"Oh, mamma!" This was the nearest point they had come to that outburst of two full hearts which both of them would have called breaking down. Mrs. Dennistoun saw it and was frightened. She thought it would be betraying to Elinor what she wished her never to know, the unspeakable desolation to which she was looking forward when her child was taken from her. Elinor's exclamation, too, was a protest against the imminent breaking down. They both came back with a hurry, with a panting breath, to safer ground.

"Yes, that's what I regret," she said. "Mr. Bolsover and Harry Compton will laugh a little at the Rectory. They will not be so—nice as young men of their own kind."

"The Rectory people are just as well born as any of us, Elinor."

"Oh, precisely, mamma: I know that; but we too—— It is what they call a different monde. I don't think it is half so nice a monde," said the girl, feeling that she had gone further than she intended to do; "but you know, mamma——"

"I know, Elinor: but I scarcely expected from you——"

"Oh," cried Elinor again, in exasperation, "if you think that I share that feeling! I think it odious, I think their monde is vulgar, nasty, miserable! I think——"

"Don't go too far the other way, Elinor. Your husband will be of it, and you must learn to like it. You think, perhaps, all that is new to me?"

"No," said Elinor, her bright eyes, all the brighter for tears, falling before her mother's look. "I know, of course, that you have seen—all kinds——"

But she faltered a little, for she did not believe that her mother was acquainted with Phil's circle and their wonderful ways.

"They will be civil enough," she went on, hurriedly, "and as everybody chaffs so much nowadays they will, perhaps, never be found out. But I don't like it for my friends."

"They will chaff me also, no doubt," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"Oh, you, mamma! they are not such fools as that," cried poor Elinor; but in her own mind she did not feel confident that there was any such limitation to their folly. Mrs. Dennistoun laughed a little to herself, which was, perhaps, more alarming than that other moment when she was almost ready to cry.

"You had better wear Lord St. Serf's ring," she said, after a moment, with a tone of faint derision which Elinor knew.

"You might as well tell me," cried the bride, "to wear Lady Mariamne's revolving dishes. No, I will wear nothing, nothing but your star."

"You have got nothing half so nice," said the mother. Oh yes, it was a little revenge upon those people who were taking her daughter from her, and who thought themselves at liberty to jeer at all her friends: but as was perhaps inevitable it touched Elinor a little too. She restrained herself from some retort with a sense of extreme and almost indignant self-control: though what retort Elinor could have made I cannot tell. It was much "nicer" than anything else she had. None of Phil Compton's great friends, who were not of the same monde as the people at Windyhill, had offered his bride anything to compare with the diamonds which her father had given to her mother before she was born. And Elinor was quite aware of the truth of what her mother said. But she would have liked to make a retort—to say something smart and piquant and witty in return.

And thus the evening was lost, the evening in which there was so much to say, one of the three only, no more, that were left.

Miss Dale came next day to see "the things," and was very amiable: but the only thing in this visit which affected Elinor's mind was a curious little unexpected assault this lady made upon her when she was going away. Elinor had gone out with her to the porch, according to the courteous usage of the house. But when they had reached that shady place, from which the green combe and the blue distance were visible, stretching far into the soft autumnal mists of the evening, Mary Dale turned upon her and asked her suddenly, "What night was it that Mr. Compton came here?"

Elinor was much startled, but she did not lose her self-possession. All the trouble about that date had disappeared out of her mind in the stress and urgency of other things. She cast back her mind with an effort and asked herself what the conflict and uncertainty of which she was dimly conscious, had been? It came back to her dimly without any of the pain that had been in it. "It was on the sixth," she said quietly, without excitement. She could scarcely recall to her mind what it was that had moved her so much in respect to this date only a little time ago.

"Oh, you must be mistaken, Elinor, I saw him coming up from the station. It was later than that. It was, if I were to give my life for it, Thursday night."

This was four or five nights before and a haze of uncertainty had fallen on all things so remote. But Elinor cast her eyes upon the calendar in the hall and calm possessed her breast. "It was the sixth," she said with composed tones, as certain as of anything she had ever known in the course of her life.

"Well, I suppose you must know," said Mary Dale.



CHAPTER XV.

"Look at that, Elinor," said Mrs. Dennistoun, next day, when she had read, twice over, a letter, large and emblazoned with a very big monogram, which Elinor, well perceiving from whom it came, had furtively watched the effect of from behind an exceeding small letter of her own. Phil was not remarkable as a correspondent: his style was that of the primitive mind which hopes its correspondent is well, "as this leaves me." He had never much more to say.

"From Mariamne, mamma?"

"She takes great pains to make us certain of that fact at least," Mrs. Dennistoun said; which indeed was very true, for the name of the writer was sprawled in gilt letters half over the sheet. And this was how it ran:—

"DEAR MRS. DENNISTOUN,—

"I have been thinking what a great pity it would be to bore you with me, and my maid, and all my belongings. I am so silly that I can never be happy without dragging a lot of things about with me—dogs, and people, and so forth. Going to town in September is dreadful, but it is rather chic to do a thing that is quite out of the way, and one may perhaps pick up a little fun in the evening. So if you don't mind, instead of inflicting Fifine and Bijou and Leocadie, not to mention some people that might be with me, upon you, and putting your house all out of order, as these odious little dogs do when people are not used to them—I will come down by the train, which I hope arrives quite punctually, in time to see poor Phil turned off. I am sure you will be so kind as to send a carriage for me to the railway. We shall be probably a party of four, and I hear from Phil you are so hospitable and kind that I need not hesitate to bring my friends to breakfast after it's all over. I hope Phil will go through it like a man, and I wouldn't for worlds deprive him of the support of his family. Love to Nell. I am,

"Yours truly, "MARIAMNE PRESTWICH."

"The first name very big and the second very small," said Mrs. Dennistoun, as she received the letter back.

"I am sure we are much obliged to her for not coming, mamma!"

"Perhaps—but not for this announcement of her not coming. I don't wish to say anything against your new relations, Elinor——"

"You need not put any restraint upon yourself in consideration of my feelings," said Elinor, with a flush of annoyance.

And this made Mrs. Dennistoun pause. They ate their breakfast, which was a very light meal, in silence. It was the day before the wedding. The rooms down-stairs had been carefully prepared for Phil's sister. Though Mrs. Dennistoun was too proud to say anything about it, she had taken great pains to make these pretty rooms as much like a fine lady's chamber as had been possible. She had put up new curtains, and a Persian carpet, and looked out of her stores all the pretty things she could find to decorate the two rooms of the little apartment. She had gone in on the way down-stairs to take a final survey, and it seemed to her that they were very pretty. No picture could have been more beautiful than the view from the long low lattice window, in which, as in a frame, was set the foreground of the copse with its glimpses of ruddy heather and the long sweep of the heights beyond, which stretched away into the infinite. That at least could not be surpassed anywhere; and the Persian carpet was like moss under foot, and the chairs luxurious—and there was a collection of old china in some open shelves which would have made the mouth of an amateur water. Well! it was Lady Mariamne's own loss if she preferred the chance of picking up a little fun in the evening, to spending the night decorously in that pretty apartment, and making further acquaintance with her new sister. It was entirely, Mrs. Dennistoun said to herself, a matter for her own choice. But she was much affronted all the same.

"It will be very inconvenient indeed sending a carriage for her, Elinor. Except the carriage that is to take you to church there is none good enough for this fine lady. I had concluded she would go in your uncle Tatham's carriage. It may be very fine to have a Lady Mariamne in one's party, but it is a great nuisance to have to change all one's arrangements at the last moment."

"If you were to send the wagonette from the Bull's Head, as rough as possible, with two of the farm horses, she would think it genre, if not chic——"

"I cannot put up with all this nonsense!" cried Mrs. Dennistoun, with a flush on her cheek. "You are just as bad as they are, Elinor, to suggest such a thing! I have held my own place in society wherever I have been, and I don't choose to be condescended to or laughed at, in fact, by any visitor in the world!"

"Mamma! do you think any one would ever compare you with Mariamne—the Jew?"

"Don't exasperate me with those abominable nicknames. They will give you one next. She is an exceedingly ill-bred and ill-mannered woman. Picking up a little fun in the evening! What does she mean by picking up a little fun——"

"They will perhaps go to the theatre—a number of them; and as nobody is in town they will laugh very much at the kind of people, and perhaps the kind of play—and it will be a great joke ever after among themselves—for of course there will be a number of them together," said Elinor, disclosing her acquaintance with the habits of her new family with downcast eyes.

"How can well-born people be so vulgar and ill-bred?" cried Mrs. Dennistoun. "I must say for Philip that though he is careless and not nearly so particular as I should like, still he is not like that. He has something of the politeness of the heart."

Elinor did not raise her downcast eyes. Phil had been on his very good behaviour on the occasion of his last hurried visit, but she did not feel that she could answer even for Phil. "I am very glad anyhow, that she is not coming, mamma: at least we shall have the last night and the last morning to ourselves."

Mrs. Dennistoun shook her head. "The Tathams will be here," she said; "and everybody, to dinner—all the party. We must go now and see how we can enlarge the table. To-night's party will be the largest we have ever had in the cottage." She sighed a little and paused, restraining herself. "We shall have no quiet evening—nor morning either—again; it will be a bustle and a rush. You and I will never have any more quiet evenings, Elinor: for when you come back it will be another thing."

"Oh, mother!" cried Elinor, throwing herself into her mother's arms: and for a moment they stood closely clasped, feeling as if their hearts would burst, yet very well aware, too, underneath, that any number of quiet evenings would be as the last, when, with hearts full of a thousand things to say to each other, they said almost nothing—which in some respects was worse than having no quiet evenings evermore.

In the afternoon Phil arrived, having returned from Ireland that morning, and paused only to refresh himself in the chambers which he still retained in town. He had met all his hunting friends during the three days he had been away; and though he retained a gallant appearance, and looked, as Alice Hudson thought, "very aristocratic," Mrs. Dennistoun caught with anxiety a worn-out look—the look of excitement, of nights without sleep, much smoke, and, perhaps, much wine, in his eyes. What a woman feels who has to hand over her spotless child, the most dear and pure thing upon earth, to a man fresh from those indulgences and dissipations which never seem harmless, and always are repellent to a woman, is not to be described. Fortunately the bride herself, in invincible ignorance and unconsciousness, seldom feels in that way. To Elinor her lover looked tired about the eyes, which was very well explained by his night journey, and by the agitation of the moment. And, indeed, she did not see very much of Phil, who had his friends with him—his aide-de-camp, Bolsover, and his brother Harry. These three gentlemen carried an atmosphere of smoke and other scents with them into the lavender of the Rectory, which was too amazing in that hemisphere for words, and talked their own talk in the midst of the fringe of rustics who were their hosts, with a calm which was extraordinary, breaking into the midst of the Rector's long-winded, amiable sentences, and talking to each other over Mrs. Hudson's head. "I say, Dick, don't you remember?" "By Jove, Phil, you are too bad!" sounded, with many other such expressions and reminders, over the Rectory party, strictly silent round their own table, trying to make a courteous remark now and then, but confounded, in their simple country good manners, by the fine gentlemen. And then there was the dinner-party at the cottage in the evening, to which Mr. and Mrs. Hudson were invited. Such a dinner-party! Old Mr. Tatham, who was a country gentleman from Dorsetshire, with his nice daughter, Mary Tatham, a quiet country young lady, accustomed, when she went into the world at all, to the serious young men of the Temple, and John's much-occupied friends, who had their own asides about cases, and what So-and-So had said in court, but were much too well-bred before ladies to fall into "shop;" and Mr. and Mrs. Hudson, who were such as we know them; and the bride's mother, a little anxious, but always debonair; and Elinor herself, in all the haze and sweet confusion of the great era which approached so closely. The three men made the strangest addition that can be conceived to the quiet guests; but things went better under the discipline of the dinner, especially as Sir John Huntingtower, who was a Master of the hounds and an old friend of the Dennistouns, was of the party, and Lady Huntingtower, who was an impressive person, and knew the world. This lady was very warm in her congratulations to Mrs. Dennistoun after dinner on the absence of Lady Mariamne. "I think you are the luckiest woman that ever was to have got clear of that dreadful creature," she said. "Oh, there is nothing wrong about her that I know. She goes everywhere with her dogs and her cavaliers servantes. There's safety in numbers, my dear. She has always two of them at least hanging about her to fetch and carry, and she thinks a great deal more of her dogs; but I can't think what you could have done with her here."

"And what will my Elinor do in such a sphere?" the troubled mother permitted herself to say.

"Oh, if that were all," said Lady Huntingtower, lifting up her fat hands—she was one of those who had protested against the marriage, but now that it had come to this point, and could not be broken off, the judicious woman thought it right to make the best of it—"Elinor need not be any the worse," she said. "Thank heaven, you are not obliged to be mixed up with your husband's sister. Elinor must take a line of her own. You should come to town yourself her first season, and help her on. You used to know plenty of people."

"But they say," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "that it is so much better to leave a young couple to themselves, and that a mother is always in the way."

"If I were you I would not pay the least attention to what they say. If you hold back too much they will say, 'There was her own mother, knowing numbers of nice people, that never took the trouble to lend her a hand.'"

"I hope," said Mrs. Dennistoun, turning round immediately to this other aspect of affairs, "that it never will be necessary for the world to interest itself at all in my child's affairs."

"Well, of course, that is the best," Lady Huntingtower allowed, "if she just goes softly for a year or two till she feels her way."

"But then she is so young, and so little accustomed to act for herself," said the mother, with another change of flank.

"Oh, Elinor has a great deal of spirit. She must just make a stand against the Compton set and take her own line."

Mrs. Hudson and Alice and Miss Tatham were at the other end of the room exchanging a few criticisms under their breath, and disposed to think that they were neglected by their hostess for the greater personage with whom she was in such close conversation. And Lady Mariamne's defection was a great disappointment to them all. "I should like to have seen a fine lady quite close," said Mary (it was not, I think, usual to speak of "smart" people in those days), "one there could be no doubt about, a little fast and all that. I have seen them in town at a distance, but all the people we know are sure country people."

"My dear," said Mrs. Hudson, primly, "I don't like to hear you talk of any other kind. An English lady, I hope, whatever is her rank, can only be of one kind."

"Oh, mamma, you know very well Lady Mariamne is as different from Lady Huntingtower as——"

"Don't mention names, my dear; it is not well-bred. The one is young, and naturally fond of gayety; the other—well, is not quite so young, and stout, and all that."

"Oh, that is all very well," said Alice; "but Aunt Mary says——"

Miss Dale was coming in the evening, and the Miss Hills, and the curate, and the doctor, and various other people, who could not be asked to dinner, to whom it had been carefully explained (which, indeed, was a fact they knew) that to dine twelve people in the little dining-room of the cottage was a feat which was accomplished with difficulty, and that more was impossible. Society at Windyhill was very tolerant and understanding on this point, for all the dining-rooms were small, except, indeed, when you come to talk of such places as Huntingtower—and they were very glad to be permitted to have a peep at the bridegroom on these terms, or rather, if truth were told, of the bride, and how she was bearing herself so near the crisis of her fate. The bridegroom is seldom very interesting on such occasions. On the present occasion he was more interesting than usual, because he was the Honourable Philip, and because he had a reputation of which most people had heard something. There was a mixture of alarm and suspicion in respect to him which increased the excitement; and many remarks of varied kinds were made. "I think the fellow's face quite bears out his character," said the doctor to the Rector. "What a man to trust a nice girl to!" Mr. Hudson felt that as the bridegroom was living under his roof he was partially responsible, and discouraged this pessimistic view. "Mr. Compton has not, perhaps, had all the advantages one tries to secure for one's own son," he said, "but I have reason to believe that the things that have been said of him are much exaggerated." "Oh, advantages!" said the doctor, thinking of Alick, of whom it was his strongly expressed opinion that the fellow should be turned out to rough it, and not coddled up and spoiled at home. But while these remarks were going on, Miss Hill had been expressing to the curate an entirely different view. "I think he has a beautiful face," she said with the emphasis some ladies use; "a little worn, perhaps, with being too much in the world, and I wish he had a better colour. To me he looks delicate: but what delightful features, Mr. Whitebands, and what an aristocratic air!"

"He looks tremendously up to everything," the curate said, with a faint tone of envy in his voice.

"Don't he just?" cried Alick Hudson. "I should think there wasn't a thing he couldn't do—of things that men do do, don't you know," cried that carefully trained boy, whose style was confused, though his meaning was good. But probably there were almost as many opinions about Phil as there were people in the room. His two backers-up stood in a corner—half intimidated, half contemptuous of the country people. "Queer lot for Phil to fall among," said Dick Bolsover. "Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere?" said Harry Compton, who had been about the world. "Oh, bosh with your French, that nobody understands," said the best man.

But in the meantime Phil was not there at all to be seen of men. He had stolen out into the garden, where there was a white vision awaiting him in the milky moonlight. The autumn haze had come early this season, and the moon was misty, veiled with white amid a jumble of soft floating vapours in the sky. Elinor stood among the flowers, which showed some strange subdued tints of colours in the flooding of the white light, like a bit of consolidated moonlight in her white dress. She had a white shawl covering her from head to foot, with a corner thrown over her hair. What had they to say to each other that last night? Not much; nothing at all that had any information in it—whispers inaudible almost to each other. There was something in being together for this stolen moment, just on the eve of their being together for always, which had a charm of its own. After to-night, no stealing away, no escape to the garden, no little conspiracy to attain a meeting—the last of all those delightful schemings and devices. They started when they heard a sound from the house, and sped along the paths into the shadow like the conspirators they were—but never to conspire more after this last enthralling time.

"You're not frightened, Nell?"

"No—except a little. There is one thing——"

"What is it, my pet? If it's to the half of my kingdom, it shall be done."

"Phil, we are going to be very good when we are together? don't laugh—to help each other?"

He did laugh low, not to be heard, but long. "I shall have no temptation," he said, "to be anything but good, you little goose of a Nell," taking it for a warning of possible jealousy to come.

"Oh, but I mean both of us—to help each other."

"Why, Nell, I know you'll never go wrong——"

She gave him a little impatient shake. "You will not understand me, Phil. We will try to be better than we've ever been. To be good—don't you know what that means?—in every way, before God."

Her voice dropped very low, and he was for a moment overawed. "You mean going to church, Nell?"

"I mean—yes, that for one thing; and many other things."

"That's dropping rather strong upon a fellow," he said, "just at this moment, don't you think, when I must say yes to everything you say."

"Oh, I don't mean it in that way; and I was not thinking of church particularly; but to be good, very good, true and kind, in our hearts."

"You are all that already, Nell."

"Oh, no, not what I mean. When there are two of us instead of one we can do so much more."

"Well, my pet, it's for you to make out the much more. I'm quite content with you as you are; it's me that you want to improve, and heaven knows there's plenty of room for that."

"No, Phil, not you more than me," she said.

"We'll choose a place where the sermon's short, and we'll see about it. You mean little minx, to bind a man down to go to church, the night before his wedding day!"

And then there was a sound of movement indoors, and after a little while the bride appeared among the guests with a little more colour than usual, and an anxiously explanatory description of something she had been obliged to do; and the confused hour flew on with much sound of talking and very little understanding of what was said. And then all the visitors streamed away group after group into the moonlight, disappearing like ghosts under the shadow of the trees. Finally, the Rectory party went too, the three mild ladies surrounded by an exciting circle of cigars; for Alick, of course, had broken all bonds, and even the Rector accepted that rare indulgence. Alice Hudson half deplored, half exulted for years after in the scent that would cling round one particular evening dress. Five gentlemen, all with cigars, and papa as bad as any of them! There had never been such an extraordinary experience in her life.

And then the Tathams, too, withdrew, and the mother and daughter stood alone on their own hearth. Oh, so much, so much as there was to say! but how were they to say it?—the last moment, which was so precious and so intolerable—the moment that would never come again.

"You were a long time with Philip, Elinor, in the garden. I think all your old friends —— the last night."

"I wanted to say something to him, mamma, that I had never had the courage to say."

Mrs. Dennistoun had been looking dully into the dim mirror over the mantelpiece. She turned half round to her daughter with an inquiring look.

"Oh, mamma, I wanted to say to him that we must be good! We're so happy. God is so kind to us; and you—if you suppose I don't think of you! It was to say to him—building our house upon all this, God's mercy and your loss, and all—that we are doubly, doubly bound to serve—and to love—and to be good people before God; and like you, mother, like you!"

"My darling!" Mrs. Dennistoun said. And that was all. She asked no questions as to how it was to be done, or what he replied. Elinor had broken down hysterically, and sobbed out the words one at a time, as they would come through the choking in her throat. Needless to say that she ended in her mother's arms, her head upon the bosom which had nursed her, her slight weight dependent upon the supporter and protector of all her life.

That was the last evening. There remained the last morning to come; and after that—what? The great sea of an unknown life, a new pilot, and a ship untried.



CHAPTER XVI.

And now the last morning had come.

The morning of a wedding-day is a flying and precarious moment which seems at once as if it never would end, and as if it were a hurried preliminary interval in which the necessary preparations never could be done. Elinor was not allowed to come down-stairs to help, as she felt it would be natural to do. It was Mary Tatham who arranged the flowers on the table, and helped Dennistoun to superintend everything. All the women in the house, though they were so busy, were devoted at every spare moment to the service of Elinor. They brought her simple breakfast up-stairs, one maid carrying the tray and another the teapot, that each might have their share. The cook, though she was overwhelmed with work, had made some cakes for breakfast, such us Elinor liked. "Most like as we'll never have her no more—to mind," she said. The gardener sent up an untidy bundle of white flowers. And Mrs. Dennistoun came herself to pour out the tea. "As if I had been ill, or had turned into a baby again," Elinor said. But there was not much said. Mary Tatham was there for one thing, and for another and the most important they had said all they had to say; the rest which remained could not be said. The wedding was to be at a quarter to twelve, in order to give Lady Mariamne time to come from town. It was not the fashion then to delay marriages to the afternoon, which no doubt would have been much more convenient for her ladyship; but the best that could be done was done. Mr. Tatham's carriage, which he had brought with him to grace the ceremony, was despatched to the station to meet Lady Mariamne, while he, good man, had to get to church as he could in one of the flys. And then came the important moment, when the dressing of the bride had to be begun. The wedding-breakfast was not yet all set out in perfect order, and there were many things to do. Yet every woman in the house had a little share in the dressing of the bride. They all came to see how it fitted when the wedding-dress was put on. It fitted like a glove! The long glossy folds of the satin were a wonder to see. Cook stood just within the door in a white apron, and wept, and could not say a word to Miss Elinor; but the younger maids sent forth a murmur of admiration. And the Missis they thought was almost as beautiful as the bride, though her satin was grey. Mrs. Dennistoun herself threw the veil over her child's head, and put in the diamond star, the old-fashioned ornament, which had been her husband's present to herself. And then again she had meant to say something to Elinor—a last word—but the word would not come. They were both of them glad that somebody should be there all the time, that they should not be left alone. And after that the strange, hurried, everlasting morning was over, and the carriage was at the door.

Then again it was a relief that old Mr. Tatham had missed his proper place in the fly, and had to go on the front seat with the bride and her mother. It was far better so. If they had been left even for ten minutes alone, who could have answered that one or the other would not have cried, and discomposed the bouquet and the veil? It seemed a great danger and responsibility over when they arrived at last safely at the church door. Lady Mariamne was just then arriving from the station. She drew up before them in poor Mr. Tatham's carriage, keeping them back. Harry Compton and Mr. Bolsover sprang to the carriage window to talk to her, and there was a loud explosion of mirth and laughter in the midst of the village people, and the children with their baskets of flowers who were already gathered. Lady Mariamne's voice burst out so shrill that it overmastered the church bells. "Here I am," she cried, "out in the wilderness. And Algy has come with me to take care of me. And how are you, dear boys; and how is poor Phil?" "Phil is all ready to be turned off, with the halter round his neck," said Dick Bolsover; and Harry Compton said, "Hurry up, hurry up, Jew, the bride is behind you, waiting to get out." "She must wait, then," said Lady Mariamne, and there came leisurely out of the carriage, first, her ladyship's companion, by name, Algy, a tall person with an eye-glass, then a little pug, which was carefully handed into his arms, and then lightly jumping down to the ground, a little figure in black—in black of all things in the world! a sight that curdled the blood of the village people, and of Mrs. Hudson, who had walked across from the Rectory in a gown of pigeon's-breast silk which scattered prismatic reflections as she walked. In black! Mrs. Hudson bethought herself that she had a white China crape shawl in her cupboard, and wondered if she could offer it to conceal this ill omened gown. But if Lady Mariamne's dress was dark, she herself was fair enough, with an endless fluff of light hair under her little black lace bonnet. Her gloves were off, and her hands were white and glistening with rings. "Give me my puggy darling," she said in her loud, shrill tone. "I can go nowhere, can I, pet, without my little pug!"

"A Jew and a pug, both in church. It is enough," said her brother, "to get the poor parson into trouble with his bishop."

"Oh, the bishop's a great friend of mine," said the lady; "he will say nothing to me, not if I put Pug in a surplice and make him lead the choir." At this speech there was a great laugh of the assembled party, which stood in the centre of the path, while Mr. Tatham's carriage edged away, and the others made efforts to get forward. The noise of their talk disturbed the curious abstraction in which Elinor had been going through the morning hours. Mariamne's jarring voice seemed louder than the bells. Was this the first voice sent out to greet her by the new life which was about to begin? She glanced at her mother, and then at old Uncle Tatham, who sat immovable, prevented by decorum from apostrophising the coachman who was not his own, but fuming inwardly at the interruption. Mrs. Dennistoun did not move at all, but her daughter knew very well what was meant by that look straight before her, in which her mother seemed to ignore all obstacles in the way.

"I got here very well," Lady Mariamne went on; "we started in the middle of the night, of course, before the lamps were out. Wasn't it good of Algy to get himself out of bed at such an unearthly hour! But he snapped at Puggy as we came down, which was a sign he felt it. Why aren't you with the poor victim at the altar, you boys?"

"Phil will be in blue funk," said Harry; "go in and stand by your man, Dick: the Jew has enough with two fellows to see her into her place."

The bride's carriage by this time pushed forward, making Lady Mariamne start in confusion. "Oh! look here; they have splashed my pretty toilette, and upset my nerves," she cried, springing back into her supporter's arms.

That gentleman regarded the stain of the damp gravel on the lady's skirt through his eye-glass with deep but helpless anxiety. "It's a pity for the pretty frock!" he said with much seriousness. And the group gathered round and gazed in dismay, as if they expected it to disappear of itself—until Mrs. Hudson bustled up. "It will rub off; it will not make any mark. If one of you gentlemen will lend me a handkerchief," she said. And Algy and Harry and Dick Bolsover, not to speak of Lady Mariamne herself, watched with great gravity while the gravel was swept off. "I make no doubt," said the Rector's wife, "that I have the pleasure of speaking to Lady Mariamne: and I don't doubt that black is the fashion and your dress is beautiful: but if you would just throw on a white shawl for the sake of the wedding—it's so unlucky to come in black——"

"A white shawl!" said Lady Mariamne in dismay.

"The Jew in a white shawl!" echoed the others with a burst of laughter which rang into the church itself and made Phil before the altar, alone and very anxious, ask himself what was up.

"It's China crape, I assure you, and very nice," Mrs. Hudson said.

Lady Mariamne gave the good Samaritan a stony stare, and took Algy's arm and sailed into the church before the Rector's wife, without a word said; while all the women from the village looked at each other and said, "Well, I never!" under their breath.

"Let me give you my arm, Mrs. Hudson," said Harry Compton, "and please pardon me that I did not introduce my sister to you. She is dreadfully shy, don't you know, and never does speak to anyone when she has not been introduced."

"My observation was a very simple one," said Mrs. Hudson, very angry, yet pleased to lean upon an Honourable arm.

"My dear lady!" cried the good-natured Harry, "the Jew never wore a shawl in her life——"

And all this time the organ had been pealing, the white vision passing up the aisle, the simple villagers chanting forth their song about the breath that breathed o'er Eden. Alas! Eden had not much to do with it, except perhaps in the trembling heart of the white maiden roused out of her virginal dream by the jarring voices of the new life. The laughter outside was a dreadful offence to all the people, great and small, who had collected to see Elinor married.

"What could you expect? It's that woman whom they call the Jew," whispered Lady Huntingtower to her next neighbour.

"She should be put into the stocks," said Sir John, scarcely under his breath, which, to be sure, was also an interruption to the decorum of the place.

And then there ensued a pause broken by the voice, a little lugubrious in tone, of the Rector within the altar rails, and the tremulous answers of the pair outside. The audience held its breath to hear Elinor make her responses, and faltered off into suppressed weeping as the low tones ceased. Sir John Huntingtower, who was very tall and big, and stood out like a pillar among the ladies round, kept nodding his head all the time she spoke, nodding as you might do in forced assent to any dreadful vow. Poor little thing, poor little thing, he was saying in his heart. His face was more like the face of a man at a funeral than a man at a wedding. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord"—he might have been nodding assent to that instead of to Elinor's low-spoken vow. Phil Compton's voice, to tell the truth, was even more tremulous than Elinor's. To investigate the thoughts of a bridegroom would be too much curiosity at such a moment. But I think if the secrets of the hearts could be revealed, Phil for a moment was sorry for poor little Elinor too.

And then the solemnity was all over in a moment, and the flutter of voices and congratulations began.

I do not mean to follow the proceedings through all the routine of the wedding-day. Attempts were made on the part of the bridegroom's party to get Lady Mariamne dismissed by the next train, an endeavour into which Harry Compton threw himself—for he was always a good-hearted fellow—with his whole soul. But the Jew declared that she was dying of hunger, and whatever sort of place it was, must have something to eat; a remark which naturally endeared her still more to Mrs. Dennistoun, who was waiting by the door of Mr. Tatham's carriage, which that anxious old gentleman had managed to recover control of, till her ladyship had taken her place. Her ladyship stared with undisguised amazement when she was followed into the carriage by the bride's mother, and when the neat little old gentleman took his seat opposite. "But where is Algy? I want Algy," she cried, in dismay. "Absolutely I can't go without Algy, who came to take care of me."

"You will be perfectly safe, my dear lady, with Mrs. Dennistoun and me. The gentlemen will walk," said Mr. Tatham, waving his hand to the coachman.

And thus it was that the forlorn lady found herself without her cavalier and without her pug, absolutely stranded among savages, notwithstanding her strong protest almost carried the length of tears. She was thus carried off in a state of consternation to the cottage over the rough road, where the wheels went with a din and lurch over the stones, and dug deep into the sand, eliciting a succession of little shrieks from her oppressed bosom. "I shall be shaken all to bits," she said, grasping the arm of the old gentleman to steady herself. Mr. Tatham was not displeased to be the champion of a lady of title. He assured her in dulcet tones that his springs were very good and his horses very sure—"though it is not a very nice road."

"Oh, it is a dreadful road!" said Lady Mariamne.

But in due time they did arrive at the cottage, where her ladyship could not wait for the gathering of the company, but demanded at once something to eat. "I can't really go another moment without food. I must have something or I shall die. Phil, come here this instant and get me something. They have brought me off at the risk of my life, and there's nobody to attend to me. Don't stand spooning there," cried Lady Mariamne, "but do what I tell you. Do you think I should ever have put myself into this position but for you?"

"You would never have been asked here if they had consulted me. I knew what a nuisance you'd be. Here, get this lady something to eat, old man," said the bridegroom, tapping Mr. Tatham on the back, who did, indeed, look rather like a waiter from that point of view.

"I shall have to help myself," said the lady in despair. And she sat down at the elaborate table in the bride's place and began to hack at the chicken. The gentlemen coming in at the moment roared again with laughter over the Jew's impatience; but it was not regarded with the same admiration by the rest of the guests.

These little incidents, perhaps, helped to wile away the weary hours until it was time for the bridal pair to depart. Mrs. Dennistoun was so angry that it kept up a little fire, so to speak, in her heart when the light of her house was extinguished. Lady Mariamne, standing in the porch with a bag full of rice to throw, kept up the spirit of the mistress of the house, which otherwise might, perhaps, have failed her altogether at that inconceivable moment; for though she had been looking forward to it for months it was inconceivable when it came, as death is inconceivable. Elinor going away!—not on a visit, or to be back in a week, or a month, or a year—going away for ever! ending, as might be said, when she put her foot on the step of the carriage. Her mother stood by and looked on with that cruel conviction that overtakes all at the last. Up to this moment had it not seemed as if the course of affairs was unreal, as if something must happen to prevent it? Perhaps the world will end to-night, as the lover says in the "Last Ride." But now here was the end: nothing had happened, the world was swinging on in space in its old careless way, and Elinor was going—going away for ever and ever. Oh, to come back, perhaps—there was nothing against that—but never the same Elinor. The mother stood looking, with her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. Those eyes were quite dry, and she stood firm and upright by the carriage door. She was not "breaking down" or "giving way," as everybody feared. She was "bearing up," as everybody was relieved to see. And in a moment it was all over, and there was nothing before her eyes—no carriage, no Elinor. She was so dazed that she stood still, looking with that strange kind of smile for a full minute after there was nothing to smile at, only the vacant air and the prospect of the combe, coming in in a sickly haze which existed only in her eyes.

But, by good luck, there was Lady Mariamne behind, and the fire of indignation giving a red flicker upon the desolate hearth.

"I caught Phil on the nose," said that lady, in great triumph; "spoilt his beauty for him for to-day. But let's hope she won't mind. She thinks him beautiful, the little goose. Oh, my Puggy-wuggy, did that cruel Algy pull your little, dear tail, you darling? Come to oos own mammy, now those silly wedding people are away."

"Your little dog, I presume, is of a very rare sort," said Mr. Tatham, to be civil. He had proposed the bride and bridegroom's health in a most appropriate speech, and he felt that he had deserved well of his kind, which made him more amiable even than usual. "Your ladyship's little dog," he added, after a moment, as she did not take any notice, "I presume, is of a rare kind?"

Lady Mariamne gave him a look, or rather a stare. "Is Puggy of a rare sort?" she said over her shoulder, to one of the attendant tribe.

"Don't be such a duffer, Jew! You know as well as any one what breed he's of," Harry Compton said.

"Oh, I forgot," said the fine lady. She was standing full in front of the entrance, keeping Mrs. Dennistoun in the full sun outside. "I hope there's a train very soon," she said. "Did you look, Algy, as I told you? If it hadn't been that Phil would have killed me I should have gone now. It would have been such fun to have spied upon the turtle doves!"

The men thought it would have been rare fun with obedient delight, but that Phil would have cut up rough, and made a scene. At this Lady Mariamne held up her finger, and made a portentous face.

"Oh, you naughty, naughty boy," she cried, "telling tales out of school."

"Perhaps, my dear lady," said Mr. Tatham, quietly, "you would let Mrs. Dennistoun pass."

"Oh!" said Lady Mariamne, and stared at him again for half a minute; then she turned and stared at the tall lady in grey satin. "Anybody can pass," she said: "I'm not so very big."

"That is quite true—quite true. There is plenty of room," said the little gentleman, holding out his hand to his cousin.

"My dear John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "I am sure you will be kind enough to lend your carriage again to Lady Mariamne, who is in a hurry to get away. There is another train, which stops at Downforth station, in half an hour, and there will just be time to get there, if you will order it at once. I told your man to be in readiness: and it would be a thousand pities to lose this train, for there is not another for an hour."

"By Jove, Jew! there's a slap in the face for you," said, in an audible whisper, one of the train, who had been standing in front of all the friends, blocking out the view. As for Lady Mariamne, she stared more straight than ever into Mrs. Dennistoun's eyes, but for the moment did not seem to find anything to say. She was left in the hall with her band while the mistress of the house went into the drawing-room, followed by all the country ladies, who had not lost a word, and who were already whispering to each other over that terrible betrayal about the temper of Phil.

"Cut up rough! Oh! poor little Elinor, poor little Elinor!" the ladies said to each other under their breath.

"I am not at all surprised. It is not any news to me. You could see it in his eyes," said Miss Mary Dale. And then they all were silent to listen to the renewed laughter that came bursting from the hall. Mrs. Hudson questioned her husband afterwards as to what it was that made everybody laugh, but the Rector had not much to say. "I really could not tell you, my dear," he said. "I don't remember anything that was said—but it seemed funny somehow, and as they all laughed one had to laugh too."

The great lady came in, however, dragged by her brother to say good-by. "It has all gone off very well, I am sure, and Nell looked very nice, and did you great credit," she said, putting out her hand. "And it's very kind of you to take so much trouble to get us off by the first train."

"Oh, it is no trouble," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"Shouldn't you like to say good-by to Puggy-muggy?" said Lady Mariamne, touching the little black nose upon her arm. "He enjoyed that pate so much. He really never has foie gras at home: but he doesn't at all mind if you would like to give him a little kiss just here."

"Good-by, Lady Mariamne," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with one of the curtseys of the old school. But there was another gust of laughter as Lady Mariamne was placed in the carriage, and a shrill little trumpet gave forth the satisfaction of the departing guest at having "got a rise out of the old girl." The gentlemen heaped themselves into Mr. Tatham's carriage, and swept off along with her, all but civil Harry, who waited to make their apologies, and to put up along with his own Dick Bolsover's "things." And thus the bridegroom's party, the new associates of Elinor, the great family into which the Honourable Mrs. Phil Compton had been so lucky as to marry, to the great excitement of all the country round, departed and was seen no more. Harry, who was civil, walked home with the Hudsons when all was over, and said the best he could for the Jew and her friends. "You see, she has been regularly spoiled: and then when a girl's so dreadful shy, as often as not it sounds like impudence." "Dear me, I should never have thought Lady Mariamne was shy," the gentle Rector said. "That's just how it is," said Harry. He went over again in the darkening to take his leave of Mrs. Dennistoun. He found her sitting out in the garden before the open door, looking down the misty walk. The light had gone out of the skies, but the usual cheerful lights had not yet appeared in the house, where the hum of a great occasion still reigned. The Tathams were at the Rectory, and Mrs. Dennistoun was alone. Harry Compton had a good heart, and though he could not conceive the possibility of a woman not being glad to have married her daughter, the loneliness and darkness touched him a little in contrast with the gayety of the previous night. "You must think us a dreadful noisy lot," he said, "and as if my sister had no sense. But it's only the Jew's way. She's made like that—and at bottom she's not at all a bad sort."

"Are you going away?" was all the answer that Mrs. Dennistoun made.

"Oh, yes, and we shall be a good riddance," said Harry; "but please don't think any worse of us than you can help—— Phil—well, he's got a great deal of good in him—he has indeed, and she'll bring it all out."

It was very good of Harry Compton. He had a little choking in his throat as he walked back. "Blest if I ever thought of it in that light before," he said to himself.

But I doubt if what he said, however well meant, brought much comfort to Mrs. Dennistoun's heart.



CHAPTER XVII.

Thus Elinor Dennistoun disappeared from Windyhill and was no more seen. There are many ways in which a marriage is almost like a death, especially when the marriage is that of an only child. The young go away, the old remain. There is all the dreary routine of the solitary life unbrightened by that companionship which is all the world to the one who is left behind. So little—only the happy going away into brighter scenes of one whose happiness was the whole thought of that dreary survivor at the chimney corner—and yet so much. And if that survivor is a woman she has to smile and tell her neighbours of the bride's happiness, and how great the comfort to herself that her Elinor's life is assured, and her own ending is now of no particular importance to her daughter; if it is a man, he is allowed to lament, which is a curious paradox, but one of the many current in this world. Mrs. Dennistoun had to put a very brave face upon it all the more because of the known unsatisfactoriness of Elinor's husband: and she had to go on with her life, and sit down at her solitary meals, and invent lonely occupations for herself, and read and read, till her brains were often dazed by the multiplicity of the words, which lost their meaning as she turned over page by page. To sit alone in the house, without a sound audible, except perhaps the movement of the servants going up-stairs or down to minister to the wants, about which she felt she cared nothing whether they were ministered to or not, of their solitary mistress, where a little while ago there used to be the rhythm of the one quick step, the sound of the one gay voice which made the world a warm inhabited place to Mrs. Dennistoun—this was more dismal than words could say. To be sure, there were some extraordinary and delightful differences; there were the almost daily letters, which afforded the lonely mother all the pleasure that life could give; and there was always the prospect, or at least possibility and hope, of seeing her child again. Those two particulars, it need scarcely be said, make a difference which is practically infinite: but yet for Mrs. Dennistoun, sitting alone all the day and night, walking alone, reading alone, with little to do that was of the slightest consequence, not even the reading—for what did it matter to her dreary, lonely consciousness whether she kept afloat of general literature or improved her mind or not? this separation by marriage was dreadfully like the dreary separation by death, and in one respect it was almost worse; for death, if it reaches our very hearts, takes away at least the gnawing pangs of anxiety. He or she who is gone that way is well; never more can trouble touch them, their feet cannot err nor their hearts ache; while who can tell what troubles and miseries may be befalling, out there in the unknown, the child who has embarked upon the troubled sea of mortal life?

And it may be imagined with what anxious eyes those letters, which made all the difference, were read; how the gradually changing tone in them was noted as it came in, slowly but also surely. Sometimes they got to be very hurried, and then Mrs. Dennistoun saw as in a glass the impatient husband waiting, wondering what she could constantly find to say to her mother; sometimes they were long and detailed, and that meant, as would appear perhaps by a phrase slurred over in the postscript, that Phil had gone away somewhere. There was never a complaint in them, never a word that could be twisted into a complaint: but the anxious mother read between the lines innumerable things, not half of them true. There is perhaps never a half true of what anxiety may imagine: but then the half that is true!

John Tatham was very faithful to her during that winter. As soon as he came back from Switzerland, at the end of the long vacation, he went down to see her, feeling the difference in the house beyond anything he had imagined, feeling as if he were stepping into some darkened outer chamber of the grave: but with a cheerful face and eager but confident interest in "the news from Elinor." "Of course she is enjoying herself immensely," he said, and Mrs. Dennistoun was able to reply with a smile that was a little wistful, that yes, Elinor was enjoying herself immensely. "She seems very happy, and everything is new to her and bright," she said. They were both very glad that Elinor was happy, and they were very cheerful themselves. Mrs. Dennistoun truly cheered by his visit and by the necessity for looking after everything that John might be comfortable, and the pleasure of seeing his face opposite to her at table. "You can't think what it is to see you there; sitting down to dinner is the most horrible farce when one is alone." "Poor aunt!" John Tatham said: and nobody would believe how many Saturdays and Sundays he gave up to her during the long winter. Somehow he himself did not care to go anywhere else. In Elinor's time he had gone about freely enough, liking a little variety in his Saturday to Mondays, though always happiest when he went to Windyhill: but now somehow the other houses seemed to pall upon him. He liked best to go down to that melancholy house which his presence made more or less bright, where there was an endless talk of Elinor, where she was, what she was doing, and what was to be her next move, and, at last, when she was coming to town. Mrs. Dennistoun did not say, as she did at first, "when she is coming home." That possibility seemed to slip away somehow, and no one suggested it. When she was coming to town, that was what they said between themselves. She had spent the spring on the Riviera, a great part of it at Monte Carlo, and her letters were full of the beauty of the place; but she said less and less about people, and more and more about the sea and the mountains, and the glorious road which gave at every turn a new and beautiful vision of the hills and the sea. It was a little like a guide-book, they sometimes felt, but neither said it; but at last it became certain that in the month of May she was coming to town.

More than that, oh, more than that! One evening in May, when it was fine but a little chilly, when Mrs. Dennistoun was walking wistfully in her garden, looking at the moon shining in the west, and wondering if her child had arrived in England, and whether she was coming to a house of her own, or a lodging, or to be a visitor in some one else's house, details which Elinor had not given—her ear was suddenly caught by the distant rumbling of wheels, heavy wheels, the fly from the station certainly. Mrs. Dennistoun had no expectation of what it could be, no sort of hope: and yet a woman has always a sort of hope when her child lives and everything is possible. The fly seemed to stop, not coming up the little cottage drive; but by and by, when she had almost given up hoping, there came a rush of flying feet, and a cry of joy, and Elinor was in her mother's arms. Elinor! yes, it was herself, no vision, no shadow such as had many a time come into Mrs. Dennistoun's dreams, but herself in flesh and blood, the dear familiar figure, the face which, between the twilight and those ridiculous tears which come when one is too happy, could scarcely be seen at all. "Elinor, Elinor! it is you, my darling!" "Yes, mother, it is me, really me. I could not write, because I did not know till the last minute whether I could get away."

It may be imagined what a coming home that was. Mrs. Dennistoun, when she saw her daughter even by the light of the lamp, was greatly comforted. Elinor was looking well; she was changed in that indescribable way in which marriage changes (though not always) the happiest woman. And her appearance was changed; she was no longer the country young lady very well dressed and looking as well as any one could in her carefully made clothes. She was now a fashionable young woman, about whose dresses there was no question, who wore everything as those do who are at the fountain-head, no matter what it was she wore. Mrs. Dennistoun's eyes caught this difference at once, which is also indescribable to the uninitiated, and a sensation of pride came into her mind. Elinor was improved, too, in so many ways. Her mother had never thought of calling her anything more, even in her inmost thoughts, than very pretty, very sweet; but it seemed to Mrs. Dennistoun now as if people might use a stronger word, and call Elinor beautiful. Her face had gained a great deal of expression, though it was always an expressive face; her eyes looked deeper; her manner had a wonderful youthful dignity. Altogether, it was another Elinor, yet, God be praised, the same.

It was but for one night, but that was a great deal, a night subtracted from the blank, a night that seemed to come out of the old times—those old times that had not been known to be so very happy till they were over and gone. Elinor had naturally a great deal to tell her mother, but in the glory of seeing her, of hearing her voice, of knowing that it was actually she who was speaking, Mrs. Dennistoun did not observe, what she remembered afterwards, that again it was much more of places than of people that Elinor talked, and that though she named Phil when there was any occasion for doing so, she did not babble about him as brides do, as if he were altogether the sun, and everything revolved round him. It is not a good sign, perhaps, when the husband comes down to his "proper place" as the representative of the other half of the world too soon. Elinor looked round upon her old home with a mingled smile and sigh. Undoubtedly it had grown smaller, perhaps even shabbier, since she went away: but she did not say so to her mother. She cried out how pretty it was, how delightful to come back to it! and that was true too. How often it happens in this life that there are two things quite opposed to each other, and yet both of them true.

"John will be delighted to hear that you have come, Elinor," her mother said.

"John, dear old John! I hope he is well and happy, and all that; and he comes often to see you, mother? How sweet of him! You must give him ever so much love from his poor Nelly. I always keep that name sacred to him."

"But why should I give him messages as if you were not sure to meet? of course you will meet—often."

"Do you think so?" said Elinor. She opened her eyes a little in surprise, and then shook her head. "I am afraid not, mamma. We are in two different worlds."

"I assure you," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "John is a very rising man. He is invited everywhere."

"That I don't doubt at all."

"And why then shouldn't you meet?"

"I don't know. I don't fancy we shall go to the same places. John has a profession; he has something to do. Now you know we have nothing to do."

She laughed and laid a little emphasis on the we, by way of taking off the weight of the words.

"I always thought it was a great pity, Elinor."

"It may be a pity or not," said Elinor, "but it is, and it cannot be helped. We have got to make up our minds to it. I would rather Phil did nothing than mixed himself up with companies. Thank heaven, at present he is free of anything of that kind."

"I hope he is free of that one at least, that he was going to invest all your money in, Elinor. I hope you found another investment that was quite steady and safe."

"Oh, I suppose so," said Elinor, with some of her old petulance: "don't let us spoil the little time I have by talking about money, mamma!"

And then it was that Mrs. Dennistoun noticed that what Elinor did talk of, hurrying away from this subject, were things of not the least importance—the olive woods on the Riviera, the wealth of flowers, the strange little old towns upon the hills. Surely even the money, which was her own and for her comfort, would be a more interesting subject to discuss. Perhaps Elinor herself perceived this, for she began immediately to ask questions about the Hudsons and Hills, and all the people of the parish, with much eagerness of questioning, but a flagging interest in the replies, as her mother soon saw. "And Mary Dale, is she still there?" she asked. Mrs. Dennistoun entered into a little history of how Mary Dale had gone away to nurse a distant cousin who had been ill, and finally had died and left a very comfortable little fortune to her kind attendant. Elinor listened with little nods and appropriate exclamations, but before the evening was out asked again, "And Mary Dale?" then hastily corrected herself with an "Oh, I remember! you told me." But it was perhaps safer not to question her how much she remembered of what she had been told.

Thus there were notes of disquiet in even that delightful evening, such a contrast as it was to all the evenings since she had left home. Even when John came, what a poor substitute for Elinor! The ingratitude of those whose heart is set on one object made Mrs. Dennistoun thus make light of what had been her great consolation. He was very kind, very good, and oh, how glad she had been to see him through that heavy winter—but he was not Elinor! It was enough for Elinor to step across her mother's threshold to make Mrs. Dennistoun feel that there was no substitute for her—none: and that John was of no more consequence than the Rector or any habitual caller. But, at the same time, in all the melody of the home-coming, in the sweetness of Elinor's voice, and look, and kiss, in the perfection of seeing her there again in her own place, and listening to her dear step running up and down the no longer silent house, there were notes of disquiet which could not be mistaken. She was not unhappy, the mother thought; her eyes could not be so bright, nor her colour so fair unless she was happy. Trouble does not embellish, and Elinor was embellished. But yet—there were notes of disquiet in the air.

Next day Mrs. Dennistoun drove her child to the railway in order not to lose a moment of so short a visit, and naturally, though she had received that unexpected visit with rapture, feeling that a whole night of Elinor was worth a month, a year of anybody else, yet now that Elinor was going she found it very short. "You'll come again soon, my darling?" she said, as she stood at the window of the carriage ready to say good-bye.

"Whenever I can, mother dear, of that you may be sure; whenever I can get away."

"I don't wish to draw you from your husband. Don't get away—come with Philip from Saturday to Monday. Give him my love, and tell him so. He shall not be bored; but Sunday is a day without engagements."

"Oh, not now, mamma. There are just as many things to do on Sundays as on any other day."

There were a great many words on Mrs. Dennistoun's lips, but she did not say them; all she did say was, "Well, then, Elinor—when you can get away."

"Oh, you need not doubt me, mamma." And the train, which sometimes lingers so long, which some people that very day were swearing at as so slow, "Like all country trains," they said—that inevitable heartless thing got into motion, and Mrs. Dennistoun watched it till it disappeared; and—what was that that came over Elinor's face as she sank back into the corner of her carriage, not knowing her mother's anxious look followed her still—what was it? Oh, dreadful, dreadful life! oh, fruitless love and longing!—was it relief? The mother tried to get that look out of her mind as she drove silently and slowly home, creeping up hill after hill. There was no need to hurry. All that she was going to was an empty and silent house, where nobody awaited her. What was that look on Elinor's face? Relief! to have it over, to get away again, away from her old home and her fond mother, away to her new life. Mrs. Dennistoun was not a jealous mother nor unreasonable. She said to herself—Well! it was no doubt a trial to the child to come back—to come alone. All the time, perhaps, she was afraid of being too closely questioned, of having to confess that he did not want to come, perhaps grudged her coming. She might be afraid that her mother would divine something—some hidden opposition, some dislike, perhaps, on his part. Poor Elinor! and when everything had passed over so well, when it was ended, and nothing had been between them but love and mutual understanding, what wonder if there came over her dear face a look of relief! This was how this good woman, who had seen a great many things in her passage through life, explained her child's look: and though she was sad was not angry, as many less tolerant and less far-seeing might have been in her place.

John, that good John, to whom she had been so ungrateful, came down next Saturday, and to him she confided her great news, but not all of it. "She came down—alone?" he said.

"Well," said Mrs. Dennistoun, bravely; "she knew very well it was her I wanted to see, and not Philip. They say a great deal about mothers-in-law, but why shouldn't we in our turn have our fling at sons-in-law, John? It was not him I wanted to see: it was my own child: and Elinor understood that, and ran off by herself. Bless her for the thought."

"I understand that," said John. He had given the mother more than one look as she spoke, and divined her better than she supposed. "Oh, yes, I can understand that. The thing I don't understand is why he let her; why he wasn't too proud to bring her back to you, that you might see she had taken no harm. If it had been I——"

"Ah, but it was not you," said Mrs. Dennistoun; "you forget that. It never could have been you."

He looked quickly at her again, and it was on his lips to ask, "Why could it never have been I?" but he did not; for he knew that if it had ever been him, it could not have been for years. He was too prudent, and Elinor, even if she had escaped Phil Compton, would have met some one else. He had no right to say, or even think, what, in the circumstances, he would have done. He did not make any answer, but she understood him as he understood her.

And later in the evening she asked his advice as to what she should do. "I am not fond of asking advice," she said, "and I don't think there is another in the world I would ask it from but you. What should I do? It would cost me nothing to run up to town for a part of the season at least. I might get a little house, and be near her, where she could come to me when she pleased. Should I do it, or would it be wise not to do it? I don't want to spy upon her or to force her to tell me more than she wishes. John, my dear, I will tell you what I would tell no one else. I caught a glimpse of her dear face when the train was just going out of sight, and she was sinking back in her corner with a look of relief——"

"Of relief!" he cried.

"John, don't form any false impression! it was no want of love: but I think she was thankful to have seen me, and to have satisfied me, and that I had asked no questions that she could not answer—in a way."

John clenched his fist, but he dared not make any gesture of disgust, or suggest again, "If it had been I."

"Well, now," she said, "remember I am not angry—fancy being angry with Elinor!—and all I mean is for her benefit. Should I go? it might be a relief to her to run into me whenever she pleased; or should I not go? lest she might think I was bent on finding out more than she chose to tell?"

"Wouldn't it be right that you should find out?"

"That is just the point upon which I am doubtful. She is not unhappy, for she is—she is prettier than ever she was, John. A girl does not get like that—her eyes brighter, her colour clearer, looking—well, beautiful!" cried the mother, her eyes filling with bright tears, "if she is unhappy. But there may be things that are not quite smooth, that she might think it would make me unhappy to know, yet that if let alone might come all right. Tell me, John, what should I do?"

And they sat debating thus till far on in the night.



CHAPTER XVIII.

Mrs. Dennistoun did not go up to town. There are some women who would have done so, seeing the other side of the subject—at all hazards; and perhaps they would have been right—who can tell? She did not—denying herself, keeping herself by main force in her solitude, not to interfere with the life of her child, which was drawn on lines so different from any of hers—and perhaps she was wrong. Who knows, except by the event, which is the best or the worst way in any of our human movements, which are so short-sighted? And twice during the season Elinor found means to come to the cottage for a night as she had done at first. These were occasions of great happiness, it need not be said—but of many thoughts and wonderings too. She had always an excuse for Phil. He had meant until the last moment to come with her—some one had turned up, quite unexpectedly, who had prevented him. It was a fatality; especially when she came down in July did she insist upon this. He had been invited quite suddenly to a political dinner to meet one of the Ministers from whom he had hopes of an appointment. "For we find that we can't go on enjoying ourselves for ever," she said gayly, "and Phil has made up his mind he must get something to do."

"It is always the best way," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"I am not so very sure, mamma, when you have never been used to it. Of course, some people would be wretched without work. Fancy John with nothing to do! How he would torment his wife—if he had one. But Phil never does that. He is very easy to live with. He is always after something, and leaves me as free as if he had a day's work in an office."

This slipped out, with a smile: but evidently after it was said Elinor regretted she had said it, and thought that more might be drawn from the admission than she intended. She added quietly, "Of course a settled occupation would interfere with many things. We could not go out together continually as we do now."

Was there any way of reconciling these two statements? Mrs. Dennistoun tried and tried in vain to make them fit into each other: and yet no doubt there was some way.

"And perhaps another season, mother, if Phil was in a public office—it seems so strange to think of Phil having an office—you might come up, don't you think, to town for a time? Would it be a dreadful bore to you to leave the country just when it is at its best? I'm afraid it would be a dreadful bore: but we could run about together in the mornings when he was busy, and go to see the pictures and things. How pleasant it would be!"

"It would be delightful for me, Elinor. I shouldn't mind giving up the country, if it wouldn't interfere with your engagements, my dear."

"Oh, my engagements! Much I should care for them if Phil was occupied. I like, of course, to be with him."

"Of course," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"And it is good for him, too, I think." This was another of the little admissions that Elinor regretted the moment they were made. "I mean it's a pity, isn't it, when a man likes to have his wife with him that she shouldn't always be there, ready to go?"

"A great pity," said Mrs. Dennistoun, and then she changed the subject. "I thought it required all sorts of examinations and things for a man to get into a public office now."

"So it does for the ordinary grades, which would be far, far too much routine for Phil. But they say a minister always has things in his power. There are still posts——"

"Sinecures, Elinor?"

"I did not mean exactly sinecures," she said, with an embarrassed laugh, "though I think those must have been fine things; but posts where it is not merely routine, where a man may have a chance of acting for himself and distinguishing himself, perhaps. And to be in the service of the country is always better, safer, than that dreadful city. Don't you think so?"

"I have never thought the city dreadful, Elinor. I have had many friends connected with the city."

"Ah, but not in those horrid companies, mamma. Do you know that company which we just escaped, which Phil saved my money out of, when it was all but invested—I believe that has ruined people right and left. He got out of it, fortunately, just before the smash; that is, of course, he never had very much to do with it, he was only on the Board."

"And where is your money now?"

"Oh, I can answer that question this time," said Elinor, gayly. "He had just time to get it into another company which pays—beautifully! The Jew is in it, too, and the whole lot of them. Oh! I beg your pardon, mamma. I tried hard to call her by her proper name, but when one never hears any other, one can't help getting into it!"

"I hope," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "that Philip was not much mixed up with this company if other people have been ruined, and he has escaped?"

"How could that be?" said Elinor, with a sort of tremulous dignity. "You don't suppose for a moment that he——. But of course you don't," she added with a heightened colour and a momentary cloud over her eyes, "of course you don't. There was a dreadful manager who destroyed the books and then fled, so that there never could be a right winding up of the affairs."

"I hope Philip will take great care never to have to do with anything of the kind again."

"Oh, no, he has promised me he will not. I will not have it. He has a kind of ornamental directorship on this new company, just for the sake of his name: but he has promised me he will have nothing more to do with it for my peace of mind."

"I wonder that they should care in the city for so small a matter as a peer's younger son."

"Oh, do you think it a small matter, mamma? I don't mean that I care, but people give a good deal of weight to it, you know."

"I meant only in the city, Elinor."

"Oh!" Elinor said. She was half offended with her mother's indifference. She had found that to be the Hon. Mrs. Compton was something, or so at least she supposed: and she began timidly to give her mother a list of her engagements, which were indeed many in number, and there were some dazzling names among a great many with which Mrs. Dennistoun was unacquainted. But how could she know who were the fashionable people nowadays, a woman living so completely out of the world?

John Tatham, for his part, went through his engagements that year with a constant expectation of seeing Elinor, which preoccupied him more than a rising young barrister going everywhere ought to have been preoccupied. He thought he went everywhere, and so did his family at home, especially his sister, Mary Tatham, who was his father's nurse and attendant, and never had any chance of sharing these delights. She made all the more, as was natural, of John's privileges and social success from the fact of her own seclusion, and was in the habit of saying that she believed there was scarcely a party in London to which John was not invited—three or four in a night. But it would seem with all this that there were many parties to which he was not invited, for the Phil Comptons (how strange and on the whole disgusting to think that this now meant Elinor!) also went everywhere, and yet they very seldom met. It was true that John could not expect to meet them at dinner at a Judge's or in the legal society in high places which was his especial sphere, and nothing could be more foolish than the tremor of expectation with which this very steady-going man would set out to every house in which the fashionable world met with the professional, always thinking that perhaps——But it was rarely, very rarely, that this perhaps came to pass. When it did it was amid the crowd of some prodigious reception to which people "looked in" for half an hour, and where on one occasion he found Elinor alone, with that curious dignity about her, a little tragical, which comes of neglect. He agreed with her mother, that he had never imagined Elinor's youthful prettiness could have come to anything so near beauty. There was a strained, wide open look in her eyes, which was half done by looking out for some one, and half by defying any one to think that she felt herself alone, or was pursuing that search with any anxiety. She stood exceedingly erect, silent, observing everything, yet endeavouring to appear as if she did not observe, altogether a singular and very striking figure among the fashionable crowd, in which it seemed everybody was chattering, smiling, gay or making believe to be gay, except herself. When she saw John a sudden gleam of pleasure, followed by a cloud of embarrassment, came over her face: but poor Elinor could not help being glad to see some one she knew, some one who more or less belonged to her; although it appeared she had the best of reasons for being alone. "I was to meet Phil here," she said, "but somehow I must have missed him." "Let us walk about a little, and we'll be sure to find him," said John. She was so glad to take his arm, almost to cling to him, to find herself with a friend. "I don't know many people here," she confided to John, leaning on his arm, with the familiar sisterly dependence of old, "and I am so stupid about coming out by myself. It is because I have never been used to it. There has always been mamma, and then Phil; but I suppose he has been detained somewhere to-night. I think I never felt so lost before, among all these strange people. He knows everybody, of course."

"But you have a lot of friends, Elinor."

"Oh, yes," she said, brightly enough; "in our own set: but this is what Phil calls more serious than our set. I should not wonder in the least if he had shirked it at the last, knowing I would be sure to come."

"That is just the reason why I should have thought he would not shirk it," said John.

"Ah, that's because you're not married," said Elinor, but with a laugh in which there was no bitterness. "Don't you know one good of a wife is to do the man's social duties for him, to appear at the dull places and save his credit? Oh, I don't object at all; it is quite a legitimate division of labour. I shall get into it in time: but I am so stupid about coming into a room alone, and instead of looking about to see what people I really do know, I just stiffen into a sort of shell. I should never have known you if you had not come up to me, John."

"You see I was looking out for you, and you were not looking out for me, that makes all the difference."

"You were looking out for us!"

"Ever since the season began I have been looking out for you, everywhere," said John, with a rather fierce emphasis on the pronoun, which, however, as everybody knows, is plural, and means two as much as one, though it was the reverse of this that John Tatham meant to show.

"Ah!" said Elinor. "But then I am afraid our set is different, John. There will always be some places—like this, for instance—where I hope we shall meet; but our set perhaps is a little frivolous, and your set a little—serious, don't you see? You are professional and political, and all that; and Phil is—well, I don't know exactly what Phil is—more fashionable and frivolous, as I said. A race-going, ball-going, always in motion set."

"Most people," said John, "go more or less to races and balls."

"More or less, that makes the whole difference. We go to them all. Now you see the distinction, John. You go to Ascot perhaps on the cup day; we go all the days and all the other days, at the other places."

"How knowing you have become!"

"Haven't I?" she said, with a smile that was half a sigh.

"But I shouldn't have thought that would have suited you, Elinor."

"Oh, yes, it does," she said, and then she eyed him with something of the defiance that had been in her look when she was standing alone. She did not avoid his look as a less brave woman might have done. "I like the fun of it," she said.

And then there was a pause, for he did not know what to reply.

"We have been through all the rooms," she said at last, "and we have not seen a ghost of Phil. He cannot be coming now. What o'clock is it? Oh, just the time he will be due at—— I'm sure he can't come now. Do you think you could get my carriage for me? It's only a brougham that we hire," she said, with a smile, "but the man is such a nice, kind man. If he had been an old family coachman he couldn't take more care of me."

"That looks as if he had to take care of you often, Elinor."

"Well," she said, looking him full in the face again, "you don't suppose my husband goes out with me in the morning shopping? I hope he has something better to do."

"Shouldn't you like to have your mother with you for the shopping, etc.?"

"Ah, dearly!" then with a little quick change of manner, "another time—not this season, but next, if I can persuade her to come; for next year I hope we shall be more settled, perhaps in a house of our own, if Phil gets the appointment he is after."

"Oh, he is after an appointment?"

"Yes, John; Phil is not so lucky as to have a profession like you."

This was a new way of looking at the matter, and John Tatham found nothing to say. It seemed to him, who had worked very hard for it, a little droll to describe his possession of a profession as luck. But he made no remark. He took Elinor down-stairs and found her brougham for her, and the kind old coachman on the box, who was well used to taking care of her, though only hired from the livery stables for the season—John thought the old man looked suspiciously at him, and would have stopped him from accompanying her, had he designed any such proceeding. Poor little Nelly, to be watched over by the paternal fly-man on the box! she who might have had—— but he stopped himself there, though his heart felt as heavy as a stone to see her go away thus, alone from the smart party where she had been doing duty for her husband. John could not take upon himself to finish his sentence—she who might have had love and care of a very different kind. No, he had never offered her that love and care. Had Phil Compton never come in her way it is possible that John Tatham might never have offered it to her—not, at least, for a long time. He could never have had any right to be a dog in the manger, neither would he venture to pretend now that it was her own fault if she had chosen the wrong man; was it his fault then, who had never put a better man within her choice? but John, who was no coxcomb, blushed in the dark to himself as this question flitted through his mind. He had no reason to suppose that Elinor would have been willing to change the brotherly tie between them into any other. Thank heaven for that brotherly tie! He would always be able to befriend her, to stand by her, to help her as much as any one could help a woman who was married, and thus outside of all ordinary succour. And as for that blackguard, that dis-Honourable Phil—— But here John, who was a man of just mind, paused again. For a man to let his wife go to a party by herself was not after all so dreadful a thing. Many men did so, and the women did not complain; to be sure they were generally older, more accustomed to manage for themselves than Elinor: but still, a man need not be a blackguard because he did that. So John stopped his own ready judgment, but still I am afraid in his heart pronounced Phil Compton's sentence all the same. He did not say a word about this encounter to Mrs. Dennistoun; at least, he did tell her that he had met Elinor at the So-and-So's, which, as it was one of the best houses in London, was pleasing to a mother to hear.

"And how was she looking?" Mrs. Dennistoun cried.

"She was looking—beautiful——" said John. "I don't flatter, and I never thought her so in the old times—but it is the only word I can use——"

"Didn't I tell you so?" said the mother, pleased. "She is quite embellished and improved—therefore she must be happy."

"It is certainly the very best evidence——"

"Isn't it? But it so often happens otherwise, even in happy marriages. A girl feels strange, awkward, out of it, in her new life. Elinor must have entirely accustomed herself, adapted herself to it, and to them, or she would not look so well. That is the greatest comfort I can have."

And John kept his own counsel about Elinor's majestic solitude and the watchful old coachman in the hired brougham. Her husband might still be full of love and tenderness all the same. It was a great effort of the natural integrity of his character to pronounce like this; but he did it in the interests of justice, and for Elinor's sake and her mother's said nothing of the circumstances at all.

It may be supposed that when Elinor paid the last of her sudden visits at the cottage it was a heavy moment both for mother and daughter. It was the time when fashionable people finish the season by going to Goodwood—and to Goodwood Elinor was going with a party, Lady Mariamne and a number of the "set." She told her mother, to amuse her, of the new dresses she had got for this important occasion. "Phil says one may go in sackcloth and ashes the remainder of the year, but we must be fine for Goodwood," she said. "I wanted him to believe that I had too many clothes already, but he was inexorable. It is not often, is it, that one's husband is more anxious than one's self about one's dress?"

"He wants you to do him credit, Elinor."

"Well, mamma, there is no harm in that. But more than that—he wants me to look nice, for myself. He thinks me still a little shy—though I never was shy, was I?—and he thinks nothing gives you courage like feeling yourself well dressed—but he takes the greatest interest in everything I wear."

"And where do you go after Goodwood, Elinor?"

"Oh, mamma, on such a round of visits!—here and there and everywhere. I don't know," and the tears sprang into Elinor's eyes, "when I may see you again."

"You are not coming back to London," said the mother, with the heart sinking in her breast.

"Not now—they all say London is insupportable—it is one of the things that everybody says, and I believe that Phil will not set foot in it again for many months. Perhaps I might get a moment, when he is shooting, or something, to run back to you; but it is a long way from Scotland—and he must be there, you know, for the 12th. He would think the world was coming to an end if he did not get a shot at the grouse on that day."

"But I thought he was looking for an appointment, Elinor?"

A cloud passed over Elinor's face. "The season is over," she said, "and all the opportunities are exhausted—and we don't speak of that any more."

She gave her mother a very close hug at the railway, and sat with her head partly out of the window watching her as she stood on the platform, until the train turned round the corner. No relief on her dear face now, but an anxious strain in her eyes to see her mother as long as possible. Mrs. Dennistoun, as she walked again slowly up the hills that the pony might not suffer, said to herself, with a chill at her heart, that she would rather have seen her child sinking back in the corner, pleased that it was over, as on the first day.



CHAPTER XIX.

The next winter was more dreary still and solitary than the first at Windyhill. The first had been, though it looked so long and dreary as it passed, full of hope of the coming summer, which must, it seemed, bring Elinor back. But now Mrs. Dennistoun knew exactly what Elinor's coming back meant, and the prospect was less cheering. Three days in the whole long season—three little escapades, giving so very little hope of more sustained intercourse to come. Mrs. Dennistoun, going over all the circumstances—she had so little else to do but to go over them in her long solitary evenings—came to the conclusion that whatever might happen, she herself would go to town when summer came again. She amused herself with thinking how she would find a little house—quite a small house, as there are so many—in a good situation, where even the most fashionable need not be ashamed to come, and where there would be room enough for Elinor and her husband if they chose to establish themselves there. Mrs. Dennistoun was of opinion, already expressed, that if mothers-in-law are obnoxious to men, sons-in-law are very frequently so to women, which is a point of view not popularly perceived. And Philip Compton was not sympathetic to her in any point of view. But still she made up her mind to endure him, and even his family, for the sake of Elinor. She planned it all out—it gave a little occupation to the vacant time—how they should have their separate rooms and even meals if that turned out most convenient; how she would interfere with none of their ways: only to have her Elinor under her roof, to have her when the husband was occupied—in the evenings, if there were any evenings that she spent alone; in the mornings, when perhaps Phil got up late, or had engagements of his own; for the moment's freedom when her child should be free. She made up her mind that she would ask no questions, would never interfere with any of their habits, or oppose or put herself between them—only just to have a little of Elinor every day.

"For it will not be the same thing this year," she said to John, apologetically. "They have quite settled down into each other's ways. Philip must see I have no intention of interfering. For the most obdurate opponent of mothers-in-law could not think—could he, John?—that I had any desire to put myself between them, or make myself troublesome now."