Then the watcher approaches the patient's pillow, and sees a new and strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the insufferable moment draws nigh, knows that it is God's will his idol shall be broken, and bends his head, and subdues his soul to the sentence he cannot avert and scarce can bear.

Happy Mrs. Pryor! She was still praying, unconscious that the summer sun hung above the hills, when her child softly woke in her arms. No piteous, unconscious moaning—sound which so wastes our strength that, even if we have sworn to be firm, a rush of unconquerable tears sweeps away the oath—preceded her waking. No space of deaf apathy followed. The first words spoken were not those of one becoming estranged from this world, and already permitted to stray at times into realms foreign to the living. Caroline evidently remembered with clearness what had happened.

"Mamma, I have slept so well. I only dreamed and woke twice."

Mrs. Pryor rose with a start, that her daughter might not see the joyful tears called into her eyes by that affectionate word "mamma," and the welcome assurance that followed it.

For many days the mother dared rejoice only with trembling. That first revival seemed like the flicker of a dying lamp. If the flame streamed up bright one moment, the next it sank dim in the socket. Exhaustion followed close on excitement.

There was always a touching endeavour to appear better, but too often ability refused to second will; too often the attempt to bear up failed. The effort to eat, to talk, to look cheerful, was unsuccessful. Many an hour passed during which Mrs. Pryor feared that the chords of life could never more be strengthened, though the time of their breaking might be deferred.

During this space the mother and daughter seemed left almost alone in the neighbourhood. It was the close of August; the weather was fine—that is to say, it was very dry and very dusty, for an arid wind had been blowing from the east this month past; very cloudless, too, though a pale haze, stationary in the atmosphere, seemed to rob of all depth of tone the blue of heaven, of all freshness the verdure of earth, and of all glow the light of day. Almost every family in Briarfield was absent on an excursion. Miss Keeldar and her friends were at the seaside; so were Mrs. Yorke's household. Mr. Hall and Louis Moore, between whom a spontaneous intimacy seemed to have arisen—the result, probably, of harmony of views and temperament—were gone "up north" on a pedestrian excursion to the Lakes. Even Hortense, who would fain have stayed at home and aided Mrs. Pryor in nursing Caroline, had been so earnestly entreated by Miss Mann to accompany her once more to Wormwood Wells, in the hope of alleviating sufferings greatly aggravated by the insalubrious weather, that she felt obliged to comply; indeed, it was not in her nature to refuse a request that at once appealed to her goodness of heart, and, by a confession of dependency, flattered her amour propre. As for Robert, from Birmingham he had gone on to London, where he still sojourned.

So long as the breath of Asiatic deserts parched Caroline's lips and fevered her veins, her physical convalescence could not keep pace with her returning mental tranquillity; but there came a day when the wind ceased to sob at the eastern gable of the rectory, and at the oriel window of the church. A little cloud like a man's hand arose in the west; gusts from the same quarter drove it on and spread it wide; wet and tempest prevailed a while. When that was over the sun broke out genially, heaven regained its azure, and earth its green; the livid cholera-tint had vanished from the face of nature; the hills rose clear round the horizon, absolved from that pale malaria-haze.

Caroline's youth could now be of some avail to her, and so could her mother's nurture. Both, crowned by God's blessing, sent in the pure west wind blowing soft as fresh through the ever-open chamber lattice, rekindled her long-languishing energies. At last Mrs. Pryor saw that it was permitted to hope: a genuine, material convalescence had commenced. It was not merely Caroline's smile which was brighter, or her spirits which were cheered, but a certain look had passed from her face and eye—a look dread and indescribable, but which will easily be recalled by those who have watched the couch of dangerous disease. Long before the emaciated outlines of her aspect began to fill, or its departed colour to return, a more subtle change took place; all grew softer and warmer. Instead of a marble mask and glassy eye, Mrs. Pryor saw laid on the pillow a face pale and wasted enough, perhaps more haggard than the other appearance, but less awful; for it was a sick, living girl, not a mere white mould or rigid piece of statuary.

Now, too, she was not always petitioning to drink. The words, "I am so thirsty," ceased to be her plaint. Sometimes, when she had swallowed a morsel, she would say it had revived her. All descriptions of food were no longer equally distasteful; she could be induced, sometimes, to indicate a preference. With what trembling pleasure and anxious care did not her nurse prepare what was selected! How she watched her as she partook of it!

Nourishment brought strength. She could sit up. Then she longed to breathe the fresh air, to revisit her flowers, to see how the fruit had ripened. Her uncle, always liberal, had bought a garden-chair for her express use. He carried her down in his own arms, and placed her in it himself, and William Farren was there to wheel her round the walks, to show her what he had done amongst her plants, to take her directions for further work.

William and she found plenty to talk about. They had a dozen topics in common—interesting to them, unimportant to the rest of the world. They took a similar interest in animals, birds, insects, and plants; they held similar doctrines about humanity to the lower creation, and had a similar turn for minute observation on points of natural history. The nest and proceedings of some ground-bees, which had burrowed in the turf under an old cherry-tree, was one subject of interest; the haunts of certain hedge-sparrows, and the welfare of certain pearly eggs and callow fledglings, another.

Had Chambers's Journal existed in those days, it would certainly have formed Miss Helstone's and Farren's favourite periodical. She would have subscribed for it, and to him each number would duly have been lent; both would have put implicit faith and found great savour in its marvellous anecdotes of animal sagacity.

This is a digression, but it suffices to explain why Caroline would have no other hand than William's to guide her chair, and why his society and conversation sufficed to give interest to her garden-airings.

Mrs. Pryor, walking near, wondered how her daughter could be so much at ease with a "man of the people." She found it impossible to speak to him otherwise than stiffly. She felt as if a great gulf lay between her caste and his, and that to cross it or meet him half-way would be to degrade herself. She gently asked Caroline, "Are you not afraid, my dear, to converse with that person so unreservedly? He may presume, and become troublesomely garrulous."

"William presume, mamma? You don't know him. He never presumes. He is altogether too proud and sensitive to do so. William has very fine feelings."

And Mrs. Pryor smiled sceptically at the naive notion of that rough-handed, rough-headed, fustian-clad clown having "fine feelings."

Farren, for his part, showed Mrs. Pryor only a very sulky brow. He knew when he was misjudged, and was apt to turn unmanageable with such as failed to give him his due.

The evening restored Caroline entirely to her mother, and Mrs. Pryor liked the evening; for then, alone with her daughter, no human shadow came between her and what she loved. During the day she would have her stiff demeanour and cool moments, as was her wont. Between her and Mr. Helstone a very respectful but most rigidly ceremonious intercourse was kept up. Anything like familiarity would have bred contempt at once in one or both these personages; but by dint of strict civility and well-maintained distance they got on very smoothly.

Towards the servants Mrs. Pryor's bearing was not uncourteous, but shy, freezing, ungenial. Perhaps it was diffidence rather than pride which made her appear so haughty; but, as was to be expected, Fanny and Eliza failed to make the distinction, and she was unpopular with them accordingly. She felt the effect produced; it rendered her at times dissatisfied with herself for faults she could not help, and with all else dejected, chill, and taciturn.

This mood changed to Caroline's influence, and to that influence alone. The dependent fondness of her nursling, the natural affection of her child, came over her suavely. Her frost fell away, her rigidity unbent; she grew smiling and pliant. Not that Caroline made any wordy profession of love—that would ill have suited Mrs. Pryor; she would have read therein the proof of insincerity—but she hung on her with easy dependence; she confided in her with fearless reliance. These things contented the mother's heart.

She liked to hear her daughter say, "Mamma, do this;" "Please, mamma, fetch me that;" "Mamma, read to me;" "Sing a little, mamma."

Nobody else—not one living thing—had ever so claimed her services, so looked for help at her hand. Other people were always more or less reserved and stiff with her, as she was reserved and stiff with them; other people betrayed consciousness of and annoyance at her weak points. Caroline no more showed such wounding sagacity or reproachful sensitiveness now than she had done when a suckling of three months old.

Yet Caroline could find fault. Blind to the constitutional defects that were incurable, she had her eyes wide open to the acquired habits that were susceptible of remedy. On certain points she would quite artlessly lecture her parent; and that parent, instead of being hurt, felt a sensation of pleasure in discovering that the girl dared lecture her, that she was so much at home with her.

"Mamma, I am determined you shall not wear that old gown any more. Its fashion is not becoming; it is too strait in the skirt. You shall put on your black silk every afternoon. In that you look nice; it suits you. And you shall have a black satin dress for Sundays—a real satin, not a satinet or any of the shams. And, mamma, when you get the new one, mind you must wear it."

"My dear, I thought of the black silk serving me as a best dress for many years yet, and I wished to buy you several things."

"Nonsense, mamma. My uncle gives me cash to get what I want. You know he is generous enough; and I have set my heart on seeing you in a black satin. Get it soon, and let it be made by a dressmaker of my recommending. Let me choose the pattern. You always want to disguise yourself like a grandmother. You would persuade one that you are old and ugly. Not at all! On the contrary, when well dressed and cheerful you are very comely indeed; your smile is so pleasant, your teeth are so white, your hair is still such a pretty light colour. And then you speak like a young lady, with such a clear, fine tone, and you sing better than any young lady I ever heard. Why do you wear such dresses and bonnets, mamma, such as nobody else ever wears?"

"Does it annoy you, Caroline?"

"Very much; it vexes me even. People say you are miserly; and yet you are not, for you give liberally to the poor and to religious societies—though your gifts are conveyed so secretly and quietly that they are known to few except the receivers. But I will be your lady's-maid myself. When I get a little stronger I will set to work, and you must be good, mamma, and do as I bid you."

And Caroline, sitting near her mother, rearranged her muslin handkerchief and resmoothed her hair.

"My own mamma," then she went on, as if pleasing herself with the thought of their relationship, "who belongs to me, and to whom I belong! I am a rich girl now. I have something I can love well, and not be afraid of loving. Mamma, who gave you this little brooch? Let me unpin it and look at it."

Mrs. Pryor, who usually shrank from meddling fingers and near approach, allowed the license complacently.

"Did papa give you this, mamma?"

"My sister gave it me—my only sister, Cary. Would that your Aunt Caroline had lived to see her niece!"

"Have you nothing of papa's—no trinket, no gift of his?"

"I have one thing."

"That you prize?"

"That I prize."

"Valuable and pretty?"

"Invaluable and sweet to me."

"Show it, mamma. Is it here or at Fieldhead?"

"It is talking to me now, leaning on me. Its arms are round me."

"Ah, mamma, you mean your teasing daughter, who will never let you alone; who, when you go into your room, cannot help running to seek for you; who follows you upstairs and down, like a dog."

"Whose features still give me such a strange thrill sometimes. I half fear your fair looks yet, child."

"You don't; you can't. Mamma, I am sorry papa was not good. I do so wish he had been. Wickedness spoils and poisons all pleasant things. It kills love. If you and I thought each other wicked, we could not love each other, could we?"

"And if we could not trust each other, Cary?"

"How miserable we should be! Mother, before I knew you I had an apprehension that you were not good—that I could not esteem you. That dread damped my wish to see you. And now my heart is elate because I find you perfect—almost; kind, clever, nice. Your sole fault is that you are old-fashioned, and of that I shall cure you. Mamma, put your work down; read to me. I like your southern accent; it is so pure, so soft. It has no rugged burr, no nasal twang, such as almost every one's voice here in the north has. My uncle and Mr. Hall say that you are a fine reader, mamma. Mr. Hall said he never heard any lady read with such propriety of expression or purity of accent."

"I wish I could reciprocate the compliment, Cary; but, really, the first time I heard your truly excellent friend read and preach I could not understand his broad northern tongue."

"Could you understand me, mamma? Did I seem to speak roughly?"

"No. I almost wished you had, as I wished you had looked unpolished. Your father, Caroline, naturally spoke well, quite otherwise than your worthy uncle—correctly, gently, smoothly. You inherit the gift."

"Poor papa! When he was so agreeable, why was he not good?"

"Why he was as he was—and happily of that you, child, can form no conception—I cannot tell. It is a deep mystery. The key is in the hands of his Maker. There I leave it."

"Mamma, you will keep stitching, stitching away. Put down the sewing; I am an enemy to it. It cumbers your lap, and I want it for my head; it engages your eyes, and I want them for a book. Here is your favourite—Cowper."

These importunities were the mother's pleasure. If ever she delayed compliance, it was only to hear them repeated, and to enjoy her child's soft, half-playful, half-petulant urgency. And then, when she yielded, Caroline would say archly, "You will spoil me, mamma. I always thought I should like to be spoiled, and I find it very sweet." So did Mrs. Pryor.



CHAPTER XXVI.

OLD COPY-BOOKS.

By the time the Fieldhead party returned to Briarfield Caroline was nearly well. Miss Keeldar, who had received news by post of her friend's convalescence, hardly suffered an hour to elapse between her arrival at home and her first call at the rectory.

A shower of rain was falling gently, yet fast, on the late flowers and russet autumn shrubs, when the garden wicket was heard to swing open, and Shirley's well-known form passed the window. On her entrance her feelings were evinced in her own peculiar fashion. When deeply moved by serious fears or joys she was not garrulous. The strong emotion was rarely suffered to influence her tongue, and even her eye refused it more than a furtive and fitful conquest. She took Caroline in her arms, gave her one look, one kiss, then said, "You are better."

And a minute after, "I see you are safe now; but take care. God grant your health may be called on to sustain no more shocks!"

She proceeded to talk fluently about the journey. In the midst of vivacious discourse her eye still wandered to Caroline. There spoke in its light a deep solicitude, some trouble, and some amaze.

"She may be better," it said, "but how weak she still is! What peril she has come through!"

Suddenly her glance reverted to Mrs. Pryor. It pierced her through.

"When will my governess return to me?" she asked.

"May I tell her all?" demanded Caroline of her mother. Leave being signified by a gesture, Shirley was presently enlightened on what had happened in her absence.

"Very good," was the cool comment—"very good! But it is no news to me."

"What! did you know?"

"I guessed long since the whole business. I have heard somewhat of Mrs. Pryor's history—not from herself, but from others. With every detail of Mr. James Helstone's career and character I was acquainted. An afternoon's sitting and conversation with Miss Mann had rendered me familiar therewith; also he is one of Mrs. Yorke's warning examples—one of the blood-red lights she hangs out to scare young ladies from matrimony. I believe I should have been sceptical about the truth of the portrait traced by such fingers—both these ladies take a dark pleasure in offering to view the dark side of life—but I questioned Mr. Yorke on the subject, and he said, 'Shirley, my woman, if you want to know aught about yond' James Helstone, I can only say he was a man-tiger. He was handsome, dissolute, soft, treacherous, courteous, cruel——' Don't cry, Cary; we'll say no more about it."

"I am not crying, Shirley; or if I am, it is nothing. Go on; you are no friend if you withhold from me the truth. I hate that false plan of disguising, mutilating the truth."

"Fortunately I have said pretty nearly all that I have to say, except that your uncle himself confirmed Mr. Yorke's words; for he too scorns a lie, and deals in none of those conventional subterfuges that are shabbier than lies."

"But papa is dead; they should let him alone now."

"They should; and we will let him alone. Cry away, Cary; it will do you good. It is wrong to check natural tears. Besides, I choose to please myself by sharing an idea that at this moment beams in your mother's eye while she looks at you. Every drop blots out a sin. Weep! your tears have the virtue which the rivers of Damascus lacked. Like Jordan, they can cleanse a leprous memory."

"Madam," she continued, addressing Mrs. Pryor, "did you think I could be daily in the habit of seeing you and your daughter together—marking your marvellous similarity in many points, observing (pardon me) your irrepressible emotions in the presence and still more in the absence of your child—and not form my own conjectures? I formed them, and they are literally correct. I shall begin to think myself shrewd."

"And you said nothing?" observed Caroline, who soon regained the quiet control of her feelings.

"Nothing. I had no warrant to breathe a word on the subject. My business it was not; I abstained from making it such."

"You guessed so deep a secret, and did not hint that you guessed it?"

"Is that so difficult?"

"It is not like you."

"How do you know?"

"You are not reserved; you are frankly communicative."

"I may be communicative, yet know where to stop. In showing my treasure I may withhold a gem or two—a curious, unbought graven stone—an amulet of whose mystic glitter I rarely permit even myself a glimpse. Good-day."

Caroline thus seemed to get a view of Shirley's character under a novel aspect. Ere long the prospect was renewed; it opened upon her.

No sooner had she regained sufficient strength to bear a change of scene—the excitement of a little society—than Miss Keeldar sued daily for her presence at Fieldhead. Whether Shirley had become wearied of her honoured relatives is not known. She did not say she was; but she claimed and retained Caroline with an eagerness which proved that an addition to that worshipful company was not unwelcome.

The Sympsons were church people. Of course the rector's niece was received by them with courtesy. Mr. Sympson proved to be a man of spotless respectability, worrying temper, pious principles, and worldly views; his lady was a very good woman—patient, kind, well-bred. She had been brought up on a narrow system of views, starved on a few prejudices—a mere handful of bitter herbs; a few preferences, soaked till their natural flavour was extracted, and with no seasoning added in the cooking; some excellent principles, made up in a stiff raised crust of bigotry difficult to digest. Far too submissive was she to complain of this diet or to ask for a crumb beyond it.

The daughters were an example to their sex. They were tall, with a Roman nose apiece. They had been educated faultlessly. All they did was well done. History and the most solid books had cultivated their minds. Principles and opinions they possessed which could not be mended. More exactly-regulated lives, feelings, manners, habits, it would have been difficult to find anywhere. They knew by heart a certain young-ladies'-schoolroom code of laws on language, demeanour, etc.; themselves never deviated from its curious little pragmatical provisions, and they regarded with secret whispered horror all deviations in others. The Abomination of Desolation was no mystery to them; they had discovered that unutterable Thing in the characteristic others call Originality. Quick were they to recognize the signs of this evil; and wherever they saw its trace—whether in look, word, or deed; whether they read it in the fresh, vigorous style of a book, or listened to it in interesting, unhackneyed, pure, expressive language—they shuddered, they recoiled. Danger was above their heads, peril about their steps. What was this strange thing? Being unintelligible it must be bad. Let it be denounced and chained up.

Henry Sympson, the only son and youngest child of the family, was a boy of fifteen. He generally kept with his tutor. When he left him, he sought his cousin Shirley. This boy differed from his sisters. He was little, lame, and pale; his large eyes shone somewhat languidly in a wan orbit. They were, indeed, usually rather dim, but they were capable of illumination. At times they could not only shine, but blaze. Inward emotion could likewise give colour to his cheek and decision to his crippled movements. Henry's mother loved him; she thought his peculiarities were a mark of election. He was not like other children, she allowed. She believed him regenerate—a new Samuel—called of God from his birth. He was to be a clergyman. Mr. and the Misses Sympson, not understanding the youth, let him much alone. Shirley made him her pet, and he made Shirley his playmate.

In the midst of this family circle, or rather outside it, moved the tutor—the satellite.

Yes, Louis Moore was a satellite of the house of Sympson—connected, yet apart; ever attendant, ever distant. Each member of that correct family treated him with proper dignity. The father was austerely civil, sometimes irritable; the mother, being a kind woman, was attentive, but formal; the daughters saw in him an abstraction, not a man. It seemed, by their manner, that their brother's tutor did not live for them. They were learned; so was he—but not for them. They were accomplished; he had talents too, imperceptible to their senses. The most spirited sketch from his fingers was a blank to their eyes; the most original observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears. Nothing could exceed the propriety of their behaviour.

I should have said nothing could have equalled it; but I remember a fact which strangely astonished Caroline Helstone. It was—to discover that her cousin had absolutely no sympathizing friend at Fieldhead; that to Miss Keeldar he was as much a mere teacher, as little a gentleman, as little a man, as to the estimable Misses Sympson.

What had befallen the kind-hearted Shirley that she should be so indifferent to the dreary position of a fellow-creature thus isolated under her roof? She was not, perhaps, haughty to him, but she never noticed him—she let him alone. He came and went, spoke or was silent, and she rarely recognized his existence.

As to Louis Moore himself, he had the air of a man used to this life, and who had made up his mind to bear it for a time. His faculties seemed walled up in him, and were unmurmuring in their captivity. He never laughed; he seldom smiled; he was uncomplaining. He fulfilled the round of his duties scrupulously. His pupil loved him; he asked nothing more than civility from the rest of the world. It even appeared that he would accept nothing more—in that abode at least; for when his cousin Caroline made gentle overtures of friendship, he did not encourage them—he rather avoided than sought her. One living thing alone, besides his pale, crippled scholar, he fondled in the house, and that was the ruffianly Tartar, who, sullen and impracticable to others, acquired a singular partiality for him—a partiality so marked that sometimes, when Moore, summoned to a meal, entered the room and sat down unwelcomed, Tartar would rise from his lair at Shirley's feet and betake himself to the taciturn tutor. Once—but once—she noticed the desertion, and holding out her white hand, and speaking softly, tried to coax him back. Tartar looked, slavered, and sighed, as his manner was, but yet disregarded the invitation, and coolly settled himself on his haunches at Louis Moore's side. That gentleman drew the dog's big, black-muzzled head on to his knee, patted him, and smiled one little smile to himself.

An acute observer might have remarked, in the course of the same evening, that after Tartar had resumed his allegiance to Shirley, and was once more couched near her footstool, the audacious tutor by one word and gesture fascinated him again. He pricked up his ears at the word; he started erect at the gesture, and came, with head lovingly depressed, to receive the expected caress. As it was given, the significant smile again rippled across Moore's quiet face.

* * * * *

"Shirley," said Caroline one day, as they two were sitting alone in the summer-house, "did you know that my cousin Louis was tutor in your uncle's family before the Sympsons came down here?"

Shirley's reply was not so prompt as her responses usually were, but at last she answered, "Yes—of course; I knew it well."

"I thought you must have been aware of the circumstance."

"Well! what then?"

"It puzzles me to guess how it chanced that you never mentioned it to me."

"Why should it puzzle you?"

"It seems odd. I cannot account for it. You talk a great deal—you talk freely. How was that circumstance never touched on?"

"Because it never was," and Shirley laughed.

"You are a singular being!" observed her friend. "I thought I knew you quite well; I begin to find myself mistaken. You were silent as the grave about Mrs. Pryor, and now again here is another secret. But why you made it a secret is the mystery to me."

"I never made it a secret; I had no reason for so doing. If you had asked me who Henry's tutor was, I would have told you. Besides, I thought you knew."

"I am puzzled about more things than one in this matter. You don't like poor Louis. Why? Are you impatient at what you perhaps consider his servile position? Do you wish that Robert's brother were more highly placed?"

"Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation, uttered in a tone like the accents of scorn; and with a movement of proud impatience Shirley snatched a rose from a branch peeping through the open lattice.

"Yes," repeated Caroline, with mild firmness, "Robert's brother. He is thus closely related to Gerard Moore of the Hollow, though nature has not given him features so handsome or an air so noble as his kinsman; but his blood is as good, and he is as much a gentleman were he free."

"Wise, humble, pious Caroline!" exclaimed Shirley ironically. "Men and angels, hear her! We should not despise plain features, nor a laborious yet honest occupation, should we? Look at the subject of your panegyric. He is there in the garden," she continued, pointing through an aperture in the clustering creepers; and by that aperture Louis Moore was visible, coming slowly down the walk.

"He is not ugly, Shirley," pleaded Caroline; "he is not ignoble. He is sad; silence seals his mind. But I believe him to be intelligent; and be certain, if he had not something very commendable in his disposition, Mr. Hall would never seek his society as he does."

Shirley laughed; she laughed again, each time with a slightly sarcastic sound. "Well, well," was her comment. "On the plea of the man being Cyril Hall's friend and Robert Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his existence; won't we, Cary? You believe him to be intelligent, do you? Not quite an idiot—eh? Something commendable in his disposition!—id est, not an absolute ruffian. Good! Your representations have weight with me; and to prove that they have, should he come this way I will speak to him."

He approached the summer-house. Unconscious that it was tenanted, he sat down on the step. Tartar, now his customary companion, had followed him, and he couched across his feet.

"Old boy!" said Louis, pulling his tawny ear, or rather the mutilated remains of that organ, torn and chewed in a hundred battles, "the autumn sun shines as pleasantly on us as on the fairest and richest. This garden is none of ours, but we enjoy its greenness and perfume, don't we?"

He sat silent, still caressing Tartar, who slobbered with exceeding affection. A faint twittering commenced among the trees round. Something fluttered down as light as leaves. They were little birds, which, lighting on the sward at shy distance, hopped as if expectant.

"The small brown elves actually remember that I fed them the other day," again soliloquized Louis. "They want some more biscuit. To-day I forgot to save a fragment. Eager little sprites, I have not a crumb for you."

He put his hand in his pocket and drew it out empty.

"A want easily supplied," whispered the listening Miss Keeldar.

She took from her reticule a morsel of sweet-cake; for that repository was never destitute of something available to throw to the chickens, young ducks, or sparrows. She crumbled it, and bending over his shoulder, put the crumbs into his hand.

"There," said she—"there is a providence for the improvident."

"This September afternoon is pleasant," observed Louis Moore, as, not at all discomposed, he calmly cast the crumbs on to the grass.

"Even for you?"

"As pleasant for me as for any monarch."

"You take a sort of harsh, solitary triumph in drawing pleasure out of the elements and the inanimate and lower animate creation."

"Solitary, but not harsh. With animals I feel I am Adam's son, the heir of him to whom dominion was given over 'every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' Your dog likes and follows me. When I go into that yard, the pigeons from your dovecot flutter at my feet. Your mare in the stable knows me as well as it knows you, and obeys me better."

"And my roses smell sweet to you, and my trees give you shade."

"And," continued Louis, "no caprice can withdraw these pleasures from me; they are mine."

He walked off. Tartar followed him, as if in duty and affection bound, and Shirley remained standing on the summer-house step. Caroline saw her face as she looked after the rude tutor. It was pale, as if her pride bled inwardly.

"You see," remarked Caroline apologetically, "his feelings are so often hurt it makes him morose."

"You see," retorted Shirley, with ire, "he is a topic on which you and I shall quarrel if we discuss it often; so drop it henceforward and for ever."

"I suppose he has more than once behaved in this way," thought Caroline to herself, "and that renders Shirley so distant to him. Yet I wonder she cannot make allowance for character and circumstances. I wonder the general modesty, manliness, sincerity of his nature do not plead with her in his behalf. She is not often so inconsiderate, so irritable."

* * * * *

The verbal testimony of two friends of Caroline's to her cousin's character augmented her favourable opinion of him. William Farren, whose cottage he had visited in company with Mr. Hall, pronounced him a "real gentleman;" there was not such another in Briarfield. He—William—"could do aught for that man. And then to see how t' bairns liked him, and how t' wife took to him first minute she saw him. He never went into a house but t' childer wor about him directly. Them little things wor like as if they'd a keener sense nor grown-up folks i' finding our folk's natures."

Mr. Hall, in answer to a question of Miss Helstone's as to what he thought of Louis Moore, replied promptly that he was the best fellow he had met with since he left Cambridge.

"But he is so grave," objected Caroline.

"Grave! the finest company in the world! Full of odd, quiet, out-of-the-way humour. Never enjoyed an excursion so much in my life as the one I took with him to the Lakes. His understanding and tastes are so superior, it does a man good to be within their influence; and as to his temper and nature, I call them fine."

"At Fieldhead he looks gloomy, and, I believe, has the character of being misanthropical."

"Oh! I fancy he is rather out of place there—in a false position. The Sympsons are most estimable people, but not the folks to comprehend him. They think a great deal about form and ceremony, which are quite out of Louis's way."

"I don't think Miss Keeldar likes him."

"She doesn't know him—she doesn't know him; otherwise she has sense enough to do justice to his merits."

"Well, I suppose she doesn't know him," mused Caroline to herself, and by this hypothesis she endeavoured to account for what seemed else unaccountable. But such simple solution of the difficulty was not left her long. She was obliged to refuse Miss Keeldar even this negative excuse for her prejudice.

One day she chanced to be in the schoolroom with Henry Sympson, whose amiable and affectionate disposition had quickly recommended him to her regard. The boy was busied about some mechanical contrivance; his lameness made him fond of sedentary occupation. He began to ransack his tutor's desk for a piece of wax or twine necessary to his work. Moore happened to be absent. Mr. Hall, indeed, had called for him to take a long walk. Henry could not immediately find the object of his search. He rummaged compartment after compartment; and at last, opening an inner drawer, he came upon—not a ball of cord or a lump of beeswax, but a little bundle of small marble-coloured cahiers, tied with tape. Henry looked at them. "What rubbish Mr. Moore stores up in his desk!" he said. "I hope he won't keep my old exercises so carefully."

"What is it?"

"Old copy-books."

He threw the bundle to Caroline. The packet looked so neat externally her curiosity was excited to see its contents.

"If they are only copy-books, I suppose I may open them?"

"Oh yes, quite freely. Mr. Moore's desk is half mine—for he lets me keep all sorts of things in it—and I give you leave."

On scrutiny they proved to be French compositions, written in a hand peculiar but compact, and exquisitely clean and clear. The writing was recognizable. She scarcely needed the further evidence of the name signed at the close of each theme to tell her whose they were. Yet that name astonished her—"Shirley Keeldar, Sympson Grove, ——shire" (a southern county), and a date four years back.

She tied up the packet, and held it in her hand, meditating over it. She half felt as if, in opening it, she had violated a confidence.

"They are Shirley's, you see," said Henry carelessly.

"Did you give them to Mr. Moore? She wrote them with Mrs. Pryor, I suppose?"

"She wrote them in my schoolroom at Sympson Grove, when she lived with us there. Mr. Moore taught her French; it is his native language."

"I know. Was she a good pupil, Henry?"

"She was a wild, laughing thing, but pleasant to have in the room. She made lesson-time charming. She learned fast—you could hardly tell when or how. French was nothing to her. She spoke it quick, quick—as quick as Mr. Moore himself."

"Was she obedient? Did she give trouble?"

"She gave plenty of trouble, in a way. She was giddy, but I liked her. I'm desperately fond of Shirley."

"Desperately fond—you small simpleton! You don't know what you say."

"I am desperately fond of her. She is the light of my eyes. I said so to Mr. Moore last night."

"He would reprove you for speaking with exaggeration."

"He didn't. He never reproves and reproves, as girls' governesses do. He was reading, and he only smiled into his book, and said that if Miss Keeldar was no more than that, she was less than he took her to be; for I was but a dim-eyed, short-sighted little chap. I'm afraid I am a poor unfortunate, Miss Caroline Helstone. I am a cripple, you know."

"Never mind, Henry, you are a very nice little fellow; and if God has not given you health and strength, He has given you a good disposition and an excellent heart and brain."

"I shall be despised. I sometimes think both Shirley and you despise me."

"Listen, Henry. Generally, I don't like schoolboys. I have a great horror of them. They seem to me little ruffians, who take an unnatural delight in killing and tormenting birds, and insects, and kittens, and whatever is weaker than themselves. But you are so different I am quite fond of you. You have almost as much sense as a man (far more, God wot," she muttered to herself, "than many men); you are fond of reading, and you can talk sensibly about what you read."

"I am fond of reading. I know I have sense, and I know I have feeling."

Miss Keeldar here entered.

"Henry," she said, "I have brought your lunch here. I shall prepare it for you myself."

She placed on the table a glass of new milk, a plate of something which looked not unlike leather, and a utensil which resembled a toasting-fork.

"What are you two about," she continued, "ransacking Mr. Moore's desk?"

"Looking at your old copy-books," returned Caroline.

"My old copy-books?"

"French exercise-books. Look here! They must be held precious; they are kept carefully."

She showed the bundle. Shirley snatched it up. "Did not know one was in existence," she said. "I thought the whole lot had long since lit the kitchen fire, or curled the maid's hair at Sympson Grove.—What made you keep them, Henry?"

"It is not my doing. I should not have thought of it. It never entered my head to suppose copy-books of value. Mr. Moore put them by in the inner drawer of his desk. Perhaps he forgot them."

"C'est cela. He forgot them, no doubt," echoed Shirley. "They are extremely well written," she observed complacently.

"What a giddy girl you were, Shirley, in those days! I remember you so well. A slim, light creature whom, though you were so tall, I could lift off the floor. I see you with your long, countless curls on your shoulders, and your streaming sash. You used to make Mr. Moore lively—that is, at first. I believe you grieved him after a while."

Shirley turned the closely-written pages and said nothing. Presently she observed, "That was written one winter afternoon. It was a description of a snow scene."

"I remember," said Henry. "Mr. Moore, when he read it, cried, 'Voila le Francais gagne!' He said it was well done. Afterwards you made him draw, in sepia, the landscape you described."

"You have not forgotten, then, Hal?"

"Not at all. We were all scolded that day for not coming down to tea when called. I can remember my tutor sitting at his easel, and you standing behind him, holding the candle, and watching him draw the snowy cliff, the pine, the deer couched under it, and the half-moon hung above."

"Where are his drawings, Harry? Caroline should see them."

"In his portfolio. But it is padlocked; he has the key."

"Ask him for it when he comes in."

"You should ask him, Shirley. You are shy of him now. You are grown a proud lady to him; I notice that."

"Shirley, you are a real enigma," whispered Caroline in her ear. "What queer discoveries I make day by day now!—I who thought I had your confidence. Inexplicable creature! even this boy reproves you."

"I have forgotten 'auld lang syne,' you see, Harry," said Miss Keeldar, answering young Sympson, and not heeding Caroline.

"Which you never should have done. You don't deserve to be a man's morning star if you have so short a memory."

"A man's morning star, indeed! and by 'a man' is meant your worshipful self, I suppose? Come, drink your new milk while it is warm."

The young cripple rose and limped towards the fire; he had left his crutch near the mantelpiece.

"My poor lame darling!" murmured Shirley, in her softest voice, aiding him.

"Whether do you like me or Mr. Sam Wynne best, Shirley?" inquired the boy, as she settled him in an arm-chair.

"O Harry, Sam Wynne is my aversion; you are my pet."

"Me or Mr. Malone?"

"You again, a thousand times."

"Yet they are great whiskered fellows, six feet high each."

"Whereas, as long as you live, Harry, you will never be anything more than a little pale lameter."

"Yes, I know."

"You need not be sorrowful. Have I not often told you who was almost as little, as pale, as suffering as you, and yet potent as a giant and brave as a lion?"

"Admiral Horatio?"

"Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson, and Duke of Bronte; great at heart as a Titan; gallant and heroic as all the world and age of chivalry; leader of the might of England; commander of her strength on the deep; hurler of her thunder over the flood."

"A great man. But I am not warlike, Shirley; and yet my mind is so restless I burn day and night—for what I can hardly tell—to be—to do—to suffer, I think."

"Harry, it is your mind, which is stronger and older than your frame, that troubles you. It is a captive; it lies in physical bondage. But it will work its own redemption yet. Study carefully not only books but the world. You love nature; love her without fear. Be patient—wait the course of time. You will not be a soldier or a sailor, Henry; but if you live you will be—listen to my prophecy—you will be an author, perhaps a poet."

"An author! It is a flash—a flash of light to me! I will—I will! I'll write a book that I may dedicate it to you."

"You will write it that you may give your soul its natural release. Bless me! what am I saying? more than I understand, I believe, or can make good. Here, Hal—here is your toasted oatcake; eat and live!"

"Willingly!" here cried a voice outside the open window. "I know that fragrance of meal bread. Miss Keeldar, may I come in and partake?"

"Mr. Hall"—it was Mr. Hall, and with him was Louis Moore, returned from their walk—"there is a proper luncheon laid out in the dining-room and there are proper people seated round it. You may join that society and share that fare if you please; but if your ill-regulated tastes lead you to prefer ill-regulated proceedings, step in here, and do as we do."

"I approve the perfume, and therefore shall suffer myself to be led by the nose," returned Mr. Hall, who presently entered, accompanied by Louis Moore. That gentleman's eye fell on his desk, pillaged.

"Burglars!" said he.—"Henry, you merit the ferule."

"Give it to Shirley and Caroline; they did it," was alleged, with more attention to effect than truth.

"Traitor and false witness!" cried both the girls. "We never laid hands on a thing, except in the spirit of laudable inquiry!"

"Exactly so," said Moore, with his rare smile. "And what have you ferreted out, in your 'spirit of laudable inquiry'?"

He perceived the inner drawer open.

"This is empty," said he. "Who has taken——"

"Here, here!" Caroline hastened to say, and she restored the little packet to its place. He shut it up; he locked it in with a small key attached to his watch-guard; he restored the other papers to order, closed the repository, and sat down without further remark.

"I thought you would have scolded much more, sir," said Henry. "The girls deserve reprimand."

"I leave them to their own consciences."

"It accuses them of crimes intended as well as perpetrated, sir. If I had not been here, they would have treated your portfolio as they have done your desk; but I told them it was padlocked."

"And will you have lunch with us?" here interposed Shirley, addressing Moore, and desirous, as it seemed, to turn the conversation.

"Certainly, if I may."

"You will be restricted to new milk and Yorkshire oatcake."

"Va—pour le lait frais!" said Louis. "But for your oatcake!" and he made a grimace.

"He cannot eat it," said Henry. "He thinks it is like bran, raised with sour yeast."

"Come, then; by special dispensation we will allow him a few cracknels, but nothing less homely."

The hostess rang the bell and gave her frugal orders, which were presently executed. She herself measured out the milk, and distributed the bread round the cosy circle now enclosing the bright little schoolroom fire. She then took the post of toaster-general; and kneeling on the rug, fork in hand, fulfilled her office with dexterity. Mr. Hall, who relished any homely innovation on ordinary usages, and to whom the husky oatcake was from custom suave as manna, seemed in his best spirits. He talked and laughed gleefully—now with Caroline, whom he had fixed by his side, now with Shirley, and again with Louis Moore. And Louis met him in congenial spirit. He did not laugh much, but he uttered in the quietest tone the wittiest things. Gravely spoken sentences, marked by unexpected turns and a quite fresh flavour and poignancy, fell easily from his lips. He proved himself to be—what Mr. Hall had said he was—excellent company. Caroline marvelled at his humour, but still more at his entire self-possession. Nobody there present seemed to impose on him a sensation of unpleasant restraint. Nobody seemed a bore—a check—a chill to him; and yet there was the cool and lofty Miss Keeldar kneeling before the fire, almost at his feet.

But Shirley was cool and lofty no longer, at least not at this moment. She appeared unconscious of the humility of her present position; or if conscious, it was only to taste a charm in its lowliness. It did not revolt her pride that the group to whom she voluntarily officiated as handmaid should include her cousin's tutor. It did not scare her that while she handed the bread and milk to the rest, she had to offer it to him also; and Moore took his portion from her hand as calmly as if he had been her equal.

"You are overheated now," he said, when she had retained the fork for some time; "let me relieve you."

And he took it from her with a sort of quiet authority, to which she submitted passively, neither resisting him nor thanking him.

"I should like to see your pictures, Louis," said Caroline, when the sumptuous luncheon was discussed.—"Would not you, Mr. Hall?"

"To please you, I should; but, for my own part, I have cut him as an artist. I had enough of him in that capacity in Cumberland and Westmoreland. Many a wetting we got amongst the mountains because he would persist in sitting on a camp-stool, catching effects of rain-clouds, gathering mists, fitful sunbeams, and what not."

"Here is the portfolio," said Henry, bringing it in one hand and leaning on his crutch with the other.

Louis took it, but he still sat as if he wanted another to speak. It seemed as if he would not open it unless the proud Shirley deigned to show herself interested in the exhibition.

"He makes us wait to whet our curiosity," she said.

"You understand opening it," observed Louis, giving her the key. "You spoiled the lock for me once; try now."

He held it. She opened it, and, monopolizing the contents, had the first view of every sketch herself. She enjoyed the treat—if treat it were—in silence, without a single comment. Moore stood behind her chair and looked over her shoulder, and when she had done and the others were still gazing, he left his post and paced through the room.

A carriage was heard in the lane—the gate-bell rang. Shirley started.

"There are callers," she said, "and I shall be summoned to the room. A pretty figure—as they say—I am to receive company. I and Henry have been in the garden gathering fruit half the morning. Oh for rest under my own vine and my own fig-tree! Happy is the slave-wife of the Indian chief, in that she has no drawing-room duty to perform, but can sit at ease weaving mats, and stringing beads, and peacefully flattening her pickaninny's head in an unmolested corner of her wigwam. I'll emigrate to the western woods."

Louis Moore laughed.

"To marry a White Cloud or a Big Buffalo, and after wedlock to devote yourself to the tender task of digging your lord's maize-field while he smokes his pipe or drinks fire-water."

Shirley seemed about to reply, but here the schoolroom door unclosed, admitting Mr. Sympson. That personage stood aghast when he saw the group around the fire.

"I thought you alone, Miss Keeldar," he said. "I find quite a party."

And evidently from his shocked, scandalized air, had he not recognized in one of the party a clergyman, he would have delivered an extempore philippic on the extraordinary habits of his niece: respect for the cloth arrested him.

"I merely wished to announce," he proceeded coldly, "that the family from De Walden Hall, Mr., Mrs., the Misses, and Mr. Sam Wynne, are in the drawing-room." And he bowed and withdrew.

"The family from De Walden Hall! Couldn't be a worse set," murmured Shirley.

She sat still, looking a little contumacious, and very much indisposed to stir. She was flushed with the fire. Her dark hair had been more than once dishevelled by the morning wind that day. Her attire was a light, neatly fitting, but amply flowing dress of muslin; the shawl she had worn in the garden was still draped in a careless fold round her. Indolent, wilful, picturesque, and singularly pretty was her aspect—prettier than usual, as if some soft inward emotion, stirred who knows how, had given new bloom and expression to her features.

"Shirley, Shirley, you ought to go," whispered Caroline.

"I wonder why?"

She lifted her eyes, and saw in the glass over the fireplace both Mr. Hall and Louis Moore gazing at her gravely.

"If," she said, with a yielding smile—"if a majority of the present company maintain that the De Walden Hall people have claims on my civility, I will subdue my inclinations to my duty. Let those who think I ought to go hold up their hands."

Again consulting the mirror, it reflected an unanimous vote against her.

"You must go," said Mr. Hall, "and behave courteously too. You owe many duties to society. It is not permitted you to please only yourself."

Louis Moore assented with a low "Hear, hear!"

Caroline, approaching her, smoothed her wavy curls, gave to her attire a less artistic and more domestic grace, and Shirley was put out of the room, protesting still, by a pouting lip, against her dismissal.

"There is a curious charm about her," observed Mr. Hall, when she was gone. "And now," he added, "I must away; for Sweeting is off to see his mother, and there are two funerals."

"Henry, get your books; it is lesson-time," said Moore, sitting down to his desk.

"A curious charm!" repeated the pupil, when he and his master were left alone. "True. Is she not a kind of white witch?" he asked.

"Of whom are you speaking, sir?"

"Of my cousin Shirley."

"No irrelevant questions; study in silence."

Mr. Moore looked and spoke sternly—sourly. Henry knew this mood. It was a rare one with his tutor; but when it came he had an awe of it. He obeyed.



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE FIRST BLUESTOCKING.

Miss Keeldar and her uncle had characters that would not harmonize, that never had harmonized. He was irritable, and she was spirited. He was despotic, and she liked freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps, romantic.

Not without purpose had he come down to Yorkshire. His mission was clear, and he intended to discharge it conscientiously. He anxiously desired to have his niece married, to make for her a suitable match, give her in charge to a proper husband, and wash his hands of her for ever.

The misfortune was, from infancy upwards, Shirley and he had disagreed on the meaning of the words "suitable" and "proper." She never yet had accepted his definition; and it was doubtful whether, in the most important step of her life, she would consent to accept it.

The trial soon came.

Mr. Wynne proposed in form for his son, Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.

"Decidedly suitable! most proper!" pronounced Mr. Sympson. "A fine unencumbered estate, real substance, good connections. It must be done!"

He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he shut himself up there with her alone; he communicated the offer; he gave his opinion; he claimed her consent.

It was withheld.

"No; I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne."

"I ask why. I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you."

She stood on the hearth. She was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling.

"And I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me?"

"He has twice your money, twice your common sense, equal connections, equal respectability."

"Had he my money counted fivescore times I would take no vow to love him."

"Please to state your objections."

"He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy. Accept that as the first reason why I spurn him."

"Miss Keeldar, you shock me!"

"That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. His intellect reaches no standard I can esteem: there is a second stumbling-block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, his tastes are coarse, his manners vulgar."

"The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is presumption on your part."

"I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!"

"Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer celibacy?"

"I deny your right to claim an answer to that question."

"May I ask if you expect some man of title—some peer of the realm—to demand your hand?"

"I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it."

"Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you mad. Your eccentricity and conceit touch the verge of frenzy."

"Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap it."

"I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl! Take warning! I dare you to sully our name by a mesalliance!"

"Our name! Am I called Sympson?"

"God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not be trifled with!"

"What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you or could you do if my pleasure led me to a choice you disapproved?"

"Take care! take care!" warning her with voice and hand that trembled alike.

"Why? What shadow of power have you over me? Why should I fear you?"

"Take care, madam!"

"Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolved to esteem—to admire—to love."

"Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!"

"To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I feel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not."

"And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?"

"On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not estimable."

"On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or—or——"

"Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?"

"Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist."

"For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for literature and the arts I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suit me. He cannot write a note without orthographical errors; he reads only a sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!"

"Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?" He lifted hands and eyes.

"Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne."

"To what will she come? Why are not the laws more stringent, that I might compel her to hear reason?"

"Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and you the Czar, you could not compel me to this step. I will write to Mr. Wynne. Give yourself no further trouble on the subject."

* * * * *

Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the same quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar—or her fortune—had by this time made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression in quarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr. Wynne's, all more or less eligible. All were in succession pressed on her by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst them was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character as well as ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom she expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.

At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and her uncle was sure of it; and what is more, the discovery showed his niece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment to her accordingly.

Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold them both. The suave aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at the view of their quarrels. Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together in their dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous dread if they chanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I have said, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was appeased and his family tranquillized.

The village of Nunnely has been alluded to—its old church, its forest, its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the priory—an older, a larger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and what is more, it had its man of title—its baronet, which neither Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast. This possession—its proudest and most prized—had for years been nominal only. The present baronet, a young man hitherto resident in a distant province, was unknown on his Yorkshire estate.

During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place of Cliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and been introduced to Sir Philip Nunnely. They encountered him again and again on the sands, the cliffs, in the various walks, sometimes at the public balls of the place. He seemed solitary. His manner was very unpretending—too simple to be termed affable; rather timid than proud. He did not condescend to their society; he seemed glad of it.

With any unaffected individual Shirley could easily and quickly cement an acquaintance. She walked and talked with Sir Philip; she, her aunt, and cousins sometimes took a sail in his yacht. She liked him because she found him kind and modest, and was charmed to feel she had the power to amuse him.

One slight drawback there was—where is the friendship without it?—Sir Philip had a literary turn. He wrote poetry—sonnets, stanzas, ballads. Perhaps Miss Keeldar thought him a little too fond of reading and reciting these compositions; perhaps she wished the rhyme had possessed more accuracy, the measure more music, the tropes more freshness, the inspiration more fire. At any rate, she always winced when he recurred to the subject of his poems, and usually did her best to divert the conversation into another channel.

He would beguile her to take moonlight walks with him on the bridge, for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of pouring into her ear the longest of his ballads. He would lead her away to sequestered rustic seats, whence the rush of the surf to the sands was heard soft and soothing; and when he had her all to himself, and the sea lay before them, and the scented shade of gardens spread round, and the tall shelter of cliffs rose behind them, he would pull out his last batch of sonnets, and read them in a voice tremulous with emotion. He did not seem to know that though they might be rhyme they were not poetry. It appeared, by Shirley's downcast eye and disturbed face, that she knew it, and felt heartily mortified by the single foible of this good and amiable gentleman.

Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from this fanatic worship of the Muses. It was his monomania; on all ordinary subjects he was sensible enough, and fain was she to engage him in ordinary topics. He questioned her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was but too happy to answer his interrogatories at length. She never wearied of describing the antique priory, the wild silvan park, the hoary church and hamlet; nor did she fail to counsel him to come down and gather his tenantry about him in his ancestral halls.

Somewhat to her surprise, Sir Philip followed her advice to the letter, and actually, towards the close of September, arrived at the priory.

He soon made a call at Fieldhead, and his first visit was not his last. He said—when he had achieved the round of the neighbourhood—that under no roof had he found such pleasant shelter as beneath the massive oak beams of the gray manor-house of Briarfield; a cramped, modest dwelling enough compared with his own, but he liked it.

Presently it did not suffice to sit with Shirley in her panelled parlour, where others came and went, and where he could rarely find a quiet moment to show her the latest production of his fertile muse; he must have her out amongst the pleasant pastures, and lead her by the still waters. Tete-a-tete ramblings she shunned, so he made parties for her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; to remoter scenes—woods severed by the Wharfe, vales watered by the Aire.

Such assiduity covered Miss Keeldar with distinction. Her uncle's prophetic soul anticipated a splendid future. He already scented the time afar off when, with nonchalant air, and left foot nursed on his right knee, he should be able to make dashingly-familiar allusion to his "nephew the baronet." Now his niece dawned upon him no longer "a mad girl," but a "most sensible woman." He termed her, in confidential dialogues with Mrs. Sympson, "a truly superior person; peculiar, but very clever." He treated her with exceeding deference; rose reverently to open and shut doors for her; reddened his face and gave himself headaches with stooping to pick up gloves, handkerchiefs, and other loose property, whereof Shirley usually held but insecure tenure. He would cut mysterious jokes about the superiority of woman's wit over man's wisdom; commence obscure apologies for the blundering mistake he had committed respecting the generalship, the tactics, of "a personage not a hundred miles from Fieldhead." In short, he seemed elate as any "midden-cock on pattens."

His niece viewed his manoeuvres and received his innuendoes with phlegm; apparently she did not above half comprehend to what aim they tended. When plainly charged with being the preferred of the baronet, she said she believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him. She had never thought a man of rank—the only son of a proud, fond mother, the only brother of doting sisters—could have so much goodness, and, on the whole, so much sense.

Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. Perhaps he had found in her that "curious charm" noticed by Mr. Hall. He sought her presence more and more, and at last with a frequency that attested it had become to him an indispensable stimulus. About this time strange feelings hovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties haunted some of its rooms. There was an unquiet wandering of some of the inmates among the still fields round the mansion; there was a sense of expectancy that kept the nerves strained.

One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be despised. He was amiable; if not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. Miss Keeldar could not affirm of him, what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne, that his feelings were blunt, his tastes coarse, and his manners vulgar. There was sensibility in his nature; there was a very real, if not a very discriminating, love of the arts; there was the English gentleman in all his deportment. As to his lineage and wealth, both were, of course, far beyond her claims.

His appearance had at first elicited some laughing though not ill-natured remarks from the merry Shirley. It was boyish. His features were plain and slight, his hair sandy, his stature insignificant. But she soon checked her sarcasm on this point; she would even fire up if any one else made uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had "a pleasing countenance," she affirmed; "and there was that in his heart which was better than three Roman noses, than the locks of Absalom or the proportions of Saul." A spare and rare shaft she still reserved for his unfortunate poetic propensity; but even here she would tolerate no irony save her own.

In short, matters had reached a point which seemed fully to warrant an observation made about this time by Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis.

"Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or a madman. Two months ago I could have sworn he had the game all in his own hands; and there he runs the country, and quarters himself up in London for weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll find himself checkmated. Louis, 'there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, but, once let slip, never returns again.' I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and remind him of that."

"Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis, as if the idea was new to him.

"Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might have realized, for she liked him."

"As a neighbour?"

"As more than that. I have seen her change countenance and colour at the mere mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to come home. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all."

"Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere penniless adventurer to aspire to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous—contemptible?"

"Oh, if you are for high notions and double-refined sentiment, I've naught to say. I'm a plain, practical man myself, and if Robert is willing to give up that royal prize to a lad-rival—a puling slip of aristocracy—I am quite agreeable. At his age, in his place, with his inducements, I would have acted differently. Neither baronet, nor duke, nor prince should have snatched my sweetheart from me without a struggle. But you tutors are such solemn chaps; it is almost like speaking to a parson to consult with you."

* * * * *

Flattered and fawned upon as Shirley was just now, it appeared she was not absolutely spoiled—that her better nature did not quite leave her. Universal report had indeed ceased to couple her name with that of Moore, and this silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivion of the absentee; but that she had not quite forgotten him—that she still regarded him, if not with love, yet with interest—seemed proved by the increased attention which at this juncture of affairs a sudden attack of illness induced her to show that tutor-brother of Robert's, to whom she habitually bore herself with strange alternations of cool reserve and docile respect—now sweeping past him in all the dignity of the moneyed heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting him as abashed school-girls are wont to accost their stern professors; bridling her neck of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if he encountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the grave rebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had the power to inflict penalties in case of contumacy.

Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for a few days laid him low, in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he, his lame pupil, and Mr. Hall were in the habit of visiting together. At any rate he sickened, and after opposing to the malady a taciturn resistance for a day or two, was obliged to keep his chamber.

He lay tossing on his thorny bed one evening, Henry, who would not quit him, watching faithfully beside him, when a tap—too light to be that of Mrs. Gill or the housemaid—summoned young Sympson to the door.

"How is Mr. Moore to-night?" asked a low voice from the dark gallery.

"Come in and see him yourself."

"Is he asleep?"

"I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley."

"He would not like it."

But the speaker stepped in, and Henry, seeing her hesitate on the threshold, took her hand and drew her to the couch.

The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar's form but imperfectly; yet it revealed her in elegant attire. There was a party assembled below, including Sir Philip Nunnely; the ladies were now in the drawing-room, and their hostess had stolen from them to visit Henry's tutor. Her pure white dress, her fair arms and neck, the trembling chainlet of gold circling her throat and quivering on her breast, glistened strangely amid the obscurity of the sickroom. Her mien was chastened and pensive. She spoke gently.

"Mr. Moore, how are you to-night?"

"I have not been very ill, and am now better."

"I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought you some grapes; can you taste one?"

"No; but I thank you for remembering me."

"Just one."

From the rich cluster that filled a small basket held in her hand she severed a berry and offered it to his lips. He shook his head, and turned aside his flushed face.

"But what, then, can I bring you instead? You have no wish for fruit; yet I see that your lips are parched. What beverage do you prefer?"

"Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water. I like it best."

Silence fell for some minutes.

"Do you suffer?—have you pain?"

"Very little."

"What made you ill?"

Silence.

"I wonder what caused this fever? To what do you attribute it?"

"Miasma, perhaps—malaria. This is autumn, a season fertile in fevers."

"I hear you often visit the sick in Briarfield, and Nunnely too, with Mr. Hall. You should be on your guard; temerity is not wise."

"That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had better not enter this chamber or come near this couch. I do not believe my illness is infectious. I scarcely fear"—with a sort of smile—"you will take it; but why should you run even the shadow of a risk? Leave me."

"Patience, I will go soon; but I should like to do something for you before I depart—any little service——"

"They will miss you below."

"No; the gentlemen are still at table."

"They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no wine-bibber, and I hear him just now pass from the dining-room to the drawing-room."

"It is a servant."

"It is Sir Philip; I know his step."

"Your hearing is acute."

"It is never dull, and the sense seems sharpened at present. Sir Philip was here to tea last night. I heard you sing to him some song which he had brought you. I heard him, when he took his departure at eleven o'clock, call you out on to the pavement, to look at the evening star."

"You must be nervously sensitive."

"I heard him kiss your hand."

"Impossible!"

"No: my chamber is over the hall, the window just above the front door; the sash was a little raised, for I felt feverish. You stood ten minutes with him on the steps. I heard your discourse, every word, and I heard the salute.—Henry, give me some water."

"Let me give it him."

But he half rose to take the glass from young Sympson, and declined her attendance.

"And can I do nothing?"

"Nothing; for you cannot guarantee me a night's peaceful rest, and it is all I at present want."

"You do not sleep well?"

"Sleep has left me."

"Yet you said you were not very ill?"

"I am often sleepless when in high health."

"If I had power, I would lap you in the most placid slumber—quite deep and hushed, without a dream."

"Blank annihilation! I do not ask that."

"With dreams of all you most desire."

"Monstrous delusions! The sleep would be delirium, the waking death."

"Your wishes are not so chimerical; you are no visionary."

"Miss Keeldar, I suppose you think so; but my character is not, perhaps, quite as legible to you as a page of the last new novel might be."

"That is possible. But this sleep—I should like to woo it to your pillow, to win for you its favour. If I took a book and sat down and read some pages? I can well spare half an hour."

"Thank you, but I will not detain you."

"I would read softly."

"It would not do. I am too feverish and excitable to bear a soft, cooing, vibrating voice close at my ear. You had better leave me."

"Well, I will go."

"And no good-night?"

"Yes, sir, yes. Mr. Moore, good-night." (Exit Shirley.)

"Henry, my boy, go to bed now; it is time you had some repose."

"Sir, it would please me to watch at your bedside all night."

"Nothing less called for. I am getting better. There, go."

"Give me your blessing, sir."

"God bless you, my best pupil!"

"You never call me your dearest pupil!"

"No, nor ever shall."

* * * * *

Possibly Miss Keeldar resented her former teacher's rejection of her courtesy. It is certain she did not repeat the offer of it. Often as her light step traversed the gallery in the course of a day, it did not again pause at his door; nor did her "cooing, vibrating voice" disturb a second time the hush of the sickroom. A sickroom, indeed, it soon ceased to be; Mr. Moore's good constitution quickly triumphed over his indisposition. In a few days he shook it off, and resumed his duties as tutor.

That "auld lang syne" had still its authority both with preceptor and scholar was proved by the manner in which he sometimes promptly passed the distance she usually maintained between them, and put down her high reserve with a firm, quiet hand.

One afternoon the Sympson family were gone out to take a carriage airing. Shirley, never sorry to snatch a reprieve from their society, had remained behind, detained by business, as she said. The business—a little letter-writing—was soon dispatched after the yard gates had closed on the carriage; Miss Keeldar betook herself to the garden.

It was a peaceful autumn day. The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide. The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf. The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills. The beck wandered down to the Hollow, through a silent district; no wind followed its course or haunted its woody borders. Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay. On the walks, swept that morning, yellow leaves had fluttered down again. Its time of flowers, and even of fruits, was over; but a scantling of apples enriched the trees. Only a blossom here and there expanded pale and delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves.

These single flowers—the last of their race—Shirley culled as she wandered thoughtfully amongst the beds. She was fastening into her girdle a hueless and scentless nosegay, when Henry Sympson called to her as he came limping from the house.

"Shirley, Mr. Moore would be glad to see you in the schoolroom and to hear you read a little French, if you have no more urgent occupation."

The messenger delivered his commission very simply, as if it were a mere matter of course.

"Did Mr. Moore tell you to say that?"

"Certainly; why not? And now, do come, and let us once more be as we were at Sympson Grove. We used to have pleasant school-hours in those days."

Miss Keeldar perhaps thought that circumstances were changed since then; however, she made no remark, but after a little reflection quietly followed Henry.

Entering the schoolroom, she inclined her head with a decent obeisance, as had been her wont in former times. She removed her bonnet, and hung it up beside Henry's cap. Louis Moore sat at his desk, turning the leaves of a book, open before him, and marking passages with his pencil. He just moved, in acknowledgment of her curtsy, but did not rise.

"You proposed to read to me a few nights ago," said he. "I could not hear you then. My attention is now at your service. A little renewed practice in French may not be unprofitable. Your accent, I have observed, begins to rust."

"What book shall I take?"

"Here are the posthumous works of St. Pierre. Read a few pages of the 'Fragments de l'Amazone.'"

She accepted the chair which he had placed in readiness near his own; the volume lay on his desk—there was but one between them; her sweeping curls dropped so low as to hide the page from him.

"Put back your hair," he said.

For one moment Shirley looked not quite certain whether she would obey the request or disregard it. A flicker of her eye beamed furtive on the professor's face. Perhaps if he had been looking at her harshly or timidly, or if one undecided line had marked his countenance, she would have rebelled, and the lesson had ended there and then; but he was only awaiting her compliance—as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw the veil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society? Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor.

She began to read. The language had become strange to her tongue; it faltered; the lecture flowed unevenly, impeded by hurried breath, broken by Anglicized tones. She stopped.

"I can't do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please, Mr. Moore."

What he read she repeated. She caught his accent in three minutes.

"Tres bien," was the approving comment at the close of the piece.

"C'est presque le Francais rattrape, n'est-ce pas?"

"You could not write French as you once could, I dare say?"

"Oh no! I should make strange work of my concords now."

"You could not compose the devoir of 'La Premiere Femme Savante'?"

"Do you still remember that rubbish?"

"Every line."

"I doubt you."

"I will engage to repeat it word for word."

"You would stop short at the first line."

"Challenge me to the experiment."

"I challenge you."

He proceeded to recite the following. He gave it in French, but we must translate, on pain of being unintelligible to some readers.

* * * * *

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."

This was in the dawn of time, before the morning stars were set, and while they yet sang together.

The epoch is so remote, the mists and dewy gray of matin twilight veil it with so vague an obscurity, that all distinct feature of custom, all clear line of locality, evade perception and baffle research. It must suffice to know that the world then existed; that men peopled it; that man's nature, with its passions, sympathies, pains, and pleasures, informed the planet and gave it soul.

A certain tribe colonized a certain spot on the globe; of what race this tribe—unknown; in what region that spot—untold. We usually think of the East when we refer to transactions of that date; but who shall declare that there was no life in the West, the South, the North? What is to disprove that this tribe, instead of camping under palm groves in Asia, wandered beneath island oak woods rooted in our own seas of Europe?

It is no sandy plain, nor any circumscribed and scant oasis I seem to realize. A forest valley, with rocky sides and brown profundity of shade, formed by tree crowding on tree, descends deep before me. Here, indeed, dwell human beings, but so few, and in alleys so thick branched and overarched, they are neither heard nor seen. Are they savage? Doubtless. They live by the crook and the bow; half shepherds, half hunters, their flocks wander wild as their prey. Are they happy? No, not more happy than we are at this day. Are they good? No, not better than ourselves. Their nature is our nature—human both. There is one in this tribe too often miserable—a child bereaved of both parents. None cares for this child. She is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten. A hut rarely receives her; the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home. Forsaken, lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast and bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades; sadness hovers over, and solitude besets her round. Unheeded and unvalued, she should die; but she both lives and grows. The green wilderness nurses her, and becomes to her a mother; feeds her on juicy berry, on saccharine root and nut.

There is something in the air of this clime which fosters life kindly. There must be something, too, in its dews which heals with sovereign balm. Its gentle seasons exaggerate no passion, no sense; its temperature tends to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring down from heaven the germ of pure thought and purer feeling. Not grotesquely fantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage, not violently vivid the colouring of flower and bird. In all the grandeur of these forests there is repose; in all their freshness there is tenderness.

The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, bestowed on deer and dove, has not been denied to the human nursling. All solitary, she has sprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features in a fine mould; they have matured in their pure, accurate first lines, unaltered by the shocks of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with the surface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered her tresses. Her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flows plenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes, not dazzled by vertical fires, beam in the shade large and open, and full and dewy. Above those eyes, when the breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample—a clear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge ever come, might write a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothing vicious or vacant. She haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful, though of what one so untaught can think it is not easy to divine.

On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterly alone—for she had lost all trace of her tribe, who had wandered leagues away, she knew not where—she went up from the vale, to watch Day take leave and Night arrive. A crag overspread by a tree was her station. The oak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat; the oak boughs, thick-leaved, wove a canopy.

Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire, and parting to the farewell of a wild, low chorus from the woodlands. Then Night entered, quiet as death. The wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now every nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safe in their lair.

The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied, however, rather in feeling than in thinking, in wishing than hoping, in imagining than projecting. She felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty. Of all things herself seemed to herself the centre—a small, forgotten atom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent from the great creative source, and now burning unmarked to waste in the heart of a black hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her living light doing no good, never seen, never needed—a star in an else starless firmament, which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, nor priest tracked as a guide or read as a prophecy? Could this be, she demanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned so vivid; when her life beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within her stirred disquieted, and restlessly asserted a God-given strength, for which it insisted she should find exercise?

She gazed abroad on Heaven and Evening. Heaven and Evening gazed back on her. She bent down, searching bank, hill, river, spread dim below. All she questioned responded by oracles. She heard—she was impressed; but she could not understand. Above her head she raised her hands joined together.

"Guidance—help—comfort—come!" was her cry.

There was no voice, nor any that answered.

She waited, kneeling, steadfastly looking up. Yonder sky was sealed; the solemn stars shone alien and remote.

At last one overstretched chord of her agony slacked; she thought Something above relented; she felt as if Something far round drew nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word, only a tone.

Again—a fine, full, lofty tone, a deep, soft sound, like a storm whispering, made twilight undulate.

Once more, profounder, nearer, clearer, it rolled harmonious.

Yet again—a distinct voice passed between Heaven and Earth.

"Eva!"

If Eva were not this woman's name, she had none. She rose. "Here am I."

"Eva!"

"O Night (it can be but Night that speaks), I am here!"

The voice, descending, reached Earth.

"Eva!"

"Lord," she cried, "behold thine handmaid!"

She had her religion—all tribes held some creed.

"I come—a Comforter!"

"Lord, come quickly!"

The Evening flushed full of hope; the Air panted; the Moon—rising before—ascended large, but her light showed no shape.

"Lean towards me, Eva. Enter my arms; repose thus."

"Thus I lean, O Invisible but felt! And what art thou?"

"Eva, I have brought a living draught from heaven. Daughter of Man, drink of my cup!"

"I drink: it is as if sweetest dew visited my lips in a full current. My arid heart revives; my affliction is lightened; my strait and struggle are gone. And the night changes! the wood, the hill, the moon, the wide sky—all change!"

"All change, and for ever. I take from thy vision darkness; I loosen from thy faculties fetters! I level in thy path obstacles; I with my presence fill vacancy. I claim as mine the lost atom of life. I take to myself the spark of soul—burning heretofore forgotten!"

"O take me! O claim me! This is a god."

"This is a son of God—one who feels himself in the portion of life that stirs you. He is suffered to reclaim his own, and so to foster and aid that it shall not perish hopeless."

"A son of God! Am I indeed chosen?"

"Thou only in this land. I saw thee that thou wert fair; I knew thee that thou wert mine. To me it is given to rescue, to sustain, to cherish mine own. Acknowledge in me that Seraph on earth named Genius."

"My glorious Bridegroom! true Dayspring from on high! All I would have at last I possess. I receive a revelation. The dark hint, the obscure whisper, which have haunted me from childhood, are interpreted. Thou art He I sought. Godborn, take me, thy bride!"

"Unhumbled, I can take what is mine. Did I not give from the altar the very flame which lit Eva's being? Come again into the heaven whence thou wert sent."

That Presence, invisible but mighty, gathered her in like a lamb to the fold; that voice, soft but all-pervading, vibrated through her heart like music. Her eye received no image; and yet a sense visited her vision and her brain as of the serenity of stainless air, the power of sovereign seas, the majesty of marching stars, the energy of colliding elements, the rooted endurance of hills wide based, and, above all, as of the lustre of heroic beauty rushing victorious on the Night, vanquishing its shadows like a diviner sun.

Such was the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Who shall tell how He between whom and the Woman God put enmity forged deadly plots to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall record the long strife between Serpent and Seraph:—How still the Father of Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, grossness into glory, pain into bliss, poison into passion? How the "dreadless Angel" defied, resisted, and repelled? How again and again he refined the polluted cup, exalted the debased emotion, rectified the perverted impulse, detected the lurking venom, baffled the frontless temptation—purified, justified, watched, and withstood? How, by his patience, by his strength, by that unutterable excellence he held from God—his Origin—this faithful Seraph fought for Humanity a good fight through time; and, when Time's course closed, and Death was encountered at the end, barring with fleshless arm the portals of Eternity, how Genius still held close his dying bride, sustained her through the agony of the passage, bore her triumphant into his own home, Heaven; restored her, redeemed, to Jehovah, her Maker; and at last, before Angel and Archangel, crowned her with the crown of Immortality?

Who shall of these things write the chronicle?

* * * * *

"I never could correct that composition," observed Shirley, as Moore concluded. "Your censor-pencil scored it with condemnatory lines, whose signification I strove vainly to fathom."

She had taken a crayon from the tutor's desk, and was drawing little leaves, fragments of pillars, broken crosses, on the margin of the book.

"French may be half forgotten, but the habits of the French lesson are retained, I see," said Louis. "My books would now, as erst, be unsafe with you. My newly-bound St. Pierre would soon be like my Racine—Miss Keeldar, her mark, traced on every page."

Shirley dropped her crayon as if it burned her fingers.

"Tell me what were the faults of that devoir?" she asked. "Were they grammatical errors, or did you object to the substance?"

"I never said that the lines I drew were indications of faults at all. You would have it that such was the case, and I refrained from contradiction."

"What else did they denote?"

"No matter now."

"Mr. Moore," cried Henry, "make Shirley repeat some of the pieces she used to say so well by heart."

"If I ask for any, it will be 'Le Cheval Dompte,'" said Moore, trimming with his penknife the pencil Miss Keeldar had worn to a stump.

She turned aside her head; the neck, the clear cheek, forsaken by their natural veil, were seen to flush warm.

"Ah! she has not forgotten, you see, sir," said Henry, exultant. "She knows how naughty she was."

A smile, which Shirley would not permit to expand, made her lip tremble; she bent her face, and hid it half with her arms, half in her curls, which, as she stooped, fell loose again. "Certainly I was a rebel," she answered.

"A rebel!" repeated Henry. "Yes; you and papa had quarrelled terribly, and you set both him and mamma, and Mrs. Pryor, and everybody, at defiance. You said he had insulted you——"

"He had insulted me," interposed Shirley.

"And you wanted to leave Sympson Grove directly. You packed your things up, and papa threw them out of your trunk; mamma cried, Mrs. Pryor cried; they both stood wringing their hands begging you to be patient; and you knelt on the floor with your things and your up-turned box before you, looking, Shirley, looking—why, in one of your passions. Your features, in such passions, are not distorted; they are fixed, but quite beautiful. You scarcely look angry, only resolute, and in a certain haste; yet one feels that at such times an obstacle cast across your path would be split as with lightning. Papa lost heart, and called Mr. Moore."

"Enough, Henry."

"No, it is not enough. I hardly know how Mr. Moore managed, except that I recollect he suggested to papa that agitation would bring on his gout; and then he spoke quietly to the ladies, and got them away; and afterwards he said to you, Miss Shirley, that it was of no use talking or lecturing now, but that the tea-things were just brought into the schoolroom, and he was very thirsty, and he would be glad if you would leave your packing for the present and come and make a cup of tea for him and me. You came; you would not talk at first, but soon you softened and grew cheerful. Mr. Moore began to tell us about the Continent, the war, and Bonaparte—subjects we were both fond of listening to. After tea he said we should neither of us leave him that evening; he would not let us stray out of his sight, lest we should again get into mischief. We sat one on each side of him. We were so happy. I never passed so pleasant an evening. The next day he gave you, missy, a lecture of an hour, and wound it up by marking you a piece to learn in Bossuet as a punishment-lesson—'Le Cheval Dompte.' You learned it instead of packing up, Shirley. We heard no more of your running away. Mr. Moore used to tease you on the subject for a year afterwards."

"She never said a lesson with greater spirit," subjoined Moore. "She then, for the first time, gave me the treat of hearing my native tongue spoken without accent by an English girl."

"She was as sweet as summer cherries for a month afterwards," struck in Henry: "a good hearty quarrel always left Shirley's temper better than it found it."

"You talk of me as if I were not present," observed Miss Keeldar, who had not yet lifted her face.

"Are you sure you are present?" asked Moore. "There have been moments since my arrival here when I have been tempted to inquire of the lady of Fieldhead if she knew what had become of my former pupil."

"She is here now."

"I see her, and humble enough; but I would neither advise Harry nor others to believe too implicitly in the humility which one moment can hide its blushing face like a modest little child, and the next lift it pale and lofty as a marble Juno."

"One man in times of old, it is said, imparted vitality to the statue he had chiselled; others may have the contrary gift of turning life to stone."

Moore paused on this observation before he replied to it. His look, at once struck and meditative, said, "A strange phrase; what may it mean?" He turned it over in his mind, with thought deep and slow, as some German pondering metaphysics.

"You mean," he said at last, "that some men inspire repugnance, and so chill the kind heart."

"Ingenious!" responded Shirley. "If the interpretation pleases you, you are welcome to hold it valid. I don't care."

And with that she raised her head, lofty in look and statue-like in hue, as Louis had described it.

"Behold the metamorphosis!" he said; "scarce imagined ere it is realized: a lowly nymph develops to an inaccessible goddess. But Henry must not be disappointed of his recitation, and Olympia will deign to oblige him. Let us begin."

"I have forgotten the very first line."

"Which I have not. My memory, if a slow, is a retentive one. I acquire deliberately both knowledge and liking. The acquisition grows into my brain, and the sentiment into my breast; and it is not as the rapid-springing produce which, having no root in itself, flourishes verdurous enough for a time, but too soon falls withered away. Attention, Henry! Miss Keeldar consents to favour you. 'Voyez ce cheval ardent et impetueux,' so it commences."