 CHAPTER 52 THICKER IT WAS SEPTEMBER, AND THE HARVEST WAS NEARLY OVER IN THE FIELD'S ROUND, AUSTHORP, A PEARLESS SEPTEMBER MORNING, SWEET TO THE SPORTSMAN, LIGHTLY TREADING THE STUPPLE WITH A BRACE OF FLOP EARED SETTERS, BOUNDING BEFORE HIM, SWEET TO THE VILLAGE TRUENT, CLIMBING THE BRIARY BRANK, WHERE THE BLACKBERRIES ARE WRITENING IN THE AUTUMN SUN, BUT SWEETER STILL TO ARTHUR HELLAMOND, FOR THIS FAIR SEPTEMBER MORNING WAS TO BE HIS WEDDING DAY, AND IN THE SOFT LIGHT OF THE HARVEST MOON, DOLCY AND HE WERE TO BE CROSSING THE CHANNEL, ON THE FIRST STAGE OF THEIR JOURNEY TO THE TIRAL, WITH WHICH ROMANTIC REGION MR. HELLAMOND HAD MADE HIMSELF FAMILIAR YEARS AGO, WHEN HE WAS AN UNDERGRADUATE, WITH AMBOLISIAR AND WELL-FILLED PURSE, ROMAINED THE CONTINENT IN QUEST OF SOME QUIET NOOK FOR STUDY. IT WAS TO BE A VERY SIMPLE WEDDING, MISS COURTNEY'S ENGAGEMENT HAD BEEN TOLD TO ONLY A FEW PEOPLE, BUT THOSE FEW HAD NOT BEEN SO SILENT, AS THEY AUGHT TO HAVE BEEN, ABOUT THE SECRET CONFIDED TO THEM, AND THE LITTLE WORLD OF AUSTORP HAD GROWN FAMILIAR WITH THE FACT EVEN BEFORE THE BANS ARE RED IN THE VILLAGE CHURCH. EVERYONE WANTED TO BE ASKED TO THE WEDDING, AND SIR EVERID RECEIVED MANY INTEMINATIONS direct and indirect to that effect, but he pleaded his own precarious health and the bridegroom's profession as reasons for a quiet wedding. I could not stand the incitement of a crowd, he said, when Miss Aspinall remonstrated with him on his cruelty to the neighborhood, and Howelman hates the idea of a fuss. DOLCY SCREEN, Miss Aspinall, you have to think of DOLCY, DOLCY ought not to be cheated out of one of the great triumphs of a pretty girl's existence, a stylish wedding. DOLCY DOES NOT WISH FOR A STYLISH WEDDING, YOU FORGET THAT HER SITUATION IS SOMEWHAT DELICATE, A FEW MONTHS AGO SHE WAS ENGAGED TO MORTON BLAKE. Ah, side Miss Aspinall, that was a sad pity. Your rooted objection to trade, I suppose, while a man of your old family would naturally be prejudiced, and Mr. Hellamond is very nice, remarkably nice. I have not a word to say against him. I suppose I may come to the wedding. Having known your dear child ever since she was a tiny thing, we shall be delighted to have your company, if you will not be bored by a Hundrum wedding. Hundrum, as if DOLCY's wedding could be Hundrum to me, you do not know the interest I have felt in that sweet girl. Side Mrs. Aspinall, thinking how fondly she had hope to have the sweet girl for a stepdaughter, and how little chance there was of that hope being realized. You will come then, Lord Black Marden, and his son will be with us. Lady Frances will be DOLCY's bridemaid. Only one bridemaid? Yes, but that bridesmaid is her bosom friend, the girl who has been a sister to her in her trouble. Don't you think it is better to have one such bridesmaid than ten foolish virgins who care a great deal less for the bride than for the fine gowns they'll wear at her wedding? True, assented Mrs. Aspinall, Franny Grange is very real, rather rough and masculine in her ways, not my ideal girl, but very staunch. I used to think she was in love with Morton, and that it would be a very nice thing if those two were to make a match of it. For poor Lord Black Marden hasn't six pence to give his daughter, you know, but when I sounded her the other day she told me plainly that she doesn't care a straw for him. She admitted that in their old boy and girl days when he was a lad at Rugby, and she had child in short petticoats, she had been awfully fond of him, but it has all worn off, it seems. I suppose Dulcy's engagement cured her. She would hardly like the reversion of a heart. Though, as for that, a girl in her circumstances ought not to be particular. And now the wedding day has come, and Dulcy, simply dressed in her dove-coloured traveling gown with a dove-coloured straw hat, and just one sprig of orange blossom pinned among the soft folds of her old meachin fichu, walked through the fields to church, leaning on her father's arm. Lord Black Marden followed with Mrs. Aspenall, who had a new gown from Worth for the occasion. Determined to shoot one final arrow at the bark, she had so often tried to hit Sir Everett's marble heart. The gown was an elaborate combination of velvet and silk, of the last new-colour bottle-glass, and would be useful for winter wear. And in this bottle-glass gown, with bottle-glass bonnet and feather, and pinned-button Swedish gloves, Mrs. Aspenall felt herself above criticism. Dulcy had insisted that if Mrs. Aspenall came to the wedding, Ms. Parker should be as too, so the youthful Louisa was there, looking really fashionable in a cast-off gown of her patroness, which had been done up for the occasion. Lady Frances wore a kind of glorified lawn tennis costume of soft white cashmere and scarlet velvet, with a scarlet toque perched coquishly upon her curly black hair, and a cluster of scarlet geraniums and Stefanis pinned on her shoulder, a costume which Belleville approved in his own vernacular as a fetching get-up. Poor Belleville, with Ms. Parker leaning on his arm, looked like a victim being led to a sacrifice. To assist at the wedding of the one woman who could have made his life happy was a sore trial, that one other woman who was destined to be his consolar had not yet appeared on life's horizon, but that, for a man of Belleville's temperament, there would be such woman nobody in his senses could doubt. The bishop of the diocese was Arthur Hallamond's bosom friend. He had been in charge of an important parish during the earlier part of Mr. Hallamond's ministry in Whitechapel, and the two men had seen much of each other. They had the same views, these same opinions, the same broad and their broadcast of mind and character, and the happy turn of events, which had raised the vicar to the Episcopal bench, had in no wise weakened the tie between them. When the bishop heard that his friend was going to be married, he at once declared his intention of tying the knot. This redeems the whole thing, said Mrs. Aspinall, with a reverent glance at his lordship's lawn sleeves, and after all there is a quite elegance in a wedding of this kind, which your hurly burly marriages at St. George's can never attain. The bare old church was decked with flowers, flowers from hot houses, and flowers from cottage gardens. Every wreath had been woven, every cluster arranged by hens that worked with loving zeal. The whole thing had been done in one afternoon, as if by magic. And when the ceremonial was over, and the school mistress was making as much noise as the harmonion was capable of, in the swelling cords of Mendelssohn's wedding march, Dolcy and her husband walked along a path of thickly strewn blossoms that had been sought far and wide, in wood and field, hair-bells and purple heath bloom, and all the family of autumn flowers. Sir Everett gave his arm to Lady Francis when they left the church, while Mrs. Aspinall, who had quite enough of Lord Blockmarden and his disquisition on the last improvement in hay-saving machinery, impounded the bishop, leaving the Earl to follow with his son. The newly married pair were to drive straight from the church gate to Highclair Station, where they would arrive just in time to catch the one o'clock express for London, thus escaping the horrors of a wedding breakfast. Father said, Dolcy, claiming to Sir Everett in the farewell at the gate, when shall we see you again? Next winter, perhaps, my pet, if your husband will bring you to Algiers. Of course he will take me. You will take me to see Papa, won't you, Arthur? That is a promise. Was it you or I who promised just now to obey? asked her husband, smiling down at the sweet uplifted face, I know which of us will have to do it. Yes, dear, you shall be taken to Algiers. If you ordered me to take you to the moon, I should have to set about the journey, somehow, though I might feel sure of breaking down. It is not a joke, sir. I am very much an earnest. Wherever Papa spends the winter, I must go to see him. Dear love, it shall be so. God helping us, answered Mr. Hallamond very much in earnest this time. Then came the last clinging embrace between father and daughter, a little hand given to the friends who clustered at the gate, and then Dolcy stepped lightly to her place in the Bar-Rouche. Her husband seated himself by her side. The villagers, men, women, and children, set up a hearty cheer, and the carriage rolled away in a cloud of sunlit dust that encircled it like a nimbus. What shall I do without her? sighed Sir Everett. But thank God she is happy. The little party, minus bride and groom, went back to Fairview to eat lobster salad and perigood pie, and drink to the wedded lovers in sparkling wines. Sir Everett tried his hardest to seem gayer than he was, won't to be. But Francis Grange, who had learned how to read his face, could see that his heart was heavy. Mrs. Aspenall, confident in the success of her bottle glass gown and of the new hair dye, which was ever so much more natural than the last, provided vivacity and spirits for the whole party, cheering Sir Everett with sympathetic oogles, and openly coquettting with the bishop, sparkling wines at an unusual hour, had opened the sluices of Mrs. Aspenall's eloquence, and she talked enough for everybody surveying the party with a superior smile, as if she could not help admitting to herself that they were all very stupid and that she was the life of the assembly. She talked of herself chiefly, of her early married life, and the raw personages and diplomatic celebrities with whom she had been on intimate terms during her wanderings on the continent. We had a delicious villa at Popsily Pole, and received all the best people in Naples. Poor Bamba and I were like brother and sister. He used to tell me all his plans, and he really had a very noble mind, a noble mind. I have always hated Garibaldi and all that nonsense about the unification of Italy. The country has been going down ever since the Bourbons left it, and the Queen was very sweet. Yes, we spend some happy days at Palsapole. Mrs. Aspenall sighed, and allowed Scroop to fill her glass with dry champagne. It was about the seventh time the glass had been filled conscientiously, and the dowager was beginning to wander a little. Dear Holy Hill, she exclaimed, with a model in air. Bishop, you know the south of Ireland? She accompanied the remark with a playful tap of her fan upon the episcopial knuckles, and she smiled a melting smile. Yes, madame, I've enjoyed some very pleasant days in the south of Ireland, a fine hospitable race, your southern Irish. I am so glad you like them, said Mrs. Aspenall. I don't often talk of my old home, but I dearly love the memory of it. Dear Holy Hill, looking down on the beautiful river, I was born there. My brothers and sisters were born there. Moved by those touching memories the lady began to sing, in a voice which time had slightly cracked. Ye bells of Shandon, that sounds so grand on, the pleasant waters of the river lee. A raw, thin darling, I'm glad you've not forgotten the old country, exclaimed a rich Irish voice at the window. And Mrs. Aspenall and all the company beheld a stout, red-haired, florid, middle-aged gentleman looking in at them. Who is that? faltered the mistress of Aspenall Towers, staring at the intruder through her binoculars. I don't think I know him. Be glad, and you do, my dear. You know your brother Pat, though it's ten years since you laid eyes on him. Faith I'll come round by the door, and tell ye all about my journey to England, and how I tuck it into my head, to come down to Delcher, before I went back to Holy Head, if the matter of the house will excuse me, make in so free. Pray come in and join us, said Sir Everett, smiling. Scroop, bring the gentleman round. My name's Ryan, Sir Pat Ryan, though my own sisters don't like the trouble to introduce me, said the stranger, with a crushing look at Mrs. Aspenall. He disappeared from the window, and was ushered in by Scroop. Good morning to ye, ladies and gentlemen. You servant, he said, with a comprehensive bow, and then he walked over to Mrs. Aspenall and gave her a brotherly kiss, a loud smack, which was altogether the most vulgar thing in kisses. His sister writhed under the inflection. You shouldn't have intruded yourself upon my friends, Patrick, she said severely. I am very glad to see you, of course, but you should have waited at the powers till I got home. Why, then, sure, I'd waited there till you got home. I'd have had to go away without seeing ye. I must be back at High Clear by five o'clock to catch the train for Chester. You might take it more kindly, my coming, if you knew the trouble it cost me, and a business like mine that can't be neglected. I asked your fine pay cook of a footman where you'd gone, and when he told me ye was at a wedding breakfast, I says, then I'll be after following her. One rob more or less at a wedding breakfast makes no differ. The more, the merrier. There's always lashkins and lavlands. Mrs. Aspenall looked as if she was going into hysterics. Lashins and lavands, and this red-haired floored man who reaped with vulgarity and talked the broadest Irish was her very brother. There was nothing to be gained by denying the relationship. She would have laughed her to scorn. She had kept him at a distance for 15 years by all matter of diplomatic devices. And now when she was declined into the veil of years and was less able to cope with him, he came down upon her like an avalanche. She could have lifted up her voice and wept, but she felt that she must face the situation, but she faced it with a sickly smile. My brother is a thorough Malaysian, she said with a depreciating glance. First at her host and then at the bishop, Belville and his sister were choking with laughter behind their handkerchiefs, but the elder members of the party were preternaturally grave. He has hardly ever left his native country. Oh, devil a lie in it! Fae, gentlemen, when a man kills more pigs than any other dayer in cork, he knocked me after Roman about the world for sport. I'd like to stand in my own stall and see that the mate gets properly handled. And now here's Chicago taking the bread out of our mouths with its machine-killed pork. Yee, just stand your grunter on a thrap. Yee see, sir, and turn a handle, and he falls through and gets his throat cut without knowing anything about it. And in so many seconds he's singed and dressed and ready for shipping. Who's to stand again such a thread as that? I'd like to know unless he do be sticking close to his own counter. There ain't a better business than mine in cork. And though I am no self-made man, for I'd a father before me, I'm proud to think I've doubled and thribbled the trade since the old gentleman shifted his sticks to a better world. Be dad, tis a great change entirely. From the days that playboy, Tim Daly, christened me. Pigs is us, bad scran to them. Tis following, they are now without no machinery at all, at all. Scroop had placed a plate and knife and fork before the newcomer, and had filled his glass with champagne. He now offered the stranger a paté de forgrat, which had been only slightly dipped into. What this be now? asked the pork butcher, with a puzzled air of appeal to the company, generally. It looks uncommon, nasty. Straws bird pie, Patrick. It is excellent, said Mrs. Aspenall, looking daggers at the unconscious offender. Thank you kindly, my man, but I'd rather laugh it alone, said Patrick, looking up at the butcher. There's too much hogs lard about it for my taste. I never ate what I don't understand. I'll trouble yeas for a slice of that ham of bacon there. He looks mighty well for an English ham. Mr. Ryan ate a plate of ham and drink a good many glasses of Kalequot with hearty relish. He made himself quite at home and told the company a good deal about himself and his sister. How their father had begun life in a very small way as general dealer in a by street of pork. How he had pushed his trade till he made a big business in pork and Irish butter. How they had been brought up at an elegant country seat called Holly Hill, which the pork butcher had built for himself. How California had been sent to a genteel boarding school and no money spared on her education. Whereby you may fancy the mortification it was to the poor old father when she married a stuck up spadine of honorable in nobody who happened to be quartered at court with his regiment and then turned her back on the whole villain of us. All us one we weren't good enough for the gentry. Begore concluded Mr. Ryan but she and me made peace when we met her mischievous in London 10 year ago. And we've been friends ever since haven't us by darling. Miss Arsenal assured her brother before the whole assembly that she had always entertained the warmest affection for him. And now Patrick I must ask you to see me home. She said blandly. It's getting late. And as I shall have to drive you to High Claire. Sure. There's a good half hour to spare replied Mr. Ryan. Looking at his watch and then handing his glass to the butler. I'll see the bottom of the bottle. Patrick you are making your visit an inflection cried Mrs. Aspenall indignantly. Be as he now he doesn't mind me said Patrick with a friendly glance at his host. His only yourself that so mighty particular though be dad with a wink at Sir Everett you seem to have the advantage of me in that quarter. Me love for be all appearance you may pretty free with the fizz before I came. Mrs. Aspenall sat down again pale with anger at this home thrust a pallor that was visible under her artistic bread. She could make no further struggle. She could only sit and suffer and speculate dimly as to whether she would be able to go on living at the towers after this. Whether speedy exile to Florence or Rome would not be inevitable whether such a hideous exposure could in any wise be lived down. Mr. Ryan finished the bottle of champagne making himself as much at home with Sir Everett and the bishop as if he had been used to such company all his life. He was profusely complimentary to the two younger ladies waxing poetical about Lady Frances Grange's eyes and quoting Tom Moore's lines to ladies eyes around boys you can't refuse. He had even a kindly word for Miss Parker who thought him one of the nicest men she had ever met batting a touch of vulgarity which was too distinctly national to be altogether offensive. She was inclined to wish like Desdemona that heaven had made her such a man and she felt a gentle thrill when Mr. Ryan mentioned incidentally that he was a widower and on the lookout for a sensible good-humored wife not too young to be a clever housekeeper nor too old to be pleasing. He finished his bottle and then offered his sister his arm to walk back to the towers. Mrs. Aspenall made the best of her painful position and small blandly as she wished everybody goodbye. I am sorry you must leave the neighborhood so soon Mr. Ryan said the bishop as the portly pork butcher grasped in his hand. If my sisters inclined to be hospitable, me lord, sure I don't know that I'd mind wasting a week in these parts. Return Mr. Ryan with a friendly glance at Louisa who had impressed him with a strong idea of her common sense and common sense was Patrick's favorite virtue in women possibly because his late wife had been an errant fool. You know you are welcome at the towers Patrick said Mrs. Aspenall with a convulsive smile. Faith I'm being no means so sure of that cried that monster of a brother with his deceptorian laugh but I know I ought to be for blood thicker than water and you and me was always good friends and didn't I cane Ken Rooney for ogling you on the parade at Queenston? Sure and a fine bouncing young woman you was in those days. Divel a bit did I ever expect to see a shriveled to such thread paper. A rough diamond said Miss Aspenall to Sir Everett still blandly smiling but with the smile that masks mental agony. Are you coming Patrick? I am ready my dear but I'd like to tip the butler first. Remonstrated Patrick in a loud whisper. Them fellows always expected on such an occasion as this but Miss Aspenall would not wait for the butler to be tipped. She felt that her brother appeared at the worst when compared with the calm and polished group. She dragged him away somehow breathing a little more freely when she was in the avenue. Oh Patrick Patrick she exclaimed with a stifled sob. What a disgrace you brought upon me. No ma'am answered the pork butcher with dignity. There's no disgrace of my bringing for I'm an honest man that has never paid less than 20 shillings in the pound and has a good chance to be mayor of Cork before he dies. The disgrace is yours if you're ashamed of your own flesh and blood. Have I only broke and drove a carriage and put a cockade in me man's hat. I've paid two shillings in the pound. Tiss proud of me yet be but dad I was disgracefully honest. In a chapter 52 recording by Linda Marie Nielsen Vancouver, B.C. Chapter 53 of Just as I Am This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen Vancouver, B.C. Just as I Am by Mary Elizabeth Brayden Chapter 53 The Rest is Silence Sir Everett was alone, standing with an absent air in a deserted room, where everything, from the open piano to the little heap of daintly bound duodesimals on the table by the sofa, seemed to speak of Dulcy. Lord Blockmartin and his son and daughter had taken leave immediately after Mrs. Asphenol's departure. The bishop had followed them. The bustle and excitement appertaining to even the quietest wedding were over and done with. Scroop and his man were clearing the table, and carrying off the fine old Georgian tankards and college cups to the pantry, there to be swathed in bays, preparatory to being confined in the gloom of an iron-line plate room. The gardeners had left their work, indulged with a holiday in honour of Miss Courtney's marriage. The village school room was being prepared for a festal tea. The joy bells were ringing gaily in the old square tower. But here, at fair view, all was very quiet and lonely. How I shall miss her, now and hereafter, mused Sir Everett, looking round the familiar room, while he was standing thus contemplating the things associated with his daughter's past life, almost as if they were living creatures and could in some wise sympathise with him in his hour of sorrow, the glass door was softly opened, and he heard the silken rustlings of a woman's gown creeping towards him as he stood with his back to the door. He turned suddenly, half expecting to see her, whose image so completely filled his thoughts, and yet he knew that she was far away by this time, in London or on the road to Dover. It was not dulcy, but Francis Grange. Don't be angry with me for coming back, she faltered, looking up at him shyly, her colour changing from red to pale, as she spoke. I wanted so much to know your plans, to say ever so many things, which I was afraid to say before the Bishop and Mrs. Asphenall. So when the carriage was half way to Blackmarden, I told the sheik, I had some business in the village, and left him to go home with Belleville. Are you vexed with me for worrying you? vexed with you for being kind and full of compassion? No, my fair Diana, I am very grateful to you. I was just feeling horribly lonely, and it is a comfort to see someone whom Dulcy loves to be able to talk of her with her favourite friend. Yes, I think she is fond of me, said Francis thoughtfully. I tried very hard to win her love. And you succeeded in winning it without stint. I can never thank you enough for your goodness. You came to us in the hour of trouble, and brought life and light into our home. God knows how we should have fared without you. I am thankful to think I was of use. I am proud to remember that you trusted me, answered Francis gravely. Her colour, that bright carnation which harmonised so perfectly with her nut-brown skin, had not yet come back. She was very pale and full of thought. Sit down in my darling's chair, said Sir Everett. You must give me my tea, the last I shall taste in this house. You are going away at once? Tonight I leave by the mail. And you are not coming back till next spring? No, you see the doctors insist upon my spending the winter in Algiers, and I have my own ideas as to my destination in the spring. Francis Grange understood him. There is nothing so quick to understand as a girl's sympathy with a man of graver years, whom she has taken it into her head to worship, and Francis Grange had made Sir Everett her hero. Even the reserve which capped her at a distance, tempered as it was by kindly feeling and an evident appreciation of her charms, gave strength and depth to her regard. And you are going away alone? Quite alone. To be ill, perhaps, in a strange country, without a friend? It is most likely I shall have to bear even that, but I have a capital servant, a fellow as faithful as Brian's flutcher, a man of considerable education. You need not think of me as altogether miserable. I am content that my life should finish in gloom, now that Dulcy is secure of spending hers in the sunshine of a happy love. I leave fair view, but my thoughts and my affection will still hover round it, for Dulcy will be here with her husband. It is to be their home when they return from their honeymoon. Sir Everett, I cannot bear to think of your being alone in that strange, remote country. I don't know how to say it, but I feel as if I could be of use to you, a companion to you sometimes, in your hours of weariness, that I might in some poor degree fill your daughter's place. Will you let Belleville and me come with you? I can make him do anything I like, dear good fellow. I don't mean for us to be with you always, only to be in the same hotel, or the same town, to be at hand if you wanted sympathy, to nurse you if you were ill. Let us come. She looked up at him with tearful eyes, her hands clasped, a childlike reverent affection in her attitude and expression that smote him to the heart. Oh, had he but been worthy of such a love, could he but have said, be my wife, make the remnant of my days blessed. He might have gathered one of the fairest flowers that ever bloomed within the reach of a man's hand. Conscious and honour forbade. He only took the clasped hands in both his own, and bent down to kiss the pale forehead. My sweetest child, I am unworthy of your goodness. I am unworthy of one thought from you. I am more touched than I can say by this last evidence of your regard. I shall treasure the memory of your sweetness till I am clay, but the home to which I am going will allow no such fair companionship. Neither love nor friendship can enter there. Over the door of that dwelling is inscribed. No woman must enter. I cannot understand, faltered Francis. Dear girl, you will know all in good time, but be sure always that your affection has lent a light to this last hour of my worldly life, which will help to brighten my way to the grave. You will be kind to Dulcy, will you not, when I am far away. You will not let new ties blot her out of your mind. Never, exclaimed Francis. I am not likely to make new ties, with the conviction of a woman who believes she is done with love forever, because she once loved in vain. And Dulcy will be as dear as a sister to me as long as I live. There is no chance of my changing. I only hope she will not change. But you will come back next May, Sir Everett. You will see your daughter happy in her new life. I feel sure that a winter in the south will do wonders for you. I shall never come back to England any more. Do not look so grieved, Francis. I have chosen the path which I know is most likely to lead to peace. Were I to live for twenty years it would be the same. I shall bid farewell to England and all old associations to-morrow morning. I have no right to question motives or your determination, said Francis sadly. You have been very good to me, and I have spent many happy hours in this house. May God give you all blessings wherever you go! Goodbye! Goodbye, dear child! he said, and this time he folded her in his arms, and kissed her, as he would have kissed Dulcy. Francis, he said, gently and gravely, if I had been a gold man, I should have asked you to be my wife, and then the end of my life might have been very different. She looked up at him with the infinite confidence of a woman, not over-wise, but unselfishly devoted. I can trust you and be happy with you, whatever you are, she whispered. No, love, I would not wrong you so deeply. They went out together by the glass door, and along the avenue to the lodge gate, and here they parted for ever. A month later it was known at Osenthorpe that Sir Everett Courtney had turned Romanist, and had joined at Trappist Brotherhood, whose monastery is situated on an elevated plain a few miles from Algiers. Over the door of that monastery appears the inscription, No Woman Must Enter Here. Nevermore on this earth can Dulcy see her father. His life is of the severest kind. He rises at two every morning to spend silent hours in prayer. He is excused from labour on account of his declining health, for it is known to the fraternity that he has come among them to die. There is an inscription on the wall of the refractory, which faces the new brother as he sits at the frugal meal, and which he contemplates often with his sad smile. The pleasure de morier sans pleine vaut bien la peine de vivre sans plaisir. Dulcy is happy, or as nearly happy as it is given, to any mortal with a conscience and a heart to be in this world. She carries about with her always as a part of her own existence, the memory of her father's sorrow and her father's crime. But before the first year of her wedded life is done, the English brother is lying at breast in the grave that he dug for himself, far away under the blue southern sky, and it is an inspeakable comfort to her to know that he confessed his sin, and that his whole afterlife, from the hour in which he sinned, was one long repentance. She believes that the God who might deal hardly with the hardened sinner will surely deal mercifully with the pentant. So life goes on peacefully at a jog trot pace at Ostenthorpe, and Tangley, and Black Martin. Morton and his wife are a model couple, and Dora Blake is happier, sitting on the sunny lawn with her nephew's first baby on her lap, and she has ever been since her brother's untimely death. In all Morton's efforts, in all his triumphs, successes, and disappointments, Lizzie goes with him hand in hand, and though she has now been married nearly two years, she has never yet reproached him for not having taken her advice, nor gloried in the disconfecture due to a neglect of her opinion. In Parliament he has been eminently successful, not because he is a genius, but because he has the rare gift of being a thorough workman. He has spoken often and well, has been heard with deference, and is supposed to have done good service to the cause he has at heart, nor has he ever been less than his word in the consideration which he has shown to his wife's relations. Mr. and Mrs. Hardman have been too Tangley, and have been made much of, and have behaved themselves admirably after their own homely fashion. Mary and Mary's husband have also been entertained at the manor house, and though the self-opinionated printer has bored his host a little by the arrogant assertion of his adverse opinions, Morton has endured the inflection with laudable patience. For Mary's sake, that worthy young woman looking up to her husband as an oracle whose opinions ought to be the backbone of the Times newspaper. But at Tangley Jesse is the favorite. She has given up her sewing machine, except as a useful companion for leisure hours, to assist her in making her own gowns and innumerable garments for the Tangley and Austenthorpe poor. She divides her life between the manor house and the pretty suburban cottage to which Mr. and Mrs. Hardman have removed the fray horsehair sofa, untrustworthy clock, and other household goods. A cottage the freehold whereof has been presented to Uncle Joseph by his niece, Mrs. Blake. There is an acre and a half of paddock attached to the cottage, which it is supposed will be carried along in the march of the ages and eventually converted into a building land at ten shillings of foot-frontage. Mr. Hardman loves to talk about this paddock as the fine thing for his children when he shall be dead and gone, and to plan the sights of future cottages on the green sward as he strolls about his freehold of an evening smoking his pipe. Jesse is quick and bright, and her sister's influence with the still stronger influence of refined surroundings has already smoothed away the rough edges of the vulgarity which struck Lizzie so painfully during her stay in Milton Street. Jesse is fond of reading, and Lizzie has persuaded her to read clever books instead of silly ones. She is fond of society, but is modest and diffident in a circle where she feels herself inferior. She thus gives herself time to learn before she commits herself to much speech, and the general opinion round and about Tangly is in favor of Mrs. Hardman. Horatia and Clementine get uncomfortably enough in their new home. They bully the duena and quarrel with each other a good deal, yet are sworn allies and are held up as an example of devoted sisters. They have put, at home Fridays, four to six on their visiting cards, and they entertain all the gentile womenhood of Highclerc, and within a drivable distance at the most elegant style of afternoon tea. Everything in their house, which is not early English, of the School of Tottenham Court Road, is unquestionably Japanese. They spend a good deal of money on hot house flowers, and do a great deal of high art work for charity bazaars. They drive a good deal, visit a good deal, and give all their particular friends to understand in the strictest confidence that Morton would have given worlds to retain the light of their presence at the manor, but that from the moment he began to think of marrying Lizzie Hartman, their departure was inevitable. And yet, we really have no fault to find what Lizzie, said Horatia, with calm patronage, we both like her immensely in her place. Far away in Boston Mrs. Bernard hears of a legacy which has been left to her by a testator whose name is not to be communicated to her. The legacy is a sum of six thousand pounds in breadie money, which is duly paid to Jane Bernard for her own separate use and maintenance by Misser's ferret and full scalp of Lincoln's Inn, and Mrs. Bernard feels very sure that this gift, which reaches her within three months of Sir Everett Courtney's death, comes to her from that repentant sinner. The money is immediately invested as a sacred trust for her sons and daughters, and neither she nor her husband will touch a penny of principal or interest. Mrs. Asphenall has lost her faithful slave, Louisa Parker, lost her under circumstances which the Dowager tearfully declares, to have been of exceptional treachery. Louisa is Miss Parker no longer, for after spending a fortnight at the towers and shocking the susceptibilities of his sister in every hour of that fortnight, the jovial pork bircher proposed to Miss Asphenall's companion and was promptly and cordially accepted, and now Mrs. Patrick Bryan rules over a boisterous brood of stepchildren, who hang about her with file love, and is mistress of a smart villa at Passage, wither her husband retires to a hot supper and unlimited grog after the heat and burden of his day in Cork City. The novelty of the position, the change from being ordered to order ring, from the passive to the active voice of the verb, is intoxicating to Louisa, but she is too sensible to lose her head amidst these happier surroundings, or to play the tyrant because she has had to play the slave, or to be extravagant with her husband's ample means because she has had so long to rub through life without any means at all we're speaking of. Mrs. Asphenall has tried three companions since Louisa's desertion, and they have all behaved so badly after their diverse fashions that she has now given up the idea of hiring companionship impossibility. The young women of the period is utterly unfit to earn her bread anywhere out of the ballet or the refreshment bar, she informs Frances Grange. Frances and her brother are still single, and life at Black Martin goes on in the old Hundrum Way, enliven only by field sports, the delight whereof seems ever new to the Earl's children, but rumor hints that a certain wealthy lordling, lately returned from a lengthened cruise in the South Seas, on board his trim-steam yacht, a gentleman whose estate lies within ten miles of Black Martin, is desperately smitten with Lady Frances. He hunts with the dalesher, and as he and Frances ride side by side for hours together three times a week, and have been seen to hobnob in a sheltered corner over Belleville's sandwich case and sherry flask, it cannot be said that he lacks opportunities to urge his suit, so the prevailing opinion is that there will be a wedding at the castle by and by, when the close of the hunting season gives people time to think of such minor details in the business of life. The End. End of Chapter 53, Recording by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. End of Just as I Am by Mary Elizabeth Braden.