 CHAPTER XXI Mr. Hope might well doubt, Margaret was not gay but desperate. Yes, even the innocent may be desperate under circumstances of education and custom, by which feelings natural and inevitable are made occasions of shame, while others, which are wrong and against the better nature of man, bask in daylight and impunity. There was not a famishing wretch prowling about a baker's door, more desperate than Margaret this day. There was not a gambler setting his teeth while watching the last turn of the day, more desperate than Margaret this day. If there was a criminal standing above a sea of faces with the abominable executioner's hands about his throat, Margaret was for the time as wretched as he. If any asked why, why it should be thus with one who has done no wrong, the answer is why there is pride in human and heart. Why is there a particular nurture of this pride into womanly reserve? Why is that that love is the chief experience and almost the only object of a woman's life? Why is it that it is almost painful to the beings who look before and after who have the one hope of existence dashed away? The generous faith outraged, all self-confidence overthrown, life in one moment made rary as the desert, heaven itself overcrowded, and death all the while standing at such a wary distance that there is no refuge within the horizon of endurance. Be these things right or wrong, they are, and while they are, will the woman who loves unrequited feel desperate on the discovery of her loneliness, and the more pure and proud, innocent and humble, the more lonely? For some little time pass, Margaret had been in a state of great tranquility about Philip, a tranquility which she now much wondered at. Now that it was all over, she had had an unconscious faith in him, and living in this faith she had forgotten herself. She had not thought of the future, she had not felt impatient for any change, often as she wished for his presence. Irksome, as she had sometimes felt it to know nothing of him from week to week, she had been tessantly satisfied that she was in his thoughts as she was in hers, and this had been enough for the time. What an awakening from this quincent state was hers this day. It was from no other than Dr. Levitt that she had heard in the morning that Mr. Enderby was shortly going to be married to Miss Mary Bruce. Dr. Levitt was at widow's rye when Margaret went, and had walked part of the way home with her. During the walk this piece of news had dropped out, while they were talking of Mrs. Enderby's health. All that Dr. Levitt knew of Miss Mary Bruce was that she was of sufficiently good family and fortune to make the Rollins extremely well satisfied with the match, that Mrs. Enderby had never seen her, and that it would be some time before she could see her as the whole family of the Bruce's was at home for the winter. When Dr. Levitt parted from Margaret at the gate of the churchyard, these last words contained the hope she clung to, a hope which might turn into the deepest reason for despair. Philip had certainly not been abroad. Was it likely that he should lately have become engaged to any young lady who had been some time in Rome? It was not likely, but then, if it was true, he must have been long engaged. He must have been engaged at the time of his last visit of six days. When he had talked over his views of life with Margaret, and been so anxious to obtain hers, he must sure have been engaged in the summer, when she found Tyach in the desk, and when he used to spend so many evenings at the graves, certainly not on Hester's account. At one moment she was confident all this would not be. She was relieved, she stepped lightly. The next moment a misgiving came that it was all too true. The wait fell again upon her heart. She lost breath, and it was intolerable to have to curtsy to Mrs. James, and to answer the budgers inquiry about the meat that had been ordered, if these people would only go on with their own business and take no notice of her. Then again the thought occurred that she knew Philip better than any, than even his own family in that, say what they might. He was all her own. In these changes of mood she had got through dinner. The dominant idea was then that she must, by some means or other, obtain certainty. She thought of Maria. Maria was likely to know the facts from her constant intercourse with the Rollins, and besides there was certainly a something in Maria's mind in relation to Philip. A keen insight, which might be owning to the philosophical habit of her mind, or to something else, but which issued an information about him, which it was surprising that she could obtain. She seldom spoke of him, but when she did it was wonderfully to the purpose, Margaret thought she could learn from Maria in a very simple and natural way. That which she so much wished to know, and when she left the room after dinner, it was to write the note which might bring certainty. Dear friend, I saw Dr. Levitt this morning while I was out, and he told me, with all possible assurance, that Mr. Enderby is going to be married, very shortly to a young lady at Rome. Miss Mary Bruce, now this is true or it is not. If true, you are as well aware as we are, that we are entitled to have known it otherwise. And earlier than by the common report, if not true, the rumor should not be allowed to spread. If you know anything certainly, one way or the other, pray tell us. Yours affectionately, Margaret Ibbitson. The we and us were not quite honest, but Margaret meant to make them as nearly so as possible by ex post facto communication with her brother and sister, a resolution so easily made, that it did not occur to her how difficult it might be to execute. While her messenger was gone, she wrought herself up to a resolution to bear the answer. Whatever it might be, with the same quietness, with which she must bear the whole of her nature life, if Dr. Levitt's news should prove to be founded in fact, the door opening seemed to prick the nerves. Of her ears, her heart heaved to her throat at the sight of the white paper, yet it was with neatness that she broke with the seal, and with a steady hand that she held the note to read it. The handwriting was only too distinct. It seemed to burn itself in upon her brain. All was over. Dear Margaret, I do not know where Dr. Levitt got his news, but I believe it is true. Mrs. Rollin pretends to absolute certainty about her brother's engagement to Miss Bruce. And it is from this that others speak so positively about it, whatever are the grounds that Mrs. R goes upon. There are others which afford a strong presumption that she is right. Some of these may be known to you. They leave no doubt in my mind that the report is true. As to the failure of confidence in his friends, what can be said, unless by the way of reminder of the old truth that, by the blessing of heaven, wrongs be they, but deep enough, may chasten a human temper into something divine? George has been very great for the last three hours, pandering. I fancy what irony can be for. Your sister will not grudge him his lesson, though afforded at her expense. Yours affectionately, Maria Young. Wrongs, thought she. Maria goes too far when she speaks of wrongs. There was nothing in my note to bring such an expression in answer. It is going too far. This was but the irritability of a racked soul, needing to spend its agony somewhere, the remembrance of the conversation worth Maria held so lately, and of Maria's views of Philip's reaction to her, returned upon her, and her soul melted within her. She felt that Maria had understood her better than she did herself, and was justified in the words she had used. Under severe calamity, to be endured alone, evil thoughts sometimes come before good ones. Margaret was, for an hour or two, possessed with the bad spirit of defiance. Her mind sink back into what it had been in her childhood, when she had hidden herself in the lumber room, or behind the water tub for many hours to make the family uneasy, because she had been punished in the days when she bore every inflection that her father dared to try, with apparent concern rather than show to watchful eyes that she was moved, in the days when the slightest concussion would dissolve her stubbornness in an instant, but when, to get rid of a life of contradiction, she had had serious thoughts of cutting her throat, had gone to the kitchen door, to get the carving knife, and had been much disappointed to find the servants at dinner, and the knife tray out of reach. This spirit so long ago driven out by the genile influences of family love, by the religion of an expanding intellect, and the solace of appreciation. Now came back to inhabit the purified bosom which had been kept carefully swept and garnished. It was the motion of the spirit, uneasy, in its unfit abode, that showed itself by the shiver, the flushed cheek, the clenching hand, and the flashing eye. It kept whispering wicked things, I will baffle and deceive Maria. She shall withdraw her pity, and laugh at it with me. I defy Edward and Hester. They shall wonder how it is that my fancy alone is free, that my heart alone is untouched, that the storms of life pass over my head, and dare not lower. I will humble Philip, and convince him. But no, no, it would not do. The abode was too lowly and too pure for the evil spirit of defiance. The demon did not wait to be cast out, but as Margaret sat down in her chamber, alone with her lot, to face it as she might, the strange inmate escaped, and left her at least herself. Margaret was in a garnished amazement at the newness of the misery. She was suffering. She really fancied she had sympathized with Hester that dreadful night of hopes accident. She had then actually believed that she was entering into her sister's feelings. It had been as much like it as seeing a picture of one on the rack is like being racked. But Hester had not had so much cause for misery, for she never had to believe Edward unworthy. Her pride had been wounded at finding that her peace was no longer in her own power. But she had not been trifled with, duped. Here again, Margaret refused to believe. The fault was all her own. She had been full of herself, full of vanity, fancying without cause, but she was much to another when she was little. She was humbled now, and she no doubt deserved it. But how ineffably weak and mean did she appear in her own eyes? It was this witch clouded heaven to her at the moment that earth had become a desert. She felt so debased that she durced, not asked for strength, where she was wont to find it. If she had done one single wrong thing, she thought she could bear the consequences cheerfully, and seek support, and vigorously set about repairing the causes of her fault. But here it seemed to her that her whole state of mind had been low and selfish. It must be this sort of blindness, which had led her so far in so dearful a delusion, and if the whole condition of her mind had been low and selfish while her conscience, given her no hint of anything being amiss, where was she to begin to rectify her being? She felt wholly degraded. And then what a set of pictures rose up before her excited fancy, Philip going forth for a walk with her and Hester, after having just sealed a letter to Miss Bruce, carrying the consciousness of what he had been saying to the mistress of his heart, while she, Margaret, and suppose herself the chief object of his thought, and care. Again, Philip discussing her mind and character with Miss Bruce, as those of a friend, for whom he had a regard, or bestowing a passing imagination on how she would receive the intelligence of his engagement, perhaps he reserved the news till he could come down to Dearbrook, and call and tell her himself as one whose friendship deserved, that he should be the bearer of his own tidings, that footstep whose spring she had strangely considered her own signal of joy was not hers, but another's, that laugh. The recollection of which made her smile, even in these dreadful moments, was to echo in another's home. She was stripped of all her heart's treasure, of his tones, his ways, his thoughts, a treasure which she had lived upon without knowing it. She was stripped of it all, cast out, left alone, and he and all others would go on their ways, unaware that anything had happened. Let them do so. It was hard to bear up in solitude when self-respect was gone with all the rest, but it must be possible to live on, no matter how, if to live on was appointed. If not, there was death, which was better. These thoughts were not beneath one like Margaret. One who was religious as she, it requires time for religion to avail anything when self-respect is utterly broken down. The devote sufferer may surmount the pangs of persecution at the first onset, and wrestle with bodily pain, and calmly endure bereavement by death, but there is no power of faith by which a woman can attain, resignation under the agony of unrequited passion otherwise then by conflict long and terrible. Margaret laid down at last because her eyes were wary of seeing, and she would feign have shut out all sounds, the occasional flicker of a tiny blaze, however, and the fall of a cinder in the hearth. Served to lull her senses, and it was not long before she slept, but o' the horrors of that sleep, the lines of Maria's note stared her in the face, glaring, glowing, gigantic, sometimes she was trying to read them, and could not, though her life depended on them, now Mrs. Rowland had got a hold of them, and now they were thrown into the flames, but would not burn, and the letters grew red hot, then came the image of Philip, and that horror was mixed up with whatever was most ludicrous, when she was struggling for voice to speak to him, and she mocked her useless efforts. O how she struggled, tell some strong arm raised her, and some other voice murmured gently in her throbbing ear. Wake, my dear, wake up, Margaret. What is it, dear? Wake. Mother is at you, O mother. Have you come at last? murmured Margaret, sinking her head on Morris's shoulder. It was some moments before Margaret felt a warm tear fall upon her cheek, and heard Morris say, No, my dear, not yet. Your mother is in a better place than this, where we shall all rest with her at last, Miss Margaret. What is all this? said Margaret, raising herself, and looking round her. What did I mean about my mother? O Morris, my head is all confused, and I think I have been frightened. They were laughing at me, and when somebody came to help me, I thought it must be my mother. O Morris, it is a long while. I wish I was with her. Morris did not desire to hear what Margaret's dream had been. The immediate cause of Margaret's distress she did not know, but she had for some time suspected that which only one person in the world was aware of besides herself, the terrible secret of this household was no secret to her. She was experienced enough in love and its signs to know, without being told where love was absent and where it rested. She had not doubted, up to the return from the wedding trip, that all was right. But she had never been quite happy since. She had perceived no sign that either sister was aware of the truth. The countenance of their sisterly friendship was a proof that neither of them was, but she wished to avoid hearing the particulars of Margaret's dream, and all revelations which, in the weakness and confusion of an hour like this, she might be tempted to make. Morris withdrew from Margaret's clasp, moved softly across the room, gently put the red embers together in the grate, and lighted the lamp which stood on the table. I hope, whispered Margaret, trying to steal her shivering, that nobody heard me, but you. How came you to think of coming to me? My room being over this, you know, it was easy to hear the voice of a person in an uneasy sleep. I am glad I happened to be awake, so I put on my cloak and came. Morris did not say that Edward had heard this stifled cry also, and that she had met him on the stairs, coming to beg that she would see what could be done. Hester having slept through it, Margaret's need never knew that other ears than Morris's had heard her, thus had hoping Morris tactically agreed. Now, my dear, when I have warmed this flannel to put about your feet, you must go to sleep again. I will not leave you till daylight, till the house is near being a stirrer, so you may sleep without being afraid of bad dreams. I will rouse you if I see you disturbed. Now, no more talking, or we shall have the house up, and all this had better be between you and me. To satisfy Margaret, Morris lay down on the outside of the bed, warmly covered, and the nurse once more, as in the old days, felt her favorite child breathing quietly against her shoulder. Once more she wiped away the standing tears and prayed in her heart for the object of her care. If her prayer had had words, it would have been this. Thou hast been pleased to take to thyself the parents of these dear children, and surely thou wilt be therefore pleased to be to them as father and mother, or to raise up or spare to them such as may be so. This is what I would ask for myself, that I may be that comfort to them, thou knowest that a strange trouble hath entered this house, thou knowest for thine eyes seen beneath the face into the heart. As the sun shined into a locked chamber at noon, thou knowest what these young creatures knew not, make holy to them what thou knowest, let thy silence rest upon that which must not be spoken, let thy strength be supplied where temptation is hardest, let the innocence which has come forth from thine own hand be kept fit to appear in all the light of thy countenance. O let them never be seen thinking with shame before thee. Father, if thou hast made thy children to love one another for their good, let not love be a grief and a snare to such as these. Thou canst turn the hearts even of the wicked, turn the hearts of these thy dutiful children to love, where love may be all honor and no shame, so that they may have no more mysteries from each other. As I am sure they have none from thee, all who know them have doubtless asked thy blessing on their house, their health, their basket, and store. Let me ask it also on the workings of their hearts, since if their hearts be right, all is well or will be in thine own best time. When Margaret entered the breakfast room in the morning, she found her brother sketching the skaters of Dearbrook. While the tea was brewing, Hester was looking over her shoulder, laughing, as she recognized one after another of her neighbors in the act of skating, this one by the stoop, that by the formality, and the other by the coat flaps, flying out behind, no inquiries were made, not a word was said of health or spirits. It seems strange that sufferers have not yet found means to stop the practice of such inquiries, a practice begun in kindness, and carried on in the spirit of hospitality, but productive of great annoyance to all, but those who do not need such inquiries, the healthful and the happy. There are multitudes of invalid, who can give no comfortable answer, respecting their health, and who are averse from giving an uncomfortable one, and for whom nothing is there for left but evasion. There are only too many sufferers to whom it is irksome to be questioned about their hours of sleeplessness, or whom do not choose to have it known that they have not slept. The unpleasant old custom of pressing people to eat has gone out. The sooner the other observance of hospitality is allowed to follow it, the better. All who like to tell of illness and sleeplessness can do so, and those who have reasons for reserve upon such points, as Margaret had this morning, can keep their own counsel. At the earliest possible hour that the adequate of Dearbrook would allow, there was a knock at the door. That must be Mrs. Rottland, exclaimed Hester. One may know that woman's temper by her knock, so consequential, and yet so sharp. Margaret, love, you can run upstairs. There is time yet, if you do not wish to see her. Why should I, said Margaret, looking up with the calmness which perplexed Hester? This is either ignorance, thought she, or such patience as I wish I had. It was Mrs. Rottland, and she was come to tell what Hester feared Margaret might not be able to bear to hear. She was attended only by the little fellow who was so fond of riding on, Uncle Philip's shoulder. It was rather lucky that Ned came as Margaret was furnished with something to do in taking off his worst gloves and rubbing his little red hands between her own. And then she could say a great many things to him about learning to slide, and the difficulty of keeping on the snowman's nose, and about her wonder that they had not thought of putting a pipe into his mouth. Before this subject was finished, Mrs. Rottland turned full round to Margaret and said that the purpose of her visit was to explain fully something that her poor mother had let drop yesterday to Mr. Hope. Her mother was not what she had been, though indeed she had always been rather apt to let out things that she should not. She found that Mr. Hope had been informed by her mother of her brother Philip's engagement to a charming young lady who would indeed be a great ornament to the connexion. I assure you, said Margaret, my brother is very careful and always remembers that he is upon honor as to what he hears in a sick room. He has not mentioned it. Oh, then it is safe. We are much obliged to Mr. Hope. I am sure, I said to my mother, my dear ma'am, but I must mention, said Margaret, that the news was abroad before. I must beg that you will not suppose my brother has spoken of it. If you should find that everybody knows it, I heard it from Dr. Levitt yesterday, about the same time, I fancy, that Mr. Hope was hearing it from Mrs. Enderby. Hester sat perfectly still to avoid all danger of showing that this was news to her. How very strange exclaimed the lady. I often say there is no keeping anything quiet in Dearbrook. Do you know where Dr. Levitt got his information? No, said Margaret, smiling. Dr. Levitt generally knows what he is talking about. I daresay he had it from some good authority. The young lady is at Rome, I find. Are you acquainted with Ms. Bruce, asked Hester, thinking at time, to relief Margaret of her share of the conversation, Margaret started a little on finding that her sister had heard the news. Was it possible that her brother and sister had been afraid to tell her? No, it was a piece of Edward's professional discretion. His wife alone had a right to the news he heard among his patients. Oh yes, replied Mrs. Rowland. I have long loved Mary as a sister. Their early attachment made a sister of her to me an age ago. It has been a long engagement then, said Hester, glad to say anything which might occupy Mrs. Rowland as Margaret's lips were now turning very white. Not now, my dear, Margaret was heard to say to little Ned, over whom she was bending her head as she stood by her side. Stand still here, she continued, with wonderful cheerfulness, of tone. I want to hear your mama tell us about Uncle Philip, with the effort her strength rallied and the paleness was gone before Mrs. Rowland had turned round. How long the engagement has existed, said the lady. I cannot venture to say. I speak only of the attachment. Young people understand their own affairs, you know, and have their little mysteries, and laugh behind their backs, I dare say, at our ignorance of what they are about. Philip has been sly enough as to this I own, but I must say I had my suspicions. I was pretty confident of his being engaged from the day that he told me in the summer that he fully agreed with me that it was time he was settled. How differently some people understood that, thought Hester and Margaret at the same moment. Is Mr. Underby at Rome now? asked Hester. No, he is hard at work, studying law. He is really going to apply to a profession now. Not that it would be necessary, for Mary has a very good fortune, but Mary wishes so much that he should, like a sensible girl as she is. It is what I urged when he consulted me, thought Margaret. She had had little idea whose counsel she was following up. We shall soon hear of his setting off for the continent. However, I have no doubt, said the lady, to bring home his bride, observed Margaret calmly. Why, I do not know that. The bruises will be returning early in the spring, and I should like the young people to marry in town, that we may have them here for their wedding trip. How you do hug me, cried the laughing little boy, around whom Margaret's arm was passed? Have I made you worn at last? asked Margaret. If not, you may go and stand by the fire. No, indeed, we must be going, said Mama. As I find this news abroad, I must call on Mrs. Gray. She will take offense at once, if she hears it from anybody but me. So much for people's husbands being partners in business. Margaret was now fully qualified to comprehend her sister's irritability. Every trifle annoyed her. The rustle of Mrs. Rollins' handsome cloak almost made her sick, and she thought the hall, clock, would never have done striking twelve. When conscious of this, she put a strong check upon herself. Hester stood by the mantelpiece, looking into the fire, and taking no notice of the mutual silence upon this piece of news. At last she muttered, in a soliloquisting tone, Do not know, but I am not sure this news is true, after all. After a moment's pause, Margaret replied, I think that is not very reasonable. What must one suppose of everybody else, if it is not true? Hester was going to say, What must we think of him, if it is this? But she checked herself. She should not have said what she said. She felt this, and only replied, Just so, yes, it must be true. Margaret's heart once more sank within her at this corroboration of her own remark. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 of Dearbrook This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dearbrook by Harriet Martinu, Chapter 22 The Meadows in Winter Hester was tired of her snow boots before she saw them. She had spent more trouble on them than they were worth, and it was three weeks yet before they came. It was now past the middle of February, rather late in the season for snow boots to arrive, but then there was Margaret's consolatory idea, that they would be ready for the next year's snow. It is not too late yet, said Mr. Hope. They are skating every day in the middle. It will soon be over. So do not lose your opportunity. Come, let us go today. Not unless the sun shines out, said Hester, looking with a shiver up at the windows. Yes, today, said Edward, because I have time today to go with you. You have seen me quiz other skaters. You must go and see other skaters quiz me. What points of your skating do they get hold of to quiz? Asked Margaret. Why I hardly know, we shall see. Is it so very good, then? No, I believe the worst of my skating is, that is totally devoid of every sort of expression. That is just the true account of it, he continued, as his wife laughed. I do not square my elbows, nor set my coat flying, nor rear, but neither is there any grace. I just go straight on, and as far as I know, nobody ever bids any other body look like me. So you bid your own family come and look at you, but how are your neighbors to quiz you if they do not observe you? Oh, that is only a bit of an anethesis for effect. My last account is the true one, as you will see. I shall come in for you at 12. By 12, the sun had shone out, and the ladies, booted, furred, and veiled, were ready to encounter the risks and rigors of the ice and snow. As they opened the hall door, they met on the steps a young woman, who was just raising her hand to the knocker. Her errand was soon told. Please, ma'am, I heard that you wanted to serve him. Is that true, said Hester? Where do you come from, from any place near, so that you can call again? Surely, said Margaret. It is Mr. Enderby's Susan. Yes, miss, I have been living with Mrs. Enderby. Mrs. Enderby will give me a good character, ma'am. Why are you leaving her, Susan? Oh, ma'am, only because she is gone. Gone? Where? What do you mean? Gone to live at Mrs. Rollins, ma'am. You didn't know? It was very sudden, but she moved yesterday, ma'am. And we were paid off, except Phoebe, who stays to wait upon her. I am left in charge of the house, ma'am, so I can step here again, if you wish it, sometime when you are not going out. Do so, anytime this evening, or before noon tomorrow. Did you know of this, Edward? Said his wife as they turned the corner. Not I. I think Mrs. Rollins is mistaken in saying that nothing can be kept secret in Dearbrook. I do not believe anybody has dreamed of the poor old lady giving up her house. Very likely, Mrs. Rollins never dreamed of it herself. Till the day it was done, observed Margaret. Oh, yes, she did, said Mr. Hope. I understand now the old lady's agitation, and the expression she dropped about last times nearly a month ago. By the by, that was the last time you saw her, was it not? Yes, the next day when I called, I was told that she was better, and that she would send when she wished to see me again, to save me the trouble of calling when she might be asleep. She has been asleep or engaged every time I have inquired at the door of late, observed Margaret. I hope she is doing nothing but what she likes in this change of plan. I believe she finds most peace and quiet in doing what her daughter likes, said Mr. Hope. Here, Margaret, where are you going? This is the gate. I believe you have none to your way about yet. I will follow you immediately, said Margaret. I will only go a few steps to see if this can really be true. Before the hopes had half crossed the metal, Margaret joined them, perfectly convinced. The large bills in the closed windows of Mrs. Underby's house bore, to be let or sold, too plainly to leave any doubt. As the skating season was nearly over, all the skaters in Dearbrook were eager to make use of their remaining opportunities, and the banks of the brook, and of the river were full of their wives, sisters, and children. Sydney Gray was busy cutting figures of eight before the eyes of his sisters, and in defiance of his mother's careful warnings not to go here, and not to venture there, and not to attempt to cross the river. Mr. Hope begged his wife to engage Mrs. Gray in conversation, so that Sydney might be left free for a while, and promised to keep near the boy for half an hour, during which time Mrs. Gray might amuse herself with watching other and better performers further on. As might have been foreseen, however, Mrs. Gray could not talk of nothing but Mrs. Underby's removal, of which she had not been informed till this morning, and which she had intended to discuss in Hester's house on leaving the meadows. It appeared that Mrs. Underby had been agitated, and variable spirits for some time, apparently wishing to say something that she did not say, and expressing a stronger regard than ever in her old friends, a regular sign that had come, act of tyranny or of rudeness might speedily be expected from Mrs. Rowland. The Grays were in the midst of their speculations, as to what might be coming to pass. When Sydney burst in with the news that Mrs. Underby's house was to be let or sold, Mrs. Gray had mounted her spectacles first, to verify the fact, and then sent Alice over to inquire, and had immediately put on her bonnet and cloak, and called on her old friend at Mrs. Rowland's. She had been told at the door that Mrs. Underby was too much fatigued with her removal to see any visitors, so I shall try again tomorrow, concluded Mrs. Gray. How does Mr. Hope think her spasms have been lately, asked Sophia. He has not seen her for nearly a month, so I suppose they are better. I fear that does not follow my dear, said Mrs. Gray, winking. Some people are afraid of your husband's politics. You are away. And I know Mrs. Rowland has been saying and doing things on that score, which you had better not hear about. I have my reasons for thinking that the old ladies spasms are far from being better, but Mrs. Rowland has been so busy crying up from those drops of hers, that cure everything, and praising her maid, that I have a great idea your husband will not be admitted to see her, till she has passed care, and her daughter thoroughly frightened. Mr. Hope had never been forgiven, you know, for marrying into our connection so decidedly, and I really don't know what would have been the consequence. If, as we once fancied likely, Mr. Philip and Margaret had thought of each other, Margaret was happily out of hearing, a fresh blow had just been struck. She had looked to Mrs. Underby for information on the subject which forever occupied her, and on which she felt that she must know more or sink. She had been much disappointed at being refused admission to the old lady, time after time. Now all hope of free access and private conversation was over. She had set it as an object before her to see Mrs. Underby, and learn as much of Philip's affair as his mother chose to offer. Now this object was lost, and nothing remained to be done or hoped. For it was too certain that Mrs. Underby's friends would not be allowed, unrestrained intercourse with her in her daughter's house. For some little time, Margaret had been practicing the device. So familiar to the unhappy of carrying off mental agitation by bodily exertion, she was now eager to be doing something more active than walking by Mrs. Gray's side, listening to ideas which she knew just as well without there being spoken. Mrs. Gray's thoughts about Mrs. Rollin and Mrs. Rollin's ideas of Mrs. Gray might always be anticipated by those who knew the ladies. Esther and Margaret had learned to think of something else, while the sort of comment was proceeding, and to resume their attention when it came to an end. Margaret had withdrawn from it now, and was upon the ice with Sidney. Why, cousin Margaret, you don't mean that you are afraid of walking on the ice, cried Sidney, balancing herself on the seals? Mr. Hope, what do you think of that? He called out, as Hope skimmed past them. Cousin Margaret is afraid of going on the ice. What does she think can happen to her, asked Mr. Hope, his last words vanishing in the distance? It looks so gray and clear and dark, Sidney. Poo, it is thick enough between you and the water. You would have to get down a good way, I can tell you, before you could get drowned. But it is so slippery. What of that? What else did you expect with ice? If you tumble, you can get up again. I have been down three times this morning. Well, that is a great consolation, certainly. Which way do you want me to walk? Oh, anyway, across the river to the other bank, if you like. You will remember, next summer, when we come this way in a boat, that you have walked across the very place. That is true, said Margaret. I will go if Sophia will go with me. There is no use in asking any of them, said Sidney. They stand, dawdling and looking, till their lips and noses are all blue and red, and they are never up to any fun. I will try as far as that pole first, said Margaret. I should not care if they had not swept away all the snow here, so as to make the ice look so gray and slippery. That pole, said Sidney, why that pole is put up on purpose to show that you must not go there. Don't you see how the ice is broken all around it? Oh, I know how it is, that you are so stupid and cowardly today. You lived in Birmingham all your winters, and you've never been used to walk on the ice. I'm glad you have found that out at last. Now look, I am really going. What a horrid sensation, she cried, as she cautiously put down one foot before the other on the transparent floor. She did better when she reached the middle of the river, where the ice had been ground by the skates. Now you would get on beautifully, said Sidney. If you would not look at your feet, why can't you look at the people, and the trees opposite? Suppose I should step into a hole. There are no holes, trust me for the holes. What do you flinch so far? The ice always cracks, so, in one part or another, I thought you have been shot. So did I, said she, laughing. But Sidney, we are a long way from both banks. To be sure, that is what we came for. Margaret looked somewhat timidly around her, an indistinct idea, fitted through her mind. How glad she should be, to be accidentally innocently drowned, and scarcely recognizing it. She proceeded. You get on well, shouted Mr. Hope, as he flew past, on his return up the river. There now, said Sidney, presently. It is a very little way to the bank. I will just take a trip up and down, and come for you again, to go back, and then we will try whether we can't get Cousin Hester over, when she sees you have been saved there and back. This was a sight which Hester was not destined to behold. Margaret had an ignorant partiality for the ice, which was the least gray. And when left to herself, she made four apart, which looked less like glass. Nobody particularly heated her. She slipped and recovered herself. She slipped again, and fell, hearing the ice crack under her. Every time she attempted to rise, she found the place too slippery to keep her feet. Next, there was a hole under her. She felt the cold water. She was sinking through. She caught at the surrounding edges. They broke away. There was a cry from the bank, just as the death cold water seemed to close all around her. And she felt the ice like a heavy weight above her. One thought of joy, it will soon be all over now, was the only experience she was conscious of. In two minutes more, she was breathing the air again, sitting on the bank, and helping to wring out her clothes. How much may pass in two minutes? Mr. Hope was coming up the river again. When he saw a bustle on the bank, and slipped off his skates. To be ready, to be of service. He ran as others ran, and arrived just when a dark blue dress was emerging from the water, and then a dripping fur tippet, and then the bonnet. Making the gradual revelation to him who it was. For one instant, he covered his face with his hands, half hiding in an expression of agony, so intense that a bystander who saw it said, take comfort sir, she has been in but a very short time, she'll recover, I don't doubt. Hope leaped to the bank, and received her from the arms of the men who had drawn her out. The first thing she remembered was hearing, in the lowest tone she could conceive of. Oh God, my Margaret, and a girl in which she felt rather than heard. Then there were many warm and busy hands about her head, removing her bonnet, shaking out her hair, and chafing her temples. She sighed out, oh dear, and she heard that soft groan again. In another moment she roused herself, sat up, saw Hope's convulsed countenance, and Sidney standing motionless and deadly pale. I shall never forgive myself, she heard her brother exclaim. Oh I am very well said she, remembering all about it. The air feels quite warm, give me my bonnet I can walk home. Can you, the sooner the better then, said Hope, raising her. She could stand very well, but the water was everywhere, dripping from her clothes. Many bystanders employed themselves in ringing them out, and in the meanwhile, Margaret inquired for her sister, and Hope she did not know of the accident. Haster did not know of it, for Margaret happened to be the first to think of anyone by herself. Sidney was flying off to report. When she was stopped and recalled, you must go to her, Edward, said Margaret, or she will be frightened. You can do me no good, Sidney will go home with me, or anyone here, I am sure. Twenty people stepped forward at the word. Margaret parted with her heavy fur to bet, accepted a long cloth cloth from a poor woman. To throw over her wet clothes, selected Mr. Jones, the butcher for her escort sent Sidney forward with directions to Morris to warm her bed. And then she set forth homeward. Mr. Hope and half a dozen more would see her across the ice, and by the time she had reached the other bank, she was able to walk very much as if nothing had happened. Mr. Hope had perfectly recovered his composure before he reached the somewhat distant pond where Haster and the Grace were watching, sliding as good as could be seen within twenty miles. It had reached perfection, like anything else in Dearbrook. What? Tired already? said Haster to her husband. What have you done with your skates? Oh, I have left them somewhere, there, I suppose. He drew her arm within his own. Come, my dear, let us go home. Margaret is gone. Gone? Why? Is not she well? It is not so very cold. She has got wet, and she has got wet. And she has gone home to warm herself. Haster did not wait to speak again to the Grace when she comprehended that her sister had been in the river. Her husband was obliged to forbid her walking so fast, and assured her all the way that there was nothing to fear. Haster reproached him for his coolness. You need not reproach me, said he. I shall never cease to reproach myself for letting her go where she did, and yet his heart told him that he had only acted according to his deliberate design of keeping aloof from all Margaret's pursuits, and amusements that were not shared with her sister. And as for the risk, he had seen fifty people walking across the ice this very morning. Judging by the event, however, he very sincerely declared that he should never forgive himself for having left her. When they reached home, Margaret was quite warm and comfortable, and her hair dying rapidly under Morse's hands. Haster was convinced that everybody might die as usual. Margaret herself came downstairs to tea, and the only consequence of the accident seemed to be that Charles was kept very busy opening the door to inquiries how Miss Ibbotson was this evening. It made hope uneasy to perceive how much Margaret remembered of what had passed around her in the midst of the bustle of the morning. If she was still aware of some circumstances that she mentioned, might she not retain others, the words extorted from him, the frantic action which he now blushed to remember? Brother, said she, what was the meaning of something that I heard someone say, just as I sat up on the bank? There is a balk for a doctor. He is balked of a body in his own house. Oh, Margaret, cried her sister, who sat looking at her all the evening as if they had been parted for ten years? You dreamed that. It was a fancy. Think what a state your poor head was in. It may have a few strange imaginations left in it still. May it not, Edward? This is not one, he replied. She heard very accurately. What did they mean? There is a resort abroad without me, arising out of the old Prejudice about dissection. Some of my neighbors think that dissecting is the employment and the passion of my life, and that I rob the churchyard as often as anybody is buried. Oh, Edward, how frightful, how ridiculous. It is very disagreeable, my dear. I am taunted with this wherever I go. What is to be done? We must wait till the Prejudices against me die out. But I see that we shall have to wait some time, for before one suspicion is given up, another rises. Since that unhappy election, said Hester, sighing, What a strange thing it is that men like you should be no better treated. Here is Mrs. Underby, taken out of your hands, and your neighbor is inspecting and slandering you, whose commonest words they are not worthy to repeat. My dear Hester says he, in a tone of serious remonstrance, That is rather a wife-like way of putting the case to be sure, said Margaret, smiling. But in as far as it is true, the matter surely seizes to be strange. Good men do not come into the world to be what the world calls fortunate. But to be something far better, the best men do not use the means to be rich, to be praised by their neighbors, to be out of the way of trouble. And if they will not use the means, it does not become them. Nor their wives to be discouraged at losing their occupation, or being slandered or suspected as dangerous people. Edward's smile thanked her, and so did her sister's kiss. But Hester looked grave again when she said, I suppose we shall know sooner or later why it is that good people are not to be happy here, and that the more they love one another, the more struggles and sorrows they have to undergo. Do we not know something of it already, said Hope, after a pretty long pause? It is not to put us off from the too vehement desire of being what we commonly call happy. By the time higher things become more interesting to us than this, we begin to find that is given to us to put our own happiness under our feet. In reaching forward to something better, we become, by natural consequence, practiced in this, forgetful of the things that are behind. And if the practice be painful, what then? We shall not quarrel with it. Surely, unless we are willing to exchange what we have gained for money and praise and animal spirits, shutting in an abject mind. Oh no, no, said Hester. But yet there are troubles. She stopped short on observing Margaret's quivering lip. There are troubles I own, which it is difficult to classify. An intreprent, said her husband. We can only struggle through them, taking the closet. Heed our innocence. But these affairs of ours, these mistakes of my neighbors, are not of that sort. They are intelligible enough, and need not therefore trouble as much. Hope was right in his suspicion of the accuracy of Margaret's memory, his tones, his words that sunk deep into her heart, her innocent heart in which everything that entered it became safe and pure as itself. Oh God, my Margaret, sounded there like music. What a heart he has, she thought. I was very selfish to fancy him reserved, and I am glad to know that my brother loves me so. If it is such a blessing to be his sister, how happy must Hester be in spite of everything. God has preserved my life, and he has given these two to each other. And oh, how he has shown me that they love me. I will rouse thyself and try to suffer less. End of Chapter 22 A thousand times before the morning she had said to herself, in dreams and in meditation, that she had failed in this relation, the oldest and till of late the dearest. She shuddered to thank how nearly she had lost Margaret, and to imagine what her state of mind would have been if her sister had now been beyond the reach of the voice, the eye, the hand, which she was resolved, should henceforth, dispense to her nothing but the love and the benefits she deserved. She recollected that, to a few was granted such a warning of the death of beloved ones. To few was it permitted to feel, while it was yet not too late, the agony of remorse for pain inflicted, for gratifications withheld, for selfish neglect for insufficient love. She remembered vividly what her emotions had been as a child, unfinding her canary dead in its cage, how she had wept all day, not so much for its loss, as from the recollection of the many times when she had failed to cheer it with sugar and grounzel and play, and of the number of hours when she had needlessly covered up its cage in impatience at its song, shutting out its sunshine and changing the brightest seasons of its little life into dull night. If it had been thus with her sister, many a hasty word, many an unjust thought came back now to ring her heart when she imagined Margaret sinking in the water, a soft breathing on which our life so marvelously hangs, stopped without struggle or cry, how near, how very near had death in his hovering stooped towards their home, how strange, while treading thus precariously, the film which covers the abyss into which almost someday drop, and which may crack under the feet of any one at any hour, how strange to be engrossed with petty jealousies, with selfish cares, and to be unmindful of the great interests of existence, the exercises of mutual love and trust. Thank God it was not too late. Margaret lived to be cherished, to be consoled for her private griefs, as far as consolation might be possible. To have her innocent affections redeemed from the waste to which they now seem doomed, gathered gradually up again, and knit into the interests of the home life in which she was externally bearing her part. Full of these thoughts, and forgetting how often her best feelings had melted away beneath the transient heats kindled by the little provocations of daily life, Hester now believed that Margaret would never have to suffer from her more, that their love would be henceforth like that of angels, like that which it would have been if Margaret had really died yesterday. It was yet early when, in the full enjoyment of these undoubting thoughts, Hester stood by her sister's bedside. Margaret was still sleeping, but with that expression of weariness in her face, which had of late become too common. Hester gazed long at the countenance, grieving at the languor and anxiety which it revealed. She had not taken Margaret's suffering to heart. She had been unfeeling, strangely forgetful. She would minister to her now with reverent care. As she thus resolved, she bent down and kissed her forehead. Margaret started, shook off sleep, felt quite well, would rise. There was no reason why she should not rise at once. When she entered the breakfast-room, Hester was there, placing her chair by the fire, and inventing indulgences for her, as if she had been an invalid. It was in vain that Margaret protested that no effects of the accident remained. Not a single sensation of chill she was to be taken care of, and she submitted. She was touched by her sister's gentle offices, and felt more like being free and at peace, more like being lifted up out of her woe, than she had yet done since the fatal hour which rendered her conscious and wretched. Breakfast went on cheerfully. The fire blazed bright, the rain pelting against the windows gave welcome promise of exemption from inquiries in person, and from having to relate many times over the particulars of the event of yesterday. Hester was beautiful in all the glow of her sensibilities, and Edward was for this morning in no hurry. No blue or yellow-backed pamphlet lay beside his plate, and when his last cup was empty, he still sat talking as if he forgot that he should have to go out in the rain. In the midst of a laugh, which had prevented their hearing, a premonitory knock, the door opened, and Mrs. Gray's twin daughters entered, looking half shy, half eager. Never before had they been known to come out in heavy rain, but they were so very desirous to see Cousin Margaret, after she had been in the water, and Sidney had held the great gig umbrella over himself and them as Papa would not hear of Sidney not coming. He was standing outside the door now, under the large umbrella, for he said nothing should make him come in and see Cousin Margaret. He would never see her again, if he could help it. Sidney had said another thing, such a wicked thing. Mama was quite ashamed of him. Mr. Hope thought they had better not repeat anything wicked that anyone had said, but Hester considered it possible that it might not appear so wicked if spoken as if left to the imagination. What Sidney had said was that if Cousin Margaret had been really drowned, he would have drowned himself before dinnertime. Mary added that she heard him utter that he was almost ready to do it now. Mr. Hope thought that must be the reason why he was standing out at present, to catch all this rain, which was very nearly enough to drown anybody, and he went to bring him in, but Sidney was not to be caught. He was on the watch, and the moment he saw Mr. Hope's coat instead of his sister's cloaks, he ran off with the speed which defied pursuit, and was soon out of sight with the large umbrella. His cousins were sorry that he felt the event so painfully, and that he could not come in and confide his trouble of mind to them. Hope resolved not to let the morning pass without seeing him and, if possible, bringing him home to dinner with William Levitt to take off the awkwardness. What are we to do, exclaimed Sidney's little sisters? He has carried off the great umbrella. I cannot conveniently send you just at present, said Hester, so you had better put off your cloaks and amuse yourselves here till the rain abates, or someone comes for you. We will speak to Miss Young to excuse your not being with her. Oh, Cousin Margaret, said the children, if you will speak to Miss Young, she will give us any sort of a holiday. She minds everything you say. She will let us stop all day and dine here, if you ask her. Hester said she could not have them stay all day. She did not mean to have them to dinner, and the little girls both looked up in her face at once to find out what made her speak so angrily. They saw Cousin Margaret glancing the same way, too. Do you know, Mary, said Vanny, you have not said a word yet of what Miss Young bade you say? Mary told Cousin Margaret that Miss Young was wishing very much to see her, and would be pleased if Margaret would mention what evening she would spend with her. A nice long evening, Mary added, to begin as soon as it grew dark, and on till nobody knew when. Maria had better come here, observed Hester quickly, and then someone else besides Margaret may have the benefit of her conversation. She seems to forget that anybody cares for her besides Margaret. Tell Miss Young she had better fix an evening to come here. I do not think she will do that, said both the little girls. Why not? She is very lame now, replied Mary, and she cannot walk further than just to school and back again. And besides remarked Vanny, she wants to talk with Cousin Margaret alone, I am sure. They have such a great deal of talk to do whenever they are together. We watch them sometimes in the schoolroom, through the window, when we are at play in the garden, and their heads nod at one another in this way. I believe they never leave off for a minute. We often wonder what it can be all about. Ah, my dears, you and I had better not ask, said Hester. I have no doubt it is better that we should not know. Margaret looked beseechingly at her sister. Hester replied to her look. I mean, would I say, Margaret, you cannot but be aware how much more you have to communicate to Maria than to me. Our conversation soon comes to a stand, and I must say I have had much occasion to admire your great talent for silence of late. Maria has still to learn your accomplishments in that direction, I fancy. Margaret quietly told the little girls that she would write a note to Maria with her answer. You must not do that, said Fanny. Miss Young said you must not. That was the reason why she sent you a message instead of a note that you might not have to write back again when a message would do as well. Margaret nevertheless sat down at the writing-table. You go to-day, of course, said Hester, in the voice of forced calmness which Margaret knew so well. The little girls may as well stay and dine after all, as I shall otherwise be alone in the evening. I shall not go to-day, said Margaret, without turning her head. You will not stay away on my account, of course. I have said that I shall go on Thursday. Thursday? That is almost a week hence. Now, Margaret, do not be pedish, and deny yourself what you know you like best. Do not be a baby and quarrel with your supper. I had far rather you should go to-night, and have done with it, than that you should wait till Thursday, thanking all day long, till then, that you are obliging me by staying with me. I cannot bear that. I wish I knew what you could bear, said Margaret, in a voice which the children could not hear. I wish I knew how I could save you pain. The moment the words were out, Margaret was sorry for them. She was aware that the best kindness to her sister was to take as little notice as possible of her discontents, to turn the conversation, to avoid scenes or any remarks which could bring them on. It was hard. Sometimes it seemed impossible to speak calmly and lightly, while every pulse was throbbing, and every fiber trembling with fear and wretchedness. But yet it was best to assume such calmness and lightness. Margaret now asked the little girls, while she sealed her note, how their patchwork was getting on. Thus far the handsomest patchwork quilt she had ever seen. Oh, it will be far handsomer before it is done. Mrs. Howell has found up some beautiful pieces of print for us, remnants of her first morning gown after she was married, and of her poor dear Howell's last dressing gown, as she says. We were quite sorry to take those, but she would put them up for us, and she is to see the quilt sometimes in return. But Miss Nair's parcel was the best cousin, Margaret, such a quantity of nankine for the ground, and the loveliest chints for the center medallion. Is not it, Mary? Oh, lovely! Do you know, cousin Margaret, Miss Nair's and Miss Flint both cried when they heard how nearly you were drowned? I am sure I had no idea they would have cared so much. Nor I, my dear. But I dare say they feel kindly towards anyone saved from great danger. Not everybody, said Fanny. Only you, because you are a great favorite. Everybody says you are a great favorite. Papa cried last night, just a little tear or two, as gentlemen do, when he told Mama how sorry everybody in Dearbrook would have been if you had died. There, that will do, said Hester, struggling between her better and worse feelings, her remorse of this morning and her present jealousy, and losing her temper between the two. You have said quite enough about what you do not understand, my dears. I cannot have you make so free with your cousin's name, children. The little girls looked at each other in wonder, and Hester thought she detected a lurking smile. I see what you were thinking, children. Yes, look, the rain is nearly over, and then you may go and tell Mrs. Howell and Miss Nair's, and all the people you see on your way home, that they had better attend to their own concerns than pretend to understand what would have been felt if your cousin had been drowned. I wonder at their impertinence. Are you an earnest cousin, Hester? Shall we go and tell them so? No, she is not an earnest, said Margaret. But before you go, Morris shall give you some pieces for your quilt, some very pretty ones, such as she knows I can spare. Margaret rang, and Morris took the children upstairs, to choose for themselves out of Margaret's drawer of pieces. When the door had closed behind them, Margaret said, Sister, do not make me wish that I had died under the ice yesterday. Margaret, how dare you say anything so wicked! If it be wicked, God forgive me. I was wretched enough before. I would feign have never come to life again, and now you almost make me believe that you would have been best pleased if I never had. At this moment Hope entered. He had left them in a far different mood. It made him breathless to see his wife's face of passion and Margaret's of woe. Hear her, exclaimed Hester. She says I should have been glad to have lost her yesterday. Have mercy on me, cried Margaret, in excessive agitation. You oppress me beyond what I can bear. I cannot bear on as I used to do. My strength is gone, and you give me none. You take away what I had. Will you hear me spoken to in this way, cried Hester, turning to her husband? I will. Margaret's emotion prevented her hearing this, or caring who was by. She went on. You leave me nothing, nothing but yourself, and you abuse my love for you. You warn me against love, against marriage. You chill my very soul with terror at it. I have found a friend in Maria, and you poison my comfort in my friendship, and insult my friend. There is not an infant in a neighbor's house, but you become jealous of it the moment I take it in my arms. There's not a flower in your garden, not a book on my table, that you will let me love in peace. How ungenerous! While you have one to cherish, and one who cherishes you, that you will have me lonely, that you quarrel with all who show regard to me, that you refuse me the least solace when my heart is breaking with its loneliness. Oh, it is cruel. Will you hear this, Edward? I will, because it is the truth. For once, Hester, you must hear another's mind. You have often told your own. God knows why I was saved yesterday, murmured Margaret, for a more desolate creature does not breathe. Hopelying against the wall, Hester relieved her torment of mind with reproaches of Margaret. You do not trust me, she cried. It is you who make me miserable. You go to others for the comfort you ought to seek in me. He placed that confidence in others which ought to be mine alone. You are cheered when you learn that the commonest gossips in Dearbrook care about you, and you set no value on your own sister's feelings for you. You have faith and charity for people out of doors, and mistrust and misconstruction for those at home. I am the injured one, Margaret, not you. Margaret said hope. Your sister speaks for herself. I think that you are the injured one, as Hester herself will soon agree. So far from having anything to reproach you with, I honor your forbearance, unremitting till this hour. I mourn that we cannot, if we would, console you in return. But whatever I can do shall be done. Your friendships, your pursuits, shall be protected. If we persecute your affections at home, I will take care that you are allowed their exercise abroad. Rely upon me, and do not thank yourself utterly lonely while you have a brother. I have been very selfish, said Margaret, recovering herself at the first word of kindness. Wretchedness makes me selfish, I think. She raised herself up on the sofa, and timidly held out her hand to her sister. Hester thrust it away. Margaret uttered a cry of agony, such as had never been heard from her since her childhood. Hope fell on the floor. He had fainted at the sound. Even now there was no one but Morris who understood it. Margaret reproached herself bitterly for her selfishness, for her loss of the power of self-control. Hester's remorse, however greater in degree, was of its usual kind, strong and brief. She repeated, as she had done before, that she made her husband wretched, that she should never have another happy moment, that she wished he had never seen her, for the rest of the day she was humbled, contrite, convinced that she should give way to her temper no more. Her eyes filled when her husband spoke tenderly to her, and her conduct to Margaret was one act of supplication. But a lesser degree of this same kind of penitence had produced no permanent good effect before, and there was no security that the present paroxysm would have a different result. Morris had seen that the children were engaged upstairs when she came down at Margaret's silent summons to help to revive her master. When she saw that there had been distress before there was illness, she took her part. She resolved that no one but herself should hear his first words, and sent the ladies away when she saw that his consciousness was returning. All the world might have heard his first words. He recovered himself with a vigorous effort, swallowed a glass of wine, and within a few minutes was examining a patient in the waiting room. There the little girls saw him as they passed the half-open door on their way out with their treasure of chants and print, and having heard some bustle below, they carried home word that they believed Mr. Hope had been doing something to somebody which had made somebody faint, and Sophia, shuddering, observed how horrid it must be to be a surgeon's wife. CHAPTER XXIV Maria Young's lodging at the farriers had one advantage over many better dwellings. It was pleasanter in winter than in summer. There was little to find fault with in the tiny sitting room after candles were lighted. The fire burned clear in the grate, and when the screen was up there were no droughts. This screen was quite a modern improvement when Fanny and Mary Gray had experienced the pleasure of surprising Sophia with the token of sisterly affection in the shape of a piece of India rubber, and their mother with the token of filial affection in the form of a cotton-box, they were unwilling to stop and looked round to see whether they could not present somebody with the token of some other sort of affection. Sophia was taken into their counsels, and she, being aware of how Miss Young's candle flared when the wind was high, devised this screen. The carpenter made the frame, Sidney covered it with canvas and black paper for a ground, and the little girls pasted on it all the drawings and prints they could muster. Here was the dargle, an everlasting waterfall that looked always the same in the sunny-colored print. There was Morland's woodcutter, with his tall figure, his pipe, his dog, and his faggot, with the snow lying all around him. Two or three cathedrals were interspersed and, in the midst of them, and larger than any of them, a silhouette of Mr. Gray with the eyelash wonderfully like, and the wart upon his nose not to be mistaken. Then there was Charles I, taking leave of his family, and on either side of this, an evening primrose in watercolors by Mary and ahead of terror, with a square mouth and starting eyes in crayon by Fanny. Mrs. Gray produced some gay border which the paper-hanger had left over when the attics were last furnished, and Sidney cut out in white paper a huntsman with his whip in the air, a fox, a gate, and two hounds. Mr. Gray pleaded that, having contributed his face, he had done all that could be expected of him. Nevertheless he brought home one day on his return for market, a beautiful stream of time, which made the children dance round their screen. It was settled at first that this would nobly ornament the whole of one side, but it popped into Sidney's head just as he was falling asleep one night. How pretty it would be to stick it around with the planets. So the planets were cut out in white and shaded with India ink. There was no mistaking Saturn with his ring or Jupiter with his moons. At length all was done, and the cook was glad to hear that no more paste would be wanted, and the little girls might soon leave off giggling when Miss Young asked them in the schoolroom why they were jogging one another's elbows. Mr. Gray spared one of his men to deposit the precious piece of handiwork at Miss Young's lodging, and there when she went home one cold afternoon she found the screen standing between the fire and the door, and printed on it a piece of paper inscribed, a token of friendly affection. This was not, however, the only, nor the first, gift with which Maria's parlor was enriched. Amidst all the bustle of furnishings the Hope's house Margaret had found time to plan and execute a window curtain for her friend's benefit, and another person, no other than Philip Enderby, had sent in a chalange just the right size to stand between the fire and the table. It had gone hard with Maria to accept this last gift, but his nephew and nieces were Philip's plea of excuse for the act, and this plea cut her off from refusing, though in her heart she believed that neither the children nor ancient regard were in his thoughts when he did it, but rather Margaret's affection for her. For some time this chalange was a couch of thorns, but now affairs had put on a newer aspect still, and Maria forgot her own perplexities and troubles in sympathy with her friend. There was nothing to quarrel with in the look of the chalange when Margaret entered Maria's room in the twilight in the afternoon of the appointed Thursday. "'Reading by Firelight?' said Margaret. I suppose I am. But it had not occurred to me. The daylight went away so softly. Six o'clock I declare the days are lengthening, as we say every year. But we will have something better than Firelight if he will be so kind as to set those candles on the table.' The time was long put when Maria thought of apologizing for asking her friend to do what her lameness rendered painful to herself. Margaret laid aside her bonnet and cloak behind the screen, lighted the candles, put more coals on the fire, and took her seat. Not beside Maria, but in a goodly arm-chair which she drew forward from its recess. "'Now,' said she, "'we only want a cat to be purring on the rug to make us a complete winter picture. The kettle will be coming soon to sing on the hob, and that will do nearly as well. But, Maria, I wonder you have no cat. We have set up a cat. I think I will send you a kitten some day as a token of neighborly affection.' "'Thank you. Do you know I was positively assured lately that I had a cat? I said all I could in proof that I had none, but Mrs. Tucker persisted in her inquiries after its health notwithstanding. What did she mean? She said she saw a kitten run into the passage, and that it never came out again, so that it followed, of course, that it must be here still. One day, when I was in school, she came over to satisfy herself, and, true enough, there had been a kitten. The poor thing jumped up from the passage window into the yard, and went to see what they were about at the forge. A hot horseshoe fell upon its back, and it mewed so dolefully that the people drowned it. So there you have the story of my cat, as it was told to me. "'Thank you. It is a good thing to know. But what does Mrs. Gray say to your setting up a cat?' When she heard Mrs. Tucker's first inquiries, she took them for an imputation, and was vexed accordingly. "'Miss Young,' said she, "'you must be mistaken. Mrs. Tucker, Miss Young cannot afford to keep a kitten.' "'Oh, for shame,' said Margaret, laughing. But what is the annual expense of a kitten? Can you tell us? I am afraid we never considered that.'" "'Why, there is the breast of a fowl, once a year or so, when your cook forgets to shut the larger door behind her. Cats never take the drumsticks when there is a breast, you are aware. You know best how Mr. Hope looks, when the drumsticks and side bones come to the table, with an empty space in the middle of the dish where the breast ought to have been. I will tell you the first time it happens.' And Margaret sank into an absent fit, brought on by the bare suggestion of discontent at home. Hester had made her uncomfortable the last thing before she left the house by speaking sharply of Maria without any fresh provocation. Undisciplined still by what had happened so lately, she had wished Maria Young a hundred miles off. Margaret meditated, and sighed. It was some time before Maria spoke. When she did, she said, "'Margaret, do you not think people had better not persuade themselves and their very intimate friends that they are happy when they are not?' They had better not think, even in their own innermost minds, whether they are happy or not, if they can help it. True, but there are times when it is impossible, when it is far better to avoid the effort. Come, I suspect we may relieve each other just now, by allowing the truth. I will own, if you will, that I am very unhappy to-night. Never mind what it is about.' "'I will, if you will,' replied Margaret, faintly smiling. "'There now, that's right. We shall be all the better for it. We have quite enough of seeming happy God knows beyond these doors. We can talk here about kittens and cold-fowl. Here we will not talk at all, unless we like, and we will each groan as much as we please.' "'I am sorry to hear you speak so,' said Margaret tenderly. "'Not that I do not agree with you. I think it is a terrible mistake to fancy that it is religious to charm away grief, which after all is rejecting it before it has done its work. And, as for concealing it, there must be a very good reason, indeed, for that, to save it from being hypocrisy. But the more I agree with you, the more sorry I am to hear you just say what I was thinking. I am afraid you must be very unhappy, Maria. I am in great pain tonight, and I do not find that pain becomes less of an evil by one's being used to it. Indeed, I think the reverse happens, for the future comes into the consideration. Do you expect to go on to suffer the same pain? Can nothing cure it? Is there no help?' "'None, but in patience. There are intermissions, happily, and pretty long ones. I get through the summer very well, but the end of the winter, the same month of February, is a sad, aching time, and so it must be for as many winters as I may have to live. But I am better off than I was. Last February I did not know you. Oh, Margaret, if they had not brought you up from under the ice the other day, how different would all have been to-night?' "'How strange it seems to think of the difference that hung on that one act,' said Margaret, shivering again at the remembrance of her icy prison. What and where should I have been now? And what would have been the change in this little world of ours? You would have missed me, I know, and on that account I am glad it ended as it did.' "'And on no other?' asked Maria, looking earnestly at her friend. "'My sister would have grieved sadly at first. You do not know what care she takes of me, how often she is thinking of my comfort. And Edward is fond of me, too. I know he is, but they live for each other, and could spare every one else. You and Morris would have been my mourners, and you two are enough to live for. To say nothing of others who may arise?' "'I hope nothing more will arise in my life, Maria. I want no change. I have had enough of it. You think so now. I understand your feeling very well. But yet I can fancy that when you are twice as old as you are, when a few gray hairs peep out among all that brown, when this plump little hand grows thin, and that girlish figure of yours looks dignified and middle-aged, and people say that nobody thought when you were young that you would turn out a handsome woman, I can fancy that when all this has happened, you may be more disposed to look forward and less inclined to change than you feel at this moment. But there is no use in saying so now. You shake your head, nigh nod mine. You say no, and I say yes. And there is an end of it. Where will you be then, I wonder. I did not wish to know. Nor even to inquire of my own judgment. My health is very bad. Worse than you are aware of. I cannot expect to be able to work always. Some of my present pupils are growing very tall, and no strangers will take me if I do not get much better, which is, I believe, impossible. The future, therefore, is all a mystery, and so let it remain. I am not anxious about that. But I am. Here comes tea. Now you will be doing a finer thing in making us a good cup of tea than in settling my future ever so satisfactorily, seeing that you cannot touch it with so much as your little finger. Tea is holy in your power. You will look forward to other people's gray hair and sedateness of face, though you will not to your own. Mere gray hair is as certain as futurity itself, and I will allow you to prophesy that much for me or for anybody. Why should we not prophesy about your pupils, too? They seem to be improving very much. They certainly are, and I am glad you have lighted upon the pleasantest subject I ever think about. Oh Margaret, you do not know what encouragement I have about some of those children. Their lot is, and will be, a hard one, in many respects. It will be difficult for them to grow kindly and liberal and truthful with such examples as they have before their eyes. They advance like the snail on the wall, creeping three inches on in one day and falling back two at night. They get out of a pretty mood of mind in the morning, and expand and grow interested in things out of Dearbrook, and then in the evening the greater part of this is done done, and they go to bed with their heads full of small, vile notions about their neighbors. And when they grow too wise to have their heads so filled, their hearts will be heavy for those who are not rising like themselves. That is unavoidable, and they must bear the sorrow. We must hope that they will disperse from Dearbrook and find their way into a more genial society they can ever know here. I must keep the confidence of my children's sacred even from you, Margaret, but you may believe me when I tell you that if you knew all that we have to say to one another, you would find some of these children animated with really noble thoughts and capable of really generous acts. Some of them, Mary in particular, I venture to conjecture to be in your thoughts. Yes, Mary in particular, but she had always a more gentle and generous temper than her sisters. Fanny, however, is improving remarkably. I am delighted to hear it, and I had begun to suspect it. Fanny, I observe, plays fewer informations than she did. And there is more of thought and less of a prying expression in her face. She is really growing more like Mary in countenance. The little Rowlands, the younger ones, seem simple enough, but Matilda, what a disagreeable child she is. The most that can be done with her is to leave her only a poor creature, to strip her of the conceit and malice with which her mother would overlay her feeble intellect. This sounds deplorably enough, but as parents will not speak the plain truth to themselves about their charge, governesses must. There is, perhaps, little better material in Fanny, but I trust we may one day see her more lowly than she can at present relish the idea of being and with energy enough to improve under the discipline of life when she can no longer have that of school. She and Mary have been acknowledging today a fine piece of experience. Mr. Gray is pleased with her great improvement in Latin. He finds they can read, with ease and pleasure, some favorite classical scripts which he used to talk about without exciting any interest in them. They honestly denied having devoted any more time to Latin than before, or having taken any more pains. And no new methods have been tried. Here was a mystery. Today they have solved it. They find that all is owing to their getting up earlier in the morning to teach those little orphans the woods to read and so. Not a very circuitous process, said Margaret, love and kind interest, energy and improvement, whether in Latin or anything else. But what did you mean just now about truth? What should make the Gray's otherwise than truthful? Oh, not the Gray's. I was thinking of the other family when I said that. But that is a large subject. Let us leave it till after tea. Will you give me another cup? Now shall we begin upon our large subject? Said she as the door closed behind the tea-tree and cuddle, and Margaret handed her work-bag. I am aware that I asked for it, replied Margaret, but it is a disagreeable topic, and perhaps we had better avoid it. You will take me for a dear-brook person, if I say we will go into it. Will not you? Oh, no. You have a reason, I see. So I should not the little Rowlands be truthful. Because they have so perpetual an example of falsehood before them at home. I have made some painful discoveries there lately. Is it possible you did not know that woman long ago? I knew her obvious qualities, which there is no need to specify, but the depth of her untruth is a new fact to me. Are you sure of it now? Quite sure of it in some particulars, and strongly suspecting it in others. Do not tell your sister anything of what I am going to say, unless you find it necessary for the direction of her conduct. Let your disclosures be rather to Mr. Hope. That is settled, is it? Well, Mrs. Rowland's ruling passion just now is hatred to your household. I suspect it as much, but the untruth—wait a little, she dislikes you all, and severally. What, my brother? Oh yes, for marrying into the gray connection so decidedly. Did you ever hear that before? Margaret laughed, and her friend went on. This capture and imprisonment of her mother, for the poor old lady is not allowed to seem, whom she pleases, is chiefly to get her from under Mr. Hope's care. I fancy, from her air and from some things she has dropped, that she has some grand coup d'état in reserve about that matter. But this is merely suspicion. I will now speak only of what I know to exist. She is injuring your brother to an extent that he is not, but ought to be, aware of. What does she say? She shudders that is politics, I know. Yes, that might be ignorance merely, and even conscientious ignorance, so we will let that pass. She also hints, very plainly and extensively, that your brother and sister are not happy together. She is a wicked woman, said Margaret, with a deep sigh. I half suspected what you tell me from poor George's errand that unhappy day. Right. Mr. Rowland's irony was intended to stop his wife's insinuations before the children. She says the most unwarrantable things about Mrs. Gray's having made the match, and she intimates that Hester has several times gone to bed in hysterics, from Mr. Hope having uprated her with taking him in. What is to be done, cried Margaret, throwing down her work? Your brother will decide for himself whether to speak to Mr. Rowland, or to let this lander pass, and live it down. Our duty is to give him information, and I feel that it is a duty. And now, have you been told anything about Mr. Hope's practice of dissection? Margaret related what she had heard on the bank of the river, and Hope's explanation of it. He knows more than he told you. I have no doubt, replied Maria. The beginning of it was your brother's surgery pupil having sent a great toe in a handsome-looking, sealed packet to some lad in the village who happened to open at a table. You may imagine the conjectures as to where it came from, and the revival of stories about robbing churchyards and of prejudices about dissection. Mrs. Rowland could not let such an opportunity as this pass by, and her neighbors have been favored with dark hints as to what has been heard under the churchyard wall and what she herself has seen from her window in sleepless nights. Now, Mr. Hope must take notice of this. It is too dangerous a subject. To be left quietly to the ignorance and superstitions of such a set of people as those among whom his calling lies, no ignorance on earth exceeds that of the country folks whom he attends. But they worship him, cried Margaret. They have worshiped him. But, you know, worship easily gives place to hatred among the extremely ignorant. And nothing is so likely to quicken the process as to talk about violating graves. Do not be frightened. I tell you this to prevent mischief, not to prophesy it. Mr. Hope will take what measures he thinks fit, and I shall tell Mr. Rowland, to-morrow morning, that I am the source of your information. I was just going to warn him to-day that I meant to speak to you in this way, but I left it till to-morrow that I might not be prevented. Dear Maria, this will cost you your bread. I believe not, but this consideration belongs to that future of time on which, as I was saying, we cannot lay our little fingers. The present is clear enough that Mr. Hope ought to know his own case. He shall know it. But, Maria, do you mean that Mrs. Rowland talks of all these affairs before her children? When Mr. Rowland is not present to check it. And this brings me to something which I thought ought to be said, though I have no proof to bring, having found of late what things Mrs. Rowland can say for a purpose, how variously and how monstrously untrue, and seeing that all her enterprises are, at present, directed against the people who live in a pleasant little corner-house. But why? You have not yet fully accounted for this enmity. I have not, but I will now. I think she joins your name with her brothers, and that she accordingly hates you now as she once hated Hester. But, mind, I am not sure of this. But how? Why? You will divine that I have changed my opinion about Mr. Enderby's being engaged to Miss Bruce since you asked me for my judgment upon it. I may very possibly be mistaken, but as Mr. Enderby lies under censure for forming and carrying on such an arrangement in strange concealment from his most intimate friends, I think it due to him at least to put the supposition that he may not be guilty. Margaret could not speak, though a thousand questions struggled in her heart. I am aware, continued Maria, with what confidence she has everywhere stated the fact of this engagement, and that Mrs. Enderby fully believes it. But I have been struck throughout with the failure of particularity in Mrs. Rowland's knowledge. She cannot tell when her brother last saw Miss Bruce, nor whether he has any intention of going to Rome. She does not know, evidently, whether he was engaged when he was last here, and I cannot get rid of the impression that his being engaged now is a matter of inference from a small set of facts which will bear more than one interpretation. Surely she would not dare, Margaret paused. It is a bold stroke, supposing me right, but she would strike boldly to make a quarrel between her brother and his friends in the corner house, and if the device should fail at last, she has the intermediate satisfaction of making them uncomfortable. Horrid creature, said Margaret, feeling, however, that she would forgive all the horridness for the sake of finding that Mrs. Rowland had done this horrid thing. We must not forget, said Maria, that there is another side to the question. Young men have been known to engage themselves mysteriously and without sufficient respect to the confidence of intimate friends. This must be a certain, Maria. And again Margaret stopped short with the blush of shame. By time, Margaret, in no other way, I cannot, of course, speak to Mr. Rowland, or any one, on so private an affair of the family, nor under the circumstances, can Mr. Hope stir in it. We must wait, but it cannot be for long. Some illumination must reach Dearbrook soon, either from Mr. Enderby's going to Rome, or coming here to see his mother. Mrs. Rowland said he would come here, she hoped, for his wedding journey. She did say so, I know. And she has told plenty of people that her brother is delighted that Mrs. Enderby is settled with her, whereas some beautiful plants arrived this morning for Mrs. Enderby's conservatory by his orders. The Rowlands have no conservatory, you know. The children were desired not to mention the arrival of these plants to Grandmama. And Mrs. Rowland wrote by return of post. I imagined to inform him for the first time of his mother's removal. Margaret thought these things were too bad to be true. I should have said so, too, some time ago. And, as I cannot to earnestly repeat, I may be wrong now. But I have done my duty in giving you reason for suspending your judgment of Mr. Enderby. This, being done, we will talk of something else. Now, do not you think there may be some difficulty in preserving my pupils from my habit of untruth? Yes, indeed. But the talking of something else did not operate so well as it sounded. The pauses were long after what had passed, at length when Margaret detected herself in the midst of the speculation. If he is not engaged to Miss Bryce, it does not follow. She roused herself and exclaimed, How very good it is of you, Maria, to have laid all this open to me. Maria hung her head over her work and thought within herself that her friend could not judge of the deed. She replied, Thank you, I thought I should get some sympathy from you in the end, to repay me for the irksomeness of exposing such a piece of social vice as this poor lady's conduct. Yes, indeed, I ought to have acknowledged it before as I feel it, but you know there is so much to think over. It is so wonderful, so almost inconceivable. It is so. Is it quite necessary, Maria? Yes, I see it is necessary, that you should speak to Mr. Rowland to-morrow. You are bound in honesty to do so, but it will be very painful. Can we not help you? Can we not in some way spare you? No, you cannot, thank you. For Mr. Rowland's sake, no one else must be by, and no one of you can testify to the facts. No, leave me alone. By this time to-morrow night it will be done. What knock is that? No one ever knocks on my account. Surely it cannot be your servant already. It is only now, half past eight. I promised Hester I would go home early. She cannot want you half so much as I do. Stay another hour. Margaret could not. Hester made a point of her returning at this time. When the cloaking and final chat were done, and Margaret was at the door, Maria called her. Margaret came skipping back to hear her friends whisper. How is your wretchedness, Margaret? How is yours, was Margaret's reply. Much better. The disburdening of it is a great comfort. And the pain, the aching. I'll never mind that. Margaret shook her head. She could not but mind it, but wished that she could take it upon herself sometimes. She had often thought lately that she should rather enjoy a few weeks of Maria's pain as an alternative to the woe under which she had been suffering. But this, if she could have tried the experiment, she would probably have found to be a mistake. When she saw her friend cover her eyes with her hand, as if for a listless hour of solitude, she felt that she had been wrong in yielding to her sister's jealousy of her being so much with Maria. And she resolved that, next time, Maria should appoint the hour for her return home. When Maria was thus covering her eyes with her hand, she was thinking, now half this task is over, the other half tomorrow, and then the consequences. When Margaret entered the drawing room at home, where her brother was reading aloud to Hester, he exclaimed, We beat all Dearbrook for early visiting, I think. Here you are home, and I dare say Mr. Tucker has still another pipe to smoke, and the wine is not mauled yet at the James's. It is quite time Margaret was giving us a little of her company, I am sure, said Hester. You forget how early she went. If it was not for the school, I think she and Maria would spend all their time together. I have every wish not to interfere. But I cannot think that this friendship has made Maria less selfish. It would, I dare say, my dear, but that there is no selfishness to begin upon. I am afraid she is very unwell, Margaret. In much pain, I fear. I will go and see if I can do her any good. You can glance over what we have read, and I shall be back in a quarter of an hour to go on with it. I wonder you left Maria if she is so poorly. I determined that I would not another time, but this time I had promised. Pray do not make out that I am any restraint upon your intercourse with Maria, and yet it is not quite fair to say that, either. I do not think it is quite fair. But you should warn me. You should tell me, if I ask anything unreasonable. When are you going again? An old patient of my husband's has sent us a quarter of a chest of very fine oranges. We will carry Maria a basketful of oranges tomorrow. Chapter 24 Chapter 25 of Dear Brooke. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dear Brooke by Harriet Martinu. Chapter 25. Long Walks. The unhappy are indisposed to employment. All active occupations are wear a sum and disgusting in prospect, at a time when everything, life itself, is full of weariness and disgust. Yet the unhappy must be employed, or they will go mad. Comparatively, blessed are they, if they are set in families where claims and duties abound and cannot be escaped. In the pressure of business, there is present safely an ultimate relief. Harder is the lot of those who have few necessary occupations enforced by other claims than their own harmlessness and profitableness. Reading often fails. Now and then, it may be guile. The much oftener the intention is languid, the thoughts wander, and associations with the subject of grief are awakened. Women who find that reading will not do, will obtain no relief from sewing. Sewing is present enough in moderation to those whose minds are at ease the while. But it is an employment which is trying to the nerves, when long continued, at the best, and nothing can be worse for the harassed. And for those who want to escape from themselves, writing is bad, the pen hangs idly, suspended over the paper, or the sad thoughts that are alive within right themselves down. The safest and best of all occupations for such sufferers as are fit for it. Is intercourse with young children, an effint might be guile Satan and his peers. The day after they were couched on the lake of fire, if the love of children chants to linger amidst the ruins of their angelic nature, next to this comes honest genuine acquaintance, among the poor, not merely charity visiting a grounded on soup tickets and blankets, but intercourse of mind with real mutual interest between the parties. Gardening is excellent, but it unites bodily exertion with a sufficient engagement of the faculties, while sweet, compassionate nature is ministering here in every sprouting leaf and scented blossom, and beckoning sleep to draw nigh, and be ready to follow up her benign work. Walking is good, not stepping from shop to shop, or from neighbor to neighbor, but stretching out too far into the country to the freshest fields, and the highest ridges, and the quietest lanes. However sullen the imagination may have been among its griefs at home. Here it cheers up in smiles, however listless the limbs may have been when sustaining a too heavy heart. Here they are braced, and the lagging gate becomes buoyant again. However perverse the memory may have been in presenting all that was agonizing, and insisting only on what cannot be retrieved. Here it is first disregarded, and then it sleeps, and the sleep of the memory is the day in paradise to the unhappy. The mere breathing of the cool wind on the face in the commoness highway is red in comfort, which must be felt at such times to be believed. It is disbelieved in the shortest intervals between its seasons of enjoyment, and every time the sufferer has a resolution to go forth to meet it, it penetrates to the very heart in glad surprise. The fields are better still, for there is the lark to fill up the hours with mirthful music, or at worst the robin and flocks of field fares to show that the hardest day has its life and hilarity. The calmest region is the upland where human life is spread out beneath the bodily eye, where the mind roves from the peasant's nest to the spiery town, from the schoolhouse to the churchyard, from the diminished team in the patch of fallow, or the fisherman's boat in the cove, to the viaduct that spans the valley, or the fleet that glides ghostlike on the horizon. This is the perch where the spirit plumes its ruffled and drooping winds, and makes ready to let itself down any wind that heaven may send. No doubt Margaret found the benefit of exercise and the solitary enjoyment of the country for, during the last few weeks, walking seemed to have become a passion with her. Hester was almost out of patience about it, when for a moment she lost sight of what she well knew must be the cause of this strong new interest. Every dopeful morning Margaret was at the window, exploring the clouds. Every fine day she laid her watch on the table before her, impatiently watching the approach of the hour, when her brother was to come in for Hester, and when she might set off by herself, not to return till dinnertime, she became renowned in Dearbrook for the length of her excursions. The grocer has met her far out in one direction, when returning from making his purchases at the market town, the butcher had seen her in the distant fields, when he paid a visit to his grazer in the pastures. Dr. Levitt has walked his horse beside her in the lane which formed the limit of the longer of his two common rides, and many a neighbor or a patient of Mr. Hopes had been surprised at her declining a cast in a tax cart or gig, when there was only a long stretch of plain road before her, and the lanes and fields were too merry to enable her to seek any variety in them in her way home. These were in fact Margaret's times of repression of practical worship. These were the times when she saw what at other moments she only repeated to herself that all things are right and that our personal trials derive their bitterness from our ignorance and spiritual inexperience. At these times she could not only pity all who suffered, but congratulate all who enjoyed and could afford feelings of disinterested regard to Philip and of complancy to Miss Bruce. She remembered that Miss Bruce was unconscious of having injured her, was possibly unaware even of her existence, and then she enjoyed the luxury of blessing her rival and of longing for an opportunity to serve her secretly and silently as the happy girl's innocence of all wrong towards her deserved. Margaret's desire for a long solitary walk was as strong as ever. The day after she had visited Maria no opportunity has occurred of speaking to her brother without alarming Hester, and she had almost determined merely to refer him to Maria instead of telling the story herself. She should not see him again till dinner. He was gone into the country. The day was gloomy and cold, and Hester was not disposed to leave the fireside, so Margaret issued forth with thick shoes. Umbrella and muff guarded against everything that might occur overhead and underfoot. She had generally found hope or at least comfort abroad today. When she ought to have been much happier, she found anxiety and fear, the thought of the very words, would incessantly recur. If he is not engaged to Miss Bruce, it does not follow. Then she seriously grieved for her brother, and the troubles which she feared awaited him, and then she reproached herself with not grieving enough, not having attention enough to spare from her own concerns, while she was walking along on the dry causeway, looking straight before her, but thinking of far other things than the high road. She was startled by the stroke of horse's foot against the stone, close by her side, and a voice speaking almost in her ear. It was only Edward. He was going a couple of miles forward, and he brought his horse beside the raised causeway so that they could converse as if walking together. There is nobody to overhear us, I think, said Margaret, looking round. I have been wanting since yesterday evening to speak to you alone about something very disagreeable which I would not disturb Hester with. You, of course, can do as you please about telling her. She related to him the whole story of Mrs. Rowland's imputations and proceedings, her reports of the hysterics and their origin, the body snatching, and the cause and mode of Mrs. Enderby's removal. Margaret had always considered her brother as a man of uncommon nerve, and her surprise was therefore great at seeing him change color as he did. We shall agree, said she, that the worst of all this is that there is some truth at the bottom part of it. Oh heavens, thought Hope, is it possible that Mrs. Gray can have told the share he had in my marriage? It was but a momentary fear, Margaret went on. I have never hoped, I have never hoped that Birmingham, and much less here, that Hester could escape the observation of her neighbors that her occasional agitation of spirits should not excite remark and speculation, as we are not quite whole and sound in our domestic peace. I must speak plainly, brother, at such a time as this. I should think it would be better to take no notice of that set of imputations. I trust we shall live them down. You gave me great comfort in a few words once, I said Hope. Do you remember saying, when the time for acting comes, see how she will act? You know her well, and you judge her rightly, and you will perhaps be the less sorry to hear that the time seems coming when we may all have to act. I scarcely see how, but against adversity. She will come out nobly then, I fear nothing for her, but too much prosperity. There is no fear of that, I assure you, said Hope, smiling somewhat sadly. You find the effect of this woman's slanders, my situation has. From one cause or more, totally changed since you first knew me, it would break Hester's heart to hear what I am subjected to in the discharge of my daily business. I tell her a trifle now and then, to prepare her for what may happen, but she and you do not know a tenth part of what is inflicted upon me, and what may happen. I cannot see the extent of it myself, but I am losing my practice every day. No, not through any failure, not through any of the accidents which will happen in all medical practice. There are reports of such a broad, I believe, but nothing is commoner than those reports. The truth is, no patient of mine has died, or failed to do well, for an unusually long space of time. The discontent with me is from other causes. For Mrs. Rowland's tongue I do not. More than from your politics. The ignorance of the people about us is a great evil. Without this, neither Mrs. Rowland nor anyone else could persuade them that I rob the church yard and vaccinate children to get patients, and draw good teeth to sell again. Oh, monstrous, said Margaret, who yet could not help laughing. You never draw teeth, do you? Sometimes, but not when I can get people to go to the dentist at Blickley. Mrs. Gray used to boast to you of my popularity, but I never liked it much. I had to be perpetually on the watch to avoid confidences, and you see how fast the stream is at present running the country way. I can hardly get on my horse now, without being insulted at my own door. Must you submit to Waltis? By no means. I have called two or three men to account, and shaken my whip over one or two more, with excellent effect. If there were none but bullies among my enemies, I could easily deal with them, but cannot we go away and settle somewhere else? Oh no, wherever I might go, it would soon be understood that I had been obliged to leave Dearbrook from being detected in body snatching and the like. I owe it to myself to stay. We must remain and live down all imputations whatever if we can. And if we cannot, then we shall see what to do when the time comes. And having managed the bullies, how do you propose to manage Mrs. Rowland? What do you think of speaking to Mr. Gray? I shall not do that. The Gray's have no concern with it, but they will think they have. Then there will be a partisan warfare with me for the pretext, and the two families have had quite warfare enough for a lifetime already. No, I shall not bring the Gray's into it. I am sorry enough for Mr. Rowland, for I am sure he has no part in all this. I shall go to him today. I should confront the lady at once, and call her to account. But that Miss Young must be considered the more courageous and disinterested she is, the more care we must take of her. Perhaps she is at this moment telling Mr. Rowland what we talked about last night. How very painful. Do you know, she thinks it is right to tell the whole for other people's sake. She thinks that what Mrs. Rowland says is not to be trusted in any case where she feels enmity. Maria even doubts whether Mr. Enderbay has treated you and his other friends so very negelitly, whether he has engaged the Miss Bruce after all. Mr. Hope was so much engaged about one of his stirrups while Margaret said this, that he could not observe where and how she was looking. Very likely replied Hope at length. Hester has thought all along that this was possible. We shall know the truth from Enderbay himself. One of these days, by actor word, meantime, I have for one, shall wait to hear his own story. There was another pause at the end of which Mr. Hope clapped spurs to his horse, and said he must be riding on. Margaret called him back for a moment to ask what he wished for to do about informing Hester of the state of affairs. Mr. Hope was disposed to tell her the whole, if possible, but not tell he should have come to some issue with Mr. Rowland. He hated mysteries, any concealments in families, and it was due both to Hester and to himself that there should be no concealment of important affairs from her. The only cautions to be observed were to save her from suspense, to avoid the appearance of a formal telling of bad news, and to choose an opportunity when she might have time, before seeing any of the Rowlands, to consider the principles which should regulate her conduct to them, that she might do herself, honour by the consistency and temper of which she was capable under any circumstances, when she was only allowed time. This was settled, and he rode off with almost his usual gait of air. He saw Mr. Rowland before night. The next day, but one, a traveling carriage from Blickley was seeing, standing at Mr. Rowland's door, and before the clock struck nine, it was loaded with trunks and band boxes, and crowded with people as it drove down the village street. Mary little faces appeared at each carriage window. Mr. Rowland was on the box. He was going to take his family to Cheltenham for the spring months. Mr. Rowland was rather delicate, and Dearbrook was cold in March. Mrs. Underby was left behind, but there was Phoebe to take care of her, and Mr. Rowland was to return as soon as he had settled his family. It seemed rather a pity to be sure that the old lady had been moved out of her own house just before she was to be left alone in her new residence, but between Mr. Rowland and her maid, she would be taken good care of, and the family would return when the warm weather set in. End of Chapter 25