu.

"By Thy birth and early years,

By Thine infant wants and fears,

By Thy sorrows and Thy tears,

Save us, Holy Jesu!"

Old Martha, who waits upon the Vicar, knocks at the door presently with a tray of tea and toast. He drinks the tea with dry, thirsty lips, and then goes over almost mechanically to the table where lie an open Bible, his Greek Testament, and a much-treasured volume of sweet old Latin hymns.

He usually meditates and prays awhile before the hour of the evening service, but now his meditations are only of past wrongs, and how they are revenged in the person of little Ru. And as to higher, holier communion, how shall he, who forgiveth not his brother seventy times seven, have fellowship with the Lord who whispers, "I forgave thee all that debt."

"I looked to Heaven, and tried to pray;

But or ever a prayer had gushed,

A wicked whisper came, and made

My heart as dry as dust."

At last through the clear, cool scented air the evening chimes begin to ring; and Eric Edensor rises with an effort to fulfil the duty he would fain, if possible, have delegated to another today.

But ere he reaches the church, going in almost the last of the worshippers, his faltering steps stand still. Little Ru is here again, asleep on a daisied grave, whereon the tender dews of heaven are falling. One little arm is thrown in sleep above the bare, curly head; the other is stretched out to cull the daisies, as when he dropped to slumber.

The people going into church gaze wonderingly at the small boy, and one or two in pity drop a copper into the dimpled hand; but none look at little Ru with such eyes as Eric Edensor. He thinks of Violet as he saw her last, merry-eyed and child-hearted; and then of the dying mother turning in spirit to him at the end. He makes a half step towards the child. A spirit-battle is raging fiercely. But the evil triumphs, and turning from little Ru asleep on the grassy grave he passes into the vestry, and thence into the reading desk, to read such words as these:

"When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive."

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise."

"Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord; for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified."

The old rustic church is crowded tonight. The neighbourhood has heard of the beauty of its decorations, and some of the county families have wandered over through the budding lanes to worship at Woodlands this Sabbath evening.

Eric Edensor is known and esteemed among them. He recognises their faces here and there, and for a moment wishes the congregation scantier today. How can he speak to these listening hearts, when his own is heavy as stone, and hard as iron?

Hard as iron! Yet One can break the iron asunder, and melt the rugged tones. He reads of the weeping woman in the garden, and the voice that in her sorrow called her by her name. He hears the beautiful psalms of rejoicing, and in the church that is fragrant as a forest dell he kneels to pray, "Give peace in our time, O Lord. O Lord, make clean our hearts within us."

And He who despiseth not the desire of such as be sorrowful, grants His merciful succour to the struggling soul, and pours upon it holy influences like rain upon the new-mown grass. Eric Edensor knows that his share in this service is found wanting in the sight of God. What is the outward semblance of worship to Him whose acceptable service is the doing of mercy, and the humble walk with Him?

He tells himself that he will find that little child, and though he cannot bring himself to shelter Rupert Rutland's son, he will provide for him, and care for his necessities for the sake of the Babe of Bethlehem ‒ and Violet. He is all unconscious how the long-sealed founts of love and pity are welling up already; but his heart gives a burning throb of pain when amid the falling shadows, as he is praying, "Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord," he suddenly hears a child's sobbing outside the church.

Maybe the verger hushes it, for it dies away presently. Only the people wonder why the remaining collects are spoken in a broken, burdened voice, with a new depth of pleading they have never known from those lips before.

And then, when the Vicar has named the number of the hymn, and the organ is pealing forth the preceding symphony, he comes down the aisle, between the surprised congregation, with a faraway look in his grey eyes, and a faint, tender flush as of the dawn upon the weary face.

The verger is waiting to conduct him to the pulpit, and, much perplexed, follows "his reverence" into the porch.

"White," asks the Vicar gently, "where is that little child?"

"He cried to come in, sir. He said it was so cold out here, but I sent him off sharp. There he is, sir, curled up under that there chestnut tree."

In the shadow of the chestnut tree, little Ru has fallen asleep again, but he opens his eyes for a moment as he is lifted up, and shivering with the chilling damp he sleepily presses one small arm about the Vicar's neck.

The verger is scandalised. That ragged sleeve in contact with immaculate clerical garments! But Eric remembers round whom that little arm has been cast in sleep before, and holding the little one against his heart, he carries him into the warmth of the church.

Not one worshipper therein will ever forget the look in his eyes as he passes up the aisle. The fair head is pillowed on his shoulder; the little arm clings round his neck, the sleeping face is buried on his breast. Dust and damp from the bare weary feet leave many a stain on the flowing white surplice, but the Vicar's heart is lighter, and sweeter, and purer now than it has been for many a day, as he clasps her little lamb within his arms ‒ and feels she knows it.

The red light of the sunset is streaming in. It touches with a tender glow the soft rings of hair, and the gentle face bent above them. It makes the misty azaleas, the many-hued primulas, the cyclamen, the fair white heath about the altar, like a vision of a fairer land, and leaves its golden blessings upon the shadowy violets.

Into his own warm vestry the Vicar carries the child where a fire is burning, for these spring evenings are chilly at their close. Laying little Ru in front of it upon the rug, he wraps him in his overcoat, and presses a biscuit into the cold little hand.

The trembling eyelids stir and open; the words come faintly. "Uncle Eric?"

"My child."

"Ru likes the fire. Is Ru come home?" and then the blue eyes close again, and he murmurs in his sleep, "Mother's little Ru so tired."

Thus the Vicar folds this wee stray lamb, and pressing his lips to the calm young brow, he takes little Ru for ever into a father's heart of love and care. With a tender, backward look at the tiny wanderer, nestled safely within the glow of the vestry fire, he goes up into the pulpit, wearing still the surplice that the little tired feet have stained.

As he bows his head, there flows unto his soul a new baptism of blessing, to be poured forth presently in waters of tender healing for many a thirsty heart. And the organ stays the long, sweet, varying symphony; and the hymn of praise floats up to heaven:

"The strife is o'er, the battle done,

The triumph of the Lord is won;

Oh let the song of praise be sung,

Alleluia!

"The powers of death have done their worst

And Jesus hath His foes dispersed;

Let shouts of joy and praise outburst ‒

Alleluia."

7. SEAWEED ‒ A POEM

THE possession of a literary husband is a daily grievance to the methodical heart of the housewife. At least, such was the information liberally bestowed on the eldest Miss Bentham ere she "gave her hand where she had already given her heart." But months sped by, and the new-made wife did not at all regret the fact that her other half was editor of the Tortown Telephone.

True that he was at times absent-minded, journeying on Pegasus, or mentally using the editorial scissors when she would fain have laid nearest to his heart and memory the particular joint which she wished him to order at the butcher on his way to the office.

True that he sought his nightly rest at unreasonable hours, and when his breakfast was brought to him at 10 a.m. drowsily represented that he was not the "Queen of the May," and had expressed no yearning to be waked and called early, but preferred the position of Matthew Arnold's heroine, of whom it is recorded, "Now they let her be."

But wifely admiration rises to the height of every emergency; and reading his leading articles and the serial from his facile pen in the Telephone, Mrs. Mostyn was quite ready to prepare for him fresh toast and eggs when at length he descended from his intellectual dreams to the level of the breakfast room.

It was, alas, in an evil hour that "airy nothings" began to float, not only within the noble brow of Glyn Mostyn, but likewise through the golden head of his devoted wife. When a child, Mrs. Mostyn remembered writing a poem in her exercise book on the death of her canary. Every verse ended with the refrain, "We weep, sweet bird, for thou art gone!"

The poem had gone the round of her relations, her mother especially being much struck by the originality and pathos of the verses, and being filled with anxiety lest the workings of her daughter's mind should result in an early grave. After this, nothing occurred in Rosamond's life of sufficient potency to inspire the Muse, till at the age of fifteen she discovered the world to be hollow, in the person of a school companion, who had chosen another for the term's walking-out. Several quires of superfine note were purchased and covered with elegies, laments, and bewailings, before the poems assumed a somewhat scathing tone ‒ descending to disdainful personalities ‒ whence the gradation to complete heart-cure was rapid.

The Benthams were a large family with moderate means, and Rosamond was the eldest daughter. At rare intervals the sight of the moon, or the present of a jar or vase, kindled within her some transitory sparks from the poetic fire, but these were prematurely quenched by the erratic behaviour of the oven, or Bobby's predilection for domestic sweeping and cleansing when he had been attired for company with special care.

Now, however, that she had quiet, and more leisure than she had known at home, Rosamond, who had confided to her diary that as Glyn Mostyn's wife she meant to "shine with a reflected light," found that to the poetic mind this shining with a reflected light is insufficient, and formed the resolution of astonishing the world of letters.

Having a fair and cosy home, a tender husband, and a specially happy lot, it may readily be imagined that Mrs. Mostyn's muse was of a somewhat morbid tendency. Many were the tears she shed over composing an "Ode to Melancholy," in which, however, she afterwards found so many unconscious resemblances to the style and words of "II Penseroso," that with wonderment concerning the fact that greatness repeats itself, she reluctantly resolved not to publish those touching lines.

Rosamond, too, at this time became absent-minded, and the meals would undoubtedly have been lost to sight day by day, but for the presiding genius in the kitchen ‒ an elderly maiden of Scottish extraction who secretly regarded her master as a "puir daft body," and her mistress as a "handy bairn about a house."

Very soon Mr. Mostyn recognised that there was a change in her whom he had in time past addressed ‒ in the "Poet's Corner" of the Telephone ‒ as "Sweet Sprightliness." Rosamond's eyes began to look larger and more languid, and whilst his own, "in a fine frenzy rolling," allowed the fire to go out for want of coal, hers gazed out to the sunflowers in the distance with a mournful intensity that afterwards spent itself in "Wail for the Fallen," as concerned the battle of Cannae.

Poetry, however, is nothing without mystery and a nom-de-plume, so Rosamond, till ready to surprise society, brooded

"... upon her silent heart,

As on its nest the dove,"

and after much anxious meditation, finally possessed herself of the title "Pinions," which sounded at once soaring and ethereal, and being in the plural number, associated her husband's genius with her own. She argued, with wifely humility that he too had a certain property in the ever-increasing pile within her dainty writing-case.

Most inopportunely, just at this juncture, Mr. Mostyn's only sister heard from India that her husband was taken ill. She had brought her little son over for the benefit of the English climate, but nothing contented her now save taking her passage in the next P&O vessel, that she might nurse her husband.

"I shall bring him back with me on sick leave," she wrote to her brother, "so in four or five months' time I hope to return. You will, I know, take my prince for that time. He is such a remarkable boy, you will be charmed with him. Perhaps he may seem a little indulged, but he is good at heart, dear Glyn ‒ thoroughly good at heart. Dear Rosamond's training will do wonders for him. She is used to children, and knows that the little treasures need to be drawn, not driven. I am sure you will be tender with my jewel. Telegraph your reply, and I will bring him tomorrow."

"Cool, but decisive," remarked Mr. Mostyn, as he handed the letter to his wife. "I suppose we cannot refuse, considering poor March's state."

Rosamond thought of the nearly completed manuscript, and flushed indignantly. "I have quite enough to do as it is, Glyn, without taking charge of a spoilt boy. I know what those Indian children are ‒ they tyrannise over everyone. If you have him here, you must look after him yourself."

Mostyn opened his blue eyes in startled surprise, and indulged in a long, low whistle before he answered. "I thought you were so fond of children, my rosebud. Don't you remember how you missed Bobby at first?"

"I am very busy just now," said Rosamond, with dignity, having worked her nerves up to a decidedly irritable pitch over a "Rhyme of the Wreck," which would not rhyme. "I am specially occupied, Glyn, and I cannot undertake any responsibility as to your nephew."

"Making something for my birthday, I suppose," thought Mr. Mostyn complacently. Then he said aloud, "Of course, dear, a nurse will accompany him. All I ask is for you to keep a sort of general eye over the pair. I suppose 1 had better telegraph at once."

"Let it be understood, then," said Rosamond, "that his nurse does come with him. They can have the top rooms, where we shall not hear the noise. It is very important that literary work should be undisturbed."

"Oh, don't mind on my account," said Mostyn good naturedly. "I can work with any noise going on, with the exception, I think, of my sister's piano. She was a very fine pianist before her marriage, and practised five hours a day. When the chromatic exercises began, my muse departed."

Rosamond felt that she had nearly betrayed the secret of her employment, which in its triumph was to be such a delightful surprise to her husband, so she closed the discussion with the remark, "Well, dear, I hope the invasion will not prove unbearable," and when he had departed to the telegraph office she sat down again before her writing case to wait for inspiration.

Mrs. March's "prince" had to be regally attired by the tailor, to whom his sartorial misfortunes proved a valuable assistance ere his mother considered his outfit worthy of his personal attractions.

Three days elapsed ere the travellers reached Brownlie, and during that period Rosamond had abandoned the "Rhyme of the Wreck," and commenced a poetical romance which was to hold the place of honour in her book of poems. The heroes of this romance were smugglers, and in the end the majority found a watery grave.

The poem opened with a description of seaweed, which accordingly gave its name to the romance. After describing the various kinds of seaweed, which at different periods of her life she had gathered and pressed, Rosamond proceeded to apostrophise seaweed in the abstract. Well pleased with the ring of three or four verses which were really pretty, she ransacked her brains as to what further could be said on the subject, but was compelled to enlarge the scope of her mental vision by introducing one of the smugglers as fast asleep, his "massive head pillowed on silvered seaweed."

The poetic fire was at its hottest, and Rosamond's pen was struggling vainly for a rhyme to "month," in the midst of a glowing description of a summer's eve by the smuggler's cave, when a railway fly stopped at Vine Lodge, and she heard a voice, which she despairingly and rightly concluded to be that of her sister-in-law, exclaim, "Take care how you alight, my precious Clive. Let me carry the box with your clean collars. Can you hold it yourself? That is so kind of you to carry my parcels, love; but do not tire yourself, my dearest boy."

"Dreadfully gushing," thought Rosamond. "The boy will be ruined by such treatment. How very tiresome for them to come just as I felt the poetry beginning to flow. I wonder if they have brought the nurse!"

With no very amiable feelings she laid Seaweed aside to receive her guests. A very loving and warm nature was Mrs. Mostyn's, but just now her eyes saw nothing but the author's laurels, and all obstacles between had an irritating effect upon her. She thawed somewhat, however, beneath the demonstrative address of Mrs. March, whom she had never met before; and it would not have been possible to the feminine heart to resist a broad silver bracelet and a Chinese silk wrap which Mrs. March had brought her from abroad.

She could not stay to take a cup of tea at Vine Lodge, for the return train left in a few minutes, and she explained that she was all "behind-hand" with her packing in London. Rosamond felt sorry as she noticed her wistful glance towards her son, and busied herself with the bags and umbrellas, whilst her sister-in-law clasped the boy in a lingering embrace.

As Mrs. March entered the fly, however, a sudden remembrance struck her, and she hurried forward, saying, "But where is Clive's nurse? Glyn said you would be sure to bring a nurse."

"Oh no, dear Rosamond, English nurses are so very different to our ayahs. They would break my Clive's spirit. Besides, he is too old for a nurse now. He can wash and dress himself, and all day long he is under my eye. You'll soon fall into his ways, and find him a most wonderful child for six years old. Be good to my treasure, dear Rose. Ask Glyn to come up to town and see me off at the docks."

The fly drove off, the impetuous lady, who still looked very young for a matron, alternately using her handkerchief to wave it and to wipe away her tears. Highly indignant, Rose gazed after the carriage with ruffled feelings that found a vent presently as she beheld Glyn coming down the country road, and passed out of the garden to meet him.

"Clive has come," she said in tones of decided discontent, "and Mrs. March had to leave at once. She wants you to see her off on Thursday at the docks. Clive has no nurse, Glyn. His mother evidently does not wish it."

"Well, dear, Mary can take him out walking, and he will be all right in the house. Cheer up, Rose, he may not prove so formidable, after all."

Very far from formidable was Clive March that first evening of his visit. He was a tall, slight boy of six, with handsome brown eyes, and a broad, high forehead. He treated the conversation of his relatives with a reserved dignity that at times amounted to rudeness, and at last both Mr. and Mrs. Mostyn let him alone, as being most satisfactory to all parties. He was evidently as unwilling a guest as Rosamond was an unwilling hostess.

After tea, he selected from the bookcase Tom Brown's School-days, The History of Cleopatra's Needle," and The Pilgrim's Progress, to all of which he devoted himself impartially with absorbed attention.

"What, can you read, my boy?" asked his uncle, in surprise; but Clive was evidently offended at the question, and murmured, "Of course I can," without glancing up from Bunyan.

"A regular bookworm," was his uncle's decision concerning him. "He has a splendid forehead. His taste for reading will keep him quiet, so set your mind at ease, Rosamond."

Mrs. Mostyn rose early, for she had been dreaming about her poem, and saw her way to rendering the fate of her favourite smuggler especially harrowing. The agonies of the author may be easily imagined when she found her writing case lying open, the paper and envelopes lying on the floor, and part of her precious manuscript torn away.

"Mary," said she, in awful tones, as the general servant entered the breakfast room, "what does this mean?"

"Good gracious, ma'am! It's that there boy. I heard him in here while I was lighting the kitchen fire. There he is, coming in from the garden."

Rosamond gave one look at her exquisitely written sheets, ribbon-tied, torn and crumpled, and went out into the passage.

"Clive, have you dared to touch my writing case?"

"Yes, auntie. I couldn't find any paper about the room."

He was looking fresh and active from the morning air, clad in his sailor suit of serge, with an anchor on the arm.

"How dared you touch it, sir? You must have forced it open."

"No I didn't, auntie. It's just like mother's, and my play-box key fitted mother's, so I knew it would fit this one. Mother always lets me go to her desk."

"That is no reason why other people should," said Rosamond angrily. "What did you want paper for, pray?"

"Some to write to mother, and some of the thick paper that had writing on for my popgun. I rolled it up to make shot."

"Please, ma'am," said Mary, who was of a most precise turn of mind, and had an especial aversion to boys, "he's been and made a fountain of the garden hose on the kitchen stairs, and it's been playing all over master's boots that I cleaned last night."

"'Tisn't a fountain," said Clive stolidly. "It's the Niagara Falls."

"You will go to your room," said Rosamond, with severity, "and stay there till your uncle comes downstairs. Understand, Clive, that we cannot have the comfort of the house upset by you in this way."

Clive appeared dubious as to his actions for a while, but upon consideration he went upstairs slowly and with dignity, pausing at the top to abuse Mary in Hindustani, which reduced her to a state of abject terror.

"The boy's possessed," she muttered to herself. "It's the Evil One himself that learns him all that gibberish, and sets him at floating master's boots in Niagara Falls."

Upstairs, Clive March, who was destitute of ink, endeavoured to write to his mother with some coloured chalks which he had brought. Writing, however, was to him a task of great difficulty, though he could read well for his age. When he had printed in large letters the words, "I hates Aunt Rose," his calligraphic efforts had so besmeared the sheet that it was impossible for him to proceed.

Having devoted himself to an analysis of his aunt's pretty mats (worked in apple blossom), by carefully unpicking the threads of silk, he proceeded to breakfast upon the Turkish delight and toffee which his mother had purchased for him during the journey. His uncle found him sticky and cross, for too much sugar had caused him to take unfriendly views of his surrounding circumstances.

"You must never touch your aunt's things, Clive," said Mostyn sleepily, for he had sat up late over an important leader. "I'm just going to breakfast. Come and have some, old fellow."

"Don't want any," said Clive. "I never want nothing, only to be let alone."

"And a few grammatical lessons," said his uncle. "Come along, your aunt's cherry jam is famous."

The mention of jam was more than Clive in his physical and mental discomfort could endure.

"I'm going to pack for India," he said, with determination.

"All right," laughed his uncle. "Only wash your hands and face first, my boy. You are not very respectable at present."

That episode of the precious manuscript, ruthlessly torn, established a deep prejudice in the mind of the aspiring authoress against Clive March ‒ a prejudice that he easily recognised, and in consequence kept himself as far as possible out of her neighbourhood.

Between Mary and himself the feud was one of open warfare. She was always bringing complaints concerning him to the dining room, and Mrs. Mostyn would look up from her manuscript and sigh, "This comes of over-indulgence at home. How necessary it is to be firm with children, ere they ruin the peace of the house by stealing potatoes."

For Mary protested that she had laid in a good stock of potatoes, "and that there boy has run off with them just to drive me distracted."

It came, however, to Rosamond's ears afterwards that the potatoes were only doing duty in Mr. Mostyn's black bag, to form a "burden" for Clive, who was that day playing "Pilgrim," and hour after hour toiled about the village with the black bag over his shoulder, bowed down by the weight, but happy in the consciousness of emulating Bunyan's hero.

Of such employments as these Rosamond knew nothing at the time. She was satisfied that Clive had "gone out to play," and glad that the house was delivered from the trampings about cellars and stairs with which he diverted himself in the intervals of reading.

These furious activities, he explained to his uncle, were made necessary by his having to enact the part of "horse-trainer," his own personality being horse as well as trainer, and rather more of the former than the latter.

"I cannot understand him," said Mostyn tranquilly. "He is such an enigma that I give up."

Rose's experience of boys and girls had put within her reach the knowledge of a very potent key to solve the enigma of child-nature, but it never occurred to her to apply this key, or desire to apply it in the case of this boy, who was dignified to sullenness as concerned the brief periods when he was in her vicinity. However, he never laid violent hands on her writing case again, and Seaweed finished up in due course with the tragic end of the band of smugglers, who had done marvellous things throughout the poem, both in love and war. The discourse was thrilling, and Mrs. Mostyn spent a long time in arranging it in the true spirit of the muse:

Now shall the storm-fiend's shrieking soul.

Ere many hours away have stole,

O'er these men's haggard corpses roll.

Rosamond entitled her book Seaweed, and other Poems. A dainty sight were the scented sheets, with their pale blue riband and exquisite handwriting. What publisher would have the heart to resist the voice of the charmer, as speaking forth from such touching manuscript? What "reader" could callously decline to recommend the work of Pinions for instant publication? Yet, "such there be," as Rosamond, to her consternation, ere long discovered.

Patiently, Seaweed set forth time after time anew on its journeyings, the postal creases becoming more apparent, but the pale blue riband being always renewed. She knew, of course, that her shortest cut to the consideration of the publisher was by entrusting Seaweed to her husband, who would have placed it in the hands of Messrs. Kinman, who published the Telephone.

But Rosamond's disposition was very sensitive, and she wanted the opinion which was to her most precious of all to be deferred till the public voice had unanimously proclaimed her a sort of Mrs. Browning or Felicia Hemans. At last one of the firms that had been favoured with a sight of Seaweed offered to bring out a certain number of copies ‒ if Rosamond would pay twenty pounds towards the expenses.

Literary ardour struggled for some days with a frugal mind, but in the end the fire of genius conquered, and Mrs. Mostyn withdrew the amount from the postal savings bank where she had been for years making a gradual hoard. This had already been decreased by her trousseau, and her heart smote her as she realised that now only three pounds remained. Still, she had the consolation of knowing that Messrs. Howland promised to share with her any future profits on Seaweed, and this opened out to her a golden harvest of future lucre, in addition to immediate fame.

How excitedly were the proofs of Seaweed concealed from Mr. Mostyn, and how agitated became that individual, as each day rendered more clear to his mind the fact that his wife had a secret which she was veiling from him. Mysterious notes in masculine handwriting reached her frequently. These came, of course, from Messrs. Howland, but in answer to his pressing questions Rosamond only coloured and stammered out that she "never promised to tell him everything."

Having thus launched Seaweed, the newly fledged authoress resolved to try her hand at prose, and commenced a book in three volumes to be called The Vicissitudes of Virtue, wherein she proposed to trace the career of an honest youth from the scavenger's broom to the woolsack. Of course, she eagerly scanned the various papers for reviews of Seaweed, but as it always appeared to be overlooked by the critic, she began darkly to bewail the literary jealousy which declined to notice her book, through professional fright at the advent of so luminous a star.

At last in despair she got Mary to address a copy to the office of the Telephone, where she knew it would in due time fall into her husband's hands for review. The criticism came out in three weeks, and Clive was sentenced that evening to lose his weekly pocket money for being five minutes late for tea. Even the cat crept out of Rosamond's way, and Mostyn, sitting down to a most cheerless table, wondered what blight of terrible disaster had fallen upon the former peace and brightness of his home. Alas, the blight was of his own manufacture, and consisted of a brief paragraph in the Tortown Telephone: 'Seaweed, by Pinions' (Messrs. Howland).

"We congratulate the fair and witty authoress of these comic sketches on the humorous parodies she has produced, on the stilted style and straining after effect too common in present-day poems. Most of these pieces have, we believe, appeared in the comic papers. They are now collected in a neat volume. Seaweed is especially humorous, and just the thing to take up when one is in need of a little wholesome amusement."

In the first place, it caused annoyance to Rosamond that her feminine identity was discovered, but this was nothing to her indignation that Glyn should actually have deemed her poems to be parodies, and attribute them to comic journalism! Such real pain to her was that review that she made a bonfire of some copies of her book that she was keeping for presentation, and then cried bitterly because her husband, who ought to have been her comfort and champion, and challenged any critic who dared to depreciate "Pinions," had turned against her the point of his quill, and held her up "as a mark for the scorn and ridicule of the world."

It was impossible for Mostyn not to notice the chill which possessed her treatment of himself. He asked her once or twice for an explanation, but though in her heart she was longing to forgive and be forgiven, she felt that she had been cruelly treated, and determined that, in some degree, he should realise the misery brought about by his unfortunate criticism.

Some extra numbers of the Telephone were engaging him very much just then, so he could not see much of Vine Lodge, and Clive, who liked his hearty merriment, missed him sorely. Nobody guessed the heart-hunger of this strange, imaginative child. Certainly his mother was rather gushing and extravagant in her demonstrations towards him, but he would have done anything for her, or for his father.

At Vine Lodge he seemed utterly alone. Mr. Mostyn was always kind, but laughed at his ways and evidently did not understand him. Mary openly wished him gone, and he read the same desire in his Aunt Rosamond's face when his entrance disturbed her at her writing.

He recorded the days of his mother's absence by a series of chalk crosses on his trunk. Every night he carefully smeared out one, and bravely took heart as the number decreased, and he began to think that the time for her to take him from his uncle's house drew near.

One day, at breakfast, Rosamond received an Indian letter, and ere Clive went out to play she called him back to the room.

"Your father is not strong enough to come to England yet, Clive," she said. "He has had to go to the Hills, and they cannot be here till late in the autumn. Your mamma was occupied in nursing him when she wrote, but you will have a letter from her by next mail."

"Can I go now?" asked Clive; and she gave him permission, feeling sorry that Glyn's nephew could be so heartless as to show no emotion over his mother's prolonged absence.

Upstairs the little fellow was quivering from head to foot, as he set in again upon the top of the trunk all the chalk marks that he had rubbed out. When the task was finished, he lay down upon the floor, and buried his head in his hands.

"It's no good," he said at last. "Mother will know I couldn't live. I wants to be an angel, and get to the Delectable Mountains. They don't look over far, either. I've never reached them yet, but I expect I made my burden too heavy. I'll only take my brush-and-comb bag, and those grapes I saved from dinner yesterday to eat on the way, and mother's picture, and the toy dog father gave me."

Into the-brush-and-comb bag went the dog, the portrait, and the grapes. It was somewhat broken out at the sides, and speedily grew moist with the grapes. He then reflected that his uncle would be anxious at his absence, so to satisfy Mr. Mostyn's mind, he stopped to print with a red crayon on the blotting pad in his uncle's study: "I wants to be an angel. From your dear little Clive."

To this small Pilgrim's vivid imagination, the Delectable Mountains were represented by a range of hills which he could see from his bedroom window, and which many a day, with burden of stones or other weights, he had vainly tried to reach. Once he had asked his father what would there "be in heaven," and Mr. March had answered, "All Love."

Now this was exactly what Clive needed, and what on this morning of bitter disappointment he felt he could not do without. "Mother's Prince" looked a desolate mortal indeed as he crept out of the back door, wishing he could pluck up courage to ask Mary to shake hands and "make up," as he was going to be an angel. But contenting himself with hugging the old pony in the meadow, and murmuring a favourite hymn of his mother's, "Weep not for me."

Evening came, and a message from the Telephone office that Mr. Mostyn was indefinitely detained; a haughty curl of the lip was Rosamond's reception of the note, but she began to feel very lonely and desolate, for even the "Vicissitudes of Virtue" cannot satisfy the heart bereft of its mate. She was so anxious, too, about Clive, who "must have got into mischief, somewhere," according to Mary's emphatic forebodings.

"He is sure to be in soon," she thought, laying down her pen uncomfortably as darkness fell, bringing rain with it. "What can have become of the child?"

Eight o'clock came, then nine, and ten. Mary, too, was by this time thoroughly frightened, and tearfully proposed to have Brownlie Pond dragged, and recalled that the "bairn had not been real wicked after all. Many a turn had he given at the coffee mill for her, and once he washed up the dinner things, and got his smart velvet clothes that greasy, mum, you wouldn't believe it."

As for Rosamond, she was reduced to that state of fright when she would have given every laurel that every brow of greatness could wear for a sight of Clive's defiant face, or a tumultuous scamper of his boyish feet. She thought of his father across the sea, weak and ill; of his mother, to whom he was so unspeakably precious; she thought, too, of the child wandering about, shelterless in the rain, for he must have lost his way and become overtaken by darkness.

What if it were Bobby, her little brother, in such peril! Bobby, who was snugly sleeping at this hour in his warm, safe bed. She went up in her husband's study to get a telegraph form, for, whatever it cost, she must telegraph to him from Brownlie post-office that Clive was missing. And there on the blotting pad she found the affecting farewell: "I wants to be an angel. From your dear little Clive."

"Oh, Mary, Mary!" she cried, "he has done away with himself! Oh, poor boy, the poor mother!"

Scarcely able to walk, Rosamond tottered downstairs in her ulster, and there in the kitchen, trying vainly to remove his wet, cut boots, stood Clive, face and clothes covered with dirt, his hands bleeding, his cheeks besmeared with tears, the head of a stuffed terrier peeping out from the torn brush-and-comb bag over his shoulder.

Mary was wiping him down, and evidently collecting her forces to scold.

"Where's the Delectable Mountains?" he was asking. "I've got to find them tomorrow. I nearly got there, only I sprained my foot, and I fell into a ditch, and Farmer Griff's man took me home in a cart of greens. I expect there's a shorter road, though, to the Delectable Mountains."

Here he was caught, mud and all, in Rosamond's arms, and Mary, thinking better of her intentions, wiped up the trail of mud on her clean floor, and attempted no word of reproof she had essayed to prepare.

Just then Mostyn, too, came in, and in a few minutes carried him up to bed, for his foot was very painful. He was surprised to see Rosamond hovering about, bathing and bandaging the ankle, and administering beef-tea by spoonfuls to Clive, who seemed too faint and feeble to be able to eat.

"Won't you go and write, Auntie Rose?" he asked presently, wondering if those really were tears that hung on her lashes.

"No, no, darling," she said, in a choked voice.

Clive hesitated a moment, then he flung one arm round her, and so fell asleep. Once he opened his eyes and said, "It's the Delectable Mountains," and once, "Them greens in the cart smelt so bad, mother." And again he started from a dream, saying, "Your Clive's got a pain, mother."

At last, long after midnight, when she quite thought he was settled for the night, he addressed her reproachfully. "Auntie Rose, you wouldn't let me say my prayers."

"Say them now, darling, and then you will get to sleep."

It appeared, however, that two things were necessary to this matter. One was that Clive should be enveloped in "mother's plaid cloak," which he always wore to say his prayers, the other that he should say "goodnight," and bestow a parting embrace, to "father's stuffed dog."

Then the boy said his prayers in a tired, happy voice, his sprained foot being softly caressed by Rosamond. When he had finished he put his head down lower again and said, "Please, Jesus, give something nice to my auntie, and don't let me spill the gravy on auntie's clean cloth."

"Something nice" was given to her ‒ a sense of infinite peace and love as she kissed his hair, lips, brow, as his own mother might have done. What gift of genius or greatness, what blessing of the merciful God equals that of the tender look, the tone, the touch of love that He sends even to His poorest? Rosamond felt compensated for the Telephone criticism as Clive's prayer echoed deep down to her heart.

She watched the eyelids sealed in deep slumber before she left him, and when she had arranged his nightlight she knelt for a little while to pray beside his bed.

Mostyn was yawning wearily over some writing that he had just finished in his study. "Well, you nocturnal ghost," said he, "gliding about the house at this witching hour of night, 'when churchyards yawn,' et cetera, one would think you were a busy writer to see your pale cheeks and generally used-up air."

"Glyn," she said, resting in the armchair near him, "we nearly lost Clive today. And oh, Glyn, he is such a sweet, loving boy."

"Why, Rose, however did you make such a discovery as that?"

"I don't know, Glyn. I never thought about loving him till today."

"Well, keep on at it now you've begun, wifie. I suppose it was feeling no love in the air here that set him off to be an angel. But from my experience of the world, I should say a boy is more likely to reach the opposite individuality if love be denied him. Many a life I have known to be wrecked for the want of something in the way of kindness."

Perhaps his looks said more than his words. Certainly there had not been much "love in the air" for him of late.

"Glyn," she said, fidgeting with his chair, "does every author care very much what the critics say about him?"

"The women do mostly," said he. "They're sensitive as a rule, bless them! But it is different with a man. Why, there was a fellow in the London Amputator who called my book Pebbles a 'waste of useful ink and paper.' But do you think I cared a farthing for his opinion? He has never written a book in his life. Wouldn't I like the reviewing of it, if he does!"

"Well, Glyn, I know ... a friend ... of mine, who nearly broke her heart over a review in the Telephone."

"Well, we do cut them up sometimes," he said complacently, "but we must do our duty to the public."

"Yes, but to say that Seaweed was a parody! Why, Glyn, it is a sad piece ‒ a tragedy. She cried while she wrote it."

"I am awfully sorry," said Mostyn. "I quite thought that book was a collection of parodies, and Curtis said he'd seen them before in one of the comic papers."

"No, indeed!" cried Rosamond indignantly; and then her face went down on him for "a cry."

"My poor little woman," said he tenderly, "I deserve to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. I had not the slightest idea I was cutting up my Rosebud's heart and hopes. Is that criticism the secret of the breach between us, wifie?"

She did not speak for a while, but whispered presently, "It's such a comfort to have a husband to cry on."

"Look here, Rose," said he energetically, "you write something else. One of those nice stories you used to tell the children at home. Make one up to tell Clive, and then write it down. I'll see that it comes out all right. But poetry is a drug in the market, old lady."

"Not real poetry," she said, wiping her eyes. "Glyn, I did so want to be a Mrs. Browning, but God has not given me genius."

"He has given you the power to bless my life," said Mostyn earnestly. "You do not know all I owe to you, dearest. My Rose, genius does not only consist in writing books."

"I must just do what I can," said she, smiling up amid her tears. "I wanted to soar beyond 'the daily round, the common task,' but the laurel is not for me, Glyn."

"There is yet another crown," said he gravely and reverently, as he put back tenderly her soft, fair hair, and touched the trembling teardrops with his lips.

8. WHEN THE REAPERS REAPED

"HE was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow."

Softly spoke the minister, as his silver locks bent over my little child, and his kind hand caressed the fair, soft baby-face.

I looked up at him, the happy tears welling to the eyes that long had been all too dry. Heaven had been good, how good to me! God had taken my David, my better, higher self, to such work as His angels do, but He had sent to the broken heart a tiny, beauteous blossom, round which new hopes, new tenderness might cling. I lifted the little dimpled hand to my lips. God only knew all the healing the touch of those tiny fingers had worked within me.

And I thought, as I lulled him to sleep in my arms, "God has used him to renew my faith, and to restore my soul; and the wilderness shall blossom as the rose. Surely this is earnest of my David's future. Lord, let him do Thy work, and accomplish Thy will."

And the minister, who had put my hand in David's at God's altar, and who had laid my loved one to rest when the leaves were dropping slowly, slowly to their hidden work of inspiring coming verdure ‒ the minister read what was passing in my mind. And whilst the spring breezes blew in at the window, with their scent of clustering violets, he prayed for God's blessing upon the fatherless child.

He prayed that God would use this infant for His glory, even as He had used the soul that had gone before. The window box was full of snowdrops that peeped in and bowed their pure, meek heads, like echoes to the minister's last words ‒ "But above all, we pray Thee let Thine own will be done." And now I never see a snowdrop but I feel the warm, damp clinging of baby fingers, and I hear a whisper of that petition, "Thy will be done."

I touched the beautiful, calm brow, and proudly told the minister it had the form of his father's. David ‒ the master of Rosecairn ‒ had been a genius, a man of power and intellect known throughout the country for many a noble social reform, planned and accomplished whilst others lamented the evil. My own witness to his greatness were worth little, for I was proud of his talent almost to idolatry, but strangers wrote and spoke of him with reverent admiration, and a few days before he died he was returned to Parliament.

People said the agitation of the election had proved too much for his excitable, intense constitution, but I think he had been breaking down for a long, long time. His was one of those sudden, mysterious calls which we who are left behind, remembering all the work to be done, dare not say are untimely, and yet utterly fail to understand.

Now, as I held his child and mine in a passionate embrace, I felt that a double portion of the father's spirit had fallen on the infant, and that the world would call my Davie famous and great. I had been ambitious for my husband, but since he had reached the highest, all my hopes, all my dreams, centred in the tiny babe that smiled from eyes that had the hue of his own.

The villagers came up to the house in groups to see the little master of Rosecairn. They had loved their landlord with all the devotion of feudal retainers, and they had rejoiced with one heart when the joy bells from the old hillside told of Davie's birth.

He was always in my arms. I was jealous of each moment that his good nurse held him, and I was never tired of exhibiting my bonnie, beautiful boy, and hearing the cottagers' praises of his dark blue eyes, and soft, brown rings of hair.

Only once was I disappointed for a moment. Dame Mary, the oldest woman in the village, whose son kept the west lodge and who had nursed my husband's family for years, held little Davie closely beneath her aged eyes for several minutes without speaking a word, and gave him back to me, saying only, "The dear Lord bless the child."

And yet what more could she have said than that? I told myself it was foolish to fancy the old woman looked startled, almost frightened.

I wrote to ask my widowed sister-in-law to stay with me. Her husband had been an officer with rather lavish tastes, and he had left her with very moderate means for her own support, and that of her boy, Arthur. I felt that Blanche must be keenly, bitterly disappointed now that she had lost the hope of seeing her handsome, clever Arthur master of Rosecairn, and I wanted her to love my pretty Davie, whose innocent life was the barrier to Arthur's wealth.

She came ‒ poor, delicate Blanche, who had trodden such sorrowful paths since we were glad, laughing girls at school together, and our widowhood drew us greatly together at that quiet time. I nursed her through the rapid decline that took her hence at last. I promised her that while Rosecairn was mine, as Davie's trustee, her boy should have a home, and care, and love; and her last words blessed my baby.

Arthur's grief for his mother was heart-breaking. He was a splendid boy of twelve, a Rosecairn from head to foot; and when I saw his passionate sorrow, I felt indeed how little I deserved the sparing mercy of Heaven that had preserved my baby and his mother to each other. And I prayed for grace to train the lads aright ‒ Arthur, clever, wilful, and vain, and my helpless, innocent baby.

It was a great comfort to me that Arthur liked to play with Davie, and whistle and sing to him. The babyhood had another ministry of consolation yet, besides my own. Arthur would stand quietly for a long time, curling and uncurling the rosy fingers, or twisting the rings of hair. I scarcely dared to let the impetuous boy hold my child, yet when I saw how the lonely heart ached for the mother who had left him, my trembling hands put Davie into his arms, and by- and-by I saw them both out in the garden.

Davie's clinging hands were round Arthur's neck, and Arthur's handsome face smiled into the baby's as he held him tenderly as nurse or mother could have done. My little Davie ‒ God's Evangelist ‒ who shall say your brief, brief life held nothing of service, nothing of fruit? As I saw them under the laden fruit trees, I thanked Heaven anew for my Davie ‒ for Arthur's sake.

And then Arthur went to Eton, as his mother had wished, and baby and I were left alone. A few more months of unalloyed delight in my child's loveliness, a few more golden dreams of greatness and glory for my son, and then the summer of life's beauty was utterly, utterly spent, and the dreams, the hopes, dropped like withered leaves, when autumn's "fiery finger" has burnt out the heart of greenness. I can never forget the morning when my summer of brightness died out for ever.

It was in fair September, when the glad birds sang to the...

Reapers, reaping early,

Out among the bearded barley.

And I was so happy, with Davie near my heart, that I too could not choose but sing. He was then nearly three years old, very small, very delicate, with strange, wistful eyes that thrilled me sometimes with an unspoken fear. As yet he made few sounds beyond indistinct murmurs or plaintive crying, but he knew my voice, and would laugh when I kissed him.

As a rule, he was very backward to take notice of his surroundings, but the sight of a flower would flush the white face with delight and longing, and cause the little feeble arms to be held out yearningly. His tiny hands were full of poppies and cornflowers now, as I carried him down to the manse for our weekly visit to the minister's wife. As I saw his blue eyes bright with joy in his treasures, I burst into the anthem his father had sung with me so often, "Oh, taste and see how gracious the Lord is!"

Davie could not walk yet. He was not physically strong, but I proudly reflected that the most powerful minds are often most feebly framed, and I called him by every fond word that has ever trembled on a mother's lip, as he rested against me and listened with wide-open, sparkling eyes to my singing.

When I reached the rectory, I found Dr. Hobart with the minister's wife who was an invalid. They were talking together with troubled faces, and as I looked at them I shivered, and my heart seemed to stand still.

"It will soon be winter," I said, taking off my darling's cloak. "I feel very cold this morning."

Doctor Hobart went away, with an expression in his eyes that I longed, yet dreaded, to fathom. As I held out my baby for Mrs. Hartley's kiss, I saw him return along the Rectory garden, with our minister.

I seem to feel that group around me, as though that morning were but yesterday, instead of years and years ago. Mrs. Hartley's gentle white hand rested on mine, the minister held my baby in his arms, and Doctor Hobart stood before me, pale and sorrowful.

"We were speaking of you when you came in," he said. "Mrs. Hartley was urging me to make you aware of a very sad fact, which has been feared by some in Rosecairn for some time, but which has only lately become a certainty with me. I am so grieved, Mrs. Rosecairn, to add this last drop to your cup of bitterness."

"I can bear anything," I said, "since I have Davie. Tell me, Doctor, is Arthur ill? Is he in trouble at school?"

"Arthur is quite well," said Doctor Hobart, laying a stress on the name; and then his voice broke down.

"We are anxious, Dora," said Mrs. Hartley's weak, tender voice, "very anxious about little Davie."

I laughed at her words. "Davie gets stronger every day," I said. "He will soon be able to crawl about. Listen how he is crowing and laughing."

"Those are not the sounds of a healthy child," said the doctor gravely. "Health has no such strange tones, not such a look as that. I have had painful experience in the matter, and I feel I am not mistaken, though the first advice should, of course, be taken on the case."

"What do you mean?" I asked, snatching my Davie from the minister, and causing him to moan piteously in consciousness of rough handling. "What is your fear for my baby?"

I knew it before he spoke. I had learnt it before, from the pitying looks and tones of my household, but I had never harboured the thought to break my heart.

The doctor was a very old man, and seemed quite unable to explain. It was Mrs. Hartley who whispered, "We fear his reason is unsound."

"Dr. Hobart, will Davie be ... insane?" I asked, so clearly, so calmly, that they looked at me astonished.

The doctor took courage, and answered, "I fear such is the case, Mrs. Rosecairn."

"It is not," I cried passionately. "You are all wrong ‒ how dare you speak like this? How should you know more of Davie than I do, his own mother ‒ his own mother! My baby, my own little, sweet, beautiful child. Don't you believe in prayer, Mr. Hartley?" and I turned suddenly to the minister.

"I do," he answered solemnly, "but remember, His ways are not as our ways. 'Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.'"

And Mrs. Hartley whispered, "'What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter.'"

"You say you believe in prayer!" I cried. "Then my baby is not of unsound mind, for morning and evening I pray that he may be great and gifted, and useful to the world. Every throb of my heart is a prayer for Davie. Shall not God hear and answer prayer?"

"In His own way," said the minister, "which is 'better than our best.'"

"I want no other way than health and genius for Davie," said I wildly. "I will not believe that a God of Love could let me pray incessantly for my baby, and then make him ... insane. My husband's child, the master of Rosecairn of unsound mind! Oh, let me take him home again, where nobody dare speak thus of my child. I will never, never believe it. God could not be so cruel!"

And even as I pressed my lips to the soft, pale cheek, as passionately as though I could kiss into my baby the reason Heaven had denied, I saw in those dark blue eyes the look I had so often refused to see ‒ the utterly vacant, mindless expression, that even in infancy sets the unsound mind apart from the healthy child.

I would not hear their parting words. I held Davie closer than ever, as I passed among the reapers on my land, who looked after us with that sudden shadow on their faces which of late I had marked so often in the looks of the servants and villagers. The sharp, keen swish of the sickle minded me how one piercing stroke had, for ever, cut down in a moment all the proud sheaves of my heart.

Every hope, every dream, every yearning ambition for my baby had felt the cruel bitterness of the sickle of pain. Yet even in my broken-heartedness, the words floated on the autumn breeze, "And the reapers are the angels." I thought of our minister's text last Sunday from the Book of Job ‒ "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." This must be a fiery trial of faith, but I would not rebel, I would not doubt, and He would lift the rod and grant me to know my child a soul undarkened by the terrible cloud of insanity.

I turned into the west lodge, and told Nurse Mary all. I implored her to give me her true opinion. I entreated for some word of cheering and hope. But Mary, though weeping in tender pity, told me she had feared it from the first, and she could only echo the minister's assurance in her simple, homely way, that our Father in Heaven is eternally "Too wise to err, too good to be unkind."

"But, Mary," I sobbed, "to think of my baby's life ‒ ruined, useless, purposeless, a living death! Better he had never been born; poor, miserable Davie!"

"Hush, dear heart, dear heart," she said. "The Lord hath need of him."

The words fell like the first droppings of summer rain upon the pining lily. I looked up at her, and burst into tears.

Yes, the Lord hath need of my baby, or He would not have created him. Though the little tender feet might not tread the road of glory, and his fellow-creatures would call him hurtful names ‒ though I might never hear of his genius and his honours, as of Arthur's; though I could never commune with my child and David's soul to soul ‒ yet the Lord hath need of him.

As I watched him slumbering that night ‒ that first night of our universal realisation and consciousness of the bitter truth ‒ as I looked at the little wistful, sorrowful face, and thought of the dark, weary years in store, I had only strength to falter, "My God, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless...." And an agony of sobbing told that words had failed.

All that money, all that love, could do for Davie was done at once, and done repeatedly. The most eminent physicians saw my darling, but all had only one report ‒ he had been born with an unsound mind, and the brain development must remain for ever imperfect.

Meanwhile Arthur would come home for his holidays, flushed with success, vain of his splendid prizes, ambitious for the future ‒ the joy and the pride of Rosecairn.

"If only his poor mother could have seen Master Arthur's prizes," said the villagers: and there were not wanting some to whisper it were better that Arthur should have been the master of Rosecairn. I had loved his mother, and I loved him too; but sometimes, when I looked from my child to Arthur's splendid beauty and brightness, I prayed hard for strength to struggle against the envy which was really hatred.

As year by year passed on, I think Arthur felt my growing coldness. I think he suspected a deeper dislike than reality. His caresses ceased; he treated me only with respectful civility, and there remained but one link between guardian and ward ‒ little Davie, who loved us both.

For my precious boy, shut out from the paths of intellectual glory, seemed to have found his rest in the inner courts of Love. What was denied to the brain seemed to have amplified the little tender heart. He dwelt among us, unreasoning and unreasonable, yet brimming over with the Love which attains to the highest.

From the beginning he knew my voice and my touch, and would clasp his arms around me with the incoherent murmuring which was all he had of speech. And when he was tired of gathering flowers, or rolling in the scented hay, or wandering about the fern-wreathed banks of our beautiful river, he would come to me and rest his fair head against me with a weary, trustful motion, that showed some consciousness of my motherhood.

Our huge retriever, Bayard, who had been his father's pet, constituted himself Davie's protector and companion, and it was a touching sight to see little Davie ‒ white, delicate baby even at five years old ‒ guarded in his rambles in the Home Park by the splendid dog that stood higher than himself. Rabbits, chickens, and a graceful little kid goat were fed each day by Davie's hands. He was too delicate to ride, but he knew all the horses well; and the cows would draw near at the sound of his happy, meaningless prattle.

One little bleating lamb that had lost its mother, we reared at home in the warmth of the kitchen. It would follow Davie as faithfully as the retriever, that seemed gentle and kind towards the little creature for their master's sake.

But Davie's pet of pets was a beautiful tame dove, with tender eyes and softest voice ‒ the present of the minister's wife. Wherever he went, the dove was on his shoulder. It ate from his plate, and nestled beside him whilst he slept.

I never saw my boy raise his hand in anger to a living creature. I never knew the flush of passion to crimson the white, wistful face. The clasping arms, the lips that kissed, the smiling mouth, the wondering eyes that saw so little, yet perchance so much ‒ such is my memory of my child. Many a lesson of gentleness, many a lesson of simple content, many a lesson of open trust I learnt from the little life that I had inwardly dared to regret as fruitless.

His baby fancy for Arthur was only heightened by the course of time, and Arthur was very good to him. I told myself the lad was hypocritical. I persuaded myself that he despised my child, and bestowed upon him notice offensive in its condescending patronage. But I know now that Davie's love was warmly returned, and that Arthur's strong, proud nature clung to his little cousin as to the one living soul that cared for him.

For I sinfully gave way to evil feelings, till Arthur's presence became almost unbearable to me; and Davie, hearing my short, cold tones, would turn to my face troubled, appealing eyes, that caused the sorrowful tears to dim my own.

When Davie was seven and Arthur nineteen, I heard whispers from Cambridge that the young student, whose college career was already so brilliant, entertained the opinions of unbelievers, and had joined a society of "freethinkers."

When he came home for the long vacation, I taxed him with the fact, which he confessed, smiling that haughty smile of conscious superiority to the ordinary world, which made his Rosecairn face grander and more powerful in expression than ever for the moment, and which irritated and embittered me.

I spoke to him then in terms which held the pent-up bitterness of years. I upbraided and condemned him, whilst I knew, even as I did so, that nought save motherly tenderness, motherly long-suffering, could move so proud and wilful a heart.

I was grieved for the unchristian part I had played, when the motherless youth turned round, coldly and haughtily, and told me he could live on his scholarships, and would not accept my further bounty.

"I have felt an intruder here too long," he said. "I would have spoken sooner, but I liked to think of Rosecairn as home, for Davie's sake. But after the taunts you have uttered, Aunt Dora, I will bid Rosecairn farewell for ever."

Arthur little knew how day after day I yearned for him, cut off from the ties of home, courted by unbelievers for the sake of his genius, remembering how I, a professed Christian, had represented Christ's Gospel to him.

I wrote him a long letter, and urged him to continue as one of us; but the letter wanted the sort of tenderness which I could not feel, and it remained unanswered.

During one vacation, Arthur stayed with a fellow-student in our near neighbourhood. Nearly twelve months had elapsed since I last saw him, and as I had heard and read great things of him, I believed a wish to publish his success at his own home would induce him to seek us, but he did not come. Once, however, we lost Davie for a whole afternoon and evening, and Arthur carried him in his arms to the lodge, whence he was brought home.

"Tell your mistress," he said to the gardener, "I found him asleep among the sheaves of corn, and I could not help keeping him with me for a few hours. He remembered me so well, and was so glad to see me. He cried when I tried to lead him home. Tell her I am very sorry if she has been frightened."

When Davie woke next morning, he ran to fetch a ship which Arthur had once made for him, and showed me, by many signs, that he wanted Arthur's society, and the child's loyal devotion would not be satisfied till I sent him with the gardener to the house where Arthur was staying.

Every day Arthur took him for a long country ramble, and brought him home as far as the lodge ‒ the dog, the white lamb and the silvery dove being still Davie's faithful companions.

For miles around my boy was known. He would often come home with great bunches of field flowers which the country children, made bold by pity, gathered for the master of Rosecairn, and many a drink of milk and slice of homemade cake the village mothers pressed upon my darling.

And now there comes the last scene of my life history ‒ for I lived but in husband and child ‒ the scene wherein the sun of that little life set for ever; nay, rather let me say, it rose.

It was amid the falling of the dew, at eventide. The last wain was leaving the field, and the children were singing the Harvest Home. Davie was among them in the meadows, and I sought him, for it was time for him to sleep. Suddenly a piercing cry from many voices rent the evening air, and the Harvest Home died away in an echo of that scream.

I saw a frightened crowd surging wildly to the river bank, but I went on towards the wagon, with its golden load. I must find my Davie first, ere I sought to understand this alarm.

The huge retriever bounded towards me, I knew not whence, and sank moaning at my feet. The little white Iamb bleated piteously, the blue ribbon that had bound her to Davie's belt floating loose in the evening breeze.

"What is it, Jordan?" I asked, with quivering lips of the farmer who had bidden my boy to the rejoicing.

The strong man's frame shook and trembled, as he answered, "It was Mr. Arthur, my lady ‒ out rowing with them two young Selwyns from the Mount, and the boat tipped over, and Mr. Arthur ... he never learnt to swim "

"Oh Arthur, my poor Arthur, heaven forgive me, he is drowned!"

"No, my lady," said the man, with quivering voice. "Mr. Arthur is safe. He is down there on the shore. My lady, here be the minister."

Mr. Hartley took my hand. His own was shaking, and his eyes were dim.

"The doctor is there," he said. "My dear friend, can you bear to come?"

I followed him, like one in a dream. The slanting rays of the setting sun made the distant river a rainbow fire, minding me of the jasper sea about the great white Throne.

And yonder, from the farms that stretched away out of sight, came the echo, distinct and low, of the triumphant "Harvest Home!"

"Tell me all," I asked. "Oh, tell me all."

"Arthur was drowning," said the minister. "He says he went down twice, and strange, beautiful dreams were lulling him to unconsciousness, when he felt the touch of a rope, and he caught it with all his force, not seeing who held the other end on the bank. Your little child had wandered there, and he must have understood Arthur's danger, and fetched a rope from the boat shed. But he had actually the sense to fasten the loop round the milestone, knowing he was too weak to draw Arthur in. My dear, Arthur is safe, but in throwing the rope Davie overbalanced himself, and though the dog swam in after him, and the Selwyns righted the boat, and reached him at last, he was a long, long time in the water."

The crowd parted quietly for us. Arthur, faint and feeble, tried to totter towards me, but sank down again beside that little, still form, wrapped in some good woman's cloak ‒ that form for which Doctor Hobart could do no more.

"Is he asleep?" I asked, seeing how quietly the little dove rested in his breast. There floated through my mind the words, "If he sleep, he shall do well."

"Aunt Dora," cried Arthur hoarsely, "I tell you I would have died to save you this. He has given his life for mine."

The Lord had need for my Davie, then. A great stillness was flooding my heart. I knelt down beside him, and pressed one long, long kiss to the white cold lips.

And the spirit for a second fluttered back to life at the touch of that kiss. The eyes, so blue, so dark, so dim, opened and closed quietly, for ever; and the lips for the first and only time parted to whisper "Mother!"

We all heard it; it was no dream of fancy; the parting soul, flooded by heaven's light, awoke on the threshold of immortality, and called me "Mother."

And Arthur echoed the word. "Mother," he sobbed; "he died for me. I will live for you. Let our home be together, let me be your son. Mother, when I nearly sank to death, I knew and understood that my boasted reason is nothing. I cried for mercy then, and I pray for such love, such faith, as God gave to Davie's soul. I do believe! May God be merciful to me, a sinner."

I bent, and kissed him, and the fountain of a yearning love flowed forth to him, to be sealed no more.

But then the dove began to mourn, for she missed the little child's caressing touch, and a great, sore agony suddenly rent my soul in twain. "My little boy ‒ my only child!" I cried. "Oh, why is he taken from me?"

"The Lord hath need of him," said the minister, large tears rolling down his cheeks. "He hath done what he could, and heaven is better than earth. 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.'"

I looked up at the crimson glory in the west ‒ I looked down at the quiet, restful face. Oh, Davie, in God's heaven, how should I sorrow for your joy?

He parted us,

And God's sun shows victorious

The dead calm face, and I am calm,

And heaven is hearkening a new psalm.

9. WHITE LILAC

BACK from Mincing Lane, from an atmosphere of City heat, account books and samples of tea, sped Wallace Lloyd right gladly to his fair suburban home, bright and pleasant as spring-cleaning and dancing sunbeams can make it. Various business annoyances had troubled his heart and ruffled his brow that day, but his mind grew rested when he came in sight of the blossoming trees in the garden of Mossbank, as his small, cosy house was named, and beheld his two children perched as usual upon the gate.

Eric and Max were three and four years old, almost too tiny for the serge sailor suits they wore. However, in all save appearance they were wonderfully forward, and their father felt a thrill of joyous pride as the two small boys unfastened the gate and started off together to welcome him home. Each evening, when fine, they were allowed to look out for him from the garden, and to open the gate directly he appeared in sight.

"Where's mother?" was Mr. Lloyd's first question, directly a pair of navy-blue legs dangled safely from each of his shoulders.

"Dorn to bed," said little Max decisively.

"No, she isn't," protested Eric, to the great relief of his father, who feared Mrs. Lloyd might be ill. "She's gone upstairs, and she's locked her door. And Max and I, we looked through the keyhole."

"Then you must never do so again," said Mr. Lloyd. "It was a very wrong, mean thing to do."

"We couldn't see nothing," said Max, in excuse. "We didn't see nothing through the hole."

"'Cause the key was there," said Eric. "So Max ‒ I set him on a chair, and he looked through them five holes in the door."

Mr. Lloyd regarded the navy-blue legs in dismay. How was he to check the development of minds so uncomfortably inquiring? He must stop up those holes in the bedroom door. He had meant to do so for some time, as there was sufficient air from the window and the fireplace.

He was about to remonstrate very sternly when Max explained, "I thought mother'd bought me a toy dog like she promised when I was a good boy, so I thought I wanted to see mother's secret."

"Mother's got a secret," said Eric, with satisfaction, "but it isn't Max's toy dog. I don't know what it is. Guess she'll tell us one day. It's something she does with a bottle. I see her fetch a bottle out of her drawer one morning, and she wouldn't tell me what she did with it. 'Twasn't a scent-bottle, either."

"I see her with a bottle, too," said Max.

Mr. Lloyd said nothing. The children chattered on of "Max's toy dog," the vision of which seemed to grow mirage-like as they watched the stern face of their father, and reflected whether Max's goodness might not have been fatally blemished in the parental eyes by the fact of the peeping.

But Max, his virtues, and his toy dog were far from his father's thoughts. The summer evening had grown grey and cold, the blossoms around were weird and misty, a terror unspeakable had crept suddenly, strongly into the man's heart, and the steps he took were feeble and half-paralysed.

"Father, are you cross?" asked Eric timidly.

Mr. Lloyd kissed the thin hand that sought his face, but made no answer. How could he tell the children of the agony that had come to him, the fear that his little ones were worse than motherless?

All his life Wallace Lloyd had been closely connected with merciful agencies to help the intemperate, and he had seen more than most of hearts and homes wrecked by drink. Sometimes the chill thought had crept across him and been subdued by earnest prayer: what if his boys, or his wife, were to yield to the tempting glass? And had his prayers been faithless, unheard? Had the trouble crossed his own bright threshold? Was his wife indulging even now in the solitude of her room?

"Your tea is ready, Wallace. I heard you in the garden," said a voice at his side, and Mrs. Lloyd's sweet, sunny face looked up confidently for the evening kiss.

"I shall be down directly," he answered rather constrainedly. The wife's heart seemed to stand still for a moment. That forgotten kiss made the pouring out of tea rather a trembling task, but she gave no other sign of having expected it, and busied herself on his return in fastening the pinafores of Eric and Max.

"Mother's got a secret," said the latter meditatively, as Mrs. Lloyd tied his strings, and the husband's quick glance saw the flush that dyed her face, and his listening ears caught the whisper, "Hush, darling! Is Max ready for his bread and milk?"

Upstairs he had detected nothing, save that the top drawer of the chest of drawers was locked, which was contrary to custom as there was plenty of shelf and cupboard space at Mossbank. That that particular drawer held in general only those clothes of the children which needed repair.

Mr. Lloyd hated himself for the suspicion, but he would have felt much easier had not that drawer happened to be locked. And though the bedroom window stood open there was certainly a curious smell pervading the atmosphere ‒ an odour as of spirits or drugs that perhaps might be accountable for the unusual dullness that he noticed at teatime in the manner of his wife.

"Are you tired or sleepy, Avice?" he asked, not too tenderly it must be owned, for the fear at his heart made his tones sound harsh and impatient. "You do not seem quite yourself this evening."

"Oh, I am perfectly well, thank you," she answered with animation, for he should not suppose she was fretting for a kiss. "We had a nice walk on the common, and we met the Newtons. Mrs. Newton asked me to join the choir, and also to join the next working party."

"How very excitable she is just now," thought Mr. Lloyd, in alarm, "and a moment ago she looked so strangely depressed. I have heard also that this longing for dissipation is a feature of the disease. My poor, poor wife!" and he stirred his tea in silence, feeling almost broken-hearted. He wondered how the matter could best be hushed up, but perhaps through their servant it had already become public property.

Avice looked at him, and reproached herself for unwifely pettishness. Of course, something had worried him in London, and he had a right to look to her for tender comfort. When the tea things were removed, the children went out into the kitchen for a little while to play with the kittens, she touched his hair, saying nothing, asking nothing, but soothing him with the restful hand he loved. Tonight those caressing fingers seemed more than he could bear. A sudden thought came to him ‒ he had mislaid a fruit knife, and that loss gave him pretext for searching that drawer.

"Perhaps my fruit knife may be in your top drawer, Avice," he said, trying to speak carelessly. "Will you let me have your keys?"

"It is not there," she answered, evidently in confusion. "I arranged that drawer today."

"Still I should like to look. Where are your keys?"

"I am certain your knife is not there, Wallace. I believe you left it in town."

"Avice," said her husband, rising and closing the door so as to protect her from the ears of Eliza, their domestic, "it will be best for you to make a full confession. Painful as this is for both of us, do not make my position more difficult by deceit. Tell me how long you have given way in this manner."

"I do not understand your meaning," she replied, in a calm tone that covered a white heat of indignation. "How am I deceiving you?"

"Your conscience supplies the answer," he said. "But I feel I cannot continue this conversation at present. I must think ‒ must arrange future plans. However, I am determined to know what you are concealing from me in the top drawer, that is usually left open ‒ the drawer which you have so carefully locked. I insist on having your keys at once!"

"So your anxiety concerning the fruit knife was only a subterfuge," she said, in trembling tones, "and you wish to search my drawer because you cannot trust me. I do not know what has come to you, Wallace, nor of what you suspect me. But since you treat me in this manner, please understand that insistence or threatenings towards me are utterly powerless, and I have no intention of surrendering my keys. If you wish to open the drawer you must force the lock."

They looked at one another for a moment. Avice was fairly roused to a degree of passion almost unknown since her early childhood, but there was something in her husband's face ‒ a coldness almost of repulsion ‒ that quieted her anger to a dumb, deep pain.

The tearful voice of Max was a relief to both. Whilst engaged in making toast for Eliza's tea ‒ an occupation equally coveted by Eric ‒ recrimination and strife had led to an accidental wound with the toasting fork, a wound which mother must kiss and bind, and therein partly forget the scene in the dining room.

Mr. Lloyd stood by the window, seeing nothing of the garden but the twilight shadows creeping all around. Suddenly the idea struck him that one of his own keys might possibly fit that lock. It was worth the endeavour, at any rate. Anything and everything must be tried to ascertain the facts of the case.

He crept upstairs, half in shame, but he told himself he was making the search for her sake. If he left her to herself she would drift to ruin. Downstairs he heard the child still sobbing, and his wife's low, caressing voice hushing him tenderly. The music of Eric's clear singing reached him, too, as the elder brother penitently tried to soothe the younger by such fragments as he could remember of Max's favourite hymn, "Here in the body pent."

Before he touched the drawer, Wallace Lloyd bowed his white face on his hands. Perhaps the man's heart prayed to be spared what seemed to him then a worse agony than death. After many trembling efforts with the keys he was at last successful. The key of his travelling hat-box fitted the drawer exactly, and turning the gas light in the room higher he proceeded to examine the contents.

In one corner of the drawer was a heap of little socks that would probably be in the mother's hand for mending when the children were in bed. All that the drawer contained besides, was a tall, deep bottle, the smell of which Mr. Lloyd recognised instantly with disgust and horror. He took it up and found it without any label or sign, beyond the fact that a small quantity of liquid yet lingered within it, and he knew too well that this was ‒ brandy!

Never before had he understood the depth of his love for Avice. How could he let her go from the pedestal of tenderness that had been her place so long? Yet how could he cherish affection for one who was ruining herself with strong drink? He shuddered to think that some taste for alcohol might be tainting the children, to be developed in their future lives.

He locked the drawer, leaving the tell-tale bottle as he found it. At first he thought of seeking counsel from their minister, an aged man who was beloved by both; but he shrank from betraying Avice's conduct. She had a married sister, much older than herself, who lived about three miles away, and he determined to consult her on her return from France where she had wintered for her health. She was expected home very shortly, and meanwhile his wife's actions must be closely watched, for though she would confess nothing to him he knew that cunning was inseparable from so depraved a taste, and while he kept her at Mossbank he must take care she had no chance of continuing the practice he had been so shocked to discover.

He wrote and posted a letter before he sought her again. The boys were asleep, and she was sewing in the parlour, her fair face looking very pale and weary.

"The reaction of her unnatural excitement," he thought, shrinking almost involuntarily to the far end of the table. "I must expect extremes of wildness and depression."

Meanwhile, the young mother, who had folded her children's hands for their evening prayer, had come down to her solitary sewing thoughtfully and sadly. Her temper had conquered her, and she had grieved anew the tender Master who had given her husband, and home, and her boys. She rose to give Mr. Lloyd his slippers, saying half-playfully, half-earnestly, "Well, dear, shall we make it up? Do you really want to see my top drawer? There is nothing very dreadful in it. You can see it, Wallace, but you might have trusted me."

The way she braved it out seemed to sicken him. Even the scent of the early roses she wore turned him faint, for might she not have chosen those fragrant flowers on purpose to conceal the odour that he might otherwise have detected about her?

He tried to tell her that he had opened the drawer and found the bottle in which so little brandy remained, but the words refused to come. He shrank for that evening, at least, from reproaching her openly with her degradation. Seeing that he made no movement to touch her extended hand, though she lingered near him for a moment, Avice went back to her sewing with a dull sense of uncomprehended wrong.

"Will you arrange," he asked, presently ‒ his words coming evidently from effort ‒ "for the spare room to be ready on Thursday? I have asked my Cousin Lomas to visit us for some weeks."

Avice looked up in real dismay. Cousin Lomas was one of the most disagreeable people she knew, and had once managed to extend a ten days' visit into a stay of four months. How long was she to be domiciled at Mossbank now? And why had Wallace invited her, when she had made so much mischief in the village, and in social circles previously, that both husband and wife had agreed that she was "dangerous"?

Miss Lomas had plenty of money of her own, so it was no charity to take her in, and her husband's invitation was a mystery to Avice. The knowledge of the intended visit, and the invitation given without reference to herself ‒ the mistress of the house ‒ brought back a quiver of spent passion; but Avice controlled herself, and answered quietly, "Your cousin's room will be ready on Thursday."

After this, nothing was heard in the room save the ticking of the clock, the rustle of Mr. Lloyd's paper, and his wife's subdued movements at her work. The heart of each was swelling in resentment against the other. But Avice was calmed and comforted in the memory of the prayer her little lads had murmured in her arms, "Pray, God, bless father and mother, and take care of them both, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."

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Mr. Lloyd's Cousin Lomas arrived on Thursday. He did not tell her the extent of his suspicions, but asked her somewhat significantly to be with Avice as much as possible, as he might be sometimes detained in London. Truth to tell, all the tender suasion, all the persevering love he had so often recommended to friends of the inebriate, failed him now. The reaction of yearning might come by-and-by, but the blow had been so terrible that at present his one idea was to avoid his wife as much as possible, and then on her sister's return to place her away from home.

Cousin Lomas was anxious to discover what was amiss between Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd, but she saw very little of the master of the house, and Avice, though shrinking in every nerve from her questions, betrayed nothing of the real suffering she was enduring.

"What has come over my poor Cousin Wallace?" asked the visitor, stealing to Avice's side as she tended her flowers in the beautiful morning light. "He is a changed man since his marriage. It seems an effort for him to smile. Perhaps there is something preying on his mind, Avice. You should question him, as I have known similar cases of confirmed melancholy to have fatal results."

Her husband's depression of spirits was never absent from the thoughts of Mrs. Lloyd, but as his persistent avoidance of herself made her couple it with a decay of affection, she had no idea of questioning him on the subject.

"The weather is getting so warm," she said, feeling a little faint herself beneath the keen, curious gaze of Cousin Lomas, "and Wallace has kept so closely to business, that I do not wonder he is tired. Our sea trip later on will do him good."

"Somehow," said Cousin Lomas, "I always distrust a man's plea of business. I have known it in many cases to be a mere cloak for the theatre or gambling table. Not that I accuse poor Wallace of falsehood, my dear, but when he was first married he always managed to get home soon after six."

"Eric," called Mrs. Lloyd, an unwonted sharpness in her tones, as her eldest boy appeared in the garden, "have you learnt your spelling?"

"Yes, mother;" and Eric triumphantly repeated the "go, go, so, so," which he had been arranging in letters of various sizes from the play alphabet.

"Then you and Max can come down to the village with me. Let me wash your hands. I have a few errands at the shops," she explained, turning to Cousin Lomas, and drawing a breath of relief.

Max, whose excellence had at last been crowned with a promised toy dog, hurriedly emerged from the summerhouse to find a flannel cloak for the object of his care. Eric joyously besought information as to whether he might "spend his halfpenny"; but mother and children alike looked downcast when Cousin Lomas announced her intention of accompanying them to the village.

"But I thought you had letters to write?" said Avice. "Will you not miss the post?"

"My letters must wait," said Cousin Lomas. "Since you intend walking out, I will come too."

Avice began to feel uncomfortably that she was being watched. She told her husband so that night, and entreated that their cousin's stay might not be indefinite; but he, believing that she was anxious for freedom simply for self-indulgence, answered that Cousin Lomas was a very useful person, and Avice, giving him a look which ought to have warned him he was nearing the proverbial last straw, vouchsafed no reply.

The days dragged on miserably. Cousin Lomas reported to her host that Avice had locked herself in alone on more than one occasion, and he had used his key to search the top drawer again; but the bottle had disappeared. No doubt Avice had discovered that someone had touched the contents of her drawer, and she had found a safer hiding-place.

Mr. Lloyd had, however, one consolation. In a week or two his wife's sister would return with her husband to the Grange, and as Mrs. Elyot had brought Avice up from childhood, and was greatly beloved by her, Mr. Lloyd felt she would be a real help in his pain and perplexity.

As for poor Avice, her husband's treatment was rendering her really ill. The boys began to conjecture in sympathy about "Mother's poor head," and "Mother's poor back," as they noticed how tired she looked even in the morning; and Eliza protested to the girl next door "that master did ought to be ashamed of himself, and she hoped it would be a warning to all likely-looking females what to expect after the courting days was over."

Nobody at Mossbank was at ease except Cousin Lomas, who amid the general depression felt quite in her element, and whilst laying up a store of material for scandal amid her kindred gossips, added so much to the general discomfort that even Mr. Lloyd began to think with uneasiness of the long visit he had requested her to make.

In such an atmosphere as this the sixth anniversary of Avice's wedding day drew near. She had a pretty custom on that occasion of filling the house with white lilac, in commemoration of the fact that the country cottage to which they went for their honeymoon was thus fragrant within and without. Avice had never yet omitted the white lilac episode, and her husband, who did not always recall the exact date of the happy day, was thus gently reminded year by year that the tender anniversary had arrived.

Mrs. Elyot supplied bountiful bunches of lilac from the Grange garden, as Avice had none of her own.

This year, Mrs. Lloyd felt that to bring forth the lilac would be a mockery. It would only seem like foolish sentimentality to her husband, who evidently desired to forget his matrimonial fetters as far as possible. And by this time Avice had reached a point of cold sullenness which refused to take the slightest step towards reconciliation.

As she expected, Mr. Lloyd had forgotten the anniversary, when it dawned in all the beauty of early summer. She had a little offering ready for him, but she could not bring herself to present it, for his manner was abrupt almost to insult. Cousin Lomas followed him out to the hall when he went to get his hat and gloves. Avice was too proud to follow, but sat with her hands tightly clasped in her lap as she could not help overhearing her cousin's loud whisper, "Yes, Wallace, I will keep her in sight all day."

"Dear, darling mother!'' said Eric, squeezing himself into her lap. His childish eyes could see that the downcast lashes were wet.

"Mother's poor back!" said Max, coming behind to rub Avice's spine with his hand. Eliza, who was greatly beloved by Max, was subject to backache; hence his sympathy in this particular direction.

Avice caught her youngest-born, her baby, to share her arms with Eric, and brightened her own heart in her efforts to gladden those little faces.

Never before had a morning seemed so long. She tried to concentrate her thoughts on the preserve she was making, but she grew nervous beneath the scrutiny of Cousin Lomas and felt that the jam would be a failure ‒ more especially as her thoughts would persist in flying to that bright morning, six years ago, when the white lilac had seemed to Wallace and to her as a fadeless dream of fairness.

Memory went step by step across those hours again, till Avice half-hysterically told Cousin Lomas she must have air, and went from the kitchen to get the broad hat she wore down the country roads. Her little ones had been invited to play with the children next door, and she knew they were safe there till dinner time.

"I shall walk over to the Grange," she said. "I have not been there for a long time."

"Three miles in this heat!" exclaimed Cousin Lomas. "This is a most extraordinary idea, Avice. Cousin Wallace will be most astonished to hear you so ardently wished to visit the Grange, notwithstanding the absence of your sister. You had better defer your visit till next week when she will be there."

"I hope to go next week also," said Avice, "but somehow I fancy the walk today."

She could not tell Cousin Lomas how her heart was yearning for her sister's familiar room, the books, the prints, the wall-texts which would recall Mrs. Elyot's calm, tender presence, and hush the spirit-tempest into rest.

"Very well," said Cousin Lomas resignedly. "The heat will try me greatly, but I will put on my bonnet and accompany you. I daresay I shall manage the walk, if I have your arm."

Avice was silent for a moment. She struggled bravely to repress the discourteous answer that rose to her lips, and when she spoke, her words were only to the effect that the heat would be too much for Cousin Lomas, and she would not go.

She went indoors, and began to mend one of Eric's suits. Cousin Lomas also took her work, and beguiled the time till dinner with surmises as to what "Cousin Wallace" might have been in health and spirits "had things turned out differently, poor fellow!"

This was said with rather a sentimental shake of the head; but Avice, who knew her husband well enough to be certain that she was his first love, and who had been for hours on the borderland between tears and hysteria, scandalised her guest by a laugh. Cousin Lomas regarded her inquisitively, and felt sure that what Mr. Lloyd was dreading must be symptoms of mania.

Ah, what a weight seemed lifted from Avice, when at three o'clock guests for Miss Lomas were announced, and a party of friends, of whom she herself knew nothing, were ushered into the drawing room of Mossbank.

"The Misses Gilbert are sweet creatures," said Cousin Lomas, as she settled her cap at the dining room mirror. "I met them at Harrogate, and I felt at once that I was with kindred spirits. I may, perhaps, come out for you presently, Avice. I suppose Eliza can bring in some tea by-and-by?"

Avice gave the necessary order, and cut some delicate bread-and-butter. The girl was watching her weary movements solicitously, for she adored her mistress. Presently she said, "Do go out for a little, ma'am. It will cure your headache, that it will. I'll have an eye to the children, and they'll be as good as gold with me."

Soon after, Avice, feeling like a freed captive, was on her road to the Grange. The calm, the solitude, the fragrant air refreshed her, and her troubled heart seemed to hear amid the branching trees the whispers, "What aileth thee?" Yes, though her nearest and dearest was estranged from her, though her sister was far away, there was the Lord Jesus who knew and understood her bewildered misery, and drew to Himself the despised, neglected one.

When she reached the Grange garden, and the bushes of white lilac budded out before her in all their glory, she seemed to see again that little cottage of the honeymoon, and the long pent-up tears welled forth, relieving her mercifully. She saw again, in memory, the bridegroom-face that had bent above her in undying love. She remembered the resolves she had made, praying humbly, earnestly, that she might bless his life. Had she been to him the gentle Christian wife she might have been? Was she helping him even now at this time of his mysterious sorrow and uneasiness? Was it not her duty and privilege to bear him rest in his disquietude, instead of sullen temper?

Pride whispered to her, "Do not display an unreturned affection;" but pride yielded that afternoon amid the lilac bloom. Whatever his conduct might be, his God-given wife must be his help and peace; and Avice prayed in her heart that some quiver of the old love might return to him, to make her part of patient forbearance less hard and bitter.

When she reached Mossbank about seven o'clock, she found, as she expected, that Eliza had given the boys their tea. Avice had almost forgotten Cousin Lomas. Eliza said the latter had been searching for her everywhere, and had just started off to the station to meet Mr. Lloyd. Avice conquered a rising feeling of irritation, kissed her darlings goodnight after their evening prayer, and then spread abroad her burden of lilac in hall and chamber, in jar, glass, and vase, and round the mirror. She fastened a spray at her neck, and then, half-blushing, half-smiling, went to set out the little gift she had made for her husband, trembling a little as she wondered if he would notice the flowers.

Cousin Lomas met him at the station with the intelligence that his wife, who had seemed very strange all the morning, had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Mr. Lloyd almost pushed her aside as he strode towards Mossbank, at a pace which, to her great annoyance, soon left her far behind.

The front door stood open as he approached it. Even as he entered the porch he became conscious of a fragrance that made his heart beat strangely sweetly. He looked above and around, and masses of white lilac bent to touch him on every side.

Avice came out of the parlour, and silently took his bag. Her face was turned a little away from him, but there was lilac at her breast.

"Avice," he asked, holding out to her a hand that trembled, "is this our wedding day?"

"See what I have made you," she said, trying to speak lightly and seem at her ease, but faltering as the hand which had shunned her so long touched the bloom she wore. "Don't you know, Wallace, the children broke the barometer? I knew that vexed you, so I made you a storm- glass as a souvenir of our marriage ‒ only, only, Wallace, don't let us have storms. I can't bear it."

She made a movement towards him. The tears were coming, and his shoulder was near, but he made no answering gesture. He only gazed at her, bewildered. Was it his fancy that the storm-glass smelt of brandy?

"Oh, Wallace," she went on, assuming a careless tone by a mighty effort, "I had hard work to keep my storm-glass a secret, but I did so want to surprise you. Mrs. Field next door gave me the recipe ‒ she made one for Mr. Field, and it acts splendidly. Look, Wallace! This is what the paper says ‒ take two drachms of camphor, half-drachm of pure nitrate of potash, half-drachm of muriate of ammonia, and pound them in a mortar with a few drops of alcohol. Dissolve in two ounces of alcohol, and put in a bottle ten inches high and three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Cover the, mouth with a bit of bladder perforated with a pin.

"Wallace, what makes you look like that? Don't you believe in my storm-glass? I thought you would be so pleased. I am going to fix it in the hall, Wallace," and here her voice began to break down, for his arms were round her. "In fine weather all the mixture will stay at the bottom, and when rain is coming it will rise. And when wind is coming, little bits will form just like a leaf. We shall know twenty-four hours beforehand when a storm is coming. It's acting beautifully, Wallace, isn't it? It indicates fair weather."

"Avice," and his voice sounded strange to both of them, "was this the phial you were hiding in your top drawer?"

"Yes. Did you go to my drawer? I thought Cousin Lomas had touched it. The socks were upset, so I moved the bottle, for I wanted my storm-glass to be quite a surprise. Isn't it splendid, Wallace? The most difficult thing to get was the alcohol, for you know we never keep spirits in the house. But Mrs. Field found me this nice long bottle, and gave me just enough brandy in it to perfect the recipe. What makes you look so grave, Wallace darling? Don't you think it will work?"

It never did work, By some accident or omission, that glass continued to indicate fair weather throughout the whole of its career. But Mr. Lloyd, though mentally divining its future, felt indeed that it was precious in his sight. He sat down, silently and feebly in the armchair, but the wife whom his thoughts had so deeply wronged was emboldened by the clasps of his hand to lay her weary head upon his breast, and the touch of her soft hair strengthened him.

"Avice," he said, "my pure, sweet wife, I have misjudged you terribly. A fearful idea entered my mind that you had become intemperate."

Her fair face flushed a little, but she laid it nearer his.

"And I actually asked Cousin Lomas here to watch you. Yes, I admit my cruel injustice in her presence," and he raised his voice as he perceived the form of their visitor on the threshold of the room. "I cannot pardon myself for indulging such wicked thoughts concerning you, my wife, or for causing you the agony you must have undergone of late. You are a true, good woman, my darling, and I know you can forgive me and love me still."

He bent his head to hers. His trembling breath stirred faintly the wedding blossoms ‒ the drooping lilac. Cousin Lomas heard nothing more, though her eager unsatisfied ears were strained to their fullest capacity; but she went upstairs, and packed her belongings. She began to feel that, to one of her temperament, Mossbank would no longer be a congenial atmosphere, for in the closing twilight she had seen Avice lift up her tender lips and spend her heart in a marriage kiss of peace.

10. THAT SONG OF OLD

(Last Story)

It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth

To touch their harps of gold:

'Peace on the earth, good will to men,

From Heaven's all-gracious King';

The world in solemn stillness lay

To hear the angels sing.

AND who is this picture of, Miss Stafford? Oh, what a lovely face, Might I have it to copy? What a beautiful girl she must have been. Did mother know her?"

"Who is charming you now, Heather?" asks Miss Stafford, coming over to look at the old portfolio which the Vicar's daughter is eagerly inspecting. Heather Farndon is an art student, and enjoys routing out these collections of old sketches and studies. She is spending the day at The Maples, and inwardly wondering, as often and often before, how it happens that calm-faced Miss Stafford, "who must have been so good-looking," has remained an unappropriated blessing, and never changed her name in marriage.

Heather thinks she must feel so lonely sometimes in the old country house, even though she is fond of filling it with young folks ‒ with children from the Sunday schools, and with many of God's poor who can make her no return beyond their thanks and blessing.

Miss Stafford, albeit by this time decidedly an "old maid," is loved by everybody in the place, and the Vicar's young daughter is no exception to the rule. She looks up now at her hostess with eager, laughing eyes and displays the portrait of a girl about nineteen, with long-lashed violet-coloured eyes, and rippling waves of hair falling about her graceful form like a veil of sunbeams. Roses are at her breast and in her hands, and Heather thinks she would like to copy this vision of loveliness for a picture of "Summer."

"How well it is painted!" says the girl. "The initials in the corner are L. A. Who was the artist, Miss Stafford?"

Her hostess has given a glance at the picture, and turned away hastily with a look that puzzles Heather ‒ she seems to shrink from the fair face with horror and dislike.

"Was she not good?" asks Heather wonderingly.

"I did not know it was there," falters Miss Stafford. "I have not looked at that portfolio for years. Yes, she was beautiful, Heather. Everybody said so."

"And may I take it home to copy?"

"If you choose," says Miss Stafford shortly.

Heather sees the subject is unpleasant to her, and discusses it no longer; but she mentally treasures up the incident for a string of questions to her mother.

"My dear!" exclaims Mrs. Farndon, in a shocked tone when her daughter draws out the picture with renewed admiration, "I feel sorry you turned out that portrait. It must have opened old wounds again. Poor Miss Stafford! You young folks little guess all she has gone through. Whenever I look at her, I think of those words about the heart that 'brokenly lives on.'"

"Why, mother, Miss Stafford is always cheerful. Everybody likes going to The Maples. There is nothing mopy or moody about Miss Stafford. I have often thought how fortunate her life has been, with comfortable means, and a nice house and plenty of friends."

"No path in life is thornless, Heather," says Mrs. Farndon, thinking of the feeble health which is the one shadow upon her love-crowned existence, "and it is well for us all that 'some thorns remain,' lest we become too hard and selfish, unprayerful, and earth-engrossed. As for dear Miss Stafford, when the trouble of her life came upon her, it seemed quite a question whether she would turn into a soured, cynical, lonely woman, whose heart was shut to all the world, or one tenderer for the sorrow, with a heart of sympathy open for all, and a life beset by gratitude and love. Agnes Stafford has loved and served God all her life, and though for many months her spirit seemed utterly rent by the trouble, she came out of it at last as refined gold."

Heather's earnest eyes are full of pitying dew as she turns them on her mother. "Won't you tell me about it, mother? Do you think she would mind?"

"I think not, Heather, and as you go so much to The Maples now, it will be well for you to exercise a little tact and avoid certain subjects, for fear of paining Miss Stafford afresh. It seems now like a bygone dream, yet there are expressions now and then upon her face which convince me the suffering is still to her a vivid reality."

"Was she the cause of her trouble?" asks Heather, regarding the violet-eyed beauty with all the sternness of indignant girlhood.

"Yes, Heather. With all her loveliness, she had an unwomanly heart. I would rather my girls missed perfection of feature and form, if such beauty accompanied a mind like Ilma Roselle's. She was Agnes Stafford's favourite school friend. Agnes admired her heartily, and made quite a heroine of her. By-and-by Agnes came home from school and settled down here, to be a general favourite and a great comfort to her widowed mother.

"Later on she formed a very happy engagement with a young officer, extremely pleasant in manner, and reported to be wealthy, though his riches were no consideration to Agnes who would be well off herself, and who simply gave up to him entirely the whole of her love and trust.

"About three months before they were to be married, Agnes heard that Ilma's father, an artist, had died, leaving her penniless, and that she was about to enter on a life of teaching. She entreated Ilma to make The Maples her home, and, indeed, Mrs. Stafford loved her for the sake of Agnes, and told her she should be to her as a daughter while the young couple were far from Dewhurst. Ilma came to the village, and for a time the arrangement was considered a mutual success.

"Agnes lavished affection upon her, and they seemed as devoted sisters; but one morning it became revealed that from the hour of her arrival Ilma had set herself to estrange her friend's lover, and to secure for herself a wealthy husband.

"I cannot defend Captain Arralyn, but he was only a man, and Ilma was supremely lovely. The two made a runaway marriage, and I have heard nothing of them since, beyond a rumour of his death, and I believe his money was squandered recklessly and proved of little benefit to them.

"Agnes Stafford was ill for many months, and recovered, as I have said, to tend her mother in her old age till the last, and to be a friend to all in the place. Now you know her history, you know why at fifty years old her hair is white. It began to change colour during that illness of her youth."

Heather has put down the portrait, and is surveying it with flashing eyes. "I would not paint that woman," she says, "not ... not even to be hung in the Academy!"

"Please, ma'am," says cook, knocking at the door, "Mrs. Bluck have sent up to say do you feel able to step down to her place today? Her new lodger is sick, and won't have the doctor sent for, though she's so bad. Mrs. Bluck thinks the woman's pockets are cleared out, and she wants to know what she's to do."

"You might send a few things down at once. I will pack up a basket," says Mrs. Farndon, "and I will try to come round presently. Heather dear, put away that unfortunate picture. I suppose Lawrence Arralyn painted it himself . He was a clever artist. Yes, there are his initials. But put it away now. You are wanted to help in the Christmas decorations, you know. I should like that text finished in holly today, 'On earth peace, good will towards men.'"

Mrs. Farndon speaks truly when she tells her daughter that Agnes Stafford is a servant of God, and anxious to glorify Him. As concerns her neighbours, the mistress of The Maples leads a life full of good deeds and holy influences, but ‒ well, there is One who knows the "buts" of every character ‒ the "one thing lacking" which mars the music of some heaven-turned heart. And Miss Stafford knows in her case where the unchristian thoughts remain ‒ she has never forgiven the woman who wrecked her life. She knows he is dead, and one cannot think badly of the dead.

All her enmity ‒ secret, yet bitter ‒ is directed towards the woman who rewarded her friendship by ruining her happiness. She is conscious even of some feeling of bitter triumph when rumours reach her of heavy reverses of fortune and pecuniary difficulties. Nor has she found it in her heart to grieve at tidings of the loss, one by one, of the boys and girls, none of whom seemed to have survived the years of infancy.

She knows that the hardness, the bitterness, is a sin as well as a mistake, but she says in her heart, "To forgive is Divine. I am only human, after all ‒ a woman wronged and forsaken. I cannot reach the height of forgiving her, and I know not if the Lord God would require or expect it of me."

In the evening of the day when Heather Farndon carried away the picture, Miss Stafford sits in her bright, cheerful room, where the firelight dances on all the comfortable surroundings that make a place restful and homelike, and bends with a cold, hard, strange expression over a letter that has come up from the Vicarage. It contains startling news. Mrs. Farndon tells her that in the wandering woman, who has come a few days since to the shepherd's cottage, and who lies now evidently in a state of decline, she has discovered the once brilliant Ilma Arralyn, so changed as scarcely to be recognised.

"Her youngest child, a boy of five, alone survives of all her family," says Mrs. Farndon, "and he is with her here. I do not know why she has come back to Dewhurst, except that she seems, poor thing, worn out with life's troubles, utterly broken-hearted, and craving for your forgiveness. They are in miserable circumstances, in real want even of life's necessities. But she seemed to care little about the nourishment I took, or about the Bible-reading and advice I offered. Her one craving is, 'Will Agnes forgive me? Will she come to me ere I die, and speak her pardon?'

"I told her, dear Agnes, that you as a Christian had doubtless long since forgiven her. I feel it my duty to write this letter, though loth to recall old sorrows. Poor Ilma, as she sowed so has she reaped; but her own heart has told her this, I feel sure, many a time. I tried to point to the pardoning Saviour, but the one forgiveness the poor thing seems to think about is yours."

Miss Stafford muses long over Mrs. Farndon's letter. The chimes of love are ringing softly into her fair, curtained room, as they ring to the sick woman in the shepherd's cottage. But for once Agnes Stafford is deaf to their message. "I will do my duty," she decided. "I will send her money. The Bible says, 'If your enemy hunger, feed him.' I will send Mrs. Farndon a cheque."

And she closes her heart to the whisper of Him who came at the Christmas to reconcile the world unto Himself; she refuses to hear the voice of the Master, breathing of a duty beyond money ‒ "Love your enemies."

Mrs. Farndon tells the sick woman that the cheque has been sent for medical aid and the nourishment that has been too long delayed. Ilma thanks her quietly, but the fading eyes turn again and again towards the door. The quiet, lined, emaciated face trembles ever and anon to the whisper, "Will she come? Will she forgive me ere I die?"

Then Mrs. Farndon goes up to The Maples, and Miss Stafford hands her another supply of money, but her features wear a look of cold surprise as the Vicar's wife asks falteringly if she will see the dying woman.

"I will do my duty," she answers. "My purse is open for her needs, as for the needs of any other sick and needy person in Dewhurst; but I will never see her. I do not pretend to have forgiven her, Mrs. Farndon, and I will never see her face again. Some wrongs are beyond forgiveness."

Mrs. Farndon looks at her wistfully, but makes no reply. Perhaps the best answer is the sudden, sweet music of the children in the avenue, singing softly the carols that Miss Stafford herself has taught them:

Friends of earth in whom we trusted

Sometimes time estranges;

But today to us there cometh

One who never changes.

Softly raise

Hymns of praise ‒

Christ the Lord is born to save us:

Christ is born, and hate and sadness

At His birth

Fly the earth;

Christ is born, and love and gladness

Fair befall

One and all!

Christ the Lord this day is given,

Born for all."

"Beyond forgiveness," Miss Stafford has said of the cruel wrong she sustained; yet even as she hardens her heart the message of Christmastide steals to her, reminding her how God has forgiven.

She strives to occupy her thoughts in arranging and distributing her Christmas gifts, sending off her usual subscriptions, working hard at the decorations; but, by Heaven's mercy, there is a voice within her that will not be silenced even by works like these.

She is too true a Christian to be at peace just now. She finds no rest, and when Sunday morning dawns, and the communion is shared, Miss Stafford does not partake of it. She has been accustomed to join the communicants regularly, but something holds her back today from the table of the Lord.

Sunday night is so sleepless that she decides she must be unwell, and thinks she will go to town to see a London doctor. Her nerves are doubtless out of order, and it will do her good to pass Christmas with friends away from Dewhurst. Perhaps, when she returns, she may be gone away. No doubt it is only a passing illness, and she will leave Dewhurst on her recovery.

On the Monday Miss Stafford is quietly passing through her snow-veiled garden on her way to the station, when she becomes conscious of little footprints here and there, and presently catches sight of a pair of little, broken boots and an old sailor suit, childish hands, blue and chilblained, and deep-grey eyes, full of tears, that strike her heart through and through with a sudden likeness and memory.

The child runs up to her, and pulls her by the dress. "Lady, does God live here? Sammy Bluck said God lived here. I've wanted Him so long. Is this His house?"

"What do you mean ‒ who are you?" asks Miss Stafford tremblingly.

The snows are beginning to drop on her warm fur cloak, and on the little, brown, curly, uncovered head; but the child is used to cold, and only thinks about his search.

"I'm little Lawrie," he answers, "and mother's very bad, and I want to find God who made all the people well. I asked Sammy Bluck where I'd find Him, and Sammy said he didn't know, but he thought God lived at Miss Stafford's because there's always buns and sweeties there, and she's as good as an angel. Please, lady, where'll I find Him? Is this His house?"

"I hope so," falters Miss Stafford, turning round to look at the fair, handsome house. "I have asked Him for years to dwell here, Lawrie," and the old name falls from her lips like music.

"Ah, then, lady, do ask Him to cure my mamma. She's so bad, and she talks wild. She keeps saying, 'If she'd forgiven me she'd have come to me,' over and over again. Mrs. Bluck says her mind's wandering, but if God will come to her, my mamma will be cured. Oh, doesn't He care for mamma and me? They told me Jesus cared for everybody."

The little fellow clings to her, crying. They stand thus together in the sleet, silently, side by side, in the very rose garden, snow-covered now, where Lawrence Arralyn once claimed her for his own.

The little boy looks up at her wonderingly as she takes his chill hand in hers and leads him away. They are going towards the shepherd's cottage, but he asks no questions. There is a solemn look upon her face that seems to awe and calm the little heart.

"She is asleep, my lady," says the shepherd's wife, moving aside from the bed. "Thanks to your kindness we've tried to make her comfortable, and the beef-tea is like a jelly, and there's barley water, and arrowroot, and chicken broth. But she's a-sinking fast, and this here little child will be left without a friend, poor lamb!"

Miss Stafford meets the innocent, wondering eyes, and stoops down suddenly and draws the child within her arms. He lifts up trustful lips, and in that kiss her woman's heart is blessedly, tenderly thawed. The icy weight dissolves like dews in the sunshine. The curly head rests on her shoulder, and he smiles to hear the little Blucks call out in the road below, "Nowell! Nowell!" as they begin their carols.

Their mother goes down to hush them, and Agnes Stafford is left alone with the two. She looks long at the white, drawn, haggard face on which little of earth seems left, and she thinks of the bonnie, laughing girl who was the idol of her youth. Tears of pity rain down her cheeks as she takes the still cold hand in her clasp.

Ilma has been dreaming. Is it still in a dream that she sees a womanly face that shines with the light of love and compassion ‒ a face like Agnes Stafford's ‒ and against that gentle form a child's head quietly resting?

The Christmas bells are echoing. Ilma gazes up in awe ‒ her dazed faculties seem to see before her the sorrow-led Mother and the Holy Child.

Then her boy's voice breaks the dream. "Mamma," he cries, throwing himself beside her in passionate love, "you are sure to get well now, for I found the house where Jesus lives, mamma. And here's a lady come that knows Him, mamma; and, oh, I do love her so."

"Agnes," falters the sick woman faintly, covering her face with her hands.

Agnes Stafford can say nothing. Her lips seem dumb, but she bends down above that humble bed, and her lips touch Ilma's, and into the fading eyes there comes a sudden wondering, dawning, heaven-born light.

<><><><>

It is Christmas Eve. Miss Stafford has filled a little, warm, crimson stocking, and bidden the servant bring up a goodly log to brighten the dining room. But she has gone upstairs from the blaze of the Yule log now to a cosy bedroom, as bright and snug as love can devise, a room near her own, to which Ilma Arralyn has been brought wrapped in blankets in The Maples' carriage.

Here the tea table waits tonight, and here little Lawrie welcomes Miss Stafford by a hug and squeeze that would choke all the hardness away from her, were there any left.

But there is no trace of aught save love in the face Agnes Stafford turns towards the bed. "You are better, Ilma," she says. "You will be able to sit up in bed and taste our Christmas cake. Bring mamma a plate, my darling. She must share our tea."

"Oh, Agnes," she whispers, clinging to the gentle hands, "I knew you loved God too well to hate Lawrie and me. Therefore I toiled on to journey here, knowing if there were one home that would take him when I die, it would be the home of a Christian."

"Whether you live or die," says Agnes softly, "let God choose, Ilma. If He takes you away, Lawrie will be mine. But I would fain keep two instead of one."

They look for a space at each other. The chimes from the church break the stillness. They are pealing out the tune:

"Lo, the Lamb, so long expected,

Comes with pardon down from heaven;

Let us haste, with tears of sorrow,

One and all to be forgiven."

"Oh, Agnes," whispers Ilma, "I understand Him now. I dreaded Him so before. Since you have forgiven me, Agnes, I know He will never cast me out!"

THE END

White Tree Publishing publishes mainstream evangelical Christian literature for people of all ages. We aim to make our eBooks available free for all eBook devices, but some distributors will only list our books free at their discretion, and may make a small charge for some titles ‒ but they are still great value! All our books are fully typeset. No "photocopies" or bad OCR! Long sentences and paragraphs are broken into shorter lengths, and modern punctuation is used for easier reading. Many books are sensitively abridged.

More Books

More Christian books from White Tree Publishing are on the next pages, some of which are available as both eBooks and paperbacks. More books than those shown here are available in non-fiction and fiction, for adults and younger readers. The full list of published and forthcoming books is on our website www.whitetreepublishing.com. Please visit there regularly for updates.

We rely on our readers to tell their families, friends and churches about our books. Social media is a great way of doing this. Take a look at our range of fiction and non-fiction books and pass the word on. You can even contact your Christian TV or radio station to let them know about these books. Also, please write a positive review if you are able.

Christian non-fiction

Christian Fiction

Younger Readers

Return to Table of Contents

Christian Non-Fiction

All our books are in eBook format only, unless otherwise stated

Four short books of help in the Christian life:

Chris Wright

So, What Is a Christian?

An introduction to a personal faith.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-2-6

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-2-7

Starting Out

Help for new Christians of all ages.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-0-2

Paperback ISBN 978-1-4839-622-0-7

Help!

Explores some problems we can encounter with our faith.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-1-9

Paperback ISBN 978-0-9927642-2-7

Running Through the Bible

A simple understanding of what's in the Bible.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-3-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-6-5

Be Still

Bible Words of Peace and Comfort

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-4-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9932760-7-1

A Previously Unpublished Book

The Simplicity of the Incarnation

J Stafford Wright

Foreword by J I Packer

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-5-7

Paperback ISBN: 9-780-9525-9563-2

Bible People Real People

An Unforgettable A-Z of Who is Who in the Bible

J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-7-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-5-6

Christians and the Supernatural

J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-4-0

Paperback ISBN 13: 9-780-9525-9564-9

Howell Harris

His Own Story

Foreword by J. Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-9-5

From the Streets of London

to the Streets of Gold

The Life Story of

Brother Clifford Edwards

A True Story of Love

by Brother Clifford Edwards

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-8-8

Seven Steps to

Walking in Victory

Lin Wills

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-3-5

Seven Keys to

Unlock Your Calling

Lin Wills

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-2-3

English Hexapla

The Gospel of John

(Paperback only)

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-1-8

Roddy Goes to Church

Church Life and Church People

Derek Osborne

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-0-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-09927642-0-3

Heaven Our Home

William Branks

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-8-8

I See Men as Trees, Walking

Roger and Janet Niblett

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-1-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-1508674979

Leaves from

My Notebook

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

William Haslam

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-2-7

Blunt's Scriptural Coincidences

Gospels and Acts

J. J. Blunt

White Tree Publishing New Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-5-8

Fullness of Power

in Christian Life and Service

Home and Group Questions for Today Edition

R. A. Torrey

Questions by Chuck Antone, Jr.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-8-9

Faith that Prevails

The Early Pentecostal Movement

Home and Group Questions for Today Edition

Smith Wigglesworth

Study Questions by Chuck Antone, Jr.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-4-1

Ebenezer and Ninety-Eight Friends

Musings on Life, Scripture

and the Hymns

Marty Magee

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-1-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9954549-1-0

Twenty-five Days Around the Manger

A Light Family Advent Devotional

Marty Magee

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-1-0

Also in full colour paperback

ISBN: 978-1-4923248-0-5

The Gospels and Acts

In Simple Paraphrase

with Helpful Explanations

together with

Running Through the Bible

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-9-6

Paperback ISBN: 978-0995454958

The Authority and

Interpretation

of the Bible

J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-9-6

Psalms,

A Guide Psalm By Psalm

J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN 978-0-9957594-2-8

The Christian's Secret

of a Happy Life

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-6-6

Every-Day Religion

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-0-9

Haslam's Journey

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-8-5

Real Religion

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-10-0

My Life and Work

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-4-7

Living in the Sunshine:

The God of All Comfort

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-3-0

Evangelistic Talks

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-7-8

Real Religion

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-10-0

I Can't Help Praising the Lord

The Life of Billy Bray

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-01-8

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-00-1

As Jesus Passed By

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-05-6

Real Religion

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-10-0

Rifted Clouds

Bella Cooke

All Three Parts

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-08-7

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-09-4

Building From the Top

William Haslam

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-12-4

Deeper Experiences

of famous Christians

James Gilchrist Lawson

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-15-5

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Christian Fiction

Many of these books are classic Christian romances that have been sensitively edited and abridged by White Tree Publishing for today's readers

Silverbeach Manor

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-4-1

Gildas Haven

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-7-2

Amaranth's Garden

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-6-5

Rose Capel's Sacrifice

Margaret Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-3-4

Una's Marriage

Margaret Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-5-9

Miss Elizabeth's Niece

Margaret Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-7-3

The Clever Miss Jancy

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-9-7

Freda's Folly

Margaret S Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-02-5

Sybil's Repentance

Margaret S Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-04-9

Sister Royal

Margaret S Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-03-2

At Aunt Verbena's

Margaret S Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-03-2

The Secret of Ashton Manor House

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-11-7

Keena Karmody

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-5-4

Hazel Haldene

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-8-5

Rollica Reed

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-6-1

Faith Harrowby

Eliza Kerr

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-13-1

The Lost Clue

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Romantic Mystery

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-2-6

Doctor Forester

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Romantic Mystery

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-0-2

Was I Right?

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Victorian Romance

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-1-9

In His Steps

Charles M. Sheldon

Abridged Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9927642-9-6

Paperback ISBN 13: 978-19350791-8-7

A Previously Unpublished Book

Locked Door Shuttered Windows

A Novel by J Stafford Wright

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-3-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-4-1

When it Was Dark

Guy Thorne

Abridged Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-0-3

A Daughter of the King

Mrs Philip Barnes

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-8-0

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Books for Younger Readers

(and older readers too!)

The Merlin Adventure

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-2-7

Paperback ISBN: 9785-203447-7-5

The Hijack Adventure

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-6-5

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-0-5

The Seventeen Steps Adventure

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-7-2

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-6-7

The Two Jays Adventure

The First Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-8-9

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-8-1

The Dark Tunnel Adventure

The Second Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-0-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5206386-3-8

The Cliff Edge Adventure

The Third Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-4-2

Paperback ISBN: 9781-5-211370-3-1

The Midnight Farm Adventure

The Fourth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-1-6

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5497148-3-2

The Old House Adventure

The Fifth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-07-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-06-3

The Lost Island Adventure

The Sixth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-17-9

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-18-6

The Black Lake Adventure

The Seventh Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-28-5

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-27-8

The Hidden Room Adventure

The Eighth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-39-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-40-7

Available from major internet stores

The Holy Land Adventure

An Adventure Puzzle Book

Chris Wright

A time travel adventure

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-36-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-34-6

Available from major internet stores

Mary Jones and Her Bible

An Adventure Book

Chris Wright

The true story of Mary Jones's and her Bible

with a clear Christian message and optional puzzles

(Some are easy, some tricky, and some amusing)

eBook ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-9933941-5-7

Paperback ISBN 978-0-9525956-2-5

The Holy Land Adventure

An Adventure Book

Chris Wright

A time travel story, similar in format to Mary Jones

Exploring real events in the time of Jesus

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-912529-36-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-34-6

Pilgrim's Progress

An Adventure Book

Chris Wright

A similar format to Mary Jones

Exploring the journey of Pilgrim's Progress

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9933941-6-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-6-3

Pilgrim's Progress

Special Edition

The original story retold

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-8-8

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-7-0

Zephan and the Vision

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-6-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-9-4

Agathos, The Rocky Island,

And Other Stories

Chris Wright

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9927642-7-2

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-8-7

Please visit our website www.whitetreepublishing.com for full details on all these books, and their availability.

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