 CHAPTER XXIII. One fine summer day that Caroline had spent entirely alone, her uncle being at Winbury, and whose long bright noiseless, breezeless, cloudless hours, how many they seemed since sunrise, had been to her as desolate as if they had gone over her head in the shadowless and trackless wastes of Zahara, instead of in the blooming garden of an English home. She was sitting in the alcove, her task of work on her knee, her fingers assiduously plying the needle, her eyes following and regulating their movements, her brain working restlessly when Fanny came to the door, looked round over the lawn and borders, and not seeing her whom she sought called out, Miss Caroline. A low voice answered, Fanny, it issued from the alcove, and scissor Fanny hastened a note in her hand which she delivered to fingers that hardly seemed to have nerve to hold it. Miss Hellstone did not ask whence it came, and she did not look at it. She let it drop amongst the folds of her work. Joe Scott's son Harry brought it, said Fanny. The girl was no enchantress, and knew no magic spell, yet what she said took almost magical effect on her young mistress. She lifted her head with a quick motion of revived sensation. She shot not a languid but a lifelike questioning glance at Fanny. Harry Scott, who sent him? He came from the hollow. The dropped note was snatched up eagerly. The seal was broken. It was read in two seconds. An affectionate billet from Ortonce, informing her young cousin that she was returned from Wormwood Wells, that she was alone to-day, as Robert was gone to Winbury Market, but nothing would give her greater pleasure than to have Caroline's company to tea. And the good lady added, she was sure such a change would be most acceptable and beneficial to Caroline, who must be, sadly, at a loss both for safe guidance and improving society since the misunderstanding between Robert and Mr. Hellstone had occasioned a separation from her meilleur ami, Ortonce Gerard Moore. In a post-script, she was urged to put on her bonnet and run down directly. Caroline did not need the injunction. Glad was she to lay by the child's brown Holland slip she was trimming with braid for the juice basket, to hasten upstairs, cover her curls with her straw bonnet, and throw round her shoulders the black silk scarf, whose simple drapery suited as well her shape as its dark hue set off the purity of her dress and the fairness of her face. Glad was she to escape for a few hours the solitude, the sadness, the nightmare of her life. Glad to run down the green lane sloping to the hollow, to scent the fragrance of hedge flowers sweeter than the perfume of moss, rose, or lily. True she knew Robert was not at the cottage, but it was a delight to go where he had lately been so long, so totally separated from him, merely to see his home, to enter the room where he had that morning sat, felt like a reunion. As such it revived her, and then illusion was again following her in peri-mask. The soft agitation of wings caressed her cheek, and the air, breathing from the blue summer sky, bore a voice which whispered, Robert may come home while you are in his house, and then at least you may look in his face, at least you may give him your hand, perhaps for a minute you may sit beside him. Silence was her austere response, but she loved the comforter and the consolation. Miss Moore probably caught from the window the gleam and flutter of Caroline's white attire through the branchy garden shrubs, for she advanced from the cottage porch to meet her. Straight unbending, phlegmatic as usual, she came on. No haste or ecstasy was ever permitted to disorder the dignity of her movements, but she smiled, well pleased to mark the delight of her pupil, to feel her kiss and the gentle, genial strain of her embrace. She led her tenderly in, half-deceived and wholly flattered. Half-deceived, had it not been so, she would in all probability have put her to the wicket and shut her out. Had she known clearly to whose account the chief share of this childlike joy was to be placed, Orteens would most likely have felt both shocked and incensed. Others do not like young ladies to fall in love with their brothers. It seems, if not presumptuous, silly, weak, a delusion, an absurd mistake. They do not love these gentlemen, whatever sisterly affection they may cherish toward them, and that others should repel them with a sense of crude romance. The first movement, in short, excited by such discovery, as with many parents on finding their children to be in love, is one of mixed impatience and contempt. Reason, if they be rational people, corrects the false feeling in time. But if they be irrational, it is never corrected, and the daughter or sister-in-law is disliked to the end. She would expect to find me alone from what I said in my note, observed Miss Moore, as she conducted Caroline towards the parlor. But it was written this morning, since dinner, company has come in. And opening the door, she made visible an ample spread of crimson skirts overflowing the elbow-chair at the fireside, and above them presiding with dignity, a cap more awful than a crown. That cap had never come to the cottage under a bonnet. No, it had been brought in a vast bag, or rather a middle-sized balloon of black silk, held wide with whale-bone. The screed, or frill of the cap, stood a quarter of a yard broad round the face of the wearer. The ribbon, flourishing in puffs and bows about the head, was of the sort called love ribbon. There was a good deal of it, I may say, a very great deal. Mrs. York wore the cap. It became her. She wore the gown also. It suited her no less. That great lady was come in a friendly way to take tea with Miss Moore. It was almost as great and as rare a favor as if the queen were to go uninvited to share potluck with one of her subjects, a higher mark of distinction she could not show. She who, in general, scorned visiting and tea-drinking, and held cheap and stigmatized as gossips every maiden-matron of the vicinage. There was no mistake, however, Miss Moore was a favorite with her. She had evinced the fact more than once, evinced it by stopping to speak to her in the churchyard on Sundays, by inviting her, almost hospitably, to come to Briar Mains. Evinced it today by the grand condescension of a personal visit. Her reasons for the preference, as assigned by herself, were that Miss Moore was a woman of steady deportment without the least levity of conversation or carriage, also that being a foreigner she must feel the want of a friend to countenance her. She might have added that her plain aspect, homely precise dress and phlegmatic unattractive manner were, to her, so many additional recommendations. It is certain, at least, that ladies remarkable for the opposite qualities of beauty, lively-bearing and elegant taste in attire, were not often favored with her approbation. Whatever gentlemen are apt to admire in women, Mrs. York condemned, and what they overlook or despise, she patronized. Evinced advanced to the mighty matron with some sense of diffidence. She knew little of Mrs. York, and, as a parson's niece, was doubtful what sort of reception she might get. She got a very cool one, and was glad to hide her discomforture by turning away to take off her bonnet. Nor upon sitting down was she displeased to be immediately accosted by a little personage in a blue frock and sash, who started up like some fairy from the side of a great dame's chair, where she had been sitting on a footstool, screened from view by the folds of the wide red gown, and running to Miss Hellstone unceremoniously threw her arms round her neck and demanded a kiss. My mother is not civil to you, said the petitioner, as she received and repaid a smiling salute. And Rose, there, takes no notice of you. It is their way. If, instead of you, a white angel with a crown of stars had come into the room, mother would nod stiffly, and Rose never lift her head at all. But I will be your friend. I have always liked you. Jesse, curb that tongue of yours and repress your forwardness, said Mrs. York. But, mother, you are so frozen, expostulated Jesse. Miss Hellstone has never done you any harm. Why can't you be kind to her? You sit so stiff and look so cold and speak so dry. What for? That's just the fashion in which you treat Miss Shirley Kildar and every other young lady who comes to our house. And Rose, there is such an ought. I have forgotten the word, but it means a machine in the shape of a human being. However, between you, you will drive every soul away from briar mains. Martin often says so. I am an automaton? Good, let me alone then, said Rose, speaking from a corner where she was sitting on the carpet at the foot of a bookcase with a volume spread open on her knee. Miss Hellstone, how do you do? She added, directing a brief glance to the person addressed and then again casting down her gray, remarkable eyes on the book and returning to the study of its pages. Caroline stole a quiet gaze towards her, dwelling on her young, absorbed countenance and observing a certain unconscious movement of the mouth as she read, a movement full of character. Caroline had tacked and she had fine instinct. She felt that Rose York was a peculiar child, one of the unique. She knew how to treat her. Approaching quietly, she knelt on the carpet at her side and looked over her little shoulder at her book. It was a romance of Mrs. Radcliffe's, the Italian. Caroline read on with her, making no remark. Presently, Rose showed her the attention of asking as she turned a leaf. Are you ready? Caroline only nodded. Do you like it? inquired Rose, ere long. Long since, when I read it as a child, I was wonderfully taken with it. Why? It seemed to open with such promise, such foreboding of a most strange tale to be unfolded. And yet in reading it, you feel as if you were far away from England, really in Italy, under another sort of sky, that blue sky of the south, which travelers describe. You are sensible of that, Rose. It makes me long to travel, Miss Hellstone. When you are a woman, perhaps, you may be able to gratify your wish. I mean to make a way to do so if one is not made for me. I cannot live always in Briarfield. The whole world is not very large compared with creation. I must see the outside of our own round planet, at least. How much of it's outside? First, this hemisphere where we live, then the other. I am resolved that my life shall be a life, not a black trance like the toads buried in marble, nor a long, slow death like yours in Briarfield rectory. Like mine, what can you mean, child? Might you not as well be tediously dying, as forever shut up in that gleam house, a place that when I pass it always reminds me of a windowed grave? I never see any movement about the door. I never hear a sound from the walls. I believe smoke never issues from the chimneys. What do you do there? I sew, I read, I learn lessons. Are you happy? Should I be happier wandering alone in strange countries as you wish to do? Much happier, even if you did nothing but wander. Remember, however, that I shall have an object in view. But if you only went on and on, like some enchanted lady in a fairy tale, you might be happier than now. In a day's wandering, you would pass many a hill, wood, and water-course, each perpetually altering an aspect as the sun shone out or was overcast as the weather was wet or fair, dark or bright. Nothing changes in Briarfield rectory, the plaster of the parlor's ceilings, the paper on the walls, the curtains, carpets, chairs are still the same. Is change necessary to happiness? Yes, is it synonymous with it? I don't know, but I feel monotony and death to be almost the same. Here, Jesse spoke. Isn't she mad, she asked? But Rose pursued Caroline. I fear a wanderer's life, for me at least, would end like that tale you are reading in disappointment, vanity, and vexation of spirit. Does the Italian so end? I thought so when I read it. Better to try all things and find all empty than to try nothing and leave your life a blank. To do this is to commit the sin of him who buried his talent in a napkin, despicable slugger. Rose, observed Mrs. York, solid satisfaction is only to be realized by doing one's duty. Right, mother, and if my master has given me 10 talents, my duty is to trade with them and to make them 10 talents more. Not in the dust of household drawers shall be the coin interred. I will not deposit it in a broken spouted teapot and shut it up in a china closet among tea things. I will not commit it to your work table to be smothered in piles of woollen hose. I will not prison it in the linen press to find shrouds among the sheets. And least of all, mother, she got up from the floor. Least of all will I hide it in a terrine of cold potatoes to be ranged with bread, butter, pasty, and ham on the shelves of the larder. She stopped and then went on. Mother, the Lord who gave each of us our talents will come home some day and will demand from all an account. The teapot, the old stocking foot, the linen rag, the willow patterned terrine will yield up their barren deposit in many a house. Suffer your daughters, at least, to put their money to the exchangers that they may be enabled at the master's coming to pay him his own with usury. Rose, did you bring your sampler with you, as I told you? Yes, mother, sit down and do a line of marking. Rose sat down promptly and wrought according to orders. After a busy pause of 10 minutes, her mother asked, do you think yourself oppressed now, a victim? No, mother. Yet, as far as I understood your tirade, it was a protest against all womanly and domestic employment. You misunderstood it, mother. I should be sorry not to learn to sew. You do right to teach me and to make me work. Even to the mending of your brother's stockings and the making of sheets? Yes, where is the use of ranting and spouting about it, then? Am I to do nothing but that? I will do that, and then I will do more. Now, mother, I have said my say. I am 12 years old at present, and not till I am 16 will I speak again about talents. For four years I bind myself as an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me. You see what my daughters are, Miss Hellstone, observed Mrs. York. How precociously wise in their own conceits. I would rather this. I prefer that. Such is Jenny's cuckoo song, while Rose utters the bolder cry. I will, and I will not. I render a reason, mother, besides if my cry is bold, it is only heard once in a 12 month. About each birthday, the spirit moves me to deliver one oracle respecting my own instruction and management. I utter it and leave it. It is for you, mother, to listen or not. I would advise all young ladies, pursued Mrs. York, to study the characters of such children as they chance to meet with before they marry, and have any of their own, to consider well how they would like the responsibility of guiding the careless, the labor of persuading the stubborn, the constant burden, and the task of training the best. But with love it need not be so very difficult into post-Caroline. Mothers love their children most dearly, almost better than they love themselves. Fine talk, very sentimental. There is the rough, practical part of life yet to come for you, young miss. But Mrs. York, if I take a little baby into my arms, any poor woman's infant, for instance, I feel that I love that helpless thing quite peculiarly, though I am not its mother. I could do almost anything for it willingly if it were delivered over entirely to my care, if it were quite dependent on me. You feel? Yes, yes, I daresay now. You are led a great deal by your feelings, and you think yourself a very sensitive, refined personage, no doubt. Are you aware that, with all these romantic ideas, you have managed to train your features into an habitually lackadaisical expression better suited to a novel heroine than to a woman who is to make her way in the real world by dint of common sense? No, I am not at all aware of that, Mrs. York. Look in the glass just behind you, compare the face you see there with that of any early rising, hardworking milkmaid. My face is a pale one, but it is not sentimental, and most milkmaids, however red and robust they may be, are more stupid and less practically fitted to make their way in the world than I am. I think more and more correctly than milkmaids in general do. Consequently, where they would often, for want of reflection, act weakly, I, by dint of reflection, should act judiciously. Oh no, you would be influenced by your feelings, you would be guided by impulse. Of course, I should often be influenced by my feelings, they were given me to that end. Whom my feelings teach me to love, I must and shall love, and I hope, if ever I have a husband and children, my feelings will incline me to love them. I hope in that case all my impulses will be strong in compelling me to love. Caroline had a pleasure in saying this with emphasis. She had a pleasure in daring to say it in Mrs. York's presence. She did not care what unjust sarcasm might be hurled at her in reply. She flushed, not with anger, but excitement, when the ungenial matron answered cooling. Don't waste your dramatic effects, that was well said. It was quite fine, but it is lost on two women, an old wife and an old maid. There should have been a disengaged gentleman present. Is Mr. Robert nowhere hid behind the curtains? Do you think, Miss Moore? Or Tongues, who during the chief part of the conversation had been in the kitchen superintending the preparations for tea, did not yet quite comprehend the drift of the discourse. She answered with a puzzled air that Robert was at Winbury. Mrs. York laughed her own peculiar short laugh. Straightforward, Miss Moore, said she patronizingly. It is like you to understand my questions so literally and answer it so simply. Your mind comprehends nothing of intrigue. Strange things might go on around you without your being the wiser. You are not of the class the world calls sharp-witted. These equivocal compliments did not seem to please Ortonce. She drew herself up, puckered her thick eyebrows, but still looked puzzled. I have ever been noted for sagacity and discernment from childhood, she returned, for indeed on the possession of these qualities, she peculiarly peaked herself. You never plotted to win a husband, I'll be bound, pursued Mrs. York. And you have not the benefit of previous experience to aid you in discovering when others plot. Caroline felt this kind language where the benevolent speaker intended she should feel it in her very heart. She could not even parry the shafts. She was defenseless for the present. To answer would have been to a vow that the cap fitted. Mrs. York, looking at her as she sat with troubled downcast eyes and cheek burning painfully and figure expressing in its bent attitude and unconscious tremor all the humiliation and chagrin she experienced felt the sufferer was fair game. The strange woman had a natural antipathy to a shrinking sensitive character, a nervous temperament. Nor was a pretty delicate and youthful face a passport to her affections. It was seldom she met with all these obnoxious qualities combined in one individual. Still more seldom she found that individual at her mercy under circumstances in which she could crush her well. She happened this afternoon to be specially bilious and morose as much disposed to gore as any vicious mother of the herd lowering her large head. She made a new charge. Your cousin Ortonx is an excellent sister, Miss Hellstone. Such ladies as come to try their life's luck here at Hollows Cottage may by a very little clever female artifice could jol the mistress of the house and have the game all in their own hands. You are fond of your cousin's society, I dare say miss. Of which cousins? Oh, of the ladies, of course. Ortonx is and always has been most kind to me. Every sister with an eligible single brother is considered most kind by her spinster friends. Mrs. York, said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly their blue orbs at the same time clearing from trouble and shining steady and full while the glow of shame left her cheek and its hue turned pale and settled. Mrs. York, may I ask what you mean? To give you a lesson on the cultivation of rectitude to disgust you with craft and false sentiment. Do I need this lesson? Most young ladies of the present day need it. You are quite a modern young lady, morbid, delicate, professing to like retirement, which implies, I suppose, that you find little worthy of your sympathies in the ordinary world. The ordinary world, every day, honest folks, are better than you think them. Much better than any bookish, romancing, chit of a girl can be who hardly ever puts her nose over her uncle, the parson's garden wall. Consequently, of whom you know nothing, excuse me, indeed, it does not matter whether you excuse me or not. You have attacked me without provocation. I shall defend myself without apology. Of my relations with my two cousins, you are ignorant. In a fit of ill humor, you have attempted to poison them by gratuitous insinuations, which are far more crafty and false than anything with which you can justly charge me. That I happen to be pale and sometimes to look diffident is no business of yours. That I am fond of books and indisposed for common gossip is still less your business. That I am a romancing chit of a girl is a mere conjecture on your part. I never romance to you nor to anybody you know. That I am the parson's niece is not a crime, though you may be narrow-minded enough to think it so. You dislike me. You have no just reason for disliking me. Therefore keep the expression of your aversion to yourself. If, at any time in future, you evince it annoyingly, I shall answer even less scrupulously than I have done now. She ceased and sat in white and still excitement. She had spoken in the clearest of tones, neither fast nor loud, but her silver accents thrilled the ear. The speed of the current in her veins was just then as swift as it was viewless. End of chapter 23, part one. Chapter 23, part two of Shirley. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Cynthia Lyons. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. Chapter 38, part two. Mrs. York was not irritated at the reproof. Worded with a severity so simple, dictated by a pride so quiet. Turning coolly to Miss Moore, she said, nodding her cap approvingly. She has spirit in her after all. Always speak as honestly as you have done just now, she continued, and you'll do. I repel a recommendation so offensive was the answer, delivered in the same pure key with the same clear look. I reject counsel poisoned by insinuation. It is my right to speak as I think proper. Nothing binds me to converse as you dictate. So far from always speaking as I have done just now, I shall never address anyone in a tone so stern or in language so harsh, unless an answer to unprovoked insult. Mother, you have found your match, pronounced little Jesse, whom the scene appeared greatly to edify. Rose had heard the whole with an unmoved face. She now said, no, Miss Hellstone is not my mother's match. For she allows herself to be vexed. My mother would wear her out in a few weeks. Surely Kildar manages better. Mother, you have never hurt Miss Kildar's feelings yet. She wears armor under her silk dress that you cannot penetrate. Mrs. York often complained that her children were mutinous. It was strange that with all her strictness, with all her strong-mindedness, she could gain no command over them. No look from their father had more influence with them than a lecture from her. Miss Moore, to whom the position of witness to an altercation in which she took no part was highly displeasing, as being an unimportant secondary post, now rallying her dignity, prepared to utter a discourse which was to prove both parties in the wrong and to make it clear to each disputant that she had reason to be ashamed of herself and ought to submit humbly to the superior sense of the individual then addressing her. Fortunately for her audience, she had not harangued above 10 minutes when Sarah's entrance with the tea tray called her attention, first to the fact of that damsel having a gilt comb in her hair and a red necklace round her throat. And secondly and subsequently to appointed remonstrance to the duty of making tea. After the meal, Rose restored her to good humor by bringing her guitar and asking for a song and afterwards engaging her in an intelligent and sharp cross-examination about guitar playing and music in general. Jesse, meantime, directed her aciduities to Caroline. Sitting on a stool at her feet, she talked to her first about religion and then about politics. Jesse was accustomed at home to drink in a great deal of what her father said on these subjects and afterwards in company to retail with more wit and fluency than consistency or discretion, his opinions and typities and preferences. She rated Caroline soundly for being a member of the established church and for having an uncle, a clergyman. She informed her that she lived on the country and ought to work for her living honestly instead of passing a useless life and eating the bread of idleness in the shape of tithes. Thence, Jesse passed to her a review of the ministry at that time in office and a consideration of its desserts. She made familiar mention of the names of Lord Castle Ray and Mr. Percival. Each of these personages, she adorned with a character that might have separately suited Malak and Belial. She denounced the war as wholesale murder and Lord Wellington as a hired butcher. Her auditress listened with exceeding edification. Jesse had something of the genius of humor in her nature. It was inexpressibly comic to hear her repeating her sire's denunciations in his nervous Northern Doric. As Hardy, a little Jacobin, as ever pent a free mutinous spirit in a Muslim frock and sash. Not malignant by nature, her language was not so bitter as it was racy and the expressive little face gave a frequency to every phrase which held a beholder's interest captive. Caroline chitter when she abused Lord Wellington but she listened delighted to a subsequent tirade against the Prince Regent. Jesse quickly read in the sparkle of her hearer's eye and the laughter hovering round her lips that at last she had hit on a topic that pleased. Many a time she had heard the fat Adonis of Fifty discussed at her father's breakfast table and now she gave Mr. York's comments on the theme, genuine as uttered by his Yorkshire lips. But Jesse, I will write about you no more. This is an autumn evening, wet and wild. There is only one cloud in the sky but it curtains it from pole to pole. The wind cannot rest. It hurries sobbing over hills of sullen outline, colorless with twilight and mist. Rain has beat all day on that church tower. It rises dark from the stony enclosure of its graveyard. The nettles, the long grass and the tombs all drip with wet. This evening reminds me too forcibly of another evening some years ago. A howling rainy autumn evening too. When certain who had that day performed a pilgrimage to a grave new made in a heretic cemetery sat near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling. They were merry and social but they each knew that a gap never to be filled had been made in their circle. They knew they had lost something whose absence could never be quite atoned for so long as they lived. And they knew that heavy falling rain was soaking into the wet earth which covered their lost darling. And that the sad sighing gale was mourning above her buried head. The fire warmed them. Life and friendship yet blessed them. But Jesse lay cold, coffined solitary. Only the sod screening her from the storm. Mrs. York folded up her knitting, cut short the music lesson and the lecture on politics and concluded her visit to the cottage at an hour early enough to ensure her return to Briar Mains before the blush of sunset should quite have faded in heaven or the path up the fields have become thoroughly moist with evening dew. The lady and her daughters gone. Caroline felt that she ought to resume her scarf, kiss her cousin's cheek and trip away homeward. If she lingered much later dusk would draw on and Fanny would be put to the trouble of coming to fetch her. It was both baking and ironing day at the rectory, she remembered. Fanny would be busy. Still, she could not quit her seat at the little parlor window. From no point of view could the West look so lovely as from that lattice with the garland of Jessamine rounded whose white stars and green leaves seemed now but gray pencil outlines, graceful in form but colorless in tint against the gold incarnadine of a summer evening against the fire-tinged blue of an August sky at eight o'clock p.m. Caroline looked at the wicked gate besides which Holly Oak spired up tall and she looked at the close hedge of privet and laurel fencing in the garden. Her eyes longed to see something more than the shrubs before they turned from that limited prospect. They longed to see a human figure of a certain mold and height pass the hedge and enter the gate. A human figure she at last saw. Nay, too. Frederick Murgatroyd went by carrying a pail of water. Joe Scott followed dangling on his forefinger with the keys of the mill. They were going to lock up mill and stables for the night and then but take themselves home. So must I, thought Caroline, as she half rose and sighed. This is all folly, heartbreaking folly, she added. In the first place, though I should stay till dark, there will be no arrival because I feel in my heart fate has written it down in today's page of her eternal book that I am not to have the pleasure I long for. In the second place, if he stepped in this moment, my presence here would be a chagrin to him and the consciousness that it must be so would turn half my blood to ice. His hand would perhaps be loose and chill if I put mine into it. His eye would be clouded if I sought its beam. I should look up for that kindling, something I have seen in past days when my face or my language or my disposition had at some happy moment pleased him. I should discover only darkness. I had better go home. She took her bonnet from the table where it lay and was just fastening the ribbon when Ortons, directing her attention to a splendid bouquet of flowers in a glass on the same table, mentioned that Miss Kildar had sent them that morning from Fieldhead and went on to comment on the guests that lady was at present entertaining. On the bustling life she had lately been leading, adding diverse conjectures that she did not very well like it and much wonderment that a person who was so fond of her own way as the heiress did not find some means of sooner getting rid of this cortege of relatives. But they say she actually will not let Mr. Simpson and his family go, she added. They wanted much to return to the south last week to be ready for the reception of the only son who was expected home from a tour. She insists that her cousin Henry shall come and join his friends here in Yorkshire. I daresay she partly does it to oblige Robert and myself. How to oblige Robert and you, inquired Caroline. Why, my child, you are dull, don't you know? You must often have heard. Please, ma'am, said Sarah, opening the door. The preserves that you told me to boil in treacle, the kung-fit-chus, as you call them, is all burnt to the pan. Les kung-fit-chus, elles sont brûlées? Ah, quelle negligence coupable! Coquine de cuisinière, feel insupportable! And Madam Wazel, hastily taking from a drawer a large linen apron and tying it over her black apron, rushed et perdu into the kitchen, went to speak truth, exhaled an odor of calcined sweets, rather strong than savory. The mistress and maid had been in full feud the whole day on the subject of preserving certain black cherries, hard as marbles, sour as slows. Sarah held that sugar was the only orthodox condiment to be used in that process. Madam Wazel maintained and proved it by the practice and experience of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, that treacle, melas, was infinitely preferable. She had committed an imprudence in leaving Sarah in charge of the preserving pan, for her want of sympathy in the nature of its contents had induced a degree of carelessness in watching their confection, whereof the result was dark and cindery ruin. Hubbub followed, high-up braiding and sobs rather loud than deep or real. Caroline, once more turning to the little mirror, was shading her ringlets from her cheek to smooth them under her cottage bonnet, certain that it would not only be useless but unpleasant to stay longer, when, on the sudden opening of the back door, there fell an abrupt calm in the kitchen. The tongues were checked, pulled up with bit and bridle. Was it, was it Robert? He often, almost always, entered by the kitchen way on his return from market. No, it was only Joe Scott, who having hem significantly thrice, every hem being meant as a lofty rebuke to the squabbling womankind, said, Now, I thought I heard a crack. None answered. And, he continued pragmatically, As to masters come, and as he'll enter through this holl, I consider it desirable to step in and let you know, a houseful of women is never fit to be come on without warning. Here he is, walk forward, sir. They were playing up queerly, but I think I've quietened them. Another person, it was now audible, entered. Joe Scott proceeded with his rebukes. What do you mean by being all in darkness? Sarah, thou queen, canst thou not light a candle? It was sundown an hour since. He'll be, break his shins again, some of your pots and tables and stuff. Take tent of this baking bowl, sir. They said it in your way fair, as if they did it malice. To Joe's observations succeeded a confused sort of pause, which Caroline, though she was listening with both her ears, could not understand. It was very brief. A cry broke it, a sound of surprise, followed by the sound of a kiss. Ejaculations, but half articulate, succeeded. Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, est-ce que je m'y entendais? Were the words chiefly to be distinguished? Eh, tu te pours toujours bien, bon sûr? inquired another voice, Robert certainly. Caroline was puzzled, obeying an impulse, the wisdom of which she had not time to question. She escaped from the little parlor by way of leaving the coast clear and running upstairs took up a position at the head of the banisters whence she could make further observations ere presenting herself. It was considerably past sunset now. Dusk filled the passage, yet not such deep dusk, but that she could presently see Robert and Hortense traverse it. Caroline, Caroline, called Hortense a moment afterwards, venez voir mon frère. Strange commented Miss Hellstone, passing strange, what does this unwanted excitement about such an everyday occurrence as a return from market portend? She has not lost her senses, has she? Surely the burnt treacle has not crazed her. She descended in a subdued flutter, yet more was she fluttered when Hortense seized her hand at the parlor door and leading her to Robert who stood in bodily presence tall and dark against the one window, presented her with a mixture of agitation and formality as though they had been utter strangers and this was their first mutual introduction. Increasing puzzle, he bowed rather awkwardly and turning from her with a stranger's embarrassment. He met the doubtful light from the window. It fell on his face and the enigma of the dream, a dream it seemed, was at its height. She saw a visage like and unlike Robert and no Robert. What is the matter, said Caroline? Is my sight wrong? Is it my cousin? Certainly it is your cousin, asserted Hortense. Then who was this now coming through the passage? Now entering the room, Caroline, looking round, met a new Robert, the real Robert, as she felt at once. Well, said he, smiling at her questioning astonished face. Which is which? Ah, this is you, was the answer. He laughed, I believe it is me and do you know who he is? You never saw him before but you have heard of him. She had gathered her senses now. It can be only one person, your brother, since it is so like you, my other cousin, Louis. Clever little Oedipus, you would have baffled the sphinx, but now see us together, change places, change again to confuse her, Louis. Which is the old love now, Lena? As if it were possible to make a mistake when you speak, you should have told Hortense to ask, but you are not so much alike. It is only your height, your figure and complexion that are so similar. And I am Robert, am I not? Asked the newcomer, making a first effort to overcome what seemed his natural shyness. Caroline shook her head gently, a soft expressive ray from her eye beamed on the real Robert, it said much. She was not permitted to quit her cousin soon. Robert himself was peremptory in obliging her to remain, glad, simple and affable in her demeanor, glad for this night at least, in light, bright spirits for the time. She was too pleasant an addition to the cottage circle to be willingly parted with by any of them. Louis seemed naturally rather a grave still retiring man, but the Caroline of this evening, which was not, as you know, reader, the Caroline of every day, thought his reserve and cheered his gravity soon. He sat near her and talked to her. She already knew his vocation was that of tuition. She learned now that he had for some years been the tutor of Mr. Simpson's son that he had been traveling with him and had accompanied him to the north. She inquired if he liked his post, but got a look and reply which did not invite or license for the question. The look woke Caroline's ready sympathy. She thought it a very sad expression to pass over so sensible a face as Louis's, for he had a sensible face, though not handsome she considered when seen near Roberts. She turned to make the comparison. Robert was leaning against the wall, a little behind her, turning over the leaves of a book of engravings and probably listening at the same time to the dialogue between her and Louis. How could I think them alike? She asked herself. I see now it is Orton's Louis resembles, not Robert. And this was in part true. He had the shorter nose and longer upper lip of his sister rather than the fine traits of his brother. He had her mould of mouth and chin, all less decisive, accurate and clear than those of the young mill owner. His air, though, deliberate and reflective, could scarcely be called prompt and acute. You felt in sitting near and looking up at him that a slower and probably a more benignant nature than that of the elder moor shed calm on your impressions. Robert, perhaps aware that Caroline's glance had wandered toward and dwelt upon him, though he had neither met nor answered it, put down the book of engravings and approaching took a seat at her side. She resumed her conversation with Louis, but while she talked to him, her thoughts were elsewhere. Her heart beat on the side from which her face was half averted. She acknowledged a steady, manly, kindly air in Louis, but she bent before the secret power of Robert. To be so near him, though he was silent, though he did not touch so much as her scar fringe, or the white hem of her dress, affected her like a spell. Had she been obliged to speak to him only, it would have quelled, but at liberty to address another, it excited her. Her discourse flowed freely. It was gay, playful, eloquent. The indulgent look and placid manner of her auditor encouraged her to ease. The sober pleasure expressed by his smile drew out all that was brilliant in her nature. She felt that this evening she appeared to advantage, and as Robert was a spectator, the consciousness contented her. Had he been called away, collapse would at once have succeeded stimulus. But her enjoyment was not long to shine full-orbed. A cloud soon crossed it. Orteens, who for some time had been on the move, ordering supper, and was now clearing the little table of some books, et cetera, to make room for the tray, called Robert's attention to the glass of flowers, the carmine and snow and gold of whose petals looked radiant indeed by candlelight. They came from field-head, she said, intended as a gift to you, no doubt. We know who is the favorite there, not I, I'm sure. It was a wonder to hear Orteens' jest, a sign that her spirits were at high watermark indeed. We are to understand, then, that Robert is the favorite, observed Lewis. Mon cher, replied Orteens. Robert, c'est tout ce qu'il y a de plus précieux au monde. À côte, t'es de lui, le reste du genre humaine n'est que du rebout. N'ai-je par raison mon enfant? She added, appealing to Caroline. Caroline was obliged to reply. Yes, and her beacon was quenched, her star withdrew, as she spoke. Et toi, Robert, inquired Lewis. When you shall have an opportunity, ask herself. Was the quiet answer. Whether he reddened or paled, Caroline did not examine. She discovered that it was late, and she must go home. Home she would go. Not even Robert could detain her now. END OF CHAPTER XXIII PART II The future sometimes seems to sob a low warning of the events it is bringing us, like some gathering though yet remote storm, which, in tones of the wind, in flushings of the firmament, in clouds strangely torn, announces a blast strong, to strew the sea with wrecks, or commissioned to bring in fog the yellow taint of pestilence, covering white western aisles with the poisoned exhalations of the east, dimming the lannises of English homes with the breath of Indian plague. At other times this future burst suddenly, as if a rock had rent, and in it a grave had opened, whence issues the body of one that slept. Air you are aware, you stand face to face with a shrouded and unthought of calamity, a new Lazarus. Caroline Hellstone went home from Hollow's cottage in good health, as she imagined. On waking the next morning she felt oppressed with unwanted languor. At breakfast, at each meal of the following day, she missed all sense of appetite. Palatable food was as ashes and sawed us to her. My ill, she asked, and looked at herself in the glass. Her eyes were bright, their pupils dilated, her cheeks seemed rosier and fuller than usual. I look well, why can I not eat? She felt a pulse beat fast in her temples. She felt, too, her brain and strange activity. Her spirits were raised. Saints of busy and broken, but brilliant thoughts engaged her mind. A glow rested on them, such as tinged her complexion. Now followed a hot, parched, thirsty, restless night. Towards morning one terrible dream seized her like a tiger. When she awoke, she felt and knew she was ill. How she had caught the fever, fever it was, she could not tell. Early in her late walk home, some sweet, poisoned breeze, redolent of honeydew and miasma, had passed into her lungs and veins, and finding there already a fever of mental excitement, and a languor of long conflict and habitual sadness, had fanned the spark of flame, and left a well-lit fire behind it. It seemed, however, but a gentle fire. After two hot days and worried nights, there was no violence in the symptoms, and neither her uncle nor Fanny, nor the doctor nor Miss Kielder, when she called, had any fear for her. A few days would restore her, everyone believed. The few days passed, and, though it was still thought it could not long delay, the revival had not begun. Mrs. Pryor, who had visited her daily, being present in her chamber one morning when she had been ill a fortnight, watched her very narrowly for some minutes. She took her hand and placed her finger on her wrist. Then, quietly leaving the chamber, she went to Mr. Hellstone's study. With him she remained closeted a long time, half the morning. On returning to her sick young friend, she laid aside shawl and bonnet. She stood a while at the bedside, one hand placed in the other, gently rocking herself to and fro in an attitude and with a movement habitual to her. At last she said, I have sent Fanny to Fieldhead to fetch a few things for me, such as I shall want during a short stay here. It is my wish to remain with you till you are better. Your uncle kindly permits my attendance. Will it to yourself be acceptable, Caroline? I am sorry you should take such needless trouble. I do not feel very ill, but I cannot refuse resolutely. It will be such comfort to know you are in the house, to see you sometimes in the room. But don't confine yourself on my account, dear Mrs. Pryor. Fanny nurses me very well. Mrs. Pryor, bending over the pale little sufferer, was now smoothing the hair under her cap and gently raising her pillow. As she performed these offices, Caroline, smiling, lifted her face to kiss her. Are you free from pain? Are you tolerably at ease? I was inquired in a low, earnest voice as the self-elected nurse yielded to the caress. I think I am almost happy. You wish to drink? Your lips are parched. She held a glass filled with some cooling beverage to her mouth. Have you eaten anything today, Caroline? I cannot eat. But soon your appetite will return. It must return. That is, I pray God it may. When laying her again on the couch, she encircled her in her arms, and while so doing, by a movement which seemed scarcely voluntary, she drew her to her heart and held her clothes gathered in instant. I shall hardly wish to get well, that I might keep you always, said Caroline. Mrs. Pryor did not smile at this speech. Over her features ran a tremor, which for some minutes she was absorbed in repressing. You are more used to fanny than to me, she remarked ere long. I should think my attendance must seem strange, officious. No, quite natural and very soothing. You must have been accustomed to wait on sick people, ma'am. You move about the room so softly, and you speak so quietly and touch me so gently. I am dexterous in nothing, my dear. You will often find me awkward, but never negligent. Negligent, indeed, she was not. From that hour, fanny and Eliza became ciphers in the sick room. Mrs. Pryor made it her domain. She performed all its duties, she lived in it day and night. The patient remonstrated, faintly, however, from the first, and not at all ere long. Loneliness and gloom were now banished from her bedside. Protection and solace sat there instead. She and her nurse coalesced in wondrous union. Caroline was usually pained to require or receive much attendance. Mrs. Pryor, under ordinary circumstances, had neither the habit nor the art of performing little offices of service, but all now passed with such ease, so naturally that the patient was as willing to be cherished as the nurse was bent on cherishing. No sign of weariness in the latter ever reminded the former that she ought to be anxious. There was, in fact, no very hard duty to perform, but a hireling might have found it hard. With all his care, it seemed strange the sick girl did not get well. Yet such was the case. She wasted like any snow wreath and thaw. She faded like any flower in drought. Miss Kildar, on whose thoughts danger or death seldom intruded, had at first entertained no fears at all for her friend. But seeing her change and sink from time to time when she paid her visits, alarm clutched her heart. She went to Mr. Hellstone and expressed herself with so much energy that that gentleman was at last obliged, however unwillingly, to admit the idea that his niece was ill of something more than a migraine. And when Mrs. Pryor came and quietly demanded a physician, he said she might send for two if she liked. One came, but that one was an oracle. He delivered a dark saying of which the future was to solve the mystery, wrote some prescriptions, gave some directions. The whole with an air of crushing authority. Pocketed his fee and went. Probably he knew well enough he could do no good, but didn't like to say so. Still, no rumor of serious illness got wind in the neighborhood. At Hollow's Cottage it was thought that Caroline had only a severe cold, she having written a note to Hortense to that effect. And Mademoiselle contented herself with sending two pots of current jam, a receipt for a tizane, and a note of advice. Mrs. York being told that a physician had been summoned, sneered at the hypochondriac fancies of the rich and idle, who, she said, having nothing but themselves to think about, must need send for a doctor if only so much as their little finger ate. The rich and idle represented in the person of Caroline, were meantime falling fast into a condition of prostration, whose quickly consummated debility puzzled all who witnessed it, except one. For that one alone reflected how liable is the undermined structure to sink and sudden ruin. Sick people often have fancies inscrutable to ordinary attendants, and Caroline had one which even her tender nurse could not at first explain. On a certain day in the week, at a certain hour, she would, whether worse or better, entreat to be taken up and dressed, and suffered to sit in her chair near the window. This station she would retain till noon was passed. Whatever degree of exhaustion or debility her one aspect betrayed, she still softly put off all persuasion to seek repose until the church clock had duly told Mende. The twelve strokes sounded, she grew docile, and would meekly lie down. Returned to the couch, she usually buried her face deep in the pillow, and drew the coverlets close round her as if to shut out the world and sun of which she was tired. More than once, as she thus lay, a slight convulsion shook the sick bed, and a faint sob broke the silence rounded. These things were not unnoted by Mrs. Pryor. One Tuesday morning, as usual, she had asked leave to rise, and now she sat wrapped in her white dressing gown, leaning forward in the easy chair, gazing steadily and patiently from the lattice. Mrs. Pryor was seated a little behind, knitting as it seemed, but in truth watching her. A change crossed her pale, mournful brow, animating its languor. A light shot into her faded eyes, reviving their luster. She half rose and looked earnestly out. Mrs. Pryor, drawing softly near, glanced over her shoulder. From this window was visible the churchyard, beyond at the road, and there, riding sharply by, appeared a horseman. The figure was not yet too remote for recognition. Mrs. Pryor had long sight. She knew Mr. Moore. Just as an intercepting, rising ground concealed him from view, the clock struck twelve. May I lie down again, asked Caroline. Her nurse assisted her to bed. Having laid her down and drawn the curtain, she stood listening near. The little couch trembled. The suppressed sob stirred the air. A contraction as of anguish altered Mrs. Pryor's features. She wrung her hands. Half a groan escaped her lips. She now remembered that Tuesday was Winbury Market Day. Mr. Moore must always pass the rectory on his way thither, just air noon of that day. Caroline wore continually round her neck a slender braid of silk, attached to which was some trinket. Mrs. Pryor had seen a bit of gold glisten, but had not yet obtained a fair view of it. Her patient never parted with it. When dressed it was hidden in her bosom, as she lay in bed she always held it in her hand. That Tuesday afternoon the transient does, more likely lethargy than sleep, which sometimes abridged the long days, had stolen over her. The weather was hot. While turning in federal restlessness, she had pushed the coverlets a little aside. Mrs. Pryor bent to replace them. The small, wasted hand, lying nervous on the sick girl's breast, clasped as usual her jealously guarded treasure. Those fingers whose attenuation it gave pain to see were now relaxed in sleep. Mrs. Pryor gently disengaged the braid, drawing out a tiny locket. A slight thing it was, such as it suited her small purse to purchase. Under its crystal face appeared a curl of black hair, too short and crisp to have been severed from a female head. Some agitated movement occasioned a twitch of the silken chain. The sleeper started and woke. Her thoughts were usually now somewhat scattered on waking. Her look generally wandering. Half rising, as if in terror, she exclaimed, Don't take it from me, Robert. Don't. It is my last comfort. Let me keep it. I never tell anyone whose hair it is. I never show it. Mrs. Pryor had already disappeared behind the curtain. Reclining far back in a deep armchair by the bedside, she was withdrawn from view. Caroline looked abroad into the chamber. She thought it empty. As her stray ideas returned slowly, each folding its weak wings on the mind's sad shore, like birds exhausted beholding void and perceiving silence round her, she believed herself alone. Collected, like she was not yet, perhaps healthy self-possession and self-control were to be hers no more. Perhaps that world the strong and prosperous living had already rolled from beneath her feet forever. So, at least, it often seemed to herself. In health, she had never been accustomed to think aloud, but now words escaped her lips unawares. Oh! I should see him once more before all is over. Heaven might favor me thus far, she cried. God grant me a little comfort before I die, was her humble petition. But he will not know I am ill till I am gone, and he will come when they have laid me out, and I am senseless, cold and stiff. What can my departed soul feel then? Can it see or know what happens to the clay? Can spirits, through any medium, communicate with living flesh? Can the dead at all revisit those they lead? Can they come in the elements? Will wind, water, fire lend me a path to more? Is it for nothing the wind sounds almost articulately sometimes? Sing's as I have lately heard it sing at night, or passes the casement sobbing, as if for sorrow to come. Does nothing then haunt it? Nothing inspire it? Why, it suggested to me words one night. It poured a strain which I could have written down, only I was appalled and dared not rise to seek pencil and paper by the dim watch light. What is that electricity they speak of, whose changes make us well or ill, whose lack or excess blasts, whose even balance revives? What are all those influences that are about us in the atmosphere, that keep playing over our nerves like fingers on stringed instruments, and call forth now a sweet note, and now a wail, now an exultant swell, and a nom the saddest cadence? Where is the other world? In what will another life consist? Who do I ask? Have I not caused to think that the hour is hasting, but too fast when the veil must be rend for me? Do I not know the grand mystery is likely to burst prematurely on me? Great spirit, in whose goodness I confide, whom, as my father, I have petitioned night and morning from early infancy, help the weak creation of thy hands, sustain me through the ordeal I dread and must undergo, give me strength, give me patience, give me, oh, give me faith. She fell back on her pillow. Mrs. Pryor found means to steal quietly from the room. She re-entered it soon after, apparently as composed as if she had really not overheard this strange soliloquy. The next day several callers came. I had become known that Ms. Halstone was worse. Mr. Hall and his sister Margaret arrived. Both, after they had been in the sick room, quitted it in tears. They had found the patient more altered than they expected. Hortense more came. Caroline seemed stimulated by her presence. She assured her, smiling, she was not dangerously ill. She talked to her in a low voice, but cheerfully. During her stay, excitement kept up the flush of her complexion. She looked better. How is Mr. Robert, as Mrs. Pryor, as Hortense was preparing to take leave? He was very well when he left. Left? Is he gone from home? It was then explained that some police intelligence about the rioters of whom he was in pursuit had, that morning, called him away to Birmingham, and probably a fortnight might elapse ere he returned. He is not aware that Ms. Halstone is very ill. Oh, no! He thought, like me, that she had only a bad cold. After this visit, Mrs. Pryor took care not to approach Caroline's couch for above an hour. She heard her weep and dared not look on her tears. As the evening closed in, she brought her some tea. Caroline, opening her eyes from a moment slumber, viewed her nurse with an unrecognizing glance. I smelt the honeysuckles in the glen this summer morning, she said, as I stood at the counting-house window. Strange words like these from pallid lips pierced a loving listener's heart more poignantly than steel. They sound romantic, perhaps, in books. In real life, they are harrowing. My darling, do you know me? said Mrs. Pryor. I went in to call Robert to breakfast. I have been with him in the garden. He asked me to go. A heavy dew has refreshed the flowers. The peaches are ripening. My darling, my darling! Again and again repeated the nurse. I thought it was daylight, long after sunrise. It looks dark. Is the moon now set? That moon, lately risen, was gazing full and mild upon her. Floating in deep blue space, it watched her unclouded. Then it is not morning. I am not at the cottage. Who is this? I see a shape at my bedside. It is myself. It is your friend, your nurse, your... Lean your head on my shoulder. Collect yourself. In a lower tone. Oh God, take pity. Give her life and me strength. Send me courage. Teach me words. Some minutes passed in silence. The patient lay mute and passive in the trembling arms on the throbbing bosom of the nurse. I am better now, whispered Caroline at last, much better. I feel where I am. This is Mrs. Pryor near me. I was dreaming. I talk when I wake up from dreams. People often do an illness. How fast your heart beats, ma'am. Do not be afraid. It is not fear, child. Only a little anxiety which will pass. I have brought you some tea, Carrie. Your uncle made it himself. You know he says he can make a better cup of tea than any housewife can. Taste it. He is concerned to hear that you eat so little. You would be glad if you had a better appetite. I am thirsty. Let me drink. She drank eagerly. What o'clock is it, ma'am? She asked. Pass nine. Not later. Oh, I have yet a long night before me. But the tea has made me strong. I will sit up. Mrs. Pryor raised her and arranged her pillows. Thank heaven. I am not always equally miserable, and ill and hopeless. The afternoon has been bad since Hortense went. Perhaps the evening may be better. It is a fine night, I think. The moon shines clear. Very fine. A perfect summer night. The old church tower gleams white almost as silver. And does the churchyard look peaceful? Yes, in the garden also. Duke listens on the foliage. Can you see many long weeds and nettles amongst the graves? Or do they look turfy and flowery? I see closed daisy heads gleaming like pearls on some mounds. Thomas is moaned down little dock leaves and ranked grass and cleared all away. I always like that to be done. It soothes one's mind to see the place in order. And I daresay within the church just now that moonlight shines as softly as in my room. It will fall through the east window full on the Hellstone Monument. When I close my eyes, I seem to see poor Papa's epitaph and black letters on white marble. There is plenty of room for other inscriptions underneath. William Farron came to look after your flowers this morning. He was afraid, now you cannot tell them yourself, they would be neglected. He has taken two of your favorite plants home to nurse for you. If I were to make a will, I would leave William all my plants. Surely my trinkets, except one, which must not be taken off my neck. And you, ma'am, my books. After a pause, Mrs. Pryor, I feel a longing wish for something. For what, Caroline? You know I always delight to hear you sing. Sing me a hymn just now. Sing that hymn which begins. Our God, our help and ages pass. Our hope for years to come. Our shelter from the stormy blasts. Our refuge, haven home. Mrs. Pryor at once complied. No wonder Caroline liked to hear her sing. Her voice, even in speaking, was sweet and silver clear. In song it was almost divine. Neither flute nor dulcimer has tones so pure. But the tone was secondary compared to the expression which trembled through. A tender vibration from a feeling heart. End of Chapter 24 Part 1 The servants in the kitchen, hearing the strain, stole to the stairfoot to listen. Even old Hellstone, as he walked in the garden pondering over the unaccountable and feeble nature of women, stood still amongst his borders to catch the mournful melody more distinctly. Wyatt reminded him of his forgotten dead wife he could not tell. Nor Wyatt made him more concerned than he had hitherto been for Caroline's fading girlhood. He was glad to recollect that he had promised to pay win the magistrate a visit that evening. Low spirits and gloomy thoughts were very much his aversions. When they attacked him he usually found means to make them march in double-quick time. The hymn followed him faintly as he crossed the fields. He hastened his customary sharp pace that he might get beyond its reach. Thy word commands are flesh to dust, return ye sons of men. All nations rose from earth at first and turn to earth again. A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone, short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun. Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away. They fly, forgotten as a dream, dies at the opening day. Like flowery fields the nations stand, fresh in the morning light. The flowers beneath the mower's hand lie withering ere to his night. Our God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come. Be thou our guard while troubles last, O Father, be our home. Now sing a song—a Scottish song—suggested Carolyn when the hymn was over. Ye banks embrace O Bonnie Dune. Again Mrs. Pryor obeyed, or essayed to obey. At the close of the first stanza she stopped. She could get no further. Her full heart flowed over. You are weeping at the pathos of the air. Come here, and I will comfort you, said Carolyn, in a pitying accent. Mrs. Pryor came. She sat down on the edge of her patient's bed, and allowed the wasted arms to encircle her. You often soothe me. Let me soothe you, murmured the young girl, kissing her cheek. I hope, she added, it is not for me you weep. No answer followed. Do you think I shall not get better? I do not feel very ill, only weak. But your mind, Carolyn, your mind is crushed. Your heart is almost broken. You have been so neglected, so repulsed, left so desolate. I believe grief is, and always has been, my worst ailment. I sometimes think, if an abundant gush of happiness came on me, I could revive yet. Do you wish to live? I have no object in life. You love me, Carolyn? Very much, very truly, inexpressibly sometimes. Just now I feel as if I could almost grow to your heart. I will return directly, dear, remarked Mrs. Pryor as she laid Carolyn down. Quitting her, she glided to the door, softly turned the key in the lock, ascertained that it was fast, and came back. She bent over her. She threw back the curtain to admit the moonlight more freely. She gazed intently on her face. Then if you love me, said she, speaking quickly with an altered voice, if you feel as if, to use your own words, you could grow to my heart, it will be neither shock nor pain for you to know that that heart is the source whence yours was filled, that from my veins issued the tide which flows in yours, that you are mine, my daughter, my own child. Mrs. Pryor, my own child, that is, that means you have adopted me? It means that if I have given you nothing else, I at least gave you life, that I bore you, nursed you, that I am your true mother. No other woman can claim the title, it is mine. But Mrs. James Halston, but my father's wife whom I do not remember ever to have seen, she is my mother? She is your mother. James Halston was my husband. I say you are mine, I have proved it. I thought perhaps you were all his, which would have been a cruel dispensation for me. I find it is not so. God permitted me to be the parent of my child's mind. It belongs to me, it is my property, my right. These features are James's own. He had a fine face when he was young, and not altered by error. Papa, my darling, gave you your blue eyes and soft brown hair. He gave you the oval of your face and the regularity of your lineaments. The outside he conferred. But the heart and the brain are mine. The germs are for me, and they are improved. They are developed to excellence. I esteem and approve my child as highly as I do most fondly love her. Is what I hear true? Is it no dream? I wish it were as true that the substance and color of health were restored to your cheek. My own mother. Is she one I can be so fond of as I can of you? People generally did not like her, so I have been given to understand. They told you that? Well, your mother now tells you that not having the gift to please people generally for their approbation she does not care. Her thoughts are centered in her child. Does that child welcome or reject her? But if you are my mother, the world is all changed to me. Surely I can live. I should like to recover. You must recover. You drew life and strength from my breast when you were a tiny, fair infant, over whose blue eyes I used to weep, fearing I beheld in your very beauty the sign of qualities that had entered my heart like iron, and pierced through my soul like a sword. Daughter. We have long been parted. I return now to cherish you again. She held her to her bosom. She cradled her in her arms. She rocked her softly, as if lulling a young child to sleep. My mother. My own mother. The offspring nestled to the parent. That parent, feeling the endearment and hearing the appeal, gathered her closer still. She covered her with noiseless kisses. She murmured love over her. Like a cushion fostering its young. There was silence in the room for a long while. Does my uncle know? Your uncle knows. I told him when I first came to stay with you here. Did you recognize me when we first met at Fieldhead? How could it be otherwise? Mr. and Miss Hellstone being announced, I was prepared to see my child. It was that then which moved you. I saw you disturbed. You saw nothing, Carolyn. I can cover my feelings. You can never tell what an age of strange sensation I lived during the two minutes that elapsed between the report of your name and your entrance. You can never tell how your look, mean, carriage shook me. Why? Were you disappointed? What will she be like? I had asked myself. And when I saw what you were like, I could have dropped. Mama, why? I trembled in your presence. I said I will never own her. She shall never know me. But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little diffident at the thought of an introduction to strangers. That was all. I soon saw you were diffident. That was the first thing which reassured me. Had you been rustic, clownish, awkward, I should have been content. You puzzle me. I had reason to dread a fair outside. To mistrust a popular bearing. To shudder before distinction, grace, and courtesy. Beauty and affability had come in my way when I was recluse, desolate, young, and ignorant. A toil-worn governess perishing of unteared labour breaking down before her time. These, Caroline, when they smiled on me, I mistook for angels. I followed them home. And when into their hands I had given without reserve my whole chance of future happiness, it was my lot to witness a transfiguration on the domestic hearth. To see the white mask lifted, the bright disguise put away, and opposite me sat down. Oh, God, I have suffered. She sank on the pillow. I have suffered. None saw, none knew, there was no sympathy, no redemption, no redress. Take comfort, mother, it is over now. It is over, and not fruitlessly. I tried to keep the word of his patience. He kept me in the days of my anguish. I was afraid with terror. I was troubled. Through great tribulation he brought me through to a salvation revealed in this last time. My fear had torment. He has cast it out. He has given me, in its stead, perfect love. But, Caroline, thus she invoked her daughter after a pause. Mother, I charge you, when you next look on your father's monument, to respect the name chiseled there. To you he did only good. On you he conferred his whole treasure of beauties, nor added to them one dark defect. All you derive from him is excellent. You owe him gratitude. Leave between him and me the settlement of our mutual account, metal knot. God is the arbiter. This world's laws never came near us, never. They were powerless as a rotten bulrush to protect me. Impotent as idiot babblings to restrain him. As you said, it is all over now. The grave lies between us. There he sleeps, in that church. To his dust I say this night what I have never said before. James slumber peacefully. See, your terrible debt is cancelled. Look, I wipe out the long black account with my own hand. James, your child atones, this living likeness of you, this thing with your perfect features, this one good gift you gave me has nestled affectionately to my heart, and tenderly called me mother. Husband, rest forgiven. Dearest mother, that is right. Can Papa's spirit hear us? Is he comforted to know that we still love him? I said nothing of love. I spoke of forgiveness. Mind the truth, child, I said nothing of love. On the threshold of eternity, should he be there to see me enter, I will maintain that. Oh, mother, you must have suffered. Oh, child, the human heart can suffer. It can hold more tears than the ocean holds waters. We never know how deep, how wide it is, till misery begins to unbind her clouds, and fill it with rushing blackness. Mother, forget. Forget? she said with the strangest specter of a laugh. The North Pole will rush to the South, and the headlands of Europe be locked into the bays of Australia ere I forget. Hush, mother, rest. Be at peace. And the child lulled the parent, as the parent had erst lulled the child. At last Mrs. Pryor wept. She then grew calmer. She resumed those tender cares agitation had for a moment suspended. Replacing her daughter on the couch, she smoothed the pillow, and spread the sheet. The soft hair whose locks were loosened, she rearranged. The damp brow she refreshed with a cool fragrant essence. Mama, let them bring a candle, that I may see you, and tell my uncle to come into this room by and by. I want to hear him say that I am your daughter, and Mama, take your supper here. Don't leave me for one minute to-night. Oh, Caroline, it is well you are gentle. You will say to me go, and I shall go. Come, and I shall come. Do this, and I shall do it. You inherit a certain manner, as well as certain features. It will be always Mama, prefacing a mandate. Softly spoken, though, from you. Thank God! Well, she added under her breath. He spoke softly, too, once. Like a flute, breathing tenderness. And then when the world was not by to listen, discords that split the nerves and curdled the blood sounds to inspire insanity. It seems so natural, Mama, to ask you for this and that. I shall want nobody but you to be near me, or to do anything for me. But do not let me be troublesome. Check me, if I encroach. You must not depend on me to check you. You must keep guard over yourself. I have little moral courage. The want of it is my bane. It is that which has made me an unnatural parent, which has kept me apart from my child during the ten years which have elapsed since my husband's death, left me at liberty to claim her. It was that which first unnerved my arms, and permitted the infant I might have retained a while longer to be snatched prematurely from their embrace. How, Mama? I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and I feared your loveliness, deeming at the stamp of perversity. They sent me your portrait, taken at eight years old. That portrait confirmed my fears. Had it shown me a sun-burnt little rustic, a heavy, blunt-featured commonplace child, I should have hastened to claim you. But there, under the silver paper, I saw blooming the delicacy of an aristocratic flower. Little lady was written on every trait. I had too recently crawled from under the yoke of the fine gentleman, escaped, galled, crushed, paralyzed, dying, to dare to encounter his still finer and most very like representative. My sweet little lady overwhelmed me with dismay. Her air of native elegance froze my very marrow. In my experience I had not met with truth, modesty, good principle, as a concomitance of beauty. A form so straight and fine, I argued, must conceal a mind warped and cruel. I had little faith in the power of education to rectify such a mind. Or, rather, I entirely misdoubted my own ability to influence it. Caroline, I dared not undertake to rear you. I resolved to leave you in your uncle's hands. Matthewson Hellstone, I knew, if an austere was an upright man. He and all the world thought hardly of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved to be misjudged. Mama, why did you call yourself Mrs. Pryor? It was a name in my mother's family. I adopted it that I might live unmolested. My married name recalled too vividly my married life. I could not bear it. Besides, threats were uttered, afforsing me to return to bondage. It could not be, rather, a beer for a bed, the grave for a home. My new name sheltered me. I resumed under its screen my old occupation of teaching. At first it scarcely procured me the means of sustaining life, but how savoury was hunger when I fasted in peace. How safe seemed the darkness and chill of an unkindled hearth, when no lurid reflection from terror crimson'd its desolation. How serene was solitude, when I feared not the eruption of violence and vice. But Mama, you have been in this neighborhood before. How did it happen, that when you reappeared here with Miss Kildar, you were not recognized? I only paid a short visit, as a bride, twenty years ago. And then I was very different to what I am now, slender, almost as slender as my daughter is at this day. My complexion, my very features are changed. My hair, my style of dress, everything is altered. You cannot fancy me a slim young person, a tired and scanty drapery of white muslin with bare arms, bracelets, and necklace of beads, and hair disposed in round grecian curls above my forehead. You must indeed have been different. Mama, I heard the front door open. If it is my uncle coming in, just ask him to step upstairs. And let me hear his assurance that I am truly awake and collected, and not dreaming or delirious. The rector of his own accord was mounting the stairs, and Mrs. Pryor summoned him to his niece's apartment. She's not worse, I hope, he inquired hastily. I think her better. She is disposed to converse. She seems stronger. Good, said he, brushing quickly into the room. Ah, Carrie, how do? Did you drink my cup of tea? I made it for you just as I like it myself. I drank it every drop, uncle. It did me good. It has made me quite alive. I have a wish for company, so I begged Mrs. Pryor to call you in. The respected Ecclesiastic looked pleased and yet embarrassed. He was willing enough to bestow his company on his sick niece for ten minutes, since it was her whim to wish it. But what means to employ for her entertainment he knew not. He hemmed. He fidgeted. You'll be up in a trice, he observed, by way of saying something. The little weakness will soon pass off, and then you must drink port wine, a pipe if you can, and eat game and oysters. I'll get them for you, if they are to be had anywhere. Bless me, we'll make you as strong as Samson before we've done with you. Who is that lady, uncle, standing beside you at the bed foot? Good God, he ejaculated. She's not wandering, is she, ma'am? Mrs. Pryor smiled. I am wandering in a pleasant world, said Caroline, and a soft, happy voice, and I want you to tell me whether it is real or visionary. What lady is that? Give her a name, uncle. We must have Dr. Ryle again, ma'am, or better still, MacTurk. He's less of a humbug. Thomas must saddle the pony and go for him. No, I don't want a doctor. Mama shall be my only physician. Now do you understand, uncle? Mr. Hellstone pushed up his spectacles from his nose to his forehead, handled his snuff-box, and administered to himself a portion of the contents, thus fortified. He answered briefly. I see daylight. You've told her, then, ma'am? And is it true, demanded Caroline, rising up on her pillow? Is she really my mother? You won't cry or make any scene or turn hysterical if I answer yes? Cry? I'd cry if you said no. It would be terrible to be disappointed now. But give her a name. How do you call her? I call this stout lady in a quaint black dress, who looks young enough to wear much smarter raiment, if she would. I call her Agnes Hellstone. She married my brother James, and is his widow. And my mother? What a little skeptic it is! Look at her small face, Mrs. Pryor. Scarcely larger than the palm of my hand. Alive with acuteness and eagerness. To Caroline. She had the trouble of bringing you into the world at any rate. Mind you show your duty to her by quickly getting well, and repairing the waste of these cheeks. Hi-ho! She used to be plump. What she has done with it all, I can't for the life of me divine. If wishing to get well will help me, I shall not be long sick. This morning I had no reason and no strength to wish it. Fanny here tapped at the door and said that supper was ready. Uncle, if you please, you may send me a little bit of supper. Anything you like, from your own plate. That is wiser than going into hysterics, is it not? It is spoken like a sage, Carrie. See if I don't cater for you judiciously. When women are sensible, and above all intelligible, I can get on with them. It is only the vague, superfine sensations and extremely wire-drawn notions that put me about. Let a woman ask me to give her an edible or a wearable. Be the same a rock's egg or the breastplate of Aaron, a share of St. John's locusts and honey, or the leather and girdle about his loins. I can at least understand the demand. But when they pine, for they know not what. Sympathy, sentiment, some of these indefinite abstractions, I can't do it. I don't know it. I haven't got it. Madam, accept my arm. Mrs. Pryor signified that she should stay with her daughter that evening. Hallstone accordingly left them together. He soon returned, bringing a plate in his own consecrated hand. This is chicken, he said. But we'll have partridge to-morrow. Lift her up and put a shawl over her. On my word I understand nursing. Now here is the very same little silver fork you used when you first came to the rectory. That strikes me as being what you may call a happy thought, a delicate attention. Take it, Carrie, and munch away cleverly. Carolyn did her best, her uncle frowned to see that her powers were so limited. He prophesied, however, the great things for the future, and as she praised the morsel he had brought, and smiled gratefully in his face, he stooped over her pillow, kissed her, and said with a broken rugged accent, Good night, Barony, God bless thee. Carolyn enjoyed such peaceful rest that night, circled by her mother's arms, and pillowed on her breast, that she forgot to wish for any other stay. And though more than one feverish dream came to her in slumber, yet, when she awoke up panting, so happy, and contented, a feeling returned with returning consciousness, that her agitation was soothed almost as soon as felt. As to the mother, she spent the night like Jacob at Penial. Till break of day she wrestled with God in earnest prayer.